Musical Chairs for the Maestros

From New York to Los Angeles, batons are changing hands

It goes in spurts. For years major U.S. orchestras are under the baton of an established conductor. Then one or two podiums open up, and suddenly a game of musical chairs is under way. Right now that game has never been livelier. Antal Dorati has taken over in Detroit, leaving Washington, D.C.'s National Symphony to Mstislav Rostropovich. St. Louis has plucked young American Leonard Slatkin from New Orleans. San Francisco selected Edo de Waart from Rotterdam, after Seiji Ozawa relinquished that post to concentrate on his other job in Boston. Minnesota has grabbed two top Europeans: Britain's Neville Marriner as music director and Germany's Klaus Tennstedt as principal guest conductor. Los Angeles is easily the high roller in the game. It has captured Carlo Maria Giulini, 64, an Italian who is considered a master among maestros--but after having lost Zubin Mehta, 42, to New York.

The Mehta move was the grandest, most publicized stroke of all: his appointment as music director of the New York Philharmonic to succeed avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. Not everyone in New York was delighted. Boulez had been a cool, ascetic leader. Mehta, by comparison, had a reputation for more gloss than substance. There was the question of his repertoire, which stressed Tchaikovsky and Strauss to the detriment of the early classics. Finally there was his famous contretemps with the Philharmonic. In 1967 he enraged the New Yorkers by reportedly declaring that his own Los Angeles Philharmonic was better, that New York musicians were an ornery bunch, and that he wasn't interested in succeeding Leonard Bernstein, who was about to retire.

Mehta has yet to conduct a subscription concert--the first will be next week--and he is proceeding cautiously in his new town. But his celebrated gaffe, at least, is "practically forgotten, from the time I was a guest conductor in 1974," says Mehta. "That was when I went on the stage and apologized." He is now very glad to be in New York. "New York is the center of the musical world, and I felt that I should move there now rather than at age 55 or so," he says.

His new musicians are equally happy. Says Concertmaster Rodney Friend: "There's a feeling in the orchestra of the beginning of a very exciting and productive period." Others feel that Mehta is an antidote to Boulez's astringency, and that he will bring back some of the fire of the Bernstein days. "Boulez was not trying to reach the audience with spontaneous feeling, or luscious phrasing," says Violinist Oscar Ravina. "We'll be coming closer to that kind of thing with Mehta."

That positive start shows in Mehta's first rehearsals. He radiates pent-up emotion that electrifies the orchestra. In certain lyrical passages, as in Prokofiev's Suite from "Romeo and Juliet, " he almost stops conducting, falling into a dreamy, swimming motion. At more dramatic moments, however, he will step smartly forward, as if charging directly into the music. Startled, the players give him the taut line that he wants.

Mehta, born in Bombay, studied conducting at the Vienna Music Academy. He took over the Los Angeles Philharmonic at 26, the youngest man at that time to lead a major American ensemble. In his 16-year tenure there, Mehta made a few memorable mistakes, one an embarrassing rock-classical concert. But Mehta's star quality and hard work helped to I mold his musicians into one of the country's top orchestras.

His first season's repertoire in New York includes lots of familiar fare, and he plans no major overhaul of the Philharmonic. "Innovation," he says, "happens as you go along." He will spend 18 to 22 weeks a year in New York, living with his wife Nancy on Manhattan's East Side. Another twelve to 14 weeks will go to his beloved Israel Philharmonic.

The Los Angeles musicians will miss Mehta, but they can't seem to lose these days. They have inherited an unsurpassed replacement: Giulini, whose mystical readings of music sometimes seem inspired by communion with the composer. Says one Los Angeles Philharmonic staffer: "You could say that we've lost a Hercules, but we're getting a god."

For years, Giulini has refused musical directorships of orchestras because of his intense dislike for the attendant administrative and social duties. In America, he has been known primarily for his 23 years as a guest conductor with the Chicago Symphony. Los Angeles won him by offering freedom from paper work, a lighter-than-usual five-month load, and a blank check. A tall, slim, aristocratic man, Giulini is the rare maestro who is truly loved by his musicians. They may grumble about his perfectionism or his occasionally erratic tempi. But, says Victor Aitay, Chicago's co-concertmaster, "he approaches music as a religion, like the devoted Catholic he is. He feels his be lief so convincingly that it seems to us that this is the right way to play."

Giulini plans one major innovation for Los Angeles: additional chamber music. Modern music will be left to guest conductors. Says he: "I don't feel at ease with music I don't understand." Giulini and his wife Marcella will live in Beverly Hills; there will be none of Mehta's social panache. Says Giulini: "I have lived like a bear for years, isolated with my music."

Giulini and Mehta illustrate strikingly the contrasts in modern conductors: the older, painstakingly schooled musicians who served a long apprenticeship before emerging into public view at about the age of 40; and the young jet-age, learn-as-you-go conductors who have more commitments than time. The same contrast holds true among their recently appointed colleagues. The new faces:

-- Edo de Waart, 37. Following Ozawa in San Francisco has not been easy for De Waart. Ozawa is a spellbinder and a colorist. De Waart, who will continue with the Rotterdam Philharmonic another year, is a solid, serious musician. He programs lots of the classics, Mozart and Haydn, but also likes such modernists as Berg and Bartok. "None of the young conductors has a wide repertory, but De Waart is anxious to learn and that separates him from the rest," says Milton Salkind, president of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. De Waart is not worried: "Herbert von Karajan once said it takes ten years to be a conductor and another ten before one is a good conductor. O.K., I've conducted almost twelve now. That makes me a conductor. I'll try to become a good one in San Francisco."

-- Leonard Slatkin, 35, grew up professionally with St. Louis. Before his stint as music director of the New Orleans Philharmonic, he had moved upward, through the conducting ranks of the orchestra he will now head. He is an inventive programmer who likes little-known American works and singles out the less popular symphonies of the major composers. Slatkin's weakness, musicians feel, is his tendency to skim the surface of music and his awkwardness on the podium. Still, he and St. Louis know each other intimately and should grow together.

-- Antal Dorati, 72. The elders of the Detroit Symphony needed someone who "could turn the orchestra around" when they picked Dorati. He has wasted no time planning several festivals, an international tour and a batch of recordings. "Detroit had not traveled much and had made no recordings in well over a decade," says the maestro. "I am the archenemy of that kind of routine." Dorati is an old-school, tremendously versatile conductor whose artistic innovations are matched by his administrative skill. "Mr. Dorati could even run General Motors," says President Robert Semple. That is the ultimate Detroit accolade.

-- Neville Marriner, 54, and Klaus Tennstedt, 52. Minnesota is lucky. It has landed two men who have gained formidable international reputations in a relatively brief time. Marriner, conductor of London's Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra, has "charm and wit and intellect," says one London observer. His 200 recordings, many of Baroque music, have pleasingly brisk tempi and a gay, intimate sound. As music director, Marriner will bring his favorite Haydn and Mozart to Minnesota; his weakness may well be that specialized repertoire. But, says he, "if you want to have any impact as musical director, then you must take along the repertoire for which you were hired."

Tennstedt will offer a complementary repertoire as principal guest conductor, favoring Bruckner, Strauss and Mahler. The former director of the State Orchestra in Schwerin, Tennstedt has a fluid line, springy beat and a confident technical mastery. He has never formally studied conducting. "Oh, you can learn tricks," he observes. "But the contact with an orchestra? You must have it."

Contact with audiences is essential too. As this round of musical chairs comes to an end, people will be hearing familiar orchestras under new leadership. It promises to be an exciting tune.

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