A grandson of the great composer by his first marriage has withheld the documents and letters owned by his side of the family from the Arnold Schoenberg Centre in Vienna and given them instead to the University of North Texas.

Arnold Greissle-Schoenberg, 88, is the son of Gertrude Schoenberg (pictured below, the daughter by his first marriage to Mathilde von Zemlinsky, and his pupil, Felix Greissle. The family migrated to America in 1938; Gertrud died in 1947. Some of the material appears to contain information of great consequence about the genesis of the 12-note row. It may mean scholars will have to split their time between Vienna and Denton.

Report here.

Zuzana Ruzickova, 85 years old tomorrow, is a doyenne of the harpsichord and one of its most famous teachers.

She has worked with some of the greatest virtuosi, including Sviatoslav Richter and Josef Suk (below) and will be showered with tributes from all over the world.

 

Less well known are her experiences under Nazi occupation in the concentration camps of Terezin and Auschwitz. She speaks about them freely in this (English-text) interview with Czech Radio. Read it here:

The Germans had us building traps for tanks, and we then we heard shooting and we realised that the Allies were very near. Then the Nazis left and didn’t leave us any water or food. But the Allies didn’t come. For three days we were there, trapped, without food and without knowing what was happening, until the British came the third day…

Rudolph Tang, who writes for KLASSIKOM Music Info Service, has sent us a list of what his site regards as the ten most important events and developments in China over the past year. The English version, he notes, is slightly different from the Chinese.

Among other unreported trends is the phenomenal rise of a Taiwan conductor on the Chinese mainland and a BBC contest winner’s connection with his homeland. Here’s Rudolph’s report:

1 Mahler, stewed not stirred
Mahler here and Mahler there, Mahler was everywhere. From small
township to major metropolises, Mahler was utterly welcomed and duly
remembered by two complete symphony cycles in Beijing plus one Mahler
Festival which featured his lieder and piano quartet. In Shanghai
there was a slightly less ambitious incomplete cycle that was equally
welcomed. Even the EOS Orchestra of Central Conservatory gave three
Mahler symphonies this year conducted by Julliard alumni Yongyan Hu.
A comprehensive if not complete survey of major Maherian concerts in
China in Mahler years is available upon request from KLASSIKOM
exclusively, in English!

2 Music on the giant screen
Cineplex of the Met has become an industrial standard for the opera
business but it was just new to China. The Shanghai Grand Theatre,
after lost its battle of musicals and surrendered to the Cultural
Square, a newly erected venue specifically built for the musicals, was
looking for alternative contents and HD opera got their nerve. The
first of four cinema casts was introduced to Chinese audience on Aug
27 with Julie Taymor’s Die Zauberflöte featuring Chinese soprano Ying
Huang both on the screen and on the stage for a talk. It was followed
by La boheme featuring the rising bass-baritone Shen Yang. Both casts
were sensational enough to foretell a good future.
A concert of Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle was
simulcast in an outdoor venue in November in Shanghai, the first of
its kind in the region to an thousand attentive and curious audience.

3 A boom in Chinese opera
According to a fellow music critic Zhiyin Chen, more than 20 operas
were either written by Chinese composers or premiered in 2011 alone,
setting a record for the already bombastic operatic scene which won
attention from New York Times and Financial Times. The First China
Opera Festival held in Fuzhou was the ultimate showcase of China’s
local opera menacing power. The only question remains where those
outputs are one-time phenomenon. Possibilities for future productions
are quite dim.

4 Matsumoto festival live from China
Seiji Ozawa’s absence simply couldn’t stop the pace of his festival
for a two-week residency in Beijing and Shanghai with Bartok’s Blue
Beard and other programmes, performed by his award-winning Saito Kinen
Orchestra and the Seiji Ozawa Workshop featuring Matthias Goerne as
the bloody count. Matsumoto was the second major oversee festival to
have a residency in China after Claudio Abbado’s Lucerne Festival in
2007 in Beijing. That could pose potential challenge to the existing
festivals, one of them being the almighty Beijing Music Festival
founded by Long Yu in 1998.

5 Shake, Rattle’n Roll
Sir Simon visited China with Berliner Philharmoniker with Bruckner and
Mahler 9th. The British conductor was kind and the musicians were
friendly, unlike the arrogant Daniel Barenboim who rudely refused any
requests from fans waiting for him at the train station or lining up
at the backstage door.

