Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazelwas an American conductor, violinist and composer. Making his debut at the conducting podium at the age of eight, he embarked on his career in earnest in 1953, establishing a reputation in European concert halls by 1960 but, by comparison, his career in the U.S. progressed far more slowly. However, he would later be appointed music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, among...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth6 March 1930
CityNanterre, France
CountryUnited States of America
The Beethoven Experience provided the opportunity to solidify the relationship between the Orchestra and me, the Orchestra and me and the public, between all of us and the city of New York, because Beethoven after all is a really amazing point of reference.
I think I infuse the music with a new passion. Part of this is because I have fallen in love: I am in love with the New York Philharmonic. The chemistry has just been right. Beyond expectation.
What our profession is all about is interacting with people.
In this world, there's even room for quality.
To be passionate in today's world is not politically correct... Nowadays we are supposed to cope. This was not Mahler's problem. He saw it, he heard it, and he expressed it. He was a kaleidoscopic, Olympian figure.
As you get older, the assumption is you get wiser. I try to earn it by not staying still, not resting on laurels. A lot of people in other professions are retired at my age. I care about music more than ever.
In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.
We are doing a program this season of music by Schubert, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel, music which is totally -- on paper -- incompatible,
Why does Beethoven appeal and continue to appeal? Other than the obvious (his having written great music), Beethoven communicates a credo so effectively that the listener finds the courage he needs to reaffirm his own belief in the purpose of life. Beethoven stiffens the fiber of our commitment in a language that is beauty itself, in a statement as open as a Greek temple. Friend Beethoven is the one friend we shall always have.
Salzburg was where he was born and where he was rejected. I don't think he was capable of writing a boring bar of music.
Salzburg was where he was born and where he was rejected.
Art rises above and beyond the issues of the day. It reunites what has been rent asunder, not along national or religious lines, but along individual, human ones. It heals, redefines goals, and strengthens the resolve to move on, to rebuild, to reconstruct. However obtuse human behavior is in other arenas, art, if not suborned, can clarify, put into perspective and re-inspire.