Let us know how you/your friends get on.

The ugly political eruption at Friday night’s Jerusalem Quartet concert could and should have been prevented. The Quartet are a regular target for a small, known group of disrupters. The Wigmore Hall, where they usually play, have taken measures to exclude those noise-makers and, if one slips through, to eject the agitator with minimum fuss and force.

The Queen Elizabeth Hall was wantonly unprepared for the eventuality.

Ariane Todes of Elbow Music tells Slipped Disc:

 
‘The hall had lots of security guards on the outside, fussing around with walkie talkies, but no security measures at all – no bag searches or anything, and lots of different doors to the foyer. When the shouting started (in the Minuet and trio of the Mozart) a couple of ushers went up to the guy and must have asked him to leave but he just kept going and the woman joined in. It took a minute for a lady with a walkie talkie to come by but she didn’t seem to be able to do anything either. None of the security guards from outside came in. A guy from the audience walked up to them and started getting angry with them. I’m not entirely sure what happened at the end but it looked like they were gently prodded out.’

Ariane adds: ‘The players kept their focus brilliantly, though, and  it was a superb concert – possibly the best quartet playing I’ve heard live.’

‘In 35 years reviewing for The Times,’ says Hilary Finch in the paper’s ombudsman column, ‘I’ve felt that what I’ve been paid to do is not to criticise, but to report – as succinctly and vividly as possible. And to report for a newspaper which has always thought – and I hope always will – that the remarkable things that are going on in classical music-making up and down the country is a story worth telling.’

Some may find her attitude old-fashioned in a decade when music critics seek to stoke controversy with comments about body-shape and fuel a bandwaggon for or against a second concert hall or opera house.

We find Hilary’s comments refreshing, professional and timely. Hilary has always been a trusted voice in the stalls, eminently knowledgeable, shrewd and humane in her judgements. She will file her last review at the end of his week. We wish her a very happy retirement.

The Morgenpost has opened its website until 5pm today for Berlin citizens to vote on who they would like to see as the next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Readers (and listeners to RBB) are invited to choose between Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Chailly, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Christian Thielemann. (Two of these, Muti and Nézet-Séguin, are contractually unavailable).

It’s an interesting initative and some of the comments on the site are highly intelligent. But the Berlin Phil players, when they come to vote on May 11, will be looking far beyond the sympathies of Berlin in deciding on a conductor with the potential to refurbish their international profile.

Click here for mock election.

Oh, and we’ve just received these Bayreuth pit-camera pics of the Christian T. candidate.

UPDATE: Now click here for the results.

A concert by the Jerusalem Quartet at the Queen Elizabeth Hall was disrupted last night by the usual suspects – a group of fanatical anti-Israel activists.

Shouting erupted during the quartet’s performance of the first item on the programme, Mozart K387. The disrupters were silenced and the concert continued.

The disrupters posted a video of their action.

Since their identities are now known, concert halls across the UK will be advised to refuse them admission.

UPDATE: Eyewitness report here.

There must be some copyright violation involved in this manipulation, but see what you think…

photo: (c) Don Hunstein/LebrechtMusic&Arts

It’s in Huainan City, An Hui Province, China. The staircase is built into the cello.

Keep watching til he starts the Mendelssohn concerto.

Credit: MeloClassic

Russia’s Classical Music News has a fascinating article on Leon Zaks who, born in Canada of Russian-Jewish parents based in Detroit, was taken back to the USSR after his father joined the American Communist Party.

Leon’s music education began in Moscow at age seven. He went on to study with David Oistrakh before landing a seat in the Bolshoi orchestra and eventually being promoted to concertmaster. He was, for many, the very essence of Moscow’s musical sound.

And then he went on vacation to Greece…. Read here (in Russian).

An unfortunate accident has halted the 2Cellos US tour.

The injury is to Stjepan Hauser’s neck.

UPDATE: A press release said: ‘The group apologizes to their fans and looks forward to returning to the US after Stjepan has healed.’

2Cellos are a crossover duo from Croatia, signed to Sony Music Masterworks.

2nd UPDATE: A Sony executive informs Slipped Disc: ‘I am happy to report that the injury is not serious, however, per medical recommendation, Stjepan has been advised to take a few weeks to recuperate.’

Slipped Disc editorial:

There was always a risk when Roger Wright stepped down on the first night of the 2014 Proms that the power vacuum would lead to a decisive weakening of the event. Nine months later, those fears have born fruit.

Edward Blakeman, the acting controller, has fulfilled his job admirably without the slightest hint from his superiors that he is the right man for the job. If they wanted to confirm him in the post, launch day was the time to do it. They refused.  He survives without a vote of confidence.

The absence of a strong controller has exposed the Proms to all the corporate forces within the BBC that Wright – and before him Nicholas Kenyon and John Drummond – fought with vigour and resolution. The forces of darkness that seek to equalise all forms of activity and creativity within the BBC. The foolish and malign executives who, on an annual basis, propose ‘sharing’ the Proms around the BBC and, ultimately with outside sponsors.

Those forces have won round one.

The imposition of club music night with DJ Pete Tong on the classically-oriented BBC Proms was, we know for a fact, never contemplated in Wright’s time. It was easy to push through a temp controller and a civil servant head of Radio 3, Alan Davey.

Aside from Pete Tong, there is BBC Asian Network Night, BBC Radio 6 Night, BBC Radio 1Xtra, Radio 2 Night and so on….

You can see what’s happening. The Proms are being parcelled out across the BBC as corporate property in which any and all of 100 BBC executives on 100k salaries can feel free to mangle for their own politcally correct purposes.

Watch out, sponsorship will be next.

The Proms are what they are because strong controllers over recent decades have preserved their musical character – their Fach, as musicians would say. The Proms are a festival of high-value classical and contemporary music. They are now at risk of being royally Fached up.

As Richard Morrison warns in today’s Times: ‘The Proms ultimately come under the “arts and music” grandees at the BBC who seem to have little passion for the classical repertoire…. It doesn’t take long to wreck an indestructible British institution.’

Cracks have begun to appear in the indomitable Proms. The glorious festival will soon fall to pieces unless someone stands up to defend the Fach.

At the Proms launch last night, I chatted briefly to Martin Anderson, founder of Toccata Press and Toccata Classics, and all-round enthusiast for interesting and important music.

Martin confided to me that Yodit, ‘the love of my life’, was dying in hospital of stomach cancer.

Yodit died at 2.15 this morning, aged 44. She is survived by Martin and their son Alex, 5.

Yodit and Martin met seven years ago at a concert in Cadogan Hall. They had planned to get married this spring, but the cancer was too quick.

Several composers are writing pieces in her memory.

May she rest in peace.

And may music bring comfort to Martin and Alex.