Slipped disc: October 2010 Archives
Early last week, hours after Arts Council England detailed its first wave of funding cuts, an anonymous polemic appeared on a generally respectable arts website.
Under the headline 'who earns £630,000 at the Royal Opera House?' it unfurled a red carpet of top salaries in major arts institutions, contrasting them unfavourably with the relatively frugal wages earned by senior Arts Council staff.
The figures were all available in public reports and none was strikingly new. What caught the eye was the acerbic tone in a usually sedate publication, and the absolute prejudice. The ROH was attacked for paying 76 salaries above £60,000 while the ACE was praised, somehow, for paying 71 at that rate. Not much difference as far as I could see. However, the ACE was facing a 50 percent cut in administrative costs 'which are likely to involve jobs'.
The ACE, it was stated, was 'a model of transparency' while the opera house was not. Almost every paragraph in the article was tilted in favour of the ACE and against the companies it is supposed to support. The website, www.artsdesk.com, is owned by a collective of arts critics and journalists, none of whom was brave enough to put a name to this odd piece. Senior arts figures suggested privately to me that the article was planted by the Arts Council or one of its subsidiaries with a view to deflecting criticism from the miserable performance of its chair and chief executive during the government's spending review.
Alan Davey, the ACE chief executive, took a £16,000 pay rise to £191,000 last year - a time when most arts chiefs took a freeze or a cut. This went unmentioned in the unsigned article.
This weekend, the story got a second wind when the Sunday Times devoted page three to the story, laying in to the Opera House for its fat-cat pay. The facts are less clear-cut.
ROH music director Antonio Pappano's £630,000 salary is less than half of James Levine's $1.8 million at the Metropolitan Opera - and for a much greater commitment. Tony Hall's chief executive pay of £390,000 is a fraction of Peter Gelb's $1.5 million at the Met. Both are well within the going rate for the job and neither is a secret, so why is the Sunday Times fussed?
Once again, rumour has it that the ACE has been seeping malice about the ROH in the hope of saving its own top jobs and securing its role in the coming years of cuts. True or not, it's a seedy situation - and one I may get asked about when I give evidence to the House of Commons select committee on Culture, Media and Sport this week. Watch this space.
The Finnish town of Turku, Europe's Capital of Culture 2011, is moblising the medical profession to assist in arts promotion.
Health centres in the city have been issued with 5,500 free tickets for events and doctors are being asked to give them out to patients who might be helped by a good night out.
The benefits have yet to be tested and there will be no scientific monitoring of results - does blood pressure drop during Sibelius 5? Is depression cured by The Brothers Karamazov?. That might lead sceptics to dismiss the initiative as a cheap gimmick.
Still, given that many patients are treated with placebos and palliatives, there could be some mileage in using small doses of the arts to cut the drugs bill. There are possibilities here, and I intend to watch them closely.
Turku, by the way, will share the cultural capital status next year with the Estonian city, Talinn,
Press release below:
Culture Cures: Doctors Prescribe Tickets to Cultural Events in Turku, Finland
Turku, European Capital of Culture 2011, intends to prove the claim that "culture cures". The idea for doing this is a cultural prescription.
The City of Turku Board of Health Care decided that 5,500 free tickets to cultural events taking place in 2011 would be given out at municipal health centres.
- "When seeing patients, doctors will consider whether a cultural visit may benefit a patient as a supplement or even as an alternative to medical treatment," explains Aleksi Randell, Mayor of Turku.
Turku is one of the first cities in the world to adopt a cultural prescription. And the events that it offers its citizens are not just any old thing. The prescriptions apply to 50 happenings related to the Capital of Culture, including the Cirque Dracula circus performance and a theatrical version of The Brothers Karamazov, directed by the renowned theatre director Kristian Smeds.
- "The City of Turku made a fine, open-minded decision. We are happy to participate in this kind of venture - as even the motto of the Capital of Culture goes: Culture Cures," says Cay Sevón, Executive Director of the Capital of Culture project.
The population of the greater Turku area is 300,000 and the city itself 176,000. Previously the capital city and now the fifth-largest city in Finland, Turku is located on the west coast of Finland and has always been known as a place of diversity and culture.
Up to two million people from Europe and its surrounding areas are expected to attend the events in the Turku 2011 programme. The budget for the celebratory year is EUR 50 million. www.turku2011.fi/en and www.turku2011.fi/materials
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?
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The press release follows:
Programme and cast: | |||||||||||||
This post comes to you live from Madrid, where the association of Spanish orchestras is holding its first conference. There are 27 professional orchestras in Spain and, despite economic vicissitudes, there is no immediate threat to their existence from what we have heard here.
Yet, brightly as the sun might shine in autumnal Spain (and it does, it does), the clouds of cutbacks in Holland and Britain keep intruding on everyone's thoughts and presentations. An awareness is dawning that an orchestra is something that needs to be justified - to politicians, to bureaucrats, to the public at large. It must appear to be socially useful and economically sound. It must innovate to survive.
