Editing Boston Symphony Orchestra (section)

===Leinsdorf, Steinberg, and Ozawa===
[[Erich Leinsdorf]] became music director in 1962 and held the post until 1969. [[William Steinberg]] was then music director from 1969 to 1972. Steinberg was "ill and ailing" according to composer/author [[Jan Swafford]], and "for four years he was indisposed much of the time."<ref name="Swafford">{{cite web| first=Jan| last=Swafford| title=The Elusive Maestro: Why the process of finding a new conductor makes music lovers weep| publisher=Slate.com| date=April 12, 2011| url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2011/04/the_elusive_maestro.single.html| access-date=July 18, 2013| archive-date=August 1, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130801190046/http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2011/04/the_elusive_maestro.single.html| url-status=live}}</ref> After Steinberg's retirement, according to BSO trustee John Thorndike (who was on the search committee) the symphony's board spoke to [[Colin Davis]] and "investigated very thoroughly" his appointment, but Davis's commitments to his young family did not allow his moving to Boston from England;<ref name="eichler-sep-2011">{{cite news |first=Jeremy |last=Eichler |author-link=Jeremy Eichler |title=Who will pick up the baton? A look inside the BSO search for James Levine's successor |newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]] |date=September 25, 2011 |url=http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2011/09/25/at_the_boston_symphony_orchestra_a_look_inside_the_search_for_james_levines_successor/ |access-date=May 20, 2013 |archive-date=January 11, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111233352/http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2011/09/25/at_the_boston_symphony_orchestra_a_look_inside_the_search_for_james_levines_successor/ |url-status=live }}</ref> instead he accepted the post of BSO principal guest conductor, which he held from 1972 to 1984. As the search continued, [[Leonard Bernstein]] met with four board members and recommended [[Michael Tilson Thomas]], who had been Assistant Conductor and Associate Conductor under Steinberg, for the directorship, but the young conductor "did not have sufficient support among the BSO players," according to journalist [[Jeremy Eichler]].<ref name="eichler-sep-2011" /> The committee eventually chose [[Seiji Ozawa]], who became Music Director in 1973 and held the post until 2002, the longest tenure of any Boston Symphony conductor. In 1979, he led the Boston Symphony Orchestra's visit to the [[China|People's Republic of China]] to celebrate the normalization of [[China–United States relations|US-China diplomatic relations]], making it the second American orchestra to ever visit the country.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Philadelphia Orchestra (1973) and Boston Symphony (1979) Visits to China |url=https://www.ncuscr.org/program/philadelphia-orchestra-and-boston-symphony-visits-china/ |access-date=2023-12-04 |website=NCUSCR |language=en-US |archive-date=December 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231204022115/https://www.ncuscr.org/program/philadelphia-orchestra-and-boston-symphony-visits-china/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ozawa's tenure involved significant dissension and controversy. One concern was his handling of the [[Tanglewood Music Center]]. [[Greg Sandow]] wrote in ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' in December 1998 that Ozawa "had taken control of the school with what many people thought was surprising and abrupt brutality. Members of the faculty, themselves world-famous, had angrily resigned."<ref name="Sandow">{{cite news| first=Greg| last=Sandow| title=Conduct(or) Unbecoming the Boston Symphony| work=[[The Wall Street Journal]]| date=December 15, 1998| url=http://www.gregsandow.com/old/ozawa.htm| publisher=gregsandow.com| access-date=July 18, 2013| archive-date=October 21, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021173938/http://www.gregsandow.com/old/ozawa.htm| url-status=live}}</ref> The first departure was in the fall of 1996, when Ozawa fired Richard Ortner, the Festival's administrator.<ref name="Fleisher-Midgette">{{cite book|first1=Leon|last1=Fleisher|author1-link=Leon Fleisher|first2=Anne|last2=Midgette|author2-link=Anne Midgette|title=My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music| publisher=Doubleday| date=November 30, 2010| page=288| isbn=978-0-385-52918-1}}</ref> After a tumultuous season, at the end of summer 1997, pianist [[Gilbert Kalish]] resigned from the faculty by sending Ozawa what the pianist/conductor [[Leon Fleisher]] later described as "a blistering letter of resignation, and he made it public"; Fleisher, who was also a long-term member of the Tanglewood faculty, wrote, "Most of the faculty felt he was speaking for them."<ref name="Fleisher-Midgette" /> Ozawa reduced Fleisher's role at the Center, offering him instead a "ceremonial puppet role," and Fleisher resigned, writing to Ozawa that the proposed role was "somewhat akin to having my legs chopped off at the knees, you then gently taking me by the arm and inviting me for a stroll. I must decline the invitation."<ref name="Fleisher-Midgette" /> By contrast, ''[[The Boston Globe|Boston Globe]]'' music critic [[Richard Dyer (music critic)|Richard Dyer]] wrote that:
<blockquote>...not every change was for the better...But there can be no question that Tanglewood is a busier, more adventurous, and more exciting place than it was before Ozawa became music director.<ref name="Page">{{cite news| first=Tim| last=Page| title=Keeping Time at Tanglewood| work=[[Opera News]]| url=http://www.operanews.com/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=417&issueID=14&archive=true| date=June 2004| volume=68| issue=4| access-date=July 18, 2013| archive-date=May 1, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130501144854/http://www.operanews.com/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=417&issueID=14&archive=true| url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

