The final notes of a musical giant

Lesley Stahl’s recent interview with Michael Tilson Thomas for CBS Sunday Morning doesn’t break new ground, but it’s compelling all the same. There’s a short version—about nine minutes—and a longer, more expansive cut. What makes it essential viewing is the context: MTT is in the final stages of a battle with brain cancer, a disease that will almost certainly claim him.

In April, he gave what will likely be his final public concert. An event that marked the culmination of a spirited, defiant race against time and illness. I made a point to attend two of his more recent Mahler performances, of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Time was clearly running out then for MTT, and for the singular magic he could conjure from an orchestra.

He remains witty, insightful, and profoundly committed to music. But there’s a new vulnerability. His speech is sometimes halting, his phrasing occasionally searching, words sometime hover just out of reach. That fragility only deepens the emotional impact of seeing one of the great musical minds of our time reflect on a career that helped shape American orchestral life at the end of the 20th and during the first quarter of the 21st Centuries.

MTT’s legacy is unshakable. He will be remembered as a brilliant interpreter of Mahler, a passionate advocate for American composers, and a conductor who transformed the San Francisco Symphony into a singular, world-class institution. Just as important, he knew how to bring audiences with him, demystifying complex music and widening the circle of who felt welcome in the concert hall.

And yet, it’s hard not to feel uneasy. The identity MTT so carefully and thoughtfully built in San Francisco is being rapidly unraveled. Under current administrative leadership, much of what made the orchestra artistically distinctive—its commitment to adventurous programming, to American music, to long-term artistic vision—is being cast aside. What’s taking its place feels less like an aimless drift, untethered from the very legacy that gave the institution its strength.

That, too, is part of what makes this interview so poignant. It’s not just a farewell to a towering figure—it’s a reminder of what was possible under his leadership, and what may now be slipping away.

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The shorter video: