Word: conductor
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...Dionysian method of conducting (which is, for many, a more valuable visual aid than some are willing to admit) and certain liberties he may take with an orchestral score. Those who may feel they are not supposed to like such things need to remember what Brahms once said to Conductor Arthur Nikisch after Nikisch's fiery interpretation of the Brahms Violin Concerto: "So-it can be done that...
France, mired in a state of musical bankruptcy ever since World War II, could always boast one major asset: Pierre Boulez, 41, the leading voice of the modernist school of composers and a gifted conductor as well. But in 1959, Boulez suddenly deserted Paris to live in Baden-Baden and work with the progressive Southwest German Radio Orchestra. He left, he said, because "the organization of musical life in Paris is more stupid than anywhere else. France has completely lost her importance. Nothing advances...
...Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is 30 years old, and has never known the security of a permanent conductor. Not that nobody will have it. The players just happen to be finicky, preferring to draw on an international pool of guest conductors until Mr. Right comes along. This has not always been easy. Beyond the customary growing pains, the orchestra has also had to weather the ravages of three wars, offering visiting maestros such inducements as "the largest and most luxurious air-raid shelter in the Near East, with excellent acoustics." Leonard Bernstein conducted one concert during an attack by Egyptian bombers...
...latest guest attraction is the Los Angeles Philharmonic's brilliant young conductor Zubin Mehta, who is leading the Israelis through a schedule of 21 concerts over a period of 24 days, shuttling between Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem like a rush-hour commuter. Under Mehta's spirited attack, the orchestra's strings have bloomed into full brilliancy. Though staunchly rooted in the classics, the Israeli audiences received his reading of Bartok's First Piano Concerto, with Israeli Pianist Daniel Barenboim, as enthusiastically as they do their Brahms. Mehta was equally successful with Ravel's Daphnis...
...based, among other things, on the number of family dependents rather than talent), own a $500,000 guesthouse for visiting artists as well as half-interest in the $2,800,000 Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, their permanent home. This, and the freedom from the discipline of a permanent conductor, has nurtured a strong streak of independence. "If the orchestra has any shortcomings," explains Mehta, "it is in its tendency toward musical anarchy. At rehearsals you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a brain trust over how a phrase should be played. Everyone has a suggestion, and everyone thinks...