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MUSIC MAESTRO MATA

An instrumental force behind the DSO
By Mamta Chaudhry-Fryer |

IT TAKES only an instant to realize that this man is a conductor. His hands, now folded gently on his knees, betray him. At first, it is not so easily detected, as he leans back against the sofa, dressed casually in a white turtleneck, brown jacket and tan slacks. The sharp aquiline nose and strong planes of his face are softened slightly in the chiaroscuro cast by the lamplight, his blue eyes limpid. But the man begins to speak, and the hands of the master flutter into wakefulness, reaching into the air and plucking out the words.

And then you know. This is Eduardo Mata.

During his recent stay in Dallas, Mata took the time to talk about his life and his music, which are inextricably linked. His surroundings – a suite at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, which is the Mata residence when he is in town – are a little like him: elegant, understated, a trifle austere. Scores and books piled high on various occasional tables add a cheery touch of clutter to the impeccably neat room.

Mata’s musical career, like Ravel’s Bolero, which he has recorded with notable success, consists of a single theme stated over and over in a long crescendo and presented in a fascinating variety of orchestral colorations. At age 12, he began studying at the National Conservatory of Mexico. In his teens he studied composition and conducting with Carlos Ch坔vez, Mexico’s premier composer. At 21, he won a Ford Foundation Fellowship to study conducting at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, where he came in close contact with Erich Leinsdorf, Gunther Schuller, Aaron Copland, Eugene Ormandy and Leonard Bernstein. At 22, he became conductor of the Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra. At 24, he led the University Philharmonic at the National University of Mexico to national prominence. At 28, he became the conductor of the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra in Arizona. And in 1977, at 35, he became musical director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Since then, he has had glittering guest appearances with major orchestras all over the world, a permanent affiliation with the London Symphony Orchestra, an exclusive recording contract with RCA and a chance to shape the once-moribund Dallas Symphony Orchestra into an important musical force. He is not yet 40. In many ways, Mata’s musical career has been sensational.

In marked contrast to Mata’s public profile is his private life, which he characterizes as “far from sensational. I lead a very simple life, very uncomplicated.”

“Uncomplicated” is hardly the word most people would use to describe a schedule that includes whirlwind tours, grueling rehearsals, intense study, hotel hopping and an engagement calendar that reads like an airline schedule, with stops in every major city on every continent.

Mata absently stirs a cup of coffee and nibbles on a cookie. The shadows are lengthening outside; this is the first thing he has eaten all day. “We are more often on the road than we are home,” he says. “I have come to terms with this way of life because I have no choice and because if I want to accomplish certain things in my career – which I do – that’s the only way to do it. If it would be strictly up to me, I would prefer to be, for at least six or seven months, in one single place. It would be ideal for me if that place were Mexico, because that’s where my roots are.”

Mata and his wife, Carmen, own a villa about 50 miles south of Mexico City, and they both agree that it is “the closest thing to home.” Mata says, “That’s where all our possessions are, my scores, books … we have a huge library of musical as well as nonmusical books. We spend about ten to twelve weeks a year there. We have cultivated friendships all over the world and look forward to being in Dallas, in London, in Florence … we can take up conversations where we left off a year ago. It is fascinating. But what really keeps us going is that we can go back home, and everything will be just as we left it.”

Meanwhile, wherever in the world he happens to be, it seems like home because Carmen travels with him. They have no children, although Mata has a son and a daughter by a previous marriage, who live in London. “I consider myself very lucky,” he says with a luminous smile, “1 have a very happy marriage. Carmen is a remarkable woman and I am fortunate that she can be with me most of the time. I am a coward about living alone.”

He contradicts himself almost immediately. “Yet the number-one effort in my life – and I say this to my secretary as well as to my wife – is for them to help me to be isolated so that I can study. There are so many social pressures, so many potential distractions … It’s not that I am unsociable. I like people very much. It’s just this ominous pressure of time I feel at the back of my head.”



THE STORY began in a small town in Mexico, where Eduardo Vladimir Jaime Mata Asiain grew up. In Oaxaca, he was surrounded by music. “Everybody in my family loves music and either sings, plays the guitar or both, but nobody really pursued a professional musical career before myself. I had a lot of opposition from my parents. They thought – and they were right – that music was a very risky proposition. But I was very stubborn and was determined to be a musician.”

In order to become one, he enrolled at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City. “My thing was composing. I got my degree in composition. It was only later that conducting appealed to me.” Carlos Chavez, under whose tutelage he studied composition, had a decisive impact on him. “He was the single most important influence in my life. He had a great deal to do with the shaping of my personality, both musically and otherwise.”

