Foto: Constantin Beyer / Bachhaus Eisenach.
This is the great man in old age, newly acquired and announced today by the birthplace museum.
Naomi Lewin has tracked down the couple who bought the house that Charles Ives built. Happily, they have awoken to its historic value and decided to preserve its essential character. Their architects and planners are Ives admirers. Read and listen to Naomi’s report here. All’s well that ends well.
We hear rumblings from Ghent, where the international bass-baritone Gidon Saks has been informed in mid-term that the university will not apply for a renewal of his work permit.
His place is being taken by a nondescript local teacher. Students and faculty are unhappy. Apparently, this part of a new policy of Belgianisation.
UPDATE: We have received this message from one of Mr Saks’s foreign students:
…Mr. Saks told us from beginning of first semester that he was struggling with his contract, and that it always happened since he first arrived to the school 9-10 years ago. In spite of that, he continued to work with us in the Opera Workshop (if you can call it like that, when we even don’t have a pianist and have to go seek STUDENT’S collaboration), where at the end he worked as director, vocal coach, hair dresser, make up designer, style assistant, lightning director, and even fell from some stairs trying to put something onstage and resulting with a swollen knee that was already gone through surgery, and with a wobbly pace for some weeks.
A punctual man, who was always willing to work with the students. Who is willing to give us two voice lessons per week, when the school just pays him one. He didn’t have to do all that extra work! He didn’t have to be teaching us extra hours! He didn’t have to stay from 9am to 6pm almost without a break just to teach everyone who is willing to work with him! That is called passion, and aim to help young singers. That is something that unfortunately is not found in all teachers, and sometimes lesser in the ones who ask a 150-200 fee!!!
I want my teacher back, and I am happy you posted that note, and I hope it gets viral and overcomes the stupid laws of the Belgian government. What the school says is he wasn’t granted a working permit renewal because he didn’t have a title (BA, MA, even high school diploma). But, SO WHAT????? What about all the work he has done in those past 9 years?? Why they didn’t cared about his titles the years before? Why now????
There will be a concert in Amsterdam tonight in memory of Kirill Kondrashin, the Russian exile who was named principal guest conductor of the Concertgebouw in 1978 and died three years later, on a day he was due to conduct Mahler’s first symphony.
His defection stunned the Soviets, who suppressed all his past recordings. Kondrashin had been a recipient of the Stalin medal. He conducted Van Cliburn to victory at the Tchaikovsky competition and formed a warm personal friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich.
Mariss Jansons and Valery Gergiev pay tribute to his genius in a Dutch radio programme. See release:
Amsterdam, 6 maart 2013
Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest draagt concert op aan Kirill Kondrashin
Het Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest draagt zijn concert van vanavond op aan Kirill Kondrashin (1914-1981). De
Russische dirigent en orkestpedagoog was van 1979 tot 1981 vaste dirigent naast Bernard Haitink. Beide
dirigenten hebben een essentiële bijdrage geleverd aan het spel en de klankkleur van het Concertgebouworkest.
Algemeen directeur Jan Raes zal voor aanvang van het concert een moment stilstaan bij de honderdste
geboortedag van Kondrashin.
Op het programma, onder leiding van Myung-Whun Chung, staan Beethovens Tweede symfonie en een werk dat
Kondrashin ook meerdere malen met het Concertgebouworkest uitvoerde, de Symphonie fantastique van Berlioz.
Kirill Kondrashin debuteerde in 1968 bij het Concertgebouworkest en keerde daarna regelmatig als gastdirigent
terug. Vanaf 1975 fungeerde hij als vaste gastdirigent en orkestpedagoog. In 1979 werd Kondrashin benoemd tot
vaste dirigent naast Bernard Haitink. Helaas overleed Kondrashin op 7 maart 1981 aan een hartaanval.
Ter gelegenheid van de honderdste geboortedag van de dirigent heeft de Kirill Kondrashin Stichting haar
vermogen overgedragen aan de Stichting Donateurs Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest. Sinds Kondrashins dood
heeft de Kirill Kondrashin Stichting zijn naam en het gedachtengoed uitgedragen door het ondersteunen van
talentontwikkeling, bijvoorbeeld door het financieren van prijzen, boeken en filmopnamen. Het resterende
vermogen is ondergebracht in het vandaag opgerichte Kirill Kondrashin Fonds bij de Stichting Donateurs. Het zal
worden aangewend om Kondrashins naam in ere te houden middels projecten die de ontwikkeling van
uitzonderlijk muzikaal talent ondersteunen, zoals een masterclass voor dirigenten.
