Tabla de contenidos para April 2018 en Limelight

Welcome to a new era at Limelight! As many of you will know, the magazine came perilously close to folding in February, then salvation arrived in the form of two Limelight readers, Robert Veel and Bruce Watson. Shortly after ensuring the publication of the March issue, they became the new owners of Limelight, and we couldn’t be happier – make their acquaintance on page 12. When the news broke, there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief from readers and performing arts organisations around the country, and we are very grateful for all the words of support that we received. This month’s cover story is a bit of a coup. Riccardo Muti, one of the world’s leading conductors, is not an easy man to pin down for an interview.…

LIMELIGHT’S WHITE KNIGHTS Congratulations! For some years I have been a subscriber and avid reader of Limelight. Every month I read it from cover to cover, well almost. As far as I’m aware there is no other magazine in Australia, which particularly caters for the classical musician with such comprehensive and interesting articles. So to hear that the magazine may not exist anymore was devastating news. It was a great relief to see a small group take up the reins to keep Limelight going. I for one – and I’m sure there are many other arts lovers out there who feel the same – am grateful to Bruce Watson, Robert Veel and any others who were involved in the rescue mission. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Faith Lewis, Ferny…

The Australia Council has announced the winners of the 2018 Australia Council Awards, with composer Liza Lim taking out the Australia Council Don Banks Music Award. The annual awards recognise and celebrate the significant contributions of leading artists to the artistic and cultural vibrancy of Australia, in the areas of music, literature, community arts and cultural development, emerging and experimental arts, visual arts, theatre and dance. The Don Banks Music Award acknowledges the achievements of a distinguished artist who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to music in Australia. Last year’s Don Banks Music Award went to Gondwana Choirs founder and Artistic Director Lyn Williams. Accepting her award, Lim used the occasion to emphasise the importance of arts funding: “To cut arts funding is very simply to sever the…

Albrecht Mayer Tesori d’Italia I Musici di Roma DG 4797144 I love German oboist Albrecht Mayer’s themed albums. They always take you on a journey. This recording in particular is just a sheer delight, especially for the discoveries from composers Domenico Elmi and Giovanni Alberto Ristori. Schubert Winterreise Mark Padmore t, Kristian Bezuidenhout fp HMM902264 Two of my favourite artists combined! They gave their first Winterreise together at my festival in Savannah many years ago and it was one of the most deeply felt musical experiences I have had. This recording is stunning. David Bowie Space Oddity PARLOPHONE 929384 David Bowie’s untimely passing was a huge loss for the entire music world. Bowie remains the ultimate original and I often return to this classic album. The remastered 2015 version of…

1. How did you first come to opera? I was into pop and choral singing, so I took a voice lesson to prepare myself for college auditions. I had every intention of minoring in music – just because I loved it – and majoring in psychology. I began my studies as a mezzo-soprano, singing mostly pants roles and comic characters that didn’t resonate with me. When I switched to soprano at the end of my time as an undergraduate, I found my niche in the tragic heroines. Since then I’ve been hooked! 2. Who would you consider to have been your most important musical influences to date? First my dad, who has a great ear and a deep love for music. Singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and great divas from the…

Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov teamed up with German bass-baritone Matthias Goerne for an evening of song at Carnegie Hall. Schumann’s Dichterliebe was the centrepiece of a program that included Brahms’ Four Serious Songs, four early songs by Berg, three Michelangelo settings by Wolf and three more by Shostakovich. By moving seamlessly from one song and one composer to the next, Goerne and Trifonov “created an overall intensity that proved captivating,” according to The New York Times.…

My new work The Lost (viola and cello with orchestra) is the third in a series of orchestral concerti entitled Missed Tales, which explore the mysteries of nature and place within Celtic and Norse mythology. The Lost refers to an ancient Celtic ritual conducted by the Scots and Picts in the undulating Irish and Scottish landscapes. A bonfire would be lit on the highest hill and would be used by farmers to light torches that would act as diviners for mapping out territory. The torches would then be placed in such a way as to enfold the most fertile land, which they called ‘The Lost’, a term that invokes the Celtic word for fire, Losaid. The title sets up the expectation that something is missing. From this, what follows is…

