Complete the quotation as you see fit.

It headlines a lovely profile of Mahan Esfahani in today’s Independent newspaper.

And since these things tend to come in threes, we’ve just received two immortal classics of a pianist who slams it.

Check this

and this (especially at 3:52)

He’ll go far.

neill eisenstein
h/t: Zsolt Bognar 

Julien Beaudiment has decided to leave the Los Angeles Philharmonic later this year ‘for personal reasons’ and return to France.

He has assured friends that the reasons are wholly private, and nothing to do with his relationships with or within the orchestra, which have been excellent.

He is the fifth principal flute to leave LA in nine years, an unusually high turnover. C K Dexter has the full story here.

 

beaudiment

The LA Phil is currently advertising auditions for associate principal horn and principal flute.

We regret to share news of the death of Aldo Ciccolini, the French-Italian pianist who commanded classical repertoire on EMI in the 1960s and 70s. A Neapolitan of aristocratic family, he was reduced to playing in bars after the War until a 1949 Long-Thibaud competition win in Paris turned his life around.

He specialised first in the romantic repertoire of Saint-Saens, before covering most other French composers. Satie was a personal favourite.

Walter Legge engaged him as accompanist to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and he went on to record the complete sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart for EMI. An excellent teacher, his students included Thibaudet, Angelich, Pizarro and Libetta.

He was a byword for elegance, a pianist of the golden age.

ciccolini EMI