Kurt Masur died on 19.12.15

[Nick Armstrong]

1927 - 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/arts/music/kurt-masur-new-york-philharmonic-conductor-dies.html?_r=0

[Roehre]

Very, very sad news
A great loss to music, and we have mustn't forget that without him, there might have been a great bloodshed in 1989 and German Unification would have been much more difficult, with violence and likely a much later fall of the Berlin Wall

RIP Kurt Masur

[french frank]

Sad, another one gone I saw him only once, in Bristol 8 years ago with the ONF.

[Tevot]

Very, very sad news
A great loss to music, and we have mustn't forget that without him, there might have been a great bloodshed in 1989 and German Unification would have been much more difficult, with violence and likely a much later fall of the Berlin Wall

RIP Kurt Masur

Indeed - He played a great part in persuading the authorities in Leipzig in 1989 not to execute a "Chinese solution" as Honecker had ordered.

A good man

[Richard Tarleton]

As Roehre says....the obituary does get round to it eventually. Hopefully obits this side of the pond will start with his role in 1989. One of those musicians who also qualify as great human beings. Just a couple of sightings in my case - a Strauss 4 LS (with Flott)/Bruckner 4 in the RFH, and a Cardiff concert, both with th LPO.

[pastoralguy]

Very sad news. A great man and a great musician.

We heard him play Tchaikovsky 5 with the New York Philharmonic as part of the Edinburgh Festival. One of the most memorable concerts ever.

RIP.

[Keraulophone]

A great humanitarian and peacemaker, as musicians so often are, he gave moving performances of Britten's War Requiem.

His time at the Leipzig Gewandhaus is fondly remembered, with classics like the Beethoven Overtures, R Strauss with Jessye Norman and many works of Gewandhauskapellmeister Mendelssohn.

RIP

[Petrushka]

Concerts of his that stay in the memory are Proms with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the LPO and NYPO and also with the NYPO and Leipzigers in Symphony Hall, Birmingham. A couple of Beethoven Choral performances remain firmly in the memory. He had an idiosyncratic way of conducting, never used a baton and looked a big bear of a man on the podium. I could never make out a beat but he got good results however it was achieved. Roehre rightly mentions his role in 1989.

RIP Kurt Masur

[Black Swan]

Music has suffered the loss of a great man. He single handedly saved the NYPO after years of decline. We will not see his kind again. His knowledge and humanity went far beyond the concert hall.

RIP Kurt Masur

[Beef Oven!]

RIP

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

RIP

[Petrushka]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/ar...dies.html?_r=0

That's a wonderful and beautifully written obituary in the NY Times.

I recently acquired Masur's 1990s Leipzig Beethoven cycle and I think it's superb, one of the more under-rated cycles in the catalogue and a real find. One of the most memorable concert moments I recall was at a New York Philharmonic Prom when he sat on the conductor's rostrum tapping his feet away to 'Oh I can't sit down' from Porgy and Bess as an encore.

[bluestateprommer]

The Kurt Masur website has a guestbook for anyone who wants to share memories or send condolences to the Masur family:

http://www.kurtmasur.com/guestbook.htm

I only saw KM live once, in April 2000, leading JSB's St. John Passion, with Peter Schreier as the Evangelist. Perhaps PS' voice lost the bloom that I recalled from his records, but he had the part down cold, and acted up the Evangelist to the hilt, playing up the dramatic theatrical side of things. It was relatively big-band JSB that KM had led, but nothing turgid about it, paced quite well, and done without an intermission.

[Nick Armstrong]

That's a wonderful and beautifully written obituary in the NY Times.

With a feisty yet elegant New York boot aimed at Zubin Mehta (& Boulez) while she's at it...

[bluestateprommer]

Some more English-language tributes to KM:

Gramophone: http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classica...masur-has-died

The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...rmonic-dies-88

Deutsche Welle: http://www.dw.com/en/kurt-masur-cond...-88/a-18929857

I can cull some German articles later.

With a feisty yet elegant New York boot aimed at Zubin Mehta (& Boulez) while she's at it...

I do, however, want to note the semi-cheap shot that the NYT obit on KM takes at Boulez (the Mehta shot is more justified, IMHO), which was retro-rebutted by Zachary Woolfe in a review of a concert some months back:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/arts/music/review-a-pierre-boulez-tribute-eight-months-late.html

"This city has not done right lately by Pierre Boulez, who turned 90 in March. The New York Philharmonic — of which he was music director from 1971 to 1977, in a tenure now often criticized as recondite in its programming (untrue) and dire in its ticket sales (ditto) — did nothing to honor the birthday."

I'll try to address this last point in a separate thread on Boulez (there is an archived one that I'll revive), so as not to detract/distract this thread from honoring Kurt Masur.