John Eliot Gardiner: The first interview
OrchestrasHenry Mance of the Financial Times finds a man with a road-map to Canossa.
Sample:
Remorse is essential to redemption. This is Gardiner’s first interview since the incident. He hits the right notes — mostly. “I needed to sort this out. It’s part of a pattern . . . I’m hugely grateful for this time away . . . I own the responsibility for what occurred . . . There is no excuse. Provocation yes, but not an excuse.” Can a musician’s inattentiveness, and objection to being shouted at, amount to provocation?
He points to “three, four types of therapy”, including “hugely helpful” cognitive behavioural therapy, and leadership coaching “from a specialist who does this with captains of industry, politicians, CEOs”. He’s done yoga, as he has since the 1990s, and mindfulness.
“I’ve changed. I feel I really have crossed a Rubicon in this last year . . . I’ve got techniques in place that will guard me against any . . . ” He interrupts himself. At a comeback concert in France this month, with another orchestra, “it was just such a relief to get back to music-making and to find that, even when the intensity in rehearsal is high, I was in control….”
Read on here.
It’s a puff piece.
He reports Gardiner as having shown him the act of violence and writes “It looks not like a punch, more an open-handed slap.”
I commented ‘Slippedisc.com reported at the time “Backstage, in the wings and out of sight of the audience, Gardiner, 80, rebuked Thomas in front of the cast, then slapped and punched him in the face.”
Is Sir John being a little economical with the truth?’
“I can change, I can change…”
-Satan (via the South Park Movie )
I think Sir John Eliot has done everything conceivable to apologize. Let him move on with his work which has over the last 5 decades been immensely consequential. His generosity and support of many artists and colleges must not be forgotten.
After the incident, Gardiner asked for a performance in Leipzig to be postponed. Does that illustrate his “generosity and support” of his fellow artists?
JEG has extreme wealth outside music. He’s done some great recordings & performances over the years & can be a fantastic conductor & musician when in the mood. But he’s loved & loathed in equal measure by the musicians who’ve worked under him over the years. We shouldn’t feel too sorry for him when so musicians currently are struggling to pay the next meal & have no reserves to fall back on.
All I want to know is: Did the interviewer get to the PUNCHline?
It’s interesting to me that JEG wrote about young J.S. Bach’s suffering at the hands of an abusive teacher and other school boys at a boarding school. I thought Gardiner was empathizing with Bach’s difficult upbringing. Perhaps he truly was because he suffered a similar fate. Unfortunately he didn’t have the insight to see his own development as an abuser. I seriously doubt that a single year of therapy (and yoga) has increased his insight. Before his unfortunate behavior became public, I actually liked his recordings/performances and public persona displayed in multiple documentaries and articles. Now I’m a bit embarrassed of that appreciation. I continue to be sad about the reality, especially for the victims and witnesses (victims of a sort in their own way and many who provided accounts on this very site). I don’t think Gardiner should be given future access to positions of power or platforms to proclaim his redemption, it really is too late for that now; the damage has been done.
I don’t see why he should be denied a second chance. He should be denied a third one though………….
Tim, you can’t have really liked his recordings/performances if now you are embarrassed; music is music! I still love Fritz Reiner’s recordings (for instance), altho much later i learned that he was an implacable sadist with his musicians.
Embarrassment is perfectly compatible with liking the recordings/performances.
Meanwhile, Thomas is waiting for compensation after a smack in the mouth.
Sounds like the board made the right decision. No one changes for the better after age 80 and no one produces their best work at such an advanced age. Retire and enjoy the farm.
To CJ (?): I am another CJ and I disagree.
I think that JEG is one of the greatest musicians in the world and should be able to come back.
Ok, he has made a (big) mistake, but has apologised and was punished enough by staying for a year out of the music world.
That music world is poorer without him, let’s give him a chance, or we will punish ourselves.
I will always remember (amongst others) the St Matthew Passion he conducted in Brussels the day after the terrorist attacks, and the Monteverdi trilogy in Venice.
He should do like Hugh Grant just own it.
“Yes, I was rude to that waiter.”
“Yes, I was condescending to that production assistant.”
Whether or not JEG’s account is strictly accurate (and any memory lapse should be forgiven in a man of 81), he seems genuinely contrite, but it seems there are some who are simply determined not to forgive him whatever he might say by way of repentance.
I find this continued determination to freeze out one of the great musicians of our time utterly deplorable.
My feeling is that he is probably not remotely contrite. Simply engaging in crisis management having been found out
Quite so. It’s too little, too late.
If it is the case that he has done all this work and made so many changes to his character and behaviour, why have all the organisations that are so close to him and know him so well, sacked him? It is precisely because they know him so well and that the world has changed. No longer can these once powerful and appallingly behaved men get away with it. Companies have a duty to safeguard their members and guests. They also know the PR fallout and pending legal issues are too risky now in a world where it is thankfully much easier to expose this kind of behaviour. No amount of yoga or cosy therapy session will really help, quite the opposite.
So you can no longer get mad at people?
Most people can express anger without hitting someone.
As Mandy Rice-Davies said: ‘He would say that, wouldn’t he’? It’s beginning to look like a Chinese show trial; screeds of self-abasement, confessions and contrition – all lavishly reported on SD. It seems that JEG has received more attention on SD these last couple of months or so than any other subject.
Why can’t we now just let him go gentle into the night and not rage, rage, rage – at least until he misbehaves again. There are so many other up-and-coming musicians who deserve, and would be grateful for, the same measure of publicity at the beginnings of their careers than JEG has received at the end of his. Time to call a halt.
“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.”
– Yoda –
Pathetic. A 80 year old man of his stature and accomplishment forced out of the orchestra he founded, forced to grovel and to submit to four types of therapy, including “cognitive behavioural therapy” and “leadership coaching.” All for a dust-up over teaching a subordinate the difference between right and left. It has come to this, the complete feminization of classical music.
Not sure that’s the right term for it — and since when have women been passive and meek? — but I do think this has been completely blown out of proportion. Must bosses now apologize to the workers when the workers make a mistake? What can they do now then?
Is there something feminine about treating people with respect and not hitting them? What a ridiculous comment. They’ve been in thrall to his so-called genius for too long, terrified to take action. This is barely the tip of the iceberg, and long overdue.
How about you see how much you enjoy a smack in the chops from your boss at work……….
He is sorry — not one single bit!!! He should consider himself lucky that he didn’t end up in jail for assault !!!!!