Vasily Petrenko retrieves a Richard Strauss rarity, called Dreaming by the Fireplace.
Heard it before?
Me neither.
Superfan Rick Beato tries to figure it out.
Beato, 59, is a Youtube million-seller with a Martha fix.
This is fun.
In the first of a series of special offers exclusive to Slipped Disc subscibers, we can offer 22 freshly reissued CDs of the extraordinary Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik at approximately US $50 plus postage.
Kubelik became chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic at 29. He went on to head the Chicago Symphony, Covent Garden and Bavarian Radio. He was in many ways the conductor’s conductor: vastly knowledgeable, personally humble, unfailingly musical.
He was the first to record the complete symphonies of Mahler, one of the first to present Janacek to non-Czechs. His Schoenberg and Berg were fascinating, his Mozart miraculous.
This special offer is the first of a series we plan to bring to subscribers.
The first 50 readers to apply can buy the Kubelik boxes are our exclusive special price here.
The chorus, which has suffered heavy losses during Covid, is now mourning Danrell Williams, one of its most familiar faces.
The Chorus is mourning the loss of our dear colleague and brother Danrell Williams, who by all accounts was one of the happiest, most generous, caring, and funniest members of our family. Danrell’s humor will always encourage us to not take life too seriously, and his legendary generosity reminds us that our work colleagues really do feel like family. We’ll remember his riveting story-telling, and of course his silly nicknames for each of us. We’re so sorry that we’ve lost his immense talent, but most of all his heart, as he was always there to lend a hand to help up off the stage, to give a gift to us or a family member, or a good-natured insult to make us laugh.
Out of all of Danrell’s friends in the opera house, perhaps one of our ‘follow spot’ operators knew him best. During the overture on any given night, with the show curtain closed, one of Danrell’s friends in the lighting department would find him in the crowd and focus a spotlight directly on him. Danrell would bask in that light, face beaming, until just before the curtain would rise, and that’s just how we will remember him: a star on the stage and in life.
The Teatro alla Scala today presented a 2021-22 season of 13 operas and seven ballets amid hopes for an easing of Covid rules that restrict audiences to 500 in a 2,000-seat house.
Among striking debuts are the US soprano Lisette Oropesa, who missed her scheduled slot last season; the UK composer Thomas Ades with his opera The Tempest; and the Italian conductor Speranza Scapucci.
The season will open on December 7 with Verdi’s Macbeth conducted by music director Riccardo Chailly, with Anna Netrebko opposite baritone Luca Salsi and tenor Francesco Meli.
For a full rundown, see here.
The death has been announced of the international Russian cellist Lev Evgrafov, at the age of 86.
He was best known for extensive concert series titled ‘Soviet cello music’ and the like.
An unlikelier feature was the pianist, who was usually his mother, Lydia Evgrafova.
Bandstand on Broadway
Click here for tickets US – May 28-31 $6.99, with a 24-hour viewing period
Click here for tickets UK June 8-13 £10 + £3.
Memorial Day, when Americans hold parades to thank their military veterans, is a big deal (and a public holiday) in the US. In celebration of Memorial Day, Broadway On Demand (US) and Stream Theatre (UK) will stream the filmed version of the Broadway musical Bandstand.
Set in the smoke-filled, swing-fueled night clubs of 1945, Bandstand finds singer-songwriter Private Donny Novitski as he attempts to rebuild his life after returning home from the battlefield. When he hears about a national music competition, Donny joins forces with a motley gang of fellow musician-veterans, and together they form a unique group.
Written by Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor, Bandstand stars Corey Cott, Laura Osnes, and Beth Leavel, and is directed and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler.
For some reason I don’t understand, the US viewing period starts this week, the UK not until a week later which is why there are different ticketing links.
Reader’s Comment of the Day comes from William Osborne:
My wife Abbie and I have never participated in Europe’s new music world even though we have lived here for 42 years. Its cluelessly male orientation does not appeal to us. I think, for example, of media artist Stahl Stenslie’s statement in the program book of the 2000 Ars Electronica Festival that “even rape can be an art creational strategy.” Or I think of a talk given in 2017 at the Zentrum für Kunst and Media in Karlsruhe, one of Europe’s most important digital arts centers. Media theorist Norbert Bolz said women should not be allowed to work. It is an act of selfishness that harms families. He also noted that anyone can see that homosexuality is a disease that should be healed.
These are a couple of the more extreme examples, but they say something about a pervasive masculinist mindset which remains completely unacknowledged. Suffice it to say that this community which ironically sees itself as progressive and liberal has never been our cup of tea. And due to our activism for women in music, we became strongly resented and ostracized by it.
Happily, in the last few years there has been some slow movement toward more inclusivity for women. A tipping point will be reached. The curators and artists will eventually sense the new trend of “gender” and jump on the bandwagon.
It is difficult to explain why the new music world adheres to monolithic aesthetic and technical movements. Set practices like serialism or spectralism are established and become ruling paradigms. Artists must conform to the ruling trends while appearing avant-garde, almost as if they needed a TÜV certificate of appropriateness from Europe’s heavy cultural bureaucracies. (TÜV is an acronym in German which means „Technischer Überwachungsverein”. It is like UL, Underwriters Laboratories in the USA.)
The inclusion of women will continue to follow these same patterns. They are obligated to embrace the doctrines of the quasi-official avant-garde, the masculinist perspectives that we are conditioned to think of as being merely neutral. They will not be genuinely free, but part of a simulated equality in a tightly controlled and bureaucratic new music culture. As in the past, the effort will be to hollow women out and inhabit them while retaining only their face, a kind of window dressing that becomes something like being possessed by an alien force. Eventually, even the victims take this as perfectly normal.
The challenge of all artists is to circumvent these monolithic aesthetic ideologies, to stand apart and find authentic artistic identities. When women composers become about half of the new music world, and when they speak with their own voices, our world will be significantly changed.
composer Kaija Saariaho
The RoyalStockholm Phil wants to get you out of your seats.
A letter to Dear Abby:
DEAR ABBY: One of the things I always do when I have my parents and my sibling’s family over is play the piano. My 80-year-old father LOVES to hear me play. I am an accomplished pianist and I love to play difficult pieces.
During their most recent visit, while I was “trying” to play the Warsaw Concerto for my father, my family was talking over my grand piano, my niece was chasing my grand-niece through the living room and my sister-in-law was filming me, which was chaotic and terribly distracting. I think they were rude and disrespectful. How can I get them to stop this kind of behavior without sounding like a snotty jerk? — SERIOUS MUSICIAN IN COLORADO
ABBY replies:
DEAR MUSICIAN: When you wish to perform a concert for your father, entertain your parents APART from your sibling and the kids.
The orchestra is saying its goodbyes to Daniel Stabrawa, who is reitirng this summer after serving as concertmaster for 35 years.
Stabrawa, 65, was recruited by Karajan in 1983 from the Polish radio orchestra in his home town, Krakow, and promoted within three years to concertmaster.
The orchestra has made a little documentary with his parting thoughts.
Trailer here.
The junior winner of this year’s Menuhin competition is Keila Wakao, 15, from Boston.
She’s the daughter of Boston Symphon oboist Keisuke Wakao who last year overcame a life threatening throat cancer. Kiesuke was told that if he survived he would never play again. He beat both prognoses and is now back in the orchestra – thanks, in no small measure, to his violin-playing daughter.
Here’s the Ted talk on how she helped her Dad.
And this is Keila at the Menuhin, playing Bloch.
