Maybe Walter Gropius will rise from the dead and redesign London’s ghastly second arts centre. I live in hope.

Here’s the official version:

For immediate release: 7 February 2012

Bauhaus: Art as Life

Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Centre, UK

Media View, 10am – 1pm, Wednesday 2 May
3 May – 12 August 2012

Bauhaus: Art as Life is produced in co-operation with Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin / Museum für Gestaltung, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and Klassik Stiftung Weimar

The exhibition is supported by tp bennett, The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, The Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation and The Henry Moore Foundation

Media Partner: Wallpaper*

Exploring the world’s most famous modern art and design school, Bauhaus: Art as Life is the biggest Bauhaus exhibition in the UK in over 40 years. From its avant-garde arts and crafts beginnings the Bauhaus shifted towards a more radical model of learning uniting art and technology. A driving force behind Modernism, it further sought to change society in the aftermath of World War 1, to find a new way of living. This major new Barbican Art Gallery show presents the pioneering and diverse artistic production that make up the school’s turbulent fourteen-year history from 1919 to 1933 and delves into the subjects at the heart of the Bauhaus – art, design, people, society and culture. Bauhaus: Art as Life opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 3 May 2012.

Bringing together more than 400 works, the show features a rich array of painting, sculpture, architecture, film, photography, furniture, graphics, product design, textiles, ceramics and theatre by such Bauhaus masters as Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Hannes Meyer,Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer and Gunta Stölzl and students including Anni Albers, T. Lux Feininger, Kurt Kranz, Xanti Schawinsky and Alma Siedhoff-Buscher. Set in a dynamic installation designed by award-winning architects Carmody Groarke with graphic designers APFEL, Barbican Art Gallery is transformed into a series of dramatic and intimate spaces. Loosely chronological and arranged thematically, the exhibition celebrates the life and spirit of the Bauhaus – one that is characterised by experimentation, collaboration and play.

Kate Bush, Head of Art Galleries, Barbican Centre, said: The Bauhaus was an inescapable force in the development of modern visual culture, whose impact was felt around the world from Tel Aviv to Tokyo. The Bauhaus was inspiring not just because of the extraordinary group of brilliant, visionary people who worked and made art there, but because it was fuelled by an idealism and a commitment to creativity and experiment that remains ever more relevant today. I am delighted that Barbican Art Gallery is staging this major exhibition, which is itself the product of the creativity, scholarship and imagination of a group of talented people at the Barbican and at the Bauhaus archives. 

Bauhaus: Art as Life traces the life of the school from its founding by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, and its expressionist-influenced roots, to the embrace of art and industry and subsequent move to a purpose-built campus in Dessau in 1925 under the direction of Gropius and then Hannes Meyer. Finally it looks to the Bauhaus’ brief period in Berlin, led by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and its dramatic closure in 1933, under pressure by the Nazis.

Significant works in the exhibition include Moholy-Nagy’s Construction in Enamel 1 (EM1),1923, the largest in a series of three famously known as the ‘Telephone Pictures’. Moholy-Nagy commissioned the work from an enamel sign factory by communicating the co-ordinates of a drawing on graph paper over the telephone. In Kandinsky’s Circles in a Circle,1923, two bands of colour intersect in a thick black circle containing 26 overlapping circles of varying colours and sizes. Also on show is Paul Klee’s exquisite watercolour Doppelturm with its geometric forms in pink and green hues. Painted during his time at the Bauhaus Weimar it exemplifies his fascination with abstraction and colour theory. Klee’s influence on students is especially evident in textiles by Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl . For example, Stolzl’s magnificent two metre-high wall hanging, Fünf Chöre (Five Choirs), 1928, on show in the UK for the first time , shows technical precision, a love of colour and musicality. It is woven using the Jacquard technique, a mechanical process that offers unlimited variety in pattern-making.

Works from every area of Bauhaus study are presented, alongside key pieces completed by Bauhaus masters in their individual practices. Early student experiments in metal, wood, ceramic and textile are a highlight and include the now-iconic tea-infuser by Marianne Brandt; Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s MT8 table lamp and Anni Albers’ 1924 wall hanging, produced as her diploma project. Experimenting with new materials, production processes and engaging with industry was actively encouraged at the Bauhaus. For example, Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel chair, Club Chair (Wassily Armchair), 1925-6, inspired by the frame of his bicycle, was designed to be dismantled into nine parts for economical transportation. Conceived for mass production, light, and easy to clean it was the ‘necessary apparatus of modern living’. Experiments in form, colour , light and space – from works made for the pioneering preliminary course to projects devised for stage and film – reveal the breadth of ideas explored throughout the school’s history.

