The post of Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra was offered to
Esa-Pekka Salonen, and he turned it down. In Sunday's Plain Dealer, Music
Critic Donald Rosenberg offered the following comment. Headline follows:
Adventures Continue in Passing Baton
What would life have been like with Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director
of the Cleveland Orchestra? Provocative, adventurous and - possibly
narrow, if his accomplishments with Lost Angeles Philharmonic are
any indication.
We'll never know. In a curiously public turn of events, Salonen last
week declined an offer to succeed Christoph von Dohnanyi in Cleveland.
Dohnanyi's contract as music director expires in 2002, the year
Salonen is up for renewal in Los Angeles.
To show his commitment to his orchestra, Salonen donated $100,000
toward construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which the Los
Angeles Philharmonic one day will call home. The Finnish conductor
did so to let his orchestra know that he had had turned down the
beckoning from the Forest City and intended to stay put in the City
of Angels.
Conductor searches usually don't unfold this way. The normal process
involves top-secret negotiations and an announcement only when every
delicate artistic and monetary detail has been worked out. The
analogy of smoke rising when a new pope is chosen is often invoked,
accurately.
So the news that Salonen had cast his lot for Los Angeles over
Cleveland raises questions and answers a few. Now that the world
knows who might have been the first choice for Cleveland's music
director, it is wondering who No. 2 (or No. 3 or 4) will be.
Orchestras, of course, prefer that No. 2 isn't aware that he or she
is No. 2. Something to do with brides and bridesmaids. But things
don't always work out as planned. Sometimes they end happily. In
the fall of 1981, for instance, Sir Colin Davis declined Cleveland's
offer to become music director. Several months later, a relatively
unknown German conductor named Christoph von Dohnanyi made his debut
at Severance Hall, and the rest is history.
Recent and distant events confirm that even the greatest orchestras
must go shopping to find a music director. Two weeks ago, Sir Simon
Rattle, wooed by just about every American orchestra in current need
of a boss, told the Philadelphia Orchestra, in essence, "thanks, but
no thanks." George Szell, powerfully entrenched in Cleveland in the
1960s, turned down offers from the Chicago Symphony and New York
Philharmonic. The world did not come to an end in those cities.
Philadelphia will survive.
Here's the seeming odd part. A top American orchestra would appear to
be a dream destination for any conductor, even the most internationally
anointed. In terms of quality and stature, it is difficult to go higher
than Cleveland or Philadelphia. Many maestros would sell their artistic
souls for such an opportunity.
There must be very good reasons, then, to turn down such an attractive
offer. Davis stated that he wouldn't come to Cleveland in part
because his wife refused to do so at the time. Salonen is said to
savor his musical and family situations in Los Angeles. Life clearly
exists beyond the hallowed halls of lofty orchestras.
Cleveland has no cause to feel rejected, then or now. We can only
speculate how a Davis tenure would have developed. The Dohnanyi
era has been fruitful, compelling, occasionally stormy, ultimately
distinguished. From what Cleveland audiences have heard of Salonen,
his choice to remain in Los Angeles appears to be shrewd. In other
words, the best for Los Angeles and the best for Cleveland.
In guest appearances at Severance Hall, the Finnish conductor has
presided over music from the 20th century - Messiaen, Debussy, Nielsen,
Bartok. Salonen is a fine conductor, and accomplished composer, who
priorities clearly lie in recent and contemporary trends. At 40, he
has not delved deeply into classical and romantic repertoire. When
he does, his performances are not knmown to be particularly insightful
or stylish.
It could be argued that Salonen is just the kind of youthful,
forward-looking maestro to take an orchestra into the 21st century,
especially when younger audiences must be cultivated. Survival
depends on listeners and supporters who will see that an institution
thrives.
Yet Cleveland is a distinctive case. The orchestra long has been
renowned as a classical ensemble whose clarity and discipline are
ideal in music extending from Mozart to the present. We don't know
how Salonen would deal with Cleveland in the core repertoire of
Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and others. The abilities required to
conduct 20th-century fare don't necessarily suit music of earlier
eras. (Pierre Boulez is the most striking example in this regard:
He is supreme from about 1900 onwards: clinical in most 18th- and
19th-century literature).
By remaining in Los Angeles, Salonen is playing to his strengths.
Cleveland is not the place to learn the repertoire that has garnered
its orchestra almost unparalleled admiration. The search for the
next music director will go on, probably even more quietly than
before, with no sensational solution on the horizon.
Mark
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