I just read read the news about Alicia de Larrocha’s death. What a wonderful musician. She played at least twice with the San Jose Symphony when George Cleve was the conductor.
As I was on my little morning walk Dan called to say the Prius had a flat tire, so he took the other car to work. This is keeping me home, and causing me to spend the time on reeds that I truly need to spend. So it’s a good thing. Except I DO need to get to the symphony office before 5:00, so I hope he can get home, get the tire repaired, and have a car for me to use before too long. I have a ton of music to pick up for my Opera San José colleagues who are also in Symphony Silicon Valley. Doesn’t it figure that today would be the day this happens? Sigh.
Now back to reeds ….
But it does make me wonder if careerism isn’t trumping institutional loyalty among some principal musicians in some quarters of today’s symphonic world.
Star players seem to be jumping from orchestra to orchestra more casually, and more often, barely sticking around long enough to make a lasting imprint on their ensembles. And that’s a pity.
Yet another article about Mathieu Dufour, the Chicago Symphony Flutist who is playing for the LA Phil this year. (I wrote here and here about the situation.)
This one, though, seems to be questioning loyalty of star players these days. Thoughts? (And who are the other players who have recently jumped ship?)
The first piece, a selection from Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, struck me as your run-of-the-mill classical concerto, something you’d hear in a used book store. It was beautiful in a staid kind of way, but not exactly riveting.
Neighbour’s son practicing Oboe in garden: Cat a bit annoyed & birds all gone, …oh well… let’s suffer for the art of future generations
I heard an interesting tidbit a while ago. Someone I know had talked to a reviewer, requesting that writer review a concert. The reviewer said, per the newspaper’s policy, there can’t be a review if there was only one concert. Apparently it was only worth reviewing if readers might, after reading the review, attend a following performance.
Is this a policy that everyone has known about all along? Is this a policy every paper follows? Is that what reviews are really about?
