The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has written to the president of the University of North Texas, warning him that his inquiry into the Schenker furore violates the First Amendment of the US constitution. This may end up in court.

The First Amendment Bars UNT from Penalizing Scholarly Writing Others Find
Offensive
While the content of JSS’s series of responses to Ewell’s SMT address may be deeply offensive
to some readers, it does not fall into any exception to the expressive rights shielded by the
First Amendment and academic freedom. It is well-established that the First Amendment
does not make a categorical exception for expression that some may find hateful, and equally
well-established that it constrains public universities in penalizing students for exercising
their right to free expression and faculty members for exercising their right to academic
freedom.
A. UNT is Bound by the First Amendment’s Protection of Academic Freedom
It has long been settled law that the First Amendment is binding on public colleges like UNT.
Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 180 (1972) (“[T]he precedents of this Court leave no room for the
view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should
apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large. Quite to the
contrary, ‘the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the
community of American schools.’”) (internal citation omitted); see also DeJohn v. Temple
Univ., 537 F.3d 301, 314 (3d Cir. 2008) (on public campuses, “free speech is of critical
importance because it is the lifeblood of academic freedom”).
The Supreme Court of the United States has made clear that academic freedom is a “special
concern of the First Amendment,” explaining that “[o]ur nation is deeply committed to
safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to
the teachers concerned.”

 

The latest statement from Placido Domingo pleading his innocence of sex assaults exists in a realm of denial, contradicting his earlier acceptance of responsibility. Domingo presently cannot accept he has done anything wrong.

How can he maintain that when so many women insist otherwise?

The answer is rooted in the deepest faultline in the opera world, a line which tells stars they are immaculate and cuts them every kind of slack.

Domingo was a prime beneficiary. He kept on getting booked as a tenor when he was long past his best, booked as a baritone when the tenor voice failed and finally got hired as a conductor – all because he is one of the few star names the paying public still recognise.

He was allowed to run two major opera companies – Los Angeles and Washington – at the same time, all the while flitting off by private jet to his vanity freelance engagements.

Nothing was said when he consorted with corrupt sports chiefs and political dictators.

 

When the sexual accusations against him were made public, Domingo was still welcomed in Russia, Japan and China, not to mention Salzburg, still encouraged to believe he could do no wrong.

Just like James Levine at the Met.

Just like the Putin puppets Valery Gergiev and Denis Matsuev.

Just like every other star name the opera industry feels it must protect in order to save its box-office.

Nothing was going to change the immunity enjoyed by stars until Covid came along.

But now it might.

 

Just lovely.

 

Welcome to the 107th work in the Slipped Disc/Idagio Beethoven Edition


String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major op. 127 (continued)

Probably the best way to assess different approaches to the first of Beethoven’s late quartets is to group them by the traditions I outlined yesterday in When Beethoven Became Unplayable. It’s not an infallible process since there are a number of outliers we need to take into account, nor does it always to the categories I have set. The first authentic American recording, for instance, is by the Pro Arte Quartet, which was founded on high classical principles in Belgium and had as its first violin Rudolf Kolisch, who was the brother-in-law of the arch-modernist Arnold Schoenberg.

The Pro Arte, originally resident at the court of the King of the Belgians, were playing in Madison, Wisconsin, at the outbreak of the Second World War. Since they could no longer go home the locals granted them the first string residency at any American university and the group never looked back. Their 1946 recording of the opus 127 sounds somehow disembodied from European traditions, beautifully played with a whispery pianissimo. Aside from Kolisch, the players were Albert Rahier, Germain Prévost and Ernst Friedlander. After many changes of personnel, the Pro Arte marked its centenary in 2012 and continues playing to this day.

On similar lines, I find it fascinating to compare two 1956 recordings – one by the Amadeus Quartet, composed of three Austro-German refugees and and English Jew, and the other by the Walter Barylli Quartet, who were Viennese and included at least one Nazi. The Amadeus cling more to a definedly Viennese sweetness, while the Barylls are muscular, nonchalant, unGermanic in the glint of humour that pervades the Scherzo. Baryilli was concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic from 1939 and his quartet were resident at the Musikverein. The cellist Emanuel Brabec was principal of the Vienna Phil and teacher of the period instrument propagator Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Tradition does not always run in predictable lines.

The ultimate Viennese group, the Alban Berg Quartet, took late Beethoven as a starting point for their exploration of modernism and the 20th century. Their leader, Günter Pichler, was concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic at the age of 21 but the players soon switched from orchestral playing to teaching careers, first in Vienna and then in succession to the Amadeus at Cologne. As such they are probably the most influential of all string quartets since Joachim’s, numbering mong their students the Cuarteto Casals, the Belcea Quartet, and the Artemis. If their playing can be a tad pedagogic, it is also precise, faultless and musically poetic. I am not sure the opus 127 is their finest half-hour, but even half-best Berg is way above most mortal aspirations. Compare them to other fine Viennese quartets – the Weller, the Hagen – and you’ll hear the class distinction. Pichler, in later years, became a rather good conductor.

Let’s talk Hungarian for a moment among ourselves. The choice is between Sándor Végh‘s quartet (1952), Zoltán Székely‘s Hungarian String Quartet (1955) and the transcendent Budapest Quartet, which among many lasting legacies, established the rules by which quartets resolve disputes and split the money, legislating also that wives and partners were never to be allowed into rehearsal. The dominant players were Joe Roisman and Sascha Schneider. No group plays the adagio of this quartet with deeper, darker feeling. The Budapest were house quartet for the Columbia label until they disbanded in 1967, having given many American music lovers their formative quartet experience on record.

