UPDATE: The Chicao archivist confirms it’s his first US symphony in that city. Readers in Philadelphia recall him doing Copland’s third – by far the most exposed US symphony – and one by Persichetti, whose idiom was distinctly Italian.
…..Musicians in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra had been spared from military service and their conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, was known to be the Führer’s favourite Wagner interpreter. The musicians lived well and Furtwängler, for all his post-War self-pity, was making an absolute fortune. A note in the book accompanying these 22 CDs finds that he received an extra 1,000 Reichsmarks for each broadcast, at the very least. For one concert he was paid RM 17,000 — equivalent in today’s terms to more than 60,000 Euros….
From the innovative and eclectic Brighton Festival:
Brighton Festival’s classical music programme has just been announced with tickets on sale now, with many free and low cost events to encourage participation. This year’s Festival promises to be diverse and international with a varied repertoire of classical music.
Highlights include Sir Andras Schiff, one of the great musical thinkers of our time, the Brighton debut of Ensemble Correspondances, who bring the music of the court of Louis XIII to Glynebourne, Chineke!, Europe’s only Black and Minority Ethnicity orchestra, and the British Paraorchestra, who return to Brighton Dome with a show inspired by theoretical physics.
Sir András Schiff (Hungary)
Sun 12 May, 3pm Glyndebourne £10, £22.50, £27.50, £32.50
Bach’s Partitas are among the most demanding keyboard pieces devised by Johann Sebastian Bach, and multi-award winning pianist and conductor Sir András Schiff is simply one of the most sublime performers in the world today. Considered one of the great musical thinkers of our time he now focuses on performing the music of Beethoven, Bach, Schubert and Schumann. In recent years Schiff’s Bach recitals have become an annual feature of the BBC Proms. He says ‘Together for those two or three hours, we can somehow change the world in to a better place.’
The death is reported of Jean-Christophe Benoît, a noted interpreter of French chanson.
In one of his many recordings, he appeared together with his mother and his sister.
The Hindemith Prize of the City of Hanau has gone to the Finnish pianist, conductor and composer Olli Mustonen.
It is worth 10,000 Euros.
Photo: Heikki Tuuli
The magazine Opernfreund has ceased reviewing at Wiesbaden after what it describes as intolerable pressures from the opera house director, Uwe Laufenberg.
