Classical Music

The piano superstar is in the Colombian cities of Bogota and Medellin, holding open masterclasses and having a good time.  But can someone tell us why his students are holding green apples? Have they been waiting all morning and missed lunch?  

Great-grandson Gottfried Wagner got sent to boarding school at six years old for spraying red paint on his great-grandad’s Hitler-era bust. Gottfried, the iconoclast of the clan, is calling for Bayreuth to publish the vast family correspondence with Adolf Hitler, as well as 27 unseen rolls of film… Read on here.  

We have been asked to post the following information on behalf of a distraught young soloist, who wishes to remain anonymous: An instrument case containing a 2004 Peter Greiner violin, with a ‘Guarnerius’ stamp – and 2 x Thomas Gerbeht bows – 1 a Pecatte copy and 1 a Baroque bow, made from snake wood [...]

Circa & I Fagiolini: How Like An Angel © Chris Taylor June in the Barbican opens with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama's contribution to Britten 100 with a performance of Britten's Owen Wingrave directed by Kelly Robinson. This is a co-production with the Banff Centre, Canada where Robinson is the Artistic Director of Theatre Arts (5, 7, 10, 12 June). Cellist Yo-Yo Ma joins the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas for a trio of concerts which include Shostakovich's two cello concertos, plus Britten's Symphony for Cello and Orchestra. Each of the three concerts includes music by Shostakovich, Copland and Britten, three great contemporaries. (9, 11, 12 June). The LSO's pair of concerts which were intended to be conducted by Sir Colin Davis have become a memorial with a variety of conductors including the composer's son, in a programme which reflects Davis's wide interests (16, 18 June). Les Arts Florissants directed by Paul Agnew, return for more Monteverdi madrigals, this time the Fifth Book of Madrigals (15 June). And Laurie Anderson joins forces with the Kronos Quartet to premiere a major new commission and their first collaboration. (28 June). Off site I Fagiolin are joined by Circa's brand of contemporary circus in a programme called How Like an Angel at St Bartholomew the Great (25-28 June).

Here, to-day, on the street where I live … I heard a track from The Knack’s debut album blaring from a house window.Note 1): I don't know of any album by The Knack, other than their inaugural albumNote 2) For decades (and I mean decades) I hadn't remembered any track by The Knack other than "M. Sh." Until hearing this blast from a neighbor's house.Note 3) It is next to the funniest thing in the world, that this happened the same week as The New Book by D. B.

In today’s Orange County Register, I review the Pacific Symphony playing the music of Duke Ellington and Daniel Schnyder. Click here to read my review (subscription or one-day pass required), or pick up a copy of today’s paper. And yes, I realize no one is clicking on these links anymore. Video: The Duke Ellington Orchestra plays “The Opener.” Stick around to the end hear the great Cat Anderson.

In a few days (on Wednesday) it will be Richard Wagner’s 200th birthday and it is turning into a good “Wagner” year for me. Der Fliegender Holländer at the B.L.O. was downright wonderful and fun to review. In fact, I brought a Brahms scholar with me and I think he was converted. At the end of the month I’m presenting a paper titled “Wagner’s Re-conception of Weber’s German Nationalism,” at the international conference “Richard Wagner’s Impact on His World and Ours” in Leeds. Here is the abstract: According to Jorge Luis Borges “…each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.”[1] On 15 December 1844, Richard Wagner modified our conception of Carl Maria von Weber’s work and aesthetics. In a strange nationalistic ritual, Wagner had Weber’s remains brought from England to their final resting place in Dresden. Graveside, Wagner gave a speech that redefined Weber as an insular nationalist: “For thou [Weber] wast not one of those chill seekers after fame, who own no fatherland, to whom that plot of earth is dearest where ambition finds the rankest soil in which to thrive…”[2] In this attack on cosmopolitanism, Wagner painted his own (newly adopted) insular German nationalist identity onto Weber, establishing Weber as an insular symbol of the still-emerging nationalist movement. Thus, Weber became an appropriate precursor from whom Wagner could receive the mantle of an insular German musical tradition. After a brief discussion of Weber’s criticism, delineating his cosmopolitan ideals, my paper turns to Wagner’s writings and changing perception of Weber’s work. The paper continues with a brief survey of Weber’s historical reception in criticism and performance. Light analysis and discussion of the performance history of Weber’s Kampf und Sieg Cantata(1815) provides musical context, revealing how later revisions of the work brought Weber’s Cantata into line with changed conceptions of the German identity. Overall, my paper reveals the immense impact of Wagner on both the reception of Weber’s work and the modern narrative of the development of German Romantic dramaturgy. The conference is interdisciplinary, with many papers, several parallel sessions and four interesting workshops covering everything from performance practice to cultural impact. Finally, I’m slated to attend and review the Rockport Chamber Festival’s celebration of Wagner in the Shalin Liu performance center.  with yet another important Brahms scholar . The program includes several interesting pieces including the Wesendonck Lieder and his third piano sonata in A-flat. It should be wonderful. Overall, while I didn’t get a chance to celebrate in Leipzig, this isn’t bad for an old bloke from West Chester. [1] Jorge Luis Borges, “Kafka and His Precursors,” in Selected Non-Fictions, New York: Penguin Classics, 1999 pp. 365. [2] Richard Wagner, “Speech at Weber’s Last Resting-Place,” in Pilgrimage to Beethoven and Other Essays, Trans. William Ashton Ellis. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994 pp. 235.

