In the Daily Telegraph.

   It's a conductor's world, says Norman Lebrecht

   THERE has never been a better time to be a good conductor.  No fewer
   than nine North American orchestras are searching for a new music
   director, and the quarry are in a position to name their price.
   Riccardo Muti, for instance, has declined a $1,500,000 approach from
   the New York Philharmonic.  Muti, who has scratched London out of
   his schedule because he cannot face its fearsome critics, appears
   to have been equally daunted by another citadel of free speech.

   Outside New York, which is the oldest, wealthiest and most turbulent
   of New World orchestras, there are jobs going in Boston, Philadelphia,
   Houston, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Minnesota and Indianapolis.  All are
   among the 20 best-endowed orchestras in the US, and hence the world.
   Above the border, the Toronto Symphony, which has been on strike for
   a month, will need to replace the dismayed Jukka-Pekka Saraste.  Few
   can recall a time when so many bands have chased new batons - the
   unutterable, as Wilde might have said, in pursuit of the inaudible.

   Much of the hunt is being conducted under cover of darkness.  Toronto's
   Finnish conductor has not yet resigned, but his agent has fixed him
   up with an alternative French connection.  Minnesota has not sacked
   Eiji Oue, a young spark appointed on Seiji Ozawa's say-so; it has
   rehired him for one more year while putting out word that it wants
   a bigger stick.  Atlanta, by contrast, had a public falling-out with
   Yoel Levi, and Boston, having summoned the courage after 27 years to
   wave Ozawa on his way, is waiting by the phone.  But unhappiness
   wafts from an orchestra like mephitis from a swamp, and many maestros
   are giving America's finest the widest of berths.

   Traditionally, the gaps would have been discreetly filled in a
   tenebrous office on New York's 57th Street, where the biggest talent
   agency, CAMI, runs the diaries of 100 leading conductors.  However,
   CAMI's president, Ronald Wilford, turns 72 next week and appears to
   have lost the plot.  Wilford was taken aback by the ousting of Ozawa
   and lacks convincing candidates.

   The only predictions that can be made with any conviction are that
   most orchestras will settle for someone less than the man of their
   dreams, and that no good conductor will commit to more than 12 weeks'
   residence, dashing any hopes of a mythical union between maestro,
   musicians and metropolis.  In the deeper mid-West, Paavo Jarvi, Yakov
   Kreizberg and Osmo Vanska are in with a shout.  Elsewhere, safety-first
   prevails.  Boston is eyeing Christoph Eschenbach, latterly of Houston,
   and Philadelphia may renew Wolfgang Sawallisch, 77, a year at a time.

   New York, too, is contemplating renewal, albeit in more combustible
   circumstances.  Early this month, Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic's
   executive director, took a flight to Los Angeles and signed up for
   a life-change.  Borda, 50, is the toughest cookie on the circuit, a
   social charmer whose facial dimples conceal ferric muscles.  In seven
   years, she transformed the New York Philharmonic from a somnolent
   band with a blue-rinse crowd to a cracking outfit with a taste for
   contemporary composers and interpersonal conflict.

   She fell out badly with musicians in the last union negotiations,
   and with her music director, Kurt Masur, for apparently coveting too
   much credit.  When the Los Angeles Philharmonic offered her a new
   life, a brand-new hall, half a million pounds a year, and a place in
   the Pacific sun, Borda upped sticks and quit New York, leaving her
   adversaries dumbfounded, but not for long.

   Masur, whom Borda sought to replace with Muti, is now negotiating
   for an extension of his term and seems confident of getting it.
   Chicago, too, has renewed Daniel Barenboim's contract - not because
   he has greatly enhanced Solti's orchestra, nor because eight years
   was not long enough for him to make a mark, but because there was no
   one as eminent challenging for this most cherishable of posts.  On
   the autumnal landscape, this is turning into a season of renewals,
   without a fresh bud in sight.

   Big orchestras demand big names.  With the collapse of classical
   recording, young conductors are unable to acquire pedigree.  Orchestral
   boards, under pressure, abjure risk and settle for the familiar.
   The effects are starting to show.  In the past week, the Berlin
   Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado (not the happiest of teams) earned
   demonstrative ovations in Chicago, Boston and New York, with many in
   the audience applauding long after they had quit the stage.  "How on
   earth do they play like that?" exclaimed astonished concert-goers,
   drawing unfavourable comparisons with America's finest.  The balance
   of orchestral power has shifted decisively, and America risks losing
   its future if it continues to play for safety.


Tony Duggan,  England.
My (developing) Mahler recordings survey is at:
http://www.musicweb.force9.co.uk/music/Mahler/