As the strike continues, conductor Jakub Hrůša and violinist Lisa Batiashvili have been left with an empty week.
Also cancelled is a Civic Orchestra of Chicago free concert featuring works by Smetana,= and Bacewicz, and a selection of Scandinavian folk songs arranged by the Danish String Quartet excerpted from their album Wood Works.
Plus next Monday’s MusicNOW concert titled “Dark With Excessive Bright” with Principal Percussion Cynthia Yeh (pictured) and Principal Bass Alexander Hanna in works by Gabriella Smith and Missy Mazzoli, including the world premiere of a new CSO-commissioned arrangement of Mazzoli’s Dark With Excessive Bright, as well as works by Mario Diaz de León and Anna Southam.
The Guinness Book of Domingos will record that tonight’s Simon Boccanegra in Vienna will be the 4,000th time PD has sung on an opera stage.
The death has been announced of the composer double-bass player and teacher Tony Osborne, on March 30 2019.
Tony was a lecturer at the University of Reading.
The heir to the throne has put out a letter on his personal notepaper, expressing enthusiasm for Wednesday’s modern revival of Sir Hubert Parry’s biblical oratorio, Judith.
Prince Charles points out that the score contains the melody of the famous hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ and declares that he ‘would have loved to be present on this important occasion.’
Worth more than a good review?
The exiled Czech author grew up in Brno at or around the Janáček Academy where his father, Ludvik, was a professor and, for three years, director. A colleague of Leos Janacek’s at the Brno Academy, Ludvik Kundera made the vocal score of Glagolitic Mass. He may also have played the premieres of several Janáček piano pieces (see Nigel Simeone’s new book, The Janáček Compendium).
Milan describes the music of Janáček in an intensely detailed memoir, ‘My First Love’.
His literary style – naturalism interspersed with aphorism – owes something to the master.
Each leaves a huge footprint in Czech culture.
The highly regarded Auryn Quartet called it quits this morning.
The quartet, founded in 1981, will shut down in 2021, its 40th anniversary year.
The members are Andreas Arndt, Stewart Eaton, Mattthias Lingenfelder and Jens Oppermann.
I remember the Auryns for a brilliant set of first recordings of the four Berthold Goldschmidt quartets. Over time, they have recorded Haydn’s 68 in a boxed set.
The composer died on September 8, 1949. From the end of this year, his works will be out of copyright.
According to Kurier, each performance of Der Rosenkavalier at the Vienna State Opera chings up 15,000 Euros to the Strauss estate. There have been 1,000 Rosenkavaliers in Vienna alone. Not to mention Salome, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos and all those Lieder.
The composer’s heirs will have to start tightening their belts at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Losing out even more massively is the publisher Boosey&Hawkes, which took over managing rights in Strauss’s works outside Germany in September 1939 and have been rolling merrily along ever since.
Last night at the London Symphony Orchestra, Diana Damrau failed to show up on stage. A concertgoer tells us what happened next:
Gianandrea Noseda walked to the podium at the Barbican before the beginning of the concert tonight with a microphone and said they had two inspiring rehearsals with Diana Damrau but when she came today her instrument was not with her. He said that she was present and asked the audience to support her. He added that 25 minutes before the concert the leader Roman Simovic agreed to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (it seems from his opening remarks that they did a partial rehearsal). He played the concerto beautifully.
After the interval Roman took back his seat and led the orchestra in a vibrant and exciting performances of Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel.
From the LSO’s semi-official tweeter Maxine Kwok-Adams:
OMG it was amazing! Bravo to Roman, but also to Carmine for leading the 1st half so fantastically and everyone in the orchestra for a fabulous evening. There was so much love, support and classy musicianship. A privilege to be there.
Hands down the best performance of the Tchaikovsky I’ve ever seen @londonsymphony thank you for another incredible evening, am still on cloud 9 https://t.co/4TuhdlFv9M
