Category: music

The trade in string instruments is as much an art as it is commercial transaction. When Gerald Segelman died in 1992 at the age of 93, he left one of the world’s great collections of rare stringed instruments, worth between $15 million to $34 million. Eight years later, Segelman’s estate claims in a lawsuit that a handful of the world’s top violin dealers colluded to plunder the collection, robbing the estate of millions that had been willed to charity. – Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Producer digitally lifts all the scratches out of Enrico Caruso’s early 20th Century recordings, removes primitive accompaniment and inserts Vienna Radio Symphony behind him. What’s next, Elvis and Enrico in duet? – New York Times

Contemporary classical music is flourishing in London this winter. – London Sunday Times

– readies for $10 million restoration. – Detroit News

Increasingly, musicians are ditching their record companies and taking it to the web. – Christian Science Monitor

The disaster of his last big opera production (“Carmen”) in a New Zealand stadium left him with a second mortgage on his house. But an Auckland promoter believes he’s found the secret this time out with his new stadium “Traviata.” – New Zealand Herald

Have the ranks of American conductors become more diverse in the past decade? One conductor says not. “I can count the number of African American conductors on the fingers of my two hands,” he says. “The scene has not opened up, but an important part of what has not opened up is opportunities for African Americans as music directors. You’ll find a good handful who are conductors, perhaps even associates or assistants. But it pretty well stops there.” – Detroit News

“Not since the days when Birgit Nilsson dominated the German dramatic opera repertory, and the first half of Luciano Pavarotti’s career, before he started straying from the Italian lyric tenor roles he sang so splendidly, has there been such an international consensus among the critics and audiences about the excellence of a vocal artist.” Soprano Renée Fleming could write her ticket to almost any concert hall or opera house in the world. – New York Times

It’s another Bach anniversary this year. Too much of a good thing? “It is disappointing that these celebrations usually involve a great deal of recycling and money-making, and not a great deal of rethinking or reassessing, or even an emphasis of context,” says Christopher Hogwood, who believes that Bachian fanatics should not be encouraged. – Sydney Morning Herald

Maybe not a masterpiece on the order of a 21st Century “Peter Grimes,” but Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “The Silver Tassie,” which had its debut at the English National Opera this week is damn good. – London Telegraph

• A dazzling piece. – London Times 02/18/00