Yoav Talmi conducts at UCLA, USC

Yo’av Talmi rehearses with USC orchestral students. (Photo: Erella Talmi)


By Eileen Wingard

Eileen Wingard

LOS ANGELES — The foreboding call of a lone trumpet opens the Funeral March first movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which Yoav Talmi conducted in a concert with the USC Thornton Symphony in Bovard Auditorium on March 9, and rehearsed in a master class with the UCLA Philharmonia in Schoenberg Hall the day before.

Although Talmi will be celebrating his 75 th birthday, the Israeli maestro, former conductor of the San Diego Symphony and Conductor Emeritus of the Quebec Symphony, remains a slim, agile figure on the podium, mustering vast resources of energy and passion, while leading his young forces.

The five-movement,  72 minutes-long work requires intense concentration, forging through extreme dynamic contrasts, tossing melodic fragments between various instrumental groups, and contrasting powerful full-orchestra passages with delicate solos. Talmi elicited a professional performance from his young USC collegiates.

The strings played with carefully calculated bow distribution, warm vibrato and accurate intonation. Most of all, their playing was beautifully expressive, with finely calibrated nuances under Talmi’s masterful direction.

There were magical moments: the tsunami of sound unleashed at the beginning of the second movement; the fugal passages, ignited by Talmi’s incisive gestures  in the third and fourth movements; the pizzicato section in the third movement that sounded like the strums of an angelic harp; and the serene tenderness of the Adagietto.

The woodwinds played well also, as did the percussion and brass, especially the horn section. The solo trumpet, became more secure as the first movement progressed, producing a sweet, focused sound in his many exposed solos. Talmi conducted the challenging symphony from memory.

The Fifth Symphony, one of Mahler’s most dramatic works, was a tour de force for conductor and musicians. With the final clipped chords of the last movement, the entire audience rose for a standing ovation, roaring its praises.

The previous day, at UCLA, in a seminar for conducting students, Neal Stulberg, UCLA’s Director of Orchestral Studies, graciously introduced Talmi to his class of six. The first topic Talmi spoke about was his commitment to following the composer’s metronomic markings. He told anecdotes about his experiences with performing Schumann’s symphonies with orchestras which, traditionally, played Schumann with the relaxed tempi of Brahms’ music. Talmi created a stir by conducting them at the tempi Schumann had indicated.  He felt strongly that the conductor’s role is to serve the composer’s wishes.
Next, he responded to the question about his rehearsal methods. “Begin with large chunks of the music,” he advised. “And when you stop to rehearse a section, keep in mind the others and do not spend too much time, so that you do not lose the rest of the orchestra. You can return to the problem the next day.” “ Always be aware of the momentum of the rehearsal,” he admonished.
Talmi then spoke about the three roles conductors must fulfill, that of being musically prepared, that of carefully listening to the orchestra, and that of speaking to the musicians with diplomacy and thoughtfulness to achieve the results the conductor wants. He cautioned about the need to be considerate of the players’ egos.
He was asked about the number of languages he spoke. In addition to his native Hebrew, he speaks English, Dutch, German, and French. The last three were acquired when he conducted in those countries. With increased guest conducting invitations to Latin American, he is working on his Spanish. He emphasized the advantages of speaking the language of the orchestra for optimum communication.

He told about how he accepted the post of permanent guest conductor of the Munich Orchestra. Having lost the families of both his parents in the Holocaust, “I never knew my grandparents,” he lamented, he had no wish to conduct in Germany. However, when the Munich Orchestra, on tour, tragically lost their conductor, Talmi’s manager convinced him to step in. This was outside of Germany,  in Holland, where the Talmi’s resided at that time. He soon bonded with the musicians and was invited to be their  principal guest conductor. He acquiesced and at that point, learned German.

Finally, he was asked to name the concert halls in which he conducted which had the best acoustics. From Berlin’s  Philharmonium to the new hall in Kansas City, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Vienna’s Konserthaus, from Amsterdam’s Concertgebow to Munich’s Herkulussaal, this maestro has brought music to millions throughout his prestigious career.

After a half hour’s break, Talmi entered Schoenberg concert hall to work with the UCLA Philharmonia.

Stulberg was proud of his large ensemble, and, indeed, it was a much more impressive orchestra than the orchestra I had played in as a music student at UCLA in the late 40s and 50s.

The UCLA maestro relinquished his baton to Talmi to conduct the UCLA Philharmonia in a rehearsal of the first, second, third and fifth movements of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. When Stulberg realized that, coincidentally, the UCLA Philharmonia was preparing the same repertory for its March 18 concert at the Bing Auditorium of the Los Angeles County Museum, he extended the invitation to his Tel Aviv-based colleague.

The UCLA students were well-focused during the long rehearsal. At the break, the principal flutist came up to Talmi to express her gratitude for his work.

Two of Stulberg’s students conducted the Adagietto, the famous fourth movement of the Mahler Symphony. Talmi offered constructive comments to both student conductors, but not until they played a good chunk of the piece, following his sagacious advice.

Yoav Talmi and his wife, Er’ella arrived in Los Angeles on February 24. Next day, they drove down to San Diego where they connected with several of the many friends they had made over the seven years that he was the Music Director of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. On two occasions, following his tenure, he was invited back to guest conduct the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

Currently, he directs the orchestral studies at the Bachmann-Mehta Music School of Tel Aviv University and continues to guest conduct throughout the world. During the coming months, he will be leading orchestras in Athens, Greece, Warsaw, Poland, Budapest, Hungary, and Montreal, Canada. He is particularly excited about this summer’s two week conducting seminar,  a new program he was invited to lead at the Academy of   Domaine Forget , the  forty-years-old International Music Festival  on the St. Lawrence River in Canada.

 

Yoav Talmi has been spending more time, recently, as a composer. His most recent work, a quintet for  clarinet and strings won the Avidom Prize for best composition of the year, selected  by the composers’ association of Israel.

Yoav Talmi has  certainly  become one of Israel’s foremost conductors, composers and educators on the world stage today.

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Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.  She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com