We reported yesterday that the violinist Arve Tellefsen had become the top taxpayer in Norway after selling his Guarnerius to a German investor.

But the story gets more interesting by the day.

We know that Arve bought his 1739 Guarneri ‘Del Gesù’ in 1970 for a million krone (NOK) and sold it for 80 times the amount, which is pretty good going.

But the sweetener is he gets to keep the violin, and keep on playing it, so long as he’s alive, after which it heads to Germany.

Good deal.

The outstanding international pianist Igor Levit is appearing this weekend at the national convention of the Green Party in Leipzig.

He says: ‘Migration and integration are the most important issues for me, and I know what I’m talking about, because my parents came here with my sister and me, to rebuild their lives from scratch. Germany is my country, and that’s why I feel a fundamental obligation to open my mouth and take a stand.’

The Greens are selecting candidates for next year’s election.

Might Levit, 31, be one of them?

Albion Media, probably Europe’s largest classical image strategist, has been bought by Premier, one of the biggest players in entertainment PR. The deal will be announced later today.

Simon Millward, Albion’s founder, will join the Premier board and his entire staff and clients list will move there.

Albion’s clients include Marin Alsop, Bournemouth Symphony, Lise Davidsen, Joyce DiDonato, Genesis Foundation, Gramophone Awards, Leeds International Piano Festival, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal College of Music, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Wigmore Hall.

Premier look after Daniel Craig, Kate Winslet and 80% of the big film and theatre openings. Its facilities, says Simon Millward, can only enhance the opportunities for classical artists, who are rapidly losing media traction.

It looks like win-win for Albion and its clients.

Both parties to the deal can now afford to invest in a nice tie.

At the Staatstheater Kassel, a performance of Verdi’s Falstaff was stopped when the conductor collapsed.

Francesco Angelico, 41, was rushed to hospital.

There was an extended interval. Then Alexander Hannemann, first Kapellmeister, continued the performance.

Francesco Angelico is now recovering in hospital.

The first prize at the Geneva International Piano Competition was divided last night between Théo Fouchenneret, 24, of France

and the Russian Dmitry Shishkin, 26.

The Thai finalist came third.

The judging was clean.

Sophie Heinrich has won the audition for first concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

She will take the seat on the retirement of Florian Zwiauer in May 2019.

‘It’s a dream comes true,’ says Heinrich. ‘I am looking forward to Vienna, to the exciting new job with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and especially to playing music together with my new colleagues and working with Philippe Jordan and Andrés Orozco-Estrada.’

She is presently first concertmaster of the Komische Oper Berlin.

photo (c) Stefan Kleinberger

In contrast to Montreal, which has just found the sexual harassment claims against him to be unproven, a Philadelphia Orchestra internal investigation has found the published allegations to be ‘credible’.

From my interview with Kurtág in today’s Spectator:

Arriving in Budapest for the filming of my first novel, I receive word that György Kurtag wants to see me. This is not a summons I can refuse. Famously elusive, the last of the living avant-gardists is about to present his first opera at La Scala Milan this month and, if past form is anything to go by, he’s unlikely to utter much about it beyond a cryptic Magyar aphorism….

Kurtag is seated at a light-wood upright piano.

‘I want to play you my new piece,’ he says, after introductions.

‘How new?’ I ask.

‘I wrote it yesterday. For Marta. For her birthday.’

What follows is four minutes of unblinking concentration underpinned by an acute awareness that I am, here and now, the first to hear a great composer play his music while it is still wet…

Read on here.

From the Czech composer Miroslav Srnka:

Some dreams come true, but you believe it first when you see it with your own eyes. tomorrow the first rehearsal with the musicians of LA Phil and Susanna Mälkki.

The conversation with the immigration officer:

– why do you come to LA?
– for a performance of my music.
– oh! how is your piece called?
– overheating
– why overheating?
– isn’t the world around us overheating?
– yeah. can I see the score?

Covent Garden can’t recruit her.

She has never sung at English National Opera.

But…

John Berry’s new company has signed Renée for Adam Guettel’s musical The Light in the Piazza.

It’s happening next summer, Brexit permitting.

