A Leading Question For the NSO

And so I hope that the "new broom sweeps clean" philosophy will not apply in the choice of a successor, that the NSO will not follow a common protocol and give us the "anti-Slatkin." For example, Marin Alsop was appointed music director in Baltimore at least in part because she was everything her predecessor Yuri Temirkanov was not -- highly articulate, accessible to her community, deeply interested in contemporary and American music and, as the first woman to serve as music director of a major orchestra, a figure of no small historical importance. (In fairness, it remains to be seen whether she will be able to give us those never-to-be-forgotten evenings of transcendent musicmaking that marked the Temirkanov era at its best.)

Hegel to the contrary, thesis and antithesis don't always resolve into an idealized synthesis. Back in 1970, the New York Philharmonic decided to follow the flashy, balletic, hyper-romantic Bernstein with the coolly intellectual modernist Pierre Boulez, who proved an unpopular choice and was replaced by the glamorous but sloppy and effusive Zubin Mehta, who was himself succeeded by the steady, somber craftsman Kurt Masur, who gave way to the willful uber-virtuoso Maazel. Is there a pattern here? Or only decades of swerving from one direction to another?

I hope that the NSO builds on many of Slatkin's ideas, improving on them rather than repudiating them out of hand. Washington needs to hear contemporary music -- we just want smarter examples than most of the pieces Slatkin chose to advance. Thematic programming is fine, but gimmicks such as Mahler's bloated arrangements of Beethoven hardly qualify. And an informal welcome from conductor to audience is one thing; laissez-faire expediency preparing the musicians is quite another.

And so the question remains -- who will get the nod? Stephane Deneve's appearances with the NSO have been unfailingly colorful and exciting; moreover, he has proved a persuasive advocate for a truly wonderful composer, Guillaume Connesson (who, along with Pascal Dusapin, may be turning Paris into an important musical capital for the first time in decades). Deneve, a Frenchman who is music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, has intellect, nuance and temperament, but he is young for the job, and from a very different culture. Still, the gifts are there.

For a decade or more, James Conlon, now music director of the Los Angeles Opera and the Ravinia Festival in suburban Chicago, has been discussed for any number of soon-to-be-vacant positions. Still -- whether by his choice or otherwise -- he has yet to take a major American orchestra. His rendition of the Mahler Third with the Juilliard Symphony at the Kennedy Center last year was far more sweeping, searching and illuminated than the one presented by the NSO -- with what was ostensibly a "student" orchestra, no less. If Conlon currently seems to be stuck in that curious limbo of "everybody's second favorite," it should not be forgotten that those are often just the candidates who, when the votes are counted, take home the prize.

Ivan Fischer, co-founder and artistic director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, has been appointed principal guest conductor of the NSO, but it is unclear what this means, other than that he will lead a few performances each year. He is a sensitive and seasoned artist, with a firm hand. Osmo Vanska has led some terrific concerts with the NSO, several of them with virtually no rehearsal time (in the ill-fated "Festival of Favorites" some years back), but he is said to be happy in his position as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra. And there are a number of gifted conductors around who have long histories with the NSO -- Hugh Wolff, an American based in Germany, and the Spanish conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos among them -- but who don't seem to be on the radar for this appointment, at least not yet.

It is still early in the game, after all. Nobody really knows who will be elected president in 2008; I don't think the prospects for music director of the NSO are much clearer.

And what happens to Leonard Slatkin? He has made it obvious in several recent interviews that he has his eye on replacing Barenboim in Chicago. In a story that appeared in the Chicago Tribune last week, he went so far as to set out the "terms" under which he would accept the job. And he threw some darts at the Kennedy Center and its president, Michael Kaiser.

"This administration wants to move to a more secure and traditional base," he said. "That's not what I do." Slatkin also suggested that the Kennedy Center is pushing for "a more populist-oriented music director" to improve ticket sales.

I doubt it. I expect a serious, painstaking search and the eventual appointment of a serious, painstaking music director. And, in fact, Slatkin's programming for the NSO's 2006-07 schedule is tame and populist in the extreme, studded with the same soloists he has relied upon throughout his tenure here -- violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, flutist James Galway, pianist Andre Watts, and the duo-piano team of Katia and Marielle Labeque (the last two playing their third NSO performance of Saint-Saens's "Carnival of the Animals" within the past decade).

In an e-mail interview last week, Slatkin said he had "made adjustments" to his programming for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons to reflect the wishes of the NSO and the Kennedy Center, which, he said, are "interested in a more centrist musical policy with less interest in new and American music."

But does any such policy exist at the Kennedy Center -- especially when its other offerings in dance, theater and music are compared to what they were five or 10 years ago? It certainly doesn't seem that way.

After the Tribune interview appeared, Kaiser released a statement that read, in its entirety: "I have always appreciated the innovative programming Leonard Slatkin has brought to the National Symphony Orchestra and have been pleased that the Kennedy Center could increase its investment in NSO programming over the past five years. The NSO's new Music Director, no doubt, will bring his or her own perspective to programming, but I would expect any new Music Director to bring both challenging new works and standard repertory to our audience."

The challenge stands. The NSO is now a very good orchestra, thanks in no small part to Leonard Slatkin. But who will make it a great one?