The Future Symphony Institute, a Baltimore-based initiative to define the next big thing, has commissioned a article from the conservative philosopher Roger Scruton. Sample:
… Botched philosophy has dominated the modern classical repertoire. Very few composers have philosophical gifts, and fewer still attempt to justify their music in philosophical terms – the great exception being Wagner, who, despite his vast literary output, always allowed his instinctive musicianship to prevail when it conflicted with his philosophical theories. But it is precisely the absence of philosophical reflection that has led to the invasion of the musical arena by half-baked ideas. Without the firm foundations provided by a live culture of music-making, philosophy is the only guide that we have; and when good philosophy is absent, bad philosophy steps in to the gap.
The worst example of this, and it is an example whose influence is almost as strong today as it was in the aftermath of the Second World War, is Theodor Adorno’s Philosophy of New Music, first published in 1947. In that book Adorno develops the philosophy of a major composer, who almost succeeded in doing what Wagner happily failed to do, which was to replace the reality of music by an abstract idea of it. Schoenberg’s twelve-tone serialism was based on a set of ideas that are clearly disputable, but which, because of the pretence of system, could overwhelm the hesitant objections of mere music-lovers.
Read the full essay. Why Musicians Need Philosophy, here.
A source in the English National Orchestra says that they were told today of plans to cut the chorus.
As of next season, chorus members will have their contracts cut to 75% of present contracts and will be out of work from May to August.
The orchestra were also told that there is no guarantee for the future.
English National Opera is under extreme financial pressure since the Arts Concil cut their grant.
By general consent, they are producing their best work, but the Arts Council is not intereted in art.
The effect on the chorus will be devastating. Some will have to leave London to make ends meet.
Bad, bad news.
UPDATE: An ENO official tells us nothing is final, negotiations continue. But there will have to be cuts.
The celeb cellist gives ’em something different.
The great Russian baritone, undergoing treatment for brain cancer, has confirmed his next recital date.
press release:
Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky returns to Carnegie Hall in a recital with pianist Ivari Ilja on Wednesday, February 17 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, performing works by Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mahler, and Richard Strauss. The concert marks more than 25 years since Mr. Hvorostovsky’s Carnegie Hall debut 1990; he last performed at the Hall with Mr. Ilja in 2013.
Lidia Baich was parking her car in broad daylight on the Mahlerstrasse, near the Opera when, as she opened the door, a hand reached in and snatched her bag. Lidia let out a yell.
The robber dropped the bag and fled.
Lidia is fine. ‘I came within a hair’s breadth of being a robbery victim,’ she says.
Vienna needs more cops on the streets.
Vito Longo, chief administrator of the Teatro Petruzelli in Bari, has been arrested at home in connection with a bribery scandal.
He is suspected of handing out maintenance contracts for lighting and cleaning in return for cash during the months of November and December 2015.
The conductor Lothar Zagrosek, widely known in Germany and extensively recorded, has been recalling his experiences as a boy lodger at the celebrated cathedral choir school in Regensburg.
Aged ten, in his bath, his mother found blue welts on his body and his twin brother’s. He says that anyone who sang badly or out of turn was summoned to the library for a beating. Afterwards, ‘you had to call a cleaning lady to wipe up the blood.’
Lothar, now 73, mentions two unexplained deaths, a director with a long record of sexual offences and another with a Nazi Party medal.
The school choir was directed by Pope Benedict’s elder brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 to 1994. He denies all knowledge of brutality and sexual abuse. An official investigation has listed 231 known instances of abuse.
Read here.
Photo: Christian Nielinger
We are saddened to learn of the death of George Weidenfeld, publisher on a grand scale and passionate music follower who wined and dined many of the great musicians. George, who died last night, was 96.
We send love and sympathy to Annabelle, his widow.
A Hitler refugee from Vienna, George worked for the BBC during the War, then for a year with the first president of Israel, Chaim Weitzman, while founding one of the most internationalist of British publishing houses. He published, among others, the Pope, Hitler’s architect, Harold Wilson, Isaiah Berlin and ‘Lolita’.
His multifarious social life embraced such eminences as Daniel Barenboim, Menahem Pressler and Daniil Trifonov. He was a helpful bard member of English National Opera during one of its better eras.
His last initiative was to raise funds for refugee Syrian Christians.
He and I never worked together but we sometimes dined, always a pleasure.
Vincent Dubois, artist in resident at the University of Michigan, has been named organist of Notre-Dame in Paris, succeeding Jean-Pierre Leguay, who retired at the end of last year.
Our chers confrères at resmusica note that Vincent, 35, will join Olivier Latry and Philippe Lefebvre at the seat of the grand orgue.
The man who lost all his possessions in Portland, Oregon, when the car he lived in caught fire was (we have been informed by a Slipped Disc reader) one of the musicians who was forced out of the Minnesota Orchestra during its brutal lockout regime.
David Wright said at the time: ‘I played with the Minnesota Orchestra, and I was a career musician for 29 years. I heard from [MOA board member] Jim Davis last year, and I knew that this was not going to go well, so I left and took a severely reduced pension, with a cut of 11 percent.’
This was David then.
And now.
We’re trying to find a way to contact him and raise help.
The great violinist and his wife Toby are giving a joint talk at Princeton. The title: ‘My Goal is to Not Be Bored by What I Do’.
It’s at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9, in Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall.
A team from Munich University has found that the city’s opera house was pretty much left alone by the Nazis. Once Jewish staff and artists had been evicted early in 1933, the theatre suffered less interference than most others. It was never obliged to fly a swastika flag on the roof, or to engage in other acts of propaganda.
Hitler did plan to replace the historic building with a more grandiose model.
‘The best thing is, there is no scandal,’ said a relieved intendant, Nikolaus Bachler, on publication of the report.
That may well be, but I can’t help remembering Georg Solti telling me that, in 1946 when he was appointed music director, the orchestra of Bavarian Opera was ‘full of Nazis, of the worst kind’.
Bayreuth has, meanwhile, refused to grant access to its Nazi-era archives.
UPDATE: A reader points out that every document issued by Bavarian State Opera from February 1933 bore this stamp:
