I’d had high hopes for the J S Bach trios announced by Nonesuch with Chris Thile, Yo Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer.

Now I’m not so sure.

Read the Lebrecht Album of the Week here and here.

And here.

Emmanuel Ax’s letter in today’s NY Times:

To the Editor:

President Trump’s proposed budget, which cuts funding for the National Institutes of Health and eliminates the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, not to mention the cuts to such programs as Meals on Wheels and school lunches, is selling American scientific and intellectual capacity down the river.

It will lower our quality of life in the service of an ideology that is as outdated as it is cruel. The lawmakers supporting this are yesterday’s people, and we desperately need to look to the future, lest our children pay a heavy price.

EMANUEL AX, NEW YORK

All week long, the festival at Pesaro has been struggling to replace the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Communale, Bologna, which summarily ended a 30-year partnership.

The good news today is that the national broadcaster, Rai, will supply its orchestra this summer.

Rossini is saved.

The cellist made a surprise visit to the Neue Galerie where he performed three minutes of Swiss composer Ernest Bloch’s ‘Prayer,’ from Jewish Life No. 1 (1924) in front of Gustav Klimt’s portrait “Adele Bloch-Bauer I.” ⠀

This impromptu moment, conceived by Mr. Ma, was inspired after watching the scene in the historical drama “Woman in Gold” during which Adele’s father plays this same song in a heart-wrenching farewell to his family, just minutes before his home is invaded by the Gestapo.

Message from Vesa Siren:

Congratulations to Sibelius Academy and Sakari Oramo, their next professor of conducting from 2020.

This is the famous chair of Jorma Panula, Eri Klas, Leif Segerstam and now Atso Almila, who retires in 2019. Oramo, son of two Sibelius Academy professors, will probably have to give up one of his orchestras – BBC Symphony, Stockholm Phil, Ostrobotnian Chamber Orchestra) – but “I will follow the situation and there is no hurry”, he just said to me.

He will continue in London at least until summer 2020 and in Stockholm at least until 2021. Much more on Oramo (pages 773-800) and on Finnish conducting from Kajanus and Sibelius to Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Klaus Mäkelä auf Deutsch in (my book) Finnlands Dirigenten, published next Friday in Berlin.

portrait: Norman Perryman

 

Official announcement:

Conductor Sakari Oramo has been invited to become Professor of Orchestral Training and Orchestral Conducting at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki for the five-year period 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Dec 2024. He succeeds Professor Atso Almila, who will retire when his term expires in 2019.

Sakari Oramo (b. 1965) is one of the world’s most sought-after and distinguished conductors. He is currently Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also Principal Conductor of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and the West Coast Kokkola Opera.

Oramo studied with Jorma Panula in the Sibelius Academy conducting class and graduated in 1992. He also participated in masterclasses given by Ilya Musin and Atso Almila. Before his conducting studies, he studied the violin at the Sibelius Academy and the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands. He was once leader of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and a founding member of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and continues to perform extensively as a chamber musician and soloist.

Our weekly diarist, quartet violinist Anthea Kreston, is having time management issues.

I am sitting on the plane to our next concert, ruminating about time.  My mother has left and there are five days in which I am a single mother of two, with a daily work schedule as well as two out-of town concerts which require an overnight sitter. Jason comes back from his 2 1/2 week tour to Japan and Korea soon. Someone from quartet asked how it was going and I said, “I am totally going to win this week – we will eat more veggies, sleep more, laugh, get to school on time – I’ve got this one!”.  False confidence can sometimes make up for understandable, realistic panic. 

Every second counts. Not only do I have to get both girls to school with filled lunchboxes (a raw potato and piece of gum doesn’t count), I have to get to quartet rehearsals well rested and prepared, ready for a full day of invigorating, exhausting rehearsal before I retrace my steps and collect the girls, and then the really exhausting/fun part starts. 

Musicians have a strong, learned relationship with the second. Correct that – to the complex division of the second (or nanosecond).  Not many professions do – sports comes to mind, as well as the sciences and stock brokers. Ask any classical musician to give you a correct second (60 on the metronome), or any multiple or division (30, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210 or 240), and they will most likely be able to tap an incredibly precise beat. Usually we can also give a good estimate of any other division – 72, 165, etc.  And we can divide or multiply these beats into complex, irregular sub rhythms which coincide with 3 others doing different or the same divisions. We have an intellectual, physical and visceral relationship to time.

Historically, composers have had mixed relationships with the metronome – the first of which was invented during Beethovens life. Johann Maelzel began production of “Maelzel’s Metronome” in 1816.  This device, based on a weighted pendulum which reacts to gravity as well as the rotation of the earth, is an interesting mix of science and nature. Beethoven knew the inventor and was perhaps the first composer to indicate tempo markings with metronome in his scores, starting in 1817. 

How do we, as musicians, feel about the metronome?  Do we place more importance on the descriptive words in a piece, or a mechanical division of the minute?  When I worked with Sasha Schneider of the Budapest Quartet,  I loved the twinkle in his eyes when he told us that a metronome marking is just for the first bar. 

We must differentiate between tempo and rhythm – as soon as we begin to play our instruments with a metronome continuing through a phrase, we have changed this definition from tempo to rhythm.  Tempo is the thing that ticks, rhythm is the thing that counts the ticks. Tempo lives and breathes, rhythm – well, I don’t know, but it is different. 

I think of the metronome as a fundamental part of preparation. To practice I must have my violin, music, pencil and metronome. We must get to rehearsal with the notes learned, bow distribution practiced, and able to play in a steady beat. But – for me it is a little like personal hygiene. Yes – get to the swimming pool with your legs shaved, but let’s not shave them together. That is private, but important business. 

Of course there are exceptions. I remember having shaving parties with my friends at camp when we were teenagers, and in Bartok, a little group shave does wonders. But – what about composers before Bartok – or even composers before the metronome existed? Around Beethoven’s time, most townspeople lived in increments of 15 minutes, measured by the ubiquitous church bells. If you were wealthy, a clock would be in the living room, in which case you could feel the passage of time in minutes – but only when you were in that room. A wearable timepiece was not invented until 1860, and one which was readily affordable, much later. The division of the day is a contrived, human-invented way to keep large numbers of people organized. The Incas used a yearly calendar (which they referred to as the “Vague Year”) with 18 months, each with 20 or more days, and at the end of the year, there were 5 extra days of “ill omen”.  It wasn’t until the 1960’s that the atomic second was universally defined.  

Schumann had a touch-and-go relationship with the metronome, and at the end of his life, wanted to remove his metronome markings (which existed in just a portion of his pieces) entirely. Clara wanted them in, but was horrified after his death, when checking his metronome, to realize it has been mis-calibrated.  How did she measure this?  By playing 60 measures of a piece at 60=a measure, and checking to see if it took one minute on the mantel clock. Oh dear. And Brahms detested the metronome.  

So – where does that leave us?  Our sense of time doesn’t live in just one part of our brains – it is a combination of emotion, memory, physical sensations – it can’t be locked down. I have a dear friend who, the day before she plays a concerto with an orchestra, plays her concerto slowly, each note on a separate down-bow, to connect completely with each moment. It takes her many hours (this is also the friend who has permanent tear stains across her violin from practice sessions when she just couldn’t get the piece up to her satisfaction). 

So – is the metronome a necessary evil, or a saviour?  Probably a little of both. Used in doses it can be a wonderful tool, but let’s never forget the great dance of life. 

The outgoing principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera has bucked the current trend of replacing older orchestral musicians with inexpensive young ones.

Here are his contributions to a running Slipped Disc debate:

Orchestras NEED older musicians, they bring experience, wisdom, knowledge and – yes! – they can also help young music directors to find their real way if they (the music directors) trust them (the older musicians) and learn from their experience. Of course, they know so much, they have played such a huge repertoire with a lot of different conductors – many among them were excellent conductors. Young conductors fear this kind of experience, because it forces them to compare themselves with important musicians – conductors – of the past. Older musicians carry this tradition and they are able to tell if the young conductor has valuable ideas or …. he is just musically arrogant. 

*

I can understand that at times there (are) musicians in orchestras who are beyond their zenith. In that case, it has always been important to me to protect them, e.g. convincing them to switch to a less exposed position, if possible. Firing them has never been an option for me. In any case I just wanted to make a statement about something which seems to me to becoming usual for new appointed music directors, especially if young or afraid of experienced musicians (who could be seen as a threat to them, because of their knowledge and experience). I always tried to learn from my musicians, especially the older ones, in every orchestra I was so fortunate to be music director.

 

See also: The world’s longest serving orchestral players.

Denis Voronenkov, the rebel Duma MP was assassinated yesterday by a hit squad in Kiev.

His widow is the mezzo-soprano Maria Maksakova, a member of the Helikon ensemble in Moscow from 2006 and of the Mariinsky Theatre since 2011, where she has been cast as Dorabella, Cherubino, Eboli and other important roles. She has performed in the UK with Valery Gergiev and released an album on Universal’s Russian label.

 

 

Maksakova was also a member of the Duma from 2011 to 2016, speaking out against anti-gay laws.

Last year, she relocated to Kiev with her husband after threats from the Putin security services. They have a baby son, eleven months old.

Fabio Mastrangelo, the Italian artistic director of the St. Petersburg State Theatre, has sent condolences and an offer of concert engagements. No message yet from the Mariinsky.

 

The great tenor, 70, at his farewell recital in the Konzerthaus this week.

Photo (c) Dr. Andreas Haunold