Saturday 30 August 2014

August 28th 2014

Very sad news: the wonderful Frans Brüggen – the conductor of the Orchestra of the 18th Century without whom I doubt I could have made my films on Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and Chopin – has died.  I would recommend anyone visit the orchestra of the 18th century website. Follows is a fine obituary from the UK’s Telegraph. See the original here.

Frans Brüggen,who has died aged 79, was a Dutch recorder player, conductor and musicologist who brought the recorder out of the classroom and into the concert hall as a serious musical instrument.
 
Later Brüggen explored more carefully how the instrument was used in the baroque era, while pushing for its acceptance as a modern instrument — including commissioning works from composers such as Louis Andriessen and Luciano Berio (notably Gesti, which tests the performer’s powers of control and interpretation). Indeed, Berio once described Brüggen as “a musician who is not an archaeologist but a great artist”.  Along the way Brüggen founded the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, spearheading the move away from the luscious accounts of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven that had become popular in the first half of the 20th century and towards a realisation of how the music would have sounded during the composers’ lifetimes.  He and his colleagues went further still, reimagining works by Mahler, Bruckner and even Debussy on instruments of the 18th century, offering a fascinating — if not widely accepted — interpretation of their possibilities. Such innovation helped him to avoid being labelled purely as an early music specialist; indeed, he was once dubbed a romantic of the historical performance movement.  Yet Brüggen was by no means a lone voice in the early music wilderness, and his extensive recording legacy includes accounts of Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi with other pioneers of authentic interpretation, such as Gustav Leonhardt, the harpsichordist, and Anner Bylsma, the cellist.
 
Tall, elegant and with big hands, Brüggen cut a striking figure. Whether surrounded by an orchestra or alone with only his recorder, he could hold an audience spellbound as he transported them towards the 18th century. His English was carefully spoken, and on stage he radiated charisma. Unusually for a wind player, he would sit, rather than stand, his long legs crossed and his recorder held, noted the author Joel Cohen, “at an odd and slightly defiant angle to his mouth”.  Thanks to the marketing machine of Telefunken, with which he made more than 50 discs, the Dutch media dubbed him the John Lennon of classical music.  That he went along with such promotion is indisputable; yet he never compromised the intellectual rigour of his approach. Asked in 1987 whether he preferred playing the recorder or conducting an orchestra, he replied: “The recorder for me gives body to a physical, corporeal love, and the orchestra makes corporeal a spiritual love. And love is composed of these two aspects. I am in love with both.”
 
 
 
 
Frans Brüggen was born in Amsterdam on October 30 1934, the youngest of nine children. He claimed that boredom during the war, when many Dutch schools were closed, led him and his brother Hans to start playing the recorder. As noted on Thwaites's blog, Brüggen said: “I immediately fell in love with that instrument and tootled my way through the rest of the war years.” He came to the attention of Kees Otten, the first Dutch professor of recorder, studying with him from the age of 14 and through his student years at the Amsterdam Conservatory. “Kees gave very good lessons,” he recalled, “but straight away I wanted to be better than him.”   By the age of 21 Brüggen, who also read Musicology at the University of Amsterdam, was a professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, by which time he was giving serious consideration to the role of historical instruments in the interpretation of older music.   He was first heard at the Wigmore Hall in 1957, when he appeared with the Telemann Trio, deftly switching between flute and treble recorder throughout the concert. Over the next few years he often appeared with Janny van Wering, a Dutch harpsichordist. But sometimes — such as in 1966 — Brüggen struck out alone. “This might have made for monotony,” noted one critic, “but for the two facts that he was a fine artist, able to transcend all the instrument’s legendary limitations, and that he enlivened his programme with two avant-garde works specially written for him.”  One of the characteristics of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, which he created with the musicologist Sieuwert Verster in 1981, was that it used word of mouth (no auditions) to recruit the finest period instrument players to work together for a few weeks at a time. Another was that the proceeds of their concerts were shared equally among all the performers, including the conductor. “I earn the same as the second clarinet,” Brüggen told The New York Times in 2008.   He brought the orchestra to the Proms in 1996, having made his first appearance at the Albert Hall in 1993 conducting Beethoven’s Choral Symphony with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with which he was joint principal guest conductor with Simon Rattle. A decade later he conducted the OAE in the South Bank’s “Haydn; The Creative Genius” series. He also maintained a long relationship with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and was visiting professor at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.