In late 2016, Greta Bradman wasn’t sure whether she would ever sing again, at least not at the same level. She had decided that she needed to have neck surgery – which might or might not have an impact on her voice. For someone who knew she would “go crazy” if she couldn’t sing, it was a frightening prospect. No wonder she talks so much about feeling grateful now that she is fully recovered and her voice has returned to its former beauty. That gratitude infuses her new album Home, to be released by Decca Classics on April 13. “This entire album is built around my love for home, for music, my family and essentially for the simple life filled with love, connection and gratitude,” says the popular soprano. “I…

What was your first introduction to Leonard Bernstein? Was it the man, or the music? It was definitely his television series. It was Sunday afternoon that the Young People’s Concerts came on and I remember especially the day I watched one and then I watched The Beatles’ first US appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember thinking how much more I liked Bernstein, although that shifted a little bit as time went on. The first time I saw him in person was at a concert my dad took me to when I was nine or ten with the New York Philharmonic. To be honest I don’t remember the music at all. I just remember his enthusiasm and effervescence and his aerobic approach to music. That was so cool, I…

A CHILD’S VIEW Schumann adored his eight children (tragically one died in infancy), often taking time out to play with them. He felt a sense of kinship with their world of make-believe, celebrated in two solo piano collections, the Album for the Young intended for inexperienced little fingers and Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) for the grown-ups. QUICK MARCH Schumann became so obsessed with Beethoven’s trailblazing reappropriation of march style in his Op. 101 Piano Sonata, that its martialistic dotted rhythms permeated many of his own compositions, including the Scherzo of his D Minor Piano Trio and the central movement of his C Major Fantasie, with its precarious ‘leaping’ coda. MELODIC TRANSFORMATION One of the great challenges facing Romantic composers was how to structure their free-ranging ideas. Schumann’s favoured solution was…

TCHAIKOVSKY • SHOSTAKOVICH ET AL Orava Quartet, Greta Bradman s DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4816874 Rising star Australian ensemble the Orava Quartet has released their debut album on Deutsche Grammophon in Australia, featuring Tchaikovsky’s First String Quartet, Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet and the two movements of Rachmaninov’s String Quartet – and, as a bonus, Rachmaninov’s Vocalise with special guest Greta Bradman.…

In 1801, France is deep in the aftermath of its Revolution, which is stretching its army across a series of wars on several fronts: throughout Europe, and as far afield as the Caribbean in the west and the Indian Ocean in the east. But back at home, there’s emphasis on domestic innovation too. The metric system is introduced through the nation, the first census is conducted, and even clothing is reinventing itself for the new century. A silk-weaver named Joseph Marie Jacquard invents an automated loom, which is capable of weaving complex patterns by using a series of cards with holes cut in them to allow hooks passing through the holes to raise and lower individual threads. These punched cards will be the inspiration for the first computers. In England,…

Sami in Paradise A play full of slapstick and the zing of being alive, adapated from Erdman’s The Suicide. If Hamlet were a clown in a refugee camp, this is what you’d get. Belvoir, Sydney, April 1 – 29 After Dinner A knock-out comedy from master playwright Andrew Bovell, following five eccentric lonely hearts in a 1980s pub bistro. State Theatre Company of South Australia, April 7 – 29 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui The irresistible Hugo Weaving makes his much anticipated return to the STC stage in Brecht’s 1941 classic. Sydney Theatre Company, until April 28 Abigail’s Party Riotously funny, disturbing yet compelling, Mike Leigh’s classic satire on middle-class aspirations is as cutting as ever. Melbourne Theatre Company, until April 21 Antony and Cleopatra Witness the power of…

