The death has been announced in Regensburg of Bernhard Bosse, a well-known publisher of music education works.
The family firm of Gustav Bosse Verlag, founded by his grandfather, was a notorious sponsor of antisemitic books by the likes of Peter Raabe, president of the Reischsmusikkamer.
Many of these works were kept in print for two decades after the war. Bernhard took over the firm in 1945 and gradually converted the list to works of music education and technical studies.
The young British conductor Duncan Ward is taking over Sunday’s Wien Modern concert at short notice with the Vienna radio symphony orchestra.
Works include Luigi Dallapiccola Three questions with two answers, Georges Lentz’s Jerusalem (after Blake), Friedrich Cerha’s Nacht, and the finale of Mahler’s tenth symphony.
Appointed by Rattle as Conducting Scholar of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchester-Akademie, Duncan has been making debuts this season with major orchs in Munich, Stockholm, Leipzig and Lucerne.
No sooner is Anna Netrebko pouring into porcelain than Scott comes advertising its composer tea-set.
Three types of tea: Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner.
Message from the striking PSO musicians:
It’s PSO week in New York. twelve(!!!) of our current members and two of our former members are performing with the New York Philharmonic this week. Thank you to the Musicians of the New York Philharmonic for hosting us!! Shanshan Yao Erina Laraby Goldwasser Allie Thompson Marylène Gingras RoyRobert Langevin, flutist Joe Campagna Kelsey Blumenthal Susanne Park Andrew Wickesberg Brandon Mclean Mark Huggins Jeremy Black Charlie Powers John Moore
The implication is that some of these players are looking to leave the strikebound PSO.
There’s a revamp on the way at Arts and Leisure.
This Deadline report says it will involve even less coverage of local events that are not of interest to online subscribers.
Critics have been urged to stop covering events least likely to appeal to online subscribers: indie movies having brief runs in art houses; one-night-only concerts, off- and off-off-Broadway shows that aren’t star-driven, cabaret performances, and small art galleries. Many of the Times‘ contingent of freelance contributors, who provide much of that coverage, are likely to meet the same fate as the regional freelancers last summer. But even staff critics have been given the same marching orders, telling Deadline they are being pressured more frequently by editors to focus on higher-profile events.
There is no independent confirmation, but it’s looking like a trend.
The composer was Einojuhani Rautavaara. The review of his opera The Mine is by Vesa Siren:
The music here is dark and heavy, as befits the story. Part of the reason for this darkness may be ascribed to the composer’s life situation. According to the composer’s free-form autobiography Omakuva [Self-portrait] (1989), when he completed the last act of the opera in 1963 his family life was hell. It was around this time that he took an axe and hit his then wife on the head, “in the grip of a Panic terror”…
One of the causes of the furious domestic arguments was the leading female role in Kaivos. Rautavaara wanted a young, girl-like singer, but his first wife Mariaheidi Rautavaara – an excellent singer but substantially different from Rautavaara’s vision for the part – demanded that she be cast in the TV production.
Read the full review here.
A chance discovery by pianist Ivan Ilic:
In Cologne, a neighbour helped an older woman with her groceries. When the woman died at age 102, she left the neighbour two heavy boxes of old scores. The neighbour, who doesn’t read music, put them away.
A few weeks later, she struck up a conversation with my friend Veronika at the supermarket. Veronika, a record label executive, had just moved to Cologne, and was happy to make a new friend. They met for drinks. The following week the neighbour called Veronika with a surprise. She said, “Come over, and bring your car”. She gave her the music, telling her that she would surely find something to do with it…
Veronika called me in France. She said, ‘I don’t know if there’s anything interesting here. But who knows? Maybe it would be fun for you to come to Germany and check?’ It seemed like a good excuse to see a friend, so I found a low-cost flight to Cologne. We opened the crate together and sifted through the scores, covered in thick, black dust.
It was an eccentric collection. Veronika spotted the Haydn Symphony transcriptions, which neither of us had heard of, in an edition from 1830. We located a piano shop, and I sight-read the music. The E minor Symphony, no 44, immediately stuck out: it worked so naturally on the piano. I returned to France with a photocopy of the score, and learned the symphony in a rush of enthusiasm.
The composer is Karl David Stegmann (1751-1826).
I gave the first performance at London’s “Piano Day” Festival in March 2016, the German premiere in August, and the French premiere in September. This new video of the Presto has attracted 20,000 views in two weeks….
Decca have signed Sheku Kanneh-Mason, 17, winner of BBC Young Musician 2016 (you read it here first).
Part of the deal is that the Nottingham bus he catches to lessons gets decked out in his livery.
Official stuff below the video.
