I was leaving the Universal Music offices yesterday when someone thrust into my arms the monumental Mozart tombstone that is being launched in Salzburg today.
I collapsed under the weight and had to be revived gently over lunch.
The new big thing is a 200-CD coffer containing every single known work of Wolfgang Amadeus, decked out with all the latest authentic scholarship (as distinct from dodgy musicology) and furnished with a Libretto app that enable you to sing along. I haven’t tried that bit yet.
Basically, it’s all the Mozart you will ever need.
The Slipped Disc team are presently unpacking it, disc by gleaming disc.
Press burble below.
To mark the 225th anniversary of Mozart’s death, Decca and Deutsche Grammophon are releasing the most authoritative, complete and scholarly box set ever devoted to the work of a single composer. The 200CD Complete Edition was created in partnership with the SalzburgMozarteum Foundation and Mozart expert Professor Cliff Eisen of King’s College London, and will be released worldwide on 28 October 2016.
Entitled ‘Mozart 225: The New Complete Edition’, the set is the fruit of years of painstaking scholarship, 18 months of planning and curation, and presents every single work by Mozart – right up to a new song discovered only last year – in a ground-breaking multimedia package.
The set features 600 world-class soloists and 60 orchestras across 200 CDs (ordered chronologically within genre), including 30 CDs of alternative interpretations of the best-known works providing a choice between traditional and period instruments.
There are also two major and lavishly illustrated hardback books including a radical new full-length biography by Cliff Eisen plus a work-by-work commentary from Mozart experts worldwide.
Amongst its 240 hours of music, Mozart 225 features over 5 hours of newly recorded material, including:
the world premiere recording of a recently discovered lost song (K477a) written in friendly competition with Antonio Salieri
the first recording of Sonata K331 with the Rondo “alla turca” from the recently discovered autograph manuscript, played by Francesco Piemontesi
a brand new disc from Accademia Bizantina and Ottavio Dantone
over 2 hours of new recordings on Mozart’s own instruments
In addition to all of Mozart’s completed works, for the first time on disc all the recorded fragments are brought together, many works completed by others as well as his arrangements of Handel and Bach.
Each copy of this 15,000 Limited Edition is individually numbered and contains access to an innovative Mozart 225 Libretto App (offering sung texts in original language and parallel translation of choice – English, French or German) plus links to the authoritative urtext scores of the online edition of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe.
The recordings have been newly selected from the archives of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon as well as 18 other labels, with an artist list which encapsulates Mozartian excellence past and present: Abbado, Ashkenazy, Auger, Barenboim, Bartoli, Bilson, Böhm, Brendel, Brüggen, Curzon, Damrau, DiDonato, Fleming, Gardiner, Gilels, Gulda, Haskil, Hogwood, Janowitz, Kozena, Levin, Mackerras, Marriner, Mutter, Nézet-Séguin, Pinnock, Pires, Popp, Rattle, Schiff, Simoneau, Solti, Te Kanawa, Terfel, Uchida, Villazón, Wunderlich and hundreds more.
The innovative layout of Mozart 225 presents the works chronologically within genre, thus offering listeners the chance to explore the composer in a new context – e.g. by juxtaposing a horn concerto with a piano concerto from the same period. Underscoring this approach, a new biography by leading Mozart scholar Professor Cliff Eisen reappraises the traditional Mozart narrative and by returning to the sources describes a life both professionally and personally successful, not the still-common Romantic narrative, laden with pathos, characteristic of Mozart biography over more than two centuries.
Further scholarship is provided by a second hardback book of work-by-work commentary from 30 renowned experts plus a separate new “K book”, exclusive to Mozart 225, presenting the numbering of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation’s forthcoming new Edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works. Each set also contains 5 high-qualitycollector’s prints of Mozart autograph scores, the last-known portrait and a famous letter to his father from the treasures of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation.
It is also the 60th anniversary of his owning the 1713 ‘Sancy’ Stradivari, once the property of Jan Kubelik. Ivry talks, in those inimitably warm tones, about his relationship with his instrument, his friendships with Jascha Heiftez, Isaac Stern and more.
The Union of Composers and Musicologists in Romania reports the death on Friday of Adrian Enescu, an award-winning crossover composer with many films to his credit.
One tends to think of early-instrument craftsmen as organic lefties who live on the vegan side of the political spectrum.
Not in Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic), where one of the country’s leading harpsichord makers is running for the Senate on the ticket of a kick-out-all-immigrants-and-Roma party.
