The Stradivari Quartet performs on four instruments by Antonio Stradivari, on extended loan from the Habisreutinger Foundation. Last week, in Switzerland, they wondered how that would sound in Chinese. Not bad, as it happens.
The quartet is made up of Xiaoming Wang, Sebastian Bohren (violins), Lech Antonio Uszynski (viola), Maja Weber, (cello).
He has already won the 2012 Grawemeyer for his violin concerto, the biggest prize for a living composer.
Today he follows up with the Nemmers, worth $100k plus a performance with the Chicago Symphony. Nice one, E-P.
Thomas Hampson is still sick with bronchitis.
Matthias Goerne has flown off.
Tonight’s Wozzeck at the Met, we hear, will be hard-working Daniel Sutin.
The conductor has given an avowedly patrotic, pro-Putin interview to a Russian magazine in which he justified the intervention in Ukraine and had this to say about the country’s revolution: Сейчас мы слышим откровенно фашистские лозунги. Они звучат на Украине из уст людей, которые уже почти пришли там к полному контролю над страной.
In plain English: ‘We are now hearing openly fascist slogans. They are coming in Ukraine from people who have almost complete control over the country.’
Photo: RIA Novosti/Lebrecht Music&Arts
In other comments, he appears to be advocating a return to East-West confrontation and repressive government:
‘The Cold War continues…. In Russia and in China today there is a desire not only to strengthen relations between the two countries, but in general, to create a more balanced picture, balance of power between East and West… China shows the world: attacks on them are punished, and punished, especially economically. Tough, uncompromising, ruthless, I would say, the principle is: you do not want to be friends – we do not want to give you any opportunity to grow rich at our expense.’
Interesting, considering that Gergiev’s Mariinsky company is sustained by income from the West. Must ask him about it some time.
Full interview here (in Russian). Would anyone like to translate?
This is the striking poster for Carlos Izcaray’s forthcoming freedom concert in Berlin. It’s a protest against government-sponsored violence and oppression in his native country. The pianist Gabriela Montero will fly in specially for the event.
The British Library is holding a symposium on how to archive, curate and store digital files. It is aimed at institutions and music producers but we can think of a lot of individual collectors who might benefit from the knowledge imparted.
It’s an all-day conference on Friday, March 21. Free entry. Details here.
My Album of the Week on sinfinimusic.com is a set of piano concertos by a composer who seemed to have everything going for him until he got a Royal appointment … and practically stopped composing. There have been few chances untiol now to hear his music on record. Click here to find out more.
(hint: none of the above)
The 1907 Bluthner grand on which Paul McCartney supposedly wrote the Beatles’ most-covered ballad is coming up for sale at auction in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. It’s a studio piano Paul messed around with while filming ‘Help’ in 1965. It has been put up for sale by the film’s director Richard Lester, now 82. The estimated price is £50,000 ($80,000).
Lester’s story: ‘When coming to the end of the shooting of the film, Paul was spending a lot of time at the piano composing and fine tuning “Yesterday” or the “Scrambled Eggs” song as it was originally entitled by Paul. He was playing it that much that I actually threatened to remove the piano off the set if he didn’t finish the song soon and give it a rest. When it was released in August 1965 Paul actually sent me a copy with a note attached saying “I’m glad you didn’t take the piano away – hope you like the “Scrambled Eggs” song now!’
Newspapers this morning headline the death of Gerard Mortier. The former head of La Monnaie, Salzburg Festival, Opéra de Paris and Teatro Real is described variously as ‘opera director’ (Financial Times: he never directed), ‘avant-garde opera director’ (Guardian: much of his work was quite traditional), ‘opera impresario’ (LA Times: he was never an investor or businessman), and other things even remoter from reality. Der Spiegel had ‘Musikmanager’, for heaven’s sake.
BBC News, to its shame, headlined him first as ‘Spanish opera director’, then after protest as ‘Spain opera director’, finally as ‘opera director’: all untrue. (Tony Hall, you need to get a grip.)
The New York Times did well with ‘opera visionary’; it captured Gerard’s futuristic impetus. El Mundo came closer, calling him ‘el agitador de la opera’, a man of boundless passion and commitment who refused to let opera continue as it was. But the headlines as a whole showed up the cultural ignorance and linguistic impoverishment of newsdesk journalists, unable to come up with a phrase to capture a man whose name they have never heard and whose function they cannot comprehend.
I remember shifts when a BBC newsroom was staffed by a Hindemith biographer, a poetry publisher and the niece of a well-known painter. When a cultural giant died, we put our heads together and sent them to heaven with an apt label.
‘Opera chief’ would have done for Gerard Mortier; he would have liked that. ‘Opera reinventor’, even better. ‘Opera agitator’ best of all.
The mot juste remains elusive, like the man himself.
photo (c) Marion Kalter/Lebrecnt Music&Arts
