Farewell, symphony.

Can someone explain to me just what went wrong between the Philadelphia Orchestra and its music director, Christoph Eschenbach? Late on Friday afternoon, I received a press release announcing that Eschenbach's tenure will end at the close of the 2007-08 season, after only three years on the job.

I can't say that I'm surprised, given constant rumors of the orchestra's ill will toward its leader. On September 24, the Philadelphia Inquirer went so far as to run a point-counterpoint between its two music critics, David Patrick Stearns (on the "pro" side) and Peter Dobrin (a decided "non"). Those two essays do provide much of the context and some of the atmosphere that led to this fraught relationship.

But as someone who came up in Houston and witnessed firsthand Eschenbach's miraculous transformation of the Houston Symphony, a decent regional orchestra, into a force to be reckoned with on the international stage, the failure of this particular "Philadelphia experiment" remains somewhat opaque to me.

Having heard numerous concerts by the Houston Symphony during Eschenbach's tenure, as well as revelatory evenings of Mozart and a transcendent Parsifal (staged by Robert Wilson, no less) at Houston Grand Opera, I am unshakeable in my opinion that this is a genuinely gifted, even brilliant artist. Obviously, he's a controversial one as well, given the interpretive liberties to be found in his Beethoven and Brahms readings. In this, I think Stearns is absolutely right to name Furtwängler, Stokowski and Bernstein as Eschenbach's spiritual predecessors.

I haven't always agreed with everything Eschenbach's done -- for one thing, the "Pathétique pirouette" he routinely employs to thwart premature applause between the third and fourth movements of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, while effective, seems blatantly condescending. I first witnessed this move in Houston, and saw it again a decade later in a guest appearance with the New York Philharmonic (an orchestra that rejected his candidacy in favor of Lorin Maazel, an even more willful and erratic interpreter of the standard repertoire). And Eschenbach's devotion to certain soloists, such as the pianist Tzimon Barto, is surely an inscrutable personal tic.

On the other hand, Eschenbach is among the finest living conductors of Bruckner and Mahler. A recent disc of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 with his other ensemble, the Orchestre de Paris, made that group sound like an estimable proposition, while his latest recording, a newly issued Mahler Sixth with the Philadelphia Orchestra, is almost certainly the orchestra's best Mahler recording ever. I still recall the thrill of a Houston Symphony performance of that work, which Eschenbach conducted without a score, and I own a fine CD of the Mahler First with Houston on Koch, as well as a privately issued live recording of the Mahler Fifth recorded live with the Houston Symphony in Vienna, which earned a tumultuous response. Eschenbach is also a creditable champion of new music, having devoted attention to Christopher Rouse in Houston, Jennifer Higdon in Philadelphia and Matthias Pintscher all over the place.

So can someone help me understand more fully just why Eschenbach's tenure with one of America's heirloom ensembles went awry? Were things truly so bad? Or -- perish the thought -- is the orchestra still harboring dreams of providing Simon Rattle, the conductor it truly lusted after, with a cushy landing pad if things in Berlin continue to deteriorate?

Playlist:

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Symphonies Nos. 1-4, Cello Concerto in A* - Alison McGillivray*, The English Concert/Andrew Manze (Harmonia Mundi)

Robert Schumann - Piano Concerto*; Clara Schumann - Two Rückert Lieder; Am Strande**; Johannes Brahms - Cello Sonata in E minor***; Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79 - Helene Grimaud, Anne-Sofie von Otter**, Truls Mørk***, Staatskapelle Dresden/Esa-Pekka Salonen* (Deutsche Grammophon)

Maurice Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé - Choir and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Myung-Whun Chung (Deutsche Grammophon)

King Crimson - Riverside Theatre, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 8, 1972 (DGMLive! download)

Herbert Janssen - Lebendige Vergangenheit (Preiser)

Anny Konetzni - Lebendige Vergangenheit (Preiser)

Hilde Konetzni - Lebendige Vergangenheit (Preiser)

Comments

[FredK]

If orchestra members everywhere had their way Simon Rattle and Valery Gergiev would be the only 2 conductors working.

[Christopher Davis]

In this case, the gears just don't mesh between the conductor and the band. That's all you need to know, really.

[lbethjones]

A few malcontents and a reporter willing to spread the poison to help their cause certainly didn't do Mr. Eschenbach any good. I really enjoy his concerts- nothing dull about them. His programming was more interesting in the first few years- I don't think he got dull- I think he got muzzled. Peter Dobrin has never gotten over Sawallish and hasn't even tried. Heaven help the next music director if he doesn't come up with the same interpretive point of view.

[Mark in Chicago]

From what I have read and heard, Eschenbach's erratic tempos have lead to him miscueing orchestra sections or players at various times. This is something that one would never happen with Maazel. So, the comparison between the two conductors is not appropriate. I used to be a big Eschenbach fan until I heard him perform Mahler 5 in Cleveland before the job there went to Franz Welser-Most. While FWM purportedly did not accomplish anything magical during that Dohnanyi audition replacement year, Eschenbach's over the top performance lacked any sense of balance and was too brass-heavy in an already brass dominated symphony. Perhaps he was trying to be the next Solti, but it did not work and just sounded crass. Recent performances in Philadelphia have had the same problem, and that orchestra is already more brass heavy than the Cleveland. Also, while FWM/Cleveland received some mixed reviews for their first two concerts at Carnegie Hall recently, they were not all bad and their performance of the Bruckner 5th was highly praised. Such was not the case with the Eschenbach/Philly Carnegie Hall concert recently. It appears that the orchestra gave him what he wanted, and that was perhaps the problem. Eschenbach has always been an excellent musician, but he is not right for a big time orchestra music director post. He has been passed over by Cleveland and New York, and was hired in Philadelphia without conducting the orchestra there for several years. Obviously, Philly management looked around at their choices and made the best one they could under those circumstances. Better choices may now be available and,with these other factors, I believe that the Philly management has made the right decision that it is time to move on.