Montclair, NJ – A new orchestra has been established in the New York City suburb of Montclair, New Jersey. The Montclair Orchestra will be a semi-professional full orchestra, with players to include local area professional musicians, conservatory level students, as well as highly trained amateurs. An inaugural 2017-2018 season is in the planning, with full orchestral concert repertoire ranging from traditional classical works from Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms to modern pieces and film scores of twentieth century and contemporary composers.
The Montclair Orchestra is the concept of Montclair resident Andre Weker, a classically trained pianist and former orchestral musician. “When our family recently relocated to Montclair, one of the things that drew us to the area was the incredible amount of culture and support for the arts we saw in town,” says Weker. “It was clear that an orchestra would be an ideal complement to the other diverse cultural offerings in Montclair, and people in town have been extremely enthusiastic in the support of the project.”
The original “Montclair Orchestra” was established in 1922, with its first concert being held at the Montclair Art Museum. That ensemble merged with other groups in the region, eventually moving to Newark and becoming what is today the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Since then, there are many musical performances and concert series taking place regularly in venues throughout Montclair, but a permanent orchestra has never been re-established, until now.
In addition to Weker, others involved in the startup include Robert Cart, the Director of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, and Rose Cali, a patron of the arts who also has ties to the Montclair Art Museum and Montclair Film Festival. “One of the goals of The Montclair Orchestra is to become a permanent fixture within the community,” says Cart. “Our goal is to build ties with the residents of the town, in addition to collaborating with the other local institutions such as the Art Museum and the Film Festival. The Montclair Orchestra will also help MSU strengthen its ties to the community at large, with our students becoming more acquainted with residents and venues in town, and in response residents attending concerts at the University’s venues.”
A search for a Music Director has begun, and auditions for musicians will be held in the spring of 2017.
Emmanuel Ceysson – him with the red harp – has joined Mannes School of Music as professor of harp.
Watch those student numbers rise.
Jacques Attali – former adviser to President Mitterand, international banker and would-be orchestra conductor – has been offering his views on modernism.
Je crois personnellement que la musique atonale est une impasse, elle ne correspond pas à la nature même de l’audition, elle a constitué une tentative de « terrorisme musical » qui ne correspond pas à la nature profonde de ce qu’est la musique. En dehors de ça toutes les musiques qui sont à l’intérieur de la gamme, et en particulier la musique indienne, mais avec des nuances tout à fait considérables, méritent d’être prises au sérieux.
When an orchestra and a music director tire of each other’s company, they usually announce the parting of ways with expressions of mutual regret at a date two or three years down the road.
In Augusta, Georgia, they have no patience for such courtesies.
An official news release said that ‘after seven seasons leading the Symphony Orchestra Augusta, Maestro Shizuo Z Kuwahara is leaving to pursue other opportunities’.
His departure is ‘effective immediately’.
The maestro said: We have made many great accomplishments together, and I want to sincerely thank you for making my 7 years of directorship such a fruitful experience. I am confident that the organization is in good hands with the wonderful board, staff members, and especially the talented musicians playing in the orchestra. I hope to see great things from the orchestra as the symphony moves into the Miller Theater and beyond. Enjoy the wonderful season coming up, and I hope to see you again soon!’
Shizuo is a past winner of the Solti conducting competition.
Jessica Lee, a member of the Johannes String Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, is packing her bags and moving to Cleveland.
She will occupy the seat recently vacated by Yoko Moore.
Jessica has enjoyed a portfolio career which has not, until now, included playing in an international orchestra.
photo: Jodi Buren
Michael Petrelis, the veteran campaigner, has news that the home of San Francisco Opera will instal new gender-neutral water closets news month.
He publishes a note from Elizabeth Murray, managing director of the San Francisco War Memorial Performing Arts Center buildings and a video extract of the board meeting:
Thank you for your inquiry. The War Memorial will be implementing the Board of Supervisors’ ordinance regarding all-gender toilet facilities at the Performing Arts Center.
In accordance with the ordinance we will be re-designating single-user toilet facilities as all-gender facilities by September 23, 2016.
We will then be re-designating certain multiple-user toilet facilities as all-gender facilities by November 23, 2016. We are currently in the planning stage so I cannot yet advise you on specific restroom re-designations.
Upon completion of this process I will be happy to let you know our plans.
Lionel Bringuier was just 26 when he was named music director of Zurich’s Tonhalle. That, however, ended badly.
Lahav Shani is 27 on announcement today and will be 28 when he becomes chief of the Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, just turned 30, has taken up the baton with Birmingham’s CBSO.
Any other major music directors currently under 30?
