Dead violinists society: Zimbalist!

I've never seen any film of Efrem Zimbalist before. Here he is playing the variations from Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata, filmed in 1926. Like Heifetz and Seidel, he was a Russian-born student of Leopold Auer; like them, his sound inhabits a world that is entirely its own, and the tone here comes through with astonishing power, beauty and sensuality, despite having been recorded 84 years ago. Glorious. Hope you love it as much as I do!

There's now so much amazing old-school violin stuff on Youtube that it could keep us happy on JDCMB for a year at least!

Maurice Jarre dies at 84

The music of Maurice Jarre, who has died aged 84: Lawrence of Arabia, which was among his iconic collaborations with David Lean. It's rather extraordinary, to put it mildly, as the opening titles begin with four and a half minutes of pure music - see above. He composed Dr Zhivago, A Passage to India, Dead Poets Society and many more. It's perhaps a signal of how the status of film music has changed in the past half-century that Jarre's death was reported on BBC TV's Breakfast news yesterday (normally they only talk about such matters as the latest red tape around school dinners).

Full obituaries are appearing around the world. Here is one from the Los Angeles Times, which includes a quote from John Williams: 'According to composer John Williams, Jarre "is to be well remembered for his lasting contribution to film music. His collaboration with director David Lean produced truly enduring music that is beloved by millions, and we all have been enriched by his legacy."'

Over at One More Take, broadcaster/film maker/conductor Tommy Pearson shares his personal memories of Jarre and invites everyone to do likewise.

And here is a full obit from The Guardian. "Music is how I will be remembered," said Jarre. "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head and that only I can hear."

Meet Kirill Gerstein

That was Kirill Gerstein in Rach 3 with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and the delectable Dudamel.

Gerstein is my next 'victim'...I mean, my next interviewee... for the International Piano Series. Tomorrow night, he makes his debut in this fabulous sequence of recitals at Southbank Centre, and I'll be doing the pre-concert interview with him, starting at 6.15pm. Do come and hear him: his programme is exciting, dramatic and unusual.

Johann Sebastian Bach: English Suite No.2 in A minor, BWV.807
Sergey Rachmaninov: Variations on a theme of Corelli, Op.42
Interval
Fryderyk Chopin: Fantasia in F minor, Op.49
Arnold Schoenberg: 3 Pieces for piano, Op.11
Ferruccio Busoni: Sonatina No.2 for piano
Franz Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No.1

He has a fabulous track record that includes having been a Carnegie Hall Rising Star in 2005-6, projects with Andras Schiff and Steven Isserlis and a piano trio with Kolja Blacher and Clemens Hagen. He became the youngest student ever to enrol at Berklee, aged 14, after a faculty member was amazed by his jazz playing (yes) in Poland. But the classical style seems to have won in the end, with a triumph at the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in 2001. So he's come a long way from his native Voronezh, where he was born in 1979, and looks set to go much further.

Online booking here.

Tweetybirds for Sunday

I haven't quite 'got' it with Twitter as yet (though am pathetically Facebook-addicted). But right now there's a hilarious game going on. Summarise an opera plot in 140 characters and tweet it with the tag #operaplot. I've traced it all back to the brilliant Miss Mussel, who got the ball rolling 2 days ago. Here are a few of the best so far:

Priestess has secret kids. Lover unfaithful. Kill kids? Kill him? Confess to the tribe. Penalty's death. Lover joins her.

Naive geisha carries a tune, carries a torch, carries a child. Can't carry on. Hari-kiris herself.

I'd kill to be Tsar. It's good to be the Tsar. Wait, is D really dead? This is driving me nuts. My son can take over. Dosvedanya.

You ruined my life. Hey, let's drink this. We're in love. Ecstasy! Shit, we're busted. OK, let's just die.

Nothing happens; Mélisande dies.


More where those came from. I'm trying to think of something myself...

OK, how about this?: Here's my castle. Are you afraid? No, I'm going to open all those damn doors. Are you afraid? No, let me in! Who's that? Oh shit.

Update(I know you're waiting for this one...): #operaplot Marie's dead. Marietta's alive. Paul thinks Marietta is Marie. Paul has dream. Paul doesn't murder anyone really. Bye-bye Bruges.

Villazon drops out of Elisir

Villazon apparently has laryngitis. Opera Chic thinks our Angela maybe knew what she was talking about. Actually it was a little longer ago than 2 weeks - the interview took place in the last week of January. OC says RV is out of 31 March and 4 April, planning to return to the production from 8 April.

It is only five years ago that I heard Villazon for the first time - he was an unknown, singing Rodolfo at Glyndebourne. I was admittedly so busy ogling the gergeurs Nathan Gunn that I didn't pay as much attention to the new Mexican tenor as he deserved. Other than thinking he was a heck of a good actor and that...well, that really is quite a voice. Six months or so later, everything caught fire. It is way, way too soon to have to consider saying goodbye to a sound like that.

So what happened? We can only hazard sensible guesses. Vocal problems can hit any singer, any time. But you need to be very, very resilient emotionally to survive certain things that the music business lands you with. How manufactured was that partnership with Netrebko? I had the impression from talking to her in 2006 that it was jolly real (I checked back in the out-takes from that interview in case there was illumination to be found, but there wasn't, beyond the printed version - this particular conversation was less scintillating than the one with Angela, except, of course, for the diamonds.) But voices are voices, human blood and guts, not steel strings. Muck them about at your peril.

The voice of Bartok (b 25 March 1881)

Today is Bartok's birthday!

Here is a radio interview with him from America in 1944, given during a recital of his music by his wife. He sounds quite ill; by this time he was already suffering from advanced leukaemia and he died about a year and two months later.



Now here he is playing his own Suite Op.14, recorded 1929.



"Somehow I felt now, after a long time of no work, like a man who lies in bed over a long, long period, and finally tries to use his arms and legs, gets on his feet and takes one or two steps. A man like this cannot just suddenly walk up a hill. I, too, gradually grew accustomed to movement: and so in this manner I only produced piano pieces. But even this was something. Because, to be frank, recently I have felt so stupid, so dazed, so empty-headed that I have truly doubted whether I am able to write anything new at all anymore. All the tangled chaos that the musical periodicals vomit thick and fast about the music of today has come to weigh heavily on me: the watchwords linear, horizontal, vertical, objective, impersonal, polyphonic, homophonic, tonal, polytonal, atonal, and the rest; even if one does not concern one’s self with all of it, one still becomes quite dazed when they shout it on our ears so much. ... But now things are all right; you can imagine how pleased I am that at last there will be something new, and something I myself can play, on my own, instead of the eternal Allegro barbaro, A Bit Tipsy and Rumanian Dance."

(Bartók to his second wife, Ditta Pásztory, June 21, 1926, quoted in Tibor Tallián, Béla Bartók, The Man and His Work (Budapest, 1988), 141)

I have found a wonderful online 'Bartok Virtual Exhibition' here. Visit and enjoy!

"Sergei Sergeevich, maybe you will tell our viewers about your work?"

This amazing film footage of Prokofiev plopped into my in-box from Marc-Andre Hamelin, who tells me it's been doing the rounds of pianists' emails for a while. He has also kindly forwarded this translation of the Russian, which was sent to him by Dmitry Rachmanov:

Prokofiev is being asked: "Sergei Sergeevich, maybe you will tell our viewers about your work?"

He replies: "Well, right now I am working on a symphonic suite of waltzes, which will include three waltzes from Cinderella, two waltzes from the War and Peace, and one waltz from the movie score "Lermontov." [The War and Peace] has just been brilliantly produced in Leningrad, where the composer Cheshko (?) made an especially noteworthy appearance as a tenor, giving a superb performance in the role of Pierre Bezukhoff. Besides this suite, I am working on a sonata for violin and piano [no.1 in f minor], upon completion of which I will resume work on the sixth symphony, which I had started last year. I have just completed three suites from the Cinderella ballet and I am now turning the score over to copyists for writing the parts, so that most likely the suites will already be performed at the beginning of the fall season."

Enjoy!

On Beauty...

