Peter Schenkman responds to a question about the time it takes to find new
conductors for established orchestras:

>Because there is a real scarcity of not just first rate but even competent
>conductors out there, face it....the age of the great conductors ended a
>half century ago.  Toronto has been looking for years!

If you hang out with lovers of opera and vocal music, you are told that the
golden age of singers is long past and no one can possibly live up to the
glories of those who sang in the first part of the 20th century.  If your
friends or those you admire are violinists, there was no one like Kreisler,
Menuhin, Heifitz, or others now gone.  If you love pianists the great ones
go back to Cortot and perhaps include Dinu Lipatti, but don't include
anyone living today.

It matters little which branch of classical music enthralls you the most,
you can be sure that the 'experts' are certain that no one now or even
recently living could possibly be as good as the artists of the good old
days of, say, the aforementioned half century ago and this feeling
obviously includes conductors.

None of us will be around to test it, but I'm as sure as I can be of
anything in the future that in one hundred years the comments will be the
same: 'they just don't make conductors like they used to in the good old
days back at the start of the 21st century.'

In the meantime, just a few of those now living and working who I think may
very well stand the test of time include such as Kurt Masur, David Zinman,
Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Ivan Fischer, James Levine, just off the
top of my head.  Oh yes, and Charles Dutoit.

Jane Erb
[log in to unmask]