Christian Thielemann scolds his audience!

[Dundonnell]

There was a lovely story in yesterday's 'Daily Telegraph'(United Kingdom).

At a recent concert in Munich Christian Thielemann conducted Busoni's Nocturne Symphonique. The piece was greeted by somewhat tepid applause from the audience. Thielemann turned to them and said, with a fair measure of barely suppressed venom: "You have just listened to a great piece of music; so great in fact, that we shall now play it again!"

After the second rendering the applause was a lot more enthusiastic

Just what one might expect from Thielemann, I fancy

[Todd]

One word pops in mind: Classy.

[DavidW]

Haha that's like if MI was a conductor...

[Amfortas]

Good for him! Leopold Stokowski did the same thing with the Sibelius 4th Symphony, I think it was in Philadelphia.


I thought you were going to say that Thielemann scolded the audience for making noise (coughing, yell phones, etc). 

[MishaK]

Haha that's like if MI was a conductor...

Or M Forever. 

[starrynight]

After the second rendering the applause was a lot more enthusiastic

Because they didn't want to hear it a 3rd time?   

I don't know the piece myself.

[DavidW]

Or M Forever. 

Very true... perhaps MI is an M Forever in training.

[not edward]

Great stuff, subtly modern, just one opus number away from the Berceuse Elegiaque: I'm playing it again.

Yes, it's a superb piece, very dark but with Busoni's trademark understated emotions (it also reminds me some of the second Sonatina). All credit to Thielemann for programming a work like this, which I can see boring a half-listening audience and gripping a more engaged one. I wonder if people were listening more closely second time around.

I have the recording you mention, but I also like the cpo alternative:

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[Lethevich]

Apparently Gunter Wand did the same with a piece by Webern, which also got a more enthusiastic response the second time around. Wand was a bit more polite about announcing it, though.

[not edward]

I've been at concerts where Knussen did it with new(ish) music, but I think in these cases it was planned in advance. Works well for shorter pieces, though.

[The new erato]

The world needs more conductors like Thielemann.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The world needs more conductors like Thielemann.

Seconded.

[Renfield]

Or M Forever. 

M would just send them home.

Apparently Gunter Wand did the same with a piece by Webern, which also got a more enthusiastic response the second time around. Wand was a bit more polite about announcing it, though.

I've been to an Andrew Manze concert (with the SCO) where he did this, also with a Webern piece. The audience took it in stride!

(And he made a point of how admirable the music is, and how it really deserves to be heard more than once, etc. No scolding!)

[Mirror Image]

So does the Berlin Philharmonic!

What's wrong with Rattle? Why does everybody seem so down on him? He wouldn't be conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic if he wasn't good at what he does. The man has paid his dues I think. He whipped the City of Birmingham Orchestra into fine shape and they were one of the top orchestras in England after he left.

Edit: I used to despise Rattle, then I heard his Shostakovich and Britten recordings and that soon silenced any negative notions and opinions I had about him. When people actually shut their mouths long enough to listen to the music, then a change can happen.

[Brahmsian]

The world needs more conductors like Thielemann.

Thirded.  I love Thielemann!   

But I also love Sir Simon Rattle!   

[Mirror Image]

So often I have bad-mouthed Simon Rattle - nick-naming him Sir Simon Rattle-my-Ears - that I ended up feeling sorry for him; so, I don't like criticising him anymore

I have awaited with anticipation (and good-will) the arrival of his recent Schoenberg release. The Begleitmusik zu Einer Lichtspielszene op 34 is a favorite of mine, so, I was looking forward to hearing a new version. But once again with Rattle I was disappointed. What Rattle seems to do is to try and play it as Boulez does in a miraculous recording published by Stradivarius in 1989 where the climactic part (typified by Stravinskian, pulsating rhythm) is played, not just with refinement, but with evanescence, the pulsation so lightly suggested as to seem like the the remisniscence of a pulse or the possibility ot it, rather than the hard beat one usually gets from other conductors. Rattle, however, doee not have Boulez's near-heavenly lightness of touch, and therefore does not pull it off.

Usually Rattle when he errs, errs through disrespect of the score, of the composer's intentions as noted down in the score. Here he errs because he is too moderate, too prudent, too down-to-earth to do what he seems to want to do.

Yes, Rattle had the talent and the energy to bring a hitherto obscure provincial orchestra to pre-eminence: I am sure they must regret him. But does that make him strong enough for the big league? I have not yet been convinced he is and I suspect it is not because of exceptional talent he won the Berlin Prize, but because of a growing dearth of exceptional talent (ie, talent comparable to a Nikkitch or a Furtwangler or a Karajan or an Abbado), among the younger composers.

It's okay, people have insulted and made a mockery of him before, so it won't be a last time, but, like I said, he wouldn't be principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic if he didn't have the necessary ambition, drive, determination, and vision to lead one of the greatest orchestras in the world.

[Wanderer]

I thought you were going to say that Thielemann scolded the audience for making noise (coughing, yell phones, etc).

There could potentially be a huge market for yell phones. 

[mc ukrneal]

I don't know. I had a more negative reaction. If the orchestra was playing well, fair enough. But maybe they sucked or screwed up. Should we be obliged to clap wildly when that happens? If an orchestra plays in an inspired way, the audience usually reacts accordingly (most of the time), so one possible conclusion is that they failed in some way to reach the audience and didn't deserve the adulation.

[Opus106]

I don't know. I had a more negative reaction.

I did too. It's as if he is demanding the applause, which is just pathetic. On the other hand, the audience got a longer duration of music than paid for; whether it's a good thing or not, it's not up to me to decide.

[Dundonnell]

I don't know. I had a more negative reaction. If the orchestra was playing well, fair enough. But maybe they sucked or screwed up. Should we be obliged to clap wildly when that happens? If an orchestra plays in an inspired way, the audience usually reacts accordingly (most of the time), so one possible conclusion is that they failed in some way to reach the audience and didn't deserve the adulation.

I quite agree with your general point about applause. It angers me when an audience bursts into ecstatic applause after a wholly ordinary performance. This happened a year ago(I think) when David Robertson conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a performance of a Sibelius Symphony(No.5, I think). It is made so much worse at the Proms by the idiotic presenters telling us at the end of the piece "after that wonderful/fantastic/marvellous rendering....". Can we, please, be left to make up our minds about that!!

However...Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic in the Busoni? I doubt that it was a poor performance