Had a good trip recently?

Violinist David Garrett fell down some stairs and smashed his Strad, the 'San Lorenzo'. Ouch.

Perhaps I'm thick or something, but I hadn't come across this guy before. The article in yesterday's Indy linked above says he's one of the country's foremost young performers, previously a child prodigy and now 'the David Beckham of the violin' (hmm, given the photo I'd say that's being unfair - he's actually rather dishier, n'est-ce-pas? And playing the violin is a far sexier thing to do than screwing up the penalty shootout....[fanfanfan]). Of course, it's not impossible that the reason I haven't heard him play is that he does stadiums, and I don't tend to go to them, preferring the up-close-and-personal experience of places like the dear old Wiggy. Sample the video on his site and don't be put off by the woolly hat - in the interview he says he's a disciple of Ida Haendel.

Guess what, his new album 'Virtuoso' is being released in the UK on 24 March. It also turns out that he's at the Barbican tonight. Playing, uh, Valentine's Day Love Classics (ie, the Bruch) with the London Concert Orchestra and conductor Robert Stapleton, promoted by Raymond Gubbay.

I don't recommend breaking your violin, ever, for any reason - but hey, it's great publicity, and the timing couldn't have been handier.

On other occasions, I regret to say I've come across fiddlers (no names) who've had reason to collect on the insurance on their valuable instruments and enjoyed the resultant pleasant change of lifestyle.

Yours truly, being a confirmed fiddle fetishist, is now heading for a cold shower. Happy Valentine's Day to one and all.

Aw, shuks

After being overwhelmed by the wisdom of Barenboim on Newsnight - yes, real coverage of a real classical artist on a real current affairs programme is still possible, just - this Britblogger is overwhelmed all over again by discovering a tribute from Opera Chic, blog skyrocket style guru from Milan! Aw, shuks... Well, that's the first and last time my picture will ever share a screen with 'PregsTrebs'.

The actual publication date is 6 March, but Solti insisted on posing with the book as soon as it plopped onto the doormat.

New arrival!

The new book, hot off the press...

Beethoven's Messiah?

Michael Church writes an ecstatic review in today's Indy of Barenboim's latest recital in his Beethoven Sonatas cycle at the RFH. I apologise for not being able to write one myself, but actually I can't get IN, having not planned ahead. I'm simply not used to a situation where you cannot get a ticket for a piano recital in the Royal Festival Hall for love or money.

Michael writes:

If Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas are classical music's New Testament, Daniel Barenboim is turning us all into his disciples. Special seating has been installed for those queuing for returns, and the standing ovations are extraordinary: these things usually start with a few groupies, then others gradually haul themselves up, but with Barenboim, the whole hall is on its feet in a trice. And I can't recall a musical series with so many big- and small-screen stars attending night after night. This disarmingly modest man has become a cultural messiah.

Apart from the fact that I wouldn't really describe Barenboim as 'disarmingly modest' (having interviewed him a couple of times), what I can't quite get my head around is the idea that this is being regarded as something new. I learned all the Beethoven sonatas - by ear - as an insomniac teenage piano-nut with a turntable, headphones and the LPs of Barenboim's Complete Beethoven Sonatas on EMI, recorded back in the late 1960s. Our Danny was in his twenties. They are stupendous. When I wasn't listening to him, I was listening to Schnabel, who was also revelatory - but it was Barenboim who grabbed the imagination's heart-strings from note no.1; somehow one sensed his identification with every aspect of Beethoven, from the profound mysticism to the humour, from the personal tragedy to the great humanitarian idealism. And now, if Beethoven is the most idealistic composer who ever lived, he could have no better match than Barenboim.

If you can't get into the concerts, just have a listen to those discs.

UPDATE: Wednesday, 9.15am: Intermezzo offers some advice on how to (try to) get in.

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)