Joan Baez singing the Bachianas Brasileiras was my first exposure to Heitor Villa-Lobos and the music of Brazil.

The ensemble of eight cellos is from the Utah Symphony Orchestra, conductor Maurice Abravanel.

For a more operatic rendition, here’s Bidu Sayao.

In my case, I think:

Missy Mazzoli: New work

Beethoven: G major piano concerto

Mahler: 10th symphony (Barshai edition)

Which orchestra? Has to be Vienna Phil.

Your choice?

Friends have reported the death from cancer of Judson Griffin, a leader in New York’s period instrument community.

He was concertmaster of Concert Royal, Amor Artis, and the American Classical Orchestra, among others. Before that, he was a principal player with Helicon, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, and Apollo’s Fire of Cleveland; and concertmaster of the Philadelphia Classical Orchestra. He was formerly a sought-after viola soloist.

Jessica Duchen takes a blast on her blog at some of the more thoughtful commentators who regard the present crisis as an opportunity to put right many of the things that have rotted and moulded for decades, especially in the larger, badly-run institutions like London’s Festival Hall.

After giving us a three-hankie guide to all of her happy nights front of stage and back, Jessica concludes with a blast at ‘those contrarian pundits who this week said a) theatre’s dying, “*whispers* good” (an actual tweet by a right-wing rag’s arts editor, who probably adored the massive outrage he caused), and b) kill off the Southbank and put it out to “private tender” (hello? this is the biggest arts centre in the biggest city in Europe, with a mission to serve its public, so what are you even talking about?).’

She continues: ‘Can you imagine a sports editor saying “it’s about time we killed off football”? It’s a shoddy, miserable, wanton look to kick something or someone when they’re down; and at a time when an unelected aid gets to address the nation from the Downing Street rose garden to say why it is apparently OK for him to undermine the health rules, it also shows that arrogant squandering of hard-won advantage has become a way of life here. That’s almost as dangerous and destructive as the virus itself. But remember: every dog has its day. There is a thirteenth circle of hell ready and waiting to hand out its keys. Really we should all be pulling together at the moment.’

This kind of piffling unreality does no-one any service, least of all its soft-hearted writer.

The South Bank Centre has been sinking since 1986 when it became a sub-protectorate of the Arts Council, bolstered by £19 million of state subsidy. It spent in excess of £120 million in a site overhaul, which did little to improve third-rate acoustics, and has since dedicated much of its executive attention to milking its potential as a fast-food mall. Classical music has been pushed to the fringes.

Throughout, the Centre has been accountable neither to Parliament nor to the public. It is a bureaucratic anomaly that needs to be reined in, and the Covid crisis gives a democratic state the perfect opportunity to recontitute it from core principles.

I have been arguing for South Bank reform for three decades. Its time has now come. Those who think the SBC can resume as before are flailing in an advanced state of self-delusion.

 

 

The orchestra has rolled out short-measure concerts for June and July, with no interval and a maximum permitted attendance of 100.

The first guest on June 5 is Igor Levit, as pianist and conductor.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Ouvertüre zum Singspiel “Der Schauspieldirektor” KV 486

Edvard Grieg „Aus Holbergs Zeit“, Suite op. 40

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Konzert für Klavier und Orchester Nr. 12 A-Dur KV 414 (KV 385p)

Next up is the music director Philippe Jordan:

Ludwig van Beethoven Ouvertüre Nr. 3 zur Oper “Leonore” op. 72b
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphonie Nr. 3 Es-Dur op. 55 “Eroica”

 

Finnish National Opera will open at the end of August with a satirical update of Mozart’s opera, starring soprano Karita Mattila. The humour will be Finnish, which is an acquired taste. Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct.

The rest of the seaons is in tatters. Die Walküre, pushed back to next year, will be conducted by Susanna Mälkki, wrecking Salonen’s dream of leading his first Ring cycle. More here. Kaija Saariaho’s new opera Innocence, which should have premiered at Aix, has been dropped until further notice.

Apart from that, Finland is having a good Covid war.

From our occasional diarist, Anthea Kreston:

How to start a new business during the pandemic. Begin by asking yourself a few key questions.
1 What am I good at?
2 How do I or my friends/family feel?
3 What are we going crazy by, what do we crave, what are our problems and what might our problems be in a couple of months?
4 What resources do I have?
5 Do I have the energy and drive to learn many new skills?
6 Do I want to be very busy?
7 Am I ok with failure?
8 How can I protect myself from loss in the case of failure?
9 Am I optimistic?

I am teaching a student in Chengdu, China, online, and after getting some heavy exposure (Slipped Disc and NYT), I was approached by several schools, asking me to design summer programs for them in the States. I had a lot of meetings, designed some detailed programs, but when I suggested that we also design a completely virtual option, it met with blank stares or was knocked away. It was also thick and tangly – the number of people I had to cajole or compromise with – my vision, which I feel strongly about – was left a weak, spineless version of what I had so passionately believed in. In the States, in mid-March, they couldn’t understand me when I said we need to prepare for the virus here – it is coming here. They were booking dorm rooms and talking about flights and per diem, and I was talking about Skype and online conferencing platforms.

And so, I turned down contracts which would have offered financial stability to my family. I lost sleep over that decision as I saw my spring and summer engagements slip away, one by one. As my 30 students went online in mid-March, I was happy that we were ok financially, and I went into kindof a stupor for a couple of weeks. Then, one day, my husband said during breakfast, “just do it yourself“.

And so I did. And am. And I am so busy learning and managing and dreaming and building, I hardly have a moment to spare. I started by asking myself the questions above. And those answers, and the ideas that came from them, filled a the spare school notebook of my 8 year old.