The Field Revisited A recreation of the landmark exhibition that inaugurated the museum’s new premises on St Kilda Road in 1968. National Gallery of Victoria, April 27 – August The National Picture Two enthralling yet under-examined figures in history: Benjamin Duterrau and George Augustus Robinson. National Gallery of Australia, May 12 – July 29 Reigning Men This exhibition features many garments ranging from extravagant silks to renowned fashion brands. Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, May 12 – October 14…

NON-FICTION Shakespeare’s Artists BJ Sokol Bloomsbury, HB, 344pp, $140 ISBN 9781350021938 This study of the many poets, musicians and visual artists portrayed or described in Shakespeare’s plays and poems reveals a fascination with art and its makers that continued to influence Shakespeare’s work throughout his career. NON-FICTION Creating Music Richard Gill Devirra Music, PB, $60 ISBN 9780646977041 Conductor and educator Richard Gill’s Creating Music: A Composition Guide for Students is a culmination of a lifetime’s involvement in music education. This practical, systematic guide to musical composition will be a welcome resource for teachers and students alike. NON-FICTION Music by the Numbers Eli Maor Princeton University Press, HB, 176pp, $49.99 ISBN 9780691176901 Music by the Numbers: From Pythagorus to Schoenberg explores how music has influenced mathematics, physics, and astronomy from ancient…

 The stage is busy as the musicians of the Orchestra of the Antipodes tune their period instruments. Flowers and ladders are brought on, artworks are delivered, and lanyard-wearing staff bustle to and fro. The chaos coalesces into the preparation for a lavish costume gala at an art gallery – a clever framing device with which director Crystal Manich binds the three works in Pinchgut Opera’s triple bill. “Zolezzi’s agile soprano is a schoolgirl cupid, her wings a jiggling backpack of flowers” Channelling the heady and competitive opera scene of Paris in the 1750s, Pinchgut presents two actes-de-ballet by French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau – Anacréon and Pigmalion – with the Italian Leonardo Vinci’s comic intermezzo Erighetta e Don Chilone as a palate cleanser in between. Bass Richard Anderson appears as the…

4MBS FOCUS April 14 at 6:30pm “Few today take the time to read Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister,” wrote Clive Paget in the May issue of Limelight last year. “Yet in the 19th century a great many composers were drawn to this philosophical coming-of-age tale, and especially to the subsidiary character of the mysterious and waiflike Mignon.” The character of Mignon – who has inspired composers such as Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Wolf and Berg – will be the subject of 4MBS’s Focus program on April 14, prepared by the late Colin Brumby. The program will feature highlights from Ambroise Thomas’s opera Mignon, including the expressive first act aria Connais-tu le pays? in which Mignon, rescued from captivity, describes her former home full of “golden fruit and crimson…

FINE MUSIC 102.5 Fine Music 102.5 (previously 2MBS) is Australia’s first FM radio station, broadcasting a mix of classical, jazz and contemporary music. To listen, tune in to 102.5FM or stream online at finemusicfm.com 3MBS 3MBS is a fine music community radio station in Melbourne. 3MBS passionately supports fine music, especially Melbourne musicians and composers, and is the only locally-based classical music radio station in Victoria. To listen, tune in to 103.5FM or stream online at 3mbs.org.au 4MBS One of Australia’s premier classical radio stations, 4MBS has received many awards for the promotion of young and emerging artists in Australia. Based in Brisbane. To listen, tune in to 103.7FM to listen or stream online at 4mbs.com.au 5MBS While mainly a classical station, Adelaide’s 5MBS also broadcasts a wide selection of…

The Latvian mezzo-soprano El¯na Garancra possesses one of the loveliest voices around, and this Easter she’ll be marking the occasion with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Having moved into heavier lirico-spinto roles in recent years – her dramatically alert, sumptuously sung Eboli for Paris Opera’s Don Carlos a particular highlight – Garancra turns her attention to Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Berg’s Seven Early Songs. Part of a program celebrating the European music scene in the early 20th century – Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Strauss’ Don Juan round out the Festival concert – Garancra is an old hand when it comes to Berg’s song cycle. Writing about a recital the mezzo gave at Carnegie Hall which included the Seven Early Songs, Bachtrack said “Garancra navigated the dense music with placid…

