800 Words: Evan and Hauptmann Rinderherz discuss the Berlin Philharmonic (Part 1)

(Evan gets home around 8:30 in the evening Thursday night to find that Hauptmann Rinderherz is still in his underwear. Hauptmann Rinderherz is the 53-year-old, crew-cutted, 6’6, 350 lbs, German man who’s been crashing on Evan’s couch since September. They met one day at bar trivia in East Baltimore, and quickly came to learn that this was a kindred spirit with a seemingly bottomless knowledge of classical music, and who’d been evicted from his apartment a week earlier. In a moment he’d come to regret endlessly, Evan invited Hauptmann Rinderherz to crash on his couch for the night. Since then, Hauptmann Rinderherz has never so much as left the couch except to go to the bathroom. Evan would later find out from HaWestbrook that there was, in fact, no apartment, and he’d been moving from couch to couch until his host tires enough of him to call the police. On Evan’s coffeetable is Hauptmann Rinderherz’s 400-CD collection of Carlos Kleiber and Sergiu Celibidache bootlegs, which the good Herr Hauptmann has not bothered organizing or even listening to because they can all be found now on his youtube channel, the views of which he seems to check as often as possible.

From the little information Evan can coax out of him, Hauptmann Rinderherz would appear to have been a rising star in the East Berlin police who specialized in interrogations (only violent criminals, not political prisoners), but his career was tragically derailed by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because he refused under oath to falsely acknowledge that he was ever a member of the Stasi, he was not allowed to continue his police work. He then decided to pursue the music career he abandoned at the behest of his mother who told him daily that her fondest wish for her son was to die for Germany. Hauptmann Rinderherz was apparently a childhood musical prodigy, and even claims that as a teenager he studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory under Emil Gilels, but Evan has yet to see Hauptmann Rinderherz approach a piano or even hear him speak a word of Russian. For the first few years after the wall fell, Herr Hauptmann made his living operating a floor-buffer in the lobby of the Philharmonie. But when Simon Rattle was elected the next leader of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1999, Hauptmann Rinderherz was so disgusted that he elected to leave for America.

Hauptmann Rinderherz lived for the next few years as a loafer, jumping coal train to coal train for the next few years through all the various American cities until he happened to catch an episode of The Wire through the window of a Radio Shack in Toledo. He immediately realized that of all American cities, Baltimore alone had the gritty dinginess to remind him of the good old days of the Honecker dictatorship when everybody was banded together in the communal solidarity of mutual misery.)

Evan: Hello Herr Hauptmann! How was your day?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ach. This latest post of yours is insufferably pompous - presenting your own personal opinions as though it’s a new theory. You never were much of an intellectual.

Evan: I’m not an intellectual. I just play one on the internet. And I never said it was anywhere near complete or anything more than attempt to gather my thoughts.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: We must work on your thought gathering ja? It is something you have very little ability for. 

Evan: Maybe I should have called it a self-interview.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ah! Now I understand you. Like Witold Gombrowicz?

Evan: …Why not….

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ach, such a magnificent novelist, the Poles never had another. Have you ever read Ferdydurke?

Evan: I tried, I didn’t like it.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: You wouldn’t.

Evan: What does that mean?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: It’s the same reason you won’t read Hermann Broch. You are intimidated by the thought that intelligences are greater than yourselves.

Evan:  I’ve just come around to the point of view that if you’re insecure enough to have to show off what you know, you’re probably insecure about the fact that you don’t know that much. (pauses to contemplate the various ironies of that last sentence…)

Hauptmann Rinderherz: (mutters) Typical anti-intellectual Americanische…

Evan: Most Americans I know would probably disagree.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: What do these idioten know? Spoiled and weak from comforts and thinking a year of unemployment is the world-end. In 1945 my mother lived on a single herring for a month!

Evan: She was dehoused by Allied bombing?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Nein. Just anorexic.

Evan: Ah. I’m sorry.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Bitte nicht, don’t apologize. She was my size and diabetic by the time I was five.

Evan: How do Northern Europeans always age so quickly?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: It’s in our blood. The new generation needs breathing room!

Evan: Are you at all aware of how you sound to other people?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Yes. But your demand for a sense of irony is an easily surmountable obstacle.

Evan: Y’know…I’m still trying to figure out if you’re charming or a genuinely offensive stereotype. And can I please use my own computer?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Here.

(Herr Hauptmann gives Evan the computer and picks up his copy of On Nature by Anaximander. Evan checks mail, looks at facebook, and checks his blog for pageviews. When he goes to twitter, he sees an extremely newsworthy development for classical music fans.)

