Mozart's last three symphonies form a thematically linked mega-symphony or "instrumental oratorio," Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the conductor and musicologist, tells The Guardian's Tom Service:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2009/apr/29/nikolaus-harnoncourt-mozart-theory
Before playing the last selection in an April 26 recital at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, pianist Krystian Zimerman announced that this would be his last performance in the 
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/04/krystian-zimermans-shocking-walt-disney-concert-hall-debut.html
"In a quiet but angry voice that did not project well, he indicated that he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the whole world," Swed writes. " 'Get your hands off my country,' he said."
The Polish-born pianist, Swed notes, has had run-ins with U.S. border security, including an episode not long after the 9/11 attacks when federal agents confiscated and destroyed one of his pianos. (Apparently, ether, which he uses to clean and condition felts, alarms security checkers, Zimerman told me before a University of Richmond appearance in 2004.)
UPDATE 1: "Get your hands off my country" apparently was an oblique reference to U.S. plans to position a missile defense shield in Poland, Andrew Gumbel reports in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/28/krystian-zimerman-missile-defence-poland
UPDATE 2: "Performers have every right to remind us of the political and social systems that connect us all, and to confront audiences with the difficult musical meanings that are latent in any concert programme," Tom Service writes in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2009/apr/28/pianist-krystian-zimerman
April 24, Bon Air Presbyterian Church
The Richmond Festival of Music’s week-long survey of music of the 18th century neared its conclusion, curiously, not far from where it began – in rustic sound effects and evocations of the dance.
The front end of this was no particular surprise – Vivaldi concertos and Telemann suites are known for 
Cellist James Wilson, the festival’s artistic director, joined the Escher String Quartet in the Boccherini, and provided a point-by-point guide to the composer’s aural streetscape in program notes. The work, whose march finale became one of the greatest hits of the late 18th century, received an outsized, even boisterous, reading from the five fiddlers. Impersonations of tolling bells by a violin and of a guitar by two cellos were two among many vividly rendered effects.
Pianist Carsten Schmidt and the Escher opened the festival’s final program with a chamber version of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in F major, K. 413. The first movement was unruly and imbalanced; the performance gelled in a sensitive reading of the central larghetto and achieved some real sparkle in the finale.
The Escher – violinists Adam Barnett-Hart and Wu Jie, violist Pierre Lapointe and cellist Andrew Janss – played up to their billing as one of the country’s premiere young string ensembles in a concluding reading of Beethoven’s Quartet in A major, Op. 18, No. 5. The leader, Bennett-Hart, is an extroverted player who doesn’t skimp on big, vibrato-laden tone, and his colleagues generally follow suit, although Lapointe and, occasionally, Janss inject more fibrous playing into the mix.
The ensemble sounded enormous from 15 feet away, the vantage from which most of this audience heard it; clearly, these players aim to fill bigger halls with sound. In stylistic inclination, and in tone and projection, the Escher recalls the Guarneri Quartet in its prime.
In a Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia special event, cellist James Wilson will play two of Bach’s solo suites in a free concert at 7:30 p.m. April 28 at the Hermitage at Cedarfield, 2300 Cedarfield Parkway in Richmond. Details: (804) 519-2098; www.cmscva.org
ASCAP has put its Deems Taylor Awards for music writing on "hiatus," with no word on when or whether the annual awards will resume.
The Deems Taylor has been the highest honor that musicians bestow on the people who write about music. That's meaningful, professionally and personally, to the recipients. (I am one, vintage 2003.) I'll second the sentiments of Susan Elliott at Musical America, who writes: "It is an unfortunate turn of events for classical music coverage, an ever shrinking area that, now more than ever, deserves all the recognition it can get."
(Reader caution: Hard-core record collectors' stuff follows.)
The European Parliament has approved an extension of copyright protection for recordings from the current 50 to 70 years, The Guardian reports:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/24/eu-extends-copyright-70-years
This further nudges shut a door through whose cracks have come hundreds of reissues from the 78 era, transcriptions of concert recordings, airchecks from broadcasts and other sources that have enlivened, and at times enraged, classical performers and listeners. Sizeable portions of the discographies of certain artists, from Carlos Kleiber and Sergiu Celibidache to Walter Gieseking and Ginette Neveu, come from such sources.
Not all the finer points of intellectual property law have been observed in some of these releases. (Is that weasel-worded enough to keep lawyers off my back?) In pre-European Union times, some countries extended copyright protection for much shorter periods than the international norm, and recordings in their public domain circulated in countries where the material was still protected. There have been occasional legal proceedings, and a few semi-juicy scandals. Also, a lot of grousing among collectors regarding sound quality, reliability of source matter and properly pitched transfers.
All that could be coming to an end. A 70-year copyright would extend back to 1939, and cover the mature recordings of most every prominent artist heard in living memory. These won't disappear entirely; specialty firms will continue to offer discs and downloads, passing on to buyers any additional costs from licensing arrangements with the source labels.
As for the transcriptions and airchecks, who knows? A producer might have to jump through all kinds of hoops – dickering with state radio networks, estates of deceased artists and, for all we know, stagehands' unions – to obtain suit-proof clearance to circulate a recording. And the resulting cost to the consumer might far exceed the value of the document. (What would you pay to hear a famous artist or legendary cast in a recording that sounds like it's coming over a bad phone line?)
Anyway, heads up, collectors: Many of the flawed but still fascinating non-studio recordings of great orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists and singers of the past – especially those active since World War II – may soon disappear from circulation or cost a lot more. Get ’em while you can.
The April 30 and May 3 concerts of the Richmond Symphony's Kicked Back Classics series have been canceled. Ticket holders are advised to contact the symphony box office at (804) 788-1212.
These were to have been the final installments of the casual concert series. In the 1990s KBC played to capacity crowds in the Tredegar Iron Foundry. After being moved out of Tredegar, the series was staged at various venues – this season, it tried The National – but never found a space with the same levels of intimacy and interactivity.
Next season, the orchestra will replace KBC with Lollipops, a series for children and families at the Carpenter Theatre.
No, this isn't about going to the opera and forgetting to turn off your cell phone. It's a contest, run by the estimable mistress of the Canadian music blog The Omniscient Mussel. Summarize the plot of an opera on Twitter, using its mandated 140 characters or less.
Actually, this is the second round of the contest. The winning entry from the first round, by Olivia Giovetti: "Seamstress pals around with bohemians in a December-May affair. Receives muff as parting gift." (Puccini's "La Bohème")
Rules for the new contest:
http://theomniscientmussel.com/2009/04/operaplot-rules-and-faq/
