Charles Mackerras: a supremely versatile and theatrical conductor

SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS – MASTER CONDUCTOR OF ALL-EMBRACING STYLES

“The burning intention that shaped and drove him had one purpose: to put his gifts at the composer’s
service before anything else.” The great mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker, herself a famously
fastidious artist in her devotion to the detail of composers’ scores, spoke those words at the funeral
of Sir Charles Mackerras in July 2010. In his 62 years’ conducting career, those gifts were marked by
dedicated musicianship, thorough preparation and inspirational communication across an
exceptionally diverse range of orchestral and operatic repertoire, in all of which he demonstrated a
depth and breadth of erudition and stylistic understanding that brought him the highest admiration
from international soloists, orchestras and audiences. Trombonist Leslie Lake recalled: “Handel,
Mozart, Massenet, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Dvořák, Delius, Gilbert and Sullivan, Janáček, just to name
a very few composers in his sympathies – I don’t think anyone else I have come across was in
command of so many styles”. For many years, Lake experienced this during Sir Charles’s tenure as
Music Director of the Sadler’s Wells and subsequently English National Opera, when his impact on
standards of musical artistry and technical execution brought the Company lasting acclaim.
Orchestral musicians, singers, and instrumentalists around the world rose to his demands with
profound respect for his musicianship, and also intense enthusiasm, as the distinguished soprano
Renée Fleming recalled to me: “Sir Charles had this extraordinary ability to know the style of the
music, how it should be performed, and absolutely be a guiding force. He really cared deeply.”
Most famously, it was Mackerras’s love, dedication and supreme command of Leoš Janáček that
brought the composer worldwide popularity. Mackerras’ performances of Janáček remain the
international yardstick of style, colour and authenticity in the composer’s unique and extremely
challenging music.

While Charles Mackerras was a passionate musician, his performances always embraced the fruits of
his research into historically-informed performance practice, whether he was conducting Baroque
repertoire, Viennese classics, or the late Romantics. He was one of the earliest artists to prepare
and perform new editions of the music of Handel and Mozart, bringing exciting vocal and orchestral
discoveries to their operas, and he extended his work on period practice well into the 19th Century.
But he was never inflexible, as he believed that the essence and inspiration of composers’ visions
could not be restricted by academic straitjackets. In 2004, he told me: “I’ve spent my life trying to
imagine what performances of other periods were like – and really it’s terribly difficult to be sure. For
instance you can hear barrel organs from the 18 th Century, but they sound extremely eccentric, and I
find it difficult to believe that music sounded like that then. So, much as I have devoted my life trying
to revive older music and trying to imagine how it would have been performed in its own time, I am
coming more and more to think that it’s really impossible to find this out.” That honesty and humility
shone through all Sir Charles’s music making.