Arvid Jansons

As so-called 'Reserve Conductor,' Arvid Jansons led the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra on a UK tour back in the '60s. 

I never heard Mravinsky live but this was a good substitute because Jansons was obviously a fine conductor. I remember they played Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8. The performance was enormously impressive. You can hear a recording on Youtube (sound only).

Jansons cut a solid figure on the podium if I remember correctly. In those days there was no mistaking the sound of a Russian orchestra. His stick was secure and to the point. One of his teachers was Leo Blech who fled to Riga during the war with the help of Goehring, no less. Blech had to move on to Sweden when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union.

William Glock once dismissed my sales talk about a conductor being especially good in Prokofiev and Shostakovich. 'Everyone is good in Prokofiev and Shostakovich' he said and there is some truth in that. However, Arvid Jansons really was good in Shostakovich!

The situation concerning conductors in those times reminds me of what Celibidache said pertained in Berlin in the 1939s. 'There were 9 or 10 great conductors then, each better than the last.' Arvid Jansons could have had a big career today without doubt. Then he was just another good conductor of which there were many.

Everyone knows that Mariss Jansons was Arvid's son and that Arvid died of a heart attack at the age of 70 while conducting a concert with the Halle Orchestra of which he was Chief Guest Conductor. Mariss died aged 76 also of heart problems.