Once the New York Philharmonic confirmed to its press department, otherwise known as the New York Times, that the identity of the ringphone offender was exactly as described on Slipped Disc, there was no more to say about the incident except to declare one clear winner.
The general consent is that Alan Gilbert handled the matter well. He was right to stop the orchestra when the phone was louder than the strings and right to wait until the offender had shut it down.
His interviews with the New York Times – other media were denied access – struck the right blend of resolution and regret. He has emerged a more credible music director than before.
In short, Alan Gilbert has bought himself a lease of life. He remains a pallid imitation of a great conductor, a pretender to his rank. But the phone affair has shown that he is not a wimp and that he possess the resilience to hold onto his job for the immediate future. Sometimes, one phone ring is all it takes to make a leader.
Oh, and there was also a big loser: the Times was fully half a day behind eyewitness blogs. They reported the incident so vividly that print media were left quoting and requoting sources they would rather suppress.
Tony Pappano went to Rome this weekend to conduct his Santa Cecilia orchestra. Since he last stood in front of them, he has become Sir Antonio in Britain’s New Year’s Honours. Well, Italian musicians know how to handle that…. right? Watch here
After diplomatic waltzes between Simon Rattle and Daniel Barenboim over who conducts an Elgar oratorio with the Berlin Philharmonic, David Haslett has sent in to Slipped Disc his first-night review of Barenboim’s performance of The Dream of Gerontius.
I was at the Friday performance. Revelatory. All in all the best Gerontius I have heard live and I have heard about a dozen going back 30 years, mostly in London. There were a few imprecisions such as will happen in live performance and Barenboim’s tempi and his use of rubato did mean that orchestra and chorus had to be on their toes. Barenboim is improvisatory in performance which is why we in Berlin adore him. No two performances are the same. But the quality of orchestral playing and choral singing meant that this was a Gerontius way above and beyond any standard performance in the UK.
Barenboim’s tempi were idiosyncratic with regard to what one is used to. The prelude was much slower than usual but had a hushed intensity I have never before encountered. Otherwise tempi tended to be on the fast side. The demons’ chorus did have loads of rubato – the orchestra visibly loved it and the choir followed him every step of the way. Quite simply, I have never heard a better choir in this music. But then Simon Halsey is incomparable as a choir master.
Storey, in his first Gerontius, was extraordinary. He has reclaimed the role for the heroic tenor after a long tradition of King’s College alumni. The Tristan of our age brings all his experience in that role to bear on the ravings and sufferings of Gerontius. How often do we find an heroic voice that can sing softly? Without resorting to crooning or falsetto this was a Gerontius who coloured and lived the role with a searing intensity. I am not sure I will henceforth be able to accept a lyric tenor’s ‘Take me away’. This was a really generous performance, alert to the idiosyncrasies of his Maestro, and unstinting in outpouring of passionate tone.
I have heard better Angels than Anna Larsson. She is an intelligent singer but the voice is not inherently beautiful and she was stretched by the part.
Kwangchoul Youn impressed. Few can encompass the demands of the high flying Priest and the more bass-like Angel of the Agony but he pulled it off, and in creditable English.
I think this was an important performance, not only in bringing Elgar’s masterpiece to a German audience in resplendent form, but also in revealing the work as a restored painting. Everything was approached anew. A reading which had only Ian Storey as an English element. It presented Elgar to the world.
A grandson of the great composer by his first marriage has withheld the documents and letters owned by his side of the family from the Arnold Schoenberg Centre in Vienna and given them instead to the University of North Texas.
Arnold Greissle-Schoenberg, 88, is the son of Gertrude Schoenberg (pictured below, the daughter by his first marriage to Mathilde von Zemlinsky, and his pupil, Felix Greissle. The family migrated to America in 1938; Gertrud died in 1947. Some of the material appears to contain information of great consequence about the genesis of the 12-note row. It may mean scholars will have to split their time between Vienna and Denton.
Zuzana Ruzickova, 85 years old tomorrow, is a doyenne of the harpsichord and one of its most famous teachers.
She has worked with some of the greatest virtuosi, including Sviatoslav Richter and Josef Suk (below) and will be showered with tributes from all over the world.
