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Herbert von Karajan

In 1940, when Herbert von Karajan was 32, and only 2 years after conducting the legendary Berlin Philharmonic for the first time, he performed the overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) with the orchestra in Berlin.

You can watch a short clip (1 min 20 secs) of this performance here:

Xmas in Vienna

Diana Ross was one of the legendary pop artists of our generation, youngsters of 1970’s.

It was a decade back, in late 1990’s that Ross performed a concert with two of the three great tenors, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo, singing Christmas carols and related arias with Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Some of these are among the most beautiful performances ever. Please listen:

1. Jingle Bells
222 Kb 0:53 Mins
2. Most Wonderful Day of the Year
560 Kb 2:17 Mins
3. Carol of the Drum
647 Kb 2:40 Mins
4. White Christmas
562 Kb 2:18 Mins

Aminollah Andre Hossein

Months ago (Feb 2006) I wrote a short biography of late Aminollah Andre Hossein, the great Persian-French musician and composer. I didn’t have access to my archive of conventional vinyl records and cassettes left in Iran before emigration then. But as many non Persians left comments how much they wished to listen to Hossein’s works, I prepared some pieces.

1. Persian Miniatures
Orchestre du Theatre National de l’opera de Paris
Conducted by Jean Claude Hartemann
1-1. Danse de I’Echanson, 1.08 Mb, 2:42 Mins
1-2. Avant le Combat, 0.99 Mb, 2:24 Mins

2. Sheherazade
Orchestre du Theatre National de l’opera de Paris
Conducted by Jean Claude Hartemann
2-1. Palais de Shahriar, 1.29 Mb, 3:14 Mins.
2-2. Bataille, 1.01 Mb, 2:31 Mins

3. Symphony Persepolis
Orchestre du Theatre National de l’opera de Paris
Conducted by Pierre Dervaux
3-1. Maestoso, 2.66 Mb, 6:39 Mins

Sir Malcolm Arnold

Sir Malcolm Arnold, the British composer and musician, died in hospital yesterday after suffering from a chest infection.

He was born in Northampton in 1921. Arnold's first instrument was trumpet. He was best known for his symphonies and original movie scores.

Oriana Fallaci

Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist best known for her startling interviews with some of the most famous politicians of the twentieth century, died yesterday at 77.

Fallaci, who had been ill with cancer for several years, died at a private clinic in her home city of Florence overnight. She had returned to Florence in the last days of her life after living for decades in New York. In recent years, she had gained a second notoriety for her vitriolic writings on Islam.

Small, beautiful, and extraordinarily tough, Fallaci was an Italian resistance fighter who became a war correspondent in the 1950s and 1960s, covering the Vietnam War and conflicts in the Middle East and Latin America. She was shot three times and beaten by Mexican police covering student riots in 1968.

But it was her one-on-one interviews with politicians, generals and religious leaders, conducted, as she said "with a thousand feelings of rage" that were translated and published all over the world, often with extended transcripts showing the full extent of her blunt, acerbic inquiries.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last king of Persia, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution, all met Fallaci, but perhaps none regretted the experience more than the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

Fallaci never married and leaves no children.