He began conducting at the age of eight and controversy has followed his career ever since – but Lorin Maazel insists that every day for him is a learning experience, he tells ARMINTA WALLACE
THERE ARE, they say, two Lorin Maazels. One is confident and charming, and could persuade the birds down out of the trees. The other is arrogant, overbearing and pernickety. But the man who’s talking to me doesn’t come across as either of these. Rather, he’s briskly efficient and, considering that he’s almost 80 and is working three full-time jobs on at least two continents, almost frighteningly articulate.
But then, he's a conductor. And not just any conductor. Maazel has been a major figure on the international classical music scene since he made his public debut in 1938 at the age of – yes, you got the maths right – eight. He has conducted 150 orchestras in 5,000 opera and concert performances and has made more than 300 recordings. He's also a composer and arranger with an eclectic reach, creating everything from 17 Italian song arrangements for Andrea Bocelli's smash-hit album Sentimentoto a "symphonic synthesis" of Wagner's Ringcycle, The Ring Without Words.
In the US, where he has been at the helm of the New York Philharmonic for the past six years, he regularly and happily stirs up controversy, whether he’s releasing the orchestra’s recordings exclusively on iTunes, or bringing it on tour to North Korea.
Small wonder, then, that Maazel can dispose of polite questions without even pausing for breath. The programme for his forthcoming visit to Dublin with the London Philharmonia and Julia Fischer? No problem, lady. First up: Fauré's suite Pelléas and Mélisande, which, unlike Debussy's operatic setting of the same symbolist play, is something of a rarity.
"Fauré is a composer who has somewhat been obscured at the present time," declares the throaty, distinctly New York-accented voice. "He has a very delicate musical language which is perhaps not all that suitable in today's very noisy world – but his music is of exquisite sensitivity, and this suite of four little vignettes, Pelléas and Mélisande, is one of his finest pieces. It was a favourite of the great French conductor Charles Munch 40 years ago when he was at the Boston Symphony, but I think I may be the only conductor now who's still conducting it. The music's right up there with the angels, so I'll be doing it with much pleasure."
He will also enjoy conducting Sibelius's Second Symphony, "a very powerful piece with soaring melodies and a very positive outlook". For the third work on the bill, his own composition Music for Violin and Orchestra, the orchestra will be joined by violin soloist Julia Fischer. "It's confrontational," says Maazel of the piece. "There's antiphonal response back and forth between the violin and the orchestra. But the violin is definitely the chief protagonist and finally wins the battle, so to speak. It's a rather lyrical piece – when the smoke clears."
Maazel is eloquent in his praise of the multi-award-winning Fischer. But then, passing the baton to the next generation of classical players has become something of a passion for him.
This July he will celebrate his "retirement" – his seven-year tenure at the New York Phil having come to an end – by launching the Castleton Festival at his spectacular manor-house farm and estate in Virginia. More than 120 promising young singers and orchestral musicians from across the US will be mentored by top-notch professionals, including himself – "for the first time in my life I'll be giving conducting master classes, which will be documented by the Rolex Corporation", he says, slipping a sponsorship moment into the conversation with admirable ease – and will perform Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Albert Herring, The Beggar's Operaand The Turn of the Screw.
Maazel is, it seems, anxious to hand down a kind of 10 commandments for conductors. “Sixty years ago the art of conducting was a documented art and a respected and honoured art – but it has now, unfortunately, fallen into disrepute,” he says. “Just about anybody who can walk thinks he can go and conduct an orchestra. What I’d like to do, if I can, is bring back the discipline and hone the great masters of the past, so that the future of symphonic and operatic music will be once again put into competent hands.”
An understandable aim, perhaps, from someone who trained with Toscanini and knew Rachmaninov, Schoenberg and Hindemith. But what about that gender-bending “he”? Does Maazel consider conducting to be an all-male activity?
“Not at all. My first conducting competition, in 2002, was won by a woman from the Chinese mainland, Xian Zhang, who has made a fine career,” is the lightning-quick reply. “I’m just not the kind of person who says he/she in a sentence. We’re all mature enough to know that when we say ‘he’, we can also mean ‘she’ and vice versa. No?” Nice one, maestro.