Less well known are her experiences under Nazi occupation in the concentration camps of Terezin and Auschwitz. She speaks about them freely in this (English-text) interview with Czech Radio. Read it here:
The Germans had us building traps for tanks, and we then we heard shooting and we realised that the Allies were very near. Then the Nazis left and didn’t leave us any water or food. But the Allies didn’t come. For three days we were there, trapped, without food and without knowing what was happening, until the British came the third day…
Rudolph Tang, who writes for KLASSIKOM Music Info Service, has sent us a list of what his site regards as the ten most important events and developments in China over the past year. The English version, he notes, is slightly different from the Chinese.
Among other unreported trends is the phenomenal rise of a Taiwan conductor on the Chinese mainland and a BBC contest winner’s connection with his homeland. Here’s Rudolph’s report:
1 Mahler, stewed not stirred
Mahler here and Mahler there, Mahler was everywhere. From small
township to major metropolises, Mahler was utterly welcomed and duly
remembered by two complete symphony cycles in Beijing plus one Mahler
Festival which featured his lieder and piano quartet. In Shanghai
there was a slightly less ambitious incomplete cycle that was equally
welcomed. Even the EOS Orchestra of Central Conservatory gave three
Mahler symphonies this year conducted by Julliard alumni Yongyan Hu.
A comprehensive if not complete survey of major Maherian concerts in
China in Mahler years is available upon request from KLASSIKOM
exclusively, in English!
2 Music on the giant screen
Cineplex of the Met has become an industrial standard for the opera
business but it was just new to China. The Shanghai Grand Theatre,
after lost its battle of musicals and surrendered to the Cultural
Square, a newly erected venue specifically built for the musicals, was
looking for alternative contents and HD opera got their nerve. The
first of four cinema casts was introduced to Chinese audience on Aug
27 with Julie Taymor’s Die Zauberflöte featuring Chinese soprano Ying
Huang both on the screen and on the stage for a talk. It was followed
by La boheme featuring the rising bass-baritone Shen Yang. Both casts
were sensational enough to foretell a good future.
A concert of Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle was
simulcast in an outdoor venue in November in Shanghai, the first of
its kind in the region to an thousand attentive and curious audience.
3 A boom in Chinese opera
According to a fellow music critic Zhiyin Chen, more than 20 operas
were either written by Chinese composers or premiered in 2011 alone,
setting a record for the already bombastic operatic scene which won
attention from New York Times and Financial Times. The First China
Opera Festival held in Fuzhou was the ultimate showcase of China’s
local opera menacing power. The only question remains where those
outputs are one-time phenomenon. Possibilities for future productions
are quite dim.
4 Matsumoto festival live from China
Seiji Ozawa’s absence simply couldn’t stop the pace of his festival
for a two-week residency in Beijing and Shanghai with Bartok’s Blue
Beard and other programmes, performed by his award-winning Saito Kinen
Orchestra and the Seiji Ozawa Workshop featuring Matthias Goerne as
the bloody count. Matsumoto was the second major oversee festival to
have a residency in China after Claudio Abbado’s Lucerne Festival in
2007 in Beijing. That could pose potential challenge to the existing
festivals, one of them being the almighty Beijing Music Festival
founded by Long Yu in 1998.
5 Shake, Rattle’n Roll
Sir Simon visited China with Berliner Philharmoniker with Bruckner and
Mahler 9th. The British conductor was kind and the musicians were
friendly, unlike the arrogant Daniel Barenboim who rudely refused any
requests from fans waiting for him at the train station or lining up
at the backstage door.
6 Memorial concert for the centennial of the 1911 revolution
The 1911 revolution in China ended the reign of the last emperor.
During the Shanghai Spring Festival which promotes contemporary music,
bass-baritone Shen Yang paired with former president of Shanghai Music
Conservatory Liqin Yang in an all Chinese art song liederabend. The
recital revived some of the lost and forgotten music by Chinese
composers a hundred years ago and restored audience’s faith in Chinese
art songs. The music Shen chose were melancholic enough to remind one
of the old merry days before the liberation. The recital was
subsequently voted as Creative Programme of the Year by five leading
music critics in Classical Elites Shanghai 2010-2011.