To give visitors a greater insight into everyday life at the Bauhaus, the exhibition presents a range of unique material reflecting the Bauhaus community, from party and festival invitations to hand-made gifts, paintings commemorating special occasions and intimate photographs. For Paul Klee’s 50th birthday, students, including Anni Albers, hired a local Junkers aircraft and dropped gifts from the sky in an angel-like package over his house. Klee reflects on this exuberant gesture in his highly personal painting Gifts for J, 1928. Throughout the Bauhaus years, students and teachers socialised together, frequently throwing parties, festivals and gatherings – captured in black & white photographs, wearing handmade costumes and surreal masks, revealing that playful experimentation went beyond the classroom.

Other highlights include an examination of the school’s architectural legacy, from the first sites of experimental building, realized in the little-known Sommerfeld House in 1920-2 and the prototype house, Haus am Horn, 1923, to Gropius’ designs for the now infamous school and master houses in Dessau. Residents included Klee, Kandinsky, Schlemmer and Georg Muche. Other innovative projects range from the Törten Housing estate and the Federal School of the German Trade Union Federation,1928-30, completed under Hannes Meyer’s direction. The impact of Mies van der Rohe can be seen in some of the student projects on show, when, during the final years of the school, a more classical approach to teaching architecture was adopted.

Architects, artists, and designers in the exhibition include: 
August Agatz, Marianne Ahlfeld-Heymann, Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Alfred Arndt, GertrudArndt, Theo Ballmer, Rudolf Baschant, Eugen Batz, Herbert Bayer, Irene Bayer, Max Bill, Robert Binnemann, Theodor Bogler, Heinrich-Siegfried Bormann, Alexander Bortnyik, Marianne Brandt, Hin Bredendieck, Marcel Breuer, Paul Citroen, Heinz Clasing, HugoClausing, Roman Clemens, Edmund Collein, Erich Comeriner, Erich Consemüller, MargareteDambeck, Friedl Dicker, Otto Dorfner, Franz Ehrlich, Friedrich Karl Engemann, LyonelFeininger, T. Lux Feininger, Werner David Feist, Carl Fieger, Etel Fodor, Hans Fricke, WalterFunkat, Hermann Gautel, Albert Gleizes, Nathalie Goncharova, Werner Graeff, WalterGropius, Josef Hartwig, Louis Held, Florence Henri, Toni Hergt, Karl Hermann Haupt, Wilhelm Jakob Hess, Günter Hirschel-Protsch, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Irene Hoffmann, Johannes Itten, Martin Jahn, Hedwig Jungnick, Wassily Kandinsky, Peter Keler, Felix Klee, Paul Klee, Walter Köppe, Kurt Kranz, Erich Krause, Max Krehan, Felix Kube, Fritz Kuhr, HajnalLengyel-Pataky, Otto Lindig, Heinz Loew, Eduard Ludwig, Rudolf Lutz, Friedrich Marby, Gerhard Marcks, Carl Marx, Adolf Meyer, Hannes Meyer, Lena Meyer-Bergner, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Takehiko Mizutani, Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, Farkas Molnár, GeorgMuche, Josef Müller, Theobald Emil Müller-Hummel, Johannes Niegemann, Pius E Pahl, Gyula Pap, Alfred Partikel, Walter Peterhans, Walter Puff, Konrad Püschel, Hilde Rantzsch, Curt Rehbein, Lilly Reich, Grete Reichardt, Carl Rogge, Agnes Roghé Karl Peter Röhl, HajoRose, Wolf Rössger, Reinhold Rossig, Alfred Schäfter, Xanti Schawinsky, Hinnerk Scheper, Fritz Schleifer, Oskar Schlemmer, Joost Schmidt, Kurt Schmidt, Ernst Schneider, EberhardSchrammen, Fritz Schreiber, Lothar Schreyer, Herbert Schürmann, Naum Slutzky, GuntaStölzl, Wolfgang Tümpel, Monica Bella Ullmann (later Broner), Otto Umbehr (Umbo), Charlotte Voepel-Neujahr, Hans Volger, Lis Volger, Toni von Haken-Schrammen, WilhelmWagenfeld, Andor Weininger, Otto Werner, Margarete Willers, Hans Wittwer, Anni Wottitz, Iwao Yamawaki, Werner Zimmermann.

Richard Wagner once said the theatre should burn down after staging the Ring, taking his score with it. So they’ve done it by video projection, to an appreciative crowd.

On the great story-teller’s 200th birthday, I’ve dusted off a column I published in the Standard seven years ago, examining the facts and causes of Charles Dickens’s racism. Read it here.

Read all about it in France-Soir.

(Here’s one she made earlier)

Despite claims from two of the dead man’s widows that he was indeed the real thing, the man who claims to be the much-loved KwaZulu-Natal maskandi musician, Mgqumeni Khumalo, is due in court today, unmasked as an impostor.

