The Berlin-based pianist Yossi Reshef was jostled and heckled by students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg when he tried to give a recital there last March. The university offered a limited apology.

Now, 11 students have been sentenced to community service for their part in the riot, a gentle rap on the knuckles. Read on here.

yossi reshef

Our correspondent David Conway reports from the frontline:

Although the city’s opera house and theatres are still functioning normally, rising tension in Kyiv means that the Philharmonia is now cut off within the barricaded ‘ war zone’ at the town’s centre. Everything is relatively calm in the city at present – although it is rumoured that shenanigans will break out again when Parliament reconvenes for an emergency session on Tuesday. Obviously the Press are expecting something – witness the line of TV vans in Evropeiska Sqare, where the central Khreshchatyk Street (where the Maidan is located) meets the more turbulent Hrushchevskyy Street where most violence has taken place. You can see the Philharmonia in the background to the right. All of Everopeiska Square is now enclosed within barricades erected by the protesters.

kiev revolt mediakiev barricades

 

So as a result, Haydn’s Creation (scheduled to be performed this evening) will have to wait for May 11th by which time the crisis will hopefully be (peacefully we trust) resolved one way or another…..

Maybe….

 

kiev cancel

 

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review the new English translation of Eva Riger’s biography of Friedelind Wagner.

Friedelind, sister of Wieland and Wolfgang, was the first member of the unholy family to denounce its racism and leave Bayreuth … only to come crawling back, begging forgiveness. Wolfgang never forgave. Hers was a profoundly compromised and troubled life. Read the review here.

friedelind wagner

The diva has a five year-old son, Tiago, to whom she is devoted. The boy was born with a mild form of autism and diagnosed shortly before his third birthday. Friends tell us he is progressing very well and attending a mainstream school.

Anna, who is bringing up Tiago as a single mother, has now decided to discuss the condition in public in order to give encouragement to other parents. She told the Russian TV programme Pust govoryat:

We noticed that sometimes you start talking to him, and he does not respond. And so it began. For me it was a shock. I was scared, but doctors quickly reassured me that it can be treated.

I want to say to women who have autistic children that they should not be afraid, it can all be developed up to normal standards, that children should go to school and study.

The interview is reported in Autism Daily and widely circulated in German media.

anna netrebko

 

 

Giulio_Cesare_Presse

It does what it says on the wall.

Denis Matsuev has been ordered to stay home, cancelling concerts in Russia, Israel and Carnegie Hall. An ebullient character, we wish him a swift recovery.

Carnegie Hall today announced that the recital by pianist Denis Matsuev—scheduled for nextThursday, January 30 in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage—has been postponed to Sunday, June 15 at 8:00 p.m. Mr. Matsuev is currently being treated for pneumonia and has been forced to cancel or reschedule concerts in Russia, Israel, and the United States. He is currently in Moscow under doctor’s care and not permitted to travel.

denis matsuev

Click here to watch an epochal performance from August 2010.

abbado lucerne

In October 2013, we reported that the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Thomas Südhof, had said that he owed it all to his bassoon teacher. On the basis of that reported comment, Dr Südhof has given an exclusive interview at Stanford to Ryan Romine of The Double Reed, discussing his own musical education and the importance of music in training the scientists of the future. With Ryan’s permission, we publish the following extracts:

 

sudhof nobel

Ryan Romine (RR): In comments you made in the Lancet in 2010 and others recently

posted by Norman Lebrecht of Slipped Disc, you credited your bassoon teacher with

teaching you valuable skills for your career. Can you expand on those earlier comments

about your musical training and its impact on your research skills?

Thomas Südhof (TS): The qualities I learned from my training in classical music, in

particular in bassoon, are multifarious and varied. Let me list a few. First, the value of disciplined

study, or repetitive learning, for creativity. You cannot be creative on a bassoon if

you don’t know it inside out, and you cannot be creative in science if you don’t have a deep

knowledge of the details. Second, the value of good mentorship. A good teacher challenges

and criticizes, but does not chastise or put down a student, no matter what. !ird, the role

of performance in a profession. As a musician, you practice for thousands of hours to play

for a few minutes—but when you play, you have to not only recapitulate the learned material,

you have to expand on it and you have to communicate it to the audience. In science, it is

basically the same thing—it is in the end a process which also depends on communicating

with an audience and accepting and responding to its feedback. Finally, I learned to value

traditions as a musician, but at the same time the importance of trying to transcend tradition.

The tradition is the basis that allows you to progress, the starting point, but it cannot

become a limitation, because then both in music and in science creativity and progress end.

*

RR: How do your children’s musical experiences in the US compare with your own childhood

musical experiences in Germany?

TS: I think the US offers terrific opportunities for young children to learn classical music. I only

wish there were more opportunities [for them] to go to concerts and to perform in concerts.

RR: Do you feel there is a cultural/temporal/geographical/neurological difference in

how art music is perceived and valued in the present society in comparison to when you

were growing up?

