Ernest Fleischman

 

Ernest Fleischmann was a formidable person to be reckoned with in the musical world. Jewish, born in Frankfurt and brought up in South Africa he had studied conducting, decided he was not Toscanini and proceeded to take it out on any conductor who was not up to it thereafter. He became manager of the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1960s and under him, the orchestra enjoyed its heyday as London's top orchestra and one of the world's best.

He achieved much, bringing in Pierre Monteux as Principal Conductor at the age of 86 in 1961. Monteux insisted on a 25-year contract with an option to renew for another 25 years. Those were the days.

After Monteux, in 1967 Fleischmann was appointed Manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.  The LSO meanwhile appointed Andre Previn as Principal Conductor going from the sublime to the not so sublime if you ask me.

In Los Angeles, they had appointed Georg Solti as chief conductor but when he found out that Fleischmann has invited Zubin Mehta to be the Assistant Conductor without having told him, Solti resigned and Zubin Mehta took his place thus beginning another fabled era for Fleischmann. Ernest stayed in LA for many years and continued to advise the orchestra on important appointments including that of Gustavo Dudamel, Lionel Bringuier etc. He could always scent talent even when his prey was very young.

Ernest had a reputation as 'the Jewish Hitler' in some quarters but he was always very nice to me. I remember in the early '70s he came to my office and spent the whole day there allowing me to give him detailed descriptions of all the artists on my list. He stayed so long we had to send out for a hamburger lunch. I don't know what his motive was for this. Maybe he had nothing better to do. Maybe he was considering me for a job. If so I obviously failed the interview. He asked me who he should take as Chief Conductor of the LAPO following Zubin Mehta's move to the New York Philharmonic. I said 'Gennady Rozhdestvensky' who I was not representing at that time. Fleischmann said 'Yes, I was also thinking along those lines' which gave me a warm feeling. Of course he took Carlo Maria Giulini instead.

My final meeting with Ernest was over a very pleasant lunch with Gennady Rozhdestvensky at Simpsons in the Strand. The two great men revolved around eachother warily. I honestly can't remember anything of their conversation. It didn't amount to anything in any case.