After months, nay years, of hoping and hunting, I finally found something I always hoped must exist: film of Distant Cousin Eddy Duchin at the piano with his band, dating from 1936. OK, we could have done without the roller-skaters, but long-lost coz seems adorable: full of charm, fun and musicality.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
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.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
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.
The actual publication date is 6 March, but Solti insisted on posing with the book as soon as it plopped onto the doormat.
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:
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.
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.
Monday, February 11, 2008
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)
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)
Saturday, February 09, 2008
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.
If only this was what music-making could be all about, a little more often, a little more now.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
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...
:-)
:-)
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
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...
Monday, February 04, 2008
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.
* 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.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Classical music goes underground
More and more stations on the London Underground are piping out canned Mahler to calm us all down. Neil Fisher has an article about this in today's Times. Is it about crowd control, banishing yobs or persuading us that our commuting lifestyle is pleasant?
I'm interested in the question of who chooses the music - see later in the piece for info on the 40-hour playlist - not least because I'm convinced he/she has a macabre sense of humour. I was at Vauxhall Station the other week, trekking from South-West Trains to the Victoria line to get into central London, and unfortunately for me it was rush hour. The glum-faced populace plodded en masse at the necessary snail's pace towards the ticket barriers. And what were they playing over the Tanoy? Mahler's Symphony No.1, slow movement.
Yes. Quite.
Quietly, steadily and, if not secretly, then certainly stealthily, London Underground is rolling out a compulsory classical diet. And it's joining a growing group of local authorities, transport companies and even supermarkets across the country. The idea? If we are all stressed out, we need calming down. And if we are antisocial yobs looking to cause some bother and steal Travelcards, we need moving on. Somehow classical music seems to fit the bill in both cases.
Perhaps this is why Brixton is already well used to it, as I discover while the blast of Schubert's Unfinished is throbbing through the ticket office on a Tuesday lunchtime. The station first got plugged in more than four and a half years ago, a test site to see whether the embryonic scheme deserved expansion. Clearly it seemed to do the job; as of the beginning of this year 40 stations have now been equipped with the necessary kit, and they range from the positively genteel (West Brompton) to the Wild East of the District Line - Dagenham, Upton Park - alongside more mixed South London spots such as Balham and Morden.
I'm interested in the question of who chooses the music - see later in the piece for info on the 40-hour playlist - not least because I'm convinced he/she has a macabre sense of humour. I was at Vauxhall Station the other week, trekking from South-West Trains to the Victoria line to get into central London, and unfortunately for me it was rush hour. The glum-faced populace plodded en masse at the necessary snail's pace towards the ticket barriers. And what were they playing over the Tanoy? Mahler's Symphony No.1, slow movement.
Yes. Quite.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
As if winining all those Gramophone awards wasn't enough...
...ace British pianist Stephen Hough has won first prize in a poetry competition!
Read his beautiful prize poem 'Early Rose' here.
UPDATE: 10 Feb 9am...and read Jeremy Denk's priceless response over at Think Denk here!
Read his beautiful prize poem 'Early Rose' here.
UPDATE: 10 Feb 9am...and read Jeremy Denk's priceless response over at Think Denk here!
What Pierre-Laurent said last
When I interviewed Pierre-Laurent Aimard about Messiaen for yesterday's feature, I also asked him what he would say to encourage someone who'd never heard any before to try it. His response wasn't in the piece as printed, but I think it is beautiful:
“Many qualities can make you love this music. You can be touched by its spirituality, transported by its energy, and moved by its overproportioned dimensions; you can be fascinated by its rhythmical life; you can be seduced by the colours and harmonies which lead you to the borders of timbre; you can be absorbed by the multiplicity of inspiration, whether local to different parts of the planet or historical, ranging from ancient music to recent. In the end, every listener can decide which dimension in this accumulation of experience is for him or her the most important. But certainly this music reflects someone who can invite us to open other dimensions in ourselves, from meditation to ecstasy, and to open our ears and minds to a world made of multiplicity.”
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Look what we can do now!
My article previewing the Messiaen Festival at the South Bank is out in The Independent today. The website has just been revamped and I switched on this morning to discover that not only are sound-clips now included amid the text but Youtube video as well. Have a look at it here. Unfortunately there's no clip from the Quartet for the End of Time, which is central to my article, but we can fix that here - see below...
The festival 'From the Canyons to the Stars' opens at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Saturday 2 February with the Ensemble InterContemporain playing the eponymous piece. On Sunday there's a study day about the Quartet featuring a screening of a new French documentary which I'm told includes interviews with those who were there in Stalag VIIIA; there's a round-table discussion in which I will be participating along with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Jonathan Harvey, Robert Scholl, Christian Poltera and the South Bank's Gillian Moore, and the day will finish with the Nash Ensemble playing the work twice (6pm and 9pm). The festival continues until the end of this year - no kidding - and promises to be London's Messiaen Fest of, so to speak, all time.
The festival 'From the Canyons to the Stars' opens at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Saturday 2 February with the Ensemble InterContemporain playing the eponymous piece. On Sunday there's a study day about the Quartet featuring a screening of a new French documentary which I'm told includes interviews with those who were there in Stalag VIIIA; there's a round-table discussion in which I will be participating along with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Jonathan Harvey, Robert Scholl, Christian Poltera and the South Bank's Gillian Moore, and the day will finish with the Nash Ensemble playing the work twice (6pm and 9pm). The festival continues until the end of this year - no kidding - and promises to be London's Messiaen Fest of, so to speak, all time.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Kreisler & Rachmaninov play Grieg
And they win...
This is to mark the anniversary today of Fritz Kreisler's death in 1962. Enjoy.
This is to mark the anniversary today of Fritz Kreisler's death in 1962. Enjoy.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Après moi le déluge?
News from MIDEM in Cannes as reported in The Times today. This covers pop, but what happens to our side of things?
Just think, some of those opera singers and conductors might be forced to reduce their fees, shock horror.
Thoughts, folks?
MEANWHILE, the Arts Council has been forced to say 'er, right, maybe that wasn't our best idea' and is promising a reprieve to some of the groups whose funding it wanted to slash for no immediately obvious reason - this may include the London Mozart Players. We haven't yet seen the name City of London Sinfonia on the list, but are hoping that that is simply an oversight on the part of newspapers that don't know what a chamber orchestra is.
ALSO, from comments received on JDCMB recently, it's obvious that certain people in Philadelphia are still ogling beloved Vladi. He's back here this week, conducting at the RFH on Wednesday. Paws off our maestro!
Just think, some of those opera singers and conductors might be forced to reduce their fees, shock horror.
With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks.
The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies - including EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music – that have chased file-sharers through the courts in a doomed attempt to prevent piracy. The gamble is that fans will put up with a limited amount of advertising around the Qtrax website’s jukebox in return for authorised use of almost every song available.
Thoughts, folks?
MEANWHILE, the Arts Council has been forced to say 'er, right, maybe that wasn't our best idea' and is promising a reprieve to some of the groups whose funding it wanted to slash for no immediately obvious reason - this may include the London Mozart Players. We haven't yet seen the name City of London Sinfonia on the list, but are hoping that that is simply an oversight on the part of newspapers that don't know what a chamber orchestra is.
