He wrote it all by himself
Maurice Ravel’s work Boléro is still under copyright in the USA, even while it entered the public domain in France a few years ago. But, the work has been in court recently. The estate of Alexandre Benois, the stage manager who worked on the original ballet, made a claim to the piece on his behalf.
This was interesting to me at first - implying that since a ballet is one large and complete work with many creative contributions, a composer does not have the sole ownership of the music. It is instead part of a creative whole. The implication being that while everyone who contributed would share in the royalties, the composer also shares ownership of something less lucrative in perpetuity, such as the costumes. It would have been an interesting concept to see parsed out by a court.
But, the Benois heirs were actually claiming that he had participated in composing the music. Far less of a puzzle.
They also claimed the piece had garnered “millions and millions” in previous years, though the royalties were only in the low 6-figures recently. Read the whole story in Le Monde.
It’s no surprise that the piece has popped back up - there is an Olympics coming! Though Boléro is more of a mainstay in winter sport. Specifically on ice.
I had an essay about it on The World last time the games took place.
Who’s not a crook?
This week I spent a few minutes with Hans Zimmer’s music, in the soundtrack to Frost/Nixon. Just for… oh, you know…. no particular reason.
Carmen at the ATM
Conductor Rebecca Bryant has been recounting her time at the Eastman School of Music, and more broadly the apparently still-difficult act of being a woman in an orchestral conducting program in 2024, on her own substack.
The descriptions of her “academic” interactions recently received a cease and desist from Eastman, which is disturbing. It’s school. There is no scholarly experience in music (or any other field) that should need to be hidden from the public.
Bryant’s latest is an account of a day spent finding an ATM in Hanoi. The way she relates it to the opening scene of Bizet’s opera Carmen is downright poetic.
Anna di Resburgo takes the stage
Teatro Nuovo in Montclair, NJ is set to stage a nearly-lost opera by Carolina Uccelli. It’s yet another story of a woman in the 19th century who had the praise of her peers, but somehow didn’t have a chance to get her career fully up to its potential.
Will Crutchfield has a history of reviving lost works, and he details the process behind getting Uccelli’s opera performance-ready in the New York Times.
Prom Night
Conductor Elim Chan should now be allowed to live down that one mortifying audience reaction that she has to parse through in this profile in The Guardian. There’s nothing else to say about it. It’s worth it to get to the end of the article where she briefly talks about how much she gets from her time in the boxing ring.
Chan will help open the BBC Proms.
And by the way, Telegraph confirmed that Rule, Britannia is still on the program.
The Jamie Raskin Oratorio
That’s not a collection of words I ever thought would go together. But the ensemble Musica Viva is about to perform the premiere of just that: an oratorio based on the memoir of Rep. Raskin.
I Left My Sign in San Francisco
To catch you up on what is happening at the San Francisco Symphony:
It’s been a dramatic few months, to say the least. The orchestra’s board of governors has enacted austerity measures. Budget cuts, programming cuts, etc. Music Director Esa Pekka Salonen has announced his departure, directly citing the two different visions as a reason for leaving. But his contract runs through 2025, so he’s still got a few concerts to go.
It’s tense over there. Musicians, patrons, the conductor, and the board are all seemingly at odds with each other.
The latest development is that a regular in the audience has been threatened with a ban for holding a sign at a performance. Retired local music critic Joshua Kosman grabbed a photo, assuming that it translated to “please stay.” It did not.
Holiday Overture
Having the 4th fall on a Thursday was surely a gift for many of us. If you’re still celebrating the holiday, by all means enjoy. Either way, here’s some celebratory music by Elliott Carter. It’s actually about the liberation of France during WWII, so it’s a fine way to celebrate freedom from fascism.
-Colleen