Philadelphia Maestros: Ormandy, Muti, Sawallisch

Chapter Three - Wolfgang Sawallisch

(previous) Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting. Reprinted by permission of The Philadelphia Inquirer/John Costello 86 87 C H A P T E R T H R E E Wolfgang Sawallisch Riccardo Muti’s unexpected resignation left the Philadelphia Orchestra in the unusual position of scrambling to find a music director in a relatively short period of time. Ormandy had been Stokowski’s co-conductor for two years before his appointment as music director, and Muti was named permanent guest conductor some three years before his directorship. But now the Orchestra was faced with making a selection without day-to-day experience with a conductor. A committee of 12 began its search in April 1990. Initially there were 230 candidates, who were subsequently narrowed down, first to 27 and then to 16. Five of these received six or more votes, including Wolfgang Sawallisch. From this group, a poll of musicians from the Orchestra chose Sawallisch. His guest appearances, with the warm relationship that he had forged with the Orchestra over the years, were to his advantage. At first the board remained somewhat hesitant . But because of the musicians’ enthusiasm, they put out feelers to see what the music world thought of him. In addition, it was known that after Sawallisch’s 1966 debut with the Orchestra, Ormandy had talked to him about becoming his successor and later had renewed the invitation. By that time, however, Sawallisch was the music director of the prestigious Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and he had declined. Three members of the board flew to Munich to offer Sawallisch the position of music director. He told them that he and his wife had been thinking about something in the future with no administrative duties when his contract with the Bavarian Opera ended.1 Nevertheless, he agreed to meet with them again. At this second meeting, in July 1990, 24 years after his first offer from Ormandy, he accepted the position of music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Wolfgang Sawallisch was born on August 26, 1923, in Munich, Germany. He did not come from a family of musicians, but like all cultured Germans, his family loved music. Sawallisch writes in his autobiography2 that his first musical memories are of his mother singing children ’s songs to him. On a visit to his paternal grandfather ’s home, he saw his first piano, and immediately he began to play the tunes that he had heard from his C H A P T E R T H R E E 88 mother, to the point that his family had difficulty getting him away from the instrument. At his grandfather’s urging , his parents bought him a piano, and he began private lessons at the age of five. At age 11 he heard his first opera, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, in Munich’s National Theater, and he was fascinated more by what the conductor was doing than by the action on stage. When he arrived home, he announced that although he would continue his piano lessons, what he really wanted to do was to conduct. Around the age of 13 or 14, he saw Richard Strauss conduct a marvelous performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte in which the composer introduced certain themes from his own music that the audience immediately recognized as his little jokes. Sawallisch never met Strauss personally , but the memory of this performance always lasted. Sawallisch attended the Wittelsbaucher High School of Music and, later, the Munich Conservatory, where he specialized in piano and composition under Wolfgang Ruoff and Hans Sachse. His studies were interrupted when he was drafted in 1942, at age 19, and stationed for six months of training in Augsburg. At one point he was temporarily released from army service and ordered to play on a radio station that was broadcasting classical music in an effort to bolster the public morale. After a month he returned to Augsburg to discover that his entire 89 W O L F G A N G S A W A L L I S C H unit had been sent to Stalingrad. Not one man survived! In his autobiography Sawallisch expresses his gratitude to music for saving his life. Because of his musician’s ears, he was sent to Italy, away from the front line, in order to handle Morse code as a radio operator. Eventually he was sent to the south of Italy, and there...