Christian Thielemann's debut last summer in Bayreuth with Wagner's "Meistersingers" started his reputation as the Festival's "new crown prince" (
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). The young German capital, too, woos for the maestro's favor: after he had terminated his contract as a general music director of the German Opera in 1999, he is now receiving urgent requests from many people to remain in Berlin.
Christian Thielemann, born in Berlin, 1.90 meters tall, with side vertex and massive shoulders, likes to have himself portrayed on his CD covers wearing a casual sweater. In his working room hangs a portrait of Frederic the Great, for Thielemann a model of discipline and sense of duty.
"Frederic the Great fought a battle and in the evening read Racine and Corneille and played the flute. I am intrigued by his multi-facetted personality," Thielemann says. No doubt, Thielemann is a conservative mind among the conductors of the middle generation.
Thielemann's musical heroes are Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Hans Pfitzner. He hates when critics reproach him to be a "right-wing conductor": "What has C sharp minor in Pfitzner's 'Palestrina' have in common with fascism, how can the 'Tristan' chromatics possibly be linked with antisemitism?" he asks shrewdly, well aware of the fact that his opponents, as a rule, apologists of politically correctness, shun a discourse with him in the musical theater.
Thielemann is rightfully regarded as "one of the best conductors of Wagner and Strauss.... He gives a filigree interpretation of the "Meistersingers," and his Strauss is a bouquet full of blossoms and fragrance. When conducting concerts, he is in his element, swinging the bar rod with topmost zest and occasionally red-headed, a genuine ruler of the orchestral seas...." (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Thielemann is in fact a conductor of conservative style. His musical trademark is the heavy German sound, while bearing only microscopically small traces of the "original sound" revolution. He dislikes a work style emphasizing teamwork which is favored by some of his colleagues. "Democracy has no role in the context of orchestral music," says Thielemann, who studied piano and tenor violin from teachers like Herbert von Karajan.
On March 18, Thielemann will be initiated to the highest philharmonic consecrations, celebrating his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He has already been called a grail guardian of the tradition of Wilhelm Furtwangler and Karl Bohm. Says Thielemann: "For me this means the highest of all possible honors, which makes me feel a sweet, almost masochistic pain that I always feel in that magic moment when it becomes dark. Then I become calm, cold-blooded in the best sense, and concentrate all my mind and energies on the things to come."
Renate Mrus, who has volunteered to write for Vienna Online on a regular basis, is a legal practitioner from Vienna, Austria, and devotes much of her spare time on writing articles about new discoveries in her hometown in English, German, Spanish, and Japanese. She is also in charge of the
Vienna Guides and
Salzburg Guides homepages.
