Who will get the Berliner Philharmoniker gig?

[(poco) Sforzando]

And coming right after one of Misha's calm, respectful, and intelligent responses.

Sorry, I respect MishaK and may even agree with his arguments here, but his responses to Phrygian have not been exactly free from contempt for his interlocutor:

You are marvellous in passing broad brushed judgment without ever actually pinning it on anything I actually said. Bravo. Discussion pointless indeed. Reading comprehension would be a prerequisite for that.

[Ken B]

Sorry, no. His attacks on Phrygian have been personal. Tell mreSarge or Brian, how else I should read a remark about reading comprehension? Or psychologizing about Phrygian's alleged desire to be the dominant voice?

[mc ukrneal]

Sorry, no. His attacks on Phrygian have been personal. Tell mreSarge or Brian, how else I should read a remark about reading comprehension? Or psychologizing about Phrygian's alleged desire to be the dominant voice?

Oh you're one to talk about personal attacks...Hilarious coming from you...

[Ken B]

Oh you're one to talk about personal attacks...Hilarious coming from you...

You recall when you called me an example of the worst classical music listenership has to offer?

[mc ukrneal]

You recall when you called me an example of the worst classical music listenership has to offer?

Nope. Quote please (with date) with context. I do recall calling your posts being overly nasty (which they were).

Interestingly, you haven't denied it.

Of course, none of this (including this post) are on topic, and I must apologize to the rest of the GMG community for that. 

[Brian]

One, in actual fact, they do not. I know this for certain.

That was a joke, mon ami.

[Brian]

This was brought up before in another thread, and, as there, I say give the position to 2015 Karajan Prize winner Thomas Hengelbrock.  He's an extraordinary conductor, though his musical tastes may not align with the BP's.  I have no idea who is being considered, and I doubt anyone posting here does, either.

I would definitely be cool with this.

[Ken B]

In reply 18 MishaK makes a series of claims about "white males" and their motives. I find such arguments obnoxious. I invite readers to consider how you would react to such claims had Phrygian made ones like that about Turks.
So sorry, Sarge, Gurn, someguy, and Brian but I don't consider arguments based on ethnicity respectable, and think your praise such arguments unbecoming.

[Phrygian]

This thread really did get out of control - but this is often the case when controversial issues are raised.  I'm not afraid of raising controversial issues and I prefer to discuss the issues, and I don't care in the least about whether or not this makes me popular or unpopular. 

And comments about CT's haircut are inappropriate too.  He's a fine classical musician and he's outspoken on behalf of his community, which he sees as in distress (and which we've witnessed on the news, causing street protests).  You can dismiss those protests as being organized by extremists, but I think it would be more intelligent to look more closely at what's really going on.  Name-calling, referring to people as "xenophobes" and other undesirable, essentially world-war 2 names, is also inappropriate.  I hardly think of Thielemann as an extremist and if he felt these were merely extremists he wouldn't be compelled to speak as he did.  That's my take on it anyway.

I've travelled widely around Europe for nearly 18 months in total in the last few years and have talked to a lot of people - old and young.  All say the same thing;  they are tired of others deciding for them who will come to the countries because they feel they were never asked.  The Austrians, in particular, I've spoken to say these conversations have gone 'underground' out of fear of them being labelled 'racist'.  Imagine that?  They FEAR speaking publicly.  How can a society have healthy debates and discussions if these conversations are shut down by people who howl them down with labels of "racist", "xenophobes"?  We must always address the arguments in an adult way because there are many many people in Europe who don't like the way it is going.  Come and live here and talk to people, openly and often and you'll find out what they think.  What we have now are armchair experts and 'libertarians' who have a view the society should be the way THEY think it should be rather than the way it is.  Of course, we can always do better but do give the people some credit for being intelligent and knowing what they want from life.  And don't say they're not compassionate;  they are.  Just as much as the next one.

I loathe the culture of political correctness and have seen at first hand the rise of identity politics and its tendency to embroider a 'victim' moniker onto the body politik.  This has resulted in a them and us dichotomy, with the tail now wagging the dog.  The pendulum has swung too far and there are those who want it back in the centre (where, of course, it will no longer function as a pendulum).  The animadversions directed towards my arguments and values I'll accept because I dipped my toe into the water and shouldn't be surprised by the outcome.  (It's rich for someguy to be throwing in his lot - this same individual who visits every messageboard throwing insults and ad homs like confetti at a wedding!).

