FOR SOME TIME NOW it has been increasingly difficult to work out if David Atherton is truly attached to the Hong Kong Philharmonic or can't wait to escape - it depends on which member of the orchestra you're talking to.
That he is finally leaving this month hasn't dimmed the tales one bit. Since he arrived 11 years ago to become the Philharmonic's music director, stories about him, against him and for him have circulated the classical music community.
It has not been a completely harmonious reign.
And nothing has changed. This week the 56-year-old English conductor bows out at the end of a popular series of concerts, featuring British pianist John Lill, that do him great credit. At the same time, the Chinese-language newspapers have been in a feeding frenzy over whether his involvement of the Philharmonic in his own commercial Internet music company is, to say the least, dubious.
But then, Atherton is hardly conventional. And his attitude is not so difficult to understand when you realise he's been conducting since the age of 14 and, encouraged by the late Georg Solti - long-time Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director and winner of more Grammy Awards than any artist of any genre - was doing it professionally at the Royal Opera House in London by the time he was 24.
Music has been everything, rather than mere passion. It has built purpose, ego, pleasure, bank balance and an international reputation, his highly rated Mainly Mozart music festival in San Diego and two orchestras - one of the world's leading chamber groups, the London Sinfonietta, which he founded, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. It has also provided him with one of the highlights of his life, the handover performance in 1997, one of the most memorable events of that day. What on earth is ever going to compare with it? Looking back, Atherton recalls: 'Chris Patten was hellbent on the handover ceremony taking place at Tamar. I remember saying to him [Patten] there's a 40 per cent chance of torrential rain because we're in the monsoon season. But he thought this was going to be the perfect location and it was - for the dress rehearsal.' On the day of the handover, however, the heavens opened. 'There we were performing outdoors with a canvas canopy over the top which didn't even cover the musicians, playing in the rain, while millions listened,' he laughs.
