Category: music

Rock musicians who try to cross over to the classical world tend to fare about as well as sheep attempting flight. More often than not, their efforts tend to illicit scorn from classical audiences, and confusion from their traditional fan base. But if critical response is any indication, Elvis Costello be be the exception to the rule, as he prepares for the premiere of his first major symphonic work in Brooklyn this weekend. “‘Il Sogno’ was commissioned four years ago by an Italian dance company for its adaptation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Costello composed it in 10 weeks, writing it out painstakingly in pencil across 200 pages, without computers or collaborators.

Ontario’s fledgling Stratford Summer Music Festival thought it had scored a coup when it signed up the Axelrod String Quartet to bring its matched set of Strads loaned by the Smithsonian. But then the deal came apart…

La Scala plans to reopen its newly-refurbished opera house this fall. “During our first year we shall give 185 performances. That is a lot when you consider the high quality of each work that we present and the number of rehearsals. With the technical possibilities that we now have we shall increase quantity while maintaining quality. Our new stage machinery is the most modern in the world. Until last year we needed hours or one or two days to shift scenery. Now it can be done immediately. You just push a button and it is done.”

Design critics have been raving about Chicago’s new Millennium Park. But tonight is the real tes, when the first concert is given in the Frank Gehry-designed structure. “The pavilion’s most distinctive features are the curled, stainless steel panels that frame the stage like a bank of gray, shimmering clouds. The stage itself, ample enough for a 100-member orchestra and 150-member chorus, is lined with light reddish-brown Douglas fir. Fixed seating for 4,000 stretches back from the stage, and Millennium Park officials estimate that the lawn, crisscrossed by a metal trellis that holds the amplification system, can hold up to 7,000 more listeners.”

“The Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a move that comes as a shock to the orchestra’s music director.”

Robert mailer Anderson is a 35-year-old San Francisco novelist who reserves Box G at the San Francisco Opera every season for himself and eight of his closest buddies. “Last Christmas, Anderson bought his crew tuxedos to wear on their nights at the Opera House, but he still felt they were missing a certain je ne sais quoi.” So he had a parfumier mix a special scent for the occasion. “To top it all off, the San Francisco Opera gift shop decided to sell the scent (for $120), named, appropriately enough, Box G.”

“The normal share of business for classical music in the US is about 2.5% of the overall music market so, in terms of turnover, it’s relatively small. But on iTunes we represent between 6-8% of sales in any given week, so we have orders of magnitude more of the market online than offline. Yet a quick tour of current classical websites is disappointing.”

Sergei Eisenstein’s silent film masterpiece, Battleship Potemkin, has twice inspired composers to pen complete scores to accompany it, and now a third soundtrack is in the works. But whereas the first two musical accompaniments were created by the eminent composers Edmund Meisel and Dmitri Shostakovich, the latest version is to be recorded by pop group The Pet Shop Boys. The score will be mainly instrumental, but will include a few new songs.

“A handwritten copy of the original score for Jacques Offenbach’s last opera has been discovered a century after it was thought lost in a fire. The manuscript for the Tales of Hoffman – which premiered in 1881, a year after Offenbach’s death – was found when the Paris opera library was re-organised.”

“Some of her famously quarrelsome relatives doubtless regard Katharina Wagner as little more than an inexperienced blonde harpy luring the Wagner family honour on to the rocks. But this week the great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner took a decisive step in the battle to take control of the composer’s most prestigious legacy: Germany’s Bayreuth Festival. When the tantrums and walk-outs started, it was the 26-year-old Madonna fan who saved the day.”