Vogue has just broken the hot story that happy-happy composer Eric Whitacre has joined the Storm models agency.
Makes me thing someone’s been missing a trick all these years.
What about Pierre Boulez in his tasteful browns and greys?
Steve Reich for millinery?
photo: Boosey
Tom Ades for suits… well, maybe not.
Vogue has just broken the exciting sooo-hot story that classical composer Eric Whitacre… like, a classical composer … has joined the Storm models agency.
Now how cool is that?
Looks to me like we’re missing a few tricks in the classical business, so here’s my spring collection.
In tasteful browns and greys, it’s… Pierrot Lunaire
For all your millinery needs, Stevedore Reich
And for gent’s suits, it’s gotta be…. Tom Ades. Or maybe not
A letter has been circulating among the upper echelons of museum donors in New York, informing them that one of the city’s most treasured musical assets is up for sale.
The Robert Owen Lehman collection at the Morgan Library is described on its website as ‘the world’s finest private collection of music manuscripts’. It contains handwritten scores from major composers, starting at Bach, Beethoven and Berg and running down alphabetically to Schubert, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky and Webern. In the middle are two Mahler symphonies, the third and ninth (the Morgan also safeguards the second, fifth and Das Lied von der Erde, making it the most important Mahler autograph resource on earth, see
here).
sketch of Mahler’s song, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
But all that is about to change. Lehman, a man of advancing years, has notified the Morgan that he is putting the collection up for sale.
The price is US $135 million.
And there are two conditions attached – that the collection is bought intact and that it remains within a public institution. Lehman, I am told, intends to devote the proceeds of the sale ‘to the benefit of music and musicians’. (Bad news, then, for the yacht makers: these are the Lehmans of Lehman Brothers).
The Morgan Library, where the manuscripts have been expertly curated, has expressed an interest in buying them outright and is canvassing its donors for bequests. But in the thick of recession it may not be able to raise the money quickly enough, so foreign buyers are being contacted.
The likeliest overseas purchaser would be the
Paul Sacher foundation in Basel, Switzerland, rolling in pharmacueticals money and already the largest collection of modern scores.
The Austrian National Library would also want to be considered and, where Vienna goes, Munich is seldom far behind.
This could be the music sale of the century – and it would be a massive blow for New York prestige if the Mahlers, Schuberts and Stravinskys all left town on the same liner.
The next competition in the late Yehudi’s name will be held in China, it has just been announced.
That should give the instrument a huge boost in the biggest musical market on earth. If I were
Lang Lang, I’d offer to accompany the Kreutzer Sonata – just to keep up the home profile.
Last year’s Menuhin Competition, in Oslo, wound up with a performance by the Eurovision Song Contest winner, Alexander Rybak. Beat that, Beijing.
Here’s Yehudi conducting the Chinese premiere of the Elgar concerto:
Here’s a
link with the full press release.
Sadder news just in: the Barbirolli oboe festival and competition has been cancelled, due to loss of key grants. See
here. It was founded by the conductor’s widow, Evelyn, a wonderful enthusiast for her instrument.