I knew what I wanted – a long-term online international learning platform for all ages and levels, easily accessible, flexible, extremely varied, and with the ability to continue and change for years to come. I believe we will be in some sort of Inside state until 2025, and so I want a quick fix and long-term options as well. I decided to call it Inside Music Academy, during one of my long jogs into the hills of our small, rural town in Oregon. Academy because I want the future, not just the now.

I bought and designed a website. I threw away any ideas of what a summer camp normally is, and looked instead at what we need. Laughter, physical movement, new friends, short attention-span projects, demanding work, learning new skills, silliness. And I went to work. I designed a module platform, hired a person to run the books, then a personelle director. I added interns and now have upwards of 30 people working on this Academy. I can’t open my phone without new orders coming in – from Germany, North and South America, and enquiries from New Zealand and Singapore.

I invited my friends to teach. I designed short, inexpensive, rolling sessions in 4 different categories. I added Suzuki, conducting, composition, baroque. The electives module is so fun, I want to take every one – from Blast from the Past (silly music history – make a wig of famous composers out of toilet paper) to composition and community outreach taught by an El Systema teacher. I thought of the people who make me laugh, and I asked them to teach. My colleagues and my students and my teachers. I saw that my students were lethargic so we started to do scales while doing sit-ups or squats, and we take Victory Laps around the room every time we have a success in a lesson. I am now pre-recording our Rise-and-Shine daily warmups – bowhold burpees, high-knee running in place arpeggios. It’s silly and it’s fun and it’s actually a workout, but lead by a moderately-in-shape mother-of-2 in her mid-40‘s.

I have a lawyer drafting privacy documents, a Google Classroom specialist helping me design our virtual classroom, loading the virtual library, setting up the live Webcasts for our 12:12 Nanoconcerts (5-minute live concerts – guest superstars, selected students – it’s a surprise!). We have a full Suzuki wing, and Adult Learners are signing up. It’s a place for us to all be together, to laugh, to challenge ourselves, to learn new skills and to find solace within ourselves. I can’t believe how much I have already learned – we go live June 15, and we will jump into this new world with curiosity, ready to break free of our physical confines, and to expand our minds – the biggest and most free expanse in the world.

Director, Inside Music Academy
Virtual Summer Festival
www.InsideMusicAcademy.com

 

From an interview with Andrea Zietzschmann in the Financial Times:

“There are still many concerns,” says Andrea Zietzschmann, general manager of the Berliner Philharmoniker. “We are looking at a September or October start and will have to be very flexible about taking decisions at short notice. Scientists have stipulated spacing within the orchestra of 1.5 metres between the strings, and two metres between the wind, which means 32-37 players, though the number might rise later to 50 or 60. In the audience, we can only have 400 maximum in the main hall, which is an [unsustainable] situation.”

“In Berlin, there was a lot of competition before,” says Zietzschmann, “but now we stand together and fight together. There is no guarantee the deficit will be cleared for us, but we will apply for special funding when the time is ready, and those who are responsible know how our budget looks and want to support us. We are in a better position [than in countries with less public funding]. At least, we know for sure we will have a future life.”

Read more here.

 

From my essay in the new issue of The Critic:

Overnight, all noise ceased as the world went into lockdown. No planes, no trains, no cars. For three days I listened to nothing but birdsong, marvelling at the variety and the volume. Could it be that the birds were singing louder? Ornithologists, called onto the BBC, said that, on the contrary, the birds were singing softer now they no longer had to compete with cars to get their courtship messages across to the other sex. Whatever, it worked. Birds are nesting in my front garden for the first time since I’ve lived in central London.

If birds were the first beneficiaries of shutdown, we were next. Humans could hear that birds were maestros, offering a clearly stated theme, varied repetitions and an upbeat ending, often with a high final note to solicit a reply. Oh, so that’s how it’s done? Then French composer Olivier Messaien based much of his music on birdsong. Held in a German prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, far from home, Messaien composed a Quartet for the End of Time which twitters with simulated birdsong and embeds it in concentrated form in a movement titled “Abîme des oiseaux”, an abyss of birds. I have never been moved by this passage or by any of Messiaen’s other mimicries in his interminably long and irredeemably literal Catalogue d’oiseaux. Frankly, birds do it better.

I have similar reservations about Beethoven’s chirp of nightingales in the Sixth Symphony and Mahler’s in his Third. Ravel does it, Janacek does it, and so do Schumann, Grieg, Liszt and many more. Every time I hear the sound of birds imitated in classical music I feel diminished. Birds are perfect creatures, divinely wrought. Human composers are forceful strivers, mere contrivances…..

Read on here.

The Berliner Ensemble has shared this picture of its post-Covid auditorium.

It is no exaggeration.

The state of Bavaria has just told concert halls they may reopen in mid-June. The maximum permitted audience will be 100 outdoors, 50 inside.

The Bayreuth Festival has issued a bulletin on its absent chief.

It says Katharina, 42, is ‘still seriously ill, but on the way to stabilization.’

The statement added: ‘The recovery process will take months.’

 

Barrett Artists, formerly Herbert Barrett Management, has sent a letter to its musicians telling them it cannot stay in business after the impact of Covid on bookings and revenues.

Its senior partner John Anderson is retiring at 80 and the rest cannot see a way forward.

‘With your guidance, we will do our best to find you new representation,’ says Anderson’s letter. ‘Once we have made a public announcement of my retirement and closing the office, the process may take care of itself. This will happen before the week is out.’

Herbert Barrett, who died in 2007, once had Martha Argerich, Sherill Milnes (pictured) and Ravi Shankar on his books.

The present roster includes pianist Cecile Licad, cellist Gary Hoffman and conductor Stephen Lord.