MELUDIA Promising to meet the needs of both beginners and professional musicians alike, Meludia is a new music theory app that bills itself as a musical brainteaser of sorts. Boasting up to four levels and 700 exercises, users are invited to complete fun activities that involve identifying notes, intervals, rhythm and changes. Presented as a complete training program that allows learners to replay any melody in all music styles, it is both stylishly and intuitively designed. Its clean interface is neatly combined with artfully designed graphics that actually aid a user’s comprehension and retention, while the depth of what can be learned is demonstrated by the number of listening components. For example, one exercise asks users to identify how many tones are played at the same time, while the language…

“I still remember going on student rush tickets to see Otello one afternoon” There was lots of music in the house when we were growing up. My mother’s an avid pianist, and when I was young she used to play and my sisters and I would listen and occasionally sing. I have great memories of that. In fact, she was an accompanist for our primary school choir, and when my sister was in it, I remember our school making the finals of the Eisteddfod. That was held in the Sydney Opera House, so mum got to play on the Concert Hall grand piano, which I think was a highlight for her. Consequently, all three of us, my sisters and I, learned piano. I did both piano and musicianship up until…

LADIES & GENTLEMEN: THE BEST OF GEORGE MICHAEL George Michael, Epic 4917052 I don’t think I could live without this record, I put it on all the time. It’s a two-disc best-of collection, and it’s got George singing Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me – I remember the video where Elton joined him onstage and the audience erupted. It’s also got all of his great songs on it, like Faith. And it’s got four of my favourite pop songs of all time: Kissing a Fool, Praying for Time, One More Try and Different Corner. The lyrics and music are extraordinary.…

STEVE DOW SIMON RUSSELL BEALE PAGE 44 Steve Dow is a Melbourne-born, Sydney-based arts writer across stage, screen, music and visual arts. His work also appears in The Saturday Paper, Guardian Australia, Audrey Journal, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Monthly and Art Guide Australia. WILL YEOMAN EILEEN JOYCE PAGE 58 Will Yeoman is Senior Arts Writer at The West Australian. A keen classical guitarist, he reviews regularly for Limelight and Gramophone magazines, and gives pre-concert talks for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. He is currently director of Perth Festival Writers Week. ALEXANDRA COGHLAN ETERNAMENTE PAGE 83 Alexandra Coghlan is a classical music journalist and writes regularly for publications including the Spectator, Prospect, Gramophone and Opera magazines, the Independent and the i Paper. She is Glyndebourne Opera’s Content Specialist.…

Guy Noble is such a voice of reason from his soapbox! I enjoy his column in Limelight, as he always injects his gentle humour into the context of his wide-ranging arts industry experience. His comparison of classical music presenters with waiters (March 2018) certainly struck a chord with me, as I am one of the Fine Music presenters he referred to: volunteers with a passion for presenting an interesting selection of music together with a few words of hopefully intelligent and enlightening information. Being capital city-based, we can be a little more in tune with our audiences and what is going on in our own backyards than can the national broadcaster, and we also continue to produce detailed program information in advance. Most presenters have their own musical backgrounds to…

For its first major event of 2018, Brisbane Festival has announced that Australian-born, international star Heldentenor Stuart Skelton will travel to Queensland for two semi-staged concerts of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes – the first time he’s performed his signature role in Australia since Neil Armfield’s 2009 production for Opera Australia. The performances of the opera (last seen in Brisbane a remarkable 60 years ago this year) will be a co-production with Opera Queensland, Philip Bacon AM, QPAC and the QSO. “Peter Grimes is the defining British Opera of the 20th century,” said Opera Queensland’s Artistic Director Patrick Nolan. “This epic, semi-staged performance is a rare opportunity to see one of the great operas in Brisbane – FOMO is quite justified in this case.” In order to pull it off, Skelton…

