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Christopher
Raeburn and Bernard Keeffe in
conversation April 9
at Rudolf
Steiner Theatre The second half of the 20th
century saw perhaps the greatest upheaval that the world of music has ever
experienced. In 1950 to hear one of the
few operas available you needed a gramophone and perhaps 20 fragile records;
today the complete production can be seen and heard through one small disk. The
technician has the means and the skill to manufacture vocal quality; the editor
can create a performance out of dozens, even hundreds of short takes. The catalogues are crammed with music - name
a composer and be sure someone has recorded the complete works; you can choose
from over a hundred recordings of a Beethoven symphony. Yet classical music is in crisis. Out of a
class of thirty teenagers, not one could even name a classical composer.
Concert and opera programmes often look little different from those of
1900. A few favourite operas are staged
in ever more eccentric, even bizarre productions. What has gone wrong? Christopher Raeburn was
the master hand behind some of the most celebrated recordings of the period,
many of them made in Bernard Keeffe,
singer, conductor, BBC Third Programme producer, opera administrator,
television pundit and teacher who pioneered the Workshop series on BBC2. He worked with many of the leading figures of
this tempestuous period, from Fritz Busch at Glyndebourne to Stravinsky and Britten, Beecham and Solti - and
as a teacher guided a new generation of performers. This wide-ranging conversation
will be illustrated with examples of the remarkable people and the mysterious
processes that produce a master performance. Tickets £8 (cheques payable to AAMS, please enclose sae) from AAMS, Rudolf Steiner House is at |