novakant's comment had me dig around a bit, and I found Misha Aster's The Reich's Orchestra: The Berlin Philharmonic 1933-45. I'm through the 1st chapter, which describes how the orchestra, because of the state of the German economy, appealed to the government for support and entangled itself with the Nazis and I realized that governmental sponsorship and the history of orchestras are probably also why I have the differing ideas about German and French composers. The French government sponsorship of orchestras is much more limited (30-40 ensembles in France versus 129 in Germany according to Gemini) and looking at the histories of various orchestras, a large number of them originated as Staatskapelle, or the private orchestras of the various small states before German unification. Thus, you get the competition that gives rise to the symphonic tradition. So its understandable why things are weighted towards that German tradition.
2025-12-27 00:03:10
It is unsurprising to me that you have so many problems with conductors, the whole hierarchical culture and the intense competition in some ways overdetermined this kind of outcome. I try to avoid putting up Gergiev (he used to come through Kumamoto at least once a year and sometimes twice with the Marinsky Orchestra because of Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who was originally from Kumamoto) because of links to Putin and Celibidache, who was one of the main antagonists in the Abbe Conant story and now, Dutoit.
Solti was known as 'the screaming skull' but apparently mellowed in later years. Going further back, you hear stories of Reiner and Toscanini (rehearsal recordings like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886gkXViXi8 make those stories of the music librarian 'pre-sawing' the batons so they would break easily, because they realized that after he broke a baton, he'd calm down, easier to give credence to)
A famous brass anecdote was Ravelli, the U of Mich band director, who often use to isolate a section and make each player perform the offending passage to humiliate them and one time, he went down and one by one, they misplayed the passage until the last one absolutely nailed it, and Ravelli, not missing a beat, says 'you were late for rehearsal last week, what were you doing?'
However, when you are in that environment, those kind of incidents become a sort of glue that the ensemble holds on to, It's no surprise that other high stress team environments (like the chef and the brigade de cuisine) exhibit similar tendencies.
novakant, thanks!
novakant's comment had me dig around a bit, and I found Misha Aster's The Reich's Orchestra: The Berlin Philharmonic 1933-45. I'm through the 1st chapter, which describes how the orchestra, because of the state of the German economy, appealed to the government for support and entangled itself with the Nazis and I realized that governmental sponsorship and the history of orchestras are probably also why I have the differing ideas about German and French composers. The French government sponsorship of orchestras is much more limited (30-40 ensembles in France versus 129 in Germany according to Gemini) and looking at the histories of various orchestras, a large number of them originated as Staatskapelle, or the private orchestras of the various small states before German unification. Thus, you get the competition that gives rise to the symphonic tradition. So its understandable why things are weighted towards that German tradition.
It is unsurprising to me that you have so many problems with conductors, the whole hierarchical culture and the intense competition in some ways overdetermined this kind of outcome. I try to avoid putting up Gergiev (he used to come through Kumamoto at least once a year and sometimes twice with the Marinsky Orchestra because of Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who was originally from Kumamoto) because of links to Putin and Celibidache, who was one of the main antagonists in the Abbe Conant story and now, Dutoit.
Solti was known as 'the screaming skull' but apparently mellowed in later years. Going further back, you hear stories of Reiner and Toscanini (rehearsal recordings like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886gkXViXi8 make those stories of the music librarian 'pre-sawing' the batons so they would break easily, because they realized that after he broke a baton, he'd calm down, easier to give credence to)
A famous brass anecdote was Ravelli, the U of Mich band director, who often use to isolate a section and make each player perform the offending passage to humiliate them and one time, he went down and one by one, they misplayed the passage until the last one absolutely nailed it, and Ravelli, not missing a beat, says 'you were late for rehearsal last week, what were you doing?'
However, when you are in that environment, those kind of incidents become a sort of glue that the ensemble holds on to, It's no surprise that other high stress team environments (like the chef and the brigade de cuisine) exhibit similar tendencies.