In memoriam

Musical Times, Summer 2002

Yevgeny Svetlanov

A musical diplomat in more senses than one, Yevgeny Svetlanov was the musical ambassador par excellence of both the old Soviet Union and the new Russia.

As Chief Conductor of the USSR/Russian State Symphony Orchestra for thirty-five years, he championed - on the concert-- platform and in the recording studio - the classics of the Russian repertoire, from Glinka to Shostakovich, as well as works by lesser masters, such as Miaskovsky, Schnittke and, occasionally, himself. And despite a fierce independence, he was one of the Soviet Union's leading cultural envoys, conducting as far afield as Europe, Japan and the USA.

At home, Svetlanov was a subtle yet successful operator - the voice of gentle rather than rancorous dissent. With generous state funding for his orchestra, he could enjoy the lengthy rehearsal time unavailable to him on his many visits to the West. Yet although a beneficiary of the system, he knew how to play it to the advantage of others who were less fortunate but no less deserving, often openly defying the regime by helping such persona non grata as Oleg Kagan, Natalia Gutman, Nikolai Petrov, and Kirill Kondrashin.

Abroad, his electrifying renditions, not always critically acclaimed, alerted audiences not only to the richness of his homeland's musical heritage, but sometimes, surprisingly, to their own-- he conducted a memorable performance of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1981.

As a child, he imbibed early the spirit of the Bolshoi, where his father was a soloist and his mother a mime artist, and after studies in piano, composition and conducting at the Gnesin Institute and the Moscow Conservatory, returned there as an assistant, later principal, conductor. This phase of his career culminated in a visit with the company to La Scala in 1964.

His appointment to the USSRSSO followed the next year, and he soon became a household name, at home and abroad. He was the subject of a film, Dirizhor (The Conductor), and also featured in The Phil, a recent Channel 4 documentary about life in the Philharmonia. He was named a People's Artist of the Soviet Union in 1968, and was awarded the Lenin Prize four years later. He was appointed to the Order of Lenin in 1978. He conducted much in London, for the last time there just a few days before his death.

Yevgeny Fyodorovich Svetlanov: born Moscow, 6 September 1928; died Moscow, 3 May 2002.

Dorothy DeLay

The string teacher Dorothy DeLay will be remembered less for her own gifts as a performing musician as for the glittering roster of pupils she cultivated, taught, inspired and guided in every aspect of their careers. These included Itzhak Perlman, Cho-Liang Lin, Shlomo Mintz, Nigel Kennedy, Sarah Chang, Mark Kaplan, Midori, and Gil Shaham. She also numbered among her success stories violinists from the Juilliard, Tokyo, Cleveland, American, Takacs, Mendelssohn, Blair, Fine Arts and Vermeer String Quartets, as well as concertmasters and leaders of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia, the Royal Concertgebouw and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. The axes of her activities were the Julliard School, where she taught from 1948, and the Aspen Music School in Colorado, where she presided every summer from 1970, although she delivered master classes worldwide. Her numerous awards included doctorates from Oberlin College, Columbia University, Michigan State University, Duquesne University, Brown University and the University of Colorado, a Fellowship from the Royal College of Music, the National Medal of Arts, and Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure. A biography by Barbara Lourie Sand, Teaching genius: Dorothy DeLay and the making of a musician, was published in 2000.

Dorothy DeLay: born Kansas, 31 March 1917; died Upper Nyack, 24 March 2002.

Eileen Farrell

As much at home in popular repertoire as in classical, the soprano Eileen Farrell was noted for the power and lustre of her voice and an engaging personality. She made her concert debut in 1947, and in 1951 sang the role of Marie in a concert performance of Wozzeck. Her operatic stage debut came in 1956, as Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, and this was soon followed by Leonara in II trovatore, Cherubini's Medea and Gluck's Alcestis - her Metropolitan debut in 1960. She remained at the Met for five seasons, performing six roles in a total of forty-five performances - including Rezia in Weber's Oberon and La Gioconda. She also sang Wagner in concert performances, including a memorable recording of Tristan excerpts under Bernstein in 1970. Latterly, she taught voice at Indiana State University and co-authored an autobiography, Can't help singing. Eileen Farrell: born Willimantic, 13 February 1920; died Park Ridge, 16 March 2002.

Leo Ornstein

In a life spanning eleven decades, Leo Ornstein came to prominence as a piano virtuoso, particularly of 'advanced' modern music, including his own. Having studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory under Glazounov and, following his family's emigration to the US, at the Julliard School, Ornstein began his career as a pianist, giving the American premieres of works by Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Schoenberg, and Bartok. At the same time, his own radical, 'futurist' compositions, such as Wild men's dance, were compared favourably with those of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, so much so that a biography and analysis of his work, by Frederick H. Martens, was written when the composer was still in his twenties. In the late 1920s, however, at the height of a successful concert career, he abruptly ceased performing and set up amusic school in Philadelphia with his wife Pauline Mallet-Prevost, retiring in the mid-1950s. After that he devoted his time entirely to composing, in a diversity of more conservative styles. His final work, an eighth piano sonata, was composed in 1990, when he was in his late nineties.