More than 160,000 people worldwide watched the free-stream of Carmen from Berlin’s Staatsoper under den Linden last night.
We don’t have numbers yet from the Philharmonie, which streamed a Simon Rattle concdert, but a decision was taken today by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to make access to its Digital Concert Hall free to all viewers until 19 April 2020, using the code below.
You can access all the concerts and films in the Digital Concert Hall free of charge for 30 days with the code BERLINPHIL. The last date to activate the code is Tuesday, 31 March 2020.
The Bavarian State Opera, not to be outdone, is to make at least four performances available for free livestream, including a concert with Igor Levit and Joana Mallwitz.
After the cancellation of all performances at the Bayerische Staatsoper from 11 March to 19 April, we will try to provide individual performances as live stream or video-on-demand on STAATSOPER.TV. On Monday, the 5th Academy Concert with Joana Mallwitz and Igor Levit will be available live and 14 days as video-on-demand, before the ballet classic Swan Lake will be broadcast live on STAATSOPER.TV on 21 March. In addition, Il trovatore with Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros as well as Judith with Nina Stemme and John Lundgren are available as video-on-demand. You can find the full online schedule here.
The Vienna State Opera will offer one free opera a day from tomorrow. Click here.
The Met, playing catch-up, will offer a free nightly opera online from Monday at 7.30pm
This could be the start of a behavioural revolution.
The place to go these days to hear French piano music is Iceland. The best-selling, innovative Bach interpreter Víkingur Ólafsson has taken a pair of French composers two centuries apart and effectively melded their music into one by the simple method of interleaving short pieces across a whole album.
The outcome is astonishing in respect of both Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918), revealing unsuspected aspects in both masters…
The cellist Brinton Smith has a new album out, pursuing the next stage of his fixation with the 1940s Jewish refugees in Hollywood. Here’s a note he has written for Slipped Disc:
“Hitler shook the tree and America gathered the apples”- Thomas Mann
Los Angeles in the early 20th century was a thriving but culturally undeveloped city, with little in the way of concert or operatic culture. An influx of refugees, however, fleeing war and persecution in Europe and lured by economic opportunities and beautiful weather, rapidly formed, within a few square miles near Hollywood, one of the most talented and prolific communities in music history. Attempting to recreate the world they left, they altered the course of American culture.
Performers living in Los Angeles in that era included Jascha Heifetz, William Primrose, Gregor Piatigorsky, Artur Rubinstein, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter and Lotte Lehmann (After a trio concert with Heifetz and Piatigorsky, Rubinstein once quipped, “not bad for local talent!”) The émigrés also included Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Dylan Thomas, Bertrand Russell, W. H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Leon Feuchtwanger, Franz Werfel, and Alma Mahler, but, perhaps most remarkably, Los Angeles hosted arguably the most unprecedented gathering of compositional talent in a single city since 1800s Vienna. Representing virtually every facet the musical spectrum, they included Joseph Achron, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Hans Eisler, George Gershwin, Louis Gruenberg, Bernard Hermann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ernst Krenek, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Miklós Rózsa, Arnold Schoenberg, Max Steiner, Igor Stravinsky, Alexandre Tansman, Ernst Toch, Franz Waxman, Kurt Weill, and Erich Zeisl. As Stravinsky said in that era, “Hollywood is the center of the music world!”
Most were refugees- the majority Jewish. They came to America in waves, fleeing the Czarist pogroms, the Russian Revolution, the rising anti-Semitism and the impending war in Europe, and formed a tight-knit community, relatively unnoticed by the city around them. Though the world they had left behind was an inferno, they lived in peace and relative luxury in what must have seemed an almost unreal paradise. Many, like Ernst Toch, spent the war years attempting to save their relatives, but anti-Semites in the State Department enforced tight restrictions on Jewish immigration and, shockingly, from 1933-1945, the quota for Central and Eastern Europeans was never once filled.
These former luminaries of Western intellectual life lived in exile in a city devoted to commerce and mass entertainment. They had not only to rebuild their lives, but to redefine them. As Feuchtwanger noted, “They were immigrants first, and only after that were they the people they really were “ In a joke popular in the community, two dachsunds met in Santa Monica and one said “Here, it’s true, I am a dachshund, but in the old country, I was a St. Bernard!”
