It’s Jansons’s final concert tonight as chief conductor of the Concertgebouw.

You should be able to catch it on the ‘live’ button here.

He once predicted it would be whistled by milkmen. No milkmen left, sad to say.

But David Schafer, an art professor at the University of Southern California (where Schoenberg taught) arranged for five hospitality trucks to play Schoenberg tracks around the campus for a week.

Truck 1 played Brettl-Lieder, truck 2 aired Gurrelieder, truck 3 broadcast Erwartung, truck 4 drover around playing the 12-tone Wind Quintet, opus 26, truck 5 stuck to the late violin-piano Phantasy, opus 47.

Here‘s a real-time, unboosted sample.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has not played a note of Schoenberg in almost a decade. They’ve lost the trade to the ice-cream merchants.

Claire Wickes, who has guested with several London orchs, had landed the hot seat at the Coliseum.

The situation at Radio France is described today as ‘out of control’. Musicians are raging at the cancellation of two orchestral concerts this weekend, five unions have gone on strike, the head of radio, Mattheiu Gallet, is under official investigation for a lavish office redecoration and the head of music, Jean-Pierre Rousseau, has not been seen at the radio all week.

Two inside sources tell Slipped Disc that Rousseau (pictured) has been sacked – after less than a year in the job. There has been no official word on his position.

Kit Wynn Parry, author of The Musician’s Hand and a rheumatologist who treated John Williams, Alfred Brendel and many others for upper limb pain, has died at the age of 90.

He was among the founders of the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine, which now has centres around the country. Amazingly, he escaped the royal honours that befell so many of his grateful patients.

Obituary here.

Orchid, a boutique label, is staging a contest for under-30 UK artists. The winner gets a record debut.

See here.

At a time when all labels have shed their longterm deals with orchestra, Decca has popped up with a five-year partnership in Montreal. Yes, we understand he sentimental attachment to the so-called golden years when every score that Charles Dutoit beat was released on CD.

But the deal starting losing money in the early 1990s and Kent Nagano, Dutoit’s successor, does not sell records.

So, why?

Press release below.

Montreal, Thursday, March 19, 2015 – The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is pleased to announce a five-year partnership agreement with Decca Classics, a prestigious label on which the Orchestra recorded about 80 albums from the beginning of the 1980s to the early 2000s. The OSM wished to share this happy development on the occasion its 2015-2016 season launch.

“We at the OSM are delighted to reunite with our historic partner and look forward to the special artistic projects which will result of this collaboration,” stated Kent Nagano, music director.

“We’re very happy to be re-signing with the prestigious international record label Decca, with whom we were highly active in the recording market for over 20 years. Even though the industry has undergone upheavals and the OSM itself has diversified the ways in which it supplies its music to audiences, our desire is to continue to make recordings that enable the Orchestra to maintain its international celebrity has never faded,” stated Madeleine Careau, chief executive officer.

“It gives me great pleasure to see the return of the OSM to Decca, its recording home for so many years. Now in its magnificent new hall it is sounding back to its very best under the enterprising musical direction of Kent Nagano. The projects we have agreed, starting with L’Aiglon, add several world-premiere recordings to the catalogue, while maintaining the tradition of Francophone music that was so important during the Dutoit years. So all in all, this is a logical way to continue a much-cherished partnership,” commented Paul Moseley, Managing Director of Decca.

The relationship with Decca started in 1980 when the OSM signed an exclusive contract with the label. The OSM recordings, under the Decca label, won about 40 national and international prizes, including two Grammy Awards. The OSM is therefore particularly proud of returning to the label.

L’Aiglon: Son of Napoleon, a work by Honegger and Ibert, presented in a grand North American premiere on March 17, 19 and 21, 2015 at Maison symphonique de Montréal, is the first project in the new partnership. The second project, inspired by Halloween, with works by Ives, (Hallowe’en), Dukas, (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), Dvořák, (The Noon Witch), Balakirev, (Tamara), Saint-Saëns, (Danse macabre), and Mussorgsky, (Night on Bald Mountain), was being announced today in the framework of the launch of the 2015-2016 OSM season.

A survey of 10,000 British schoolchildren and 250 teachers finds that those who join a musical ensemble are more likely to make good moral choices in their daily lives. Playing sport, on the other hand, makes no difference.

Those who were members of choirs or took part in other musical activities outside school were 17 per cent more likely to choose the more moral options than those who did not. Similarly those involved in drama groups outside school scored 14 per cent better on average….By contrast those involved in sports clubs or teams scored marginally worse than those who did not.

This is, of course, exactly what we’d like to believe.

The caveat is that the research was conducted by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at Birmingham University. How objective is that? Report here.

A spectator reports from the Royal Festival Hall:

We were sitting in the side stalls of tonight’s Philharmonia concert at the Royal Festival Hall and it looked like Vladimir Ashkenazy gave himself a rather nasty paper cut (on the edge of the music stand?). It bled for most of the third movement of Lemminkainen. He appeared to never miss a beat as he retried a handkerchief from his pocket but had to suck his thumb / finger quite a bit or clench is fist until the bleeding stopped. It’s not often you see a conductor pointing with a fist!

The US tenor is the latest victim of Viennitis. He was down to appear with Marina Rebeka but fell sick shortly before showtime.

Abdellah Lasri, a Moroccan, was the capable stand-in, reaping ovations at the curtain.

AP reports that Eloisa Maturen has filed for divorce in a Los Angeles court against Gustavo Dudamel, the Philharmonic music director, claiming ‘irreconcilable differences’. The couple, former teenage sweethearts, have been married for nine years. They have a three year-old son.

Dudamel is presently on a Far East tour with the LA Phil.

If you can’t bear schoolboy humour you’d better look away now, but a book called The Other Flute made it onto Jimmy Fallon’s sketch on NBC’s Tonight Show. It’s ‘a performance manual of contemporary techniques’. Watch at 2:18. (Don’t watch.)

UPDATE:

Robert Dick has circulated a lovely response:

When I first saw the sketch “Do Not Read — THE OTHER FLUTE” on the Tonight Show, I was incredulous, hurt and angry. This was the same, lame, “dick humor” that I first encountered at age 5. And the jokes were way far from the best I’ve heard (or sometimes made).

Then I realized that, in its own bizarre way, a unique opportunity had fallen out of the sky. Because my public persona is really funny and entertaining, I might have the chance to speak up for everyone who has been mocked for being different in some way. Can you hear me, Willy the Whale, with your three voices, shot dead on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House? (I might have gotten the whole multiphonic idea from you, pal!) And, I might have the chance to play my music for a huge audience and to show the world just how cool creativity really is.

That’s why I’m asking everyone to contact the Tonight Show through their FaceBook page or to Tweet them (#InviteRobertDick @FallonTonight) to let them know that you’d love to see me on the show and that I will rock them to the core of their being. The outpouring of support has touched me deeply. Oft times, we creators in the non-commerial realm feel that very few are listening to our music — in the last couple of days I’ve felt, as never before, that my life and work have made a difference to very many people. I’m truly humbled and grateful. So please keep the flood of FaceBook posts and Tweets going to Tonight. If its going to happen, it will happen fast, so please act right when you read this. With gratitude, Robert Dick