JEGardiner receives call to Milan
OrchestrasWe hear that Sir John Eliot Gardiner has been summoned by the Orchestra Mozart to stand in for Daniele Gatti, who has fallen sick.
He will conduct Beethoven’s 8th and 9th symphonies on Thursday in Ferrara, Friday in Bologna and Saturday in Milan.
The change has yet to be posted on the orchestra’s sites.
The orchestra, founded in 2004 by Claudio Abbado, brings together established principals with very young players.
The approach to JEG was apparently initiated by the current OM timpanist, an English Baroque Soloists principal.
Good match in temperament.
You see, Gardiner is mean only by English standards, by Italian standards, especially compared to the legendary Toscanini ire, Gardiner is just your average paisan.
In Italy, slapping someone on the face is a gesture of affection.
Italians prefer slapping buttocks.
Sure, Toscanini was volatile but did he literally assault two of his subordinates? Or set up a rival orchestra to try and wreck his own colleagues’ livelihood? My understanding is that Toscanini was passionate and short-tempered, but not thuggish and vindictive. Big difference.
Jobs for the boys.
The Opéra Royal Orchestra at Versailles has just announced three concerts led by him: two Bach cantatas in June 2025 and in December this year more Bach plus Charpentier.
At Versailles, angry outbursts were never something unusual.
I heard JEG conduct one of the Guildhall student orchestras at LSO St. Luke’s some years ago and he was so RUDE to a young hapless 1st year undergrad trumpeter. “Well – you must KNOW if you’re flat – you can hear can’t you?” etc etc. I was sitting in the front row, heard it very clearly. I shouted out a “booo” which made all the polite middle-class pensioners near me very uneasy.
Ah – happy days.
What in the world are you going to do when China starts its real military aggression. Run into the grass like soy Nathan Lanes and scream “you pierced the toast”?
Jeggy rides again!
Leaving aside last year’s summer incident, it is interesting to read the opprobrium heaped upon John Eliot Gardiner’s head, and then to turn to reviews of – and online comments about – Reiner and Szell, comments which seemingly claim (or unwittingly imply) that such behaviour was worth it for the results.
“The day on which Fritz Reiner did not lose his temper was the day on which he was too ill to conduct.” Then there’s Celibidache’s behaviour in Munich towards a trombonist (I’ve been angered by what I’ve read). And not forgetting Toscanini, who “raised the tantrum to an art form”.
Different times, of course, you’ll tell me. But I suppose that if many still rate their recordings, then Gardiner’s legacy is secure in the future, too.