Why you should not care about Abbey Road

No need to remind the readers on EMI trying to sell the Abbey Road studios. Lots of media and big names (none from the clasical music world) outcrys so EMI's owners backed down and stopped the sale. To ensure that the crown jewel of English culture would never be sold to Chinese investors or worse, the UK government declared Abbey Road a historical treasure, a protected species status or whatever.

Given the huge losses at EMI, private equity investor did exactly the right thing: look at the balance sheet and get rid of non productive assets,which is exactly what Abbey Road studios are, a piece real estate in prime location. A private equity investor like Terra Firma is going to buy companies which are either in turn of turnaround or stable companies bought with debt to generate more value, the so-called LBOs (Levergaded Buy-Outs) made famous thanks to the a splendid business book called Barbarians at the gate which is more gripping than 24 (disclosure: I run a LBO duirng the day ...).

In the first place, the real issue is that Terra Ferma should not have invested into a record company. This is not a good investment: budgets are now going to live events and less to records, piracy among at least the non classical world is dramatic, fickle stars require huge fees and can always create their own label. Gone are the days where a record company could make or break a star.

More importantly, gone are the days where someone would go into a record shop and ask for an EMI CD as a strong brand.

Even more important in our case, days when someone would go into a record shop asking for a CD of music recorded in Abbey Road never existed.

Concert Halls are becoming more and more full of recording technology and are the place where music is being set for posterity. This is true for all sorts of music: the best selling album of Simon and Garfunkel is the magical live at Central Park ..., all major Opera Houses are releasing endless versions of Wagner's Ring in spite of this being one of the most expensive productions to set ...

For classical music which is our focus, record buyers are more likely to enjoy say live from Bayreuth Thielemann's latest Ring cycle over say Solti classic studio pionner because they heard it live. They are more likely to ask for live music conducted by Dudamel on CD or DVD because they have heard them at the proms or on various TV programs ...

Abbey Road is a relic of the past. Terra Ferma should never had invested in EMI and may loose a fortune. I am sorry for them but as a music lover, I want them to have the ability for them to continue doing some recording and help good music be heard and in trying to dispose of Abbey Road, they probably made the right choice.

En vrac ....

The Met 2010 - 2011 season has been announced. Opening night will be Wagner's Rheingold under James Levine who will follow later with a Walküre. Both productions will replace the "realistic" one of Otto Schenk and will be done by Robert Lepage. There will be a number of shared productions: the wonderful Traviata from Salzburg by Willy Decker replacing the ridiculous Zefirelli one,  the ROH Don Carlos from Nicolas Hytner as well as Peter Sellars's historic production of Nixon in China conducted by John Adams himself.

For comparison, I heard Adams conduct this piece with the same staging and probably the same singers in December 1992  in the Bobigny Theater. Around 25 years will have been needed to have this absolute masterpiece finally be presented at the Met ...

There are also some strong names: Sir Simon Rattle conducting Pelleas with Madalena Kozena as Mélisande, Peter Stein producing Boris with René Pape under the baton of Gergiev and William Christie conducting Cosi. With the mix of usual suspects returning, I have to say that once again, this looks very good and I am convinced that Gelb knows what he is doing.

On other news, Bayreuth casting is available. Please note that Edith Haller will sing Sieglinde. Yours truly heard her in 2007 when she sang Friea, Helmwige, the Third Norn and Gutrune and was very impressed by her.

Best recoveries to Placido Domingo who is showing signs of being human and guess who is the likely successor of Thielemann in Munich ?

A few interesting posts

More on the Salzburg Easter Festival scandal can be found here.

Also go to the LSO on Tour blog to read some of Valéry Gergiev's comments during a rehearsal and understand what he would imply as characterisation.

Bad conscience of a critic

I really wanted to do a positive report on Alexandre Tharaud's Geneva concert. He is an excellent pianist full of originality which I have often enjoyed in the past. His first half entirely devoted to Scarlatti was great but the Chopin left me somewhat puzzled and I could not in all honesty be as upbeat as I really wanted to.(My comments however were high praise compared to my colleague Sebastien Foucart at Barenboim's Chopin recital.)

