Ahead of the Mikkeli Festival in Finland, Valery Gergiev has given an interview (in English) to Vesa Siren on the issues of the day. He ignores the Russian-sponsored corruption of the last Ukrainian government, calls the new regime ‘fascists’ and endorses the annexation of Crimea. (he has not visited the disputed areas; his information is Kremlin sourced).
On the anti-gay law, he says it has nothing to do with gays.
Click here to watch the video. Highlight quotes:
Valery Gergiev on…
Ukraine fighting: It’s a problem of Ukraine. Not of Russia. Ukrainian people kill each other.
In Ukraine (there are) too many Nazi elements. The other part of Ukraine don’t want to stay with the Fascists. Russia now takes tens of thousands of refugees from eastern part of Ukraine.
Soprano Karita Mattila’s refusal to work with him: Putin maybe doesn’t know who is Karita Mattila. Karita Mattila doesn’t understand anything in politics. Especially in Ukraine. … How will she look in the eyes of mothers whose children were killed?
Crimea annexation: I made one statement: the people of Crimea should be saved immediately. I was asked if my position on Crimea was to ignore, or to save people. I said of course we have to save them immeditately, (or) there will be thousands killed. It is absolutely true that Russia made it possible for Crimea people, who are big majority Russians, simply to save their lives.
The anti-gay law: It’s not anti-gay. It’s about propaganda in schools. If people want to attack Putin and think ‘let’s attack famous musicians’, what is this? I didn’t know about this law. I learned about this law in the West. Nobody in Russia knows about this law.
h/t: Vesa Siren
Hours after he announced that he was quitting Valencia because government cuts had provincialised it, Zubin Mehta let it be known that his parting gift would be a Turandot recording with the pop tenor, Andrea Bocelli.
h/t: Dianne Winsor
Most music cities make do with a Conservatoire, or conservatory, or just a plain old music school. Sydney, being a classical kind of place, has a Conservatorium. It is seldom a happy place. Despite the medieval exterior.
The American tuba player Karl Kramer, who rules the school with a tongue of iron, has been involved with the dismissal of a languages teacher. Unfairly, it is said.
Professor Kramer thinks otherwise. Choice line from his emails: ‘Duct tape can’t fix stupid, but can muzzle it.’
Give that man a stand-up slot.
First, the Establishment leaked to the Daily Mail. Now it has followed up with a tip to the Sunday Times that Judith Weir is to be the next Master of the Queen’s Musick, the first woman to hold that post.
We’re delighted, and congratulate her with maximal warmth. We wish, however, that the process could have been more transparent, involving a broader range of opinion, especially about women composers.
Chicago psychotherapist (and music fanatic) Dr Gerald Stein has some thoughts on the phenomenon. And a warning:
The next time you find yourself at a garage sale, an estate sale, or an antique shop, stop for a moment. Where did these things come from? The same thought might occur to you as you visit the vanishing world of used book and CD stores, or their virtual replacements on Amazon and eBay. There are only two answers:
The next time you find yourself at a garage sale, an estate sale, or an antique shop, stop for a moment. Where did these things come from? The same thought might occur to you as you visit the vanishing world of used book and CD stores, or their virtual replacements on Amazon and eBay. There are only two answers: (1) People bought them and the same people have decided they want to sell them. Some might be collectors whose interests have changed, others simply in the business of making a living or clearing space. (2) The children or heirs of the collectors are doing their best to get rid of the burden of “stuff” left to them.
(I thought we did it to impress the other sex.)
Read Dr Stein’s illuminating essay here.
Our violinist friend Antonia Azotei has been spurred by the death of a friend’s baby to attempt a marathon fundraiser for the Lullaby Trust.
Do help her in any way you can She’s holding open house in West Hampstead.
Antonia writes:
Dear Norman, On 2nd July next week, I will attempt to play the violin for 26.2 hours continuously (will small breaks for food and drink) in memory of my friend’s baby daughter to raise money for The Lullaby Trust.
I have already raised £1000 and counting.
I will be joined by some ex-colleagues from the BBC Concert Orchestra and some pianist friends to keep me going and make it like a concert. As the day before is my birthday I’ll have an open house and serve champagne to anyone coming to listen and support me in lieu of a birthday party.
You are most cordially invited!
Michael Haas has written a fascinating post on Eugenie Schwarzwald, founder of a school that educated Anna Freud, Helene Weigl, Vicki Baum and hundreds more young women who were liberated from patriarchal tyranny. She was also an important patron of modernism, employing Arnold Schoenberg as a music teacher and Oskar Kokoschka for art.
Click here to read more.
Sports class for the girls of the Schwarzwald school on the roof of the Herrenhof Café
We have given you time to recover from Dudley Moore’s ‘two European composers’.
Here’s his less-known set, equally brilliant, on a familiar wartime theme.
Do not let your organist try this.
In my essay in the new issue of Standpoint magazine, I reflect upon the plight of music critics, faced with falling pay and status and finding themselves at the centre of unsought storms.
Sample par:
No one had a kind word to say for the music critics, who were perceived to be misogynist, sadistic, collusive, sensation-seeking and altogether blinder than a Fifa referee at an England football match. Most, if not all, of these perceptions are false. The critics I have known are generally idealists who wish the world were better than it is and labour unsocial hours for low pay in a vain effort to elevate its condition. They are not, on the whole, random wreckers of young careers.
Read the full essay here.
Download my complete Standpoint essays, Conduct Unbecoming, here.
UPDATE: Correction to the first sentence of the fourth paragraph: Today, hardly any US city outside New York has a full-time staff music critic.
Do not, on any account, miss the Sound of Music scenes.
Peace restored to the countryside. Read more here.