Other Hungarian ensembles include Attila Falvay’s Kodály Quartet (1998), the Bartok Quartet (2014) and the outstanding Takacs Quartet, which is led by an Englishman, Edward Dusinberre, who has written an immersive book about playing Beethoven quartets. Founded in Budapest in 1975, the quartet lost all but one of its Hungarians on the road without ever sacrificing its hot paprika flavouring. The Takacs account of opus 127 would have to come near the top of any shortlist.

 

The core American quartets are the Fine Arts, made up originally of players in the Chicago Symphony, the Guarneri, which taught at Curtis and maintained a strong individualism among its members; the Juilliard; the Vermeer; and, above all the Emerson, which combined large-boned athleticism with intellectual sensitivity, becoming house ensemble for Deutsche Grammophon in the early 1980s. Recording the opus 127 1997, there is an edge and daring to the playing that can only come from constant thrust and very great trust between the players. One further US-based group needs to be heard: the LaSalle Quartet of Cincinnati were signed by DG to perform atonal modernism. They made a point of underpinning it with late Beethoven, a confluence that sounds even greater in their interpretations than in the Alban Berg’s.

As the 21st century dawned, quartets got fitter, quicker, lither, smarter. The Berlin-based Artemis Quartet, for instance, made a fad out of playing standing up. It added propulsive excitement to the playing, sometimes a visible competitiveness that was not necessarily a musical virtue. The sound, though, is unmistakably their own and in this quartet they are immensely powerful.

The Casals Quartet (2017) – Abel Tomàs, Vera Martínez Mehner (violins), Jonathan Brown (viola), Arnau Tomàs (cello) – are more discreet with their dazzle and extrememly mellifluous. The Belcea, Miro and Kuss Quartets are also in contention for the fastest and the fittest. When it comes to choosing, the key question is how much one values a sense of tradition over the pace of modern life.

My initial inclination is to recommend the best of both – which would be the Takacs – but my passion draws me to the La Salle and, beyond them, to the Fine Arts, Barylli and Busch. Off the beaten track, I suspect that the most lyrical performance is that of the Quartetto Italiano on Philips in 1996, a sound sweeter than Amaretto. There is no one-fits-all solution to this perplexing masterpiece.

 

The latest guest on Zsolt Bognar’s Living the Classical World is the fast-rising South African soprano, Golda Schulz. Joyous and upbeat as she seems, she used to suffer from crippling stage fright.

‘They used to move my lifeless body to one side while someone played a piano concerto,’ she confides.


Watch. She’s a wonderful communicator.

 

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Mikis Theodorakis, who turned 90 last month, earned worldwide fame for the music to the 1964 film Zorba the Greek and remained a poster-boy to the international Left for his unwavering commitment to Communism. Aside from his film music, his song-cycle The Ballad of Mauthausen ranks among the most beautiful music ever written about the Nazi Holocaust.

Less familiar are the composer’s classical roots….

Read on here.

And here.

And here in Spanish.

And here in Czech.

And in French.

WE’re in a position to name the member of the Curtis Institute’s senior leadership who was laid off in a day of long knives.

She’s Lourdes Starr Demers, an industry veteran of 20 years who worked for the National Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra before being appointed Senior Vice President of Artistic Operations at the Curtis Institute of Music.

During her time at the Curtis Institute of Music, Ms. Starr Demers has been instrumental in the opening of Lenfest Hall, the ongoing production of Curtis’ highly popular massive open online courses, and the design, development and success of Curtis Summerfest, now approaching its’ seventh year. As a member of the senior team at Curtis, Ms. Starr Demers shares her passion of bringing musical excellence to the greater global music community. She has presented on topics in music education and arts administration at national conferences such as Sphinx Connect (2018) and as part of an ALAANA network for the League of American Orchestras (2018).

We’re hearing a great deal of internal turmoil at her dismissal.

Still no word from Curtis.

 

A letter has gone out to artists from Dominique Meyer, sovrintendente of La Scala, warning them that he has to reduce fees.

We are forced to ask you all to make an important gesture of solidarity by agreeing to a 10% reduction in forthcoming contracts, with effect from those for the 2021 calendar year. This will provide a tangible form of support for the Theatre and help ensure its survival in the coming seasons… I feel certain that you will receive this request with understanding.

 

Jonas Sakalauskas, director of Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet, has called in sick with Covid-19.

‘I received positive data this morning that coronavirus is present. Procedures are currently underway to identify my contacts,’ said Sakalauskas, 38.

The theatre has been shut until further notice.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields will give one of London’s first indoor audience concerts on Sunday 23 August at 5pm & 7pm at St Stephen’s Church, Dulwich, it was decided today. The players last performed together on March 12.

There are no plans to play BBC Proms with an audience.

 

The philanthropist Warner Henry has died at 82.

Together with his wife Carol, he was the principal backer of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, gave $10 million to Domingo’s LA Opera, and also supported the Colburn School, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Camerata Pacifica and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

photo: LACO

The Salzburg Festival has prohibted the use of fans during performances, despite soaring temperatures.

“This would allow infectious aerosols, which should be sucked upwards into the air conditioning system, to circulate laterally, which we absolutely must avoid,’ an official said.

Audiences are reminded to put their masks back on during the applause.

That’s not cool.