Conductors who avoid certain composers....

[slarty]

Coming back to the first question, Celibidache avoided conducting any Mahler symphony his whole career, but championed Bruckner all his life.

[Pabmusic]

Karajan is said to have called Elgar's Enigma "second-rate Brahms". Which goes to show...

[Dave2002]

Which Petrenko do you mean? Kirill, who is GMD at the Bavarian State Opera or Vasily, the Liverpool fan?

Presumably Petrenko is a common name, so not related - perhaps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirill_Petrenko

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Karajan is said to have called Elgar's Enigma "second-rate Brahms". Which goes to show...

... that one shouldn't pay any attention to what people are "said to have" said? I've heard this Karajan attributation before, but I've never encountered it in any of the writings on/about/by the conductor. Rattle is reported to have told someone that he doesn't conduct Elgar in Berlin because the "general perception" there is that it's just "second-rate Brahms", so maybe it was an opinion held by Karajan.

Avctually, if he did believe this, it's peculiar that he should conduct and record Music by composers who would have given various limbs to produce a work that could be described as "second-rate Brahms": there are very, very few for whom the expression would be an insult!

[Pabmusic]

... that one shouldn't pay any attention to what people are "said to have" said? I've heard this Karajan attributation before, but I've never encountered it in any of the writings on/about/by the conductor. Rattle is reported to have told someone that he doesn't conduct Elgar in Berlin because the "general perception" there is that it's just "second-rate Brahms", so maybe it was an opinion held by Karajan.

Avctually, if he did believe this, it's peculiar that he should conduct and record Music by composers who would have given various limbs to produce a work that could be described as "second-rate Brahms": there are very, very few for whom the expression would be an insult!

Agree wholeheartedly!

[Suffolkcoastal]

I meant Petrenko the Liverpool fan of course.

The 'second-rate Brahms' comment I've never really understood, other than the Berliners must hear Elgar completely differently than what we do. Schumann and Dvorak one can hear, and Brahms provides the link, so perhaps that is what they hear. Elgar's stylistic origins though are through composers such as S S Wesley and John Goss. Anyway that could be the subject of another thread.

Another possibly interesting area is which of the well known conductors have dabbled in conducting opera and which largely avoid it. I may be wrong but those who do dabble opera only seem to do so with a very small number of works.

[pastoralguy]

... that one shouldn't pay any attention to what people are "said to have" said? I've heard this Karajan attributation before, but I've never encountered it in any of the writings on/about/by the conductor. Rattle is reported to have told someone that he doesn't conduct Elgar in Berlin because the "general perception" there is that it's just "second-rate Brahms", so maybe it was an opinion held by Karajan.

:

Mmm, that would be me. I did speak to Sir Simon at an EIF concert where his wife was giving a recital and, when asked by me whether he would be conducting Elgar with the Berlin Philharmonic replied that his perception of Elgar in Berlin was that the Berlin players and audiences simply "preferred" Brahms to Elgar, although some saw it (Elgar) as being second rate Brahms. However, the Berliners did appreciate the 'Enigma Variations' and the 'cello concerto.

And I don't like the implication that I've somehow made this story up.

[cloughie]

Rattle is reported to have told someone that he doesn't conduct Elgar in Berlin because the "general perception" there is that it's just "second-rate Brahms", so maybe it was an opinion held by Karajan.

If that is the case it is very sad - Rattle should be using the Berlin sound to produce glowing Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst and others - is he in Berlin to give more of what they already have - Mahler, Brahms, Beethoven and the like or to mix a bit of sterling with the euros! As I remarked earlier Abbado shamefully avoided British music whilst at the LSO.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And I don't like the implication that I've somehow made this story up.

Sincere apologies, pg - I didn't intend such an implication (although it does look like that): the winkeye was aimed at myself, intended to show that I was aware that I was doing exactly what I'd just said we shouldn't do; give accounts about what people are reported to have said without giving the source. Absolutely no mischief or bad will was intended: had I remembered that you had made the comment I would have said so - there was absolutely no reason to suggest that I didn't believe the comment, or wished to discredit it, as it was supporting my point that there was no direct account connecting Karajan to the "second-rate Brahms" jibe. I envy your opportunity to chat with Sir Simon in such circumstances.

[pastoralguy]

[Suffolkcoastal]

I think there is an interesting point in the above discussions, is it always the conductor's fault that they don't record or conduct certain repertoire and is it sometimes that some orchestras and managers actively resist playing anything outside their core repertoire? To be honest I would have hated to be a player in something like the Vienna Philharmonic, with its very narrow repertoire and the Berliner's, though it has widened somewhat is still not that extensive.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The 'second-rate Brahms' comment I've never really understood, other than the Berliners must hear Elgar completely differently than what we do. Schumann and Dvorak one can hear, and Brahms provides the link, so perhaps that is what they hear. Elgar's stylistic origins though are through composers such as S S Wesley and John Goss.

I wonder whether the perceived Brahms connection with Elgar has anything to do with then thematic similarity between the finales of Brahms 3 and Elgar 1. Elsewhere the similarities are few. Perhaps Parry's orchestration was similar to Brahms's, and Elgar was influenced by Parry, but that isn't much to go on. As for Karajan's jibe - well, HvK generally stuck to what he considered as core repertoire - good for him - he did that well.

[slarty]

As for English composers performed by the BPO -
Karajan exercised total control over the BPO during his tenure, but he never interfered with the concert programming of Barbirolli when he made his annual visits from 1961 to 1970.
He performed Vaughan-Williams Symphonies 5 & 8 and the Tallis, Walton's Viola Concerto with Cappone (orchestra principal) as soloist and Elgar's Enigma, Intro & Allegro and the Cello Concerto during his time there. Had he lived longer he may well have ultimately performed one of the Elgar Symphonies there, as he did almost everywhere else he guest conducted during those years.
Maybe Karajan felt that that was enough.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - and again, it's difficult to separate the concert repertoire of a conductor with their discographies because that's all they "do" posthumously, so to speak. The BPO, even with Karajan (who programmed Henze and Penderecki in concerts), had a wider repertoire than their recorded catalogue from the 60s - 80s.

[kea]

Boulez regards his refusal to have anything to do with Tchaikovsky as a badge of honour. It isn't.

Boulez has also refused to conduct Shostakovich, regarding him as a second-rate Mahler epigone; but then he is more a specialist than a generalist as far as conductors go: I don't know that he's done much with e.g. Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvořák—to name a few. His repertoire seems limited to a chosen corner around 1890-1930 + himself.

I don't follow conductors enough to know which of the others listed here are also specialists in certain areas. For many conductors, for instance, a failure to conduct the Vaughan Williams symphonies is not a particularly shocking omission—they're little played outside the UK—but for a conductor who specialises in British music it would indeed be a surprise.