The Australian String Quartet has announced that Maria Myers AC is its inaugural Patron. Myers has served as a non-executive Director on the board of the ASQ since February 2002 and helped establish the quartet’s flagship regional festival event, the Dunkeld Festival of Music, currently in its 14th year. She has particularly championed tours to remote and regional communities. MET CUTS TIES WITH LEVINE The Metropolitan Opera has ended its 40-year relationship with Music Director Emeritus James Levine. The move comes in the wake of a three-month investigation launched by the Met which discovered “credible evidence” that the conductor had “engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct both before and during the period when he worked at the Met”. It said that “it would be inappropriate and impossible for Mr.…

JESÚS LÓPEZ COBOS 1940 – 2018 The Spanish conductor Jesús López Cobos has died in Berlin of cancer at the age of 78. López Cobos was born on February 25, 1940 in the small town of Toro, Spain. He held a degree in philosophy from the Complutense University of Madrid and studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. López Cobos occupied several music director positions at leading orchestras throughout his distinguished career. He was the longest-tenured music director in the history of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, holding the title from 1986 to 2001. He made 26 recordings with the orchestra, and later became its Conductor Emeritus. López Cobos was also General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin from 1981 to 1990, Music Director…

It is often said that God moves in mysterious ways. Reflecting on my journey from Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, London to Master of Music, St George’s Cathedral, Perth, and the decade that followed, I feel there is much truth in this saying. In 2007, I was examining for the Associated Board in Kuala Lumpur when, out of the blue, I received an email from Dr John Shepherd, then Dean of St George’s. He and his wife would soon be in the UK for a wedding; could we meet up? I was intrigued. A chat with Tallis Scholars conductor Peter Phillips (whose son, Edmund, was in the Chapel Royal Choir) confirmed Dr Shepherd was no ordinary man. He possessed three degrees, two doctorates in music and had been…

Thanks to Hugh Jackman’s recent portrayal in The Greatest Showman, PT Barnum is back in the news again. But while the story of the King of Humbug and his menagerie of curiosities has inspired a string of films as well as a Broadway musical, the story of the Swedish soprano who so obsessed the American impresario that he moved heaven and earth to tempt her across the Atlantic is just as remarkable. Little wonder that their conjunction in New York turned out to be the PR event of the 19th century. Despite her reputation as the epitome of Victorian morality, Jenny Lind (aka ‘The Swedish Nightingale’), had the misfortune to be born out of wedlock in 1820. By the age of 18 she had already caused a commotion in her…

BORN MOSCOW, RUSSIA STUDIED ANU, ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC LIKES REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS, SURFING, ADELAIDE DISLIKES ENGLISH ALE, JET LAG, PUMPKIN AS A PIZZA TOPPING How did you know the guitar was for you? Imagine you’re four years old – it’s a warm day so your parents have escaped to the local forest for a campfire. A guitar leans inconspicuously against a log. Friends start hinting to your dad to pick it up, and when he eventually does, everyone stops, transfixed and amazed at the sound of six strings and his deep husky voice. That was one of my earliest memories, growing up at Florida State University Alumni Village where my parents were PhD students. At the time we only had a guitar, and since it was the instrument…

He’s been hailed as Britain’s foremost stage actor, the greatest classical performer of his generation. Simon Russell Beale, white bearded, short and stocky, sits before me now in a booth at Susie’s Café at The Other Place theatre along the river at Stratfordupon-Avon, the morning after a bravura performance up the road at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre as an emotionally affecting Prospero in The Tempest. Abetted by ground-breaking technological wizardry, Beale was required to engage not only with the sprite Ariel dancing in a motion-capture suit but also alternately with Ariel’s ghostly digital avatars appearing simultaneously on stage. While always keen to stretch himself whatever the challenge, Beale is typically self-effacing in conversation today. The 57-year-old listens intently, intermittently shaking his vaporiser to take an e-cigarette hit, answering in his…