There is a passage in the carnets of Roland Barthes about Chopin that probably explains what happened: I do not remember the exact words that Barthes used but his comment is that he had troubled enjoying Rubinstein in Chopin because his rubato was different than the one he himself used when playing.

Maybe what this is implied here is that for Chopin more than any other composer, we know some works so well via recordings that any changes are going to be making us feeling uneasy. I grew listening to Rubinstein and Pollini whose style could be described as more objective and coherent than other performers, Horowitz coming to mind for one. Because of this, every diversion and change of pulse is going to jump to our face as the "rubato different from the one we are used to ..."

(Since I am speaking of Rubinstein, I have to tell a personal story. When I was a kid, Rubinstein could often be spotted at concerts of the likes of Barenboim, Pollini, Ashkenazy, ... I remember seeing for the first time at a Barenboim Beethoven Chopin Piano recital in January 1976 where I was amazed as much by his presence as by the Waldstein Sonata which I was hearing for the first time ...

I must have been 14 and remember once crossing someone asking myself if this guy knew how much he looked like Rubinstein until 5 minutes after, I realised that I had walked past my idol and called me all sorts of names ...

He lived actually not far. I started going to school with the cover of the record of Chopin's first concerto in my bag to ask for an autograph just in case. Needless to say, I never walked past him although my grandmother did and came back praising how approachable and charming he was ...

Whenever I hear a record of him playing, I still marvel at the cantabile, the naturalness of tempi, ..., and his unobtrusive runbato)

Lamest Excuse of the week ...

Geneva is very cold these days, Minus 8 when I leave in the morning ... This has not prevented Alexandre Tharaud to visit Victoria Hall as well as Neeme Järvi to remind us the the OSR potential. Meanwhile Lang Lang has cancelled his Sunday appearance. I personnally received the following mail:

"Après le début triomphal de la tournée suisse, le 7 février à Zurich, le récital de Lang Lang initialement prévu le 14 Février 2010 à 17h00 au Victoria Hall de Genève, doit être reporté. Le pianiste de renommée internationale souffre d’une inflammation de l’index de la main droite et est contraint à un repos d’une semaine."

My personal translation: He does too many concerts, had not filled the hall (because of the cold ...) and decided to take a break. Those unhappy can find consolation in the Lang Lang store where scarfs and shoes at the pianist image can be purchased on line ... and this has nothing to do with music.

When was the first time you heard the music of Gustav Mahler ?

Hear here the answer to this question from leading conductors. Not to be missed. Listen to the end of Janssons's comments on the "Auferstehen" ...

In my case, I first heard the beginning of the Abschied on Das Lied von die Erde and stopped midway finding the music too morbid. I really entered later to Mahler's world via the cycle of the Knaben Wunderhorn, which I would describe even as today as one of the most direct and purest music that exists.I remember discovering in concert Mahler 6th for the first time with the European Youth Orchestra under Abbado where I jumped through the roof at the last hammer blow which I was not expecting.

Eine Salzburgische Maskerade ...

The entire intelligencia of Austria is under shock as the Salzburg Easter Festival director, Michael Dewitte, had been found guilty of stealing funds and other embezzlements charges. It seems that more than 2 M € were missing.

This seems to be also the case of Klaus Kretschmer, the Summer Festival Technical Director who attempted suicide in Salzburg. Reports also indicate that he betrayed Festival rules by working both for the Summer and Easter Organisation, which sounds funny given the relative small size of the theaters.

Reports indicate that Peter Alward, retired EMI executive, will replace Dewitte.

All of this is unfortunate and Austria may have some kind of habits of coming with such stories.

The Easter Festival is a place where I have some fond memories. It had, at least in my time, special seats for music students which enabled me to attend some unique and unforgettable moments during Karajan's time.

I am pretty sure that in the currencies of the time, more money had been going through the Festival than now. Think about it for a few seconds, Karajan may be described as an autocrat which he probably was but the music was outstanding and there was no such misbehaviour.

(PS: Thanks to my friend in Berlin to correct my many mistakes)