Jorma Panula is widely considered the most successful teacher of budding conductors.

He’s 84 and every year he gives a Nordic Masterclass for conductors with the South Denmark Philharmonic.

Here’s a short doc on this week’s course.

The DR Chamber Orchestra and Adam Fischer played a weekend concert titled ‘Farewell to Mozart’. Despite a parliamentary vote ordering the minister of culture to revoke the orchestra’s abolition, they are still waiting to hear that they do have a future beyond next month.

The concert can be heard online here. It includes a passionate speech by Nikolaj Znaider just before the interval.

M. C. Escher said in 1963: ‘I cannot help mocking all our unwavering certainties. It is, for example, great fun deliberately to confuse two and three dimensions, the plane and space, or to poke fun at gravity. Are you sure that a floor cannot also be a ceiling? Are you absolutely certain that you go up when you walk up a staircase?’

Solution here (in English).

The master of Wellington College, Sir Anthony Seldon, find one clear reason why under-privileged children cannot escape poverty:

‘The commentariat talk about stagnant social mobility but rarely look at why it is occurring – and I would contend that unequal access to an education in the arts is one important reason. In England, this is mostly limited to those already economically privileged. This is an unjust waste of national talent.’

Seldon goes on to say:

Why should students at independent schools enjoy such a rich education in the arts, whereas in most state schools – where it could be so effective and is most needed – it is a hit-and-miss business?…

I would argue that every single child in a state school should have access to the five forms of the arts to the same degree as pupils at independent schools.

Melody and rhythm lie deep in the soul of every human being. Every pupil should be taught a classical instrument. What other lesson can we draw from the wonderful El Sistema story than the powerful cultural and social impact on all young people of music?

The state should fund universal musical education. There are encouraging signs that the government is beginning to recognise this, and I welcome the additional money that has recently been made available to music hubs. But we need more – both financially and in terms of leadership, to get music and the arts up the educational agenda.

Every child should experience the thrill of playing in a musical ensemble. It will be one of the most profound experiences in their lives; they will learn about self-discipline, teamwork and trust. All young people should be taught to sing and have the chance to perform in concert. Schools should reverberate with music in their corridors and lunch halls.

Will politicians agree? Unlikely. We’ve just heard almost the exact opposite from the Education Secretary Nicky Morgan.

You can access the powerful Seldon article here.

Try not to get too depressed at the closure of political minds.

Sony’s two mega-stars paired off at the Bambi awards last week.

Lang Lang played some truly ugly notes and Jonas was some way off full vocal health. But millions of Germans loved it, and now so can you.

Ragin Wenk-Wolff opened her violin case yesterday and this is what she found.

She tells Slipped Disc: ‘Apparently this happens occasionally. No one is sure what caused it. It did not happen under any extreme conditions and not even while I was playing it or while it was manipulated. Thankfully not during a performance. The tail piece sure looks paper-thin where it broke. It is a 1689 Strad’.

Ragin has sent the instrument to a restorer and is awaiting diagnosis and a treatment estimate.

Has anyone else had this experience?

Here’s how the instrument sounds in action.

We have received news of the death of Armin Köhler, director of the Donaueschinger music festival since 1992 and, in parallel, head of new music, jazz and artistic affairs at SWR. He was responsible for the premiere of 400 new scores, among them works by Boulez, Ligeti, Lachenmann, Schnebel and Kagel.

Armin was just 62.

First obit here (auf Deutsch).

Reviewing the tumultuous return concert of the Atlanta Symphony after ten weeks of lockout, Mark Gresham found them rusty and under-powered. Not surprising, since there were 31 substitutes on stage.

The real players were away, fulfiling outside engagements that they accepted during the lay-off. The remainder had not played together for four and a half months, since before the summer. It will take a while for them to tune up to each other. The damage of closure is lasting.

Critic Mark Gresham writes:

The main event of the evening was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Sorry to say, what the audience got in this work was not what the ASO sounds like under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. Although the collective bargaining agreement was successfully wrapped up in time for this concert, many of the ASO’s musicians are still committed to temporary engagements with orchestras elsewhere. It will take several weeks for the musicians on stage to become essentially regular members of the ASO roster.

Of the 71 musicians onstage for the Beethoven, 31 were contracted substitutes. Of those, only one had not previously played with the ASO (the sub principal oboe). Only two of the brass players, one French horn and one trombone, were regular ASO musicians.

The apparent musical consequence seemed to be a choice by Spano to take relatively slow tempos throughout, versus his normal pacing of the work. Perhaps that was a matter of trying to keep together an ensemble in which 44 percent of the players were substitutes.

Lubomyr Melnyk made a (small) name for himself by claiming to play 19.5 notes per second, which is more than most of us want to hear.

Overwhelmed by international indifference, he has now composed a rather beautiful slow tune. He’s coming to the Royal Albert Hall next week.

After a four-month absence with muscle strain, the violinist Hilary Hahn will ease herself back into the schedule tonight with a Beethoven concerto in Regensburg, at the university hall.

Then she continues on tour with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Josh Weilerstein to Nuremburg, Friedrichshafen, Munich and Luxembourg.

Good to have her back.

(Back is the new front.)