ALSO, from comments received on JDCMB recently, it's obvious that certain people in Philadelphia are still ogling beloved Vladi. He's back here this week, conducting at the RFH on Wednesday. Paws off our maestro!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
"People who couldn't even spell classical are into it now"
Yesterday, having been warned off the fiddle concerto at the RFH, I spent a happy evening doing something I don't do often: watching TV. Solti fans may know that BBC2 had a documentary about tigers in India...but what caught me off-guard was a follow-up programme to The Choir, a reality TV series following what happened when a choral conductor named Gareth formed a choir at a school in Northolt, north-west London, trained them up and took them to China to enter an international competition. The cameras returned to see where they all are now, as well as recapping on the series for those who'd missed it, like me.
I ended up in tears.
The kids had prepared two numbers for the competition: 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and Faure's 'Cantique de Jean Racine'. Faure?! They were stumped. First, the competition stipulated that one song had to be in a foreign language. Secondly, they just didn't see, when they tried it for the first time, how they could sing this.
Leaving aside the issue of why decent, normal schoolkids from multicultural backgrounds in a city that considers itself the capital of Europe should recoil in horror at the notion of using another language - they did it. They fought and grumbled and one stormed out. But they did it. They learned the Cantique, took it to China and sang it from memory. First, they sang it to their mums, who couldn't believe their ears. At the contest, the choir didn't get through to the second round, but they'd had an experience that moved them to bits and will stay with them forever. None of them had had the first notion of classical music before this. They assumed it was 'a bit boring' and not for them.
And the long-term effects? One, the shy Chloe, had found the confidence to sail out of school into a job that involved giving presentations. She'd found she prefers singing classical music to pop - she couldn't put her finger on why, but said "it feels good" (or something like that). One boy who'd never sung before was at college and wanting to form his own band. A lively blonde missed the choir so much that she went out and joined another. A 13-year-old was now singing in his church choir and loving it. And one boy - the one who'd thrown the tantrum - said: "Even people who couldn't spell classical before are into it now."
Tasmin started her Naked Violin project by wondering what it would take to get music through to people. This programme made clear that one thing it takes is opportunity; another is a little effort, on everyone's parts. The rewards for that effort? Immeasureable.
BBC TV now has an 'iplayer' facility, which I hadn't anticipated using...but you can see programmes online for 7 days after they've been screened. So here is this one.
I ended up in tears.
The kids had prepared two numbers for the competition: 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and Faure's 'Cantique de Jean Racine'. Faure?! They were stumped. First, the competition stipulated that one song had to be in a foreign language. Secondly, they just didn't see, when they tried it for the first time, how they could sing this.
Leaving aside the issue of why decent, normal schoolkids from multicultural backgrounds in a city that considers itself the capital of Europe should recoil in horror at the notion of using another language - they did it. They fought and grumbled and one stormed out. But they did it. They learned the Cantique, took it to China and sang it from memory. First, they sang it to their mums, who couldn't believe their ears. At the contest, the choir didn't get through to the second round, but they'd had an experience that moved them to bits and will stay with them forever. None of them had had the first notion of classical music before this. They assumed it was 'a bit boring' and not for them.
And the long-term effects? One, the shy Chloe, had found the confidence to sail out of school into a job that involved giving presentations. She'd found she prefers singing classical music to pop - she couldn't put her finger on why, but said "it feels good" (or something like that). One boy who'd never sung before was at college and wanting to form his own band. A lively blonde missed the choir so much that she went out and joined another. A 13-year-old was now singing in his church choir and loving it. And one boy - the one who'd thrown the tantrum - said: "Even people who couldn't spell classical before are into it now."
Tasmin started her Naked Violin project by wondering what it would take to get music through to people. This programme made clear that one thing it takes is opportunity; another is a little effort, on everyone's parts. The rewards for that effort? Immeasureable.
BBC TV now has an 'iplayer' facility, which I hadn't anticipated using...but you can see programmes online for 7 days after they've been screened. So here is this one.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Naked Violin update
Tasmin's Naked Violin has a deservedly glowing review in today's Times. Meanwhile she is happy to report more than 120,000 hits and a terabyte of downloads so far. She assures me that a terabyte is not a species of dinosaur.
Wilhelm Furtwangler...
...was born on 25 January 1886.
Here he is conducting the overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger in Berlin in 1942, complete with banners.
Worth seeing, too, the Istvan Szabo film based on Ronald Harwood's play Taking Sides, a chilling tale of the victimisation of Furtwangler by a pig-ignorant deNazifying American official after the war (and btw includes a delectable few moments of Rini Shaham singing jazz).
Also would like to refer you to Tony Palmer's documentary The Salzburg Festival: A brief history (it's the better part of three hours long) in which the director interviews Mrs Furtwangler. She recounts that her husband stayed in Germany during the war because it was threatened that if he left, his entire orchestra would be disbanded, drafted and sent to certain death the Front.
Please fasten your seatbelts for an uncomfortable few minutes.
Here he is conducting the overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger in Berlin in 1942, complete with banners.
Worth seeing, too, the Istvan Szabo film based on Ronald Harwood's play Taking Sides, a chilling tale of the victimisation of Furtwangler by a pig-ignorant deNazifying American official after the war (and btw includes a delectable few moments of Rini Shaham singing jazz).
Also would like to refer you to Tony Palmer's documentary The Salzburg Festival: A brief history (it's the better part of three hours long) in which the director interviews Mrs Furtwangler. She recounts that her husband stayed in Germany during the war because it was threatened that if he left, his entire orchestra would be disbanded, drafted and sent to certain death the Front.
Please fasten your seatbelts for an uncomfortable few minutes.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Bravo Barenboim
Fantastic article by Richard Morrison in today's Times about Daniel Barenboim. Read it here.
Sorry about thin blogging this week. one of those weeks.
Sorry about thin blogging this week. one of those weeks.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
RIP Joan Ingpen
Joan Ingpen, founder of the artists' management agency Ingpen & Williams, has died aged 92. Her fascinating obit is in the Independent today.
Extract:
And what has become of the Williams side of the agency, you may ask? Williams, dear readers, was her dog.
Extract:
She founded Ingpen and Williams in 1946 and for 15 years worked to establish a list that included the singers Hans Hotter, Geraint Evans and Joan Sutherland, and the conductors Rudolf Kempe and Georg Solti. When Solti became music director of Covent Garden in 1961, he asked Ingpen to dispose of her agency and join him at the opera house as controller of planning. After some thought, Ingpen accepted, Howard Hartog took over Ingpen and Williams (which is still flourishing today) and the new administrator began to make her mark almost immediately at Covent Garden.
And what has become of the Williams side of the agency, you may ask? Williams, dear readers, was her dog.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Happy birthday, Chausson!
It's Ernest Chausson's birthday (thanks to Wonderful Webmaster for the reminder!) - 153 today - so here, in two parts, is what is for me probably the ultimate interpretation of the Poeme, played by Georges Enescu. Just audio, but that's all you need.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Enlightenment, please?
JDCMB has had an astonishing number of hits today from people in America doing Google searches on JASCHA HEIFETZ BIRTHPLACE.
