They struck up the band when Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski overran his thank-you time. But Pawel just carried on going through his list of the dear departed, and the band piped down. In the most micro-managed event on earth, humanity won. For once.
The Georg Solti conducting competition in Frankfurt, dogged in recent years by fixing allegations, failed to produce a winner.
Out of 20 finalists, Tung-Chieh Chuang (32, Taiwan) shared second prize of 10,000 Euros with Elias Grandy (34, Germany). Toby Thatcher (26, Australia) came third with 5.000 €.
This is the seventh Solti competition. Among past winners, only James Gaffigan as gone on to head a prominent orchestra.
The FAZ reports the death of the Camerata Nucleare, orchestra of the German atomic energy industry. The sector is in decline and the orchestra of employees, which toured extensively and released four CDS, has been pensioned off. At the press of a button.
photo: Marcus Lechner
Time ran out this weekend for Frank-Peter Zimmermann. The German virtuoso has surrendered his Lady Inchiquin Stradivarius to a financial body, Portigon, that is obliged to sell it for the highest price.
The violinist has played the instrument on loan for 12 years and has been trying to buy it at a price suggested by two independent valuers, in the region of three million Euros. Portigon is seeking an extra million on top. At this stage, it seems unlikely Frank-Peter, 49, will ever see his Lady again. He is playing the New York Philharmonic this week, on a less familiar instrument.
In an unrelated scenario, Alexander Pavlovsky, a member of the Jerusalem Quartet is desperately seeking a new instrument after his on-loan Pressenda violin was sold by the owners. The quartet posted the following appeal last night.
Dear friends ,
Your help and advise is needed!
Our first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky is desperately looking for a new instrument !
His Pressenda violin, which he has been playing for last 10 years, is being sold now by the Syndicate which owns it.
If any of you knows any foundation, private collector or a sponsor that would be interested to help, please let us know.
Very much appreciate your help.
Yours
Jerusalem 4tet
No prizes for guessing where.
Helsinki Airport is running a major photographic exhibition on Jean Sibelius and Finland in the 1930s to the 1960s.
Get early to gate area 32–38. More info here.
The exhibition consists of five different sections displaying the versatility of the production of three Finnish artists, Heikki Aho, Björn Soldan and Claire Aho , and celebrating their life’s work spanning half a century.
Art Gallery’s exhibition includes unique photos of Sibelius at his home in Ainola. The photos are part of a larger exhibition totalling 230 photos.
Air travellers are treated to views of city life in Helsinki in the 1930s captured by Aho & Soldan as well as Claire Aho’s stunning shots of Helsinki in 1968
When David Pountney staged Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s opera in London almost four years ago, almost all the daily newspaper critics scorned it. Since then, the opera has grown and grown, in performances in German, Houston and New York.
On Tuesday, it reaches Chicago.
David Pountney’s production has been blighted by two tragic deaths – of its designer, Johan Engels, and of the critic and broadcaster Andrew Patner, who was one of its most passionate advocates. Watch Andrew preview The Passenger, together with Lyric Opera chief Anthony Freud (below), and try at all costs to see the opera.
Gérard Calvi, who won the Prix de Rome in 1945 (where was Boulez?) and his greatest fame as composer of the French TV cartoon Asterix, has died at 93.
He also wrote Le prisonnier de la tour for Édith Piaf and an opera on a Ionesco play but his greatest service was as resident or 20 years of Sacem, the authors and composers rights agency. ‘He engaged in the defence of musicians’ rights,’ said the culture minister, Fleur Pellerin.
The Bruckner Orchester Linz today ended a six month search for a new chief conductor. From September, Markus Poschner will take over. Poschner, 44, is general music director in Bremen and, as of last month, also chief of Orchestra della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. His agent’s phone must have turned white-hot.
‘I’m just one of those stage monsters, not afraid of anything,’ the great tenor tells BBCs’s Desert Island Discs. Listen here.
He has much to say about saving Wagner from his excesses: ‘why would a composer destroy his own tunes by his texts?’
In other comments, Kaufmann mentions that he refuses to sign contracts five years in advance: ‘At a time of financial crisis you can be very happy and thankful to have contracts for such a long period, but artistically speaking it’s a catastrophe.’
Reiner Süß,a star of the Deutsche Staatsoper from 1959 and a fixture on East German television with Da liegt Musike drin, has died just short of his 85th birthday. He featured on numerous recordings.
The immaculate director Luca Ronconi, responsible for opera productions at La Scala, Vienna, Salzburg and elsewhere, has died at the age of 81.
Like his French colleague Patrice Chéreau, he divided his life between theatre and opera, not bothering much with film or American fame and seldom putting a foot wrong.
He worked with Abbado, Muti, Chailly and Sinopoli at La Scala on no fewer than 25 operas and staged a memorable Falstaff at Salzburg. In the 1990s, Ronconi ran the Teatro Stabile in Turin.
Abbado and Ronconi, rehearsals for Wozzeck, La Scala 1977.
It’s May 11, according to Berliner Morgenpost.
All 120+ members of the orchestra are obliged to turn up and vote for a new chief conductor.
If you’re looking for straws in the wind, Mariss Jansons conducts the orchestra the previous two nights.
