Faure's birthday

Gabriel Faure was born on 12 May 1845, Pamiers, France. Here is a little birthday present: the great French violinist Christian Ferras, who died tragically by his own hand in 1982, performing the Berceuse. It's much more just a lullaby. Merci pour tous, mon tres cher Monsieur Gabriel.

When Mostar comes to Scotland

If you're in Scotland, don't miss the Opera Circus tour this month of Differences in Demolitions, the chamber opera by Nigel Osborne and poet-librettist Goran Simic, which grew out of the soundworld of Bosnian sevdah. I went to see it in Mostar last year - see Independent feature here - and am thrilled that they're doing it again. Attending it in its spiritual home, Bosnia, was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had. The video below gives a very small taste of it.



Here are all the tour details:

Date/time: Wednesday 14 May 7.30pm
Venue: Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy
Box Office: 01592 583302
Tickets: £12/£10
www.attfife.org.uk

Date/time: Friday 16 May 8pm
Venue: macrobert, University of Stirling
Box Office: 01786 466666
Tickets: £10/£6
www.macrobert.org

Date/time: Tuesday 20 & Wednesday 21 May 7.30pm
Venue: Eden Court, Inverness
Box Office: 01463 234 234
Tickets: £12/£10, Under 18s £5
www.eden-court.co.uk

Date/time: Saturday 24 May 8pm
Venue: The Byre Theatre, St. Andrews
Box Office: 01334 475000
Tickets: £15/£12
www.byretheatre.com

Date/time: Tuesday 27 & Wednesday 28 May 8pm
Venue: Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Box Office: 0141 552 4267
Tickets: £10/£6
www.tron.co.uk

Date/time: Saturday 31 May 8pm
Venue: The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Box Office: 0131 668 2019
Tickets: £12/£10, Under 18s £5
www.thequeenshall.net
7pm Composer Nigel Osborne talks about his music
* reduced priced tickets for the music students of Napier College and the University of Edinburgh

Speaking of Bosnia, tomorrow violinist Ruth Waterman publishes a book about her experiences of working there with the Mostar Sinfonietta, bearing the quirky title When Swan Lake Comes to Sarajevo. Very much looking forward to reading it.

kurze pause...

I've had to cancel my talk in Stratford-on-Avon today because I've got tonsilitis. grrrr.

The good news is that the South Bank Show will be filming Tasmin's concert with Rox's new concerto plus the Barber concerto, as part of their programme about her coming up on BBCTV soon.

JDCMB back asap.

Oh no, not another one

Someone has found yet another Vivaldi opera lurking somewhere and finished it using bits of the others. Full story from the Indy here.

Vivaldi was an astonishing character with a hugely colourful life. But isn't there a limit to how many of these rattly, twiddly baroque things the market can take? After all, most of them feature either a one-name title (eg Tomasso, Soltino, etc) or a massively long one (Il trionfo del blogorissimo classicale di Madamina Duchene), arias da carping hell for leather for several hours trying to sound inventive on the reprise (my favourite carp is to be found in halaszle, Hungarian fish soup), not to mention recycled bits and bobs from other works, a harpsichord sounding as harpsichords do, a swarm of wasps where the violins ought to be and a reluctance to cut even one note leading to hellishly uncomfortable theatrical experiences as the reverential principles of Richard Wagner are applied willynilly to music that was actually designed as background entertainment to business meetings, illicit love affairs and the odd bit of orange throwing.

The degree course I took some while ago foisted 24 compulsory lectures on Italian Baroque Opera upon its unsuspecting first-years. I entered with a vague fondness for Monteverdi. I exited with a vague fondness for Monteverdi, too, but not before upsetting one of my teachers by finding a leitmotif in Poppea. Seriously. It's a figure of notes associated with Poppea's ambition.... (Well, whaddya expect? One has to stay sane somehow.)

ON A TOTALLY different tack, if you fancy a day or two in Shakespeare's own town, come to Stratford-on-Avon for Tasmin's Spring Sounds Festival, which is in full swing today, Sunday, and tomorrow, Monday. Tomorrow's concert by the Orchestra of the Swan features Tasmin in the premiere of Roxanna Panufnik's new violin concerto 'Spring in Japan' and Korngold's Suite from Much Ado About Nothing, and I shall be introducing it with a preamble called 'How Shakespeare Saved Korngold's Life'.

Cripes indeed

Headline on today's Independent says it all.