I've been there. Here it is, above - photographed during my trip to Vilnius, Lithuania, in June 2005. But why is everyone looking for it now? Have I missed something?
UPDATE, Sunday 11.50am: thank you. Mystery solved: I'm informed that it was a crossword puzzle clue! Mad props to whoever set the crossword.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Tomorrow, Saturday 19 January...
On Saturday 19th, tomorrow evening, I will be interviewing the inimitable John Lill about his life, career and strong views on the state of the musical nation in the pre-concert event at the Royal Festival Hall. Kick-off is at 6.15 and admission is free. Come and say hello!
Later in the evening John is playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.1 and the programme also includes Rachmaninov's Second Symphony (to me the aural equivalent of vodka with chocolate). Roberto Minczuk conducts the London Philharmonic.
Later in the evening John is playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.1 and the programme also includes Rachmaninov's Second Symphony (to me the aural equivalent of vodka with chocolate). Roberto Minczuk conducts the London Philharmonic.
38 seconds of Toscha Seidel
Mad props to Philippe Graffin for sending us a link to this clip showing the utterly incredible violinist Toscha Seidel playing a few tantalizing seconds of a Brahms Hungarian Dance.
Seidel, whose tone could burn down a house, was a one-time rival of Heifetz in the class of the great (Hungarian) teacher Leopold Auer, but I remember hearing once that Heifetz was considered the tough cookie who could survive a heavy-duty international career and was therefore selected for pushing. The results go without saying. Seidel never emerged from his shadow and ended up in Hollywood, where he performed on the soundtrack to Intermezzo (Ingrid Bergman's debut) and recorded Korngold's Much Ado About Nothing suite with the composer. A discussion about Seidel on www.violinist.com, which I've just found, also suggests that he played in a band in Vegas. Oy.
If anyone has access to any more film of Seidel, we slidey violin fans would be forever indebted if you were to post it to Youtube, pleasepleaseplease.
Seidel, whose tone could burn down a house, was a one-time rival of Heifetz in the class of the great (Hungarian) teacher Leopold Auer, but I remember hearing once that Heifetz was considered the tough cookie who could survive a heavy-duty international career and was therefore selected for pushing. The results go without saying. Seidel never emerged from his shadow and ended up in Hollywood, where he performed on the soundtrack to Intermezzo (Ingrid Bergman's debut) and recorded Korngold's Much Ado About Nothing suite with the composer. A discussion about Seidel on www.violinist.com, which I've just found, also suggests that he played in a band in Vegas. Oy.
If anyone has access to any more film of Seidel, we slidey violin fans would be forever indebted if you were to post it to Youtube, pleasepleaseplease.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Bewildered of SW14
Puzzled by news of the stand-off between Russia and the UK over, of all things, the British Council. My own contact with this organisation consisted of two green and pleasant years, some while ago, editing a magazine named Soundings which helped to promote British music of all types and was distributed via BC offices around the world. A nicer, more mild-mannered and traditionally British bunch you couldn't hope to find. I believe that the gentleman who then headed the music section eventually left to become a poet.
Perhaps it's just the old schoolyard story: the quiet, sensitive ones are the easiest targets for the bullies...Otherwise, this could very easily become a latter-day Graham Greene novel.
Meanwhile it looks as if the planned exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870–1925 from Moscow and St. Petersburg, will go ahead, opening on 26 January.
Perhaps it's just the old schoolyard story: the quiet, sensitive ones are the easiest targets for the bullies...Otherwise, this could very easily become a latter-day Graham Greene novel.
Meanwhile it looks as if the planned exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870–1925 from Moscow and St. Petersburg, will go ahead, opening on 26 January.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Little goes large!
Back from hols, missing the sun...but the limelight isn't far away. It's firmly on Tasmin Little, whose free download The Naked Violin went live on Monday and promptly attracted so many hits that it briefly crashed the server. She's going great guns with 12-13,000 downloads per day, articles in most of the papers and music magazines that count (see mine today in The Independent) and masses of radio and TV coverage coming up too. She'll be live on BBC1 on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday at 9am, talking and playing. Don't miss the music itself - download here!
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Tasmin's violin goes naked!
Tasmin Little is hitting the headlines by becoming the first musician (to the best of my knowledge) to give away a recording free online. The project is called The Naked Violin. Radiohead, eat your heart out.
She's recorded three contrasting pieces for solo violin by Bach, Ysaye and Paul Patterson and it will be available to listen or download free of charge from her website from next Monday. She sees this as a new way of getting through to people who might never dare to go into a record shop or walk into a concert hall, but mightn't mind pressing a button on a computer and having a listen. There's an important educational element too - the recording is ideal for use in schools and the website is going to include Tasmin's spoken introductions and suggestions that teachers can use to plan lessons around the three different pieces. And of course you can access the recording anywhere there's internet access, whether in swinging London, darkest Peru or among the reindeer in Lapland.
Two contrasting violins are involved: her Guadagnini of 1757 and the 'Regent' Stradivarius. Listen out for the difference between the instruments, decide which you prefer and why, and let her know via the website!
I'm chuffed to learn, furthermore, that the whole thing sprang from our little busking exercise for The Independent last spring. Playing outside Waterloo Station and seeing who stopped, who didn't and who might have if it had been less cold and windy just there - and especially seeing that every child who passed us wanted to stay and watch - got Tazza thinking about why people who might enjoy music don't actually go to hear live performances. She's hoping to follow up the download recording with a rather unusual tour. Coming soon to a teepee near you.
We'll be covering the project at greater length in the Indy very soon, but meanwhile please bookmark her page and dive in for a listen next week. The Guardian has a piece today (though of course they make a political statement out of it).
She's recorded three contrasting pieces for solo violin by Bach, Ysaye and Paul Patterson and it will be available to listen or download free of charge from her website from next Monday. She sees this as a new way of getting through to people who might never dare to go into a record shop or walk into a concert hall, but mightn't mind pressing a button on a computer and having a listen. There's an important educational element too - the recording is ideal for use in schools and the website is going to include Tasmin's spoken introductions and suggestions that teachers can use to plan lessons around the three different pieces. And of course you can access the recording anywhere there's internet access, whether in swinging London, darkest Peru or among the reindeer in Lapland.
Two contrasting violins are involved: her Guadagnini of 1757 and the 'Regent' Stradivarius. Listen out for the difference between the instruments, decide which you prefer and why, and let her know via the website!
I'm chuffed to learn, furthermore, that the whole thing sprang from our little busking exercise for The Independent last spring. Playing outside Waterloo Station and seeing who stopped, who didn't and who might have if it had been less cold and windy just there - and especially seeing that every child who passed us wanted to stay and watch - got Tazza thinking about why people who might enjoy music don't actually go to hear live performances. She's hoping to follow up the download recording with a rather unusual tour. Coming soon to a teepee near you.
We'll be covering the project at greater length in the Indy very soon, but meanwhile please bookmark her page and dive in for a listen next week. The Guardian has a piece today (though of course they make a political statement out of it).
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Tannhäuser in Paris
I write up Tannhäuser in Paris for the Indy, but what appeared in print was heavily cut. Here is the full version. (You can hear a broadcast of the show on France Musique on 9 February.)
