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Mariss Jansons

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Mariss Jansons was a Latvian conductor, born in 1943 in Riga. His mother Iraida was the diva of the Riga opera and his father Arvīds conducted the opera orchestra. His mother, who was Jewish, gave birth to him in a hiding place after being smuggled out of the Riga ghetto. He first learned the violin from his father. In 1956 he moved to Leningrad, where his father became assistant to Yevgeny Mravinsky and where he himself began to study conducting at the conservatory. In 1968 he caught the attention of Herbert von Karajan, but the Soviet authorities blocked his studies in Berlin. He then studied in Vienna with Hans Swarowsky and in Salzburg with Karajan.

Music and breakthrough

His breakthrough came with the Oslo Philharmonic, where he was music director from 1979 to 2000. He later led the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2004, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2019 and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from 2004 to 2015. He made many recordings, including the symphonies of Tchaikovsky, such as the Sixth, the Pathétique, which was released in 1986. He was known for his performances of Mahler, Strauss and Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich. In a Bachtrack poll in 2015, critics ranked him the third-best conductor in the world.

Influence

Jansons died in 2019. He showed how a conductor can refine the sound of an orchestra and still stay close to the drama of the music.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to the beginning of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique, under Jansons and notice the dark, low sounds of the bassoon and the strings. Can you hear how the atmosphere slowly builds?

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists