Thursday, February 16, 2017

79 years ago today...



...On 16 February 1938, Jelly d'Arányi gave the UK premiere of the Schumann Violin Concerto at the Queen's Hall, London. That event is the climax of Ghost Variations - so for the occasion, here for a reblog is my piece for the Women Writers, Women's Books website the other day, not so much about why I started writing that novel, but why I finished it, which was another matter altogether...


Finding the Pearl: Why I wrote Ghost Variations

Why do you start to write a book? Perhaps more than that, why do you finish it? There are enough books in the world already: why do you need to add yours?

The reason I started Ghost Variations is not the same reason I finished it. I can’t count the number of times I nearly gave up, or rewrote bleeding chunks, or chucked them out, or how often issues outside nearly scuppered the whole thing.

Its initial impulse was several-fold. I wanted to try writing a historical novel, as my former ones were mostly contemporary. Besides, it seemed a good idea at the time…

When I first came across the story of Jelly (pronounced “Yély”) d’Arányi and her discovery of the Schumann Violin Concerto in the 1930s, it seemed impossibly far-fetched. A few years ago, researching my third novel, Hungarian Dances, which centred on a musical family from Budapest, I’d got hold of an out-of-print biography of this revered Hungarian violinist and her musician sisters. I found more than I’d expected. Namely, a chapter entitled “The Truth About the Schumann Concerto”. I read it with increasing incredulity.

The Schumann is the least known and most mysterious of German romantic violin concertos. It was the composer’s last orchestral work: soon after its completion he suffered a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, then spent the last two years of his life in an asylum. After his death, his widow, Clara, decided the concerto betrayed signs of his illness and left it unpublished. Joseph Joachim, the violinist for whom it was written, kept the manuscript; his heirs deposited it in the Prussian State Library, embargoed for 100 years.

Then in 1933 Joachim’s great-niece – Jelly d’Arányi – claimed to have received a message through a Ouija board ostensibly from the spirit of Schumann, asking her to find the concerto and perform it. Her enquiries alerted others to the fact that there was something interesting lurking in that library. Schumann’s daughter was furious and insisted the concerto must never be performed. Nobody could override her directive…except people who cared nothing for niceties. The Nazis’ Department for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, run by Goebbels, found a use for it: having banned music by Jewish composers, including the popular Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, they decided to take the Schumann themselves and launch it as a symbol: a great Aryan concerto by a great German Aryan composer.

Complicating things further, the work’s new publishers sent a photostat to the young American virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, asking his opinion. He fell in love with it and wanted to give the premiere himself. The unfortunate d’Arányi found herself in a three-way race to perform the work, while Europe was hurtling towards war.

It seemed a good story, but it needed to be more than that to make its telling worthwhile. And I felt that it was indeed more than that. The confluence between the situations of the heroine, her target and her world coalesced into a single key image: a tipping point, poised on the cliff edge, reaching for a last chance of redemption. Jelly d’Arányi, for whom composers including Bartók, Ravel and Vaughan Williams had created masterpieces, could feel her glory days slipping away; the concerto was written when Schumann was descending into madness; and when the work came to light, the world was sliding into fascism and the vortex towards cataclysmic war and the Holocaust.

I started the first draft in 2011. My mother-in-law, who escaped Nazi Germany aged 13 on the Kindertransport and never saw her parents and brother again, asked what I was writing. A historical novel, I told her. She asked when it was set. When I said the 1930s, she laughed. To her, that wasn’t historical at all.

Three years earlier we’d experienced a kind of modern-day 1929: the financial crash of 2008. Structures and certainties were crumbling. Witch-hunts were on the rise. People were frightened and insecure, taking out their alarm on those less powerful than themselves whom they considered had fallen out of line. After half the first draft was done, a period of intense stress rendered me unable to write a word for six months. I’ll spare you the gory details, and of course the outcome could have been worse, but it has caused a long-term health issue.

I kept trying to get back to the book, but it progressed only in fits and starts. I’d set about it without a contract as I didn’t want deadlines or directives, but this meant no advance, nor any certainty of publication. With my immune system apparently AWOL I then lost half of 2014 too, this time to something that turned out to be whooping cough.

Yet to give up, to shove the manuscript into the bottom drawer and forget about it, was unthinkable: you’re not beaten unless you allow yourself to be. I hunkered down and got on with it as best I could.

And one day in summer 2015, tired of the continual hold-ups, I decided to send the draft to Unbound, a new-look publisher that works via crowdfunding. It came highly recommended by several journalist colleagues. Once they agree to take you on, you pitch your project to potential readers. If you reach the crowdfunding target, they publish the book.

A few months later, having all but forgotten about the submission, I received a message saying they would take Ghost Variations. We launched the crowdfunding in January 2016. To my astonishment it made target in 12 days. Maybe the story rang some bells, because it wasn’t only people I knew who were jumping on board.

Soon I was working round the clock to chisel the novel into publishable shape. My editor gently pointed out that I’d paid plenty of attention to the rise of fascism in Germany, but not said much about what was happening in England, where our heroine Jelly d’Arányi lived. Indeed, the sporadic way in which I’d written the book had left a black hole of grand proportions, waiting for Oswald Mosley to fill it.

I looked up 1930s Daily Mail headlines and articles by Lord Rothermere. This was the country in which my parents-in-law had arrived as teenaged Jewish refugees with German names and accents. Because of that press-stirred hysteria about “floods” of such refugees, my mother-in-law’s parents and brother were refused visas, meaning they were trapped in Berlin, and were murdered in a concentration camp.

