“In any league table of great conductors, the name of the Latvian-born maestro Mariss Jansons, who has died aged 76 after suffering from a long-term heart condition, would feature very near the top,” writes Barry Millington in Sunday’s (12/1) Guardian (U.K.). “His tours … with his two primary orchestras, the Bavarian Radio Symphony and the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, were eagerly awaited events…. Lacerating anguish in Mahler symphonies, blistering climaxes in Strauss tone poems, intense, finely wrought detail in almost any repertoire: these were the characteristics that defined his music-making… Even the heart attack he suffered on the podium conducting La Bohème in Oslo in 1996, from which he nearly died, did little to lower the emotional temperature of his interpretations…. Jansons showed exceptional talent at an early age. Having won a prize at the International Herbert von Karajan Competition in Berlin in 1971, he was invited by Karajan … to be his assistant…. He secured his first post in the west, as music director of the Oslo Philharmonic, only in 1979…. His first major post came as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1997), followed by the appointments with the Bavarian RSO (2003) and the Concertgebouw (2004).… During his seven-year tenure of the music directorship of the Pittsburgh Symphony, he was credited with transforming the orchestra’s sound…. Often during a concert, he would stop conducting altogether, forcing the orchestral players to listen to each other…. He is survived by his second wife, Irina (nee Outchitel) … and by his daughter, Ilona, a pianist, from his first marriage.”
Posted December 2, 2019
