A few posts on Hans Rott

Hans Rott has been the object of some news and some contreversy:

• It seems that Pavo Jaarvi is preparing a recording of the Symphony with his Frankurt Orchestra
• His comments, somewhat provocative, can be found here
• Additional comments on Kenneth Woods's blog are there

This morning at 8 h 59 ...

• Rushing to the Scala web site
• 9 h sharp, booking page overloaded
• Hitting reload key a few times, managed to get in
• Where are they. OK, I understand I need to go to page 2 forAbbado concerts
• High hopes: 53 seats for the Friday one; this is 53 more than I expected
• Selecting 2
• Proceeding
• The site does not recognize my home town which is a small Swiss village, I need to change and use my work adress in Geneva which should be ok
•  
• Too late, 53 seats are gone before you have the time to say Resurrection
• A look at my watch, ..., it is 9 h 02 !!

(Abbado has a long history with Mahler's 2nd Symphony. I first heard him conduct it with the LSO in 1979 ... and he has recorded it several times with I think the Chicago and the Vienna. This being said, the DVD has managed to bring, even at the levels achieved, something more ...

So for us, mere mortals, this is an outstanding Document to have ...)

Some more elements on Hans Rott

http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/tag/rott/ courtesy of Kenneth Woods.(It also includes a far too short video of Paavo Jarvi on Rott's Symphony)

(Let me add a few more words: I discovered Ken's blog by googling Hans Rott. Initially, I had planned to do an analysis of the Symphony and in particular of the premonitions of Mahler, the influence of Bruckner and even of Brahms .... but after reading Ken's comments and analysis, I have to admit that this is not needed. This is far better done by him.)

I urge you to discover Hans Rott's Symphony

Henry-Louis de la Grange's fascinating biography tells the story of Mahler along with 2 room-mates being kicked out of their rented attics in Vienna for singing too loudly the act 1 of Walküre. The 2 others were Hugo Wolf and Hans Rott.

Rott died early. His mental health it seemed was poor and he suffered from paranoia believing that Brahms wanted to kill him.His musical legacy is small (see details at the site of the Rott society here) His symphony has recently ben played in concert by Järvi father and son (Paavo since they are several active) and radio broadcast could be found on some yahoo groups.

This is an absolute masterpiece wich Mahler called the founder of the new Symphony.

Do try to hear it (and if you want access to these yahoo postings, let me know). I need in the future to resume back tho this work but let me say that the orchestration reflects the influence of Bruckner although I wish that Bruckner had gone the Rott way and that from a spirit point of view, this seems like going towards Mahler First Symphony. A revelation.

This is a work of the highest order. His Symphony should be mandatory to all major orchestras worldwide.

Disruptions in the sky

Many consequences of the ash cloud: My colleagues are stranded in places they went to work, so are some of my company Business Partners.

Needless to say, the world biggest users of flights are musicians and the NYT started identifying the first cancellations and reports.

This should be good news for fans of Gergiev who seems to be stranded in New York as we speak but his agenda was already very full ...

Movements in Geneva 3

I was last week in Paris where several friends discussed the recent events in Geneva. A quick summary of the OSR Press Conference is included in my review of Janowski's concert here.

In addition, let me add a few points in no particular order from the conference:

• 11 new players are in the orchestra which received more than 100 times the number of applicants
• All concerts are more than 95% booked hence the move to double the concerts in Geneva next season (please note that although the box-office indicates that they are often full, there are often empty seats in the higher sections ?)
• The orchestra can be proud of being of the happy few with regular recording engagements, the last CD produced was Bruckner's 5th Symphony.
• Compared to several other orchestras, the next season is fairly versatile with original works being played (Martinu, rare Strauss and Bruch, ...)
• Sibelius' s 5th was presented as a rarety ... This is a major major work by a major major composer !
• Martinu's second violin concerto will also be performed by Frank-Peter Zimemrman. It is a masterpiece. if you do not know it, this is a highly recommended work.
• Marek Janowski said that he was only confortable conducting Mahler's second and third Symphonies but not so for the others which he let to other conductors.
• Another look at the program shows that the orchestra is reinviting musicians whom they developed a rapport with, which is a very good way to deepen a relation and get good results.
• The OSR will team up with the Tonhalle to play Schoenberg's Gurrelieder in Luzern and Montreux. When asked why not Geneva, S Roger said that if this work were to be performed in Victoria Hall, musicians would be on the hall and audience could only be accomodated on stage
• The weight of the musicians for the selection of their new director has been increased (although to be fair, the precise selection process was not 100% clear ...)

All in all, the team emerged as competent and inspired confidence.

Important season in NY

lhttp://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/alexross/2010/04/season-announcement.html

Enjoy ...