Today (Friday) we release a Naxos CD titled Exiles in Paradise: Émigré Composers in Hollywood that explores some of these remarkable composers with a survey of works and new transcriptions for cello and piano. They range from Korngold to Schoenberg, from seldom heard compositions by Toch and Gruenberg to Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie. The stories of some of these composer’s deserve wider knowledge:
Joseph Achron (1886-1943, LA 1934-43) was a Lithuanian Jew, known as much for his violin playing as his compositions. Schoenberg described him as “one of the most underrated modern composers” and Achron was notable for his embrace of Jewish musical idioms at a time when most Jews were more concerned with integration. His friend and fellow Auer pupil, Heifetz made Achron’s Hebrew Melody known around the world. Achron composed for films, continued his violin career, and premiered his Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Louis Gruenberg’s (1884-1964, LA 1937-64) family, like those of Godowsky and Gershwin, immigrated in the late 19th century, fleeing pogroms and restricted opportunities in Russia. Gruenberg gained rapid, but fleeting, fame in America with his 1933 Opera The Emperor Jones, even appearing on the cover of Time. Gruenberg moved to Los Angeles and became an active film composer, with several Academy award nominations and at least 39 film score credits. His work stopped in the 1950s, likely as a result of blacklisting. Fellow Beverly Hills resident Jascha Heifetz commissioned and recorded a violin concerto in 1944, marking a second high point in Gruenberg’s career as a composer of concert music.
Ernst Toch (1887-1964, LA 1936-50, 58-64) was a Viennese Jew who taught himself to compose by studying the scores of Mozart quartets. Forced from his professorship in Mannheim by Hitler, Toch found refuge in Hollywood, where he scored music for films in relative obscurity (his music for the chase scene in Heidi is perhaps his best known score) and taught both music and philosophy at USC. Toch was a leading avant-garde composer in the pre-war years, and believed his music represented a ‘third way’ between serial music and traditional techniques, but in later life Toch abandoned polytonality in favor of a more traditional approach.
We close the album with It Ain’t Necessarily So by George Gershwin, in the transcription of his friend and neighbor, Heifetz. Born Jacob Gershowitz to recently arrived Lithuanian immigrants, Gershwin grew up to personify American music, and seemed the appropriate ending to this story. It is remarkable how much of the American scientific, economic and cultural dominance in the 20th century flowed from those who came to its shores seeking refuge, opportunities and fair treatment that their own governments would not afford them. These composers transformed the musical culture of America in ways that are only now beginning to be fully appreciated.
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The Classical:Next conference, scheduled for May 18-20 in De Doelen, Rotterdam, is off.
They say: After extended discussions with our local partner De Doelen, given the current circumstances and in the best interest of our delegates and wider community, Classical:NEXT will be postponed.
The gathering attracts around 1,000 delegates from across the classical sector.
A BBC News website report detailing all the cancellations in film, pop music, museums, book festivals and other arts conspicuously makes no mention of the devastation in the opera and orchestral fields.
As far as BBC News is concerned classical music does not exist.
And Tony Hall wonders why the credibility of his news service is at an all-time low.
It has selective vision, among other faults.
We hear that, as of this morning, the Royal Opera House is not allowing anyone into the area of the green rooms, no matter how much an artist may request.
The ROH is one of the last opera houses still open. It would like to stay that way until Tuesday, when Fidelio has its last show.
Federal Governnment press release:
The federal government will use billions of Euros to protect workers and companies from the consequences of the corona virus. The steps decided include the expansion of short-time work benefits, liquidity support and the deferral of tax payments, which should also benefit the cultural and creative industries.
“This is good news for the cultural and creative industries,” said Minister of Culture Monika Grütters. “This industry is particularly hard hit and partially existential due to event cancellations, order cancellations or breakdown of income from ticket sales and the loss of fees without replacement. It therefore urgently needs help to offset the major burdens. ”With a gross value added of more than 100 billion euros, the cultural and creative industries are one of the largest economic sectors – ahead of the chemical industry, energy suppliers and financial service providers. “This is why it is so important that the cultural, creative and media industries are given massive support through this aid package,” said Grütters.
“It is not easy to rebuild the structures that have grown up in the culture and media sector,” Grütters warned. “In the medium term, this can have an unimaginable impact on the diversity of our cultural and media landscape. That’s why now more than ever before, culture is not a decorative luxury that you only treat yourself to in good times. We now see how much we need them – especially with regard to social cohesion – since we have to do without them to a large extent. These aids are all the more important now. ”
In her area, the Minister of State for Culture wants to sharpen and use existing programs in such a way that the measures benefit both cultural institutions and, in particular, artists in need and other freelancers working in the cultural and creative industries.
