Sunday, February 23, 2014

Victory looms for nascent Lucerne opera house

If you're in the know about the Lucerne Festival, you may have heard that its director Michael Haefliger's plans to build a new opera house, the Salle Modulable, for the Swiss lakeside town looked set to turn into fairy dust upon the withdrawal of necessary funds. This has been challenged in court and the opera house has won. We hope that in due course opera amid the mountains will become as vital a highlight of the European musical calendar as Lucerne's existing festivals are today.


Salle Modulable Foundation wins its case: withdrawal of funds was unlawful

Lucerne/Hamilton, 21 February 2014 The judge of the competent court in Bermuda has ruled that the withdrawal of funding for the Salle Modulable in Lucerne took place unlawfully and that Butterfield Trust (Bermuda) Limited must fulfil its obligations.

The Salle Modulable Foundation has won its case before the Supreme Court of Bermuda: the withdrawal of funding for the Salle Modulable by Butterfield Trust (Bermuda) Ltd. (Butterfield) in October 2010 has been ruled unlawful. The presiding judge has found that a contract of donation governed by Swiss law was entered into in the summer of 2007 and that Butterfield must meet its obligations arising from it. If the Salle Modulable Foundation submits a feasibility study, adapted to the new circumstances, for a venue with flexible arrangements for experimental music theatre in the City of Lucerne, Butterfield is bound to honour the promise of finance it originally made in the amount of up to CHF 120 million. The feasibility study will be updated and adapted as part of the New Theatre Infrastructure Lucerne (NTI) Project.
Butterfield’s counter-claim was rejected in its entirety. The judge has not yet made any final pronouncement on other questions. This will entail a further hearing. The judgment may yet be referred to the Bermuda Appeal Court.

Hubert Achermann, Chairman of the Salle Modulable Foundation, says: “Naturally we are very pleased with the outcome and believe that justice has been done. Our expense and effort have paid off, and I thank everyone who has supported us in these lengthy proceedings. Still, we remain far from our objective. First, we expect the opposing party to accept this judgment and desist from further time-consuming and costly legal proceedings. Then we have to produce an updated and authoritative feasibility study, in co-operation with the Canton and City. For this purpose, we can build on the work done so far. We have a fine opportunity to create something unique for Lucerne, as the City of Culture and Festivals, and for its institutions, not least in memory of the great patron, Christof Engelhorn.“ 

Saturday, February 22, 2014

An extraordinary winner at the RCM's 2014 Chappell Medal competition

I was lucky enough to spend yesterday adjudicating the Chappell Medal - the Royal College of Music's top award for pianists. With me on the jury were the pianists Margaret Fingerhut and Charles Owen and we were prepared for a day-long feast of music from the creme-de-la-creme of the college's students. What we hadn't anticipated was being completely blown away by one extraordinary winner.

John Granger Fisher from Brisbane, presented the kind of programme you don't see every day in concert halls, let alone a college contest. He opened with the Haydn Sonata in B minor; next, the Brahms Paganini Etudes, both books thereof; as interlude, the Chopin C sharp minor Etude from Op.25; and to close, Balakirev's Islamey. We were put in mind of the story that Murray Perahia tells about Horowitz: at one of Perahia's consultation lessons, Horowitz said to him, "If you want to be more than a virtuoso, first be a virtuoso." John - a modest and unaffected performer - made the gargantuan demands of the Brahms and Balakirev look easy, wrapping them up with stylish phrasing and classy finishing touches. His virtuosity knocked us over. More than that, he simply moved us to tears.

We were delighted to award second prize to Riyad Nicolas from Syria, a fascinating, accomplished young artist who is very much his own person and excelled particularly in Ravel's 'Scarbo' and Ligeti's 'Fanfares', as well as some gorgeous Scarlatti; and third to Jun Ishimura, who drew us into her beautifully coloured and shaped performances of Beethoven Op.109, the Chopin B flat minor Sonata and Ravel's La Valse. Prize for the best undergraduate went to the highly promising Aleksander Pavlovic from Serbia and we much enjoyed the performances by Dinara Klinton from Ukraine whose Prokofiev Sarcasms were glittery, original and well projected, and Hin-Yat Tsang from Hong Kong, whose tone quality and sense of love for the music were exceptionally beautiful.

Here's John's biography from a competition he entered last year.

John Granger Fisher

John Granger Fisher
Age: 27
Origin: Australia
Education: Hartt School of Music University of Hartford, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
Competitions and Awards: Queensland Piano Competition (First Prize), Yamaha Australian Piano Competition (First Prize), 4MBS Chamber Music Competition (First Prize), John Allison City of Sydney Piano Scholarship, Florence Davey Piano Scholarship, Queensland University Postgraduate Award
John Granger Fisher was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1984. He began piano lessons with his mother at the age of four. In 1997 he commenced studying with John Winther at the Young Conservatorium Queensland. In 1998 he began studying with Natasha Vlassenko. From 2006 to 2008 he studied with both Natasha Vlassenko and Oleg Stepanov.
John completed the Bachelor of Music (Advanced Performance) with First Class Honours at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. He has been studying at the Hartt School of Music since September 2008. He has taken lessons from Oxana Yablonskaya and Boris Berman.
John has won first prizes in a number of competitions including: the Queensland Piano Competition (2001), the 5th Yamaha Australian National Piano Competition (2001) and the 4MBS Chamber Music Competition (Trio) (2004).  He has also been awarded the Queensland Conservatorium Postgraduate Award (2006); the Florence Davey Piano Scholarship (2007); the John Allison City of Sydney Piano Scholarship (2008) and the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Scholarship (2009). He received the second prize in the 2009 Louisiana International Piano Competition.
In Australia, John has appeared in the Tyalgum Festival of Classical Music, Kawai Keyboard Series, 4MBS Beethoven Sonata Series, Mostly Mozart Concert, Ithaca Auditorium Brisbane City Hall and the 4MBS Mozart on the Move Concert Series. He has appeared as soloist with a number of Australian Orchestras. In 2009 he toured with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”.
John has also maintained a keen interest in accompanying and Chamber Music. In 2005 he accompanied the Queensland Chamber Choir in a performance at the Queensland Parliament House. He has performed in a variety of chamber music ensembles and is involved in the 20/20 chamber music program at the Hartt School.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Interval drinks: brewing a revolution?

The clever old Barbican has launched a free app with which you can order your interval drink in advance, from 48 hours earlier to 30 mins before the concert begins. More info here. And you can download it here. Well done, chaps. Fast may this spread.

It's not a minute too soon - we all know the score. You have a 20-minute interval. You spend 15 minutes of it queuing up, another 2-3 processing your drinks order (finding, pouring, paying), and then you have 2-3 mins to down the liquid before you go back into the hall (being a classical audience, you are expected not to take said drink in with you). Alternatively you might have arrived early to spend 15 mins queuing before the concert to order your interval drink. And you can't help wondering, having been to sensible places like Germany, why we can't do as they do and have a whole rack of ready-poured helpings of the most popular drinks - red & white wine, beer, orange juice and water - so that people can just pick one up and hand over the cash pdq, which would save person-hours, aggro and the usual headache of having to choose between a drink and a trip to the loo.

