As music director of the Leipzing Gewandhaus Orchestra since 1970, Kurt Masur is a successor to such legendary figures as Mendelssohn, Mahler, Walter, and Furtwangler, all of whom also led the orchestra. Conducting in the Gewandhaus itself, as well as in the Leipzing Opera and St. Thomas Church (where he occupies the position once held by J.S. Bach), Maestro Masur heads an ensemble of some 200 musicians who form the core of performers for this artistically bustling city. Maestro Masur spends more than half of each year with the Gewandhaus Orchestra; much of the rest of his time is spent touring internationally, and he is a frequent guest in the United States, where he has led every major orchestra. Born in 1927, Maestro Masur was trained at the Leipziger Hochschule fur Music before going on to a variety of prestigious appointments in Halle, Dresden, and Berlin. This current tour with the Gewandhaus Orchestra will take him to fifteen American cities. Maestro Masur is a large-framed man, with a hearty, open manner and a full beard that makes him quite Brahms-like in appearance.
In an exclusive interview with Tom Pniewski for The World & I, he discussed the special obligations that his prominent position brings.
Tom Pniewski: Maestro Masur, you know that symphony orchestras have been called "living museums," devoted to a repertoire a century old or more, out of touch with current tastes. You are here in New York to perform a "Brahms Festival," with an orchestra considerably older than Brahms' own works. How do you keep fresh?
Kurt Masur: If you don't want to talk to people through your music, you will of course become a museum. These orchestras play Brahms in a bored way, because they play so often that they think they know it, so why care more? I call them "old-born youngsters." This has never been a problem with the Gewandhaus--we never try to discover a new or "fresh" Brahms style. We keep the historical tradition intact. But there is also a kind of spirit, and it is this spirit that we try to renew for each evening's audience.
Pniewski: Do you find differences in conducting Brahms with the Gewandhaus, and then going to conduct an American orchestra?
Masur: The path to the final goal is absolutely different. American orchestras play evenly, cleanly, technically well from the very start. To go deeper, to make the musicians love the music, this is sometimes harder to get. My orchestra loves to play from the beginning, but we have to go back and polish things. The ways are different, but the goal is the same.
Pniewski: Critics have pointed out that the various sections of the Gewandhaus orchestra--strings, brass, winds, etc.--have stronger and more distinct tone-colors than we are used to in the States.
Masur: Our interpretation doesn't concentrate so much on creating a pretty musical surface, which is what I think American orchestras are looking for. This kind of perfection came from the USA, and goes back to the time of Toscanini. European orchestras can still be shocked at how perfectly their American counterparts play. I recall Furtwangler, who was not one of these "perfectionist" conductors. He never made an orchestra play that way, but the musical idea was always clear. That is the main difference
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