Michael Tilson Thomas was back to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. There was a full audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Neither of those was necessarily a certainty. Pandemic-battered audiences have been slow to return. MTT, as he is fondly known , was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer in the brain, in spring 2022 after undergoing an earlier surgery. He has been in treatment ever since.
I mentioned that Canter’s delicatessen on Fairfax, another hangout from the old days, was still there. Tilson Thomas was quick to point out that Cohen’s, across the street, was better, reminding me that it had burned down when schmaltz caught fire, which then led this grandson of the Yiddish theater starWhen he last conducted the L.A. Phil a year ago, that had seemed a miracle. It had been six months since he had had his brain tumor removed. His speech was slightly, but only slightly, off.
“One reason I got involved in doing these Schubert performances again,” he explains, “was that I had noticed over the years that when that piece would come up in the schedule, that more players asked to take that week off than any other piece in the repertoire. “As a performer, it’s not only the shape of the music and the idea of the music or the message of the music — of course, those, that’s the main thing — which I’m interested in, but I’m also interested in music from the standpoint of what it means to the people, bless their hearts, who are actually playing it. And how to make it a more joyous and engaging experience for them, because that, of course is going to change the whole meaning of it for the audience immediately.
That has led him to begin trying to dig out his piles of unfinished pieces he has composed over the decades and see what he can do with them. He has completed a number of major compositions in recent years, including the impressive, autumnal yet vibrantly eclectic song cycleBut he also has many projects in various states of completion, including a huge pile of songs, many with his own lyrics. He’s written them for all kinds of singers.
mtilsonthomas I am so happy MTT is still out there making the music that touches us all and gives him a charge!