Speaking of which, please can someone invent an app to create faster access to the Ladies Room?





Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Thinking of Kiev

Following Kiev developments with much anxiety. Updates can be found here. 

It is about 20 years (!) since I went there with a close friend whose family was from the city originally, but had emigrated to Israel in the 1970s. She hadn't been back since she was about eight years old.

It was a powerful week that I will never forget. We were overwhelmed by the warmth, hospitality and profoundly cultured outlook of the people we met; they lived often in conditions of what we in the west regarded as quite some deprivation, but never lost their sense of dignity and perspective for a moment. I was bowled over by everything we saw - from the beauty of the cathedral to the numb horror of the monument at Babi Yar.

The depth of the metro seemed incredible: you'd get on the escalator at the top without being able to see the bottom. And back in the open air I adored the magnificent monasteries and the sound of their bells, which is pure Rachmaninov (guess where he got it from)...and we visited the Great Gate, which is really rather small compared to Mussorgsky's picture of its picture. Inside crumbling concrete high-rise blocks, astonishing things included the fact that the lift actually worked - getting into it was a little frightening, though - and the sheer quantity of cockroaches, as I just didn't know you could have that many cockroaches in one place at the same time...

In those days everyone was still adjusting with some surprise to the lack of Iron Curtain and experimenting with the new openness, dipping their toes - and often more - into the notion of capitalism. Pianists turned into marketing managers. Smart cars were still rare, but existed. New blocks with smart flooring and plate glass windows rubbed shoulders with the Soviet era towers near the sprawling Dnieper. We ate blinis and Russian salad and probably got through a fair bit of vodka; our hosts opened some Soviet Champagne, which tastes a little like fizzy dry sherry, and washed it down with huge amounts of cake. We heard an extraordinarily gifted young pianist in a celebratory concert at the conservatoire; she was about ten, so she must now be 30. I hope she is still playing.

I often think of our friends there and wonder how they are and what has become of them. Sending you love, wherever you may be.

In tribute and in hope, here is some of that bell-laden Rachmaninov... played by Martha Argerich and Lilya Zilberstein. It is from his Suite No.1 and it's called "Russian Easter", but please note that this is a musical statement, not a political one!




Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Jonas's Winter Journey

The CD you've been waiting for is out at last - the official release date in the UK was yesterday - and sure enough, it's a humdinger.

Winterreise is a piece that has scared us, devastated us and left us musing on Schubert's state of mind: why was he drawn to create art that evokes emotions so far beyond despair? I was in a seminar group for it during my student days and we analysed it every which way, but there is always a kernel within it that eludes such treatment. You can see how Schubert manipulates the key structure to carry you downwards with the protagonist; you can  understand that the dancing lilt of 'Täuschung' is a recycling - it pops up in his opera Alfonso und Estrella in a totally different incarnation (thank you, Christian Gerhaher, for recording this) - but do we really understand what drove Schubert, how his genius was fired by such snowy bleakness? Of course not. We know how he burrows into the dark recesses of the heart - but we can never truly know why.

There are of course many fine interpretations on record, some of which you need to feel very strong to hear - my previous "benchmark" is the one by Matthias Goerne with Alfred Brendel at the piano. But this new disc by Jonas Kaufmann and his pianist and mentor Helmut Deutsch can leave you wondering if perhaps it is worth winter existing, even with the snow in the US and the storms here and the wind and the rain and the darkness, just so that Schubert could write this work and they could perform it. It is not just the depth of Kaufmann's conviction that makes it special, but the skill with which he projects the meaning: his diction is of course magnificent, but he is able to fill each word and every phrase with colour that holds the entirety of its emotional import. This is truly extraordinary. I reckon you don't need to understand one word of German to follow this story. It's the clearest possible demonstration of just how music becomes a universal language in every sense.

Here are the artists to introduce it on film, on JK's website. http://www.jonaskaufmann.com/en/1/start.html

Intriguingly, the makers of this film are of the Wunderlich family. Yes, that Wunderlich. JK has plenty to say about the great Fritz in our interview, so watch that space...


Monday, February 17, 2014

Just listen to this!



The American cello prodigy Sujari Britt hadn't crossed my radar until five minutes ago. Please just have a listen to her; she's a serious musician with fine teachers, a musical family and a genuinely astonishing gift. In this engaging short film, when she's asked "So you could play the cello forever?" she responds: "I can - and I will."

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Time for the Queen to have a musical mistress

Brilliant piece in today's Independent on Sunday by Claudia Pritchard: as Max steps down as Master of the Queen's Music, it's time that a woman held the job. Judiths Weir and Bingham, Sally Beamish, Roxanna Panufnik and plenty more could all be in the running.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/why-its-time-that-the-queen-had-a-mistress-9129190.html

Friday, February 14, 2014

Ooh, I've got a mystery Valentine!

JDCMB has received a mystery Valentine!

Well, a mystery to you. When/if I think of a suitable return message, you'll probably guess correctly...




Mademoiselle Jane Huré, to whom Gabriel Fauré dedicated his Chanson d’Amour in 1882, has surely by now earned a right of reply. It would go something like this: 

“Let me get this straight. You love my eyes.  And my forehead. You’ve mentioned each of those three times. Does that mean you actually love me - it's far from obvious! You call my voice strange, but you seem to like that too, right?. And there's this as yet undecided area you like... somewhere between my feet... and my hair? Plus you say you want to kiss me on the lips?  And you've got some wishes, rising up towards me? Hm. I’d better see those..."

 My mystery correspondent has also, helpfully, included a link to the Fauré sheet music.


Margot Fonteyn's lost kiss revealed



OH JOY, there's going to be a ballet season on BBC TV in March. Included is a programme of highlights from The Sleeping Beauty from 1959 starring Margot Fonteyn - and the above kiss sequence which has been long lost and resuscitated by a clever someone somewhere just in time for Valentine's Day. Other airings will include Good Swan, Bad Swan - Tamara Rojo on dancing Swan Lake; Darcey Bussell talking about her ballet heroines; and Dancing in the Blitz, about British ballet during World War II, including rare footage of Ashton's Symphonic Variations.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Anniversary



Today is the 20th anniversary of my mum's death. It still feels like yesterday. We miss her every day of our lives.

This is the Marietta Lute Song duet from Die tote Stadt by Korngold, sung in 1924 in Berlin by Lotte Lehmann and Richard Tauber, here rendered with superbly remastered sound. If you don't know the opera, it is all about coming to terms with loss. As Korngold's Paul discovers, you don't get over things. You can only learn to live with them, because there is no alternative.