7 Shao-chia Lu’s first season at NSO
Lu’s first season with NSO Taiwan was both phenomenal and comprehensible. His Mahler 8th and Resurrection
established his iconic status as the leading living Chinese/Taiwanese
conductor dwarfed by no one. The good days for NSO are yet to come.
8 Shande Ding’s centennial
Former president of Shanghai Music Conservatory who gave birth to the
all-time classic violin concerto Butterfly, Ding’s centennial was
greeted with symposium and one major concert by Shanghai Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Ding’s grandson Long YU. Yes it is always a
family business in China.
10 Outsourced by the US
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra signed a virtually empty memorandum with
New York Philharmonic. In the seemingly baton exchange, Long Yu, music
director of SSO, was invited for a concert engagement by New York Phil
in early 2012 during the Chinese New Year. The NCPA in Beijing signed
a deal with Philadelphia Orchestra for a pilot partnership starting in
2012. Similarly one theatre in Tianjian signed an agreement with
Lincoln Centre for the exchange of programmes. A new wave of cultural
colonisation probably, but why were China’s cultural establishments so
hungry for MADE in USA to make them look (if not sound) better?
One of the four string players suspended by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for demanding a ban on the Israel Philharmonic is launching a case for discrimination against her orchestra. Sarah Streatfield claims she has suffered prejudice as a consequence of her beliefs. She is represented by Bindman’s Solicitors, a firm associated with pro-Palestinian causes*.
Meanwhile, a pro-Israel group of lawyers, led by Jonathan Turner, has written to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, asking him to prosecute those who disrupted the Israel Philharmonic concert at the Proms.
Both actions are unnecessary. The LPO management has been slack in not reinstating the players by now and has damaged its reputation for competence. On the pro-Israel side, there is no point other than counter-propaganda to purse the offenders of last summer’s melee. The whole issue should have been long buried and forgotten by now.
*The Guardian graciously refers to me as ‘a pro-Israel writer and broadcaster’. I’m not sure what they are trying to imply. I am pro-Israel as I am pro-France. I love and have links with both countries. What I think of their governments and policies is altogether another matter. The Guardian’s shorthand is efficient but potentially misleading.
Benjamin Zander, who left his post at New England Conservatory last week over having employed a video cameraman with a sex-offence conviction, has posted two statements on his website. In the first, he informs his students, members of the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, that he had been dismissed by the NEC well before the sex-conviction issue was raised:
One week after we returned from our triumphant tour last June, after the sold-out concert in the Musikverein, I was handed a letter from president (Tony) Woodcock announcing that my tenure as conductor of YPO and my role as the Artistic Director of Walnut Hill would be terminated on June 30th 2012. No reason was given except that they were engaged in succession planning. But I believe that was not the real reason. It is my opinion that the president had become upset with me during the complex discussions caused by disagreements between us about the tour. I believe that terminating my services as soon as possible had become a priority.
In the other, he launches a passionate defence of his friend, the videographer, Peter Benjamin, as a man who had offended more that 20 years ago and was now a fully rehabilitated member of society. Filming concerts was, in fact, a required part of his rehabilitation:
In 1991, Mr. Benjamin made a serious mistake. For this he was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. Thereafter, of his own volition, Mr. Benjamin entered into and engaged in a very successful four-year intensive therapy program specifically designed to treat individuals who had sexually offended against minor-aged adolescents. The recidivism rate for individuals having completed this program is less than 5%. After Mr. Benjamin completed his sentence in 1998, he was released and placed on supervised probation for five years. As part of his probation Mr. Benjamin was required to work. Mr. Benjamin obtained permission from the probation department to return to his long-time profession of videotaping live music events. While on probation, he was asked to have another adult with him when he was filming at schools or churches to negate any possibility or appearance of impropriety. Probation specifically knew he filmed events at the New England Conservatory. Successfully completing probation, Mr. Benjamin nevertheless kept this precaution in place for years afterwards. Mr. Benjamin has never re-offended and deserves credit for this.
Zander makes a strong case here that the New England Conservatory and its president, Tony Woodcock, have not been telling the whole truth. I await, in the public interest, a clarification of their position.
