The Järvi Buzz Goes On

(first published in The Cincinnati Post May 6, 2004)

There’s a lot of buzz around Paavo Järvi.

You could sense it as he downed a quick sandwich following a Cincinnati Symphony rehearsal last week.

Some of it is self-generated. Just ask Järvi a question about music and the energy starts flowing - the way it does when he leads CSO, as in Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 last weekend, which left him dripping with perspiration and the audience (and I daresay, the players) re-enamored of the work.

Some of it flows from Järvi’s performances with the CSO. Effusive reviews from their tours together - the East Coast last spring, Japan in November, South Florida in April - have questioned the vaunted supremacy of the so-called "top five" U.S. orchestras (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago).

Järvi, 41, completes his third season as CSO music director this weekend. It promises to be a special concert, with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and the CSO premiere of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s colorful "Symphonic Variations" (1938).

Guest artist is pianist Yefim Bronfman in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Concerts are 7:30 p.m. tonight, 11 a.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday at Music Hall. Tonight’s concert includes a complimentary buffet beginning at 6:15 p.m. in the Music Hall foyer.

Järvi and the CSO have a mutual buzz going, too.

"So often around this time, the end of the third season, the buzz starts slowly dying down. For us, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like we’re discovering a lot of new things together, like the relationship is still growing. I feel that we are making music better now than we used to."

For this reason, Järvi takes a hard line on the orchestra’s financial situation. The CSO faces a $1.4 million operating this year and is currently exploring ways to balance the budget (the CSO fiscal year ends Aug. 31).

"We are not going to jeopardize the welfare of our musicians," he said. "That’s a number one priority. We cannot get to the point where we are forced to start looking at downsizing, or God knows what else.

"It simply will not happen around here."

Negotiations on the players’ contract, due to expire Sept. 1, begin this summer.

Another consideration is the CSO’s tour of Europe, set for the fall. The two-week, 11-concert tour will take them to major venues in France, Germany, Austria and Spain, including Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt and Madrid.

"We need to prioritize our efforts - my efforts, management efforts, everybody’s efforts - to get the orchestra out of this financial situation," said Järvi. who extended his CSO contract through 2008-09 last spring..

Plans to downsize Music Hall - i.e. make structural alterations to Springer auditorium to make it more intimate and reduce the seating capacity - are "in process," he said. "But when we started talking about it three years ago, there was quite a different landscape in American music, financially speaking."

He made the same observation regarding the cancellation in April of the CSO’s "Bach and Beyond" chamber series, held in June since 2001 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. "I am very sorry about it because I think it did the orchestra a lot of good. The orchestra loved it. The audience loved it, but we simply had no choice. We need more funding for that."

Järvi, a native of Estonia, will be away from Cincinnati this summer – but not so far away. He makes his debut at Cleveland’s Blossom Festival July 17 and 18 (tickets go on sale June 1 at www.clevelandorch.com ).

In June, he will tour in Germany with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (of which he is artistic director) and in August, he will conduct the European Union Youth Orchestra on its tour of Europe. He conducts the DK at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, also in August

He returns to Estonia in July to conduct Sibelius’ "Finlandia" at the famed Estonia Song Festival (held every five years in Tallinn) and to assist his father Neeme Järvi at the latter’s annual conducting workshop in Pärnu.

Järvi opens the CSO season September 17 and 18 at Music Hall with the CSO premiere of Sibelius’ "Kullervo" Symphony, a powerful choral-orchestral work based on the Finnish national epic. The blockbuster concert will feature the Estonian National Male Choir, Swedish mezzo soprano Charlotte Hellekant and Finnish baritone Raimo Laukka.

"It’s something I can’t wait to do," said Järvi, who won a Grammy in February for "Sibelius Cantatas" with the Estonian National Male Choir and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra ("best choral performance," Virgin Classics). The Grammy is "in the mail," he said. "I had to sign this paperwork before they send it to me." Järvi is artistic adviser of the Estonian National Orchestra.

The first work actually heard on the September 17-18 CSO concerts will be Beethoven’s "Leonore" Overture No. 3. "Our world is in such incredible turmoil. I felt that if there’s one composer and one piece that deal with freedom and hope it’s Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’ (for which he wrote the "Leonore" Overture). I just wanted to add it as a kind of personal note."

After guiding the CSO for three years, Järvi is still getting to know the city. However, he has made some progress:

(He is house-hunting and will move from his apartment downtown when he can find a more permanent residence.)

[]Yes, he has had Graeter’s ice cream (he demurs on a favorite flavor, though he is known to be quite fond of chocolate).

[]Yes, he has had Skyline Chili. "I thought nobody there would know me, but when I paid and walked out there was a couple who said, ‘Maestro, we’ll see you at the concert tonight.’"

[]Yes, he has been to the Cincinnati Art Museum and to the Playhouse in the Park. He saw "Metamorphoses" at the Playhouse last fall and got a kind of preview of Jonathan Holland’s "Halcyon Sun" premiered by the CSO last weekend ("halcyon" derives from the myth of "Alcyon and Ceyx" depicted in the play).

[[]Yes, he has been to Kentucky. "Many times. Kentucky has good restaurants."

[]No, he has not seen the installation "Paavo’s Hands" in the Unmuseum at the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art. "I am ashamed because I should and I simply have not had time."

[]No, he has not seen Emery Theatre in Over-the-Rhine, a likely candidate for renovation and a potential mid-sized venue for organizations like the CSO.

And no, he’s never seen (or heard) a cicada, the once-in-a-generation noise makers due to emerge in the billions any day now. That’s one buzz Paavo Järvi has missed.