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On the road again. The shortest month of the year can seem the longest when travel is involved.
This makes seven of the statuettes for me. When you consider that some 1,500 recordings come out each year, it is truly an honor to get your name on the list. Yes, it is sad that these and so many other categories are relegated to the "pre-telecast". But there is a sales spike after, and now a fine orchestra and great composer have been moved up a notch in America's musical life. My parents won at the first ceremony 50 years ago. The feeling remains very special. The rest of the month was spent in Germany, starting in Berlin. Most of the major cities in that country have at least two orchestras and with reunification, more. I regularly work with what is called the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the orchestra of the German Radio. They have gone under several names during their existence, but the quality of playing has always been high. The concerts were in the Philharmonie, home of the Berlin Philharmonic. During this week, the annual Berlin Film Festival took place. No one mistook me for George Clooney. Next it was Hamburg, another city with a storied musical history. This was for a concert with the Opera Orchestra. Most companies utilize the players not only for the staged productions, but for the concert platform as well. It must be remembered that the Vienna Philharmonic is an off-shoot of the pit band at the Staatsoper. The novelty on the program was the 2nd Violin Concerto by Joseph Joachim, most famous as the dedicatee of the Brahms Concerto. The work was new to me and is a bit long, with not much original to say. But in Christian Tetzlaff, it had a fine proponent and he played with great panache and flair. To close out the month, it was on to Bamberg, a city pretty much untouched by the ravages of war. It is close to Bayreuth and Nurnberg, so there are some strong musical traditions. The orchestra has a fine concert hall and superb players. All you have to do is go out the back door of the hotel and there is the venue, sitting serenely on the river Regnitz. Having still not recovered from the missing bag, and looking at the travel plans, I decided to try to do most of the trip by train. Yes, schlepping the luggage to the platform is a drag, literally, but at least I can sit and keep an eye on my belongings. Hopefully, my paranoia will dissipate and I will not worry about this much longer. But there is no train from Milan to London and then back to DC. See you next month. Leonard Slatkin Mr. Slatkin is represented by |
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MARCH, 2008
