Lorin Maazel, composer, conductor not only of mainstream repertoire and Vienna New Year concerts but of modern opera (premiered works by Tobias Picker and others), Zemlinsky (Lyric Symphony), Mercadante (flute concerto with Galway, BBC), - not the widest range I suppose but certainly not the narrowest among the (current or recent) well-known conductors; and a really good conductor - died today. Will be missed.
A great conductor indeed. Not universally admired: sometimes suspected of conducting 'for effect', at his best very few could come near his combination of vision and control.
And I was just reading an update on his health on Slippedisc. A huge loss - one of the last of his generation. His conducting ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, but what a musician! He didn't venture too often into obscure music, but he did bring us the first recording of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony. There are many recordings from him that are still tops:
Ravel, operas
Gershwin, Porgy and Bess
Prokofieff, Romeo and Juliet
Mahler, Symphonies 1, 3, 6 on Sony
Rimsky-Korsakov, Capriccio Espanola
Franck, Symphony (Berlin recording)
I met him almost 40 years ago when he was on tour with Cleveland. He was very congenial, warm and friendly, and I still have the program with his autograph. I really enjoy his opera 1984, although most people on this site don't. Too bad he never commercially recorded his symphony. RIP. You will be missed.
I clearly remember a broadcast performance of Maazel and the Cleveland Orchestra of Vincent D'Indy's Symphony No. 2. I thought for sure an LP was imminent. However, in those days (the 70s) rare repertoire didn't often appear from major orchestras under contract to major labels.A real missed opportunity.
Well, I guess that's why I sort-of hesitated posting about this- he didn't venture much into obscure Romantic music. I would demur about him not having ventured much into obscure music (words unqualified, though)- rather a bit of the modern repertoire, etc., that he performed still counts as lesser-known and under-played (especially in concerts in the USA) (undeservedly so in certain cases- in my opinion, of course.
(Hrm, just checked. I do have at least a recording or two or three of his (just looking to see what to listen to for an in memoriam, it seems appropriate), including, indeed, a premiere of a symphony by an American composer who was at the time in his 60s...
Nothing of his own music, though maybe some radio station somewhere might broadcast a little- wouldn't mind hearing a whole piece of his over the radio, see what it's like in small and large scale (a problem with one-minute samples, of course, is you only get the sound, not the structure, or anything else.) (Hrm. And a websearch shows a New World Records recording with Maazel conducting works by Druckman, A.R. Thomas, and others. Of course, again, not to all tastes- maybe not to mine either, maybe yes maybe no, will see if I can find it at the U library and give it a try- but - well, again, there's a different culture, I think, here in the US than there was in Britain decades back (and maybe still is too, judging from remarks I see) - there I gather staying safe is programming and recording modern things, here it isn't. Give or take and generalizing as one must in making, well, general statements.)
Mykulh- only irregularly now, too, it seems, though...
A conductor i respected rather than admired. Of all the things I've heard of his, I think I have a single recording: his Rite Of Spring with Cleveland O on Telarc, and that was more for the sound. He did do D'Indy's 2nd Symphony; I heard a broadcast and I thought it very fine.
My 1st Maazel was the Mahler Symphony No. 5. Never liked any other version afterwards!
My favourite Maazel is the double CD of the complete music of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.
Maazel made a movie, A Day in the Life of a Conductor, that is quite hilarious. I don't know if it's available for viewing. He had a great sense of humor, for sure.
I admired Maazel! In his younger years he was great, but once gone old rather boring and doing just routine. His complete Mahler Symphonies, although he was given the best orchestra for such a repertoire - counts amongst the most uninspired ones, alongside with that of Ozawa. Maazel's Decca recordings of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius are great; his Porgy and Bess too. With the Cleveland Orchestra he also did a great Respighi LP and the complete Romeo and Juliet ballet. Ther are also some earlier DGG LPs which are excellent and Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony with Fischer-Dieskau and his wife is my preferred version! On DGG he also did the Rachmaninov Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic - not a real revelation, but wonderfully played. On Telarc there is a wonderful version of Chausson's Concerto, op.21 for piano, violin and string quartet, in which Maazel plays the violin part and his former wife Israela Margalit the piano.
