PROVOCATIVE THOUGHTS:
The late Patric Standford may have written these short pieces deliberately to provoke our feedback. If so, his success is reflected in the rich range of readers' comments appearing at the foot of most of the pages.
SPONSORED: Ensemble. A Great Start - Freddie Meyers' new opera A Sketch of Slow Time impresses Alice McVeigh.
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VIDEO PODCAST: Slava Ukraini! - recorded on 24 February 2022, the day the world woke up to the news that Vladimir Putin's Russian forces had invaded Ukraine. A fifty minute video which also features Caitríona O'Leary and Eric Fraad discussing their new film Island of Saints, and pays tribute to Joseph Horovitz, Malcolm Troup and Maria Nockin.
German musicologist, teacher and viola player Franz Beyer was born in Weingarten on 26 February 1922. After training as a viola player he joined the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, which was conducted by Karl Münchinger.
He played in the legendary Max Strub String Quartet, and in early music ensembles such as the Collegium Aureum and Cappella Coloniensis. He joined the Melos Quartet when they needed an extra viola player for Mozart's string quintets.
He was professor of viola and chamber music at Munich's Hochschule für Musik und Theater (1962-95).
He edited the Henle Urtext edition of Max Reger's solo viola suites.
But he was best known for his restorations and revisions of the works of Mozart and other composers, including the unfinished Mozart Requiem K 626, producing in 1972, requested by Bruno Walter, a version in keeping with Mozart's style but respectful of Sussmayr's traditional completion.
Franz Beyer died in Munich on 29 June 2018, aged ninety-six.
Ensemble. A Wonderful Sound - Mozart's Requiem at Canterbury Cathedral, praised by Pippa Hare