One of the highlights of Juilliard’s 2001-02 concert season will take place on February 18, when Maestro Kurt Masur conducts the Juilliard Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall. The program will feature selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet; Bartók’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, with soloist Kyle Armbrust; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major. This will be Maestro Masur’s seventh appearance as guest conductor of the Juilliard Orchestra since 1991, the year he became music director of the New York Philharmonic. Completing his final season with the Philharmonic this year, Maestro Masur will assume the position of music director of the Orchestre National de France in 2002-03, and will continue to serve as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic.

Kurt Masur, New York, 1995. (Photo by Frans Jansen/Hollandse Hoogte)

That Maestro Masur has made tremendous contributions to the city’s musical life during the last 11 years is certainly no secret. Universally lauded for bringing the Philharmonic to a greater level of national prominence and artistic cohesion, Maestro Masur has also been active in promoting music education and working to make the orchestral repertoire accessible to a broader spectrum of listeners by introducing new concert formats, reinstating radio concert broadcasts, and allowing the public to attend open rehearsals. His free annual Memorial Day concerts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine have attracted thousands of eager listeners.

Vigorously involved in music education, Maestro Masur has inspired young musicians as a guest conductor for ensembles such as the Third Street Music School Settlement Orchestra, Choir Academy of Harlem, and All-Eastern Honors Orchestra. In addition to conducting the Juilliard Orchestra, Maestro Masur has regularly conducted orchestras at the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music, and has generously shared his insights in lecture series and discussions throughout the city. At the Philharmonic, his commitment to education led to expanded programs for youth, and his rehearsals with the orchestra were frequently preceded by discussions about the history and meaning of the works under preparation.

Masur conducting the Juilliard Orchestra in 1995. (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

While occasional references to Maestro Masur’s demanding nature have surfaced in articles and personal accounts—he made headlines by walking off stage during a performance when an audience member was coughing too loudly, and in another instance when he asked a student musician during rehearsal whether there was someone next to her who could count—he is known first and foremost as a great humanitarian and magnanimous soul whose all-encompassing musical commitment informs every aspect of his being.

The true extent of Maestro Masur’s concern for other living beings is revealed in an anecdote related by his assistant, Stefana Zorzor-Atlas, whose first request from the Maestro was to find a way to rescue a raft of baby ducklings about to be hatched in his swimming pool from possible chlorine poisoning. On a more serious note, in 1989 Maestro Masur became a hero to citizens of the former East Germany when he used his influence as conductor of the famed Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra to bring about a peaceful resolution when tensions arose between demonstrators and the ruling Communist government.

In addition to officially designating 2001-02 as the “Thank You, Kurt Masur” season, the New York Philharmonic celebrates Maestro Masur’s distinguished legacy with the orchestra in a recently released 10 CD collection, Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic (see companion article on this page). A coffee-table book of the same title, published by Random House in 2001, includes extensive photo documentation of his years at the Philharmonic, along with reminiscences and tributes by many of his friends and colleagues.

The orchestra’s Board of Directors has also established a new endowed fund, the Kurt Masur Fund for the Philharmonic, which was created to honor Maestro Masur’s efforts in developing the talents of young conductors. Among the most important of those efforts was his establishment of the Philharmonic’s Conductor Cover program, in which promising young conductors receive “on-the-job training” as assistants to Maestro Masur or one of the orchestra’s prominent guest conductors. The fund will be used to support an annual concert series featuring a new conductor.

Maestro Masur has long been renowned for his interpretations of the Classical and Romantic repertoire (especially Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn), as well as works by conservative 20th-century composers such as Shostakovich and Britten (whose War Requiem Masur conducted several times in New York). And while the highlights of his tenure in New York include numerous compelling performances of works from the standard repertory, his readings of works outside the canon also won high praise. He took issue with the view that Baroque music shouldn’t be played by traditional orchestras, and in 1993 gave a highly acclaimed performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which hadn’t been presented by the Philharmonic since 1946.

Masur talking with a group of young conductors, September 2000. (Photo by Chris Lee)

Critics have also noted Maestro Masur’s special affinity for works combining music and spoken text, and above all for music that, in one commentator’s words, makes “big humanitarian statements.” As Anthony Tommasini observed in a November 1999 New York Times article, “Kurt Masur is an unabashed idealist, a man who turns all misty in the face of big, life-affirming sentiments.” Indeed, when Maestro Masur conceived the idea for a series of commissions titled “Messages for the Millennium,” his letter to the six composers invited to write pieces for the project stated that “I would hope you would write a musical message for the year 2000, a universal message of hope to the people of the world.” Although one of the six composers declined to provide such a message, all turned out to be works of significant musical merit. (This past fall, Maestro Masur gave New Yorkers and other Americans a much-needed message of hope when he changed the program for the orchestra’s opening concert on September 20 to Brahms’s A German Requiem, which was performed in memory of the victims of September 11 and televised live.)