Fascinating debate in The Observer yesterday, springing from a live one at the Royal Geographical Society as to whether Britain has become indifferent to beauty.

I have a few things to add and invite you to do the same...

First, I reckon people in general love beauty. But today's decision-makers and creators in art, architecture, music and more have a narrow idea of what popular beauty constitutes and they don't like it: it is out-dated, being associated with the 18th and 19th centuries. An attitude derived from Socialist Realism has dominated everything from TV to concert-hall design for the last 50 years or more. If and when a semblance of beauty exists, it often seems suspect because it's associated with the wrong kind of politics: those of the first half of the 20th century. Thought process: beauty=conservatism=evil.

This, though, confuses beauty with prettiness. Beauty, genuine beauty, has nothing to do with politics, isn't skin deep and on the surface may not be pretty in the slightest. Personally, I think that beauty is what results when a work of art spirals into more than the sum of its parts, telling us a startling truth about the human condition, mainly through compassion and empathy. I found the film The Lives of Others beautiful, because it carried a powerful message about feeling, suffering and sacrifice. Even Apocalypse Now has a strange and terrifying beauty to it. There's nothing pretty about either film; nor about Salman Rushdie's overwhelming novel Midnight's Children, full of beauty that springs from the power and gleeful originality of the man's virtuoso imagination.

The performing musicians I most admire share qualities that make their playing beautiful: attention to the detail of tone, shape, colour, but most of all to the soul beneath the music. Bashing the hell out of a piano has nothing to do with this (unless a composer has specifically requested it); nor does playing a violin in strict metronomic time with banned vibrato just because it is deemed 'correct'. It's about empathy, intuition, humanity. It's about understanding the composer, the work and and the instrument, about knowing how to bring out the best in all of them.

As for new music, beauty exists, but it is certainly undervalued and bizarrely feared. It was the profound and very unexpected beauty of Gorecki's Third Symphony that made it so popular; of course it was criticised for that. Yet it does contain beauty, wrought by digging deep and opening up a ravine of intense humanity. And James MacMillan's opera The Sacrifice, the little of it I heard, struck me as incredibly beautiful, but certainly not pretty.

Meanwhile we had to have The Minotaur on primetime TV, which probably put a bunch of people off modern opera for life. It wasn't either pretty or beautiful. It was powerful in its way, but noisy, upsetting, and, overall, a jolly nasty experience. Just because something sounds hideous, that doesn't mean it automatically contains beauty; but equally just because The Phantom of the Opera is gentler on the ears, that doesn't make it beautiful either.

It can seem as if everyone is terrified of beauty, but actually what they're frightened of is prettiness, or the version commonly termed "mawkish sentimentality". Even that idea needs to be gently prodded: is there perhaps a danger of going too far the other way, denying any semblance of human feeling for fear of - well, of what? Feeling something? Being thought uncool? Being bullied in the playground for wearing a baseball cap with the peak at the front instead of the back?

So in terror of one potentially twisted emotion, we run a mile from another and desperately espouse its reverse. But the reverse isn't appealing either, so everyone scarpers from that too and the result is...empty chairs.

There's a problem with real beauty: there isn't much because creating it is too damn difficult. Nothing gratuitous is ever really beautiful; nothing that sets out to copy beauty is likely to succeed in reaching us at the gut level on which beauty works its magic. It's an opening of the channels, a freeing of the circulation from specific to universal to mystical. When, with infinite care and compassion, a great artist shows us the humane inner essence of the image or the sound, and we stand back and gasp - that's beauty.

Ideas, folks?

Ice cold in Philly?

Charlotte Higgins wrote in yesterday's Grauniad about the intimations of crisis at the Philadelphia Orchestra. "Though it has an interim music director in Charles Dutoit, it has no permanent holder of that post, nor a chair of trustees, nor an executive director. It has just announced staff and pay cuts, and cancelled a tour to Europe this summer."

Of course the American arts scene faces a harder, faster crumbling under the current economic woes than its European counterpart, being almost wholly dependent on the whims of sponsors and the health of the stock market. Whether Obama's package will help is uncertain. But isn't it the case that the better the management, the better the chance of any organisation, of any kind, to weather the blast? If, as Charlotte says, this orchestra has no music director, no chair of trustees and no executive director, that doesn't appear to put it in a particularly good spot right now. How is it possible for a world-class orchestra like this one to land up rudderless? Better no music director than a bad one (we in London know all about that from the last recession...), but it sounds as if the great Philadelphia Orchestra, Fantasia or none, has more to worry about even than world economics.

Meet Kate Aldrich

Here's a real operatic mezzo-soprano with a heck of a great dramatic voice. Opera Chic today breaks the story that Kate Aldrich from Maine will be opening next season at La Scala Milan in a new production of Carmen.

Her website has some super audio clips - try the gorgeously tragic Chausson Chanson Perpetuelle. When I looked Kate up on YouTube I found two clips, one featuring a ghastly Donizetti duet with an even ghastlier tenor, the other featuring decent music (Benvenuto Cellini) but one of the weirdest productions I've ever seen. She is absolutely terrific in both, but...well, you just have to see this thing. Fasten your seatbelts.

Much too much, much too young...

I have an article about Faryl Smith and prodigy syndrome in today's Independent. For those of you fortunate enough not to have come across her before, she is 13 and has been snapped up by Universal Classics to be the new Charlotte Church/Katharine Jenkins. Yes, her voice is nice enough and sounds more mature than she is. No, it is not a good idea to do what she is doing.

FARYL SMITH AND THE PRODIGY SYNDROME
Jessica Duchen


It’s sad when the first thought that strikes one upon encountering a young girl with a beautiful voice is: ‘Oh God, another one’. The girl in question is Faryl Smith, 13, the latest discovery of Britain’s Got Talent. She led the singing at the England-France rugby match in front of more than 82,000 people, and her first CD, Faryl, sold 20,000 copies in its first four days, becoming the fastest-selling ‘classical’ debut album ever.

A confident girl from Kettering, she has a strong mezzo-soprano voice, the personal support of Katherine Jenkins, a recording contract with Universal, and the hearts of the TV-addicted nation desperate for a new pseudo-classical child star; the others keep growing up. The fact that most singers don’t generally find their ‘true’ voice until they are nearly twenty seems negligible: what commands the country’s fickle affections is a kid creating the illusion of, so to speak, premature maturity.

There’s always a buzz when a prodigy emerges and Faryl is no exception. Singing ‘Ave Maria’ on Britain’s Got Talent last year, she stunned everyone with the purity and assurance of her voice. Judge Simon Cowell said that she had sung ‘the best audition I’ve heard in years’. She then caused a sensation by not winning – first prize went to a breakdancer. Universal gave her a contract anyway, reportedly worth £2.3m. In Classic FM Magazine, Faryl commented: “People think when you sign a contract you’re automatically given a barrel of money, but that’s not how it happens. I just let my mum and dad get on with it.”

She’s already being called an ‘opera singer’, though of course she isn’t one – she’s way too young and the tracks on her debut album include Amazing Grace, Danny Boy and Annie’s Song, but no opera whatsoever. Populist interviews proudly declare that she doesn’t listen to classical music. They also report that Faryl’s parents, a health and safety inspector and a hairdresser, were reluctant to let her enter the TV competition in case it would ‘ruin her childhood’.

By now we should be used to stories that begin this way. Youngster emerges, catches attention with youthful appeal, achieves massive success. Half-baked ‘classical’ pretentions are quickly abandoned in favour of mass-market pop, the real classical music world being small, lacking in money and too quality-driven. Sooner or later, the pressures tell in drugs, alcohol, mental problems or family feuds. Some genuine sensations bounce back. Some don’t. History tells us that child prodigies pay for their successes with their souls.

Researching prodigies for my novels Alicia’s Gift and Hungarian Dances, I met numerous youthful performers and read about five times as many. Throughout, there were sorry tales and few happy endings. In my books – Alicia’s Gift concerning a prodigy pianist in the Peak District, and Hungarian Dances tracing the personal cost at which a Gypsy violinist rejects her heritage – I tried to give a compassionate picture of the human dilemmas involved in developing exceptional talent. The reality, though, is often less compassionate than one would like.

