Sir Adrian Boult displayed no emotion on the podium.

He put it all phlegmatically into the music.

This is the gorgeous prelude by the Anglo-Jewish Gerald Finzi, a north Londoner masquerading as a Cotswolds countryman

The Cliburn Competition has been put back a year to May 2022 as a consequence of the Covid pandemic. It was deemed impossible to hold the contest at Fort Worth, Texas, with international travel restrictions and social distancing.

The announcement is thought to herald another round of US cancellations for spring and summer 2021.

The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will award the Order of Merit to 15 citizens on October 1st.

‘The seven women and eight men have made an outstanding contribution: They help to cope with the corona pandemic, promote the merging of East and West and contribute to breaking down prejudices in our society,’ said President’s office.

Here’s the full list.

There is a death notice in today’s Times for Barry Griffiths, former leader of the BBC Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, and most distinctively, the English National Opera orchestras.

Barry was 81.

He leaves eight children and 19 grandchildren.

Here’s how good he was.

 

The Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbański, music director in Indiannapolis, has joined Germany’s Tanja Dorn for worldwide management. He was with HarrisonParrott in London until 2017.

Urbanski, 38, has been ten years in Indy and may be ready to expand his horizons.

Gerald Brinnen, former Principal Bass of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, has died aged 88. (Two weeks ago we lost the LSO’s Rinat Ibragimov).

Ken Knussen writes for Slipped Disc:

Gerald was born in Stockport in May 1932. He began studying the cello with my grandfather, Stuart Knussen Sr., Principal Cello of the Hallé Orchestra and in so doing became aware of my father, bassist Stuart Jr. and decided to move to the double bass. He became a pupil of Arthur Shaw, Principal Bass of the Hallé and very soon became a member of the National Youth Orchestra along with future principal bass players John Duffy (Hallé) and Bill Webster (London Philharmonic). By the age of 20 he himself had joined the Hallé and in 1956 my father offered him a place in his section at the BBC Symphony where Sir Malcolm Sargent was chief conductor. Also in the section were John Gray, Gerald Drucker and Maurice Neal along with Bob Norris and Juliet Cunningham. Within a couple of years Stuart Knussen moved to the LSO closely followed by John Gray. Gerald Drucker became Principal Bass and soon after principal conductor Rudolf Schwartz appointed Gerald Brinnen as Drucker’s co-principal.

On the formation of the New Philharmonia in 1964 Gerald Drucker became it’s first principal bass taking Maurice Neal with him. Brinnen auditioned and successfully won the Principal Bass seat at the BBC where he remained until his retirement in 1992 leading his section under chief conductors Antal Doráti, Colin Davis, Pierre Boulez, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Sir John Pritchard and Andrew Davis.

Gerald Brinnen was completely absorbed by the double bass. He never married and had no immediate family. Nor did he have hobbies to speak of. The bass and the orchestra were his life. He was often a difficult and reclusive character. In the sixties he decided to change from the French to German style of bass bow and studied with Czech Philharmonic principal, Frantisek Posta with whom he remained friends until Posta’s death. For many years Brinnen would not appoint French bow players to his section but this relaxed in the early 1980s. I joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1985 by which time the mainly young section was split 50/50 in bow technique. During this period until his retirement Gerald was clearly a victim of his own insecurities and hard to speak to. However, after his retirement and a few years of exchanging Christmas cards he invited me to his home for a meal and I discovered a completely different man. Warm and welcoming. A good cook and generous with his wines and gins. A man who would talk for hours wanting to know the professional gossip, to hear of my career development, and keen to tell me stories and anecdotes of a 40+ year career. I returned to his house every year for more food, drink and stories, later taking my wife Cath of whom he became very fond. Still surrounded by his instruments, bass related ornaments and photographs of conductors and musical heroes yet not having played a note since he left the BBC.

Sadly, Gerald suffered a series of strokes before a major one left him paralysed on one side in 2014. For the last five years he has been a resident in a lovely care home in Ashtead, Surrey where he has been well looked after. Despite his situation and an aging mind he often wanted to hear of players he had known and speak of his career. RIP Gerald. 

The concert hall at Kielce in Poland is today the scene of an international drugs gang trial with 17 defendants on stage – rather, in the dock.

The gang is accused of operating in Spain, Holland and Poland. The concert hall was deemed to be the only suitable space to house so many defendants securely and at safe distance during the Covid pandemic.

In all, there will be 60 people in the hall, incuding lawyers, clerks and security.

More here.

The veteran conductor, 84, opening tonight at La Scala, has been sharing some retro views with Corriere della Serra.

Among other things:

‘Leave the blacklists to American puritanism. Levine has been ruined by US media. Domingo had to leave Los Angeles Opera, which was nothing before he came. And all because of complaints from failed artists after 30 years . That sounds like revenge.’

Some kind of mutual defence union for over-80 maestros?

See also: Levine’s $3.5 million payoff

The soprano, recovering from a hospitalisation with Covid, has pulled out of next month’s Il Trovatore in Barcelona, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Rachel Willis-Sørensen jumps in.

The Cross of Merit of the State of Upper Austria, the region’s highest honour, has been awarded to the conductor Franz Welser-Möst to mark his 60th birthday.

The Cleveland Orchestra music director is a local lad, born in Linz.

A Musicians Union survey of 2,000 members finds that 70% are down to a quarter of their usual work and around half have found work outside the arts industries.

About one-third say they are leaving altogether. Details here.

Caveat: The survey is the largest seen so far. However, it is random and voluntary, dependent on those who were willing to reply.

Jeremy Montagu has died at 92.

A fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, he spent much of his life researching the origins and development of musical instruments. Having first played percussion for Sir Thomas Beecham in the Royal Philharmonic Orchetsra, he became an expert on all things beaten and blown, writing an important book on Timpani & Percussion in 2002.

He served as curator of the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments. His final book was on the shofar, which he blew with distinction.