It’s always a sign of impending nemesis when leaders cast themselves in the shadow of greatness.
The general director of the Metropolitan Opera, in his latest public statement, manages to quote something Churchill never said and to mention Napoleon in the next breath.
The clock is ticking.
Read here.
Not Gould himself, but a quote from the late Howard Scott, producer of the breakthrough 1955 Goldberg Variations, which has been released by Sony with all the takes that never made the final cut.
‘If Glenn knew Sony Classical was going to release those outtakes, which he rejected – he did not like what he had done in those performances – he would probably come down and shoot anybody who allowed them to be released,’ is a quote from Scott, who died in 2012, aged 92.
Tim Page, who knew Gould well and interviewed him around the time of his 1982 second attempt at the Goldbergs, thinks Gould would not have minded that much.
‘He insulted this 1955 performance all through the interview,’ says Tim. ‘So, I think he would probably just take it easily because nobody could do worse to this recording than Glenn himself did in our interview.’
That’s the thing about GG: he will never let us rest in peace.
Read more here.
Opus3 Europe have signed the Austrian pianist Aaron Pilsan, 22.
He studied with Alfred Brendel and Andras Schiff.
The Polyclinique du val de Sambre is working with the Conservatoire of Maubeuge to produce recordings of classical music that will be suited to pregnant mothers at all stages of the baby’s development.
Report here.
We have been informed of the death at his home today of Sir John Manduell, programme director of the Cheltenham Music Festival for 25 years and later principal of the Royal Northern College of Music.
Sir John, who was 89, also served on the Arts Council, the British Council, European Music Year and other bodies.
He founded the music programme at BBC Radio 3 and the department of music at Lancaster University. Aside from these duties, he was an active composer.
UPDATE: A lament for the principal who ignored me
Hamburg’s concert hall is a hit. The numbers don’t lie.
Since November 4, 2016 the hall has averaged 11,000 daily visitors, it was announced today.
The former head of classics at Universal Music Group, now a senior adviser, has agreed to be co-curator of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the first time he has worked in his homeland.
The festival is about to get a serious upgrade.
NBC has reported the death of the rock and roll trailblazer.
A New Orleans musician of French Creole descent, he cut his first recording – The Fat Man – in 1949 and carried on writing songs that shaped artists as diverse as Pat Boone, Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney. His greatest hits include Blueberry Hill, I’m Walkin’ and Aint That a Shame.
He was a prodigious pianist with an amiable and generous personality.
The Dutch violinist and waltz king has begun action to fight a court ruling that fined him 116,000 Euros for bringing children on stage after the legal limit of 11pm.
Rieu was originally issued with a fine of 236,000 Euros for bringing a group of Romanian pan flute players on stage until midnight during the course of seven concerts in the Netherlands in 2015.
Dutch law states that minors may not perform after 11:00 pm.
Rieu argued that the young players, aged 9 to 19, performed much earlier. He was merely bringing them back on stage with the virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir to wave farewell to the audience.
Judgement will be issued in Limburg on December 4.
The company has published a history to mark his quarter-century, which began with Parsifal on October 24, 1992.
He has been an exemplary music director, committed and connected.
And he has done so much else besides.
Reflective article here (in German).
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has declared Eastern Europe ‘a migrant free zone’.
On Sunday, Ivan Fischer and members of his Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a Cocoa Concert for refugee families. They were responding to events in a Hungarian village that refused to allow its innkeeper to take in homeless families.
Ivan said: ‘The events in Őcsény really made me sad. That people are so afraid and react with such hatred toward unfortunate refugee families who go there to visit. If they listen to the concert together, a miracle can happen. I’ve been working for years to enhance Hungary’s good reputation in the world, and I wouldn’t like to abandon this goal.’
Here’s how it looked:
We learn from Forum Opera that the fine mezzo-soprano Luciana d’Intino, 58, has decided to stop singing.
She was due to sing in the Bastille’s Ballo in Mascherra, where she will be replaced by Varduhi Abrahamyan.
