Ouch!

'I would like to hear this concert for a whole host of reasons ... I hope to hear the VPO in better shape than one year ago at their Prague Spring Festival performance' ~ Jiri Belohlavek (left) previews the Vienna Philharmonic BBC Prom conducted by Daniel Barenboim on September 4 in today's Guardian.

But is the pot calling the kettle black?
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The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

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Wilhelm Furtwängler was born on 25th January 1886. He was Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1923 to his death in 1954, and held this position for the twelve years that Hitler was in power. In January 1945 he was conducting in Vienna, and fled from there to Switzerland where he remained until the Battle of Berlin ended in the defeat of the Nazis. The musicians of his orchestra remained in Berlin during its darkest hour. Here is their story: On 28th March 1945 the Russian forces commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov were just twenty miles to the east of Berlin. A month previously Albert Speer had been replaced as Nazi armaments minister after trying to persuade Hitler that defeat was inevitable. Speer now turned his energies to preventing the musicians of his adored Berlin Philharmonic from perishing in the inevitable final battle. Reich Commisioner Dr Joseph Goebells, who was in charge of the defence of Berlin, had ordered the entire orchestra to be drafted into the Vol...
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David Munrow - more than early music

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'David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London transformed our view of medieval music. The impact of their performances far surparssed any that had gone before: by demonstrating how medieval music could sound normal, they created a niche for it in the concert hall and on record that it has never lost' ~ From Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's notes for Music of the Gothic era May 15 2007 is the thirty-first anniversary of the death of David Munrow. His contribution to the acceptance, understanding and performance of early music almost defies summary. He was born in 1942, and learnt the bassoon and recorder as a child. Between school and university he travelled and taught in South America , and started the collection of ethnic instruments that were to give him, and the world, a new perspective on early music making. He read English at Pembroke College , Cambridge, and was encouraged by Thurston Dart to take an active role in the music-making of that most musical of cities. ...
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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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Research identifies classical music’s unique selling point

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Male American pioneers

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Third rate music on Naxos' American Classics?

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In his Lebrecht Weekly column Norman Lebrecht declared that: ' Too much Mozart makes you sick .  M ozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time and are meaningless to ours. Beyond a superficial beauty and structural certainty, Mozart has nothing to give to mind or spirit in the 21st century. Let him rest. Ignore the commercial onslaught. Play the Leningrad Symphony. Listen to music that matters'. Most readers will recognise this outburst as typical self-serving Lebrecht click bait . But those who have any doubt should listen to the five CD reissue of Sir Charles Mackerras conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in nine Mozart symphonies and the Requiem. These are arguably the finest Mozart interpretations  since Bruno Walter's .   Ignore Lebrecht's meaningless onslaught. Mozart's music matters today and has never been more relevant. Because it is music of truth at a time when the truth is being devalued...
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