Evan: Herr Hauptmann! Look at this! Apparently Simon Rattle is leaving the Berlin Philharmonic.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Mr. Tucker thank you very much for your hospitality. I shall leave right now.

Evan: Really?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Now that Simon Rattle is leaving the Philharmoniker, it is safe to go back to Berlin.

Evan: Well, far be it for me to stop you, but he's not leaving for another five years. And who knows, he might still change his mind and make peace with the orchestra.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Nevertheless, this is the greatest victory for Rattlehaters in our long, illustrious history. I must go join the cheering throngs who are dancing in the streets.

Evan: I highly doubt there are any cheering throngs to celebrate Simon Rattle's departure. And why do you hate Simon Rattle so much?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ach! So viele grunde! He is the Barack Obama of music! A celebrity leichtgewichtler who put your hintere in the seat so he can feed you Scheissemusik! More rock singer than conductor!

Evan: What’s wrong with being a rock star? Wouldn’t it be great to have classical musicians who got the kind of publicity rock stars do?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: It is a pollution of music’s natural purity! The kultur industry now dictates how we must appreciate the classics! First they gave us a jazz conductor mit Leonard Bernstein, now we have this rock star Simon Rattle.

Evan: Was that any reason to leave Germany?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ach nein! I came to America to meet der Johnny Cash!

Evan: So you actually like American popular music?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: He sang Der Ring!

Evan: Herr Hauptmann… I don’t think that the same Ring.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: I know that! But he is the noble savage! The animal vox populi which must be kept in complete kulturkampf from Heilige Deutsche Kunst! I came to America to resist rock music. I came to America to look der Johnny Cash in the eye and tell him that he shall not triumph!

Evan: Why must the two cultures be kept separate? Don’t you think classical musicians might learn something from Johnny Cash? Who, by the way, has been dead for nearly ten years.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Nein! So long as art is polluted by his energy we shall never free ourselves from the shakles of animal man to achieve our true worldspiritpotential!

Evan: I think that’s a little unfair. There is plenty of animal energy in classical music. And even if what you’re saying may have a very small grain of truth, why blame Simon Rattle for it?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Because musicians like Rattle are the reason that all that is good in art shall never triumph. And his performances are terrible!

Evan: No they’re not!

Hauptmann Rinderherz: So you truly believe that Simon Rattle is the Maestro from all the Maestros?

Evan: He’s one of them, certainly. He has his problems as a conductor, but he’s no lightweight. He’s a fantastic musician who came to Berlin for all the best reasons. The musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic knew that if they wanted to maintain their reputation as the world’s greatest orchestra, they had to modernize themselves very quickly. But they didn’t let Rattle finish the job, so now they’ll be just another fine German orchestra which specializes in Brahms and Bruckner – no different than the Staatskapelles Dresden or Berlin, but not quite as good as either. 

Hauptmann Rinderherz: So honestly you think the Philharmoniker lost its position as the world’s greatest orchestra by chasing Rattle from the baton?

Evan: The Berlin Philharmonic probably never was the greatest orchestra in the world, and it especially wasn’t the greatest under Karajan.  At least the Vienna Philharmonic was probably the world’s greatest orchestra in the 1870’s and 80’s, and it’s lived in that era ever since. But the supremacy of the Berlin Philharmonic was always a myth.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Listen to how much better they sounded from the Karajan and Furtwangler years. Listen to the final years of Abbado!

Evan: Berlin never got Simon Rattle at his best because the more traditional members of the orchestra weren’t willing to give him their best. They resented the fact that he was their director at all, and that limited how willing they were to commit to his performances. And perhaps now that they know Rattle is leaving, they’ll perform better for him in the same way their performances for Abbado improved once they realized he was leaving too.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: They resented him because he wasn’t a conductor good enough!

Evan: Well it’s true that he’s not the greatest conductor in the world performance-wise. He has a kind of interpretive attention deficit disorder which makes him too reckless. Conductors like Bernstein and Barenboim have a level of genius that allows them make up their interpretations on the spot and still make musical sense, Rattle doesn’t but thinks he does. But even so, it’s amazing how many risks he gets away with, and I’ll take Rattle’s fearlessness over the kind of overprotective carefulness you get from most conductors any day of the week.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: But if he’s not performance-wise the greatest conductor in the world, he’s not the greatest conductor in the world. Only performances matter.

