His condescension can be breathtaking. Yet you never know what is going to happen. When Masur arrived in New York, his artistic profile seemed to be a closed book. In the past 15 years, Maazel has vacillated between brilliance and somnambulance. His perfect baton technique virtually invites him to go on autopilot.
All conductors do some sleepwalking.
If I hadn't heard it, I wouldn't have believed it. And then there's his taste. His recording with the Vienna Philharmonic of Debussy orchestral works, issued about a year ago on RCA, had charmless, gold-plated sonorities in repertoire requiring light and air. During his Pittsburgh tenure, critics often commented on how Maazel seemed to be having transcendent experiences on the podium while the orchestra struggled to play the notes. To think we're avoiding all this and getting Eschenbach, too.