Grütters also announced that as far as possible it would refrain from reclaiming projects and events funded by the federal government that had to be canceled due to the corona virus. “We will make full use of our legal options because it is clear that a lot of commitment and money have already gone into these activities. It is possible that digital formats can be used here instead of analogue. ”
The Minister of State for Culture wants to discuss and arrange these and other help options at the top cultural policy talk, in which she will meet in the early afternoon in Berlin with her colleagues from the countries and representatives of the local umbrella organizations.
Die Bundesregierung wird mit Maßnahmen in Milliardenhöhe Arbeitnehmer und Unternehmen vor den Folgen des Coronavirus schützen. Zu den beschlossenen Schritten gehören die Ausweitung des Kurzarbeitergeldes, Liquiditätshilfen und die Stundung von Steuerzahlungen, die auch der Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft zugutekommen sollen.
„Das ist eine gute Nachricht für die Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft“, sagte Kulturstaatsministerin Monika Grütters. „Diese Branche ist durch Veranstaltungsabsagen, Auftragsstornierungen oder wegbrechende Einnahmen aus Ticketverkäufen und den ersatzlosen Wegfall von Gagen besonders hart und zum Teil existenziell getroffen. Sie braucht deshalb dringend Hilfe, um die großen Belastungen auszugleichen.“ Mit einer Bruttowertschöpfung von mehr als 100 Milliarden Euro ist die Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft einer der größten Wirtschaftszweige – noch vor chemischer Industrie, Energieversorgern und Finanzdienstleistern. „Deshalb ist es so wichtig, dass Kultur-, Kreativ- und Medienwirtschaft durch dieses Hilfspaket massiv gestützt werden“, so Grütters.
„Was im Kultur- und Medienbereich an gewachsenen Strukturen einmal wegbricht, lässt sich so schnell nicht wiederaufbauen“, mahnte Grütters. „Das kann mittelfristig kaum vorstellbare Auswirkungen auf die Vielfalt unserer Kultur- und Medienlandschaft haben. Deshalb gilt jetzt mehr denn jemals zuvor: Kultur ist kein dekorativer Luxus, den man sich nur in guten Zeiten gönnt. Wie sehr wir sie brauchen – insbesondere was den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt betrifft – sehen wir jetzt, da wir in großen Teilen auf sie verzichten müssen. Umso wichtiger sind jetzt diese Hilfen.“
In ihrem Bereich will die Kulturstaatsministerin schon bestehende Programme so schärfen und einsetzen, dass die Maßnahmen sowohl Kultureinrichtungen als auch und insbesondere in Not geratenen Künstlerinnen und Künstlern und anderen in der Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft tätigen Freiberuflerinnen und Freiberuflern gezielt zugutekommen.
Weiterhin kündigte Grütters an, bei vom Bund geförderten Projekten und Veranstaltungen, die wegen des Coronavirus abgesagt werden müssen, auf Rückforderungen so weit wie möglich zu verzichten. „Wir werden unsere rechtlichen Möglichkeiten voll ausschöpfen, weil klar ist, dass bereits viel Engagement und Geld in diese Aktivitäten geflossen sind. Möglicherweise können hier statt analoger auch digitale Formate zum Einsatz kommen.“
Diese und weitere Hilfsmöglichkeiten will die Kulturstaatsministerin beim Kulturpolitischen Spitzengespräch besprechen und verabreden, bei dem sie am frühen Nachmittag in Berlin mit ihren Kolleginnen und Kollegen aus den Ländern und Vertretungen der kommunalen Spitzenverbände zusammenkommen wird.
Finland has cancelled all public events of over 500 people until end of May.
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra will continue to play, but to empty halls and with guest soloists replaced by locals. Alisa Weilerstein, for instance, makes way for Pekka Kuusisto.
A desperate message from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra:
In the last 48 hours, we have received notice that our planned performance at next week’s Beethovenfest Bonn will not be taking place, that our long-awaited US tour with Mitsuko Uchida is no longer possible, and that our week-long residency at Heidelberger Frühling with Pekka Kuusisto must, in its current form, be cancelled. Yet the spread of the coronavirus pandemic continues. We expect even more cancellations to follow as more governments take the necessary steps to ensure the public’s health and safety.
We will receive no payment for any performance that must be cancelled under these circumstances. Our musicians will not get their fees and the MCO must still bear any logistical costs already incurred such as previously booked travel and accommodation. This situation leads to huge losses that threaten the livelihoods of our members and the very existence of our orchestra. Because we do not receive any structural state funding, we must rely almost entirely on touring performances to earn our income and to cover our operational costs. So if we cannot perform in public, we cannot get paid. The same is true for our musicians, who operate as freelancers. Continued losses on this scale are simply unsustainable.
