"Always in love": Great Dane bounds into the BBC

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales has just announced that its new principal conductor from September 2012 will be the young Danish maestro Thomas Søndergård. He has an impressive track record, having been principal conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra - and by all accounts the heat is on. Forget Nordic cool with this guy around. Critics have already spoken of his "piercing intelligence and intense passion" and called him "a sensation". I'm looking forward to seeing him in action - and another Thomas not many miles from here, being a fluent Danish speaker, will no doubt bound in at the first possible opportunity for a man-to-man conversation that the rest of us can't understand. In the picture: Søndergård with some of the BBCNOW principal players. Meanwhile, here's a little Q&A from the orchestra, in which their new top man says he is always in love...

Q: What are you most looking forward to about your new role with BBC National Orchestra of Wales?

TS: I am really look forward to getting to know the orchestra better and exploring new music as well as the great standard repertoire with them.

Q: Who are your favourite composers and why?

TS: It varies, of course, but I have always greatly admired Sibelius.  His symphonies give me such pleasure to work with - especially the final two; 6 and 7. Number 7 will always have a special place in my heart; to be able to describe the array of life's emotions - magic, sorrow, joy etc. - in just 20 minutes is quite extraordinary, and what's more he does it in such a personal way. I recently discovered that he finishes the symphony with a harmonic reference to his own "Valse triste". I am also interested in the contemporary repertoire and that of B. Tommy Andersson and Magnus Lindberg are among my absolute favourites.

Q: What is your favourite moment in your career so far?

TS: In my former years as a percussionist, I performed Mahler's Symphony No.9 twice with EUYO and Haitink in the Concertgebouw, where I stepped in for a player with a broken leg. I was there visiting my friends and Haitink saw me in the rehearsal studying the score, and asked me to step in. I only had a small part to play but this worked out better for me - as it meant I could watch Haitink all the more closely. There was an incredible contact between him and the orchestra. It was the last project for many of the players and the music-making from all was just so touching; we all knew that we would never experience anything like it again in our lives.

Q: Do you enjoy any other styles of music other than classical and if so, what?

TS: I grew up listening to Modern Jazz which I love, and I started listening to Salsa 20 years ago - it's great at parties!

Q: What are your hobbies and interests?

TS: I can quite easily travel long distances just to eat good food. I also love to swim in the sea all year round - and if I can combine the two of them... heaven!

Q: Who in the classical music world do you most admire?

TS: Paavo Berglund means a lot to me - he's conducted me many times. I've learnt so much from watching him working, particularly with string sound and phrasing.

Q: Which six words best describe you?

TS: Passionate, enthusiastic, happy, curious, communicative and…always in love!

And now it's farewell to Roland Petit

My friends at The Ballet Bag have just tweeted news from Le Figaro of the death of the great French choreographer Roland Petit, at the age of 87. Here is his full obituary (in French), also from Le Figaro. UPDATE: And here is Ismene Brown's, in English at The Arts Desk.

Chic yet daring, classic yet acrobatic, cool yet sometimes emotionally devastating, Petit's work achieved both notoriety and immortality. Though it's sad to report yet another death this week, it's a good reason to watch Rudolf Nureyev and Zizi Jeanmaire in Petit's iconic ballet Le jeune homme et la mort, choreographed to Bach's Passacaglia in C minor and based on a libretto by Jean Cocteau. Meanwhile, speaking of French playwrights, I'm half dreaming of the conversation my father-in-law's spirit could be having with those of Josef Suk and Roland Petit up in the waiting room...

Bravo, Benjamin

Benjamin Grosvenor's first CD for Decca is out on Monday. It consists of a Chopin selection, some unusual Liszt and Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. And it's to die for.

