With overtones of Antisemitism: The Cancelling of Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic in Ghent

Lahav Shani, picture © Marco Borggreve

Last wednesday, September 10^th, the Munich Philharmonic published a statement, responding to the Flanders Festival Ghent having cancelled the orchestra’s concert on September 18th. The festival’s justification was the following: The chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, the Tel Aviv-born Lahav Shani, is also the music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Or, if one were to be polemical: Shani is guilty of being a Jew.

When I wrote an editorial for Die Presse (“Der Boykott von Lahav Shani in Belgien riecht nach Antisemitismus”), it had to be fast and the Festival was not yet ready to comment on their decision. (They have since, but haven’t made matters much better.) Not having space constraints on ionarts, I might be able to insert more nuance into this commentary.

Part of the initial claim of the Festival was, that they had acted in part based on pressure from activist groups and politics in Belgium and that the decision was made to avoid trouble. If this alone were true, it was a shocking miscalculation. Shocking not just for the insensitivity towards the look, when a festival in Central Europe decides to exclude an orchestra, because its chief conductor is associated with the Israel Philharmonic (which is subsidized by the state to the tune of some 12% of its budget), but also shocking for its cowardice and lack of foresight. Alas, it is clear that the “pressure”, though the possibility of protests wasn’t unreasonable to fear, was hardly the sole motivation.

We’ll get to that in a moment. Meanwhile, let’s imagine what might have happened. Protests of irate pro-Palestine youths (very unlikely to be potential visitors of the concerts, by any stretch of the imagination, even if the latter shared some of the concerns about the war in Gaza), holding up placards that would read, explicitly or implicitly: “Don’t let Jews Make Music”? An unsavory prospect, no doubt, but surely only made worse by preemptively doing the work for them. A half-way reason-bound management would have foreseen that – and not caved to trade one bad look for a worse one.

But they didn’t and – “after careful deliberation” (according to artistic director Jan Van den Bossche) – made their choice. Because, as the explanation defending their decision made clear, they weren’t just worried about protests from the anti-Israel crowd, they shared their beliefs. After going through the motions of pointing to Jewish performers – even (!) the Israel Philharmonic – having performed at the festival in the past, and calling Lahav Shani “a fantastic artist”, they justify their decision by declaring that they “do not know where he stands in this conflict.” He just might be for genocide, you know.

Then they proceed to lamely blame others: “The attitude of the policymakers is not always clear. But there was a call from the Flemish Minister of Culture and from the Ghent cultural sector, and as an organization we could not ignore that” and end with a statement that, in light of their decision, can be excused to seem cynical: “For us, music is a connecting force, not a political statement.” Surely, it was a political statement they made, by disinviting the Jew, and an act of exclusion that precisely undermines the ‘connecting force’ they are so keen on. No use, really, to decry, in a none-too-reassuring way, that the decision was “in no way motivated by antisemitism”.

Actually, we should let them have the benefit of the doubt on this one. It is, in fact, very hard to imagine that the Flanders Festival Ghent is run by hardened (or even junior) antisemites. Most certainly they don’t think of themselves as antisemites. They don’t have a problem with the Jew, per se. So let’s take a stab, as charitably as one can, at their syllogism that led them to this decision: Israel commits genocide and is, therefore, a rogue state. The Israel Philharmonic is a representative of the state of Israel – and therefore, Lahav Shani, is, too. Thus Shani is a representative of genocide and must be – if the Festival wishes to avoid being tarnished with such a dastardly crime – boycotted. He would be a blot on their morally superior escutcheon. “Genocide” as they put it “leaves no room for ambiguity”, after all. Apparently not for nuance or common sense, either. I would bet good money, that someone in Ghent, after the decision had been made, felt smugly noble, as if they had boycotted Furtwängler from appearing in 1939. A perverse parallel to draw, if examined any closer, but not surprising in today’s environment of divisiveness and misinformation.

The Munich Philharmonic is rightly “aghast, that a festival in Belgium, in the heart of the European Union, comes to such an unimaginable conclusion.” And yet, there’s enough hatred for Israel in Europe, that Israelis, too – even those that openly engage themselves for the ideals of peace and humanity – will bear guilt by association. This is outrageous, even if one were to let stand the (deeply, profoundly flawed) premise, which the administrators, including Festival’s Chairman Jan Briers, clearly hold to be true, of Israel committing “genocide”.