It’s Christmas in Paris, and Venus saunters onto the Bastille stage in the first bars of Wagner’s overture, stark naked. While British audiences were shoehorned into endless Nutcrackers, the French capital hotly anticipated a season highlight in Robert Carsen’s new production of Tannhäuser, the Paris Opera’s first since 1984, which opened on 6 December – but the first performances were semi-staged due to a strike by stagehands. It wasn’t until later that the full monty was unfurled. And it was worth waiting for.
Re-settings of operas that actually work are rare, but the transformation of Tannhäuser into a radical artist creating a scandal succeeds because it enhances the work’s core issues: sex versus spirituality (or prudishness), progressive art versus the establishment. How appropriate, too, for Paris, the city of Manet – whose ‘Dejeuner sur l’herbe’ adorns the programme – and the territory where Tannhäuser caused a comparable scandal in 1861, albeit because the Jockey Club objected to the lack of a ballet in the second act.
The ballet appears, instead, right after the overture, in the Venusberg – the realm of the senses inhabited by the goddess of love – and this time the Jockey Club members wouldn’t have known what had hit them. The nude Venus, Tannhäuser’s model, drapes herself across a mattress while he paints her in a frenzy, aided and abetted by a crowd of male dancers who portray the wild, messy confluence of creativity and sex in an orgy of scarlet paint.
Act II’s song contest is transformed with great aplomb into a painting competition in a posh gallery; the artists’ songs introduce the unveiling of their paintings (which the audience never sees). Symbolism returns for Act III, when the conventional, uptight Elisabeth – who alone understands Tannhäuser’s art but is fatally wounded by his sexual betrayal – takes off her dress, lets down her hair and begins to merge with the image of Venus. Tannhäuser, refused absolution by the Pope, returns from his pilgrimage seeking the Venusberg instead, but now Elisabeth and Venus mingle as he learns to integrate their opposing qualities in his work. And with the final chorus comes Tannhäuser’s salvation: his canvas is hung among the most famous and scandalous nudes in the history of art.
The American heldentenor Stephen Gould is a towering hunk as Tannhäuser, his voice as powerful as his presence. His Elisabeth is Eva-Maria Westbroek, her ‘Dich, teure Halle’ delivered from the front of the stalls with a heart-lifting combination of natural radiance and vocal ease. Exquisite richness of tone from the mezzo-soprano Béatrice Uria-Monzon as Venus and superb performances from Franz-Josef Selig as Hermann and the substantial chorus.
Most unforgettable, though, is Matthias Goerne as Tannhäuser’s friend Wolfram, portraying a generous yet introverted soul tortured by unrequited love for Elisabeth. Goerne’s magical phrasing, charcoal-soft baritone and gut-wrenching inwardness make him unique at the best of times, but it would have been worth the journey to Paris just to hear him sing Wolfram’s Song to the Evening Star. Meanwhile under Seiji Ozawa’s mercurial baton, the orchestral playing was full of élan, and proved unfailingly sensitive to the singers. Christmas crackers for grown-ups don’t come much better than this.
It’s Christmas in Paris, and Venus saunters onto the Bastille stage in the first bars of Wagner’s overture, stark naked. While British audiences were shoehorned into endless Nutcrackers, the French capital hotly anticipated a season highlight in Robert Carsen’s new production of Tannhäuser, the Paris Opera’s first since 1984, which opened on 6 December – but the first performances were semi-staged due to a strike by stagehands. It wasn’t until later that the full monty was unfurled. And it was worth waiting for.
Re-settings of operas that actually work are rare, but the transformation of Tannhäuser into a radical artist creating a scandal succeeds because it enhances the work’s core issues: sex versus spirituality (or prudishness), progressive art versus the establishment. How appropriate, too, for Paris, the city of Manet – whose ‘Dejeuner sur l’herbe’ adorns the programme – and the territory where Tannhäuser caused a comparable scandal in 1861, albeit because the Jockey Club objected to the lack of a ballet in the second act.
The ballet appears, instead, right after the overture, in the Venusberg – the realm of the senses inhabited by the goddess of love – and this time the Jockey Club members wouldn’t have known what had hit them. The nude Venus, Tannhäuser’s model, drapes herself across a mattress while he paints her in a frenzy, aided and abetted by a crowd of male dancers who portray the wild, messy confluence of creativity and sex in an orgy of scarlet paint.
Act II’s song contest is transformed with great aplomb into a painting competition in a posh gallery; the artists’ songs introduce the unveiling of their paintings (which the audience never sees). Symbolism returns for Act III, when the conventional, uptight Elisabeth – who alone understands Tannhäuser’s art but is fatally wounded by his sexual betrayal – takes off her dress, lets down her hair and begins to merge with the image of Venus. Tannhäuser, refused absolution by the Pope, returns from his pilgrimage seeking the Venusberg instead, but now Elisabeth and Venus mingle as he learns to integrate their opposing qualities in his work. And with the final chorus comes Tannhäuser’s salvation: his canvas is hung among the most famous and scandalous nudes in the history of art.
The American heldentenor Stephen Gould is a towering hunk as Tannhäuser, his voice as powerful as his presence. His Elisabeth is Eva-Maria Westbroek, her ‘Dich, teure Halle’ delivered from the front of the stalls with a heart-lifting combination of natural radiance and vocal ease. Exquisite richness of tone from the mezzo-soprano Béatrice Uria-Monzon as Venus and superb performances from Franz-Josef Selig as Hermann and the substantial chorus.
Most unforgettable, though, is Matthias Goerne as Tannhäuser’s friend Wolfram, portraying a generous yet introverted soul tortured by unrequited love for Elisabeth. Goerne’s magical phrasing, charcoal-soft baritone and gut-wrenching inwardness make him unique at the best of times, but it would have been worth the journey to Paris just to hear him sing Wolfram’s Song to the Evening Star. Meanwhile under Seiji Ozawa’s mercurial baton, the orchestral playing was full of élan, and proved unfailingly sensitive to the singers. Christmas crackers for grown-ups don’t come much better than this.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Another fruitless nod for Tod
The British 'honours' system appears a closed book at the best of times and probably ought to be thrown clean out of the window; but while we're stuck with it, it continues to cause controversy. Pliable at the Overgrown Path has an excellent post about the veteran British conductor Vernon Handley, who despite having done more to further the cause of British music than probably anybody else alive is still one of the few older UK conductors to be left without a knighthood. This despite a high-profile campaign a year or two ago at Gramophone with a petition named 'Nod for Tod' (we all call Handley 'Tod' for short).
Talking it through with musician friends who are as annoyed about this as I am, we looked at a list of top British conductors and came to one uncomfortable conclusion. Most of 'em went to Cambridge. Tod didn't (he attended Oxford!).
Quite why Cambridge should produce so many successful conductors is a moot point, because you do not learn how to conduct there.
The big exception to the rule is (Sir) Simon Rattle, the best of the lot, who has left the country.
UPDATE: Friday 4 Jan, 9.15pm - Julian Lloyd Webber had an article in yesterday's Telegraph about why there are so few successful British conductors, arguing that the top jobs here always go to foreigners. He's right. He's also right in saying that it's because young conductors are not properly nurtured here.
