The Leipzig opera audience was informed before last night’s Wagner performance that cellist Hendrik Zwiener had died in a tragic road accident.
An orchestra member for ten years, Hendrik was a human rights activist with his own foundation that campaigned against notable acts of injustice.
An expert mountain cyclist, he was struck on a main road by a heavy goods vehicle while returning home from the orchestra.
The final wish of a fallen Gewandhaus cellist.
A statement today from the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra read: ‘The concert of Jane Birkin and Gaisbourg Symphonic Concert was cancelled due to an unspecified reason’.
The reason is not secret: Ms Birkin was denied a visa, apparently because of statements she has made in support of an independent Tibet.
Now an internal investigation is being carried out as to why a known opponent of Chinese policy was invited to Shanghai in the first place.
The timing is especially unfortunate as the New York Philharmonic are presently in Shanghai as part of their exchange deal with the Shanghai Symphony.
They have been phoning around for four days and can’t sign a maestro of appropriate quality.
Either the big batons are busy, or… well, it’s Bayreuth, not the most conductor-friendly place on earth.
Less than four weeks to go and Parsifal may have to conduct himself. Wait, who’s that bloke on the bench?
In February 2015, Frank-Peter Zimmermann surrendered his 1711 Lady Inchiquin Stradivarius to a finance company, Portigon, that was under orders to sell it for the highest price. The German virtuoso had played the instrument on loan for 12 years and was devastated to lose it.
He struggled on with a loan instrument but the pain never went away.
Today, the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia arranged for the Lady Inchiquin aranged for it to be repurchased for him to play.
That’s enlightened government for you.
Shortly after coming off stage near Cannes on Saturday night, Bernard Imbert collapsed and died.
He was taking part in an Offenbach medley at the Théâtre Robinson de Mandelieu.
Much in demand for minor roles in the south of France, Bernard was a regular Schaunard in Bohème and gave 250 performances in Paris in Les Miserables.
No cause of death has yet been given.
The pianist Peter Seivewright, playing in Donetsk, is reported to have said he’d be happy to live there if he had any problems with the UK authorities on his return home.
Donetsk was seized by ‘pro-Russian forces’ in 2014 and declared independent from the Ukraine. Fighting and human rights abuses continue in the region.
Peter Seivewright is quoted in official media saying: ‘If I have any problems with the British authorities because of the visit to the DNR, then I will leave the country and I move to you. I had liked your young Republic very much so I am ready to stay in the DPR.’
Statement by John Smith, General Secretary of the MU:
‘We suspect that this will be very bad news for musicians. Over the years MU members have benefited from open borders, a protective copyright regime and various directives which directly benefit them in their workplaces. We will no longer be able to jointly campaign with our former EU colleagues, nor will we be able to take part in the EU social dialogue committees on live performance and audio-visual. We must prepare for the introduction of border controls with the possibility of work permits and/or travel visas for musicians working in Europe. My initial reaction is one of profound depression, we will certainly have to be vigilant over the next crucial few months.’
The MU website adds:
‘We would like to reassure all MU members that we will continue to monitor this fast moving situation and that we will release further statements as information becomes available. It is important to remember that negotiations to leave the EU are going to be long and protracted and there should therefore be no immediate change in conditions or travel for musicians. We will ensure that we continue to represent our members’ interests every step of the way. If you have any immediate concerns, please get in touch.’
Howard Griffiths has told the state of Brandenburg orchestra that he’ll be stepping down as Generalmusikdirektor in 2018.
Griffiths, 66, will have been in the job for 13 years.
The rightwing UK weekly assumes a wilfully confrontational tone, but this week’s assault on the popular Welsh composer Karl Jenkins descends to the coprophiliac epistolary expressions of W. A. Mozart at his most puerile.
The critic is Philip Clark. Here’s the nub of his review of the 2,000th (sic) performance of Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man – a Mass for Peace’:
Jenkins’ music has always been, and probably always will be, utter crap.
If you believe ‘crap’ to be unworthy of the critical lexicon, no word could be more apt. Believe me, nothing would have given me greater pleasure than going on record in calling his music shit. But to do so would be to imbue the Jenkins oeuvre with a whiffy pungency it palpably lacks. Some music is genuinely shit. Other music has a state of shitness thrust upon it – but the best shit music has at least tried to hit some aesthetic or technical goal that ultimately proved beyond it. But Jenkins’ jingles have no goal or ambition.And so, through no fault of its own, crap – that nondescript, expressively done to death, meaningless descriptor – turns out to be the only possible word left to convey the horror of Jenkins’ music and everything that surrounds it.
Clark, one imagines, wrote those words long before he attended a concert which no-one required him to attend. In a fellowship application, Clark writes of himself: ‘Aware of the over-use of stock phraseology in music journalism Clark has tried to produce writing that plays with the form and teases reader expectations.’
Here he is playing with human evacuations, taking a dump on an event that gave simple pleasure to thousands – and for no reason better than earning an utterly pitiful fee. Full review here.
This week, music criticism in print newspapers took a step towards the cesspit.
Shit crit?
Of six conductors in the race to be music director of the New Mexico Philharmonic, the two standout names are Marcelo Lehninger and Roberto Minczuk.
Lehninger has only just been named music director in Grand Rapids, but clearly needs a second job.
As for Minczuk, he has just wound up his term at the Calgary Philharmonic and is no longer in command of the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira.
The other four candidates are Rune Bergmann, Oriol Sans, Grant Cooper and Fawzi Haimor.
Bob Cafaro won an audition to join the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1985.
Fourteen years later, he was diagonised with MS.
Today, he is still playing in the orchestra.
How did he do that?
Diet, exercise and mind-set.
He has written a book about it.
Yannick calls it ‘an invaluable lesson for those who love music, health, and life.’
The composer Franz Cibulka, widely performed by wind ensembles the world over, has died in Graz at the age of 69.
Professor of clarinet and composition at the Fux conservatory in Graz, he leaves a legacy of some 500 works.
