Sonja Mottl, who sang 1,396 times at the Volksoper and on its tours to the US and USSR, has died at the age of 91. A natural soubrette, she sang roles in favourites operettas and several musicals. She was married twice – to the baritone Kurt Preger, who died in 1960, then to the Volksoper director Karl Dönch.

An old Melodiya recording sleeve informs me that ‘unfortuately, his works are hardly known, even in his adopted home of Russia. However, his work is highly valued and has been much admired amongst other composers and musicians.’

How is it possible, you wonder, that the composer who was closest to Dmitri Shostakovich, in both friendship and style, could remain unknown to a world that reveres Shostakovich?

Well, the ice is breaking and Mieczelaw Weinberg is finally starting to get heard.

But where should a new listener begin?

I try to answer both of the above questions in a sinfini composer guide. Click here to read.

The conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, an avowed Anglophile, has ended his three-year survey of English music, titled ‘Albion’, with a rare performance of The Critic, an opera by Charles Villiers Stanford, after Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Since 2011, Gennady has conducted 38 works by 20 composers, ranging from Elgar’s Enigma Variations to such esoterica as Cyril Scott’s violin concerto. Here’s a summary of the series (in Russian).