Although composing was his primary calling, Mata’s last major work, Third Symphony for Horn Obbligato and Wind Orchestra, was written almost 15 years ago. He winces as he recalls how long it has been. “I do not like to talk about my composition because I have been away from it for so long. It is a great frustration for me; but because of the way my career has developed, I have had to put my composing on hold. A few years back I conducted a program of some of my own works in Mexico, and in retrospect I wish that I had not. But I hope someday to return to composition, although I cannot say when…” His words trail off in a shrug.

There is no such uncertainty about what he is doing now. “I could never leave conducting.” Almost imperceptibly his shoulders straighten, and he sits up, no longer wistful, but proud and in command, as he is used to being on stage.

And it is in that posture that Dallas knows him best. However, when he was offered the post of music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1976, Dallasites were sharply split about the decision. borne felt that the rising young conductor would give the enfeebled orchestra, struggling to regain its health after the debacle of 1974 (See “Death of the Dallas Symphony,” D Magazine, November 1974) a much-needed shot in the arm. Others felt that the relatively obscure newcomer, although undeniably talented, was hardly the man to shape the DSO into a stellar attraction in the orchestral firmament.

One of the most implacable opponents of the choice was John Ardoin, music critic of The Dallas Morning News, who declared emphatically that Mata was “not world class.” Ardoin still maintains that the Dallas Symphony Orchestra could have done a lot better, but adds that “it could also have done a lot worse – and has in the past. I feel that Mata is an extraordinarily sincere, devoted, honest man, but you can be all that and still not be a terribly good musician. I have my reservations about the music, but the quality of the ensemble has definitely improved. I must say that he has invested a lot of himself into the orchestra and the community.”

That investment is beginning to show returns. The most accurate indicator of interest accrued is the audience. “I’ve noticed more of a warmth in the response to him in Dallas,” says Olin Chism, music critic for the Dallas Times Herald. The warmth of the audiences has made Mata a hot box-office property. Single-ticket sales are up 80 percent this year over last September, according to a DSO administrator. And for Mata’s debut in a pops concert, Fair Park Music Hall was 100 tickets away from a full house.

One reason for the increase in attendance may be that the DSO is touring once again. Critical acclaim – particularly from last year’s successful East Coast tour – has filtered back to Dallas, and, in Mata’s words, “given greater credibility to the orchestra. That credibility translates into ticket sales back home.”

In addition to touring, the DSO is also recording again, with some frequency and considerable success. The recordings have been instrumental in gaining the orchestra exposure and acceptance both at home and abroad. The credit for that can be laid unequivocally at Mata’s door. He has an exclusive contract with RCA, which has lavished its advanced digital process and fine pressings on Mata and his orchestra. Their recording of Ravel’s Bolero sold extremely well and is already in its second printing.

A personal recording triumph for Mata was Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, recently nominated in three categories, including “Best Choral Performance,” for the Grammy awards. He recorded it with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with whom he has a permanent guest-conducting contract.

Thereby hangs a tale. His cordial connection with the LSO began, as is sometimes the case in the theatrical, operatic and musical worlds, with an illness. Andr坢 Previn was scheduled to conduct the LSO in a difficult program but fell ill before the performance. Mata happened to be in England at the time, happened to know the program very well and happened to be available. He stepped into the breach and into the heart of the LSO.

He has also guest-conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, La Scala, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Hamburg Symphony and the BBC Orchestra, among others. In the United States he has conducted the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland. His association with the last two proved particularly felicitious: He was the number-one choice in a recent newspaper poll to succeed Antal Dorati at the helm of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and is a leading contender for the Cleveland Orchestra’s baton when Lorin Maazel steps down.

For the moment, Mata dismisses these reports diplomatically as “gratifying rumors” and turns to the subject of why he accepted the leadership of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra: “Of course, it compared very unfavorably with some of the large ensembles of the East, but I could sense the potential from the very first time I heard them. That’s ultimately what made me decide to come. I could see that the wind players – both woodwinds and brass – were first-class; the strings were very, very weak when I first came, and there is a lot of improvement in that particular area.”

Now, he explains, the two things that will make the biggest difference in the sound of the symphony are the number of players, which needs to be augmented, and the continuity of the classical season, which is presently fragmented to the point that it cannot sustain levels of classical playing from one season to the next.

A third thing that will completely transform the sound of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra is the completion of the projected orchestra hall downtown, on which architect I.M. Pei and acoustician Russell Johnson are to collaborate. The new hall was a gleam in the eye of the musical community before Mata even got here, and he is chomping at the bit to see it materialize: “The orchestra and I are eagerly awaiting the new Music Hall. It is going to change our lives. The present situation is crippling.” Indeed, the cavernous Music Hall in Fair Park doesn’t do justice to the DSO, and people who have heard the orchestra in more resonant halls are amazed at the incredible difference.

