Back to the U.S. this week for a concert featuring the Cincinnati Symphony under its Music Director Michael Gielen in a program of music by Bach, Schoenberg and Brahms. Broadcast on December 17, 1980 via National Public Radio.
The first half of the concert is given over to two Bach Cantatas (Number 4 and Number 50) with excerpts from Moses und Aron by Arnold Schoenberg – the Bach and Schoenberg pieces are played more or less together, only separated by a few seconds and no announcements.
The second half of the concert is made up of the Brahms Double Concerto featuring principle members of the Cincinnati Symphony as soloists.
Michael Gielen was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aiding his ability to interpret the complex contemporary music he specialized in.
He first worked in Buenos Aires, where he lived with his family between 1938 and 1950. In Europe, he first worked in Vienna and then in Sweden as the Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) of the Royal Swedish Opera. He conducted notable world premieres such as György Ligeti’s Requièm, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Carré, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten and his Requiem für einen jungen Dichter. He directed the Oper Frankfurt from 1977 to 1987, installing more contemporary operas, winning stage directors such as Hans Neuenfels and Ruth Berghaus, and reviving operas such as Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten. During his era, the company became one of the leading operas.
Gielen was also principal conductor of the National Orchestra of Belgium (1969–1973), the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1980–1986) and the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra (1986–1999). As a composer, he worked in the tradition of the Second Viennese School, often setting modern literature to music. His works were premiered with performers such as Joan Carroll, Siegfried Palm, Aloys Kontarsky and the LaSalle Quartet.
Gielen began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter. As a répétiteur at the Teatro Colón at age 20, he played the basso continuo to the recitatives, in the style of the time, in a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1949, he gave an early performance of Arnold Schoenberg‘s complete piano works. In this period he also shortly studied philosophy.
In 1950, Michael Gielen moved to Vienna where his father had become director of the Burgtheater. Michael Gielen was conductor and répétiteur, who conducted at the Wiener Staatsoper from 1954 to 1960, assisting conductors such as Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and Clemens Krauss. He conducted contemporary music outside the opera house.
In October 2014, Gielen announced his retirement from conducting for health reasons, particularly seriously deteriorated eyesight. He died in Mondsee, Austria, on 8 March 2019 of pneumonia.
With the SWR, Gielen recorded various symphonies, including a complete cycle of both Mahler and Beethoven, as well as select ones by Brahms. Recordings of later composers include works by Bruckner, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern; his recording of Moses und Aron is its first commercial stereo recording. Among the many works by modern and contemporary composers he recorded were those by Kagel, Ligeti, Nono, Zimmermann and Rihm.
His recordings—and conducting in general—are noted for their relentless precision, exactness and veracity over sentimentality. These characteristics were particularly helpful in performing complex contemporary works.
And now on to the concert.
