This is Aaron Blecker, retired Manhattan CPA, talking to the Met orchestra musicians:

The first time I went to the Met was in 1936, with my future wife, Sophie Barman. When we were dating, we discovered that we both liked opera, but neither of us could afford to go. I wanted to surprise her, so I bought two tickets. To save up enough money, I sacrificed some lunches and walked with packages instead of taking the subway. We saw Tristan und Isolde. Lauritz Melchior sang, I believe. We sat in the uppermost part of the second balcony at the old Met at 40th and Broadway. Each ticket cost 55 cents.

We loved it. It’s 80 years later and I still remember it. She was happy that I got it and we were both happy that we saw it. To go to the opera was a great treat for us. To be able to see it in person and hear the splendid voices…with the records you had a lot of static, and to hear the voices live was a much more thrilling experience.

Full interview here.

Aaron hopes to be present for the dress rehearsal of Tristan und Isolde this fall.

Friends are sharing word of the death of Peter Sadlo, one of the most successful percussion virtuosi.

He died of complications following a surgical operation.

Spotted when he was 20 by Sergiu Celibidache, Peter became principal timpanist of the Munich Philharmonic in 1982 and professor of percussion at the city’s music academy.

He added the Salzburg Mozarteum in 1990 and from there developed a major solo career. He could play everything, from Bach to bloues.

Last year, he was awarded the Frankfurt Music Prize.

Our sympathies to his family.

The Irish conductor and games composer Eimear Noone has won judgement in Los Angele against Jason Michael Paul Productions Inc. for firing her from the production of “The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses” after she got pregnant.

A jury awarded Eimear $647,000 in compensation, having decided that the company acted with malice.

Report here.

The German pianist and conductor Justus Frantz had a lucky escape after a shark bit his leg as he was swimming in waters off Hong Kong.

He spent several days in hospital with severe lacerations. Justus says he got off lightly. The shark was a small one.

He ‘s back conducting this week at German festivals.

From the review:

This is one the world has been waiting for. The Minnesota Orchestra’s partnership with the Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä is a treasure of our times, especially when they play music of the frozen north. Minnesota is sufficiently remote from the rest of musical America to maintain its own sound and Vänskä, ever the iconoclast, has his own particular way of refreshing familiar scores. The start of their Sibelius cycle hit the decks with a whoosh five years ago.

Then, disaster…

Read on here. Or here.

Peter Dobrin reports:

….It seems impossible, but with the closing of F.Y.E., Center City may be without a brick-and-mortar store selling new classical releases for the first time since the dawn of the recording era.

F.Y.E. put considerable care into its classical department, and for years after it took over from Tower in 2007, the store was a place where you would bump into other classical lovers. Much of the city’s arts sector today is concentrated along Broad and up Walnut Streets. Record stores had tentacles that reached into local music schools and concert halls. There you might spy a pianist performing that night for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, or get seduced by a clever bit of album art….

More here.

We have been notified of the death of Fred Tomlinson, a very active session singer and a strong member of Equity’s Concert & Session Singers Committee, working with John Noble, Les Fyson, Meryl Dickenson, Edgar Fleet, Terry Edwards and others. As leader of the Fred Tomlinson Singers, he provided vocals for the Two Ronnies and other TV shows.

He also made a major impact as Chairman of the Peter Warlock Society for about 25 years, and author of several books about this oddest of English composers.

Fred’s funeral will be next Wednesday at Breakspear Crematorium, Breakspear Road, Ruislip, HA4 7SJ at 1.15pm.

Among other unsung triumphs, we learn that he wrote the lumberjack song for Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Amazing grace:

A long lost copper engraving by German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) has found its way back to the southern German Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. The graphic work dating from 1520 was thought to have been lost during the Second World War and had been registered in the specialized “Lost Art“ database.

More here.

The BIS owner Robert von Bahr has sent us this reminiscence and fond farewell from his recent meeting with the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, who has died aged 87.

Interesting that Norman would mention the Flute Concerto from 1975. It is a work, with which I feel particularly at home, since it was I, who commissioned it (and paid for out of my own pocket). It is dedicated to my first wife, Gunilla, who premièred it in the Nordic Music Days in Reykjavík, Iceland, but never recorded it. Composed for a flautist with all four flutes, from piccolo to bass flute in C, it is an intensely personal work, setting many moods, all very typically Finnish. It was later re-written as a version for a flautist without the rare bass flute, using “only” the upper three.

As chance had it, Sharon Bezaly von Bahr recorded it (both versions!) and I had the immense pleasure of presenting the brand new SACD:s to Einojuhani a couple of months ago. He was then in a rather bad shape and had difficulties in talking, but there was no hiding away the fact that he immensely enjoyed the record and the about one-hour long visit from a friend that went back over 40 years.

Robert von Bahr

The first review in the Salzburger Nachrichten acknowledges frenzied applause for The Exterminating Angel, but finds the plot boring and lacking in surprise: Wer Intention, Stück und Aufführung so zu lesen versuchte, musste sich wie im falschen Film wähnen. Wen das nicht anfocht, jubelte aus seiner Sicht womöglich zu Recht.

Der Standard notes that the Thomas Ades premiere, based on a Luis Bunel film, was a substitute for an intended opera by the late György Ligeti.

Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith made their recordings with the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra because they loved its principal trumpet, John Gracie.

Yesterday, after 35 years, John blew his last notes with the orchestra and went into retirement.

He remains Professor of Trumpet at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and a member of the Paragon Ensemble, Chamber Group of Scotland, and the RSNO Brass Ensemble.

The London violinist Krysia Osostowicz, who got her precious violin back within a day after it was stolen, has posted a note of thanks to all who helped in the search:

Dear Friends,
for those of you who haven’t already heard, I’m thrilled to report that my violin has been recovered! A woman took it in to sell at Cash Converters in Streatham, where the wonderful manager recognised it from my description and called the police. Now my fiddle is still being held at Brixton Police station as an item of evidence; I really hope to get it back today.
I want to thank you so much for all your kind messages over the past couple of days; it’s been amazing and touching to get so much moral support. Please share this message, and thank you!
Krysia x

It appears Krysia  dropped off ‘missing’ leaflets at local secondhand shops and an alert assistant in Streatham High Road recognised the violin case from her description, phoning her when the ‘seller’ was unable to unlock it.

A woman, 36, is being held in custody on suspicion of handling stolen goods.