Mendelssohn is 200!

It's Mendelssohn day! Over at BBCR3 Felixcitations I have borrowed the JDCMB Cyberposhplace and the Virtualvintagechampers and Felix is holding a party, which the virtualcybercontrollers are providing free of charge on condition that we are allowed to see his trans-spiritual-dimensional guest-list in advance. UPDATE: The post is now up, and open for suggestions of who else he could ask. Drop in for some cyberbubble!

Meanwhile, here are three musicians who should definitely be there: Arthur Rubinstein, Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz. Turn up the sound now and wallow in their glorious playing of the first movement of the D minor piano trio.

(Apropos de Heifetz, yesterday was his birthday. It was also Fritz Kreisler's. I am vaguely pondering what possible astrological connection there could be between the two greatest geniuses of 20th-century violin playing and, um, Groundhog Day.)

snowgold?

This is our street today. Apparently this is the heaviest snow in these parts for 19 years. You know, dear readers, where I'm meant to be this evening. And you know, too, that it only takes a fraction of this amount of snow to stop all transport in the UK. More precipitation is forecast for this afternoon. Hmm.

UPDATE, 1.50pm: TONIGHT'S PERFORMANCE HAS BEEN CANCELLED. All we have in place of Die tote Stadt is, er, a very dead city.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Also cancelled today is the first night of Jonathan Miller's new production of La Boheme at English National Opera. And several big West End jobs...

UPDATE, THURSDAY MORNING: I will now be attending the DTS performance next Wednesday, 11 February. Weather permitting.

I feel like this sometimes....

Pictures by Jane Burton of unutterably adorable cats, from the Telegraph website. Good light relief for the weekend. Some of us need it.

Decca boss decamps to Sony

Hearing that Bogdan Roscic, MD of the Decca Music Group, is pushing off to become president of Sony Classical reminds me rather of the numerous Poles one sees these days at British airports, heading for flights home. Why would anybody in their right mind (which he is) leave Universal Classics - the big one, the quality one, with JDF, Kaufmann and Bartoli to name but a few - to work for a label that's distinctly less glitzy?

A brief news story in Gramophone carries the ominous sentence: "Decca is being subjected to considerable scrutiny prior to an expected restructure by Universal Music." I know that my estimable readers are just as capable as I am of reading between the lines, so I won't elaborate.

If you're looking for Tote Stadt reviews, please scroll to the update on yesterday's post...

bravo...

Well done, all. Yes, it is of course the making of a grand piano - and The Omniscient Mussel is spot-on. They are bending the frame and clamping it in place.

I took the photo during a tour of the Steinway factory in Hamburg on Monday. Lots of good pics, so I will put them on Facebook as soon as I have a spare moment. The reason for the trip will become apparent in due course!

Love the captions, glad I decided not to give a prize as I wouldn't be able to choose!