NATIONAL REVIEW
JULY 23, 2001

MERE EXCELLENCE
by Jay Nordlinger



LAST month, Kurt Masur finished his second-to-the-last season with the New York Philharmonic; by this time next year, he will be gone-and that's a shame. Since he became music director in 1991, Masur has made this orchestra one of the mightiest in the world, restoring a glory that had been lost. Yet he has been grossly underappreciated here, by his own management, his own players, and the city's critics. They are giving him the bum's rush-a situation that is little less than perverse.

One forgets how bad the Philharmonic really was when Masur came to town; this forgetting, moreover, is part of the general ingratitude where this conductor is concerned. Under Zubin Mehta, the orchestra was a shambles, not necessarily because of Mehta's own failings, but because the orchestra, a notoriously fickle and petulant lot, were unwilling to play for him. The Philharmonic was really something of a joke; other orchestras-and not just first-tier ones-were playing rings around them.

But then came the sturdy maestro from Leipzig. As Rudolph Giuliani led a renaissance in the city at large-over approximately these same years-Kurt Masur led a renaissance at Avery Fisher Hall. Gone were the sloppiness and apathy of former times; in were discipline, consistency, and vitality. The Philharmonic was now no joke, but a formidable band, able to hold its head high. This did not happen by accident; it happened because Masur made the group work like dogs, and insisted on proper standards-standards necessary for mere respectability, to say nothing of glory.

And yet Philharmonic folk had various complaints and quibbles, never fully explained but probably all trivial, when not outright invalid. That's when they went to give him the bum's rush: They wanted him to leave in 1998, but the conductor, duly appalled, balked, and worked out an extension of his contract through the 2001-02 season. Even with this grace period, his exit is hasty and shabby; Masur is not yet through with the orchestra, musically. Over the last couple of seasons, he and they have been better than ever, hitting a kind of stride, producing some truly memorable performances (to go with the more ordinary ones). Worse yet, the orchestra is not exactly trading up, to put it as mildly as I can: Next on the podium is Lorin Maazel. How this came about is a tale unto itself, to be left, perhaps, for another day.

The knocks against Masur? They are several, and all dumb. The first is that, at 73, he is too old. Yet age is far from a handicap in the conducting field, most maestros needing a ripening. Some of the greatest conductors of the past (and, for that matter, present) have done their best work in their seventies, or even beyond. White hair is usually a reassurance on the podium. Besides which, Lorin Maazel is 71-and his own problems have nothing to do with his date of birth.

Then it is claimed that the New York Philharmonic ought to have an American conductor. This wish, if anything, is dumber than that for youth. The notion that an American should conduct an American orchestra-or a German a German orchestra-is foreign to the ideals and reality of music. (And need I mention chat most of the critics wanting, or demanding, an American would no doubt shudder at nativism, or even too conspicuous a patriotism, in any other context?) Orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic are not "American orchestras"; they are orchestras on American soil, but given over to the service of music, nationality quite aside. Sure, the New York Philharmonic may play more Copland than the French National Orchestra, and the French National Orchestra may play more Roussel than the New York Philharmonic-but this is a question of a little flavoring, nothing more serious. A conductor, anyway, should be able to conduct music of any sort, even if he has an affinity or two. Think, too, of the orchestral past in America: Szell in Cleveland, Reiner in Chicago, Stokowski and Ormandy in Philadelphia, Munch in Boston, Walter in New York-did all those foreigners do any harm? Was their leadership such an affront?

Well, the flag-wavers got their American in Lorin Maazel: yet no one would mistake him for, say, Huckleberry Finn. Not only was this conductor born in France, spending his first few years there, he has had as international a career and life as anyone in the business, or any business. Frankly, I myself had never really thought of Maazel as an American until Philharmonic brass (management, that is, not trombonists) started trumpeting him as a native son. Said the executive director, when announcing him, "He is an American, and this is the oldest American orchestra." Accurate, but utterly irrelevant. And he's not an American, for heaven's sake, he's Lorin Maazel.

