The ANNOTICO Report
Carlo Maria Giulini was regarded as a gentle, considerate
man who enjoyed
the affection of all the orchestras he led.
On the rostrum, though, he could appear frightening, his
eyes staring
wildly about him and his arms making great scything movements
through the
air.
Giulini's immersion in music was so deep it was almost
too beautiful to
endure.
BBC News
Wednesday, 15 June, 2005
Conductor Carlo Maria Giulini, one of the most distinguished
musicians of
the 20th century, has died at the age of 91 in Brescia,
Italy.
Giulini started out as a viola player, playing under such
legendary
conductors as Wilhelm Furtwangler, Otto Klemperer and
German composer
Richard Strauss.
He made his conducting debut in Rome in 1944, becoming
musical director of
the La Scala opera house in Milan in 1953.
>From 1967, however, he abandoned opera to concentrate on orchestral works.
Giulini was regarded as a gentle, considerate man who
enjoyed the affection
of all the orchestras he led.
On the rostrum, though, he could appear frightening, his
eyes staring
wildly about him and his arms making great scything movements
through the
air.
Deserter
Born in southern Italy in 1914, he was enchanted by the
wandering fiddle
players who roamed the countryside after World War II.
As a five-year-old he asked his father to buy him a similar instrument.
He went on to study viola at St Cecilia's Academy in Rome
and, on what he
would later call the proudest day of his life, join the
city's Augusteo
Orchestra...
Giulini served in the Italian army in Croatia in the early
years of World
War II but later...athough recently married, went into
hiding and only
narrowly eluded the Gestapo.
He emerged when Rome was liberated by the Allies in June
1944 and agreed to
make his public debut as a conductor.
The performance featured Brahms' Fourth Symphony, which
occupied a special
place in his career - in 1969 he made what was regarded
as a definitive
recording of the work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Triumphs
Although Guilini's early passions were chamber music and
the symphonic
repertoire, his three-year reign at La Scala was considered
a golden age
for the opera house.
Working with Maria Callas and directors Luchino Visconti
and Franco
Zeffirelli, he was responsible for some of the great
operatic triumphs of
the post-war era, including La Traviata and The Barber
of Seville.
Now firmly established as one of the world's great conductors
of opera,
Giulini made his first appearance in Britain at the Edinburgh
Festival,
leading the Glyndebourne Opera in Verdi's Falstaff.
His time with La Scala in Milan is considered a golden age
In 1958 he conducted the celebrated Visconti production
of Verdi's Don
Carlos at Covent Garden, marking the centenary of the
Royal Opera House.
During the 1960s he began a long and fruitful relationship
with the New
Philharmonia Orchestra, recording an outstanding performance
of Verdi's
Requiem.
But Giulini tired of the rough and tumble of opera house
life and devoted
more time to concerts, taking regular engagements with
the Israel, Vienna
and Berlin Philharmonics.
He became chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
in 1978 and
worked with several other orchestras in the United States.
Throughout his life he remained under the spell of the
great composers.
Placido Domingo said it was almost shocking to see someone
so good
demonstrate such power.
One soloist said Giulini's immersion in music was so deep
it was almost too
beautiful to endure.