Marie-Louise Girod, who played at the reformed church in the Oratoire du Louvre from 1941 to 2008, died this weekend.

marie-louise-girod

A friend and Conservatoire contemporary of Jehan Alain, she also played at a Paris synagogue.

In 1960, she married the director of the Louvre, André Parrot.

Fabio Luisi, who had been lined up by Peter Gelb to replace James Levine (only for Levine to reclaim his post), has been announced this morning as principal conductor of the Danish Radio orchestra.

He succeeds the late Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

Expressions of delight from Copenhagen.

Congrats all round.

Luisi Fabio - C Barbara Luisi_thumb_thumb

(Will he get a role in a Borgen revival?)

UPDATE:

Press release:

Introducing the Danish National Symphony Orchestra’s new principal conductor

 

He belongs to conducting’s international super league and has been described as the ideal choice to head the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. His name is Fabio Luisi, and today Kim Bohr, director of music at DR, reveals that the Italian maestro has signed a three-year contract to serve as the orchestra’s next principal conductor.

 

Fifty-five-year-old Fabio Luisi is one of the most coveted maestros of the day. He has received a number of Grammy Awards for his recordings, inspires breathless reviews for his concerts, and is currently general music director of the Zurich Opera and principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

 

Kim Bohr, director of music at DR, says of the agreement:

 

”That we’ve been able to attract a conductor of Fabio Luisi’s standing is quite fantastic. There is no doubt that he is the perfect match for the orchestra as regards both heart and mind. His desire to work with the deepest layers of the music and bring out the most beautiful, most nuanced musical expressions is truly extraordinary. I am very proud and absolutely delighted on the orchestra’s behalf.”

 

Fabio Luisi is quick to respond to the enthusiasm for this new partnership:
“I am very proud to become this orchestra’s new principal conductor. I have loved the Danish National Symphony Orchestra from the first moment, we worked together in 2010, and the perspective to work with these wonderful musicians intensively in the next years fills me with great happiness.”

 

Initially Fabio Luisi has signed a three-year contract with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2020. The contract features an agreement that his work with the orchestra will steadily increase as 2017 approaches.

Kim Bohr’s take on this is as follows:

”You cannot appoint a top conductor at short notice. There are simply too many other commitments in Luisi’s diary for us to piece together a viable position as principal conductor earlier than 2017. But we have ensured that his presence in Copenhagen will grow over the next couple of years as he plays a more and more active part in the life of the orchestra.”

 

Fabio Luisi also says of the orchestra:
“I know DNSO as an orchestra with amazing knowledge of the symphonic repertoire and an astonishing open-minded spirit: in our former encounters and in the talks I had with the management I could literally smell a strong will of placing itself among the best world’s orchestras: I hope to be helpful to the orchestra in order to achieve this goal.”

 

Among the players the news was greeted with delight, and René Mathiesen, the orchestra chair, says on their behalf:

 

“When the news broke there were scenes of jubilation like those at a football match when your own team scores. With Luisi as our principal conductor we will be able to maintain our current levels of artistic ambition and reach even higher. He is just the right choice for us: an impassioned artist, a natural authority on the stand, and an amazingly likeable person.”

 

About Fabio Luisi

Fabio Luisi is one of the hottest conductors on the international music scene. Orchestras are lining up to engage the fifty-five year-old Italian, who divides his working life between Europe and the USA. He is currently General Music Director of the Zurich Opera and Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

 

Maestro Luisi’s previous appointments include serving as Chief Conductor of Vienna Symphony Orchestra; General Music Director of the Dresden Staatskapelle and the magnificent Sächsische Staatsoper before the Metropolitan Opera grabbed him.

 

Fabio Luisi received a Grammy Award for conducting Wagner at the Met in performances released on DVD. His latest recordings include Gounod’s operaRoméo et Juliette on CDAt purely orchestral concerts he often conducts the great late romantic works whose complicated, colourful scores demand sublime technique and huge clarity of vision.

 

Facts about Fabio Luisi

  • Italian conductor, born in Genoa in 1959
  • General Music Director of the Zurich Opera and Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan. Opera, New York. Future Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra 2017-2020.

 

  • Previous appointments include: General Music Director of the Dresden Staatskapelle and Sächsische Staatsoper; chief conductor of Vienna Symphony Orchestra; Music Director of Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

Over the past week, the comeback singer has won five-star reviews and general beatification in the British press.

With one exception.

The viola player Bill Hawkes wrote this sour note to the Guardian:

bill hawkes

I played viola on Kate Bush’s last LP, and laughed myself silly at her nonsensical lyrics about snowmen. The obsequious, unquestioning critical acclaim heaped upon this manifestly overrated singer is rather depressing, and summed up by your reviewer (Kate Bush, Hammersmith Apollo, 27 August) when he describes an audience who “spend the first part of the show clapping everything; no gesture is too insignificant to warrant applause”. Enough said.

Bill Hawkes
Canterbury

Such slights do not go unanswered. Five subsequent letters in the Guardian heap (mostly) scorn on the ‘curmudgeonly’ Mr Hawkes.

And the composer Michael Nyman adds a gloss on his Facebook page:

My one experience of working with Kate Bush – a string sextet arrangement of Reaching Out on the Sensual World album – would, I thought be pretty brief. I told the players, who I believe may have included Bill Hawkes, that they would probably be out of the studio in 25 minutes or so as the arrangement was quite simple and would be lost in a rich texture that had already been recorded. Instead of which Kate impressively used the whole 3 hour session to micromanage the arrangement, the performance, the recording and the mix with scrupulous attention to detail than I have ever given to recording my own music.

Not Guglielmo Marconi, but his older brother, Alfonso. Both were capable musicians and word has it that the younger brother accompanied his violinist sibling on the piano. (You don’t get to be a great inventor without having some music in your fingers.)

The 1718 Antonio Stradivari was previously owned by a Duke of Marlborough, Churchill’s ancestor. Churchill was famously tone deaf.

alfonso marconi

(Alfonso’s the son on the right)

The fairly low price expected at auctions suggests issues with condition or provenance. Check before you bid.

 

Press release:

The London-based specialist musical instrument auctioneers Ingles & Hayday announced today (Monday, September 1st, 2014) that they will be offering a violin attributed to Antonio Stradivari which once belonged to Alfonso Marconi, brother of the famous inventor Guglielmo Marconi, in their sale on Tuesday, October 28th, 2014 at 2pm at Sotheby’s, New Bond Street, London, W1A 2AA. It is estimated to fetch £140,000-180,000.

Alfonso Marconi was born in 1865 and was nine years older than Guglielmo. He assisted his brother in his early experiments, famously firing the shot which confirmed the successful transmission of a radio signal over a hill near their home in 1895. Alfonso was a talented violinist and was often accompanied by his younger brother at the piano.

The violin is first recorded by the London dealer Hart & Son in 1874, who sold it to Charles McMillan and noted that it had been in the possession of the Duke of Marlborough. In all probability, this was George Spencer Churchill, 5th Duke of Marlborough, who reigned from 1817 to 1840 and was a talented composer and performer. He was famously self-indulgent and spent large sums on books, orchids and violins. He also owned another Stradivari violin of the same year, 1718.

In 1923 the violin was in French ownership, and was sold around 1925 to Heinrich Glatz Neumann of Vienna. Glatz Neumann also owned the 1688 ‘Cazenove, Marylebone’ Stradivari cello, now part of the Smithsonian Institute’s Stradivari quartet. By 1931 the violin had been sold to Alfonso Marconi, who only owned it for a few years, as he died in 1936. It has been in private European ownership ever since.