If you want to see a video of the full opera, I can recommend a recently released DVD from Finnish National Opera - a production by Kasper Holten with stunning designs by Es Devlin, starring Klaus Florian Vogt as Paul and Camilla Nylund as Marietta.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

"Cello goddess" drawn into the afterlife


Maya Beiser, dubbed a "cello goddess" by the New York Times, is heading for London to play David Lang's concerto World to Come next week. Here's my interview with a fascinating and ground-breaking figure whose effect on the contemporary repertoire for her instrument is simply immeasurable. The performance, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, is on 24 February at the QEH, booking here.

Inspired by the effect of 9/11 - the composer was living close to the World Trade Center at the time - the concerto portrays the idea of a cellist and her voice being separated then reunited in the afterlife. It was originally written for solo cello with multitrack recording; he then orchestrated it for use in a ballet. This will be its UK premiere. Lang, whose music has a dark brilliance to it that stands out a mile, won the Pulitzer Prize for his Little Match Girl Passion in 2008. Together with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon he was one of the founders of the Bang on a Can collective, and Beiser became a founder member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

Although he has risen to be one of America's most often-played contemporary creators, and on these shores was for a time composer-in-residence for the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Lang's music is all too rarely heard in London. It's high time one of our leading orchestras gave a go to an American composer - especially one who has a chance of raising audience interest. It's time to examine British preconceptions about American music, too. However did this spiritual and deeply unsettling piece find its way into a programme by the BBC's "light" orchestra (or should that be "lite" today?) alongside the likes of Bernstein's Fancy Free?

Monday, February 10, 2014

Bach to the ballet

The second performance at the Royal Opera House of Wayne McGregor's brand-new ballet Tetractys - The Art of Fugue - had to be cancelled the other night due to an injury sustained by Natalia Osipova that afternoon. While we wait for her to get better - hopefully by tomorrow - here is my interview with McGregor about it for The Independent. It came out the other day while I was blogless in NY.

Um, in case you were wondering where I was...


...I've been in New York and - in between shopping, museum-hopping and seeing all my oldest and dearest friends - spent a rather pleasant hour in a press room at the Met with a certain tenor, who recovered from his bout of flu in time for a good chinwag. I've been trying to make this happen for years rather than months...and it was worth the wait.

JFK - Jonas Fluey Kaufmann, natch - is in NY preparing for a new production of Werther, which opens on 18 Feb, directed by Richard Eyre and also starring the glorious Sophie Koch as Charlotte (see the new issue of Opera News, just out, for my cover feature about her). HD cinecast is on 15 March. Be there. You'll like it.

It was also wonderful to see Glyndebourne's production of Billy Budd - imported wholesale, orchestra, chorus, Marks Elder and Padmore and all - receive a massive ovation at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the other night. New Yorkers, you have two more chances to see it this week. Here's a rave review from the New York Times.

Just flew home from...JFK. Incredibly, only 5 hrs 40 mins.

Sunday, February 02, 2014

Rameau 250: don't just sit there, do something!


Jean-Philippe Rameau died 250 years ago, so there's a nice anniversary to provide an excuse to spotlight him. He's an absolute magician - just as his later successors, Ravel and Debussy, would be. I'm a late convert to French Baroque: I've grown to love the richness of its musical invention, its startling originality, its mellifluous beauty and its dizzying range of emotion - excitement, humour, sparkle, pathos and more - and Rameau is one of its reigning triumvirate, alongside Lully and Couperin.

Recently the tenor Lawrence Olsworth-Peter got in touch to say that he is starting a new opera company especially for the anniversary, the International Ramaeu Ensemble, so I've asked him to talk to us about it. Roll up to St George's, Hanover Square, for their big launch concert on 21 February.










JD: Lawrence, please tell us why you’ve decided to set up a new opera company for the Rameau anniversary? What will be special and/or unique about it? What will you do that’s different from others? [if it is] What do you hope to achieve?

LOP: The first and foremost reason for setting up the International Rameau Ensemble was the stunning music that Rameau composed, mostly as official court composer to Louis XV. 
When I first heard it I couldn't believe how audacious his writing was that it made other baroque composers seem perfunctory! We are a group of baroque specialists who play all around the world with various ensembles including the OAE and London Handel Festival and we want to be the UK's first research led French baroque Opera company exclusively devoted to promoting Rameau and as it's his 250th anniversary this year we thought this is would be the perfect time to start it. We would love to bring Rameau's music to a whole new generation of music lovers who would never have had the opportunity to hear it live otherwise. 

JD: How effective has Kickstarter been when trying to raise money for the project? Is it a course of action you’d recommend to others?

LOP: Kickstarter is a great phenomenon and was really good as helping us raise our profile online. Over half of kickstarter projects don't meet their target as was the case with ours, but there are many other crowdfunding sites out there now; you just need to know which one will best work for your project.

JD: Please tell us something about Rameau? What do you love about his music? Which pieces should people start with if they’re not familiar with it? 

LOP: I was surprised to discover that Rameau didn't start composing operas until he was nearly 50 years old which, is in remarkable considering how many he wrote between then and his death in 1764. What excites me is how daring the music is and how he pushes the harmony, orchestration and singers right to the extremes of possibility. One of my absolute favourite pieces is 'Entree de Polymnie' from Les Boreades (I'd love to have this played at my funeral!) and the aria I love to sing the most is 'Lieux Funestes' from Dardanus so I would recommend either of those!

JD: Might this be a wonderful way to bring the great music of the French Baroque to a whole new audience? Why do you think this area of music hasn’t yet achieved the recognition it deserves in the UK?

LOP: Five years ago I had never even heard of Rameau's work even though I was already a professional musician and I think that is because music colleges haven't encouraged its performance and the British public are just not aware that his music exists. French baroque music in general is not regularly performed by music festivals, although there have been recent productions at ENO and Glyndebourne which is fantastic to see and we predict that it will increase within the next decade

JD: Please add anything more that you’d like to tell us about it?

LOP: I mentioned that we are research led and I believe that this is important so that people can see authentic performances of his work. One of our members is writing a PhD in Rameau orchestration under the tutelage of Graham Sadler who is who I is our honorary patron so we intend to also be a specialist training ground for young performers in this area.

Our big launch concert takes place on Friday 21st February 2014 at the beautiful St Geroge's Hanover Square where we will be performing 3 Grand motets by Rameau and we hope that you will join us and hear the music for yourself. We also have big plans for an Opera double-bill in the autumn so look out for that. For more information please visit www.rameau.eu

Saturday, February 01, 2014

Did you know...? 10 amazing life-lessons for survival in and beyond the music world

As my father liked to say, we live and learn. Often, though, we don't learn quite enough, soon enough, about this weird and wonderful place known as the music biz. Here - in no particular order - are some top life-lessons observed from the UK concert scene that can nevertheless apply to working existences far beyond it. May they help you leap-frog through life.


