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Another one of those violin bon bons we’ve been talking about lately. I listened to this very recording the other night. I thought I’d share. By the way, Ricci is still with us, 92 and living in Palm Springs.
Review: The 31st annual Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar, featuring the music of Handel and the Italian composers who influenced him, begins a new era. CLICK HERE TO READ MY REVIEW.
Obiter dictum: Due to space constraints in Tuesday’s newspaper, the review is very short. (Sigh)
The Pacific Symphony cemented its 2011-2012 classical series in stone and sent out the calendar (below) last week. The artists (including singers in La Boheme) and repertoire are all listed.
I’m posting it (complete with the prose descriptions of the concerts that were provided) because it’s easier to read here than on the orchestra’s website. I have some scattered thoughts about the schedule, but I’d rather hear what you think. Please leave your likes and dislikes in the comments section.
Click here to continue reading Pacific Symphony 2011-2012 season calendar …
For Musical America, I review the 65th Ojai Music Festival, with Dawn Upshaw, music director, and guests Peter Sellars, Gilbert Kalish, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and violinist Richard Tognetti. CLICK HERE TO READ MY REVIEW.
In an otherwise informative and exemplary post on Blogging Basics (written with classical music bloggers in mind), Lisa Hirsch (aka Iron Tongue of Midnight) includes a bullet item that raised my eyebrows:
Really? That certainly hasn’t been my experience. I’ve never received a comment or email from Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Pierre Boulez, Carl St.Clair, Cecilia Bartoli, Deborah Voigt, Placido Domingo, Jeremy Denk, Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, William Bolcom or pretty much anyone else that I’ve reviewed and/or interviewed in my career. (In more than 20 years of covering St.Clair — I’ve written more about him than anyone else in the world — I may have gotten one or two emails from him).
Nor do the less celebrated engage. The musicians of the Pacific Symphony do not comment here, or elsewhere, or email me. (Recently, I ran into a Pacific Symphony musician I know and she hadn’t heard that I had been writing a celebrity column, five days a week, for the last 9 months, and I’m the only music critic in Orange County.) A single member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic comments on this blog (and he’s a friend), despite my coverage of that group dating back to the early 1980s. No one from Los Angeles Opera, or Long Beach Opera, or … etc.
If professional musicians read and conversed regularly with their local critics, music criticism in this country wouldn’t be on life support, I’d still have my award-winning blog at the newspaper, and I’d still be a full-time music critic (also award-winning).
But professional musicians couldn’t care less about music critics and their blogging brethren.
I’d like to be proven wrong. Go ahead, musicians I’ve written about, make my day. Leave a comment.
Below are photo scans of a program booklet that I found, and bought, in an antique store in Half Moon Bay, CA. (You may have seen them before — I’m rescuing these from my old blog.)
It’s for a recital by violinist Jascha Heifetz, given on April 27, 1949, in the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. I’ve scanned every page (there are only eight) including the front and back covers, the latter featuring an ad for Chesterfield Cigarettes with Joan Crawford extolling their taste. You can print out your own replica copy if you so desire. The booklet is 9 inches by 6. Click on the thumbnail photos for full size views. You’ll find something interesting on every page, including upcoming programs with Mitropolous conducting. Incidentally, nowhere in the program is the violinist’s first name used. He is referred to simply as “Heifetz.”
In response to my celebrity columns …
Dear Editor,
Why do you not allow your readers to enjoy entertainment news? You force us to read Timothy Magans cynical comments throughout the news. Perhaps you could put him in charge of a more serious column and let your readers just enjoy the news without any personal commentary. Neither the LA Times or the NY Times subjects its readers to personal banter. Please consider my request!!!!
Thank you,
(name withheld)
***
OMG Timothy……you have done it again! I am still cracking up over your comments in your column today on Hugh Hefner AND the one’s about Arnold and his “other child situation.” It’s hilarious…..keep up the great work! I am ROTFL !!!! I can’t stop laughing! What a great way to start the day…..
Best regards,
(name withheld)
At the new Libbey Bowl in Ojai.
photos: M.A. Mullen
Word landed in the inbox last night that the Ojai Music Festival will offer a live audio stream of tonight’s (Saturday’s) concert.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra and violinist/leader Richard Tognetti perform the following program:
Scelsi: Anâgâmin
Schnittke: Trio Sonata (arranged for string orchestra by Yuri Bashmet)
Richard Tognetti: Deviance
Bach: Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV1041
Richard Tognetti, violin
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)
Go here, at 8 p.m., if you’d like to listen.
Classical Life 