Police say he’s a taxi driver. Must have a good voice, though. Read on.

There’s a first report today in El Economista. It may help pressure the Mexican authorities to do something about the case of Rodolfo Cazares, held by a drugs gang near the US border for more than seven months.

The headline reads: German musicians denounce the kidnap of Mexican conductor. Very true. Let’s hear from Mexican politicians. Now. And Carlos Slim.

Lawrence Foster, who used to be close by at Monte Carlo, has been named music director of the philharmonic orchestra in Marseille. For the past decade, he’s been chief conductor at the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. Foster starts at Marseille in September. The town becomes European capital of culture in 2013.

From the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, comes the sobering news that Zvi Zeitlin will be giving a farewell recital after 45 years of teaching. Zvi, who will be 90 on February 21, has trained concertmasters and players in most of America’s great orchestras.

He was also a formidable soloist in his own right. I remember an illuminating performance of the Schoenberg violin concerto on DG, with Brendel on the flip side performing the piano concerto. Rafael Kubelik conducted. Unforgettable.

Here’s the press release:

Eastman School of Music Professor Zvi Zeitlin Performs Final Faculty Recital

Internationally renowned violinist will retire after teaching at Eastman for 45 years

On the walls of Zvi Zeitlin’s studio in the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music is a photographic who’s who of famous musicians. Over the course of his illustrious career, the violinist has performed with and cemented friendships with some of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

“(Violinist Itzhak) Perlman sends me a photo every year of his growing family,” Zeitlin noted, pointing out a compilation of snapshots of Perlman’s children and grandchildren. Another picture shows composer Aaron Copland and Zeitlin sitting together in Zeitlin’s home. A photo taken in Tel Aviv during an Israel Philharmonic rehearsal shows Igor Stravinsky – who said of Zeitlin that “his gifts deserve the widest recognition” – discussing his score with the violinist.

There are many more, including a shot of Zeitlin with composer-conductor Serge Koussevitzky in Tanglewood in 1950; in a concert tour under composer-conductor Gunther Schuller; on the Carnegie Hall stage with Olga Koussevitzky and then-Israeli ambassador to the United States Abba Eban, when Zeitlin received an award for his musical contributions and service to both countries; and a photo and letter from Yehudi Menuhin. In a prime location on the wall are two pictures: one of Zeitlin with conductor Leonard Bernstein and one with cellist Pablo Casals, both of whom played major roles in helping to launch his career in his early days.  There are snapshots of some of the hundreds of students he’s taught, many of whom hold leading positions in orchestras, chamber groups, and universities around the globe.

In a career full of milestones, Zeitlin will mark yet another. On the eve of his 90th birthday (on Feb. 21), he will give a full recital, a feat which few violinists have attempted beyond their seventies. The program of Schubert works, which will be presented at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19, in Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall, marks his “Farewell Faculty Recital” prior to retiring after 45 years of teaching at the School. He’ll be joined by fellow Eastman faculty member Barry Snyder, piano, and a quartet of Eastman students.

Asked to share some words about his friend for the occasion, Perlman wrote, “Dear Zvi, Your insatiable intellectual curiosity has always played a major part in your life and made you the wonderful musician and teacher that you are. Congratulations on all the years of great music making and giving back to your students. Teaching is a mitzvah and you are fulfilling it and will continue to do so I am sure. Mazal Tov.”

Said Douglas Lowry, the Joan and Martin Messinger Dean of the Eastman School of Music, “Throughout Zvi Zeitlin’s remarkable career, he has exemplified the highest standards of artistry and teaching. His deep knowledge of violin playing has been informed by not only his insightful powers of observation and musicianship, but his being a force in these evolving traditions. The impact of his teaching is evidenced by the many former students who occupy some of the most prestigious musical posts throughout the world.”

Extensive Performance, Teaching Activities

Zeitlin’s resume spans almost eight decades. At age 11, he became the youngest scholarship student in the history of the Juilliard School. When he was 80, the Toronto Star hailed him as “one of the violin world’s grand old men, a true musical Methuselah.” He has performed with most of the great orchestras of the world under such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Christoph von Dohnanyi, James Levine, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel, Rafael Kubelik, Jascha Horenstein, Antal Dorati, and many others. He has frequently toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Latin America. The New York Times described one of Zeitlin’s concerts as an “aristocratically romantic performance transformed into universal truth and beauty,” while the London Times wrote he displayed “a superlative exhibition of violin playing, a remarkable example of how an absolutely assured technique can be put to the service of the music in question.”