At present, we are working closely with all of our promoters, our guest artists and every single one of our partners to find mutual solutions in spite of a shared uncertainty. And we are encountering a willingness to cooperate and a spirit of generosity that is encouraging and reassuring to all.
To our colleagues and friends who are already using digital technology to share their music with the world: we are all applauding you loudly and encouraging you to continue. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra has no hall of its own. We have no empty house to stream from. And as cancellations continue, our members, who live in 16 different countries across the world, do not even know when they will see each other again, let alone make music together.
Substantial decisions are needed quickly that will secure the future of cultural life and classical music after the coronavirus pandemic. We are united with every effort to ensure freelance musicians and free ensembles the financial relief that they will need to survive.
We face a serious global threat, an unpredictable future. As musicians, we will choose to face this by making and sharing music, however and wherever we can for as long as possible. Coronavirus will not silence us. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra will #KeepPlaying.
Founded in 1997 by Claudio Abbado with former members of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, the MCO is based in Berlin.
A petition has been put up to require Juilliard to find alternative accommodation for students who are being evicted from the residence halls at 72 hours’ notice, due to the virus crisis.
Boarders must leave by Sunday 5pm latest. Many have nowhere to go.
Juilliard posted last night on its website: ‘We are working with residential students who need accommodations and emergency financial assistance—no student will be left without a place to live. Residential students from countries designated by the CDC as Level 2 and 3 alert are not expected to return home. We will work with each of these individual students to create a plan.’
The students are not reassured. The clock is ticking and they have nowhere to go.
We’re waiting to hear back from Juilliard.
UPDATE: We’ve heard from Juilliard. Here’s the latest: – All students who are able have been asked to leave the residence hall by March 22, not this Sunday.
– We are working with residential students who need accommodations and emergency financial assistance—no student will be left without a place to live.
You can see the latest updates on how we are responding to this and supporting students on our COVID-19 page on our website.
Meanwhile, can any of our NY readers take in a Juilliard student for a few days? Post your details below.
The first international competition for female conductors has been postponed after jurors were prevented by the virus crisis from reaching Paris this weekend.
Press statement. In view of the current international situation relating to the spread of COVID-19 which would have prevented several candidates and members of the jury to come to Paris, the Paris Mozart Orchestra and Philharmonie de Paris have made the decision to postpone the inaugural LA MAESTRA International Competition for Women Conductors due to take place at the Philharmonie de Paris between 16-19 March 2020. The inaugural LA MAESTRA Competition will now take place from Tuesday 15 until Friday 18 September 2020 at the Philharmonie de Paris.
Statement from president Adam Krauthamer of the Associated Musicians of Greater New York, Local 802 AFM:
In our city and state’s efforts to prevent and contain the spread of COVID-19, health authorities have urged social distancing, forcing businesses to cancel or indefinitely postpone large gatherings. For musicians, whose workspaces primarily constitute “large gatherings” – whether a theatre production, a concert, a music festival, or a recording session in close quarters – the developing coronavirus situation poses a major threat to our income and health and retirement benefits.
Many Local 802 members make their living as freelancers, relying on multiple employers for their income and to accrue health and pension benefits – which they can only accrue each time they work an engagement. While we applaud employers for taking all the necessary steps to ensure our members, fellow colleagues, and audience members are safe from the spread of this pandemic, the reality is that as musicians lose work for unpredictable amounts of time, their financial security is threatened. This does not just affect freelance musicians, but all our colleagues in the arts eco-system – hard-working actors, choristers, stage managers, crew members, ticket-sellers, and ushers who work in tandem to make the show go on.
As such, today I call on Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo to take action to ensure that musicians and other impacted cultural workers are covered during this time of crisis. As theaters and concert halls go dark, we must ensure that musicians and other arts workers are not left behind. We call on all relevant government agencies to work immediately to put together and pass a strong economic relief package that ensures all arts workers have access to health care and unemployment benefits while their workplaces are shuttered. Immediate action is required not only to protect public health, but arts funding at all levels. This will provide arts employers the resources they need to quickly recover and reopen when appropriate. New York benefits from one of the most dynamic and profitable arts and entertainment sectors in the world – we must ensure that all the workers who keep this sector running are taken care of during this pandemic and able to get back on strong economic footing when the crisis passes.
