A fascinating list from Wolf Trap opera…. and we won’t give the top tunes away.
Click here for the league of arias.
The Bayreuth Festival has announced that Harmut Haenchen will conduct Parsifal again in 2017. Haenchen was called in at the last minute after Andris Nelsons pulled out for reasons that are sill disputed.
Katharina Wagner was hoping that Nelsons would return next year.
No hope. He has announced a four-week commitment to Tanglewood next summer, which rules him out of Bayreuth.
UPDATE: Here’s what he told the Tanglewood audience: ‘I am … very excited to announce that I will be leading two opera programs, one of them a complete concert performance of a major work. Though we are still in the process of making final programming decisions for the 2017 Tanglewood season, we look forward to sharing the full season announcement about these and other programs this fall…
‘Tanglewood’s rich 79-year tradition — highlighted each summer by so many significant musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries — is breathtaking in its scope and impact, thanks to its founder Serge Koussevitzky.’
The Staatskapelle Weimar suffered a tragic loss yesterday with the sudden and unexpected death of first Kapellmeister, Martin Hoff.
Martin was about 51* and the cause of death is not yet known.
A student in Dresden of Hartmut Haenchen and Siegfried Kurz, he joined the Weimar ensemble in 2004 as a proficient rehearsal conductor, preparing his first Ring cycle in 2008 and conducting five complete cycles.
He also taught conducting at the Academy of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar.
This is the second tragedy to befall the orchestra in less than two months.
At the start of July, first violinist Irina Zwiener was bereaved of her husband Hendrik, a cellist in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, in a road accident.
Two days ago, Irina gave birth to their child, a baby girl.
* First information wrongly stipulated 52.
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra have recorded a new work by Tamil Rogeon that sets the 2010 AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final to music.
Watch a clip, if you like bare-armed men (and good music).
At a launch of his arts programme in Scotland this weekend, the Labour Party leader said ‘he had a deep affection for the work of Mahler and liked other “pretty heavy classical music”.’
He added: ‘I hate the elitism [that says] only the wealthy can go to ballet, only the wealthy can go to opera, only the wealthy can go to Glyndebourne, only the wealthy can enjoy what’s termed highbrow music.’
Would Gustav Mahler love Jeremy Corbyn?
The ARD music competion, Germany’s richest and oldest, opens tomorrow in Munich.
This year’s events are double-bass, horn, harp and string quartet.
There were 285 applicants from 44 countries.
applied accepted
Germany 49 36
France 44 32
S. Korea 37 17
Japan 28 13
Spanien 22 9
Team GB 15 11
USA 15 6
China 12 7
Italy 11 8
Poland 11 4
Russia 10 5
Like many of us, violinist Anthea Kreston of the Artemis Quartet is struggling to adjust to that back-to-work routine. Here’s her weekly diary for Slipped Disc:
I am at the Berlin Tegel airport – 45 minutes before our plane leaves. I just realised after getting here that I forgot my wallet and passport on the breakfast table and I am waiting for a drive-by window drop off from Jason with sleepy girls* in PJ’s in the back seat, hopefully in time. Heading to Netherlands today, festival in Germany tomorrow.
This week’s rehearsals have been really nice – refreshing old works hardly feels like refreshing – it feels new and exciting. Comments like “I know I never mentioned this before, but I wonder, in this moment, if we could delay our transition from desperation to hope by another half bar”. How lucky am I? To be a daily part of conversations like this – to always bring my best and not have it good enough. This is wonderful.
There have even been a couple of newly minted words and markings this week (and a lot more of rehearsal time is in German). My favorite – smileando – a melting into a smiling character. Before I write my next diary in a week I will have played 10 different works (and begun work on 3 new quartets).
My older daughter started school at John F Kennedy this week – and she (and I) love it. To just have the English language, with the American accents, surround me as we walk through campus feeds my home-sickness just enough. And we now are developing a nice group of friends – her new best friend lives across the street and is the daughter of a mother from Wisconsin and a father from Munich. Just yesterday I met the dad of another first grader – he said – “wait a minute – you are married to Jason? We went to Tanglewood together!”. We ended up all meeting at a park and spending a lovely afternoon together.
Wait – there is Jason – I will run and get my passport!!!! Aaaaa just in time! I am waving frantically and jumping up and down! Can’t believe he got here in 27 minutes. *sigh*, my hero.
Ok through security and back now…..
Also – the quartet had planned a sabbatical several years ago – which is to happen summer-winter of 2017. After the death of Friedemann and the subsequent 7 months of questioning, auditioning, concertizing and processing, this sabbatical still loomed – the manager was not to book concerts for 6 months and people were to explore their own paths. The idea was to come back refreshed. But – it occurred to all of us just a month ago that it would be better to open up the sabbatical – just for the odd free days here and there – since we are all just discovering our new quartet voice. So – a light fall for quartet, but this has forced me to get out and about – meet people, develop projects.
