This Week in Classical Music-February 22, 2009

February 22, 2009

Placido Domingo

( Phoenix )
•Domingo wins Nilsson prize
•Zeisl re-discovered

This week in Classical Music 2/22/09

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

Spanish tenor Placido Domingo has won the first-ever awarded Birgitt Nilsson prize for “unrivaled Contributions to the world of Opera”. In the citation, the prize calls Domingo “One of the greatest opera singers of all time”. The prize comes with a million dollar cash award, the largest in Classical music. Swedish opera singer Birgit Nilsson, who performed with Domingo on several productions, gave instructions to establish the prize in her name before her death in 2005. She personally chose Domingo as the first recipient of the prize. An award ceremony is planned for Stockholm next year.

He was just one of the many musician/composer émigrés from Europe just before world war two, who settled in southern California and got jobs composing music for Hollywood. Now, his music is getting the attention many say it deserves. His name was Eric Zeisl; he came to this country from Vienna in 1938. He wrote the music for “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and other films; it’s the 50th anniversary of his death this year. At a gathering and concert last week in Pacific Palisades, some of his other music got a hearing. On hand was his daughter, Barbara Zeisl Schoenberg, who married the son of one of the more famous of those émigrés, Arnold Schoenberg. There are some recordings of Zeisl’s music out: His Piano Concerto has been recorded by the Vienna Radio Symphony with Johannes Wildner, and a recording of some of his lieder on the CPO label; A Harmonia Mundi release contains some of his chamber music.

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time for another update; and join me every weekday for The Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel, for this week in classical music on 89-five KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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