Lorin Maazel, one of the outstanding conductors of his generation, died last week at the age of 84. A musical prodigy, Maazel made his conducting debut at the age of 8. Between 9 and 15, he conducted most of the major American orchestras, including the NBC Symphony, at the invitation of Arturo Toscanini.
Over the course of his career, he held posts with many prominent musical organizations, including the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, L’Orchestre National de France, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. In addition, he was briefly general manager and artistic director of the Vienna State Opera.
We honor Maazel tonight on “The Lost Chord” with two of his over 300 recordings. The main feature will be Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Lyric Symphony,” representative of his fruitful collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic, an orchestra with which he had marvelous chemistry. However, after the death of Herbert von Karajan, the heir apparent was passed over as music director in favor of Claudio Abbado, Maazel abruptly terminated the relationship, stating essentially that he wanted Abbado to be able to do his thing.
Thankfully the Maazel-Berlin partnership yielded some fine recordings. The Zemlinsky, rarely heard, was written between 1922 and 1923, a song-symphony based on poems by Rabindranath Tagore, who, in 1913, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. This 1982 performance features soprano Julia Varady and her husband, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Maazel was also a composer and a talented violinist. He studied the violin from the age of 5. It was the sale of his 1783 Guadagnini that helped fund the Castleton Festival, held every summer at Maazel’s Virginia farm. He died there as a result pneumonia, no doubt the result of his self-imposed, unrelenting work schedule.
As an encore, we’ll have an example of Maazel’s artistry as a violinist, taken from one of his “New Year’s Concert in Vienna” recordings. Maazel was a regular conductor of the New Year’s concerts following the death of Willi Boskovski. After seven appearances in a row, the practice was implemented of using a different conductor each year, likely to make telecasts and recordings more marketable. Maazel returned four additional times. The last was in 2005. From 1996, Maazel will lead the Vienna Philharmonic as well as play the melting violin solo in Josef Strauss’ “The Girl from Nasswald.”
That’s “Maazel, Farewell.” You can hear it tonight at 10 ET, or, if you can’t sleep, tune in for the repeat Friday morning at 3. Of course, you can always listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
Here’s a clip of Maazel playing Mozart with the Vienna Philharmonic, the slow movement of the Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216 (the first and third movements are also posted, if you have a desire to hear more):
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