A gift from the DSCH Journal. Listen here.
One of the highlights of my year was spending a summer afternoon and evening with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, working on Mahler’s ninth symphony. Alert, hungry, funny, courteous and tolerant of my bad jokes, these young musicians – few of whom may become adult professionals – represented everything one could wish for in citizens of the next generation.
They went on to give performances of the ninth symphony in London and Berlin at a standard that was above and beyond what we are led to believe of the Vienna Philharmonic in Mahler’s day.
I’d love you to meet these 163 young musicians, aged 11 to 19. Click on their profiles here.
And check out their next concerts:
Saturday, 2 January – Leeds Town Hall
Sunday, 3 January – Barbican, London
Monday, 4 January – BBC Radio 3 broadcast
Dawn Hui is a Juilliard-trained violinist who played tutti in the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Today, she’s Asst. Professor Surgery at St Louis University Hospital.
Around Christmas time, Dawn pulls on a sweater and plays for the patients.
Watch.
And read more here.
The great Russian baritone will resume his treatment for brain cancer in London early in the New Year.
He has therefore cancelled Il Trovatore at the Met on February 3, 6, 9 and 13.
Dmitri will be replaced in the role of di Luna by Juan Jesús Rodríguez, making his Met debut.
In 1944 the great violinist Jascha Heifetz made a spontaneous violin-piano interpretation of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”, which Decca promptly transcribed and rush-recorded with an orchestra.
Jascha, however, never wrote down his arrangement and the orchestral parts were lost.
Sixty years later Nate Sabat of Berklee College of Music has carefully reconstructed it for violin and piano. Enjoy.
Like the Pope in St Peter’s Square, the maestro has given his annual interview blessing to Corriere della Sera.
In in, Riccardo Muti laments the decline of the essence of Italy, its savours, its habits and its music. He has a nice way of evoking an image:
The Alps separate the world of frost and suet from the sun and the oil. Our blood circulates differently. And the essence of our spirit is melody. Pavarotti was the greatest of the past half-century not just for voice, but because he sang with a mixture of joy and sadness that is in our nature.
Unfortunately Italy today can no longer either suffer, or smile.
… I remember the first time I went to the Bellini (Theatre). It was 1966, and Catania was filled with the scent of orange blossoms; today you smell only kebab. I owe everything to Italy. In particular, I owe it all to the South.
Minuit Chrétien, ‘O Holy Night’ is a Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the poem ‘Minuit, chrétiens’ by Placide Cappeau.
Enrico Caruso made the recording on February 23, 1916. He recorded no other seasonal novelty.
The never-to-be-forgotten sings about infidelity at holiday time.
The title means Happy Christmas. Full lyrics here.
photo from « Barbara, photographies inédites ». Castor Astral. 35 euros
Inimitable power and seasonal beauty from our featured artist.