Benjamin's 'Ondine' is the most tender, gorgeous and underwatery account imaginable; his Chopin Scherzi turn up all manner of unexpected, glittery-dark facets and deep-buried stores of gunpowder; the limpid Liszt and the Chopin nocturnes invite you to sink into their silky textures. The magic is partly a mixture of Benjamin's touch, his sensitivity and intelligence and his sheer intuition for how to point a detail, curl a phrase, finish the garnishing with flare; and partly it's the fact that he has a sonic imagination that is absolutely instinctual, way beyond his years, one that knocks the spots off many aspiring artists who are older than he is and have won prizes that he doesn't need. It's playing that can make you hold your breath, smile, laugh and cry, each within moments of the last. It's playing of which you might declare "Ah, they don't make 'em like this any more..." if the pianist in question weren't just 19 (and he was still 18 at the time of recording).

Are we talking about someone who could, if fate allows, in future reach even the level of a Zimerman or an Uchida? I don't know, but it's not impossible. Though of course he is nothing like either of them. He's already his own man, with a sound that speaks with a unique voice.

Here's Decca's preview. The black and white filming is apposite, as is Benjamin's backward glance at the end; these features echo the Golden Age influence in his approach, the inspiration of pianists from another era. Roll over, British tennis and its losers - let's start celebrating instead the fact that the next truly great artist of the piano might just be a lad from Southend-on-Sea.

If Chopin had had Skype...

Nohant, deep in the countryside of the Loire region of France, used to be home to George Sand and, at select moments, also her lover, Frederic Chopin. Guests would have included the leading artists, writers and musicians of their day - not least (of special interest to me) Ivan Turgenev and Pauline Viardot. But today Nohant is home to a music festival and welcomes a whole raft of 21st-century musical luminaries instead.

Last Monday the Nohant Festival was planning to honour the great American pianist Byron Janis, who made some of the most stunning recordings I've had the good fortune to hear of repertoire including Chopin and Rachmaninov. Tragically he had to stop performing after developing psoriatic arthritis in both hands in the 1970s, though he kept on as long as the condition would allow. Now he is 83.

He couldn't go to Nohant after all, stricken with inflammation in a sciatic nerve. Cue wonders of modern technology. They hooked Janis up via Skype instead for an interview with the festival president, Yves Henry. The occasion was a screening of a new film by the award-winning director Peter Rosen, The Byron Janis Story.

And that should be quite a story: for one thing, Janis studied with Horowitz for four years; for another, among the accolades that have come his way include being the first American artist to be sent to the USSR in 1960, opening the first cultural exchange between the two Cold War adversaries. Incidentally, his wife, Maria, is the daughter of the actor Gary Cooper.

Even more intriguing, though, is the news that Janis has recently published his autobiography. The title?  CHOPIN AND BEYOND: MY EXTRAORDINARY LIFE IN MUSIC AND THE PARANORMAL. Investigate book and CD further, right here. 

I can't help wondering what Chopin would be doing if he were alive today and had access to Skype, film-making, et al. I suspect he would shun the lot of them. While Liszt would take copious advantage of it all, would be tweeting happily ("@SandAuthor thx 4 glorious w/end chez vous, how goes w Little ChipChip, hugz, Fxx") and would probably have a TV series to himself, Chopin would be one of those artists who'd pitch up out of the blue from time to time to give a recital unannounced in some out-of-the-way spot to which his aficionados would flock, alerted by word of mouth only.
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The festival winds up on Sunday with a recital by Helene Tysman.

Stars, Night, Music and Light...

That's the title of the new piece by Judith Weir that will open the Proms next Friday. Today's Arts & Books cover feature in the Independent is my take on this year's Proms, rounding up some highlights and asking Roger Wright about a few of the hows and whys.

It's also vital to point out that as there's a real risk the Proms will be heavily slashed, along with the rest of the BBC, a few years down the line, this year is the time to get down to South Kensington and show our love and support. Happy to say that at time of blogging we're on the website's front page. Enjoy.

Today the paper also carries a comment piece I wrote the other day about the Opera North and Beached controversy. Yesterday morning, of course, we got the news that it's all been sorted and the opera is going ahead, if a tad tweaked, but this arrived too late for the print deadline. It's jolly nice to know that the story has a happy ending. (Just so you know I know, and I know you know I know.) Opera North has asked me to point out additionally that the mentioned £100,000 does not relate solely to Beached, but to the company's entire two-year residency in Bridlington.