1. Never underestimate the importance of a nice cup of tea. The success of a concert seems directly proportional to the alacrity with which the performer is offered refreshment backstage when he/she arrives. A well-run venue will offer its artists a cuppa pretty much as soon as they walk in. If you have to ask if one is available and the response is "No", chances are that your concert will be a washout, and not just because you're thirsty. Venues: remember, you never know when your performer might turn out to be, in fact, Miss Marple.



2. Be prepared. Be ready for anything. Think through outcomes; include all eventualities; and pack your survival kit. For instance, a concert kit for the UK, September to May or so, could include some/all of the following: bananas, chocolate, muesli bars, a bottle of water, a suit carrier/similar for your concert clothes, a blowy heater, an extension lead, a lamp (preferably with extendable stand), music stand(s), a travel iron, a spare pair of shoes, an umbrella, a bag of your merchandise plus a float of change (especially 1p coins if you insist on selling things at £6.99 rather than £7), hair dryer/hairspray, an iPad/tablet/music case fully loaded with your music/script, a recharger for your phone, a train/bus timetable, two pens in case someone goes off with one of them, a thermal fleece, fingerless gloves, make-up and ear protectors. And possibly a thermos, in case you ask for a cup of tea and they say no.

3. Be organised about your home life. Make sure you've fed your partner/kids/cat, watered any plants, turned down the heating, locked the back door, put the bins out, switched off the oven, unplugged the TV, ironed enough clean clothes for your trip, washed your concert outfit, told the neighbours the dates you're gone, and so on. If you're all sorted at home, you'll be able to relax and focus on your job without suddenly thinking, "Oh my God, did I leave the oven on?" in the middle of the Chopin B minor Sonata.

4. Plan ahead. If going by train, book faaaar in advance to get an affordable ticket - you might even have some fee left. Never agree to travel in a car if you don't trust it or the person driving it. Always plan to arrive earlier than you need to, in case of delays such as signal failure, leaves on the line, sheep on the motorway, etc. Besides, arriving at the last minute may leave you too muddle-headed to notice what's actually going on under your nose.

5. The harder you have to slog to get bums on seats, the less successful your concert will be. A poorly run venue will show no interest in promoting your concert and probably won't even have a piece of paper up saying it's happening. A well-run place, though, will most likely have an established, loyal audience that trusts it to offer good events. What's true at the bottom will probably be true at the top (see Miss Marple, above).

6. Switch off your mobile phone. You think it's embarrassing if one goes off in the audience? Try having it happen on stage.

7. If something is a success, everyone wants to take the credit. It's good manners to give credit where it is due. But someone attempting to grab limelight where it is not due - for example, by saying they organised something when someone else did it - is not only bad manners: it is dishonest, disruptive and upsetting to those whose efforts are being trampled on. (Conversely: if something is not a success, nobody will want to take the blame except, probably, those who least deserve it...) It's exactly the same in most other fields, of course - e.g., advertising: as this article says, this is your work and you need to protect it.

8. If you have to stay over somewhere, do not trust internet reviews. Get a personal, word-of-mouth recommendation. [Come to think of it, don't trust the internet for anything, ever, let alone bloggers ;).]

9. Put your work on a proper business basis that accords everybody involved the respect they deserve, clarifies the financial position from the start, and doesn't confuse the issue with personal angst, guilt-tripping, pressurising, and so forth. Stand up for your rights. If you don't, you've only yourself to blame, because you're being too nice...

10. We are mostly too nice. If we are too nice, we are used, exploited or walked upon. Or, in some cases, skated upon. Here's an extreme example. The Southbank Centre, as leaseholder of its land, would be perfectly within its rights to send in the police to clear the crumbling skate park so assiduously supported by our mayor - but it has always been too fair-minded and too nice to do that. The bottom line, though, is that if they can't get at the space to repair it, the QEH will eventually become unsafe and will be forced into disuse, which wouldn't even be good for the skateboarders.




Friday, January 31, 2014

The man who "made an honest woman out of jazz"

It's a foggy day in London town this morning, so here is something cheering for a Friday Historical (after a week dominated for me by tonsils the size of golf balls): a compilation from some wonderful radio programmes in which George Gershwin is at the piano playing his own works, answering interview questions and, in another extract, presenting his music. The show he mentions in the first one, Pardon My English, opened on Broadway in January 1933, so this interview - in which the presenter describes GG as "the man who made an honest woman out of jazz" - probably took place shortly before that. Along the way, he declares Jerome Kern's Showboat to be "the finest light opera achievement in the history of American music". And there is much more besides. Enjoy.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Can't help loving that man...

It's Don Giovanni. Why on earth do we find him irresistible? Clue: clever librettist plus divine composer, but there are darker factors at work too. I had some interesting chats with Mariusz Kwiecien (who sings him in the ROH's new production next week) and the great Gerald Finley about the Fifty Shades of Don Giovanni and my piece is in the Independent today.

Meanwhile, here is another of the all-time greats - Simon Keenlyside - in what's perhaps the defining moment of the whole opera...as staged by Calixto Bieito. Covent Garden's new production opens on Saturday night, directed by Kasper Holten. Anything could happen!






Thursday, January 23, 2014

Ed is leaving ENO...

Sobs in sunny Sheen today upon the news that Edward Gardner is leaving English National Opera. The highlights of his stint as music director have been many and various - I'd pick out his Der Rosenkavalier, The Flying Dutchman, Wozzeck and The Damnation of Faust, to name but a few, as some of the most exciting operatic treats of the past several years. The vitality, intelligence and sheer electric delight of his music-making have never failed to light up the Coliseum. The job now passes not to another young whizz-kid (Ed was 31 when appointed), but to Mark Wigglesworth: a tried, tested, known, solid, liked and respected British musician, who will probably do a jolly good job. Ed, though, is off to Bergen, which unfortunately is in Norway and not accessible via the District Line. Excuse me while I go and have a howl.


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

One to watch: Kristine Balanas



Meet Kristine Balanas, 22, from Latvia, an advanced student at the Royal Academy of Music. She's a very lucky young violinist as she will be joining Yuri Bashmet in a concerto performance with the Moscow Soloists at the Barbican on 1 February, and will be on BBC Radio 3's In Tune with him the day before. Currently she's studying with Gyorgy Pauk and she's due to graduate this summer. I recently had a tip-off about her - and sure enough I find her musicianship quite enchanting.

For the 1 February the RAM is lending Bashmet and a few members of the orchestra some instruments from the institution's top-notch collection of stringed instruments. Should be a fun evening. (Though I suspect Kristine is playing SCHUBERT, not the SHUBERT currently advertised on the Barbican website!)
 
The Mozart concerto above was filmed at the 5th Sendai International Music Competition last May.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Monday, January 20, 2014

CLAUDIO ABBADO 1933-2014


Tragic news from Italy this morning that Claudio Abbado has passed away. Here is the report in Il Post.

Farewell, dear maestro. You were, I think, the most beloved of them all.

