New Jersey Symphony’s Loss Is Czech Philharmonic’s Gain

He always tells his musicians to “Do something!” and there’s hardly a moment the maestro is not.

Onstage he dances, scrunching his lanky frame and bounding forward as the music crescendos. Talking with a reporter, he moves his hand in endless circles as he recounts his time with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

“My right hand is circling because I cannot stay still,” said Zdenek Macal, 66, who is leaving to become chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. “Everything is so exciting--interview, conducting, life.”

In a decade under Macal, the orchestra improved its reputation, won a Grammy and moved into a new performing arts center, where he will conduct his final concert as music director Sunday.

Principal clarinetist Karl Herman theorizes that Macal chose this orchestra that was still proving itself because “the excitement for him of making music is moving forward. He needs to see that forward motion.”

Now the maestro is ready to do something new.

Zdenek Macal (pronounced zeh-DEN-eck MAH-cahl) joined the orchestra at a critical time in its history.

While the orchestra had made progress under his predecessor, the detail-oriented Hugh Wolff, it remained artistically inconsistent. It had a new executive director and new head of the board of trustees, a debt of several million dollars and plans to build the performing arts center.

From the outset, the search committee focused on Macal, then music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

He had captured attention in the mid-1960s by winning the International Conducting Competition in France and the Dmitri Mitropoulos Competition in New York, and had since conducted at many of the world’s top orchestras.

“It was clear right from the beginning that he was the person we wanted to get, although it was a big stretch for our orchestra at that time,” said Lawrence Tamburri, the orchestra’s executive director.

The idea of living in Manhattan and working in a new hall in Newark appealed to Macal, who became the orchestra’s artistic advisor in 1992 and its music director the next year.

Now in its 79th season, the orchestra is financially stable and settled in its new home, which opened in October 1997. It has more than doubled its subscription base over the last decade, and enjoys a heightened national reputation.

(The Grammy was in 2001 in the “engineered album: classical” category, for a recording of Dvorak’s “New World” symphony.)

Willa Conrad, classical music critic for the Newark Star-Ledger, said Macal’s most important contribution was helping the orchestra create a distinctive presence.

“He’s moved it from being an orchestra you can admire to one that really moves you, one that really communicates with you from the stage,” she said. “There’s absolutely no question he’s the most significant music director this orchestra has had.”

The maestro is not happy with the practice room.

The high-ceilinged room does not have the acoustics of his beloved concert hall, and he offers a distracted apology to a visitor as he paces before a rehearsal of Mahler’s First Symphony.

At precisely 10 a.m., the musicians quiet down and look to Macal, who has settled on a stool. The music begins--and so do his instructions.

“Too fast! Too fast!”

“Forget the piano, or whatever--it must cry.”

“It could be more dolce, more Mozart.”

Within seven minutes, Macal is on his feet. Within 10, he’s smiling.

He stomps his feet, shakes his fist and closes his eyes when he hears something he likes. When the strings play too heavily, he demands “Watch me!” and does a mincing dance to soft laughter from the musicians.

Theatrics aside, he is pleased.

“My God!” he says later. “Ten years ago, and even five years ago, the concert didn’t sound like that.”

Shoulders heaving, he releases the musicians after exactly 2 1/2 hours, telling them to return in an hour.

Says Macal: “I never like it here, but it doesn’t sound so bad.”

Days after his final performance Sunday, the Czech-born Macal will leave for his native country, where he will spend two seasons with the Prague Symphony before taking his place at the Czech Philharmonic. (He will return to conduct the New Jersey Symphony six times during the 2002-03 season as Music Director Emeritus.)

New Jersey joins several other American orchestras that have recently changed conductors, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Tamburri said Macal may be replaced by more than one person.

The next music director will have some advantages Macal did not a decade ago, including the new hall and a collection of rare string instruments from collector and philanthropist Herbert Axelrod. The instruments, which include 17th century Stradivarius and Guarneri del Gesu violins, can cost up to $6 million each.

But musicians and critics also say Macal’s successor will have the responsibility of continuing what he started.

The musicians know that New Jersey does not offer the big salaries or long traditions of some orchestras. But Herman, the clarinetist, said they also know Macal’s orchestra plays well beyond where it might without those advantages.

“The results in New Jersey are greater than the sum of the parts,” he said. “That’s what a guy like Macal can do.”

Says Macal: “I cannot offer them more money like Chicago or some of the other places you could name, but the spirit on the stage is something special.... The spirit on the stage--I can compete with everybody.”