Word: szell
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...difficult search. After more than a year of looking for a successor to the late George Szell, who died in July 1970 at 73, the Cleveland Orchestra last week chose 41-year-old Lorin Maazel. Endowed with stamina, sensitivity and intelligence, Maazel is a former child prodigy who at the age of eleven was guest conductor of Toscanini's NBC Symphony. One day, when he showed up to rehearse the NBC, he found all 100 or so musicians sucking lollipops. That might have finished any other child right then and there. Not Maazel. "I was a pretty tough...
...Even so, Maazel is unlikely to prove as tough as the stony-faced Szell, who also began as a child prodigy. Few conductors could. In every other way, he seems to be the one youngish maestro around who most resembles Szell in style, craftsmanship and musical taste. Like his predecessor, Maazel is a strict constructionist who regards the printed score as his own personal bill of rights. He is capable of passion, but not at the expense of symmetry and the sturdy line. He is widely acknowledged as a supreme podium technician...
...more than 3,000 concerts Maazel has given with virtually every major orchestra in the world during the past two decades, he has shown that his heart is as old-fashioned as was Szell's. Cleveland listeners may expect large doses of the 19th century (Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky), snippets of Baroque (Bach, mostly) and careful slices of the 20th century (Sibelius, Stravinsky, Bartok). Thus the Maazel appointment means that Cleveland intends to continue its Old World ways, with one important exception: Maazel (born in Paris of California parents) is only the second American, after Leonard Bernstein, ever to head...
...rich phrase and richer orchestral sonority customarily works well. But this time he seems surprisingly nonchalant. His drowsy Jupiter, for instance, might better be called Saturn. The best set of these symphonies remains Otto Klemperer's (also on An gel), and- for crisp, detail-laden sound- George Szell's versions of 35, 39, 40, and 41, recently offered at a bar gain price ($6.98) by Columbia...
...Szell and Barbirolli has come to an end. The school of conductors which they represent has been virtually laid to rest. Composers have changed, and conductors need new training, and new attitudes, to meet the requirements of the new music. It is hard to say where music is going, but easy to see that it is at a crossroads. Music is now a plastic art, and musicians also must be plastic. Conducting has come far from the day when the first conductor beat time with a large wooden staff. Each of the conductors we have recently lost added something...