Plenty of great classical musicians started out as prodigies, the obvious examples being Mozart and Mendelssohn. The latter, though, seems to be the only prodigy in history whose family had nothing to gain from his status. Mozart’s father was more typical: desperately ambitious, not just for musical glory, but for money. Through the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, prodigies frequently appeared in deprived or persecuted communities in which musical success was viewed as an escape route to a better, safer and wealthier life. The legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz came from the Vilna ghetto; the pianist Cziffra, like my Hungarian Dances heroine Mimi Rácz, from grinding poverty among the Hungarian Gypsies.

Today it’s not necessity that drives the push, but it is sometimes greed. Every prodigy denies having pushy parents. Every parent of a prodigy denies pushing them. Encouraging, yes, they all say; supporting, yes; pushy, no. Nobody likes to think of themselves as pushy, and children are usually inclined to trust their parents. But the fact remains that behind every child basking prematurely in the limelight there is an adult who has put them there. Children cannot and do not do such things all by themselves.

There’s a line – sometimes fine, sometimes less so – between a supportive family and a controlling one, between permitting opportunities and grabbing them, between encouraging talent and exploiting it. Who knows how many equally talented youngsters may be biding their time in ordinary schools? Or how many potential musical marvels never even find their talent, for lack of encouragement or attention? The difference in public prodigydom occurs when someone realises that they can make money. That person is unlikely to be the child.

Over many successful young musicians, especially the girls, there looms an ever-watchful parent – cellist Ofra Harnoy, and violinists Sarah Chang and Hilary Hahn are just three examples. Sometimes the parent takes control of management and even recording production. Pop violinist Vanessa-Mae’s mother founded a record label for her daughter’s recordings when the little violinist was barely ten. In certain cases, terrible family rifts ensue when a girl musician grows up and wants either to take control of things herself, or to hand them over to an experienced music professional.

Boys can seem more resilient than girls, perhaps because they aren’t generally exploited for their looks. Nobody took Daniel Barenboim’s photograph walking out of the sea in a wet t-shirt when he was 14, unlike Vanessa-Mae, nor draped him suggestively over a couch, unlike Harnoy. Today one of Britain’s most exciting talents, the teenaged pianist Benjamin Grosvenor (who won the piano section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year aged 11), is building a serious career slowly and steadily; ditto the clarinettist Julian Bliss, now 19.

But overexposed young men sometimes respond to prodigy childhoods by suffering injury, disillusionment or mental illness just when they should be at the peak of their powers. Maxim Vengerov’s recent defection from the violin is a relatively mild example. Worse was the case of Josef Hassid (1923-1950), a phenomenal violin prodigy who suffered a breakdown at 18 and died after a lobotomy aged 26; and the pianist Terence Judd, winner of the 1978 Tchaikovsky Competition, who leapt to his death at Beachy Head.

It’s not only childhood that is destroyed by the pressures of premature celebrity; a soul is maimed for life. For every prodigy you hear of, there are ten that you don’t, because everything has gone horribly wrong. I’ve met former prodigies who dropped out of their careers after intense psychological misery because they had been shoehorned into music by ambitious parents; fine talents who dried up through inability to cope with adult competition after cosseted childhoods; and some who had encountered sexual demands from those wielding power. Eating disorders, substance abuse, breakdowns and suicide attempts are legion. Look out for the scars on the wrists.

The survivors are brave, often admirable. The Japanese violinist Midori, who was internationally celebrated by 11, now devotes much of her time to education and community work, bringing music to underprivileged children. Barenboim is one of today’s greatest musicians and thinkers. Even Charlotte Church seems to have settled down for now.

One could argue that there is no guarantee of happiness or success for anybody, prodigy or otherwise; that in a tough world, you have to grab the chances while you can; that failing to push a special talent would deny it its opportunities and the world its beauties. Prodigy parents might do well to reflect before accepting the record contract, though. Nobody can emerge wholly unscathed from such a childhood. It isn’t humanly possible.




CHARLOTTE CHURCH
Launching with ‘Voice of an Angel’, Church started off as a sub-classical babydoll. Moved on to pop music, was then reported as binge-drinking in 2005. Gave up alcohol when she was pregnant with her first child. Now 23 and hosts her own TV show.

DANIEL BARENBOIM
The Argentinian-born Barenboim was giving concerts by 11 and quickly became an international star as both pianist and conductor. His dedication to the quality and power of top-notch classical music-making has never faltered. One of today’s most inspirational performers and influential thinkers.

VANESSA-MAE
Started off as a classical violinist, promoted by her mother’s record label. Signed by EMI aged 14; notorious publicity shot in wet t-shirt. Turned quickly towards mainstream pop, adding vocals to her albums from 2001. Her website currently lists one upcoming gig, at Westonbirt Arboretum in July.

DAVID HELFGOTT
The Australian child prodigy pianist was much pushed by his ambitious father, but showed signs of mental illness while a student. After first marriage broke down he was institutionalised and underwent treatment for a decade. His story was immortalised in the film Shine.

A note from the land of nod...

So I am at a music festival, staying in a chintzy Victorian b&b, preparing to play the clarinet in a concert. I have not played the clarinet in a while (btw, in real life *never*), but this doesn't appear to worry me too much. The big problem is that my clarinet has vanished. I can't find it anywhere and hesitate between needing my friends' help and not wanting to confess that the darn thing is missing. And my friends aren't inclined to listen, being too busy singing to each other. Then the clarinet turns up in the laundry basket. I am now bothered by the possibility that on stage it will smell of dirty washing. At last I examine the instrument and try to remember how to finger the notes, but...and we are about to walk on stage to give the concert and... time to wake up, gasping with relief.

I popped something about this onto Facebook. So many people started writing back with their own versions of it that I thought we should go public. There's even a Far Side cartoon version, 'The Elephant's Dream', in which the creature sits at a piano on a stage thinking 'What am I doing here? I'm a flautist!' Why do we suffer performance-anxiety dreams? Does anyone ever have a happy performance dream? Is performing so tied up with terror that the two things can't be separated in our unconscious selves?

Felixcitations co-prod: Mendelssohn's Third Piano Concerto

I was delighted to have a good phone chat with the Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd the other day about his reconstruction and completion - using the finale of the Violin Concerto - of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No.3 in E minor. The full text is viewable over at my BBC Radio 3 Mendelssohn anniversary blog (which you and I know is really called Felixcitations). From there you have to click through to another page to read it because apparently it was too long for a blog. Meanwhile you can hear the inimitable Stephen Hough playing the better-known PC No.1 at the RFH tonight.

THE SING CAMPAIGN

A very different kind of diva: Annie Lennox, who incidentally is a very keen and excellent blogger (the link takes you to her website - there, click on BLOG). She has a voice I really adore when I don't have my strictly-classical hat on (music is music, as someone once said) and besides, she's someone I particularly admire since she is putting her voice, her fame and her energy into supporting areas that desperately need such support, notably HIV/AIDS research. Please explore her site for more details.

I've discovered she has several major qualities in common with the heroine of my next novel, Songs of Triumphant Love...but that can wait until the book comes out...

More about Angela

This is EMI's promotional video for the new Gheorghiu/Kaufmann/Pappano Madama Butterfly. The CD has gone straight to no.1 in the classical charts, according to latest press release. As YouTube is about to pull most of its most popular music videos, I thought we could have a quick look at it first.

Now, here are a few bits of my interview with her that didn't make it into the article. The transcript is pretty much as-was (though I've attempted to correct my typos, abbreviations et al). If you read this AND the published feature, you get the complete picture.

(On crying on stage, segueing from the Boheme story in the piece)
"For the applause, it was a standing ovation, but it gives me...because I really put myself there. That’s why. You can say with time you become used to it, you can manage everything in your life. No. I am more sensitive! And open! It can happen. And if you cannot really judge your feelings and everything to know what to do, because you cannot sing when you are crying, even if you are the most perfect actor, you must act, and that’s all! (JD: What about a role like Violetta?) Oh my God! The second act! If I am not controlling myself I can cry all the way from the second act on to the third."