TS: Absolutely—in the US at the present time, classical music is fundamentally a dying art.

There are few people who are willing to pay for it and its importance is miniscule compared

to that of popular sports. Musicians earn a fraction of what even a mediocre athlete earns.

There is no vibrant musical culture at present—everything is geared towards being commercially

successful, not towards content. However, I think the same trend is observed in

Europe, and we need to accept this trend and look for components in popular culture that

are not boring (sometimes quite hard for me).

RR: Would you encourage your children to become musicians, scientists, both, neither?

TS: Only if they have a passion for it—it is a lot easier to have a stable life and to support a

family in other professions. Being a musician or a scientist is a sacrifice, and only worth it

if you truly enjoy it and consider it a privilege.

*

 

RR: The American education system has in the past few years invested heavily in STEM

(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects, which place a significant

emphasis on your career field. Yet, your earlier published statements place significant

value on arts training. Do you see any way to integrate these two seemingly disparate

ideals?

TS: I personally think that training in the arts prepares a growing child just as well for a

scientific or technical career as [does] training in STEM subjects, if not better, because the

arts train a person in discipline, independent action, thinking, and in the need for attention

to detail without becoming a prisoner of that detail. I absolutely don’t think there is a need

for earlier math training—there is only a need for training the mind so it becomes fertile

for future learning.

*

RR: Do you still own/play a bassoon?

TS: I still own my bassoon—upstairs in a cupboard—but I don’t play it any more….

RR: Who is the maker?

TS: Hüller, a former East-German company.

 

*

RR: Thank you so much, Dr. Südhof, for your time and your thoughts. Bassoonists (and

musicians in general) worldwide are surely proud to count you as one of their own.

TS: I wish I could still be a bassoonist—it was a lot harder than being a scientist.

 

 

 

 

 

The fabulous Ingrid Fliter, Gilmore Artist of 2006, is one of dozens of artists who were left homeless by the abolition of EMI Classics. Unwanted by the dormant new owners, Warner Classics, and unable to sign to Universal which was forbidden by the EU to take on EMI artists, Ingrid like many others has been searching frantically for a new home.

She’s one of the lucky ones. Linn Records, a boutique label based in Glasgow, has recorded Ingrid in the Chopin concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conductor Jun Märkl. Watch.

ingrid fliter

The next music director of the Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra (OBC) will be Kazushi Ono. He starts in 2015, succeeding Pablo González Bernardo. Before him, the chief conductor (2006-2010) was Eiji Oue.

Kazushi-Ono-2013-11-16

Two men walked into a luthier’s shop in The Hague today, offering to sell a violin. The luthier called police, who arrested them with a 1731 Landolfi, stolen a week ago in a burglary at Abcoude. The instrument is worth several hundred thousand dollars. Two men are being detained for questioning.

violin thief

violin police

The Lottery

By Henry Fielding

A tale of seduction, delusion and financial corruption.

Musical Director: Žak Ozmo with L’Avventura London

Stage Director: Harry Fehr

tom-jones-2

 

Bury Court Opera presents the modern premiere of The Lottery, Henry Fielding’s smash hit

ballad opera of 1732.

The Lottery is the outrageous tale of Chloe, a beautiful but foolish country girl who is

seduced by the bright lights of London. Among other things, Chloe is defrauded by a

crooked stockbroker and taken in by a confidence trickster. The story is brought vividly to

life by L’Avventura London under music director Žak Ozmo with stage direction by brilliant

young director Harry Fehr.

Ballad opera was the most popular form of musical entertainment in C18 England and the

origin of today’s musical theatre. Witty, satirical and subversive, it was opera for the

common man and typically its stories mocked the high moral values of the Italian opera of

that period. Its music was lifted from the most popular operas, pantomimes, and ballad

tunes of the day, reworked to fit funny, satirical plays performed by the public’s favourite

actor-singers.

Novelist and satirist Henry Fielding (1707-1754) wrote eleven ballad operas that are among

the best examples of the genre. The Lottery was one of the most popular of ballad operas,

and still in the repertory well into the C19th. In 1727 Fielding’s family were almost

bankrupted by a dishonest stock-broker, so, the humorous depiction of such a stock-broker

in The Lottery was Fielding’s way of publicly shaming cheats in that profession. Coupled with

the financial success of The Lottery, revenge must have been sweet for Fielding.

Žak Ozmo is a Music Director, lutenist, and scholar in historical performance. He is the

Director of period instrument ensemble L’Avventura London, and the Director of Early Music

at the University of Hull.

Dates for 2014: The Fairy Queen, by Purcell. Sat 22 Feb, Wed 26 Feb, Sat 1st March

The Lottery, by Henry Fielding. Fri 28 Feb, Sun 2nd March

Too Hot to Handel, Sun 23rd Feb.

www.burycourtopera.org