I reckon that that also explains why the Cambridge brigade gets on. Given that there is no systematic programme for good, serious, high-level musical education for young children in Britain beyond four or five specialist schools and some well-meaning Saturday joints, and nothing except keen amateurdom is seen as desirable in any case (fine in itself, but not for professionals), a would-be anglomaestro can only fall back on experience gained through personal initiative. In Cambridge, any kid who has the drive to do it can book a chapel, put together a student band, stand in front of them and wave the baton. Bingo: experience. This doesn't make them technically adept. Some have gone on to better training chez Musin or Panula. Others haven't. Look at the pedigrees of our resident orchestras' bosses, Jurowski, Salonen and Gergiev, and don't be surprised that we can't compete.
Talking it through with musician friends who are as annoyed about this as I am, we looked at a list of top British conductors and came to one uncomfortable conclusion. Most of 'em went to Cambridge. Tod didn't (he attended Oxford!).
Quite why Cambridge should produce so many successful conductors is a moot point, because you do not learn how to conduct there.
The big exception to the rule is (Sir) Simon Rattle, the best of the lot, who has left the country.
UPDATE: Friday 4 Jan, 9.15pm - Julian Lloyd Webber had an article in yesterday's Telegraph about why there are so few successful British conductors, arguing that the top jobs here always go to foreigners. He's right. He's also right in saying that it's because young conductors are not properly nurtured here.
I reckon that that also explains why the Cambridge brigade gets on. Given that there is no systematic programme for good, serious, high-level musical education for young children in Britain beyond four or five specialist schools and some well-meaning Saturday joints, and nothing except keen amateurdom is seen as desirable in any case (fine in itself, but not for professionals), a would-be anglomaestro can only fall back on experience gained through personal initiative. In Cambridge, any kid who has the drive to do it can book a chapel, put together a student band, stand in front of them and wave the baton. Bingo: experience. This doesn't make them technically adept. Some have gone on to better training chez Musin or Panula. Others haven't. Look at the pedigrees of our resident orchestras' bosses, Jurowski, Salonen and Gergiev, and don't be surprised that we can't compete.
Tasmin plays La Gitana
Here's a little something to brighten your day: Kreisler, played by Tasmin Little and John Lenehan, with strings attached.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
And mad props to...
...Clive Davis in The Times for giving this blog an extremely kind plug in the new year special round-up entitled '2008: Make me a polymath'. Cheers!
Happy new year!
Happy new year, everyone!
Meet my big event of 2008: Hungarian Dances will be out on 6 March in hardback, then in paperback on 7 August. Expect much celebration on JDCMB featuring Bartok, Dohnanyi, Kodaly, not to mention Brahms, Ravel and a lot of fabulous Gypsy fiddling.
A brand-new recording by Philippe Graffin to complement the novel is currently in the planning stages. Watch this space.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
He's got plenty of strings
Sounds worth a trip to Leeds in the middle of winter to see the delectable Jonathan Dove's new opera The Adventures of Pinocchio. Richard Morrison in The Times says:
I'm a great fan of Dove, having fallen madly in love with his community opera Tobias and the Angel when it was first performed in a converted church in Islington a few years back; much enjoyed Flight at Glyndebourne, too. It must have been a tall order to write a Pinocchio since every 5-year-old in this country still knows all the original songs, more than 60 years after the film's release. Pinocchio even pipped Korngold's score for The Sea Hawk to the Oscar post. Not much chance of my going north to hear the new opera at the moment as have to administer lemsips to ailing hubby, but with a reception like that perhaps the Dove will wing its way south before long.
More from composer and librettist about the opera in The Guardian, here.
"Tidings of great joy: a Christmas miracle in Leeds! A modern composer has produced a new opera that is funny, poignant, tuneful, spectacular – and, best of all, stunningly conceived for all the family. To find an opera house full of eight-year-olds, held spellbound throughout a show lasting nearly three hours, is rare enough. To find that discerning adults – and yes, even grizzled old critics – are also grinning from ear to ear at the final curtain is pretty well unprecedented.
This must be Jonathan Dove’s finest hour. The Hackney-based composer has produced some entertaining community and youth-orientated shows over the past couple of decades. But with the help of a delightfully droll libretto from his long-time collaborator, Alasdair Middleton, he has turned Carlo Collodi’s classic fairytale into a surreal wonderland of music-theatre that leaves an indelible impression..."
I'm a great fan of Dove, having fallen madly in love with his community opera Tobias and the Angel when it was first performed in a converted church in Islington a few years back; much enjoyed Flight at Glyndebourne, too. It must have been a tall order to write a Pinocchio since every 5-year-old in this country still knows all the original songs, more than 60 years after the film's release. Pinocchio even pipped Korngold's score for The Sea Hawk to the Oscar post. Not much chance of my going north to hear the new opera at the moment as have to administer lemsips to ailing hubby, but with a reception like that perhaps the Dove will wing its way south before long.
More from composer and librettist about the opera in The Guardian, here.
Friday, December 28, 2007
8 reasons to spend Xmas in Paris
1. At Christmas, London dies, but Paris stays alive and has fun. The Metro runs on 25 December and you can buy flowers, a sandwich or a steaming glass of vin chaud if and when you need to.
2. Nobody insists that you spend 25 December cooking or eating turkey, Brussels sprouts and boiled plum pudding that takes three days to digest. Instead, try a little foie gras, chevre, la bûche de Noël (Xmas log-shaped cake)...
3. You can experience some of the greatest wonders of the artistic world. For example, the Monet Waterlilies in the expertly refitted Orangerie.
4. Another was Matthias Goerne singing 'O du mein holder Abendstern'. There were a number of world-class voices on the vast Bastille stage - not all of them covered in red paint (more about this later) - but when Goerne opens his mouth, you're in another world. He has a unique gift for 'innigkeit' - the more quietly and inwardly he sings, the more it pulps your heart.
5. That's before we mention the orchestra and Seiji Ozawa, or the fabulous Eva-Marie Westbroek, let alone the production by Robert Carsen - a radical reinterpretation of Tannhauser which naturally some people didn't like but which I thought worked an absolute treat. A clue: the programme cover showed Manet's 'Dejeuner sur l'herbe'.
6. The easygoing atmosphere in Paris makes Xmas here in the UK look like one big ridiculous shoe-horn designed to stress the population to crazy levels, forcing them to overspend and binge-drink until their livers and bank accounts pack up. Across La Manche, it's not quite such a big deal.
7. The Eurostar from St Pancras to the Gare du Nord now takes only two and a quarter hours.
8. Paris is Paris. Given a choice, why be anywhere else?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Joyeux noel!
Merry Xmas & happy everything to everyone,
lots of love from me & Tom & Solti.
Back soon.
xxxxxxx
Xmas alternatives
Impending Xmas always causes a few ripples in musical spheres, mainly lousy 'Messiah' performances. Some of us batten down the hatches even if we love the thing, or the inescapable Nutcracker, or Cinderella ('Italian style' as the ROH bills its current Rossini). Anyway, I promised some alternatives, so for starters here are a few things to do.
Read, in The Independent, about Barenboim's plea for proper musical education;
Read this fascinating article from The Times by Dan Rosenberg, searching out Christmas music traditions from rural Sweden to Venezuela;
Also in The Times, experience Richard Morrison in a bad mood at Cecilia Bartoli's Barbican gig and Hilary Finch telling it like it is re Emmenuelle Haim's conducting of Bach and Handel (The One Where Dessay Fails To Show Up).
