75th Anniversary Season 2007/08 in the Royal Festival Hall Return to articles menu page > Eschenbach the Communicator The conductor Christoph Eschenbach is a rare specimen: an experienced elder-statesman of the orchestral world who is looking only to the future. 'In my old age', he commented with a degree of irony in an interview with Andrew Clark of the Financial Times, 'I feel very young. If I settled, I would be unhappy...I'm not interested in looking back.' That was in 2002 as Eschenbach was preparing to take the reins of one of America's most prestigious institutions, the Philadelphia Orchestra - and in truth, he's hardly looked back at all. He has fed the notoriously conservative Philadelphia audience with a diet of world premières and huge, profound masterworks from Mahler and Schoenberg. Did the audience run a mile? No - it clasped Eschenbach to its bosom. His opening speech as Principal Conductor at Philadelphia - 'I want to raise the invisible curtain between stage and audience' - proved a prophecy. How does a conductor manage such a galvanising act? It's clear not only from interviews and profiles but also from Eschenbach's work on the concert platform and on record, that he's a born communicator. It's also apparent why he might not want to look back: an orphan who witnessed the death of his guardian grandmother at the age of five, and in the unbearable and unspeakable pain of this suffering (the young Christoph didn't speak for a year) turned to music to express himself. Now Eschenbach's passion is the progression of music: its creation and its performance. 'I don't much like this word “classical”', he commented to Andrew Clark, 'I don't even know what it means!' He has championed the music of Matthias Pintscher and other living composers, whilst one striking act of retrospection - that to the masterworks of his native Austro-Germany - has remained constant. This is where Eschenbach shines - showering his creative, contemporary vision on great, lasting masterpieces, whether written last week, last year, last decade or last century. Dates with Christoph Eschenbach during 2007/08 Wednesday 28 November 2008 Beethoven, Mahler Saturday 1 December 2007 Pintscher, Beethoven Sunday 13 April 2008 Schubert, Mahler Return to articles menu page > Back to top >