[78-L] Lorin Maazel

[DAVID BURNHAM]

Those of us into classical music should appreciate this.  I recently read a book 
by David Ewen called "Dictators of the Baton".  This book was written in 1943 
and covers the careers of the significant living conductors of the day;  the 
only exception is the chapter on Frederick Stock who, as it is pointed out, died 
while the book was being written.  In a chapter towards the end he discusses 
child prodigies and points out that conducting is the one area in music where 
there are no child prodigies and that no child prodigy has ever developed into a 
successful adult conductor.

Here is a quote: 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Only recently a child conductor excited admiration and publicity in New York 
with guest performances with the NBC Orchestra.  Lorin Maazel, aged 11, was the 
first child ever to direct a major American Orchestra, and he directed it in 
programs which would have taxed the experience and equipment of a much older 
musician.  The story goes that at the age of eight he revealed he could read a 
full orchestral score;  that on his ninth birthday, (as his gift), he was given 
the opportunity to rehearse an orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Marche Slav.  His 
career began officially with the National Youth Orchestra which he directed at 
the New York World's Fair.  A guest performance at the Hollywood Bowl, (where he 
shared the baton with Stokowski), prefaced his New York appearances with 
Toscanini's orchestra.
 
But young Maazel, for all his apparent talent, has proved himself to be little 
more than a routined time-beater.  He seems to know the music he conducts, and 
he responds to it emotionally.  He has a good ear.  But he has no understanding 
of the artistic forces which give  the music its dramatic, emotional, or lyric 
greatness.  He plays bar by bar as if he had been taught to do so by rote;  of 
imagination, sensitive refinement, artistic planning or design there are not the 
slightest traces.
 
Consequently, if we are to search for the conductors for tomorrow, we will not 
find them among child prodigies,....."
 
~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I know David Ewen lived long enough to eat his words, (d. 1985);  I wonder if he 
ever did - to Lorin Maazel personally or in print.

This is a wonderful book to read - illuminating the careers of conductors who 
until now were, to me, little more than names on records, such as Walter 
Damrosch.  The conductors who, in 1943, he feels hold promise for the future are 
Izler Solomon, Dean Dixon and Sylvan Levin.  Dixon is the only one I know of who 
had a career, I've never heard of Solomon at all.  Strangely, there is no 
mention of Leonard Bernstein whatsoever;  I believe his career was underway by 
1943.

db