Friedrich Cerha, the Austrian composer best known for completing Alban Berg’s torso opera, has been awarded the 200,000-Euro Ernst von Siemens prize. Cerha is 85, and unlikely to blow it on Lulu-like indulgence.

Ernst von Siemens Preisträger 2012: Friedrich Cerha. Foto: Manu Theobald/Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung

Much delight among pianophiles at the unexpected reappearance of a 1966 German documentary about the phenomenal Arthur Rubinstein, shot in the Steinway factory at Hamburg.

Watch here… and be prepared to watch again.

The pieces he plays are:

Chopin: Etude in A-Flat Major, Op. 25 No. 1;
” Etude in C Major, Op. 10 No. 1;
” Etude in A minor, Op. 10 No. 2;
” Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23;
Szymanowsky: Symphonie Concertante, Op. 60;
Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales;
Schubert: Sonata in B-Flat Major, D. 960.

Conductors know what to do when a phone goes off in their concert. It’s called the Alan Gilbert gambit.

In Dayton, Ohio, they are used to ringing phones. But when a baby started cying in the flute solo of Debussy’s L’Apres-midi d’un faun, conductor Neal Gittelman had  enough.

Read on here.

‘We have been through a war together these past few weeks,’ says Keith Warner, in a full and frank explanation of why he quit – twice – as head of the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. And it’s not just the Government cuts, he adds, though they were the trigger to his decision.

‘The cuts are a meaningless act of vandalism,’ says Keith, ‘the equivalent of taking a flick-knife to the Mona Lisa. ‘

Aside from the cuts, running the theatre meant taking countless ‘decisions over which I am given shallow choices, little real control and absolutely no respect.’ He paints a picture of political and administrative manipulation.

Don’t believe Borgen, Denmark’s gripping TV political drama. The reality is much worse. Read Keith’s passionate, defeated letter here.

It has been standard practice in the entertainment industries for as long as we’ve been around that a good review is raw promotion. It gets posted far and wide and serves to attract paying customers and further engagements.

So imagine the consternation of German singer Peter Schöne when two fine and appreciative reviews that he posted on his site landed him with lawyer letters from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Sueddeutsche, demanding that he cease and desist from using their copyright material and that he cough up a four-figure fine for improper use.

I hope Peter’s lawyers will tell them where to shove it, but I wonder who tipped off the newspaper lawyers in the first place.

It’s not the sort of thing they would have noticed spontaneously. Might it have been one or both of the critics who felt their high integrity was being compromised by Peter’s promotional usage?

Read on here in Moritz Eggert’s German blog for the full story.

The LPO has joined the disreputable list of UK orchestras that manage, somehow, to play in two venues at once. According to the Telegraph, the LPO have been chosen to serenade HM the Queen for her diamond jubilee on Sunday, June 3, under music director Vladimir Jurowski.

That same afternoon, they are supposed to be playing Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen at Glyndebourne. Two into one won’t go? Oh, yes it will.

Maybe there’s a devilish plan afoot to recruit the banned LPO-4 to play the opera as a string quartet. All clarifications cheerfully welcomed.

Regional orchestras like the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic get very little coverage in the UK national press. So credit to the Telegraph for occasionally publishing a review of this effervescent ensemble with its going-places conductor, Vasily Petrenko. The Telegraph cannot, of course, afford to send a critic from London so it relies on an academic from Manchester, David Fanning, who is knowledgeable and often shrewd, except for several bees about Shostakovich under his bonnet.

This week, he had a bad night. He hated the concert, the audience, the conductor, the world (it happens on wet nights in Liverpool) and declared the ovation ‘undeserved’. He even wondered whether the Russian conductor had become ‘too English’ for Shostakovich. Read his review here.

Vasily Petrenko, principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

The orchestra, understandably upset, posted the review on its facebook page and asked members of the audience what they thought. Most disagreed with the review. Some disparaged the critic.

At which point Mrs Fanning stepped in with a few choice words of her own. Then she, or others, took them down. I wonder why.

I see no reason why a reviewer’s spouse should have to bite his or her tongue. Let’s hear it from the silent minority. It all adds to the gaiety of nations.

He’s 70 this month, so it’s well timed, and John McLaughlin is probably better known now in Germany and France than in his native Britain – not least, his native Yorkshire. Some call him the most influential guitarist alive. Whatever his rank, the award is richly well deserved.

More here.

John McLaughlin. Foto: Frankfurter Musikpreis

Here’s a press release, just in, on the general evacuation of Danish Opera.

 

Press release

 

Director of the Royal Danish Opera Keith Warner to leave the Royal Danish Theatre

 

Keith Warner has at a staff meeting at the Opera House this evening announced that he has been granted a release from his contract, which was to expire on 31 July 2014.

As a consequence Jakub Hr?ša, who has since October 2011 been acting artistic consultant for Keith Warner, has announced that he no longer wishes to assume the position as music director at the Royal Danish Theatre as of the summer of 2013.

 

Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera, Keith Warner, states:

“It is with immense sadness that I feel I must resign my post at the Royal Danish Opera. A combination of factors, made acute by the recent devastating budget cuts, has led me to feel that in the present circumstances, I am unable to realise my great dreams for the company. We part good friends. The talent of the performing company is beyond compare and the dedication of the entire staff is without reproach. I’m sure we will continue to build pathways towards each other in the future.”

 

Director of the Royal Danish Theatre Erik Jacobsen regrets Keith Warner’s decision and states:

“I sincerely regret that Keith Warner no longer wishes to stay in Copenhagen. I will now in joint collaboration with the rest of the theatre’s management and board of directors ensure that the transitional period until a new artistic director has been found will be as smooth as possible. The repertoire at the Royal Danish Opera has already been planned for the next couple of years. So we will allocate the necessary time it will take to find a new artistic director who is to ensure a high artistic standard.”

 

Until a new artistic director has been appointed, Director of the Ensemble of the Royal Danish Opera Sven Müller will assume responsibility for the artistic management of the Opera House.

 

 

Press contact:

Director of Communications, Eva Hein / +45 33 69 69 80 / Mobile +45 25 51 79 80

 

 

Kind regards,

 

The Press Department

The Royal Danish Theatre

 

The Danish government attack on the Royal Theatre has just drawn blood.

Keith Warner, the company’s artistic director, and Jakub Hrusa, its incoming chief conductor, have resigned in protest after weeks of negotiation aimed at mitigating the cuts.

The double whammy is the biggest signal yet that Denmark has been declared by its government a no-go zone for accomplished artists. From tonight, Denmark will be staging Hamlet without the prince. More here.

The sports pages, and some front pages, are in black today for Joe Paterno, one of the most successful and beloved coaches in college football. He has died of lung cancer, aged 85. Paterno’s last years were marred by the discovery that his close associate and defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was charged with child sex offences.

‘How was I to know?’ said Paterno. ‘I never came across something like that before.’ They fired him, anyway. Some said today that Paterno died of a broken heart.

There are similarities with the firing of Ben Zander, though not exact parallels. Zander knew his videographer had served time for a sex offence. He believed the man to be rehabilitated – and there is no suggestion that he offended again at any time at NEC or in the last 20 years. Zander was fired anyway. At 72, his epitaph will forever be clouded by this episode.

Like Paterno, he was naive and innocent of wrongdoing. Without in any way mitigating the monstrous crime of sexual abuse of children, the punishment inflicted on these men is disproportionate to their foolish misjudgements. And in Zander’s case, it appears NEC had fired him before it had the sex excuse. NEC president Tony Woodcock refuses to answer questions on this issue.