The day the bank foreclosed on EMI’s hedge-fund owner, a source at Universal told me ‘we’ll carve it up between us and Sony.’

Which is exactly what happened.

Outside bidders were discouraged from the outset by Citigroup’s $4 billion price tag and Warner Music, despite its Len Blavatnik billions, lacked the bluff and experience to play ball with the big boys. They walked away from the table last week, around the same time as Universal did. But Universal were just bluffing. In their mind, the outcome was never in doubt.

So what does that leave?

Just two majors left in the music industry – Universal and Sony – with Warners, Bertlesmann and anyone else rubbing their noses on the windownpane from the outside.

And what does that mean for you and me, the consumers?

A source at Universal tells me that they will to continue treat EMI as a competitor until the deal is cleared by the monopolies authorities. After that, it’s crunch down and merger. EMI, 120 years of music history, will disappear.

The EMI brand, which had a certain distinctive value, will vanish into a corporate maw.  The music we get from Universal and Sony will become safer and more homogenous. Given that the two have cooperated in this deal, they will find new ways to work the market to their advantage, not ours. EMI had been badly run for decades but its disappearance is a loss for all who care for independent music voices.

The bank wanted $4 bn. It got 4bn – half from Universal for the record side, the other half from Sony for the publishing.

Deal almost certain to close today. Here‘s the hot stuff.

The mood music from both camps is that Universal is about to buy EMI’s recorded music division for just under $2 billion, while Sony walks away with the music publishing for the same amount. Nothing’s final yet, but it looks like today’s the day.

Universal already owns Decca, the last UK major to find itself unable to play on the big field.

UPDATE: More from WSJ.  More commentary here.

The new Festival boss Alexander Pereira will give the Israel Philharmonic its first showcase at the elite event, as part of a new series of annual engagements with different faiths, starting with Judaism.

I’m not sure if it was announced this morning, but I hear that the Israel Phil under Zubin Mehta are expected to perform Mechaye Hametim by Noam Sheriff, a Holocaust memorial oratorio originally premiered by Placido Domingo (video clip here).

On the opera front, the big, bold departure is Bernd-Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Ingo Metzmacher and no big stars in the cast. Box office might take a while to catch fire.

Here’s Der Standard‘s summary

A salutory story from our courts correspondent.

A New York accountant has pleaded guilty to stealing $75,000 from Kansas City music director Michael Stern

– as well as $1.4 million from NBC actress Tamara Tunie  – in order to fund his private passion for Broadway musicals, such as Legally Blonde.

He’ll be sentenced in January.

“He accepts responsibility and wants to move on with his life,” says the lawyer.

The new Salzburg Festival intendant, Alexander Pereira, will be laying out his plans today.

Before he gives details, he has told Die Welt that he has raised an extra five million Euros in sponsorship and will be running more new productions than ever before – seven operas next summer, all to run just a single season, then off to the scrapyard.

Pereira talks a good show. He has a kind word for the new Peter Alward-Christian Thielemann axis at Easter, but he makes no mention of his former Zurich ally, Franz Welser-Möst, now head of the Vienna State Opera and openly critical of Pereira’s plans. Watch the space grow between those ex-pals.

America’s orchestra world was shocked last night by an announcement that one of its richest members, the Dallas Symphony, is likely to run out of money in less than three months.

The orchestra, under Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweeden,

has stacked up multi-million dollar deficits in the past two seasons, with ticket sales running be,ow 65 percent. Zweeden has just been named Conductor of the Year by Musical America, but the board has been forced to put in place a ‘new business model’ involving fewer classical concerts and effectivr wage cuts for the musicians.

Official version here.

Dallas Opera, too, is scaling back. Times are getting seriously tough if oil-rich Dallas cannot pay its bills.