The tenor Michael Schade has just posted:

Johannespassion cancelled for tonight. Thanks for all those who sang and played their guts out yesterday with Maestro Gatti. Management has locked out the players and cancelled all this weekend.

h/t: resmusica.com

UPDATE: Michael Schade adds:

After being all packed and leaving for the airport , and having booked the new flight home, cancelled the hotel, they called back in a panic to say– wait maybe we will do it- please stay, we will reimburse all- maybe we’ll just record it for the radio, perhaps for a small audience, or maybe for us , or maybe not all -Mon Dieu- never seen anything like it!!

FINAL OUTCOME: Cancelled. Once again from Michael Schade:

At 1620 we were told that they have no hall to play in after all…so now it’s cancelled for a SECOND time today….now supposedly it’s because of all the people working at the hall on strike…( ??? No clue they still sound locked out to me) I have no clue…trying to go home, missed the flight I had booked, prices for changes horrendous at this point, supposedly the maestro and the musicians will gather in front of the building and show defiance by playing “something ….already the chorus sang Bach Johannespassion chorales in the Lobby of the Radio France building to huge ( be it internal) applause the other day…it’s all really sad and unfortunate and aggravating to say the least.Seen my share of stuff but nothing like this!!!!!

He was asked to assess them in Die Welt.

Here’s the judge’s verdict:

Die Welt: Gustavo Dudamel.

We have been notified of the death of Andrew Porter, foremost music critic in an age of formidable critics and one of few whose reputation spanned both sides of the Atlantic. Andrew was 86.

South Africa born, Andrew was chief critic of the Financial Times from 1953 to 1972, earning the paper impressive cultural credentials on very little space.

From 1972 to 1992, with one year’s break, he was music critic of the New Yorker, establishing a style that was instantly recognised for a prosaic opening that parted like a curtain to reveal true content.

A quiet man, usually seen alone, he was close to his sister, Sheila, a busy New York publicist.

When I was writing Covent Garden: The Untold Story, Andrew was helpful in elliptical, though discreet, ways. His employer at the FT, Lord Drogheda, was also chairman of the Royal Opera House. Andrew, when he wrote a harsh review of a Covent Garden production, would receive a Droghedagram before breakfast. He gave back as good as he got. The mutual respect between and opera boss and a critic, as seen through their correspondence, was exceptional, possibly unique.  Halcyon days.

This has been in the air for weeks, and the deal’s been done just before the Easter break. It’s a game-changer for all three parties.

Nelsons moves off niche labels into mainstream, DG climbs back into the US market and Boston leapfrog their Big Five rivals in world media.

press release, just in:

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Grammophon have announced a new partnership that will feature a series of live recordings under the direction ofBSO Music Director Andris Nelsons.  This new recording initiative will launch with a project entitled Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow, focusing on works composed during the period of Shostakovich’s difficult relationship with Stalin and the Soviet regime—starting with his fall from favor in the mid-1930s and the composition and highly acclaimed premiere of his Fifth Symphony, and through the premiere of the composer’s Tenth Symphony, one of the composer’s finest, most characteristic orchestral works, purportedly written as a response to Stalin’s death

in 1953. In addition to Symphonies 5-10, the project will also include performances and recordings of the incidental music from King Learand Hamlet and the Passacaglia from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.  The recordings of these works will take place at Symphony Hall—one of the world’s most renowned halls for acoustical excellence—during performances scheduled in the BSO’s 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17 seasons, all under the direction of BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons.  This announcement about a new relationship and recording project between the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, and Deutsche Grammophon is being released in conjunction with the 2015-16 Boston Symphony Orchestra season announcement, details of which are available here.

The first of the BSO’s five live recorded albums—to be released by Deutsche Grammophon in three installments between summer 2015 and summer 2017—will feature the Passacaglia from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the opera that appalled Stalin and propelled Shostakovich out of the dictator’s favor, and Symphony No. 10.  The album will be recorded during the BSO’s upcoming concerts at Symphony Hall, April 2, 3 & 4, under the direction of Mr. Nelsons.

Andris Nelsons—born in Riga, Latvia in 1978, when it was still a part of the Soviet Union—is certain to bring a unique perspective to the performances and recordings of Shostakovich’s music. One of the last conductors trained under the Soviet music tradition, and having studied extensively in St. Petersburg, Andris Nelsons now represents the last of a distinct musical voice that is influenced heavily by both those great Russian masters and later by Western European masters of the core Germanic repertoire.

QUOTE FROM ANDRIS NELSONS

“I am completely thrilled and honored to be leading this very exciting collaboration with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Grammophon.   It is an immense privilege to focus on the music of Shostakovich, a composer of such great personal courage and virtue, whose extraordinary work transcends even the circumstances in which it was written, and is timeless on many levels. At the same time, with my formative years spent in Soviet Latvia, the music of Shostakovich in particular speaks to me personally in a distinctive way and I’m sure that special affinity will be communicated in these recordings.”

In Peru, they do.

h/t: Alvaro Mendizabal

Players in the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France have issued a statement under an inflammatory headline (in quotes, above), warning about the likely consequences of an enforced merger with the Orchestre nationale.

They claim that Radio France has published false accounts of its expenses and that the orchestras represent no more than 6 percent of the bradcaster’s budget.

Our chers amis at resmusica have the details here.

The music world in London and beyond has been shocked by the death last night of Dennis Marks, former head of music at BBC Television and subsequently general director of English National Opera. Dennis was 66.

At the BBC he was the last believer in serious music before the great Birtian dumbing down of the early 1990s. At ENO, he inherited the deficit aftermath of a successful regime and was unable to set a new direction for a company with a weak board and an ambivalent funding authority.

He went on to make some fascinating documentaries, mostly for radio.

He was a boundless enthusiast for new music and opera.

Our sympathies to his wife, Sally Groves, and the family.

UPDATE: First obit here and a more personal one here.

When did anyone last write about them?

Read here.