London Guildhall School has appointed Rebecca Gilliver, principal cellist of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), to be its professor of cello.
The school and the orchestra inhabit the same Barbican Centre.
Congratulations all round.
Zachary Woolfe, classical music editor of the New York Times, wrote a heated review last month of a Mozart opera at a festival in France. The article provoked a noted Mozart authority, Professor Ralph P. Locke, to send a dissenting letter to the Times, questioning the extent of Woolfe’s knowledge of Mozart. The Times did not publish it.
So Professor Locke has circulated the letter, none too privately. He makes several good points. Not fit to print in the Times, apparently.
To the Editor of the Arts Section (New York Times):
Zachary Woolfe (Sunday, July 17, Can a Tool of Power Bring Change?) proposes that operas from earlier eras were a “tool of [elite] power.” An opera house today, he feels, is morally bound to alter works substantially—or to replace them with new works—in order to “make reparations” for the damage that those works have done over the centuries. His examples include operas by Mozart.
The Abduction from the Seraglio—Woolfe claims—“makes comedy out of sex slavery [in Turkey].” But comedy can take many forms. In Blonde’s duet with her captor Osmin, the Englishwoman undermines—through sharp-witted verbal and musical ridicule of her self-appointed “master”—his smug demand that a mere “slave-woman” obey his every wish. Here comedy is put to the service of social critique. More generally, Mozart’s operas are attuned to the evils of male privilege and domination, whether in Europe (as in Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro) or elsewhere (as inAbduction and The Magic Flute).
As for slavery generally, a notable scene in Abduction is omitted from most productions. It involves a “mute black man” who is apparently a slave. His situation is not treated at all comically. The Magic Flute contains two remarkable spoken scenes (likewise rarely included) in which three male slaves—apparently Egyptian—complain bitterly about their cruel slave-driver, Monostatos. And yet, despite their sufferings, the slaves show empathy for the captive (and “white”) princess Pamina.
Great operas are often richer in nuance and complexity than commentators—and certain strongly interventionist stage directors—seem to realize.
Ralph P. Locke
Clarksburg, Maryland
(professor emeritus, Eastman School of Music)
The Bulgarian mezzo Vesselina Kasarova has pulled out of the Innsbruck Festival of Ancient Music, where she was due to sing Fidalma in Cimarosa’s rarely-seen Il Matrimonio Segreto.
A festival statement said Vesselina had returned home to Switzerland to recover from being attacked late at night by two unknown persons who tried to snatch her handbag. It is not clear where the attack took place and whether the attackers were apprehended. The festival said certain details were being withheld.
The Italian mezzo Loriana Castellano, who has appeared in other Cimarosa works, has learned the role with a few days to spare, saving the production.
Our social affairs editor has brought in a picture of the wedding on July 29 of the brilliant young Jamie Phillips to his beloved Rosie.
Jamie, 25, is associate conductor of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester and a Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
We wish the young couple every possible happiness.
There’s huge fuss and confusion about the diva’s weekend interview in which she said she would not be singing Elsa – or anything else – at Bayreuth as she found the German too difficult.
The first confusion arose from differences between the FAZ print edition and the shorter online version of the interview. This has now been rectified.
But Katharina Wagner has now issued a statement saying Netrebko had behaved absolutely correctly, ‘but we’re still talking to her’.
‘Wir stehen seit längerem in Kontakt, aber es gab noch keine Verhandlungen, auch nicht für einen Vorvertrag. Anna Netrebko hat sich absolut korrekt verhalten. Und von Anfang an hatte sie gesagt, dass sie auch erst einmal Dresden abwarten und schauen will, wie ihr die Rolle liegt. Das ist doch legitim. Wir stehen weiterhin in Gesprächen.’
The bizness guys behind the sassy 5 Piano Guys are showing more than a billion hits for their channel of quirky para-classical videos, such as this:
That would put their channel among Youtube’s top 100.
Are we excited? Can we trust those stats?
We’ll be publishing a piece shortly on how artists buy social media fans by bulk.
press release:
The newly appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP delivered her maiden speech from Music Room at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall today.
The Culture Secretary said: ‘Liverpool – and the UK – punches way above its weight for Culture, Media and Sport’ and that it was ‘a privilege to be here at the Philharmonic.’
Speaking about the importance of the arts and outlining her plans to increase access to arts and culture, she cited Liverpool Philharmonic’s In Harmony Liverpool as an example of an incredibly successful project.
‘That is only possible thanks to expert tuition. You can’t get better than the Liverpool Philharmonic and their teachers and musicians have made a huge difference.’