Among the world premieres Zeitlin has given are the concerti of Gunther Schuller, Paul Ben Haim, and Carlos Surinach – all of which were commissioned for him, by the Eastman School, Israel Philharmonic, and Music Academy of the West, respectively. His discography includes all of Stravinsky’s violin and piano works, the Schoenberg Concerto, and American composers such as Samuel Adler, Aaron Copland, Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, Verne Reynolds, and George Rochberg.

Zeitlin’s pedagogical activities are as expansive as his concertizing. In 1967, he was invited to join the faculty of Eastman by the School’s director, Walter Hendl, a conductor with whom Zeitlin had performed. In the ensuing years, he was named the School’s first Kilbourn Professor in 1974 and Distinguished Professor of Violin in 1998. In 2004, he received the University of Rochester’s Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

In addition, Zeitlin has been on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West since 1973. He holds annual master classes in Great Britain at the Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Yehudi Menuhin School. He has taught in Japan, Korea, China, Israel, Germany, Norway, and throughout the United States and Canada.

Zeitlin’s former students include San Diego Symphony Concertmaster Jeff Thayer, who stated, “I consider him to be responsible, in great part, for who I am today as a musician and human being. I cannot imagine getting the kind of dedication that he gave to me and to his other students from many other people.  He is one of the great artists of his generation, and I know that every violinist who spent time in his studio would acknowledge that.” Recollecting his studies with Zeitlin, Thayer said, “I fondly recall sitting for hours in his studio, just listening to the great old violinists in his wonderful LP collection. This was an education in itself. In addition, he educated us with stories and bits of information from his vast experience and connection to the older generations of musicians.”

Thayer is now also a colleague of Zeitlin’s at the Music Academy of the West, where he once told his former teacher about an upcoming performance of the Goldmark Violin Concerto.  “It was he who introduced this piece to me when I was studying with him at Eastman,” Thayer said. “He proceeded to pick up his violin and play through the entire first movement from memory. I don’t know many minds as great as his – this is just one example of his genius.”

Former student Catherine Van Hoesen, who has played in the first violin section of the San Francisco Symphony for 30 years, began studying with Zeitlin was she was 14. Even at that young age, Van Hoesen recalled, Zeitlin “showed me what to do, demanded I do it, and insisted I get it right the first time. He taught me how to listen and how to concentrate. He insisted I focus on whatever new event I needed to do. Even if it was new information, he showed me how with proper thought I could get it right away with the right mind. He insisted I do this every time I played anything for him.” Today, Van Hoesen keeps a signed photograph of Zeitlin in her teaching studio at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Roots across Several Continents

Zeitlin was born in the Soviet Union, in the Belorussian town of Dubrovna. When he was two, the Communist government exiled his family for possessing Zionist literature. Growing up in British-ruled Palestine, Zeitlin pursued his talent for violin. After receiving a diploma and postgraduate diploma from Juilliard on the eve of World War II, Zeitlin returned to Palestine, began concertizing, and attended the Hebrew University in Judaic Studies. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1943, performing for British, American, and Soviet troops throughout the Middle East.

After the war, Zeitlin returned to Juilliard in the fall of 1947 and continued his studies with Sascha Jacobsen, Louis Persinger, and Ivan Galamian. He gave his professional New York debut recital in 1951, and has been on the go since then.

Though he still carries a full teaching load at Eastman and continues to give master classes, Zeitlin has stopped touring. Asked if he has any advice for professional longevity, he offered thoughtfully: “Work consistently and seriously. Make sure you have a good teacher. Make sure you keep developing your horizons and intellect. Practice consistently and do it intelligently.”

Good words to heed from an artist who has lived them.

# # #

Sunday, February 19

Eastman School of Music Faculty Artist Series: Farewell Recital,  Zvi Zeitlin, violin. With Barry Snyder, piano; John Irrera and Samantha Moraes, violin; Kelsey Farr, viola; Austin Fisher, cello. Schubert: Sonata (Duo) in A Major; Fantasie in C, D 934, Op. Post 159; Rondo in A Major

3 p.m.

Kilbourn Hall, 26 Gibbs St.

Tickets: $10, free to UR ID holders; available at the door.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic have kindly sent me the link to their music director’s appearance on kids TV. Kids? Elmo’s Beethoven 9th needs a  parental guidance warning.

This just in on the wires: Paul McCartney has been overtaken in the rich league by Bono, who in 2009 invested $90 million in Facebook.

He’s not prettier, though.

It’s called Brendel’s Fantasy, and it’s out next month from Haus Publishing. Here’s the summary:

The Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani has been told she cannot return home after taking off her top in protest against enforced Islamism.

She has appeared topless in Madame Le Figaro and in a video commissioned for the Césars, the French Oscars. Farahani has worked with leading Hoolywood figures, among them Ridley Scott  and Leonardo di Caprio (in Body of Lies).  A Facebook support page has just opened. Join it.

Here’s the Césars video. And see previously here.