Ten Recordings to Remember Mariss Jansons By

Photo of Mariss Jansons by Astrid Ackermann

Mariss Jansons died last month, on November 30th. His passing, at 76, comes earlier than we somehow would expect from a great conductor - since we tend to perceive great conductors bathed in a gentle glow of immortality. (And because conductors, despite exceptions, tend to live long and active lives.) But it did not come entirely unexpected, either, after his past and recent health failings and his preternaturally frail appearance. Between my first Mariss Jansons concert with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2006 (ionarts review) until my last review of a Jansons-concert (with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Munich's Gasteig) almost exactly ten years later (ionarts review here), he had been one of the conductors I had followed the most closely and heard the most often. I cannot say that I was always entirely enamored by the results, but often enough impressed and on some occasions blown away. Much the same goes for his recorded output which isn't very even but which contains much quality, some of which truly stands out. These are ten recordings that I think represent Jansons rather well and include the four bands with which he worked the most (Oslo, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam & Munich) the best. Failing that, they are those recordings I am most

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Forbes Classical CD Of The Month: Mariss Jansons And Sibelius In Shostakovich's Clothing

...If the "CD of the Week" has an informative element with an implicit recommendation, a CD of the Month post is the equivalent of my waving my arms like a semaphore-gone-wild, trying even harder to recommend a recording. Here it's a dose of dark, excellent Sibelius from a sneakily unlikely source.…

-> Classical CD Of The Month March 2018: Mariss Jansons And Sibelius In Shostakovich's Clothing

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Mariss Jansons becomes an Honorary Member of the Berlin Philharmonic

Mariss Jansons, Philipp Bohnen (Member of the Philharmonic Association), Knut Weber (Orchestra Board), Andrea Zietzschmann (General Manager)
Photo courtesy Berlin Philharmonic, © Stephan Rabold

They didn't make him their new Chief Conductor when they voted two years ago, but how they've made him an honorary member: As per the PR office of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berliner Philharmoniker welcomed Mariss Jansons as an honorary member of the orchestra earlier today, before their rehearsal for the concerts with Schumann's Piano Concerto (with Daniil Trifonov, who looks ever more like Jan Böhmermann) and Bruckner's Sixth Symphony (Jan. 25th through the 27th), and thus "expressing their gratitude for a long association". (See also The Berlin Philharmonic's Next Conductor: The Odds And Ends and Kirill Petrenko Is The New Chief Conductor Of The Berlin Philharmonic)

In this he joins fellow conductors Daniel Barenboim, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Seiji Ozawa.

This statement from orchestra board member Knut Weber came with it:

For many years the Berliner Philharmoniker and the public have again and again experienced fascinating concerts with and thanks to you. Dear Mariss Jansons, it is a great pleasure for us all to have you with us this week. It is our heartfelt wish to thank you by conferring honorary membership in our orchestra on you. Thank you for many years of unique musical cooperation, for unforgettable concerts – in short, for your wonderful friendship.

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Latest on Forbes: Go Hear My Orchestra Tonight! (+ Gergiev in Munich)

Forbes: The Bavarian RSO hits N.America today, starting @kencen & finishing @carnegiehall: https://t.co/gdV630EOEK pic.twitter.com/Afv1ZvSF32

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) April 12, 2016

In Search Of A Home, Abroad: The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra In North America

...The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is said to be the bee's knees among orchestras, the cream of the crop. Mariss Jansons brings the band to North America for people between Chapel Hill and Montreal to hear for themselves...

The full article on Forbes.com.

Latest on @ForbesOpinion: @ValeryGergiev Starts Into Second Season In Munichhttps://t.co/h8Yq2HUs7d pic.twitter.com/Fd8AdeBnIc

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) April 9, 2016

Gergiev Starts Into Second Season In Munich

...For those who listened carefully, right off the bat (and again at the very end), two remarks were made that might be hints of a sea-change in the orchestra’s attitude; hinting perhaps at a point-zero of the Munich Philharmonic moving on from a considerably good but ultimately provincial orchestra of second rank to something more than that...

The full article on Forbes.com.

Ionarts-at-Large: Jansons | Mahler 5

A Mahler Symphony and the chief conductor (Mariss Jansons) at the helm, boldly announced from fancy-font-employing posters, is big ticket stuff even for the spoiled Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra crowd. It’s got all the hallmarks of an event, marked by the throngs of people parading outside the premises of the Gasteig cultural complex (where the 2400-seat Philharmonic Hall is located) with signs of “Tickets Sought”. This concert, on Friday March 11^th, was the second of two before the orchestra took this program—Mahler’s Fifth—and one consisting of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, on tour.