The very greatest rap against Kurt Masur is that he has not programmed enough contemporary music, that he is wedded to the standard works of the Central European repertory. It simply cannot be overstated how much critics-particularly those of the New York Times-value the showcasing of contemporary music. At times, this seems their only concern, their highest criterion. It is practically a daily obsession. In ways both bald and subtle, they mark down those who program the old-the musical equivalent of Matthew Arnold's "best that has been thought and said"-and praise those who will roll out the new. The surest way for a conductor to curry favor with critics is to go modern; the surest way to irk them is to throw at them a Schumann symphony, no matter how well performed it is.

One passage may serve to illustrate the mentality. It comes from Allan Kozinn, a Times critic and a very sharp one. In May, he reviewed a Philharmonic concert that offered Schoenberg, Beethoven, Debussy, and Ravel. Wrote Kozinn, "Schoenberg was represented by his 'Accompaniment to a Film Scene' (Op. 34), a piece that lasts a mere eight minutes, or less than half the duration of the intermission. True, the orchestra opened its program with it; but there was a clear sense of getting it out of the way and getting on with the good stuff." You see here that it's hard for the Philharmonic to win. A conductor is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't-and this is quite apart from the fact that Schoenberg's music is now squarely mainstream (and not terribly "contemporary," some of it being a hundred years old).

To make matters worse, the charge against Masur-that he eschews contemporary music-is not even true. He programs plenty of contemporary music, more, it would seem to me, than is required for polities' sake. The season before last, he conducted works by-count 'em, now-Kernis, Ades, Corigliano, Saariaho, Lutoslawski, Satoh, Henze, Kancheli, Marsalis, Rihm, and Liebermann. Last season, he led works by Sheng, Henze (again), Paulus, Gubaidulina, Danielpour, Kalhor, and Matthus. Next season, he will give premieres of music by Botti, Dun, and Turrin. These are not exactly-how to put it?-canonical names. Masur is clearly doing his "duty."

But his critics are never satisfied, because impossible to satisfy. When Masur does give them something contemporary, they are churlish-examples abound. One has to pity the conductor: He goes to the trouble of offering a large portion of contemporary dreck, and he gets no credit for it. He might as well stick to the masters if he's going to be tagged in any case as a Teutonic fuddy-duddy.

Ah, yes, fuddy-duddyism. A further slam against Masur is that he is not "hip" enough. Listen to Times critic Anthony Tommasini, writing in January: "The Philharmonic should consider younger, hipper, and preferably American candidates for music director." Remember that we are talking about the podium of the New York Philharmonic, not the manager's job of a trendy nightclub. With a mind to marketing possibilities, Tommasini wrote, "Imagine an enormous poster of [the long-haired Californian] Kent Nagano, outside Avery Fisher Hall," radiating the conductor's "youthful charisma, lithe physique and cool mane." Again, this is music we are talking about, and one of the world's most important symphonic posts. The critic then popped the name of Marin Alsop: "Her breaking of the gender barrier alone would totally transform the image of classical music in America." Thinking like this will sink the chances of a conductor such as Kurt Masur, who can only offer ability, wisdom, and excellence.

The maestro's final concert of the recently concluded season was the kind that drives his critics nuts: all Strauss, consisting of that composer's three great tone poems and the Four Last Songs. The performances were typical of Masur at his best: tasteful, intelligent, bracing. Although the music was familiar, the playing was fresh and inspiring. My main thought was: This tenure really should not end; it's foolish, even mean. And also: What a bunch of ingrates. First-rate performances of the standard repertory are not a dime a dozen; in fact, they are quite rare, and not to be taken for granted. Masur has perhaps spoiled New York.

They will be sorry, I predict. As so often happens in human affairs, Masur will probably be better appreciated after he has gone. An orchestra, like a city after a rescuing mayor, can go backward. At the moment, the Philharmonic is making up, falling all over itself in tribute to its hounded-out chief. They are billing the next, the final season as one of "Thank you, Kurt Masur." They invite the public to come "celebrate the Masur era"-an era they are cutting short, to no good. NR