The conductor Michail Jurowski has died. His father, Vladimir, was a composer, and one his sons, also named Vladimir, is a conductor, who has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra many times. His grandfather was the conductor David Block.

His family was friendly with Dmitri Shostakovich, and as a young man Jurowski would play four-hand piano with the composer. Aram Khachaturian and David Oistrakh were also frequent visitors.

Russian-born, but of Jewish heritage, he claimed to have been hindered by the effects of anti-Semitism as a student. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory and found early work at the Stanislavski and Bolshoi Theaters. Then he became an assistant to Gennadi Rozhdostevensky at the Moscow Radio Symphony.

In 1989, he left Russia for Germany. He spent much of his career there, working in opera houses in Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig, and as music director of the Northwest German Philharmonic, conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and principal conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra. He was also active in Scandinavia, recording with orchestras in Sweden and Denmark, and in Argentina, where he conducted the Buenos Aires Philharmonic.

In 1995, he made the first recording of Shostakovich’s unfinished opera, “The Gamblers.” In 1996, he collapsed in the pit during a performance of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.” It was a beyond-and-back experience, as his heart is said to have stopped for four minutes.

My experience of Jurowski’s work is solely through his recordings, of which he made many, for labels such as CPO, Capriccio, Eurodisc, Naxos, and Sterling, among others.

Another son, Dmitri, is also a conductor. A daughter, Maria, is a music teacher.

Jurowski was 76 years-old.
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2022-03-20-conductor-michail-jurowski–working-like-a-drill.S1gcn_Nfc.html

Conducting his father’s Symphony No. 5

Adagio from Khachaturian’s “Spartacus”

The complete ballet in Berlin

Symphony No. 7 by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli

Schumann in Galicia

In conversation (subtitled)