The Russian-born conductor of the Czech Philharmonic tells David Krauss in Speaking Soundly that he learned to manage pre-concert tension by playing volleyball from age 10 to 18 with Dynamo Leningrad.
‘My piano teacher was furious,’ he says. ‘Somehow I never injured my fingers.’
On his very first day in New York, he met two nieces of Rachmaninov, one of them Tchaikovsky’s god-daughter….
Listen here.
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Edvard Grieg: Songs, Moods and Lyric Pieces; Alexander Ullman; Rubicon Classics Reviewed by Tony Cooper (31 October 2025) The prize of Ullman’s album, though, is his transcription of Peer Gynt Suite, No.1, drawing out the colour […]
The Rudolf Kempe Society has announced the death of Cordula Kempe, widow of the conductor and Artistic Director of the Rudolf Kempe Society. Cordula was 81. She was a most cheerful advocate of her late […]
This is a tremendous coupling. We have been looking at quite a lot of Respighi of late (orchestral works from Wuppertal; orchestral transcriptions of Bach and Rachmaninnov from Liège; his operas Maria Egiziaca and La […]