I just remembered this item, and from a Left wing newspaper, about the golden multicultural experience. I'm presuming this also applies to Berlin:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-german-multiculturalism-failed

So, I vote for Christian Thielemann and I leave it there.  Cheers!

[kaergaard]

Esa Pekka Salonen would actually be a good choice, if he wants it. But there is this very young, very talented Vladimir Jurowski, if offered I am sure he will take it. How about Osmo Vänska? And the young and coming St. Louis conductor Robert Spano? All kinds of talents and possibilities out there in the international concert world.

[Ken B]

Esa Pekka Salonen would actually be a good choice, if he wants it. But there is this very young, very talented Vladimir Jurowski, if offered I am sure he will take it. How about Osmo Vänska? And the young and coming St. Louis conductor Robert Spano? All kinds of talents and possibilities out there in the international concert world.

Yes but $$$. You need someone with marquee value. Someone who sells CDs and tickets. CPS might qualify.

[TheGSMoeller]

Esa Pekka Salonen would actually be a good choice, if he wants it. But there is this very young, very talented Vladimir Jurowski, if offered I am sure he will take it. How about Osmo Vänska? And the young and coming St. Louis conductor Robert Spano? All kinds of talents and possibilities out there in the international concert world.

Robert Spano, music director of Atlanta Symphony? I didn't know he was leaving. And he's 53, which might be young to some folk.   

[Jo498]

Barenboim is definitely too old, so is Janssons. The youngest feasible candidate would be someone like Chailly (a couple of years older than Rattle), unless they opt for an obvious "interim" candidate. But both Chailly and Thielemann seem quite happy where they are now. Thielemann has expanded his repertoire but the main focus is still opera (Wagner and Strauss) and rather narrow symphonic repertoire starting with Beethoven but also centered on late romantics. (There is simply no comparison with Karajan, Abbado, Rattle as far as breadth of repertoire goes.)
He has also been extremely insensitive in the past (playing marches with Nazi associations in Nürnberg of all places) and, as has been mentioned, has also often behaved like a touchy divo. Of course, all this does not rule him out but he is far from an ideal candidate. I am not sure there is an ideal candidate.

[North Star]

I highly doubt Salonen would take the job if they offered it to him. He wants to devote more of his time to composition these days.

[Mirror Image]

I highly doubt Salonen would take the job if they offered it to him. He wants to devote more of his time to composition these days.

Correct and who could blame him? His music lately has been quite good. Can't wait to hear more from his pen.

[MishaK]

In reply 18 MishaK makes a series of claims about "white males" and their motives. I find such arguments obnoxious. I invite readers to consider how you would react to such claims had Phrygian made ones like that about Turks.
So sorry, Sarge, Gurn, someguy, and Brian but I don't consider arguments based on ethnicity respectable, and think your praise such arguments unbecoming.

No. My comment was not based on ethnicity at all but based on a position of dominance within a society. (I.e., I did not make a claim that white males are congenitally one thing or another, which would be absurd and untenable.) What I described is a well understood psychological reflex by the dominant to downplay the significance and deny the legitimacy of the claims of those marginalized by the dominant culture. If you made the same comment about Turks (in Turkey, where they are the dominant ethnic group) vis a vis, e.g, Armenians, Kurds or indeed women (at least outside of more cosmopolitan places like Istanbul) the same would hold true and would not raise any eyebrows either. And observing that someone's reading comprehension is lacking is sadly factual, even if subjectively insulting, if your counterpart is simply unable to respond on point to the arguments you raised, and instead continues shadowboxing against arguments you never made.

To get back to the topic at hand and to clarify what I tried to express before...(and since I recieved a series of unhinged, logically tenuous PMs from a certain Australian with a passing, touristic familiarity with other parts of Europe, who imagines nonetheless he/she is in a position to lecture about German attitudes towards foreigners to someone who spent the better part of his life living as a German-born "foreigner" in Germany and who wrote an honors thesis on right wing extremism in Europe...)

