Breaking: DG sign youngest Finn
NewsDeutsche Grammophon are about to announce the signing of Tarmo Peltokoski, the 23 year-old Finnish conductor with a dizzying career.
At an age when most batons are still coming third in competitions, Tarmo is already music director in Toulouse and Riga, and principal guest conductor at the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He still looks about 17.
As a Finn in winter, he is unlikely to fly close to the sun.
Yuja Wang, who is hitched to another Finn, adores him.
His debut album, a set of Mozart symphonies with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, will be released in March.
DG has been sinking since a long time..
Their recent signings are quite desperate. Influencers, no musicians.
Youth accounts for everything these days. A 23-year old CANNOT offer the depth of repertoire and experience, let alone the tact and discretion to deal with musicians to be handed the job of a music director. It’s just one more desperate ploy to attract a younger audience.
Also legends like Haitink and Von Karajan were chief conductor/Generalmusikdirektor at a very young age. And the orchestra musicians often vote for these positions.
Musicians sometimes vote, but are often ignored…whatsmore, it’s easy to conduct a great orchestra, but conducting a regular group is where you learn your trade ..I have played under this one…pure hype!
Exactly. A very good orchestra will never let itself sound bad. Learn your trade on the smaller ensembles and work your way up.
Karajan started with a tiny, provincial ensemble (Ulm) and moved to a decent regional orchestra (Aachen). He was given the Berlin job when he was already experienced. He earned his laurels. This boy just has them given them for free.
And moving to Aachen was only permitted because he became an NSDAP member.
What a ridiculous thing to say. At around that age HvK was GMD in a small provincial city called Ulm. Then later he moved on to a large provincial city, Aachen.
Utterly ridiculous! I’m in favour of encouraging young musicians but as a conductor you should serve an apprenticeship first. Do some hard graft first. Spend years as a repetiteur learning from an established older conductor before you’re considered ready to take on the profession. To think Elton John started off as a tea boy. The young ‘uns of today have everything far too easy.
Right on every front.
Sour grapes much?
I don’t detect any sour grapes anywhere in that post. Parachuting inexperienced musicians into positions they haven’t earned makes fools of us all.
He’s extremely talented, streets ahead of Mäkelä.
He’s going to be one of the greats, watch this space.
Maybe, but let him prove it organically by moving up through the ranks. That’s how you build intelligence, integrity and immunity. Too much too young serves no-one except his bank account.
We don’t know for a fact that he’s streets ahead of Mäkelä. That’s unsubstantiated opinion. Keep it that way.
Ah. “Yuja adores him.” Well, then, then any questions or misgivings must be set aside.
Go back to college! You’re not ready for the real world yet.
All those Finns. We’re going to need a bigger boat.
Whew! Another young Finn to unload on just when this was getting very old with Makela.
I’m still trying to figure out what the Finns have done to become the new bête noire on here.
This is such a cringe person I can’t even begin to explain… just watched his announcement video on Instagram… lost for words!
Ennui.
This reeks of the flop-sweat of desperation. The last interesting DG recording I bought was Jarvi’s Schmidt symphonies and it had been more than a decade before since I last purchased a DG recording. (In that period, I bought many cop, Naxos, Toccata, and Chandon recordings.) Just do interesting things. Is that too much to ask? Forgive my skepticism but it is difficult to imagine what a 23-y/o can tell me about a Beethoven symphony.
Le Finn du siecle?
Just in case they get Finn on the ground.
He is definitely Finnish.
The amount of third rate, ill informed, judgemental, old, silly Philistines who don’t know the first thing about music, or being an artist on this page is breathtakingly stupid. Such generalisations reek of ancient, lazy old farts. Grow up. A talented, hard working, interesting young talent.
Conducted in his own world, disconnected from what he needed to do for the orchestra; his rhythm was completely off and he did not know how to follow the soloist. Someone has catapulted him forward too soon and I don’t believe he will ever learn how to really conduct an orchestra aside from waving his arms. It’s very difficult for an orchestra to be put in the position to deal with a young conductor like this.