Principal flutist Mathieu Dufour leaves L.A. Phil [updated]

Mathieu Dufour, who has served as principal flutist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic since the beginning of the current season, has abruptly left his post to return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The news, which was confirmed by both orchestras, comes about halfway through Dufour's one-year trial period with the L.A. Phil. Like many musicians of his stature, Dufour was allowed to join the orchestra on a so-called probationary period during which he was allowed to retain his previous post as principal flutist with the CSO.

Sophie Jefferies, a spokeswoman for the L.A. Phil, said on Monday that Dufour's decision to leave was a result of "personal reasons, not musical reasons."

But a report published in the Chicago Sun-Times suggests that Dufour's departure from L.A. was less than amicable.

“There are fine musicians in Los Angeles, but we have achieved a very strong common purpose and set of aims in Chicago that they do not have or do not yet have there," he told the newspaper.

"They have no tradition there — no tradition of sound and no tradition of working together as a dedicated ensemble. Maybe they will have that someday in the future.”

[Updated on Jan. 8: Flutist Mathieu Dufour apologizes to L.A. Phil, slams Chicago Sun-Times article.]

[Updated at 12:14 p.m.: Jefferies, the L.A. Phil spokeswoman, said: "We're very puzzled by his perception as he was only here for a few months."

She said that Dufour had accepted a signing bonus when he joined the orchestra, which signified his intent to become a permanent member.]

The orchestra said Dufour is experiencing a medical condition that would have forced him to miss much of the remainder of the current season, and that it took that into consideration when granting him an early exit to his contract.

A spokeswoman for the CSO told Culture Monster that the medical condition is related to shoulder surgery that Dufour is scheduled to undergo, possibly in February.

Dufour, 36, has already left L.A. and is currently performing with the CSO. The flutist's contract with the L.A. Phil allowed him to take on extracurricular appearances with other organizations.

As Culture Monster reported in September, Dufour was appointed in 2008 by the L.A. Phil's previous music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen.

While it's not uncommon for musicians to fit in with one orchestra and not another, the departure of Dufour comes as a surprise since he reportedly got along well with members of the L.A. Phil.

Deborah Borda, the orchestra's president, told Culture Monster last year that the flutist had "formed a bond" with other musicians when he joined the orchestra's tour of Asia last season.

Moreover, Dufour sought out the position in L.A. and was chosen over a "large number" of competitors, according to Borda.

Born in France, Dufour is considered to be in the top ranks of flutists worldwide. At the age of 25, he was appointed principal flute of the CSO by Daniel Barenboim.

Times music critic Mark Swed called the flutist "sensational" and said that "everyone thought he was sure to stay in L.A."

The L.A. Phil said it will be looking for a new principal flutist, but no timetable or names have been announced.

-- David Ng

Photo: Flutist Mathieu Dufour. Credit: Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Comments

[H. Gomez]

Class-less statement from a class act. The irony.

[Karina Canellakis]

Hello everyone, this is Mathieu's fiance writing. This article GROSSLY MISQUOTED Mathieu....he has nothing but respect and admiration for his colleagues in LA. Andrew Patner certainly has a way with distorting and making up quotes.
DO NOT BELIEVE anything written in this bogus article. Mathieu also never accepted a signing bonus, in fact when they sent him the check, he returned it.
Mathieu had a wonderful time playing in LA, and his decision to leave was very difficult and filled with doubt. He loved so many things about the LA Phil, and Dudamel, and the way they make music. I hope someone who matters is reading this and will please disregard this ridiculous and hurtful article.

[Joseph Pumphrey]

Wrrrrribbit

[Ross C. "Bubba" Nicholson]

Take Mr. Dufour at his word. Flute playing has it's own hermeneutics at his level that few grasp. LA should understand that everywhere genius must be allowed the latitude of genius. After all, is not Los Angeles, a city of genius (e.g. Stevie Spielberg's 'lost child')? Perhas LA should have paid greater homage to Dufour's. Now LA will suffer a devastating loss, a lost presence, with Dufour back in the Windy City.
CSO knows that it is the exemplar of the world's best symphonies, but CSO's fineness pushes whole colors outside LA's spectrum, shimmering under the hammer of dedication.
Lavish your talent upon music, Mathieu Dufour. As you have discovered, sometimes the harder road is better. Dig out your song and sing it and Music will love you for it, the bitch.

[markiejoe]

Really an appalling thing for Dufour to say to the Chicago paper. And I mean REALLY appalling!