Below, his official biography from DG. Here, a fantastic gallery of photographs across the decades, from Italy's Repubblica. [UPDATE, 4.40pm: my appreciation of him, for The Independent, is online now.]

For a man who has dedicated a lifetime to music, Claudio Abbado – who celebrates his 80th birthday in June 2013 – has few words to describe his work as a conductor. He prefers to speak through the music, something he has been doing with extraordinary results for over half a century. Little interested in celebrity, he once said: “The term ‘great conductor’ has no meaning for me. It is the composer who is great.” They are not empty words, for he has demonstrated their meaning through his innate ability to go directly to the heart of a wide range of music.
Claudio Abbado was born into a musical and artistic family in Milan in 1933, and studied piano, composition and conducting at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in his home city, before going to Vienna to follow a postgraduate course in conducting in the mid-1950s. He won the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Koussevitzky Prize in 1958.
He made his debut in 1960, at the Teatro alla Scala, and was appointed music director there at just 35, remaining in post from 1968 to 1986. Three years after his debut he won the Mitropoulos Prize, and worked for several months with the New York Philharmonic as assistant to Leonard Bernstein. He was then invited by Herbert von Karajan to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time at the Salzburg Festival in 1965. In the same year he directed the world premiere of Giacomo Manzoni’s Atomtod at La Scala.
He was known for ground-breaking initiatives in Milan, expanding the repertoire to embrace major new works. He introduced guest conductors, such as Carlos Kleiber, and discouraged notions of elitism by opening up the house to a wider audience, presenting a concert programme specifically for students and workers.
During his 18 years in Milan, he also became music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, where he served from 1979 to 1987. He was music director of the Vienna State Opera from 1986 to 1991, and in 1987 became Generalmusik­direktor of the City of Vienna.
At the end of 1989, amid the turmoil and optimism of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was elected by the players of the Berlin Philharmonic to succeed Karajan as the orchestra’s artistic director, and again his appointment led to the establishment of new initiatives, such as the Berliner Begegnungen, an opportunity for young players to perform with established artists. Abbado was forced to stand down from the podium for several months in 2000 when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but he returned to the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic for two final seasons, during which he conducted Parsifal and Lohengrin in Berlin, Edinburgh and Salzburg.
Throughout his career, Claudio Abbado has been a champion of contemporary music. He has promoted the works of Nono, Stockhausen, Rihm and many other composers. In 1988, while serving at the Vienna State Opera, he initiated the “Wien Modern” Festival, offering 20th-century music its own platform in Vienna.
Abbado devoted much time to nurturing young talent, and was founder and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra, which developed into the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in 1981. He also founded the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in 1986, formed the highly acclaimed Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2003 and the following year was named musical and artistic director of The Orchestra Mozart in Bologna.
In 1967 he began what was to become an extraordinary and long-lived relationship with Deutsche Grammophon. It is an indication of his musical maturity even relatively early in his career that his first recording for the label remains in the catalogue to this day: an iconic account of Ravel’s G major piano concerto and Prokofiev’s Third with the Berlin Philharmonic and soloist Martha Argerich.
Abbado’s recording history reflects the story of his musical career. La Scala productions that he recorded include Simon Boccanegra and Macbeth, with the theatre’s orchestra and chorus. His years with the London Symphony Orchestra saw many recordings, including Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Cenerentola and notably music by Mozart (piano concertos with Rudolf Serkin), Mendelssohn (symphonies), Ravel, Stravinsky and Debussy. When he moved to Vienna in 1986, it was the beginning of a tenure which saw many legendary productions, including Wozzeck and Pelléas et Mélisande, both preserved on record by DG. His recordings with the Berlin forces include a complete set of the Beethoven piano concertos with his long-standing colleague Maurizio Pollini and, in 2001, his second cycle of the Beethoven symphonies (his previous cycle, with the Vienna Philharmonic, had been issued in 1989). A complete cycle of Mahler symphonies, including the Adagio from Symphony No. 10, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic, was released in 1995. With the Chamber Orchestra of Europe he conducted recordings of Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims and Schubert’s complete symphonies (both winners of Gramophone’s “Record of the Year” award, in 1986 and 1988 respectively).
In time, Abbado amassed a huge discography on Deutsche Grammophon, including the entire symphonic works of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Schubert, and more than 20 complete operas. For Abbado’s 80th birthday year there will be two new releases with the Orchestra Mozart (Mozart Concertos and Schumann Overtures and Second Symphony) and a 40-CD Symphonies Box. 
Among the many awards bestowed on Claudio Abbado are the Bundesverdienstkreuz – Germany’s highest award –, the Légion d’honneur and the Mahler Medal. In 2012 he was honoured with a Gramophone “Lifetime Achievement Award” and won the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Conductor. The citation for the RPS award summed up a conductor who has given so much to music: “Every one of the infrequent but annual appearances by this conductor produces a performance of indelible, life-changing moment. His extraordinary, revelatory concerts with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra … changed perceptions, and raised the bar once again on what it is possible for a group of musicians to achieve.”

Sunday, January 19, 2014

A filmed interview with...me.

The lovely Melanie Spanswick has uploaded to her Classical Piano and Music Education Blog a filmed interview with me for her Music Talk series, complete with forthcoming concert dates for my stage projects and some wonderful Ravel played by Viv McLean at one of our Alicia's Gift concerts. Please pop over to her site, here.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

The girl who beat Trifonov

Last night I had my first introduction (live) to the playing of Yulianna Avdeeva, winner of the 2010 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. She took first prize as Daniil Trifonov pulled in third (and second prize was shared between Wunder and Geniusas, two contestants with fine names in every sense). To say that the competition sent waves of controversy through the pianophile community at the time probably isn't saying enough. The petite Russian girl from Munich is 28 years old, clad in a tailcoat, not much taller than I am and, unless I'm much mistaken, the first woman to win the Chopin since Argerich. And I'm very glad to report that she is the real deal, plus some.

She played Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 at the Royal Festival Hall last night with the LPO and Jurowski. They are all now on a plane to Spain, where late-night audiences in Madrid can catch them this evening.




From the very first entry Avdeeva showed a musical and intellectual sophistication that is several cuts above the average. She has an astonishing sense of the ineffable in sound: she can conjure a mezza voce that is both translucent and mysterious, filled with Brahmsian innigkeit, for instance; it's somewhat Kaufmannesque in concept. She spins long, wonderfully shaped melodic lines, but builds the music from the bass up, through the harmonic structure, and has the full compass of counterpoint, voicing and balance (listen to the close-knitted coda of the Chopin Fourth Ballade above, for example - it's carefully managed yet never loses fire). She may be slender, but her power, when fully unleashed, is thunderous; and that unleashing only happens when the music calls for it.