Not all of these intrusions are negative. The better an orchestra confronts reality, the more likely it is to attract public interest and attendance. I sense no air here of defeatism and despondency. Several speakers, from Berlin, Porto and London, are sharing experiences of extending their reach.
One of the most interesting revelations, from a London research project which I will discuss at length in a future post, is that the largest part of the audience comes to hear a particular work or composer, regardless of who might be performing it. Loyalty to an orchestra and fandom for an artist are negligible considerations at the point of purchase.
If that is the case, what is the point of paying a supposedly famous maestro as much as an entire orchestra. Might this not be a turning point for orchestras in the 21st century?
This post comes to you live from Madrid, where the association of Sapinish orchestras is holding its first concerence. There are 27 professional orchestras in Spain and, despite economic vicissitudes, there is no immediate threat to their existence from what we have heard here.
Yet, brightly as the sun might shine in autumnal Spain (and it does, it does), the clouds of cutbacks in Holland and Britain keep intruding on everyone's thoughts and presentations. An awareness is dawning that an orchestra is something that needs to be justified - to politicians, to bureaucrats, to the public at large. It must appear to be socially useful and economically sound. It must innovate to survive.
Not all of these intrusions are negative. The better an orchestra confronts reality, the more likely it is to attract public interest and attendance. I sense no air here of defeatism and despondency. Several speakers, from Berlin, Porto and London, are sharing experiences of extending their reach.
One of the most interesting revelations, from a London research project which I will discuss at length in a future post, is that the largest part of the audience comes to hear a particular work or composer, regardless of who might be performing it. Loyalty to an orchestra and fandom for an artist are negligible considerations at the point of purchase.
If that is the case, what is the point of paying a supposedly famous maestro as much as an entire orchestra. Might this be a turning point for orchestras in the 21st century?
Sony have announced the end for one of its trademark inventions, the oh-so portable personal Walkman which ensured that we shall have music wherever we go.
Two hundred million sales later, the machine has been rendered obsolescent and consigned to the Sony museum. Some may feel regreat at its passing. I, who tried out protoype models some 30 years ago, am happy to see it go without a sniff of regret - as I shall explain on the BBC World Service tonight.
The Walkman, I once wrote, turned music from a social pursuit to an anti-social activity. It promoted autism and isolation with consequences yet untold.
The iPod, on the other hand, is about sharing. You are more likely to hand your iPod to a friend, or take one earpiece each to hear a track, than ever you would with a Walkman. It presents music in a jumble that is uniquely yours. The iPod is my music, a reflection of who I am. The Walkman was aways theirs.
In the current issue of The Strad, I lift the lid on the finances of chamber music and expose a gruesome statistic: never have we had so many great string quartets surviving on less.
To find out how poor the fees have become, you'll have to buy a copy of the magazine. But what amazes me is that this particular form of making music is flying in the face of economic truth. Money, or the lack of it, is not an incentive when it comes to playing string quartets. Here's my take:
Two decades ago, with the chamber music circuit collapsing, quartet players came huddling for work in orchestras. Today, orchestral players form their own quartets, regardless of where they play and how little it will pay. There seems to be some primal urge at work, some connective aspiration.
I have some ideas and plenty of example, but I wonder what you make of this anomaly. I know plenty of agents who refuse to take on string quartets, saying there's no money in it, and one in particular who only takes on quartets - for the sheer belief in it. I know plenty of young musicians who turn down $100,000 jobs in orchestras and go off into the wilds to play Intimate Letters on a wing and a prayer. Why would they do that?
All experiences and insights gratefully received.
UK Writers' organisations have just informed us that the levy paid to authors on the loan of their books from public libraries has been largely preserved from government spending cuts.
The amount available for distribution will drop by 6.5 percent over four years - which is a good deal less than all other arts cuts. The shrinkage is from £7.5m now to £6.96m in 2014/5.
What will change is the administration of the fees. The PLR office is to be shut down and the moneys will be distributed by some other arm of government, yet to be designated.
Here's what we've just been told by the literary organisations.
PLR update following the spending review
As part of the cuts to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, it has been announced that there will be reductions to the PLR fund. However, these cuts are not as severe as anticipated.
The annual figures have been announced as follows:
2010/11 £7.45m
2011/12 £7.218m
2012/13 £7.084m
2013/14 £6.977m
2014/15 £6.956m
There will thus be a reduction of 6.6% over the next four years, although the fall in real terms will be significantly bigger.
Whilst any cuts are to be regretted, it does appear that support for the Public Lending Right scheme has been taken on board by the DCMS, and the cuts kept to a minimum, especially in comparison with the overall Department cuts of 25% so a big thank you again to you all for lending your support.
The issue of the administration of PLR however still remains a contentious one, with the announcement of a proposal to abolish the current PLR body and instead move the running of PLR to another body. On 14 October Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, wrote to the Society of Authors stating the government's intentions. See the letter here.
