Eric Kisch:

>Bernard Gregoire writes in his defense of Ozawa:
>
>>His conducting of traditional classical material of Brahms, Beethoven and
>>Mozart has evolved from poor 25 years ago to acceptable to good today.
>
>Jeez - some defense!  If I had 25 years to learn the basic repertoire I
>might be able to come up with some acceptable performances too -- and I'm
>only an armchair conductor!

Now here, I suspect, we are really cutting to the chase, in answering the
question why so many are so dismissive of Ozawa.  I wonder how many of his
detractors are going on the assumption that all music directors of major
orchestras should excel in the basic repertoire --and if they aren't,
they're just no good or, at best, dull.  Some celebrated conductors have
specialized in a tiny personal repertoire, at which they understandably
excel--Tennstedt, for instance.  Ozawa's great predecessor Munch was known
particularly for his French repertoire.  (The German repertoire Munch
tended to speed through, sometimes to fine effect, to be sure, as with
Mendelssohn and early Schubert.)

When music directors generally spend only part of the year in
residence--for better or worse--why shouldn't they play to their strengths
and leave the rest to guest conductors? I once heard a complaint that Ozawa
never performed Schubert.  Why should he, if he doesn't like Schubert? I
did hear him perform Brahms' 2nd Symphony extremely well; even Richard
Dyer praised the performance.  I also heard him perform Mahler's third
in a performance I found profoundly moving, especially the final movement.
I haven't been in Boston for well over a decade, so I don't have fresh
information, but perhaps Ozawa's problem is that he has been too
accomodating about playing what others want rather than what he likes and
is best at.  He is considered better at rhythmically complex music than at
subtle emotional expression, for instance.

Just a thought.

Jim Tobin