Obituary, Yuri Temirkanov (1938-2023)

The Russian conductor Yuri Khatuevich Temirkanov has died aged 84. A specialist in works by Russian and Soviet composers, his discography is a rich treasure-trove of quintessentially Russian performances.

Temirkanov was born in 1938 in the city of Nalchik in the far south-west of Russia - the capital of what was then the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR and is now the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria (a mountainous region bordering Georgia and including Mount Elbrus, the highest point in Europe). His musical education took place mostly in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), first at its School for Talented Children and then later its Conservatory. His first love was the string family - initially training as a viola player - but after he switched to conducting, it became clear that his talent at the podium was prodigious. A victory in the All-Soviet National Conducting Competition in 1966 supercharged his career and brought an invitation from Kirill Kondrashin to join him and the violinist David Oistrakh on a tour of the West with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.

A meteoric rise followed, taking Temirkanov from obscurity to fame almost instantaneously. In 1967, an appointment to the post of Assistant Conductor at the then Leningrad Philharmonic saw him work under Evgeny Mravinsky; then in 1968 he became Principal Conductor of the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra. After this sudden explosion of success Temirkanov seems to have settled down somewhat, though it would only be eight years until he moved on to the Kirov Opera and Ballet (now the Mariinsky), where he remained for almost a decade.

Although the divided nature of the times prevented Temirkanov from working extensively with Western orchestras in the first decades of his career, he debuted with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1977 and lost no time in cultivating deeper relationships once the political climate permitted it. From 1992 to 1998 he was the RPO’s Principal Conductor, also holding conducting posts in Dresden, Copenhagen and a host of American cities.

He was also - perhaps anomalously, in view of his extensive reputation as a conductor of Russian orchestral works - an acclaimed Verdi interpreter, serving as Music Director of the Teatro Regio di Parma in the early 2010s. Numerous recordings resulted, in particular highly successful accounts of La Traviata and Il Trovatore.

Temirkanov was a keen promoter of contemporary repertoire; in an interview in 1997 with Chicago-based radio presenter Bruce Duffie he reminisced about the sensation of rehearsing Shostakovich’s works with the composer himself present to, as Duffie put it, “supervise”. He also cited Shchedrin’s The Dead Souls, which he himself had premiered, as one of the best operas of the twentieth century.

Later in life Temirkanov attracted criticism for declaring women “too weak” to succeed as conductors (citing, of all people, Karl Marx in support of this position). His immediate successor at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop who took over from him in 2007, stands as evidence that a gift for conducting an orchestra is no protection against being wrong on other questions.

His death was announced by the Russian state-run newspaper Gazeta on November 2nd; no cause of death was given, but the closing comment alluded poignantly to “loneliness being a known cause of premature death”.

Yuri Temirkanov - a selected discography