LPO 08-09 season

George's comment on the 41 Hours post, asking about the LPO programming for the 08-09 season, is timely. He wants to know why Vladimir Jurowski has scheduled works he's conducted recently such as the Tchaikvsoky Pathetique and the Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances.

I may be closish to my orchestra-in-law (does this make Vladimir my principal-conductor-in-law?) but I'm not privy to their decision-making processes. In the speeches at the launch, however, Vladimir and MD Tim Walker announced that one important theme in the season will be Tchaikovsky, the influences upon him and his influence on his successors. I guess you can't do that without those two works. The crucial thing, it seems, is hearing them in a different context, coming to the music from an alternative vantage point that can change the way you listen to it.

But if you think that the new season will only be about repeating war-horses, you'd better think again, fast. Here is a selection of VJ's other Festival Hall programmes:

24 September (season opening):
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.8
Mark-Anthony Turnage: Mambo, Blues and Tarantella - Violin Concerto (world premere) (with Christian Tetzlaff)
Ligeti: Atmospheres
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

27 September
Strauss: Metamorphosen
Hartmann: Gesangsszene (with Matthias Goerne)
Brahms: Symphony No.2

25 October
Tchaikovsky: Iolanta (complete, concert performance)

18 February
Vladimir Martynov: Vita Nuova (world premiere of complete opera)(with Tatiana Mongarova and Mark Padmore)
Martynov says: 'Dante's Vita Nuova is not a text about love. It is a text about text about love. Likewise, my opera Vita Nuova is not just an opera. It is an opera about the history of opera as the most important genre in European culture. It goes back even beyond the earliest operas to reveal the genre's historical prototype - a medieval miracle, but dressed in the alluring beauty of high-Romantic operatic language'.

22 April
Kancheli: Another Step
Yusupov: Cello Concerto (UK premiere)
Silvestrov: Symphony No.5

31 May
Mahler: Totenfeier
Mendelssohn: Symphony No.5
Torsten Rasch: Mein Hernz brennt (UK Premiere)

Something for the weekend

Serge Gainsbourg and friends playing 'All the things you are' in 1964. Oh yes - Serge Gainbourg was one hell of a fantastic jazz pianist. I love his style, the atmosphere of intimacy and friendship, the caress of the keys as he ends the piece...

If only this was what music-making could be all about, a little more often, a little more now.

Nice news...

...that my novel Hungarian Dances has been accepted for a Dutch edition by De Kern, the publisher in Holland that has already brought out Alicia's Gift (as Wonderkind). Of course there's only one language I find more difficult than Dutch and that is, er, Hungarian...
:-)

Meet Alex Prior...

...if you haven't already. The British prodigy of Russian ancestry and inclination is a very busy lad. Here's my piece about him - and prodigydom - from today's Independent. The online version includes a video clip from his new ballet, Mowgli, which he's just been conducting (yes, conducting at the tender age of 15) in Moscow.

I haven't quite worked out how they could call the performance on Sunday the 'official world premiere' when the thing has already been performed, last summer, but that's publicity for you. Or someone. On the strength of the video, the ballet seems unlikely to set up in competition with Disney or The Lion King, but the rate at which young Alex is churning out music is absolutely amazing. The real test will be what he's doing when he's twice, or three times, his current age.

Parenting, plus good teaching, is what helps any child prodigy to sink or swim; it cannot be otherwise. Almost a hundred years ago, a boy from Vilna (now Vilnius, capital of Lithuania) named Jascha Heifetz made his debut at the age of seven; he grew up to be (arguably) the best violinist of the 20th century. He said: "Child prodigism – if I may coin a word – is a disease which is generally fatal. I was among the few to have the good fortune to survive." Many haven't been so lucky...

Events of the last 41 hours

* ... Christian Tetzlaff's E string broke in the first bar of the Brahms Violin Concerto finale chez LPO/Jurowski on Saturday night. He zipped off the stage to change the string rather than grabbing Boris the leader's fiddle. Apart from that, the best Brahms concerto I've heard in 20 years.

* A mobile phone going off in the last bar of the Tchaikovsky Pathetique in same concert. Vladimir held up his baton after the basses reached the end and maintained silence until the ringing expired. It became the spookiest moment of a staggering performance - almost like the death of Tchaikovsky's own phone.

* A study-day on Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at the QEH yesterday. Included the very first screening of a new film about its origin, entitled 'The Charm of Impossibility'. Fabulous. I urge all Messiaen fans to see it if and when they get the chance.

* A quiz at the Royal Opera House in aid of the National Youth Orchestra, at which the great and good of the musical world, including the national broadsheet newspapers, the National Theatre, the ROH, a bunch of 'Maestri', BBC Radio 3, the Barbican, etc, buy tables, build teams and compete against one another. Now a well-established annual highlight, though this was the first time I'd taken part. The Guardian won again (it usually does), even though its editor is chairman of the NYO and organises the shebang. It was b****y difficult, too, heavily biased in favour of those who know how to handle early music, Britten and crosswords.

* Heard extract of Jonas Kaufmann's long-awaited new operatic aria disc on the radio. Meistersinger Prize Song - taken so slowly and rendered so sentimental that all the stuffing fell out. It was positively painful - and a terrible disappointment to those of us who were trying so effortlessly to love him.

* Hubby's departure on tour to Toulouse and Spain at 5am today.

* The news, fresh from Opera Chic, that Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott are pregnant!!

Blimey. Time for a trip to the gym and a stiff g&t.