Lebrecht Weekly - my/maSCENA

Lebrecht Weekly – British Clarinet Concertos 2 (Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 14 March 2016 Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

An unknown work by Benjamin Britten sets the pulse racing. It turns out to be fragments of a concerto he started writing for Benny Goodman in 194. What with Pearl Harbour and Peter Grimes, it got pushed to the back of the desk. Before Britten sailed home to England in March 1942, the only finished movement was seized by US Customs was seized on suspicion that it contained espionage codes. The movement did not see light of day until 1989 when it was retrieved and orchestrated by Colin Matthews, Britten’s composing assistant, and premiered by the clarinet virtuoso Michael Collins.…

Lebrecht Weekly – Mahler: 1st Symphony (BR Klassik)

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 March 2016 Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s interpretation of Mahler’s first symphony is beautifully played by Munich’s (some say Germany’s) best orchestra and thoughtfully structured by an impressive guest conductor. I think I am safe in saying that it is conceptually different from any of the 120 Mahler Firsts on record, stretching all the way back to Dmitri Mitropolous’s towering Minnesota performance for Columbia in April 1940. And that’s no small distinction in a much-repeated piece. Where Yannick differs from all others is in atmospherics. The opening four and a half minutes of ambient sound, where the ear searches for a clue to what’s going…

Lebrecht Weekly – Rudi Stephan, Albéric Magnard (accentus)

By Norman Lebrecht on 29 February 2016 Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Violin

These two composers are joined by tragic deaths on opposite sides of the First World War. Stephan, a Munich avant-gardist, was the only soldier in his German unit to die in a September 1915 battle with Russian troops for the Galician town of Stryi. Magnard, a French traditionalist, was either shot or burned to death defending his home from German troops in September 1914. Only 28 at the time of his death, Stephan was little known outside German new music circles and not well liked within them. A young man of strong opinions and no tolerance for sycophancy, he…

Lebrecht Weekly – Ivry Gitlis (SWR/Naxos Deutschland)

By Norman Lebrecht on 22 February 2016 Lebrecht Weekly, Violin

Great violinists come in two forms: stars and legends. Think about it. Jascha Heifetz was a star, Nathan Milstein a legend. One was a household name, the other inspired a kind of spiritual reverence among musicians of all stripes, not just violinists. Fritz Kreisler was a star, Jacques Thibaud a legend. The late Yehudi Menuhin was a star, as was Isaac Stern. Ivry Gitlis, their close contemporary, lives on – and he’s a legend. A child prodigy from the port town of Haifa, Ivry came to London before the Second World War to study with Carl Flesch. Turned down by…

Lebrecht Weekly – Yevgeny Sudbin: Medtner/Rachmaninov (BIS)

By Norman Lebrecht on 15 February 2016 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

Most concert pianists are like modern tennis players. They know that only two or three men and women are ever going to win the major tournaments, which leaves all the rest working harder each day in vain pursuit of an inhuman perfection and an inexhaustible hope. The Russian-born Yevgeny Sudbin is a circuit pianist who, living in London and teaching at the Royal Academy, has yet to break top ten rankings. He’s a tremendous player of exceptional flair who has made recording for the past decade on an esoteric Swedish label, covering mostly Russian music. The reception has been enthusiastic,…

Lebrecht Weekly – Bartók: 44 Duos (Decca)

By Norman Lebrecht on 8 February 2016 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

It has been an age since I looked to my shelves for a work by a major composer and found that, after 40 years of building a library, I don’t have it. Nor, so far as I recall, have I ever heard it, either in concert or on radio (though a few recordings do exist). The 44 duos were written by Béla Bartók in 1931 on commission from a German violinist, Erich Doflein, who wanted to use them as teaching aids in his studio. Easy money, you’d think. But Bartók, being Bartók, couldn’t write a dull phrase. The four books…

Lebrecht Weekly – Wihan Quartet: Dvořák/Janáček (Nimbus Alliance)

By Norman Lebrecht on 1 February 2016 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

It must be something in the plum juice that produces, generation after generation, a cluster of distinctive string quartets from the country constituted as the Czech Republic. There is nothing like a Czech string quartet. It’s a generic school of ensemble playing that aligns all the right accents to a witty, virile expressiveness and an almost effortless panache. Count the present contenders on the world stage: the Panocha, the Pavel Haas, the Pražák, the Stamic, the Vlach, the Wihan, and the daddy of them all, the Talich. There are presently seven or eight Czech quartets of the highest quality out…

Lebrecht Weekly – Manhattan Intermezzo (Naxos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 25 January 2016 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

Editor’s Note: La Scena Musicale is pleased to welcome back contributor Norman Lebrecht for his weekly CD reviews, which will be posted online on Mondays and appear in the print edition. Read Norman’s regular CD reviews and columns under the Lebrecht Weekly tag. What you really need to start 2016 – what you never imagined you’d ever need – is a piano concerto by Neil Sedaka. Absolutely no irony here. Anyone who can write a novel or concerto start to finish without falling on his/her plot deserves all the credit going and a fair ride from reviewers. Sedaka, 75, made his…

Time to take stock

By Norman Lebrecht on 31 January 2001 Lebrecht Weekly

The Musicians’ Union is facing a long, cold winter IT has been clear for some while that all is not well at the Musicians’ Union. Four years ago, we reported that the union was being sued by about 200 of its members over a huge royalties fund – as much as £67 million, by some accounts – that it was supposed to be distributing among former players in recording bands. The union refused to divulge how the money was divvied up, and to whom. Many of the musicians concerned were needy; some died before receiving payments they believed were due…

Could Silver Fox, the manager of maestros, be losing his grip?

By Norman Lebrecht on 24 January 2001 Lebrecht Weekly

The changing tides in artist management FAMILIARITY can breed many things, none more pernicious than passive acceptance of power. For 70 years, America’s classical music business has been dominated by a huge management agency, Columbia Artists (CAMI), whose head office is menacingly situated opposite Carnegie Hall. For the past 30 years, CAMI’s president, Ronald Wilford, has effectively monopolised the conductor market. The shadowy Wilford, known as the Silver Fox, has more than 100 batons on his books – as well as 800 singers and 300 instrumentalists. He has made millionaires of maestros by slashing the time they spend with orchestras,…

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