MÄLKKI RETURNS TO OSM WITH WARM MEMORIES
But speculation of succeeding Nagano is premature, high-profile conductor says
She remembered.
“It was a contemporary program, and I think it was Chantal Juillet who played as soloist,” Susanna Mälkki said of her OSM debut in 2008.
Quite so. In André Prévost’s Violin Concerto. The other piece in the first half of that concert in Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts (Walter Boudreau led the second half ) was György Ligeti’s Lontano.
“It was wintertime and very cold,” the Finnish conductor continued. “I discovered these underground corridors, which I thought was a great invention.
“Coming from Helsinki, we have cold winters as well, but we don’t have this kind of system.
“I remember that very clearly. And I remember that the orchestra was lovely, of course.”
Mälkki has come some distance in 91/2 years. Then she was viewed as an emerging new-music specialist — naturally enough as music director of the Ensemble Inter-Contemporain in Paris, where she still resides (and where she was reached by phone last week).
Now Mälkki is chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and Vienna State Opera debuts are behind her.
All of which makes the 49-year-old a logical enough candidate to succeed Kent Nagano as music director of the OSM, which she leads for the second time Saturday under the auspices of the Lanaudière Festival at the Fernand Lindsay Amphitheatre.
A little more on that timely subject later.
If Mälkki has evolved over the last decade, so has the status of female conductors in general. The question “Why aren’t there more?” seems to be morphing into the matter-of-fact observation that now there are many.
“I am very happy if I have contributed to the change,” Mälkki said. “But I have never made it my main occupation to observe these things . ... My interest is always in how the orchestra is playing.”
Much of the fuss about female conductors, she contends, comes from the media. Musicians are interested in music.
That goes for the predominantly male members of the Vienna State Opera and the Czech Philharmonic. Performances this season went very well. No antiwoman blowback at all.
“I think extra attention
given to this kind of thing can be counterproductive,” Mälkki said. “I want to make music. The musicians want to make music. I want to find a common language there.”
Is the art of finding a common language inevitably a compromise? At Lanaudière, Mälkki will be leading Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, a pillar of the OSM repertoire. Most of the players know how it goes.
“Compromise is maybe not the best word,” Mälkki said. “It is a mutual interest that the performance is very good. I think it is also a matter of respect and being realistic. You can’t really change everything in two days (of rehearsal). Nor is there a need for that.
“The orchestra is proposing a starting point for me and I can add my ideas to it. Some orchestras are incredibly quick to change, and willing. Other orchestras are more resistant.
“Sometimes an orchestra can be very disappointed if a conductor doesn’t bring anything new. Orchestras generally expect a conductor to have ideas.”
Conducting from memory is more and more à la mode. Mälkki uses a score for the interesting reason that it enhances spontaneity.
“There is no necessity in this, or even extra merit,” she said about the no-score trend. “It’s impressive if people can memorize big pieces, but I am more interested in how the performance is.
“I have heard concerts where the performance is marked by the fact that the conductor is not free because the music is not there (in the form of a score). Or the interpretation can stay the same.
“I played a lot of chamber music in my previous life as a cellist. I like the fact that we can be spontaneous and inspired by something we see in the music at the moment.
“Freedom is in the imagination. Sometimes concentrating on the memory may take the freedom away.”
One clear source of constraint are metronome markings. Mälkki views them as guidelines only. After all, the contemporary composers with whom she has worked are usually happy to hear suggestions. “If you get the idea, the essence of the work right, they welcome flexibility or taking time if it is felt and it is necessary.”
Who are her models as a conductor? For a musician still associated with contemporary music, this graduate of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki harbours a surprising fascination for oldtimers and their recordings.
“Carlos Kleiber I guess is a god for all conductors,” she said when I asked for the names of past masters. “I can admire (minimalistic) Fritz Reiner and (expansive) Leonard Bernstein. They are totally different, but I admire them for different reasons.”
Would a conductor of such wide culture fare well in Montreal?
“Of course the orchestra has mentioned that they are ‘on search,’ ” Mälkki said. “But I think it is important that we meet. We haven’t worked in rehearsal in 10 years.
“I don’t know if I will meet people while I’m there. There is nothing official at this point.
“Whoever will be chosen will have a wonderful place to work. But from my point of view, I’m coming for this concert, and I hope it works very well. I’m sure it will.”
CONDUCTOR NOTES
Former Orchestre Métropolitain principal guest conductor Julian Kuerti has been engaged as music director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra in Michigan. Kuerti is not the only Canadian maestro with a gig in the American Midwest: Alain Trudel of the Orchestre symphonique de Laval is music director of the Toledo Symphony in Ohio.
Charles Dutoit is not, as some might assume, entirely out of business. On June 23 he led the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in a concert version of Richard Strauss’s Salome.
Once viewed as a definite maybe for the OSM job, Vasily Petrenko becomes music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021 — succeeding, it should be noted, Dutoit, who was stripped of all his RPO titles in January.
Simon Rivard, a Montrealer who will toggle resident conductor jobs next season at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, is one of four young conductors participating this summer in the Verbier Festival Academy in Switzerland. Music director of the Verbier Festival is Valery Gergiev, who last year succeeded Dutoit. Dutoit in 2009 succeeded James Levine.
OM artistic partner Nicolas Ellis is minding the fort in Canada. He leads the OM in a gala of the Canimex Canadian Music Competition on Monday at 7 p.m. in the Maison symphonique. Kerson Leong plays the Barber Violin Concerto. Laureates will also be heard.