Just in: Moscow reopens concert halls

Just in: Moscow reopens concert halls

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norman lebrecht

July 09, 2020

The Putin propaganda pianist Denis Matsuev has announced the reopening of Moscow concert halls from August 1. They will be allowed to play to a 50 percent audience.

Covid is still raging in the city.

Поздравляю всех с потрясающей новостью! С 1 августа в Москве открываются концертные залы. Можно будет проводить концерты классической музыки, в зале сможет присутствовать 50% слушателей от общей наполняемости зала. Конечно же, с соблюдением всех предписаний и рекомендаций Роспотребнадзора. Это огромное счастье для всех, кто ждал этого момента, как для публики, так и для артистов, которым смерти подобно было существовать без возможности выходить на сцену. Для нас отсутствие сцены – это как отсутствие воздуха. Вперёд к новым концертам, новым афишам, новым именам. Сегодня один из самых лучших дней для всех, кому сцена небезразлична. Вам всем большой привет из Петербурга. Скоро на сцену!

Comments

  • Amos says:

    Appropriate since putin also ordered trump to re-open American schools.

    • Alank says:

      What a ridiculously gratuitous and snarky remark that is bald face lie. You probably did not oppose Obama’s reset button or his promise of “flexibility” after re-election or his courageous delivery of “meals ready to eat” to the Ukrainians after the Russian invasion. Why cannot one just argue against the policies of their political opponent in a rational manner?

      • amos says:

        Because in the case of trump he has more than adequately demonstrated that he is beholden to putin and is doing everything possible to destroy our country. After 135K dead and over 3.2 million infected with COVID-19 his bright idea is to immediately re-open schools without a plan supported by public health experts! After learning of the Russian bounty program his response was to plan a WH meeting for putin and have him reinstated as a G8 member.

        • Alank says:

          Actually American progressives are on a mission to destroy American. Eviscerate the constitution, cancel culture, including history, and impose race based one party system. Trump is a deeply flawed person to say the least but wait until they start banning the western art music so beloved by the readers of this blog. These totalitarian thugs are as cultured as the Maoist revolutionaries who burned violins and western sheet music,

          • Amos says:

            Actually American progressives are on a mission to finally have a meaningful dialog on race and equality. Far from being eviscerated, they are insisting that the ideals set out in the Constitution apply to everyone. I’m not sure what a “race-based one party system” is but progressives are fighting to thwart the efforts of the right to control government by preventing as many Democrats as possible from voting. As for your characterization of progressives as “anti-culture totalitarian thugs,” on a par with Maoists I for one am deeply offended. I’d go on but I’m busy creating a petition to help enact universal voting by mail and listening to my favorite recording of the Dvorak 6th (or 1st depending on your view of the first 5).

            Cheers,

          • Morgan says:

            What evidence/proof have you to offer? Seems only glib accusations with a foundation of pudding.

      • MacroV says:

        I believe you may have misplaced your sense of humor and irony somewhere. It’s actually pretty clever given the way Trump appears to pay fealty to Putin.

    • Westfan says:

      With Trump, all roads lead to Putin. All the money laundering for Russian mobsters and oligarchs, (I guess one and the same) plus a few from other countries will come home to roost. Karma has no expiration date.

  • Matsuev is more than a “propaganda” artist, he’s a great artist.

  • robards365 says:

    He’s not my favorit pianist for the men, I prefere Buchbinder and Berezovsky, but he s very interisting and popular even in the countries who have political problems with Russia and I think it’s unfair to always make a link betwin him and the politic.

    • Jan Kaznowski says:

      As a pianist he has massive stamina. Look at this program billed for Carnegie Hall with Gergiev next Feb

      ALL-RACHMANINOFF PROGRAM
      Piano Concerto No. 1
      Piano Concerto No. 2
      Piano Concerto No. 3
      Piano Concerto No. 4
      Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

  • AstoriaEd says:

    Meanwhile Carnegie Hall has cancelled all performances until Jan 2021

  • aryn7654@hotmail.com says:

    Emil Gilels was Stalin propaganda pianist, then. Educate yourself, Mr. Lebrecht, don’t be a troll, it’s never too late to begin.

  • fflambeau says:

    I know nothing of this situation or the personalities. But reading from the photo’s body language: the pianist is saying internally: “I hope I don’t get too close to this guy, he’s toxic” Putin meanwhile seems to be saying, “Look what I can do for you!”

  • Edgar Self says:

    Rulers interested in the arts are raren’t so rare: Henry VIII, Nero, Thos. Jefferson, Joseph II, Solomon, Nixon, Truman, ,Carter, Frederick the Great, Prince Albert, Ludwig II, Jan Marsarek, Padewski, conductor Christian X of Denmark, certain popes, Lorenzo de Medicii, Helmut Schmidt and Putin, who cut a tug dancing with Austrian culture miniistress; Cardinal-Archbishop Archduke Rudolph, Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Prussia, who died in battle after writing a moonlit piece for pf and orchestra.

    Matsuev is a premier Russian pianist, with ArcadyVolodus, last heard of living in Spain near his teacher Dmitri Baskirov, Barenboim’s father-in-law, nho played Scriabin’s lush concert hereo with him and the CSO.

    Matsuev’s Rach Three here with Gergiev/St. Petersburg was close to Horowitz, whom I stupidly nfver saw. After it and a recital his encore was Anatol Liadov’S “Music Box””, once popular with pianists of Alexander Brailowsky’s ilk. Irving Kolodin thought the ,natomically U-tubed Brailowsky, who at the piano resembled a horse-shoe magnet lying on its side, had at last found the metier for his obsidian tone nalong with endelssohn’s little Scherzo in E minor, Hummel’s corny Rondo in E-flat, and Saint-Saens’s fourth concerto, which ws not a patch on unflappable Caadesus or Alfred Cortot’s Chabrierian bistro atmosphere, and Casadesus even had a rare finge slip, pulling down two notes in the one-note theme introducing its finale.

    Brailowsky recorded Etude in D# minor, which Cortot had been first to record after Scriabin’s own piano-roll of it and ten other pieces, including a sonata I’ve nver found.I liked some of these, but not his Chopin except for thee waltzes, which he played well.

    Programs used to be longer. In December 1952 in a cinema in bombed out Frankfurt-am-Main I saw Cortot, then 75 ,play this pogrom”. He was in good shape, I knew them all except “Carnaval” from his records, and was so stunned I didn’t think of trying to see him back-stage, thoough I later wrote him and got a three-page hand-written reply and inscribed Lipnitzki photo.
    “:, just back from a tour of Japan where he recorded two CD’s worth ofmajor works for Japanese Victor in between visits with the Empress to receive the gift of his very own island, Cortotshima, meaning “Hermit In the Island of Dreams”. Like London Bridge in Arizona, it came in a plain rapper. I wonder what has become of it. ∑hat if you had a bridge and island already?

    Chopin – Fantasie in F minor
    Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, “Marche funebre”
    Sonata No. 2 in B-flat mior, “arche funebre”
    —— Pause, Interval Intermission, Zwischnakt, Entr’acte,,Intermezzo
    Schumann – “Carnaval” and “Etudes symphonique” with five apppendix variations
    Encore: Schubert – Impromptu in A-fat with runs, which he never recorded.

    ,

  • Edgar Self says:

    Rather Putin than Ras-Putin or that fellow who thinks he’s temporary president of the USA.

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