There’s a certain irony a disinvitation on moral grounds due to the association of their conductor with a state deemed to be engaged in immoral, criminal acts should hit the Munich Philharmonic, some clever commentators will invariably point out. After all, Shani’s predecessor was Valery Gergiev, who was fired from this job by the city of Munich, when Russia attacked Ukraine. At a superficial glance, that would seem problematic. Alas, even if one were to let the false analogy of “Israel/Gaza = Russia/Ukraine” stand (for it is a belief that no op-ed or facts can easily change), Shani is hardly to Netanyahu’s regime what Gergiev is to Putin’s. Anyone who thinks so would be well advised to recalibrate their moral compass.

This holds (in the case of Gergiev, an intimate of the powers that be in Russia), even if we consider that criticism of the respective regime is very much possible for an Israeli whereas it isn’t reasonably possible for a Russian who wishes still to enter (much less work in) his or her country. If one wanted to put the finger onto a certain level of western hypocrisy, one might do better pointing to the case of someone like Teodor Currentzis, whose exclusion from many Western presenters does reek of collective guilt and cowardice. And further speaking of hypocrisy: If “genocide left no room for ambiguity”, one wonders why Lang Lang, for example, gets to appear without any controversy.

In the current environment, however, it is easier to target Israel and Jews to showcase one’s moral indignation – and therein lies the rub, because it’s the backdoor, through which antisemitism can squeak back in to the discussion. Not everyone who calls for a boycott of Israel and its artists, be it in this case or the European Song Contest, is an antisemite. It is only fair to concede that in the majority of cases, a heady mix of ignorance and stupidity is sufficient to hold that attitude. (For which, by the way, compassion for the Palestinian victims, laudable in-and-of-itself, is hardly a sufficient excuse.) But it is equally reasonable to assume that such calls are not also motivated by antisemitism of various degrees, by some of those that do. In kowtowing to the street and its potential reactions, therefore, such a decision invariably also caves to antisemitism. At which point it doesn’t suffice – or matter much – that one might think oneself free from such sentiments: The smell is just as bad.

This is something that did evidently not occur to those in charge of the Flanders Festival. It did, however, to Bart de Wever, Prime Minister of Belgium. Following the kerfuffle of Lahav Shani’s cancellation, he went to a concert of the Munich Philharmonic on Tour in Essen and criticized the decision sharply, calling it “irresponsible” and “a shame” – a shanda, if you will. He did this, while concurrently criticizing the conduct of Israel in Gaza and supporting “targeted sanctions proposed by the EU”, which is arguably still wrongheaded but fair enough, as it displays the nuance in a heated environment that the Festival’s leadership is lacking. Perhaps there is room for learning, yet.

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#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 017 - Kurt Weill: From Brecht to Broadway

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 017, where Joe shares his enthusiasm about Kurt Weill, trying to cure my corresponding ignorance in the process.

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STC's Merry Wives of Harlem

Nick Rashad Burroughs (center), Felicia Curry, Jordan Barbour, Sekou Laidlow, and JaBen Early in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane

No one is likely to claim that Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is sacrosanct. Few would complain about updating the play's action to our era; in fact, freshening up this somewhat homely farce could be an improvement. Playwright Jocelyn Bioh has moved the action from the town of Windsor, outside London, to 116th Street in the midst of Harlem, with the Fords running a laundromat and the Pages a hair-braiding salon. Bioh, who grew up in Washington Heights as the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, jettisons much of the original text in favor of authentic evocation of various black dialects. Shakespeare Theatre Company has brought this version to Washington, seen Friday evening.

Leading a cast of mostly company debuts, Oneika Phillips and Felicia Curry play Madam Ekua Page and Madam Nkechi Ford, respectively, the former of Ghanaian origin and the latter of Nigerian descent. Like Shakespeare's wives, they rule the roost, but Bioh has soft-pedaled or eliminated most of the original sexist language. While the women proved consistently funny and entertaining, Nick Rashad Burroughs's over-the-top jealousy as Mister Nduka Ford, stole the show with his antic bluster. His alter-ego as Brook, costumed as a dreadlocked Rastafari with an outlandish Jamaican accent, was a highlight. JaBen Early’s more sedate Mister Kwame Page receded into the background as a result.

Last week, STC announced that the originally cast Falstaff, Lance Coadie Williams, had to withdraw from the production for personal reasons. Happily, Jacob Ming-Trent, who created the role in the New York premiere, recorded and broadcast on PBS's Great Performances, and is familiar from Watchmen and other television shows, stepped in. A sort of Fat Albert with a propensity for crooning like Barry White, his Falstaff seemed more absurd than abhorrent, which helped to lighten the often mean-spirited vengeance of Shakespeare’s play. Bioh reduced the fat knight’s trio of henchmen to just one, Pistol, played with confidence by Bru Aju, a strong contradiction to his dual role as the cowardly Slender.

