A man sidled up to me last week at an operatic season launch and gave the secret sign. I twitched my trouser leg and wiggled my elbow. One cult member had found another.
Those who like the music of Bohuslav Martinu don’t just like it. We are passionate devotees of some of the most compelling works of music written by anyone in the first half of the 20th century.
Go explain why to agnostics. And go persuade them to listen. The trouble with Martinu is he wrote so much that newcomers have no idea where to begin. Well, here’s where.
It’s my Album of the Week on sinfinimusic.com.
There is an alternative picture for cat-lovers.
We hear that tickets for this Friday’s Europa Concert in Athens sold out within half an hour. The concert is the one date in the year where players of the Berlin Phil get to choose the venue.
By picking Athens, they have sent a message of solidarity to austerity -hit Greeks and, perhaps, of dissension to Angela Merkel’s hardline on Grexit.
At last night’s Royal Festival Hall concert, there were no fewer than eight so-called Guest Principal players in the Philharmonia Orchestra.
The concertmaster, Vijay Gupta, was imported from the LA Phil. The flute, Philippa Davies, outstanding in the Dvorak 8th solos, is one of the best session players in town.
But eight substitutes on the front line – including clarinet, harp, timps, viola – and in a prime Sunday-night concert with a world class soloist and conductor – is more than a team can bear and still retain its core identity.
This did not look, sound or comport itself on stage like the Philharmonia Orchestra. This was subs night.
The headline reads ‘A run-of-the-mill Proms is just what we need’. The Telegraph commentary is by Michael White.
Probably won’t make many people exercise their click finger.
Someone mentioned that a violinist I was chatting to at dinner was a Yotube sensation with her 2011 recording of the Tchaikovsky concerto, conducted by Yuri Temirkanov.
Sure enough, Sayaka Shoji has racked up almost six million views for a performance that is intense, individual, exceptional in every desirable way (though I suspect she’d rather be playing the Ligeti).
So why isn’t Sayaka getting the big limelight dates in London and New York?
Thrills and spills (mostly spills) of the music business.
See what you think.
Our copains at resumusica report that Philippe Jordan has renewed at the Opéra until 2021. That’s a relief, given that Paavo Järvi is leaving the Orchestre de Paris and the future of the two radio orchestras is in doubt.
Like Antonio Pappano in London, Philippe seems bedded in for the long term.
Leo McFall, London born, is winner of the 2015 Deutsche Dirigentenpreis, the kickoff of several good careers.
Leo had been one of two runners-up at the 2014 Nestle Salzburg competition.
He is presently first Kapellmeister at Meiningen and assistant conductor at the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.
Go, Leo!
Good news from the graveyard shift.
Last August we reported that Sacramento had lost both its orchestra and opera company, leaving the state capital of California dry of classical music.
Now, a team from the Detroit Symphony has found a way to bring them back.
The results of the public vote are in… and they are decisive.
More than half the votes cast (51%) went to two men in their thirties, Andris Nelsons and Gustavo Dudamel (voters were not informed that Dude has made himself unavailable). Thielemann was polled 17%
After listening to 152 contenders, the Chopin judges have agreed on 84 finalists for October. The largest contingents are from Poland and China – 15 each. There are 12 pianists from Japan, 9 from South Korea and 7 from Russia. Two of the Russians appear to be sisters.