Meanwhile our television screens were filled with images of boatloads of people from today’s conflict zones sinking and drowning in the Mediterranean while our own western governments slammed the doors shut upon them. In June Britain voted to leave the EU. Nobody absorbed in research on the 1930s could view this as anything but a calamity of historic proportions. Over the Atlantic, the notion of Donald Trump as potential US president was derided, yet I’d been reading that Hitler himself was at first regarded as a joke by many who believed that an unstable, deluded fantasist could never take power.

When I first began Ghost Variations I had no idea it would be as relevant as it has turned out. Its delays were frustrating. But perhaps 2016 was its moment after all, because this year brought us our own tipping point. We’re no longer on the cliff edge: we’ve tipped and we’re falling.

I’ve learned a lot through writing Ghost Variations, so here are my lessons in a nutshell. First, if you want to write about the inconvenient truths of today, sometimes it’s better not to hold up a direct mirror. Instead, refract the light you want to shed. Shine it through a prism of a past parallel, or a sci-fi or fantasy world. Good historical fiction doesn’t only concern the past.

Next, that question publishers and agents always ask – “But what’s it about?” – is slightly misphrased. It means: “What are you really trying to say?” A “good story” isn’t enough. There has to be a pearl in your oyster, something special for the reader to extrapolate. Writing a book takes a lot of work, and the financial rewards are not huge even if you are successful. At some point you might need to reassure yourself you have a good reason for doing it at all. Your clinching point is that reason, so make sure it’s there.

I think – or hope – that Ghost Variations holds a positive message despite the times it portrays. I hope it shows there were, and there will be, people who see through lies, moral corruption and mortal danger and stand by higher principles. We’ve come through times of turmoil before; and despite huge, tragic sacrifices and horrors beyond comprehension, still people keep trying to do the right thing. There will be heroes and heroines, there will be life and there will be love. And maybe there is even a chance that in some unsuspected dimension love can last forever. Maybe that’s why I wrote this book.





Ghost Variations at Unbound: https://unbound.com/books/ghost-variations

Beethoven to bike to




On Valentine's Day, Alexander Panfilov, winner of the 2015 Hastings International Piano Competition, switched images with the regular inhabitants of The Source, the local skateboard and biker park, which happens to be the largest underground skate part in the world. He provided a spot of music for them to work out to, wearing a hoodie. The bikers wore bow ties. And it was daredevil energy all round. The piano had also been on location all day, with everyone encouraged to come and play it. Above, a taste of the action - and the cool-as-cucumber pianist seems unfazed by the apparent likelihood that a biker might land inside the piano at any moment.

HIPCC director Frank Wibaut said: “I once organised a similar event in Australia, where classical musicians came together with young athletes and while both groups came from completely different spheres they were able to understand the dedication and hours of practice that each put into their particular discipline. I think we’ll see a similar understanding in Hastings.” (More here.)

The Hastings International Piano Competition 2017 takes place next week, starting on 23 February, with finals on 3 and 4 March accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Follow the action here.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Less cheering...


Eric Halfvarson, Karita Mattila, Jonas Kaufmann, Tony Pappano & the LSO
take a bow the other night. Now it's curtains...

Oh dear. The Kaufmann Residency has come to an untimely end. Jonas has bronchitis and the concert including the 'Four Last Songs' tonight has been cancelled. Or at least postponed - the Barbican says it will be rescheduled in due course.

So there we are. That's it from London's Kaufmann Central. The discount tent has been packed away, the thermos of tea drained and the last sarnies will presumably keep a day or two in the fridge. We were very lucky to hear that glorious recital last week and the delirious thrill of Die Walküre Act I, so probably we shouldn't be greedy.

We wish Jonas the speediest of recoveries. The offer of chicken soup still stands.

Friday, February 10, 2017

A post to cheer up the Kaufmaniacs... #kaufmannresidency

Oh dear. Jonas Kaufmann cancelled his conversation session at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama today, citing a cold and apologising for disappointing the public. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see him for some Strauss specials on Monday. Meanwhile, for the Kaufmaniacs who'd taken the day off specially to go along this afternoon, here are some cheering bits and pieces. Grab a glass of something nice and sit back...

HOW I DISCOVERED JONAS
This recording was the first time I ever heard Jonas's voice and I have never forgotten it. I knew nothing about him, had never even heard his name, and was sent his Strauss album to review, and out came this...voice. Blimey, guv....



WORDS OF WISDOM
Here are some choice quotes from my interview with him exactly three years ago, for BBC Music Magazine. It was February 2014 in New York, it was sodding freeeezing, the snow was piled six and a half feet high around the sidewalks and I turned up in a thick jumper, a hat that wrecks my hair and snow boots. He was rehearsing Werther intensively, but looked fresh as the proverbial daisy. We talked mainly about Winterreise. Also...

JK: “One of the key ingredients to make an audience suffer with you, feel with you, to make things credible and look and sound natural is that you must really believe in it. You need to fill up these wonderful compositions with sense, meaning and genuine emotion.

“I always refer to Herbert von Karajan’s words when he said that what we’re seeking as musicians is ‘controlled ecstasy’. The world around you – including yourself – has to believe that you are a hundred per cent this other person and only when this happens is it something real. But it’s a game, and at the beginning you don’t know how far you can go before you lose control.


“This feeling of almost flying, of almost convincing yourself you’re this other person, that’s what makes this job so exciting – and also in the end so easy, because since you ‘are’ that person, all the words you are singing or saying make total sense.”


