Temirkanov Opens MiTo Festival; Pappano Cancels, Matheuz To Step In

MiTo, the Milan-Turin music festival, opens tonight in asbestos-polluted Scala with a Yuri Temirkanov concert -- but Antonio Pappano, one of the star conductors of the festival had to pull out of two commitments due to a minor surgery that he couldn't postpone. Get well soon to our wonderful Maestro Tony, who'll be replaced by the impressively-mulleted, pomaded Diego Matheuz, rising star of El Sistema, like a Dudamel with even sillier hair.

The main event of ther festival won't be a concert -- the thing you don't want to miss is the reading by Alex Ross @ Palazzo Clerici (quite possibly Milan's most elegant palazzo) in the occasion of the Italian publication of The Rest Is Noise -- or, as the Italians say, "Il Resto E' Rumore". Pianist Alfonso Alberti will execute a selection of 20th century goodness.

Anyway, since we always hear Yuri Temirkanov's heavenly music but we never get to hear his voice, the video below -- Russian audio, Italian subtitles -- allows us the treat of hearing the kind voice of our Uncle Solly, that gentle giant of the podium (in the video he's sending a shoutout to Rimini's Sagra Musicale Malatestiana).

Comments

[Willym]

Why did I know he'd have a musical voice!!!! And he's opening conducting the Requiem to open this year's (truncated) Verdi Festival. Yah!!!!

[the young Werther]

"Il Resto E' Rumore" -- I love it!

[Linda Smith]

We loved Yuri when he was here in Baltimore for awhile but I guess he wasn't verbal enough for symphony management.

[Vera]

Haven't find any information about the concert at the festival linked page. Maestro have very nice voice indeed.

[Alice]

Thanks for the Alex Ross update. Italian is just delicious, whether noise is translated as "rumore" or whether one considers how much more fun it is to read something that is "formato penguino" rather than the Penguin Edition! The Rest Is Noise is obviously a labor of love and is a superb book. There is so much to remind us in that book that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Whether it is the conservative underpinnings of what looks to be radical ideology or the tension between popular and serious music or the tendency to think of maestros as matinee idols--Ross reminds us that Varese was something of one--it's a great book.