Part of me was surprised about the hoopla, because Mariss Jansons is not exactly a natural, great Mahler conductor nor, as far as I sense (despite the Amsterdam tenure), known as such. Certainly his recordings and several concerts I have witnessed (BRSO, 2010; RCO, 2010) left me cold. That said, he’s also turned in one of the two best Mahler performances I’ve ever heard—in the symphony I thought him least likely to succeed, no less. (BRSO, 2011) The general problem is that micro-controlling and Mahler don’t work well together. Jansons rarely just lets thing go. Then again, with that most recent glorious exceptions in mind, even I felt a hint of giddiness as Jansons raised his baton to launch the Trauermarsch.

G.Mahler, Symphony No.5, M.Stenz / Gürzenich Orch. Oehms

But before it got that far, there was this new thing the BRSO does: their “Surprise Work” which awaits the customers of every Mariss Jansons concert. Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture op.62, in this case, and not much of a surprise if one looked a few days ahead to see what the orchestra would play along to Mahler in Vienna’s Musikverein. (Where such surprise-nonsense is presumably not tolerated.) Whether this is a clever concept or just PR-department concocted nonsense I will get into in a post over on Forbes.com, next week. For now let’s report that the overture was well played and that Mariss Jansons got the work right when he announced it, afterwards. That’s a step up from the day before, where he pronounced having conducted one of the Leonore Overtures with Mahler’s Retuschen only to be told by his concert master that he may well have been conducting that*, but that the orchestra had been playing the Coriolan Overture all the same. Ouch. (* The concert master may have phrased it slightly more diplomatically.)

The Mahler itself was uncontroversial, very good and not special. The beginning—tight, precise, taut and loud—promised good, martial Mahler, organized and swift. The second movement was neatly shoved into the proximity of Wagner and the cellos (and eventually violas) playing over soft timpani rolls was a special, intense moment. But the movement ended with glare as colors gave way to sheer volume. The plucky pizzicato section both in the violins and cellos in the third movement paid great attention to detail, but now there was also a sense of stop-and-go… and the tempo choices didn’t feel (subjectively) quite compelling or obvious nor was the BRSO’s playing entirely up to its usual, exacting standards of perfection. This was different in the Adagietto, which was one big breath, which was chamber-like in its texture, which had a wonderful tempo (just shy of ten minutes but with a clear arc from beginning to end), liquid and somber but never lingering. But the fifth and last movement was small-small again, for some time, before the rousing finale (something that’s built into the music and can hardly—and didn’t—fail) came. It was, well, rousing, and loud but felt a little empty. The enjoyment might have been greater, had the symphony not felt quite as safe and tame.

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Mariss Jansons renews contract with Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra through 2021

PICUTRE OF MARISS JANSONS © ASTRID ACKERMANN

Bavarian Radio has just announced that Mariss Jansons has renewed his contract as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (and Chorus)

The blurb attributed to Jansons on the occasion:

It is a great pleasure for me to continue our work together beyond 2018 after 15 years of successful collaboration. These two ensembles are a real boon and I am delighted to be part of forming and building up their future. Their artistic and personal quality is unparalleled. To be able not only to enjoy this but also to further it, and to showcase it to audiences in Munich, Bavaria, and around the world, is something very dear to my heart.

The orchestral manager, Nikolaus Pont, on the occasion:

The vote of the BRSO's musicians has very explicitly given expression to their wish to continue to work with Mariss Jansons beyond 2018. His decision to accept this invitation makes me look to the future of the orchestra with particular optimism. We are looking forward to continue our work with this astounding artistic personality and to realize many musical ideas and ideals together.

Mariss Jansons wasn't going to be seriously considered for the Chief Conductor position of the Berlin Philharmonic (or maybe seriously considered but decidedly without a hope of attaining the position, with the Berlin Philharmonic going for someone young), so he might as well renew his gig with the Bavarian standouts, an orchestra that he has already chosen over a continued stay with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and which is as good as any in the world; second (or so) to the Berlin Philharmonic in reputation, but not in quality and ability. To release the news two days before the election in Berlin makes sense... this way it looks to happen on Jansons' terms, rather than giving the possible (if unlikely) impression, that the BRSO is the sweet lemon after the Berlin gig didn't pan out.