Representatives from the Society of Authors, the Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society the Royal Society of Literature and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain have all expressed grave concern at this move and sought an urgent meeting with officials in the DCMS.
On 19 October at a reception held by the All Party Parliamentary Writers Group, Maureen Duffy, one of the writers who fought to set up the PLR scheme in the 1970's expressed her opinion on the move saying,
"When we planned this event, we had no suspicion that we were to be holding a wake instead of our usual celebration of PLR... To replace this with a body that has no expertise in this field of data collection and micropayments will mean expensive new IT systems, equipment, staff hire and training premises, all at huge cost and with absolutely no benefit in efficiency or savings."
For further information about the concerns please see the Society of Authors website. A full copy of Maureen's speech from the 19th can be viewed here.
We will be in contact as and when any further information is available. Thank you once again for your support.
I've had an email from Mr Sondheim, submitting two self-anagrams. The first, which he credits to Jonathan Tunick, is
Sondheim = He opens the mind.
The other, anonymous, is:
Sondheim = He pens demon hits.
Hmmmm. Other notable contributions to best composer anagrams, ever.
From Jeremy Sams:
Elgar is of course regal and often large. Haydn , being efficient is handy... But Mozart being all embracing is Mr a to z.
And from Lowell Liebermann:
Camille Saint Saens = A Satanic Illness Me
Keep them coming. Andrew Lloyd Webber looks ripe for the ana-plucking.
Wally d' wonder rebbe?
I have written an analysis on Bloomberg this morning of the fallout from the British Government's epochal assault on arts provision, the biggest reversal in the history of arts funding.
As the dust clears and the tears are dried, attention will focus on the institution that John Maynard Keynes founded for encouraging and sustaining the arts - the Arts Council of England. That body changed beyond recognition in the past 13 years from an independent mentoring organisation to an enforcement of New Labour political requirements, riding so close to the Department of Culture (DCMS) that no-one but me batted an eyelid when a senior DCMS official was appointed chief executive of the Arts Council.
The ACE has been humiliated in this spending round for its policies and inefficiencies, more so than any other target of cuts. It has been singled out for punishment and criticism.
The ACE is not beyond redemption. But any reconstruction requires its chair, Dame Liz Forgan, and chief executive Alan Davey, to take responsibility for their actions and do the recent thing. Their resignations must surely be on the table when the Arts Council meets on Monday to discuss its diminished future.
You can read the Bloomberg analysis here:
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=ajDIkAOoh6Mo
I was chatting to the composer Helmut Lachenmann, prior to our gig on Sunday night, and in the course of discussing his impressions of Pierre Boulez he came up with the best anagram I have heard for any leading composer:
Pierre Boulez = Berlioz Puree
One reason this is so telling is that Boulez is very fond of using food metaphors. Maybe because he is one.
Whatever, feel free to contribute your own composer anagram in the space below.
Here's a few more to get you thinking:
Seduce Busy Lad (easy)
Bach Snored Longer (cool)
A nominal oboist (oblique)
Plan a Coda, Ron (painful)
Halmut's Grave (yeah, he couldn't spell Helmut)
Late extra:
This just in from Thomas Z Shepard): Sondheim = hedonism
Two key figures leap out from the UK government's spending review and its relation to the arts economy. National museums have suffered a 15 percent cut and will continue to offer free admission.
Arts Council England has been slashed by almost twice as much - 29.6 percent - a loss of £100 million over four years. In real terms the loss is £350 million, a sum that neatly equates to the ACE's residual budget. It's a horrible symmetry. Over four years arts funding will be halved.
The ACE has also been ordered to cut 50% off its admin costs - something many of us have been urging it to do for years, as it became one of the nation's biggest paper factories.
The two stats together - 15% off museums, 30% off performing arts - represent a massive failure of strategy, intelligence and manoeuvrability at the top of ACE. While museums cleverly used every business trustee on their board to argue with top Tory and LibDems politicians, the ACE is chaired by Old Labourite Liz Forgan and managed by New Labour lackey, Alan Davie. Neither of them read the runes correctly and neither could get past the gatekeepers of the national purse.
A price needs to be paid. When the ACE meets next week to discuss the allocation of cuts to clients around th country, both chair and chief executive should offer their resignations for presiding over the worst reversal in the UK's history of state funding for the arts. Resignation is the honourable course of action in defeat - and this has been a catastrophic defeat for the ACE and its leadership.
By contrast, the British Museum is almost jubilant. Its director, Neil MacGregor has just said: "We are pleased that Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey have recognised the unique role museums play in the world today and reaffirmed their support of free admission. We are also particularly encouraged that they have reconfirmed the government's support of the British Museum's planned new World Conservation and Exhibition Centre, a crucial investment in the British Museum's future ability to work across the UK and the world."
The alien-looking character below is BBC News's so-called Arts Editor, Will Gompertz, a man familiar with the contemporary visual arts but out of sorts with anything more serious or intellectual. He is papped here at last week's Man Booker dinner, the biggest occasion in the literary calendar. The Booker is a black-tie night. Most writers, even the most bohemian, tend to respect that convention. Gomps, it seems, had other ideas. Or maybe he was just economising on wardrobe in anticipation of today's government arts cuts.
