Milton Babbitt, godfather of American ascetic music, has died aged 94. He was far more than his music let on. A mathematician and wit, he once taught Stephen Sondheim, who spoke of him ever after with warm appreciation.


In a 2004 interview, Sondheim said‘Babbitt taught me what long-line composition is about, how to organise music over a span of time. It has to be the musical equivalent of a plot in a play.’

Here’s a 2006 Babbitt interview.

And here’s his Composition for Four Instruments, with running score. More clips on his Facebook page.

Also gone is Margaret Price, the great Welsh soprano, at just 69. She was a heroine almost without honour in her homeland. Acclaimed in Germany and Austria for her Lieder as well as her opera roles, she was inadequately appreciated in London and insufficiently recorded by Decca, which gave its plum roles to Joan Sutherland and Renata Tebaldi, and later to Kiri te Kanawa.

I heard her last some 20 years ago in Salzburg, a memorable Schubert recital, wonderfully modulated and without the harsh edge that sometimes marred her microphone performances.

Soon after, she recorded for Hyperion’s complete Schubert edition.


It’s a sad day for music when two titans leave the scene.


And here’s an underrated Mahler’s Fourth she recorded with Jascha Horenstein.



And Strauss Four Last Songs on Youtube.

Milton Babbitt, godfather of American ascetic music, has died aged 94. He was far more than his music let on. A mathematician and wit, he once taught Stephen Sondheim, who spoke of him ever after with warm appreciation.


In a 2004 interview, Sondheim said‘Babbitt taught me what long-line composition is about, how to organise music over a span of time. It has to be the musical equivalent of a plot in a play.’

Here’s a 2006 Babbitt interview.

And here’s his Composition for Four Instruments, with running score. More clips on his Facebook page.

Also gone is Margaret Price, the great Welsh soprano, at just 69. She was a heroine almost without honour in her homeland. Acclaimed in Germany and Austria for her Lieder as well as her opera roles, she was inadequately appreciated in London and insufficiently recorded by Decca, which gave its plum roles to Joan Sutherland and Renata Tebaldi, and later to Kiri te Kanawa.

I heard her last some 20 years ago in Salzburg, a memorable Schubert recital, wonderfully modulated and without the harsh edge that sometimes marred her microphone performances.

Soon after, she recorded for Hyperion’s complete Schubert edition.


It’s a sad day for music when two titans leave the scene.


And here’s an underrated Mahler’s Fourth she recorded with Jascha Horenstein.



And Strauss Four Last Songs on Youtube.

I have received a short memoir of the great Soviet pianist from the Israeli conductor, Uri Segal. Unlike his great rival, Sviatoslav Richter, little is known of Gilels (1916-85) outside of the official version – that he was a loyal servant of the system. Segal adds a personal dimension:

It was in 1982, in Helsingborg, Sweden that I had the great fortune of collaborating with Emil Gilels, conducting Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto Nº1 in Bb minor  for him. This encounter which turned to be a memorable one for me in more then one way, was a  “miracle” in itself: At that time no Soviet musician was allowed by the Soviet régime to perform with Israeli colleagues, and so the collaboration between Mr. Gilels and myself should have been forbidden. Anyway, to my great amazement it was allowed to happen.

After the first rehearsal with the Helsingborg Symphony Mr. Gilels asked me to join him for lunch at the hotel bistro and a conversation ensued between us (Gilels’ wife Lala, was not feeling very well and preferred to rest in the room upstairs).

 

Gilel: “Have you ever been to Russia”?

Segal: “No”.

Gilels: “Have you ever been to a communist country”?

Segal: “Yes. I have been to Poland (touring the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra in 1972)

Gilels: “And what was your impression”?

Segal: ” Well, it was mixed. However, when I took my seat on the plane back to the West I felt a great relief”.

Gilels: “I want to show you something”.

 

At that point Gilels drew out of his purse a piece of yellow newspaper cutting in which a few words were underlined in red. It was a cutting of the New York Times from 1962 describing the press reception given to Stravinsky on his returne back to the US from his visit to Russia, his first visit in 48 years. To the question by the press was there anything he liked about the USSR Strvinsky replied there were indeed two things he did like about it, namely “the vodka and the exit visa” (Stravinsky was regarded as an “émigré traitor to the Motherland” by the Soviet régime).