It’s super thick, which is partly why I can’t wait to cut it (it’s fun for a bit, but really getting long now). In 2 more months it’ll be long enough to donate again, which is just before I’ll be in my best friend’s wedding!

Utterly mad but absolutely right - Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Naiads and Dryads as nurses. Ariadne and Zerbinetta patients in a mental hospital. But then, Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Vorspiel and Opera are quite distinct. But which is more real? Ariadne auf Naxos is not "about" Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made. The music is modern : snatches of waltz, moments of woozy fantasy: Strauss is referencing his own times.The Composer sings in the Vorspeil because he/she thinks he/she can create a work of art. But the Opera takes on a manic new life of its own. The Composer (Kate Lindsey) watches in mute horror as the parts he thought he dictated express things he/she could hardly envisage. Strauss is sending up the very idea of art. He's also sending up social pretensions. Ariadne and Bacchus hardly come from "normal" families. Is it any surprise that Ariadne's fantasies seem quite insane ? Freud would have had something to say about her sexual hangups, and Zerbinetta's lack thereof. Strauss also satirizes other composers. No one is sacred. Rarely has the connection between Tristan und Isolde and the "opera" within Strauss's opera been made so explicit. Listen to the music and its parody of Wagner. Strauss's Liebestod unfolds as the hospital curtains billow outwards like the sails of a ship, lit by a red glow which suggests fire or sunset. Or, more potently, the burning of Valhalla. Katharina Thoma's Ariadne auf Naxos is quite mad, but deliciously, deliriously werktreue, respecting Strauss and Hoffmannstahl's 's savage wit.Instant opinion is almost always shallow. This production deserves much deeper thought. So I won't review it til tomorrow to do it justice. (please come back). In the meantime, here is Robert Hugill's interview with Kate Lindsey in Opera Today. That's her in the photo, as The Composer (credit Alastair Muir)

Sometimes the road ahead is simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time…and knowing the right people. Back in the spring of 2000, with my illustrious public-relations career at an impasse after BMG Classics eliminated almost everyone in the department, I got an interesting offer from Larry Blumenfeld, then the editor in chief of Jazziz magazine. Jazziz was and is based in Palm Beach County, Florida, but Larry worked from New York City, coordinating his labor with another editor, R. Dante Sawyer, down at the home office. The magazine, which started out as a smooth-jazz-friendly vehicle and always retained a place for commercial sounds, flourished under Blumenfeld and Sawyer. Major articles on artists like John Zorn, David S. Ware and Dave Douglas became newly prominent under their watch. The reason Larry approached me in 2000 was that Dante was leaving Jazziz, en route to India and a spiritual trek. Would I be interested in taking on his position as associate editor of Jazziz, with the understanding that Larry himself would be leaving the company in four months' time? The answer, of course, was yes. Not just any magazine editor would have taken a former publicist on board as an editor. But Larry, who'd done P.R. work himself in the past, had been assigning me freelance pieces for some years by the time he hired me outright, and trusted my objectivity. Having been laid off by BMG, I was unemployed only for a single weekend. This, then, was my bridge back to journalism, from which I'd stepped away in 1993 for the sole reason of finding my way to and in New York City. Larry was a terrific colleague and guide, and I got to work with some extraordinary writers: among them Neil Tesser, Steve Dollar, Harvey Pekar, Ed Hazell, Steve Futterman, Lee Jeske and a new face on the scene, Lara Pellegrinelli. Larry reasoned that when his time to depart arrived, Jazziz might invite me to stay on and perhaps even replace him. An invitation like that did actually come, with the stipulation that I'd have to relocate to Florida to take it. The notion was tempting, but I'd worked far too long and hard to get to New York in the first place; leaving after seven years didn't feel like a viable option. Happily, Billboard magazine came calling, and with it, a return to classical music after a five-year hiatus. I bring all of this up not only as a wallow in pleasant nostalgia, but also because Lara and I are digging through piles of Jazziz back issues retrieved from an emptied-out storage unit, and I'm about to start posting some of my old odds and ends here for safe keeping and convenient retrieval. Thanks for everything, Larry. And hey, does anyone know what became of Dante?