Barely had DG and Decca said their golden hellos to the new catalogue chief from Naxos (see yesterday's breaking news) than the budget label flashed back overnight with a new chief operating officer who comes from iTunes. How cool is that?
In classical terms, less than you might expect. iTunes has the lowest sound definition of any major download source and many hardcore classical users are profoundly cheesed off with its quality. However, it also has the largest catalogue and is driving expansion across the sector.
That must rank to the credit of Naxos's new suit, Andy Doe, who, it appears from his cv, also knows his way around the Universal Music Group and did a spell at Ireland's enterprising Contemporary Music Centre. Could be worth watching.
Here's the press release:
NAXOS NAMES ANDY DOE AS CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Naxos (www.naxos.com), the world's leading classical music group, has announced that Andy Doe will join the company as its Chief Operating Officer, with special responsibility for the group's online platforms and non-traditional business. Andy will work out of Naxos' UK offices. Andy, who spent six years heading the classical activities of iTunes and assisted in making it the world's largest retailer of recorded music, commented on his new appointment,
"I'm excited to be joining the most innovative company in the classical record business. Having worked with Naxos for six years, I've been continually impressed by the company's growth, and I'm confident that no organization is better placed to thrive amid the challenges of the modern music marketplace. The Naxos team is made up of an incredibly talented group of individuals, and it's a great honor to be asked to join them."
Naxos Founder and Chairman, Klaus Heymann, had this to say: "I am delighted to have Andy join our executive team. He has the necessary experience in an area where I see the future of our industry and our group of companies. And he brings youth and fresh ideas to our group even though, by industry standards, with my exception, we have a pretty young team. I look forward to working with Andy who will report directly to me."
Andy is one of the pioneers of the classical download business. He has spent six years in charge of classical music at iTunes, overseeing its growth from a small independent download store to the world's largest retailer of recorded music. He increased the classical selection to include almost every commercially available recording and proved the viability of downloads as a major source of revenue for both major and independent labels.
Prior to working at Apple, Andy worked for Universal Classics & Jazz, Classical.com and the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. He has worked on numerous recording projects including live performances by Yo-Yo Ma, Philip Glass, John Williams, Leif Ove Andsnes, Alan GIlbert and the New York Philharmonic. He oversaw the launch of the critically acclaimed and commercially successful DG Concerts label. Andy is also a keen advocate for living composers, and serves on the board of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. He is a classically trained musician who studied the horn in London with Julian Baker, Kevin Elliott, Stephen Stirling and Roger Montgomery.
Forty-eight hours before the nation's death by 1,000 cuts, members of Arts Council England had not yet been told the depth of pain and penetration. Apparently, the strategy was to go last to the Treasury in the hope of getting off lightly. By this time tomorrow, we shall know the results.
The puzzling bit is what the ACE has been doing during these past four months of preparation for major surgery. Performers and leaders of every art form have raised their voices in warning at the economic, political and social consequences of draining the arts of vital needs. Yet the ACE, which exists to speak for the arts, has been either pusillanimous or silent.
Its chief executive, lifetime civil servant Alan Davie, put up a stuttering showning before parliamentary committees, but then advocacy was never his strength. The real question is where was Liz Forgan, the diehard Labourite appointed as chairman under the last government and still clinging to her seat. Not a public peep has been heard from Dame Liz.
The word from within the Arts Council is that she is keen to keep her job. So is Davie. Have they stayed shtum to save their organisation at the expense of yours?
Deutsche Grammophon and Decca have signed the former Naxos head of marketing Barry Holden to manage their classical catalogues. The move, announced as part of 'a significant expansion programme for (the) flagship classical labels' is singular and significant.
Holden was putting cheap classics into gas stations while DG talked of price protection. He signed the England football manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, to front a classical album ahead of a World Cup campaign (inevitably, a loser) and he snapped up dead labels to boost the Naxos cat with high-quality English music of a prior era.
He's a competitive animal. It could get hot in the bargain basement.
Other label signings - cellist Alisa Weilerstein and soprano Alexsandra Kurzak to Decca, violinist Mikhail Simonian to DG. Lut Behiels is the new director of classical marketing
The driving force behind the expansion is Universal Music Group COO, Max Hole.
Vera Rozsa, one of the most important singing teachers of the modern era, has died in London, aged 93, her son informs me.
A mezzo-soprano who studied conducting with Zoltan Kodaly, she lost her first husband, Lazslo Weiner, in a wartime labour camp. After liberation she sang in both Budapest and Vienna opera houses until the loss of a lung to the after-effects of wartime pneumonia ended her stage career. Married to a British official, Ralph Nordell, she moved to London in 1954 and became the teacher of choice for two generations of soloists.