WAAAGNER
Better? Let's have some appropriately Wintersturmerish Wagner, with thanks to the excellent quality of Medici.tv...


AND A SPOT OF LEHÁR WITH PLÁCIDO
If this next one doesn't work, nothing will! Come on, SMILE....


HOT TODDY
Last but not least, here is my dad's hot toddy recipe. Should dispel a cold in moments.

1 measure brandy (more if necessary)
A spoon of apricot jam, to taste (or alternative flavour, or honey)
A slice of lemon

Put ingredients into a mug. Fill with hot water. Stir well. Enjoy while listening to Meistersinger.

Thursday, February 09, 2017

The Wagner Evening #kaufmannresidency

Jonas Kaufmann in recital the other night. Photo: Alastair Muir/Barbican

State of being in the Discount Tent EC1 last night post-Walküre Act I: shaking a bit, hyperventilating slightly and maybe in need of a little lie-down, toast and a nice cup of camomile tea. But even the most soothing of brews doesn't cleanse that music from your system. Nothing new about saying Wagner is like a drug, but you can feel it physically in your bloodstream. It's a substance that burns you up from within via myriad points of white heat and you sense it endowing you with superhuman powers such as flight, or at least the ability to walk upside down on the ceiling. Coming down again is the difficult part.

We'll go back to that later, but first you probably want to know what the performance was like.

After opening with the Tristan und Isolde prelude, with Wagner's own concert ending (he tacks on the end of the Liebestod), Tony Pappano kept a tight rein and concentrated atmospheres in the orchestra for the Wesendonck Lieder, which Jonas Kaufmann - as far as we know, the only tenor singing them in this day and age - approached with every iota of the expertise he brought to his recital the other night. Colour, character, control, sophisticated phrasing, poised emotional content: this was a mesmerisingly beautiful interpretation, and one in which he somehow created the illusion, especially in the closing 'Träume', that he became the poetry - as if he had turned into Mathilde Wesendonck. Watching him return to his own self as the applause began was like witnessing some strange metamorphosis controlled by an invisible, internal Tarnhelm.

You'd think this demanding song cycle was enough for a singer who's recently returned after months off sick, but the second half was of course devoted to the whole of Act I of Die Walküre. A few things to consider at this point. First, Kaufmann's voice has always been about quality, not volume: never the biggest voice in the world, but simply the most beautiful and intelligent one. Also, when Bayreuth was designed for the Ring cycle, Wagner's idea was to keep the orchestra level down, with a sunken pit, so that the singers wouldn't have to yell to be heard. Last night, our Siegmund was flanked by two giant voices: as Sieglinde, Karita Mattila and as Hunding Erik Halfvarson. They stood where singers stand in concert performances: beside the conductor, at one with the orchestra. In that context Kaufmann's voice sounded like a gleaming gemstone within the entire diadem of sound-colours. But Mattila and Halfvarson (who of course hadn't sung the whole of the Wesendonck Lieder beforehand) put on the tiara and went surfing over the soundwaves.

Mattila, her tone full of complex, honeyed herbiness in the lower registers and rays of blinding sunlight at the top, seemed ecstatic, losing herself in the music and the role. Kaufmann's Siegmund was a bitter fighter on the run, filled with character and contained power, gradually regaining his passion for life and love and unleashing the full glory at full tilt when it was needed. Halfvarson proved a Hunding in whose house you'd be very afraid to stay, his towering stage presence and magnificent bass galvanising more acting contact than there had been hitherto. Pappano conducted like a man possessed, pacing the energy up to and beyond fever pitch; and one special hero is the LSO itself, but perhaps especially the cello section and its principal, Tim Hugh, who made incandescent gorgeousness out of his solos. The whole thing left even slightly-anxious-about-it people like me longing desperately for Rattle Hall to be built and give them a world-class acoustic with real shine and bloom... And yet the total effect, give or take these quibbles, was mind-blowing.

Heading back to the Tent I bumped into a friend and we said: "Great, so what time does Act II start?"

I'll never forget the first time I heard Die Walküre. I was 25 and working as assistant editor at Classical Music Magazine. Covent Garden was staging the Ring cycle and when my boss discovered I'd never seen it he said I must join him on his press tickets. I went with some trepidation; I had never even heard Act I of Die Walküre before, because I wasn't allowed Wagner, because HITLER. I remember coming out of the opera house in exactly the state above. Twenty-five years later and I know the piece really well, yet it still does that to me. Just imagine the first-timer impact.

So look. I have faced the Wagner-and-Hitler question again and again, and thought it through ad infinitum. The issue is difficult, it's painful, it's complex and for years I felt that avoiding this music was totally justified on historical grounds. Yet it has got to the point now where I could almost feel I was swindled. I was denied, then denied myself, this consciousness-altering musical marvel, this view from the summit of summits, because of Hitler. But that lets Hitler win. Now we must reclaim the music. The greatest music in the world - and this is some of it - should belong to us all. Nobody should be denied the experience of any form of great art because someone, somewhere, is telling them "this isn't for you".


Tuesday, February 07, 2017

Valentine joys up the road


Not Jonas this time, but a quick shout-out for our friends up the road at the wonderful Ealing Music and Film Valentine Festival, bringing a lively lookout to west London from tomorrow until Monday. Here's their line-up. 

