Message from the tenor Roberto Alagna:

COMMUNIQUE : Appelé subitement par un heureux événement à venir dans les toutes prochaines heures, Roberto Alagna est indisponible pour la représentation de ce soir. Il sera remplacé sur la scène de l’Opéra Bastille par Luca Lombardo.

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BREAKING NEWS: Suddenly called for the forthcoming birth of his child in the next few hours, Roberto Alagna will not be available to perform Werther tonight. Luca Lombardo will replace him on the stage of the Opera Bastille.

His partner Aleksandar Kurzak has gone into labour. We await happy news.

Time was stopped today by news of the death of Sarah Knapp Kidd, a dazzling Juilliard graduate whom fellow-students believed was on her way to great things. Originally from Bloomington, Indiana, she lived and died in Brooklyn. NY.

Sarah appears in this video on the rise of women conductors. Our sympathies to her family and her many friends.

The conductor Tito Munoz remembers Sarah:

I wasn’t close to her, just pleasant chit chatting here and there, but I observed her conducting several times… at Maestro Masur’s workshop where she held her poise and saw the best in his critique, however controversial he might have been, and in a performance with the Juilliard lab orchestra in a very gripping performance of Britten’s Peter Grimes Sea Interludes. She was very talented and very dedicated. Good things were waiting for her. It’s terrible she was cut short, and so abruptly. I hope she serves as an inspiration to other young women who may be thinking about a future in conducting.

It’s the….

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jacques Lacombe. But they won’t be in the Bowl. Renée will be singing to a recorded track.

Do we like that?

Hmmmm….

Renée could phone it in, too.

Monika Grütters begins as she means to continue: talking up the arts, not (like British ministers) telling them what not to do.

Press release:

The new German minister of culture and media, Monika Grütters, visits the German music-industry at Midem on her first trip abroad as minister

Cannes – Over 60 German music-companies are presenting themselves from February 1st to February 4 th at the MIDEM in Cannes, one of the most important music-trade fairs worldwide. There will be prominent support: Monika Grütters, the new minister for culture and media will inaugurate on Sunday February 2nd, 5pm the German joint stand in the Palais des Festivals. The Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy is also partner of the joint stand at MIDEM; already for the 25th time.

The president of the German Publishers’ Association (DMV), Dagmar Sikorski and Dr. Harald Heker, Chairman of the Board of the German collection society GEMA will join the minister at the inauguration of the joint stand. The managing director of the German Music Publishers’ Association (DMV), Dr. Heinz Stroh, stated: “Because of the support of the ministry of Economics especially the smaller and middle-sized companies get here at Midem the chance to present their product to the global music-market and to make contacts that otherwise would only be possible with an enormous financial expense.” Stroh pointed out that Midem still is one of the most important places to make contacts for the licensing business that brings together all genres. After 15 years of contraction on the global music-market an increase is visible again because of the digital product. German is number four on the international music-market.

One of the highlights of Midem will be the competition “Midem Lab” where start-ups on the music-market will compete. From Germany Capsule fm, Nagual Sounds and Starlize are qualified and will present themselves to potential investors and international market participants.

In workshops and on conferences representatives of the German music market will discuss about the future perspectives of the music-market. Among them are: Dr. Florian Drücke (managing director of the association of the German music industry BVMI), Ronny Krieger (label manager, Monkeytown Records), Horst Weidenmüller (founder and CEO, !K7 Records), Bettina Dorn (Director Brand Partnership Central Europe, Warner Music Group) and Michael Kramer, founder and managing director of BrundX.

The DMV “Deutscher Musikverleger-Verband e.V.” is an association representing the interests of music publishers throughout the German Federal Republic. Representing over 400 music publishers, the association acts for about 90% of music publishers active in Germany. In the past business-year (2013) the DMV member-companies reached total revenues of 590 million euro (2012: 588 million euro).

Apart from the so called “paper-business”, the printing and distribution of sheet music, (about 10 % of the total revenues of the music publishing companies) further revenue-sources for the publishers direct are rights and licenses for advertising, music in films etc. . The main share of turnover is made from the income from those rights that GEMA is taking care of for the national and international authors and publishers.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have been putting their minds around one of the great mysteries of the universe. They set up the following study:

‘In two separate case studies, two internationally recognized string quartets repeatedly performed a short excerpt from the fourth movement of Haydn’s quartet Op. 74 no. 1, with intentional, but unrehearsed, expressive variations in timing.’

And what do you think they discovered? Leadership varies from one quartet to another, one moment to the next.

Full report here from a BBC science reporter.

Juan Angel Vela del Campo of El Pais is first with a review of Charles Wuorinen’s new opera, Brokeback Mountain. He calls it ‘a hymn of freedom…. tightly structured… flawless.’

Read here (in Spanish).

The Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basle has paid an unspecified amount for the manuscripts and documents of Jonathan Harvey, who died in December 2012. The Sacher archive is the largest repository of 20th century composer materials. It is funded by the Hoffman-Laroche pharmacological fortune.

photo: Maurice Foxall

‘Just wrapped up the first 2 days as conductor of Andrea’s recording of Manon Lescaut in Valencia,’ writes the ex-tenor.

