In the 1920s, the great violinist started playing pieces he claimed to have discovered in archives, written by largely-forgotten composers of the late baroque period. He played them as encores and the public adored them. Then some literalist music scholar called them out as fake and Fritz owned up to composing them himself.
This is one of Fritz Kreisler’s fake-baroque pieces. Phony or not, it comes straight from the heart.
Statement tonight from the La Scala press office:
Dear colleagues and friends,
Since yesterday Milan is in lockdown again. The streets are deserted, the silence is often broken by the sound of ambulances and performances with the public attending in the hall are forbidden at least until December 3rd. In these conditions it was neither possible nor a sign of responsibility to confirm our choice to open the Season with Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor on December 7th. Lucia would have been conducted by the music director Riccardo Chailly with the direction of Yannis Kokkos and Lisette Oropesa, Juan Diego Flórez and George Petean as the protagonists. Rehearsals had already started on 26 October and the performances will now be rescheduled.
The tradition of the opening of the Teatro alla Scala Season is very much felt in Milan. Originally La Scala, like all Italian theatres, opened its Season on 26 December. After the World War II the reconstruction of La Scala, which had been partially destroyed by bombing, became a symbol of the rebirth of the city. In 1951 it was decided to further underline the link between La Scala and Milan by moving the opening date to 7 December, which is the day of Saint Ambrose, the patron saint of the city. That year Victor de Sabata conducted Verdi’s “I Vespri Siciliani” with Maria Callas. Since then, 7 December has become a point of reference in the calendar of opera lovers all over the world and one of the most important cultural events in Italy, also thanks to the collaboration between La Scala and Rai (the Italian public television) which not only broadcasts the premiere live on its main channel but also shares it with some of the major international television channels. Last year the premiere of “Tosca” reached more than 2,850,000 viewers in Italy alone.
La Scala will not remain silent this 7 December either. In the next few days we will announce the program of a concert conducted by Riccardo Chailly in which some of the greatest international singers will participate together with our orchestra, choir and ballet. We will not be able to have an audience in the hall but Rai will allow us to be seen by a wider, international audience broadcasting our “7 Dicembre” on channel 1 and on some of the main international TVs. It will be a wonderful night of music but also a message of will and hope for Italy and for all the theatres and artists affected by the global events of these months.
We will update you soon.
The Hungarian double-bass player Géza Lajhó, a founding member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, has died in hospital of Covid-19.
He was 64.
Donald Trump’s favourite pianist – well, the only one he ever invited – is now working with violist David Aaron Carpenter.
Into every life a little cheer must fall.
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Just by reviewing this recording I will be accused of taking sides in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, such is the ferocity and pettiness of the largely unreported conflict. Mansurian is, as his name suggests, Armenian. Born in Beirut in 1939 to refugees from the Turkish genocide in Armenia, he returned to Yerevan in the 1950s and lived there fruitfully under Soviet rule and after.
The title track of this album is a meditation for sextet on the 13th string quartet of Dmitri Shostakovich composed in a mixture of Kurtag-like fragments and long devotional lines of Christian worship. The concentration is so intense it feels as if each note was polished and wrapped in cellophane…
Read on here.
And here.
In The Critic
In Czech.
In Spanish.
More languages follow.
The brilliant South African soprano has joined Gianluca Macheda’s company for general management.
She was previously with Zemsky/Green who tied her in to a Sony Classical record deal.
Let’s see what happens now.
Macheda is based in Warsaw, Lucca and New York.
Domenic Salerni has left the Dalí Quartet to join the better known Attacca Quartet.
They have quickly named Ari Isaacman-Beck as his replacement.
