This is what they showed last night in memoriam on TV:

It’s not the late Andre but the very-much-alive Leonard Slatkin, 75 and going strong.

Can’t the music biz get anything right?

The clip is at 1:00 on video.

Les Amis de Maurice Ravel have informed us about the discovery of fragments of a song inside another manuscript at Yale University Library. Who gets to sing the premiere?

Here’s the information we have:

The orchestrator Michael Feingold, member of the Amis de Maurice Ravel, has discovered that the manuscript of the song for voice and piano Un grand sommeil noir on a poem by Paul Verlaine also contains fragments of sketches for another song by Maurice Ravel “Ballade de la reine morte d’aimer” on a poem by Roland de Marès.

These fragments are found in part on the title page of Un grand sommeil noir (fragment completely crossed out), the other part on the fourth page. Knowing that the three extant manuscripts of Un grand sommeil noir all date from 6 August 1895, Michael Feingold’s discovery makes us think that the Ballade of a queen who died of love is also maybe from 1895, and not from 1893 as has been previously thought.

The 4-page manuscript was sold at auction in was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in London on 25 May 2001 (lot no. 165) and is preserved today at the Yale University Library, in the Frederick R. Koch collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Call number: Box 52 Folder 1112 FRKF869).

The incoming regime at Vienna State Opera is advertising for a new kaufmännischen Geschäftsführer/in to replace Thomas Platzer. It’s a five-year contract.

Bogdan Roscic starts with a clean sheet.