It's good news for Munich and the BRSO. Jansons is a stupendous conductor (all of our Jansons-reviews here). Not without weaknesses* (who is?), but when he's on and healthy and let's go just a little, with an upside that has him rightly included among the elite few conductors around. He's also a tenacious fighter for a new and finally decent concert hall in Munich (see also: Munich Bungles Concert Hall Plans), to which he has already pledged a cool ¼ mill of his own money. His long term commitment to the orchestra speaks to the musicians and the city and ensures a tenure that will have greatly shaped and benefited the BRSO, manifesting its position as one of the world's best. His time will likely be likened to that of Rafael Kubelik in importance for the orchestra, which has otherwise been led by founding music director Eugen Jochum, and the high-quality milquetoast tenures of the Kubelik-successors Sir Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel. (Kiril Kondrashin's promising tenure never got off the ground, due to the unfortunate early demise of the conductor.)

		BRSO
		BRSO
		Berlin Philharmonic
		Berlin Philharmonic
		jfl
		ClassicalCritic
		ClassicalCritic

(*Bruckner and Mahler and Haydn are not composers I get flustered in anticipation of hearing with him, although that hasn't kept him from turning in one of the most blistering Mahler accounts I've ever heard)

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On Forbes: Munich Philharmonic Responds To Concert Hall Controversy

Munich Philharmonic Responds To Concert Hall Controversy

The concert hall debate in Munich has created waves in the classical music world: It was so important to Anne-Sophie Mutter that she took out her cell-phone during rehearsals for her Carnegie Hall performance of the Sibelius Concerto to comment on the issue. Even London, courtesy of Sir Simon Rattle—just this week appointed the new music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, has started a debate on its own, finding itself in a surprisingly similar position as Munich. In fact, in an interview with the BBC last month he said London and Munich were the two great cities in the world which did not have proper concert halls.

The decision to renege on promises to build a new hall—primarily to benefit the truly needy Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra)—in favor of revamping the hall of the somewhat needy Munich Philharmonic—but at a considerable cost for the musical life of Munich—has indeed created strong responses: All but a few solidly condemn the move–ever so slightly back-tracked upon since–by the Bavarian Prime Minister and Mayor of Munich. As Mutter stated, with a dash of hyperbole: “This city is about to ruin its international reputation in the world of music.” In a press conference Mariss Jansons added that he thinks “we were taken for a fool” and that “Bavaria has much to lose.”...

The extant concert hall, the Philharmonic Hall of the Gasteig, is now at the center of the musico-cultural attention of the city of Munich. This creates the opportunity to turn the Philharmonic Hall into an extraordinary space for classical music in Munich, and most especially one fit for decades to come.

Translated: Let’s... completely shift focus from the Needs of one orchestra to the Wants of this orchestra, painting it as something that would benefit Munich, rather than us—at the cost of most everyone else...

Continue reading here, at Forbes.com

Best Recordings of 2014 (#3)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2014 (published in whole on Forbes.com). My lists for the previous years: 2013, 2012, 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 3 - New Release

Hector Berlioz (+ Edgar Varèse), Symphonie Fantastique (+ Ionisation), BRSO, Mariss Jansons (conductor), BR Klassik 900121

H.Berlioz et al., Symphonie Fantastique, M.Jansons, BRSO BR Klassik

Romantic Precision to the Scaffold and Beyond

Tender, halting, tip-toeing, and then socking the listener with a lightning-quick straight left and the occasional gnarling brassy, timpani-thwacking right to the ribs. Bone dry and pointed, detailed and precise, this is a very different Symphonie fantastique from the souped-up romanticism one gets from many a famous recording. Listening to that recording makes you stop wondering how Mariss Jansons could have forgone his conductorship with the Concertgebouw Amsterdam in favor of focusing solely on his Munichers. In the much appreciated added bonus of Edgar Varèse’sIonisation, the 13 player strong percussion ensemble is just showing off what precision really means. Now just imagine what that orchestra could do if it was finally given a proper hall to perform in?!.

# 3 – Reissue

Various, Ferenc Fricsay (conductor), Berlin RSO (RIAS), BPh, BRSO, et al., DG 479 2691

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 10 ) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra 1 • Mariss Jansons

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra 1 • Mariss Jansons

A Russian Pair of Sixes

A pair of Russian Sixes came from Mariss Jansons and his Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in their first of two Salzburg concerts: Shostakovich’s and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony each, related by their key (B minor), nationality, and number, but little else.

