Orchestre de Paris can’t find anyone to conduct Messiaen

The Ghost of Karlos Cleiber says:

What makes you imagine I haven’t spent 20 years trying?

I think one of the biggest problems with the music industry today is that, for so many, the only way to acquire an agent is to be picked up very early on – after which point it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Haven’t conducted the LSO (say) by the time you’re 25? Oh, well you can’t possibly be good enough to do so. Klaus Tennstedt remains one of the few magnificent exceptions who got the chance to show otherwise.

Get put in front of the LSO when you’ve still barely got a repertoire or a rehearsal technique (but great, great hair…) at 19, though, and it’s in everyone’s interests to keep pushing you.

Joking aside, there are all too many good musicians who simply never get near the opportunity to prove themselves. Goodness knows how many youth orchestra conductors, for instance, ever get to conduct a really top-notch group; yet they are far better technically and in rehearsal than many of the ‘names’. The argument against that is ‘oh, but they aren’t inspiring/interpretively interesting’ – but the truth is nobody knows because nobody ever looks at youth orch/amateur work. Not only that, but even the best amateur orchestras stop several stages behind where any professional orchestra can (and should) start. Just try being ‘creative’ and ‘inspiring’ when you know very well that one misplaced beat can bring a performance crashing down. This is a question of degree of course; many amateur groups are good enough to keep going, but the reality is they do need more help. Good luck conducting the Rite with amateurs with as little accuracy as (say) Simon Rattle can do in the name of ‘expression’…

Even for those who do get agents, this process doesn’t stop; if it became purely one of ability to make an orchestra play its best, you’d have to ask why (say) Ticciati keeps ending up in front of famous bands and the likes of Walter Weller did so only very occasionally. If you honestly think Ticciati, Nezet-Seguin and many other supposed wunderkinds are better conductors than he was, you’re simply not sufficiently qualified to participate in the discussion. All that shows is that, having acquired an agent, the conductors whom those agents promote are often not the right ones either.

I guess the problem overall is one of opportunity – there will never be the chances to satisfy everyone – but on the other hand there is also the problem of the means by which those who do get the chance are chosen. All too rarely, this has nothing to do with track record and the work people have done, and everything to do with a word in someone’s ear. As it happens, I might be in with a shout of a gig with a major UK orchestra next year, but ironically the circumstances surrounding this are absolutely nothing to do with training two orchestras and doing all the legwork for 20 years.

Don’t get me wrong: conducting amateur orchestras is great fun and very rewarding, but it’s a real shame – and a massive missed opportunity – that the people looking for top-standard conductors choose completely to ignore the musicians that do it (and often so well) in favour of the latest unproven flavour of the month.