Breaking: French hire exiting Vienna Opera chief
OrchestrasThe Orchestre National de France has named its next chief conductor to succeed Cristian Macelaru (who’s heading to Cincinnati).
The incoming boss will be Philippe Jordan, music director of the Vienna State Opera, whose tenure has been made uncomfortable by an aggressive management.
For Jordan it’s a homecoming. Before Vienna, he was music director at the Paris Opera.
Macelaru and Jordan, name a decent recording from either. There isn’t. Lame ducks
The same about most other stars.
Name a decent recording from Thielemann? Petrenko? Gatti? Nelsons? You can’t. Anything you nominate I can give you five more that are far better. This is a dumb game.
OK, name 5 “far better” recordings of Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisance than Thielemann with the Deutsche Oper Berlin orchestra.
Gielen/Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra
Boulez/Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
Maderna/Southwest German Radio Symphony
Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic
Dohnányi/Concertgebouworkest
Jordan’s Wagner is very good. Don’t know him as well in the symphonic repertoire. As for Macelaru, he did a good impression guest conducting in Montréal. He’s still quite young – commentators on this blog keep demanding that conductors be given time to grow – you can’t do that and demand a definitive discography from an early quadragenarian.
Macelaru’s complete recording of the Enescu Symphonies on DG just won a Diapason d’Or…
Macelaru’s Enescu symphonies are pretty good, do try them. Jordan is “technically competent but faceless” according to one violinist I know who’s played under him more than once
Consensus seem to be that Macelaru’s Sainy-Saens set is even better than hi Enescu set, though the 3rd is nowhere near the great version of Paul Paray.
That said, I did actually like his version of Enescu’s 2nd symphony. I still think it’s a flawed work and that Enescu was correct in wanting to revise it (alas, he did not have a chance to do so), but listening to Macelaru together with the totally different Lintu version makes me appreciate the strong points of the work even more – and there are wonderful moments in the symphony.
I was also surprised by his restrained reading of the 2nd Rhapsody, which instantly became one of my favorite versions – Silvestri and Enescu himself being the other favorites. Silvestri / Czech Philharmonic is in a class of its own for the First Rhapsody.
For the 3rd Symphony, I still think Rozhdestvensky’s Chandos version is the best, with Jurowski a close second. For the First Symphony, Silvestri, Lintu, and Enescu / Cleveland are the ones that I listen to most often.
As for Jordan, I heard him once leading the NSO in Washington. Decent concert, nothing more.
Slightly unfair when music is about performances not recording and there is hardly any recording industry left as people don’t buy them much.
I don’t think that is true. The market for CD’s has shrunken, but has stabilized itself, is my strong impression, and many performers and orchestras continue to produce CD’s simply because there still is a core of normal music lovers who prefer a concrete sound-carrier and their home installation to the evanescent sound carriers meant for bus stop time killing, or to listening to music on their computer which is rather a C choice. Not all of life should be on the net. There is also something like reality, and given the instability of net security (especially in these times) CD’s have their specific value.
As if you know all their recordings. I doubt you know even one of them. Always the same rubbish from the usual suspects.
Heard him only twice, and would like to hear more. He got a warm welcome from both orchestra and crowd, so, perhaps he is the genuine article.
Jordan is a truly great talent. For instance, his rendering of Beethoven III (always difficult becasue of the competition) brings together the clarity and lightness of the authentic music movement and the romantic spirit of old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POM0TOwk59Q
here is some Brahms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVr1syKgkl0&list=PLxXjllvtBC_q5Q-FzTlMibN7xMOT2e6qi
Aggressive management in Vienna? Monsieur est un farceur…
Quite boring choice. And he left Paris (opera) for a reason…
I heard Jordan in opera house several times, all very good. Actually his Salome in ROH was more impressive tham Petrenko‘s Rosenkavalier in ROH at the same period of time. That Salome has a video recording, in case some silly people would say he has no good recording.
The changeover is in 2027/28, so quite some time before it happens.