 I was touched to the core of my heart. Gilels was keeping this piece of newspaper all those years in his purse as a kind of “secret motto” and at a tremendous risk to himself, and what’s more, he trusted me enough to unravel it to me (at a time the harsh Brezhnev régime is still raging).

That evening I was invited by the Gilels to their room for tea and Mr. Gilels was very interested to hear my view on Schoenberg. He was very happy and proud about a recent trip to Vienna where he played and recorded Mozart Double Concerto with his daughter Elena and the Vienna Phiharmonic under Karl Böhm. He said there was nothing better in life.

 The evening of the concert Gilels and I were supposed to meet at a certain time in the hotel lobby to be driven to the concert-hall together. I came down at the appointed time and Gilels was not there. I waited and waited and then tried to call his room but the phone was constantly busy.

Finally he came down. He looked pale and  extremely shaken, trembling all over he said “They are killing me. Look, my hands are shaking. How do they want me to play a concert now”. It was the KGB harassing him. It was pretty awful.

emil-gilels

Why Mahler? had some signings lined up at West End book stores today, only to find that Listen to This had either preceded him, or was about to follow.

‘We have more for you to sign than Mr Ross,’ said an encouraging manager at Foyles, one of my favourite boyhood haunts. Much smarter now than I remember it, though ringed by major construction works, Foyles feels like a place you would visit for easy pleasure, as well as urgent enlightenment. 
Miriam, a marketing manager from Colorado, had thoughtfully warmed up a room to unfreeze the author’s fingers. 36 copies were beautifully piled in a semi-circle. It was too early in the day for a single malt, but it was that kind of atmosphere. Here’s the Foyles website: http://www.foyles.co.uk/book-shops-in-london
Crossing Charing Cross Road, I dropped into Blackwells, the Oxford-based, academic-led chain. Seeing no copies of Why Mahler? I asked for its availability. ‘We sold one last week and have another on order,’ said a slumped young man in a sweater. ‘Should be in by the middle of next week.’ Thank you kindly.
At Waterstone’s on Piccadilly, a 20-something assistant exclaimed, ‘did you write Why Mahler? I bought it yesterday, for myself. It looked so interesting.’ Four piles of the book were nicely displayed around the music and arts section on the third floor. Classier than I expected from a national high street chain.
Hatchards (http://www.hatchards.co.uk) were having me back for the third time in as many months to sign another 50 copies. The bookshop sits on the site from which Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, once ran a wine store. He went bust. They won’t. Hatchards knows its customers better than any bookstore I have ever come across, and knows its authors too. A respectable pile awaited Mr Ross. When my arm seized up, I asked how many I had signed. ‘About 100,’ said the assistant, who turned out to be a creative weaver with several exhibitions to her credit. Classier still.
Apparently, Why Mahler? is flying out of the store with many copies ordered online – three in a single call from Santiago, Chile. I wonder how Alex is doing.

Why Mahler? had some signings lined up at West End book stores today, only to find that Listen to This had either preceded him, or was about to follow.

‘We have more for you to sign than Mr Ross,’ said an encouraging manager at Foyles, one of my favourite boyhood haunts. Much smarter now than I remember it, though ringed by major construction works, Foyles feels like a place you would visit for easy pleasure, as well as urgent enlightenment. 
Miriam, a marketing manager from Colorado, had thoughtfully warmed up a room to unfreeze the author’s fingers. 36 copies were beautifully piled in a semi-circle. It was too early in the day for a single malt, but it was that kind of atmosphere. Here’s the Foyles website: http://www.foyles.co.uk/book-shops-in-london
Crossing Charing Cross Road, I dropped into Blackwells, the Oxford-based, academic-led chain. Seeing no copies of Why Mahler? I asked for its availability. ‘We sold one last week and have another on order,’ said a slumped young man in a sweater. ‘Should be in by the middle of next week.’ Thank you kindly.
At Waterstone’s on Piccadilly, a 20-something assistant exclaimed, ‘did you write Why Mahler? I bought it yesterday, for myself. It looked so interesting.’ Four piles of the book were nicely displayed around the music and arts section on the third floor. Classier than I expected from a national high street chain.
Hatchards (http://www.hatchards.co.uk) were having me back for the third time in as many months to sign another 50 copies. The bookshop sits on the site from which Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, once ran a wine store. He went bust. They won’t. Hatchards knows its customers better than any bookstore I have ever come across, and knows its authors too. A respectable pile awaited Mr Ross. When my arm seized up, I asked how many I had signed. ‘About 100,’ said the assistant, who turned out to be a creative weaver with several exhibitions to her credit. Classier still.
Apparently, Why Mahler? is flying out of the store with many copies ordered online – three in a single call from Santiago, Chile. I wonder how Alex is doing.