 
 
 

Tuesday 19 August 2014

16th April 2014

It’s been a while since I posted a blog – apologies.  I haven’t been holiday – there just haven’t been enough hours in the day!  I must say I admire those who manage to blog practically every day – where do they find the time?  So what news the good ship Seventh Art?  EXHIBITION ON SCREEN has been the biggest consumer of time, as you might imagine.  After our June screening (live in the UK only) of MATISSE LIVE FROM TATE MODERN we’ve been busy re-editing it and adding in footage from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This (wonderful) exhibition is heading to New York next month and we have been fortunate enough to gain access to the preparations (and a real insight into MoMA’s relationship with Matisse over the years).  This is the first time MoMA (surely one of the world’s top museums) has co-operated on a film like this so for the cinema so we feel very privileged.  For those who saw the film in June, you’ll want to see it again as we’ve added about 15 minutes of fascinating material – and for those who haven’t seen it yet then MATISSE FROM TATE MODERN AND MOMA will be coming out on November 4th in over 40 countries.    Meanwhile we’ve been busy working on 4 other films – yes, 4!   GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING AND OTHER TREASURES FROM THE MAURITSHUIS is almost done and looks spectacular.  If you’re interested in what is now perhaps the second most famous painting in the world, then this is the film for you.  Or if you’re just interested in a stunning ‘jewel box’ of an art gallery replete with masterpieces, then this is also the film for you.  Or if you just like art…..    REMBRANDT FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY AND RIJKSMUSEUM has also starting shooting and is looking great. He really is one of the greats.    As for the other two, well we’re deep into the research for VAN GOGH and also THE IMPRESSIONISTS.  What a season!  Keep an eye on exhibitiononscreen.com  (sign up to the newsletter here so we’ll let you know when the films are coming to a screen near you – and also like our Facebook page).  


 Why not let us know what you think?  And we’re always open to ideas for Seasons 3 & 4….we have some of the exhibitions sorted but not all….Is your local gallery doing a major show? Let me know.  

 
Now, that’s not all folks….to all my Australian friends: IN SEARCH OF CHOPIN opens on Thursday.  The Sydney Morning Herald has called it a ‘masterpiece’….  Now famously we’re told to treat positive and negative reviews with the same disdain. Rubbish: the good reviews are written by the intelligent, articulate and erudite journalists out there. We all know that!!    The Australian newspaper gives it a big thumbs up too (read here)  – so surely that’s enough to get you down to your local cinema.  One thing is for sure: there’s nothing on TV worth watching…..  Or just go for the wine & cake.  Right, must dash: currently working on a re-release of our Leonardo film and have to work on the script.  Best wishes to you all, Phil. 

PS: I leave you with very sad news from the world’s number one arts blogger  
 
 See the original from Real Clear Arts here

Judith H. Dobrzynski:

This is just plain bad: Last week, a painting titled Madonna with the Saints John the Evangelist and Gregory Thaumaturgus (1639) was stolen from a church in Modena, Italy. Not only was the church alarm system in active, but also the Baroque masterpiece wasn't insured.
It's a big painting -- 10 ft. by 6 ft. -- and reports say it was stolen in its frame, with speculation that the theft was "ordered" by a private collector because a work of this size and renown would be hard ever to resell openly. Unless, speculated the Telegraph in London, it was "cut up into pieces in an attempt to sell it on."
The Telegraph's article, pegged the value of the work at "up to £5 million," or nearly $8.4 million.
It was stolen in the middle of the night from the church of San Vincenzo in the northern town of Modena earlier this week. Curators admitted that lack of funds meant the alarms protecting the painting were not working.
"There was an alarm in the church, but it was inactive," said Monsignor Giacomo Morandi, of the archdiocese of Modena.
It had been paid for by a donation from a local bank but once those funds dried up it had been switched off, he told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
"It's very difficult to protect every single work of art," he added.
The work has hung in the Church of San Vincenzo ever since it was painted. According to The History Blog,
An allied bomb struck San Vincenzo on May 13th, 1944, destroying the presbytery and the choir and its late 17th century frescoes, but the Guercino survived. Let’s hope it can survive human greed.
The History Blog also provided these details:
San Vincenzo is not a parish church so it doesn’t stay open all week. The doors are opened every Sunday for mass and locked after the service is over. The thieves made their way inside, stole the painting and got out without leaving a trace. There is no sign of forced entry on the church door. The priest only realized something was wrong because the door was open.
Police believe at least three men were involved in the theft because the piece is so big and heavy, especially still inside the frame, that it one or two people wouldn’t be able to move it. They probably got in during mass on Sunday, August 10th, and hid until they could do their dirty deed under cover of night. They must have had transportation, most likely a van.
...The Carabinieri’s Tutela Patrimonio Culturale unit (a national police squad dedicated to investigating stolen art and antiquities) are in charge of the investigation. They’re looking through phone records and security camera footage from along the street. There are no cameras pointed at the church, but a van large enough to contain the painting should have been captured by other cameras. Looks as if we have seen the last of this work for some time. But maybe the police will get lucky.