Eschenbach in limbo

The elephant in the room:
Eschenbach in limbo

DAN ROTTENBERG

Let’s begin with a subject about which great minds all agree. To wit:

“Nothing great is ever achieved without enthusiasm.” (Emerson.)
“A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.” (Charles Schwab.)
“A salesman without enthusiasm is just a clerk.” (Harry F. Banks.)
“Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.” (Thomas Carlyle.)

Which brings me to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s great marketing challenge this year: How do you whip up enthusiasm for a music director who has already indicated he’d rather not be here?

Last fall, just three years after assuming the podium, Christoph Eschenbach plunged the Orchestra into two years of marketing limbo by announcing that he would leave at the end of the 2007-08 season, when his five-year contract expires. He gave no reason, and the impression persists that he was forced out. Eschenbach’s spokeswoman said only that Eschenbach was leaving Philadelphia because he had achieved what he set out to do, which is at least more original than saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

A “free man,” except….

Eschenbach elaborated somewhat this past June when, in an impromptu interview with the Inquirer critic David Patrick Stearns, he described the Orchestra’s management as “amateurish” and pronounced himself, with his departure, “a free man.” This does not sound like a man who has been singing at his work.

All of which begged an obvious question: If Eschenbach achieved what he set out to do….. if he finds the Orchestra management “amateurish”…. if he can’t wait to break free of its shackles….. why hang around for two more years?

Eschenbach and the Orchestra extended their limbo arrangement this month by announcing that their relationship will continue for two more seasons beyond 2007-08. At that point Eschenbach will no longer be music director (that role will be assumed by Charles Dutoit, another old dependable face who once indicated that he too was less than enthralled by the Orchestra but has now seized the illustrious title of “interim chief conductor” after Eschenbach leaves). But in his new status, Eschenbach won’t be a mere guest conductor either. He’ll just…. well….. y’know… “spend multiple weeks with the Orchestra conducting projects under discussion,” as the Orchestra’s press release boldly put it.

This latest announcement didn’t mention Eschenbach’s original decision to step down. Nor did it mention Dutoit’s interim appointment. Which raises another question: How many elephants can you put in a room before the Philadelphia Orchestra will notice them?

From George Steinbrenner to Georg Solti

If this were a classic love-hate relationship— an orchestra and a conductor who can’t stand each other but can’t work without each other either— you might have the makings of an exciting season, sort of like the New York Yankees used to produce under their autocratic owner George Steinbrenner and his much-fired, much-rehired manager, Billy Martin. Or like Riccardo Muti, whom Philadelphia musicians and audiences either loved or hated.

But I’m afraid something else is at work here. While the Orchestra conducts its seemingly endless and exhaustive committee search for a dynamic new face to succeed Eschenbach— the same bureaucratic process that hired Eschenbach himself— it needs reliable professionals to keep the music going. Eschenbach is one such old pro; Dutoit is another. Eschenbach, for his part, wants more music and less bureaucracy in his life. He has a craft to practice, and the Orchestra has an opening. Hey, it’s a living.

In art as in politics, chemistry is everything. Georg Solti was a little-known conductor and the Chicago Symphony a middling orchestra before they joined forces to become, for a while, the world’s greatest orchestra. Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Ed Rendell were chronic losers who hung on until they arrived at the right place at the right time. Eschenbach is a great conductor who, for whatever reason, failed to click in Philadelphia. These things happen. The best solution for both parties is a clean break and a fresh start— not three more seasons of hanging around.

But to answer my original question: Since the coming season won’t be “Eschenbach’s triumphant farewell,” how should the Orchestra promote it? The answer came in my mail the other day. “One really big season,” trumpeted the brochure. “Monumental works. Epic season. Big— revolutionary— grand— powerful.”

Which leaves yet another question: Once this “One really big season” is over, how will the Orchestra characterize the next one?

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Do as we say, not as we do: From an article about the decline of sports writing, by Robert Huber, in Philadelphia magazine, August., page 211: “A month ago, in his Baseball Notes column, the DN’s Paul Hagen told us that an umpire called balls and strikes for a game that came within one out of a no-hitter, and the very next time the ump was behind the plate, a Detroit pitcher actually did throw a no-hitter. So here it comes, Hagen’s words of wisdom: ‘That’s the thing about baseball. You never know what’s going to happen.’ On our sport pages, unfortunately, we do.”

From Tom McGrath’s introduction to “Best of Philly: People and Power,” same magazine, same issue, page 146: “But it goes to show that when it comes to politics, media, even sports, Philadelphia is an unpredictable place— sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.”