If you want to hear the classical charts wherever you go, the BBC will provide them on a podcast from tomorrow. I’m not sure it’s going to change many lives, but at least it tells you what music is going into the shops and at what speed it is leaving.

 

Here’s the announcement:

Hello –

I’m writing to alert you to an exciting event in Radio 3 history and a first for BBC Audio and Music.

Tomorrow morning, when Naomi Anderson presses the button, the first Breakfast Show Specialist Classical Music Podcast will be unleashed.

The podcast is taken directly from our regular Tuesday morning exploration of the newly released Specialist Classical Chart.  It’s basically the 0800-0830 segment of the show, when each week you can hear chart details and some of the new entries, fast movers and often the number one.

What’s really special about this podcast is that, after months of negotiation and collaboration, we’ve secured for our listeners the opportunity to hear not just a few seconds of music but whole movements or works excerpted from CDs appearing in the chart. (We can include up to 9 minutes from any individual CD). This gives our audience a chance to sample and re-sample CDs as they keep themselves informed and make their spending decisions.

It starts tomorrow, Tuesday, and will be available around midday every successive Tuesday, initially for a 6-month trial period.

You can download individual episodes from here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r3chart

Or you can subscribe to the weekly thing through iTunes, Yahoo, Zune, Google Reader, Zencast. Whichever way you do it, do it.  And please tell your friends, if you have any.  If not, complete strangers are a good option.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/10_october/29/podcast.shtml

 

If you want to hear the classical charts wherever you go, the BBC will provide them on a podcast from tomorrow. I’m not sure it’s going to change many lives, but at least it tells you what music is going into the shops and at what speed it is leaving.

 

Here’s the announcement:

Hello –

I’m writing to alert you to an exciting event in Radio 3 history and a first for BBC Audio and Music.

Tomorrow morning, when Naomi Anderson presses the button, the first Breakfast Show Specialist Classical Music Podcast will be unleashed.

The podcast is taken directly from our regular Tuesday morning exploration of the newly released Specialist Classical Chart.  It’s basically the 0800-0830 segment of the show, when each week you can hear chart details and some of the new entries, fast movers and often the number one.

What’s really special about this podcast is that, after months of negotiation and collaboration, we’ve secured for our listeners the opportunity to hear not just a few seconds of music but whole movements or works excerpted from CDs appearing in the chart. (We can include up to 9 minutes from any individual CD). This gives our audience a chance to sample and re-sample CDs as they keep themselves informed and make their spending decisions.

It starts tomorrow, Tuesday, and will be available around midday every successive Tuesday, initially for a 6-month trial period.

You can download individual episodes from here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r3chart

Or you can subscribe to the weekly thing through iTunes, Yahoo, Zune, Google Reader, Zencast. Whichever way you do it, do it.  And please tell your friends, if you have any.  If not, complete strangers are a good option.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/10_october/29/podcast.shtml

 

The much-praised Mahler Chamber Orchestra is heading off to South America for what is billed as ‘a concert and educational tour’. A worthy enterprise, right?

But look at the programmes and you won’t find a single work by Gustav Mahler. It’s all Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Schnittke’s little jokes – so why give it Mahler branding?

And while we’re talking brand confusion, what right does the MCO have to use Mahler’s name? The only pieces Mahler wrote for chamber orchestra were his contentious expansions of Beethoven and Schubert quartets. Mahler was a symphonist by self-definition, a big-band man. Pinning his name to a petite ensemble is like publishing haikus as Proust Editions.

