[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S295-S296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        MAESTRO YURI TEMIRKANOV

 Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I am most pleased to join with 
the citizens of Maryland, Governor Parris Glendening, and other 
colleagues in government in welcoming Maestro Yuri Temirkanov, one of 
the most talented and gifted conductors of our time, as the new Music 
Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
  Maestro Temirkanov's inspired energy, imagination, and popularity, 
coupled with the renowned excellence and stellar reputation of the 
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, promises Marylanders and the nation an 
unprecedented artistic combination. As the eleventh Music Director in 
the Orchestra's 83-year history, Maestro Temirkanov will oversee all 
artistic programming of the BSO, conduct twelve subscription concerts, 
the opening fundraising gala, any recordings, and will lead tours as 
well.
  The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, through its critically-acclaimed 
concert tours, Grammy Award-winning recordings, and cutting-edge 
concert formats, has earned deserved respect in the world of classical 
music. The addition of Maestro Temirkanov takes the BSO to the highest 
echelon of musical excellence and achievement. A recent article from 
the Baltimore Sun included the following quote from Mikhail 
Baryshnikov:

       Baltimore audiences can look forward to special excitement, 
     because Yuri Temirkanov is one of the truly inspired maestros 
     of today.

  Mr. President, as a strong supporter of the arts, and on behalf of 
the citizens of Maryland, I take great pleasure in welcoming Maestro 
Temirkanov to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and ask that recent 
articles from the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Magazine, and the Washington 
Post, be printed in the Record.
  The articles follow:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, Jan. 21, 2000]

                    Temirkanov Powerful in BSO Debut

                          (By Terry Teachout)

