Word: conductor
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...Angeles Philharmonic. With a conductor like Carlo Maria Giulini, 68, an annual budget of $17 million and record appearances on Deutsche Grammophon, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has the credentials for membership in the elect. Its sound is far from the brilliance of Chicago or St. Louis; Giulini, the eminent Italian conductor, has based the sonority he wants on the lower strings, giving the orchestra a deep, dark tone. Instead of the flashy, glittery ensemble one might expect to find in Los Angeles, the Philharmonic is a sober, serious orchestra. Like Giulini, it is at its best in the romantic...
...Cleveland Orchestra. Under the late George Szell, the Clevelanders were honed into an ensemble of breathtaking precision, eminently suited to the music of Mozart. During the regime of Conductor Lorin Maazel (1972-82), Szell's high technical standards were maintained, but the sound of the orchestra became fuller, richer and more flexible, and thus up to the challenge of the romantic repertory; by the end of Maazel's tenure, the Cleveland Orchestra was the best-sounding band in the land. Today, standards have unavoidably slipped a bit as the orchestra awaits the arrival in 1984-85 of Maazel...
...Francisco Symphony. Another West Coast success story is the San Francisco Symphony's rise to prominence, not as spectacular as that of the Los Angeles Philharmonic but no less sure. Dutch Conductor Edo de Waart, 41, is no match for Giulini in glamour, and in a city still carrying a torch for De Waart's splashy predecessor, Ozawa, De Waart is often criticized for not being exciting enough. But his tireless work with his orchestra since the 1977-78 season has paid off in an alert, responsive ensemble, and the results show up handsomely in music close...
...Minnesota Orchestra, for example, needs only for Conductor Neville Marriner to become more at home in the large-orchestra repertory for it to be a serious contender. The Dallas Symphony has one of the finest string sections in the country, but is interpretatively hampered by its prosaic conductor, Eduardo Mata. Washington's National Symphony, another orchestra with the capacity to rise, may yet regret its Faustian bargain with Conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, the ebullient master cellist who gives it great media attention and a passionate commitment to Russian music but otherwise generally undistinguished musical leadership. Still more able orchestras...
...uncertainty that it will come out right. Overseeing all this is the music director, who balances the orchestra's component parts and gives the ensemble character. He breathes a unified spirit into an aggregation that may number more than 100. "It is the artistic vision of the conductor that impels everyone forward," says Kenneth Haas, Cleveland's general manager. "Without someone of great vision, great ears, great interpretations, great depth, you can have the greatest musicians on the face of the earth and you still won't have a great orchestra...