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Dennis Prager conducted the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra last Wednesday night, and what had threatened to become another dispiriting episode in the culture wars turned instead into an evening of passionate advocacy for high culture and classical music. Santa Monica is one of the most liberal cities in California, so it was not wholly surprising that when the orchestras conductor invited Prager, a conservative talk radio host, to conduct a Haydn symphony for an orchestral fundraiser, a rebellion broke out among some musicians and the citys political class. Two violinists in the ensemble, both UCLA professors, penned a letter suggesting that their fellow musicians boycott the upcoming performance. A concert with Dennis Prager would normalize hatred and bigotry, wrote Professors Andrew Apter and Michael Chwe in their March 27, 2017, letter. A webpage asked readers to urge their friends not to attend the concert, since attending would help normalize bigotry in our community. Local politicians weighed in. Councilman Kevin McKeown warned that the orchestras decision to invite Prager may affect future community support for the Symphony. Mayor Ted Winterer sniffed that he had certainly . . . not encouraged anyone to attend.

Fortunately for the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra, the boycott attempt, despite sympathetic coverage in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, was a dud. And the concert was a rousing success that ideally won new converts to classical music and to the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra itself.

On Wednesday evening, no protesters showed up outside or inside Disney Hall, Frank Gehrys famed curvilinear eruption of steel designed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The orchestras affable full-time conductor Guido Lamell polled the house, virtually full, before the music began. How many audience members were Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra attendees? he asked. A good number of people clapped in affirmation, leading Lamell to offer his sympathies for their having made the cross-country trip from Los Angeless Westside to downtown. How many were attending their first classical concert? Another burst of applause. Then came the key demographic question: Are there any fans of Dennis Prager here? The response was thunderous. OK, I get the message, Lamell laughed. I wont keep you away from him for too long.

Lamell opened the program with a lively reading of Mozarts Le Nozze di Figaro overture, which he rightly introduced as one of the greatest opera overtures of all time (actually, its only competitor for first place is the Don Giovanni overture). Then he turned over the podium to Prager. Two string players joined the welcome, clapping with their free hand on their knee. Prager told the audience about attending his first classical music concert, which brought him to tears and led to a lifelong love affair with Haydn. The Classical period, he said, represents controlled passion, in contrast with the Romantics, who did not control theirsyet passion will break out in the fourth movement of this Haydn symphony as well, Prager explained. Wonderfully, Prager had chosen a work from the criminally underperformed middle period of Haydns prodigious symphonic output. These so-called Sturm und Drang symphonies contain some of Haydns most pathos-filled, dramatic writing, and the Symphony No. 51 in B-flat major, composed in 1771, was no exception. It opens innocently enough with a brief, quizzical exchange between frisky strings and mournful horns before bursting forth into agonizingly poignant and dark harmonies. Cleverly syncopated passages in the first movement make the rhythm tricky. Major and minor keys interweave, adumbrating Schuberts bittersweet longing.

Prager conducted ably enough, keeping the ensemble together and pacing the fourth movement in accordance with Haydns Allegro marking, unlike the late Christopher Hogwood, who took the movement at a quixotically stately pace. Readingand leading froman orchestral score, one of the most complex architectures of the human mind, is a prodigious challenge. But Prager seemed to have the basics down, undoubtedly helped by the caliber of the musicians themselves. Boycott organizer Michael Chwe reported to the Los Angeles Times afterwards that over a dozen players had stayed away, but such a rate of attrition was normal for this volunteer orchestra, Lamell had earlier said. The absences were not noticeable, and most critically, the woodwind and brass sections contained the full complement of musicians called for in the score. Indeed, not only were the orchestras two hornists in attendance, they were also supplemented by a flugelhorn not even written into the piece. This addition of a higher-register brass instrument presumably served as insurance for the symphonys fiendishly difficult and exposed horn writing, which takes the instrument into its highest (and lowest) registers, sometimes through demanding triplet arpeggiation. The oboes are key in the second movement, floating languorously above a string pulse to create the same time-suspended melodic beauty as Cos fan tuttes dream-like ensembles.

After the symphony concluded, Prager, breathless and patting himself down with a handkerchief, provided a brief demonstration of Haydns genius, in the tradition of Leonard Bernsteins Young Peoples Concerts. He asked the basses and celli to play the agitated G minor section in the rondo finale movement. Then the orchestra played that same passage without the basses and celli. Finally, Prager put the instruments back together again, eliciting delighted applause from the audience, whose ears had been primed to hear the layering of voices.

Prager bantered with the musicians, asking a few when and why they took up their instruments. The principal cellist, Niall Ferguson, said that he started at four because his best friend was already playing the cello. Youre not normal! Prager exclaimed. Not only did you want to play the cello at age four, but your friend did, too. Where are you from? Cleveland, Ferguson answered. That explains it, Prager said. The ribbing went both ways. Prager asked the principal bassist, Jack Cousin, if he felt ignored because conductors dont even look at the basses. Actually, the best conductors do look at us, Cousin said, slyly adding after a pause, and you did as well.