1. Ms Soo Jung Ann (South Korea)
2. Ms Miyako Arishima (Japan)
3. Mr Tymoteusz Bies (Poland)
4. Mr Rafał Błaszczyk (Poland)
5. Mr Łukasz Piotr Byrdy (Poland)
6. Ms Michelle Candotti (Italy)
7. Mr Luigi Carroccia (Italy)
8. Ms Galina Chistiakova (Russia)
9. Ms Irina Chistiakova (Russia)
10. Mr Seong-Jin Cho (South Korea)
11. Mr Ashley Fripp (United Kingdom)
12. Ms Yasuko Furumi (Japan)
13. Ms Saskia Giorgini (Italy)
14. Ms Katarzyna Gołofit (Poland)
15. Mr Adam Mikołaj Goździewski (Poland)
16. Ms Ivett Gyӧngyӧsi (Hungary)
17. Mr Chi Ho Han (South Korea)
18. Mr Olof Hansen (France)
19. Mr Zhi Chao Julian Jia (China)
20. Mr Aljoša Jurinić (Croatia)
21. Ms Joo Yeon Ka (South Korea)
22. Mr Honggi Kim (South Korea)
23. Ms Su Yeon Kim (South Korea)
24. Ms Yedam Kim (South Korea)
25. Ms Yurika Kimura (Japan)
26. Ms Dinara Klinton (Ukraine)
27. Ms Aimi Kobayashi (Japan)
28. Mr Qi Kong (China)
29. Mr Marek Kozák (Czech Republic)
30. Mr Łukasz Krupiński (Poland)
31. Mr Krzysztof Książek (Poland)
32. Ms Rachel Naomi Kudo (United States)
33. Mr George Li (United States)
34. Mr Ning Yuen Li (China)
35. Ms Kate Liu (United States)
36. Mr Eric Lu (United States)
37. Ms Tian Lu (China)
38. Mr Xin Luo (China)
39. Mr Roman Martynov (Russia)
40. Ms Nagino Maruyama (Japan)
41. Mr Vladimir Matusevich (Russia)
42. Ms Nao Mieno (Japan)
43. Mr Łukasz Mikołajczyk (Poland)
44. Mr Paweł Motyczyński (Poland)
45. Ms Alexia Mouza (Greece)
46. Ms Jiyeong Mun (South Korea)
47. Ms Mayaka Nakagawa (Japan)
48. Ms Nozomi Nakagiri (Japan)
49. Mr Szymon Nehring (Poland)
50. Ms Anastasiia Nesterova (Russia)
51. Ms Ronald Noerjadi (Indonesia)
52. Ms Mariko Nogami (Japan)
53. Mr Piotr Nowak (Poland)
54. Ms Arisa Onoda (Japan)
55. Mr Georgijs Osokins (Latvia)
56. Mr Jinhyung Park (South Korea)
57. Mr Piotr Ryszard Pawlak (Poland)
58. Ms Zuzanna Pietrzak (Poland)
59. Ms Tiffany Poon (China)
60. Mr Kausikan Rajeshkumar (United Kingdom)
61. Mr Charles Richard-Hamelin (Canada)
62. Ms Tamila Salimdjanova (Uzbekistan)
63. Mr Cristian Ioan Sandrin (Romania)
64. Ms Natalie Schwamová (Czech Republic)
65. Mr Aristo Chingtoa Sham (China)
66. Ms Boyang Shi (China)
67. Mr Dmitry Shishkin (Russia)
68. Ms Rina Sudo (Japan)
69. Mr Michał Szymanowski (Poland)
70. Ms Rikono Takeda (Japan)
71. Mr Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev (Russia)
72. Mr Alexei Tartakovsky (United States)
73. Mr Hin-Yat Tsang (China)
74. Mr Alexander Ullman (United Kingdom)
75. Mr Chao Wang (China)
76. Mr ZhuWang (China)
77. Mr Andrzej Wierciński (Poland)
78. Mr Yuchong Wu (China)
79. Mr Zi Xu (China)
80. Mr Yike (Tony) Yang (Canada)
81. Ms Yuliya Yermalayeva (Belarus)
82. Mr Cheng Zhang (China)
83. Ms Chuhan Zhang (China)
84. Ms Annie Zhou (Canada)
Not because he loves music, necessarily. Owning a record label no longer makes you rich.
But Warner owner Len Blavatnik, 57, who tops the Sunday Times Rich List with £13.17 billion, is known to have some cultural interests. He was among four backers, for instance, of the movie Woman in Gold, a tale of post-Nazi art restitution, and he is said to be a huge fan of Fiddler on the Roof.
He bought Warner for $3.3bn, a rather small part of his fortune, and goes around telling people, ‘I bought a record company at the wrong time.’ His ambition for Warner: ‘Even though it’s the music business, it’s still business.’
Born in Odessa, he described his boyhood in Russia as ‘this little Jewish kid, walking around with a violin case’.
Our eagle-eyed social affairs correspondent spotted a small-ads announcement in yesterday’s Times (recte), announcing the engagement of Mr Iestyn Davies, countertenor of this parish, to Ms Gemma Lawley, of Shropshire.
We wish them lasting happiness.
The groom is a magnificent proponent of countercultural subversion.
