La Repubblica online has an amazing sequence of photographs from an in-concert disaster yesterday evening in Torino: viola virtuoso Yuri Bashmet’s instrument, an extraordinary instrument built by Carlo Testori in 1758, fell apart during a performance with the RAI Orchestra. The orchestra’s principal violist, Luca Ranieri, loaned Bashmet his 400-year-old Maggini instrument to complete the performance. Bashmet’s instrument has been repaired and will hopefully be on its best behavior for his upcoming appearances in Chicago with the Moscow Soloists.

UPDATE: Word from the grapevine is that the tailpiece did indeed snap off, causing superficial damage to the upper plate, but Bashmet’s instrument was promptly and completely repaired.

Here’s the update from the New York Times.

Alan Rich reports on the death of one the world’s most prominent patrons of postwar music.

CanadianArchitect.com reports details of the upcoming Le Corbusier exhibit at the Barbican Art Gallery – and a Xenakis-focused program to be performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The AP reports Donald Rosenberg, the Cleveland Plain Dealer critic ousted from the Cleveland Orchestra beat, is suing both the paper and the orchestra.

Continue reading Rosenberg Drops the Hammer →

Mischa Stutzmann passes along this anecdote about legendary podium tyrant Fritz Reiner:

Continue reading Fritz Reiner Anecdote: The Case of the Phantom Piccolo →

The Birmingham Post reports the very sad news of British maestro Richard Hickox’s sudden death.

Jeremy Eichler has the details at BoGlo. Sounds like Maestro Rozhdestvensky needs a tougher artist rep for his US gigs, but that does not excuse the BSO for the shabby manner in which they handled the promotion of arguably one of the greatest elder statesmen of the podium.

Composer John Adams, arguably America’s most prominent symphonic and opera composer, is routinely being harassed by immigration officials.

Continue reading Harassing a National Treasure →

Reuters’ Pauline Askin reports on an Australian music scholar who claims that Bach’s second wife wrote a number of works attributed to him.