The Welsh parody of Sir Hugh Evans becomes a Liberian pastor (the genial Sekou Laidlow), while the foppish Doctor Caius, given to self-important French affectations, is ingeniously transformed into an eccentric doctor of Senegalese origin. As strongly hinted at through the fey characterization of Jordan Barbour, he is only too happy to end up married to a man in the final scene in Windsor (Morningside?) Park.

Kelli Blackwell’s fast-talking Mama Quickly did her best to advance the causes of all three suitors for the hand of the Pages’ daughter, Anne (Peyton Rowe). Fenton, cross-dressed as a woman and played earnestly by Latoya Edwards, won this competition only by subterfuge but was welcomed into the family. Howard University-trained Rebecca Celeste earned the evening’s broadest laughs as the laundry worker who had to push the cart of foul clothes in which Falstaff escaped Ford’s jealous rage.

Anchoring the musical part of the ensemble was Shaka Zu, who led some call-and-response improvisations with the audience, aided by a conga drum. The Windsor Park fairy scene was memorably transformed into an African masquerade, complete with colorful masks and raffia skirts (choreography by Ashleigh King). The sets, designed cleverly by Lawrence E. Moten III, evoked a row of Harlem shopfronts, with colorful African-inspired costumes designed by Ivania Stack to divert the eyes even more.

The Merry Wives of Windsor runs through October 5. shakespearetheatre.org

Notes from the 2025 Salzburg Festival ( 1 ) A Recital with Igor Levit filling in for Evgeny Kissin

Salzburg Festival • Recitals | D-S-C-H • ex-Kissin | Igor Levit

Whispered Brahms, Affectatious Shostakovich

Substituting for Evgeny Kissin is no picnic – even for Igor Levit. But at least he tried.

The solo recital with Evgeny Kissin, part of Salzburg’s “DSCH” series of concerts, had to go ahead without its planned soloist who had fallen ill on short notice. He was going to play the same program he gave in late March at the Musikverein. Shostakovich, who died exactly fifty years ago that week, at least, remained the focus of the second half, thanks to Igor Levit, who stepped in for his colleague and left that part similar enough. In fact, on paper, the Second Sonata was still the same piece. Musically, everything was fundamentally different, though – including said sonata.

D.Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues op.87 Igor Levit Sony (2021) US | UK | DE

D.Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues op.87 Keith Jarrett ECM (1992) US | UK | DE

The surge, seriousness, and underlying humor that Kissin had drawn out were blown away. In their place came playfulness, a murmur, a small-small in stubborn mezzopiano – here and there interrupted by an occasional furious, note-snatching dash across the keyboard. Musical incidents that each stood like a monolith amid the whispering. Energy, when it was present at all, was derived from speed, not mass. This worked quite nicely for the Preludes and Fugues from Opus 87, as did Levit’s inclination to dissolve the notes into architectural elements. Quirky, in the best sense; a little as if Gyro Gearloose had taken up the piano.

The Largo of the Sonata no longer stood, as with Kissin, in spiritual proximity to Debussy; it was pushed toward twelve-tone music and Schoenberg. “Pointillist,” one might say. Or “frayed.” The ostentatious renunciation of loudness – especially effective in the broad expanse of the Grosses Festspielhaus – was not without appeal. Levit’s delicate, soiree-appropriate soft, and even touch was consistently admirable – especially in the Brahms Intermezzi Op. 117 and Four Ballades Op. 10 of the first half. Brahms benefits from this, to a point – though the approach shifts the burden of generating tension from the performer to the audience: either it sits in raptness (which, in the restless first half, could hardly be claimed) or one faces a certain risk of the audience nodding off.

The question also arose whether there might be such a thing as “over-interpretation,” so much did Levit demand of every phrase in these simply beautiful Intermezzi; so introspective every attack had to become; so brooding every pause: every tiniest note a carefully curated miniature. The Ballades, too, received this detail-minded, intelligent treatment. Like pulled pork, it seemed: so tender it fell apart if you as much as looked at it – a tightrope walk between touching and tiresome. The contrast of the thunderous leap into the B minor Ballade, as rough-hewn as Michelangeli liked to play it, came out all the sharper in this setting. Sweetening the close was another Brahms Intermezzo as encore – holding back the already-breaking-out just once more, and making the already-jubilation-primed remainder of the audience cheer all the harder.


