Joshua Kosman
Gramophone
As he turns 80, we celebrate the conductor and composer Michael Tilson Thomas whose impact on musical life and on millions of listeners has been transformative
Of the many hundreds of exhilarating and memorable performances I’ve heard Michael Tilson Thomas deliver over the decades, nearly all have achieved their effect through the conductor’s sheer musicality. There have been standard classics of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, world premieres by established or up-and-coming living composers, and rarities from the operatic back catalogue of Russia, all performed with the flair and vitality that have made him one of the most significant conductors of our day.
Then there was a funny little anecdote, delivered with an offhand virtuosity for an audience of one. Sometime in the 2000s, I sat down for an interview in the large, handsomely appointed San Francisco Victorian house that Tilson Thomas, universally known as MTT, shares with his husband and business partner, Joshua Robison. We had an array of serious business to discuss that afternoon, but first, MTT launched into a story he’d heard from Takemitsu. It concerned the Japanese composer’s visit to Messiaen’s deathbed, during which he’d incurred the wrath of Mme Messiaen by praising one of the master’s works in terms she found impertinent. Telling the story called for MTT to impersonate Takemitsu impersonating both Messaiens in turn, and it was hilarious. It also defied replication. You had to be there.
Like some small, beautiful curio on a knick-knack shelf, this episode in all its triviality encapsulates something of the singularity that is MTT. The humour, the poignancy, the unexpected turns and the effortless showmanship on display all point towards the qualities of his work on a larger and more consequential canvas.
Above all, though, it’s the fleeting and protean quality of the event that corresponds, perhaps paradoxically, to MTT’s deepest artistic commitments. It matches his conviction that a musical experience is something to be grasped in the moment and savoured before it’s gone, with the understanding that the next iteration will be something related but entirely different. […]