An online exhibition from Harvard shows how the conductor varied the colours he used in his score markings to show himself how his ideas changed down the years. Even in his sheet for Bear Down Chicago Bears.

David Gockley of San Francisco Opera has been delivering some home truths after the collapse of San Diego.

He called San Diego ‘one of the best-run companies in the country for decades’ and outlined a parallel decline in his own company’s finances. His figures, below, make essential reading:

San Francisco Opera

Operating budget:

1980: $11 million (equates to around $31m today)

2015: $75m

2022: $92m

Subscribers:

1980: 165,000

2015: 93,000

2022: 80,000 estimated

Ticket sales providing percentage of budget:

1980: 58.7%

2015:32% (close to the current San Diego figure)

2022: 29%

Full story and analysis here on San Francisco Classical Voice.

The violinist Linus Roth is playing tonight in Brussels. Unluckily, the concert coincides with a visit by Barack Obama. Linus writes:

The presence of a politician like President Obama can affect us artists.

In Brussels, where I am stepping in as a soloist with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Ivor Bolton in the Palais des Beaux Arts, the President has decided to hold his speech today in exactly this concert hall. Not only will our concert start 30 -45 minutes late, but our rehearsal time in the hall has been cut down to a few minutes.

It means that Nelson Goerner, pianist in the Mendelssohn Double concerto, has almost no time to get used to the piano, and the rest of us no time to adjust to the acoustics.

That not all: the city is in lock-down, so it took us 1.5 hours this morning to get to a different rehearsal venue by public transport, as no cars are allowed in the city. In the afternoon it got worse: even the entrance to the metro was closed – so we walked, again and again having to make detours, as all roads being blocked by security.

A big thank you to the team of Klara Festival, who are making the very best out of the situation and leading us through the choas. It is extremely frustrating to experience in such a direct way how a politician affects our work. It’s a shame, but only once Mr. President has left town will Mendelssohn’s music receive the attention again it deserves, winning the hearts of our audience. Mr Obama hs not won mine.

Linus Roth

Campaigner Ian Pace is appealing for anyone who sang in the London Boy Singers in the 1960s to contact him. Its director Alan Doggett, who went on to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber, is suspected of being an active paedophile. He worked with more than 1,000 boys.

The police will reopen his file if enough fresh evidence is available. If you have recollections of that period, please contact Ian.

photo: The Times

They’re knocking down the Birmingham Conservatoire (three cheers). It’s one of the ugliest sights on earth.

But they’ve agreed to build a new one. Can we see the architect’s plans, please, before it goes up?

Please spread the word. It’s a 1919 Paul Lorange.

There is no doubting the good intentions of Tony Hall, former Covent Garden director whisked back into the crisis-ridden BBC. Tony, head of news in the John Birt era, brought with him a reputation for fair dealing, clear decision-making and a passion for the performing arts.

Yesterday, he unveiled the mission. It is a bold move to return the arts to where they belonged in the BBC’s heyday. But between vision and accomplishment something went wrong. The plan had to go through BBC channels which dictated the insertion of an extra layer of directors – Jonty Claypole as Director of Arts and Bob Shennan as Director of Music. Who needs extra executives? Only the BBC.

The announcement coincided with the resignation of Roger Wright as head of BBC Proms and Radio 3. He clearly does not need extra execs walking the floor above his head.

So why does the BBC?

Tony Hall has not put a foot wrong before this announcement. What he has now revealed is that his hands are tied and his feet manacled to a BBC bureaucracy that typifies the organisation’s deep confusion and loss of purpose, a management malaise that many ascribe to the Birt years. Politicians are not the only ones who wonder if the Corporation is still fit for purpose. If the BBC is to be saved, it needs to be rescued from its expensive suits.

Just smell the gloom as you enter Broadcasting House.

The New York Times, which is helping Sotheby’s hype up the price for the late Peter Schidlof’s Stradivarius,  pays no critical attention to the claims made for the instrument, or to its projected $45 million price. It is one of only ten extant Strad violas.

Here is David Aaron Carpenter playing the instrument that was heard in its heyday as part of the Amadeus Quartet.

Does anyone know a superior viola?

The French conductor Betrand de Billy has stormed out of the Vienna State Opera’s new Lohengrin after differences of opinion wkth the director Andreas Homoki and the star tenor Klaus Florian Vogt. ‘It’s about two minutes of music in an opera that lasts four and a half hours,’ sighed opera boss Dominique Meyer.

The Finnish conductor Mikko Franck jumps in.

The tenor Ottavio Garavento, who starred in Kleober’s 1981 Boheme at La Scala with Mirella Freni, has died aged 80. A stalwart of Claudio Abbado’s era, Garavento had a repertoire of 113 roles.

There will be six new productions next season, and an extra five percent on the ticket price. ‘We had no alternative,’ says general director Dominique Meyer.

The programme has a distinct Anglo tendency with the Vienna premiere of Thomas Ades’s The Tempest, conducted by the composer; Covent Garden chief Kasper Holten will direct Mozart’s Idomeneo (Christoph Eschenbach conducting); and in May-June 2015 Sir Simon Rattle will conduct two Ring cycles.

Full lineup:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Idomeneo (5. Oktober 2014 * D: Christoph Eschenbach; R: Kasper Holten; mit: Michael Schade, Margarita Gritskova, Maria Bengtsson, Chen Reiss);

– Modest Mussorgski Khovantchina (15. November 2014 * D: Semyon Bychkov; R: Lev Dodin; mit: Ferruccio Furlanetto, Christopher Ventris, Herbert Lippert, Andrzej Dobber; Ain Anger, Elisabeth Kulman, Norbert Ernst);

– Giuseppe Verdi Rigoletto (20. Dezember 2014 * D: GMD Franz Welser-Möst; R: Pierre Audi; mit: Piotr Beczala, Simon Keenlyside, Valentina Nafornita, Elena Maximova);

– Richard Strauss Elektra (29. März 2015; D: GMD Franz Welser-Möst; R: Uwe Eric Laufenberg; mit: Anna Larsson, Nina Stemme, Anne Schwanewilms, Falk Struckmann);

– Gaetano Donizetti Don Pasquale (26. April 2015 * D: Jesús López-Cobos; R: Irina Brook; mit: Michele Pertusi, Juan Diego Flórez, Alessio Arduini, Valentina Nafornita);

– Thomas Adès: The Tempest (Österreichische Erstaufführung am 14. Juni 2015 * D: Thomas Adès; R: Robert Lepage; mit: Adrian Eröd, Audrey Luna, Stephanie Houtzeel, David Daniels).