Death of former La Scala concertmaster

Death of former La Scala concertmaster

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norman lebrecht

January 27, 2021

We have been notified of the death, on January 20, of Elena Taskova, who joined the La Scala orchestra in 1973 and played for quarter of a century. Her husband Petko Radev (pictured), a fellow-Bulgarian who died in 2018, was principal clarinet.

Elena was 86.

 

Comments

  • JussiB says:

    RIP.
    It’s good to watch recent online streams of La Scala Orchestra playing symphonic works.

  • Musicienne says:

    Was there no picture available of Ms. Taskova, a concertmaster? Why post a photo of her husband?
    Seems she more than deserved her own photo in remembrance, rather than being only “Mr. Principal Clarinet’s Wife”…..

  • drummerman says:

    How about a photo of Elena?

  • mary says:

    Someone please submit a photo of Ms Taskova, kinda odd to be represented by the photo of the concertmaster’s clarinet playing husband in her own obit.

  • IP says:

    RIP. Fantastic musicians. Petko Radev would play anything, from the Mozart concerto to Bulgarian folk music, always in style. For the folk, he had a Gypsy accordeonist who was illiterate, could not read music either. He just wanted to be shown, physically, the key to start with, and off he went. Occasionally, Petko would put him on purpose in the most awkward tonalities — never a problem. They don’t make them like that any more.

  • IP says:

    Then, although not directly related and already 5 or 6 years dead, there was Georgi Badev the violonist. As a boy he had to experiment making fireworks, so he played with the first phalanges of the left hand amputated. Lots of material on youtube, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIztosRBK-M

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