In progress: Disharmony strikes
By
Amal Choucri Catta
Ahmed El-Sa'edi has been conducting the Cairo Symphony Orchestra since 1991, and was named principal conductor in 1996. He studied at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna and made his international debut as conductor at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 1982. He is to be replaced as conductor of the Cairo Symphony next season, though he has yet to receive official confirmation of this.
"I was on holiday in Austria when a friend called me up at 7.30 in the morning, telling me he had just seen Johannes Wildner being interviewed on Egyptian TV, stating that he was the future principal conductor of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. Wildner was not alone -- with him was the Egyptian pianist Ahmed Abu-Zahra. I was enormously surprised at this piece of very strange news, though I did know that Abu- Zahra had organised the first concerts of the Viennese orchestra with Wildner as conductor, at the Cairo Opera House, two years ago.
Now let me tell you that the orchestra everybody was led to believe was the Wiener Symphoniker, which is the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, was not the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and Wildner was never conductor of that orchestra. Here, I'll show you the yearly programmes of the Vienna Symphony from 1999 until the year 2002. This orchestra never came to Cairo. All other cities where the orchestra gave concerts are mentioned, all over the world, except Cairo. Furthermore, Johannes Wildner's name is never mentioned as conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. His name does not even appear as guest conductor. Wildner, who was a colleague of mine -- we were both students at the Hochschule fur Musik -- has a small orchestra in Recklinghausen, in Germany, dubbed Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, and he is musical director of one of the national theatres there. Before that he was violinist with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and in 1993 he conducted a small orchestra in Kusice in Slovakia. I had met him then and he invited me to Kusice, asking me to invite him to Cairo. But at the time nothing came of these invitations. Wildner was also first violinist of the Johann Strauss Ensemble, a formation of 17 musicians, of which he was concert master. You can imagine how surprised I was at hearing he had been chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. In the meantime I have discovered how his trip to Cairo came about: a certain Martin Kirschbaum, percussionist with the Wiener Symphoniker, organised the trip with a certain number of musicians of said orchestra. The trip took place during the month of February and, as you can see, every first week of February the Vienna Symphony orchestra is on leave. This fact may have given a certain number of musicians the possibility to undertake the trip to Cairo. In any case the management of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, directed by Vladimir Fedosyev, who is the chief conductor of the orchestra, did not know anything about the Cairo concert, which was presented by an orchestra comprising, among others, a few musicians from the Vienna Symphony but not the entire orchestra.
However that may be, the day following the phone call I received in Austria the news about Wildner taking over the Cairo Symphony Orchestra was in all the Egyptian papers. I really could not understand the situation; you see, what generally happens when an opera house or any musical institution desires to change conductors, they go through international, professional channels, advertising in specialised musical magazines, stating that the position of a conductor is free: several conductors would then present themselves and a specialised committee would decide which conductor to appoint. What may also happen is to inform the conductor in charge and to come with him to some sort of agreement. In any case, I must say that the Cairo Opera House never gave me the impression they wanted to let me go. All I know of is that some time ago the French conductor Patrick Fournillier was planning to take over the orchestra, but the plan failed. I was, however, the one who invited Patrick Fournillier more than once to conduct the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, though I believe that going behind my back, trying to take over the orchestra is quite a nasty thing to do. After all the efforts and the work I put in this orchestra. You know the condition the orchestra was in when I took over in 1991. At the time I was recommended by the Austrian Thomas Christian David, who was head of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, and who had appointed me as his assistant. He resigned and I took over, though I remained for two years, officially, assistant conductor to nobody, because there was no chief conductor. Two years later I was given a contract as resident conductor and in 1996 I was finally appointed chief conductor. From then on I conducted around 20 concerts per year and invited foreign guest conductors to Cairo. I should say that when I took over the orchestra in 1991 it was not really an orchestra: you see, good orchestras must have their own sound, their own style and must also be capable of playing different musical styles. I took over the difficult task, and since then I have built up the orchestra brick by brick. The result of this long cooperation between the Cairo Symphony Orchestra and myself was crowned by our first invitation to Europe in 1996, when we gave concerts in the Berliner Philharmonie, and in the Austrian Rundfunksaal as well as in France, and we had very good reviews. We continued working, adding new music to our repertory, new symphonies, ranging from Haydn and Mozart, through to contemporary composers. Today we play Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss very successfully: we have invited excellent soloists from abroad as guest performers, and we have given the chance for local soloists to perform in Cairo and abroad. We were invited to perform abroad in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002, which is quite a feat when you think that the orchestra was really quite worthless when I took over in 1991. It must also be said that our invitations abroad are not based on cultural exchanges: they are executed on a professional basis, through the intermediary of foreign musical agencies which I had contacted. Only two concerts in Paris have been organised by the Institut du Monde Arabe. And now I am just being pushed out, without any previous notification, without even being officially informed. Which is why, since returning from Austria, I haven't contacted the opera's management. I believe that the way I have been treated is extremely uncourteous, to say the least."
