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 … [Read more...]
Classical music website gets taken down
December 31, 2010 By
Dilettante.com, a ground-breaking enterprise in classical music and social networking, has been taken down. Founder Juliana Farha said the site was not generating enough revenue in the present climate to make it viable.Launched in January 2008, Dilettante was an edgy, innovative offering, pitched at under-40 culture vultures who would not be seen dead in a stuffed-shirt subscription concert. With its own composer in residence and a range of social concerts at offbeat venues, Dilettante's … [Read more...]
It Ain’t Necessarily So
December 31, 2010 By
A small craft advisory for New Year's Eve: keep your critical faculties alert when the news is on.Here's free classical download #12 - Matthew Trusler and Wayne Marshall playing the violin transcription of the Gershwin classic.Click here for instant pleasure:http://www.orchidclassics.com/downloads/ORC100002-blues.mp3.zip www.orchidclassics.com/blu.htm ORC100002 - BLUES Gershwin/Heifetz: Porgy and Bess Suite. It ain't necessarily so Matthew Trusler (violin), Wayne Marshall … [Read more...]
Three fiddlers in the drink
December 30, 2010 By
This is not an admonitory New Year's column on the dangers of alcohol to orchestral players.It's the continuation of an occasional series on musicians in the bath, the ones here being three of the most gifted violinists who ever put bow to string - Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist and Fritz Kreisler. Good to see them keeping heads above water.Their hostess, Alma Gluck, was one of Mahler's singers in New York.It was retrieved by David Schoenbaum from an article in the Columbia Digital Collections: … [Read more...]
What’s wrong with Chicago?
December 30, 2010 By
First Riccardo Muti, the music director, crashed out of his concerts with what turned out to be nothing more serious than a tummy ache. Now Yannick Nézet-Seguin, the upwardly mobile Canadian, withdraws at short notice from his debut concerts next month for what are described, in the usual classical equivocation, as 'personal reasons'.To lose one conductor in a season may, as Oscar Wilde might have put it, be regarded as a misfortune. Two starts to look like a trend. I think we ought to be told … [Read more...]
Cuts announced to German orchestras
December 30, 2010 By
How deep? That depends on the licence-fee settlement, says the man in charge of radio orchestras and choruses. It's the beginning of a long political wrangle, but the Germans tend to handle these things with more finesse than the Dutch.Still, it puts the New Year's Day smackdown into stark perspective.Here's the German interview source.http://www.nmz.de/kiz/nachrichten/deutschlandradio-intendant-verteidigt-kuerzungen-bei-rundfunk-orchester … [Read more...]
It’s Rattle’s Dude vs Thielemann – German TV’s New Year reality show
December 30, 2010 By
Tomorrow night sees a new ritual launched on German television, After the ineluctable Dinner for One, a 1920 British comedy skit that somehow feels traditional to Germans, the main channels split for a smackdown New Year's ratings race.ARD, the first channel, will carry a live concert from Simon Rattle's orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. ZDF, the second channel, will transmit live from Dresden, with Christian Thielemann. Classical music, which rarely gets a … [Read more...]
Low down and dirty – free classical download #11
December 30, 2010 By
The saxophone, a Paris invention of 1841, is a cuckoo in the classical nest, never accorded full membership of the symphony orchestra. The concertos it has acquired are oddities by the likes of Glazunov, Ibert, Villa Lobos - and a Rhapsody that Debussy left in piano score and never completed. Today's free download is a sultry piece by Henri Tomasi (1901-71), a Marseilles musician of mystic disposition and a profound attachment to the Mediterranean. It is played, further down the beach, by … [Read more...]
What Franz Welser-Möst would die for
December 29, 2010 By
The conductor Franz Welser-Möst has a busy weekend. Saturday morning he will be presiding over the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Day concert. Sunday he will appear on WQXR's Mad About Music, telling Gilbert Kaplan some of his darker secrets.As well as airing his reflections on hostile music critics - a must-hear for misery hacks - the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera gets to pick a wild-card record, one that you wouldn't expect to appear among his … [Read more...]
A world premiere gift from Slipped Disc
December 29, 2010 By
Today's free classical download is the opening of the first-ever recording of the tenth string quartet by David Matthews, a British composer steeped in Mahlerian language while developing a voice that is absolutely his own. The Lontano from his 10th quartet is one of the lovelist passages I have heard all year.It comes courtesy of a new participant in the free downloads scheme. Toccata Classics is a one-man band invented by Martin Anderson, publisher, critic and sometime international … [Read more...]
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