A few highlights:

  • Thursday 9th February evening: English Chamber Orchestra and Tenebrae Choir, conducted by Nigel Short, perform Mozart’s Requiem at Weston Hall 
  • Friday 10th February evening: English Youth Orchestra and Martin James Bartlett perform Tchaikovsky & Mahler at St Barnabas Church 
  • Saturday 11th February: evening: Ealing Symphony Orchestra perform a selection of film music at St Barnabas Church 
  • Sunday 12th February afternoon: The Tippett Quartet and Julian Gallant perform a chamber music concert including Haydn and Brahms at St Mary’s Church

Sunday, February 05, 2017

Black magic #kaufmannresidency

Back on stage! 

The one problem with recitals by Jonas Kaufmann is the absolute scrum at the ladies' loos. The Barbican's facilities are confusing because there are two entrances, one at either end, and sometimes there is one queue, usually two and occasionally three. During last night's interval they brought in ushers to do a spot of crowd-control.

The fans were out in force and for good reason. This concert by Kaufmann and "his" glorious pianist Helmut Deutsch kicked off the Barbican's Kaufmann Residency, four events between last night and 13 February. It was also the charismatic German tenor's first recital in many months, marking his return to performance with Deutsch after his lengthy period of recovery from a haematoma on a vocal cord (his first return to the stage was as Lohengrin in Paris, just two weeks ago). It must have been a relief to many that he was there at all. A slight air of tension hung over the auditorium as the beginning was slightly delayed and an unspoken anxiety of the "er, is he OK?" variety seemed to shiver through the waiting rows.

He was. And he started by thanking everyone for coming along, which got a laugh - many people booked their tickets a year ago and Kaufmaniacs have flown in from all over the world. He then explained that the iPad on its stand was there because this was his first recital in a while and it was simply to make sure he didn't make any any any mistakes. This introduction was to be one of the few light moments of the evening: the artists had selected a programme of dark, disturbing repertoire, the type that excavates the soul and holds it up for forensic examination. Kaufmann's depth of tone and actorly intelligence suits this repertoire exceptionally well. He is, as ever, the ideal tenor for those who really prefer baritones.

Deutsch and Kaufmann: a peerless partnership
Let's hear it for Helmut Deutsch, whose long and distinguished career as pianist, Lieder specialist and teacher seems to have reached its apogee in his work with Kaufmann. This musical magic is utterly a joint effort - and what singer could be so lucky as to have a pianist partner (don't even think about calling him an "accompanist") whose tone is so radiant, whose dynamics are so ideally judged, whose creation of atmosphere is simply peerless and whose support is ideal at every turn. If Kaufmann is Margot Fonteyn, then Deutsch is Rudolf Nureyev, lifting him effortlessly, letting him shine, while remaining a dazzling artist in his own right - though Deutsch is probably a bit more self-effacing about it than Nureyev might have been. The two together become more than the sum of their parts, the partnership a living entity in its own right.

Schumann's Kerner Lieder Op.35 was perhaps the closest set he ever composed to Schubert's Schwanengesang. A sequence of songs rather than a cycle, they are united by the poet Justinus Kerner's undertow of threat and despair: often composer and poet fuse to a degree that it is impossible to be certain whether Schumann is delving into Kerner to craft the poet's essence in music, or whether he has perhaps found in Kerner the perfect means to capture his own. He was much under the influence of Schubert at the time and Schubertian hints surface occasionally in the music: a Rosamunde rhythm in 'Wanderlied', subtle switches between major and minor in 'Erstes Grün' - and not so subtle ones in the set's showstopper 'Stille Tränen'. The final three songs, beginning with that, are united, too, by the rhythm of the text; Schumann makes the last two essentially into one, reiterating a questioning, lost-sounding figure with a cumulative effect that can be deeply unsettling. "Why are you so ill?...Nature heals me, but man will not let me rest," says Kerner. Schumann's likely syphilis? Schubert's? (And can one help but reflect that the music business may have put rather a lot of pressure on our performer of late?) In the final song, 'Alte Laute', the poet says he is trapped in a bad dream from which only an angel can wake him; and right now so is the world, and for a few moments the musicians on stage and their audience were entirely as one.

Kaufmann's core strengths are many, but two were of special value here. One is his quietness: reserving the big, open notes for special moments alone, his eloquence is as soft and dark as mink. It combines with that other magic ingredient, expert storytelling, to the effect that instead of going out to the audience by projecting at full tilt, he makes us go to him, creating an atmosphere of mesmerising intimacy that seems to shrink the hall. Every word and phrase has character and meaning, each song a base shade of voice colour specific to its needs; such is Kaufmann's ability to inhabit the music's secret spaces that you would understand the poet and composer's message even if you couldn't hear the words, though you always can. Control is vital, and the pacing that goes with it: the long build-up from near-whisper to full-on belt-out beauty in 'Stille Tränen' hit home. Kaufmann is a supremely controlled singer; in the partnership of head and heart, it's the head in the driving seat all the way, with the perfect understanding of how to prompt our hearts.

It's difficult to understand why Henri Duparc's mélodies are not performed in every song recital everywhere in the world, or why he might ever be considered obscure or somehow difficult. The French composer, a friend and contemporary of Fauré's, offers a heady synthesis of sensuality and seamless poise, the music bathed in luminous colour. Deutsch found the light within the richly written textures and Kaufmann the subtle lines and shaping: 'Phidylé' is allowed to sleep undisturbed in a radiant dream until the poet anticipates her kiss with a renewed power, 'Le manoir de Rosamonde' is terse, frightening and verging on the tragic as the poet flees the dog-bite of love and leaves its land undiscovered, and the set is framed with two Baudelaire poems about distant dwellings - 'L'invitation au voyage' and 'La vie antérieure', each evoking an idyllic landscape that is simultaneously within the soul.

