Hats off to the Philharmonia

Puzzled as to why the Philharmonia hasn't been shouting about this from the rooftops... here's the link.... Fab reason for concert, a world premiere of a new work by the very cool and humungously talented Errollyn Wallen, a chance to hear Philippe Graffin play the Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto in case you missed it at the 05 Proms, the excellent Martyn Brabbins conducts, and it's FREE. You just have to find your way to Clapham Common. Call the box office to reserve tickets.


COMMEMORATION OF THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE ACT

Sat 24 Feb 2007, 7:30pm
Holy Trinity Church, Clapham, London

Martyn Brabbins conductor
Philippe Graffin violin

Beethoven	Overture, Leonore No. 2
Coleridge-Taylor	Violin Concerto
Beethoven	Symphony No. 3 Eroica: 3rd Movement Marcia Funebre
Wallen	Mighty River (World Premiere)

On Saturday 24 February, the Philharmonia Orchestra and one of Lambeth’s most historic churches, Holy Trinity Church, Clapham, have teamed up to mark the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in a special commemorative evening.

Tickets are FREE but ticketed. To reserve your seats please call 0800 652 6717.

There will be a retiring collection and proceeds will go to Holy Trinity Church and Anti-Slavery International.

High Cs strike back

That interview with the glorious JDF finally found its way into the paper, or some of it did. It was for this, which is out today: how singing that high C can make or break an operatic career. Alvarez was centre stage in the end because he's in full flood at the ROH at the moment, whereas Florez has moved on...but at least [fluttering] one met them both...

[cue South American music, Peruvian pipes and/or tango] Intriguing contrast between these two Latin luminaries. As a teenager, Florez went to study at Curtis, that most elite of musical establishments in Philly. Alvarez was somewhere in the wilds of Argentina managing his family furniture business and didn't hear an opera until he was 30. Florez cuts a trim, elegant, designerish figure. Alvarez is one big boufka soundbox. Brain versus brawn? Fine technique versus sheer oomph? Opera has room for all sorts...

NOT OPERA, BUT THIS IS BRILLIANT: Also in today's Indy, Miles Kington writes about the play-wot-he-wrote: Tchaikovsky's death as Sherlock Holmes mystery, with the premise that Tchaikovsky was the only witness to the Holmes-Moriarty waterfall incident, therefore Holmes had to track him down in Russia and eliminate him...

Orlando: what was that about marmalade?

Opening at Covent Garden on 26 February, "a tale of conflicting passions, threats, magic, deceit and revelations which inspired Handel to some of his most original operatic work..." Francisco Negrin directs, stars include Bejun Mehta and Rosemary Joshua. Info here.

Solti is in favour...

Korngold 07 #2

Here's one of our regular Korngold updates for this year, the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. My prolific thanks to Korngold devotee and biographer Brendan G Carroll for keeping up the flow of info!

In March, the complete film score of THE SEA HAWK will be released on Marco Polo/Naxos.

In April, the complete sound-track of KING'S ROW is due out on CD, conducted by Korngold himself, from archive studio recordings from Turner/Rhino. In case you haven't seen KING'S ROW, it's the one where Ronald Reagan's legs are amputated. He wakes up and calls out to his wife, "Where's the rest of me?!?" Which is what a lot of other people wondered too, some years later... seriously, though, it's a terrific score and the film is not bad either.

On 1 May at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth will play the gorgeous Sinfonietta - a symphony in all but name, written when EWK was only about 15. It's full of sweeping melody, beautiful orchestration, Klimtish-Jugendstil atmosphere and EWK's typical generosity of spirit. Here's a recording by the BBC Philharmonic under Matthias Bamert. In the concert's first half, those two stalwarts Philippe Graffin and Raphael Wallfisch will play Miklos Rozsa's Double Concerto, which is one heck of a fantastic piece too (hear their recording).

As it happens, it's also the centenary of Miklos Rozsa's birth [huge apologies for my previous error over this anniversary, which a kind anonymous commentator has drawn to my attention - many thanks]. Rozsa, a dynamic Hungarian, also ended up in Hollywood writing film scores and deserves way more attention than he usually gets. Being pro-Hungarian at the moment, for bookish reasons, I really should do something about this...

More Korngold soon - introducing a Korngold 2007 label to make it easier for fans to follow the updates en masse.

To Lenny from Solti

A note from David K Israel alerts me to Mentalfloss.com, where he's joined the blogging team. David was Leonard Bernstein's editor and is a fellow novelist, but most significantly he nearly named his cat Solti, then chose Lenny instead. In case you missed my intentionally-very-silly two-part story for Classical Music Magazine around Xmas & New Year, it's called LENNY: THE CAT THAT SHOOK AN ORCHESTRA and you can read part 1 here and part 2 here. As for transatlantic Lenny and my resident Sir Georg 'Ginger Stripes' Solti, they send each other colleagial greetings and compare the mice they've recently killed with their built-in batons.

We named Solti Solti because in a former life he was Tom's favourite conductor. Most orchestral musicians jump out of their skins when we tell them this - one cellist who used to live nearby famously threatened to run our cat over every time he came round - but Tom, being from one of those indomitable central-European pre-War families, is used to larger-than-life personalities and knows how to stand up to them. In one legendary LPO rehearsal, Solti turned to the first fiddles and said "You must play this better, I pay you money if you play this better!" Tom put up his hand and demanded "How much?" Solti exclaimed: "Ah, we discuss it later..."