(JD: Tell me about the recording – it’s rare to make a complete studio recording now)
"Yes, in the last years I saw nobody. But I’m the lucky one, if I may say! But the project was almost made 3-4 years ago, and maybe before I record all arias by Puccini, and in the meantime it was of course planned to do it with Tony Pappano because in every recording session, wow, the relationship between us is like a love affair, it’s something perfect, we understand just perfection without speaking – no speaking, just with gesture, looking, and I feel in his eyes and my eyes an awareness of everything ...it’s very good between us this way."

(The unedited version of the Jonas Kaufmann bit)
"We thought to have Alberto because we record a lot of operas with him, but Roberto in that period left EMI and in the same period I needed for a Traviata in the Met a tenor, maybe a new tenor, and my manager gives me a tape of Cecilia Bartoli singing with a tenor, and said he’s singing in Zurich but nobody knows him, just listen. I listened and I said OK – and my manager said trust your instinct. And I said OK, he will be my Alfredo at the Met. So they trust me at the Met to have a nobody...in the meantime I needed here at Covent Garden a tenor for La Rondine because we’d had Roberto and we needed another one, and I said why not this tenor to see how it goes, a smaller role than Traviata. So this happened, I asked him here for La Rondine, they said yes, then they said yes at the Met, here it was very good and at the Met it was a huge successs, and there I said to EMI let’s have Jonas for Butterfly – and everyone said oh my God are you sure, he never recorded. And I said: trust me. It’s like for Roberto, and Tony Pappano – when somebody has an unusual talent I never made a mistake! I have a talent to discover and finally I was right! And I’m happy. And in the meantime he started to record by himself – but it’s not easy to have someone to sing in the studio with someone who never recorded before, it’s a huge challenge for everybody. (JD: I remember hearing his first Strauss Lieder disc and this amazing voice came soaring out...) Yes! So he started his career very late, it’s not a big [age] difference between us, he chose to stay in Zurich & I advised him all the time, basta, finish in Zurich and fly, but it’s your town...and in the end, he listened! (JD: Will you do more performances together?) We have a production here in Covent Garden of Adriana Lecouvreur."

(On how she started and progressed her career, from the Covent Garden Boheme)
"I sang just one Boheme before, for my graduation, but to go from singing one Boheme to singing in Covent Garden, and it’s your international debut - ! But I wanted. And I was very determined. And everything - atmosphere, people around me, I always feel it, I will arrive. Nothing is for me, wow, I am surprised. I was all the time sure because everyone around me was telling me [had complete confidence in me] and they were always making laudation for me – it was all importance, and because I start to sing so early, I sang at 18 my first important concert, Butterfly etc, and so everybody looked at me in a very serious way. I never thought in Covent Garden it would be different from Bucharest, where I had this – wow - my luckiest moment is to have this idea, and my teacher said 'wait a little and your entrance must be in the front door, the most important'. In Covent Garden in was 1991, 92 Vienna, 93 at the Met and the day after an important debut everybody knows you. But I sang then in Covent Garden other roles, but as we see promotion and mass media and everyone knows you, everyone sees you and everybody is speaking about you, and that happened when I made my debut in La Boheme and Georg Solti came to my performance. There he persuaded me to sing Traviata, and because of the story with the BBC, they dropped everything to make live transmission, and all this real story helped me in a way that the day after everybody knows me. So from that moment I try not to disappoint anybody. And it’s not easy. I had a career, I made a lot of things and I think it’s rather important to stay and to stay for many years is very hard, even if people, journalists, critics, they have the right to have another opinion, but for anything in this world the result is what counts, and this is the result!"

(JD: What is your pre-performance ritual?)
"I am doing all the time the make-up. Nobody is working on the maquillage, they are free with me. The only time I work with someone on the maquillage is for photo session or film or television – otherwise, for performances on stage I do my own no matter the style, because I did some maquillage at the conservatory so I know how to do my make-up. It’s very good before the performance, I am not doing the vocalising, I come to the opera house completely prepared, I just put on my costume and go on stage. It’s not necessarily that this is the way – it’s that it’s Angela’s way."

(JD: Since Roberto left EMI, are you still working together so regularly?)
Less, less. The last CD he did Sicialian songs, and we record something together, we record L’amico Fritz for DG, it will be released this year – we did this at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. And we finished out La Rondine at the Met, the premiere was for new year’s day, it was on HD in cinemas all over the world, it was a huge success, but I was suffering because I was very ill! Oh, I was suffering, I was completely kaput! And I took some medicines and everybody around me they helped me, mostly Peter Gelb the director, he said 'whatever happens on stage, there are thousands of people they bought their tickets to see you in Rondine, oh, it’s a disaster, and if something happens I will come immediately and saying to everybody you are the best and we must be with you and you must come again and again and do everything you want, but COME HERE and put on your wig and your costume!' And with all this support I was willing and I said OK, but it was very hard. If you do something badly for an audience at the Met & it’s not just at the Met it’s all over the world...Finally we are human beings. But it was a hard moment for me."

(JD: What will be your highlights for 2009?)
You remind me about highlights, because I spent two weeks recording Butterfly, Jonas came for the last day, and I said to Tony, let’s start with the highlights, and he laughed – 'all the opera is highlights!' And all my work is highlights! So I go to the Met, I have La Rondine, I have a concert in Spain, I have operas in Berlin, I have L’elisir d’amore at the Met, I sing with Rolando I hope everything goes fine [crosses self], I have a new production of Carmen at the Met, I need to finish my new solo recording of Romanian music – you will not recognise me! It’s very interesting."

(JD: So is that of traditional Romanian songs?)
Yes, but I sing them in my way. (JD: We don't know enough Romanian music here in the 'west'...). This is another problem for me, another unfair for culture and politics, because if you’re in my country, and I don’t know about east countries because of the Communists of course, but the world was also in different cultures, because in our culture we learn about your culture, about English and German and French culture, but you – do you think we don’t have the same type of interesting people? We have our poets, our writers, our musicians, our everything. (JD: Enescu...) Of course, but people know him because he decided to live in Paris, but that doesn’t mean he was better than another one who decided to live in Romania! It’s another unfair position. Because people are thinking ah, he’s Romanian, but Romanians, because of the communists, decided to live in another country. But another artist who could not leave the country because of thousands of reasons or because he didn’t want to, he is less interesting, because you don’t know him that means he’s not interesting, he has no value, and this is very unfair! Because of the politics and because of the kind of school training, because it’s very important in school to have general culture, maybe from India and China and Arabic countries, Argentinian, United States, because culture, here is the unfair point, people make the confusion between politics and culture. This is not right – because all of us have the right to discover a genius person, no? We have in Romania geniuses, but we have no reason to discover, so the conclusion is I feel it’s my moment to make a discovery, of my music and my country’s music. I have a Romanian guy who helped me with three musicians from the USA who are doing the orchestration for me, and it sounds modern but also with a completely other type of harmony, because this is the originality, but also because I sing and I hope to make you interested!"

(More about Romania...)
"You know, Russia, Bulgaria and Poland are brothers and sisters, Hungary is related to Finland, and Romania is the only Latin country among them, related to Italy and Spain – we are very different cultures in the same part of Europe, it’s fascinating. (JD [with Hungarian hat on]: I heard Romanians and Hungarians don’t get along...) It’s more legend – more political, not between people and people. And for years Transylvania was this disputed territory, no it’s mine, no it’s ours, so they played ping-pong with it. (JD: Dracula...) No! Dracula is ENGLISH! And because I am Romanian, because of Dracula, someone, some journalist somewhere, of course, didn’t know anything else but Dracula from Romania, so he gave me a nickname, Draculette! And this year I came to the opera house and at the stage door of the Metropolitan Opera House, an American composer, he really goes in a serious way: 'I have the score of an opera for Angela Gheorghiu, named Draculette!' He was serious. And to take the good part of it, we have another composer who starts to write another opera thanks to an English person who gives us our first nickname 'Bonnie and Clyde' – Vladimir Cosma, who wrote for us Marius et Fanny, now he starts to compose for us Bonnie and Clyde! So, you want to play, let’s play! It was sort of funny, so let’s make friends with it! Thank you for the idea! In the meantime I need to be an opera singer. A serious one."

