Love this pic, newly posted by JoAnn Kane Music Service of Lionel Newman and John Williams enjoying a cigar after a Star Wars session in London. Magic moments…

I’m involved in a forthcoming happy event, and came across this. Gonna be hard to beat.

From the same source that brought us the sound of Freud’s voice, here’s some silent film of the great man in Vienna with an archaeology pal, narrated by his daughter, Anna, and filmed by Princess Marie Bonaparte. A gift for Thanksgiving.

The full, 23-minute film can be found here.

It is through Marie Bonaparte that we know what passed between Freud and Mahler in the composer’s emergency analysis in August 1910 (for full disclosure, see Why Mahler).

The pianist Evgeny Kissin, an outspoken champion of the Israeli cause, will be granted citizenship on December 7, according to a spokesman for the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. Although Kissin does not live in Israel, he was recommened for citizenship by the former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, now chairman of the Jewish Agency.

Bernard Haitink has jumped in for next week’s Orchestra Mozart performances in Vienna.

We haven’t read all the small print, but it looks like an extra 4.9 million Euros next year for operas staged at the Theater an der Wien, and played by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (pictured).

This is city money, not state. The Wiener Staatsoper is funded centrally. But Vienna has decided it needs more opera all over town and the money was voted by by a red-green coalition. Sign of the times?

Memo to the next Mayor of New York.

Oralia Dominguez, who sang Amneris on her debut opposite Maria Callas as Aida, has died in Milan, aged 88.

She appeared in all the major European houses and created the role of Madame Sosostris in Michael Tippett‘s The Midsummer Marriage. Her last appearance was in 1982, singing Verdi’s Requiem in Mexico City. Just listen to that ringing sonority….

I’ve been filming a conversation with the inspirational young harpsichordist, Mahan Esfahani, who thinks his instrument works best with modern and contemporary music. He’s about to release his first commerical recording. Out of the blue, in a sea of Bach, Mahan starts playing Mikrokosmos … and it sounds like club music. Irresi

Watch us talk and play right here on Sinfinimusic.

There’s a longer audio interview here and a Bach session with Mahan here.

After all the media hysterics about her facing jail, concert pianist Laia Martin has been found not guilty by a court in Gerona of inflicting noise pollution on her irascible (and possibly irrational) neighbour. Read the verdict here.

Now some of you may appreciate why Slipped Disc refrained from covering the non-story. We send our best wishes to Laia and wait to hear her side of the case.

Guy Tem was riding his bike in Louisiana when a low-hanging cable caught him across the throat.  He’s suing the cable company.

Arik Einstein’s coffin will be brought at 1.30 today to Rabin Square, where the nation will say farewell to its most iconic singer. The funeral is at 3.30 in the old Tel Aviv cemetery. An epoch is being laid to rest with its singer, an artist who never sought recognition outside his own society.

Seiji Ozawa has announced that he will be conducting Beethoven’s fourth symphony with the Mito Chamber Orchestra in January.

Still too frail to take on a whole concert, he has given the first half to the French contralto, Nathalie Stutzmann, whom he is encouraging to become a conductor. Nathalie will conduct Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave and fourth symphony. Details here.

publicity photo (c) Simon Fowler