The Hungarian conductor has issued the following statement on the death of Zoltan Kocsis:

Thye death was reported today of Zoltan Kocsis, international pianist and music director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra in Budapest.

He had been suffering illness for some time.

Kocsis was, with Ivan Fischer, Hungary’s pre-eminent concert musician.

They co-founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983 but parted ways when Kocsis demanded a greater role in conducting.

Kocsis became a favourite of the rightwing Orban government and was rewarded with a position at the head of the national orchestra in the national hall. In my conversations with him, he seemed indifferent to politics.

As a pianist, he was sensitive and passionate in equal measure. He recorded the complete piano music of Bartok for Philips, among many other recordings.

UPDATE: Ivan Fischer’s response.

The veteran director David Pountney is the force behind Independent Opera’s staging next week of the UK première of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus, at the Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells.

David, the opera’s translator, is director of Welsh National Opera. But he is passionate about restoring forgotten composers, such as Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Andre Tchaikovsky and Hartmann. As I have explained elsewhere, Hartmann was the only established composer in Germany who actively resisted the Nazi regime.

In this article, written for Slipped Disc, David Pountney explains why Hartmann needs to be heard – and now.

Karl Amadeus Hartmann was born in Munich in 1905 into a bohemian family of painters. Unlike his brothers and sister who became painters in turn, he turned towards music, eventually becoming a trombonist in the Munich Opera orchestra. In 1918 he witnessed the Bavarian workers revolt which broke out at the end of World War One and seemed for a time as if it might establish Bavaria as a separate, radical workers republic – a very curious thought now! The politics of this uprising were a lasting influence on Hartmann who continued to hold partly disguised Marxist views for the rest of his life.

“Disguise” is a salient word however, as his participation in the Jazz influenced world of Weimar music came abruptly to an enforced halt with the election of the National Socialists in 1933. From this point on Hartmann became a prime exponent of what was later termed “inner immigration”. How did this work?

He was careful neither to seek nor accept any commissions from the Reichsmusikkammer even though this body (under its President Richard Strauss!) continually demanded that he present proofs of his Aryan identity, and he studiously avoided performances of his works in the Third Reich, being able to rely on financial support from his wife’s family.  Instead he focused on achieving performances abroad with some success, which calls for a little care in considering his “arms length” status in regard to the Reichsmusikkammer. He would not have been allowed to travel abroad without that body’s tacit approval, so he was by default a member though refusing any act of participation. None of us who have not experienced totalitarian rule should ever judge the means by which people managed their lives under these impossible circumstances, but nonetheless a degree of nuance suggests that we should not exaggerate heroism or be too quick to denounce small compromises.

In artistic terms “inner immigration” manifested itself in very subtle, sometimes almost unreadable artistic signs embodied in his works, a technique described as “verdeckte schreibweise” (concealed ways of writing). Music, in this case, becomes a language to be de-coded, and as soon as we embark on this theme you will instantly recall the case of Shostakovich for whom this was also an essential but highly complex necessity. Simplicius contains many examples of this technique.

Firstly the theme itself of an Ur-Deutsch story going back to the peasants revolt (adulated by the Nazis) and the 30 Years War shows Hartmann “repatriating” a fundamental item of German cultural heritage and using it for anti war, anti-heroic, and hence for silently anti-fascist purposes. Then he incorporates into the music of Simplicius themes that represent forbidden musical cultures, thereby repatriating these too. In the overture there is a Jewish melody on the violas, “Eliahu ha-navi”, which he also uses even more explicitly in his second quartet of 1933.

Alongside this Jewish reference, at the end of the opera when the peasants are becoming radicalised, he uses a march theme from a Prokofiev piano work as if to invoke Soviet musical style, and furthermore includes a version of the traditional peasant protest song “Wir sind Geyer’s Schwarzer Haufen” which had in the meantime been mis-appropriated by the Nazis, and deliberately uses passages of “speech choir” which was a technique much used by “approved” Nazi composers.

Secrecy in music was of course an aspect of musical fashion not solely dependent on totalitarian supervision. Alban Berg’s fascination with numerological codes led him to incorporate hidden messages in his music, as did Shostakovich. The 5^th symphony, for instance, can be read as a searing parody of Soviet bombast, but just as you have satisfied yourself with this interpretation, it emerges that it also conceals quotations from Carmen which refer to a secret girl-friend. This reminds us that music is a hermetic language, and it may be reasonably questioned whether Hartmann’s secret protests incorporated into his Simplicius score could possibly be understood by anyone other than him. That is possibly the true meaning of inner immigration or “aesthetic resistance” as it is sometimes called: this is a secret dialogue with himself.

After the war, Hartmann was one of the very few surviving musicians still in Germany untainted by direct association with the Nazis, and was appointed dramaturg of the Bavarian State Opera. In addition, he was generously patronised by the Americans, keen to re-establish German culture and hence, political stability. Hartmann carefully airbrushed out his Marxist past, and in return the Americans generously helped him to found his extremely influential Musica Viva series which was generous in repatriating many of the composers stamped out by the Nazis, as well as giving ample opportunities to younger talents like Hans Werner Henze. Hartmann’s subtle and intelligent ability to move with the wind enabled him to achieve significant cultural advances, and his open spirit re-invigorated post war musical life in Germany.

Simplicius is in some ways at odds with this cultivated and sophisticated approach. The original story, a masterpiece from the 17^th century, reflects a brutal history of violence unequalled in Europe until the catastrophic but brief Fascist era. (In between, Europe had exported its violent tendencies to its colonies!) This relentless horror is ironically seen though the eyes of a helpless innocent, through whom it is visible in all its naked fury. The humane and compassionate Hartmann here finds a voice through whom he can speak about the evils of war with unrestrained loathing and abhorrence.