So – the big news is that we have decided to keep the trio going – we have a new pianist (news to come soon) and plan on some touring next season. Also – a string trio concert came in from our German manager, and they offered it to Jason and I. We contacted Volker Jacobsen, original Artemis violist – all-around super guy and incredible player, and voilà! The Humboldt Streichtrio is born, with several concerts being planned.
Ok – signing off now – this week’s diary written while at airport and in security line. I am sitting in my seat, belt buckled, heading to Amsterdam. Another festive week!
*pictured, at home
From a Slippedisc reader:
Friday 27 August recital by (British tenor) Ian Bostridge and (pianist) Julius Drake at the Schubertiade at Schwarzenberg where they perform regularly. First half unknown lieder with scores, second half better known without scores.
After applause, Die Forelle as encore, rather beautifully done. More applause. They return to do another encore when from the back a German voice shouts “bitte Deutsch lernen” (please learn German). Both look shocked.
Another encore (is) sung then Bostridge marches down the aisle and returns leading said German onto the platform suggesting he might like to address the audience. He says few words, is escorted off stage. Not the usual recital then.
(c) Robert Avery, Habsburg Heritage Cultural Tours
UPDATE: Here’s what a German critic thought of the incident.
We have received the following validation of our first report from the festival’s MD:
On August 25, 2016 around 2:15pm, out of total surprise, Mihnea Ignat, the conductor of our resident orchestra, jumped on me on Corso Vannuci in Perugia and attempted to strangulate me.
I am not a teacher at Music Fest Perugia, but the managing director of the festival and as such was involved in discussion about the payment for the orchestra, which was provided and executed on August 25th as required by the contract. Mihnea’s assault occurred at 2:15pm on August 25th.
We called the police who directed me to immediately go to the emergency room of the hospital, which I did. I have since been in further meetings with the police and will be pursuing criminal charges against Mihnea Ignat for attempted strangulation. There is surveillance video of the attack and it will be released in due time.
I have copies of a letter from members of the orchestra apologizing to me for the conduct of their director, a copy of my hospital evaluation, a copy of my statement to police regarding Mihnea’s attempted strangulation and a copy of a signed contract stating that the orchestra has been paid in full. I am happy to provide these documents to you upon request.
Many thanks,
John Holloway
Managing Director
Music Fest Perugia
pictured at piano, earlier this year
Peter Brem has retired from the first violins at 65 and written a book about the maestros he worked with – Karajan, Abbado, Rattle.
Brem was an influential figure in the orchestra, chair of its media group from 1992 and the force behind its record deal with the rock group Scorpions, a project widely condemned by traditionalists but apparently a two-million-selling hit.
The book is out now: Peter Brem. Ein Leben lang erste Geige. Rowohlt, 16.99 Euros
If you have any brain cells to spare for the ongoing debate on the purpose of musicology – pay attention, please: it’s not about the study and history of music any more – our good friend William Chaeng has offered another free excerpt from his new book, this time about the real purpose of musicology.
Sample:
Let’s pose the question of scholarly priorities in a more challenging way. Is musicology about the safety of a female music student? No, it isn’t, if we define musicology starkly as the study of music. But yes, it is, if we envision musicology as all the activities, care, and caregiving of people who identify as members of the musicology community. In a post-Obama yes-we-can era, Killam’s yes, it is! can serve anew as a disciplinary rallying cry. Beyond overtly activist work, what if we regularly upheld care not just as a bonus activity or a by-product of scholarship? In a world where injuries run rampant, what if care is the point?
Riffing on Marshall McLuhan and Andy Warhol, Phil Ford has characterized the discipline of musicology as “anything you can get away with.” By this, he means that rather than categorically insisting on what topics do or do not fall under musicology, let’s conceive of musicology as whatever self-identified musicologists choose to do. Disciplinary boundaries incessantly shift and shimmer anyway—so why not justify their flexibility via people’s diverse, quirky interests? “The primary pleasure that scholarship offers is the chance to encounter other minds and thereby expand one’s own,” Ford muses. “The full range of other minds constitutes the true horizon that bounds the humanist; nothing human should be alien to us.” But if musicology is anything we can get away with, a caveat is that the discipline must simultaneously encompass everything we cannot afford to run away from—care, compassion, and interpersonal concerns that don’t always sound scholarly as such.
More here.
Discuss among yourselves. Humanely, please.
Nicholas Edwards, acoustic designer for Meyerson Symphony Hall and other fine venues, relates in this new video how Boston Symphony Hall got it right.
You see it here first.
