Leonard Slatkin: The man who came to rue Britannia

When Leonard Slatkin accepted the offer of becoming the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he was looking forward to a challenge that promised to be purely artistic. Less than two years into the job, he has discovered the hard way that there is a great deal more to it than that.

With his second Proms season starting in just under a fortnight, Slatkin finds himself caught up in a fierce debate about musical tradition and national identity that has left him feeling wounded and misunderstood and, at the same time, chastened and contrite. There is a sense in which this dapper, genial, 57-year-old American has stumbled into territory that is puzzling, alien and littered with traps.

Everybody felt for Slatkin when he had to go out and conduct his first Last Night of the Proms last September, only five days after his country had come under terrorist attack. "I remember everything about that evening," he says. "But, in particular, I remember what happened when the concert finished. I came back into my room, and normally I leave the door open so people can come and go. But this time I closed the door. Literally as I did so my cellphone started ringing. It was my wife and son in Washington. They'd been listening to the concert on National Public Radio. And we all just started crying."

Slatkin says that the emotion he sensed in the audience was even stronger than when, the following week, he conducted a concert in Washington DC, where he lives, in memory of the Pentagon victims.

In a reflection of the public mood, last year's Last Night was quite different from normal. There was no flag-waving or boisterousness. "Rule Britannia" and "Land of Hope and Glory" were both dropped – decisions that were followed by a chain of events that, somewhat ironically, have now led to Slatkin being put firmly on the spot.

In the immediate aftermath of the Last Night, Slatkin says that he and the BBC were overwhelmed with requests from the public to take the opportunity to get rid of "Rule Britannia" and "Land of Hope and Glory" for good. And when discussions began about this year's Last Night, that very nearly happened. "We were close to knocking all this stuff out," Slatkin says. "But ultimately we felt it was such an interruption last year that we maybe needed to revisit it in some way."

Slatkin stresses that, having felt "cheated" out of his 2001 Last Night, he was in favour of going back to the old traditions. In the end a compromise was reached. "Land of Hope and Glory" would return, but be given a slot earlier in the evening, and "Rule Britannia" would be reduced to an orchestral version, minus soloist.

Nobody seemed to mind much when the BBC announced the Proms programme in April. But since then we have had the Golden Jubilee and the World Cup, and expressions of national pride are suddenly all the rage. So when, last week, Slatkin was quoted as saying he thought "Rule Britannia" was "militaristic" and "outdated" and that he felt "uncomfortable" conducting it, an outcry ensued.

Slatkin doesn't deny what he said, but explains that what makes him feel uncomfortable about "Rule Britannia" is the knowledge that so many other people are unhappy about it. He says he has no problem with the piece himself and that "if we totally applied our ethics to every piece, there's a lot we would not be able to do". But he adds: "I'm really sorry that what I said touched things off the way it did."

Slatkin says he has had to "rethink a lot of things" since 11 September. "I think that belief in national identity is terribly important, and I maybe didn't feel that way before." That is probably true of a lot of people, but perhaps more so of someone such as Slatkin, whose whole life has been immersed in music.

Born into a prodigiously talented musical family in Los Angeles, he grew up in the shadow of his father, Felix, a noted conductor, arranger and violinist. He died when Leonard was only 19, and, says Slatkin, "although it sounds horrible to say it, I probably wouldn't have become a conductor if it hadn't been for his death". Three times married, Slatkin conducted for many years in St Louis before taking over the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC in 1996 and taking up the BBC post in 2000.

During his St Louis years, Slatkin spent a lot of time with the great conductor Carlo Maria Giulini, who was then running the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. "It was Carlo who always told me that music should be a part of your life, not your life a part of music," Slatkin says. "And it's only in the past 15 years or so that I've become much more interested in what's going on in the rest of the world, be it sport, politics or films."

Just lately he has learnt a lot about Britain, too.

Biography

1944: Born, 1 September, Los Angeles. Parents Felix and Eleanor, musicians.

1964: Juilliard School of Music, after attending high school in Los Angeles, and Indiana University.

1968: Joins St Louis Symphony Orchestra as assistant conductor. Moves on to become music director, 1979-95.

1970: First of three marriages, first two ending in divorce. Now married to soprano Linda Hohenfeld. One son, Daniel, aged eight.

1996: Music director and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington DC.

2000: Chief conductor, BBC Symphony Orchestra.