And they win...
This is to mark the anniversary today of Fritz Kreisler's death in 1962. Enjoy.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Après moi le déluge?
News from MIDEM in Cannes as reported in The Times today. This covers pop, but what happens to our side of things?
Just think, some of those opera singers and conductors might be forced to reduce their fees, shock horror.
Thoughts, folks?
MEANWHILE, the Arts Council has been forced to say 'er, right, maybe that wasn't our best idea' and is promising a reprieve to some of the groups whose funding it wanted to slash for no immediately obvious reason - this may include the London Mozart Players. We haven't yet seen the name City of London Sinfonia on the list, but are hoping that that is simply an oversight on the part of newspapers that don't know what a chamber orchestra is.
ALSO, from comments received on JDCMB recently, it's obvious that certain people in Philadelphia are still ogling beloved Vladi. He's back here this week, conducting at the RFH on Wednesday. Paws off our maestro!
Just think, some of those opera singers and conductors might be forced to reduce their fees, shock horror.
With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks.
The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies - including EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music – that have chased file-sharers through the courts in a doomed attempt to prevent piracy. The gamble is that fans will put up with a limited amount of advertising around the Qtrax website’s jukebox in return for authorised use of almost every song available.
Thoughts, folks?
MEANWHILE, the Arts Council has been forced to say 'er, right, maybe that wasn't our best idea' and is promising a reprieve to some of the groups whose funding it wanted to slash for no immediately obvious reason - this may include the London Mozart Players. We haven't yet seen the name City of London Sinfonia on the list, but are hoping that that is simply an oversight on the part of newspapers that don't know what a chamber orchestra is.
ALSO, from comments received on JDCMB recently, it's obvious that certain people in Philadelphia are still ogling beloved Vladi. He's back here this week, conducting at the RFH on Wednesday. Paws off our maestro!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
"People who couldn't even spell classical are into it now"
Yesterday, having been warned off the fiddle concerto at the RFH, I spent a happy evening doing something I don't do often: watching TV. Solti fans may know that BBC2 had a documentary about tigers in India...but what caught me off-guard was a follow-up programme to The Choir, a reality TV series following what happened when a choral conductor named Gareth formed a choir at a school in Northolt, north-west London, trained them up and took them to China to enter an international competition. The cameras returned to see where they all are now, as well as recapping on the series for those who'd missed it, like me.
I ended up in tears.
The kids had prepared two numbers for the competition: 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and Faure's 'Cantique de Jean Racine'. Faure?! They were stumped. First, the competition stipulated that one song had to be in a foreign language. Secondly, they just didn't see, when they tried it for the first time, how they could sing this.
Leaving aside the issue of why decent, normal schoolkids from multicultural backgrounds in a city that considers itself the capital of Europe should recoil in horror at the notion of using another language - they did it. They fought and grumbled and one stormed out. But they did it. They learned the Cantique, took it to China and sang it from memory. First, they sang it to their mums, who couldn't believe their ears. At the contest, the choir didn't get through to the second round, but they'd had an experience that moved them to bits and will stay with them forever. None of them had had the first notion of classical music before this. They assumed it was 'a bit boring' and not for them.
And the long-term effects? One, the shy Chloe, had found the confidence to sail out of school into a job that involved giving presentations. She'd found she prefers singing classical music to pop - she couldn't put her finger on why, but said "it feels good" (or something like that). One boy who'd never sung before was at college and wanting to form his own band. A lively blonde missed the choir so much that she went out and joined another. A 13-year-old was now singing in his church choir and loving it. And one boy - the one who'd thrown the tantrum - said: "Even people who couldn't spell classical before are into it now."
Tasmin started her Naked Violin project by wondering what it would take to get music through to people. This programme made clear that one thing it takes is opportunity; another is a little effort, on everyone's parts. The rewards for that effort? Immeasureable.
BBC TV now has an 'iplayer' facility, which I hadn't anticipated using...but you can see programmes online for 7 days after they've been screened. So here is this one.
I ended up in tears.
The kids had prepared two numbers for the competition: 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and Faure's 'Cantique de Jean Racine'. Faure?! They were stumped. First, the competition stipulated that one song had to be in a foreign language. Secondly, they just didn't see, when they tried it for the first time, how they could sing this.
Leaving aside the issue of why decent, normal schoolkids from multicultural backgrounds in a city that considers itself the capital of Europe should recoil in horror at the notion of using another language - they did it. They fought and grumbled and one stormed out. But they did it. They learned the Cantique, took it to China and sang it from memory. First, they sang it to their mums, who couldn't believe their ears. At the contest, the choir didn't get through to the second round, but they'd had an experience that moved them to bits and will stay with them forever. None of them had had the first notion of classical music before this. They assumed it was 'a bit boring' and not for them.
And the long-term effects? One, the shy Chloe, had found the confidence to sail out of school into a job that involved giving presentations. She'd found she prefers singing classical music to pop - she couldn't put her finger on why, but said "it feels good" (or something like that). One boy who'd never sung before was at college and wanting to form his own band. A lively blonde missed the choir so much that she went out and joined another. A 13-year-old was now singing in his church choir and loving it. And one boy - the one who'd thrown the tantrum - said: "Even people who couldn't spell classical before are into it now."
Tasmin started her Naked Violin project by wondering what it would take to get music through to people. This programme made clear that one thing it takes is opportunity; another is a little effort, on everyone's parts. The rewards for that effort? Immeasureable.
BBC TV now has an 'iplayer' facility, which I hadn't anticipated using...but you can see programmes online for 7 days after they've been screened. So here is this one.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Naked Violin update
Tasmin's Naked Violin has a deservedly glowing review in today's Times. Meanwhile she is happy to report more than 120,000 hits and a terabyte of downloads so far. She assures me that a terabyte is not a species of dinosaur.
Wilhelm Furtwangler...
...was born on 25 January 1886.
Here he is conducting the overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger in Berlin in 1942, complete with banners.
Worth seeing, too, the Istvan Szabo film based on Ronald Harwood's play Taking Sides, a chilling tale of the victimisation of Furtwangler by a pig-ignorant deNazifying American official after the war (and btw includes a delectable few moments of Rini Shaham singing jazz).
Also would like to refer you to Tony Palmer's documentary The Salzburg Festival: A brief history (it's the better part of three hours long) in which the director interviews Mrs Furtwangler. She recounts that her husband stayed in Germany during the war because it was threatened that if he left, his entire orchestra would be disbanded, drafted and sent to certain death the Front.
Please fasten your seatbelts for an uncomfortable few minutes.
Here he is conducting the overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger in Berlin in 1942, complete with banners.
Worth seeing, too, the Istvan Szabo film based on Ronald Harwood's play Taking Sides, a chilling tale of the victimisation of Furtwangler by a pig-ignorant deNazifying American official after the war (and btw includes a delectable few moments of Rini Shaham singing jazz).
Also would like to refer you to Tony Palmer's documentary The Salzburg Festival: A brief history (it's the better part of three hours long) in which the director interviews Mrs Furtwangler. She recounts that her husband stayed in Germany during the war because it was threatened that if he left, his entire orchestra would be disbanded, drafted and sent to certain death the Front.
Please fasten your seatbelts for an uncomfortable few minutes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)