Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, has a habit of inserting praise for David Robertson and the SLSO into his articles. Sunday, in a piece on the challenges the New York Philharmonic faces as it seeks a new music director, he turns to the Midwest for an example of what needs to be done:
“With all the young talent available, why has that search [for a new music director] been so hard? There is no mystery about what must be done. In a sobering 1998 report on the precarious overall state of American orchestras, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation cited a lack of creative artistic leadership as the main problem. Too many orchestras, the report said, appoint name conductors who hold multiple appointments and are away much of the time. Too few think about how to engage their communities, to forge distinctive regional identities and to create a receptive climate for works by living composers.
“Lately, two orchestras in America's heartland have demonstrated what can be accomplished when a progressive board empowers a courageous music director.
“After a dismaying period of near-bankruptcy and bitter labor disputes, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has been re-energized after just one season under the technically adroit and wide-ranging conductor David Robertson, 47. His quirky and insightful spoken introductions to pieces during concerts are hugely popular. He is determined to engage the public. Indeed, it was the orchestra's refusal to cut education and outreach programs even when the budget crisis was dire that persuaded Mr. Robertson to take the job.
“And since 2003 the commanding Finnish conductor Osmo Vanska, 53, has been instilling discipline and engendering excitement in the ranks of the Minnesota Orchestra. Concerts in Minneapolis have been packed.
“Both conductors devise programs that dynamically juxtapose new and old works. Often, when [current Philharmonic music director Lorin] Maazel sets off a standard repertory piece with modern or contemporary scores — as he did last weekend, conducting works by Elliott Carter and Stravinsky, with the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, before the Berlioz symphony — there is little sense of why these pieces belong together.
“Contrast that program with a typical one by Mr. Robertson in St. Louis this season. Titled ‘Mourning,’ it offered a Renaissance lament by Josquin, followed by an anguished memorial for a departed friend by the Hungarian modernist Gyorgy Kurtag and Mozart's Requiem.”