(c) David Pountney

In a rare interview with Corriere della Sera, she says she tried to betray the piano three times, with marriages to three different men. She had three daughters. But in the end, the piano demanded total love.

Quanto è difficile essere una leggenda del piano? «Il pianoforte è un amante esigente, ti vuole solo per sé. Ho provato a tradirlo, mi sono sposata tre volte, ho avuto tre figlie. Ma alla fine l’amore totale è lui. A cui sacrifichi gli affetti, anche i più cari. Non so se sono stata una buona madre, potrei tentare di migliorarmi come nonna.

Wow.

Amid ever-more hostile statements from Amy Adkins, CEO of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the clock is ticking on an embattled organisation where there seems to be no plan B.

The musicians went on strike in September after refusing to accept pay cuts. The board has cancelled all concerts for the rest of 2016 and has slammed the door on further talks until the musicians return on their knees.

That’s where things stand.

Now, look a little further ahead.

In May 2017, the Fort Worth SO is supposed to be playing for semi-final and final contestants in the Van Cliburn Competition, founded by the city’s most famous musician.

Supposed to.

If guarantees cannot be given by January, the Cliburn will (we hear) have to look elsewhere for an orchestra.

It won’t lack for offers. And the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra will have lost the jewel in its crown.

It’s only a matter of weeks since I heard Sir Nicholas Kenyon, head of the Barbican Centre, and Kathryn McDowell, ceo of the LSO, tell a crowded room that, come what may, they were pressing ahead with a new concert hall for their new music director, Sir Simon Rattle.

Well, come what may just came. Mrs May, the prime minister, killed off the plan for a new hall with a late-Friday afternoon press statement, designed for minimum public attention. And she was right to do so.

Because, as we have argued before, this was the wrong hall, in the wrong place, at the wrong time and with entirely the wrong motives. Yes, London needs a good concert hall, but not as a vanity object for a celebrity maestro not as something that would be pushed through without public consultation or assessment of civic need.

The half-billion pound hall would have aroused fury from most of the rest of the country, from underprivileged citizens whose benefits have been cut to the bone and from all whose respect the democratic process. This was a stitch-up between a Tory councillor, a Tory Mayor, a conductor’s agent and a few other in the music business. It was not a rational decision in any shape or form.

And to build it on the Devil’s Island site of the Museum of London, a concrete hell in a no-go area, was similarly ill-judged, an act of convenience on a site the City wanted off its hands.

That said, London still needs a decent concert space. The Royal Festival Hall sounds (and smells) worse each time I go there, likewise the Royal Albert Hall. Both are beyond further acoustic repair. The Barbican, poor as it is, has been further damaged in the public perception by recent disparagements from Rattle, Kenyon, McDowell and Co.

But where should that hall be?

Before any further consideration is given to the matter, what is needed is an authoritative assessment of population trends over the next twenty years. In which part of London will the young professionals be living in 2040? Where is the next hot area after the one after Hoxton? Government consults actuaries on all such decisions. Let’s have a fine-tuned, professional,mathematical assessment. Then we can start thinking about a hall.

Michael Devaughn Porter, 23, of Florence Avenue, Ellington, Connecticut, has been charged with stealing his mother’s 19th century violin, valued at $65,000.

He sold it, allegedly, to feed his drugs habit. More here.

The latest appeal from Jon Schmidt of the Piano Guys, maintaining the search for his daughter Annie.

Dear friends. Our intense search for our sweet Annie continues with great hope. Every thought and each day is filled with the expectation of the miracle that we will find her! We are thankful for everyone that is concerned, praying and helping. In that spirit we offer this update on the search for Annie and an invitation for you to participate on Sunday November 6th.

1. The water and mountain areas adjacent to Annie’s car continue to be searched by county search and rescue (including sonar and dog search).

A local graffiti artist known as RETNA has designed the new Aida.

See what you think.

Two weeks before opening night, the Dutch director Jim Lucassen has resigned from the Frankfurt Oper production of Tchaikovsky’s opera, apparently on health grounds.

The production will be carried forward by assistant director Dorothea Kirschbaum.

It is conducted by Frankfurt music director Sebastian Weigle.

The Theresa May Government has withdrawn from a proposal to build a new concert hall in the city of London, replacing the unsatisfactory Barbican, it has been announced.

The reasons given were cost and lack of need. The projected cost was £278 million pounds, though some experts predicted half a billion, given that new concert halls rarely come in on budget. Both Paris and Hamburg, among recent new builds, cost two or three times the initial estimate.

A government statement said: ‘London is already home to world class culture and music venues, from the iconic Royal Albert Hall to the Barbican Hall and the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre.’ That seems to indicate that the capital cannot expect any change on the music scene in the forseeable future.

The proposed new hall had been sold to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne as the price of bringing Sir Simon Rattle to London as music director of the LSO. The plan was backed by the former Mayor of London Boris Johnson and by the City of London, which offered the site of the former Museum of London.

The loss of the hall does not necessitate any change in Rattle’s immediate plans: there is no worthwhile vacancy for him at present. It may, however, mean that his tenure with the LSO will be shorter than foreseen.

Slipped Disc has argued throughout that a new hall in the heart of the City represented no added value for audiences, at an unaffordable cost and at the wrong moment in national affairs. London needs a modern hall, but there has to be wider public consultation and consensus before it is approved, probably in a different part of town.

So what happens now?