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by JAMES GOODFRIEND, Music Editor PASSING THE BATON RECENTLY, Pierre Boulez announced that he would no longer lead the New York Philharmonic Orchestra after 1977. The announcement, or something like it, had been expected for some time, for rumbles of discontent had been steadily building up in musical circles, and even the least sensitive ob server must have understood that Boulez him self had reservations about the job-- though he is too much the professional, and too much the gentleman, to have aired them publicly. Naturally, this brings up the question of who will succeed him. But it also raises some larger questions about conductors and orchestras today, their mutual pressures, and their some what conflicting demands. Boulez is not the only conductor of a major ensemble about to leave it. At the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., the board of directors informed Antal Dorati-who had not yet resigned-that his successor, as of 1977-1978. had already been chosen: Mstislav Rostropovich, the eminent cellist-turning-conductor. In St. Louis, Walter Susskind has recently conducted his last regular-season concert as music director. He will be replaced by Jerzy Semkow. Other relatively recent appointments include Seiji Ozawa as director of the Boston Symphony, James Levine as music director of the Metropolitan Opera (he was formerly principal conductor), and Andre Previn as director of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Leonard Bernstein has also made loud noises about wanting to return to the New York Philharmonic in some capacity, though it is doubtful that taking on, once again, the responsibilities of music director is exactly what he has in mind. It is just those inherent responsibilities of the job of music director, of course, that make it seem that both orchestras and conductors are going about things in what must ultimately prove to be a self-defeating way. The New York Philharmonic-using the name to cover not only the orchestra but the board of directors and the audience as well-has not really been satisfied with a music director since ... well, I don't go back that far. Rodzinski, Stokowski, Mitropoulos, Bernstein, Boulez--all have come in for harsh criticism and some times outright antagonism. The announcement in Washington-to cite a different example--provoked an ill-considered letter to the Post saying that Dorati, who, after all, had built the orchestra up from a mediocre ensemble to an estimable one, was an advocate of "elite programming" and that Washington would be better off under Rostropovich. I wonder. He is not the music-director type. LEAVING aside all the social folderol and the nonmusical administrative duties and decisions, a music director has two principal jobs: first, to build and maintain an orchestra at a high level of proficiency: and second, to direct the repertoire in such a way as to keep audiences happy and interested, so that the house will be filled at every concert. The first of these demands that the music director be there, with the orchestra, for most of the sea son. He simply cannot make the orchestra grow, or even maintain its best present level, if he is not familiar with the day-to-day capabilities of every individual member of the ensemble. That is not something to be assimilated on planes jetting from one guest appearance to another. The second of these jobs requires that the music director be a specialist in the familiar and even the commonplace. He must know the basic orchestral repertoire and know it cold because, novelties aside, that is the mu sic that keeps subscribers coming back, that is what makes board members happy, that is the magic formula which attracts and holds the newer and younger audiences still in the throes of their first discovery of Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. ------ How many major conductors today would sit still for these requirements if they were really required? That kind of job-with-obligations is the success story of an earlier day, not of our own. Important conductors today want an orchestra already so accomplished that it has nothing left to learn but what the conductor wants in this piece or that. Will a Bernstein take precious time (his own and the orchestra's) to drill and re-drill the strings into playing smoothly, together, and on pitch? He didn't, as many records still in the catalog will testify, when he was music director of the Philharmonic. Will a Boulez put aside his concerns with contemporary music and take the time to master not only the notes but the performance traditions of a Beethoven sym phony? His sole recording of a Beethoven symphony seems to deny it. Will a Maazel (now in Cleveland) be content to provide relatively standard interpretations of standard works because his audience (unlike himself) is still learning the music? The eccentricities of many of his prior recordings make it seem very unlikely. Most major conductors today think about the post of music director either as a sinecure and a base from which to branch out to inter national guest appearances, or else as a challenge to shape the musical life of a community in the way they think it should go. The first of these attitudes is cynical: the second is, given today's situations, somewhat unrealistic. At any rate, somebody invariably gets frustrated: the orchestra goes to pot, or the audience re bels against the programming: the conductor resents time expended on drilling the orchestra in basic playing techniques, or he finds himself at war with the board in regard to repertoire: the orchestra begins to play better for visiting conductors than for its own music director and finds it prefers to play for one or more of the visitors. These may not be intolerable conditions, but they are not healthy ones either. If we conclude, therefore, that there is a problem that will not get solved through cur rent ways of doing things, there are still different approaches to betterment. Perhaps the music director should not be an internationally famous "glamour" conductor but someone younger, someone willing to invest all his energies and talents in the building of an orchestra and the purveying of standard repertoire to a continually growing and changing audience. The "big" conductors would come in for guest appearances, find a well-disciplined ensemble waiting for them, conduct their specialties, and move on. Such a situation would imply that the post of music director is not the top of the heap-- but then it isn't today, except in name. OR another approach: since most "big" conductors are more or less specialists in certain areas of the repertoire today (and most of them not in the standard areas), perhaps the Boston should restrict itself pretty much to what Ozawa is best at, the St. Louis to Semkow's specialties, and so on, and let the visiting conductors do whatever basic repertoire is to be done. I would guess that something of the sort is what Boulez had in mind when he came to the Philharmonic. It is, of course, not what happened. Directors, players, conductors, audiences, and record companies might do well to keep these things in mind before selecting this or that individual as the "logical" man to assume the directorship of any given orchestra. The lines of succession are not so clearly drawn as they might think. ============== Also see: CHOOSING SIDES, IRVING KOLODIN |
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