Grade 1 Violin

When will the film industry wake up and make a biopic of the life of Jelly D'Aranyi?  She inspired some of the greatest violin music of the first third of the 20th century. Born in Budapest 1893, she died in Florence in 1966, but spent most of her life in Britain. Joseph Joachim was her great-uncle and Jenő Hubay her teacher. Bartók fell in love with her. The elderly Elgar adored her. Ravel’s virtuoso showpiece Tzigane is dedicated to her. Delius wrote his Double Concerto for her and her sister Adila. She worked with Pablo Casals, Dame Myra Hess and Sir Adrian Boult, among other musicians also as legendary as she was. A painting of her by Charles Geoffroy-Dechaume hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0POrTYPT80 In March 1933, Baron Erik Kule Palmstierna – Sweden’s ambassador to London and an avid psychic researcher – was hosting a séance with his intimate circle of friends. Among them were two flamboyant musicians: the succulent...

The name Ettore Panizza was unknown to me until I bought CDs of various live performances from the Met including Aida, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera, La Gioconda, Norma, Otello, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Boris Godunov.  It should not be surprising that he also conducted Elektra (to Strauss's complete satisfaction - see below), Khovanshchina and other non-Italian repertoire. He was Toscanini's junior colleague for many years and Toscanini's influence can be found in his conducting style to a very great extent. There is even a book on him titled 'The other Toscanini.' If you have the option of buying or listening to anything conducted by Panizza, take it immediately. You will not be disappointed. Naxos biography Ettore Panizza’s parents were Italian: his father was a cellist as well as a composer and it was he who gave his son his first music lessons. Ettore travelled from Argentina to Italy to enter the Milan Conservatory, where he studied piano, composi...

Another Russian conductor I like very much is Alexander Melik - Pashaev . I heard him conduct 'The Queen of Spades' at Covent Garden magnificently (my first). It was sung in English and the production I realised only recently was pinched from a film (1949) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_of_Spades_(1949_film) The Queen of Spades (1949 film) - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org I read somewhere that the snow effects in this film were created by grinding up Messerschmidt cockpit covers from crashed aircraft. Apparently these fragments were sharp and painful if the actors got caught under them. Melik Pashaev also conducted Aida at Covent Garden. He made many opera recordings. Those of non-Russian rep are surprisingly idiomatic (non-Russian) such as his 'Fidelio' with Vishnevskaya and 'Falstaff.' Vishnevskaya wrote very warmly of him in 'Galina,' saying how much she owed to him. He recorded very few non-operatic works https://melody.su/en/catalo...

My father was born and brought up in Dublin. His father used to take him to opera at the Gaiety Theatre. It was all very Irish apparently. My father told me people used to come an hour early and take their positions in the Gods and sing arias presumably unaccompanied. I've never heard of that happening anywhere else. The performances them selves must have been equally hilarious, Dad told me the band - and I think it really might have been a band rather than an orchestra - was conducted by Colonel Fritz Brase.*To use a euphamism, Brase was a 'colourful character.' See below his Wiki bio complete with Hitler salutes. I can't find any reference to Brase's operatic performances at the Gaiety Theatre but I trust my father's memory because he and his family had strong connections to Dublin's theatre scene. George Bernard Shaw also remembers being taken to opera by his father. Apparently at 'Il trovatore' the young Shaw asked his father what was going on wh...

    A colleague, Neil Dalrymple became the executor for Friedelind Wagner. I knew Friedelind a bit. She was adorable. Poor thing had exactly the head of her grandfather but was a totally different personality of course. She used to pepper her conversation with Yiddish for a start. She wanted to build a sort of Bayreuth for contemporary music on Teeside where she and her (femail) companion lived. She asked me to arrange a meeting with Stockhausen to see if he would help. The story of their meeting in my house in London is a bit painful. Stockhausen behaved really badly, not looking at her but doodling on a piece of paper all the while she was speaking. I think he even may have made some disapproving remarks from time to time. I felt so sorry for Friedelind . However, when the time came to depart, he presented the by then rather complicated doodle to Friedelind as a present. I think he had meant to do that all along and that it had been done for her. You have to rem...

It's  amazing to me that Peter Stein is now called the veteran stage director.  In 'the stone age' as he put it he was the most exciting and radical new talent in West Germany. Such were reports of his work that I made a trip to the Schaubuehne am Halleschen Ufer in West Berlin to see his production of Wischnewski's 'Optimistische Tragoedie,'  Stein had become associated with the Schaubuehne. You can't say he was their Intendant or Artistic Director because he instituted a decision making process whereby every member of the company, down to the cloakroom staff took part all decision making including artistic decisions. Apprently this didn't work very well because it all took a great deal of time and in the end Stein turned out to be 'more equal than others.' The performance I saw was unforgettable. The Schaubuehne was a small rectangular space with seating on two sides. on the other two sides was a battleship or at least the suggestion of a battl...