In Harmony Liverpool was established in in 2009. From initially working with 84 children in its first year, In Harmony Liverpool now has a weekly reach to 720 children aged 0-17 and their families in 2016, all taking part in orchestral music-making of the highest quality every week, free of charge, in and out of school.
Liverpool Philharmonic’s Chief Executive, Michael Eakin said:
‘We were delighted to welcome the Secretary of State to Liverpool Philharmonic today to make her maiden speech in the City. The cultural sector creates the highest quality art, of global significance. And also, and as importantly, is working at a deep level within local communities, able to profoundly affect the social and educational health of towns and cities; in Liverpool Philharmonic’s case through programmes such as In Harmony Liverpool.
‘Liverpool, recently achieving status as England’s first UNESCO City of Music, recognises culture as fundamental to its future success as a place in which to invest, live, work and study and the potential of partnerships to support it for many years. Our colleagues and partners across the sector are keen to work with DCMS to provide whatever help we can to ensure that culture has its right place on the national agenda.’
Read the Secretary of State’s entire speech here.
The New Jersey-based composer Sarah Kirkland Snider has just won a publishing contract with Music Sales Ltd.
Her husband Steven Mackey has long been with arch-rivals Boosey & Hawkes.
Good to keep these things separate.
Here’s the press release:
Music Sales Corporation (G. Schirmer and Associated Music Publishers) is pleased to announce an exclusive agreement with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider. With the signing, Snider becomes the newest composer to join the Music Sales Group. Kathy Schuman, Vice President and Artistic Director of G. Schirmer, Inc., said, ‘I am thrilled to welcome Sarah to the Music Sales family and look forward to working with one of today’s most exciting and singular compositional voices.’
‘I’m elated to join the Music Sales/G. Schirmer musical family. Their time-honored dedication to new music is extraordinary, and I’m immensely honored and excited to join the wonderful roster of composers they support,’ observed Snider.
Snider’s works have been commissioned and performed by some of the most prestigious orchestras and soloists throughout the world, including the San Francisco, Detroit, Indianapolis, and North Carolina Symphonies, Residentie Orkest Den Haag, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra; violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, percussionist Colin Currie, and vocalist Shara Nova (formerly Worden); Ensemble Signal, The Knights, yMusic, and Roomful of Teeth, among many others.
The great vision of John Maynard Keynes in August 1946 was for an arts council that would water grass roots up and down the land ‘with modest funds … to stimulate, comfort and support’ artistic activity. The AC was to be independent of Government, protected by ‘an arm’s length’ from political influence.
That’s how it was meant to be, and that’s how it began. The largest grant in 1946 was £25,000 to Covent Garden, around £1 million in 2016 spending terms. The first orchestra to receive subsidy was given £2,000. Modest, and sufficient for the times.
What we have today is a behemoth, bossed around by the Department of Culture and whichever party is in power, bleating in tune with every political correctness, spending around £20 to £25 million on big clients like Covent Garden and the South Bank and offering little in the way of ‘comfort and support’. Only more forms to fill in.
Its chair is a Big Brother television baron. Its chief executive tweets his policies from up and down the land.
The Arts Council has just given £5.3 million in ‘Elevate grants’ to 40 organisations with a view to help them ‘improve diversity’. No-one mentions improving art.
Keynes would not recognise today’s Arts Council. Nor would he think much of it. The organisation is far too large and far too subservient to Whitehall. It has become so irrelevant that no public media have noticed its significant anniversary.
It is beyond redemption in both the structural and ideological sense. The German method works better for the arts. So does the French.
We need to take the best advice from Europe, and start again.
That’s what Keynes would have done.
Christoph von Dohnanyi, suffering complications after cataract surgery, has been ordered by doctors not to fly long-haul before Christmas.
As a result Christoph, 87 next month, has pulled out of Tanglewood’s closing Beethoven Ninth.
Happily, Boston’s Andris Nelsons is on hand to take over, enjoying free time after his Bayreuth walkout.
We wish Christoph a full recovery.
The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has announced that school and college students can come to all concerts for free, so long as they book tickets in time.
The announcement says they can start booking from today, on the website.
Students up to 17 need to be accompanied by a ticket-bearing adult; college students will be asked to show ID.
It’s a bold idea. More here.
A regular director with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Teatro Colón, and New York City Opera, Kay Walker Castaldo gently steered the young Anna up a difficult stage staircase in I Capuleti e i Montecchi.
A Clevelander, Kay was associate professor at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of Michigan.
Obituary here.
