Category: music

“Nobody does Messiah like the English. We own the score (at the British Library), the language, the history, the continuity, the board game. We have the music in our bloodstream, the motives in our national character. Band Aid, Live Aid and all similar philanthropic outpourings are, wittingly or not, offshoots of Handelâs example in his London Messiah. So when some continental comes along with a baton and tells us weâre doing it all wrong, we canât count crotchets in Comfort-Ye or tell a pp from a ppp, weâre not, for once, going to nod obeisance and say musical Europe always knows best. Hands to ears, we English donât need be to be told how to sing Messiah, right?”

Stephen Moss has never been a fan of the hype surrounding child musical prodigies. “Great classical musicians should be planets, not meteors; careers built steadily, stealthily. A violinist, bowing arm permitting, can last 40 years; a pianist 60. When you are 12, don’t play Carnegie Hall, play football.” But upon meeting four of Britain’s hottest young musicians, Moss finds that they have many of the same concerns he does: “Being labelled a prodigy can be a curse. It can be dangerous because it’s not about the music; it’s about business and hype… Young people are children first. They have social and emotional needs, and they must be in balance if the individual is to achieve his or her potential.”

The Detroit Symphony ran a $100,000 surplus for the 2004-05 season, and raised the most money in its history to help pay down a $2-million accumulated deficit. “The single biggest factor in the orchestra’s fund-raising success was a challenge grant that led to 3,100 new or increased gifts to the orchestra from individuals and businesses totaling $2.2 million… The DSO slashed expenses the last two seasons through negotiated pay cuts for the musicians and cuts in staff salaries, jobs and administrative costs. But this year, increases in musician salaries will drive up the budget by nearly $1 million.”

Simone Young, who will shortly become only the third woman ever to conduct the notoriously all-male Vienna Philharmonic, is no stranger to controversy, or to taking on the challenge of leading Europe’s best (and most difficult) orchestras. “Since Young’s controversial departure from Opera Australia, the maestro has further consolidated her reputation in a variety of work, including guest conducting for Placido Domingo’s Los Angeles Opera and at the Opéra Bastille in Paris. Young recently took the management and artistic reins of the Hamburg State Opera… In several interviews over the years she has talked frankly about the jeers and sexist attitudes of male colleagues. She stands her ground – in high heels, of course – and invariably wins them over with her focus, authority and style.”

In an age when classical recording on the major labels is in the dumps, smaller labels are increasingly finding a niche and turning out high-quality product. But is such a thing really possible when we’re talking about opera recordings, the most mind-bogglingly complex of all studio recording enterprises? Apparently, it is. “At a time when major record labels have all but quit making full-length opera recordings, [a small, independent label called] Opera Rara has never been busier, resurrecting forgotten works and putting them on disc to exacting musical and technical standards. Small but persistent, the company is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.”

It’s been nearly a decade since the Vienna Philharmonic was ordered by the Austrian government to begin accepting women into the orchestra, and after complying with the letter of the law by making its part-time female harp player a full member, the Phil has continued with its all-male hiring practices. But this weekend, an event which would be yawn-inducing to most other ensembles will make history in Vienna, when Australian conductor Simone Young will lead the Phil, the first woman to do so since Anne Manson in 1994.

“Harrison Birtwistle, Michael Nyman, and John Tavener are among the composers on the shortlist for the British Composer Awards, which was announced on November 4 by the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. The awards, which are presented in association with BBC Radio 3, will be handed out at a ceremony at Ironmonger’s Hall in London on December 9.”

The East Village Opera Company is almost guaranteed to make purists groan, but the bare-bones company has suddenly become the talk of New York. “It features [two vocalists], a seven-piece rock band and a string quartet… They take classic operatic arias and perform them to rock grooves with electrifying results. Are you ready for a version of ‘La Donna E Mobile’ that winds up feeling a lot like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? You may not think so, but it works amazingly well and the group’s debut CD on Universal is already causing ripples in both the classical and rock music scenes.”

When the Baltimore Symphony announced that it would play an ambitious season of concerts at the newly constructed Strathmore Music Center in suburban Washington, D.C., in addition to its home schedule in Baltimore, critics noted that the move was a direct incursion into the National Symphony’s territory, and questioned whether there was enough consumer interest to support the move. Apparently, there isn’t. Ticket sales for many BSO shows at Strathmore have been sluggish, and with the BSO running a deficit, the orchestra has made the decision to cut back on its visits to Washington. Twelve concerts have been scrapped in the current season alone, with more cuts possible next year. The good news is that the BSO’s traditional classical concerts at Strathmore are drawing well.

The Philadelphia Orchestra needs a new president, and it’s willing to go outside the industry to find one. “A job description being circulated by the orchestra and its search firm outlines a job that offers expanded authority, since the new president will also be the chief executive officer, a title currently held by the chairman of the board.” Orchestra officials say that they are willing to boost the job’s salary as well – former president Joe Kluger earned $285,000 per year, well below the income earned by his colleagues at other major American orchestras.