In a charming reminiscence, leading music critic and teacher Bryce Morrison, who admits that his musical career “began with a recital by Eileen Joyce,” writes that “Eileen was an original – entirely her own person.” This is surely an understatement. Which other musician of the 20th century can have laid claim to have been born, in 1908, in a tent in Tasmania, brought up in Boulder in the Western Australian goldfields, and received a convent education before being “discovered” by Percy Grainger and Wilhelm Backhaus and whisked off to Leipzig for the first-rate musical education that paved the way for a spectacular concert, broadcasting, recording and film career in the UK and elsewhere, spanning some three decades? It’s easy to be seduced by the romance and surface glitter of Joyce’s…

Symphonies Berlin Philharmonic/ Simon Rattle BPHR BPHR140011 (2CD & BLU-RAY) Rattle’s subtly inflected, beautifully recorded versions have much to reveal. Piano Concerto & Trio Alexander Melnikov fp , Freiburger Barockorchester/ Pablo Heras-Casado HARMONIA MUNDI HMC902198 Melnikov’s lean, imaginative reading blows away the musical cobwebs. Piano works András Schiff p ECM 4763909 (2CD) Schiff’s thoughtful performances of Piano Sonata No 1, Kinderszenen, the Fantasy in C, Waldszenen and the Geistervariationen are all compelling stuff in Schiff’s hands. Lieder Gerald Finley bar , Julius Drake p HYPERION CDA67676 Finley’s luscious vocals and dramatic nous are unbeatable in Schumann.…

Murphy The Australian Ballet pays tribute to acclaimed choreographer Graeme Murphy with highlights from his outstanding career. The Australian Ballet, Melbourne and Sydney, until April 26 The Merry Widow Based on the beloved operetta by Franz Lehár, this ballet is a laugh-along favourite with hummable melodies. The Australian Ballet, Touring, April 28 – June 16 La Bayadère Greg Horsman’s new production will sweep audiences into the glittering world of the 19th-century British Raj. Queensland Ballet, QPAC, May 16 – 29…

SYDNEY GETS ITS ART ON VISUAL ART Two major summer exhibitions are coming to Sydney in October as part of the 2018/19 Sydney International Art Series. The Art Gallery of New South Wales will host an exhibition called Modern masters from the Hermitage, which showcases 65 paintings by artists including Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky and Cézanne. Highlights include Cézanne’s Great Pine near Aix and Picasso’s Woman with a Fan. Meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Art will show a major retrospective by South African photographer David Goldblatt. 2017 SIDNEY MYER AWARDS THEATRE The 2017 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards have gone to actor Kate Mulvany, executive director of Theatre Network Australia Nicole Beyer, and contemporary dance company Dancenorth. “My work as an Australian artist has been nurtured and driven by the support…

The Death of Stalin Opens: March 29 Genre: Political comedy Duration: 107 minutes Who’d have thought that Uncle Joe could be quite this funny? Is it tasteless to find humour in a totalitarian regime responsible for millions of deaths and massive repression? People have been asking that since Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch satirised Nazism respectively in 1940’s The Great Dictator and 1942’s To Be or Not to Be. The answer then, and now, is a definitive no – not so long as the comedy is not at the expense of the victims, but at the oppressive system’s absurdity and the cruelty and all-too human flaws of those running it. Fortunately those conditions apply to The Death of Stalin, directed and co-written by Armando Iannucci, widely revered for The Thick…

