Category: music

Brooks has cut a deal with the mega-retailer to sell his music exclusively there. “Brooks’ arrangement is the first time an artist has made an entire catalog available only through one outlet. Exclusive albums as special one-time promotions are becoming increasingly common, such as when Alanis Morissette and Bob Dylan limited sales to Starbucks Corp. Music retailers complain, however, that such deals are bad for the industry. Some pulled Morissette’s albums from their shelves after she cut her Starbucks deal.”

”You know, when it started getting like this weird personal thing, I really tried to dissociate from it, because it did feel very, very personal. I insisted on having a private meeting with the musicians, and I said, ‘Look, I have some really hard feelings about this, but I’m willing to put them aside if you’re willing to meet me halfway.’ “

A rare 18th Century violin has been returned to its owner a year after having been stolen. “The violin, which is dated to around 1740, was recovered when an unsuspecting dealer took it in to Bonhams auction house, which checked it against an insurance company list of stolen items.”

Julian Lloyd Webber wants to know why classical music performances are described with such breathless adjectives. “Pick up any brochure for the new concert season and you will soon discover that the entire classical world (and presumably its audience) are apparently staggering around in a perpetually stunned condition – which could, of course, account for the stunning predictability of these pre-concert blurbs. Next season, how about a moratorium on the following words: stunning, sensational, dynamic, young, exciting, amazing, breath-taking, magnificent, inspirational, brilliant, astounding and best loved?”

Conductor Franz Welser-Most has heard all the insults, and they don’t seem to bother him. “There’s an untouchability about Welser-Möst, which goes with the magical suddenness with which he appeared on the scene.”

For years the Van Cliburn Piano Competition commissioned a work for the competition. This year “five composers’ works were sent to all the competitors who had to select one for performance in the semifinal round—should they be lucky and skilled enough to get that far. The composer performed by the most semifinalists would be the winner. Sebastian Currier took home the top prize of $5,000, while each of the other composers who had a work played in the semifinals received $2,500.”

So a hot new symphony comes out, wins a big prize, and… nothing. It doesn’t get performed. And why? “The issue is whether orchestras can find the will and the flexibility to tap into hot works when they turn up, or whether their idea of exciting programming is simply to group repertory favorites under facile thematic banners, with the occasional premiere thrown in dutifully and the word “exciting” splashed across the brochure.”

Last season the Cincinnati Symphony raised ticket prices by 25 percent. It was a disastrous move. “The orchestra lost 10 percent of its subscribers and its attendance dropped 12 percent in the 51-concert season that ended in May, in figures released today by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Average attendance was 1,707, meaning on most nights, the 3,417-seat Music Hall was half empty. Such a steep decline in one year is unprecedented in recent symphony history. For the past decade, attendance has hovered between 1,900 and 2,000. Last season, 1,935 concertgoers heard the symphony play on an average concert evening.”

A tour of Jerry Springer, The Opera is in doubt, and some are saying it’s because Arts Council England bowed to pressure from religious groups and denied funding. But a Council spokesperson says: “The decision not to provide funding for the tour was financial, as the musical was already a ‘commercial success’, and not over fears of a religious backlash. It is nonsense to say that the Arts Council has refused to fund the tour of Jerry Springer over fears of protests from Christian groups, or anyone else.”

“Sixty years after the end of World War II, across German-speaking Europe, classical music has been invoked as a medium of public memory, an accompaniment to the fitful process of reckoning with the past. In these countries, as firsthand memories of the war dwindle, music is serving as a kind of proxy allowing postwar generations to approach a difficult history. But why, other than the convenience of an anniversary, is this music being called to speak now? And what exactly can it remember?”