Tune into a roster of broadcasts of ballet and opera from Covent Garden on the BBC. We are promised:
Romeo and Juliet with Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta, BBC2, Xmas Day, 4.25pm (I was there at the show. It's glorious! Set your video if you haven't finished your turkey in time.)
Carmen starring Anna-Caterina Antonacci and Jonas Kaufmann - BBC2, Boxing Day, 1.45pm;
La fille du regiment, Pelly production with Dessay and Florez, BBC4, 30 December, 7.30pm. Still the best thing I saw all year.
And, if it floats your boat, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, with the Royal Ballet in animal masks, BBC1, New Year's Eve, 1.15pm.
Or come to Paris to see Tannhauser tomorrow (the strike is over). But what has Tannhauser to do with Christmas, you may ask? Nothing! Hooray!
Read, in The Independent, about Barenboim's plea for proper musical education;
Read this fascinating article from The Times by Dan Rosenberg, searching out Christmas music traditions from rural Sweden to Venezuela;
Also in The Times, experience Richard Morrison in a bad mood at Cecilia Bartoli's Barbican gig and Hilary Finch telling it like it is re Emmenuelle Haim's conducting of Bach and Handel (The One Where Dessay Fails To Show Up).
Tune into a roster of broadcasts of ballet and opera from Covent Garden on the BBC. We are promised:
Romeo and Juliet with Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta, BBC2, Xmas Day, 4.25pm (I was there at the show. It's glorious! Set your video if you haven't finished your turkey in time.)
Carmen starring Anna-Caterina Antonacci and Jonas Kaufmann - BBC2, Boxing Day, 1.45pm;
La fille du regiment, Pelly production with Dessay and Florez, BBC4, 30 December, 7.30pm. Still the best thing I saw all year.
And, if it floats your boat, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, with the Royal Ballet in animal masks, BBC1, New Year's Eve, 1.15pm.
Or come to Paris to see Tannhauser tomorrow (the strike is over). But what has Tannhauser to do with Christmas, you may ask? Nothing! Hooray!
Friday, December 21, 2007
WELCOME TO THE JDCMB GINGER STRIPE AWARDS 2007
Today is the Winter Solstice and shortest day of the year, so traditionally (well, two years ago) it became the occasion for our very own virtual music awards ceremony.
Welcome once again to the Cyberposhplace! Please help yourself to a glass of Virtualvintagechampers and the delectable canapes made by our very own Virtualcelebritychef. And now let's have a big round of applause for each and every musician who has touched the hearts of his or her audience during the past 12 months....
Thank you! Quiet, please. Now would the following winners please approach the podium where Sir Georg 'Ginger Stripes' Solti will allow you to stroke his fur coat just this once, and will give you a special prize purr.
Icon of the year: Mstislav Rostropovich, who passed away in April. A hero, an inspiration, and a bloody phenomenal cellist. Without him, the music of the past century wouldn't have taken the shape that it did. Adieu, dear maestro.
Pianists of the year: joint mad props to Marc-Andre Hamelin for his simply staggering recording of Alkan, and Piers Lane, who not only plays like the angel of the Antipodes but has also managed to turn the National Gallery's Myra Hess Day into an annual event. Last but by no means least, a special mention for Pascal Devoyon, whose pages I turned during the Messiaen Visions de l'Amen in St Nazaire. That was quite an experience!
Violinists of the year: Tasmin Little, for an unforgettable performance of Bartok's Solo Sonata a couple of months ago, but also for her gameness and good humour in agreeing to go busking for our Indy feature at just a few hours' notice. Watch out for her very exciting new project in January. And Philippe Graffin, as ever, and not only for commissioning stuff like plays and short stories from me: just hear that tone, that bow arm, those slides! Another interesting project is afoot, too, of which much more next year...
Singer of the year: Juan Diego Florez. What a knockout. What a dreamboat. Especially singing high Cs at the distance of 4 metres (or, even better, across the sofa in the ROH press office interview room).
Youthful artist of the year [NB I disqualify teenagers from this; too many artists are pushed too hard for being too young, so instead...]: the accomplished and adorable cellist Natalie Clein, whose new Elgar recording is happily nothing like Jacqueline du Pre's.
Conductor of the year: Vladimir Jurowski. Yes, again - but there can be no other contender, as far as I'm concerned.
Interviewee of the year: Pinchas Zukerman who declared, tapping my right forefinger, "I always say to my students: 'This is your bank account'." Close seconds: Cecilia Bartoli, Natalie Dessay and Sting (watch this space!).
CD of the year: Terezin, recorded by Anne Sofie von Otter with Bengt Forsberg, Daniel Hope and friends. This is one of the most extraordinary discs that's ever come my way, and the most devastating. Ilse Weber, a young nurse, volunteered to go with the sick children of Terezin to death at Auschwitz so that she could take care of them em route; her songs are the heart of this recording. It's said she sang 'Wiegala' with the children in the gas chamber. The CD also features music by Pavel Haas, Hans Krasa and the solo violin sonata by Erwin Schulhoff, plus some amazing, black-humoured cabaret songs.
Lifetime Achievement Award: British violist Rosemary Nalden, for her work in Soweto with Buskaid. Check back here for a reminder of their glorious appearance at the Proms.
Take a bow, everybody...Thank you. Thank you for your moving, uplifting, inspiring, life-enhancing music-making. You're wonderful. We love you.
And now a few personal highlights of 2007:
Proudest moment: Standing on the RFH platform uttering the words "Welcome to the UK premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane!".
Next-proudest moments: publication of Alicia's Gift; and writing my first play, A Walk Through the End of Time, and seeing it performed in St Nazaire.
Most affecting moment: Attending the world premiere of Nigel Osborne's opera Differences in Demolitions in Mostar, Bosnia.
Most unfortunate moment: there've been a few, but I have managed not to sue anyone.
Biggest sigh of relief: realising that my dubious language skills had only seriously screwed up on one point in my first-ever French interview, with Ouest-France (I got 'journal' et 'magasin' muddled and the result was a lovely romantic article about how I first met Philippe in a violin shop!)
Personality of the year: Joyce Hatto. In one way or another.
Feline of the year: .....[ouch! Solti, get your teeth out of my ankle!].
Man of the year: Erich Wolfgang Korngold. (Sorry, Tom.)
AND ONE MORE VERY SPECIAL PRIZE... WONDERFUL WEBMASTER OF THE YEAR: MAESTRO HORST KOLO!
Cheers!!
Boldog születésnapot, Andras!
Happy birthday today to Andras Schiff, in Hungarian or otherwise. Here he is in a magical performance of his compatriot Bela Bartok's Piano Concerto No.3 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra & Simon Rattle (1997). More of this can be found on Youtube.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
BBC Music Magazine Award shortlists!
The new issue of BBC Music Magazine includes the shortlists for next year's Awards. Visit www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/awards to see the lot, hear extracts and vote for your favourites.
