Category: music

The star violinist calls conducting stars “power-hungry egocentrics more interested in chasing money and prestige than developing a musical relationship with an orchestra.”

“Beginning in September, Charles Dutoit will succeed the orchestra’s seventh music director, Christoph Eschenbach, as chief conductor and artistic adviser, a unique, four-year position created for him. Dutoit’s presence gives the orchestra a shrewd, multi-year opportunity to work with a wide range of conductors before choosing a new music director.”

Two men were caught with 2,351 illegal CDs. “Police said a financial investigation showed that they had amassed ‘huge personal wealth’ by committing their crimes.”

Try getting your wordless tune on the radio today. From 1960 to 1974, 128 instrumentals reached the Top 20, while only 30 did from 1975 to 1990. And since? Five.

“Marshalling their mountains of notes from memory, concert pianists need the skill of jugglers and the strength and stamina of athletes. Meanwhile, in their fusion of instinct and intellect, they must be supreme aesthetes. And they must do all this without safety nets: if their memory fails, or their fingers foul up, all they have is an unforgiving crowd. It takes an unusual person to put their life on the line like this. No wonder many pianists are oddballs; no wonder some go mad.”

The company is the latest to jump into the American movie theatre market, with six productions set to be broadcast.

“Chicago has continued to nurture generations of innovative musicians. The latest wave bridge the gap between avant-garde jazz and avant-garde or art rock to create a music of unusual texture and power.”

What with the Met, La Scala, and LA Opera sending their products out to movie theatres, there’s suddenly a glut of opera. Add it up: That’s 50 opera broadcasts in the next four months, not counting radio.

“Classical music in China – despite the mass production of musicians, the vitality of “high-end” music-making in Beijing and the phenomenon that is Lang Lang – is still in its infancy. It has yet to truly enter the bloodstream: it feels thinly spread, sponsor-dependent, in some ways misdirected. Every music student wants to be a superstar soloist, another Lang Lang; established artists are happy to be teachers or showbizzy gala stars.”

Why is it that music critics are always so hopelessly devoted to music that the vast majority of the public has no use for? “In an ideal world, music critics would be a simple conduit between great music and the wider public. ‘Here you go,’ we should say, ‘you’ll love this’ – and you would love it. The truth is a little different.”