A fan presents Kaufmann with a bouquet at the end
Finally to Britten, and if you don't know the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, it's time you did. Britten's settings in Italian, written in America during WW2, prove as expert as his English operas, and while this was a chance for Kaufmann to show his stylish Italian alter-ego, he also showed us how Britten's sensitivity was in its element in those moments of self-discovery, rising from the subconscious to catch the artist off guard, faced with the pain of his own passions. Britten's style occasionally can almost resemble Prokofiev here, especially in the third song, 'Veggio co'bei vostri occhi un dolce lume', which could have stepped out of a slow-motion dream-vision ballet; and Kaufmann again excelled in mezzo voce reflection, narrative and revelation, with heroics saved for when they were most needed, such as the final song, 'Spirto ben nato' - noble soul. Yes, exactly: this singing, this partnership, is noble soul incarnate, in its finest sense - happily, undimmed despite all.

One encore - Strauss's 'Nichts' - but there's plenty more to look forward to in the week ahead, which culminates in that composer's Four Last Songs.

And a good interview with Kaufmann in the Sunday Times, by Lynn Barber, here.


Saturday, February 04, 2017

We need some boys who can sing and dance, please

Alert from Garsington Opera, which is recruiting for Silver Birch, the new "people's opera" by Roxanna Panufnik for which I've written the libretto. We need some boys aged 14-22 whose voices have broken and who can sing or dance. Auditions on 9 March. Performances in July.


We also need:
• some young instrumental players to participate in the orchestra alongside the pros;
• ten members of the armed forces to join the adult chorus;
• four very good child singers to play and understudy the crucial roles of Chloe (aged 9) and Leo (aged 11)

Please see Garsington's info for further details and contact Julian if you'd like to audition. And if you want to see the result, put 28, 29, 30 July in your diaries.

Ravel Museum throws out Dutoit and Argerich

The Belvedere Museum Maurice Ravel. Photo: Ravel Foundation website
Le Figaro has carried an extraordinary report alleging that the Belvedere Museum Maurice Ravel - the composer's former home at Montfort-l'Amaury - has been abruptly closed, following "several incidents". These included, last week, having the police throw out two visitors...who happened to be Charles Dutoit and Martha Argerich.

This is a rough translation of the Figaro article:
"Officially, according to the site of the town hall, [the closure was] due to water damage. In fact, according to our information, the door lock was immediately changed.
"A few hours earlier, on 1 February, one of the mayor's deputies orally thanked and dismissed Mrs Claude Moreau, a friend of conductors from all over the world who had been visiting Ravel's house for three decades. Thousands of letters from all over the world signed by the most important personalities in the world of music attest to the excellence of her services to make the Belvedere not a mere museum but a warm home where it is almost expected that Maurice Ravel returns unexpectedly.
"A few days earlier, on Friday, January 27, two world leaders in music, Charles Dutoit, conductor and Ravel's pianist Martha Argerich, came to visit the Belvedere and were surprised to see the municipal police arrive at the museum.
"A deputy, close to the mayor, furious at having seen them take a picture inside the museum (which the sign does not prohibit) had told the police that a burglary was in progress. Instead of unrolling the red carpet like any other municipality would have done to these exceptional musicians, they were expelled manu militari from the premises.
"These last events add to a long list of dysfunctions. Absence of smoke detectors, burglar alarm not connected to the gendarmerie or a private security station, banning shooting of a small film notified to the very prestigious Chicago orchestra (very shocked, its management protested to the American Embassy Of Paris), ban of filming for the teams of France Television when broke the case of Bolero last year.
[the entry of Bolero into the public domain is a whole other story... - JD]
"Contacted this Friday morning by Le Figaro, the mayor of Montfort-l'Amaury, manager of the museum did not wish to answer. The owner of the place is the RMN, Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais. Since last spring, the management of the RMN is worried about the disappearance of movable property and archives of the Ravel museum. Contacted by us this Friday morning, the RNM management specifies that "the custody and management of Ravel's house and its museum have been transferred to the commune of Montfort l'Amaury since 1971 under a 99-year long lease" . Moreover, "this museum, labelled "Musée de France"in 2003, is subject to the scientific and technical control of the Ministry of Culture". What if "Belvedere-gate" was just beginning?"
Terrible to think that this gem of a museum, a place of pilgrimage for so many musicians and music-lovers from all over the world, could be shut down because of what looks like infighting, bureaucracy  and misunderstanding of its cultural significance.

UPDATE: I have corrected a few small but crucial points in the translation above. 'Remercie' in this context means not only 'thanked' but 'dismissed'. So Claude Moreau has effectively been fired. It would appear that the most likely aim of all this is to downgrade the museum. Previously open every day, its hours have already been reduced to weekends plus special arrangements for special visitors by prior appointment during the week. These have to be cleared with the town hall, which according to my source has allegedly refused some requests. Without the attention of Mme Moreau, the museum's future does not look bright.

Another update: For a range of wonderful photos of the place from BBC Radio 3's Sara Mohr-Pietsch, follow this link...

Thursday, February 02, 2017

Women conductors: a "provocation"



The Association of British Orchestras has been shaking things up this year and nowhere more so than in the matter of female conductors. James Murphy, managing director of the Southbank Sinfonia, gave a presentation on the issue. 

