Norman Lebrecht on Music
THE GERMAN CRITIC Jürgen Kesting caused a flutter at Salzburg this summer by calling out one maestro for “a shameless ego trip” and claiming none of the rest had box office pulling power. He was right on the second count, at least.
While a few old-timers — Muti, Barenboim, Thielemann, Gergiev, Rattle — remain headline names, the middle generation would not get more than a flicker of attention if they danced naked down Vienna’s Ringstrasse.
Thirty years ago, I ended my book with the words, “the great conductor has paved the way to his own extinction”.