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Notes from the 2025 Bayreuth Festival: A New Meistersinger Production for Bayreuth

Also published in Die Presse: Bayreuth: Als hätte Monty Python bei den „Meistersingern“ Pate gestanden

A Laughing Matter: Matthias Davids and the Natural Humor in Richard Wagner

Bayreuth's new production of Die Meistersinger trusts the libretto and the music, to stage the work as the 'simple' comedy it is. That works, more or less.

Straight into the chatter and hum – as a good third of the audience was still trying to locate their seats in the Festspielhaus – the Meistersinger Prelude growled up from the pit. Accordingly, those already seated busied themselves with hissing “Silentium!”, which, of course, only made the racket worse. But that was somehow befitting this opera, in which art and populace mingle so merrily. Eventually, Daniele Gatti and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra prevailed, and the overture flowed, very horizontally, as if without bar lines, almost “La Mer”-like. Thus the 149th Bayreuth Festival – following its open-air concert and the children’s Tannhäuser – was officially underway.

A steep stairway rising into the stage-heavens, crowned by the Katharinenkirche, greeted the attendees of Matthias Davids’ new staging. Love letters are delivered via airmail: Walther von Stolzing (Michael Spyres) stands amid a gaggle of paper airplanes, arranged to form a heart, and catching the latest missive from Eva (Christina Nilsson). Alas, the staircase is not conducive to the coordination of their reputedly aborted exchanges, as Magdalene (Christa Mayer) is sent to fetch the accidentally-forgotten kerchief, clasp, and prayer-book, because she could never get back and forth in time. The visual gag of lowering her book in a basket on a string doesn’t quite replace the comedic back-and-forth in that tryst that never quite gets off the ground because Walther simply won’t get to the point. A minor point, granted, but to some degree indicative of the production, which sometimes misses out on the natural humor in the libretto by replacing it with jokes, slightly more heavy-handed, of its own.

Prügelszene, Act II

The revolving stage turns to reveal the Meistersingers’ rehearsal room. Andrew Edwards’ set and Susanne Hubrich’s costumes could be 1800 or 1980 – timeless, pragmatic, supplying atmosphere as needed, and ranging from postcard medievalism to a relatable here-and-now of emotions. Eva wears her festival-dirndl as naturally as she does jeans and a summer blazer. The Mastersingers, meanwhile, sport droll – almost silly – hats straight out of a Mainz carnival club. It’s not the evening’s only tightrope walk between wit and slapstick, and depending on one’s sense of humor, it is where any given viewer places that line that will decide whether the night was great or merely solid.

The production – and especially the first act – brims with small gestures: buffet humor, smoking-in-the-toilet humor, seating humor: the flip-up-seats in the rehearsal room are the same as in the Festspielhaus, and they pinch one of the Guild’s members’ back, even with cushions. At times it feels like Monty Python had a hand in the staging. But of course, they are up to distracting shenanigans and side-activities, because the Meistersinger-lot is bored during Pogner’s pompous speech. Rightly so, I’m afraid to say, because Jongmin Park lets the role down. He has a big, deep voice, but produced a hollow, expressionless barreling bellow, paired with stiff acting that would have been better suited to a 1960s Sarastro.

The whole lot of Mastersingers: Sachs: Zeppenfeld, Pogner: Jongmin Park, Vogelgesang: Martin Koch, Nachtigal: Marek Reichert, Beckmesser: Nagy, Kothner: Shanahan, Zorn: Daniel Jenz, Eisslinger: Matthew Newlin, Moser: Gideon Poppe, Ortel: Alexander Grassauer, Schwarz: Tijl Faveyts, Foltz: Patrick Zielke

Wagner, if it needs reminding (and pace Markus Thiel), certainly had humor – just not exactly slapstick humor. His was a deeper-seated, slyly mocking Saxon type. It’s everywhere in this piece, not just in the obvious situational comedy of Beckmesser. Speaking of which: Michael Nagy sang him with a delightfully purring voice and agile but didn’t always seem to take the character quite seriously – a pity, because it defangs Beckmesser unnecessarily and undermines the dramatic tension. His goofiness baited laughs, which is fine, but often papered over subtler moments, too. That Nagy can do otherwise became clear during his moment of reflection and the accompanying flicker of seriousness after the failed song trial.