       So how does a brand-new music director go about making a 
     really big impression at his inaugural concert?
       Yuri Temirkanov, who took the helm of the Baltimore 
     Symphony Orchestra last night, did it by detonating a 
     performing of Gustav Mahler's 90-minute-long ``Resurrection'' 
     Symphony at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, aided and abetted 
     by soprano Janice Chandler, mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby and 
     the Baltimore Symphony Chorus. Short of inviting John Waters 
     to set off nuclear weapons at midnight in the Chesapeake Bay, 
     you can't get much bigger than that.
       The 61-year-old Temirkanov is not a household name outside 
     his native Russia, where he took over the legendary St. 
     Petersburg Philharmonic in 1968 (back when it was the 
     Lenigrad Philharmonic) and led it by all accounts with great 
     distinction.
       But he has already made waves in Baltimore. Several inches 
     of snow didn't stop local music lovers from turning out in 
     force to hear his official debut, and Mayor Martin O'Malley 
     was on hand to declare him an honorary citizen of the city, 
     expressing the hope that ``what is now great will become even 
     greater.''
       Though he's a certified performer, the major is hardly a 
     full-fledged music critic. Still, I think he's onto 
     something. Temirkanov gave us a ``Resurrection'' that was 
     weighty, emphatic, deliberate and eloquent, with a 
     resplendent finale full of great sunbursts of sound. What's 
     more, the BSO has very clearly taken to him--with good 
     reason. He is a powerful musical communicator with something 
     strongly individual to say. Furthermore, it's clear that he 
     has the kind of personality that makes orchestras long to 
     play their best.
       To be sure, orchestras almost always play their best when 
     Mahler is on the program. He has become so popular in recent 
     decades that it is hard to remember a time when he was ever 
     anything else. Yet in his own time and for long afterward, 
     the extreme emotional weather of his music struck most 
     concertgoers as peculiar at best, neurotic at worst. Though 
     his proteges, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer among them, 
     resolutely insisted on programming and recording his 
     symphonies, he was widely thought to be little more than a 
     virtuoso conductor who composed on the side; in Ralph Vaughan 
     Williams' wrong-headed but witty summing up, his years of 
     podium experience had turned him into ``a tolerable imitation 
     of a composer.''
       We know better now, but do we really know Mahler? And are 
     his violent passions likely to wear well in our icy age of 
     Irony Lite? Certainly anyone who sees him as a musical 
     special-effects man, or his colossal symphonies as turn-of-
     the-century equivalents of such movies as ``Independence 
     Day,'' is missing the point. Mahler was nothing if not 
     serious, especially about spiritual matters. Above all, he 
     was (in Walter's apt phrase) ``a God-seeker,'' and his 
     search was fraught with angst.
       When rehearsing the ``Resurrection'' Symphony for his 1907 
     farewell concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, he went so far 
     as to confess to that hard-boiled bunch of conductor-haters 
     that it was a musical portrayal of ``the wrestling of Jacob 
     with the Angel, and Jacob's cry to the Angel: `I will not let 
     thee go except thou bless me.' '' Whatever else that is, it 
     isn't cool.
       If the Second Symphony, completed in 1894, is a supreme 
     masterpiece of religious art, it is one whose essential 
     character is as much theatrical--even operatic--as it is 
     spiritual. The expansive first movement was conceived as a 
     free-standing symphonic poem called ``Todtenfeier'' (Funeral 
     Rites), and the four sharply contrasting movements that 
     follow describe a journey from fathomless despair to the 
     ecstatic deliverance of the Last Judgment.
       Like Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony, Mahler ups the 
     expressive ante by introducing vocal soloists and a chorus, 
     who sing of the world's end and the heavenly life to come: 
     ``All that has perished must rise again! Cease from 
     trembling! Prepare to live!''
       As it happens, the BSO is scarcely in need of resurrection. 
     In his 13 years at the orchestra's helm, David Zinman 
     deprovincialized what had long been perceived in the music 
     business as a stodgy second-tier ensemble and turned it into 
     one of America's strongest orchestras.
       Among countless other good things, he taught the BSO how to 
     play Mahler's demanding music. His 1995 performance of the 
     Third Symphony is one of the happiest and most vivid memories 
     of my concert-going life. In all the hoopla surrounding 
     Temirkanov's arrival, it's worth remembering that what 
     happened last night would not have been possible had it not 
     been for Zinman's superb stewardship.
       But Temirkanov is very much his own man, and he has had a 
     striking effect on the sound of the BSO. Zinman was a quirky, 
     intelligent modernist; Termirkanov is a high-octane romantic 
     of the old school. A slight man who conducts without a baton, 
     he makes large but straightforward gestures with his 
     startlingly long and supple arms; he likes a dark, full 
     sound, built from the basses up, and he favors plenty of 
     portamento, the great swooping string slides that are so 
     stylish in Mahler.
       He doesn't value precision for its own sake--the first 
     movement was expansive rather than tightly controlled, not 
     always to its best advantage--but he knows how to rise to an 
     expressive occasion, and the great choral finale was 
     beautifully controlled and superbly passionate.
       On the whole, this was a rather slow performance, more like 
     Leonard Bernstein than Klemperer, and my taste runs to a 
     Mahler that is tauter and more sardonic. Yet there a more 
     than one way to make magic, and Temirkanov's interpretation 
     seemed to me indelible. Indeed, the finale brought tears to 
     my eyes, and I doubt I was alone.
       The soloists, not surprisingly, were excellent. Janice 
     Chandler was bright and pure, Nancy Maultsby ripe-voiced and 
     warm. The Baltimore Symphony Chorus did itself proud and 
     deserved its share of the 12-minute standing ovation at 
     evening's end.
       Aside from everything else, last night's concert (which 
     will be repeated tonight at 8 p.m. and tomorrow at 11 a.m.) 
     and next week's follow-up, an all-French program featuring 
     pianist Leon Fleisher, are obviously designed to send out a 
     subliminal message about the BSO's new boss. Most Russian 
     conductors are perceived in the West as one-trick ponies, and 
     Temirkanov is no exception: Of his 26 recordings, all but two 
     are of Russian music.
       To kick off his first season with Mahler, Debussy and Ravel 
     is thus to issue a bold declaration of independence from 
     repertoire stereotypes, which bodes well for a conductor who 
     will be rightly expected to play the field. Judging by last 
     night's performance, I'd say he's off to a terrific start. I 
     plan to return next week to hear the second chapter in what 
     promises to be a fascinating musical story. You come, too.
                                  ____


               [From the Baltimore Magazine, Sept. 1999]

                         From Russia, With Love

                             (By Max Weiss)

       Yuri Temirkanov cannot tell a joke. He starts to tell it--
     in Russian, of course--and then halfway through, he starts to 
     laugh. And then you start to laugh, because even though you 
     haven't the faintest clue what he's saying, when Temirkanov 
     laughs, it's impossible not to laugh with him. By the time he 
     spits out the punchline, tears are streaming down his face; 
     he's laughing this joyous, exuberant, completely guileless 
     guffaw. And pretty soon, tears are streaming down your face 
     even though his interpreter--

