Twentieth Century Ending Soon for American Orchestras

Bernard Haitink is dead. And Nathalie Stutzmann is in. A desultory reader of music news would be surprised to see two major headlines about orchestral conductors within a week of each other. The suggestive timing of Stutzmann’s new job and Haitink’s death, however, cannot be ignored.

Haitink, a Dutch master conductor, passed away at the age of 92 on Oct. 21 in London. He was known for a long tenure at the helm of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, considered the most prestigious orchestra in the world, between 1961 and 1988, alongside the philharmonics of Berlin and Vienna, both of which he guest conducted on several occasions. In his later years, he was principal guest conductor of the Boston Symphony between 1995 and 2004 and principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony from 2006 to 2010. These, plus engagements with the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic, and several others, made his figure ubiquitous across Western Europe and the United States.

His death made waves around the classical music world, with tributes pouring in from both sides of the Atlantic. He was a “gentle giant,” known for his reserved style of conducting and rejecting the image of fiery conductor-impresario that others embraced. His extensive recordings consistently hold their own against newer ones, and his effect on Dutch, British, and American orchestras astounded audiences for decades.

Stutzmann, 56, is a French conductor and contralto who most recently made news as principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2020. Then on Oct. 13, she was named the next music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. News outlets hailed the announcement as “groundbreaking,” and “making history.” A New York Times headline read, “A Female Conductor Joins the Ranks of Top U.S. Orchestras.”

The first woman to lead a major U.S. orchestra was Marin Alsop, who in 2007 was appointed to the Baltimore Symphony, a position she left earlier this year. Others argue that title should have gone to JoAnn Falletta, the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic since 1998. In any case, Stutzmann will join a very select group of women on the podium in the U.S., and the press has generally called her the second woman conductor of a premier U.S. orchestra.

While the headlines about Stutzmann and Haitink seem unrelated, what they both point to is that the turn of the century in classical music is happening just now. Haitink was a decidedly twentieth-century figure who made landmark recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler worth their weight in gold. Anyone looking for something new, however, would not have found it in Haitink’s discography.

Stutzmann’s ascension, however, helps usher in the twenty-first century. The Atlanta Symphony grew immensely under the 20-year tenure of Stutzmann’s predecessor Robert Spano, who specialized in commissioning, performing, and recording new works by American composers. Stutzmann has promised to continue that tradition, while also bringing her specialties — French music and Baroque styles — to the orchestra. The Baroque as “new” may raise eyebrows, but in fact this music for decades has been displaced by increased Romantic programming in major orchestras’ repertoires. Stutzmann’s reintroduction of the Baroque, while certainly not new music, comes as something novel for many audiences.

Classical music moves notoriously slowly. It is a field where antique pieces like Stravinsky’s 1913 “The Rite of Spring” are often still called “modern.” It is a field where there is almost complete stagnancy in the racial makeup of orchestras and their staffs. It is a field where many thought the 2017 #MeToo takedowns of conductors James Levine, Charles Dutoit, and Daniele Gatti would be a turning point, only to see the aging Dutoit and Gatti back on European podiums mere months later (Levine died earlier this year).

Women were only allowed to join orchestras embarrassingly recently, and as the clamor over Stutzmann’s position shows, a woman conductor is still something newsworthy. Female composers have also struggled to break into orchestral repertoire; for decades, bygone figures like Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach were tokenized as the “female composers.” Only in the past few years has there been genuine attention to the engaging works of Florence Price, Betsy Jolas, Joan Tower, Missy Mazzoli, and others.

Changes in the concert hall are difficult when the main attractions are the 19th-century European warhorses we’ve been taught to love. Nathalie Stutzmann is for now the face of progress. Only time will tell if this is truly a turning point, or if orchestras will continue their conservation of old times. Haitink and his peers were the safe choice for decades, but that generation’s final bow will force the philharmonics of America to turn their clocks forward — to Stutzmann and beyond.

The last Haitink/Stutzmann article was in 2003, when Haitink, then 74, and the Boston Symphony performed Debussy’s opera Pelléas and Mélisande at Carnegie Hall, with contralto Stutzmann, then 38, as Geneviève. Almost twenty years later, we begin to enter the middle of the twenty-first century. When will orchestras finally leave the twentieth?

— Staff writer Leigh M. Wilson can be reached at leigh.wilson@thecrimson.com.