(JD: How did you get along with Marius et Fanny?)
"Perfect – oh, perfect. Vladimir Cosma is originally a Jewish Romanian, all his family are all important musicians – and when I heard he is doing – Roberto told me about Marius et Fanny and he proposed and they got the world speaking – when I spoke to Vladimir I said, Vladimir, wow, you are working on your first opera? And he said yes, but are you interested to sing an opera...Wow, of course! ‘But you never said a modern opera’ – but of course I wanted! It’s a very beautiful opera! First I record Marius et Fanny, then I sang on stage – we recorded in Switzerland – thinking back in that production everyone was French, minus me and the composer, who were Romanian. Marius et Fanny for the French is like a Bible – Marcel Pagnol wrote something, wow, untouchable – well, we dared to touch Marcel Pagnol and the performance and everything related with Marius et Fanny was wow, oh, my emotions, oh, my poor heart, with Roberto and the mondiale premiere to do Marius et Fanny in Marseilles, where they’re like Milano... And they filmed and recorded everything, I was very proud. And I appreciate with Vladimir, he show us everything and we discuss and we give advices relating to an opera singer, because it’s not the same writing music for instruments as for opera singers. For opera singers you need a special culture and a special knowledge because there are some things you cannot do because of the rhythms. So he showed us and we’d say this is good, or make a pause on this note or these words, and the three of us we made a successful opera, voila! And now it was on TV and I start now to try to make other people interested in this opera. It sounds ain the beginning a bit like Bernstein, but in, no offence, a better way; in the second part it is more operatic – wow, it is very dramatic and tragic, and you need a powerful voice to sing it – big emotions, big range, big orchestra. The aria is like Michaela’s aria in Carmen, very big, and hard to sing."

(On Covent Garden and London)
"You know my story with the porters from Covent Garden? One day I finished my performances, I was supposed to sing 5 performances of Pagliacci and there was one performance with another singer, and then the other singer she was ill and they asked me to sing also the last performance. From the opera house we said bye-bye, ciao, see you next year, but then when they saw me again all the porters were so happy that they put money all together and they buy a present for me, I swear. I love them! And it’s very important. I tell to everyone this story – because in an opera house it’s very important that the atmosphere comes from when you open the door. Another story from Covent Garden – I said to one of the machinists, wow, trousers with ‘Royal Opera House’ on you, wow wow! And the day after he brought me trousers with ROH on for me - they made them for me. I swear. I really like the atmosphere in this house. I really like it. And also all the important things for my private life and my profession happens here. Everything is related. And Ioana is here, my daughter, she is English. I like the sound of British accents and I like the sound of English!"

UPDATE, 1.40pm: Mad props to Opera Chic, who's going to town on this one...

Angela!

Angela Gheorghiu: the WYSIWYG Diva. My interview with her was the Indy's Arts & Books Review cover feature on Friday - delayed posting here because I've been away. Angela defends her cancellations, tells us how she discovered Jonas Kaufmann and lets us in on a startling family secret.

The interview coincides with the release of her new CD of Madama Butterfly, complete - rare these days to find a complete new studio recording of any opera, of course, but with Gherghiu and Kaufmann in the leading roles and Pappano wielding the baton, EMI must be pretty confident that this one will sell by the gallon. In The Sunday Times Hugh Canning, who heard the sessions, wrote a feature about the recording and the 'making of'. My piece is a portrait of the lady herself. There isn't a JDCMB 'director's cut' version of the article - they printed it in its entirety - but there may be a few choice selections to add, which I will do as soon as I've unpacked. (Update: DONE...)

I like her. I really do. Because what you see IS what you get. There is no sense that she's pretending to be something she's not. Some artists switch off the charm when you switch off the voice recorder. Angela is A1 consistent. I can't say whether or not she really is 'the last diva' since we don't yet know what today's desperately spoiled teenagers will be capable of if they take the stage, but I don't need to tell you that she's the ultimate out there at present.

As for the Butterfly, it is basically gorgeous. Angela seems to get under the skin of Cio-Cio San, first decorous and enunciating delicately as the young girl, then letting rip as the tragedy develops. The utterly fabulous Kaufmann, though, rather overshadows her in the love duet...

Party bag...

We're clearing up now, washing the glasses, keeping Solti out of the last slice of Sachertorte (it isn't good for cats), and it's time to hand out the party bag. (With special thanks to the Verbier Festival...) Enjoy!



An encore? Thank you, Martha and Genya...

HIGH FIVE: JDCMB celebrates 5th birthday!

JDCMB is 5 years old today! The cake is in the oven and at the cyberposhplace they are chilling the champagne. Meanwhile here's a little retrospective of a few...




JDCMB LANDMARKS

JD meets Rostropovich and is offered cello lessons. Then gets stuck in tube.
In praise of analysis, especially Schenker (but what was it I found in the Faure?)
Grigory Sokolov at the QEH: this is what it's all about. (And now he won't come back because some bureaucrat wants to fingerprint him.)
'Orchestral life: the full story.' In which Tom and his friends spill the beans and drink their contact lenses.
The Ultimate Consoling Music: Schubert and the 7/7 aftermath, July 05.
JDF, 4 metres from JD in the Savoy...
The Joyce Hatto story breaks...
Trip to Bosnia, June 07.
An unforgettable night at the Proms with Buskaid & JEG...
November 07 in entirety, containing much Korngold. Now viewable with hindsight.
In which Krystian Zimerman has RFH rolling in the aisles...
JD turns concert manager and hallucinates about Sir Alan Sugar.
Lake District 08: Two strange girls snog each other on Oleg's cello case, Robert is a Tearaway, Charles gets out the first aid box and Jess and Phil do their best to be Messiaenic...
One of my favourite YouTube clips ever: Cziffra plays Liszt.
JDCMB Poll of the Greatest Living Conductors (we may do another soon...am trying to decide between piano & violin....)

Which brings us to Handel. You might get a surprise if you tune into the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow.

UPDATE: Huge thanks to all of you who've come to JDCMB's biggest-ever blogoparty! And special thanks to Opera Chic for setting up my date for the evening (in the absence of my husband, who's otherwise occupied at the Lincoln Center). :-)

That was fun...

...and now we all need to calm down a little. Here's Pablo Casals playing part of Bach's Cello Suite No.1 at Prades in 1954.

Places remain for Saturday

There are still several places available for my workshop KICK-START YOUR WRITING this Saturday, 28 February. If you'd like to attend, please get in touch PDQ! Links et al are in the relevant bit of the sidebar! The next one will be in late March.

I am very glad to report, somewhat smugly, that the inaugural workshop seems to have helped to spark one attendee into creating one of the best new blogs I've seen in quite a while, LondonJazz...

UPDATE: It appears that Sundays may generally be preferred to Saturdays. If anyone would like to come along in March but would find Sunday 29th better than Saturday 28th, please let me know - this one is still movable!

Cleopatra to wed real-life Cesar of Glyndebourne

It's official, as reported by Slipped Disc, Opera Chic and Classical Music Magazine: Danielle de Niese is going to marry Gus Christie, hereditary head honcho of Glyndebourne and until a few days ago almost certainly the most eligible divorcee in Sussex. We are shedding a sentimental tear over this; they looked the picture of happiness last summer, draped over the picnic rugs together in what there was of the sunshine. Bless. And congratulations!

To celebrate, here is Danni as Cleopatra tying the knot with Giulio Cesare (sung here by Sarah Connolly) on stage at Glyndebourne...

MAD PROPS TO THE SUNDAY TIMES!!

BLIMEY, guv! Bryan Appleyard has been picking the 100 best blogs for The Sunday Times and there is JDCMB, up there with the best o'th'best in the Performing Arts section! Mr Appleyard evidently has yet to discover the joys of Korngold, but what the hell - there's nothing so much fun in life as having a 'strange bias'.

Thanks to my beloved Hungarians for alerting me to this with a congratulatory email. I hadn't read the ST today because I've spent most of the morning, er, blogging. About Russian pianists.