Among those who owe her a slice of their lives are Kiri te Kanawa, Ileana Cotrubas, Sarah Walker, Karita Mattila, Dorothea Roschmann, Anne-Sofie von Otter, Francois Le Roux and the late Anthony Rolfe Johnson. Such was her renown at repairing damaged voices that Maria Callas approached her when a planning a late comeback, but the lessons never happened.
A close friend of the conductor Georg Solti and a core member of London's Hungarian emigre world, she exuded an irrefutable authority on all matters concerning voice production and artistic taste. A facebook memorial page has been started here. The funeral will take place in London tomorrow.
She is seen here with the devoted Sarah Walker.
More photographs a
nd further information to follow
Here's Kiri, Anne-Sofie and other talking about her on a doc uploaded to youtube.
An employment tribunal in Cardiff has ruled unanimously that oboist Murray Johnston was neither victimised by its former music director, Carlo Rizzi, nor unfairly dismissed (see earlier commentary).
The decision is a serious blow for the Musicians Union, which supported Mr Johnston and conducted member ballots on his behalf. While Welsh National Opera expressed quiet satisfaction at the victory, the ruling is unlikely to allay the orchestra's unhappiness, as described to the court.
First report here.
The Vienna Philharmonic's having a rocky ride with its Japan tour. First, Seiji Ozawa fell ill. He was replaced by Andris Nelsons and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Now Salonen has pulled out.
Looks like Franz Welser-Möst, the new Opera chief, will fly in to save the tour along with the ever-willing Georges Pretre.
Salonen's Vienna concert is being taken over by Andres Orozco-Estrada.
Who's that? He's 33, a hot young Colombian at the Tonkünstler orchestra of Lower Austria, as well as the Basque symphony orchestra in Spain. Looks like he's going places. Fast.
See pictures here: http://orozcoestrada.com/gallery.php#
Two cultural arguments were advanced in last night's Battle of Ideas debate in vindication of the gladiatorial television contest that has created a feeding frenzy in British mass media.
The New Culture Forum founder Peter Whittle suggested that Simon Cowell's ruthlessly commercial competition was useful corrective to the anti-competitive ethos fostered in UK schools - the politically correct attitude that 'everyone must have prizes'.
And Mark Frith, editor of Time Out London, volunteered that Cowell had, wittingly or otherwise, exposed the real cruelties of the music business and empowered aspirants to deal with record producers from a greater knowledge base.
Other contributors assailed television's loss of confidence in pursuing slick contests. The BBC came in for stick for its alliance with Andrew Lloyd Webber and its derogation of serious arts programming to similar ingredients. Cowell could be laughed off for what he is - a successful producer of pap. No-one rose to defend the BBC.
I have written an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph this morning discussing the issues raised by the current employment tribunal case in Cardiff, where an oboist at Welsh National Opera is claiming he was 'victimised' and 'bullied' by the conductor, Carlo Rizzi.
What goes on in an orchestra's rehearsal room can never be resolved by law and logic, least of all my musical merit. Chemistry, temperature and body language are essential elements in the making and maintenance of a good orchestra. When they fail, something's got to give and someone's got to go. The trick is to do it decently. The fault in Wales seems to be that they tried to do it too much by the book.
Once it gets to court, everyone looks stupid. Here's the latest local BBC report.
And here's my piece: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/8065562/The-maestro-must-never-play-second-fiddle.html
A verdict is expected later today and I'll report it here.
More than 20 years after German reunification, the emblematic Universal-owned yellow label is finally being transferred from Hamburg to Berlin, it was announced today.
The move has been fiercely resisted by label diehards and was accomplished only after the removal of the universally unpopular Universal president of classical and jazz, Chris Roberts.
Contrary to heavy Hamburg rumours all week long, Universal has officially confirmed that DG will remain under the presidency of Roberts's trusted placeman, Michael Lang. See also here.
So at least they are left with half a Lang, the other half having fled to Sony.
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And here's the corporate press release, hot off the machine:
Embargoed until October 14th, 12:45 pm (11:45 am London time)
Classical music leader Deutsche Grammophon relocates to Berlin
Berlin/Hamburg, 14 October 2010 - Deutsche Grammophon, the world's leading classical music company, is moving from Hamburg to Berlin. This follows the earlier relocation of its parent company, Universal Music Germany, in 2002.
In future, Deutsche Grammophon will operate as an autonomous label from Universal Music's German headquarters in the Osthafen district of Berlin. The move will take place in the summer of 2011. The news was announced today (14) by Frank Briegmann, President, Universal Music Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Deutsche Grammophon, and by Deutsche Grammophon President Michael Lang.
Frank Briegmann has been leading Universal Music Germany for the past six years, and in July 2010 added responsibility for Universal Music's companies in Austria and Switzerland, and for the worldwide operations of Deutsche Grammophon.
