Mariss Jansons 1943 - 2019

[BBMmk2]

Mariss Jansons has died.

[Petrushka]

Mariss Jansons 1943 - 2019

The death has been announced of Mariss Jansons after a long standing heart condition.

https://slippedisc.com/2019/12/deep-sadness-mariss-jansons-has-died/

[cloughie]

https://slippedisc.com/2019/12/deep-sadness-mariss-jansons-has-died/

Many well loved recordings, and I think very much a forum favourite and part of learning his trade was with the then BBCWSO. It puts an interesting perspective on age, I remember seeing his father Arvid conducting the Halle and the LenPO at Sheffield City Hall 50 years ago.
RIP Mariss.

[DracoM]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Petrushka]

https://slippedisc.com/2019/12/deep-...sons-has-died/

Many well loved recordings, and I think very much a forum favourite and part of learning his trade was with the then BBCWSO. It puts an interesting perspective on age, I remember seeing his father Arvid conducting the Halle and the LenPO at Sheffield City Hall 50 years ago.
RIP Mariss.

I, too, saw Arvid Jansons conduct the Halle both in Stoke on Trent and Manchester in 1978 but Mariss was one of the few conductors I would make a special effort to see, especially at the Proms. I met him just the once after a Barbican Shostakovich Leningrad with the RCO but the most unforgettable concert I heard him give was of that very same symphony in a blistering performance with the St Petersburg PO in Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

Remember also that BRSO Heldenleben when the stage lights went off during the battle scene and both orchestra and conductor carried on regardless.

All of his Proms I attended whether with the Pittsburgh SO, Oslo PO, RCO or the BRSO were special events. RIP Mariss Jansons.

[doversoul1]

Rip

[Nick Armstrong]

It puts an interesting perspective on age, I remember seeing his father Arvid conducting the Halle and the LenPO at Sheffield City Hall 50 years ago.
RIP Mariss.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing as I saw Arvid conduct Rachmaninov’s 2nd with the Leningrad Phil in a snowy Leningrad in 1982, unforgettable.

Not sure I ever saw Mariss live, come to think of it... but many of his recordings on the shelf.

Another great gone. The world is a poorer place after the past week or so

[LMcD]

Yes, I was thinking the same thing as I saw Arvid conduct Rachmaninov’s 2nd with the Leningrad Phil in a snowy Leningrad in 1982, unforgettable.

Not sure I ever saw Mariss live, come to think of it... but many of his recordings on the shelf.

Another great gone. The world is a poorer place after the past week or so

Sadly true.

[richardfinegold]

I was friends with Ken Melzer, who was the Public Spokesperson for the Pittsburgh Symphony and currently reviews recordings in Fanfare Magazine, when Pittsburgh had just hired Jansons in the nineties. I was shocked when he told me that MJ had just had a massive heart attack prior to his hiring and that he had an implantable defibrillator placed. They were relatively new then, and the patients that had them had life expectancies of one year. It is amazing that he lived so much longer, accomplished as much as he did, with the Axe of Damocles hanging over him.

[Old Grumpy]

I was friends with Ken Melzer, who was the Public Spokesperson for the Pittsburgh Symphony and currently reviews recordings in Fanfare Magazine, when Pittsburgh had just hired Jansons in the nineties. I was shocked when he told me that MJ had just had a massive heart attack prior to his hiring and that he had an implantable defibrillator placed. They were relatively new then, and the patients that had them had life expectancies of one year. It is amazing that he lived so much longer, accomplished as much as he did, with the Axe of Damocles hanging over him.

"Axe of Damocles"?

Sounds like a heavy metal band...



... I'll get my cape.

OG

[HighlandDougie]

Orchestras always seemed to enjoy playing for him: I attended various of his concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, London Symphony and the Concertgebouw in a wide range of music. Stand-outs were a Mahler 3rd with the Concertgebouw (when the 5 minute pause between 1st and 2nd movements never seemed more needed - I had worried that he might peg out during the performance) and a Barbican concert with the Bavarians in 2017 (Prokofiev, DSCH and Rachmaninov). Great legacy of fine recordings (I treasure his 'War Requiem'). RIP.

[bluestateprommer]

More tributes to Jansons:
* Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra official statement
* Bavarian Radio article
* Gramophone
* Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
* ORF

[pastoralguy]

Very sad news.

RIP, Maestro.

[mathias broucek]

I’ll never forget hearing him at the Proms with the BBC Welsh. They played out of their skins.

I later had some lessons with the principal trombone who went misty eyed at the memory of Jansons.