[[Page S296]]

     the inscrutable Mariana Stokes--has barely started 
     translating. At this point, the joke is completely 
     irrelevant.
       But, just for the record, Temirkanov favors viola jokes. 
     (Violas, in case you didn't know, are the Rodney Dangerfield 
     of the orchestra.) And here's the first (of many) viola jokes 
     Temirkanov tells:
       How do you teach a viola player to play staccato?
       You write out a whole note and tell him it's a solo.
       (Okay, so maybe it's funnier in Russian.)
       When David Zinman announced his retirement as music 
     director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra two years ago, 
     you could feel the panic in the music community. It was 
     Zinman who had put the BSO on the map--made it artistically 
     viable, world-renowned, even cutting edge. And it was Zinman 
     who had really connected to Baltimore audiences with his 
     regular-guy, artist-as-mensch persona. How could we possible 
     replace him?
       Enter Yuri Temirkanov.
       It's not just that the 59-year-old Temirkanov--the music 
     director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the 
     former principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic in 
     London--is widely considered one of the most prodigiously 
     talented conductors alive. It's also that Temirkanov is so 
     completely lovable.
       There are some people who exude empathy, whose every facial 
     expression, gesture, vocal inflection conveys an emotion. 
     That's Temirkanov. You can see this remarkable body language 
     when he conducts. As he dances on the podium, waving his arms 
     (he doesn't use a baton), he looks like he's playing an 
     elaborate game of charades. Here he's petting a horse. Here 
     he's churning butter. Here he's tinkling at an imaginary 
     piano in the air. And yet every gesture is eminently clear. 
     The horse petting thing: That's Temirkanov trying to get the 
     brass to play with a more emphatic rhythm. The butter 
     churning, that's urging for a more blended, sweeping sound. 
     The tinkling in the air, that's to suggest the tossed-off 
     nature of a woodwind arpeggio.
       ``He's very clear with what he wants,'' says Phillip 
     Kolker, the orchestra's principle bassoonist. ``He doesn't 
     speak much, but he has a very effective way of 
     communicating.''
       Because of his emotional expressiveness--coupled with his 
     puckish good looks (he suggests a smaller, older Kenneth 
     Branaugh), his romantic sensibilities (he has a penchant for 
     lush interpretations of Beethoven and Shostakovich), and his 
     insouciant charm (at a spring press conference, reporters 
     hung delightedly on his every word)--Temirkanov is already a 
     big hit with Baltimore fans.
       When he performed his first concert series as BSO music 
     director last March, the crowds were simply ecstatic. It was 
     as if the audience wanted to embrace Temirkanov with a giant 
     bear hug of applause and appreciation.
       Temirkanov is humbled by this warm response--``it's 
     incredibly touching,'' he says--but it's a safe bet that he 
     wasn't happy with any of his first three performances.
       ``I never had a concert where I said to myself, `Ahhh, that 
     was really something!' '' he explains, munching on a cannoli 
     at Vaccaro's Italian pastry cafe in Little Italy. ``When I 
     play the concert, I know exactly what has gone wrong. And 
     when people say, `Wonderful! Wonderful!' I listen to the 
     compliments with pleasure. But I know it wasn't that good.''
       He equates the praise of concertgoers with well-wishers at 
     a funeral. Then he giggles at the thought: ``Have you ever 
     heard a bad word at a funeral? If only the people could hear 
     what is said about them! No one felt this so strongly when 
     they were alive!''
       To Temirkanov, a true artist is never satisfied with his 
     work. ``It will mean that I'm beginning to die as an 
     artist,'' he says.
       Striving to be a great artist is the focal point of 
     Temirkanov's life. Sure, he has hobbies--fishing, cartoon-
     drawing (he can whip off a giant-schnozzed, Hirschfield-like 
     caricature of himself in 30 seconds flat). And of course he 
     has family: His son plays violin with the St. Petersburg 
     Philharmonic Orchestra, and his beloved wife died in 1997. 
     But it's clear that music shuts out most other earthly 
     concerns. As such, he is notorious for eschewing such modern 
     trappings as computers and televisions and cars.
       Once, ill-advisedly, the trusty Marina Stokes--who has been 
     with the maestro as an assistant and friend for over 15 
     years--tried to teach Temirkanov to drive.
       ``It was a disaster,'' she says with thinly concealed 
     mirth. ``He drove over a flower bed.''
       ``You see!'' laughs Temirkanov. ``Even my left foot is 
     romantic! I don't drive into cars. I drive into flower 
     beds.''
                                  ____


               [From The Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2000]

                 Baltimore Symphony's Man of Substance

                         (By Philip Kennicott)