A more basic concern involved perceived shortcomings in Ozawa's musical leadership; as Sandow wrote in the 1998 article, "what mattered far more was how badly the BSO plays."<ref name="Sandow" /> He noted that a group of Boston Symphony musicians had privately published a newsletter, ''Counterpoint'', expressing their concerns; in the summer of 1995<ref name="Dezell">{{cite news| first=Maureen| last=Dezell| title=Ozawa's supporters rebut Journal attack| newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]]| date=December 16, 1998| url=http://www.gregsandow.com/old/globe.htm| publisher=gregsandow.com| access-date=July 18, 2013| archive-date=October 21, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021190433/http://www.gregsandow.com/old/globe.htm| url-status=live}}</ref> concertmaster [[Malcolm Lowe]] and principal cellist [[Jules Eskin]] wrote that in rehearsal Ozawa gave no "specific leadership in matters of tempo and rhythm," no "expression of care about sound quality," and no "distinctly-conveyed conception of the character of each piece the BSO plays."<ref name="Sandow" />

The BSO's managing director, Mark Volpe, responded that some board members considered Sandow's article a "hatchet job," and some unnamed BSO "observers" were said in ''[[The Boston Globe]]'' to believe that Sandow "might be sharpening blades for BSO members with axes to grind".<ref name="Dezell" /> Sandow called the suggestion "nonsense," saying, "I found them [players criticizing Ozawa in his article], they didn't find me".<ref name="Dezell" /> [[André Previn]] wrote to ''The Wall Street Journal'' defending Ozawa,<ref name="Dezell2">{{cite news| first=Maureen| last=Dezell| title=Beleaguered BSO Answers Wall Street Journal Attack| newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]]| date=December 25, 1998| url=http://www.gregsandow.com/old/globe2.htm| publisher=gregsandow.com| access-date=June 19, 2013| archive-date=October 21, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021192326/http://www.gregsandow.com/old/globe2.htm| url-status=live}}</ref> and Lowe wrote to the Journal that he was "frustrated and upset to see my name attached to the article since your reporter did not contact me and chose to quote a letter published nearly four years ago in an internal orchestra publication."<ref name="Dezell2" /> Boston Symphony Board of Trustees president Nicholas T. Zervas described Sandow as expressing an "`insulting, reductive, and racist view of [Ozawa] as a [[samurai]] kept in place in order to raise Japanese money"<ref name="Dezell2" /> – a point Sandow rebutted in a letter to the Journal, saying "These are things I didn't say. I'd heard the charge about Japanese money while I was writing my piece, so I asked Mark Volpe, the BSO's General Manager, what he thought of it. Mark refuted it, and I quoted him approvingly."<ref name="Dezell2" /> Critic Lloyd Schwarz defended Sandow in the Boston alternative paper, ''The Boston Phoenix''<ref name="sandow blog">{{cite web| first=Greg| last=Sandow| title=Weighing in on My Side| url=http://www.gregsandow.com/old/myside.htm| date=January 1999| access-date=July 18, 2013| publisher=gregsandow.com| archive-date=October 21, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021192547/http://www.gregsandow.com/old/myside.htm| url-status=live}}</ref>

Various current music critics described a decline in the orchestra's playing during Ozawa's tenure. [[Jan Swafford]] wrote:

<blockquote>Now and then he gave a standout performance, usually in the full-throated late-Romantic and 20th-century literature, but most of the time what came out was glittering surfaces with nothing substantial beneath: no discernable concept, no vision.<ref name="Swafford" /></blockquote>

In a 2013 survey of recordings of ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'' by [[Igor Stravinsky]], the composer Russell Platt wrote in ''[[The New Yorker]]'':

<blockquote>Seiji Ozawa's downright depressing account, recorded in 1979: the Boston Symphony Orchestra's sonic shine, developed by Ozawa's predecessors Monteux and Charles Munch, is audibly dripping away, its dispirited musicians losing their sense of individual responsibility to the score. It is a record of a professional relationship that went on far too long.<ref>{{cite magazine| first=Russell| last=Platt| title=The Rite Stuff| magazine=[[The New Yorker]]| date=June 17, 2013| url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/06/deccas-rite-of-spring-boxed-set.html| access-date=July 18, 2013| archive-date=June 22, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622034147/http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/06/deccas-rite-of-spring-boxed-set.html| url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

On June 22, 1999, the symphony announced Ozawa's departure as music director, as of 2002, following the sudden announcement of Ozawa's appointment as music director of the [[Vienna State Opera]] – a decision the board had heard about only a day earlier, where Volpe said he was "a little surprised at the timing".<ref name="metcalf">{{cite news| first=Steve| last=Metcalf| title=Ozawa's Decision To Leave Boston Symphony A Surprise| work=[[Hartford Courant]]| date=June 24, 1999| url=https://www.courant.com/1999/06/24/ozawas-decision-to-leave-boston-symphony-a-surprise/| access-date=July 18, 2013| archive-date=January 16, 2014| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140116080431/http://articles.courant.com/1999-06-24/news/9906240188_1_bso-management-senior-bso-boston-symphony-orchestra| url-status=live}}</ref> He gave his last concert with the orchestra in July 2002.<ref name="Page" />

During Ozawa's tenure, [[Bernard Haitink]] served as principal guest conductor from 1995 to 2004. Haitink was named conductor emeritus in 2004, and actively served in the post as a returning guest conductor through his retirement in 2019.