Mary Zimmerman’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor has seen a number of excellent sopranos in the title role, chief among them Natalie Dessay, the Lucia of the first run. Since then, Anna Netrebko, Albina Shagimuratova, and Diana Damrau have all taken a stab at the role in Zimmerman’s staging, with varying degrees of success. Now the Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti, a noted Lucia, takes to Donizetti’s moors leading a cast that includes Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo as her lover Edgardo and the Italian baritone Massimo Cavalletti as her implacable brother Enrico. They will be conducted by the very fine Roberto Abbado, at home in the bel canto repertoire. Peretyatko’s Lucia is a deeply vulnerable woman, her descent into madness already hinted at by the skittishness of her opening aria. Well…

ABC CLASSIC FM METROPOLIS April 19 and 21 at 7:30pm Unsuk Chin is the star of the Metropolis New Music Festival this year. Five of the Berlin-based South Korean composer’s works will be featured, four of which will be Australian premieres, across two concerts, culminating in a performance of her Violin Concerto with soloist Jennifer Koh. “My music is a reflection of my dreams,” Chin has said. “I try to render into music the visions of immense light and of an incredible magnificence of colours that I see in all my dreams, a play of light and colours floating through the room and at the same time forming a fluid sound sculpture.” SIMPLY CLASSICAL Classic 2 broadcasts Australia’s finest musicians 24/7. Listen online & mobile at abc.net.au/classic2…

THE DEEP THINKER As Thomas Hampson finally makes his Australian debut, performing in recital and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the great American baritone discusses Mahler, his championing of American art song, and pandas. WHEN IN HAMBURG... No new concert hall, since the Sydney Opera House, has caused such controversy as the Elbphilharmonie. Does Hamburg’s pride and joy live up to the hype? We find out. LA NILSSON Marking another 100th birthday, we celebrate the great Swedish soprano and review a new 79-CD box set of her Decca, Philips and Deutsche Grammophon recordings. PLUS... · Vine’s Concerto for Two Pianos · The busking judge · Gypsy at the Hayes and much more... ON SALE MAY 3 2018 AND MUCH SOONER FOR SUBSCRIBERS! (SEE P64)…

1. At 35 years, John Eccles is to date the longest serving what? 2. Who fled Riga for Paris along with his wife and a dog named Robber? 3. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Fikret Amirov both composed major works based on what collection of stories? 4. Johannes Chrysostomus and Theophilus are the other baptismal names of which famous composer? 5. Taught by Porpora, in London he duetted with a Prince of Wales. Who was he? 6. Which character, famously portrayed by Maggie Smith, once dismissed La Traviata by declaring that“Violetta was a thoroughly silly woman with diseased lungs”? 7. Drake’s Drum, The Old Superb and The Little Admiral are all salty songs by which Romantic English composer? 8. Which great Russian composer wrote exactly the same number of symphonies as…

ROBERTSON AT JUILLIARD David Robertson, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, has been made director of conducting studies, distinguished visiting faculty at The Juilliard School in New York. He will be the principal teacher for all conducting degree students, working with three or four students per academic year, and will conduct one major concert annually with the Juilliard Orchestra. THOMAS’ SHUTS UP SHOP Melbourne’s classical music specialist store Thomas’ Music closed its doors in March after a run of 96 years. The store, located in what was the first State Savings Bank of Victoria at 31 Bourke St, sold off its remaining stock at cost – both in store and online – it said in a statement, citing an increasingly challenging music retail environment as the…

I am writing this Soapbox from a music camp outside of Governors Bay in New Zealand’s south island. The National Youth Orchestra comes under the umbrella of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and it runs a camp where some of the best Kiwi orchestral talent gets together to rehearse and then give a performance in Christchurch and one in Wellington. Yours truly is conducting. A music camp is all the best bits of music making stuffed into one experience. The young ones are old enough to know how to play their instruments but not old enough to have lost the joy in playing music with 60 other people. They also know that this is a one-off experience like a lunar eclipse or a moment of humility from Donald Trump. It’s…

