“Carlos Kleiber: Traces to Nowhere”
A month after Carlos Kleiber died, I ran into a prominent conductor of my acquaintance at Academy Records. When talk turned to Kleiber, he sighed and said, “My God, he was the greatest of us all. The greatest.”
Watch the opening segment of Eric Schulz’s deeply moving portrait of Kleiber, in the words and recollections of his colleagues intercut with rehearsal and concert footage, here. Hat tip: Sybille Werner.
UPDATE: It’s out now on DVD in North America. Find the best price here. If you were in New York City during October 1990 and caught Der Rosenkavalier at the MET, you know what all the buzz was about.
Muti on the Mend
HuffPo reports that Leonard Slatkin and Mitsuko Uchida will cover for Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti, who has been hospitalized following a fainting spell during a rehearsal.
The Dude Abides (LA, That Is…)
The LA Times reports that Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel has extended his contract with the orchestra.
DSO Management Offers Players New Contract
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, one of the nation’s best “second tier” orchestras, has been on strike for the last couple of months, but there was a move just over a week ago on the players’ side to move toward a setttlement. Management issued a counteroffer today according to the Detroit Free Press. Here’s hoping they settle, and fast — especially after having just listened to the orchestra’s new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 conducted by music director Leonard Slatkin. It’s a thrilling, brisk performance that eschews sentimentality for high-octane virtuoso playing. It would be a pity — and a blow to Detroit, which has had a hellish enough few decades — to see this orchestra fold.
Margaret Price, 1941-2011
Price made some notable recordings; two of my favorites are a characterful Mozart opera and concert arias album for British RCA and her joyful controbution to the Horenstein/LSO Mahler Fourth originally issues on Classics for Pleasure. Click here for Zachary Woolfe’s NY Times obituary.
Milton Babbitt, 1916-2011
On his Facebook page, composer Paul Lansky reports that prominent American composer Milton Babbitt, an early pioneer of electronic music, has died.
UPDATE, Jan. 30: Allan Kozinn’s NY Times obituary is live online.
Double Sidelining: Ozawa, Levine Cancel Gigs
Seizi continues to recover from surgery, while Jimmy is sidelined by a virus. Danirl Wakin is on both cases at NYTimes.com.
No Cannes Do
I had hoped to blog from MIDEM, the annual international independent music business market at Cannes, but I am so wrapped up with business meetings that I will refer you to Frank Oteri, whose coverage will give you a good idea of what is going on here.
When High Definition Sound Isn’t So High Definition After All
I’m a huge fan of wizardly recording engineer Tony Faulkner, a longtime practicioner of “less-is-more” audiophile recording techniques. He hasn’t hesitated to tip a few sacred cows over the years, and created a major fuss in the classical recording industry during the early 1990s when he had the audacity to criticize no less an institution than Deutsche Grammophon on the matter of their overhyped, artificial-sounding “4D” recording process. In an editorial posted to Classical Source, Tony puts the smackdown on the venerable BBC for labeling its Radio 3 transmissions as “H[igh] D[efinition]” when it simply isn’t true (we’ve been seeing similar misleading monkeyshines in the States). The editorial is a must-read for audiophiles and casual listeners alike.