生粋のドイツ人指揮者Thielemannが去るMunich

ドイツの Orchestra はドイツ語で纏まっていた時代を経験してきたといえます．German-speaking Europe's classical music capitals are bound together by language, but separated by just about everything else.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　In Vienna, composers, dead and long dead, are the alpha dogs of musical life, putting conductors in their place from beyond the grave. In Berlin, exactly two conductors, the Berlin Philharmonic's Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan, were deified in their lifetimes, and audiences ever since have had to make do with mortal geniuses like Simon Rattle, who, by comparison, is a secular figure in an ecclesiastical order.

その例外がMunich だったのですが，そのking であった　Thielemann がMunchen Philharmonicを去ることになって，ドイツ語の指揮者が枢要posts を失うことになるのです，　　　　The Austro-German Romantic tradition took shape here over several decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries, thanks to conductors at Munich's opera and the Munich Philharmonic.

The tradition began in earnest with Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," which premiered here in 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow, and began its long twilight with Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde," conducted by Bruno Walter in 1911. By the time of that premier, Munich was a cultural powerhouse, determining the very contours of Germanness; to the historically minded, it is of some symbolic value that Christian Thielemann, classical music's only major German-born conductor these days, is leaving.

その伝統あるMunich を，ドイツ生まれの唯一の主要指揮者，52歳のChristian Thielemann が去ろうとしているのです，ワグナー解釈の主要指揮者として知られたThielemann にとってMunich は適役だったはずですが，2004年に着任しながら，楽団との対立で契約更改を拒否され，Dresden's Staatskapelle に移ろうとしています．契約が更改されなかった理由について，必ずしも明確ではありませんが，Thielemann がguest conductor を誰にするかについて発言権を求めたからといわれています，それはアメリカのようなMusic Director 方式ではなく，Principal Conductor 方式のドイツでは受け入れられ難かったといわれています．

電話でインタビューに答えたThielemann は，Munich Philharmonic との関係について，
"Everybody is happy." Then he says that he and the orchestra "are clever enough and diplomatic enough not to talk about the real reasons" for his departure—"because it would hurt people," he adds, sounding rather hurt himself.　と答えなかったといいます．

Mr. Thielemann is being replaced by a kind of regent—81-year-old American conductor Lorin Maazel, who led Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for many years. Does Mr. Thielemann have plans to guest conduct himself in the near or distant future? "At the moment, no," he says. "It will be quite good to have a little break."　と彼の後任，81歳のLorin Maazel のMunich Philharmonic に guest conductor することは，当分ないだろうと　Thielemann はいっています．

他方では，The winds of change keep blowing through Munich's cultural institutions.と，Munich のドイツ至上主義は失われ，ドイツのシリコン・バレーといわれるほどInternationalization　の波に洗われているようです．

 

EUROPEAN LIFE

APRIL 1, 2011

Conducting a Transfer of Power

• By J.S. MARCUS in Munich

               Jean-Manuel Duvivier

German-speaking Europe's classical music capitals are bound together by language, but separated by just about everything else. The role of conductors, for instance. In Vienna, composers, dead and long dead, are the alpha dogs of musical life, putting conductors in their place from beyond the grave. In Berlin, exactly two conductors, the Berlin Philharmonic's Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan, were deified in their lifetimes, and audiences ever since have had to make do with mortal geniuses like Simon Rattle, who, by comparison, is a secular figure in an ecclesiastical order. Only in Munich is the conductor king.

The Austro-German Romantic tradition—which, until the Nazi movement tainted the meaning of the word, would simply have been called "German"—took shape here over several decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries, thanks to conductors at Munich's opera and the Munich Philharmonic. The tradition began in earnest with Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," which premiered here in 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow, and began its long twilight with Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde," conducted by Bruno Walter in 1911. By the time of that premier, Munich was a cultural powerhouse, determining the very contours of Germanness; to the historically minded, it is of some symbolic value that Christian Thielemann, classical music's only major German-born conductor these days, is leaving.

Mr. Thielemann, who turns 52 today, is a Berlin native, but Munich would seem like the ideal place for him. Regarded on two continents as today's premier interpreter of Wagner, he arrived in 2004 to take over the Philharmonic, and now, in the wake of an unrenewed contract a few years ago, he is going to Dresden's Staatskapelle. The German papers were filled with innuendo about exactly why that contract wasn't renewed, which seemed to come down to Mr. Thielemann's insistence that he have a say in who could appear as guest conductor. I phoned the maestro at his apartment in the five-star Hotel München Palace.

As he prepares his final concerts, does he have mixed feelings? "No," he says, "Everybody is happy." Then he says that he and the orchestra "are clever enough and diplomatic enough not to talk about the real reasons" for his departure—"because it would hurt people," he adds, sounding rather hurt himself.

Mr. Thielemann likes to see his new gig in Dresden as a return of some kind—"half of me is Saxon," he says, alluding to his family's roots in the area. However, he admits he will miss Munich's "quality of life"—"it's a very relaxed place."

Having been scarcely touched by Europe's ongoing recession, and now riding the wave of Germany's export-driven recovery, Munich has turned the good life into a civic duty. In the decades after World War II, the city had grand political aspirations, with Bavaria's homegrown, ultra-German Christian Social Union, a sister-party to the larger, less conservative Christian Democrats, always hoping to find a future chancellor in its ranks. The CSU has never seemed less powerful than now—since 2008, it doesn't even have an absolute majority in Bavaria—and its loss coincides with Munich's gain. Free from national ambitions, the city, which has morphed into Germany's equivalent of Silicon Valley, now feels consciously international—or perhaps unselfconsciously post-German.

Mr. Thielemann is being replaced by a kind of regent—81-year-old American conductor Lorin Maazel, who led Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for many years. Does Mr. Thielemann have plans to guest conduct himself in the near or distant future? "At the moment, no," he says. "It will be quite good to have a little break."

The curse of the Föhn

What Mr. Thielemann says he won't miss is the Föhn, Munich's mysterious Alpine wind, which people blame for everything from aches and pains to outright psychosis. Germans have a special word for this extravagant range of symptoms—Föhnkrankeit. Curiously, the Föhn often plagues the city on otherwise lovely days. "When spring comes," says Mr. Thielemann, speaking on a day that the Föhn was threatening to blow, "you have a headache."

Winds of cultural changes

The winds of change keep blowing through Munich's cultural institutions. This month, Chris Dercon, the Belgian director of Haus der Kunst, the city's daring exhibition space for contemporary art, took up his new post at London's Tate Modern, and in the fall his replacement, Okwui Enwezor, the Nigerian-born, American-based curator and critic, will take over.

I caught up with Bavarian politician Wolfgang Heubisch, who joined Bavaria's regional government in 2008. Mr. Heubisch, a dentist by training, now bears the title State Minister for Science, Research and Art, and he oversaw the search that lead to Mr. Enwezor's selection.

Haus der Kunst is at the forefront of Munich's internationalization. And Mr. Heubisch emphasizes the new director's bona fides in pleasure-loving Munich by announcing that "he's a guy who can enjoy a glass of wine and a good dinner" at an Italian restaurant.