A very happy JD is now looking forward to JDCMB'S 5TH BIRTHDAY coming up NEXT SUNDAY, 1 March. But I can't decide what to do to celebrate... Any ideas, folks?

Sokolov cancels

The other day I promised some less good news about another Russian pianist, and here it is: Grigory Sokolov, who was to have played at the Royal Festival Hall on 29 April, has cancelled his appearance due to visa trouble. The hoops that the British government is demanding artists jump through in order to perform here have now been set so high and made so unpleasant that it appears he has better things to do with his time than bother with them. He just won't come here.

It's OUTRAGEOUS that such bureaucratic claptrap should keep one of the greatest pianists on the planet away from the musical capital of the world! And please don't start writing in to JDCMB with sanctimonious comments about keeping out terrorists - we've had plenty growing up right here in Blighty, and they tend not to be concert pianists, let alone ones of Sokolov's stature.

Consolation prize: Sokolov is to be replaced by Angela Hewitt, who will perform the Bach Goldberg Variations. I'll be interviewing her on stage before the show.

Dreaming on

I've been wondering for a couple of days how best to describe Double Dream, the glorious evening of two-piano bedazzlement from the Russian classical virtuoso Mikhail Rudy and the jazz supremo from Ukraine/Norway Misha Alperin.

The project started life about seven years ago and launched with a beautiful CD, which gives you the idea - take a range of classical works, pass them back and forth at high heat, watch them grow and transform like chemical crystals under waterglass. The concert caught on and the pair have travelled the world with it (most recently Sydney); now, after years of working together, they're at their peak both individually and as a duo. Each maintains his own identity, but together they are more than the sum of their parts. And Double Dream is more than just a concert.

Kings Place was its ideal London home: it has the perfect acoustic of the Wigmore, the space, high-tech capabilities and delicious new-wood aroma of The Sage, the intimacy of, if not quite Ronnie Scotts, then almost. Double Dream is enhanced by creative lighting, opening in darkness (Schumann's Prophet Bird, its feathers in textures you've never encountered before), later blazing into floor-level red for a Prokofiev Toccata adaptation that could have had the startled composer on his feet, cheering, wondering why he hadn't thought of all that himself.

Throughout, a giant screen is poised above the pianists, split in two - one half for each Misha - showing close-ups of hands or faces, Alperin's extraordinary plastic features morphing through vocal ad-libs as he plays and Rudy smiling quietly to himself, his partner and us. The pianists face each other across the Steinways, but the video reverses this: when the images meet in the middle of the screens, a peculiar creature appears apparently with one back, four feet and four very busy arms.

Each pianist has a solo spot: Alperin improvised his way to a tremendous pitch of excitement that somehow drew in an unexpected extract of Rodeo, among other things; Rudy took Petroushka's fairground scene, one of his great party pieces, and, while playing it as written, managed to make it sound improvised. Many pieces are Alperin's own - catchy, irresistibly rhythmic, deliciously virtuoso. And in their far-flung net the pianists trap the shadows of a Chopin mazurka, fleeting moments of Janacek, the silvery gleam of a Haydn adagio. What playing. What creativity. What magic.

On Thursday, the second night of his Piano Dialogues days at KP, Mikhail Rudy joined forces with the actor Peter Guinness, with whom he collaborated a couple of years ago for the British version of The Pianist, his play for actor and pianist based on Wladislaw Szpilman's memoirs. This time it was Janacek and Kafka: the latter's beautiful, quirky Letters to Milena, warm and touching and painful by turns, in which the author traces his love affair with his much younger, married translator.

Kafka and Janacek, the two great and not very bouncy Czechs, never met, but proved a perfect match nonetheless, to the point that from time to time it was almost difficult to remember that it wasn't Janacek who wrote the letters (which half-suggest, like a slightly distorting mirror, Janacek's passion for Kamila Stosslova). Micha paired music and words with inspired sensitivity, grasping the subtlest shades of emotion to match and amplify in the most heart-wrenching moments of In the Mists, the Piano Sonata and extracts from On an Overgrown Path. Again, masterly and unforgettable.

As a finishing touch, each evening the St Pancras Room hosted a screening of a new documentary about Micha, entitled Mikhail Rudy: Portrait of a Pianist, directed by Andy Sommer and narrated (English version) again by Peter Guinness. It's a moving and at times harrowing account of his journey from Soviet Russia to Western triumph and makes all too clear the immense personal cost of such a move - alienation from one's family, a reunion almost too late.

Rudy and Guinness will be doing a two-week run of The Pianist in the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in June. Meanwhile I am trying to learn as much as possible from their presentation so that we can attempt to make the Hungarian Dances event - similar in format, if not content - perhaps half as beautiful.

Christopher Raeburn and Jimmy Lock both pass away

Mourning today the passing of two of the great driving forces of Decca.

Christopher Raeburn was a great-hearted and golden-eared individual with high musical ideals and an infallible instinct for talent-spotting and development. He was the best-known and best-loved of Decca's producers, having joined the label in 1954 and bouncing straight into the first-ever studio recording of the Ring Cycle. Jimmy Locke was the chief sound engineer and the brain behind the much-celebrated 'Decca sound' from 1963, a 'star among stars' as Valerie Solti says.

Michael Haas has written an obituary of Christopher for Gramophone, quoting Angelika Kirchschlager's tribute: "When you listen to me, it’s not only with your ear, but even more with your soul, searching for perfection not only in intonation but in truth. There is no better example of knowledge, enthusiasm, respect and humanity in this world of music than you!"

Norman Lebrecht is inviting further comment over at Slipped Disc, more are appearing at Gramophone, here and here, and I too would like to invite your memories, tributes and so forth in the comment boxes below, please.

I got to know Christopher personally just a few years ago, but can think of few people in the business whose warm and open nature and absolute artistic integrity inspired so much affection so quickly.

To lose both him and Jimmy within days, and barely a week after the 'realigning' or whatever it is of Decca itself hit the cyberwaves, seems not only tragic but also ironically symbolic...but I don't have to tell you that. You can see it clear as daylight without anyone uttering a word.

UPDATE, 27 February: Here is an obituary of Christopher from The Independent.

When Ivan met Glenn

Over in Toronto, young Serbian-American-Francophile piano hotshot Ivan Ilic (nothing to do with Tolstoy) is making his Canadian debut tonight in a recital at the Glenn Gould Studio and took the opportunity to get a photo with a local celebrity. "Glenn and I were talking about his favourite coffee-shops and Indian restaurants in Toronto," Ivan explains. "He offered me a few prescription drugs, I tried (unsuccessfully) to convince him about Chopin..." He also gives a lecture-recital at the city's Alliance Francaise tomorrow.

I much enjoyed his Debussy Preludes CD on the Paraty label, their order rather effectively (but very systematically) scrambled, which you can sample here. Look out for his London debut soon.

Very successful pre-concert chat last night with Martin Helmchen at the QEH yesterday. Earnest, curly-haired, high-cheekboned, possessed of silky and radiant tone plus fine-tuned brain, Martin proceeded to navigate his way brilliantly through the complexities of the Bach Sixth Partita (the one with the very scary last movement that always leaves me thinking 'THAT is a GIGUE?!')and three powerful extracts from Messiaen's Vingt Regards, towards which mighty complete cycle he's working his way steadily. But his style is made for Schubert. He's launched himself into the CD market with the big A major sonata, a disc that drew an out-and-out rave from BBC Music Mag.

What a very pianoy week this seems to be.

Meet Martin Helmchen

A morning chance to brush up your German and Dutch, from my next victim! ...seriously, this guy looks like becoming something very, very special. I will be doing a pre-concert talk with him at the Queen Elizabeth Hall tonight before his recital in the International Piano Series, where he'll be playing Bach, Messiaen and Schumann.

His new recording of Schubert is the pick of the month in BBC Music Magazine. He's won the Clara Haskil Competition and has been a BBC New Generations Artist and one of the select fellowship-holders on the Borletti-Buitoni Trust scheme. And he's only 26. I will be foregoing the world premiere of Vladimir Martynov's new opera at the RFH tonight in order to hear him.

