Daniel Harding

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This article refers to the British conductor Daniel Harding. For the Ipswich Town footballer, please see Dan Harding.

Daniel Harding (born 31 August 1975 in Oxford) is a British conductor. He is a protégé of Simon Rattle and of Claudio Abbado. Harding studied trumpet at Chetham's School of Music and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra at age 13.[1]. At age 17, Harding assembled a group of musicians to perform Pierrot Lunaire of Arnold Schoenberg, and sent a tape of the performance to Rattle in Birmingham. After listening to this tape, Rattle hired Harding as an assistant to him at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for a year, from 1993-1994. Harding then attended the University of Cambridge, but after his first year at university, Abbado named him his assistant with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.[2]

Harding has been music director of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra (1997-2000), the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (1999-2003) and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (since 2003). He conducted the 2005 opening night at La Scala, Milan in Idomeneo, as a substitute after the resignation of Riccardo Muti earlier in 2005.[3]. He conducted Così fan tutte at the Aix Festival in 2005 and appeared at the festival again in 2006.

In 2004, Harding was appointed principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), as of 2006. One of his new projects with the LSO involves the 'Sound Adventures' program for new compositions.[4] He became the Principal Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra as of 2007.

Harding and his wife Béatrice Muthelet, a violist, have two children, Adele and George. He is a particular fan of the football club Manchester United.

[edit] Critical reaction

Some writers and critics have been speculating as to whether Harding has been conducting top-rank orchestras at too young an age[5]. Some examples of critical comment are as follows:

"Note to aspiring conductors: Don't bother to spend a long apprenticeship learning your art, perfecting your manners and projecting humility when appropriate. Just let the classical music management powerhouse ICM build your career and get you appearances with the world's great orchestras when you haven't a clue as to how to lead them.
The 31-year-old British non-"wunderkind" Daniel Harding must have had a two-season contract to have been asked back to Chicago after his wholly unimpressive debut last season.
With no sense of the Czech idiom, up- and downbeats that could only have been read by the players with ESP, and numerous reports of arrogant and wrong-headed behavior in rehearsals, the first half's rarities - Dvorak's D-Flat Major Fourth Slavonic Dance and his symphonic poem "The Golden Spinning Wheel" - had their bracing harmonies and complex rhythms reduced to somnolent syrup Thursday. The CSO should have bought out its deal with Harding.[6]

"Give him another 20 years and Harding might conceivably formulate a view of the symphony [Symphony No. 9 of Gustav Mahler] that he is able to communicate. Conductor and orchestra instead went through the motions of a Mahler performance, and nothing happened. That is some achievement...I’m sure Harding will come good, but a performance like this makes a mockery of flying a reputable, 100-strong orchestra across Europe for a single concert. It does Dresden no good and gives Harding an inflated sense of his place in the musical world. He needs to spend some time with third-rate orchestras and get to know the music properly, before exposing us - and himself - to this masquerade.[7]

More favorable comments are sampled below, such as one from the same 2007 Dresden Staatskapelle concert:

"....its current formidable players clearly respect this buoyant if still boyish Brit. Harding has his detractors, but he certainly knows his Mahler. Years of youthful experience around Europe, not least as a protege of Rattle in Birmingham and Abbado in Berlin, have lent him a velvet-fist-in-iron-glove stick technique..."[8]

"...Daniel Harding's reading of Mahler's valedictory 9th Symphony (was) so compelling. To see this pale, slightly built, vulnerable-looking, young man stand before one of the most venerable and venerated orchestras in the world - the Staatskapelle Dresden - cannot begin to prepare you for what follows. Out of apparent contradiction comes breathtaking accord."[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Robert Hanks. "Daniel Harding: Lightning conductor", The Independent, 10 December 2005. Retrieved on 2007-08-31. 
  2. ^ Michael Henderson, "Daniel Harding: Conducting his life with brio". The Observer, 30 July 2006.
  3. ^ Barbara McMahon, "Milan's opera world divided as British conductor takes on La Scala". The Guardian, 8 December 2005.
  4. ^ Edward Seckerson, " Daniel Harding: LSO's boy wonder". The Independent, 22 March 2007.
  5. ^ BBC Music Magazine, July 2006.
  6. ^ Andrew Patner, "Silja's Jenufa puts CSO on high road". Chicago Sun-Times, 28 October 2006.
  7. ^ Andrew Clark, "Dresden Staatskapelle/Daniel Harding, Barbican, London" (concert review). Financial Times, 11 January 2007.
  8. ^ Anthony Holden, "We love a girl in uniform..." (concert review of three separate events). The Observer, 14 January 2007.
  9. ^ Edward Seckerson, " Staatskapelle Dresden/Harding, Barbican Hall, London" (concert review). The Independent, 12 January 2007.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Thomas Hengelbrock		 Music Director, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Bremen
1999-2003		 Succeeded by
Paavo Järvi
Preceded by
Manfred Honeck		 Principal Conductor, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
2007-		 Succeeded by
incumbent