We woke up to find that London, effective capital of Europe, city of more than 7 million, a population of such diversity that every time you take the tube you hear at least four languages chattering around you, has elected a Tory magazine editor to be its new mayor. 'Boris', because he's an entertaining character, has previously got away with foot-in-mouth disease that would have slain any other politician - there was the time he had the whole of Liverpool baying for his blood, and several instances of racist crassness that I don't need to repeat here. But what worries us is that he's never really run anything except The Spectator, a right-wing political journal (it has some good scribblers, but editing it doesn't exactly equate to controlling London Underground).

Frankly, dear readers, if such magazine experience qualifies one to become mayor of London, then I shall have a go next time. I'm a native. I was born within the sound of Bow Bells. I've lived here all my life and I'd waited for, uh, however many decades it was for someone to improve our pathetic public transport before erstwhile mayor Ken got on with it. I'll be campaigning on the principles of scrapping the Olympics, music and dance experiences for every school every week, taxing the football clubs and giving the extra dosh to the arts, putting the congestion charge up up UP, and providing subsidised food for every cat in London.

Stratford today

If you're in the vicinity of Stratford-upon-Avon today, you might like to come along to a fun panel discussion in the literary festival in which I'll be one of four commentators talking about romantic fiction, along with Katie Fforde, Mark Barrowcliffe and Louise Allen. The Civic Hall, 6pm. Our shebang is called 'Reader, I Married Him'.
Later you can hear Jodi Picoult, at 8pm.

I'll be back there next Monday for the Spring Sounds Festival, doing a pre-concert talk about Korngold. (Reader, I didn't marry him, but I love him anyway.) More details of that very soon.

Tune in, Philadelphia!

And everyone else! Vlad conducts the Verdi Requiem tonight at 7pm on BBC Radio 3 and you can listen to it by going to this page and clicking on the iPlayer. The all-star cast includes Barbara Frittoli, Ildiko Komlosi, Massimo Giordano and Ferruccio Furlanetto and it is, of course, our own and Jurowski's own LPO. (Gloats.)

It was recorded live at the RFH the other night and I wasn't there (will spare you the story of why) but do read Neil Fisher's review in The Times where he - advises you to cancel your other plans and unplug the phone.

I thoroughly enjoyed a classic Vladathon of string-and-and-things music from the 1930s last week - Britten Frank Bridge Variations and Les Illuminations with the splendiferous Sally Matthews, the Shostakovich Piano Concerto no. 1 with new German piano star Martin Helmchen, who is about 25 but looks 12, and to cap it all the Bartok Music for String, Percussion and Celeste. Two and a half hours, stress levels soaring and a rush for beer in the Archduke Bar afterwards, but it was fabulous.

Return of the King

Krystian Zimerman - to us, King Krystian the Glorious - will be in the UK next month for three recitals: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, on 23 May, The Anvil, Basingstoke, on 25 May and in Southbank Centre's International Piano Series at the RFH, London, on 27th. His programme remained under wraps for some while but has now been confirmed as:

Bach: Partita No.4 in D major, BWV 828
Beethoven: Sonata in C minor, Op.111
Brahms: Klavierstucke, Op.119
Szymanowski: Variations on a Polish Theme, Op.10

I've written a cover feature about KZ for the latest edition of PIANIST magazine, which is out now. The magazine, edited by superwoman-dynamo-journo-pianist Erica Worth, is heartily recommended for all pianophiles at all levels. Here is the feature: read about his friendship with Rubinstein, his passion for ice diving and why he won't be going to America again until the Iraq situation is sorted.

And, stop press: the latest news is that he will be doing a pre-concert talk here in London before the 27 May recital and I will be asking the questions. :-)

Happy birthday, Rox!

A wildly HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the one and only Roxanna Panufnik - ace composer, daughter and musical heir to the glorious Sir Andrzej, and today celebrating the big 4-0 with a season including no fewer than 11 premieres. Visit her site for the full story, a sample of her music and a roster of events to attend and enjoy.

Rox's musical language is at once accessible and highly personal; she excels in wit, tenderness and imaginative sonic textures, and while she's been best known for vocal settings such as her Westminster Mass and Beastly Tales which set poems by Vikram Seth, her Violin Concerto 'Abraham', written a couple of years ago for Dan Hope, and her extraordinary Harp Concerto, for Cathy Beynon, are among the pieces that have most got under my skin.

For starters, don't miss the premiere of Rox's 'Spring in Japan', the first part of a new Four Seasons violin concerto for Tasmin Little, in Stratford-upon-Avon on 5 May - I'll be doing a pre-concert talk which is actually about Korngold and Shakespeare, but will be flying the flag for the present day too! And much looking forward to the premiere at Westminster Cathedral on 3 June by The Sixteen and Harry Christophers of Rox's choral work Stay With Me, a setting of a prayer by Padre Pio with words adapted by, er, yours truly. Book soon, as tickets (free) are flying.

