Harpist makes yellow move

Harpist makes yellow move

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norman lebrecht

March 05, 2021

Deutsche Grammophon has signed Magdalena Hoffmann, principal harp of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Hoffmann, 30, is originally from Düsseldorf.

 

Comments

  • Peter X says:

    Can we please have recordings of some less well known harp pieces?!
    And no transcriptions of film music or works for guitar!?
    Händel, Mozart (harp & flute), Albrechtsberger, Rodrigo, Rota, Ravel, Debussy, Ginastera,…: non, merci.
    New -state of the art – recordings of Jolivet, Damase, Badings, Hoddinott, Mathias, Leo Smit, Carlos Salzedo (Ile enchantée), Geirr Tveit, Cowell, Higdon, Murrray-Schaefer, Pizzetti…could all do with new performances.

    • Mecky Messer says:

      This is DG. You think they are going to care about your harp aficionado feelings?

      They hired the proverbial Barbie to spit out anything and everything from La Macarena to the latest Pop cover to “reach out to young audiences” (A.K.A. Sell enough CD’s to cover operational expenses and be insolvent enough to help Universal write off taxes).

      In other words: #creativity.

      Right?

      • Mouse says:

        Sounds very 50s/60s… To think a media holding would accept an established label reporting losses (respectivey a classical music division would be allowed to report losses because CLASSICAL music works as figurehead for a music company (?) like Universal) is truly ridiculous. As for BIS, Marston, Naxos or Nonesuch, their purpose is not to be insolvent….

    • Basso Continuoso says:

      Some of those are dreadful pieces, but I’ll agree that most harpists repertoire, particularly in Europe, is pretty tasteless. But transcriptions still happen largely due to a lack of sufficient masterpieces; too many composers are too lazy to learn how to write well for the harp.

    • Basso Continuoso says:

      Her first recording betrays no sophistication about repertoire. Same old, bad transcriptions, obscure new music. So much for expanding the repertoire. Euroharpists have the worst training and standards. I don’t know how Xavier de Maistre feels about this deal.

  • Basso Continuoso says:

    Signed for what? She’s relatively unknown. It’s not like they did a search.

  • Basso Continuoso says:

    P.S., Guitarists are now transcribing harp music, so it’s kind of fair play, though I don’t agree with it much. In fact, the first thing a harpist notices when looking at guitar music is, how few notes there are!

  • Mikko says:

    Does anyone know how the “name cloud” in the background has been compiled – first I thought the size might reflect the number of DG records, but HvKarajan would block all out…

    • Tamino says:

      My guess it‘s the revenue excel sheet from the year before the interior designer of their new building was hired. The font size is proportional to the revenue in that fiscal year.

  • Paul North says:

    What is Deutsche Grammophone?

    • Mouse says:

      Deutsche Grammophone?
      Good question – never heard of this German/English combination…
      A German issue of Gramophone Magazine?
      Just a guess

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