The MCO is a 1997 idea of Claudio Abbado’s and a group of players from all over Europe who outgrew their youth orchestras. Its music director until 2008 was the excellent Daniel Harding, who is now principal conductor. Among other purposes, the MCO serves as an incubator to young conductors on  the rise, the latest being Andrés Orozco-Estrada, 32, a talented Colombian who is leading the LatAm tour. The orchestra is based in Germany and largely paid for by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

All well and good. But if the MCO exists to promote the work and ideas of Gustav Mahler, it cannot wrap his name around any old music. Either it declares itself a symphony orchestra and plays Mahler, or it should put its collective heads together and discuss a name change. Touring Mahler without Mahler is counter-educational, all show and no substance.

Or am I missing something?

————–

The press release follows:

 

 

 

 
 

Berlin, 29 October 2010 – A special tour takes the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) to the South American countries Colombia and Brazil in November 2010. Under the baton of Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the orchestra will prepare a programme with works by Schubert, Mozart, Schittke and Haydn.

Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn offer MCO musicians Konstantin Pfiz (cello), Gregory Ahss (violin; concertmaster) and Eoin Andersen (violin) a good opportunity to show their soloistic capabilities. The project will be enriched by a concert to benefit youth outreach, open rehearsals for local youth orchestras and diverse educational projects in cooperation with the Brazilian Instituto Baccarelli.

The trip begins on 9 November in Bogotá, the capital of Columbia, where the ensemble will meet conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada for the first time. The first symphonic concert will be played in the newly opened Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo of Bogotá. On the previous evening, the orchestra will present itself in Orozco-Estrada’s birthplace of Medellín with a concert to benefit musical outreach with youth.

From Colombia, the tour continues to Brazil, the largest country in South America. Here, the MCO will play a total of 3 concerts in São Paulo. Alongside the concerts, the ensemble will collaborate with the Brazil-based Instituto Baccarelli for the first time. The music school, located in the biggest ghetto in São Paolo, was founded in 1996 as a social project by conductor Silvio Baccarelli. The school’s mission was to give local youth a way out of the vicious cycle of poverty, drugs and violence.

By now, the institute has grown greatly, and the two years’ waitlist to get a place at the Baccarelli shows its success. The most famous product of the Instituto Baccarelli is the Sinfônica Heliópolis, which consists of about 80 musicians from different Brazilian cities; it was most recently on tour at the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Munich Gasteig. As part of the cooperation with the Instituto Baccarelli, the musicians of the MCO will give a concert for music students, offer master classes for chamber music and rehearse a symphonic work with the individual instrument groups.

The concert tour will end on 18 November with a performance in the Brazilia harbour city Vitória, before the musicians make their way home to Europe.

The programme features two symphonic works, Franz Schubert’s 5th Symphony and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 40th Symphony, which frame two solo works by Joseph Haydn and Alfred Schnittke. Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 is famed for its virtuosic yet melodic solo part, which will be performed on this tour by Principal Cello and MCO founding member Konstantin Pfiz. Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn, one of the composer’s most popular works, follows Haydn. This “game with music for 2 violins, 2 small string orchestras, double bass and conductor” makes a winking reference to the Salzburg Wunderkind Mozart and offers violinists Gregory Ahss and Eoin Andersen an opportunity to demonstrate their soloistic capabilities.

Print-ready photo material is available in the press area of the MCO website:
www.mahler-chamber.eu

 

Programme and cast:

11 November, 8 pm, Teatro Metropolitano José Gutiérrez Gómez, Medellín 12 November, Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Bogotá
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

14 November, Sala São Paulo, São Paulo
16 November, 9 pm, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485 Moz-Art à la Haydn
Symphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen

17 November, 8:30 pm, Teatro Adamastor do Centro, São Paulo/Guarulhos
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la Haydn
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

18 November, Teatro Carlos Gomes, Vitória
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

 

 

The much-praised Mahler Chamber Orchestra is heading off to South America for what is billed as ‘a concert and educational tour’. A worthy enterprise, right?

But look at the programmes and you won’t find a single work by Gustav Mahler. It’s all Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Schnittke’s little jokes – so why give it Mahler branding?

And while we’re talking brand confusion, what right does the MCO have to use Mahler’s name? The only pieces Mahler wrote for chamber orchestra were his contentious expansions of Beethoven and Schubert quartets. Mahler was a symphonist by self-definition, a big-band man. Pinning his name to a petite ensemble is like publishing haikus as Proust Editions.

