More on classical music's celebrity culture

Conceive people with their animal spirits at their highest, all shouting with one accord, and all eager to obtain a favourable view of the hero of the day, and you will have it. Those who were not tall enough to see over their neighbour's shoulders got upon the seats and stood there, the example being so greatly followed that soon the floor of the concert room presented the extraordinary an somewhat absurd spectacle of an audience standing on the benches.
From Musical Times editorial coverage in May 1886 of concert given by Franz Liszt in London.

Quote comes via Dolmetsch: The Man and His Work by Margaret Campbell, a book I will doubtless be returning to. Copies of the Musical Times from 1903 to 2009 can be read online. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter.

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Berlin Philharmonic's first woman conductor

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In 2005 the appointment of a woman music director by a major American orchestra caused a storm of controversy . So, it is surprising to find that it was back in 1930 that the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was first conducted by a woman, and even more surprising to find she was an American. But the story doesn't have a happy ending. Despite receiving critical acclaim, Antonia Brico found doors closed to her when she returned to the US, and was forced to form her own orchestras to continue her conducting career. She is seen above conducting in New York in 1945. (Image credit Dr. Ralph Weizsäcker ). Antonia Brico was born Wilhelmina Wolthus in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1902, and emigrated to California with her foster parents in 1908. She attended high school in Oakland where she gained experience as a pianist and conductor. She went on to study liberal arts at the University of California, Berkeley , and also worked at the San Francisco Opera as an assistant to the director,
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That which colors the mind

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This recording by Owsley Stanley of sarod master Ali Akbar Khan featured in a recent post here . My further reading came across the following unpublished epitaph to Owsley Stanley - popularly known as 'Bear' - by his daughter Rhoney Gissin Stanley . It provides a refreshing contrast to today's social media influenzas : Bear was a man who walked his talk, who challenged the cult of personality and wanted the attention of others to focus on his work with sound, his art, and his philosophy, not on him.
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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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Free Mozart MP3 downloads from Danish Radio

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