Final of the Ninth Donatella Flick Conducting Competition: Barbican Hall , London 19.10. 2006. (JPr)

 

 

 

I have more connection with this competition than I thought I did, because in 1998 the very first competition winner from 1991, Andrew Constantine, conducted Das Rheingold in Leicester in 1998 for an opera company I was involved with at the time. It was a worthy performance with a semi-professional orchestra, but nothing special. Andrew Constantine is now associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and good luck to him. However looking down the list of past winners ‘worthy’ is certainly the word that comes to mind, all very good conductors, including the eventual 2006 winner, but none that have set the musical world alight.

 

The Donatella Flick Conducting Competition aims to help the careers of young conductors by giving them a biennial award of £15,000 to subsidise a period of specialist study and concert engagements. In association with the London Symphony Orchestra, the winner of the competition becomes assistant conductor with them for one year. During this period, he or she will work with the LSO and its principal and guest conductors in the preparation of concerts, will participate in their education programme and accompany the orchestra on tour. The competition is open to conductors under the age of 35 who are citizens of the European Union.

 

Donatella Flick is a socialite and philanthropist: she married Gert Rudolph Flick of the well-heeled German industrialist Flick family. Following a controversial divorce case in 1999, she became renowned for her extravagant lifestyle. She is also known for her philanthropic activities, especially for her support of medical charities and, of course, this conducting competition that carries her name.

 

After an initial selection procedure, over three days 20 conductors were whittled down to three by this year’s jury that was made up of Lord Birkett (as non-voting chairman), the musicologist, Mauro Bucarelli, the singer, Dame Anne Evans, the tuba player from the LSO, Patrick Harrild, the music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, and Yuri Temirkanov, music director of the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

This panel should know a good conductor when they see and hear one but are limited by those who apply and perhaps there is not enough young conducting talent around, because the result was clear even as the third contestant walked to the podium and soon after he raised his baton. The programme for the concert is decided well in advance: all the finalists conducted the Beethoven Overture Prometheus with a second piece drawn by lot after the previous day’s semi-final. I assume the order they conducted was similarly chosen because it was not alphabetical, however this was not made clear.

 

All the musical items were chosen no doubt because of their involvement of all sections of the orchestra, employing extremes of dynamics and tempi. The Prometheus has a stately beginning and proceeds through a movement full of buoyant energy. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol (‘Spanish Caprice’) is a short suite in five movements written (as described by the composer himself) because ‘the Spanish themes, of dance character, furnished me with rich material for employing colourful orchestral effects’. Sibelius’s En Saga (‘A Saga’) also has five sections from a quiet beginning, a fast-slow-fast middle section to a haunting postlude. The Wagner ‘bleeding chunks’ were from Die Meistersinger and included the majestic overture characterizing life in Nuremberg, the reflective Prelude of Act III, the spirited ‘Dance of the Apprentices’, and the noble ‘Entry of the Mastersingers’.

 

Of course the audience once again intrigued me; there were the specially invited guests, most of whom were probably stepping inside this sort of concert hall for the first time since the last final, there were some young music students and a few of the regular LSO followers to swell the meagre numbers. It must have been some of the latter who sat behind me as they were very perceptive when they said ‘The orchestra could play these pieces without the conductor’ and ‘How wonderfully the orchestra plays – they always do’! This is the problem with a final such as this … it is totally different from a solo instrument or solo voice competition, judging a conductor must require the complicity of 100 or so players to give an impression – probably against their musical judgment – of the conductor’s incompetence rather than competence. So how did it all go?

 

The first finalist was Ivan Arboleya-Montes from Spain, who was pushing the upper reaches of the age limitation at 33. His hero was obviously Valery Gergiev, or at least he thought it might be good to give a modest imitation of him to musicians of whom he is the principal conductor designate. He was dressed in open-necked black shirt and trousers and went for expressive hands only in the Beethoven, though he picked up his stick for the Rimsky-Korsakov that was his allotted second piece. There were too many heavy musical punctuation marks in the Beethoven and while there was colour from individual contributions from the leader, cello and harp solos in the ‘Spanish Caprice’ there was little sense of gipsy life and Spanish dance rhythms. This was a surprise as Arboleya-Montes was conducting music from his homeland and there was little life or joy even from the castanets. It was as much too plodding overall and the brass was out of balance and too loud for the hall.

 

Next up was a British contender, Stuart Stratford, also apparently 33 (though he looked older) but with a reasonable track record having studied at the St Petersburg Conservatoire and performed with English National Opera, Opera North, the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. Unfortunately he was ridiculously showy on the podium, another of a breed of young conductors that has spent too long in front of a mirror. At times he held his hands out together as though he was about to dive into the orchestra and unlike the first finalist who rarely looked at the orchestra, here there were far too many facial tics and shoulder shrugs. The Beethoven went passably well and the sound could not be faulted. He had ‘won’ the Sibelius to perform and there seemed the classic moment that as he continued on batonless that they were not certain he had started conducting. (It reminded me of the tale of Reginald Goodall whose downbeat became so uncertain with age and infirmity that once he had to tell the orchestra the Wagner prelude was supposed to have actually begun.) Here I do not believe that the LSO were certain for a second or two that ‘A Saga’ had begun either. Once again there was a good balance of sound but it was only towards the end of the music – as all the gestures and contortions ceased – that he appeared to get to the emotional heart of the music. He let the music do the talking (as it should) and a life appeared to ebb away. Probably Stuart Stratford’s future is in the opera pit.

 

I was a bit downcast by all this at the interval but my spirits soared as the final ‘victim’ bounded on stage, in tails and with a baton firmly in his grasp. He was the 27-year-old Pole, Michal Dworzńyzski, an assistant conductor with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra at 15, and someone who reminded me strongly in looks and performance of a young Mark Elder. He had a clear beat and no affectations, and gave very much a young person’s guide to the Beethoven Overture. For the Wagner he gave the orchestra the leadership it requires through the minefield of this difficult music. The ensemble seemed faultless though I think he could have trusted LSO’s splendid brass section a little more and given them their head - it was all rather disappointingly muted from them here. Perhaps he did not want to make it sound too triumphalist? Although he brought no new insights to both pieces he was clearly talented and a worthy winner.

 

It really was no contest so what took the jury so long to announce a decision? Ten o’clock came and went, a large number of the students went home all at once and the stalls had even more empty seats to greet the eventual announcement by HRH The Duke of Kent. Even that was delayed by an exhausting preamble from the Donald Sinden sound-alike, Lord Birkett, about how the competition was ‘keener than ever before’ and the decision ‘more difficult than ever before’. We were introduced to the panel and the decanters the finalists would be given before hearing the result: most in the know expected that Michal Dworzńyzski was indeed the (soon to be very emotional) winner. It was left to Donatella Flick herself to pay fitting tribute to how the ‘orchestra is patient, incredible and very understanding’. Amen to that!

 

 

 

Jim Pritchard