Currentzis changes his tune to reflect Russian war
NewsThe Russian-Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis has changed his programme with the SWR symphony orchestra to include one Ukrainian composer and one Russian.
In maintaining this supposed equality, Currentzis has not detached himself from the aggressor in this war, or from his principal sponsor, the sanctioned Russian VTB bank.
Here’s what SWR, a German state radio, have announced:
Programming at concerts with Teodor Currentzis
In light of the war in Ukraine, the SWR Symphonieorchester and its chief director Teodor Currentzis have decided to change the schedule of joint concerts at the end of March/early April.
Instead of originally planned works by Marko Nikodijevic and Johannes Brahms, there will be a Ukrainian-German-Russian program with works by Oleksandr Shchetynsky, Jörg Widmann and Dmitrij Schostakowitsch.
Appeal for peace and reconciliation
Shchetynsky and Currentzis are connected by a long friendship. That is why Currentzis and the SWR musicians chose a work of Shchetynsky, who is still in Kjiv. This will be completed by the Jörg Widmann viola concerto and the fifth symphony of Dmitri Shostakovitch – a musical appeal for peace and reconciliation.
The change in the program affects the subscription concerts in Stuttgart and Freiburg as well as guest concerts in Cologne , Barcelona, Madrid, Dortmund, Hamburg and Vienna.
27. March, 20:00 · Cologne , Philharmonic
29. March 8pm · Barcelona, L’Auditori
30. March, 8pm · Madrid, National Music Auditorium
1. April, 8 pm · Dortmund, Concert Hall
2. April, 8pm · Hamburg, Elbphilharmonie
4. April, 7.30 pm · Vienna, Concert Hall
6. April, 8pm · Freiburg, Concert Hall
7. /8. April, 20:00 · Stuttgart
Oleksandr Shchetynsky | Glossolalie for Orchestra (1989)
Jörg Widmann | Concert for Viola and Orchestra
Dmitrij Schostakowitsch | Symphony No. 5 d-Moll op. 47
Antoine Tamestit , Viola
SWR Symphonieorchester
Teodor Currentzis , Director
So what?
The Russian-Greek classical music narcissistic clown know only too well which side his bread is buttered on. When will this impostor be exposed for the self-serving charlatan that he is?
Don’t expect any denunciations from him any time soon. He is in Putin’s pocket, just as VG and AN are. Shame on venues and orchestras continuing to showcase him.
“Narcissistic Clown” is about where I have him too. I made a critical error in buying his disc of Tchaik 6 (since sold on Ebay). Absolutely a penny dreadful of a performance – but the liner notes written by Currentzis have to be read to be believed – never have I read such high fog factor pretentious BS (and I’m an economist!). Funny actually they’re so bad.
I usually hate throwing away classical CDs or books, but … there are always exceptions
Same here! I gave mine to a local library. Pretentious buffoon.
Unlike Sokhiev, Vasily Petrenko, and even Gergiev, whose orchestras and institutions would survive without them, Currentzis risks losing Musicaeterna altogether, which must put him in quite a moral quandary.
Does he have any morals? Losing either his sponsor or the orchestra puts him in a financial quandary, not moral.
Gergiev and Sokhiev haven’t lost their Western orchestras. Those orchestras weren’t theirs to begin with. Gergiev hasn’t lost his Russian orchestra. Sokhiev’s case is more interesting.
“Does he have any morals?”
No none whatsoever, as proved by his stay in PERM.
Long term musicians from the local town who had been rehearsing singers for decades were horrified by his narcissic, cult mongering and corrupt behaviour.
Did they get a pay rise?
Nah…WTF…they were to be shat on, used & manipulated, with the rollercoaster PR machine this pseudo musician brought in the door.
We got the impression the sun shone out of his ASS….compared with the competent, hard working and friendly eg. Annissimov.
His performances of say Beethoven were some of the ugliest renderings I have ever heard.
Being as I was involved in recording some of his and Gergiev’s crap, we were all thoroughly relieved when he finally f…cked off somewhere else (After scooping up every kopek he could scam…
He even had the city pay for his shitty mega expensive Tannoy Westminster speakers and system, while his slippery hands went off with a very very expensive foreign made DAC….of course never to reappear.
The bloke is a gold digger and conman from the start….
Ask me how I got all this insider info…….
He is also a turncoat, and a Putin money grubber of first order.
How did you find all this out?
It is like playing a concert with a German and a Polish work in 1939.
Indeed!
Peace would be easy… the Russians only need to leave.
Reconciliation? They’ll never pay for the damage and deaths they have caused.
Not least because Russia is absolutely bankrupt, both economically and morally.
“Appeal for peace and reconciliation”. How about appealing for putin’s troops to leave and his country to pay war reparations for the murder and dislocation of life of the people of Ukraine as well as the decimation of the country’s infrastructure.
along with trial and imprisonment for Putin and others in his regime for war crimes…
Disgusting. Shame!
– DB
cunning fox
What a d*ckhead.
https://slippedisc.com/2019/02/the-conductor-who-shows-off-his-parts/
This is just SO not enough, Teodor. You are not a good person or a good musician. At least for me. Deplorable. Enjoy your European vacations while they last.
Pity the western world didn’t consider all this when purchasing gas from Russia, opening the country to Olympic games and international sports and generally fawning over its tyrannical dictator, year on year. The KGB has never stopped operating in Russia and still this wasn’t enough for everybody to include Russia in everything!! Too late.
There is just this niggling little attitude that talking with other countries, exchanges through arts, sports, even commerce, lead to happier relations and less aggression. Yes, it does not always work, or work forever, but it has been worth trying and has led to SOME measure of understanding between nations.
Shostakovich 14 th would be better, with the Zaphorizian Cossacks’ reply to the Sultan.
Surprised by this storm of negative comments addressed to both the artist and the citizen Currentzis.
Knowing but the latter and judging on the base of his repertoire and recordings, I should consider less hate and more artistic objectivity to be the appropriate approach.
As far as his stance en face of the Russian dictator is concerned, I strongly believe that including a work by a living Ukrainian composer alongside one of the major Russian creators (n.b. one who had suffered a lot in the Stalin era!) in his actual programming and at the same time appealing for peace speaks for him.
I’m betting the upcoming concert dates listed above will be subject to change… Especially once the local audiences get wind of his half-assed attempts at trying to have his cake and eat it too… If his Beethoven 5th and his Mahler 6th are any indication, it’s no great loss to the West if he scurries back behind the new iron curtain.