The airline has formally apologised for one of its staff abandoning the wheelchair-bound violinist at Toronto’s Pearson airport last week. It has donated half a million air miles to the Chai cancer charity that Perlman was flying in to support.
That’s decent. That’s noble. Incident closed.
A character assessment of the composer in Der Standard by the Klagenfurt musicologist Daniel Ender usefully cites most of the known sources about Strauss and the Nazis. Read here.
foto: richard-strauss-institut, garmisch-partenkirchen
Now watch this interview with Strauss’s Nazi protector and my own reflections on the character of ‘the least interesting composer that ever lived.‘
This official audio has been released by the Los Angeles Philharmonic:
**Actual Audio Recording** On March 28, 2014 at 9:09pm, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Philharmonic was six minutes into a performance of Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloé” with guest conductor Charles Dutoit when the quake hit. A strong jolt followed by a minute of rumbling did not unhinge the orchestra or Maestro Dutoit, and the stirring concert continued without a hitch.
Quite a contrast to the other concert we reported in Long Beach.
Ian Campbell was greeted with jeers, hisses and catcalls before the performance of San Diego Opera’s last production, Massenet’s Don Quichotte. Campbell’s plan to shut the company is now being hotly contested.
Watch.
Russian and Baltic emigrés have launched a petition calling on Chancellor Merkel and the Bavarian President Horst Seehofer to veto the appointment of Valery Gergiev as music director of the Munich Philharmonic.
They argue: ‘For the first time since 1938, a European State has stolen part of the internationally recognized territory of a neighboring country when Russia occupied and annexed the Crimean peninsula. … A letter to the Russian people in support of this “Anschluss” was signed among others by conductor Valery Gergiev, violinist Vladimir Spivakov, violist Yuri Bashmet, pianist Denis Matsuev…. Here in Munich, we must be particularly sensitive to any sign of political immorality. Therefore, we ask: How can Valery Gergiev can become chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra How can a German State Orchestra be led by a man who actively supports Russian military interventions?…’
Read (and, if you agree) sign the petition here.
In the middle of the last century, when the Moscow Conservatoire was a mecca for violin teaching in the old style, the great David Oistrakh would sometimes send his students for a second opinion to Abram Shtern – Abrasha – in Kiev. Shtern was a student of a Leopld Auer pupil, David Berthier. He was concertmaster and professor in Kiev until his family’s migration to the US in 1990, when he was 71. He continued playing expressively into his 90s, as you can hear below. Misha Keylin tells us that this inspirational teacher died on Thursday, aged 96.
Here’s a fairly recent profile in the LA Times.
How many movie buffs can name him?
Paul Salamunovich conducted the chorus in major feature 10 movies and in the NBC series ER.
He sang solo on the soundtrack of How the West Was Won and prepared choruses for concerts conducted by Igor Stravinsky, Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Simon Rattle and more.
Music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1991-2001, he died in Hollywood aged 86. Here’s a composer’s tale from his final days.
Watch here.
Lumosity prides itself on cognitive analysis. Every year, it publishes a list of top US colleges based on five areas of performance: Speed, Attention, Flexibility, Memory and Problem Solving.
The scope of the survey is wide. At #36 you will find, for instance, the Colorado College of Mines. MIT is at #2.
But, unless we’re missing something vital, nowhere in the list will you find a conservatoire or college-level school of music. You would have expected musicians to excel at the five Lumosity criteria. So what’s gone wrong.
Read the list here.
We have been asked to post a cry for help from Eyal Ein-Habar, principal flute of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. His flute was in a black bag on a flight from Chapel Hill to Philadelphia on April 4th and was taken, perhaps by mistake, by another passenger.
The instrument is a 19.5k Powell flute. Serial no. 13176.
Eyal is distraught. Please help him find it by sharing this information.
UPDATE: No sign yet of the missing flute. Eyal has given some more details here.
Kristine Opolais, who sang her first Madam Butterfly at the Met last night, will star again tonight in La Boheme. That’s brave. Ms Opolais is married to the conductor Andris Nelsons. Substitute announcement follows.
Subject: Metropolitan Opera Cast Change Advisory – Today’s La Boheme
Kristine Opolais will sing Mimi in today’s matinee performance of Puccini’s La Bohème, replacing Anita Hartig, who is ill.
Miss Opolais has agreed to perform today on extremely short notice after singing the title role of Madama Butterfly for the first time at the Met just last evening. Opolais has sung Mimi with the Vienna State Opera, Berlin State Opera, and Latvian National Opera and will sing the role at the Met next season. She made an acclaimed Met debut last year as Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine.
Today’s performance of La Bohème, which is being transmitted worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, is expected to reach a global audience of more than 300,000 people.
La Bohème also stars Susanna Phillips as Musetta, Vittorio Grigolo as Rodolfo, Massimo Cavalletti as Marcello, Patrick Carfizzi as Schaunard, Oren Gradus as Colline, and Donald Maxwell as Benoît/Alcindoro. Stefano Ranzani conducts.
