Word: conductors
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...unpopularity, Barbirolli was an impressive conductor. He was the embodiment of the classic American caricature of the maestro. His stature, his long flowing hair, his stately appearance, and his knighthood completed the effect. Appearance does not assure good press, though, and Barbirolli never got it. While most of the great British conductors-Beecham, Goossens, Sargent, Boult-stayed primarily in their native country, Barbirolli came to America to conduct the New Pork Philharmonic when Toscanini left it in 1937. His disastrous career here insured him of a bad critical reputation for the rest of his life...
That was the way Thomas began Mozart's Requiem at the "Mostly Mozart Festival" in Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall last week. A remarkably mature performance, it confirmed an opinion that has been growing since late last fall: at 25, Thomas is perhaps the most naturally gifted young conductor to come along since Leonard Bernstein more than a generation...
Mozart's Requiem, written as the 35-year-old composer lay dying, is one of those unearthly, suprahuman creations that are virtually impossible for conductors to turn into personal statements. Thomas' performance lacked a certain reflective delicacy that might have made the work more of a requiem and less of a showpiece, but he clearly demonstrated that as a conductor he is thoroughly capable of reaching his performers in the grand style defined long ago by Hector Berlioz: "His inward fire warms them, his electric glow animates them, his form of impulse excites them...
...young conductor's electric glow first became visible last October when William Steinberg, music director of the Boston Symphony, fell ill midway through a visiting concert, also at Philharmonic Hall. Thomas, the orchestra's new assistant conductor and Steinberg's understudy, took over after intermission and handled Strauss's familiar Till Eulenspiegel and Robert Starer's new Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra with ease, poise and cool. Said the New York Times next day: "Mr. Thomas knows his business, and we shall be hearing from him again...
...audiences and orchestras with him. But reach does not always equal grasp-in conducting, particularly. With all his gifts, Thomas has a long road ahead. It will take years, as well as accession to the control of a symphony orchestra, for him to set his mark-as a great conductor must-upon a repertory of music and a group of musicians. No one is more willing to learn, however. It is probably lucky for him, and for the Boston Symphony, that he puts himself to sleep at night reading Haydn scores instead of mystery stories...