While act II – with an oversized half-timbered dollhouse garnished with a phone booth turned into a Little Free Library – extends the first act’s world, the opening of Act III breaks from the squarely romanticized half-timbered idyll. Instead, we see Sachs’ realistically outfitted workshop, a chic oval set, smack in the middle of the stage. Sachs is shown gluing back together the stool David used to wallop Beckmesser in the riot scene, a business that gives him plenty of time to ignore David. Again, Matthias Davids offers solid, craftsman-like ideas here. In strict adherence to Chekhov’s law of not putting a freshly glued chair on the floor if no one will try to sit on it later, Beckmesser will, of course, be victimized a second time by that rude piece of furniture.

Spyres, Zeppenfeld, Nilsson, Mayer, Stier, Act III

Singers: Thanks to the bright, spontaneous voice of Christina Nilsson’s, a touch steely at the peaks and garnished with a pronounced ‘accent-vibrato’, her Eva was consequently easy to hear and occasionally even possible to understand. The first comment about Georg Zeppenfeld is always: “like a rock.” And like your above-average rock, he’s dependable, solid, sympathetic – and, dare one say it, just a tiny bit boring. Pale-ish, but on a very high level. Christa Mayer’s Magdalene had good diction but little warmth of timbre; by contrast, Matthias Stier’s rosy-cheeked David was a sonorous, entertaining delight from start to finish.

The “baritenor” label for Spyres is more marketing flourish than unique selling point, but his first Walther impressed: lyrical, with a creamy fullness, occasionally caramel-tinged but never overdriven, all evening long. Had it not been for the Meistersinger production earlier that month, at the MüPa Wagner Days (English review forthcoming, German review here), which featured Magnus Vigilius’ Walther, that would have been considered top of the line. But the latter (who also turned in the most moving Siegmund I have ever heard, at the previous “Budapesti Wagner Napok” (Bayreuth an der Donau: Die Wagner-Tage in Budapest sind ein Geheimtipp), had that added bit of youthful enthusiasm and irresistibly charming Sturm-und-Drang air about him, that made the character even more relatable and the story all the more touching.

Michael Nagy as Beckmesser, Act III

Gatti conducted fluidly and with finesse – not something one might have expected from rehearsals, apparently – coaxing an exceptionally beautiful, wafting “Fliederduften” from the orchestra. He did grow ever louder in Act II, which pushed his Sachs to the brink of audibility, which might have been avoided: In this conversational piece, after all, you’ll want to understand as much of the text as is humanly possible. The near-unanimous, enthusiastic cheering already between the acts suggested that Davids’ idea (the director’s, not the character’s) – to simply let Meistersinger be the Meistersinger, after two cerebral, over-interpreted Bayreuth stagings, Katharina Wagner’s and Berry Kosky’s – made sense. Do not be mislead by the most-publicized picture of the production, which shows a neon-colored blow-up cow arching over the Festwiese, which has the halmark look of what some (misguided, but that's for another day) people might call a "Eurotrash" or "Regietheater" production. It was the very opposite. Some Bayreuthians may have even felt a warm Wolfgang-Wagner glow, during this appeasing, traditional production. (Incidentally, Michael Schulz’ seasoned Budapest production works along the same lines and does it even more successfully.)

The applause was strikingly friendly, but also surprisingly brief. Fair enough, because the production surely wasn’t bad, it simply could – and will – be better, still!

Michael Spyres, Act III

All pictures courtesy Bayreuther Festspiele, © Enrico Nawrath

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Notes from the 2025 Bayreuth Festival: Camping Masterclass and Macbeth at the Foot of the Green Hill

Also published in Die Presse: Partystimmung bei „Macbeth“

Wagner-Light – and not even that much Wagner

The free-to-all Open-Air Festival Opener is a welcome opportunity to combine Green Hill Flair and camping gear.

The 149th Bayreuth Festival has opened, but eyes are already fixed on next year: 150 years of Bayreuth – though, strictly speaking, only the 113th actual Festival season (39 pre-, 74 post-1951). The grand plan? All ten canonical Bayreuth operas plus, for the first time on the Green Hill, Rienzi. Reality and the treasurer had other ideas. So now the plan is a bit more modest if still unique, thanks to Rienzi.