I can think of few pianists who can blend with the orchestral texture so ideally - many wouldn't even think of doing so, but at times this mighty concerto became nearly a concertante piece as Avdeeva duetted with the solo horn, accompanying, exchanging, playing chamber music, assuming a collegial role as one part of the massive and inspiring whole. There's a mesmerising beauty and intelligence to her interpretation and something that I don't mind classifying as an old-fashioned classiness of the best type: fully informed and intellectually aware yet deeply intuitive as well and with the ability to find not only the right sound for Brahms but the right sounds for every shade of his very considerable spectrum. It's worth adding that the players adored her awareness of orchestral sound and interaction, and one violinist declared it one of the best Brahms Firsts he's played in in 28 years.

Given this level of musicianship, the cruelty of some of the 2010 competition reviews is simply  staggering. But John Allison from the Telegraph was there and was hugely impressed with her. Let's hope she will come back soon.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

The other Lloyd Webber



That was Aurora by William Lloyd Webber - the most substantial piece of orchestral music, as far as we know, by the father of Andrew and Julian. His centenary falls this year, on 11 March, and there's to be a big celebratory concert that day in St Martin-in-the-Fields, led by Julian. I've been exploring William's music and, in short, am quite in love with it. The other day I had a good chat with Julian about life with his father and the legacy of William's music - personified by his influence on Andrew.

I also had a wonderful talk with John Lill, who knew the family extremely well as a young man, and as I'd like this celebration to be an ongoing thing, I will post that interview here a little closer to the anniversary date. In the meantime, here is my introduction to William Lloyd Webber in today's Independent. Enjoy.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

New baton announced for the LPO



Born in Colombia, living in Vienna, flexing his muscles and charming the everything off everyone, to judge from this video from Portland, here comes the new boy at the London Philharmonic. Andrés Orozco-Estrada (he pronounces his own name Orozcestrada) has today been announced as the band's new principal guest conductor, taking over when Yannick Nézet-Séguin's tenure concludes at the end of this season. I haven't seen him in action live yet. He only conducted the LPO for the first time a couple of months ago.

Here he is conducting the Tonkunstler Orchestra in the Figaro overture.

We look forward to getting to know him. 



Tuesday, January 14, 2014

We could live and learn, given half a chance...

This is my latest Soapbox post for Amati.com: http://www.amati.com/articles/1053-we-could-live-and-learn-given-half-a-chance.html
The gist of it is that classical music's obsession with attracting youth may be a little misplaced...

Monday, January 13, 2014

My top ten wishes for music in the new year



1. Re performers, I wish we might see the return to these shores of the pianists Grigory Sokolov, Krystian Zimerman, Martha Argerich and Menahem Pressler.

2. Re audiences, I wish for the principle to be established that you have a responsibility to consider other people as well as yourself - you may have bought a ticket, but so have they. Therefore during the concert you don't talk, you switch off all functions of your phone and you - er - listen to the music.

3. Re orchestras and other ensembles, I wish that those who depend on their local councils for life-giving tranches of funding could find alternative sources, fast. I fear they will need them. Here is the first of what will be many such problems: the BBC Philharmonic's grant is being slashed by Salford Council, which - shamefully - is also ending its contribution to music and performing arts in schools, according to this report from the Manchester Evening News.

4. Re programming, I wish for scope, breadth and depth. I am sick of pianists in particular programming same old same old. Do you know how much piano repertoire there is? More than any of us could possibly read through in one lifetime. So no more Schumann Etudes Symphoniques; why not Gesange der Fruhe? And enough of the last three Schubert sonatas; why not the G major or the big D major instead, or, if you can face its challenges, the "little" A minor? This could go on, but you get my drift.

5. I also wish for plenty of Andrzej Panufnik, whose centenary falls this year. He is a neglected master and he's due for a big-time return to the concert hall. Watch this space for further details of the centenary plans so far. At least there's a good chance of this wish being fulfilled.

6. I wish that Sir Simon Rattle would confirm or deny, definitively, whether or not he is coming to head the LSO. Preferably the former.

7. An end to witch-hunting and bullying in all its forms. The notion that a composer/performer/any individual who does something artistic/creative/literary/etc should be judged in that activity first by his/her personal beliefs/sayings/doings in matters of religion/sex/politics/etc is insidious and daft.

8. I wish that along with endeavouring to increase levels of sponsorship, membership, Friends schemes etc, there could be an increased sense of responsibility to those who can't afford to be among them. Venues exist that sell out to their members before anyone else gets a look in. Some of those venues keep day seats for which you can queue. Those that don't currently do this should start. The ones that already do should keep more day seats.


9. I wish that some doughty, important and fearless conductor would decide that it is OK to perform Mozart operas with a bit of vibrato and an orchestra that's non-microscopic in size.

10. Last but by no means least, I wish for the realisation of my dream of an awards ceremony to celebrate and raise the profile of the great achievements of women in music. And I'm sure Fanny Mendelssohn (right) would approve.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Where are all the new operettas?

There aren't many around. But over in Munich, our friend Alexander Krampe has arranged the music of Ernst Fischer (1900-1975) for a new production, Charley's Aunt, at the Munich Kammeroper - and it looks like they've got a hit on their hands. The critic of Munich's Nachtgedanken says he had a tummyache from laughing so much and moreover found himself asking the lady next to him at the interval bar if she really was a woman... Read more here (auf Deutsch - Google Translate does an OK job). More here, too.

We spent Christmas with Alexander and his fiancee Friederike in Walchensee...a special place, long story, saving it up for exploration at length....and fell roundly in love with Fischer's insoucient soundworld, his finesse and catchiness and the general delicious whirl of his writing. There's not an awful lot about him out there, but there is a scant paragraph on Wiki.

His most famous piece is South of the Alps. Here it is performed by the Hungarian Gypsy Orchestra. I hope his name will become much better known very soon. Happy Saturday!


Wednesday, January 08, 2014

High Five to LondonJazz! A guest post from its founder...

Delighted to hand over a guest spot today to my friend and former student-of-sorts (!), Sebastian Scotney, whose runaway blog success story, LondonJazz, celebrates its fifth birthday tomorrow. Here he is, along with his chosen video to mark the occasion! JD




I attended one of Jessica Duchen's writing courses and found it empowering. A few months later I started a blog about the London jazz scene.  Five years on, writing about and trying to encourage more coverage of the scene has brought me where I want to be: closer to the music.
The scene in London is lively, there are always new discoveries to be made. I get nice roles, such as being asked to compere the Whirlwind Recordings Festival at Kings Place in October.

Jess, you will be asking where the women are? This video is of the launch  the debut album at that festival by Shetlands-born saxophonist/composer Rachael Cohen, a real rising star. Having done the introductions, I was sitting in the front row, alongside her proud parents.

You get an idea of the freshness, inventiveness  and fluency of Rachael's improvising after 3:05


Sebastian Scotney

Saturday, January 04, 2014

Road rage?

