The first—and last—time I heard James DePreist conduct in person was in December 2000, an opportunity which occurred by pure chance. Franz Welser-Möst had originally been scheduled to conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on that date, but as had become his habit during this period (at least with his Southern California engagements), he abruptly cancelled. With relatively short notice, James DePreist was called upon to replace him and, additionally, made a surprising switch in the scheduled program: The Mahler Seventh would be swapped out for the Tenth (in the Cooke II version).
DePreist lead a performance which remains imprinted upon my memory for its serenity, at odds with the post-Bernsteinian morbidity then often heard in late Mahler. Far from being the creation of a man living in the shadow of death, DePreist seemed to find the work’s inspiration in the defiance of death proclaimed in Mahler’s Second: “O Tod! Du Allbezwinger! Nun bist du bezwungen!”
Afterwards, I ventured over to the backstage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to have him autograph a CD. Though his movement was impaired by the polio that he contracted while on tour in Thailand in 1962, it only served to enhance the man’s aura of dignity emerging triumphant through adversity; his imposing figure lending him a quality of a hero wearied by the passing of time. He was kind enough to spare a few moments to speak to me, a tongue-tied eighteen-year-old, briefly. When I timidly remarked to him how the life-affirming quality of his interpretation of the Mahler Tenth had impressed me, he smiled, then took a breath. “That’s how it ought to be, young man,” DePreist replied to me. “This is a symphony about death, about love, by a man who still believed he had a lot of life to express it all.”
DePreist carved out a notable career in his homeland, gaining admiration for his longtime tenure as music director of the Oregon Symphony, as well as his teaching at The Juilliard School; and by 2005, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush. Yet his name never soared as high as that of some of his contemporaries in America’s classical music circles. Instead, it was in Europe and especially Japan where he found recognition commensurate with his artistry. It is tempting, but perhaps misleading (to say nothing of futile) to speculate over why this may have been so. He himself seemed unconcerned. “I would never want to be denied the opportunity to conduct because I'm black,” he once stated. “But neither would I want to be engaged because I'm black.”
In Scandinavia he made a number of well-received recordings of varied repertoire for the BIS and Ondine labels. Together with the several recordings he made in Oregon for Delos, DePreist left behind a sizable and distinguished legacy which continues to be admired by music-lovers. Overlooked, however, is his period at the helm of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (colloquially known by locals as the “To-kyō,” an abbreviation of the ensemble’s formal Japanese name) in the mid-2000s, a brief moment which could lay fair claim to being the most glamourous in his entire career. Not that he had an easy time of it by any means.
Though he had enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the orchestra as a guest, his engagement as music director came during difficult times for the organization. It had suffered from then Governor of Tokyo Ishihara Shintarō’s program of administrative reforms; which, among other things, sought to consolidate cultural organizations, and shutter others deemed to be redundant or financially untenable. The resulting budget cuts hit the To-kyō hard, leading to shifts in personnel, and according to some music critics, a perceptible drop in its musical standards. Compounding the orchestra’s stress was the recent loss of its music director Gary Bertini, who had died in Israel in March 2005 a few weeks after his last performances in Russia. DePreist himself was not in the best of health. Among other challenges he faced were the after-effects of a kidney transplant, which had freed him from the onerous necessity of dialysis treatment, but forced him to conduct from a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. If he was fazed by any of this, he never let on publicly. On April 20, 2005 when the To-kyō held a press conference at the ANA Intercontinental Hotel announcing DePreist as its next director, he appeared the very image of confidence and security that the organization sorely needed during this delicate time.
Over the next three seasons, DePreist enthusiastically set into his new role: Delivering highly regarded performances of Beethoven and Shostakovich symphonies, shoring up the orchestra’s technical polish, visiting local schools for To-kyō’s community outreach program, and even becoming a sort of highbrow gaitare—a person from abroad whose exotic foreignness is crucial to their celebrity appeal. In that capacity DePreist appeared as an important supporting character in the manga Nodame Cantabile, where his parts were rendered in katakana, heavily emphasizing the evocative exoticism of the other which Japanese audiences often find appealing in their resident gaikokujin. In Japan he accomplished that feat increasingly rare in classical music: Extending one’s renown beyond the boundaries of their art. Unfortunately, despite these successes, his health was becoming an increasing and significant impediment to the continuation of his work, eventually ruling out a prolonged tenure with the To-kyō. So it was with profound mutual regret that he announced his retirement in 2007, effective at the end of the orchestra’s season the following year. The reins would be handed over to Eliahu Inbal, while Koizumi Kazuhiro would step up from Principal Guest Conductor to Resident Conductor.
Echoing the Mahler that I had encountered in my youth under his command, this set of To-kyō broadcasts of DePreist’s Bruckner is marked by an embrace of life readily discernible to the listener. If not the heaven-storming symphonic essays typically heard, the moving vulnerability of these performances have their own virtues. They are long on lyrical flow and textural blend. Conductor and orchestra cajoles, caresses the music, but never forces anything from it. Music pours from these scores with the inevitability, with all the natural ease of water bubbling from a hot spring. The performances manage to be self-effacing without being faceless; distinguished without brazen ostentatiousness. It was a quality reflective of DePreist’s own hard-won worldview.
“We bring our brick to the edifice,” Antal Doráti had once told him at the start of his career. “Don't worry about putting it in front or up high." These words from his mentor, which bespoke of their mutual frustrated ambitions, resonated with DePreist for the rest of his life. “I always, always think of that,” he recalled decades later.
In these recordings, DePreist brings Bruckner down from his habitual forbidding peaks. With grace and care, he makes of these symphonies human-scaled portraits of doubts and hopes, daubed in flesh and blood; its colors tempered by the quiet stoicism which, by turns, consoled and fueled the life and art of this still underappreciated American artist.
This essay will be included in a future Tobu release of Bruckner’s Second and Ninth with the To-kyō under James DePreist.
“Nice to meet you!”: Highbrow tarento James DePreist takes the spotlight in Nodame Cantabile.