The pianist has told the BBC why he won’t go back to his homeland. The Government, he accuses, honours war criminals. As for the public mood, it veers from cowardice to viciousness:

‘It’s the people that disturb me. Not all of them. There’s very little civilian courage. People are scared to speak up… I have been threatened that if I return to Hungary, they will cut off both of my hands. I don’t want to risk physical and mental assault.’

Read the full, unsettling interview here.

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Rehearsing Shostakovich 5 pieces for 2 violins and piano in Los Angeles with Etienne Gara and Yuja Wang.

Media analysts at Slipped Disc Central have been scouring every frame of the video below in an attempt to isolate its everlasting appeal. They conclude that the moment at 0:22, when Messiah reaches round to touch his boxer shorts, is one of Handel’s subversive masterstrokes, on a par with Hombre, my fu…. and Come for tea, my people.

Watch.

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The three finalists have been announced for the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award and, for the third year running, one of them is British. In 2012 it was Jamie Phillips, now assistant conductor of the Halle. This year it was Ben Gernon, now assistant conductor at the Los ngeles Philharmonic. Next year it’s Leo McFall, who studied at the Sibelius Academy and works with the Meiningen Orchestra. Go, Leo!

Press release follows.

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Salzburg, December 22, 2013. – The Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award, which has become one of the most coveted prizes for young conductors, goes into its fifth round.

 

In its fifth year, candidates from four continents showed interest in this international award for young conductors. Altogether, 82 persons applied.

The jury chose seven candidates from the applications; these were then invited to conduct works by Schoenberg, Varèse, Dalbavie and Ligeti live at the Haus für Mozart.

Thus, the selection process focused more strongly on contemporary music and made the choice of finalists more transparent. Following the rehearsal day with the “oesterreichisches ensemble für neue musik” (oenm, or austrian ensemble for new music), which was closed to the public, the jury chaired by Ingo Metzmacher selected the following three finalists.  

 

 

 

Victor Aviat (31) from France

Leo McFall (32) from Great Britain

Maxime Pascal (28) from France

 

 

The audience participates fully in the Award Concert Weekend (February 28, March 1 and 2, 2014), when the recipient of the award – a cash value of € 15,000 – is chosen, who also conducts a Festival concert on August 17, 2014.

 

I was so keen to wrap my ears around the harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani’s debut disc – a set of C P E Bach Württemberg Sonatas – that I paid no attention to the wrapping until I’d had a full run-through of the stunningly advanced pieces on the album, brilliantly played. Then I looked at the cover.

It shows a young chap with no clothes on, airing his gentleman’s relish to the light of day.

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Now, I’m no prude and the sketch is undoubtedly a work of art, but classical recording has generally drawn the line at exposing boys’ and girls’ bits anywhere below the pubic bone. Above the line there has been plenty of exposure – all in the name of art, of course – but this Hyperion release seems to me to cross the genital line, and for no good reason.

The picture (I looked closely) is not a likeness of either CPE Bach or Mahan Esfahani. Contradict me if you know better.

It is titled Reclining male nude supported by left arm, looking upwards by Anton Rafael Mengs (1728-1779) and it is reproduced courtesy of the Martin von Wagner Museum at the University of Würzburg.

Würzburg, in case you’re wondering, is in Bavaria. It has nothing to do with Württemberg, or the Duke of Württemberg, a former pupil for whom CPE Bach wrote his extraordinary sonatas.

So what’s the boy and his tackle doing on the cover? There has to be a reason, right?

 

In the New Year issue of Standpoint, out this week, I uncover the traces of an amateur musician who made a culture-free railway town the world capital of Russian opera. Intrigued? Read on here.

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Paul Agnew is being groomed to succeed the legendary William Christie at Les Arts Florissants. He was recently appointed joint music director and has just made his US debut. So how did it go? Our friends at Chicago Classical Review were there.