Lamell, who plays violin with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, joined in for the Haydn. Afterward, Prager quizzed him, too, about his early instrumental experience. Lamell rebelled at age eight from his violin lessons, he said, but his parents kept up the pressure. Its hard for a parent to push; I, as a parent, have not been that strong. Im grateful that my own parents did, so, thank you Dad! Memo to parents: give your children music lessons and make them persist. They wont regret it.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Prager returned to the stage at the end of the evening, after Lamell had conducted Beethovens Fifth Symphony. Whether intentionally or not, the concert at that point took on a historical cast, imitating the bizarre potpourri of high and low that characterized nineteenth-century concerts. Beethovens Violin Concerto, for example, was interrupted after its first movement at its Viennese premiere so that the violinist could play one of his own compositionson one string, while holding his violin upside down. Only after this parlor trick concluded did Beethovens new concerto proceed to its second movement. At the Disney Hall encore, Lamell and Prager led the audience in America the Beautifulwith Lamell on musical saw and Prager on accordion.

Lamell and the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestras board are to be congratulated for standing by Prager against the opposition. In the program notes, Lamell offered a thoughtful response to the boycott controversy. Prager loves music with every fiber of his being, the conductor wrote. He is also an outspoken political commentator and some of his views are controversial. However, politics changes constantly, ideas evolve. Music, in contrast, is eternal. I believe Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven will be celebrated forever while the politics of our day will change with the wind.

But Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven will be celebrated only if there is an audience. Audience-building is the biggest challenge facing classical music today. While the supply of astoundingly accomplished musicians keeps expanding, lackluster public demand for classical music threatens this monumental expression of the human soul. The Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra is already performing an invaluable service by playing most of its concerts for free. But if Prager can bring more listeners to classical music, any orchestra should get down on its knees in gratitude. There was no normalization of hatred and bigotry at Disney Hall on Wednesday night, just a celebration of greatness that, one hopes, will be infectious.

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor ofCity Journal.

Photo Courtesy of Santa Monica Symphony

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Culture, Not Culture Wars - City Journal

By: Reuters | Milan | Published:August 22, 2017 2:39 pm It is not a form of protectionism but rather giving a chance of monitoring operations that are incompatible with European rules, Italian Industry Minister Carlo Calenda was quoted as saying in La Stampa. (Representative Image)

Italy, France and Germany have asked the European Commission to reinforce existing regulations that allow EU states to block foreign acquisitions of European companies, two Italian dailies reported on Tuesday. The request cited the golden powers to bar or set conditions for would-be buyers that operate with rules that do not follow the market and that do not respect rules of reciprocity for acquisitions, Il Sole 24 Ore and La Stampa reported, citing a leaked letter. European Union leaders agreed in June to consider screening investments by state-owned Chinese firms, and France, Germany and Italy have backed the idea of allowing the EU to block Chinese investments.

The letter was sent to the Commission on July 28 and follows a similar one in February. Although it mentions no countries or firms by name, it appears to have been motivated by recent takeovers by Beijing in Europe. The powers would be reinforced for all target companies viewed as strategic and in cases of takeovers financed by state funds or agencies, says the ten-page document cited by the newspapers.

It is not a form of protectionism but rather giving a chance of monitoring operations that are incompatible with European rules, Italian Industry Minister Carlo Calenda was quoted as saying in La Stampa.

The three countries recommended that under the new regulations, which should not replace national rules, member states should notify the Commission every six months of all corporate investments from outside the bloc, except those in the defence sector.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App

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Italy, France and Germany ask European Union to boost powers to block foreign acquisitions: Reports - The Indian Express

In the run-up to the referendum on European Union membership the three-million-jobs-at-risk claim that was central to the economic case for staying in. Nick Cleggs formula in a Daily Telegraph story of 11 January 2013 was typical and almost apocalyptic in tone. In his words, three million jobs were dependent on our position as a leading member of the worlds biggest borderless single market, you play with that status at your peril; there are jobs at stake, livelihoods. He warned that leaving the EU meant isolation, and that isolation costs jobs, costs growth, costs peoples livelihoods.

Forecasts of an early recession and heavy job losses were certainly part of Project Fear, both ahead of and in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. The doom-mongering was as much about what would happen just after a majority vote to leave as it was about the sequel to Brexit proper....

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The British economy has exposed how terrible the pro-EU side's Project Fear really was - Telegraph.co.uk

Speaking to Bloomberg, Mr Varadkar said the United Kingdom had yet to clarify its position on the future trade relation it seeks from the EU.

The Taoiseach said he was convinced that the current trade agreement the United Kingdom has with the Europen Union is "the best imaginable."

He said: "Where we are confused and puzzled is [on] what trade agreement does the United Kingdom want with the European Union.

BLOOMBERG/GETTY

"At the moment they have the best trade deal possible, the best one imaginable which is a customs union and access to the single European market and the European Economic Area."

Yesterday, Brexit Secretary David Davis presented the second of the Brexit papers produced by the Government to explain its plans for the trade negotiations.

According to the Irish PM the proposals were not "realistic."

He commented: "What they seem to be suggesting all along, really for the last 14 months now, is that they want to have all the advantages of being in the EU, but none of the responsibilities and costs.

"That's not a realistic position so we're waiting to see what they'd like to see.

"It's not yet clear to us what are these better deals that the British Government really wants Europe and other countries and I think some clarity in that area would be very helpful."

Mr Varadkar said Dublin remained doubtful over the success of alternative trade agreements with third-party countries outside of the EU.

He stated: "When Britain leaves the European Union it's not only leaving the European Union. It's also leaving all those agreements that Europe has made with countries like Canada, with Japan or South Korea."

Trade Secretary Liam Fox visited the US to start talks for a future trade agreement.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Chancellor Philip Hammond also engaged in early stage trade talks with Australia and Argentina respectively.

Link:
'They have the best deal now!' Irish PM lashes out at UNREALISTIC UK Brexit trade plans - Express.co.uk