A Glorious Exchange: Leipzig Week in Boston
November 5, 2019 | By Keith Powers, Musical America
BOSTON—Andris Nelsons wants to unite the world, one orchestra at a time. Bringing two of the most respected international ensembles together for a week is a promising start.
The 40-year-old Latvian conductor, [Musical America’s 2018 Artist of the Year], is music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Kapellmeister of Leipzig’s Gewandhausorchester. One prominent conductor leading two different orchestras is not unusual. But Nelsons wants his to perform together, swap musicians, cross- pollinate their teaching academies, further the future health of music, and get some good PR in the bargain.
“Music is a healing power,” Nelsons said in a recent interview, “that is my belief. Food for our souls. It’s our mission to fulfill that—for the audience, for anyone we address through the music. To fill their inner world with music and joy, with a wide spectrum of emotion and intellect.”
And so, the "Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Gewandhaus Orchestra (GHO) Alliance" was created.
Announced by both ensembles in February 2018 as a five-year arrangement, the innovative collaboration also includes musician exchanges—so far a dozen players have swapped seats for half a season, a sort of musician’s semester abroad—a number of commissions, and the beginnings of in-depth correspondences between the organization’s vast teaching institutes: the BSO’s Tanglewood Music Center, and the GHO’s Mendelssohn Orchesterakademie.
Last week (Oct. 27–Nov. 2) was the third—and most extensive—exchange so far. (The previous ones saw each orchestra touring the other’s city--Boston in Leipzig June 21-24, 2018, and Leipzig in Boston Dec. 2018.) Dubbed “Leipzig Week in Boston,” it marked the first time the two ensembles have performed together onstage. The Gewandhausorchester performed two concerts under Nelsons in Symphony Hall, with works by Brahms, Schubert, Wagner, Schoenberg, and others. Additionally, there were three joint GHO/BSO performances, whose repertoire reflected the orchestras’ combined rich histories, but also included a few outsize works that can only be realized by mega forces, like Scriabin’s self-described “orgiastic” Poème d’extase. The five programs were complemented by chamber music presentations, pop-up concerts, lectures, and even an appearance by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“It’s the coolest thing to happen in music,” says violinist Lisa Ji Eun Kim in an interview with three other of the exchanging musicians, two from each orchestra. Kim joined the BSO in 2017 and is spending this fall in Leipzig. Several months in Saxony have made her appreciation of the exchange blossom: “Two different symphonies coming together--I don’t think any other orchestras have done it.”
“It’s like the Super Bowl of music,” concurs GHO flutist and fellow exchanger Manfred Ludwig, “except there is no losing team.”
No other pair of orchestras that share a music director come together in such an ambitious way. Then again, no other pair of orchestras shares Andris Nelsons.
“I have a wonderful orchestra in Germany, one of the best, and one of the best in America,” he says. “I could have simply conducted in one place and then the other without connection. But at this stage in life, I have a chance to dig deep in both cities. I wanted to find some way we could collaborate, do something together that would fulfill this mission.”
Nelsons marks his fifth season this year at the BSO and his third with the GHO. When the latter’s Executive Director Andreas Schulz came calling, about becoming the 21st Kapellmeister in Saxony’s cultural crown jewel in 2018, Nelsons sought to do more than just create a scheduling puzzle.
“I went to Mark [Volpe, the BSO’s managing director] and said, ‘This can be different.’ From the beginning, the idea was to find some way to collaborate, in a way that was not political. To make something special for both orchestras, and the audiences.”
The exchange has been realized with the help of Artistic Advisor Christoph Wolff, longtime head of the Leipzig Bach Archive, and chair of the Harvard music department. A regular presence throughout the week, Wolff was instrumental in articulating the historical connections between organizations. Many past BSO music directors trained in Leipzig—including its first, Georg Henschel. Arthur Nikisch directed both ensembles. Charles Munch was a GHO concertmaster before he directed the BSO (1949-1962). And Boston’s Symphony Hall, built a century ago, was modeled on the Leipzig’s second Gewandhaus (since destroyed and replaced).
“The cities are similar,” Nelsons says, “They are not huge cities, but have so much concentrated culture. Both are also intellectual centers.
“These connections [made us] think about what we could do together, not only with the music but other things —like a friendship, a partnership.”
“It might just have happened because Andris took the second job,” suggests GHO flutist Manfred Ludwig, “and maybe they had to sell it to us. But there always has been a connection between the two orchestras. It’s a logical consequence—and our friends in other [U.S.] orchestras all envy us.”
Part II of A Glorious Exchange will be posted later this week