Nicolai Malko's Death Ends Musical Era
IBy J. M. THOMSON I SYDNEY. The sudden death of the resident conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Nicolai Malko, has brought to an end a distinguished international career. For the second time within five years, the Sydney Symphony, still potentially one of the best orchestras in the world, is leaderless, and the city of Sydney has seen the end of a brief regime which brought to it one of the last exponents of the 19thCentury Russian classical tradition and a man who had helped launch Shostakovitch and Myaskovsky on their careers as composers.
Dr. Malko had been in poor health for some time and at the end of last year underwent a serious operation. When he recommenced conducting this year, he appeared, sitting in a high chair. It was not until a recent television performance of the Beethoven sth Symphony that the scrutiny of the cameras revealed how much he had aged. It was with some shock that viewers, in one of the best of such live telecasts ever achieved by the A BC., realised that their resident conductor was so frail. On June 18, while rehearsing the Victorian Symphony Orchestra, Dr Malko collapsed. and had to return to Sydney. It was still felt that be would be able to conduct ithe concerts for the Sydney I subscription series, although it was realised that his active ' life as a conductor must be
nearly over. Nicolai Malko came to a difficult position at a difficult time. The orchestra's morale
j had been undermined by the ' sudden departure of Sir Eugene Goossens. who had built them into a tautly-knit. well disciplined body, accustomed almost to a dictatorial I regime, but a regime which not only put the orchestra on the international map. but also gathered about itself a loyal and extremely large following. Goossens' programme and conducting attracted young people and held the allegiance of the older and more conservative His conducting of French music is still spoken of with awe.
As successor to Goossens. Nicolai Malko soon won the loyalty of the orchestra and then that of his audiences He showed a great understanding not only of his own special Russian works, such as the Tchaikovsky 4th Symphony and the Shostakovich sth, but also of Haydn.
Some of his performances of Rossini overtures were models of clari. and brilliance. His wood-wind team must have been amongst the best in the world, including as it then did such players as Nevil Amadeo (flute). lan; Wilson (oboe), and Gabor! Reeves (clarinet)
At first he leaned heavily on what he knew best, and this aroused impatience amongst audiences who had been brought up to the Goossens programmes. At first also, he brought forward several works .which were already musdiim pieces, and Sydney did not thank him for their resurrection. Gradually. he began introducing newer works, including several by Scandinavian composers. but his programme nearly always remained within orbit of the composers he had grown up with The last years of any conductor’s life are inclined to be sad ones. The interpretative art suffers from the ravages of time more than most. Dr. Malko began to slow down and the Sydney Symphony began to enter a period of occasional very good performances but of a general average insufficient to arouse enthusiasm. Such a state of affairs is a common one where great orchestras are concerned and music history has many similar examples. Bven Sydney’s brilliant conducto. and founder of the Conservatorium. Henry Verbrugghen, suffered a similar fate.
After a spectacular start with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, when he had almosit been driven from Sydney by the State Government of the day, Verbrugghen's tenure of the position deteriorated into mere routine, and critics commented on the inertia and muddy tone of a once punctilious orchestra. To Australian composers, after some initial understandable diffidence. Dr. Malko became a good friend He conducted Robert Hughes’ “Sinfonietta” in a recent recording of what is one of the best scores to emerge from this country. Last year he performed many Australian works in his regular subscription series and although learning a new score was something of a task to him he gave several first performances.
Nicolai Malko was a citizen of the world, but in his private life remained very much
a Russian. He sipoke Russian whenever he could and wrote his letters and articles on a. Russian typewriter. He visited Russia for the first time for nearly 30 years in 1959 and was enthusiastically welcomed back. He was a famous trainer of other conductors and Eugene Mravinsky of the Leningrad Philharmonic was his pupil. Author of a book on conducting, he started a conductors’ training course in Sydney. One of his first three pupils was Michael Co-ban, of Auckland.
This course ran into practical difficulties, possibly not envisaged at the time it started, for the Sydney Symphony. with its heavy concert schedule, was too highpowered for the training of conductors.
Naturally, there is great speculation as to Dir. Malko’s successor. Will the Australitm. born Charles Mackerras be invited back? Will Sir Bernard Heinze take over for an interregnum? Or will the field be thrown open to the talent of the world? In paying tributes to the gifts and stimulus of Nicola! Malko. Sydney fervently hopes that the same fine traditions will be embodied in his successor.
It could be an interesting future. With the Opera House scheduled to open in 1963. the conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra could be a world figure. Another era is about to begin.
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Press, Volume C, Issue 29556, 4 July 1961, Page 13
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928Nicolai Malko's Death Ends Musical Era Press, Volume C, Issue 29556, 4 July 1961, Page 13
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