People tend to forget what a fine violinist he was. I used to own an LP of him playing and conducting (I think the Cleveland Orchestra) Mozart's 3rd and 5th concertos.
I never thought of Lorin Maazel as outstanding, when placed alongside the other great conductors. Most of his records were of 'mainstream' music that I already had, or preferred, conducted by someone else. That said, my only Maazel recording is the one of non-mainstream music by Lloyd-Webber, father and son, and it is stunningly good! :)
His Telarc/Cleveland Tchaikovsky 4 is still my favourite version. Superb control of dynamics in the first movement in particular - never heard the climaxes thrust home with such power. He was a bit of a magician in front of an orchestra, I feel.
I have in my collection a number of his Telarc LPs that I think very highly of. His "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Respighi "Rome" recordings were very good. His Sibelius cycle was good overall.
While living in NY, I had occasion to attend quite a few concerts he conducted. The performances were mostly routine, but occasionally, rarely, he'd be "on" and magic would happen.
One of my favorite of his performances, which I have on BluRay, is a live performance of his own compilation called "Wagner Without Words." I detest most concoctions of that sort, but I must say that his effort was coherent and a lot better than I expected. I actually listen to it. (Since I do not have enough hours remaining in my life to spend listening to the endless Wagnerian rambling operas, this highlights recording is just fine for me.)
I have the same BluRay. It's The Ring made into a tone poem transcendentally played by the BPO and effortlessly conjured into life by Maazel.
I attended to some ten -twelve concerts conducted by Maazel, with various orchestras. The programs were mostly mainstream (the rarest work, as far as I remember, was Tchaicovsky Manfred).
I have very strong memories of a concert with the Pittsburgh Orchestra and eight singers in which he conducted a selection of Porgy and Bess lasting about one and a half hour (of course "Porgy" without chorus loses much, but I had no better occasion).
QuoteI have the same BluRay. It's The Ring made into a tone poem transcendentally played by the BPO and effortlessly conjured into life by Maazel.
Yes, surprisingly effective.
I believe he became quite tired of the core repertoire over the years, which led to a lot of uninspired performances. It's too bad he didn't extend into less traveled territory musically to combat the ennui. I think he had the incisiveness and musical talent to breathe life into music, when it had his attention. I wish he had turned his eye toward the best of the unsung composers and given us some first rate recordings.
I believe that the rounded picture of Maazel is that he was extremely overrated. Every dog has his day as the adage goes, and he (like so many) had exceptional performances, but he was consistently inconsistent. I think he survived for years upon a reputation made too early and buoyed by the mystique of the child prodigy. More years spent purely as an instrumentalist would have been invaluable in the development of a more complete musician.
re extremely overrated- can't agree, though some of the rest of what you write makes sense to me.
No, definitely not extremely overrated. His recorded legacy is of too high a standard for that to be true.
I hear you; we are in the realm of opinion. I've just never heard a record of his that I really wanted to own, though among the many I've heard his Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet definitely stand out.
Franck Symphony, Tchaik 4, Saint-Saens 3, Wagner/Maazel Ring, Sibelius 4 & 7 (VPO), Bruckner cycle, Mahler 4, Gershwin Porgy & Bess are all superb. IMHO, of course.
In addition, it was Maazel who gave us the first, complete, uncut Tchaikovsky Manfred - still a rarity some 40+ years ago.
@mhaub, I am not so sure about that. The 1971 Svetlanov version and the 1965 Markevich versions are also complete. Will have the time to check this with the score only later on these days. Maazel recorded 28-30th of April, Svetlanov is given not precise dates. Only Svetlanov's 2 later versions of 1989 (Berlin PO) and 1992 (RFSO) are cut, unfortunately. As far as I remember, there was also an old Melodya version conducted by Khaikin, Ivanov or similar, which was complete. Just wonder when the Abravanel version was produced and whether the Goossens version is cut or not...
I think you're right. I should have remembered the Markevitch. Getting a Melodiya record back then in the USA was next to impossible.
Wasn't the Markevitch originally on Philips?