What was it like growing up in a family involved in Yiddish theatre? At home, there was all this snappy patter going on. You basically had to return serve as brilliantly or else you were not a member of the family. Though they were all theatre people, often there was music in those plays, and very often they wrote the music and the lyrics. They were not trained musicians, but could they come up with a song on the spur of the moment that was appropriate and with a catchy tune? Absolutely. But I was the first person to have musical training. Who decided that? You or your parents? I was a gifted kid, but they didn’t want me to become a prodigy of any kind, so they held back…

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream DECCA BIS2192 The Gewandhaus Orchestra – Mendelssohn’s own, of course – and Riccardo Chailly pur like a Rolls Royce as they glide through the famous incidental music. Even an old warhorse like the Wedding March comes up fresh and clean. Britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream DECCA 4256632 (2CD) The composer’s original recording of his operatic version of Shakepeare’s play is still the finest rendition of his most mercurial score. Many of the finest singers of the day recreate their orginal roles from the premiere. Korngold A Midsummer Night’s Dream Film Score CPO CPO9994492 Korngold wrote the score for Max Reinhardt’s sumptuous Hollywood flick (starring James Cagney as Bottom, Mickey Rooney as Puck and Olivia de Havilland as Hermia) basing his music on Mendelssohn’s but adding…

LIVED 1810 – 1856 MOSTLY IN LEIPZIG, DRESDEN, DÜSSELDORF BEST KNOWN FOR LIEDER, KINDERSZENEN, SYMPHONIES, PIANO AND CHAMBER WORKS SIMILAR TO MENDELSSOHN, BRAHMS I’m affected by everything that goes on in the world and think it all over in my own way – politics, literature and people – and then I long to express my feelings and find an outlet for them in music. That is why my compositions are sometimes difficult to understand, because they are connected with different interests; and sometimes striking, because everything extraordinary that happens impresses me, and impels me to express it in music.” So saying, Robert Schumann encapsulated his artistic vision as the defining composer of the Romantic era. From now on, composing was not merely a craft but a cathartic, uncontrollable surge of…

What was the first Debussy you studied and what has been your personal journey with his music over the years? I remember playing one of his early works, Rêverie, a little syrupy for die-hard Debussy fans but with its own undeniable charm. I’d had barely a year of lessons at that point and had the impression I was floating in the clouds with the gentle lilting of the left hand. At home my go to recording was Gieseking, but I also listened to orchestral works like La Mer and Nocturnes. Debussy was the soundtrack of my childhood and adolescence. Debussy famously grumbled, ‘I am trying to do something different – what the idiots call Impressionism’. Listening 100 years on from his death, how ‘new’ does his music sound? For me,…

 Vladimir Ashkenazy (80 this year) claims he has recorded too much, but aficionados regard him a reliable pianist more concerned with serving the music than showing off his considerable technique. He has chosen a selection of his favourite recordings of solo and chamber music in a new 56 CD set from Decca. Far from being simply reliable his playing is quite special: note the intoxicating beauty of Scriabin’s Second Piano Sonata, or the rapt inwardness of The Old Castle in Mussorgsky’s Pictures From An Exhibition. His much-praised series of Rachmaninov songs with Elisabeth Söderström is here (sadly without translations), the complete Preludes and Fugues of Bach and Shostakovich, the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Lynn Harrell, dazzling early discs of Chopin and Prokofiev, and much more. “Far from being simply reliable,…

MONDAY - FRIDAY 6am Classic Breakfast Start your day with a delicious selection of the best in classical music, including your daily Swoon 10am Classic Mornings Spend your morning with great music, including new releases and classic performances, plus the latest news and stories from the world of music 1pm Lunchtime Concert The best concerts from Australia and around the world 3pm Music in Time and more Music in Time / Legends / Passenger / Duet / The Game Show 4pm Classic Drive A journey home through classical sounds, designed to relax, refresh and delight you 4pm Evenings Concerts from Australian and international ensembles plus music to help you wind down. 12am Night Music Classical music that’s perfect for all-night listening, presented by some of your favourite ABC Classic FM…