"For more than a century of its remarkable history, the right balance between innovation and tradition has been one of the key factors in Deutsche Grammophon's continued success", said Mr. Briegmann. "The calibre of such artists as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Gustavo Dudamel, Hélène Grimaud and Hilary Hahn - as well as newly signed names such as Alice Sara Ott, Miloš Karadaglić and Mojca Erdmann - and their recordings will always be the company's heart and soul.
"By bringing Deutsche Grammophon to Berlin, we are facilitating even closer cooperation within our business, and securing the future success of the most renowned and established classical label in the world. As he has for many years, Michael Lang will continue to be operationally responsible for Deutsche Grammophon, upholding the standards of excellence for which it is celebrated, and maintaining the continuity of our relationships with artists and business partners alike. Apart from that, this move strengthens Berlin as a centre of gravity for music, and particularly for classical music."
Mr. Briegmann continued, "Target audiences are changing. Innovative strategies in marketing and distribution are becoming increasingly important and new types of artists require fresh thinking and action, for example, pop superstar Sting is accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, star violinist David Garrett, whose roots are in classical music, releases 'Rock Symphonies', opera tenor Rolando Villazón newly interprets Mexican folk music, and Anna Netrebko becomes a household name beyond the traditional audience for classical music."
Deutsche Grammophon was founded in Hanover in 1898 by brothers Emile and Joseph Berliner, making it the oldest point of origin of the Universal Music Group, the world's leading music company. In Hamburg, Deutsche Grammophon has been based for more than 50 years. The label is the unchallenged leader in classical music, with 80% of its revenue generated abroad, mostly in the US, Japan and France.
Deutsche Grammophon is known for an uncompromising attitude to quality and an innovative approach to marketing. Its roster has always featured the most celebrated and influential artists in classical music, among them: Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Rafal Blechacz, Enrico Caruso, Gustavo Dudamel, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elina Garanca, Hélène Grimaud, Hilary Hahn, Daniel Hope, Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Kempff, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Anna Netrebko, Maurizio Pollini, Thomas Quasthoff and Rolando Villazón.
Apart from its artists and music, Deutsche Grammophon can look back on a remarkable technological history. Co-founder Emile Berliner is regarded as one of the inventors of the gramophone and the gramophone record. Since that breakthrough, the company has continued to innovate: releasing the first double-sided record, producing the first complete recording of an orchestral work in 1913 (Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, played by the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted by Arthur Nikisch), recording only on magnetic tape from 1946, starting the first industrial CD production in 1982, releasing laser discs and becoming the first classical label to sell recordings through its own online web shop.
I am speaking tonight at the Battle of Ideas on television's last-ever water-cooler moment, the regimented talent contest known as the X Factor.
Like most of the population, I have watched a few minutes of it and formed a view. Knowing the music business as I do, it is fairly easy to see through the pretence of 'people's winners' and musical democracy to the cynical mass production of cash-till jingles. Nothing wrong with that.
One can also see how the show actively perverts the common urge to sing well, encouraging contestants to an excess of vibrato and approximated notes.
But the most disturbing X factor for me in the whole phenomenon is the show's similarity to that other form of adult entertainment, the one known as pornographic movies (of which I have also watched a few minutes, very few). On the X Factor we see a simulation of musical activity, fixed smiles and an absence of emotion. All the moves are choreographed and the noises produced to order. It doesn't take very long and the end is always the same.
Where on earth did Simon Cowell get his idea from?
Tonight's debate is at the Royal College of Music at 7pm. Here's the link:
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2010/session_detail/4370/
He would have been 75 today.
Nice to know Big Lucy's duetting it up there once more with Dame Joan.
(With Solti conducting?)
The BBC's flagship Ten O'clock News had nine hours yesterday to prepare a tribute to the 'voice of the century' and disgraced itself on every count.
The report was fronted by the Beeb's geek-spectacled arts/news editor, Will Gompertz, a former Tate staffer whose lack of interest in the performing arts has been evident from day one. Gompertz apparently spent most of his day preparing a report on the new Ai Wei Wei installation at - guess where? - the Tate. Old loyalties die hard.
The report Gompertz cobbled together for the Ten O'Clock was perfunctory. It showed the Sydney house where Joan Sutherland was born, her mum, an interview clip and curt comments from director John Copley and the English soprano Leslie Garrett, whose foot has never trodden on the world stages commanded by Dame Joan. Credit for the diva's success was given only to her husband, Richard Bonynge.
No mention was made of Covent Garden's David Webster, who nurtured her for eight years, of Franco Zeffirelli who directed her breakthrough production, of Rafael Kubelik who cast her as Lucia or of Luciano Pavarotti, who stood mute and unidentified beside her in a closing clip and who was her careerlong stage partner. Gompertz wound up his report with the assessment that she was 'a remarkable human being'.
She was, of course, nothing of the sort. Joan was a very ordinary woman of no great intellect or genral interests whose single soaring attribute was a voice to die for, the most powerful coloratura we are ever likely to hear.
When a journalist writes off a subject as 'a remarkable human being', any editor will know that the hack has failed to research the subject and lacks the verbal agility to disguise that ignorance. Will Gompertz shamed the dead diva and the BBC by his deficiency.
