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Looking back to another prodigy: Michael Tilson ThomasFeb 13, 2011 (The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Prodigies are not as rare as many people believe, but what is indisputably much rarer is a prodigy who develops well, who fulfills his or her potential over the decades of a career. Of course, when a musician's gifts are as precocious as Gustavo Dudamel's, one can't help but be amazed. At 30, he's in his third year as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He's making commercial recordings for Deutsche Grammophon with his new orchestra and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra with which he grew up, his concerts are on television and DVDs, and he's even had movie-house HD broadcasts of concerts. Whether he's spreading himself too thin -- he's doing all Gustav Mahler's symphonies with his two orchestras over three weeks in Los Angeles a year from now -- he's certainly brought fresh excitement to the classical-music scene. But up north in San Francisco, California's other great orchestra is thriving under Michael Tilson Thomas, who in his youth was as amazing a prodigy as Dudamel. When Tilson Thomas was in his teens, he conducted a chamber orchestra for recordings with ultimate violin legend Jascha Heifetz. In his mid-20s, he conducted, toured and recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, also for Deutsche Grammophon, incidentally. He's a wonderful pianist and has written some good music, as well. During his career, he's been music director of the Buffalo Symphony, 1971-79, and founded the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Fla., in 1987 as a training orchestra for young professional instrumentalists. He often conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony, though not recently. But it's his work as music director of the San Francisco Symphony since 1995 that most fulfills the promise of that young musician many decades ago. Fortunately, many recordings document his work in San Francisco for people who don't live there, including a superb cycle of Mahler's symphonies and songs with orchestra. This summer, PBS will broadcast two new installments of Tilson Thomas' "Keeping Score" series, which takes viewers inside the music, with two shows on Mahler. The San Francisco Symphony has just released two new recordings on its house label that underscore the versatility of Tilson Thomas. One is an inspired pairing of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Emanuel Ax as soloist and the same composer's Symphony No. 5. The other disc continues Tilson Thomas' advocacy for American music, a devotion that goes back to his earliest days. His Boston recordings include music of Charles Ives, William Schumann, Walter Piston and Charles Ruggles. He is unequaled as an interpreter of Ives' music and has recorded all his symphonies, some with the Chicago Symphony and others with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, for Sony Classical. When the San Francisco Symphony observes its 100th anniversary in the 2011-12 season, it will bring in six other great American orchestras to join in the celebration. It also will revive Tilson Thomas' American Mavericks festival, which he began in 2000, and which will be taken to Carnegie Hall in New York City. The second new release from the San Francisco Symphony includes a powerful orchestration of Ives' Concord Sonata for piano by Harry Brant, another American maverick. The disc is completed by Aaron Copland's early Organ Symphony, with Western Pennsylvania's Paul Jacobs as soloist. The sound of the new recordings, both hybrid super audio CDs that play on regular CD players, is totally natural in effect, spectacularly so on the disc of American music. Watch list If the major orchestras on the West Coast are thriving, those in Chicago and Detroit are experiencing different kinds of problems. The Chicago Symphony's new music director Ricardo Muti collapsed -- "fainted" was the official word -- during a rehearsal on Feb. 3 and broke his jaw and other facial bones. He cancelled fall concerts because of illness and now has canceled more. At this point, he's had to cancel most of his first season. Worry for him and for the orchestra is inescapable. The Detroit Symphony, which lost $8.8 million in 2010 alone, is still in the midst of a strike that threatens the entire current season. The main issue, but not the only major one, is how much the musicians' pay will be cut. Management proposed 33 percent, the musicians suggested 22 percent. Both sides make valid points and are hanging tough, making only modest adjustments to their positions. But, at this point, both have already lost more than they can afford. To see more of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. |