The issue about CT is the totality of his political attitudes, as also frequently expressed in his musical choices, and whether they might affect CT's eligibility or likelihood of election as the next MD of the BPO. My argument is that CT, although being extremely weasely and circumspect (and not at all the "courageous" opponent of "political correctness" - he never actually comes out and states bluntly what he thinks), clearly associates with one particular nationalist political camp, which informs his musical choices and alienates rather cosmopolitan audiences like that in Berlin, alienates many international musicians, like those of the BPO, and makes him an unlikely poster child for an international brand like the BPO as marketed through their recordings and in particular the digital concert hall (which I think will be the greatest legacy of the Rattle era).

Exhibit A: Please compare the rosters of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the BPO:

http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/orchestra/

http://www.staatskapelle-dresden.de/en/staatskapelle/orchestra-members/

The Dresdners are about roughly 90% ethnically German, just looking at names. The Berliners are more than half international (and that's counting the Austrians as "Germans" - there will be at least one fewer German and one more international this fall, as Blau retires and Dufour (ex-CSO flute extraordinaire) takes his spot). These are the people voting for the next MD next month, not I, not Prygian, not whoever. The Dresdners are about a uniquely German tradition and the preservation of a uniquely German orchestral sound. The Berliners have not been about that at least since the Karajan era. Very different orchestras and more importantly very, very different groups of people.

Exhibit B: CT is extremely circumspect to avoid any public display of anything that would clearly give rise to an accusation of being a fan of regimes past. But he does things that do seem to send clear messages and he neither clearly distances himself from those messages, nor does he balance his actions by acknowledging the other side, which could help eliminate the bad taste that he leaves. Strictly musically speaking, there is his dubious decision not only to program weak works by Richard Strauss that were commissioned by the Nazis during their reign (e.g. the musically superfluous "Festmusik der Stadt Wien", commissioned in 1942 by Baldur von Schirach, Reich-administrator of Vienna), but also the attempts to bring back questionable repertoire by people with historically much more clear cut cases of abominable behavior. It is one thing to want to revive works by Pfitzner, who aside from being a longtime flaming anti-Semite at least was a semi-decent composer. But it is another thing entirely, as CT did, to want to revive the music of von Schillings, who was not just *any* anti-semite. Never mind that von Schillings did not have a formal advanced musical education (he studied law and philosophy) and that his music is essentially neo-Wagnerite wankery. Von Schilings became the head of the Prussian Academy of the Arts after Max Liebermann was booted. In that position he was the one who fired Schönberg from his teaching position and forced Schreker into early retirement, among many others whose careers (if not lives) he sought to end, such as Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich and Thomas Mann.

Now, if you wanted to make a statement that Pfitzner is worth hearing or that even the musical pastiche of von Schillings might deserve a concert once in a while, why not at least put it in a critical historical context? Why not juxtapose it with the works von Schillings and his ilk branded as "degenerate art", or better yet, juxtapose it with the works of those actually exiled by von Schillings? But CT didn't and doesn't do that. He presented at least these Nazi-related Strauss works at the BPO in concert without any critical commentary or note whatsoever. What message is that supposed to send? (The Jewish members of the BPO btw voted with their feet by taking that week off.) It is completely disingenuous for CT to say that "C major has no political message" and that he is merely interested in reviving what used to be standard German repertoire before and immediately after WWII. This might be credible if he showed equal interest in "standard" Weimar era repertoire by Jewish and other exiled composers.* But he doesn't conduct Schreker, he doesn't conduct Weil or Zemlinsky, he doesn't even conduct Mahler at all and he barely touches Mendelssohn. So what is CT trying to tell us? People draw their own logical conclusions. Lots of relevant links to this event and its critical surroundings in this piece here - in German. You can also hear a wonderfully revealing, if rambling, interview of CT in English with my late friend Andrew Patner here, in which CT - completely unprompted - gets anticipatorily defensive about the sort of music he often programs - whether because he realizes his interlocutor is Jewish or whether he expects he has to say that because he is in America, we won't know.

