BACKTelegraph
Stolen Stradivarius sold for £1.4 million at Tarisio auction house
A Stradivarius violin once offered for sale by a thief for £100 has fetched almost 14,000 times that much at auction.
Each Christmas, we sing the same old favourites, but these represent a small fraction of the carols that have been written, many of which display an astonishing poetic imagination. Ivan Hewett suggests five forgotten ones that deserve to be sung.
NPR Music
New Owner Promises Handmade Steinways For Years To Come
For 160 years, the pianos made by Steinway & Sons have been considered the finest in the world. So when hedge fund billionaire John Paulson recently bought the company, it struck fear in the hearts of musicians: Would the famously handcrafted pianos be changed, for the sake of efficiency?
Guardian
Johnny Marr claims Spotify ‘hampers’ new bands’ potential
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr has joined Thom Yorke and David Byrne in suggesting that Spotify harms the modern music industry. “I can’t think of anything more opposite to punk rock than Spotify.”
Classical Music Magazine
The Rest Is Noise closes with final ticket sales of 124,644
The Southbank Centre’s year-long The Rest Is Noise festival, which concluded on 14 December, sold 124,644 tickets across its entire run.
BBC Music Magazine
Radio 3 to broadcast every opera by Richard Strauss in 2014
BBC Radio 3 is to broadcast every opera by Richard Strauss during 2014 to mark the German composer’s 150th anniversary. The celebrations launch on 4 January with a broadcast of the Royal Opera House’s production of Capriccio.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Siebzehn Küsse auf den linken Fuß, das hilft
In „Bloody Daughter“ zeichnet die Filmemacherin Stéphanie Argerich ein intimes Porträt ihrer berühmten Mutter, der Pianistin Martha Argerich. Das Ergebnis ist eine luzide Hommage an die weltentrückte Künstlerin.
Telegraph