Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazelwas an American conductor, violinist and composer. Making his debut at the conducting podium at the age of eight, he embarked on his career in earnest in 1953, establishing a reputation in European concert halls by 1960 but, by comparison, his career in the U.S. progressed far more slowly. However, he would later be appointed music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, among...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth6 March 1930
CityNanterre, France
CountryUnited States of America
In this world, there's even room for quality.
Salzburg was where he was born and where he was rejected. I don't think he was capable of writing a boring bar of music.
Salzburg was where he was born and where he was rejected.
So many things can hinder one. Think you are up in a hot air balloon with sandbags. As you get older, keep throwing those sandbags overboard. The more sandbags you throw, the higher you soar, the higher the balloon goes.
Why does Beethoven appeal and continue to appeal? Other than the obvious (his having written great music), Beethoven communicates a credo so effectively that the listener finds the courage he needs to reaffirm his own belief in the purpose of life. Beethoven stiffens the fiber of our commitment in a language that is beauty itself, in a statement as open as a Greek temple. Friend Beethoven is the one friend we shall always have.
In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.
We are doing a program this season of music by Schubert, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel, music which is totally -- on paper -- incompatible,
Our goals are clear: maintain a superb standard of performance of core classics, renew and refresh our tradition with contemporary music of value and relevance, reach out to all segments of our heterogeneous society, tour nationally and abroad as ambassadors of the true face of America.
Our Orchestra must also continue to play its leadership role in the community and in our nation. The young look to us to provide substance in place of dross, emotional depth in place of shallow titillation.
Art rises above and beyond the issues of the day. It reunites what has been rent asunder, not along national or religious lines, but along individual, human ones. It heals, redefines goals, and strengthens the resolve to move on, to rebuild, to reconstruct. However obtuse human behavior is in other arenas, art, if not suborned, can clarify, put into perspective and re-inspire.
I come to a performance of music that I know very well as if I were performing it for the first time. Every day is a new day, a new experience. This is the way I approach a masterpiece. A masterpiece can never age - it's only the people who perform it or listen to it who become insensitive to it. If you come with a fresh feeling toward a masterpiece, it will always feel fresh and give you the benefit of its genius.
The Beethoven Experience provided the opportunity to solidify the relationship between the Orchestra and me, the Orchestra and me and the public, between all of us and the city of New York, because Beethoven after all is a really amazing point of reference.
I think I infuse the music with a new passion. Part of this is because I have fallen in love: I am in love with the New York Philharmonic. The chemistry has just been right. Beyond expectation.
What our profession is all about is interacting with people.