CT's most recent advocacy for showing understanding towards Pegida (you can read his extremely weasely crap here if you speak German) is but the most recent element in a long line of consistent acts and behavior that simply reinforce that impression and leave a certain brown political flavor. Having followed CT for a while (he started his career as apprentice-Korrepetitor at my local opera house) I happen to think the totality of his behavior and narrow musical focus make him an unlikely successor of Rattle at the BPO. That is my humble, somewhat rationally founded, well-researched opinion, to which I am apparently not as entitled as CT is to his (unfounded, gut-instinct) opinion about Muslims in Germany, according to some here.

*I would actually pay money to hear a Weimar era festival that combined the efforts of CT's programming with that of James Conlon, if that were possible. It would be a really interesting artistic glimpse into a fascinatingly disjointed and frenzied society.

[MishaK]

But there is this very young, very talented Vladimir Jurowski, if offered I am sure he will take it

If you're looking for young(ish) talenented conductors, more likely choices would be Kirill Petrenko (not Vassily) or Tugan Sokhiev, who have had more frequent repeat engagements with the BPO and enjoy a good collaboration with them, as you can see and hear in the BPO digital concert hall archive.

[Gurn Blanston]

No. My comment was not based on ethnicity at all but based on a position of dominance within a society. (I.e., I did not make a claim that white males are congenitally one thing or another, which would be absurd and untenable.) What I described is a well understood psychological reflex by the dominant to downplay the significance and deny the legitimacy of the claims of those marginalized by the dominant culture.

Which is why I said that it seems people didn't actually read what you wrote. Pity, really, since you do express yourself remarkably well. So it goes.

[MishaK]

so is Janssons.

Jansons also has chonic health issues, which is why limits his travelling and has quit the Concertgebouw to concentrate on BRSO. He's not someone to take the BPO on annual international tours.

I am not sure there is an ideal candidate.

That is probably the truest statement. The older ones are too old, the younger ones are a bit untested and the ideal late-40s/early 50s range is sorely lacking. It's entirely possible they might choose a Barenboim (his dementi notwithstanding) to tie things over for a few years until an Andriss Nelsons is ready for the gig.

[Phrygian]

MishaK conveniently overlooks facts.  And if he has written a thesis on Right Wing extremest groups in Europe he is hardly in a position to speak objectively about any of the issues.  I know enough about writing a thesis to know that one has to collate evidence/research to support an a priori belief or case.  How about the rise of protest movements in Great Britain, riots in South Africa, unrest now in Finland where a government looks set to be thrown out because of attitudes on immigration.  The world is changing faster than people can handle and this is bound to cause disruption and protest and, at times, ugly violence (which I do not condone).  Youth unemployment is currently one of the greatest challenges in Europe and if people feel that others are going to come from other countries to possibly threaten their own employment prospects no amount of arm-chair expert advice is going to stop that.

And if you don't like CT and his 'weasel words' then tell us how you feel about Gergiev who seems to have cosied up to Vladimir Putin.  Does that fact exclude his entitlement to a good conducting job too?  Some people seem to think so.  Perhaps you are of the view that artists in the public eye are not entitled to their opinions.  I'm old enough to remember how certain American films stars were publicly eviscerated for their views on the Vietnam war;  not debated, eviscerated. 

And what of the article from "The Guardian" where Angela Merkel is reported to have suggested (in 2010) that multiculturalism has failed in Europe.  No doubt she, unlike you, is not in possession of "the facts".  But the article does attempt to address some of the issues.

And I can tell all about the scurrilous messages I've sent you, since you've mentioned these publicly.  Today I sent you a message telling you that an ongoing telephone poll on a German news station about whether Germany should accept more migrants has, as I write this, found 13% for and 87% against.  As I told you in my message, this does not necessarily imply a national trend but it does point in a certain direction.  All this proves that Christian Thielemann and others also have an opinion.  That it doesn't conform to your own doesn't make it any less valid an opinion, unless he's inciting people to war or violence - which he is not.

I've presented you with some fact by PM which contradict your rose-coloured view of multi-culturalism in Germany and you've chosen to become very aggressive.  I also reminded you that, contrary to your questioning of my statistics on migrant movement from Africa, there were precisely the number moving (10,000) in one week which I initially asserted.  This was reinforced on the Austrian news yesterday.  I'm sorry if this fact offends you.

There's nothing more I want to say to someone driven by invective rather than reason and fact.  And we do have newspapers in Australia, even people with PhDs.