In case you are considering going to the Martynov, though, rumblings suggest that it is very 'listenable' and that the singers are completely fabulous - well, they would be, as they include Joan Rodgers, Tatiana Monogarova and Mark Padmore. LPO & Vladimir Jurowski take it to New York next week. Here is an article by Jurowski himself about the piece from The Guardian the other day: "Torture by beauty". He says: "Some of the sounds and harmonies he employs in Vita Nuova are exactly that: tortuously beautiful, maybe more than an average European listener can take." (Why does this feel familiar, I wonder?)

The two Mishas hit London

Micha and Misha - Mikhail Rudy and Misha Alperin - hit Kings Place with Double Dream on Wednesday and Friday: classical Russian meets jazz supremo in a wonderful two-piano extravaganza, composed/improvised/inspired. The performances are part of Mikhail Rudy's 'curatorship' days at the hall entitled Piano Dialogues; on Thursday he is bringing together Janacek and Kafka in Letters to Milena, a musical and literary exchange of the type I adore, with narration from actor Peter Guinness. Each evening you can also see the brand new documentary about Micha, starting at 6pm, free.

Regretfully, though, his planned late-night recitals are now not going to happen. I wonder whether this is because Kings Place, for all its excellence, is ideally supposed to help regenerate the seriously grotty bit of London that moulders away behind Kings Cross station. Good new venues should ideally be a great device to pull an area up, but this can take a very long time - it can be 20 years, or sometimes (as at the South Bank) 50. For the moment, there is nothing much at Kings Place except Kings Place itself and, though I am convinced the venue is the best thing to happen to London's musical life in decades, I could understand a classical audience not wanting to emerge into the murk after 11pm, when you tend to put your head down and leg it to the tube pdq. A pity, though, that we will not be hearing Micha play Scriabin.

Soon, more news about another Russian pianist we won't be able to hear elsewhere, for very different reasons...

Meanwhile, here's a taste of Double Dream.

Benjamin's premiere really is a first

Blimey, guv. George Benjamin's one-act opera Into the Little Hill ended up enjoying its London premiere yesterday in the spot the audience probably would have liked to be in all along: the bar. Ten minutes into the show in the ROH's Linbury Theatre, the lights went out, as Alan Rusbridger reports in the Grauniad. The power cut only affected the theatre, so everyone was offered free drinks in the bar while they tried to sort it, but eventually the doughty performers cut the Gordian Knot at 10.15pm and announced they'd do the performance right there instead.

"The audience, which included the Arts Council chair, Dame Liz Forgan, and the former defence secretary, Michael Portillo, stood, sat, crouched and perched on the floor and assorted chairs for the 40-minute work," writes Mr R. There's a video on the site, here, so you can see the scene for yourself.

But...drumroll...is it possible that a Jealous Rival Composer engaged in a Spot of Sabotage? Miss Duchmarple Investigates...

This is what I was really looking for...

...when I found the Muppets and got distracted. Now for something completely different - after all, we can't have Valentine's Day 09 on JDCMB without some serious Gypsy violin playing! What follows is the real thing.

When I give talks about Hungarian Dances, people often ask me if it's based on a true story or stories. The answer is: mostly no, but some of the stories have turned out to be true! Another FAQ is: would this be possible? That the grandparent could be a Gypsy violinist, then marry out of the Roma community and have a grandchild who'd become a classical musician?

Here is a fabulous example of a grandfather and grandson who have gone down exactly that path. First here is the renowned 'primas' (violinist bandleader) Pali Pertis (Pertis Pali in Hungarian), serenading a very Valentiny scene with the actor Jávor Pál.



Now, meet his grandson: the young Hungarian violin star Barnabas Kelemen, here performing a stunning Leclair duo with his wife, Katalin Kokas.



Lots more information about Barnabas and examples of his playing on his website, here.

Happy valentine's day, or something

It's extraordinary what a YouTube search on the words GYPSY VIOLIN will reveal.

Muzak goes bust!

There are some joys to be had from the credit crunch/recession/slump/whatever after all. The Indy carries news that the original Muzak company is filing for bankruptcy protection. Does that mean we can have some peace and quiet again? I suspect not, of course, but we can dream.

I've lost count of the number of musicians who tell me in interviews that piped music in lifts, lobbies and everywhere else they go is the bane of their lives. And I've always thought it's a form of universally administered anaesthetic: something to deaden our senses just enough to stop us getting too clever, noticing and potentially rebellious.

I disagree profoundly with the Indy's leading article, though, which suggests that Muzak was the food of shopping and that music could now encourage us back to the shops. I promise you that there is nothing, but *nothing*, that will drive me out of a shop as fast as music I don't like.

There aren't many shops that play music I do like, of course. Jigsaw seems to have a propensity for the ugliest kind of pop, which is just as well: I adore their clothes, so the noise saves me a fortune! The one piped music experience I remember with affection was one day in Monsoon when they played Abba and all the customers were singing along with 'Dancing Queen'. Most cheering. But I still didn't buy anything.

Interesting to note, though, that genuine full-blown classical music pumped through underground, railway and bus stations clears away the yobs and hoodies like there's no tomorrow and makes the rest of us feel better about life.

Die tote Stadt - the news in brief

This will have to be short because my brain is so overloaded from last night.

So, the news in brief. Mixed feelings about the production, which in certain ways is extremely striking - the stage-within-a-stage in the dream sequence, the stunning projections and shadowplays of the procession, the brief glimpse of Marietta's 1920s showgirl glory at the end of Act 1, and Paul's momentary hesitation on the threshold as he leaves at the very end. Never sure, though, about productions that show one thing while the text tells you something totally different - eg references to the beauty of Marietta's hair when she is walking around Paul's room with a shaven head. But the imagery is concentrated, the concepts focused and mainly appropriate and the walking houses are a super touch.

I think the singers could have done with a break after Act 1 - the three-act version is a preferable format. But Nadja Michael, despite a little awkward intonation on high, does have the power, the presence and the legs for Marietta; Stephen Gould's voice is big enough to carry off Paul's massively demanding role, and when it's a case of standing and delivering he does so to the manner born; and Gerry Finlay stole the show with the Pierrot Tanzlied.

(But I dream of the ideal Paul, with voice, drama, heart and soul, and he exists, if he could be persuaded... PAGING MR KAUFMANN...PAGING MR KAUFMANN....)

Some concern in the extended first half that everyone was running out of steam, including Metzmacher, whose conducting often felt episodic, failing to shape and build the tension across the long spans; eg Paul's first aria describing his meeting with Marietta came over with little sense of its narrative structure, and that wasn't our tenor's doing but our conductor's.

In the second half (well, the last third), second wind seemed to take hold: the procession and the Paul-Marietta scene alongside it were utterly electrifying. And there the full symbolism of the production, perhaps indeed the unconscious symbolism of the opera itself, came shining out: the war of the 19th versus the 20th century...the strictured, superstitious, hypocritical 19th, transfixed by an idealised and unrealistic past, when faced with the glamour, free spirit and sexual liberation of the 20th, is so threatened that it can only strangle it.

And the terror that Paul may not represent only the 19th century, but the wilfully barbarian 21st.

As for mourning... I still can't comprehend how Korngold could have created such a marvel of human empathy at the age of 20. He was only 23 at the time of the premiere in December 1920. Was it the air he breathed, Vienna in the First World War, the crumbling world, the death of childhood, the end of an era? Or did he just...know - and most of all, have the musical technique to reach directly into his audience's hearts when conveying that empathy?

There was a great deal I didn't understand in the opera when I first studied its 'musical and dramatic structure' in 1987. Now perhaps I understand a little better.

What I still don't understand is why I first gravitated to this, of all operas, in good times, student days, well before coming to terms with bereavement became such a dominant theme in my life (both my parents and my sister died within a few years of each other).

Today is the 15th anniversary of my mother's death.

"The end is not as abrupt as that. Your name is still spoken. Your face is still remembered. And what you said, and what you did, and what you failed to do, these are still remembered... As long as one is left who remembers you, so long is the matter unended...until you are quite forgotten...you will not be finished with the earth even though you are dead."

