Mariss Jansons, conductor of top classical ensembles including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, died at his home in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Nov. 30 after a long battle with a heart condition. He was 76. Jansons’ death was confirmed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO), where he was chief conductor. Jansons had canceled concerts this summer for health reasons, the DPA news agency reported.
Born in German-occupied Riga in 1943 in what is now independent Latvia’s capital as the son of a conductor father and an opera singer mother, Jansons grew up in the Soviet Union and studied at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory. A Soviet-era exchange program brought him to Austria in 1969, where he studied with famed conductor Herbert von Karajan. Jansons’ work was also influenced by the legendary Soviet conductor Evgeny Mravinsky, who brought him in as his assistant at the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1972.
He was chief conductor in Pittsburgh from 1997 to 2004, regularly appeared at the Salzburg Festival, and in 2006, 2012 and 2016 conducted the Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Concert broadcast around the world. He left the Pittsburgh orchestra to become principal conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw, a post he held until 2015. Jansons is credited with raising the reputation of the Oslo Philharmonic through recordings and international tours during a 23-year tenure as music director.
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
Jansons’ musical focus was large-scale orchestral works by 19th-century central and eastern European composers including Mahler, Dvorak, Bartok, Brahms and Shostakovich. He was known for close attention to detail in rehearsal and made extensive pre-concert sound checks, listening from different points in the hall while one of the musicians wielded the baton and even adjusting the position of players’ chairs to get the sound he wanted.
“The notes are just signs,” he was quoted as saying in a 2012 interview in the Guardian. “You have to go beyond them and see what your fantasy tells you. But how do you express that through sound? If you think of the technical aspects of conducting as being on the ground floor of a big building, then 20 floors up you are beginning to get the sound you want.” Jansons, who said in the Guardian interview that he held both Russian and Latvian passports, collapsed on stage during a concert performance of Puccini’s opera La Boheme in Oslo in 1996 after suffering a heart attack and was subsequently fitted with a defibrillator.
Jansons visited Taiwan five times, which included concerts with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1996, the Royal Concertgebouw in 2006, and the BRSO in 2007, 2014, and 2016. Among these remarkable performances, Jansons conducted Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in 2014 with pianist Krystian Zimerman as the soloist and Richard Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie in 2016: a great musical feast for the Taiwanese audience. In November last year, Jansons was scheduled to tour with the BRSO again and visit Taiwan for the sixth time, but he was replaced by Zubin Mehta due to health concerns.
Jansons’ health had been deteriorating in recent years, but he made a brief comeback in October, after a long recovery, by touring with the Bavarians. His final appearance on stage was a truly heart-wrenching performance in New York’s Carnegie Hall on Nov. 8, which featured Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony — both works being among the two composers’ last creative output and which, regrettably, became his swan songs. Upon hearing of the loss, the BRSO posted a nine-minute video clip, in black and white, of Jansons conducting the orchestra in the concluding part of the finale of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, in memory of a maestro who was both their mentor and friend.
(AP, with additional reporting by staff writer)
曾率領阿姆斯特丹皇家大會堂管絃樂團、匹茲堡交響樂團等世界頂尖樂團的指揮家馬瑞斯．楊頌斯，在長期對抗心臟疾病後，十一月三十日在俄國聖彼得堡的自宅辭世，享壽七十六歲。楊頌斯的死訊經巴伐利亞廣播交響樂團證實，他在過世前仍擔任該樂團的首席指揮。根據德新社報導，楊頌斯今年夏天因健康因素已取消多場演出。
一九四三年，楊頌斯出生在當時遭德軍佔領的里加，也就是今日已獨立的拉脫維亞首都，父親是指揮家，母親則是歌劇院的聲樂家。他在蘇聯成長，並就讀於列寧格勒（今日的聖彼得堡）音樂學院。一九六九年，一次蘇聯時代的交流計畫把楊頌斯帶到了奧地利，讓他能夠向聲譽顯赫的指揮家赫伯特‧馮‧卡拉揚學習。楊頌斯的指揮也深受傳奇蘇聯指揮家尤金‧穆拉汶斯基影響，後者在一九七二年拔擢楊頌斯擔任列寧格勒愛樂管絃樂團的助理指揮。
楊頌斯是匹茲堡交響樂團一九九七年到二○○四年間的首席指揮，他經常於薩爾斯堡音樂節登台，並在二○○六、一二年、一六年三度指揮全球轉播的維也納愛樂新年音樂會。他後來離開匹茲堡交響樂團，接任阿姆斯特丹皇家大會堂的首席指揮，一直到二○一五年才卸下該職。楊頌斯另一項為人稱道的成就是擔任奧斯陸愛樂的音樂總監時，在二十三年的任期中，藉由錄音和國外巡演，大幅提高該樂團的聲望，
楊頌斯的指揮曲目主要聚焦於十九世紀中歐與東歐作曲家──包括馬勒、德弗札克、巴爾托克、布拉姆斯，以及蕭士塔高維契──的大編制管絃樂作品。排練中特別注意細節、演出前大範圍地檢查聲響效果，都是他為人熟知的特色。排練時，楊頌斯會請一位樂手代他指揮，自己則從觀眾席的不同位置聆聽樂團聲音，甚至還會調整樂手坐椅的位置來獲得他理想的聲音。
二○一二年接受衛報訪問時，楊頌斯曾說：「音符僅僅只是符號。」他指出：「你必須超越這些表象，尋索腦海中的幻想向你訴說的一切。但你又要如何藉由聲音把它表現出來呢？你可以把指揮的技術層面想成一個人站在巨大建築物的一樓，向上二十樓後，才會開始慢慢得到想要的聲音。」楊頌斯在這篇衛報的訪問中，提到他現在同時擁有俄國與拉脫維亞的護照。一九九六年，楊頌斯在奧斯陸指揮一場普契尼歌劇《波希米亞人》的音樂會形式演出時，曾經當場心臟病發，在舞台上倒下，後來遂裝上植入式心律去顫器。
楊頌斯曾經五度訪台，包括一九九六年帶領奧斯陸愛樂、二○○六年帶領阿姆斯特丹皇家大會堂，以及二○○七、一四、一六年三度率領巴伐利亞廣播交響樂團來台巡演，其中二○一四年與鋼琴家克里斯提安‧齊瑪曼合作的布拉姆斯第一號鋼琴協奏曲，以及二○一六年指揮的理查‧史特勞斯的《阿爾卑斯交響曲》，都讓台灣樂迷大飽耳福。去年十一月楊頌斯本來預計再次帶領巴伐利亞交響樂團巡演，六度訪台，只可惜因為健康狀況欠佳，由指揮大師祖賓‧梅塔代打。
近年來，楊頌斯的健康每況愈下，但今年經過長期休養後仍在十月短暫復出，帶領巴伐利亞廣播交響樂團巡演。十一月八日，楊頌斯在紐約卡內基音樂廳帶來一場揪人心弦的演出，是他最後一次登台。當天他指揮巴伐利亞廣播交響樂團演奏理查．史特勞斯《最後四首歌》以及布拉姆斯《第四號交響曲》──兩首作品都是作曲家生涯晚期的創作，讓人不捨地成為這位指揮大師的天鵝之歌。該團得知這項惡耗後，在網路上發布了一段楊頌斯指揮他們演奏馬勒第九號交響曲結尾最後九分鐘的黑白影片，以紀念這位亦師亦友的指揮大師。
（台北時報章厚明編譯）
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