James tells me: "I’ve had the good fortune to collaborate with a number of fantastic conductors, among them some brilliant women. It’s baffled me (and them) that some of them have not had the same breaks as men, and why our industry seems to be strangely reticent to try and achieve a little more balance in terms of the opportunities each get. I was roused by Alice Farnham’s course established in 2013 and, since then, our players have been part of the workshops she runs. But too often I’ve heard people in the sector imply that her doing that excuses them of doing anything themselves, and I decided to ask the Association of British Orchestras if we could focus on this at a future conference. I got my chance last week where, sandwiched between Chi-chi Nwanoku and Hannah Kendall speaking powerfully about other diversity and inclusion issues, I was granted ten minutes at this year’s conference to share my thoughts on the issue. I chose to do this as a volley of images projected from Powerpoint with some commentary from me as they rolled by. It seemed to go very well, and so I’ve now made a digital version of it so more people can see it online."

Here it is, above. Please have a listen, and a look at those statistics. James nails the chief issues head-on. And you know what? It's good to hear them from a bloke. 

The conference was apparently referring quite copiously to my little list, as James does here - a reference resource with names, brief summaries and web links about women conductors that I published in September 2013 - but it is much need of updating after three and a half years, so do get in touch if there's someone you'd like to add. 

And meanwhile, over in the US, there's this...




Friday, January 27, 2017

The lost music that can still live

Josima Feldschuh: the child prodigy from Warsaw who died of tuberculosis at 15. Gideon Klein: perhaps the most gifted young composer of Prague, killed in Auschwitz at 25. Songs in Yiddish written in the ghettos and the concentration camps, full of black humour and pithy commentary on the internal politics of those places. A concert at the Wigmore Hall a few weeks ago placed some of these works centre stage, and for International Holocaust Remembrance Day I've had a chat with a remarkable academic who has been spearheading the hunt for the lost music. Archives are all very well, she says, but now it's time to hear the pieces too. 

Meanwhile, I'd like to give a shoutout to the Brundibár Arts Festival, which is to be held in Newcastle and Gateshead next week. Here's it's director, violinist Alexandra Raikhlina, of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, on what she's doing and why: 

Original watercolour posted for Brundibár's premiere in Theresienstadt

As Artistic Director of Brundibár Arts Festival, my vision is to create an annual programme of events that showcases the little known music written during the Holocaust, to be held here in Newcastle and Gateshead.
Launched in 2016, the annual Brundibár Arts Festival is the first recurring Festival in the UK dedicated to the Music and Arts of the Holocaust. The Festival takes its name from Hans Krása's children's opera "Brundibár". Brundibár, (meaning bumblebee) was written in 1938 by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása, and first performed publicly by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943. We see naming the Festival after Brundibár as a positive affirmation of creativity in adversity, and a lasting tribute to those children who suffered and perished.
The greatest music, art and literature has often emerged from the most threatening of circumstances, bringing comfort and expression to those in need. Once I started to research this subject, I discovered a vast wealth of relatively unknown, yet wonderful music that has struggled to get the recognition it deserves on its own merit, despite the broad range of cultural and musical activities we enjoy here in the UK. During the Festival, works by these lesser known composers will be shared and explored alongside well-loved works from the more mainstream repertoire, therefore claiming its rightful place in our concert halls.
Only through education can greater tolerance be achieved - an increasingly important subject in today's complex world. With this focus, we aim to increase the participation of young people, creating lasting links between professional musicians, local community groups, children, and artists. There are dwindling numbers of Holocaust survivors who can tell their stories first hand. Our generation carries the responsibility to find new ways of telling them, and to strive for a more comprehending and cohesive world.

Alexandra Raikhlina
(Artistic Director)
The full programme for this year includes a talk by Ela Weissberger, a Holocaust survivor who was in the first performances of Krása's Brundibár in Theresienstadt; a new documentary about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Lithuania, who saved around 2000 of Polish Jews by providing them with transit visas; and music by, among others, Ullmann, Schulhoff, Schoenberg and Weinberg. Performers include Natalie Clein, Katya Apekisheva, Jack Liebeck and many more.

I'm touched and honoured that on 31 January they also include my play A Walk through the End of Time, complete with the Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time to follow. Our actors are Joy Sanders and Phil Harrison, and the quartet will be played by Kyra Humphries (violin), Jessica Lee (clarinet), Liubov Ulybysheva (cello) and Yoshie Kawamura (piano). Venue is the Caedmon Hall of Gateshead Library. Please come along if you're around. 

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Double whammy: where do British orchestras go from here?

The LSO visible on the pitch for the opening of the 2012 Olympics in London. Whither now? Photo: www.lso.co.uk

Working harder. Earning less. Sound familiar? That's the state of many people in many industries, and at the moment a lot of us simply shrug our shoulders, get on with it and give up the notion of having days off, ever. But as pay is stagnant or shaved downwards, and hours are lengthened, and we think our careers are going OK, really, under the circumstances, because "we are where we are", it's a risky direction - because if one goes too far, there comes tipping a point where it finally turns unsustainable, and by the time we realise this, we're in trouble.

Now it is clear that orchestras in the UK are no exception: they're experiencing a double, or even triple, whammy of central funding cuts, local government cuts and reductions in ticket income. And yet they're reaching more people than ever.

A report on the State of British Orchestras in 2016 will be launched at the Association of British Orchestras' annual conference, which kicks off in Bournemouth today. The statistics* from 51 respondents are compared to those of 2013 and reveal that last year our orchestras delivered 7 per cent more concerts than three years ago, visited 42 countries abroad compared to 35 in '13, and, admirably, reached 35 per cent more children and young people, around 900,000 of them. They gave more than 4,000 concerts for audiences totalling 4.83m people - a 3 per cent increase in attendance.

