It’s never easy to write about a musical performance where the celebrity value is higher than the aesthetic pedigree. Zachary Woolfe drew the short straw and got sent by the NY Times to a Carnegie Hall recital by Lola Astanova, a catwalk model with influential friends.
His review strike a tone ofexemplary detachment and three central paragraphs describe, with clinical precision, the quandary innate to such occasions. These pars come close to a masterclass in criticism:
Many pianists have succeeded with an arsenal of broad gestures, though Ms. Astanova’s are more exaggerated than most. She seems to be trying to evoke the grandiose, generous spirit of 19th-century pianism, with its heart-on-sleeve emotionalism and aching soulfulness, its valorization of feeling over cool precision.
Ms. Astanova does indeed love to make a big sound, even at the expense of some murkiness of tone. But her taste for drama and her extreme physical abandon end up emphasizing that there isn’t a great deal of emotion in her playing.
Her reading of the Chopin sonata was telling. While her phrasing wasn’t rigid — she used ample rubato — there was a faceless quality to passages that must sing, like the lyrical second theme of the first movement and the similarly calm central section of the second. Ms. Astanova’s third-movement “Funeral March” tried too hard for misty moodiness, lacking the intensity of a relentless pulse.
We have been pestered by PRs for several days to take note of the significant world premiere of an early piece of Brahms, supposedly discovered by Christopher Hogwood and played by the pianist Andras Schiff.
Except it’s nothing of the sort.
My Brahms friends in the antiquarian and academic community have known the piece for several years and heard it performed both at a conference in Kiel and on other occasions. The full backstory can be read on Bill Ecker’s site.
Here is Schiff playing, but it’s not a premiere – whatever the BBC might say.
The latest state criticisms of the Salzburg Festival have been pooh-poohed by the administration and it’s business as usual in the musical fortress. A resident lawyer has sent us this assessment of the situation. Unlike the festival chiefs, Dr Peter Ramsauer does not expect the criticism to go away. Here’s his report:
Salzburg Festival Woes
Rather than setting the stage for operatic performances, the Salzburg Festival itself has become the subject of a drama, this time “per legge” rather than “musica”.
Ouverture: in December 2009, key personnel at the Easter Festival (an erstwhile von Karajan brainchild) and its elder brother, the Summer Festival, were dismissed on the spot for allegedly fraudulent acts. So far, after two years, no charges have been brought yet. As a consequence one of the two suspects, a longstanding, highly respected technical director of the Summer Festival attempted suicide. In the political follow up the cry went out for the Rechnungshof, the Republics official audit office, to have a closer look at the business side of this revered institution.
Incorporated as an independent Trust, the Festival has guaranteed – through the Salzburg Festival Act 1950 – deficit financing. In 2010 to the tune of alltogether EUR 16.2 mn, resembling roughly 30% of total spending. In 2010 this translated into a per ticket subsidy of EUR 64.
In reality though, the institution is heavily politicized, its Board being entirely composed out of political appointees (amongst others the mayor of Salzburg as well as the governor of the province of Salzburg). In true Austrian fashion party affiliation resembles the proverbial diabolus in musica, providing the contemporary dissonance to the historic setup. Despite the high subsidies, a call for transparency is akin to Elsa inquiring about Lohengrin’s whereabouts.
The audit office did just that, provoking a similar, if only less musical response. Controlling and audit systems not even satisfying the standards of a society with a yearly turnover of EUR 1mn, perennial conflict of interests between and within the Festival’s governing bodies, unsolicited rises in remuneration packages of the Festivals management (in one case to 236%) are just a few of the reported highlights. To compound the impression of an artistic Enron the report adds to that frequent breaches of mandatory tendering provisions, the lack of any credible internal audit system, yearly cash payments (rather than bank transfers) of artists fees of up to EUR 6.83 mn. The Festival seems to be the only artistic organisation of international repute, that neither budgets nor accounts for the costs of whole productions (in 2008 Sciarrino’s “Luci mie traditrici”). In a nutshell, the report recommends radical change of its governing structure and the underlying Salzburg Festival Act of 1950, a rare vote of no confidence by one of the few independent Austrian institutions.
