Grade 1 Violin

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...

  I took over the UK representation of the Romanian 'cellist Vladimir Orlov from a nice old agent called Finzi who was retiring I think.  Orlov was tall, dark, handsome, charming and good to work with. He played magnificently but as a contemporary of Rostropovich opportunities at least in the UK were not enormous. He seemed to accept this and never twisted my arm on the subject of not getting more work.  He moved to Canada where he became a revered teacher. He continued with his career as soloist so it was nice to see him from time to time.  There was one danger though. On at least one occasion when he called the office, someone called over to me saying (as I thought) 'It's all off!!' suggesting that whatever project I was struggling with at that moment had bit the dust. Gennady Rozhdestvensky told me he remembered Orlov's father playing the 'cello in a Romanian orchestra he had conducted. The musical world can seem small sometimes.

  In the 1980s Gosconcert arranged regional auditions for opera singers in Vilnius and Kishinev (Chisinau) for foreign agents and opera houses. In Vilnius, singers came from the Baltic states and around and in Kishinev from the Southwest regions of the Soviet Union. What was striking was what great voices were on display but how few good singers. I didn't find any fully formed talent and didn't offer management to a single artist. Nevertheless these were interesting experiences totally different to anything in the West. I don't think any of the numerous participants ever made it either. I have had my share of poor decisions concerning singers in audition. I declined to take on Anne-Sophie von Otter for example. Also Ermonela Jaho. Not quite as bad a mistake as Leo Blech's judgement of Birgit Nilsson 'unmusical and untalented.' What did I take away from these experiences? The thought that we should organise an exchange between the UK and USSR whereby they invited...

As so-called 'Reserve Conductor,' Arvid Jansons led the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra on a UK tour back in the '60s.  I never heard Mravinsky live but this was a good substitute because Jansons was obviously a fine conductor. I remember they played Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8. The performance was enormously impressive. You can hear a recording on Youtube (sound only). Jansons cut a solid figure on the podium if I remember correctly. In those days there was no mistaking the sound of a Russian orchestra. His stick was secure and to the point. One of his teachers was Leo Blech who fled to Riga during the war with the help of Goehring, no less. Blech had to move on to Sweden when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. William Glock once dismissed my sales talk about a conductor being especially good in Prokofiev and Shostakovich. 'Everyone is good in Prokofiev and Shostakovich' he said and there is some truth in that. However, Arvid Jansons really was good in Sh...

  Henrik Lodding made a success in founding a piano shop in Gothenburg before becoming one of the outstanding artists' agents of his day. He led a comfortable life with a weekend home on an island to which he would go back and forth in his boat. When he wasn't in town he was on the island. He is rumoured to have owned a Rolls Royce. He had a lovely wife and daughter who were very helpful in his business, the daughter taking it over from him eventually. Lodding was a bit of a mystery man. It later turned out he was Jewish - a fact he never mentioned to me a fellow jew. The name Lodding sounded Swedish enough not to suggest he was anything else but Swedish. In fact Lodding was the name of his step-father Herman Lodding who was indeed a Gothenburg-born Swede. Henrik was born Jindrich (Henrik) Bondy in Czechoslovakia in 1926. His father Georg Jiri Bondy died in Mauthausen concentration camp in 1942.  Of course nothing was ever said of this tragic background although Henrik couldn...

  Trawling through Youtube I find more and more evidence of performances by the cream of Western musicians on tour to Japan going back a long way. All the greats seem to have performed there: Carlos Kleiber, Celibidache, Stockhausen, Karajan and all as well as major Western opera companies not once but many times and reaching back into the 1950s. The more you search the more comes to light. So the Japanese have a rich experience of great music making. This belies the unsupported prejudice that the Japanese somehow lack experience in Western culture. Quite the contrary. It may be that Tokyo has seen more great music than anywhere else. PS. The Leningrad Philharmonic toured Japan but there was always the problem that Mravinsky refused to fly and therefore had to get there by surface transport (Trans-Siberian railway and ship?). One day Mark Ermler was waiting in the departure lounge at Narita Airport and saw to his amazement Mravinsky sitting there. He went over to talk to him and as...

Italian Insularity is even more pernicious than other kinds. By that I mean that Italians tend to regard everything that happens abroad as of lesser quality, especially in the operatic field. In this they couldn't be more wrong. Take the example of the Welsh National Opera. If Italians have any opinion of the WNO it is as some provincial company that isn't worth consideration but I have news for the Italian operatic world. They should go and experience a couple of performances by WNO before ignoring them because more often than not they are of a higher standard than anything you can hear or see in Italy, even in the case of Italian opera. Am I exhibiting British insularity here? I think not. Years ago, Carlo Rizzi found himself conducting 'La traviata' both at La Fenice and in Cardiff at the same time. He told me that his WNO Violetta was being paid the same as the Commissionario (a tiny role consisting of one line) in Venice and yet the WNO performances were better. I ...

  I made a list of possible titles for posts back in January. Three months later I have forgotten quite what I was going to say but in general terms, I think I wanted to remark on the insularity shown in the USA for some aspects in the wider musical world. I mean this only as a mild reproach because we all see things from our own point of view. Also, America, - principally the United States - has always been the recipient talent from abroad so they an be forgiven for thinking they are central to the goings-on of the musical world.  Of course this is not so. I am sometimes pulled up by a specially jarring example of insularity. The worst case is that of Celibidache. I'm afraid the insularity here was mutual but that is no excuse. I myself heard Celibidache dismiss the entire continent with a wave of hs hand and the comment 'This America...' However, 'This America; didn't understand Celibidache and didn't spend much time attempting to do so. People remember his to...

