Our bass pal, Morris Robinson.

When he talks about ‘NFL standards’, I’m hearing ‘Vienna Phil’…

English National Opera, unable to afford much by way of new productions, is imitating some of the London orchestras by running a movie at the Coliseum with live orchestral soundtrack.

The point? To keep the orchestra employed and the house from going dark.

Details here.

An Italian, Luchino Visconti, brought Gustav Mahler to media attention by using the Adagietto from his fifth symphony as the theme music for his film Death in Venice, in 1971.

It was perfectly suited to the film’s themes of love and death and it reflected the fact that Thomas Mann had modelled its central character, physically and temperamentally, on Gustav Mahler, whom he knew and revered. Mann and Viconti respected the man and the music.

Gucci have now used the same theme, non-contextually, for naked commercial gain.

Watch.

Does anyone known which orchestra is playing on this corruption?

UPDATE: Apparently, it’s Alain Lombard with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. An old recording, and not one I had heard before.

The balladeer, conspicuously frail and 82 today, has heen working with the cantor and chorus of Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue for the opening track of his new single, You Want it Darker, also out today.

The refrain he sings is: ‘Hineni Hineni; I’m ready, my Lord.’

Make of that what you will.

Canton Gideon Zelermyer says: ‘Hineni literally means here I am. I’m too young to know everything about Leonard, but I know he does not use words without purpose.

‘Hineni has one major reference back to the Old Testament, relating to Abraham in God preventing him from sacrificing his son Isaac. But in this case, I think hineni is more a reference to Leonard as someone trying to come to an understanding with God, someone reckoning with final tallies in the Book of Life: Here I am — I am ready.’

You can listen to the track here.

The melody has distinct resonances of Ashkenazi High Holidays worship.

The Swiss cellist Martin Tillman has been the go-to soloist for Hans Zimmer and other blockbuster composers for more than 30 years.

Now he has composed an album of his own, a tribute to his wife, Eva, who is suffering from multiple sclerosis.

‘The feeling came from desperation, sadness, the shock of the diagnosis and from her being gradually weakened over the years, and I knew I wanted to write an album that helped her to not feel hopeless, and to empower her with the sounds,’ he says.

Read on here.

Listen here.

Neither has ever sung in a staged opera in Moscow.

That’s about to change.

Anna Netrebko will open in Manon Lescat at the Bolshoi in October 16.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky will appear in Don Carlos in December.

The Bolshoi chief Vladimir Urin has said that other world-renowned Russian singers are planning to work with the company, a sure sign of its revival. Expec appearances from Hibla Gerzmava, Ildar Abdrazakov, Olga Peretyatko and Ekaterina Gubanova.

He tells the Deadly Fail:

Last year my weight reached over 13st and I’m 5ft 4in tall. Tests showed the arteries around my heart had clogged up. I had a couple of stents inserted in April to prop them open, but was told to lose weight for my health. The one thing that worked for me was visiting a nutritionist in New York called Dr Stephen Gullo. I had to cut out pasta, rice and potatoes. It was a wrench for an Irishman! Now I’m just over 11st and trying to get under it.

Health book that changed your life?

Stephen Gullo’s The Thin Commandments Diet: The Ten No-Fail Strategies For Permanent Weight Loss. It forces you to keep a diary of your food intake and it helps you identify what’s responsible for piling on the pounds.

More here. 

The eminent violist and conductor, founder of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, fled the Soviet Union in 1977 and went on to head orchestras in Israel, Canada, the UK, France and Germany. Barshai died in Switzerland in 2010.

Now his widow, Elena, will deposit his music archive at the Moscow Conservatoire in a ceremony next week.

Founder of two major Russian symphony orchestras, in Volgograd and Ulyanovsk, Edward Serov was a runner-up in the first Herbert von Karajan conducting competition.

After a term as assistant to Yevgeny Mravinsky at the Leningrad Philharmonic, he became chief conductor of the city’s chamber orchestra, from 1974 to 1985.

Abroad, Serov was music director in Odense, Denmark, in the early 1990s.

He made more than 50 commercial recordings and particularly championed the music of Boris Tchaikovsky and Boris Tischenko.

The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1946 by German musicians who had been ruthlessly expelled from liberated Czechoslovakia (most were members of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague).

This weekend, Bamberg instals a new chief conductor, Jakub Hrusa.

He’s Czech.

Cheers.

Cosi updated to the First World War. Brilliant art.

To see a larger image, right-click to open in new tab.

All concerts are off for the rest of the month.

The hardline board have pushed the strike on into October.

Details here.

Worth noting that the board is chaired by Mercedes Bass, who sits on both the Met and Carnegie hall boards.

The cancellations include three concerts scheduled for Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 that featured pianist Stephen Hough performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

“We regret that we had to cancel these performances due to the ongoing strike. The continued and loyal support of patrons and ticket holders during this difficult time is truly appreciated,” said Mercedes Bass, chairman of the symphony’s board of directors, in a statement. “The management and board are steadfastly committed to operating in a responsible manner to secure the future of this orchestra.”