Behind the Baton by Gerard Schwarz

Author:Gerard Schwarz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: memoir;classical music
Publisher: Amadeus Press
Published: 2017-06-05T15:47:44+00:00

My Farewell Season

Mark McCampbell was appointed interim executive director of the Seattle Symphony, and he led the orchestra with vision and creativity. After the success of Kurt Masur’s guest week the previous season, Mark asked me whether I thought Kurt might be a candidate for the position of music advisor. I wasn’t involved in the search for my successor, but I was happy to try to help. Kurt had felt a strong connection with the musicians and thought he could do the job for two or three years while the orchestra searched for its next music director. The situation reminded me of when George Szell was the New York Philharmonic’s music advisor after Bernstein and before Boulez. To Mark’s disappointment, however, the search committee wasn’t interested in hiring Masur.

Mark told me he was looking for a large endowment gift to support my new position of conductor laureate and wondered if I had any ideas. I felt the first opportunity should go to the Benaroya family and said he should call Larry Benaroya. Mark later told me that during that very brief conversation Larry and his family agreed to make a substantial gift to the orchestra.

During these last few seasons we continued to record a great deal. One recording that I am especially proud of, featuring the four Brahms symphonies, was released at the beginning of the season. These recordings are a testament to the excellence of the orchestra and were beautifully recorded by Dmitriy Lipay. Dima is a remarkable engineer, producer, and musician, and a great gentleman besides. I trust him completely when we record together because his standards are extremely high. Many orchestras spend twenty or thirty minutes just on sound checks, but ours last only one or two minutes. Dima also has done all my All-Star Orchestra recordings.

The most exciting programming ideas for my final season were the Gund-Simonyi Farewell Commissions. I asked some of my closest composer friends to write short works that would be premiered on each program I conducted during the season. Since our programs were already set, the pieces would be like little gifts to the audience, usually placed at the beginning of the concert. It made them feel a bit like encores and would not alienate those in the audience who didn’t care for new music.

The best way to kill any idea is to wait until it’s too late to make it happen, then apologize. This is what happened at first. I told Mark that Jody and I were willing to fund it ourselves and then told him my assistant, Anna Brodie, and I would put the whole project together ourselves. Later on Aggie Gund became interested and made a significant gift. Aggie is among the most remarkable people I know, a brilliant woman with superior artistic taste and a deep understanding of the importance of the arts in our society. Her gift for this commissioning project inspired two other remarkable individuals, Lisa and Charles Simonyi, to do the same. We began working on the commissions in February.

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