Lorin Maazel 1930-2014

[PJPJ]

RIP - a fine maestro

https://www.castletonfestival.org/news/item/maestro-lorin-maazel-19302014

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh crumbs... that's very sad. Didn't always agree with his music-making, especially later on, but at its best, his work was intoxicating and spectacular: the classic complete Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet in Cleveland was an early lynch-pin of my collection. And some of his Mahler, even Wagner... I have an old VHS of an incendiary Mahler 8 at the Proms - magnificent stuff.

RIP Maestro and thank you

[Barbirollians]

That's a shock - RIP - his recordings and performances may have been a mixed bag but there are some great records and he was pretty much the last of the old school conductors .

His lovely Mahler 4 will get an outing here .

[visualnickmos]

Sad news indeed - I always thought of him as being one of the 'younger' lot of conductors. He always seemed young in body and spirit.

RIP Maestro, and thanks for many hours of enjoyable CD listening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

His Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Symphony cycles with the VPO rank among the finest, and I concur with Caliban's assessment of his Mahler 4.

I saw him only once, when he brought the LSO to Manchester.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

His Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Symphony cycles with the VPO rank among the finest, and I concur with Caliban's assessment of his Mahler 4.

- and the Ravel operas, too.

[Roslynmuse]

He brought the Philharmonia to the Bridgewater Hall in April 2011, Mahler 1 plus Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Superb music-making and the orchestra looked as though they were enjoying it too. He looked exceptionally sprightly for an 80 year old - at least ten years younger in looks and movements.

[Petrushka]

More sad news. Maazel's interpretations divided opinion on here and elsewhere but there's no denying his importance as a conductor. I only saw him three times and the final occasion was at last year's Proms in an account of Bruckner 8 with the Vienna Philharmonic that I liked a good deal more than others.

His early Decca recordings of the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky symphonies are justifiably praised as landmarks but the one single recording that stands head and shoulders above all else he did is the Prokofiev complete Romeo and Juliet with the Cleveland Orchestra as already mentioned by Caliban.

RIP Lorin Maazel.

[Honoured Guest]

Lorin Maazel 1930-2014

When I saw this, I thought it was the first half of a Live in Concert.

Yes, RIP, but 84's not young. Tommy Ramone was only 65.

[Nick Armstrong]

- and the Ravel operas, too.

How could I forget that classic 'L'Enfant....', few if any other readings get it so right.

Also his performance of the Left-hand Concerto remains arguably the best and most trenchant, with Collard, imo.

[Dave2002]

Very sad to read about this. I saw him conduct a few years ago at the Proms - and it was a good concert. His early Sibelius recordings were excellent, and I'm also very partial to his recording of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess - which is as good as Rattle's - http://www.amazon.com/Porgy-Bess-G-G.../dp/B000SSPKZ4

I'd hoped we'd see him again.

[Richard Tarleton]

Many concerts in the 1970s then intermittently over the years, up to Bruckner 8 last year. My most vivid memory was that notorious Mahler 2 in 1972 when the offstage horns failed to come in....but many others, including Sibelius in the RFH, and a lovely concert of Bach, Mozart and Mendelssohn in Cardiff with a cut-down VPO (one coachload, we reckoned) in 2002. I also remember a prickly interview with John Amis, who tried to wind him up over his violin-playing. Probably the most elegantly dressed maestro I ever clapped eyes on

RIP

[Roehre]

His Sibelius with the Vienna PO [Decca] and his l'Enfant et les sortilèges [DGG] are the recordings through which I encountered these works, and which IMO are really excellent (perhaps Sibelius 5 a point of discussion) and are a corner stone in my collection.
I also had a full bodied Prague with RSO Berlin [Philips], which had a drive compariable with the HIPPerformances.

He clashed terribly with the Concertgebouw [screaming to a violist: Don't laugh, you aren't good enough to laugh], but after some decades he eventually was invited again to conduct Mahler.

RIP Lorin Maazel

[bluestateprommer]

There's a hefty obit in the NYT for Maazel:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/arts/music/lorin-maazel-brilliant-intense-and-enigmatic-conductor-dies-at-84.html?ref=music&_r=0

I think that there's a line in Donald Rosenberg's history of The Cleveland Orchestra that summed up Maazel's tenure there, more or less:

"It was a bad marriage - but it worked!"

Only saw him live once, in NYC, a program of Honegger, Rach 1 (with Stephen Hough - thought I sensed some personality clashes there), and the complete Daphnis. Not the most scintillating concert I've ever gone to, but so it goes. On recordings, I most recently heard his Porgy and Bess for the first time, and I was quite impressed. I have his Cleveland recording of the complete Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, which is also excellent, as elsewhere here noted.

It's kind of eerie that now twice this year, we've had major conductors announce a sudden retirement or cutback, and then....well..... The first was Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, and now Lorin Maazel. Condolences to his family.

[teamsaint]

Well it rather throws that recent Alpensinfonie at the RFH into sharper focus.


RIP