Other important commissions and premieres during Maestro Masur’s years in New York have included Sofia Gubaidulina’s Two Paths, a concerto for two violas that featured Juilliard faculty member Cynthia Phelps and alumna Rebecca Young as soloists; Tan Dun’s Concerto for Water Percussion; and Hans Werner Henze’s Ninth Symphony, given its U.S. premiere last February. Maestro Masur also commissioned works by a number of Juilliard faculty and alumni, including Robert Beaser, John Corigliano (as part of the “Messages for the Millenium” series), Richard Danielpour, and Christopher Rouse. His interest in jazz led to several well-received collaborations with Juilliard alumnus and trustee Wynton Marsalis, whose All Rise for orchestra, chorus, and jazz orchestra, premiered in 1999 and repeated this season, portrays the kind of utopian vision so congenial to Maestro Masur’s own world view.

Summarizing his musical philosophy in an interview transcribed in the accompanying booklet to the aforementioned CD set, Maestro Masur stresses that “The message of the music is the most important point for me. Many times, I am willing to take a risk to make the meaning of the music more clear. It may lead us to something less than note-perfect, but it is the spirit of the work that must stand out.” Thanks to his own extraordinary musical commitment and understanding, he has illuminated that spirit for audiences time and again.

Juilliard thanks Maestro Masur for his generous involvement with the School and its students, and wishes him all the best for the future.

Lisa Robinson is a writer for The Campaign for Juilliard.

		A Maestro’s Legacy on 10 CDs By IRA ROSENBLUM Once again, the New York Philharmonic is bidding farewell to a conductor. Kurt Masur, the orchestra’s music director for 11 years, is passing the baton to Lorin Maazel and returning to Europe to be the music director of the Orchestre Nationale de France and principal conductor of the London Philharmonic. The last time the New York Philharmonic bid adieu to a music director was in 1991, when Zubin Mehta’s tenure with the orchestra ended and Masur’s began. (Unlike Masur, however, Mehta wasn’t exactly given a hero’s sendoff. But that’s another story…) In addition to dedicating the entire 2001-02 season to its departing maestro, the Phil has recently issued Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic, a 10-CD box set—about 13 hours of music—taken from live radio broadcasts conducted by Masur over the past decade. This is the fifth such box set produced by the Philharmonic, following one devoted entirely to the orchestra’s towering icon, Leonard Bernstein; a box of the complete Mahler symphonies with conductors both historic and contemporary; an all-American music set; and, the inaugural compilation, a sampling of the orchestra’s recordings over 75 years. Unlike the others, however, this set highlights performances by a man very much alive and on the scene (and who had control as to its contents). Kurt Masur in front of Avery Fisher Hall. (Photo by Frans Jansen / Hollandse Hoogte) Anyone who attended a Masur concert during the last decade knows that he is a conductor of impeccable taste and thoughtful musicianship. Both qualities come through loud and clear on these recordings. It’s often pointed out that Masur is steeped in the Teutonic tradition (he is, after all, conductor laureate of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, an ensemble of great historic significance, with ties to Mendelssohn and Furtwängler, among others). So, naturally, standard German fare shows up here (though, surprisingly, no Mendelssohn, one of Masur’s specialties). There are moving accounts of Bach’s towering St. Matthew Passion (Masur’s first recording of the work, hard as that is to believe!), and two Beethoven choral masterpieces—the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. But there’s a whole lot beyond the ordinary, including a hefty dose of new music, highlights of which are three world premieres: Sofia Gubaidulina’s Two Paths for two solo violas, Giya Kancheli’s And Farewell Goes Out Sighing…, and Tan Dun’s Water Percussion Concerto. Particularly thrilling is the U.S. premiere performance of Hans Werner Henze’s Ninth Symphony, a gripping and sometimes unnerving piece of music. Mixed in among the other standard offerings (Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Shostakovich’s First Symphony, and Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel) are some genuinely welcome surprises. For example, there is a compelling reading of Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead. Debussy’s Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, with Maria Ewing as narrator, along with Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bucher, and Stravinsky’s Persephone, both with Marthe Keller narrating, provide wonderful examples of Masur’s skill with theatrical works; he entices drama even from cool scores like the Stravinsky. All in all, Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic is an impressive chronicle of a productive partnership. Masur accomplished a great deal during his time in New York. We wish him well as he moves on, thankful that we are left with this rich legacy on disk, to which we can turn when we want a reminder of his days on the podium at the auditorium across the plaza. Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) is available for $140 on the orchestra’s Web site (http://www.newyorkphilharmonic.com) and at the Juilliard Bookstore. The box set—which is also sold in six separate volumes—comes with an edifying 100-page companion book of essays, interviews, photos, and a Masur discography.