I like Maazel's brisk pace in some recordings. I have, e.g., a 13 minutes Boléro. He does a 10 minutes Boléro on Youtube, which is perhaps a bit too fast.
Bolero is one of those things Maazel's way with could raise serious questions about his taste. The ending on his RCA recording is bizarre to say the least - an uncalled for, and weird sounding change in tempo - so out of the norm. Up to then it was pretty good...
I still have his recording of Massenet's "Thais" which I adore.
I absolutely adore his premier recording of William S. Lloyd Webber's Tone Poem "Aurora" with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986; it's not as technically precise as the recording by Richard Hickox with the City of London Sinfonia in 1998, but the balance is much better and the phrasing is much smoother.
The Markevich Manfred was on Philips (I have the vinyl). Curiously his son, Oleg Caetani, cuts from the finale the "redemption" coda (like other conductors, for instance Temirkanov),
Russians may have strange ideas about "redemption"... Manfred would be a dangerous outsider in today's Russian politics, so let's have him be damned 8). This is joke, of course, since Caetani is all other than pro Putin.
This reminds me of the Bloshoi Theater tradition, making that in productions of "Boris Godunov", the conspirative role of Rangoni (who has to sing mangificent music) is always cut, even today. Today (as in the past) this would be explicable with Putin's "treators and political enemy" paranoia.
His recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition" on Telarc LP remains one of my favorites to this day. The performance and the audio are excellent.
Just re-listened to Maazel's 60's DGG recordings of Ravel's "L'enfant et les sortilèges" and "L'heure espagnole" with the Orchestre National of the ORTF.
Absolutely magnificent! And what a perfect cast, what great playing and super sonics!
His performances were erratic but thank goodness for that as it appears to me that if you have to repeat the same repertoire over and over you have to find different ways of approaching it. According to my London musician friends Maazel had a stick technique to admire and a brilliant mind. We won't see his like again I fear and his death leaves us with few greats of his generation still working. Haitink and the great and under rated Previn, long may they both live and continue to perform.
Just because he didn't perform mid-to-late-19th-century/first-decade-20th-century-slightly-dissonant-at-most* unsung repertoire doesn't mean he was sticking to Beethoven's 5th over and over again either. I sense a logic hole somewhere: he wasn't performing what we most treasure, so his repertoire, if not necessarily his way of approaching it, was boring. His list of premieres and fairly off-the-beaten-track works he performed was, near as I can tell anyway, actually rather interesting- just often outside of the range of, too late for, this forum (the occasional Mercadante work, etc., aside.)
*Yes, that's a deliberate caricature of this forum's rules - which strictly speaking not only Bax and Moeran** but even Liszt (and not only late Liszt) but others are well outside of...- but... well... just-a-little-sometimes I get a just-a-bit fed up. Apologies. Grumble...
**erm, don't get me started there.
"Overrated" is not a word I would use in reference to Lorin Maazel.
@Alberto (and apologies for pushing a slight OT point in this thread): IIRC Termirkanov didn't so much cut the Redemption finale as replace the entire coda by that of the first movement.
Let me now do some more rehabilitating work on Lorin Maazel: Apart from his wonderful Brahms Symphonies with the Cleveland on Decca (which are being re-issued right now on the bargain Reference series), there is a limited edition of live performances of Brahms' Symphonies, Overtures and Variations with the Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks - an absolute sensation! It's on the Bayerische Rundfunk's own label - and very difficult to find. I haven't re-listened to this set for years, now I am totally enthusiastic. I dare to say, in there, Maazel is a genius; these performances from 1998 are exciting and deep.
I recall watching an interview with Maazel where he stated that his favorite composer above all was Brahms. His Brahms symphony set with Cleveland is certainly well played and recorded and for the most part he conducts them well - but typical of Maazel he fails to let loose when the music really needs it. Like the finale of the 2nd where the coda can be utterly electrifying under some (Walter NYP), Maazel puts on the brakes pulling the tempo back and leaves me less than satisfied. It was risky recording Brahms with the Szell set not that old. Other than sound quality, Maazel offered nothing to challenge the older conductor. Maazel's German Requiem (Sony) was quite good, but Klemperer still is formidable competition.