The cellos concerto by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, unheard since its premiere in 1935, is about to appear on two new recordings.

Raphael Wallfisch tells us he recorded it last April in Berlin for CPO and is awaiting release.

Brinton Averil Smith, who gave the second public performance this weekend in Houston, is recording it for Naxos.

Lost no more, then.

A report in the Italian magazine Classic Voice says it must be La Scala, where online tickets are selling for 300 Euros.

This statistic is quoted with delight by the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper, which has no love left for Las Scala’s boss, the former Salzburg director Alexander Pereira.

However, you don’t have to look very far to find opera tickets tickets priced at 516 Euros for the current Salzburg Festival.

So what, then, is the most expensive opera ticket you have ever seen (or paid for)?

 

Update: Mauro Balestrazzi, author of the report, has been in touch. He says: ‘We examined three different lists: the ticket prices in the Italian opera houses (the most expensive, La Scala: 250 Euros); the ticket prices in the most important European opera houses (the most expensive, Teatro Real, Madrid: 355 Euros); the most important European opera festival (the most expensive Salzburg Festival: 450 Euros).

Then, we tried to buy tickets (a seat in the stalls) on the internet for a new production of the current season in some of the most important european theaters. La Scala is the most expensive because the tickets purchased through internet are subject to a 20% booking fee, so a ticket for a seat in the stalls costs 300 Euros; and because it does not have different rates for the seats in the stall (like many other theatres have).

 

Holly Mulcahy offers sound advice:

The second movement of Mahler’s 4th symphony has a notorious concertmaster solo in it. It’s not a super-technical or virtuosic solo, but it’s a solo that requires some planning beyond just practicing it.

The solo requires two instruments…

Read on here.

The diva gets on the phone to NPR:

‘I never said that I was stepping away from the opera stage for good. Never, never, never did I say that to anybody,’ Fleming insisted in a phone conversation from her home in New York City earlier today.

‘I think it misleads people,’ she added. ‘They sort of imagine that I’m an opera singer and I’m now retiring. So I just want to make sure that gets cleared up.’ Fleming said she told the newspaper she was interested in pursuing new operas and had received proposals from composers.

And the Times failed to report it.

Full interview here.

Christie’s announcement:

New York–Christie’s announces The Metropolitan Opera Guild Collection, a dedicated auction of rare musical manuscripts and memorabilia, to take place in New York on June 15, 2017, with two exquisite pieces of jewelry to be sold in the Magnificent Jewels auction on June 20, 2017. Funds from the sale will benefit the Opera Guild and the Metropolitan Opera. Highlights will be previewed during a global tour with exhibitions in London and Hong Kong in April and May. The full collection will be on preview in New York June 10-14.

The collection includes approximately 90 lots and represents a selection of autograph material from some of the most important composers of the Western classical tradition spanning from the Baroque era to the 20th-century. The majority of manuscripts come from the carefully assembled gift of Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956), renowned American composer and trumpeter with the Metropolitan Opera. The sale is led by the sole surviving autograph musical manuscript by Schubert for his Piano Sonata in A flat Major (estimate: $350,000-500,000). Additional highlights include annotated manuscripts and letters by the trinity of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Illuminating the sale are objets d’art with provenance grounded in opera and classical music including Enrico Caruso’s Cartier gold eyeglass case with glasses and Arturo Toscanini’s Gubelin open-faced pocket watch.

Sven Becker, Head of Books & Manuscripts, Christie’s New York, remarks: “Christie’s is honored to be entrusted with this special collection offering a concentration of fine musical autograph material. Collections such as this come to the market very infrequently; even more rarely do they bear the name of such a well-regarded American institution.”

“We are pleased to be working with Christie’s to present this auction at the time of two important milestones in 2016/7: the 60th anniversary of the death of Edwin Franko Goldman and the 50th anniversary of the Met Opera at Lincoln Center,”says Richard J. Miller Jr., President of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. “Funds generated from this sale will ensure that the Guild and the Metropolitan Opera are poised to continue fulfilling their respective missions for years to come.”

Cataloguing and complete details of the sale will be available in May 2017.

 

A day after we reported the denial of a UK visa to a Glyndebourne star, we hear that the Philharmonia lost last night’s violin soloist ‘due to visa issues’.

The intended soloist was the German based Armenian, Sergey Khachatryan.

These may well be part of the birth pangs of Brexit. Things will only get worse.

 

Among the many tales told of Francis Baines in a centennial memoir is that he was prone to keep his instrument in a left-luggage locker at Victoria Station because he had no room for it at home.

Baines was a member of the London Philharmonic and a great friend of Malcolm Arnold, a neighbour and friend of Herbert Howells in Barnes, a founding player with The Hanover Band, a professor at the Royal College of Music, and a presenter on BBC TV’s “So you thought it all started with Bach”.

On Tuesday, 11 April, there will be a memorial concert at Cadogan Hall. Among those taking part are Dame Emma Kirkby, The Hanover Band, Fretwork, Pavlo and Lisa Beznosiuk,  Annette Isserlis, Clare Salaman and many more.

press photo (c) Norman Parkinson/NPG

Houston Symphony’s principal cello Brinton Averil Smith has resurrected Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s lost Cello Concerto, last heard at its 1935 world premiere by Gregor Piatigorsky, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

He’s playing it over the Easter weekend.

Here’s a clip:

Apparently, Piatigorsky had exclusive rights to the concerto and refused to let anyone else play it. Then he forgot about it. Brinton Smith has now excavated it from the Ricordi archives.

Might Houston stream the modern premiere online?

 

That’s the title of an imaginative little August festival at the composer’s birthplace, La Côte-Saint-André, in the Isère.

It highlights Berlioz’s visit to London in 1851 to report on the Great Exhibition.

Cool idea, especially in this year of Brexit and Le Pen.

Full details here.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced the death of Irene Spiegelman who joined the company in 1977 to coach American and international singers in the German language. Irene continued working up to this week. She was 75.

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

It’s raining Rachmaninov concertos and I’m not sure the roof can take any more. The past couple of weeks have brought Vanessa Benelli Mosell on Decca, Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion and now the exuberant Khatia Buniatishvili on Sony…

Read on here.

And here.

And here.