Is that a good thing? Bayreuth doesn’t have to offer “unique” – it is unique. Tradition, simply by being tradition, has value. In fact, that’s Bayreuth’s main draw. Yes, tradition is constantly subverted here (which is itself part of the tradition)– but the frame of tradition ought to be handled carefully. If the festival were to start putting Meyerbeer on the Bayreuth stage (as people sometimes – unwisely, inexplicably – suggest they do), it’d be the first step toward the festival losing the plot and surrendering to the arbitrary. Opening the Festspielhaus to Rienzi, meanwhile, does no harm nor need it be the ledge of a slippery slope. Incidentally, the staging is meant to be a one-off, performed nine times, before being passed on to other opera houses.

That the team of Magdolna Parditka and Alexandra Szemeredy orients its production more along the lines of Wieland Wagner’s 1957 Stuttgart Rienzi and the 1939 Karlsruhe version of the score, rather than attempting some Frankensteinian “complete” version, is heartening. That the other production will be a so-called “AI Ring”, visually drawing on all previous Ring-productions and fed by cues from the ‘staging’ (as opposed to “directorial”) team, can faze no true Wagnerian, especially with Thielemann conducting. Granted, it sounds like it will be more likely “interesting” than “good” but worst case: close your eyes and perk the ears. A lesson learned from Jay Scheib’s Augmented Reality Parsifal.

Back to the present: the third Festival Open Air served as a warm-up act. The Festival Orchestra, “almost voluntarily,” took to the stage for this open-access concert at the foot of the Green Hill – right between the stage and the VIP zone/champagne tent. A few trees are in the way (nothing a generously ambitious axe couldn’t solve in the coming years), but people adapt. The crowd? Plenty of youth, musicians’ families, locals, and some early-arriving festival-goers. Cherry tomatoes, cubes of cheese, bottles of Kulmbacher beer, and glasses of Aperol were the currency of the evening. Territorial skirmishes – already two hours before the concert – were managed politely, amid a display of Germany’s native talents for camping, picnicking, and spontaneous order.

Atmosphere was everything – as it should be. The acoustics? Well, like at similar open-air festival in Schönbrunn, Munich’s Odeonsplatz, Berlin’s Waldbühne: decent under the circumstances, but only loosely related to actual concert music. To pretend otherwise would be silly, just as it would be pointless to measure such an event by the standards of a concert-hall performance. Pablo Heras-Casado, this year’s conductor of the Parsifal , kept the mood lively. Gershwin’s Girl Crazy overture brought out a “SummerStage-in-Central-Park” vibe. Beethoven’s Fifth (the first movement) thundered along with delightful furiosity. That the strings struggled a little with the evening’s humidity could be overlooked – the important thing was the oomph.

Three excerpts from Verdi’s Macbeth fit the Meistersingerian festival motto (“Wahn, überall Wahn”) – though the work isn’t exactly most people’s idea of open-air party-time. For that, Johann Strauss’ Thunder and Lightning Polka (“ Unter Donner und Blitz was far better suited: an encore gratefully seized upon by an audience whose joints, after four hours of sitting on the ground, were celebrating their own 150th anniversary. “Next year, better bring a chair,” advised a nearby, seated lady from her enviably comfy-looking camping gear – in a tone part helpful, part pitying. You live and you learn.
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#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 016 - With Werner Erhardt: The Man Who Discovered Salieri

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 016, where we are talking with our special guest, the fonder and long-time leader of Concerto Kön and L'Arte del Mondo. His discography is amazingly long, both as a conductor and as the ensemble leader of Concerto Kön, on all kinds of labels, well beyond Capriccio. (Teldec, DHM, Harmonia Mundi, DG, Berlin Classics, Erato, Sony...) I hope we will publish a second cut from this conversation, which easily lasted two hours, where we talk about some of my favorite recordings of all time that he had been part of.

Werner Erhardt on Record

Concerto Köln Capriccio Collection (10 CDs) Werner Erhardt Capriccio, 2019 US | UK | DE

Concerto Köln Berlin Classics Collection (12 CDs) Werner Erhardt Berlin Classics, 2019 US | UK | DE

Concerto Köln Teldec/Warner Collection (6 CDs) Warner (2008) US | UK | DE

Concerto Köln Saraband Dream of the Orient Archiv (2000) US | UK | DE

#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 015 - Dmitri Shostakovich - The Symphonies

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 015, where we return to Dmitri Shostakoivch, but now the symphonies, not the film music. We focus on a few favorites and Joe plays plenty of music to lighten the mood. :-)

The Kitajenko-Shostakovich

DSCH The Symphonies Gürzenich-Orchester Köln D.Kitajenko Capriccio, SACDs 2005

DSCH The Symphonies Gurzenich Orchestra Cologne D.Kitayenko Capriccio, CDs 2025