Mandle Chung and Mahler 2

Along comes another rich guy with Mahlerian dreams of grandeur who lives out his fantasies by paying a princely sum to conduct a leading orchestra.  We've seen this before with Gilbert Kaplan.  Now it's Mandle Chung "hiring" the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for his own personal vanity project.  Are we supposed to care? 

OK, enough with the cynicism.  Like Kaplan, Chung is a patron of the arts whose goal is to promote classical music to the widest possible audience.  In this case, Chung is paying for the orchestra, the concert hall, and for the promotion of the concert.  It's true that one could argue that he could do all that and also hire a professional conductor instead of placing himself at the centre of the performance.  However, Mahler performances these days are all too common.  This performance is different because the conductor is the outsider, he's the draw just as much as the music.  

I love Mahler 2 just as much as the next classical music fan, I saw Bradley Cooper whip up a sweat soaked frenzy in "Maestro", but I know I have no business conducting this work no matter how much I might dream about it.   People have the right to be skeptical and to make jokes.  But why smirk about a supposed loss of artistic credibility?   "It must be about the money" ... of course it's about the money!  No orchestra can survive without arts grants and philanthropy.  There's a place for upholding authenticity and also a place for shameless moneymaking strictly for entertainment purposes.  I don't think there's any shame in aspiring to the former while also proudly admitting to the latter.  Modern orchestras are both supremely talented and enviably versatile, they can manage both.   

Would modern arts critics scoff at Haydn for working most of his career as the personal composer of a Hungarian noble?  Would the music have been better if he had not done it all "for the money" he received from wealthy patrons?  Would a modern day Haydn have to be a struggling and starving artist to remain authentic?  

I searched online for reviews of Chung's performance last night.  As of this posting, I couldn't find any major media outlets who covered the concert.  I could only find a few message board posts.  Chung was well practiced and energetic, but didn't succeed in leading the orchestra to the highs that the music demands.  Hey, that's what they said about Kaplan too.  This type of thing isn't unique to classical music either.  Sometimes celebrities dabble in pro wrestling, and the expectations are on a parallel scale compared to two pros having a match.  If it draws a crowd, then it works.  If celebrity involvement becomes a weekly thing, then the audience will likely get bored and turn away from the product.    There's also place for this alternate form of classical music entertainment.