My Amati column this week tackles a few niggles about musicians' schedules and aspirations, and conversely, what we tend to expect of them... http://www.amati.com/articles/1052-travelling-musicians.html

Friday, January 03, 2014

Dangerous living, with JS Bach

I've long been an admirer of the extraordinary South African pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar, whose recordings of Bach and Mozart in particular have struck me as profound, original, fresh, thought-provoking and utterly authentic in terms of the spirit of the music. Among his many roles, he teaches at the Royal Academy of Music and Benjamin Grosvenor has often cited him as a vital mentor. Daniel-Ben has just recorded the Bach 48 Preludes and Fugues (out now on Avie) and a few weeks ago he performed them whole at Kings Place. I asked him for an e-interview about this, but he wanted to wait - sensibly enough - until that particular hurdle was out of the way. Here is our resulting Q&A.






JD: Daniel-Ben, most of us have enough trouble playing just one fugue, let alone 48 of them plus preludes. How does it feel to perform them - the prospect beforehand, the sustaining of energy through the concert and then the aftermath?

DBP: There are some things that will never become easy and this is one of them. My recent concerts at King’s Place in London were a new experience for me – I had never played the two books back to back on consecutive evenings. I think it is impossible to completely banish worrying about a memory slip somewhere along the line no matter how ‘in the bones’ the music sits, but the bigger challenge for me was to make peace with living dangerously in other ways too: sustaining the greatest possible variety of pacing, dynamics, phrasing, pedalling and touch throughout the 96 pieces (sometimes at physical extremes) to really make palpable the encyclopaedically inclusive nature of the work to an audience – its diversity of characterisations, of emotions, atmospheres and colours, of musical ideas – in a truly pianistic way.

That means leaving very little room for ‘digging in’ for security, for putting up safety nets by defaulting to moderate tempi or comfortable tonal calibrations wherever difficulties present themselves. Living with that level of risk can be frightening but the rewards when things go well are so much finer! I have no idea whether I was successful on this occasion, but I certainly enjoyed working at it – and would love to perform the cycle again!


JD: How would you describe your approach to Bach performance? Do you think it's necessary to adhere to traditions or do you prefer to free yourself of all preconceptions about the music?

DBP: I do not think one could safely make any rules about Bach performance (or any other for that manner) - that is, as long as you think that playing piano is, at its best, an artistic endeavour! Good artists have always confounded or subverted given expectations. How one frees oneself from the sense of adhering to a set of conventions or commonly accepted mores is a complex issue though. It is almost inconceivable to me that, doing something as intricate and beautiful as playing the piano, one could NOT be deeply interested in the work of eminent exponents present and past (imagine a chess player who claims to be uninterested in the great matches of the grand masters!). Exploring the expressive means and ideas of these artists in some detail, one inevitably ends up having to face the anxieties and challenges of influence. Finding a playful freedom and a fresh sense of the intuitive beyond that remains the ultimate goal but getting there is an often arduous process. So, in short I would say I am less interested in the dictates of particular traditions than I am in the highly personal playing of some of the great exponents of those traditions, and the specifics of that. I think at this point in pianistic history it becomes possible to see the two things as separate to a certain degree.

JD: Some might argue against playing Bach on the modern piano. What would you say in favour of it?

DBP: See my answer above! Playing the music on the ‘wrong’ instrument, if it happens to be the queen of instruments – an instrument which has a reputation above any other for successful transcription and transformation, even transubstantiation (!), and can perhaps boast a more illustrious roster of great practitioners than any other (save the voice) – opens up a set of artistic possibilities quite distinct from those open to musicians playing on instruments of Bach’s day. The sensitive pianist does not merely take into account the instruments and practices of the late baroque but also of subsequent eras. This becomes a rather wonderful way of engaging, through Bach’s rich scores, with all sorts of histories and thus with that which remains timelessly human in the music. In any case those who still argue against playing Bach on the piano can only do so on grounds of personal taste. The whole ‘hardware’ debate is in fact one that is really quite a bit in the past, and as far as I am concerned came to decisive end with the priorities outlined in Laurence Dreyfus’s “Early Music Defended Against Its Devotees”. Those who still think there is an intellectually coherent argument contra playing Bach on the piano are simply horribly behind the times!
 




JD: We understand you've recorded the 48 - and we look forward to hearing it. What was it like, doing that? Are you a Glenn Gould in the studio, seeking perfection, or do you prefer to record each piece in a single take?
DBP: I love recording above anything else and I love editing my own recordings. I have to start with a very clear idea of what I want to achieve which normally entails a framework within which I play as spontaneously as possible. I record many possibilities within that set of clearly defined parameters and ‘harnessing points’, and decide later how I would like to use them, after listening to how things come across on tape. It is therefore incredibly important to me to edit my own recordings! Few people realise just what a difference the choice of takes, and the exact point where an edit is made, can effect. A lot of recordings end up almost as much the artistic work of the producers and editors as of the players! Editing my own work means my recordings are entirely composed of my own musical decisions. As far as long takes and short takes are concerned, I do both depending on what’s required and depending on the conditions under which I work on a particular day. It all depends on what is more likely to yield the kind of result one is after.

Thursday, January 02, 2014

A lost generation - and some that need finding

As the commemorations of the World War I centenary begin, music is very much part of the equation. Radio 3 is starting a new series entitled Music on the Brink on 5 January, looking at the music of five crucial cities at the time of the war's outbreak. 

This article appeared in short form in the Independent a week or two ago, but what follows here is my longer original: an introduction to the effect of the "Great War" on the composers who had to participate in it, those who lived and those who died. Some are household names, but others can benefit from the chance of rediscovery that this year may bring.

We already had FS Kelly's deeply moving Elegy for Strings for Remembrance Day, so to start let's hear Jelly d'Aranyi (violin) and Ethel Hobday (piano) playing his Serenade Op.7.





The composer and poet Ivor Gurney once wrote: “Despairing work is the noblest refuge among other despairs”. During commemorations for the centenary of World War I this year, Gurney’s music will be much to the fore, together with that of a generation of composers who, if they survived, found themselves indelibly scarred by their wartime experiences. Their responses were extraordinarily varied. Far from being a catalogue of gloom, their works reflect everything from mourning to pacifism, from iconoclasm to wry humour and escapism. 
 
Gurney’s history is as emblematic as it is tragic, and his songs as beautiful as his poetry. Always prone to depression, he had suffered a breakdown while still a student; but after serving in the war, in which he suffered a shoulder wound in 1917 and gassing only months afterwards, he was diagnosed with “deferred shell-shock”. He spent his later years in and out of mental institutions. Later this year there'll be a Radio 3 Composer of the Week series devoted to his compositions.


Among the most familiar of his contemporaries is Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was 41 on the outbreak of war, but served first as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps, later as a second lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He weathered considerable horrors with greater than average strength, though later suffered deafness thought to have been caused by noise damage from gunfire. His Pastoral Symphony – light years from Beethoven’s – references not idealised country scenes, but the fields of northern France. It incubated, he recalled, “when I used to go up night after night with the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset.” A trumpet cadenza captures the sound he heard of a bugler practising yet hitting the wrong note.