(...no, I haven't converted to Catholicism, but I did love bashing some universally relevant and moving lines into singable shape, courtesy of the Genesis Foundation, which commissioned three different composer/writer teams to tackle the same task. James MacMillan and Will Todd complete the compositional triumvirate. More of this in due course...)

A tad perturbed to see on tonight's news that Padre Pio's body has just been exhumed and put on display in Rome - apparently this is 'normal' practice with saints. Though there's some controversy as to whether or not he faked his stigmata. !?

Baritone behaving badly

Erwin Schrott, La Netrebko's hubby-to-be and father of imminent child, is about to be sued for breach of contract by one of London's finest musical philanthropists.

We were all (especially us girls) looking forward to el hunko's appearance in the Rosenblatt Recital Series on 11 June. The series brings the world's biggest singers (and some valuable debuts) to appear in recital in London, incl JDF which I missed cos I couldn't get in last year; but Mr S has decided, for reasons best known to himself, that he ain't gonna show - for the second time. Here is what Mr Rosenblatt has to say on the subject. Fasten your seatbelts.

"For our audience to be treated with such gross unprofessionalism and disrespect by Mr Schrott, on two occasions, is something that shouldn’t be tolerated.

“This is a regrettable situation, but for the reputation of my Series I cannot allow artists, with no lawful excuse, to renege on their contractual commitments.

"In the seven years I’ve been running our recital series I have been impressed time and again by the dedication of singers to their art and their public. Singers such as Mr Schrott give opera a bad name and a reputation for not caring for the people that pay to hear them sing.

“I am disgusted by Mr Schrott’s callous disregard to his contractual obligations. His behaviour is cowardly and I can only wonder if he has the guts to appear on a London concert platform as this is the second time he’s backed out of appearing here.”

Oof.

Living Library: borrow a person

This is the best idea I've seen in ages. You can borrow a person of a particular background, inclination, religion or whatever, someone whom you mightn't normally have the chance to meet and about whose exterior you might have certain preconceptions, for a half-hour exchange of views.

For the 1925 silent movie of Ben Hur chez LPO on Saturday, I was with a group of friends whose "ethnic origins" were Italian, English, Polish and Palestinian. All of us, for one reason or another, have washed up in London. And there we were, watching that unbelievable chariot race in which Judah Ben Hur, a prince of Judea, driving a team of horses for a Sheikh, races their Roman occupier adversary to the death - just 11 years before Jesse Owen's famous triumph at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. We had a good chat about all this and we think people should talk to each other at grass roots level. Twin the towns, bus people in, make the tea and please, please talk - and listen. A living library is a first and inspired step towards that. According to The Times, the next one will be at the Idea Store, London E1 on May 31. For more information contact anne.kilroy@living-library.org.

Enough idealism already for a Tuesday morning? There's a good reason, of which more in a sec. First, mad props to some Wonderful Women: a piano quiz c/o the excellent Miss Mussel - in the form of a very beautiful and rarely played work; mad props to carissima Opera Chic; and Tanita Tikaram, who's made this site her music blog link on her cool new website. And break-a-legs to our own Tazza, who'll be playing music from her Naked Violin Project in a live internet streaming from Edinburgh on her website at www.tasminlittle.org.uk on Thursday (24th), which will also be filmed for a programme that The South Bank Show is making about her! We hear she is also heading for an oil rig.

Finally: yes, there is a good reason. Today is the birthday (1916) of Yehudi Menuhin, musical idealist par excellence, not to mention one hell of an incredible violinist. Here he is in the opening of Bach's 'Erbarme dich...'.

Miklos Rozsa, I <3 <3 <3 u!

Thanks to WWM (Wonderful Web Master) for an alert to the fact that Miklos Rozsa, towering genius of Hollywood and much else, was born in Budapest 101 years ago today. Hear him out-Korngolding Korngold below in the opening titles of the 1959 Ben Hur.

Speaking of Ben Hur (and how's this for multitasking in one post), anyone who is in London and very on-the-ball should come to the RFH tomorrow night to see the original 1925 silent Ben Hur with Carl Davis's score - just as fabulous in a totally different way - played live by our own LPO. But hurry, because the Silver Screen Series is wildly popular and always sells out! The website is worth a visit as it's full of info, film clips and music to hear. Carl Davis gives a pre-concert talk at 6.15pm and the film kicks off at 7.30pm.

Back to Rozsa: for those of more purist bent, have a listen to Rozsa's concert music if you don't know it already: the Sinfonia Concertante and the Cello Concerto are full of thrills.