The annual Bachtrack tally of concert performances is out today and it looks as though Lenny far exceeded expectations.

He is third in the overall rankings and has four of of five of the most performed concert works.

Details here.

 

Sylvain Fort has resigned as President Macron’s director of communications for ‘personal reasons’ and to ‘spend more time with his children’. He has been in the job for three years and will leave next week.

Sylvain Fort is a musician, founder of the website forumopera.com.

 

 

There was an orchestra-backed performance last night in Helsinki of Mauritz Stiller’s 1919 film, The Song of the Scarlet Flower, with the original score by Armas Järnefelt – believed to be the first film soundtrack by a Nordic composer.

A recording will be released later this week by Ondine.

Stiller, a prolific director, discovered Greta Garbo and took her to Hollywood, earning his footprint of fame.

No Finn has ever made it there again.

 

Customs officials on the German-Swiss border at Rheinheim have detained two East Europeans on suspicion of smuggling up to 21 pianos into Germany.

The pianos, which were second-hand, had estimated values of up to 10,000 Euros.

Are we feeling safer now?

 

The tenor has married his partner Christiane Lutz, 38, who is expecting their child.

Kaufmann, 49, has three children by a previous 15-year marriage to the soprano Margarete Joswig.

The wedding took place in their home town, Munich.

See the official photograph here.

 

We hear word of the first performances for almost a century of Meyerbeer’s opera Dinorah in New York.

They will be given by the small company Amore Opera (formerly Amato Opera) on March 19 to 23.

Venue: Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive New York, NY 10027

The death is reported of Peter Masseurs, principal trumpet of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra 1970-82 and co-principal of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1982 until his retirement in 2009.

He was in great demand as a guest soloist.

Before joining the orchestras, he served six years with the Dutch Royal Marines.