Sir Edward Downes

[mbhaub]

It was with great sadness that I just read that Sir Edward Downes has passed. He and his wife were "assisted" in their deaths in Switzerland. He was having trouble hearing and seeing. He had a long, fruitful life and his memory will be well preserved by some fine recordings, especially for those of some relatively unknown music such as the Gliere symphonies, the Korngold symphony, a lot of rare Respighi, Wagner's Die Feen and Rienzi. One of my favorite Elgar 2 recordings is Downes's on Naxos. Britain has sure lost some great ones lately: Handley, Hickox, now Downes.

[Mark Thomas]

Indeed. For a country ohne musik we seem to have a remarkable crop of conductors. Downes' wife had terminal cancer, apparently, and they were by all accounts inseparable. So it proved to be.

[Ilja]

A great loss indeed. I treasure many of Downes' recordings, particularly the Glières and Tchaikovsky's Kuznets Vakula.

[Ilja]

Britain has sure lost some great ones lately: Handley, Hickox, now Downes.

Let's not forget Gordon Wright, a great supporter of one of my favorite composers, Emil von Reznicek.

[mbhaub]

Indeed. For a country ohne musik we seem to have a remarkable crop of conductors.

Add symphonists to that. England may have been ohne Musik prior to 1900, but then...wow! With the death of Mahler, the era of the symphony passed from the Austrian/German influence clearly to Britain. Think of all the great symphonists: Elgar, Bax, Vaughan Williams, Arnell, Arnold, Searle (I didn't say pleasant symphonies), Rubbra, Tippett, Dyson, Walton, and others. In addition to great conductors and composers, Britain has also has an astonishing number of virtuoso orchestras. The Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia (New and used), London Symphony, the fine orchestras in Manchester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Birmingham, the Royal National Orchestra of Scotland, The Academy of St. Martin's in the Field, the London Chamber Orchestra, and more. There is no other European country with as many fine orchestras, and maybe only the US can compare in this way. Die Land ohne Musik! Nein!

[Peter1953]

And even our national crack, Bernard Haitink, perhaps the best and most celebrated Dutch conducter after Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951), left the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1988 for Albion.... da das musikalischen Leben bestimmt von ein sehr hohes Niveau ist... 

[Alan Howe]

Peter:

Da das musikalische Leben bestimmt von einem sehr hohen Niveau ist.

Sorry! It's the German teacher in me...

[Alan Howe]

As regards orchestras of quality, it is the USA which has by far the greatest number. Think of those in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and add to them those in Washington, Atlanta, Louisville, Cincinatti, Baltimore, Detroit, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Houston, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Milwaukee - to name just the most well known - and you have a formidable roster indeed.

We in the UK are certainly well served in general, but by comparison some of the regions are not so well-off. However for my money, it is Germany which, of all European countries, is best served of all - beyond the obvious big-name bands, there is a host of radio orchestras, and then there are the many municipal and theatre orchestras which do such superb work. If you doubt this, try consulting cpo's catalogue and note the number of German orchestras which they use. An example is the superb recent release on cpo of works by Albert Dietrich featuring the Oldenburg State Orchestra from north-west Germany of whom I previously had heard nothing at all - yet they play superbly. Would that Colchester, Ipswich, Cambridge or Norwich - all towns/cities in my region with a population of over 100,000 (Oldenburg's is 150,000) - had such an orchestra...

[Mark Thomas]

And I suppose that I should speak up for a much smaller country too - Sweden. Having spent a few days this year listening to really fine orchestras in the comparatively remote towns of Karlstad (pop. 50,000) and Umeå (pop. 90,000) I can attest to the quality of the Swedish orchestral system of state-supported provincial orchestras. OK, they're only 40-45 full time players and they'd struggle with Mahler, but the Karlstad orchestra will be playing the Ring next year!

[mbhaub]

As soon as I clicked on my reply, I realized that Germany certainly has a large number of fine orchestras. What I was thinking at the time though was countries with a large number of orchestras known to the world at large through recordings. While the many German orchestras on CPO are very fine indeed, let's face it, they don't have the recording exposure that the British and American orchestras have, especially in the 60's and 70's.

And then I thought of something else that we were blessed to get from Britain: musicology. People like Tovey, Shaw, Groves had huge influences in music 100 years ago or so, much like Hanslick in Vienna. The leading music magazines all seem to come from England: BBC Music, Gramophone, International Record Review, and those specialty magazines on piano, violin, voice, etc. You have Chandos and Hyperion: two of my favorite labels. The good citizens of Great Britain take second place to no one in classical music. What's really amazing is that it's all done with essentially no government funding as the operas and orchestras in Germany are.

[Alan Howe]

The UK orchestras probably are and have been better known than those in Germany - although quite unjustifiably. I remember that when I was living in Germany 30+ years ago my local theatre in Detmold (pop. 74,000!) put on a production of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos - and this is quite typical of local musical activity in that country. Apart from the seasonal festivals in Britain, this just doesn't happen over here.

The bottom line is this: if I had the choice of where to live, purely on the basis of the availability/accessibility of good-to-great orchestras, I'd live in Germany, not Britain. 

By the way, Germany has some excellent music magazines too: Fono Forum is their version of Gramophone or IRR and Die Tonkunst is a first-class serious journal. And, as for labels, cpo, MDG, Arte Nova and Audite have produced many, many recordings of unsung repertoire.

Interesting, isn't it, that Simon Rattle - having built a world-class reputation with the CBSO - chose to go to Berlin rather than London to further his career. Why? Because the BPO is better than any orchestra in Britain!

[Peter1953]

After reading all this interesting information on orchestras in different countries, I can add that the Netherlands has some fine and excellent orchestras as well, like the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with its international reputation, but my point is that over the past years we have seen some fine orchestras having serious financial problems. Some orchestras merged, others vanished. Giving concerts isn't enough. Several local orchestras are dependent on financial support of the government authorities. In other words: tax money. If there isn't a grant-in-aid to support, several orchestras cannot survive.
I wonder how that is in other countries like the U.K., the U.S. and Germany. Sweden is interesting too. Can some of the (smaller) orchestras exist just by the proceeds, without a grant?

[John H White]

Of course, the various BBC orchestras are funded out of our television license fees in the UK, which makes me feel a bit guilty since, being over the age of 75, I no longer have to pay such a fee.

[Mark Thomas]

Most German and Swedish orchestras rely heavily on local and national government financial assistance or are part of a publicly owned broadcaster. In Britain, as John says, the BBC's fine orchestras are essentially publicly funded and several of the major orchestras rely on grants of one sort or another. Others manage to pay their way without any public money. I guess that the model in the US is a reliance on wealthy benefactors, judging by the wall after wall of benefactor plaques I see whenever I visit a concert hall in the States.

[JimL]

Yeah, that seems to be about it, over here, Mark.  Just look in any program by the Phil over here in L.A. and the benefactor list looks like a directory for the heavy hitters in entertainment and commerce.  There is, I believe, no (or almost no) public funding for orchestras, at least here in California.