The MCO is a 1997 idea of Claudio Abbado’s and a group of players from all over Europe who outgrew their youth orchestras. Its music director until 2008 was the excellent Daniel Harding, who is now principal conductor. Among other purposes, the MCO serves as an incubator to young conductors on  the rise, the latest being Andrés Orozco-Estrada, 32, a talented Colombian who is leading the LatAm tour. The orchestra is based in Germany and largely paid for by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

All well and good. But if the MCO exists to promote the work and ideas of Gustav Mahler, it cannot wrap his name around any old music. Either it declares itself a symphony orchestra and plays Mahler, or it should put its collective heads together and discuss a name change. Touring Mahler without Mahler is counter-educational, all show and no substance.

Or am I missing something?

————–

The press release follows:

 

 

 

 
 

Berlin, 29 October 2010 – A special tour takes the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) to the South American countries Colombia and Brazil in November 2010. Under the baton of Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the orchestra will prepare a programme with works by Schubert, Mozart, Schittke and Haydn.

Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn offer MCO musicians Konstantin Pfiz (cello), Gregory Ahss (violin; concertmaster) and Eoin Andersen (violin) a good opportunity to show their soloistic capabilities. The project will be enriched by a concert to benefit youth outreach, open rehearsals for local youth orchestras and diverse educational projects in cooperation with the Brazilian Instituto Baccarelli.

The trip begins on 9 November in Bogotá, the capital of Columbia, where the ensemble will meet conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada for the first time. The first symphonic concert will be played in the newly opened Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo of Bogotá. On the previous evening, the orchestra will present itself in Orozco-Estrada’s birthplace of Medellín with a concert to benefit musical outreach with youth.

From Colombia, the tour continues to Brazil, the largest country in South America. Here, the MCO will play a total of 3 concerts in São Paulo. Alongside the concerts, the ensemble will collaborate with the Brazil-based Instituto Baccarelli for the first time. The music school, located in the biggest ghetto in São Paolo, was founded in 1996 as a social project by conductor Silvio Baccarelli. The school’s mission was to give local youth a way out of the vicious cycle of poverty, drugs and violence.

By now, the institute has grown greatly, and the two years’ waitlist to get a place at the Baccarelli shows its success. The most famous product of the Instituto Baccarelli is the Sinfônica Heliópolis, which consists of about 80 musicians from different Brazilian cities; it was most recently on tour at the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Munich Gasteig. As part of the cooperation with the Instituto Baccarelli, the musicians of the MCO will give a concert for music students, offer master classes for chamber music and rehearse a symphonic work with the individual instrument groups.

The concert tour will end on 18 November with a performance in the Brazilia harbour city Vitória, before the musicians make their way home to Europe.

The programme features two symphonic works, Franz Schubert’s 5th Symphony and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 40th Symphony, which frame two solo works by Joseph Haydn and Alfred Schnittke. Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 is famed for its virtuosic yet melodic solo part, which will be performed on this tour by Principal Cello and MCO founding member Konstantin Pfiz. Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn, one of the composer’s most popular works, follows Haydn. This “game with music for 2 violins, 2 small string orchestras, double bass and conductor” makes a winking reference to the Salzburg Wunderkind Mozart and offers violinists Gregory Ahss and Eoin Andersen an opportunity to demonstrate their soloistic capabilities.

Print-ready photo material is available in the press area of the MCO website:
www.mahler-chamber.eu

 

Programme and cast:

11 November, 8 pm, Teatro Metropolitano José Gutiérrez Gómez, Medellín 12 November, Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Bogotá
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

14 November, Sala São Paulo, São Paulo
16 November, 9 pm, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485 Moz-Art à la Haydn
Symphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen

17 November, 8:30 pm, Teatro Adamastor do Centro, São Paulo/Guarulhos
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la Haydn
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

18 November, Teatro Carlos Gomes, Vitória
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

 

 

Sir Charles Mackerras, who has died aged 84, was a nice man and near-neighbour. We would exchange a sunny wave and an occasional chat on morning walks along Hamilton Terrace.

