Klarinet Archive - Posting 000110.txt from 2002/02

From: "John P. Varineau" <jvarineau@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Solti and Barenboim
Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 17:36:19 -0500

Since I'm the one who started this whole thread, I'll now have to go back
and find the exact quote by Henry Fogel about who should be called
Maestro. It will take me a while. It was in the alumni magazine for the
Eastman School of Music -- and I have no connection to that school at
all. I just want you all to remember that I started the thread because
someone was nice enough to call me 'maestro' -- an entirely unearned and
unjustified sobriquet -- not because of how I feel about Solti or
Barenboim.

My Maazel story is this:

I saw him conduct the Cleveland Orchestra at Woolsey Hall in New Haven,
CT. I was really looking forward to the program: John Mack playing the
Strauss Oboe Concerto and Dvorak's New World Symphony.

Maazel conducted the entire New World with his left hand in his pant's
pocket. The orchestra played horribly -- at least for Cleveland.
Somebody was obviously using this concert as a warmup to Carnegie Hall.
Incredibly, about a year later I was in Traverse City, MI. On a lazy
Saturday afternoon I was playing cards with a friend and listening to the
radio. The broadcast was a rather questionable performance of the New
World Symphony. I said to my friend, "The last time I heard this played
so poorly was with the Cleveland Orchestra in Woolsey Hall, conducted by
Maazel." At the end of the broadcast, to my amazement, Robert Conrad
came on and said, "That was the Cleveland Orchestra in a performance in
Woolsey Hall in New Haven, Ct. conducted by Loren Maazel."

John Varineau
Associate Conductor, Grand Rapids Symphony

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