If there is something that defines Berliner Christian Thielemann, it is rigor. Rigor and a great ability for lyrical preciousness. And if there is any deficiency that can be found in the current baton holder of the Staatskapelle Dresden and director of the Salzburg Easter Festival, it is probably in the field of fantasy and originality. No, the director of the 2024 New Year’s Concert is not a great innovator, although it does not seem that this will be a problem for the Vienna Philharmonic: when it comes to its traditional proposal of waltzes and polkas from the Strauss dynasty and other contemporaries of the time to open the year from the Musikverein, the more predictable the maestro, the better!
At 64 years old, Christian Thielemann is one of the great names in the international firmament of orchestral conducting. This time the Vienna Philharmonic has not taken half measures and has invited for the second time – it already directed this media event in 2019 – a solid heir of the Germanic tradition on the podium. Thielemann is that great specialist in Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner or Richard Strauss that the orchestras in his country fight to have. A student of Herbert von Karajan, this fierce storyteller with the baton is also a great voice director. So it has not surprised anyone that Daniel Barenboim and those responsible for the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin have chosen him this year as his worthy successor at the head of the institution, a position that he will assume starting in September, in the 2024-25 season.
This could be a great year for Thielemann, who still hurts from the setback of not having been chosen by the Berlin Philharmonic to replace Sir Simon Rattle in 2018. When everything indicated that the Berliner met all the requirements to take over the role podium of what is considered the most extraordinary of the symphony orchestras, the one who took the lead was the Russian Kirill Petrenko. Hence, Unter den Linden can now be his way of making up for that cure of humility.
We must not forget that Thielemann is not easy to deal with. His time as head of the Deutsche Oper and later as principal conductor of the Munich Philharmonic ended in discussions and controversies with those in charge of both institutions. And Katharina Wagner, who in 2015 created the position of musical director of the Bayreuth Festival especially for him, did not renew his contract in 2021 either.
This 2024 may also be the year in which Thielemann finally gets rid of the Nazi-inspired label that he himself earned by combining his conservative ideas with his categorical opposition to political correctness. The German maestro who will again conduct the Vienna New Year’s Concert on the 1st has faced accusations of racism. And there was even talk in the past about how present he seemed to have Daniel Barenboim’s Jewishness, although the current good harmony between both directors would deny it.
His admiration for Karajan, who became a member of the Nazi party in 1935, added to his passion for Wagner and other nationalist exaltations have caused him more than one headache. Trained in piano and viola, as a teenager he was appointed assistant to Karajan himself, his childhood idol. The young musician would have been captivated by that artist who was aware at all times of his own image and aesthetic projection. “Until I saw Karajan I didn’t get the impression that directing can also be a really beautiful organic spectacle,” he would say.
This child prodigy who learned to sing before speaking was the only child in a wealthy family in West Berlin. His father, she a pharmacist and he the owner of a metallurgical company, were both amateur pianists who took him to the Berlin Philharmonic as a child. Something he preferred a thousand times to staying at home with “my East Prussian nanny.” “I wanted to hear the music of an orchestra, the play of colors, those waves of sound in which one could lose oneself and find oneself again.” , would say.
The Barcelona public already had the opportunity to see him conduct the Viennese group live and through television broadcast when in 2021 they held an exceptional concert at the Sagrada Família. That was a golden opportunity for Thielemann to get ahead of the Berlin Philharmonic, which planned to visit the Gaudinian basilica until the pandemic forced it to postpone the project until May 2023. In fact, a spokesperson for the Berlin group He acknowledged to this newspaper how much they regretted that the Viennese anticipated their plans.