       The solid and sensible Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which 
     puts its decidedly working-man's city on the cultural map, 
     has an aristocrat at its head. Yuri Temirkanov, the eminent 
     and respected Russian conductor, gave his inaugural concert 
     as the BSO's music director last night. If his tenure builds 
     on the strengths of this performance, the Temirkanov years 
     could be legendary.
       Baltimore is a lucky city. Fifteen years ago, when the Cold 
     War was still in progress, the idea that one of the Soviet 
     Union's foremost and distinguished artists would take the 
     head artistic job at the BSO was inconceivable. Temirkanov 
     was the chief of Leningrad's Kirov Opera, and within a few 
     years, would take the helm of the country's most respected 
     orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. He was a blue-
     blood musician, if not in the traditional sense, in the 
     artistic sense, a man of wide culture, immense influence and 
     a reputation for artistic and personal integrity. He could 
     afford to take risks that would have sunk a lesser figure.
       Then the Cold War ended, and with it the subsidies that 
     made the Soviet musical scene flourish. The St. Petersburg 
     Philharmonic, which he still leads, maintains its quality but 
     is threatened by dwindling audiences and dwindling resources. 
     To keep it afloat, Temirkanov must tour the orchestra, and 
     when he does, foreign audiences want him to bring Russian 
     repertoire--Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev.
       But Temirkanov doesn't want to be pigeonholed. One might 
     have expected that the world's very best orchestras would 
     offer one of the finest living conductors the chance to 
     conduct Elgar and Mahler; yet Baltimore secured him, and now 
     a very good orchestra has a very great conductor. Early signs 
     suggest that both will flourish.
       Temirkanov chose Mahler's Symphony No. 2 for his first 
     official concert as music director. Like Beethoven's Symphony 
     No. 9, which also does service for large, ceremonial 
     occasions, Mahler's Second is best heard infrequently; even 
     for listeners who love it beyond reason, it takes discipline 
     to keep its brutality raw and its sentimentality delicate and 
     unself-conscious. Although it lasts at least an hour and a 
     half, it is perhaps Mahler's most succinct statement: 
     Everything that he does before and after this symphony is 
     here in germ, the funeral marches, the bucolic alpine sounds, 
     the despair of death and the frisson of hope that perhaps 
     this world is not wrought from cold, insensible iron.
       The new music director conducts Mahler with little wasted 
     motion. In this often violent and saturnine work, Temirkanov 
     called for only those cataclysms necessary to make the 
     composer's point. He is a purist on the podium, attending 
     diligently if not slavishly to the score, taking the spare 
     theatrical liberty that proves he is confident of the 
     audience's attention. He will extend a pause to the breaking 
     point or allow the sound of offstage horns to die into 
     protracted silences, but these exceptional moments only 
     underscore his judicious, masonry approach.
       The excitement of the performance was the excitement of 
     comprehension. One heard Mahler's effort to build a new 
     psychology for the orchestra while remaining somewhat distant 
     from the music's bellicose and sloppy extremes. It made 
     Mahler unfold the way Beethoven unfolds, though at a much 
     more geological pace.
       This runs counter to misguided expectations about how 
     Russian-trained conductors conduct, and how Mahler is 
     supposed to be played. Temirkanov's interpretation was not a 
     cinematically sweeping approach, nor an overly personal one. 
     But it invited serious listening, appreciation of the 
     orchestra's manifold strengths and respect for the 
     conductor's attention to balance.
       Temirkanov was rewarded by his new orchestra with ferocious 
     attention. String sounds were clear and incisive, woodwind 
     playing precise and balanced, horns and trumpets warm and 
     blended. Chaos was always intentional, never an unfortunate 
     accident. Soprano Janice Chandler and mezzo-soprano Nancy 
     Maultsby were well chosen, and used as elements within the 
     musical construct rather than soloists dominating it. The BSO 
     chorus sang its opening whisper of resurrection--
     ``Auferstehen''--with a sound familiar from Robert Shaw, a 
     fully fleshed whisper, at the limit of a large chorus's 
     ability to sing a shade above silence.
       Baltimore and the orchestra made the evening an event. 
     Outside the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, a searchlight cut 
     laserlike swaths through the cold night sky. Mayor Martin 
     O'Malley gave the new conductor honorary Baltimore 
     citizenship. But musical protocol and political protocol 
     don't mix well; Mahler's monumental symphony was the point of 
     the evening, and Temirkanov seemed uncomfortable receiving 
     his first huge ovation before having conducted a note. But 
     that discomfort represents the strengths this cultured, 
     dignified and exceptional conductor will bring to the 
     orchestra: a style long on substance and refreshingly free of 
     empty gestures and self-aggrandizement.

                          ____________________