Alan Gilbert to leave NY Philharmonic in 2017

[LeMartinPecheur]

Why are there so many brilliant pianists and violinists and not nearly enough decent conductors to go round?

Perhaps because practising stick-waving at home doesn't really help much??

[Flosshilde]

Well, this is a surprise. Now we can add the NY Phil to the list of orchestras searching for music directors / chief conductors:

(1) BBC SSO
(2) Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
(3) CBSO
(4) LSO
(5) NY Philharmonic

The BBCSSO isn't looking for a new Chief Conductor; it's already got one - Thomas Dausgaard

[bluestateprommer]

For anyone interested, the text of Alan Gilbert's RPS lecture from this week is at this link. In addition to plugging his own orchestra and putting in some nice words for various US and UK ensembles, it is curious to read a paragraph about what SSR asked AG apparently to "bring to Berlin" as a guest. Hopefully this isn't foreshadowing of May 11 in Berlin.

The BBCSSO isn't looking for a new Chief Conductor; it's already got one - Thomas Dausgaard

True at the time of your post, yes, but not when I wrote that version of the updated list . That aside, here's the updated list of orchestras looking for conductors now:

1. Berlin Philharmonic
2. CBSO
3. Milwaukee Symphony
4. National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC)
5. New Jersey Symphony
6. New York Philharmonic
7. Orchestre de Paris
8. San Diego Symphony

[bluestateprommer]

From one recent review, I wonder if Manfred Honeck might jump a spot or two in the queue of candidates to take over the New York Philharmonic:

"A modest man with immoderate talent, he inspires a rare concentration in these players. In Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, he coaxed a sound much closer to the deep, golden hue of the Vienna Philharmonic — in which he was a violist from 1986 and 1992 — than the glossier, glassier tone this orchestra usually exudes...

Familiar repertoire or not, I haven’t often walked away from a Philharmonic concert thinking so hard, pondering what an interpretation meant. Clearly inspired, and despite his protests, the orchestra refused to let Mr. Honeck get away without a solo bow. Read into that, and the unanimity of its applause, what you will."

Alex Ross on his blog commented in this post, having seen the same concert as David Allen:

"Honeck seems to be on the radar for the music-director search; so is Jaap van Zweden, a somewhat relentlessly hammering conductor who strikes me as Solti lite. If the choice were between those two, I'd vote for Honeck. He is a true musician."

[AjAjAjH]

[QUOTE=Petrushka;466806) the Beethoven 9 the following night was awful.[/QUOTE]

Isn't it always? I never have understood why this symphony and Missa Solemnis are held up as iconic works by the great LVB.

Beethoven 7

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, the "iconic" status of the two works is easily demonstrated, AjAjAjH - every composer and Musician of any standing for the fifty years (and more) after the two works were written regarded them as works of the very highest standing - paradigms to be emulated, even. And they are incontestably by LvB.

I'll need a little more time, and a few more words, to explore why they're held up as masterpieces demonstrating the greatest achievement of which the human imagination is capable ...