The baton is packed and ready

ORCHESTRAL life in Germany has long been dominated by what happens in Berlin, Munich and Dresden, with Cologne and Leipzig to complete the picture. But more recently another city has made a case for being considered alongside them: Bamberg, famous for its medieval waterways and great cathedral, has become increasingly well known for its resident Bamberg Symphony, which has, over the past five years, emerged as what one newspaper has called “the model for what modern orchestras should be.”

It’s no coincidence that those five years began with the arrival of a new, dynamic young conductor, Jonathan Nott, who in a short while has steered his band into the world league. Last spring the symphony was at Carnegie Hall. During the summer it was resident at the Edinburgh Festival, playing five concerts (including a blockbuster “Tristan und Isolde”) in six days. And this week Nott returns to the United States, alone this time, for his conducting debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. An event that, judging by his current form, deserves a capital E.

If his name means nothing to you, don’t worry. Until recently it meant little to European concert-goers, either, and even less to those in Nott’s native England, which he left when he was still a student, 16 years ago, to work in Germany. As he said when we met recently in London (he was passing through to stock up on peculiarly English groceries), “I sometimes have to make a conscious effort to remind myself what nationality I am: I’ve been away from Britain for so long and so immersed in the German way of doing things.”

Being “immersed” in Germany is why it has taken him until now to make his wider mark. Conductors build careers in various ways: Some leap to fame through competitions, some create their own performing platforms. But a few, in Germany, still tread the time-honored route of the Kapellmeister system: a sort of musical civil service in which you work your way methodically from job to job through an ascending hierarchy of local opera houses and associated local orchestras. This was the route chosen by Nott.

“It wasn’t the most glamorous way to build a career, or the fastest,” says Knott, a youthful, wiry, slightly built and terrier-like 42. “But there’s no better way to learn, hands on, and to make your mistakes without anyone noticing -- as they don’t in a country where there are 90 or so opera houses, a lot of them fairly obscure and churning out their ‘Freischutzes’ and ‘Zauberflotes’ night after night in a relentless rollover. In those circumstances you learn to think on the hoof, to be flexible and deal with whatever gets thrown at you as it happens.”

His unusual decision to insert himself into this old-time German system resulted from a sudden shift in career intentions. Born in 1962 and raised in the exquisitely English precincts of Worcester Cathedral, where his father was a priest, the young Nott was steeped in Anglican choral tradition. He seemed destined for a future as a singer before deciding that, as he says, “I couldn’t make the voice work, so the next best thing was to be a repetiteur” -- the chorus master of an opera house.

He got his first coaching job at the Frankfurt Opera, where he also took conducting lessons and persuaded music director Gary Bertini to let him loose on the odd performance.

Bamberg makes its move

FROM Frankfurt he moved to Wiesbaden as first Kapellmeister, rising to acting music director when his boss, Oleg Caetani, resigned. Then he became music director of the Lucerne Opera and associated symphony. In 1999 he was approached by Bamberg, a surprise because he had never before conducted the orchestra or had any involvement with it.

But by then he had acquired a reputation as a live wire with a gift for clarifying problems, energizing morale and raising the aspirations of players with the cultural equivalent of low self-esteem. Which was the very problem Bamberg suffered.

Strictly speaking, Bamberg is a new-ish orchestra, founded in 1946 in the picturesque city on the far northern edge of Bavaria. But its origins date to the 18th century pit band that played for the premiere of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” In the decades after World War II, it did distinguished work under conductors of the caliber of Joseph Keilberth and Eugen Jochum.

Then the orchestral fell into artistic and financial decline, approaching almost terminal disaster. Through the later 1990s, it survived without a chief conductor at all. And when Nott arrived in 2000 it was in dire need.

Now the situation has entirely changed: Bamberg is flourishing again. In Germany it’s generally ranked fourth or fifth within the national hierarchy of orchestras, and Nott is seen as something like a running mate for Simon Rattle: another English invader come to freshen up the German system with new ideas, new projects and (above all) new repertory -- which is where he has truly made his mark. Every Bamberg concert now contains at least one new piece alongside the old; and although he stresses that “the Austro-German classics are still our core repertory,” they come invariably with Ligeti, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough and other figures of the European avant-garde that Nott sets out to champion.

Contemporary music suits his problem-solving temperament and analytical intensity -- which is why, at the same time as the approach from Bamberg in 1999, he was also offered the music directorship of the Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain: a modernist unit dedicated to uncompromisingly tough repertoire and the cultural politics of Pierre Boulez, who established it in 1976. Nott took the job with relish, juggling his Paris and his Bamberg schedules side by side. But now he’s passed it on to a successor after finding that the time it took to master fearsome modern scores for (as they tended to be) one-off concerts wasn’t leaving time for other work.

A guest with reservations

IN recent years he has made few guest appearances, although the few dates, when they’ve come, have been choice: the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and (a long-delayed homecoming this year) the London Philharmonic -- with the New York Philharmonic scheduled for February. He likes variety, he says. But he is less than comfortable with what it takes to tout yourself about the international circuit.

“I’ve never been concerned with the career-business of being seen in the right place, doing the right thing; it’s the Kapellmeister in me, I guess. And though it’s wonderful to have the experience of great orchestras, for personal development if nothing else, there’s something weird about finding yourself in front of 90 strangers with just two rehearsals [before] a major public concert.

“You want to do your best, but you don’t know who these people are. You don’t know that your second horn is having some terrible life crisis, or your principal oboe is on trial. Back in Bamberg I know every player well enough to make music with him on an individual level. Which makes a huge difference to how you handle rehearsals.”

So what are his techniques for the first encounter in a guest-date?

“None, beyond a basic belief that the best way to get to know each other is by playing. Musicians don’t usually want you to chat, and they certainly don’t want you put on an act for them. Do that, you’re dead. I just try to be as natural as possible and get on with the job. They’ll soon see if you can move your arms.

“Afterward, if you’re lucky, they’ll work out if you can hear anything and whether you’ve got ideas. Whether you’re real or fake.”

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Los Angeles Philharmonic

What: Jonathan Nott conducts Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and Korngold’s Violin Concerto

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday,

11 a.m. Friday

Price: $15 to $129

Contact: (323) 850-2000 or www.LAPhil.com