Some really good news: Milos is back

Some really good news: Milos is back

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norman lebrecht

November 23, 2017

A year after he stopped playing with a severe movement disorder, we hear at first hand that Milos Karadaglic has taken up his guitar again and will be back on stage in recital in the spring of next year.

Even more encouraging, Milos has started practising the first of two concertos that have been written for him and that he will perform in the next couple of years.

It is not many performers of whom it can be said that without them an instrument falls silent. But Milos is such a towering figure in classical guitar that his presence is desperately needed to give the instrument back its profile.

This is very, very good news.

 

Comments

  • Sanity says:

    Craig Ogden
    David Tanenbaum
    Pepe Romero

    The guitar isn’t about to fall silent. There are arguably more world class classical guitarists than there have been for some time – despite what the PR at Universal told you…

  • Metronome says:

    Jesus, how is this good news? Though one imagines his playing the guitar is preferable to his eye-wateringly awkward ‘presenting’ on TV – a new low, even for the BBC.

  • Nico says:

    Albert Hall recital was out of this world. Good luck to him. Such a star.

  • Axel says:

    His Beatles album was incredible. The sound and playing is unlike any other. Happy news he’s back soon.

  • Steve Miller says:

    He really needs to step up and take the instrument further away from the standard repertoire. News of the new concertos are most encouraging. Milos is great.

  • Nevine Coutry says:

    The Aranjuez recording with Yannick is for me the best ever. This guy just has something no one else does… There is only one Miloš

  • Heldensoubrette says:

    When a great artist, who more or less can no longer play due to a problem with his hand, he really has to be treated with the utmost care and respect. Not only the love of music but also the heart and the passion that Miloš has to invest to give concerts again deserves my highly respect. I just can guess how bad it is for a guitarist, if his hand no longer work in it’s sense. The enormous courage, the daily strength, the infinite will and especially the love for his audience must be so enormously large that he is working so intensely on his comeback. This makes Miloš very real and authentic as an artist and, more than this: as a human being. To read that he is still fighting for his comeback, literally melts my heart.

  • Mina says:

    Great news, Norman! Judging by the first couple of comments, you’ve hit a jealous nerve with some people…
    This is Milos that we all want back: https://youtu.be/zrPEggogrH0

  • Amadeo says:

    Wondering about the new concertos, who wrote them? There is a real challenge with guitar and orchestra repertoire. I heard him do Aranjuez with the Cleveland Orchestra in Miami and he was mesmerising.

  • Cubs Fan says:

    So wonderful that he’s back. Let’s hope he can do it for many more years. For me, the standard run of the mill symphony concerts have become ossified and dull largely because of the ubiquitous reliance on violin and piano concertos to bring people in. Wind concerti and much less common, and guitar almost never. We need some young hot shot like Milos to shake up the concert world and bring some fresh repertoire. There are so many terrific guitar concertos that only guitarists and record collectors know that the rest of the world would love if they had a chance to hear them. Welcome back!

    • Mikey says:

      there are loads of wonderful violin and piano concerti that never get played, so don’t blame the instruments for poor concert programming, blame the music directors who prefer the boring same-ol’-same-ol’ over anything slightly risky and unusual.

      even among better-known “interesting” concerti, the symphony in my city has never played any of the Barber concerti, has never done Prokoviev’s 2nd piano concerto… but they endlessly repeat Beethoven’s 3rd piano concerto, or the “ever so popular” Prokoviev 3rd piano concerto.

      They perform the Sibelius every few years, the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovski every year, but have they ever dreamt of programming the Castelnuovo-Tedesco 2nd violin concerto? Heavens to betsies, no.

      There are plenty of brilliant concerto (and concertante works) for both piano and violin that would make wonderful additions to the repertoire if someone bothered ever programming them. And yes, it would be wonderful to also hear concerti for other instruments every once in a while (isn’t there a plethora of viola concerti? why do we never hear those?)… something other than the Nielsen flute or clarinet concerti.

      But please, don’t blame the instruments.

      • Cubs Fan says:

        I don’t think I was blaming the instrument. Yes, I blame music directors, management, boards of directors and audiences, too. They’ll gladly sit through another uninspired Tchaikovsky piano concerto and Mendelssohn violin concerto but turn up their noses at a guitar concerto, unless it’s the Rodrigo.

  • Elena says:

    Fortunately, new repertoire for classical guitar is being written and premiered with success, perhaps not as often as one might like to hear, but nevertheless… The Guitar Virtuosi festival, presented by Moscow Philharmonic at the Tchaikovsky Hall under the uncommonly imaginative artistic leadership of Artyom Dervoed, has become a significant platform for new guitar repertoire…

    Or the other comissions like https://youtu.be/oSea36g1-2k (concerto with orchestra) or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CMgbPMNrZE (solo guitar repertoire).

  • Tomasz Lis says:

    Brilliant news indeed. Milos is a great ambassador for the instrument and a serious musician. Not mentioning that any physical injury is a tragedy for an artist if it prevents him from further pursuing his passion. Looking forward to his comeback.

  • Mario says:

    Come on… I have not seen a worst professional guitar player on stage. He got even stuck several times, with technical problems and memory slips. We were all dissapointed at the hall.
    There are much better guitarists, but Milos is a marketing product of Universal. I don’t think we will be talking about him in 5 years…

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