Well, she didn't wear a red, white and blue cape, and she didn't spin around three times, but she did just about everything else. Kate Tamarkin, the second guest conductor this season being considered for the post of conductor and music director of the Monterey Symphony, charmed us with her personality and wowed us with the superb results she achieved with our orchestra. Just as significant was the fact that she earned the respect and support of the orchestra members themselves. Sometimes we see string players politely tapping their bows against their instruments as a form of applause, but this is the first time I can remember hearing our orchestra members wildly stamping their feet at the end of the concert.
The occasion at Sunset Center in Carmel on Monday, November 16, was the second concert of the Monterey Symphony's 1998-99 concert season. And this is vitally important season, since seven guest conductors have been selected to audition with the orchestra, and one will become the orchestra's future music director and conductor.
The conductor as superstar is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the last half of the nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth century, the superstars among musicians were pianists and singers. Nellie Melba had a dessert named after her. A cigar butt discarded by Franz Liszt was found in a silk pouch worn for forty years around a woman's neck and only discovered after her death. Paderewski traveled by private railroad car accompanied by his cook, piano tuner, valet and manager (today's musicians jet around the world at a moment's notice and love to spout such image-building nonsense as "my true home is a Boeing 747").
But the cult of the conductor as superstar really starts with Arturo Toscanini. Although from the time of Berlioz many great conductors preceded him, Toscanini's gifts found new and larger audiences on radio (later on television), and he learned well how to manipulate the media to his own advantage. He was fond of being photographed wearing a black turtle-neck pullover against a black background, so that the resulting close-up image dramatically spotlighted his face and his hands. And, what a face it was, with its halo of white hair, instantly recognizable all over the world. "Maestro Toscanini" became such a household name and so well known by everyone, that even though most of the conductors of the time were German or Hungarian, all conductors subsequently tended to be addressed as "Maestro."
But it was slim pickings for American musicians. For an American musician named "John Smith" to achieve world fame was almost impossible, for until relatively recently American musicians were regarded as a lower cast than Europeans. Musicians often changed their names to disguise their non-European backgrounds. Pianist Lucy Hickenlooper born in East Texas became Madame Olga Samarov, Ethel Liggins born in London became Ethel Leginska, and Leo Stokes also born in London became Leopold Stokowski. American musicians routinely went to European conservatories in order to finish their musical training and launch their careers.
Then came Leonard Bernstein and Van Cliburn.
Bernstein gained recognition as one of the world's great conductors and Van Cliburn emerged as one of the world's great pianists (both events occurring in 1958) and this changed the balance of power, so to speak, in the world of music. In addition to his gifts as a conductor and music director, Bernstein had the gift of communication. He could speak to ten year olds or doctoral candidates with equal ease on any musical subject and make himself understood with his charming eloquence. Van Cliburn became a musical and cold war icon as an American pianist who vanquished his European and Russian peers in a world class competition. Suddenly, the world regarded American musicians with respect and Europeans began flocking to the United States to study music at Juilliard and other prestigious institutions.
But, one more barrier remained to be broken, and that was the gender barrier. It had traditionally been difficult for women to obtain positions with our major orchestras. Since its beginnings in the late nineteenth century, the prestigious New York Philharmonic Orchestra had remained an all-male ensemble. It was in 1967 that a female bass player became the first woman to join the orchestra (over the objections of most of the members of the orchestra who considered the orchestra a male preserve). Conducting has been an even more exclusive male domain.
Now, as we approach the millennium, we are beginning to see a few more women assume the directorship of some of our nation's orchestras, perhaps not yet the major orchestras, but clearly its time has come. And if we are looking for the Margaret Thatcher of the orchestra, perhaps we have found her in Kate Tamarkin.
Musicians sometimes say that the egos of singers are exceeded only by the egos of conductors. However, when Ms. Tamarkin addressed the audience at the beginning of the concert Monday evening to tell us a little about the new work on the program, Donald Grantham's "Fantasy on Mr. Hyde's Song," it was obvious that she is a person of great sincerity and lacking in affectation. Her remarks were brief, but charming, and we in the audience were grateful for the opportunity to hear her voice and get a glimpse of her personality.
The seven-minute Grantham piece that followed was in turn witty, sinister, and jazzy. Not an easy work for the orchestra as the musical line constantly shifted from section to section, but Ms. Tamarkin exhibited remarkable skill in holding the texture together and making a coherent musical form from such disjointed material.
The soloist for the evening was Russian pianist, Yakov Kasman, silver medallist in the recent Van Cliburn International Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Many in attendance at the Van Cliburn Competition were convinced Kasman should have won the gold medal, rather than the silver. However, it should be some considerable consolation to Mr. Kasman that there seems to be a curse on the Van Cliburn gold medal. All of its gold medal winners have sunk to oblivion (with the possible exception of Radu Lupu, whose oblivion was reversed by subsequently winning first prize at the Leeds Competition), yet many of the silver and bronze medal winners have established successful careers.
Kasman was soloist in Prokofiev's Third Concerto, and what a blockbuster of a performance it was! This is quite possibly the greatest piano concerto written during the 20th century. Piano buffs carry with them strong memories of some of the great historical performances by such artists as William Kapell and Martha Argerich. Well, Kasman's was another of the great ones to be remembered and cherished. There was a rhythmic vitality and snap to Kasman's performance that was totally compelling. Also compelling was the sensitivity and exquisitely shaped singing quality in the heart-rending lyrical moments. The final movement was a knockout performance that brought the audience to its feet. Ms. Tamarkin handled this difficult score with remarkable precision and matched Mr. Kasman's lead all the way to its glorious conclusion.
The evening's program ended with a lush performance of Dvorák's Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88. This turned out to be every bit as remarkable a performance as the preceding Prokofiev. In this work we had an opportunity to hear the Monterey Symphony as it has never been heard before. As much as we admired the Monterey Symphony's previous music director, Clark Suttle, it has to be said that there were times that the orchestra was permitted to reach such extremes of fortissimo that the sound became loud, raucous and vulgar.
It was an astonishing feature of Ms. Tamarkin's direction that the orchestra balances were superb, and the brasses and percussion never swamped the other sections of the orchestra. This discipline between the sections meant that the strings didn't have to force their tone and the resulting cleanness of intonation and lovely refinement in the strings was marvelous.
I am not going to comment on Ms. Tamarkin's stick technique (if that is a legitimate subject for discussion). I was seated behind a man whom I was convinced was "The Incredible Hulk" and thus was unable to see much of what was happening on stage. But, then we all know that 99% of what happens in a concert happens because of what takes place in rehearsal.
So, the bottom line is "Thank you Ms. Tamarkin. You made the Monterey Symphony sound like a major orchestra."
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