Category: music

The Melbourne Symphony is launching a new series of pops concerts to go along with its classical offerings, prompting consternation from some corners of the business in which such shows are thought to represent a dumbing down of the product. But to judge from what’s being placed on the pops shows, these will be a far cry from the pops shows played by many American orchestras, in which 100 classically trained musicians become a droning backup band for an aging pop star. The Melbourne series will be more in the model of Arthur Fiedler’s old Boston Pops concerts, featuring light classics and jazz-influenced works.

“Their rarefied vocations notwithstanding, orchestra players are as normal as most other people. But somehow a stereotype grew up around classical musicians long ago, and it endures to this day.” Namely, that they walk around all the time in tuxes or topcoats, that they listen to nothing but the classics, and travel by streetcar or some such antiquated mode of transport. In other words, they are fictional characters in some turn-of-the-20th-century novel. Anyone wanting a dose of what classical musicians are really like need only get to know the members of the New York Philharmonic…

Next year will be the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, and yes, the orchestras of the world are well aware, and will shortly be inundating you with more Mozart than you can shake a baton at. But during most seasons, Mozart is rarely heard in the concert halls of major orchestras, and increasingly, his work is restricted to specialized festivals. Part of the problem, of course, is that historically informed performance is now the rule, and most symphony orchestras are loath to have half their musicians sit out for a week just so they can play some Mozart, but there’s a larger issue hanging over the dearth of Wolfgang. “Artur Rubinstein’s comment that Mozart is too simple for children and too difficult for adults is relevant here.”

Germany’s prestigious Bayreuth Festival has welcomed its first-ever Asian guest conductor, and the result appears to have been a popular success. Conductor Eiji Oue, music director of Japan’s Osaka Philharmonic and late of the Minnesota Orchestra, took to the Bayreuth podium to open the festival, conducting Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde. Oue, always a firebrand on the podium, reportedly drew cheers for his efforts.

The musicians’ strike at l’Orchestra symphonique de Montreal has been relatively quiet, if you go by press accounts (or lack of them), but the sudden absence from the scene of Canada’s most prestigious orchestra is starting to take a toll on the country’s cultural life. This week, the famous Festival de Lanaudière was to serve as a grand stage for the OSM, with soloists Deborah Voight and Ben Heppner along for the ride. Instead, Voight and Heppner sang with a pick-up orchestra. “Last Wednesday, playing Terry Riley’s In C, OSM players and their families and friends marched from Place des Arts with police escort along downtown Montreal streets to Phillips Square. They collected signatures along the way and got enthusiastic honks from passing motorists.”

There are no more castrati, of course, and for very good reason. Over a century ago, the world got together and decided that the practice of castrating boys in their early teens so as to preserve their high voices into adulthood was barbaric, regardless of how nice a sound resulted from the assault. “A new exhibition, however, is hoping to overcome the public’s squeamishness on the subject by telling the stories of the band of castrati singers who worked for the composer George Frideric Handel. It will show that for all the pain caused in the 17th and 18th centuries, when up to 4,000 boys a year were castrated in the service of art, the rewards could be immense. They earned fortunes far in excess of what Handel himself earned and more than other singers of the time. They were like the pop stars of today.”

The New York Philharmonic has responded publicly to a lawsuit brought by a violinist it dismissed at the end of his probationary term with the orchestra, calling his accusations of gender discrimination an “insult all the women members of every section of the New York Philharmonic.” The Philharmonic also says that Anton Polezhayev was dismissed primarily for unspecified “behavioral” problems about which he had been spoken to several times. Polezhayev is seeking reinstatement to the orchestra, as well as back pay.

As downtown Chicago’s summer jewel, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, winds up its 2005 season, rumors are abounding that the festival is considering major changes on the podium. Principal guest conductor James Paul has been dismissed, sparking fears that further changes are on the way. “The official silence has only served to fuel rumors that the festival is gearing for further changes at the podium level that could move Grant Park in a more populist direction. And that would be a calamity at a time when music lovers in ever-increasing numbers are discovering downtown Chicago’s beautiful, accessible and dynamic new lakefront haven for classical music. Why tamper with a civic treasure that has proved such a resounding success?”

Glasgow is winding up a three year, £13 million renovation of one of its two main concert halls, and the results should be a great relief to concertgoers. “When the complex opens its new doors in January… Glasgow will, to all intents and purposes, have a brand new, state-of-the-art, multi-purpose arts facility. The impact on the visitor will be instantaneous. What was previously a bland, functionless vestibule at the Candleriggs public entrance has been opened up to feed into a fashionable café. To the side, in a prominent and spacious shop-window position, and next to the new box office area, will be the plush new public face of the Scottish Music Centre, a potentially influential organisation currently hidden away in an anonymous Glasgow West End terrace.”

The Baltimore appointment may mark the first time Marin Alsop will have full control of a major American orchestra, but she’s no stranger to the prestigious podiums of the world, and musicians from some of the world’s best ensembles are going out of their way to support her in the wake of the Baltimore controversy. This past weekend, a violinist in the London Symphony stood at the end of a rehearsal to praise her and wish her well in her new job, prompting hearty applause from the entire LSO. Everywhere, the hope seems to be that Alsop’s famous charisma will win over the Baltimore musicians who tried to stop her appointment as a protest over what they viewed as an aborted music director search process.