This is Richter playing Liszt – not just as pianist but as actor.
Very rare Soviet film.
Be amazed.
We have been notified of the death of Eva Badura-Skoda, one of the foremost researchers of Mozart and Schubert.
She worked closely with her husband, the pianist Paul Badura-Skoda, from whom she later parted.
Away from Vienna, she was visiting professor in Boston, Montreal and elsewhere.
Carole King’s Tapestry is 50 years old.
The Corriere della Sera critic Paolo Isotta has died in Naples, aged 70.
Paolo seldom had a good word to say for Abbado and never a bad one for Muti. In 2013 he was banned from La Scala after a hostile review of Daniel Harding, Abbado’s protégé.
He was the dominant music critic of his day.
The abrupt cancellation of two Mahler cycles in Amsterdam and Leipzig have implications that extend way beyond Covid-19.
The Mahler festivals were due to take place in May and June 2021, when restrictions are expected to have eased and performances will be possible. But the symphonies of Mahler are among the largest in the literature, requiring 100 musicians and more.
Covid will not go away this year and distancing will have to be maintained. That makes Mahler either untenable or an uninsurable risk.
And not just in 2021. All music organisations will need to economise far into the forseeable future. Mahler may sell lots of tickets but he plays at a loss. Admnistrators are planning smaller and cheaper programmes.
Mahler risks becoming a luxury, a rarity.
When will we hear him again?
All week long, archivists at the Berlin Philharmonic have been burrowing through files on behalf of Slipped Disc to determine who, in 140 years, had the longest tenure.
In recent times, matter have been complicated by German legislation which sets the earliest hiring age at 18 and a mandatory retirement age of 65, rising soon to 66/67.
So it’s no huge surprise to find that one of the founding players, the first harp, played longest.
Here is the official top 10:
54 years: Otto Müller jun., b. 1867 in Berlin, d. 1939 in Berlin, harp, BPH 1882 – 1936
50 years: Franz Veit, b. 1879 in Teplitz-Schönau, d. 1959 in Berlin, violin, concertmaster, viola, BPH 1900-1950
48 years: Hugo Blume, b. 1855 in Berlin, d. 1925 in Berlin, timpani, percussion, flute (!), BPH 1882 – 1925
46 years:
Andreas Blau, b. 1949 in Berlin, principal flute, BPH 1969 – 2015
Peter Brem, b. 1951 in Munich, violin, BPH 1970 – 2016
Otto Feist, b. 1867 in Remda, d. 1948 in Berlin, principal trumpet, BPH 1894 – 1940
Peter Steiner, b. 1928 in Berlin, d. 2003 in Berlin, principal cello, BPH 1948 – 1994
spot the harp?
Coming soon: Veterans of the Vienna Phil.
The conductor Taavo Virkhaus, former music director of the University of Rochester and the Duluth Symphony Orchestra, has died at 88.
His family left for Germany in 1944 and moved to the US five years later. From the 1970s he played a prominent role in Estonian musical life.
No-one’s going anywhere right now.
Press release from the Berlin Phil:
Due to the current pandemic situation and the associated travel restrictions, conductor Sir Donald Runnicles unfortunately has had to cancel his appearance as part of the online festival “The Golden Twenties”.
Standing in for him, Thomas Søndergård will take to the conductor’s desk of the Berliner Philharmoniker for the first time. The orchestra is very grateful that Thomas Søndergård is able to step in at such short notice.
with Menahem Presler, pianist of the former Beaux Arts Trio
with Dianne Winsor, principal flute of Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León.
with pianist Iddo Bar-Shai.
with conductor Josh Weilerstein
Send more.
The Stuttgart State Opera House will resume streaming next week with a Shrove Tuesday cross-dressing programme, conducted by music director Cornelius Meister.
Robert Rozic, Stine-Marie Fischer. (c) State Opera Stuttgart
Riccardo Muti has appealed to Italy’s incoming Prime Minister Mario Draghi to reopen the opera houses, despite dangerously high levels of Covid infections and deaths.
Muti, 80 this year, said: ‘I appeal to Draghi, an extraordinary person, so that he can restore the dignity to culture in Italy that it deserves.’
In Dresden, Christian Thielemann is having a very public falling out with intendant Peter Theiler, who cancelled an impossibly large rehearsal for Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. ‘You can’t believe how disappointed I am that an orchestra like the Staatskapelle is not allowed to play and that we haven’t made more efforts to make something possible,’ said Thielemann.
The great jazz pianist has died of a rare cancer at 79.
John Mayer, a regular partner, writes: ‘Chick Corea was the single greatest improvisational musician I have ever played with. Nobody was more open, more finely tuned to the moment, changing his approach with every new offering by the musicians around him. If you hit a wrong note, he’d immediately pick it up and play it as a motif so as to say ‘all of this has value, whether you see it or not.’
Born in Massachusetts of Italian parents, he started out playing with Stan Getz before becoming indispensable to Miles Davis. He played Mozart and other classical music for pleasure, and included it in his online teachings.
He was a devoted follower of the Scientology cult.
He played Chopin, too, with an inimitable audience involvement.
Chick Corea with Menahem Presler.
His recording home was Munich-based ECM Records.
