John Storgårds And Great First Impressions

John Storgårds



Sorry it has been so long, campers. But it was hard to get going again after a great weekend in the Big Apple filled with Mussorgsky and Bruckner and Mahler.
I even got to attend two rehearsal by the Berlin Philharmonic including the performances!

That's almost more fun than a person ought to be allowed to have. I'm told it may still be illegal in a number of southern states.

But I digress. John Storgårds has come and gone, and the news is great. After the break, a few words concerning how great.

Conducting is intrinsically difficult to evaluate. Neither the musicians trying to follow a conductor nor a listener taking in the performance can get the full picture. We become a bit like the group of blind men trying to describe an elephant just by touching its different parts and none of us can agree.

Nevertheless, I am informed by sources I trust, sources that are none too generous in their appraisals of conductors, that John Storgårds is the real deal. He was favorably compared to Claus Peter Flor and Hannu Lintu. That, my friends, is high praise indeed.

Accounts confirm that he is an honest, forthright, no B.S. musician who knows what he wants from the band and knows how to get it. No devices, no popularity contests, no head games, no double secret probation or reverse psychology. Just straight lines, the shortest distance between two points. Music first. All else in distant second place.

If true, to hire a music director with these qualities would be "something completely different." The only troubling indication I have yet received is the possibility that he might not be on the board's real list of contenders--that they might not want something "completely different."

Come now. Surely if we cannot yet agree on what needs to change, we can at least agree that continuing as we are is not acceptable. Why not be great?

I have an inherent mistrust of critics and music reviewers (ironically), but this review that I read confirms the favorable first hand accounts that I received. I can hardly wait to hear Mr. Storgårds perform next year:

September 28, 29, 30, 2012John Storgårds, conductor
Jonathan Biss, piano
Program D – September 28, 30, 2012
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Brahms: Symphony No. 3

Program E – September 29, 2012
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Brahms: Symphony No. 2