The music-making of Stanisław Skrowaczewski

[AjAjAjH]

I am very much looking forward to next year's Halle concerts - and the BBC Philharmonic's.

On March 14th, Stanislaw Skrowaczwski is to conduct a programme of Lutoslawski and Shostakovich. Skrowaczewski was the Principal conductor of The Halle who did a great deal to increase my musical knowledge and appreciation during his time in Manchester. He will be 89 in October this year, by far the oldest conductor that I will ever have ever seen conduct. He last conducted The Halle in the 2009/10 season when he was 86.

Have any posters seen a conductor older than this and who is the oldest conductor you have seen?

[Roslynmuse]

SS did Brahms 1 and Wagner Tannhauser Overture in the Halle 2009/10 season, if I remember correctly.

[AjAjAjH]

SS did Brahms 1 and Wagner Tannhauser Overture in the Halle 2009/10 season, if I remember correctly.

I think he did those at the Opus 1 concerts. I attended the Thursday Series Concert - Beethoven 3rd Piano Concerto (Ashley Wass - I think)
Shostakovich 10th Symphony.
To perform these concerts he travelled over Europe in a taxi because of the Icelandic Volcano gounding so many planes.

[Roslynmuse]

I think he did those at the Opus 1 concerts.

That would be right - I went on a Sunday evening.

[Stanfordian]

I am very much looking forward to next year's Halle concerts - and the BBC Philharmonic's.

On March 14th, Stanislaw Skrowaczwski is to conduct a programme of Lutoslawski and Shostakovich. Skrowaczewski was the Principal conductor of The Halle who did a great deal to increase my musical knowledge and appreciation during his time in Manchester. He will be 89 in October this year, by far the oldest conductor that I will ever have ever seen conduct. He last conducted The Halle in the 2009/10 season when he was 86.

Have any posters seen a conductor older than this and who is the oldest conductor you have seen?

Hiya AjAjAjH,

I attend most BBC Philharmonic, Halle Orchestra and Manchester Camerata concerts at the Bridgewater Hall. I will also be there for Stanislaw Skrowaczewski's return in March 2013; especially as I enjoying hearing Lutoslawski and Shostakovich in the concert hall. From the prospective of a mere audiance member I was going to the Free Trade Hall regularly for Halle concerts in those days and I felt he was much and unfairly maligned during his tenure with the Halle. I would never have guessed until I just checked that he was born in 1923.

The oldest conductor I saw was Lorin Maazel at the Bridgewater last season in April 2011 conducting the Philharmonia in an all-Mahler concert. As you probably already know starting this 2012/13 season maestro Lorin Maazel became the new chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic in place of Christian Thielemann. This seems pretty old for a new contract as Maazel was born on March 6, 1930. Good luck to him he certainly conducted Mahler marvellously well at the Bridgewater Hall.

[Barbirollians]

I am afraid I found many of his performances with the Halle very uninspiring in the 1980s when I was a season ticket holder at Sheffield City Hall but the orchestra was rather in the doldrums then . Martin Milner was getting old and there were all too few young faces amongst the players

[Roslynmuse]

The oldest conductor I saw was Lorin Maazel at the Bridgewater last season in April 2011 conducting an all-Mahler concert. As you probably already know starting this 2012/13 season maestro Lorin Maazel became the new chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic in place of Christian Thielemann. This seems pretty old for a new contract as Maazel was born on March 6, 1930. Good luck to him he certainly conducted Mahler marvellously well at the Bridgewater Hall.

I was there for that concert - he certainly did not look an octagenarian! Although his gestures were minimal they were fluid and well under control; the music-making was vital and powerful. The only disappointments were the relatively short measure (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Symphony No 1) and the singer (whose name I forget but whose vibrato I haven't, unfortunately...)

Back to SS - I heard him do a magnificent Mahler 2 at the old Free Trade Hall in Feb 1984; a repeat performance in Jan 1990 (a night of extremely high winds, I seem to recall) didn't quite live up to that and I think somewhere between the two concerts the orchestra had lost its way. When Kent Nagano arrived in Sept 1992 he raised standards but the music-making itself became clinical; whenever SS came back as a guest I sensed the orchestra realising what they had been missing - there was an incandescent Tchaikovsky 5 in Oct 1995 (final season at the FTH) when the orchestra played out of its collective skin.

[jayne lee wilson]

The music-making of Stanisław Skrowaczewski

After last night's wonders from Glasgow a programme one might describe as "Reveries and Passions of Youth"...

Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 in D Minor
Bruckner, orch Skrowaczewski Adagio (String Quintet)
Shostakovich Symphony No.1

Garrick Ohlson is the soloist in the Brahms. Skrowaczewski is still only 89!

(They're coming thick and fast now, so keep the flame alive here on Performance! Next week ain't bad either...)

[BBMmk2]

He is still going eh? Goodness!Good on him!!the programme llooks alright too!!

[Vile Consort]

Still going? Why not? Francis Jackson is still giving organ recitals at the age of 95!

