L. A. Philharmonic's Ernest Fleischmann Dies

Ernest Fleischmann, the impresario who dominated the Los Angeles Philharmonic for nearly 30 years as it was transformed into one of the top orchestras in the country, has died. He was 85.

Fleischmann died Sunday at his Los Angeles home surrounded by his family, the Philharmonic announced. The cause was not given.

As the Philharmonic's visionary manager, he was a famed talent scout who had a hand in every large and small decision concerning the orchestra from 1969 to 1998. He was, as conductor Pierre Boulez once said, “like an eagle, flying but looking down at the smallest mice," able to see the big picture but also able to spot talent with the canny eye of both a promoter and a music lover.

Even in retirement Fleischmann wielded influence that resonates with the Philharmonic, recognizing Gustavo Dudamel's ability as early as 2004 and championing the young Venezuelan conductor, who became the orchestra's music director last year.

Fleischmann brought to bear his love of the classics, his devotion to new music and even the city's rich show business history to develop an orchestra that drew in concertgoers and increasingly demanded respect. Before and after his retirement, he was a prime mover behind the dazzling Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Frank Gehry-designed Philharmonic home that opened in 2003. And while conductors came and went during his tenure as general manager, Fleischmann always ran the show.

“He transformed a provincial second-rank orchestra into one of the world's best," Times music critic Mark Swed wrote as Fleischmann retired from his post.

“He made the Los Angeles Philharmonic not just a cultural ornament but as much a part of the lifeblood of the city as the baseball team is," noted opera director Peter Sellars told The Times.

Loved and hated sometimes by the same people Fleischmann imposed his will by cajoling, shouting, persuading, charming and intimidating those around him, but few doubted that it was in the service of making the Philharmonic better.

When Fleishmann arrived in Los Angeles from London in 1969, Zubin Mehta was midway through his 16-year stint as conductor for the Philharmonic, which had been ensconced in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for only five years. Disney Hall was far into the future, and the orchestra's annual budget was barely $5 million.

Fleischmann saw the possibilities in the Philharmonic and went about improving the orchestra on both the business and the artistic ends.

“There is no university course called Orchestra Managing 101," Mehta said of Fleischmann at his retirement. “Yet the job is a very specialized one. You have to organize a good season but save as much money as possible."

A frustrated conductor himself, Fleischmann loved and understood a wide range of music, and he made sure that it and the talent required to make it was the priority. Working with Mehta, whom he considered a brother, Fleischmann helped the orchestra develop a richer repertoire of the classics. Also under Fleischmann, the popular pre-concert lecture series was started, and orchestra tours and recording contracts were added.

Fleischmann brought back to life the Hollywood Bowl, transforming it into one of the city's favorite warm weather venues and making it an important source of revenue for the Philharmonic. He introduced what would become perhaps the most crowd-pleasing event: fireworks, often to the accompaniment of Tchaikovsky's “1812 Overture." The Bowl became so successful that in 1991 it got its own orchestra.

But Fleischmann never let the merely popular dictate programming. He was deeply committed to new music, creating many ways for the orchestra as well as other musical groups to perform it. In 1981, Fleischmann founded the New Music Group and, as Swed noted, he “refused to let it die, no matter what the budget demanded." The group's Green Umbrella concert series was launched under Fleischmann's guidance in 1987, resulting in dozens of world, U.S. and West Coast premieres.

But his biggest contribution to the Philharmonic must certainly be in the hiring of two post-Mehta conductors: Carlo Maria Giulini, whose time with the Philharmonic burnished its reputation as a world-class symphony, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, whom Fleischmann identified as a major talent while Salonen was still in his 20s.

The Italian-born Giulini, considered one of the great conductors of his time, brought depth and sensitivity to Philharmonic performances, particularly works by the old masters. Audiences loved him, and the orchestra's musicians felt privileged to work with him.

“Mehta gave us flash, and Giulini gave us poetry," Martin Bernheimer, the Los Angeles Times' music critic for many years, once said.

To secure Giulini's presence, Fleischmann had to promise that the maestro could conduct without having to fulfill the myriad organizational and social obligations that came with the job as music director but that Giulini abhorred. Fleischmann himself filled in much of the gap.

But some believed that this gave Fleischmann too much control over the orchestra's artistic and economic matters, leaving conductors to be, as the late music critic Alan Rich once said, mere “stick wavers."