This is one big coup for the Berrywaggon.

Details below.

Scenario Two are proud to announce that their debut production will be the London Premiere of the dazzling musical The Light in the Piazza. With a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, The Light in the Piazza is a touching and heartwrenching love story set in Florence during the summer of 1953. 

It will be performed on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall for twenty performances only in the summer of 2019, with a 40-piece symphony orchestra and an all-star cast. This new production will be directed by multiple Olivier Award-winner Daniel Evans and performed by opera superstar Renée Fleming and film and television star Dove Cameron – both making their London stage debuts with the Orchestra of Opera North performing on-stage conducted by Kimberley Grigsby.

Four-time Grammy winner and Tony nominee Renée Fleming makes her long awaited London music theatre debut as American Margaret Johnson. Dove Cameron makes her UK debut as Margaret’s troubled daughter Clara; she is best known for her role in Disney’s The Descendants trilogy, recently starred as Amber von Tussle in NBC’s Hairspray Live! and is currently starring as Cher in the Off Broadway production of Clueless: The Musical.

The Finnish conductor, chief of the Helsinki Philharmonic and principal guest of the LA Phil, thinks deeply about the meaning of good leadership. ‘I try to forget about myself when I am doing my work as a conductor,’ she tells Zsolt Bognar on Living the Classical Life.

‘This kind of “maestro myth” doesn’t really exist in Finland,’ she maintains.

She adds: ‘Not everybody likes what I’m doing.’

Watch.

You see it here first.

From our hectic diarist Anthea Kreston:

Prepping for our upcoming quartet concerts this week in Italy and a return to London (Wigmore Hall), I can barely get everything done. Plans for the future have me sending off CV’s, preparing for auditions, having interviews, and learning new repertoire, quickly. I brush my teeth in the shower and clip my nails at the red lights – I listen to the repertoire for Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra on my headphones as my fingers drum out passages from Bartok String Quartets. Moment after moment, I have a breakthrough, and in the next second I can’t stop replaying some regrettable mistake I have made.

I have spent two days again at the magical Castle Liberamé, tucked into the meeting point between Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The castle is completely surrounded by a generous moat, and the only access to the Caste is by a stone bridge, built in 1796, which replaced the original drawbridge. The owners have become like an extended family to me – we meet up in Berlin for a concert or meal, they invite me to bring Jason to the Schloss, presenting us with my teaching colleague from Berlin as a trio for the first time. Returning again this week, we were welcomed at the front door with glasses of champagne, and spent hours together, eating lobster, chestnut soup with truffle, and using the Belgian butter generously on anything that was willing.

It is at these moments that I feel my best – that I can see that classical music is a thing which brings people together, creates a community. We need each other. As the newly christened Trio Liberamé was rehearsing, the host stayed in the room, clearly overcome by his emotions. Not just once did we stop the rehearsal to answer his questions, or to enjoy another round of hugging or a glass of wine. His joy was our joy, and after the concert, sitting in the rustic basement (with the original well and cobblestone floor) around a huge, single slab table, we made plans for our next visit – perhaps he would come to Berlin to read a Mozart piano quartet with us (he is an amateur violist).

It is also at these moments that I think about death – not in a negative or sad way, just as an inevitability. It seems like, lately, every week, something happens to one of my friends or acquaintances. They die young, unexpectedly, or have diagnoses. I have thoughts, like, „I could die any day – there is so much left I need to do – I have to do it all”, and the next second “I need to move to the mountains, hug my family, and do absolutely nothing”.

I know that all of my family has grown in ways which will forever change each of our destinies. I am determined to make the right choice next – I won’t know the next step for many months, and it will be years before I can look back and see if it was the right choice.

I don’t know exactly what I am looking for, but I know it has to be something which is equally good for all four of us, the Kreston-Duckles. A safe place, a place where we are needed and a place where we need others. A place with challenges and beauty and space to grow. So, for now, I just am looking, preparing, and dreaming. I try to put myself 30 years into the future, and to look back at this pivotal moment from there, to imagine all the different paths and consequences. I have to be strong and smart and flexible and open – and I hope I can read these words in 30 years and know I did my very best.