6 Memorial concert for the centennial of the 1911 revolution
The 1911 revolution in China ended the reign of the last emperor.
During the Shanghai Spring Festival which promotes contemporary music,
bass-baritone Shen Yang paired with former president of Shanghai Music
Conservatory Liqin Yang in an all Chinese art song liederabend. The
recital revived some of the lost and forgotten music by Chinese
composers a hundred years ago and restored audience’s faith in Chinese
art songs. The music Shen chose were melancholic enough to remind one
of the old merry days before the liberation. The recital was
subsequently voted as Creative Programme of the Year by five leading
music critics in Classical Elites Shanghai 2010-2011.

7 Shao-chia Lu’s first season at NSO
Lu’s first season with NSO Taiwan was both phenomenal and comprehensible. His Mahler 8th and Resurrection
established his iconic status as the leading living Chinese/Taiwanese
conductor dwarfed by no one. The good days for NSO are yet to come.


8 Shande Ding’s centennial
Former president of Shanghai Music Conservatory who gave birth to the
all-time classic violin concerto Butterfly, Ding’s centennial was
greeted with symposium and one major concert by Shanghai Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Ding’s grandson Long YU. Yes it is always a
family business in China.

9 Guangzhou Opera House falling apart
The million dollar brand-new Guangzhou
Opera House is falling apart due to construction defects. It was a
major scandal on social networks in China.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8620759/Guangzhou-Opera-House-falling-apart.html

10 Outsourced by the US
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra signed a virtually empty memorandum with
New York Philharmonic. In the seemingly baton exchange, Long Yu, music
director of SSO, was invited for a concert engagement by New York Phil
in early 2012 during the Chinese New Year. The NCPA in Beijing signed
a deal with Philadelphia Orchestra for a pilot partnership starting in
2012. Similarly one theatre in Tianjian signed an agreement with
Lincoln Centre for the exchange of programmes. A new wave of cultural
colonisation probably, but why were China’s cultural establishments so
hungry for MADE in USA to make them look (if not sound) better?

One of the four string players suspended by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for demanding a ban on the Israel Philharmonic is launching a case for discrimination against her orchestra. Sarah Streatfield claims she has suffered prejudice as a consequence of her beliefs. She is represented by Bindman’s Solicitors, a firm associated with pro-Palestinian causes*.

Meanwhile, a pro-Israel group of lawyers,  led by Jonathan Turner, has written to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, asking him to prosecute those who disrupted the Israel Philharmonic concert at the Proms.

Both actions are unnecessary. The LPO management has been slack in not reinstating the players by now and has damaged its reputation for competence. On the pro-Israel side, there is no point other than counter-propaganda to purse the offenders of last summer’s melee. The whole issue should have been long buried and forgotten by now.

LPO in the Royal Festival Hall

*The Guardian graciously refers to me as ‘a pro-Israel writer and broadcaster’. I’m not sure what they are trying to imply. I am pro-Israel as I am pro-France. I love and have links with both countries. What I think of their governments and policies is altogether another matter.  The Guardian’s shorthand is efficient but potentially misleading.

Benjamin Zander, who left his post at New England Conservatory last week over having employed a video cameraman with a sex-offence conviction, has posted two statements on his website. In the first, he informs his students, members of the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, that he had been dismissed by the NEC well before the sex-conviction issue was raised:

One week after we returned from our triumphant tour last June, after the sold-out concert in the Musikverein, I was handed a letter from president (Tony) Woodcock announcing that my tenure as conductor of YPO and my role as the Artistic Director of Walnut Hill would be terminated on June 30th 2012. No reason was given except that they were engaged in succession planning. But I believe that was not the real reason. It is my opinion that the president had become upset with me during the complex discussions caused by disagreements between us about the tour. I believe that terminating my services as soon as possible had become a priority.

In the other, he launches a passionate defence of his friend, the videographer, Peter Benjamin, as a man who had offended more that 20 years ago and was now a fully rehabilitated member of society. Filming concerts was, in fact, a required part of his rehabilitation:

In 1991, Mr. Benjamin made a serious mistake. For this he was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. Thereafter, of his own volition, Mr. Benjamin entered into and engaged in a very successful four-year intensive therapy program specifically designed to treat individuals who had sexually offended against minor-aged adolescents. The recidivism rate for individuals having completed this program is less than 5%. After Mr. Benjamin completed his sentence in 1998, he was released and placed on supervised probation for five years. As part of his probation Mr. Benjamin was required to work. Mr. Benjamin obtained permission from the probation department to return to his long-time profession of videotaping live music events. While on probation, he was asked to have another adult with him when he was filming at schools or churches to negate any possibility or appearance of impropriety. Probation specifically knew he filmed events at the New England Conservatory. Successfully completing probation, Mr. Benjamin nevertheless kept this precaution in place for years afterwards. Mr. Benjamin has never re-offended and deserves credit for this.

