New favourite at the Vienna Philharmonic
OrchestrasEcstatic headlines in the Austrian press – ‘cheers for debutant’, ‘exciting music’ – have propelled the Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti overnight to the forefront of Viennese attention.
The Netherlands Philharmonic chief is now setting off with the Vienna Phil on tour to Germany, Switzerland and Spain.
Photo: Vienna Philharmonic / Raphael Mittendorfer
I saw the photo but I didn’t recognize him with his clothes on.
My fly on the wall informs me that he had first proposed to conduct Ein Heldenleben in only minimal underwear but because there were some women in the orchestra it was deemed a bit ungentlemanly.
Oh dear, they seem desperate.
Bring in the porn star!
You’re just jealous
why to you say such bad things? He is a fine musician.
Perhaps this will put paid to the snarky comments about his fitness regime.
He is an exceptionally serious and gifted conductor as well as communicator.
mediocre like so many overrated atm
YNS will be spitting blood. This coming after the NYT finally told us some home truths … that the self appointed “Father” of The Met has no clothes.
Can u give some more details?
In the NYT photo, his painted nails and overtly flaming gayosity made me vomit.
Will he manage to keep his clothes on long enough to build a Viennese fan base?
What! You didn’t use one of his sexy photos? If he was a woman. . . .
I have heard his work several times and tryed very much to enjoy it but never managed to. Mahler 7 was very confusing. Tristan prelude was empty. Lohengrin was badly played. The least bad was the first movement of Shostakovich 9. Not enough.
Not sure you have heard him by thise comments
I have no opinion on Viotti, but my money is on forthcoming Viotti-bashing posts in this space.
Yeah but the majority of SD commentators know nothing about music so you had an easy bet!
Absolutely! Just go back and read the vitriol 4 years ago when he went to the Netherlands.
A few of the most unpleasant commentators still on the go here!
This blog has absolutely opened my eyes up to the fact that I have been deluded all my life in thinking people who love music are actually ‘nice’ people.
Cf Faculties of the Humanities, which often contain staff who haven’t been human for years.
Yes perhaps the site should be named “In the hall of The Mountain Kings” given the nu,ber of ugly trolls that post.
Should we count your post in?
Is he keeping his clothes on in the musickveirein?
Viotti is a great conductor indeed. In a few years he raised the level of the Nederlands Philharmonic Orchestra to international heights, both in the concert hall and in the opera house, where performed an intense and profound Lohengrin as well as a moving Trittico.
His Mahler 5th and 9th were on the same level as the performances of those symphonies by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink!
Give me a break. Great for you you like him that much, but he is not nearly in the same class as Haitink.
True, he hasn’t been through four wives…yet.
Few people are!
I wonder whether the upvotes and downvotes have heard the same concerts. Or are they just voting their opinion.
What many people forget is that musicians are not machines, even when they visits gyms regularly, and can grow. Viotti got much critique all around when he started with the Netherlands Phil, but then he garnered much appreciation later-on. No reputation is set in stone (see Franz Welser-Möst).
Even my PA gets better sometimes.
At least they will play kind of ravishing with him and not come up with the next static (perfectly played) outing!
Seems to me, given Viotti’s demeanor
As a nude, or a semi-nude, preener,
That it apt he’d find fame
With a combo whose name
(In their home town, at least) starts with “Wiener.”
(Note to Mr. Linardos: Not a bash, but a bit of harmless fun as an extension of the limerick-off from several months ago.)
I seriously suggest you compile an anthology of these limericks. You have a lot of talent.
that it = that it’s
It would be an amazing concert – Vienna Phil and a nude hunk Viotti conducting – I’d definitely go.
It’s odd the VPO is wild about Viotti. He’s the kind of conductor who’s good with audiences who are not that familiar with classical music (the kind that applauds between movements), which is not what I associate with Vienna…
It’s okay Maud I found the broom. How did it get there?
Goodness gracious me! Applause between movements – what a crime against good taste. Fetch me my smelling-salts, Agatha.
(In Mozart’s time, they not only applauded between movements, they applauded particularly fine moments within them. But hey, they weren’t familiar with classical music back then.)
For the audiences of late 18C Vienna’s first public conerts, ALL music was new and unfamiliar.
I watched his Mahler 3 in 2020 on the Berlin Digital Concert Hall. He stood in for Chailly as I recall, and it was fantastic. I am surprised he hasn’t been invited back
for YNS
Agreed and the Berlin Phil took to him, as they did when Dudamel jumped in, responding positively in a way I had not seen before. His jump in was for YNS
Bravo Lorenzo! Yes, musicians have bodies! Anatomical parts! Most music is seriously sensuous stuff. Perhaps your powerful physique would be inspirational for musicians under your baton performing something like the Venusberg Musik from the 1861 Paris version of Wagner’s Tannhäuser! Keep those muscles flexing, Maestro, and—as Catullus advised—attach minimal value to the overly harsh grumblings of those outdated by life.
What a charlatan. Why such a site graces him with such headlines is beyond me.
Seems to be quite a double-standard going on in the classical music world: Yuja let’s it all hang out, and nobody ridicules her. But when Lorenzo shows it all…..
The great Yuja Wang pays quite a price for her wardrobe choices. Look no further than the regular posts and comments in this blog.
reviews by the boulevard media doesn’t mean anything nowadays as there is hardly any critic around with basic knowledge so don’t take anything seriously – he is definitely nice to look at but otherwise very Mittelmaß
My weekly reminder on SD that Envy is one of the Seven Deadlies.
Mutton dressed as lamb?
The VPO can make anybody sound great.
At a rehearsel in the Musikverein, player one:
‘What is he going to do this morning?’
Player two:
‘I don’t know what HE will be doing but WE will play Brahms two’.
Viotti is a remarkable musician, top tier conductor already.