Proms 2013: Hear 7 Wagner Operas for £5 Each

You'll need sandiwches, water, strong shoes and even stronger legs - those operas are loooong - but where else in the world can you go to the complete Ring cycle conducted by Daniel Barenboim and starring Nina Stemme, plus Tristan und Isolde, Tannhauser and Parsifal, each with major Wagnerian superstars at the helm, and stand just a few metres from the performers, and pay only £5 a time? Yes, the Proms are back and this is one great whopper of a Wagner anniversary season.

There's some Verdi - though no complete operas (apparently this is down to it's-just-how-things-turned-out, rather than any Wagner-is-best conspiracy, before you ask). And a more than fair pop at Britten, including Billy Budd from Glyndebourne. Fans of Granville Bantock, Walton, Rubbra, George Lloyd and Tippett could also be quite happy with this year's line-up.

The glass ceiling is shattering nicely as Marin Alsop takes the helm for the Last Night, becoming the first woman ever to conduct it. Better late than never, and she is a brilliant choice for the task.

Guest artists on the Last Night include Joyce DiDonato and Nigel Kennedy. Nige will be appearing earlier in the season too, playing the good old Four Seasons with his own Orchestra of Life plus the Palestine Strings, which consists of young players from the Edward Said National Conservatories of Music. Lots of piano treats as well - soloists to hear include Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the terrific duo of Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott, Daniil Trifonov in the rarely-heard Glazunov Piano Concerto No.2 and Imogen Cooper and Paul Lewis playing Schubert's Grand Duo for piano duet in a late-night Prom.

There's one thing, though, that sent me into meltdown. Leafing through the listings, one turns to 6 August and out leap the words KORNGOLD: SYMPHONY IN F SHARP. I've waited 30 years for this. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's one and only full-blown symphony is coming to the Proms at long, long last. It is being performed by the BBC Philharmonic under John Stogårds. And guess what? I'm supposed to be away on holiday on 6 August. If that isn't the Law of Sod, then what is?

Meanwhile we're promised more TV coverage of the Proms than ever before, and plenty of stuff online, and the invaluable iPlayer to help with catching up. But really, there's no substitute for being there. If you've never been, get a taste of it in the launch film above. Book your tickets now.

Full listings here.

SIR COLIN DAVIS, 1927 - 2013

Sir Colin Davis has died at the age of 85. 

Goodnight, dear maestro. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Some memorials from JDCMB:

The big interview: http://jessicamusic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/when-jd-met-sir-colin-davis.html

Elgar Violin Concerto centenary performance with Nikolai Znaider & the LSO, 10 November 2010

Music, museums and a wake-up call

The habit of many musicians, administrators and other pundits to say that classical music mustn't be a "museum culture" (or words to that effect) has been bugging me. This week alone I've seen such phrases trotted out in interviews with two people whose work I greatly admire - novelist and Sunken Garden librettist David Mitchell, and even Jonas Kaufmann in the German article I linked to the other day. 

I have a think-piece in The Independent today (written before I saw either the Mitchell piece or the Kaufmann one) about why we should rethink this old cliche. Museums are doing rather well. Doesn't anyone ever go to one? 

I have a Tate Buddy. We go to Bankside, have a cuppa gazing out at the best view in London, then dip into all manner of fascinating exhibitions or the permanent collection. We never leave without learning something new. That's part of the point: to discover something, to learn about it, to find your brain and spirit stirred by fresh ideas. It doesn't matter if you go in thinking you know nothing about whatever-it-is, because you will by the time you go home. It's sad to think of the number of people who shy away from trying a concert because they think they don't know enough about it... And at the Tate, the gallery itself is part of the treat; walking through it, you sense the pride that is taken in its sleek contemporary expertise. Contrast that with the recent Royal Albert Hall experience described in the article.

Speaking of the Tate, I went to the premiere last night of Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden, which wouldn't look out of place there. More of that later.

RPS Awards promise a fine vintage for 2012

I was on BBC Radio 3's In Tune yesterday, talking to Sean Rafferty about the just-announced shortlist for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards. It's chock-full of great people and projects, with what seems an unusually high quotient of British nominees - the legacy of the London 2012 Olympics, I suspect. And proof, as if it were needed, that if you invest £s in culture, as in sport, you can get some extremely good results. British artists really had a chance to shine last year. Vital not to forget this now that that particular heady bonanza is gone. A fitting treat, too, for the RPS, which celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2013. UK listeners can hear the programme here for 6 more days.

Full RPS Awards shortlist is here. Highlights include a Singers shortlist of Sarah Connolly, Alice Coote, Bryan Hymel and Bryn Terfel, Conductors Kirill Karabits, Andris Nelsons and Richard Farnes, Composers established and new, Operas highly contemporary, and many more projects with a plethora of Olympic and educational associations. Daniil Trifonov puts in a particularly welcome appearance on the Young Artists shortlist.

"If they start shooting, whatever you do, don't leave the synthesizer behind"

Fasten your seatbelts: in Gramophone, the Russian pianist Rustem Hayroudinoff has spilled the beans about his studies at the Moscow Conservatoire in the last days of the USSR.

It's a hair-raising read: from what eight-year-olds had to do in rhythm classes - it could make the UK's Grade VIII examiners blanch - to queuing for practice rooms at 5am in -30 degrees, plus the restaurant band job that Rustem turned down after learning the vocation of the clientele (the quote in our heading gives you a clue). Immense demands, yet equally gargantuan rewards: for all its challenges, this was the best musical training on earth.

If you've been through typical British school and college musical studies, you might be pretty sobered to consider the level of expertise that Moscow expected of its students. No wonder they tended to wipe the floor with everyone else at competitions...

Not to put too fine a point on it, it makes most of us look like complete amateurs (nothing wrong with being an amateur, of course - unless you want to be a professional.)

Rustem's CDs have often grabbed five star reviews and some of his Rachmaninov recordings have become "benchmarks" for BBC Music Magazine, which shortlisted him for its Instrumental award a couple of years back. But he doesn't give that many recitals, so a chance to hear him isn't to be sniffed at. This Saturday Rustem plays at St John's Smith Square.

He introduces the programme himself from the microphone. It's focused on contrasts between JS and CPE Bach, Liszt's devilish and saintly modes, and Rachmaninov's extraordinary Sonata No.1, which is based on the 'Faust' legend but is rarely performed, compared to the Sonata No.2 (possibly because it's too difficult!). Do come and hear him.

More about Rustem from the Cross-Eyed Pianist blog here: a frank, ferocious chat in which he doesn't mince his words about the music business in general...

Here's an interview, an extract of the Rachmaninov Sonata No.1 and an Etude-Tableau, from Canadian radio: