We reported this morning on a new fifth trumpet in the Berlin Philharmonic.

But one principal trumpet wants to step back and the section is in the throes of generational change.

Watch Sarah’s hangout with Berlin Philharmonic principal trumpet Tamás Velenczei, at 31:00, for the inside story.

A compelling TV interview, nine years old and in English and Russian, reveals the genuine respect and affection between two great singers. Nothing faked for the cameras.

An organic encounter, irresistible.

‘You take after Domingo, don’t you?’ Kaufmann is asked.

‘You mean I learn roles on the plane?’ he replies.

Enjoy.

Vesa Siren reports that she’s singing Kundry (Parsifal) at Turku tomorrow.

To be followed by Begbick (Mahagonny, Ortrud (Lohengrin) and Madame de Croissy (Dialogues des Carmelites).

That’s a helluva lot to learn. Not that any is likely to eclipse memories of her 2004 Salome at the Met.

Warner are releasing a box of concerts from the 2016 Lugano Festival, the final edition of Martha Argerich & Friends before the Swiss ran (they say) out of cash.

We shall not see its like again.

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama has named Matthew Jones as head of chamber music. He has been professor of viola at the school since 2011 and has led the chamber music department de facto for 18 months.

Aside from his music c.v., Matthew is an accredited teacher of Kundalini Yoga and the Alexander Technique.

In contrast to Jonas Kaufmann’s Otello at Covent Garden, Anna Netrebko has been dipping into the shoe polish in Salzburg’s Aida.

Some pictures are lighter than others but this screen grab seems true to life:

So why are the usual suspects not howling foul? It is because the director is impeccably Iranian? Because the conductor is irreproachably Verdian? Or because Anna Netrebko gave a performance of such conviction that no-one noticed what colour she was?

The death is reported, aged 72, of the popular Soviet-era composer Pavel Slobodkin, founder of the Весёлые Ребята (Jolly Guys) ensemble which sold 15.8 million copies of its 1966 debut album and 179,850,000 records overall.

Moscow’s Pavel Slobodkin Theatre and Concert Centre bears his name and has its own chamber orchestra.

Harassed by the Nazis in Warsaw, Maryla Jonas escaped in 1940 to Rio de Janeiro by pretending to be married to the son of the Brazilian ambassador. Soon after arrival she suffered a nervous breakdown and spent time in a sanatorium. News arrived of the death of her first husband and her brother and she gave up her career.

A post-War visit by Artur Rubinstein persuaded her to return to the stage. On an icy Monday night in February 1946, she faced a near-empty Carnegie Hall and was acclaimed by a junior critic as ‘the finest woman pianist since Teresa Carreno’. Her second recital, a month later, was a sell-out.

Jonas was signed by Columbia Artists, the New York Philharmonic engaged her to open its next season, Columbia gave her a record contract and she married a noted endocrinologist Ernest G. Abraham – all in a matter of weeks.

It was all too much. She began to cancel concerts and the dates dropped off. In January 1951 she fainted on stage at Carnegie Hall midway through Schumann’s Carnaval. Critics began to note memory lapses and she became too anxious to accept further engagements.

Diagnosed with a rare blood condition in 1952, Maryla Jonas died seven years later at the age of 48.

Sony have just remastered her complete piano recordings. The piano sound is constricted and brittle, but the Chopin playing is fresh and powerful, a genuine artist with a voice all her own and a profound introspection. She seems to be playing entirely for herself.

The principal trumpet of the Hamburg Philharmonic, André Schoch, has been recruited by the Berlin Phil.

Schoch, 30 and a graduate of the Karajan Academy, starts in Berlin on September 1.

He is listed as the fifth member in the Berlin section.