Next please: who will be chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic?
Created: 05/18/2022, 17:00
By: Markus Thiel
Orchestra without top: With the choice of chief, the Munich Philharmonic could complete their reinvention.
© Judith Buss
Who will succeed Valery Gergiev in the Munich Philharmonic?
A few names literally come to mind - all conductors who are guests in the Isarphilharmonie these weeks.
It's a show running and conducting. How short-term it seems and yet - due to the longer-term season planning and stand-in solutions for Valery Gergiev - it's more of a coincidence.
Because whoever becomes the chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and thus the successor to the ousted Russian: the probability is very high that the name can be found among these lecterners who are currently guest performers with the orchestra.
Basically, the Philharmoniker see themselves in a comfortable position.
They have already tried all possible heirs to the throne.
However, the orchestra (and with it the political decision-making level) would have to refrain from one thing: buying fame again, and doing so with expensive stars whose names suggest renown, but who never developed a family bond with the ensemble or the audience.
This affected James Levine, Lorin Maazel, and ultimately also Gergiev, who did support his Philharmonic Orchestra, but – even before the Ukraine war – was never loved on the Isar like Mariss Jansons was with the BR Symphony Orchestra.
Gergiev legacy: Two conductors are almost automatically targeted
The most important figure in the current transitional period is Philharmoniker director Paul Müller.
The city mothers and fathers leave the search to him due to a lack of their own competence.
It was Müller, however, who pushed Gergiev through with the orchestra at the time - although there were already critical voices at the time because of the star's lack of suitability.
As the successor to Putin's friend, two colleagues are automatically targeted.
One,
Klaus Mäkelä
, will be back in mid-June.
The 26-year-old is one of the most highly traded younger conductors, as his posts alone show.
The Finn is music director at the Orchester de Paris and chief conductor of the Philharmonic in Oslo.
Which means: He is not (yet) free – or he would at least have to give up an office.
In conversations about Mäkelä, even veteran musicians (also from other orchestras) get into raptures: Such talent only appears every few happy years.
The same applies to colleague
Krzysztof Urbański
.
The 39-year-old will be conducting the Philharmonic again at the end of June.
What also makes the Pole, who was principal guest conductor at the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, interesting: He currently has no chief post after leaving the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
The city would have to “strike” all the faster if it wanted to prevent another ensemble from getting there first.
What both conductors have in common (even if they are 13 years apart) is that they belong to a younger, different generation of podium men: stylistically polyglot, curious, with a broad repertoire from Viennese classicism to the modern and at the same time open to new mediation channels, as far as so-called e-music is concerned.
This is precisely what is urgent for the Munich Philharmonic, as they are reinventing themselves in the interim venue Isarphilharmonie.
This, for example, with unusual concert formats that attract other classes of audience (which is already becoming apparent) and to which an old-school lecterner only fits to a limited extent.
Above all, the Munich Philharmonic could offer a real, fresh alternative to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Management problems have caused it to falter and it continues to rely on high-priced (old) stars when it comes to conductors, just think of the future boss Sir Simon Rattle.
Daniele Gatti
also falls a bit into this category
.
The Italian was on the podium in Munich and accompanied the Philharmoniker on a short tour to Hamburg and Paris - both times standing in for Gergiev.
Although Gatti is the music director of the Roman Opera, the 60-year-old's strengths lie in the symphonic, and here in the large romantic repertoire.
So he is not necessarily an innovator.
And another malus: his hasty farewell to the Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam and the associated #MeToo allegations have never been publicly clarified.
Gatti seems to be squinting at the head of the Staatskapelle Dresden at the moment.
The only question is whether he is also welcome there as the successor to Christian Thielemann among all Saxon decision-makers.
Tugan Sokhiev as anti-Gergiev
Tugan Sokhiev offers
a seductive solution, combined with a special point
.
As is well known, the Russian has just resigned from his posts at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchester du Capitole de Toulouse.
The 44-year-old never attracted attention because of his closeness to Putin.
He was all the more annoyed that he was required to publicly distance himself.
"The fact that anyone could question my commitment to peace and think that as a musician I could ever stand up for anything other than peace on our planet is shocking and insulting," he said.
His case in particular shows the consequences of the currently rampant tests of attitude.
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Sokhiev stepped in with the Munich Philharmonic a few weeks ago.
Here, too, it was noticeable what an outstanding conductor is at work.
His advantage right now: He is not a chief post, so he could easily move to the top of the ensemble without much delay.
And he would be a kind of anti-Gergiev, precisely because of the career break that he openly discussed and promoted.