Yet they suffered a 5 per cent fall in earned income, a 7 per cent drop in Arts Council funding and a stomach-punching reduction of 11 per cent in local authority funding.

You may recall that Birmingham City Council cuts have pushed the CBSO's funding down to 1980s levels - and just when it is flying so high musically, with the best hall in the country as its home and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, one of the most exciting young conductors on the scene, in place as music director.

The LSO, too, should be on its highest possible high as Sir Simon Rattle arrives to take its helm. And over at the Southbank it is full steam ahead with the 'Belief and Beyond Belief' Festival, featuring music (and much more) that ponders the big questions about what the heck we are really doing here, something many of us are currently asking ourselves a bit more than usual. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra juggles superb performances with a dizzying array of residencies and outreach work, including the inspirational project Strokestra, using music to help the rehabilitation of stroke victims. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is on a roll with Vasily Petrenko, the Royal Northern Sinfonia glitters in The Sage, Gateshead, and in Manchester the Halle Orchestra has a long and enviable relationship with Sir Mark Elder. This list could go on and on.

In short, things look and sound very, very good. But the direction of travel is a cause for concern, and it is a mark of our musicians' absolute professionalism and excellence that you'd never guess this at a concert.

Here's the commentary by ABO director Mark Pemberton:
“Orchestras have innovated to achieve bigger audiences and engage more young people and they should be proud of these successes. “However, the survey masks a greater reality. These larger audiences do not bring in more money and, if anything, actually increase losses. Many of the achievements have been fuelled by audience development initiatives such as discounted ticketing, free concerts and fixed fee performances at open air events.  
“These have left orchestras suffering a double whammy – a decline in earned income alongside significant cuts in public funding. The message is simple. Orchestras cannot continue doing ‘more for less’.  
“The government has this year implemented Orchestra Tax Relief and this will offset some of the cuts in public funding imposed since 2010 – but it is far from enough. We need national and, most crucially, local government to restore funding closer to pre-austerity levels to enable our members to continue delivering great music to the widest possible audience.”
     
*    
T     *The ABO survey asked Britain’s professional orchestras about their activities, audiences, income and staffing, between August and October 2016. 

Responses were received from 51 orchestras: 84% of those from whom responses were requested. Respondents provided data for the season/financial year 2015-2016 or the closest equivalent 12-month period. 

Comparisons are made in this report with the 2013 ‘key facts’ survey (covering 2012-2013) for a core sample of 38 orchestras for non-finance data, and 31 orchestras for finance data, that completed the survey in both years. 

As some of the orchestras that provided data in 2016 differ from those that responded in 2013, the total numbers in this report should be viewed as representative rather than firm numbers. The percentages shown in brackets for live performances and sources of income reflect changes in the comparison groups over the three-year period, and are not percentage changes in the total numbers between 2013 and 2016.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Art can still trump

Solidarity from Brexit Island with our friends in the arts in the US, where yesterday a leak emerged suggesting that Trump wants to close down the National Endowment for the Arts, along with other stuff of which he doesn't appear to know the value.

A message came to my inbox from ShoutHouse in New York, where a multi-genre group of musicians and dancers have created a collaborative version of Radiohead's Paranoid Android specially for today. This is what they say.
Today marks a new era in our country. In Washington, D.C., a new administration is accepting the power of governmental leadership, and, with it, the responsibility to work as hard as they can to serve the best interests of all Americans. But throughout the country – and the world – many millions worry that this responsibility will be neglected. On what is traditionally a day of hope, multitudes are living in fear. Fear that their race, gender, sexual orientation, or social status will disqualify them from receiving fair and equal treatment under the law for years to come. Fear that their peaceful wishes for the world will be undermined by an ignorant head of state. Fear that their friends and neighbors may be corrupted by the hateful words of a demagogue seeking to serve the interests of the wealthy few.

We fear for the future of art, as it is one of our greatest defenses from fear. Art helps us listen to one another, to learn from those whose words we might not understand. As artists, we have a duty to create beauty in the service of truth, and to shine a light on the best and most noble aspects of human nature. Through our music and actions, we declare our opposition to the toxic divisiveness of the demagogue's words. As Nhat Hanh said, “The only answer to fear is more understanding.” We hope that our cooperation in the service of art will serve as an example to the new administration, and to anyone who does not believe that we can work with those with views different from our own.

This video was made possible by so many incredible artists. First, Radiohead’s powerful music that inspired us to create this project. We want to thank the dozens of musicians from ShoutHouse and Juilliard who believed in us and donated their time to make this possible. Our production team (especially Jack FrererLiana Kleinman, and Jordan James) and those who spent countless hours making sure this looked amazing. The arrangers and orchestrators (Will HealyAlex BurtzosJesse Greenberg), soloists (Hannah ZazzaroSpiritchild XspiritMental, Black Tortuga) without whom this never would have happened. The dancers—Quilan Cue ArnoldZachary GonderMikaela Kelly—whose powerful work represented our music visually so well. Allison Mase for helping us find and organize so many people to create this project.

If you want to support independent art that allows artists from many backgrounds to work together, please donate to ShoutHouse at https://www.fracturedatlas.org/…/profil… or visit www.shouthousemusic.com.