If the Rechnungshof’s proposed accounting and corporate governance standards are the industry’s “gradus ad parnassum”, then the Salzburg Festival, at least in its governance structures, has long since willingly opened its doors to more contemporary chance procedures.
In a first reaction the Festival’s Board and its President saw no need to amend the Festival Act, its source of everlasting government largesse. The Rechnungshof’s findings were overreaching and outside its remit. Generally the Festival Act of 1950 and the Festival would be a success story and there seemed no need for fixing when nothing was broken.
It is somewhat ironic that in a recent ruling (Docket Nr. 8 ObA 1/11x) Austria’s Supreme Court has doubted whether the incumbent President’s contract renewal was all lawful. Also remarkable is the fact, that while rich in detail, the Rechnungshof’s report does not shed much light on the artistic cost side of the Festival, specifically its resident orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic.
It will be interesting to see, how the incoming new Intendant, Mr. Pereira, will deal with the challenges posed by the report. Goetterdaemmerung or Magic Flute?
Dr. Peter Ramsauer, Attorney at Law (N.Y.), studied music, law and arts-management and worked as orchestra manager in Salzburg, where he lives.
Despite legal rumblings from the organisers of the London Olympics, who want to protect their brand from any show of spontaneous enthusiasm, the Olympianist Anthony Hewitt is pressing ahead with his plan to cycle and play the length of the UK with a piano in his BeethoVan. He launches Sunday week at the Wigmore Hall. Be there, if only to snub the lawyers.
———————
Olympianist to cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groatsand perform fundraising concerts for charity
Wednesday 9th May – Tuesday 29th May 2012
‘A young pianist of outstanding talent’
–Alfred Brendel
To raise money for music charities, Anthony Hewitt the Olympianist will cycle with piano in tow from Land’s End to John O’Groats to complete 1,200 miles in 20 days. With a piano in the BeethoVan, the avid cyclist will cover 70 – 120 miles a day, giving more than 20 concerts on route – some spontaneously from his van in remote locations and others at established venues across the British Isles.
The epic journey will raise money for charities including Mayor of London’s Fund For Musicians, Musequality, CLIC Sergeant, Classic FM Foundation and Get Kids Going! Highlights of the tour include concerts with the Manchester Camerata, and recitals at the Newbury and Swaledale festivals. Via his website, additional concerts can be requested on route.
The programmes for the tour have been chosen to convey a sense of journey, energy, movement, dynamism and excitement reflecting Anthony’s challenge. On each of the twenty days of the tour, Anthony will perform a movement from Schumann’s Carnaval Op. 9 in chronological order. The concert programmes will also include some of the following pieces – Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Sonata Op.109, Janacek’s Sonata 1:X:1905 From the Street, Schubert’s Impromptu in E Flat Op, 90 No.2, Chopin’s Fantasy-Impromptu, Nocturnes and Barcarolle, Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G minor Op. 23 No.5. There will be a new commission by Stephen Goss aptly named Piano Cycle, which will be premiered at the Swaledale Festival on May 19th.
Anthony Hewitt’s communicative and virtuosic pianism has won him many plaudits worldwide as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with orchestras including the National Symphony in the USA and the Royal Philharmonic in London. He is also the founding Artistic Director of the Ulverston International Music Festival.
Anthony is currently in training for his Olympian journey. He will be performing in a coffee concert at the Wigmore Hall on 5th February 2012 at 11:30am. His repertoire will include works for the tour including Schubert – Impromptu in E? and A?,
Beethoven – Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Op. 109, Skryabin – Piano Sonata No. 4 in F? Op. 30 and Chopin – Barcarolle in F? Op. 60, Polonaise-fantasie in A? Op. 61 and Polonaise in A? Op. 53 ‘Heroic’.
Repertoire for the tour includes:
Beethoven Moonlight Sonata
Beethoven Sonata Op.109
Schubert: Impromptu in E flat Op. 90 No. 2
Chopin: Fantasy-Impromptu, Nocturnes, Barcarolle
Rachmaninov: Prelude in G minor Op. 23 No. 5
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Franck Piano Quintet (with Manchester Camerata)
Janá?ek Sonata I:X:1905 ‘From the Street’
Follow Anthony’s progress and fundraising barometer on twitter @olympianist and his website www.theolympianist.com
