A review of two releases in the American Record Guide by its owner and editor, Donald Vroon, caught the eye of BIS label owner Robert von Bahr.

The review went like this: ‘A completely uninspired composer whose music is stultifying – and just gets worse as the years go on. Vroon.’

That’s the entire review of two full-length records, one by the Berlin Philharmonic Winds, the other by the violinist Renate Eggebrecht. That’s all the ARG had to say.

The composer under discussion is the prolific and eminent Finnish symphonist, Kalevi Aho.

Robert, who has produced much of Aho’s music on record, wrote a gentle rebuke to the editor.

Here’s what he got from Vroon by way of reply:

It is a sort of “editor’s privilege” to write a brief and dismissive review. Since the readers know me–and my loves and hates–they know how to read them. I think Aho is a useless composer of ugly, unbearable music. Naturally he has fans, because there are all kinds of idiots out there that think one has to like new music–or who think that commissions prove worth. But most sensible people know that nothing he wrote will last and that 99% of everything being written is crap. The emperor has no clothes. I warn our readers not to waste their money. It’s a service. 

This is what passes for classical record criticism in Donald Trump’s America.

Aho’s on the left. (No idea of his politics.)

 

The Cleveland music director has pulled out of a Berlin production of Magic Flute, requiring a knee operation.

The Staatsoper under den Linden have replaced him with the rising Mexican conductor, music director in Queensland, Australia.

The director is Yuval Sharon, a close colleague of Welser-Möst’s.

Opening night is Feb 17.

 

Hours after the Australian intendant announced he would not renew his contract at the Komische Opera past 2022, the company has named his successors.

The present managing director Susanne Moser will share the role with opera director Philip Bröking.

That’s continuity.

 

News is spreading of the death of Lynton Black, a popular figure at Covent Garden and many UK stages.

He also sang at the Paris Opéra, Aix-en-Provence Festival, La Monnaie, Brussels, and Bavarian State Opera.

At Theater Basel he created a one-man show Beauty retire… and so to bed, based on the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

British opera companies are sadly derelict in reporting the passing of their artists.

Musicians in the Orchestre National de France were asked by their management if they agreed to have Charles Dutoit come in place of Emmanuel Krivine to conduct Berlioz next week.

Radio France reports that a vote was taken among 83 musicians. Sixty percent said they did not want Dutoit, who has been accused of sexual misdemeanours by eight women.

The management then said it had already invited Dutoit and it was too late to disinvite him. Quite a few players are furious.

The musicians’ union has declared itself powerless to do anything in this situation.

This is democracy in the age of Emanuel Macron.

Earlier, soprano is horrified at Dutoit’s return.

 

The Polish tenor will sing Cavaradossi for the first time in his life next week at the Vienna State Opera.

Sondra Radvanovsky will sing the title role. Thomas Hampson is Scarpia. Marco Armiliato conducts.

 

 

It has been an open secret in what’s left of the record business that Decca and Deutsche Grammophon were mud-wrestling over which got first to the bar to sign the Birmingham conductor, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

Last night, DG won.

Mirga, 32, will be the first woman conductor on the DG list.

 

Her first release will be music by the Polish-born Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg – his Symphony No. 21 “Kaddish” with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, plus the early second symphony. She will go on to record music by her compatriot Raminta Šerkšnytė with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Vilnius Municipal Choir and Kremerata Baltica, followed by works by British composers with the CBSO.

Mirga said: Deutsche Grammophon was part of my musical upbringing. It’s a genuine honour to join DG and to record works that will be new to so many listeners. The music of Mieczysław Weinberg and Raminta Šerkšnytė, a rising star among Lithuanian composers, deserves to reach the widest possible audience. It’s very exciting that our partnership will document some of the musical adventures that the fabulous CBSO and I are about to embark on together and will celebrate the orchestra’s centenary with an album of landmarks of 20th-century British music. I look forward to this thrilling collaboration with DG and to the musical discoveries we can make together.’

We have been informed of the death of John Edney, hugely popular trombone at Covent Garden in the Solti era and a valued teacher at Trinity College of Music.

John was 83.

His funeral will take place on Wednesday 20 Feb at 2:45pm. Beckenham Crematorium, Elmers End Rd, Beckenham BR3 4TD