Classical Notes

A Trailblazing Music Scholar

2009-11-24T23:05:22Z

The death of H. C. Robbins Landon has just been announced. His name may not be current in every household, but lovers of the Viennese classic composers, especially Haydn, are in his debt for the scholarly work he did. This Telegraph obituary focuses (maybe too much?) on one incident in his career that he no doubt would have liked to forget, but also suggests the range and importance of his work.

Start Your Thanksgiving with Rachmaninoff

2009-11-24T20:43:53Z

Okay, it may be a tad early, but I'm guessing some of you might be up late Wednesday (or up early Thursday for that matter!) preparing for Thanksgiving. This week's Euro Classic (bright and early at 12:05am Thanksgiving day!) features Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. The concerto was dedicated to a fellow named Nikolai Dahl, who was experimenting with hypnosis therapy. It was Dahl who helped the composer emerge from depression and a creative funk following the critical rejection of his First Symphony. Rachmaninoff completed the Second Piano Concerto shortly thereafter. Pianist Peter Donohoe joins the Hong Kong Sinfonietta in a concert recorded live in May, 2008. Saturday night, while you're enjoying yet another turkey sandwich, we'll supply a little french pastry with another Euro Classic - Francis Poulenc's Sept Chansons. I Fagiolini was recorded live last July in a concert from Castle Montabaur in Germany. Be listening around 8:05pm Saturday. ......and good luck in the kitchen this week!

Don't Just Sit There, Do Something!

2009-11-23T18:37:25Z

When you go to a concert, do you want to see the musicians comporting themselves in a dignified fashion, with no more bodily motion than the minimum required? Or should they really get into it? At least in a teaching situation, Sir Simon Rattle favors the latter option. Read this account of his master class where he tells the young orchestral players, "You cannot sit there like lumps!"

The Myth of High-Priced Tickets

2009-11-23T15:55:19Z

I was very disappointed to see this comic strip in yesterday's Star Tribune advancing the myth that "only rich people can afford" tickets to the symphony. (Especially since I had just read this article about ticket scalpers asking over a $1000 a piece for tickets to ~~an upcoming U2 concert~~ a 2007 Hannah Montana concert.) Tickets to major orchestras (like the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony or our own Minnesota Orchestra or Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra) are comparable in price, and often cheaper, than tickets to pop/rock acts such as Bon Jovi, U2 or Taylor Swift. I don't hold comic strip creators to the same professional standards as reporters, of course, but would a little fact-checking be so bad?

Hear the music of the future!

2009-11-20T22:35:38Z

I looked up "Classic" in the dictionary and it says "serving as a standard of excellence; of recognized value." In classical music we might add that it's something that endures. Recently, my colleague Ward Jacobson posted a blog about which living composers would be still be played 50 years from now? I wonder if games like this were played back in Mozart and Beethoven's day? I'll bet they were because, for the most part, every concert was all new music. You can "hear the future" tomorrow night at Orchestra Hall when Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra present seven emerging composers in their Future Classics concert. I'll be there hosting, which basically means I get to ask all those questions you've always wanted to ask - what's your piece about? why did you write it? what do you want us to experience? how was writing for the Minn Orch? Come tomorrow night - or stay tuned the week after Thanksgiving to classical MPR.org when we post the concert on-line.

Melbourne Symphony Wonders: Is Music Director Necessary?

2009-11-16T19:14:46Z

The Melbourne Symphony recently parted ways with its Music Director, Oleg Caetani, a year before his contract ran out. This fact, and the success of a recent guest conductor, has the orchestra's president wondering if they need a single music director at all. Wouldn't a series of specialists be better? The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra asked the same questions a few years ago, and came up with an answer that works very well for them. And by the way, the SPCO welcomes its newest artistic partner later this month.

Time to Weigh in....

2009-11-14T10:34:45Z

My colleague Julie Amacher shared this entry from Friday's Arts Journal website. The question? Which 10 living composers will still be played in 50 years' time? The Arts Journal site paired it down to five locks: Birtwistle, Boulez, Rautavaara, Reich and Sondheim. Then came the probables, followed by the possibles. So what do you think? We'd love to see YOUR top 10.

Can orchestras survive with "business as usual?"