  If ever the maxim 'no one is irreplaceable' is trotted out, just think of Maria Callas. Rudolf Bing thought she believed she was bigger than the Met and so decided to do without her. That was the Met's funeral of course.  As a callow youth, I thought I was bigger than Callas in a way. One afternoon, my parents said they has a free ticket for the Royal Gala performance of 'Tosca' with Callas at Covent Garden and would I like to come? I declined on the basis that I would have to get dressed up and there would be a whole lot of stuffed-shirts there. What an idiot. I did get to see Callas though. She sang 'Norma' at the Paris Opera (Salle Garnier in those days) in May1965.  I was working as 'Assistant de langue anglaise' at the Lycee mixte de Libourne, Gironde.  I took the train to Paris and managed to get a ticket. I had been put off by the 'circus' surrounding Callas. I doubted if her fans knew anything about music or really appreciated who s...

  Jan Peerce was an excellent tenor chosen by Toscanini for so many of his recordings. He came from the Jewish Cantor (Chazan) tradition as did Hermann Jadlowker, Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill among others. His voice was thrilling and his taste and artistry impeccable. I was fortunate enough to hear him live in a curious concert at the Festival Hall in London. A US military band gave a concert with him as soloist. He must have been advanced in years but he sounded great with not a trace of wear and tear. His last concert was in 1982. He died in 1984 aged 80. Afterwards I went back stage to congratulate him and he received me so modestly and charmingly that I wondered if he thought people had forgotten him. He was tiny. Later I bought his autobiography 'The Bluebird of Happiness.' It is an adorable book, charming and modest just like him. What stands out is his immense commitment and hard work in his preparation and professionalism. I guess that is the Toscanini school.

  There is an extraordinary thing in the middle of the Atlantic - a world class Symphony Orchestra made up almost exclusively from the island's 372,520 inhabitants (2021). We are talking about Icelend of course. How does this come about? we asked. 'Team work' was the answer. The same as with the national football team. You may remember they were the smallest nation by population to ever clinch a FIFA berth. Their record includes defeats of The Netherlands and of course England. So it is with the orchestra. They even have a world-class concert hall in Reykjavik, the 'Harpa.' built it is said with finance from the Chinese in exchange for Icelandic expertise in Geothermal Energy. PS. In a press interview some years ago, Gennady Rozhdestvensky joked that the further North you go, the better the orchestras and speculated that by this measure the Iceland Symphony Orchestra must be the best in the world. This was picked up by the manager of the orchestra who then invited G...

  I heard Karel Ancerl live only once. It was a concert at the Royal Festival Hall with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in November 1965. Ancerl was a very fine conductor indeed and this concert demonstrated that most convicingly. What struck me in particular was his reading of Dvorak's New World Symphony. Contrary to the Toscanini version on which I had been brought up, this was a molto espressivo interpretation.  My overriding impression was of a Mahlerian symphony. After all, Dvorak and Mahler were born 130 Km apart from eachother and their lives overlapped by 44 years. However, their personal contact and correspondence was limited and although Mahler premiered a Tone Poem by Dvorak ('A Hero's Song') and conducted some other works he is not known to have conducted any symphonies by Dvorak.  They had planned together to mount 'Rusalka' at the Vienna Opera (Hofoper) but it was not to be. In fact Rusalka wasn't given there until 1987.

  One of the funniest evenings I ever spent in the opera house was at Fidenza in a so-called original instrument performance of  'Il trovatore.' When I saw that advertised, I just had to be there. Hopefully there would be some kind of revelation with Verdi's score performed by the instruments of the time. Then maybe the Manrico would be a discovery; the next Caruso possibly? Otherwise there could as a minimum be a find of some sort among the other roles - Leonora, Azucena, di Luna, even Ferrando? The sets and production might also have turned up something of interest. You never know. Except, in Italy you do know. Everything was uniformly terrible. It takes a peculiar talent to get everything down to such an abismal level. The orchestra was from East Germany. The conductor was an oboist trying his hand at conducting. The first scene was intollerably slow. After what seemed an eternity a voice called out 'Piu lento, maestro!' At this the so-called conductor became ang...

  Music during the Franco regime was atrophied. No self-respecting artist would work with the orchestras because they were lazy and disinterested. Lamberto Gardelli spoke of the players bring in their cups of coffee and reading newspapers in rehearsals. Only a Celibidache could rouse the musicians out of their lethargy. With the death of Franco everything changed and musical life blossomed in the most wonderful way.  I always remember the orchestra of Galicia with young enthusiastic players, many just out of conservatoire. They played excellently. Nothing phased them. That was repeated across the board. Now there is no trace of the former hopelessness.

  Do you have a favourite recording of  'Carneval Romain' overture?  For me everything depends on the last chord. I'm not a musician and anyway haven't seen the score but even if it's not somehow marked, those who play the ending without a fermata and huge stretching-out (subito rallentando?) of the last two chords are missing something.  I first heard that with Dorati . Beecham also knew how to sock it to them in that way.