Other survivors were less well adjusted. EJ Moeran was a case in point. He was 19 in 1914 and spent much of the war as a despatch rider until being wounded at Bullecourt in 1917. Not only his psyche but also the progress of his career was overturned; it was soon hampered further by mental instability and alcoholism. He was just beginning to achieve real recognition when the outbreak of World War II intervened. Fortunately his concertos for cello and for violin have recently been enjoying a resurgence of popularity thanks to new recordings respectively by the cellist Guy Johnston and violinist Tasmin Little. Here's the second movement of his Serenade:



Many composers were less fortunate still. George Butterworth died in the Battle of the Somme, aged 31. A friend of Vaughan Williams and fellow collector of folksongs, his most celebrated work is the song cycle A Shropshire Lad, exquisitely evocative settings of AE Housman, as well as an idyllic work for orchestra, The Banks of Green Willow

A less famed loss at the Somme was the Australian composer Frederick Septimus Kelly, who had survived Gallipoli and was also a rowing champion, having won a gold medal in the 1908 Olympic Games. Recently the director of the Canberra Festival, Christopher Latham, has unearthed a violin sonata that Kelly penned on the boat home from Gallipoli, intending it for the violinist Jelly d’Arányi – also a vital inspiration to Ravel, Vaughan Williams and Bartók – whom he was widely expected to marry. It is a relatively carefree-sounding piece – as if imagining its strains in the trenches had offered a means of mental escape. 

Many who did not see action found their attitudes to life and music transformed nonetheless. Frank Bridge espoused strong pacifist views; the impact of the war induced him to transform his hitherto romantic style into near-expressionism – for instance, in an uncompromising piano sonata dedicated to the memory of the composer Ernest Bristow Farrar, who was killed in action. Bridge’s student Benjamin Britten was later to echo his pacifist outlook; and Farrar’s young pupil Gerald Finzi was deeply affected by his mentor’s death, which contributed to shaping his distinctly dark view of life.

Across the Channel, Claude Debussy was dying of cancer; he did not live to see the conflict’s end. He came to view composition as an act of resistance and patriotism. “I want to work not so much for myself, but to give proof, however small...that not even 30 million ‘boches’ can destroy French thought," he declared. His last works are three instrumental sonatas that show not a hint of the turbulence around him, signed ‘Claude Debussy, musicien français’. 

Maurice Ravel became a driver of ambulances at Verdun. In his piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin each movement is dedicated to a different fallen friend. He, though, resisted the drift towards nationalism: “It would be dangerous for French composers to ignore systematically the works of their foreign colleagues, and thus form themselves into a sort of national coterie: our musical art...would soon degenerate and become isolated by its own academic formulas,” he wrote. But his La Valse is often seen as an unwitting evocation of the world of the Viennese waltz imploding in cataclysm.

This is the piano version, played by Yuja Wang at Verbier:


The composers of Vienna itself responded to the war in manners ranging from the personal to the outright political. Franz Lehár, that supreme composer of operetta, produced a tone poem for tenor and orchestra entitled Fever, portraying the memories of a soldier in shell-shock. At the other extreme, the youthful Erich Wolfgang Korngold became musical director of a regiment, for which he composed a military march. When his commanding officer complained that it was too fast, he quipped: “This is for the retreat.” 

For Arnold Schoenberg, who undertook military service aged 42, the war symbolised – at first – an attack on the reactionary musical world, especially that of France: “Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God,” he wrote in 1914. But German musical losses were intense, too: just one example was the immensely gifted Rudi Stephan, whose opera Die ersten Menschen was only premiered five years after his death on the Galician front. 

While surviving composers processed their experiences through their art in many different ways, an overarching result became clear. The war had produced such trauma and disillusionment that the only way forward was to sweep away the past and find a new, sometimes revolutionary approach for the future. The scene was set for a fresh century of music, rising from the ashes of the old one.


Wednesday, January 01, 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014


Happy New Year from JDCMB here in London.

In 2014 this blog marks its 10th anniversary. On 4 March 2004 I set out to investigate what these new-fangled things called blogs were and found, five minutes later, that I had one; and decided, two minutes after that, that I'd use it and see what happened. So here we are.

Ten years on, most things of real value seem to be in a state of slow-motion collapse. My wish for today is that 2014 will be the year we find exciting and positive ways to reconfigure them. We're still here, and it's up to us.

A few points for readers new to JDCMB:

WELCOME ABOARD!

ABOUT ME: I am a writer with a musical slant, based in London, UK. I contribute music journalism to publications including The Independent, BBC Music Magazine, Opera News and others. I've written a bunch of novels, biographies of Fauré and Korngold, some plays, and words for musical setting, and I write and perform scripts for narrated words&music concerts. I give pre-concert talks and sometimes do things on Radio 3. I play the piano and I still love music.

ABOUT THIS BLOG: JDCMB is a celebration of music and words, aiming to inform and entertain. Occasional tubs are thumped, but I don't do rabble rousing and I sometimes try to puncture some of the inflated idiocy around us.

We like: genuine artistry, enthusiasm, humour, music education for all, historical recordings and the bolstering of the soul; and we enjoy going off the wall from time to time (eg the annual Ginger Stripe Awards, presented by Solti, my ginger cat). We don't like: commercialism, populism, sexism, racism, bullying, cruelty or carnage.

The gluten-free reference in the sub-head has a double-meaning. I've had to go GF since a patch of vicious stress relating to a dalek invasion stymied my digestive system; and eliminating avoidable stress has meant getting rid of the comments boxes. As for the sugar and spice, we would like to invent a sarcasm font and one for irony, too.

You can follow this blog via email - please sign up in the sidebar box (I don't see the email addresses, btw - it's all automated). I usually post links on Facebook and Twitter. If you need to write to me, please use my public Facebook page. Please don't send me unsolicited CDs, as I can't promise to review them. If you wish to buy an advert, you are welcome to do so, whether as a display ad or in the Solti Sponsorship Scheme.

Here's to a great year of music ahead!

















Monday, December 30, 2013

Andras Schiff goes gold



This was the moment on 21 December when Andras Schiff was presented with the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society at the Wigmore Hall. Receiving it makes him the successor to such figures as Rubinstein, Horowitz, Curzon and only a scant handful of other tip-tip-tip-top pianists. He had just given a remarkable recital consisting of Bach's Goldberg Variations in the first half and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations in the second. It was his 60th birthday that very day.

The citation is inspiring and his response touching, humble and rather heart-rending. He went on to play a short piece written in memory of his mother, Klara Schiff, by his teacher from Budapest, Gyorgy Kurtag, who has also been presented with the RPS's Gold Medal this month. The RPS has been celebrating its own bicentenary this year, as it happens, and the bust of Beethoven is on the stage in memory of the Society's commissioning of his Ninth Symphony.