Zander makes a strong case here that the New England Conservatory and its president, Tony Woodcock, have not been telling the whole truth. I await, in the public interest, a clarification of their position.

Mainstream media were 24 hours behind the web in reporting the disruption of a New York Philharmonic concert by a phone alarm and they are still pedalling hard to catch up.

My pals at thousandfoldecho got pestered by CNN and I was contacted by CBS News, German radio and any number of print outlets all wanting to know what I’ve said I will never disclose – the identity of the hapless offender. And I’m not even in New York.

Sometimes, you do wish the hacks would do their own legwork.

All four major labels have put their name to a lawsuit that aims to force a country to introduce anti-piracy laws and pay damages for past abuses.

EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal are named in the suit.

The country they are pursuing is the Republic of Ireland, where the economy has collapsed in the Euro bust and young people – the ones who use music most – are fleeing the country in numbers unseen since the potato famine.

The biz may be right to stop people stealing its apples, but its timing is skewed and the victim it has picked can hardly pick itself off the ropes. hat do they want of the poor Irish?

Think again, suits.

 

OK, this I really needed.

I shall be out in Los Angeles the week after next giving seven Why Mahler? talks in as many days during Gustavo Dudamel’s cycle with his two orchestras, the Simon Bolivar Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World

I shall also be sending live reports from the cycle (please get in touch if you want to publish it in other languages).

But the prospect is still daunting: how are we to get through the intensity of it sane and alive?

Christian Hertzog in La Weekly publishes a survivor’s guide, including some video advice from Why Mahler?

Sir Simon Rattle has announced plans for the 2013 Baden Baden Easter Festival, which will be the Berlin Philharmonic’s new base after they presumptuously pulled out of Salzburg at short notice.

Top of the rep is Magic Flute – ‘the icing on the cake’, said Rattle – but the casting has already been unsettled by Thomas Quasthoff’s poignant decision this week to  call an immediate halt to his singing career. The production will be directed by the Canadian, Robert Carsen, and will star Simone Kermes and Kate Royal.

Rattle will also conduct Mahler’s second symphony with his wife, Magdalena Kozena, and Kate Royal as soloists.

And Andris Nelson’s will conduct Maxim Vengerov’s return to the big time from prolonged injury in the Brahms concerto.

Fluffy details here.

Simon Rattle and Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser.  Photo: Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Rattle with Baden Baden director Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser.Photo: Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Eduardo Strausser has sent me a doctored video of Leonard Bernstein conducting Mahler’s 9th symphony, demonstrating how an ill-disciplined phone can wreck the ending – as it did in New York this week.

The New England Conservatory has announced the immediate departure of its Youth Philharmonic conductor, Benjamin Zander.

No reason was given and Zander was unreachable for comment. His facebook page is starting to show messages of regret from players past and present.

Conservatory officials told AP that its director, Tony Woodcock, had disciplined a staff member who, over the past ten years, employed a videographer to record rehearsals and performances of preparatory school students. The videographer was known to be a registered level-2 sex offender.

Zander, English born, is widely known as a meticulous conductor of Mahler and the late romantics and an inspirational lecturer to business conferences. He is also chief conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

I have known him for a very long time and would not suspect him of anything worse than extreme naivety and, perhaps, excessive loyalty to his friends. There is no suggestion that he acted improperly in any way towards students.

Tony Woodcock, also English, is a former head of the Bournemouth and Minnesota orchestras. He, in my experience, is not a man who acts impetuously.

More details as they come in.

I’ve had the Nielsen scan figures in and they show a TV album at the top of the classical charts.

Downton Abbey - OST album

Nothing innately odious about that, but then I’m in a minority about Downton Abbey. I watched about ten minutes on television and decided static wallpaper would be more interesting. It was glossy, mushy, predictable, stereotyped period drama and the music, by John Lunn, was a dumbed-down version of Michael Nyman’s score for The Piano. Don Black wrote the song lyrics. You can catch some here.

But the public can’t be wrong, and the charts never lie. So why do I feel as if some monstrous fraud has been committed against the public IQ?

Here’s Nielsen:

CHART: Current Classical Traditional

 

Week Ending: 01/08/2012  Display: % CHG

Wks   Lbl 2W RK LW RK TW RK Artist                         Title                          TW Sales    % CHG LW Sales RTD Sales

On

1*DOWNTOWN ABBEY                 TV SOUNDTRACK

2 GABRIELI/BACH/REVUELTAS/PROKOF CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BRA

3 LANG LANG                      LISZT – MY PIANO HERO (VINYL)

4 KARADAGLIC*MILOS               MEDITERRANEO