 

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photo: Denis Rouvre

Amid bankruptcy and threats of closure, Carlo Fuortes has been parachuted in to save a historic opera house whose  music director is Riccardo Muti. An experienced technocrat, Fuortes teaches cultural economics at university and has been managing Director of fondazione Musica per Roma since 2003.

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With perfect Christian timing, Landaff Cathedral sacked its seven adult choristers in the week before Christmas. Last night, they sang their last. David Hutchings was there for Slipped Disc:

 

 

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Last night, in their final concert, Llandaff Cathedral Choir gave a performance of the utmost professionalism, not simply singing beautiful music for us, but thoroughly entertaining, justifying every penny that has been spent upon them. After today, the professional adult members of the choir have been made redundant, along with the deputy organist, Sachin Gunga.

Anyone familiar with the traditional setup at a Cathedral will be aware of the vital role the deputy plays in either accompanying or conducting the choir. In the absence of an incumbent Cathedral Dean, with a Canon who was ill in bed, it fell to one of the assistant clergy to welcome the congregation and introduce the concert – one of the few clergy at Llandaff – who has been steadfast in his support for the choir and music over the years. So did the choir let anything mar their performance in any way?

Not a bit of it. They showed musical flair alongside their trademark flexibility with a selection of rousing carols including Whitacre, Rutter and Mathias, along with a particularly beautiful setting of the Ave Maria sung far in the depths of the cathedral body, out of sight. It was the redundant men of the choir led by Gunga, the outgoing deputy organist, who stole the show, rebranding themselves as ‘The Low Rangers’, Donning DJs rather than choir robes and stunning their audience with a hilarious ‘Once In Royal David’s City’, in Gunga’s spectacular showstopping arrangement.

To round off the concert, we were invited to sing in what might go down as the most rousing ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ ever sung in the Cathedral. Cue the longest standing ovation I have witnessed in Llandaff.  Time to go home then. But not before the conductor, Richard Moorhouse, stood to pay an impassioned tribute to all the choristers, choirboys included, who will be kept on without the motivation of working alongside their adult role models.

Moorhouse praised the courage, determination and loyalty of his choristers, as well as their creativity in coming up with fundraising proposals (which I have been informed were not given due consideration by the administration). Their professionalism throughout, we were told, is evidenced simply by their presence here tonight, in the capacity of entertainers. We would finish, he told us, with something the choir sing day in, day out at evensong, the Magnificat in D by George Dyson. Before returning to conduct the choir for the last time, he closed with the words ‘Gentlemen, it has been a privilege’. The Magnificat was sublime, there were tears all round, a second standing ovation and the quickest, most tearful exit I have seen from a cathedral choir.

And listen here to more of the service.

In the run-up to its New year showcase, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has let it be known that honours it gave to six Nazi leaders have been withdrawn. It has also admitted past intentions to present an honour to Adolf Hitler.

The six who have been stripped of Vienna glory are:

Baldur von Schirach, the Gauleiter who purged Vienna of its Jewish population;

Arthur Seyss-Inquart, butcher of Holland;

Salzburg and Carinthia Nazi governor Friedrich Rainer;

SS leader Albert Reitter;

Vienna Mayor Hanns Blaschke;

German Reich Railway boss Rudolf Toepfer.

Too little, too late.

No huge surprise here.

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Alexander Pereira collected 304,500 Euros ($416,343) in salary for being chief of the Salzburg Festival in 2012, down from 355,000 the year before.

The shock is that Pereira may be earning 50% more than Dominique Meyer, boss of the Vienna State Opera, whose year-round job yields vastly more performances than the Salzburg show. Meyer and his commercial director Thomas Plazter split 449 400 Euros in take home pay, the exact division remaining confidential. Pereira’s salary at his next job, in La Scala, has not been made public.

Helga Rabl-Stader, the Salzburg Festival presisdent, is paid 181,400 Euros

You can read the full salary list of Austria’s arts leaders here.

 

The rage is rising against Iberia subsidiary Vueling, which forces musicians to fly their instruments without cases. A Facebook protest page has been launched here. The horror is that if you book a flight on Iberia you may well end up on Vueling. Take care.

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