Never an assertive personality, Charlie was often underrated by orchestral musicians and had a wretched time as chief conductor of English National Opera in the 1970s. But the musical results spoke for themselves.

His achievements, in my view, are twofold. He was the first, after Neville Marriner, to seek fusion between period-instrument practice and modern orchestras, achieving wonderfully transparent Mozart and Beethoven performances, especially with his last ensemble, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He had been due to work with them this summer at the Edinburgh Festival (he was also down to conduct a Viennese Night at the BBC Proms the week after next and, never a narrow mind, he was irrationally fond of Gilbert and Sullivan.)

His greatest breathrough, though, was to introduce Janacek to the English-speaking world. A fluent Czech-speaker after studies in Prague with Vaclav Talich in 1947, he joined the Sadlers Wells Opera in London and, in 1951, conducted the first Katya Kabanova outside continental Europe. It paved the way for Rafael Kubelik to conduct Jenufa at Covent Garden and for Mackerras himself to record the complete Janacek operas with a stellar cast on Decca.

It took Katya another 40 years to reach the Met but by then most of Janacek was being staged the world over and Charlie’s contribution was near-forgotten. It could be said that he did more for Janacek than anyone other than Max Brod, his original German translator.

To bring a great composer back to life is more than most conductors can ever hope to do. Charles Mackerras did that, and we should be eternally grateful for his courage and persistence. He will be eulogised as Australia’s greatest conductor (which he was) but the greatness of Mackerras was the ease with which he overcame the barriers between nations, languages and periods in the history of  music. He was truly a citizen of the world.

 

Charles Mackerras, born Shenectady, New York, 17 November 1925; died London, 14 July 2010

Sir Charles Mackerras, who has died aged 84, was a nice man and near-neighbour. We would exchange a sunny wave and an occasional chat on morning walks along Hamilton Terrace.

Never an assertive personality, Charlie was often underrated by orchestral musicians and had a wretched time as chief conductor of English National Opera in the 1970s. But the musical results spoke for themselves.

His achievements, in my view, are twofold. He was the first, after Neville Marriner, to seek fusion between period-instrument practice and modern orchestras, achieving wonderfully transparent Mozart and Beethoven performances, especially with his last ensemble, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He had been due to work with them this summer at the Edinburgh Festival (he was also down to conduct a Viennese Night at the BBC Proms the week after next and, never a narrow mind, he was irrationally fond of Gilbert and Sullivan.)

His greatest breathrough, though, was to introduce Janacek to the English-speaking world. A fluent Czech-speaker after studies in Prague with Vaclav Talich in 1947, he joined the Sadlers Wells Opera in London and, in 1951, conducted the first Katya Kabanova outside continental Europe. It paved the way for Rafael Kubelik to conduct Jenufa at Covent Garden and for Mackerras himself to record the complete Janacek operas with a stellar cast on Decca.

It took Katya another 40 years to reach the Met but by then most of Janacek was being staged the world over and Charlie’s contribution was near-forgotten. It could be said that he did more for Janacek than anyone other than Max Brod, his original German translator.

To bring a great composer back to life is more than most conductors can ever hope to do. Charles Mackerras did that, and we should be eternally grateful for his courage and persistence. He will be eulogised as Australia’s greatest conductor (which he was) but the greatness of Mackerras was the ease with which he overcame the barriers between nations, languages and periods in the history of  music. He was truly a citizen of the world.

 

Charles Mackerras, born Shenectady, New York, 17 November 1925; died London, 14 July 2010

This morning’s coffee concert by the Panocha Quartet was disrupted at the outset by a woman in one of the back rows, who started shouting something incoherent. She was removed by ushers and the recital proceeded without further incident.

The Panocha Quartet are Czech. They played Mozart and Dvorak and there was no possible political dimension. Since such occurences are mercifully rare, it may safely be assumed that today’s imagine that the eccentric disturber of today’s peace was in some way motivated by last week’s protest at which the Jerusalem Quartet were targeted by agitators.

One audience member who was present Monday told me she felt scared and helpless during the disruptions. Another endorsed the point I made in this morning’s Sunday Telegraph that once the hall’s seal of isolation had been broken by demonstrators it will be hard to restore its role as a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

All told, it’s a sad moment for civilisation.