Vanaf 5 maart staat de documentaire Het testament van Kirill Petrovich online bij Cultura 24. Op
www.cultura.nl/klassiek is deze prachtige film over Kondrashin, die Hans Heg, Mia van ‘t Hof en Kees van
Langeraad in 1989 maakten, tien dagen lang te zien. Interessant zijn de interviews met de toen nog zeer jonge
dirigenten Mariss Jansons en Valery Gergiev.
The Belgian administrator, sacked as intendant of the Semperoper before he began, is going to court. He filed suit (Aktenzeichen 8 Ca 705/14) this morning against the Free State of Saxony, claiming unfair dismissal. He wants a payout of his five-year contract, worth 1.5 million Euros.
Kirill Petrenko, music director of Bavarian National Opera made the following statement on Ukraine at the annual press conference in Munich this morning:
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‘I am watching the situation there with great concern. What is happening there is anything but normal.’ He added that the only way forward would be talks aimed at finding a ‘political solution which respects Ukraine’s sovereignty’.
Ich betrachte die Zustände dort mit grosser Sorge. Was dort passiert ist, ist alles andere als normal. Eine Politische Lösung, die die Souveränität der Ukraine nicht antastet.
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Russian born, Petrenko emigrated to Vienna at age 18 and conducted the latest Ring at Bayreuth. He is one of the most respected maestros on the German circuit and the first Russian musician anywhere to respond to the present situation.
Contrary to the veteran conductor’s claim that the orchestra ‘humilated’ and ignored’ him during its 125th year and beyond, we understand that strenuous efforts were made to include the former music director in the 125th programme – not just by the orch management but by its present conductor Mariss Jansons, who reached out personally to Haitink on several occasions, to no avail.
Haitink relented to the point that he agreed to conduct Mahler 3rd with the Concertgebouw next season. A booking was made. However, a few days before the brochure went to print he notified the orchestra of his withdrawal.
The Dutch old master’s bocott is, say orchestra sources, totally without foundation.
Dame Kiri te Kanawa, 70 today, has announced that her cameo role in Covent Garden’s Daughter of the Regiment is to be her last stage appearance. The production closes next week.
The Dame, reared from raw at the Royal Opera, achieved her finest moment at the wedding of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana.
She has been an outstanding stage artist for almost half a century. Closely identified on record with Sir Georg Solti, her best-selling classical record (wedding apart) was probably the West Side Story she recorded with Leonard Bernstein and Jose Carreras on DG.
The Gewandhaus announced its new season today. Highlights include US and European tours – plus a Riccardo Chailly concert for 40,000 spectators in the city’s soccer stadium. One the menu: Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with a 1,000-strong chorus.
Check the movement title. Michael Shmith reports from Melbourne:
The letters GFC, which stand for global financial crisis, are also notes of the musical scale. How appropriate, therefore, to combine the two. Meet a new 12-minute work by Melbourne composer Gawain Davey, called Symphony GFC.
Not that Davey thought of the idea himself. This is where business comes in, in the form of investment adviser and commentator Doug Turek, who commissioned the three-movement symphony. It was recorded in Melbourne last week by the 20-piece Orchestre Nouveau, conducted by Zach Tay, and will be released on Thursday – the fifth anniversary of the GFC.
The meeting of big business and high art is not exactly a novel concept. But this particular form of philanthropy – the musical depiction of the collapse of the international sharemarket – takes things to a new level. ”It was a difficult time that had quite an emotional impact on me,” Turek said. ”So I challenged Gawain, who’s a family friend, to put these emotions into music. To help, I gave him a chart of the sharemarket trajectory and a couple of movies about the GFC.”
Turek isn’t used to being a modern-day Medici. ”It all came together about three weeks ago and was a bit of shock,” he said. ”I didn’t realise what I thought was a simple music piece required more than 20 players. Each had to be paid, as well as hiring the venue. My budget blew out.”
Mark Lawson has stepped down from Radio 4’s Front Row after 16 years. He has been rested on medical grounds for the past month.
The official story is full of smoke, mirrors and lawyer-proofed hints. The decision for Mark to leave was ‘a joint agreement with the BBC’.
I have known Mark for all the time he has been on Front Row and never had anything but agreeable experiences with him. At 52, he is a gifted commentator and interviewer who will soon find other outlets for his proven skills.
It’s only ten weeks, but there’s plenty of novelty. Can’t wait to see what Boston Brahmins make of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Offertorium, with violinist Baiba Skride, and John Harbison’s Koussevitzky said.
Look upon it as a wake-up call. Only ten weeks, though.
Full details here.
