ENTERTAINMENT

Storied maestro was mentor to Louis Langrée

Janelle Gelfand
jgelfand@enquirer.com
The conductor Semyon Bychkov is in demand around the world.

Semyon Bychkov is one of the busiest maestros on the planet. He has a highly praised discography of recordings. But achieving greatness in the conducting world takes more than talent. Often, it comes down to someone believing in you, and offering a rare opportunity that can launch a career.

Bychkov’s own turning point came when he emigrated to the United States from the then-Soviet Union, where his family, among others, had been subjected to anti-Semitism. The president of New York's Mannes College of Music spotted his talent, and gave him a boost that he never forgot. Later, Bychkov “paid it forward” when he offered a chance to an aspiring young French conductor named Louis Langrée — now music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

"Without Semyon Bychkov, I probably wouldn’t have been a conductor," said Langrée. "This great musician and great mensch was — and still is — a constant source of inspiration for me."

Bychkov will make his subscription concert debut with the Cincinnati Symphony on Oct. 16 and 17 in Music Hall.

“I wanted to come to America, and had that opportunity in 1975,” Bychkov said by phone from Paris, where he lives with his wife, pianist Marielle Labèque (of the acclaimed piano duo The Labèque Sisters). “I did not escape, but nothing was simple for people who wanted to leave that country at that time.”

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), he was an extraordinary musician from an early age. Bychkov attended the Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied under the legendary Ilya Musin, teacher of generations of conductors, including Valery Gergiev. He won the prestigious Rachmaninoff Conducting Competition, but because his views about Soviet policies were considered unacceptable by authorities, he was denied his prize — conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic. He managed two years later to immigrate to the United States. He was 22.

It was at the Mannes College where Bychkov was noticed by the school’s president, Risë Stevens, who had achieved her own acclaim as an operatic superstar. She observed him leading a student orchestra, and invited him to become its next conductor the following year. It was the break he needed, because, as a newcomer in America, no one knew his work.

“That started my career, because that allowed me to develop my repertoire, to work with students who didn’t know anything, and help them to cope with all kinds of challenges in the music,” he said. “And it also gave me an opportunity to present concerts in New York. People came, and everything started from there.”

At age 28, Bychkov became music director of the Grand Rapids (MI) Symphony, followed by a four-year tenure with the Buffalo Philharmonic. Gradually, he was invited to step in for high-profile cancellations — at the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Now, he has distinguished relationships with those and many of the world’s great orchestras and opera companies.

Bychkov met Langrée in the mid-1980s, while conducting opera in France. When he went to Lyon to conduct Mozart’s opera “La finta giardiniera," Langrée was the rehearsal pianist.

Semyon Bychkov

“He was an aspiring conductor,” Bychkov said of Langrée. “But it is very difficult to begin, because where do you study? How do you have opportunities?”

After Bychkov became music director of the Orchestre de Paris in 1989, he convinced his record company, Polygram, to sponsor Langrée in a kind of assistantship.

“I convinced them that he was a young, very talented, French, aspiring conductor, who needed to move to Paris and have an opportunity to learn, to observe, to meet musicians, to be present. And that’s what happened,” he said.

For Langrée, Bychkov "opened my eyes to many diverse aspects of life, music and art," he said. "His insatiable curiosity, his elevated soul, his level of music making and his total dedication to his work are still present in my memory."

They continue to have a friendship that Bychkov describes as “warm and direct.” He has only visited Cincinnati once before, for a special concert at Riverbend with the Cincinnati Symphony and Wynton Marsalis in the 1980s. The conductor was pleased that this season, by "a very peculiar coincidence," he had one available week to come to Cincinnati between his dates with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

“We met a year ago in Vienna, and Louis was telling me about Cincinnati, how excited he was and how many hopes he had for the orchestra,” Bychkov said. “He found that the community was genuinely devoted to classical music and the orchestra. Which didn’t surprise me, because I remember even from that brief visit I had years ago, the community’s image has always been a very noble one when it comes to classical music and old German tradition.

“As he was talking, I was convinced that it will be a success story. Every little snippet (of news) that I pick up is a reminder that my instinct was a correct one.”

If you go 

What: The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Semyon Bychkov, conducting; Bertrand Chamayou, piano

Program: Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 and "Francesca da Rimini; Richard Strauss' "Burleske" ("Burleske" replaces the originally scheduled Liszt "Totentanz")

When: 8 p.m. Oct. 16 and 17

Where: Music Hall

Tickets: Start at $12. 513-381-3300, cincinnatisymphony.org

Bychkov on Tchaikovsky's Third Symphony: "I conducted this symphony for the first time only last season in Hamburg. I never particularly thought much of it, because the image is that it’s not one of the successful ones. That’s absolutely not true. Because once I got inside the piece and really got to know it, it is Tchaikovsky at his really greatest. It’s inventive, interesting, dramatic, lyrical – everything is there."