2009-11-12T14:52:35Z

Earlier this fall, Michael Kaiser, the President of the Kennedy Center, made his way to Saint Paul to talk with about 250 arts presenters. Many of those anxiously hung on every word of the Turnaround King's advice for staying in business in this economy. Michael Kaiser's pep talks come from his own experience on saving organizations on the brink of collapse. But recently in his blog in the Huffington Post, he admitted some groups are just going to fail.

Tonight's Euro Classic: A Mozart Divertimento

2009-11-11T08:36:23Z

Back in Mozart's day, the Divertimento was considered light-hearted, background music. Just don't give it that label today! Tonight's EURO CLASSIC concert on Classical Minnesota Public Radio is a performance of Mozart's Divertimento in E flat, with the Balkan Chamber Academy recorded live in Belgrade last February. Stay up late and join us just after midnight (12:05am, Thursday). Saturday night, around 8:05, there's another EURO CLASSIC, with the Emerson String Quartet in a performance of Haydn's String Quartet No. 73, recorded live last June in Schwetzingen, Germany.

Oldest Orchestra West of the Rockies Files for Bankruptcy

2009-11-09T10:49:44Z

The Honolulu Symphony had struggled financially for the last couple of years. Its musicians have sometimes gone months without paychecks. Now its board has cancelled the rest of its 2009 concerts and filed for bankruptcy.

Virtuoso or "finger-merchant?"

2009-11-06T16:33:29Z

Just read an interesting piece about pianists as super-heroes, raising the issue of whether a piano soloist's job is to wow us with pyrotechnics or make beautiful music (hopefully both.) It brought to mind a conversation I had with the visiting artist Kirill Gerstein about playing even etudes musically!

Classical Grrl Power

2009-11-05T03:43:00Z

The BBC reports that Durham Cathedral, one of the England's oldest and largest, has admitted girls to its traditional choir of men and boys. The girls sang Evensong last Sunday. Going forward, the choir will have 20 boys and 20 girls, most girls between the ages of nine and eleven. It's the end of a tradition that goes back to the year 1640, and as The Very Reverend Michael Sadgrove put it: "It is not often that we can genuinely say that we are making history in a cathedral as old as this." From 1703 to 1741, Antonio Vivaldi spent the last 38 years of his life as teaching and conducting the all-girl orchestra at the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice. It was a home for orphaned, abandoned, or illegitimate girls. Music was a primary activity, and the level of instruction was so high that some parents would try to pass off their legitimate children as illegitimate in order to get them in! A plaque outside Vivaldi's school warned that anyone who attempted this fraud would be struck by lightning. The Seika Girls' High School Band of Japan isn't restricted to orphans, but it's one of the best in the world. Hey, forget the Supremes and all those other Girl Groups of the '60s; the precision and passion in this video is stunning. Check out the powerful low brass section; they put many college-age bands to shame. (BTW, props to my old friend Aaron Brask of the Jacksonville Symphony for passing this along...)

Composing Well Is the Best Revenge

2009-11-04T23:39:05Z

The financial and legal ordeal of composer Peter Maxwell Davies, who had been defrauded by his former manager, has reached some kind of closure. Details here, including the revenge that the composer is mulling over.

This Week's Euro Classics

2009-11-04T09:15:42Z

Okay all you classical music night owls, there's another Euro Classic coming up late tonight. Just past midnight I'll present an exclusive recording featuring the Aviv Quartet playing the Shostakovich String Quartet No. 3 in F. Shostakovich himself thought this Quartet was one of his finest achievements. It was composed in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Tonight's Euro Classic was recorded live in September, 2008 at the Beursschouwburg, Brussels. And don't forget Saturday's Euro Classic. Just after 8pm, Philippe Jordan conducts the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra in Bartok's Two Pictures. This concert took place last February at Salle Pleyel in Paris. Hope you can tune in, either on the radio or on-line.

Another American Conductor on the Disabled List

2009-11-04T05:26:50Z

While conductor James Levine's medical leave keeps getting longer, another American conductor has cancelled a couple of weeks worth of concerts. Current Detroit Symphony music director Leonard Slatkin gave new definition to the phrase "the show must go on" Sunday night in Rotterdam. He suffered a heart attack, but managed to finish the concert before undergoing surgery later that night. Read more about it here.