NEVERTHELESS THERE’S still a huge gender imbalance on the international conducting front. Whether women don’t make good conductors, or just don’t want to, is a moot point. Does Maazel think conductors are born, or made?
“There’s a natural gift for conducting that has nothing to do with the gift that one has if one composes, or plays an instrument,” he says. “There’s an aspect of manuality to it. The ability to express with emotion a tempo, a phrasing, a balance. Some people have that by nature and some don’t. In fact, if you go to a concert conducted by an incompetent conductor, he looks like a sea lion out of water.”
This is Maazel in full flow on one of his favourite topics. “The trouble with these inefficient and incompetent conductors is, they don’t know they’re inefficient and incompetent. Which is unfortunate, because it’s a sign of disrespect for the very, very experienced and hardworking musicians sitting on that stage trying to follow the instructions. These are highly sophisticated, highly trained, highly advanced – musically speaking – people. To have somebody up there flapping around and not knowing what he/she is doing is debilitating and demoralising.
“It’s very hard to get to the position they’re at – to get to that stage technically and musically – and they should be respected. Only people who can meet the challenge should be standing in front of them.”
Fair enough. On the other hand he began to study conducting at the age of seven. What kind of conductor was he at that age? “Well, I had a natural gift and I had a professional conductor as a teacher,” he says. “You’re quite right: I started to conduct publicly when I was eight or nine. But then it was not my responsibility. It was the responsibility of my teacher and my parents. I personally would not favour a young person conducting an orchestra because, again, it shows a lack of respect for the experience of the players.
“However, having said that, I was very talented. And somehow, through instinct and very, very good training and being very, very well prepared, I managed to make an important career as a young conductor.”
The great thing about a career in conducting is that, at the other end, it doesn’t have a sell-by date. Like violins and goalkeepers, conductors are generally thought to get better as they get older. “Well, if they are capable of improving,” replies the 79-year-old Maazel with a chuckle. “I hope I am. But it’s like the people you know in life. Getting older doesn’t mean you get wiser. Some people do, some people don’t.”
Has he? “I believe I am. I certainly try, because I feel every day’s a learning experience and you build on it for what you may be doing tomorrow. That has been a maxim of mine in every field of activity. Whether I am deluding myself or not,” he adds, with another throaty chuckle, “is not for me to say.”
Moments of Maazel: A musical life
A child prodigy, Lorin Maazel was born on March 6th, 1930 in Paris, where his American parents were students at the Sorbonne. Arts and humanities were in his blood: his father was the actor Lincoln Maazel; his mother, Marie Barnet Maazel, founded the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony; and his grandfather Isaac was a violinist in the Met Orchestra in New York.
Maazel began violin lessons at the age of five, and conducting lessons at the age of seven. Between the ages of nine and 11 he conducted most of the major US orchestras, making his New York debut at the 1939 World’s Fair, leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra at the invitation of Toscanini. His New York Philharmonic debut came in 1942 when he was 12 years old.
He has never been shy of controversy; a spell in charge of the Vienna State Opera in the 1980s ended in a public spat with the Austrian culture minister, while in 1989, his failure to be elected principal conductor at the Berlin Philharmonic - Claudio Abbado got the job instead - saw Maazel cancel all future engagements with the orchestra and write a furious letter of complaint to every individual member of the band.
In the 1990s he was accused of bankrupting the classical music industry by claiming fees that were way above the norm - he was, it’s claimed, the first conductor to break through the $1 million mark. Maazel was unrepentant, pointing to the generous sums of money he has raised for Unesco and the UNHCR, among others.
Last year Maazel was heavily criticised for bringing the New York Philharmonic to perform in North Korea despite a political situation that was, to say the least, delicate. Again, he’s unrepentant. “I’m told by American diplomats that although there are a lot of problems, it was a kind of breakthrough,” he says.
Will he, as reported, be travelling to Iran in the near future? “I will not,” he says. “That was just speculation from journalists.”
Lorin Maazel conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, with soloist Julia Fischer, on Wed April 1st at 8pm
