Neeme Järvi Looks Ahead

Neeme Järvi in Estonia. Photo by Taavi Kull.

At 73, Neeme Järvi is still “kicking my shoes off and putting them on again.

“I have a huge amount of guest conducting.  My calendar is completely full.”

But not necessarily with dates in the United States, he said at Estonia’s Leigo Lake Music Festival in August.

Although Järvi is a U.S. citizen and makes his home in New York City, “I am changing my workplace,” he said.  This includes a re-commitment to his native Estonia, which he left in 1980 to seek artistic freedom in the West (Estonia was under Soviet domination at the time).

 This month he becomes music director of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, resuming the post he first held in 1960.  His opening concert, Sept. 9 in Tallinn, will feature Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Third Symphony in observance of his 75^th birthday.  Pärt dedicated the symphony to Järvi, who premiered it in 1971 with the Estonian National Orchestra.

Järvi spent 20 productive years in the U.S., first as music director of the Detroit Symphony (1989-2005, then the New Jersey Symphony (2005-2009).  “Detroit is over.  New Jersey is over.   But also I feel that America is not very much interested in my activities there,” he said.

A proven orchestra builder and master of a huge repertoire, Järvi is disturbed by the direction American orchestras are taking.

“American orchestras are making very strange decisions which absolutely don’t look professional.  It seems to me that they are leaving decisions up to people who don’t know about music.  It happens now with the big orchestras.  It’s about money, (the) economy, but they are not interested in quality, and I feel it’s not fair to be in this environment.

“(Of) the appointments I see now, only (Gustavo) Dudamel is a quality person.  Los Angeles did the right thing.  I see it different in other places, but I am not going to criticize.  It very much depends on the board of directors, management, money.”

Järvi is particularly distressed about the Detroit Symphony.  “It’s painful to see.  With a very well known conductor (Leonard Slatkin, music director since 2008) I thought there was going to be a big change for the better.  One of the greatest American orchestras where Glazunov, Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss conducted and Gabrilowitsch built a wonderful concert hall, everything is there.  And now they are trying to make the orchestra smaller.  They are not well managed and it goes down and down.”

Järvi nevertheless remains a steadfast admirer of U.S. orchestras.  “The U.S. is a great country and there are still a lot of musicians and a lot of great bands and orchestras and youth orchestras.  American orchestras (and English and Scottish orchestras) are very quick.  They have to get results the next day.  You have to be ready.  The quality which American (and London) orchestras give is the best to my knowledge.”  But again, “it varies from state to state,” he said.

One of Jarvi’s frustrations is with the media.  “They are not even doing reviews of symphony concerts.  I like to know what’s going on in the United States.”  The drift of the American media also disturbs him.  “They are already trying to find problems with Dudamel.  You know, ‘the Los Angeles Philharmonic didn’t play so well in Philadelphia,’ oy, oy, oy.   The main thing is competition, competition.  That’s America.”

[That  said, Järvi does have a return engagement with the New Jersey Symphony in January, 2011, and he will guest conduct the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington in May.]

Järvi is concentrating now on recordings and working with his old orchestras, like Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (which he served as principal conductor from 1982-2004 and 1984-88, respectively).  He remains music director (since 2005) of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague in The Netherlands and tours and records with it as well.

Recordings upcoming include orchestral works by Norwegian composers Johann Halvorsen and Johann Svendsen with the Bergen Philharmonic, and he is completing a cycle of suites from four Wagner operas arranged by Henk de Vlieger with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (both projects for Chandos).

Järvi will conduct the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Pärt’s “Cecilia, vergine romana” for the Pope in Rome in October.  During the 2010-11 season, he will guest conduct the London Philharmonic (a recording of Dvorak’s Stabat Mater is in the works), also the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony, among others.  “I have a lot of scores to carry from one place to another,” he said.

This is not unusual for Järvi, whose web site (www.neemejarvi.ee) emphatically declares:  “I love all the time, every day, from morning till evening, I love music.”

Of his busy schedule, he said, “It always has been like this.  I try to change my life style a little bit, but it seems it is more full than it was before.”  (He said that 100 concerts a year was his maximum, though “I try to do less.”) 

Järvi is very gratified by two things, his conductor sons Paavo (47) and Kristjan Järvi (38).  “My heart is smiling when they continue what I hope I injected in them from a young age.  They are very different.  Not everyone can make a big deal of the Beethoven symphonies like Paavo is doing now.  And I like very much Kristjan’s recording of the Mass by Bernstein, Haydn ‘Paris’ symphonies and ‘Seven Seals’ oratorio by (Franz) Schmidt.  He also likes jazz and is doing wonderful performances of Arabic and Turkish music (with his electro-acoustic chamber ensemble Absolute).”

With nearly 500 recordings to his credit -- one of the largest discographies of any conductor -- Järvi is pleased that some of them are receiving renewed (and sometimes belated) attention.  “At the time it came out (25 years ago with the Gothenburg Orchestra) I got worst recording of my Sibelius Sixth Symphony.  Now it seems it’s in first place in “Building a Library” (BBC Radio).”

Järvi, who said he is a “very” happy man, is delighted to be back in Estonia.  “The Baltic countries, there is wonderful cultural life here, and I also love Scandinavia.”  In the summers, he will continue his annual master class for conductors in Estonia (in the seaside resort of Pärnu and in Leigo in the south, near Otepää).

And it wouldn’t be Neeme Järvi if there weren’t something up his sleeve.

Fire, light and water at Leigo Lakes, near Otepää in south Estonia. August, 2008. Photo by Mary Ellyn Hutton.

  He has high hopes of performing and filming (with director Jason Starr) the closing scene of Wagner’s “Die Götterdämmerung” at Leigo.  Built on a farm – to use the clichéd term “in the middle of nowhere” – Leigo is an outdoor venue, where concerts are performed on barges on lakes surrounded by forest.  Performances are accompanied by spectacular fire and water effects.  As such, Leigo would be a perfect locale for “Götterdämmerung,” the final opera of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, which concludes with the home of the gods (Valhalla) in flames and the Rhine River overflowing its banks.

“It depends on sponsors,” Järvi said.  “We would have to record it in Tallinn and make all the water and fire in Leigo.  It’s a fantastic idea.  In the last scene, you need real water and fire and it’s only possible here.”