The lower strings of the BRSO opened the Shostakovich with that rare total cohesion that has its very own

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Dip Your Ears, No. 143 (Jansons' Lutosławski & Friends)

Lutosławski, Szymanowski, A.Tchaikovsky , Cto. for Orchestra, Sy.#3, Sy.#4 M.Jansons / BRSO Rafał Bartmiński (tenor), Andreas Röhn (violin), Nimrod Guez (viola) BR Klassik

Lutosławski Touchstone

Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is of a rare, invigorating quality: here pounding, there lyrical, then flitting like reveling grasshoppers. Success depends on painstaking precision, fitting each layer of different shades and timbres atop the next. Extreme virtuosity and difficulties stand in the service of the music and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons is suited to this challenge like few orchestras; the resulting live recordings is one of the finest of the Concerto yet. Szymanowski’s Third Symphony is a coupling on equal footing. Amid wordless chorus and ecstatic climaxes, the BRSO sounds at home and uncommonly full-bodied. Alexander (!) Tchaikovsky—not related—is a contemporary Jansons favorite; his post-Mahlerian Fourth Symphony for Viola and Chorus makes clear why.

Made possible by Listen Music Magazine.

Ionarts-at-Large: Mariss Jansons' Birthday Turangalîla

Edit: You can listen to this performance via the Bavarian Radio's free on demand stream here.

At 8:02PM, Friday January 11^th, I wondered how Mariss Jansons in seemingly out-of-character Messiaen—specifically the Turangalîla Symphony—would sound like. Would Messiaen’s central part of his Tristan & Isolde triptych, this “love song” and “hymn to joy” (Messiaen), really be up Jansons’ alley?

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Ionarts-at-Large: Penderecki's New Double Concerto

On November 15th and 16th, under the eyes of the composer, Julian Rachlin and Janine Jansen gave the German premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s brand new Double Concerto which had received its world premiere in Vienna just a few weeks earlier. The last time I heard Julian Rachlin première a work it was Giya Kancheli’s Ciaruscuro for Soloist, a concerto for violin and viola, but, as the name indicates, just for one player. Penderecki’s Double Concerto, inspired by, if not exactly modeled on, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, also opts for violin and viola, but two players. Rachlin picked the viola part which puts Janine Jansen on violin. They could just as well have traded the parts, given that Jansen, according to Rachlin, plays a mean viola, except she doesn’t because “she’s too lazy to carry a double case” (see “I Always Wanted to be a Cellist”, Playbill Arts) and sticks to the violin, instead.

Jansons’ Beethoven on ionarts: Symphony No.3 / Shchedrin, Heiligenstadt Testament Fragments WP (20.12.08) Symphonies Nos.6 & 2 / Misato Mochizuki, Nirai WP (17.12.12) Symphonies Nos.7 & 8 / Widmann, Con Brio WP (24.10.08) Symphony No.9 / Kancheli, Dixi, WP (7.11.09) Symphony No.3 / Shchedrin, Self-Portrait Variations (20.10.12)

The 25 minute concerto begins as a soft conversation between the two instruments trading soft flageolets and pizzicatos back and forth. From tenderness it moves quickly to heated passion and after a while the full orchestra joins the two exposed soloists and their acerbic-yet-lyrical lines. It’s a melodic piece, technically challenging to both soloists, and often with pedal points in the low strings of the orchestra where the melodies go to the winds, especially the flute. With the BRSO audience on the slightly more adventurous side than that of the other orchestras in conservative Munich (except for the re-invented MKO), the work and the temperate tension it places on the ears found the approval of the audience. The presence of the composer always helps, of course.

Penderecki’s intricately and deeply romantic language came out even more overtly in the encore Rachlin and Jansen provided: the superb Chaconne, composed for Rachlin like the concerto, a work filled with the fragile beauty of woven silvery question marks and indeed one of the finest pieces for solo violin and viola I have heard.

Beethoven framed Penderecki. The Egmont Overture to open; grooving the groves and jumping the jumps, at its worst might have been pandering to the obvious, but it was also good fun with its military clatter-a-crack and the brash brass. The Seventh Symphony, unlike the Sixth a week earlier (review here), was 21^st century Beethoven, the crisp and a lean kind, muscular, explosive and with edges, in this case also full bodied and with all hands on deck for the brawn necessary to fill the modern concert hall. Not that the Herkulessaal is modern, or that big, and ready for anything but mothballing. Only the comfortable new chairs might be worth salvaging if the city ever decides to bother with a proper venue for Symphonic classical music.

Wobbly winds and overly excited horns aside, a visibly and audibly healthy Jansons led the BRSO in the kind of performance that leaves one admiring the music and forget the interpretation rat race for a while. It wasn’t the most novel or even the most exciting approach, but it was just the thing to bring out of the majestic and the simple, deeply felt beauties of Beethoven in the moment.