Decca Classics announces the signing of extraordinary 17-year-old cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, winner of BBC Young Musician 2016. This major new record deal will provide long-term support to the vibrant young classical star as he embarks on the next stage in his studies and help nurture his flourishing musical career.
A local hero in Nottingham, Sheku signed his record contract on board his very own bus! The City Council named it after him following his BBC Young Musician triumph and the route includes a stop for his school, Trinity Comprehensive.
To kick start Sheku’s new partnership with Decca Classics, he will record Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 – the piece which saw him become the first black winner of BBC Young Musician in the competition’s 38-year history, in a performance which was described by judges as“electrifying, sincere and moving”.
Sheku is delighted to be taking his musical career to the next level: “It is a great honour for me to be joining the Decca Classics family and following in the footsteps of great artists like Mstislav Rostropovich, my musical hero. I’m excited to take the next step on my journey and look forward to bringing my passion for classical music to a wider audience.”
Dr. Alexander Buhr, Managing Director of Decca Classics, comments: “Sheku is an astonishingly gifted young musician with incredible energy and a burning passion for his music. We are thrilled to be partnering with Sheku to help foster his remarkable talent through ongoing support for his musical studies and opportunities to record with leading artists. I can’t wait to see him grow and develop in the coming years and we will be by his side every step of the way.”
Sheku comes from an incredible musical family in which all six of his siblings (he is the third child of seven) play instruments to a phenomenally high standard – yet neither parents are musicians. Simon Cowell called them “the most talented family in the world” during a performance on TV’s Britain’s Got Talent. Every spare penny goes into the children’s musical education, from lessons, buying sheet music and instruments, to re-hairing bows and re-tuning pianos. Sheku and his family will be featured in a BBC Four documentary ‘Young, Gifted And Classical: The Making Of A Maestro’, airing on 20th November at 8pm.
Every Saturday, Sheku wakes up at the crack of dawn in order to catch the train to London to attend the Royal Academy of Music’s Junior Programme where he studies with Ben Davies. He uses the journey to catch up with his A-Level homework. However Sheku still finds time for his other hobbies – he enjoys football, table tennis and listens to a wide range of music from Bob Marley to Mozart and Mahler.
Sheku began to play the cello at the age of six, after attending a concert in Nottingham. By the time he was nine, he had achieved Grade 8 and earned the top marks in the country. Since then he has won numerous awards, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Instrumentalist Prize.
Sheku regularly performs with Chineke!, Europe’s first BME (black and minority ethnic) orchestra, and has appeared as a concerto soloist with them at the Royal Festival Hall. “It was one of the highlights of my life,” he says. “I would love to inspire more diversity in young people taking up classical music – it would be a really wonderful thing if I could be a role model in that way.”
Sheku is also passionate about building better opportunities for young people of any background to learn music at school and is the Junior Ambassador for music education charity London Music Masters. “You might never want to go on to become a musician, but it’s still so important. I’d love to help bring more music to schools.”
Sheku will make his first Decca recording next year, but before then this sensational young cellist can be found playing in concerts halls around the UK and further afield – with many solo and concerto performances lined up which are sure to mesmerise and enthrall.
From an interview with Vittorio Grigolo:
‘I had a test drive in a Benetton F1 car,’ says Grigolo, 39. ‘I was driving in Formula 3000 at the time and had the same manager as [Giancarlo] Fisichella, who, of course, became an F1 driver. But then I had an accident during qualifying for one of the races. I messed up two ribs. We had to postpone a concert. I had to make a choice between driving and singing….
‘I did miss the smell of tyres, my race suit, everything. I always, since I was a little kid, was fascinated with speed; anything that could make us move faster from A to B. Whatever it was: a bike, skateboard, roller skates, anything that can make you feel the air around your shape and feel that gravity is somehow less. That feeling was incredible.
‘I feel that I had something to say in that world of motor racing. Who knows, maybe in the next life. This time is the singing.’
Full interview here.
photo (c) Jeff Dunas
More than 100 members of the Palace Theatre Philharmonia and Chorus in Plymouth have resigned after their music director Marcus Alleyne left his job three weeks ago, apparently under local authority pressure.
In all, 123 singers and players from all over Devon and Cornwall have told Plymouth they won’t perform again.
It sounds like one of those artist-bureaucrat conflicts. If you know more, please drop a comment below.
Read report here.
The small Czech town of Luby, formerly Schönbach, was once known as the Austrian Cremona.
It has a 400 year history of violin making.
Read more here.
It is reported that Zafar Ansari, 24, is a classically-trained pianist who plays ‘to concert standard’.
He is also a capable cellist.
His captain, Alistair Cook, is a former boy chorister as St Paul’s.
Can any other sport match cricket for first-class musical credentials?
