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...