Performing Arts

It was as tightly guarded as an undercover operation in Afghanistan. Insiders were repeatedly pledged to secrecy. When a rumor surfaced in a Dutch newspaper, just before Christmas, wagons were anxiously circled and tense denials issued.

But on Thursday, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra confirmed the Dutch news story: Jaap van Zweden had been named the DSO's next music director. The Dutch conductor, 46, will take over in the 2008-2009 season. As music director-designate, he'll conduct three programs in 2007-2008.

Mr. van Zweden has only conducted the DSO in one set of classical programs, in February 2006. But he brought a striking new depth and focus to the playing, and in short order he was pretty clearly the musicians' first choice.

Even before the DSO began looking for a successor to Andrew Litton, who stepped down last June, the DSO routinely polled musicians on their responses to guest conductors. These confidential responses played a significant role in the committee's deliberations. And four DSO musicians were on the 15-member search committee.

But who were the also-rans? Who else was actively considered?

Back in the early 1990s, when the DSO's previous search finally settled on Mr. Litton, the process was remarkably open. Finalists were publicly identified. This time, secrecy reigned. The DSO wouldn't even say which of its guest conductors was in the running and which was just a guest conductor.

"Yes, there was a list," says DSO president and CEO Fred Bronstein, the dominant force on the search committee. "But it was never a list that was written in stone. It would flow from one month to another. Somebody would pop up and then leave. Somebody would come back."

That's pretty much all he or other committee members will say for the record. Although smaller orchestras often identify candidates as such, major orchestras rarely do. But during the DSO's three-year search process, there were just enough rumors and whispers to suggest other serious contenders for the job.

Claus Peter Flor: The DSO's principal guest conductor since 1999, the thick-maned German was a favorite among musical cognoscenti in the audience, and he had some ardent advocates in the orchestra. He has led most of the orchestra's most gripping performances in recent seasons, in repertory as varied as Mozart symphonies and Charles Ives' Three Places in New England, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

With an outgoing personality and a quirky sense of humor, he would have fit right into a tradition of Texas characters. He could have been a real asset in hands-on outreach.

But he had a couple of key strikes against him.

For one thing, his electrifying, elaborately detailed performances are products of fiercely detailed rehearsals. He's like the boss who gets you to perform way beyond yourself, but leaves you worn out. While generally respected among DSO musicians, he was opposed by a sizable bloc who considered him too demanding or too temperamental.

And it's hard to imagine Mr. Flor and Dr. Bronstein, both alpha males, getting along for long. Mr. Flor is a maestro of the old and somewhat imperious European school. Dr. Bronstein is known among his staff as a top-down micromanager who likes any idea as long as it's his own. He has made it clear that the music director reports to him.

And Dr. Bronstein clearly looked to burnish his own image by discovering a major conducting talent virtually unknown in the United States and still getting established even in Europe. Mr. Flor was discovered by Dr. Bronstein's predecessor, Eugene Bonelli.

Dr. Bronstein is noncommittal about Mr. Flor's future as the DSO's guest conductor.

"Mr. Flor is contracted for the remainder of this season and next season. We've not had any conversations in terms of what happens beyond that.

"Whether he is principal guest or not, we would hope and want him to have a relationship with the orchestra, because he does terrific performances with this orchestra."

Andrey Boreyko: Son of a Polish father and a Russian mother, trained in St. Petersburg, Mr. Boreyko was a Bronstein favorite. He's been working with major orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic and garnering admiring reviews. He's personable and, after a stint with Canada's Winnipeg Symphony, fluent in English.

In two sets of classical concerts, in May and October of last year, he got fine playing from the DSO. But both programs were dominated by Russian showpieces giving little sense of the conductor's prowess in more meat-and-potatoes repertory. And DSO musicians just didn't get excited about him.

Andrew Davis: There was considerable interest in this outgoing Englishman, who's been doing some outstanding work as music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago. And his impending departure from a conducting triumvirate at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra would make him a likely prospect for another major orchestra job.

But after leading a finely finished DSO program in 2003, he turned in a lifeless dud of a concert last spring. After that, he was pretty much off the list.

Philippe Jordan: Still in his early 30s and movie-star handsome, this Swiss-born, Berlin-based conductor is widely considered one of the hottest younger talents. And as one DSO musician commented, having his face on billboards around town wouldn't hurt ticket sales. Of all the possible candidates, he would have created the biggest international stir.

Mr. Jordan made quite an auspicious DSO debut in November 2005, including a Brahms Second Symphony of quite special eloquence. But he's had far less experience in symphonic music than in opera, and DSO musicians were reportedly cool to him.

Et al: Among other guest conductors who might have been considered music director material, Yakov Kreizberg and Yan Pascal Tortelier conducted well-proportioned and finely finished performances, but DSO musicians complained they were hard to follow. On two different occasions, Carlos Kalmar got playing of great precision but zero sex appeal.

No Americans were seriously in the running. Dr. Bronstein was quite interested in David Robertson, who's been all but anointed the next Leonard Bernstein by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini. But Mr. Robertson was picked off by the St. Louis Symphony, and his DSO debut, in November 2004, didn't quite set the Meyerson Symphony Center on fire.

Marin Alsop, the only woman, got a halfhearted audition in 2005. But five months later she was picked by the Baltimore Symphony, over public objections from that orchestra's musicians.

Some noise was made about trying to lure big-name Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit, maybe for a limited number of weeks, but that was almost certainly wishful thinking.

Regret: That the colorful, eloquent French conductor Stéphane Denève, booked for May, didn't get a hearing before the decision was made.