There are some real gems among them and I suspect the decisions aren't going to be easy. (I remember last year's fun and games on the jury with some pleasure, though it was quite hair-raising at the time! But in case you were wondering, they choose a different panel of reviewers each year.) Many of the people-of-the-moment feature prominently - Natalie Dessay leads in two out of three Opera nominations, La Sonnambula and Il trionfo di Tempo e del Disinganno; Mark Padmore soars forth in a Handel disc with The English Concert under Vocal, which category also includes what would be my personal choice for disc of the year, Anne Sofie von Otter's Terezin. And under Chamber it is nice to see a disc by the Nash Ensemble of quintets by Coleridge-Taylor. Meanwhile all the Orchestrals begin with S - Shostakovich, Saint-Saens and Schumann.
And what's this? The biggest photo in the whole section shows none other than Rustem Hayroudinoff, whose Rachmaninov discs on Chandos do keep being compared favourably to Richter's - once more for this one, "equal even to the greatness of Richter," says David Nice - and whose latest, the Etudes-Tableaux Op.33 & 39, has been shortlisted alongside Mitsuko Uchida's Beethoven 'Hammerklavier' and Steven Isserlis's Bach Cello Suites.
I won't have many fingernails left by the time they make the announcements.
There are some real gems among them and I suspect the decisions aren't going to be easy. (I remember last year's fun and games on the jury with some pleasure, though it was quite hair-raising at the time! But in case you were wondering, they choose a different panel of reviewers each year.) Many of the people-of-the-moment feature prominently - Natalie Dessay leads in two out of three Opera nominations, La Sonnambula and Il trionfo di Tempo e del Disinganno; Mark Padmore soars forth in a Handel disc with The English Concert under Vocal, which category also includes what would be my personal choice for disc of the year, Anne Sofie von Otter's Terezin. And under Chamber it is nice to see a disc by the Nash Ensemble of quintets by Coleridge-Taylor. Meanwhile all the Orchestrals begin with S - Shostakovich, Saint-Saens and Schumann.
And what's this? The biggest photo in the whole section shows none other than Rustem Hayroudinoff, whose Rachmaninov discs on Chandos do keep being compared favourably to Richter's - once more for this one, "equal even to the greatness of Richter," says David Nice - and whose latest, the Etudes-Tableaux Op.33 & 39, has been shortlisted alongside Mitsuko Uchida's Beethoven 'Hammerklavier' and Steven Isserlis's Bach Cello Suites.
I won't have many fingernails left by the time they make the announcements.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
A birthday present from OC
No, you're not on the wrong blog - this is JDCMB. But our dear friend Opera Chic is a dab hand with Photoshop, which JD ain't, and sent me this stunning birthday present last week, inspired by a press release I forwarded to her that was entitled, pricelessly enough, JOHN ELIOT GARDINER RE-OPENS OPERA-COMIQUE IN FRONT OF FRENCH CABINET. (Here in London I have a very nice French cabinet that we bought on E-bay. I think it's walnut wood.) Salut, Maestro Jean Eliot Jardinier! Et merci bien, chere OC!The serious point, though, is that Paris's historic theatre was indeed reopened by said maestro on 13 December, in front of not a cupboard but probably more politicians than ever set foot inside London's opera houses separately, let alone together. The show was Chabrier's rarely-heard opera bouffe L'Etoile. According to the press release - tragically, I missed the event, being on the wrong side of La Manche - the opera includes "a trio about the use of tickling in foreplay" as well as dealing with the delights of green Chartreuse.
Gardiner and his attendant orchestra and choir are starting a yearly residency at the Opera-Comique and on other occasions will be performing Carmen and Pelleas et Melisande there - both operas which were first seen on that very stage.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Nausea
Christmas cheer, anyone? The so-called Arts Council is about to undertake the "bloodiest cull in half a century" on England's cultural life. According to The Guardian:
The word 'Olympics' does not feature in this article, but I don't think it can be far off. Odd to think now that when we first heard the news that London had won the 2012 'Orrific Games, we were actually pleased. Ho ho ho.
In music, two respected chamber orchestras, the City of London Sinfonia and the London Mozart Players, have been told to brace themselves for the worst.
The word 'Olympics' does not feature in this article, but I don't think it can be far off. Odd to think now that when we first heard the news that London had won the 2012 'Orrific Games, we were actually pleased. Ho ho ho.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Viva Ida!
JD meets Ida Haendel in the green room of the Wigmore Hall. This was one of countless memorable moments during the visit of this doyenne of the violin to the Razumovsky Academy, organised by the inimitable Oleg Kogan, during which she gave masterclasses to the gifted youngsters and performed in their Wigmore Hall concert. She played the Bach Chaconne. Nobody who was there will ever forget it. Go to the Razumovsky website for my full account of the day and lots more pics.
All the Razumovsky students and young artists are immensely impressive and maybe it's not fair for me to single one out - nevertheless, keep a look-out for the simply staggering talent of Anna-Liisa Bezrodny (left), the Razumovsky Academy's glorious 26-year-old violinist from Estonia. She has one of those all-giving and all-encompassing tones whose white heat can lift you right out of your chair. Hers was the last of the lessons - on the Sibelius concerto - and I've never before seen a masterclass which ended in a great big hug centre stage. Anna-Liisa recently won the Gold Medal at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she's been studying with Oleg among others. I am pleased, but not surprised, to see that on her Myspace profile she lists, under 'influences', the name 'Hirschhorn'.
Music censorship at the BBC
Yesterday The Independent ran a fascinating article by Spencer Leigh about the censorship of popular music at the BBC between the mid 1930s and 1960s. Here are a few nuggets:
In 1942, the BBC's director of music, Sir Arthur Bliss, along with other luminaries, had written wartime instructions for the committee and had allowed the banning of songs "which are slushy in sentiment"....
...Bliss, as might be expected, was staunchly against tunes borrowed from classical works. The application of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu for the melody of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" prevented it from being played. The instruction led to surprising bans: sometimes whole albums by Liberace, Lawrence Welk and Mantovani were prohibited. The score of Kismet was seen as suspect as it borrowed from Borodin, and so "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" was not played....
...The most unlikely record to slip through the net has to be B Bumble and the Stingers with their 1962 chart-topper, "Nut Rocker". The committee deliberated hard about it and concluded: "This instrumental piece is quite openly a parody of a Tchaikovsky dance tune, is clearly of an ephemeral nature, and in our opinion will not offend reasonable people."
Auntie's little committee appears to have been functioning in a faintly similar vein to Hollywood's Hayes Commission, which wrecked countless film scripts (though not for the sake of eliminating the 'slushy in sentiment').
I wonder whether these files may help to clarify a matter that has split the British musical community for years. A number of composers, some of whom are no longer with us having died in possibly unwarrented obscurity, insisted that their music had been rejected for broadcast by the BBC in the days when William Glock was controller of Radio 3 because it did not toe the establishment line on what was acceptable in new music. Others insist this was not true: no censorship, no party line, just a clever man refusing to broadcast bad music. As far as I'm aware we don't know, yet, what really happened. What's evident is that many composers had fallen foul of something or someone, and had their lives and careers wrecked by it.
Welcome to Little England, as was. Some day the truth will out, one way or another.
For the moment, prurience lives on in the very air breathed in the ivory towers of this green and pleasant land.
