[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1] [Senate] [Pages 573-575] [From the U.S. 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 [[Page 574]] 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-- 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. [[Page 575]] 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. ____________________