The soprano, Ana Maria Martinez, does not get in the pictures.

Karl Löbl, an Austrian journalist who devoted his career to boosting the Karajan machine, has died at the age of 83.

Löbl made his name with a scoop in 1955, getting the naive Karl Böhm to state on the record that he would not allow being director of the Vienna State Opera to interfere with his international engagements.

Böhm promptly resigned from the Opera. He was succeeded by Herbert von Karajan, who co-operated with Löbl in writing his first biography, Das Wunder Karajan (1965).

Löbl was culture chief of several newspapers and, from 1980, head of arts at ORF Austrian television. He came to be regarded as his country’s most influential music writer.

The Vienna Opera issued the following tribute:

Zum Tod von Karl Löbl

Die Wiener Staatsoper trauert um den legendären Kulturjournalisten Karl Löbl, der 83-jährig seinem Krebsleiden erlegen ist. 70 Jahre lang war er dem Haus als Zuschauer, Kritiker, Partner, Matineengestalter und Programmheftautor verbunden.

Karl Löbl hat sechs Jahrzehnte lang das österreichische Musikleben journalistisch beobachtet, begleitet und auch beeinflusst wie kaum ein anderer. “Wir sind sehr traurig, weil wir mit Karl Löbl einen umtriebigen Opernliebhaber, einen seriösen Opernkenner und einen einzigartigen Opernbotschafter verloren haben”, so Staatsoperndirektor Dominique Meyer. Von Künstlern und Managern gefürchtet und geschätzt gleichermaßen war er Garant dafür, dass Musik und Oper über mehrere Generationen hinweg in Hörfunk, Fernsehen und Printmedien im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes Gehör verschafft wird. GMD Franz Welser-Möst: “Seine Schärfe im Urteil war ein Ausdruck seiner Liebe zur Kunst und den Künstlern.”

Vor 70 Jahren besuchte Karl Löbl erstmals eine Vorstellung der Wiener Staatsoper. Mehrere Dekaden lang berichtete er im Laufe seiner abwechslungsreichen journalistischen Laufbahn über Staatsopernvorstellungen für das ORF-Fernsehen und -Radio sowie als Musikkritiker verschiedener Zeitungen. Während der Direktionszeit von Ioan Holender gestaltete und moderierte er mehrere Jahre u. a. die Matineen *Vor der Premiere” auf der Bühne der Wiener Staatsoper.

Regelmäßig schrieb er Beiträge für Programmhefte, CD-Booklets und das Monatsmagazin der Wiener Staatsoper.

Bis zuletzt war Karl Löbl der Wiener Staatsoper aufs Engste verbunden.

Seit mehreren Monaten besuchte er zwar keine Vorstellungen mehr im Haus, verfolgte aber alle angebotenen Aufführungen via Livestream. Sein letzter “Auftritt” an der Wiener Staatsoper war im September 2013 in der Matinee “Positionslichter” von GMD Franz Welser-Möst, bei der er in seiner gewohnt pointierten Art über “Musikkritik” am Podium mitdiskutierte. Sein letzter publizistischer Beitrag ist erst vergangenen Sonntag im Programmheft zur Neuproduktion von “Rusalka” erschienen.

Die Bedeutung, die die Oper * und speziell die Wiener Staatsoper * für Karl Löbl hatte, spiegelt sich in komprimierter Weise in den beiden 2013 erschienenen Büchern wider: “Der Balkonlöwe” und “Nach den Premieren * Mein Leben in und mit der Oper”. In letzterem schließt er das Kapitel “Ein ganz persönliches Finale”, und somit das Buch, mit den Worten: “* wie schön es war, ein Leben nicht nur mit geliebten Menschen, sondern auch mit viel Oper * mehr noch: mit viel Musik verbringen zu dürfen”.

A precious violin known as the Lipinski Stradivarius was stolen Monday night from Frank Almond as he left a recital at Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee. Police believe this was a targeted theft. The robbers felled Almond with a stun-gun around 10.30 pm before making off with his instrument. He has been given the week off to recover from injuries and shock.

Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, plays the 1715 violin on loan from unnamed private owners. It is valued in the region of $3m to $5m dollars.

Full report here. Concertgoer update here.

Separated at birth: Frank Almond compares his 1715 Strad to Itzhak Perlman’s, dated 1714.

Avid, the owners of Sibelius composing software whose development team decamped en masse in November 2012, has rushed out an upgrade to the programme to show they are still interested in taking it forward. ‘The company felt it was doing everything possible to communicate to the public that its developers were working on a new release,’ a defensive new executive told user Philip Rothman.

So, Philip, is the 7.5 an advance on Sibelius as we knew it? Read on here.

It surprised me, too.

The adjective most readily connected with Paul Hindemith is ‘boring’. The nickname is Windy Hindy.

The German composer, so proficient he could compose a piece to order in 30 minutes, suffers from a reputation for being too clever by half and not feeling a thing. A kind of Max Reger without the sense of humour, if you get my drift.

I’ve heard a lot of Hindemith’s music and some of it I admire, though not to the point of distraction.

Then this disc blew me away. Read Album of the Week here.