SAN DIEGO — The Israeli conductor and composer, Yoav Talmi, recently had one of his greatest recording successes, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9, with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, made available on YouTube, per above. This recording, on the Chandos label, won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque in 1987.
The annual prize was established in 1948 by the Charles Cros Academy, a French organization that acts as an intermediary between government cultural policy makers and professionals in music and the recording industry. Their Grand Prize is one of the world’s most acclaimed accolades.
This is a particularly interesting recording because Bruckner wrote his 9th Symphony during the last years of his life and the fourth movement was left incomplete, with only sketches indicating his intent. Of the several versions of completion by other composers, Talmi chose the completion by the American physicist and amateur musicologist, William Carragan. Although critics disagree on how well Carragan’s completion succeeds, they all agree that the symphony, “vividly played by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under the talented Israeli-born American-trained young musician, Yoav Talmi,” (Gramaphone), “this completion is elegantly idiomatic…careful to incorporate every note that Bruckner wrote, sacrificing nothing original,” (theclassicalshop.net), “In my opinion, the version truest to the Bruckner style is the 1984 completion by William Carragan, which has been recorded by Yoav Talmi and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra,” (Primephonic).
The recording brings forth the gigantic structures of Bruckner’s music. For a 50 minute journey into the realm of post romantic symphonic literature, this work, and the interpretation of its massive dimensions is monumental.
Yoav Talmi was born April 28, 1943, in Kibbutz Merhavia, Israel. His father, Abraham Talmi, was a music teacher and a graphic artist. The YouTube performance is accompanied by visuals, photos of Yoav Talmi conducting, and abstract paintings, the work of his father, Abraham Talmi.
After receiving his diploma from the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, Yoav Talmi attended the Julliard School in New York.
He began his conducting career in Arnhem, Holland, as artistic director of the Gelders Symphony Orchestra, 1974-1980. He served as principal guest conductor for the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, 1979-1980.
In Israel, he was the artistic director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, 1984-1988 and Music Director of the New Israeli Opera, 1985-1989.
We knew him in San Diego as Music Director of our San Diego Symphony Orchestra, 1990-1996. He also held the directorship of the Waterloo Festival in New Jersey, 1994-1995.
In Quebec, Canada, he took over the directorship of the oldest orchestra in the country, the Quebec Symphony, a post he held from 1999 until 2012 and he was the conductor of the Hamburg Symphony, 2000-2004. Currently, Talmi serves as head of the conducting department at the Buchmann-Mehta Music School at Tel Aviv University and continues to guest conduct major orchestras throughout the world.
Talmi has received many prizes and honors as both a conductor and a composer, starting with Israel’s Boskovitch prize for composition in 1965.
At the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood, he received the 1969 Koussevitzky Memorial Conducting prize. Four years later, he won the Ruppert Foundation Conductor Competition in London. As a composer, in 2008, he won the Frank Peleg Prize from the Israeli Government’s Ministry of Culture and, in 2013, the Prime Minister’s Prize for Composers. During his stint as Music Director of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, he was named Officer National Quebec by the Quebec Government, the highest honor in French Canada.
Talmi’s high caliber of artistry, his ability to draw out the best and inspire his musicians to put forth their finest efforts results in performances such as this prize-winning recording of Anton Bruckner’s 9th Symphony with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.
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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com