The fault was not his alone. The editor of the Ten, knowing the Gomp was busy and bored by opera, should have assigned another reporter - perhaps the deposed Razia Iqbal, who is floating around the department without a defined role. Or called in an expert from Radio 3. Or done something to make sure that the news had authority.
Gomp's appointment last year was an institutional failure of nerve. Now the BBC is cutting executive costs, sacking its deputy DG, this might be a good time to drop the imported Gomp and reinforce core values.
Dame Joan Sutherland was a universal legend, born in Australia, made in England and adored the world over. BBC News marked her passing shabbily, skimpily, ignorantly and with wanton lack of imagination.
Dame Joan Sutherland, the dominant opera soprano after Maria Callas, died during the night of October 11, 2010 at her home at Les Avents, near Montreux, Switzerland, her family have announced. She was a month short of her 84th birthday.
An overnight star in 1959, when she stormed the mad scene in Franco Zefirelli's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, the Australian was steered by her conductor husband Richard Bonynge ever deeper into the bel canto repertory of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti and away from direct comparison with Callas in the big heartbreak roles of Verdi and Puccini.
The power couple adopted a callow Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, and took him on tour in their home country, an education for which he was eternally grateful. Together, 'Lucy and Joan' formed a dream team on Decca Records. Her diction was indistinct and her dynamic control imperfect, but Sutherland conveyed a stage grandeur that overcame any minor shortcomings and the power of her voice was unforgettable. Both of these merits she acquired by watching Kirsten Flagstad during her 1950s Covent Garden apprenticeship, where her other mentor was the Czech conductor, Rafael Kubelik.
A simple, friendly woman, happiest in a dressing room with a magazine and her knitting, she avoided tantrums, had no airs and graces and, in retirement, shunned the limelight. She received a dewy-eyed biography from Norma Major, wife of a British prime minister, and dictated an autobiography of total concealment and ineffable blandness.
For all her unassuming personal modesty, her voice defined an operatic era.
Deutsche Grammophon has posted a happy birthday page for the Chinese pianist, Yundi Li.
http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/artist/biography?ART_ID=LIYUN
Have they forgotten they fired him last year, at Lang Lang's insistence? Only for Lang Lang then to walk out on them and join Sony on a $3 million handshake.
Does no-one in these giant corporations talk to one another?
Yundi, by the way, is now with EMI.
(picture credit: DG)
Gustavo Dudamel has told the Los Angeles Times that he and his wife, Eloísa Maturén, are expecting a baby next spring. 'I will be Papa!' he cried. The paper then obtained confirmation from Deborah Borda, president of the LA Philharmonic - just in case he'd got it wrong.
Here's the link and here's the happy couple (Dude and Mrs, not Dude and Debs).
Photo credit: Susana Gonzales / Los Angeles Times
The Bayreuth Festival has decided, at an emergency board meeting, not to send its artistic director, Katharina Wagner, to Israel after adverse reactions to her plan to engage the Israel Chamber Orchestra for next summer's festival.
It seems odd she should have backed down after a few predictable howls from Holocaust survivors. What did she expect, rose petals?.
The whole plan was misjudged and miserably mishandled. There must be a reconciliation between Israel and Bayreuth some day, but this was not the way to go about it, through a network of backroom contacts (Katie is chummy with the ICO's new conductor, Roberto Paternostro).
By pulling out at the first hint of resistance, Katharina looks both indecisive and weak. Not a good augury for Bayreuth.
Here's the Haaretz version.
Sir Colin Davis resumed conducting last night, leading the London Symphony Orchestra in the Mendelssohn violin concert (soloist: Sarah Chang) and Elgar's second symphony. Next week he will conduct Dvorak's violin concerto (with Anne-Sophie Mutter) and Janacek's Glagolitic Mass.
Sir Colin, who is 83, pulled out of the BBC Proms this summer after suffering severe ill health and a close family bereavement.
Arts unions in the Netherlands are organising a mass rally in The Hague this Friday to protest a wave of government cuts that will abolish three orchestras and reduce several more.
Here's the agenda, if you are in the area:
11.00 Meeting at het Plein
11.30-12.30 Speeches and music (some stars are promising to play).
12.45
Petition presented to Parliament.
13.00-13.30
Mozart wind serenade played by students of the Royal Conservatorium whose future is being foreshortened.