Even with the limitations of the old hall, it is evident that the orchestra has acquired a new sheen. Although the members of the orchestra have widely differing views about Mata and variously characterize him as “generous,” “brilliant,” “very organized,” “lacking the European musical tradition,” “aloof and “open to suggestions”, the overall consensus is that he knows exactly what he wants and can communicate that to the orchestra. And in the final analysis, the orchestra responds, giving him the sound he wants.

Mata doesn’t see the DSO moving in any set direction any time soon. “That will come in time. I hope they will first achieve total command over the works of the masters.” If the DSO has improved under Mata’s baton, he too has grown and developed with the association.

He hopes to be more closely involved with opera in the future and regards himself as a mainstream conductor, playing the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, but with “a mission to bring modern music to the audiences as well.”

His programming has come in for its share of kudos and criticisms. Robert Xavier Rodriguez, a professor of composition at University of Texas at Dallas, says of Mata: “He has been programming more 20th-century music for the orchestra and has met with a very favorable response. That’s because his strategy has been very intelligent. He has worked them in gradually.” Music critic John Ardoin, however, feels that his programming “is by far the weakest link at the moment. I don’t like the way things go together. I don’t see any clear-eyed commitment.” Mata says, “I try to present a broad spectrum of music, and I feel that my choice is very eclectic.”

Writer Arthur Symons once observed, “Many excellent writers, very many painters and most musicians are so tedious on any subject but their own.” Mata is an articulate exception, and his interests are as eclectic as his choice of music. He is a voracious reader, an athlete and an accomplished cook. He and Carmen consider themselves connoisseurs of European films; Bertolucci, Fellini and Bergman are among their favorite directors. His wife shares many of his interests and they make the most of the time that his relentless schedule allows them together.

But Carmen Mata doesn’t sit around waiting for her husband to get back from a hard day at the podium. Glamorous and gracious, she is an artist in her own right – a painter and a writer. She is working on a book about her husband, whom she describes in her sherry-smooth voice as “imaginative, gallant and creative.”

They met in Mexico City, where Car-men, a vivid Spanish beauty, was a record producer for RCA. She worked with Mata on his early recordings. A year later they entered into a different kind of collaboration and have been married for 13 years. Because of their nomadic life style, Car-men gave up record producing but says, “I have no regrets. We are both doing exactly what we’ve always wanted to do.” In Mata’s case, it is making music. “That has always been the most important thing in my life. Sometimes I feel a magic after a certain performance, and that makes everything worthwhile.”

He also has the ability to communicate that magic to his audiences. Eddie Hill, recently retired program director of WRR-FM, says, “there is an excitement about the performances, a magic of conducting, something above and beyond the sound, that brings the audience to its feet.” With that indefinable quality going for him, Mata should travel much further down the road that he has charted out as his own.

While everyone else looks into the future for Mata, one person casts a look back in approval. That person is Lloyd Haldeman, who was chiefly responsible for bringing Mata to Dallas. He says, “In restrospect, it has worked out marvelous-ly. Two other young conductors with the Dallas Symphony – Georg Solti and Antal Dorati – emerged as internationally famous conductors. I think that Mata’s career will follow in their footsteps. Dallas is very lucky to have Mata. Let me put it this way: He is to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra what Tom Landry is to the Dallas Cowboys.”



EDUARDO MATA uses words with the same precision and drama that he wields his baton. The following are some of his views about various things that are a prominent part of his musical life:

On composers: Mozart, to me, is the personification of music itself – fresh and melodious, expressing a multitude of things. Beethoven put the little pieces of a great puzzle together and made it sound like a spontaneous whole. 1 admire the harmonic language and drama of Wagner, and the power of integration of Mahler.

On conductors: There are many conductors I admire. I am a great admirer of Herbert von Karajan – which doesn’t mean I like everything that he does – but I have learned a lot from him. I also respect Istvan Kertesz and Carlos Kleiber, who has tremendous energy and drama. And I would have given anything to watch Wil-helm Furtw?ngler conduct.

On critics: The tendency to examine and dissect each work – without trying to detect a pattern or trend in the programming as a whole or paying attention to tne exploration of various styles – this attitude is not the cause, but the effect, of provincialism.

On audiences: For some people, going to concerts is like taking a hot bath. They are very quiet, they relax and daydream about many things. And I respect those people. But the true music lover does not go to a concert to escape through the music – he participates in it. And all great orchestras of the world have one thing in common: great audiences.

On Dallas: As opposed to the perception of past conductors, I find the societyis open and willing to work to change thecultural image of Dallas. I sense a lot ofraw power in this city – and I don’t meanonly money. It’s basically a place wherethings can happen.

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