Tuesday, January 17, 2017

A drumroll for Bangor

Bangor University. Photo: Iwan Williams
Bangor University later this year is holding the First International Conference on Women's Work in Music, which runs 4-7 September. A call for papers is now open and the application deadline is 1 March.

Keynote speakers will be the composer and author Dr Sophie Fuller and, er, me, and the timing of the event has been chosen to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Grace Williams, one of the first Welsh composers to achieve international recognition. Across four days, it seems likely to offer an exceptional, in-depth exploration of its potentially explosive topic. Hope to see lots of JDCMB readers there.

Celebrating the Achievements of Women Musicians 

The Conference aims to bring together academics, researchers and music professionals from around the world to share their research and experience of all aspects of women working in music. 
The Conference will seek to both celebrate the achievements of women musicians, and to critically explore and discuss the changing contexts of women’s work in music on the international stage. The diversity and richness of this work will be illustrated at the conference through presentations in areas such as:
  • historical musicology, 
  • music education, 
  • ethnomusicology, 
  • practice-led research and performance, 
  • composition,
  • music analysis, 
  • popular music studies and much more.

Monday, January 02, 2017

New Year Reset

Welcome to JDCMB. If you're new, welcome aboard. If you're a regular, welcome home. At new year, it's a good moment to realign the mission statement and explain who I am, what JDCMB is, and so on. Here we go...

New Year Fireworks in London. Photo: PA

JDCMB is my personal blog. I'm based in London, UK and I've been a writer and editor in the music business for about 27 years. My first music journalism job was as assistant editor on The Strad, way back when we still used cow-gum to stick down cut-out galley proofs. After that I was assistant editor on Classical Music Magazine for three years, persuaded the company to found the first independent piano magazine in the UK which I edited for five years, then went freelance, working for BBC Music Magazine, the British Council, the Guardian and others. I started writing regularly for The Independent in 2004. My first books were biographies of Korngold and Fauré for the Phaidon 20th-Century Composers series and my first novel came out in 2006, with Hodder. Ghost Variations  is the fifth. I've written a couple of plays, words&music projects and an opera libretto for the composer Roxanna Panufnik, Silver Birch, coming up at Garsington in July. I regularly google 'How to become a plumber', but haven't enrolled yet...

I studied music at Cambridge in the mid 1980s, but my formative musical education happened in my piano lessons with Joan Havill at the Guildhall, playing in masterclasses and chamber music courses, listening to lectures by Hans Keller at the Dartington International Summer School, and some informal but crucial contact with a circle of extraordinary musicians in New York.  

What happens on JDCMB? I started blogging in 2004 because the concept was new and thrilling. It isn't extensively planned. I write about things that seem interesting and try only to post when there's something worth saying. You'll find responses to news, the occasional artist interview, a concert or opera review now and then, sometimes an e-Q&A or guest-post from someone who's doing something noteworthy. I sometimes post about my own stuff, our opera, etc.

What JDCMB tries to do: JDCMB has been called "the voice of reason". I'd like to keep it that way.

What it tries not to do: porn, clickbait, jealousy, "stirring", comment boxes, giving platforms to hate speech, encouraging witch-hunts. 

Excited by: really wonderful artistry, great music and writing, inspiration, idealism, creative thinking, and matters that help us live more fulfilling lives, from Mozart to heated blankets.

Bored by: concert-wear, gimmickry, mobile phones, crossover, marketing, toeing party lines. 

Furious about: Brexit, sexism, racism, "post-truth" (it means "lies"). 

Aims: To uphold the artistic ideals I've been lucky enough to have in my life, but that might vanish under the morass without a positive effort. And to puncture the occasional idiocy.

You can get in touch by contacting my Facebook page. I'm available to provide talks, coaching, consultations, programme notes, articles etc.

Happy new year!

Sunday, January 01, 2017

Happy New Year!


Brexit island.

A very happy new year 2017 to all you lovely readers of JDCMB, from all of us lost in the Hampton Court Maze that is Brexit Island. At least we know we're in it now. The challenge will be getting out again. Let's hope that this year will be a little more positive than last. Meanwhile, enjoy the Johann Strauss this morning.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

JDCMB Top 10 Posts of 2016

1. Vivat Enescu, 23 May


George Enescu. Photo: Enescu Festival, Bucharest

This is my highest-scoring post ever. I think three-quarters of Romania must have logged on. Seriously, though, I'm delighted so many of you enjoyed discovering the life and work of this extraordinary musician, and if you went to see Oedipe, I hope you loved it as much as I did.

2. Meet Cecilia Bartoli, Opera's Renaissance Woman, 26 July
I enjoyed talking to the great Cecilia in a rather chilly trip to Salzburg.

The excellent Kathryn Stott has a very nice new post, taking over the artistic directorship of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville from Piers Lane. 

4. Chineke! Riding High, 5 September
The Chineke! Orchestra is not only a splendid multicultural force in classical music, but a truly excellent ensemble, drawing together BME players from all over the world and pulling together with a splendid unity of musicianship. 

How Murray Perahia and Bach saved my soul.

What it says.

If you were looking for good Christmas presents, they were here, and going like hot chestnuts.

8. Cold Light, 25 June
A large post-Brexit-vote post about its implications for the arts. This is not a pretty tale. Brexit is the biggest con-trick in the history of the British Isles.

Mark Wigglesworth stepped down as music director of English National Opera after not very long at all. A grim sign of the state of the place, and a major loss to London's musical life.

As a 60th birthday tribute to Krystian Zimerman, I re-ran an interview I did with him ten years ago for Pianist Magazine.