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Meanwhile the pricipal horn player of the radio chamber orchestra, Laurens Otto, has issued an international solidarity appeal
Dear music friends around the world,
The new Dutch government announced that it is their intention to close down ENTIRELY the Muziek Centrum v/d Omroep, which includes Het Metropole Orkest, Het Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, De Radio Kamer Filharmonie, Het Groot Omroepkoor en de Muziekbibliotheek. The proposal is not been passed as of this moment, but if it does, 3 orchestras and a professional choir will become unemployed. This is not a reduction in salary or other contractual issues, it is a decision that will close the door on the entire Radio orchestra organization and forever harm the entire cultural sector both here, and in other countries.This is a very serious concern for us here in Holland, but should be also a concern for those of you who value the arts, and tradition all across the globe. These politicians care very little for the "Left-wing hobbies" and wish to see these luxuries (so named) removed from their "progressive" society. Please, in any way possible, support the musicians here in Holland and be extra vigilant with the preservation of your own orchestral and musical culture. WE CAN'T LET THIS HAPPEN!! Please support the orchestras in any way possible and follow them on Facebook and on the web.
please let yourself hear and react on the following page:
http://www.mco.nl/mco_page/laatuhoren
and join the facebookgroup:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=150694624965839&ref=ts
Kind regards,
Laurens Otto
Principal Horn Radio Kamerfilharmonie
Muziekcentrum van de Omroep - Laat u horen!
www.mco.nl
Muziekcentrum van de Omroep
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Katharina Wagner, co-director of the Bayreuth Festival, plans to visit Israel next week. She intends to sign up the Israel Chamber Orchestra to perform at the Wagner shrine next summer, according to an orchestra spokesperson. Bayreuth has yet to confirm.
Katharina was openly angling for an invitation to Israel in an interview she gave last month to the Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Bayreuth has much to gain from reconciliation and Israel may be more inclined to deal with a new generation of Wagners, one that had no hand in the active promotion of Nazism.
Nevertheless, whichever way you look at it, the rapprochement is a crude piece of real-politik, equally cynical on both sides.
Fascinating statistic just in on the wires. Germany has abolished state subsidies to 35 orchestras since 1992, leaving 133 still in funds out of an original 168. The figures comprises opera houses, symphony orchestras, radio bands and chamber ensembles.
The number of musicians employed in state-funded orchestras is down by 18 percent from 12,159 to the present 9,922. The source is the German Orchestral Association (DOV).
This sensible, gradual rationalisation, a part of the reunification process, contrasts starkly with the latest government plans in Holland to shut down classical radio, with the consequent abolition of three salaried orchestras. Read De Volkskrant for details (in Dutch).
The amount saved would be 31 million Euros.
See here for further planned cuts.
Next in our occasional series of musicians and their ablutions, here is the great British mezzosoprano Sarah Walker as you have never seen her before.
Wondering who the director was, I asked Sarah to explain the concept of the pose. It was, she replied, in 'The Sanctuary in Floral St during the (Harry) Kupfer Pelléas & Mélisande in 1981 when it was my habit to rush round the corner and take a quick swim followed by a dip in the Jacuzzi before the curtain calls!'
Once again Britannia, as Sarah proclaims on her website, waives the rules.
In continuation of our occasional series, I am indebted to the early music pioneer Joel Cohen, emeritus music director of the Boston Camerata, for a portrait of himself in the tub with a consenting consort, Anne Azéma.
The tub is no ordinary tub. It once belonged to the magnificent Sarah Bernhardt. I would surmise, from Bob Gottlieb's new biography, that she did not often bathe in it alone.
Bathtime pictures of eminent musicians are always welcomed on this site.
All year long, Universal Music has been negotiating a merger with the London artists agency, Harrison Parrott. The deal was intended to reboot Universal's management wing, which has been losing artists and credibility, and to give Jasper Parrott a boost to his pension pot.
The proposed merger has just died, and there are two lines being spun. Parrott is telling his artists, 'it has been amicably decided not to proceed'. Universal tell me: 'we're not getting married, we're not even living together, but we might screw from time to time.' Parrott says: 'we're working flexibly together'.
Before we look at causes and consequences, let's write the thing down for what it is - an extremely expensive executive failure. The talks have been going on for so long, and with so much legal time, that the bill is certainly greater than any HP pianist - except perhaps Hélène Grimaud - will earn in a month of Tuesdays. And the failure also delivers a crippling blow to Universal's aim to own a chunk of everything its artists do, live or recorded.
There is no single reason for the collapse, although I understand there was opposition to it from individuals within both companies and many artists were uncomfortable at the prospect of entering corporate servitude. There were several sticking points in the Universal contract and I am told that both sides were concerned by a change of mood that arose from matters that I exposed in this space and elsewhere. If that's true, I am very glad of it.
The winners are such HP conductors as Sakari Oramo, Paavo Järvi, Mikko Franck and Susannah Mälkki who would have struggled to reconcile their independence of mind with the corporate rulebook. They and many soloists are heaving a huge sigh of relief.
The losers, aside from Parrott and his partner Linda Marks, are three Universal suits. Michael Lang, head of Deutsche Grammophon, was the lynchpin of the talks; Jeffrey Vanderveen and Manfred Seipt are the joint heads of the Universal agency wing. All will be feeling that bit shakier in their seats today.
The option for Universal now is either to buy another agency (unlikely) or to write off its own agency as a legacy of its last leader, Chris Roberts, and turn a new, less oppressive leaf in its relationships with the artists that produce its wealth. I know which course I would advise.