(Ferenc Molnar, Liliom - quoted in the ROH programme...)

Tonight...

...I am finally going to Die tote Stadt. It's not snowing, the trains are running (touch wood) and I hope to report back fully tomorrow morning! Watch this space.

Hungarian Dances goes live at Fiddles on Fire

Glad to report that the Fiddles on Fire Festival - this year, two bonanzas of the hottest global violin playing from Klezmer to Karnatic, first in Gateshead, then in London - is to be the scene of some special Hungarian Dances: Concert of the Novel events in April!

It was all their idea, too. When I went up to The Sage in September, I read from the book, then popped on a sneak preview of Hejre Kati from Philippe's CD. Collectively my audience shot towards the ceiling. The Sage being a wonderful, upbeat, go-ahead arts centre where managers actually speak to one another, someone then looked at my website, saw that there'd been a concert...and an invitation to go live followed soon afterwards.

This is going to be very different from the Kensington event last summer - I have repointed the script to concentrate the action on the story of Mimi Racz. For Fiddles on Fire, we're creating a special programme of 75 minutes, to perform on the two Saturday evenings of the two festival wings, each at 6pm. I've managed to reduce the 130,000-word novel to about 6 pages and with violin music including our beloved Dohnanyi and Bartok, plus Ravel, Debussy, Brahms and, of course, Monti and Hubay, we hope that you'll love the result.

The Sage, Gateshead, event is on Saturday 11 April and I'm hugely grateful to Bradley Creswick, the leader of the Northern Sinfonia, for joining me in this since Philippe has a prior engagement on the other side of the planet.

The London event will be at Kings Place on Saturday 18 April, starring Philippe Graffin and friends. Intriguingly, KP has developed a 'dynamic' ticket system (perhaps inspired by the nearby trains?) in which the earlier you book, the cheaper the tickets are, so...

'Purely classical' chart begins chez Gramophone

BBC news has a story that a new top record chart for 'purely' classical music (as opposed to Katherine Jenkins singing Leonard Cohen and calling it a 'sacred aria') is being launched in Gramophone's March edition and will be updated weekly on their website. (More from Tommy Pearson on the subject here.)

So how useful is this? Should they have done it years ago? Is this an industry that takes 40 years to cotton on to a good idea, in a magazine named after a machine that all but vanished 20 years ago? But now that it is on its way - with the late Richard Hickox doing well - is it actually of any positive value whatsoever? I am put in mind of the book trade, which is desperately skewed by several big, depressing factors that are usually nothing to do with quality but more about who is willing to spend money on what. (If I start telling you what these factors are, though - and how pernicious, how poisonous and how ought-to-be-illegal - someone will tell me to stop being a whingeing author. So you'll just have to take my word for it.)

In short: the discs that become 'bestsellers' are almost certainly going to be those on which the most money is spent in terms of promotion. Promotion means that the public will know something exists (nobody will buy anything if they don't know it's there). The CDs will then bowl on up the chart, and will sell more. Or are we classical aficionados more independent-minded than crossover and pop flock-followers? What do you think, folks?

Alfred takes the cake

Caught the very beginning last night of Brendel in Recital on BBC2 - Haydn, played with magic, detail and profound empathy - but it was getting on for midnight, way past my bedtime. The recital from Snape Maltings, according to the introduction filmed at the concert, showed Brendel at 70, about to embark on a world concert tour. Problem: today Brendel is 77 and retiring; the historical nature of the film should really have been pointed out beforehand. There must be a fair number of people googling Brendel's forthcoming world concert tour this morning...

You can't get any of this on BBC iPlayer, but the documentary, Alfred Brendel: Man and Mask, is snug on Youtube, so here is some of it.

Decca: the obituary?

As I feared...the imminent death of Decca, as reported by Norman Lebrecht. He says:

Still, no point waxing nostalgic. Lots of firms are going to the wall, taking their traditions to oblivion. Decca joins a long queue at the morgue. The regret is that what dies with Decca is more than just a label – it is the very concept of label as a mark of character, a name that united artists and listeners in the search for a particular quality. The idea of label defined the record industry. It is the strategic antithesis of sterile agglomerates like Universal.

Without labels, artists spin off to Starbucks, listeners lose interest and the remnants of the record business go rummaging in dumpbins. Even a number-one classical hit barely shifts 500 copies a week, not enough to support an executive’s pension fund. It’s the end of the line for Decca, the last waltz in a bare-walled studio of dreams."

Far be it from me to 'wax nostalgic' - but this was the label of the glory days, the home of Georg Solti, the label that - largely thanks to the magic ears and brilliant intuition of Christopher Raeburn - helped to build the recorded careers of Cecilia Bartoli and Andras Schiff, among others. This was the label of Benjamin Britten, Kathleen Ferrier, Pavarotti, not to mention his two friends. This was also the label that brought us the Entartete Musik series, spearheaded by producer Michael Haas, encompassing Schreker, Krenek, Braunfels, K/g and many more - a library of great historical value since most of those works are not available to hear elsewhere. This was the label of vision, of class, of...

So, where are the Raeburns and Haases of today? Christopher has retired; Michael divides his time between curating exhibitions in Vienna and producing Opera Rara's discs. If there are any brilliant people left in the recording industry, they are having trouble making their presence felt because the core values are vanishing from the big companies. For instance, in his article Norman complains about the "all-purpose" engineering of Julia Fischer's latest disc on Decca, which he feels does her no favours. Sound quality does matter to the record-downloading public, but what if a company boss does not know that, can't hear the difference and doesn't see the point of spending money on it?

Here in the hackworld, we knew something was going wrong about 20 years ago when a major label (not Decca) held a press conference that included a speech by their new marketing chap, who'd just joined them from a food company and started declaring to a roomful of the most knowledgeable critics in the British capital how amazed he was to learn that Tchaikovsky was gay, so now they were going to develop a 'Tchaikovsky concept' in which... well, if the 'concept' ever took wing, it was quickly buried; but generally speaking the vision began to leave the industry when it chose people whose presumably considerable expertise in accountacy, sales and marketing nevertheless did not extend to a profound empathy with classical music and its market. I am no marketing guru, but it looks like a no-brainer to me: how can you sell anything successfully if you haven't a clue what it's about?

Smaller labels such as Bis, harmonia mundi, Hyperion and some of the artist-led labels like LSO Live, Onyx and Avie, are still more than afloat today largely because they know what they're doing. As Sir Alan Sugar might say, they understand their product. If you don't understand your product, you end up like that Apprentice candidate who was trying to sell expensive day-rents of his red Ferrari in Portobello Road Market - fired. Decca, you're...

STOP PRESS for Brendel fans

There is an actual documentary about Alfred Brendel on BBC2 tonight, at 11.20pm (not exactly prime-time but we can always set the video if we can work out how to use it). 'Alfred Brendel: Man and Mask' follows the great pianist through two years, during which he works with such artists as Simon Rattle and Matthias Goerne, and explores the influences that shaped his life and musicianship. He's also featured in The Culture Show at 10pm - which has extra culture on it today, including our beloved Felix and his birthday. Here, apparently Brendel reveals a fondness for the films of Bunuel.

I don't know yet whether the documentary will be available on the BBC iPlayer after tonight, but if it is then I will link to it here.

Mendelssohn is 200!

It's Mendelssohn day! Over at BBCR3 Felixcitations I have borrowed the JDCMB Cyberposhplace and the Virtualvintagechampers and Felix is holding a party, which the virtualcybercontrollers are providing free of charge on condition that we are allowed to see his trans-spiritual-dimensional guest-list in advance. UPDATE: The post is now up, and open for suggestions of who else he could ask. Drop in for some cyberbubble!

Meanwhile, here are three musicians who should definitely be there: Arthur Rubinstein, Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz. Turn up the sound now and wallow in their glorious playing of the first movement of the D minor piano trio.

(Apropos de Heifetz, yesterday was his birthday. It was also Fritz Kreisler's. I am vaguely pondering what possible astrological connection there could be between the two greatest geniuses of 20th-century violin playing and, um, Groundhog Day.)