[jayne lee wilson]

Vivid impressions left by a rugged, almost granitic Brahms D Minor Piano Concerto, and the Bruckner adagio from his String Quintet - the LPO strings sounding as Germanically dark, sweet and full as ever - were swept aside by one of the most remarkable Shostakovich Firsts I've ever heard, live, broadcast or recorded.

Skrowaczewski lent a new stature to this symphony, broadening and deepening the musical argument, both through subtle variation of tempo and a refusal to dash headlong into its climaxes. He never let any expressive detail pass without making its full effect. The longer violin and cello solos were especially eloquent, a lamenting prophecy of the suffering that lay ahead for Shostakovich and so many others. The maestro encouraged a greater weight and breadth of tone than we usually hear in the climaxes of this symphony, which is often given a rather fleet, snarling, even waspish character. Well, not here. Our 89-year- old hero presented it as a fully achieved tragic masterpiece. (But how on earth did an 18-year-old DSCH achieve it?)

The epic struggles of the Brahms concerto's outer movements did seem rather hard work at times, with Ohlsson's pianism just a shade stiff and monumental, even a little anonymous in the lengthier paragraphs; but the great adagio was a heartfelt release, sung out passionately, truly an eleison for his friend Schumann.
Conductor and orchestra matched their soloist's craggy, monumental approach with a massive, rough-hewn view of the work's peaks; again, one might have wished for a little more lyricism in softer passages, but the direction of the performance was sure and consistent, with great impact. That opening timpani roll really made me jump!

The Bruckner Adagio looked a makeweight; not in this performance, an offering of benign calm to those psychological dramas on either side.

The R3 sound on HD-hi was as fine as usual, conveying clearly the varying orchestral palette the orchestra developed for each piece.
One oddity - a persistent rumble, audible during the performance on several occasions. Kingsway Hall was infamously (and on record, audibly) subject to such Cageian realities, but the RFH?

[Roslynmuse]

Did anyone go to last night's Hallé concert - the one that instigated this thread?

I was there, and a remarkable occasion it was too. Skrowaczewski himself - rather more gaunt, stooping than last time he was in Manchester, and a little less certain on his feet - gave amazingly vital performances of both the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra and Shostakovich 5; bright and brilliant orchestral playing when required (a little brash at times too, perhaps? Less so than in Gruber's BBC Phil Oedipus Rex the previous evening...) but some lovely, sensitive string playing in the Shostakovich, clear textures, total commitment from all on stage. The audience gave him a warm welcome at the start of the evening and a standing ovation at the end; and many queued for autographs (including members of the orchestra - what greater tribute?)

I was very glad to have been in the audience.

[amateur51]

Did anyone go to last night's Hallé concert - the one that instigated this thread?

I was there, and a remarkable occasion it was too. Skrowaczewski himself - rather more gaunt, stooping than last time he was in Manchester, and a little less certain on his feet - gave amazingly vital performances of both the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra and Shostakovich 5; bright and brilliant orchestral playing when required (a little brash at times too, perhaps? Less so than in Gruber's BBC Phil Oedipus Rex the previous evening...) but some lovely, sensitive string playing in the Shostakovich, clear textures, total commitment from all on stage. The audience gave him a warm welcome at the start of the evening and a standing ovation at the end; and many queued for autographs (including members of the orchestra - what greater tribute?)

I was very glad to have been in the audience.

That sounds to have been a remarkable evening, Roslynmuse - many thanks for your report

[scottycelt]

Did anyone go to last night's Hallé concert - the one that instigated this thread?

I was there, and a remarkable occasion it was too. Skrowaczewski himself - rather more gaunt, stooping than last time he was in Manchester, and a little less certain on his feet - gave amazingly vital performances of both the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra and Shostakovich 5; bright and brilliant orchestral playing when required (a little brash at times too, perhaps? Less so than in Gruber's BBC Phil Oedipus Rex the previous evening...) but some lovely, sensitive string playing in the Shostakovich, clear textures, total commitment from all on stage. The audience gave him a warm welcome at the start of the evening and a standing ovation at the end; and many queued for autographs (including members of the orchestra - what greater tribute?)

I was very glad to have been in the audience.

I wasn't there but delighted to hear Stan Skrow got a warm reception in Manchester, and the concert went so well, Roslynmuse!

I have nothing but happy memories of Stan's time at the Halle which I think has been grossly under-estimated. He has an international reputation (particularly in Bruckner) and only yesterday I watched him conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a recorded concert from the Digital Concert Hall. He got a standing ovation there as well.

He must be around 90 years old now so hardly surprising he is a bit unsteady on his feet ... we can all remember him bouncing onto the platform as a sprightly sexagenarian at the old Free Trade Hall!

A marvellous, modest man who has been around for so long he has so many interesting tales to relate about his experiences and the now legendary musicians he encountered in the process.

[amateur51]

A marvellous, modest man who has been around for so long he has so many interesting tales to relate about his experiences and the now legendary musicians he encountered in the process.

That's rather tantalising, scotty. Have you heard him telling these stories or do you think that he may be writing his memoirs?