In Brief: Gradgitation Edition

Here is your regular (overflowing) Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• Embedded here, a rare staging of Vivaldi's Farnace from the Opéra de Strasbourg, with a cast including Max Emanuel Cencic (Farnace) and Vivica Genaux (Gilade), with Concerto Köln in the pit and choreography by Lucinda Childs. [ARTE Live Web]


• A rare performance of Schumann's dramatic oratorio Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, by the Chœur de la Radio Flamande, the Chœur de Chambre Octopus, and the Brussels Philharmonic, under the baton of Michel Tabachnik. [France Musique]


• From the Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele 2012, watch Cecilia Bartoli, Andreas Scholl, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Philippe Jaroussky in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, with Il Giardino Armonico in the pit. [ARTE Live Web]


• Gustavo Dudamel leads the Berlin Philharmonic at the Salle Pleyel, in Beethoven's fifth symphony and Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra. [France Musique]


• Starting this fall, Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be music director of three major orchestras -- Montréal, Philadelphia, and Rotterdam -- and he leads the latter ensemble today at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Christian Merlin caught up with the busy conductor for an interview. Since YNS described the relationship between a music director and orchestra like that of a "couple," how is he going to manage having a second and third family? "In Philadelphia, I found an orchestra that had always been among the best in the world but that had fallen into difficult times, with a change of performing venue, directors that did not stay long, an audience that was disappearing." He admits that it makes scheduling a nightmare and that he will have to take fewer guest conductor engagements, although he regrets the opportunity to learn from those. "When I direct the Vienna Philharmonic in Brahms, I learn a lot. The symphony orchestra is one of the last places in the Western world where there is still an oral tradition: you have to respect that and bring it to life." [Le Figaro]


• Recorded in Berlin in 1966, a performance of Gustav Albert Lortzing's Undine with a cast including Anneliese Rothenberger (Undine), Nicolai Gedda (Hugo), Hermann Prey (Kühleborn), Sieglinde Wagner (Marthe), and Peter Schreier (Veit), with the RIAS Kammercho and the Radio Symphonieorchester Berlin. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• You may be able to watch the anniversary performance of Britten's War Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at Coventry Cathedral (video not working at time of writing). Andris Nelsons conducts, with soloists Erin Wall, Mark Padmore, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann. [ARTE Live Web]


• Frédéric Mitterrand led the establishment of the Festival de l'histoire de l'art last year in Fontainebleau, and organizers were expecting 17,000 people to attend the second edition this weekend. According to an article by Eric Bietry-Rivierre, the discipline of art history is poorly taught in French secondary schools, and the organizers have sponsored a plan to increase the teaching of the subject over three years of required study at the end of high school. It is one of the subjects that I teach, culminating in A.P. Art History, and my feeling is that the curriculum I teach is fairly rare in American high schools, too. Students in France should be able to write about David's Serment du Jeu de Paume, Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple, paintings with mythological or religious subjects, and Manet's Olympia, not to mention artwork from other continents. Yes -- yes, they should. [Le Figaro]


• You can hear violinist Isabelle Faust with Camerata Salzburg in an all-Mendelssohn program, from the George Enescu Festival in Bucarest last fall. [France Musique]


• Daniel Barenboim leads the Vienna Philharmonic and violinist Michael Barenboim at this year's Wiener Festwochen, in the Schoenberg violin concerto, plus some Debussy. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Ionarts favorite Alexandre Tharaud plays Falla's Noches en los Jardines de España with the Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, along with music by Debussy and Turina. [France Musique]


• Listen to organist Simone Vebber and trumpeter Markus Eder playing a concert of music by Martini, Bach, Torelli, and others at Vienna's Augustinerkirche. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Jean-Guihen Queyras and friends join the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, at the Cité de la Musique, for music by Schumann and Hans-Peter Kyburz, including the French premiere of Touché, from 2006. [France Musique]


• From the Wiener Staatsoper on May 26, a performance of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, with a cast headed by Edita Gruberova as Elisabetta. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Have a listen to Messiaen's Les Offrandes oubliées and Unsuk Chin's Šu, a concerto for Chinese sheng and orchestra, from 2009, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under the baton of Myung-Whun Chung, at the Théâtre du Châtelet. [France Musique]


• Hear the Altenberg Trio and friends perform chamber music by Brahms and Schubert (the "Trout" Quintet), recorded in April. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Watch Pablo González conduct the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, with Donald Litaker and Christian Gerhaher. [Medici.tv]


• At the Théâtre du Châtelet, Jean-François Zygel leads one of his Les Clefs de l’orchestre concerts, on the Brahms symphonies, with commentary from the keyboard and orchestral excerpts by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. [France Musique]


• Watch Colin Davis lead a performance of Mozart's Requiem Mass, with the Choeur de Radio France, the Orchestre National de France, and soloists Elin Rombo, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Werner Güra, and John Relyea. [ARTE Live Web]


• A tribute to early music pioneer and soprano Judith Nelson, who died this week. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• From the Proms last September, a rebroadcast of the concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with violinist Janine Jansen (the Tchaikovsky violin concerto) and led by Charles Dutoit. [France Musique]


• From the Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele 2012, John Eliot Gardiner leads the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Schumann's overture to Julius Cäsar and Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre with mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Speaking of uncommon music you will want to hear, the same forces also perform the cantata Rinaldo, with tenor Piotr Beczala and male chorus. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• A recital by baritone Marc Mauillon and pianist Anne Le Bozec, recorded last month in the Auditorium du Musée d'Orsay, with songs by Debussy, Chausson, Schoenberg, Pfitzner, and Strauss. [France Musique]


• From the Internationale Barocktage Stift Melk 2012, Le Musiche Nove perform cantatas by Handel and Le Petite Concert Baroque perform music by Bach and Handel. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]