I can't help remembering all those critics blustering that Heliane was 'blasphemous' and 'degenerate' - dearie me, it has tunes, it has harmonies, it is intensely emotional and it advocates the divine approval of a loving sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Apparently this makes it horrific, and worth restoring Nazi terminology for. Yet today we're contending with Gangsta Rap glorifying across the airwaves extreme violence both racial and sexual. Maybe awareness of such cultural trends has never got past the college gates, the formal halls, the cellars of vintage Bordeaux. A sense of perspective has gone missing, no?
My high horse is going to pasture for the day now, while I head for the library to look up someone who became virtually the voice of the BBC in a totally different way...
In 1942, the BBC's director of music, Sir Arthur Bliss, along with other luminaries, had written wartime instructions for the committee and had allowed the banning of songs "which are slushy in sentiment"....
...Bliss, as might be expected, was staunchly against tunes borrowed from classical works. The application of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu for the melody of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" prevented it from being played. The instruction led to surprising bans: sometimes whole albums by Liberace, Lawrence Welk and Mantovani were prohibited. The score of Kismet was seen as suspect as it borrowed from Borodin, and so "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" was not played....
...The most unlikely record to slip through the net has to be B Bumble and the Stingers with their 1962 chart-topper, "Nut Rocker". The committee deliberated hard about it and concluded: "This instrumental piece is quite openly a parody of a Tchaikovsky dance tune, is clearly of an ephemeral nature, and in our opinion will not offend reasonable people."
Auntie's little committee appears to have been functioning in a faintly similar vein to Hollywood's Hayes Commission, which wrecked countless film scripts (though not for the sake of eliminating the 'slushy in sentiment').
I wonder whether these files may help to clarify a matter that has split the British musical community for years. A number of composers, some of whom are no longer with us having died in possibly unwarrented obscurity, insisted that their music had been rejected for broadcast by the BBC in the days when William Glock was controller of Radio 3 because it did not toe the establishment line on what was acceptable in new music. Others insist this was not true: no censorship, no party line, just a clever man refusing to broadcast bad music. As far as I'm aware we don't know, yet, what really happened. What's evident is that many composers had fallen foul of something or someone, and had their lives and careers wrecked by it.
Welcome to Little England, as was. Some day the truth will out, one way or another.
For the moment, prurience lives on in the very air breathed in the ivory towers of this green and pleasant land.
I can't help remembering all those critics blustering that Heliane was 'blasphemous' and 'degenerate' - dearie me, it has tunes, it has harmonies, it is intensely emotional and it advocates the divine approval of a loving sexual relationship between a man and a woman. Apparently this makes it horrific, and worth restoring Nazi terminology for. Yet today we're contending with Gangsta Rap glorifying across the airwaves extreme violence both racial and sexual. Maybe awareness of such cultural trends has never got past the college gates, the formal halls, the cellars of vintage Bordeaux. A sense of perspective has gone missing, no?
My high horse is going to pasture for the day now, while I head for the library to look up someone who became virtually the voice of the BBC in a totally different way...
Friday, December 14, 2007
This afternoon
I will be giving a reading from Alicia's Gift at Hampton Hill Library this afternoon at 2.30pm, and talking a bit about why I wrote a book about a child prodigy pianist. Admission free, refreshments provided, further details here.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
mad props to...
Opera Chic: 'Dessay + Duchen = YAY!';
Pliable at the Overgrown Path, following up the fascinating branch line around the gamelan and the work of Colin McPhee, with samples of this extraordinary and highly influential music online;
Erin over at Fugue State, for a lovely drink at the RFH yesterday just after I'd interviewed an awfully famous French pianist about the forthcoming Messiaen Festival, From the Canyons to the Stars, which opens in February. Erin goes to a very game orchestra for late starters in Mile End, which sounds like a lot of fun...but I'm hardly touching my piano at the moment, let alone my violin...
Yes, MY violin. Hey, dudes, you didn't know I had one of those, did you? Well, I do. The violin is my first love and I am a self-confessed fiddle fetishist. Unfortunately I get the fingering muddled above third position, and I can't do vibrato properly. Wobbles, yes...it's not the same thing. I once asked dear hubby if he'd give me some lessons to get me started again. He said yes. Sadly, he thought I was joking.
But my God, I love that instrument when someone plays it like this, or this, or this.
Pliable at the Overgrown Path, following up the fascinating branch line around the gamelan and the work of Colin McPhee, with samples of this extraordinary and highly influential music online;
Erin over at Fugue State, for a lovely drink at the RFH yesterday just after I'd interviewed an awfully famous French pianist about the forthcoming Messiaen Festival, From the Canyons to the Stars, which opens in February. Erin goes to a very game orchestra for late starters in Mile End, which sounds like a lot of fun...but I'm hardly touching my piano at the moment, let alone my violin...
Yes, MY violin. Hey, dudes, you didn't know I had one of those, did you? Well, I do. The violin is my first love and I am a self-confessed fiddle fetishist. Unfortunately I get the fingering muddled above third position, and I can't do vibrato properly. Wobbles, yes...it's not the same thing. I once asked dear hubby if he'd give me some lessons to get me started again. He said yes. Sadly, he thought I was joking.
But my God, I love that instrument when someone plays it like this, or this, or this.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Dessay today
Dark, petite and fiercely intelligent, with a quick, cutting sense of irony, Dessay is anything but a traditional diva. Indeed, she had never intended to become an opera singer at all. "It's not a choice. Opera chose me," she declares. Originally, she wanted to be a ballet dancer. "At 13, I realised that I wasn't gifted enough, and I was disappointed. But I thought, OK, I can go on stage as an actress instead."
Read the rest of my interview with the glorious French soprano Natalie Dessay in today's Independent. She will be singing in Bach's Magnificat and Handel's Dixit Dominus at the Barbican on 17 December, with Le Concert d'Astree and Emmanuelle Haim conducting; she'll be back in London for a recital of Italian operatic arias in January; and we can see her in the Laurent Pelly production of La fille du regiment on TV (with JDF) over Xmas.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
It's my birthday, so...
...if I can't post a last blast of Korngold today, then when can I?! Here is the beginning of the rarely-if-ever-seen Give Us This Night, with the incomparable Jan Kiepura singing his heart out in Sorrento. Enjoy.
In case you were wondering, my birthday present is an Enescu letter from 1947 to add to our autograph collection. We missed a Korngold one on Ebay by 2 seconds.
Speaking of Enescu, who taught Ida Haendel, there will be more very soon about the extraordinary day we spent at the Razumovsky Academy listening to Haendels' masterclasses on Sunday. There was also a surprise in the evening concert.
In case you were wondering, my birthday present is an Enescu letter from 1947 to add to our autograph collection. We missed a Korngold one on Ebay by 2 seconds.
Speaking of Enescu, who taught Ida Haendel, there will be more very soon about the extraordinary day we spent at the Razumovsky Academy listening to Haendels' masterclasses on Sunday. There was also a surprise in the evening concert.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
RIP Stockhausen
It's the end of an era. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who for decades embodied the very meaning of 'avant-garde', died yesterday aged 79. Yet it's alarming that most people only seem to measure him by his unfortunate comment about 9/11. Whither his legacy? Here's the report from The Guardian.
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