Kaufmann. Winterreise.

Look what's popped up on Youtube: complete audio of Jonas Kaufmann's Winterreise recital at the Konzerthaus, Vienna, 6 April 2013. Helmut Deutsch is at the piano. Apparently JK was not feeling on best form just then - he was recovering from the lurgy that knocked him out of two Vienna Parsifals. It's remarkable nonetheless.

Prepare to listen by getting yourself a cuppa, a box of hankies and a DO NOT DISTURB sign.

(UPDATE, 5.40pm: An appreciative reader has just tweeted to remark that this is good alternative listening for anyone trying to avoid the Eurovision Song Contest tonight...)

A tale in tartan?

A starry cast is set to make waves in La Donna del Lago at Covent Garden. I had a brief chat with the director, John Fulljames, about why he thinks Rossini's rarity is - well, rare.

He thinks it's all to do with the difficulty of the vocal writing; as for the story, it's at the heart of that weird 19th-century idea that Scotland is the most romantic place on earth - a form of cultural nationalism that was invented, as he explained, by Sir Walter Scott. Might it yet prove to be a favourite opera for the Scottish National Party? We'll see... anyway, one hopes they can't go far wrong with Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Florez out front. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/la-donna-del-lago-at-the-royal-opera-house-starry-cast-all-set-to-make-waves-8619557.html?origin=internalSearch

Friday Historical: Some amazing tales from Glyndebourne

Here's my piece from yesterday's Independent about what happened to Glyndebourne during World War II. It was transformed into a centre for children evacuated from London's east end - and that history has now inspired a new staging of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, which opens tomorrow. I talked to its young director, Katharina Thoma, whose first UK production this is.

Meanwhile, we hear that the cats are back in Falstaff...there are calls for the cat manipulator to take a bow, but naturally the truth is that the ginger one is Solti, who sneaks to Sussex and back by private cat-jet when we aren't looking.

Full info on Glyndebourne here.

And to make this a real Friday Historical, here is footage of Figaro from Glyndebourne 1956, with Sena Jurinac as the Countess and Sesto Bruscantini as the Count.

PLEASE COME TO OUR 'HUNGARIAN DANCES' CONCERTS!

HUNGARIAN DANCES: THE CONCERT OF THE NOVEL

DAVID LE PAGE (VIOLIN), ANTHONY HEWITT (PIANO),
JESSICA DUCHEN (NARRATOR)

 Tuesday 11 June, 8pm

St James Theatre Studio, 12 Palace Street, London SW1
(a short walk from Victoria Station)

Tickets: £15. Book here: http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/hungarian-dances/ 

Saturday 8 June, 11am
Ulverston International Music Festival, Cumbria

http://www.ulverstonmusicfestival.co.uk/main-events/17-summer-festivals/101-hungarian-dances-the-story-of-a-gypsy-violinist.html?layout=event

‘A saga whose passion for music, Hungary and history sings out on every page.’    

Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, on Hungarian Dances by Jessica Duchen

Mimi, a Hungarian Gypsy girl, is determined to play the violin, in defiance of family traditions. She becomes a classical virtuoso, but at a terrible personal price... 

Alternating narration and music, this emotional roller-coaster traverses 90 years, richly illustrated with music of irresistible beauty that blurs the boundaries between the classical and Gypsy styles.

DOHNANYI: Andante rubato alla zingaresca
DINICU: The Lark
MONTI: Czardas
KREISLER: Marche Miniature Viennoise
DEBUSSY: Violin Sonata
VECSEY: Valse Triste
BARTOK: Romanian Dances
BRAHMS: Hungarian Dance No.2 (arr. Joachim)
RAVEL: Tzigane
HUBAY: Hejre Kati

DAVID LE PAGE, born in Guernsey, is the leader of the Orchestra of the Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon, and of the Adderbury Ensemble. He trained at the Yehudi Menuhin School and in Bern with Igor Ozim and Sidney Griller. He was a prizewinner in BBC Young Musician of the Year and the Yehudi Menuhin Competition. He plays the living daylights out of this repertoire.

ANTHONY HEWITT won top prize at the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1992 and studied at the Menuhin School, the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest. He is artistic director of the Ulverston International Music Festival, Cumbria.

JESSICA DUCHEN writes about music for The Independent and is the author of four novels, two biographies and a number of stage works mingling words and music. Plus JDCMB, of course.

HUNGARIAN DANCES is published by Hodder.

PLEASE NOTE: TICKETS FOR 11 JUNE ARE VERY LIMITED IN NUMBER. EARLY BOOKING IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/hungarian-dances/

Happy 200th to the RPS

It's not often that you find yourself choking up with emotion in the middle of the Dorchester Ballroom. But yesterday, the annual Royal Philharmonic Society Awards evening saw many of us doing just that as the organisation - currently celebrating its 200th birthday - awarded five honorary memberships to movers and shakers who have been bringing the power of music to bear in the direction of societal transformation in some of the most deprived and dangerous places in the world.

From Kinshasa to Kabul, Soweto to the Sphinx organisation in the US, and a former Leeds Piano Competition winner who's now devoting himself to a youth music programme in his native Brazil, these inspirational figures set an example to us all.

They are:
►  Armand Diangienda, a former airline pilot who founded a symphony orchestra in one of the poorest cities on earth, Kinshasa, DR of the Congo (pictured above. The gentleman on his left is Sir Vernon Ellis, chair of the British Council.)
►  Dr Ahmad Sarmast, the founder of Afghanistan’s first national music school in Kabul
►  Rosemary Nalden, British viola player and founder of Buskaid, who persuaded distinguished musicians to busk at British railway stations to raise funds for a string project in South Africa, and now directs the thriving stringed instrument school in Diepkloof, Soweto.
►  Ricardo Castro, International pianist (and former winner of the Leeds Piano Competition) who established a flourishing youth music programme in Bahià, Brazil.
► Aaron P. Dworkin, the founder of the Sphinx Organization, which gives opportunities and assistance to aspiring Black and Latino musicians in the USA. Sphinx’s mission is for classical music to embrace the diversity inherent in the society that it strives to serve.

The roster of annual awards turned up some truly wonderful winners as well, not least the utterly fabulous Sarah Connolly, piano star Steven Osborne (I had a lovely chat with his mum), the Britten Sinfonia which scooped the ensemble prize against competitions from such august institutions as the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the composers Rebecca Saunders and Gerald Barry, Birmingham Opera Company's Stockhausen Mittwoch aus Licht world premiere last summer, New Music 20X12, and much more. The full list is here and you can catch up with it all on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday afternoon.

Suffice it to say that the evening grew merrier and merrier as it went along. Whoops of joy emanated from the Scunthorpe table when the beautiful Cycle Song community opera proved triumphant; the Heath Quartet's thank-you video made in Mexico City inspired some ongoing quips about tequila from our comperes, the indefatigable Sean Rafferty and Sara Mohr-Pietsch - hope you found some, Sean! And it was glorious to see Dame Janet Baker in full radiance presenting the awards (pictured, left).

Special thanks to the Dorchester for catering so attentively for those of us who can't eat gluten.

Thank you, Royal Philharmonic Society, for your tireless support for the transformative and spiritually nourishing powers of classical music both here and around the world. And thanks, not least, for commissioning Beethoven's Ninth. Here's to the next 200 years!