In The Gazette (Montreal) on Thursday (5/22), Arthur Kaptainis reports, “Franz-Paul Decker, a former music director of the [Orchestre symphonique de Montréal] and one of the great podium exponents of Austro-German repertoire, died Monday in Montreal. He was 90.” Decker was “possibly the last living musician to have met Richard Strauss,” Kaptainis writes, and “strongly identified” with that composer. He “began his career … as an opera coach and assistant conductor in his hometown of Cologne” and subsequently held positions in Wiesbaden and Bochum. “In 1962, Decker became principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic…. In 1967 he succeeded Zubin Mehta at the OSM, raising the orchestra to a new technical level and making both friends and foes with a meticulous overhaul of personnel.…As the music director (and rebuilder) in the late 1980s of what is now known as the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the conductor developed a notable flair in Spanish music.” Decker “seemed to embody a perfect balance of fidelity and freedom. For all his attention to the detail of a score, he was an inspired figure on the podium, seemingly lighter than air in lyrical music and able to summon the widest range of dynamic and rhythmic nuance in the service of appropriate expression.”
Posted May 28, 2014
