This week’s Lebrecht Album of the Week:
There has only ever been one live cycle of the Vaughan Williams symphonies – by the late Richard Hickox – and the recorded versions – Boult, Previn, Handley, Hickox, Slatkin, Paul Daniel – are not always distinguished by the best of British orchestral playing. So the heart soars – yes, lifts right out of its chamber and into summer skies – at the glorious first sound of two symphonies that herald a full new cycle….
The international conductor has added his voice to the condemnation of the EU’s decision to defund its youth orchestra. He writes:
The decision taken by the European Community to stop subsidizing its Youth Orchestra is a grave political error on the part of those whose role it is to protect culture and its institutions, the education of young people and society in general.
The EUYO was formed 40 years ago to represent exceptionally gifted and carefully selected young artists from what is now a 28-member political, economic and cultural entity. It doesn’t require great imagination to appreciate the impact that this orchestra has on forming the young generation of musicians and the audiences it performs for internationally.
These musicians are destined to represent the world of classical music for decades to come. They are the mirror of what the European Community aspires to be. To stop supporting them constitutes a betrayal of a fundamental belief that culture too defines every civilization. Not only wars.
No response yet from the Juncker bunker.
Forced out of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, the conductor has rolled his own.
Information just received:
The ultimate A:B test across the board.
How do you score?
Watch out for Kaufmann vis Fillipeschi at 14:00.
It’s La Traviata in Rome, directed by Sofia Coppola, entire run of 15 performances sold out.
Jader Bignamini conducts. Francesca Dotto and Maria Grazia Schiavo are double-cast as Violetta. Antonio Poli, Arturo Chacon-Cruz and Matteo Desole alternate as Alfredo.
The sets are by Nathan Crowley, a British production designer who worked on Batman films.
Valentino’s chief designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli have done the costumes.
Old pianists don’t fade away.
They turn 85.
Time for a retro festival at the Konzerthaus Berlin next year with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Lisa Batiashvili, Kit Armstrong and other Brendel followers on stage. Plans announced this morning.
Glyndebourne’s new general director Sebastian Schwarz tells the Times he’s relaxed about how people turn up to the black-tie opera festival:
I would never turn away someone in jeans and a leather jacket, but nor do I think it’s elitist to dress up. The more special you feel, the more special will be the experience. And these days there are many more ways to dress up stylishly and flamboyantly and reflect your personality. Why not imitate what’s happening on the stage? You don’t necessarily have to put on a baroque wig, though wouldn’t that be a lovely sight on the lawn?’
Something like these guys, taking during Washington DC’s current Ring?
photo (c) Marianna Gray
The Dutch love tall poppies and always know how to reward success.
They’ve just taken 10 percent off state funding for the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the country’s most exciting orchestra.
Subsidy over the next four years is down from 4.4 million Euros to 3.9m.
The advice from the Cultural Council still requires ministerial approval.
Photo Marco Borggreve
Mark Williams, Director of Music at Jesus College, Cambridge, has been appointed Informator Choristarum (Choir Master) at Magdalen College, Oxford, starting January 1, 2017.
One of the most popular and respected figures on the choral circuit, his genial exterior belying outstanding musicality and shrewd diplomatic abilities, Williams, 37, is another excellent appointment in Oxford, following the recent arrival of Robert Quinney at New College.
Meanwhile, in the Fens, eyes are turning to the big one at King’s. Stephen Cleobury will turn 70 on New Year’s Eve 2018, a few days after Kings celebrates its 100th “Nine Lessons and Carols”. That could be the moment for one of the biggest dog-collar fights in Anglican music since Tudor times.
Oliver Knussen issued the following diatribe last night at the Ivor Novello awards:
‘Some of us who write music today, we don’t write very far out music, we don’t write very populist music, we write what we believe in and to communicate a vision.
‘There are an extraordinary number of incredibly gifted young composers … please BBC don’t relegate all of us to a two-hour slot that you seem to regard as a place to put pond life.
‘Our music is to be used, we write it for us and sometimes it’s a little prickly but some very nice things are prickly, I’ve heard.’
The inaugural winners of the University of Michigan’s Chamber Arts Competition are the Calidore String Quartet.
The quartet, average age 27, beat four saxophonists and a piano-percussion foursome in the final.
Players: Jeffrey Myers; Ryan Meehan; Jeremy Berry; Estelle Choi.
It’s a thorny tax question. If a maestro’s main job is with one orchestra, can he be considered freelance for the purposes of claiming peripheral expenses against tax?
The case was fought out yesterday in a Dresden court between Philharmonic music director Michael Sanderling and the local taxman.
Maestro won.
(Between fuzzy lines.)
Read here.
