The Venerable Berlin P.O. is Younger These Days

[Ralph]

From The New York Times:

May 8, 2006
A Youth Movement at the Berlin Philharmonic
By DANIEL J. WAKIN

BERLIN, May 7 — During plane trips on the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's Asia tour last year, a few members passed the time in a sort of activity that would have been unheard of in Herbert von Karajan's day. They played the computer game "Ghost Reckoning" on several networked laptops.

Such games did not exist of course during the tenure of Karajan, the orchestra's imperious music director from 1955 almost to his death in 1989. Still, the game playing is a sign of the generational shift that has been under way in the orchestra, one of the great musical institutions in the world.

Quite simply, the orchestra is a lot younger.

Nearly half the 122 members are under 40, including 13 20-somethings. Seventy-seven were born after Jan. 1, 1960, and the average age is 45. That is about five years younger than during the Karajan period, orchestra officials said.

"I've worked with youth orchestras who look a lot older than this one," said Simon Rattle, the orchestra's conductor. "It's a generational change."

The influx of young players has helped make the orchestra more flexible, transparent and attuned to non-Germanic and contemporary repertory, members said. The changes began under Karajan's successor, Claudio Abbado, and have accelerated under Sir Simon.

Fewer than half of the players remain from Karajan's time. Fifty-two date from the tenure of Mr. Abbado, who led the Berliners from 1989 to 2002. Fourteen musicians joined the orchestra after Sir Simon took over in that year, but they included a number in key positions: solo oboist, French hornist, trumpeter and double bassist. And there are more to come. The orchestra has six openings.

"The good news is there are a lot of strong musicians now," said Peter Riegelbauer, one of the orchestra's two chairmen. "The bad news is in 20 or 30 years it will be an old orchestra," he added, smiling. Mr. Riegelbauer is a double bassist in the Philharmonic, which is run by its members.

Sections pick candidates, and the full orchestra votes on the final choice, with the conductor receiving just one vote. Mr. Riegelbauer said the orchestra's leadership had made it clear that very young applicants should be given preference. "We think it's good to have young talents you can form in the early years," he said. The mandatory retirement age of 65 also keeps the orchestra young. There is generally no such rule in American orchestras.

The youngest member of the Berlin Philharmonic is Mr. Riegelbauer's section mate, Edicson Ruiz, a product of Venezuela's sprawling youth orchestra system. Abandoned at an early age by his father and raised in a poor section of Caracas, he won an audition at 17, served his two-year probation and was elected to a permanent position a year ago.

He turns 21 on Thursday.

Only one other player, a harpist in the 19th century, entered at a younger age, said Jan Diesselhorst, a cellist and the other co-chairman.

Mr. Ruiz says that while he is a full member of the orchestra, he is really still in a sort of school. He studies with Janne Saksala, a double bassist in the orchestra, and took lessons for a year with Klaus Stoll, a principal bassist, who acted as a father figure during Mr. Ruiz's first years in Berlin.

"I have really a huge amount to learn," he said during an interview in the cafeteria of the orchestra's home, the Philharmonie. Mr. Ruiz, who shaves only once a week and looks like a well-scrubbed high school student, has an easy laugh and an eager manner.

"I have to fight against my inexperience to fight against my young age," he said. Serving as a member of the Berlin Philharmonic, living in a foreign land and studying German with a tutor are not easy, he explained. "It's hard for me to play being an adult," he said. "Life starts to get very heavy to carry."

Musically, he said, he had a head start in Venezuela, where members of his youth orchestra religiously watched videos of Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

"We always were in touch and tried to imitate the orchestra's oceanic sound," he said.

He arrived to study in Berlin with extraordinary technical talent but lacked knowledge about musical style, said Mr. Stoll, who worked closely with him in that area.

"That is our strong responsibility," Mr. Stoll added, "to teach them, by playing, what was the sound idea of maybe Furtwängler, of maybe von Karajan."

Older members said their younger comrades felt more comfortable with the orchestra's changed character. Having been founded in opposition to autocratic conductors, it fell under just that with Karajan. With Mr. Abbado's arrival, democracy returned, Mr. Stoll said, and some of the old-timers had difficulty adjusting.

Under Karajan, it was assumed that only members with many years of experience would dare to speak up at orchestra meetings, Mr. Diesselhorst said. Now, he added, "all the young colleagues are pleased to express an opinion."

Whatever the past may have been like, the backstage area during the intermission of a concert on Saturday afternoon, which was conducted by the English composer George Benjamin, resembled a university cafeteria. The first violinists sat around a table drinking sparkling wine and eating pastries. It was a member's birthday, and tradition required him to treat his colleagues.

Other players sat outside on a balcony, chatting, or alone at tables near the snack bar eating sandwiches. Several small children raced around. Sir Simon, who had come to hear the concert, amiably greeted the musicians, something Mr. Diesselhorst said would have been shocking behavior on Karajan's part.

Martin von der Nahmer, a 28-year-old violist and sometime GameCube player, joined the orchestra two years ago. "I feel a sense of youth," he said, "but I feel also a sense of tradition, which is perhaps the most important thing." The probationary period, he said, is a time for the other members of the orchestra to see if the aspiring member can absorb that tradition.

Mr. Ruiz, who is scheduled to play as a soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas at Alice Tully Hall on June 8, said he sometimes feels like an outsider, intimidated by the collective knowledge of the Berlin Philharmonic. It did not seem that way at Saturday's concert of 20th-century works. He rocked his bass back and forth and nodded his head vigorously in time to the music.

"When we play together and do our music," he said, "I feel like one of them."