It’s not a subsidy, Culture Minister Bernd Neumann told the Bundestag today, ‘it’s a significant investment in the future of our society.’

And all parties, left to right, cheered him on. The increase amounts to a 5.1 percent boost in the national arts budget.

Here’s a Deutschland Radio report (in German).

LATE EXTRA: European Union follows with apparently coordinated boost. See here.

Croatian by birth, and one of the golden post-War voices at the Vienna Opera, she passed away at 90.

A classic interpreter of Mozart and Strauss, she made the premiere recording of the Four Last Songs (for EMI, in Stockholm, Fritz Busch conducting) after Kirsten Flagstad sang the first performance at the Royal Albert Hall.  Here’s her version of Im Abendrot.

RIP.

An email from Spain informs me of the death of Montserrat Figueras, wife of Jordi Savall and voice of their influential early music ensemble, Hespèrion XXI, which they founded in Switzerland in 1974.

She and the group were pioneers in exploring the multicultural foundations of medieval and renaissance music in Europe. Of late, they issued lavish recordings of Mediterranean music. Her daughter Arianna and son Feran also performed with the ensemble.

Earlier this year, Montserrat became one of only 29 people to receive the Cross of San Jordi from the government of her native Calaonia. She will be sorely missed. The letter announcing her death follows below. The funeral is on Friday.

Dear friends,

With deep sadness we are writing to inform you that after a year struggling, our loved Montserrat left us last night. Her voice, her humanity and her spiritual brightness will be with us forever.
Those who would like to say farewell to her, will be wellcomed today at our home in Bellaterra (Av. Balmes, 4) from 16 to 21 h and tomorrow from 10 to 15 h.
The funeral will be on friday at 10. We will confirm the place by tomorrow morning.

Thank you for your comfort.

Jordi, Arianna and Ferran

Here is a video clip of her singing Dal mio Permesso in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.

Georg Kreisler, an Austrian emgré who worked in Hollywood with Charlie Chaplin before returning to castigate post-War Vienna in his cabaret songs, has died in Salzburg, aged 89. He was often compared to Tom Lehrer.

Here’s a youtube clip of kreisler.

After five years’ rest which many thought was retirement, Kyung-wha Chung has given a comeback recital in her home town, Seoul.

Kyung-wha, who is 63, told the Korea Herald that she had been suffering from a finger injury and mourning the loss of her mother and sister.

In addition to a solo recital, she is also reforming the trio she shared with her brother Myung-whun (piano) and sister Myung-wha (cello).

And it’s not just her family and country that are getting excited. Classical record labels are targeting South Korea as their biggest growth area. There’s at least one suit, I hear, who is waiting for Kyung-wha with an open-ended contract.

I can’t resist sharing a new entry on the twitter site where Chinese people go naked to protest the prosecution of the artist Ai Weiwei for doing the same.

Back in fashion, the Little Red Book is covering up China’s fundamental issues.

The town of Aachen has announced a new general music director.

He’s American, 32, and about to step into the post which, in 1935, catapulted Herbert von Karajan to mass adulation and notoriety.

Kazem Abdullah was previously an assistant at the Metropolitan Opera from 2006-09; he has since conducted in Sao Paolo, Brazil. More about him here.

Karajan, who was 27 when he came to Aachen, had previously resigned from a dead-end job at Ulm.

 (photo: emil-berlinerstudios.com)

Karajan willingly served a racialist regime. Abdullah represents cultural change in a multicultural Germany. Odd, how the world turns.