Evan: The performance is just one part of a conductor’s responsibility. Rattle is a great conductor because he brings music to others who would never hear it otherwise. He made sure the Berlin Philharmonic musicians were all well-paid before he even signed his contract. He’s involved inner-city children in concerts, he brought in great multimedia artists for interdisciplinary performances, he established an education department for the Berlin Philharmonic, he is absolutely undogmatic in terms of the repertoire he performs, and he’s always rethinking his interpretations of what he performs. To me, that is indicative of the fact that he is one of the very greatest conductors who ever lived.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Well I just think he is lucky. A wunderkind who was not talented yet had every advantage other musicians never have.

Evan: Well it can’t be denied that luck certainly played its role in Rattle’s career. But Rattle should be measured by what he’s done with his luck. And very few musicians have used luck to do more good.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ach. Do good, what does good and evil have to do with music?

Evan: What is the point of Beethoven’s message if people aren’t there to hear it?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: People will hear it!

Evan: How?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: By force!

Evan: What??

Hauptmann Rinderherz: If they do not hear the message of die neunte symphonie, they must be made to listen and appreciate its importance.

Evan: Is this what you really believe?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: 300%.

Evan: So… then I’m just going to take a guess that you would like to see Christian Thielemann replace Rattle.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ja ja. Er ist Der Meister. The greatest since Furtwangler!

Evan: High praise indeed. Though you do realize that he’s branching out now and making a real effort to conduct Russian and French music, right?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ja. But he doesn’t look like he likes it.

Evan: Well, you’re in luck, because Thielemann will probably be the next director. 

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Wirklich? I thought he would be too committed to his work in Dresden and Bayreuth.

Evan: Furtwangler and Nikisch both conducted the Berlin Philharmonic and the Leipzig Gewandhaus simultaneously. Karajan held jobs with the Vienna Opera, the Vienna Symphony, the Salzburg Festival, and L’Orchestre de Paris at the same time that he headed the Berlin Philharmonic. I don’t think it’s good for music, but conductors hold multiple jobs all the time and put in too few hours with every one of them.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Do not give me false hope! A Thielemann Philharmoniker would be a golden age for music!

Evan: Well, Thielemann is a very talented conductor, but he conducts a limited repertoire. And even in his specialties, he has many of the same problems as an interpreter that Simon Rattle has.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Do not you dare to compare der meister to that Beatlesschwindler!

Evan: Think about it. They both have amazing ears for orchestral color, they both relish the big tunes, and they can both go to ridiculous interpretive extremes.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: It is not ridiculous when Thielemann does it! He lives and suffers for his holy art!

Evan: Well, I think he goes to a lot of excesses that don’t come off particularly well. But if you don’t want a heart attack from too much excitement, why don’t we discuss some of the other alternatives. How do you feel about Daniele Gatti? When it wasn’t certain Rattle would extend his contract past 2012, the musicians conducted a poll for whom they wanted to be the next conductor and Gatti was the winner.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ein grosser Maestro. The greatest of the Italians except for Il Giulini.

Evan: Wow. No other Italians earn your approbation?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Toscanini was a kappellmeister, no imagination or gemutlichkeit. De Sabata has no innigkeit, Muti too much loves the Italian music, Chailly is an annihilator of all German, and Abbado used to be better before he went to Berlin.

Evan: But Gatti clearly loves Verdi.

Hauptmann RInderherz: Nobody’s perfect.

Evan: Well, I don’t much care for Gatti and I don’t see the big deal about him. Technically, his performances are often disasters, and that would be alright if he sounded like he inspires orchestras. But he doesn’t, and instead he just has a lot of interpretive quirks that his technique isn’t good enough to make the orchestras play.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: But there is so much innigkeit in his performances!

Evan: I’m still not sure what this innigkeit thing is… but I’ll let it go. And in any event, he keeps getting invited back to the greatest orchestras, so clearly orchestral musicians see something in him I don’t.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Ja ja. And certainly would he be preferable to Paavo Jarvi.

Evan: Really? I love Paavo Jarvi, I just wish he would stop trying to conduct 5 orchestras at a time.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Jarvi is terrible. Such awful Beethoven.

Evan: I love Jarvi’s Beethoven. Hell, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a performance by Jarvi which I didn’t think was great. But I don’t think you have to worry too much. He’s clearly beloved in Frankfurt and he’ll probably be the director of four more orchestras by the time the Berlin Philharmonic begins to consider who their next director might be.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Well if not Thielemann, the next director should be Andris Nelsons. Ein grosser Wagnerleiter.

Evan: Well I agree that he’d be a very good choice, maybe even the prudent one. He’ll be only 40 when Rattle leaves, he’s a very fine conductor of all sorts of music, including many composers you don’t like, and he always has interesting ideas. But if you expect another Furtwangler, you won’t get it in Nelsons.  