[Jim Craft]

At the time he was selected as the new principal flutist for the LA Phil, it was reported that he had a "girl friend" who lived in Chicago, and it occurred to me that this might not last long. Apparently the guy is a flake--a talented flake, but nonethelss someone who was not suited to play in LA. His comments about the "lack of tradition" in LA betray a woeful ignorance about the history of the wonderful orchestra we are so fortunate to have. We have a legacy of several very fine conductors (including the recently departed Esa Pekka Salonen). The LA Phil is generally considered second only to the CSA among US orchestras. Too bad!

[Uncle Mravinsky]

What Mr. Dufour refers to is true "inside baseball."

Watch and listen to the Chicago Symphony, or Vienna Phil, or Berlin Phil when they hit the stage. These orchestras display a collective pride and attitude that the LA Phil (though it has improved vastly in 30 years) has never displayed. Unified Style, Blended Sound,Tradition.

That's what he's decrying. He's been in the belly of the beautiful, unified beast in Chicago. He found it lacking in LAPO. End of story.

[sallie]

The man appears to have serious personal issues. But whatever they are, he should have kept his pie hole shut when the newspaper came a-callin'.

[classical geek]

I think there are some truth in Dufour's comments. The philharmonic is only a few months into Dudamel's era and it still shows a large inprint from the long tenure of the last music director, Salonen. One would find many players in the orchestra agreeing with the following thats Salonen was not good at building the so called "traditions" in sound, color and style, because the guy was never really a "traditional" musician and was a quite bad conductor when it comes to traditional repertoires, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler, etc. The players in the orchestra are realy first rate and give them some time with Dudamel and they are more than capable to become a special orchestra with fine traditions (like that in Giulini era)that folks in Chicago will surely respect.

[Chris]

Actually, LA is not consdiered second to CSA (actually CSO). Per "Gramophone" editor James Inverne (a fairly accurate rating source) the international rankings are as follow:

1. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam

2. Berlin Philharmonic

3. Vienna Philharmonic

4. London Symphony Orchestra

5. Chicago Symphony Orchestra

6. Bavarian Radio Symphony

7. Cleveland Orchestra

8. Los Angeles Philharmonic

9. Budapest Festival Orchestra

10. Dresden Staatskapelle

11. Boston Symphony Orchestra

12. New York Philharmonic

13. San Francisco Symphony

14. Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra

15. Russian National Orchestra

16. Leningrad Philharmonic

17. Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

18. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

19. Saito Kinen Symphony Orchestra

20. Czech Philharmonic

[Marco Budgyk]

Just another old-school European musician who prefers playing immaculate Brahms over the West Coast Left Coast ethos. His problem. But it's so much easier to say "they didn't have a sound."

Would be soooooo interesting to hear what Salonen, the one who hired him, has to say about all this. Where's Swed when you need him?

[Mahler Fan]

As a Chicagoan, I am relieved (beyond imagination) that Dufour is coming back to the Windy City. I remember seeing him perform Mahler's First Symphony under Dudamel on public TV recently, and turned to my wife and said, "he does not fit in the LA Philharmonic sound."

If there ever were a time machine, I think Dufour will fit beautifully in LAPO under the great Giulini. Now, that's an orchestral sound to be reckoned with.

As for Dufour girldfriend, I thought his girlfriend is playing with the LAPO, that's why he went to California. Dufour's comment with Chicago Sun Times, as unpolished as it may be, is unfortunately true not only as a comparison between the CSO and the LAPO, but it is also true between the CSO and say, the Berlin Philharmonic or the Royal Concertgebouw. The sheer level of musical "common purpose" displayed by the top European orchestras will easily outmatch the Chicago Symphony (although the CSO has the orchestral power to compensate for the shortcoming). As for sound tradition, you will just have to come and experience the CSO brass live to appreciate it. Giulini managed to milk that uniquely ominous sound out of the LAPO during his tenure, but that quality is, alas, long gone; and that's Giulini's sound, not a sound traditionally associated with the LA ensemble.

I wish the orchestra great success in finding an excellent flautist, and look forward to hearing many great recordings from LAPO.

[daniel]

It really doesn't matter if what Dufour said it "true" or not. He's entitled to his opinion about orchestras, as is everyone else. The shocking fact is that he had so little class as to say what he said to a newspaper. That just shows a complete lack of everything on his part.

And I agree that his sound didn't fit in L.A. -- too much air in and around the tone.

The "girl friend" issue just makes me laugh.

But good luck with the surgery.

[Maggie]

Chris, I believe the comment was that LA is only second to the CSO among *US* orchestras. Your list proves that commenter, wrong, however, on another count: LA is considered the 3rd best in the US, after Chicago and Cleveland.

