Richard Baker, the first presenter of news on BBC television in 1954, became the mainstay of the Nine O’Clock News.
A capable pianist, he was a music enthusiast who presented the Last Night of the Proms more suavely than anyone else, appeared on any game shows with classical music content and wrote a number of books.
A gentleman in all senses of the word.
From the Observer: In recent years Baker moved into a retirement home, where he found a novel way of settling in. Each day he would select the interesting headlines from the day’s papers and read them aloud to his fellow residents at six o’clock.
The Emerson Quartet and Renee Fleming are to give the first performance of Tom Stoppard’s Penelope with a score by Andre Previn.
Described as ‘an opera of sorts’, it will kick of Previn’s 90th birthday bash at Tanglewood next summer.
From Amit Peled:
I just performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic the Penderecki concerto last night for the Maestro’s 85th birthday celebration.
I wanted to let you know that for the first time in my life ALL strings were taken away from me right now (
4:30 am) at the airport’s security checkpoint claiming that it is too dangerous to take them on board….
I have always carried an extra set of strings with me and was never asked to give them away!!! Well, at least they didn’t take the cello claiming that the endpin could be used to stab somebody… Or maybe the security guy is a cellist and wanted a free set…?
Sikora’s Classical Records in Vancouver has been defeated by Amazon and Spotify.
Read here.
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Mstislav Rostropovich commissioned more than 100 works for his instrument and performed some of them more than once. Aside from the two Shostakovich concertos and the symphony-concerto by Prokofiev, only the Britten Cello Symphony and the concertos by Lutoslawki and Dutilleux get heard much these days.
The latter pair are performed….
Read on here.
And here.