Hauptmann Rinderherz: Why not?

Evan: He’s far too catholic in his tastes to limit himself to German music. And his basic tempos are far, far quicker than Furtwangler’s. He’s more like Mengelberg than Furtwangler.

Hauptmann Rinderherz: To even have a Mengelberg today…

Evan: Well, you’re a Celibidache fan. What do you think of Semyon Bychkov?

Hauptmann Rinderherz: He’s no Celibidache! How can you make that comparison even?

Evan: They’re both uncompromising masters of the craft who hate the wear and tear of being a music director, they’ve whittled their repertoire down to the pieces they really love, they both started their careers at the top of the profession and then had periods of working in obscurity so they could get the results they wanted. 

800 Words: Boston Symphony New Music Director Sweepstakes Semi-Finals Part I

No classical music organization ever did more for America than the Boston Symphony, and no classical organization’s decline has been more tragic. The list of works the Boston Symphony is responsible for birthing in its Golden Age reads like a retrospective of its period’s masterworks: some of which include Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony, Howard Hanson’s Romantic Symphony, Copland’s 3^rd Symphony, Roussel’s 3^rd Symphony, Roy Harris’s 3^rd 5^th and 6^th Symphonies, Prokofiev’s 4^th Symphony, Barber’s 2^nd Symphony, Martinu’s 1^st Symphony, Martinu’s 6^th Symphony, Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Stravinsky’s Orpheus, and Poulenc’s Gloria. Is there any orchestra of that period with similar excellence in the work it commissioned?

But what does the BSO have to show for the fifty years since Charles Munch left?...not very much I’m afraid. Like all the Big Five orchestras (except Cleveland), the glory days are long since passed and these once progressive institutions have turned into sad nostalgia acts – playing concerts high on prestige yet low on musical substance. All the while, the most artistically satisfying concerts on the orchestral scene have been found in California for the past twenty years. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony are orchestras far readier for, and far more understanding of today’s challenges  - with lots more (and better) world premieres of new compositions, far better community outreach, and much more integration into their communities. If the LA Phil or SF Symphony folded tomorrow, the cities would truly change because their subscriber base is younger and their outreach programs affect more people. But at any point in the last half-century, a Boston without their symphony orchestra would fundamentally be the same place.

And if that wasn’t enough, no orchestra fell quite as precipitously as Boston has in the last few years. Until recently, the BSO could at least console itself that it was not subject to indignities any different than those of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. But as James Levine cancelled concert after concert, his dates fell mostly into the hands of no-name assistants, none of whom proved up to the job’s demands as Michael Tilson Thomas did when William Steinberg fell ill in the early 70’s. There were reports of open giggling by musicians during their performances. One would think that in such a situation a new music director, even a mediocre one, would be especially crucial. But no such announcement was forthcoming, nor have they even seemed to try to get one.  Like Chicago and Philadelphia before them, the Boston Symphony is too proud to settle for 2^nd best.

As a rather pathetic concession to the fact that bad authority is better than none, Chicago and Philly decided on ‘Principal Conductor’ appointments that at least saw a consistent authority figure preside over concerts for 6 weeks of the season until they could find a first-rate director, and however dumb the idea of a ‘principal conductor’ appointment is, even that’s better than what Boston did has seen fit to leave the inmates in charge of the asylum. In Boston, there’s no music director, no principal conductor, not even a principal guest, nothing to signal that there’s a figure at the helm except a grab-bag of guests to take the place a music director should have. The sense of entitlement is simply shocking, especially considering that their last music director was barely present for the last two years of his tenure.

Even if a David Robertson or a Robert Spano is perhaps too dull or mediocre for such a major appointment, surely either would be better than five years without a figure at all to guide the orchestra. To insist on a ‘great’ music director or none at all is to cut off the nose to spite the face. In music, as in life, we all have to settle. Whether in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or Washington, a decent conductor who’s there 15 weeks of the year makes for far better music than a good-to-great one who’s there for 4 to 6. It’s a lesson that the New York Philharmonic finally learned, and with the intelligent-but-dull Alan Gilbert at the helm they’re at least in better long term shape than the rest of the Big Five (save Cleveland). Why shouldn’t David Zinman, Leonard Slatkin, James Conlon, Robert Spano, David Robertson or Marin Alsop get Big Five appointments? They might not be the world’s greatest conductors, but they surely understand what makes an orchestra successful in America better than the foreign also-rans who usually beat them out. Is there really so much difference between the quality of James Conlon’s music making and Kurt Masur’s? The only reason which conductors like Masur get taken more seriously is the distinction of their accents – because no American could possibly conduct European music with the profundity of a European…could they?