[LA Classical Nerd]

Dufour has every right to be where he really wants to be. He probably has a certain "musical" comfort level that he's nurtured throughout his career and ten years with the CSO had created a "familiarity" that may be difficult to change. Despite his comments--to a degree has a tinge of jealousy maybe?--it is without doubt that the LAPO is one of the greatest orchestras in the world. LAPO's programming is unparalleled in its boldness, particluarly in featuring contemporary symphony music & composers for the audience of today. It is an exciting time for us here in LA. Many orchestras are envious of the success the LAPO has achieved in this area. It reflects the ambitons of a city that is forward-thinking & embraces the new.

[Bruckner Fan]

As much as I hate to say it, Dufour is pretty much right on the money.

There's just no sense of tradition or unified sound in the LAPO, and there hasn't been since Zubin Mehta essentially tried to upgrade them into an "American Vienna" while putting the ensemble on the world stage and Carlo Maria Giulini raised the orchestra to an artistic peak. Since then, things have never been the same. Ernest Fleischmann and some of the orchestra's musicians rebelled against poor Andre Previn (Fleischmann because he wanted to install Salonen all along -- the muscians because Previn wasn't Giulini). Salonen took the orchestra and bestowed them with the genuine ability to play any new music piece with ease, while unfortunately making the string section sound cold and brittle and usually floundering badly from the podium through any work not composed after 1950. Perhaps I'm too jaded in lieu of the LAPO's overblown advertising campaign, but I doubt that the flashy Gustavo Dudamel -- with flinging curls and a smile worthy of the Joker from Batman -- is going to somehow do for the LAPO what Stokowski did for Philadelphia, or Reiner for Chicago, or Koussevitzky for Boston. For instance, could he take the LAPO's notoriously weak horn section, which misses notes and flubs passages on a regular basis, and challenge them to adopt a more unified sound? Would they even listen to him if he did? Could he make the trumpets sound less like a chamber group and more like a powerful section such as when Thomas Stevens was sitting in the first chair? Will the strings sound lush again as they did during Giulini's brief tenure?

Meanwhile, the Chicago Symphony has a greater pedigree (diminished compared to the Reiner and Solti years, but it's there), a principal conductor in Bernard Haitink, and incoming music director in Riccardo Muti. The LAPO doesn't have the quality of playing or stature to even get those guys here for a week, much less a greater commitment.

The choice for Mr. Dufour was obvious.

As for the general situation itself, that's also pretty clear. The LAPO administration tried to poach another orchestra's player, bragged about it, and then got burned in the press when the player realized the LAPO isn't Chicago.

Let Deborah Borda and Mark Swed try to spin that one.

[Plush]

Here in Chicago we pride ourselves on our sound and our musical tradition and acumen. The Reiner era, the Solti era and the modern era of Haitink and Boulez are lauded world wide. Why do you think they were (are) here?

Classical music on the west coast is a joke compared to our Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinatti and New York Phil orchestras. This apparently was evident to Mr. Dufour. There is indeed no tradition and zero greatness to be found on the Disney stage. Why stay there when you have a position with the best orchestra to come back to.

[Clarkson Hammond]

re: DuFour
http://www.cso.org/main.taf?erube_fh=cso&cso.submit.CSOPerfBio=1&cso.artistid=mdufour

"Additional awards include second prize at the Jean-Pierre Rampal International Flute Competition (1990); third prize at the International Flute Competition in Budapest (1991); and second prize at the International Flute Competition in Kobe, Japan (1997)."

So, hire one of the winners already. How hard can it be?

[Andrew Patner]

I am in the unfortunate situation of having to respond to the comment posted here by Karina Canellakis despite my having confirmed with the Los Angeles Times by telephone today that the quotations in my Chicago Sun-Times story were and are accurate. Obviously I stand by my story.

I would also point out that the "signing bonus" mentioned in this comment refers to the Culture Monster/Los Angeles Times story. I never mentioned such a payment or that Mathieu Dufour had made any agreements beyond a one-year contract.

Andrew Patner -- Chicago Sun-Times

[Newsmaestro]

Obviously a loss for the LA phil, although not a fatal one. I sometimes wonder what the purpose of allowing comments to these stories are, since the Times staff do not seem to pay much attention to them.

Someone who probably has real information about this situation has publicly said that a couple of major elements off this story are WRONG. Do the people at the Times care?
I notice that the Chicago's other paper, The Tribune, did not have the inflammatory quote from Dufour, nor the bit about the bonus check in its version of the story.
So what is the truth about this situation?
Does the Times stand by its reporting or not?