Specifically, they are inviting anyone to submit a remix of their recording of the first movement of Mahler’s first symphony. As radical as you like. The site’s here.

Personally I have no problem with Mahler retakes by the likes of Matthew Herbert.

But this competition lacks focus. What, exactly, are the Berlin Phil trying to achieve – except, perhaps, to seem trendy?

I have it on the authority of his record producer and good friend Paul Myers that the Canadian piano legend was deeply smitten with the music of David del Tredici. He called A Final Alice (conducted by Solti) ‘Mahler on acid’, a perfectly euphonious compliment.

Paul has a further secret to share about Glenn’s attire:  ‘Whenever he was to be photographed, he would, as instructed, arrive with a clean shirt, still in its pins and wrappings, but he didn’t own a tie, so what you saw was what I was wearing.’

(c) Don Hunstein/Lebrecht Music&Arts

Sony has just released a boxed set of Glenn on TV. Check those ties. Paul was ever a natty dresser.

 

When director Christoph Schlingschief died of lung cancer last year, the one project he talked of to the last was his dream of creating a centre for opera in the middle of the African continent, in Bukina Faso.

Schlingensief | picture-alliance/dpa

Three of his close friends – directors Amelie Deuflhard, Matthias Lilienthal, and ex-Bundestag vice-president Antje Vollmer – have worked devotedly to make his wish come true. The village opens October 9. Watch the video here.

Mark Gorenstein made a name for himself by abusing an Armenian soloist at the Tchaikovsky competition.

He was already at loggerheads with the Svetlanov Orchestra, of which he is artistic director. The players this summer demanded his dismissal. Gorenstein, who has a cousin in high places, went off sick. Now he’s back, recovered, ready to work.

At the first rehearsal, you can see only four players on stage. The others are staging a sit-in strike in the hall. The stand-off lasted four hours. Here’s the video.

And here’s the translated report, with live video, from News classical music

 

 

The Salzburg Festival has picked one Wagner opera for the 2013 bicentennial. It’s Meistersinger and the director is… Norwegian.

It’s Stefan Herheim, according to the well-informed wagneropera.net.

That same year, which is also the Verdi bicentenary, he’ll be directing I Vespri Siciliani at Covent Garden.

It’s what the BBC calls multi-tasking.

Herheim, 41, is getting to be very big in Europe. The Met have not yet got his phone number.

 

Stefan Herheim

Conductor Daniele Gatti, director Stefan Herheim and Mihoko Fujimura (Kundry) discussing the score.
Photo: Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther Festspiele
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