It would seem from this year’s schedule that the BSO is finally getting at least little serious about finding a real music director. Around this time last year year, I wrote that the BSO was clearly staking its claim on either Riccardo Chailly or Andris Nelsons, and clearly had nobody else in mind. As I predicted, this was a horrendous error, because it could backfire on them so easily. Both Chailly and Nelsons had to cancel, and there passed not only another year without a new music director, but another year without so much as an audition for a new music director.

This year is at least a little better. There are a few young conductors on this list, some of whom are genuinely promising. Riccardo Chailly is, sadly, nowhere to be found. Chailly would have made a respectable choice: his performances are like the man himself – energetic, intelligent, and warm-hearted. In many ways, they remind one of James Levine (only Chailly is even more gifted), and I don’t doubt that their similarities are why Chailly was considered. He shares with Levine a great love for Italian opera and a dramatic feel for the ‘big tune,’ along with absolute comfort in the more knotty complexities of modernism. But Chailly’s one great fault as a conductor is also one of Levine’s, a freeze-dried lack of spontaneity – the sense that the interpretation we hear was planned thirty years in advance, with no concession made to what the situation of the moment requires that isn’t absolutely necessary to preserve the ensemble. For all his hyper-control, Chailly never fully gives himself to either a performance or an organization, and his legacy will one day be as a curator of great orchestras rather than as a creator of his own performance tradition. Chailly left his post as director of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam for a rather slight provocation. By signaling interest in the Boston Symphony, he seemed to be indicating a willingness to leave his current post as director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus for something equally slight. In the last thirty years, a conductor as talented as Chailly could have been another Toscanini – remaking the entire concept of Italian opera by running any one of a dozen opera houses in Italy. But instead Chailly became a mere custodian to great orchestras, injecting them with just enough innovation to keep the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Leipzig Gewandhaus fresh without actually changing them. Chailly would have been a ten year appointment in Boston (probably ten turbulent years); just long enough to give them respectability again, but not long enough to begin a second golden age.

In Chailly’s place seems to be another middle-aged Italian. Daniele Gatti, who is scheduled to conduct for a full three weeks of the season – and as he is the only conductor under 75 to receive that honor, he must be considered the clear favorite for the job. In many ways, he is Chailly’s polar opposite. If Chailly is all restraint and consistency, then Gatti is all emotion and volubility. In many ways, he is simply not as good a conductor as Chailly – neither as consistent, nor as curious, nor perhaps as intelligent (who is?). But he has the one quality which Chaily lacks in spades – the ability to give of himself completely. For fifteen years, Gatti directed London’s Royal Philharmonic, and gave this by no means top-flight orchestra a sense of direction which bigger name orchestras in London lacked. His agent, Ronald Wilford, told him he could have his pick of appointments twenty years ago, but Gatti told him he’d go at his own pace.  Gatti does not seem much loved in his position as director of the Orchestre National de France, but a number of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and opera houses seem to find him among their most cherished guest conductors. In fact, rumor holds that when an informal poll was taken of Berlin Philharmonic musicians of whom they would like to replace Simon Rattle during a period when it seemed doubtful that Rattle’s contract would be renewed, Gatti was the clear favorite to replace him. Gatti is a romantic through and through – with a temperament to match. Whereas Chailly seems to play the flake, always finking out on commitments, Gatti seems a genuine hothead – known for tantrums that would even make Riccardo Muti blush. A Gatti appointment would not necessarily be a disaster, but it’s far from advisable. Gatti is a thoroughgoing traditionalist, and his musical conservatism would make an unlikely fit for the most intellectual town in America. I’ve heard a number of performances under his baton in which the playing was near-disastrous. Unlike Chailly, Gatti is no orchestra builder, he is merely a conductor who sometimes gets visceral performances. Yet that ability alone is so lacking among many top-flight conductors that more prestigious appointments may come calling for him very soon. Chailly is eight years Gatti’s senior, and probably missed his chance to be La Scala’s director, but whenever Daniel Barenboim and Stephane Lissner leave (they can’t be there for more than 5 years, can they?), Gatti could easily take over. He would be a well-loved music director at La Scala (for a time), doing the standard Verdi/Wagner fare and doing it quite well – Boston cannot compete with that kind of allure. But with all those provisos, there’s a chance – however small – that Gatti could have a very fine tenure in Boston. He could last twenty years, and remake Boston into a great conservative organization that does romantic repertoire as well as any orchestra in the world. My only problem with this is that an orchestra like the BSO would be setting the bar far too low if they didn’t go for a true innovator. But then again, life is about settling…