Controversial Ukrainian-born pianist dropped from TSO (Toronto) concerts

[Karmadillo]

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/ukrainian-born-soloist-dropped-from-tso-for-her-political-views/article23812295/?service=mobile

ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
THE GLOBE AND MAIL (INCLUDES CORRECTION)
Last updated Tuesday, Apr. 07 2015, 3:49 PM EDT

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has cancelled appearances this week by Ukrainian-born piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa, apparently because of tweets she posted that were hostile to the current Ukrainian government.

A terse statement by TSO president Jeff Melanson said Ms. Lisitsa was let go over “ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets.”

Mr. Melanson, who refused requests for an interview, issued his note after Ms. Lisitsa revealed the incident on Monday morning in a long, impassioned note linked to her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“Someone in the orchestra’s top management, likely after the pressure from a small but aggressive lobby claiming to represent the Ukrainian community, has made a decision that I should not be allowed to play,” she wrote, referring to her scheduled TSO performances on Wednesday and Thursday. “I don’t even know who my accusers are, I am kept in the dark about it.”

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[doxyluv13]

1. A disgusting example of Point-of-view discrimination on the Ukraine mess.

The Kiev rump government must not be criticized.

[MisterP]

2. they're also razzing Dudamel here in LA since he won't redefine "dictator" as "doesn't shoot enough

people"

[Pooka Fey]

3. Tactics straight out of the Joseph McCarthy playbook - get on board politically or get fired

Last edited Wed Apr 8, 2015, 11:57 AM - Edit history (1)

During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned,[2] laws that were later declared unconstitutional,[3] dismissals for reasons later declared illegal[4] or actionable,[5] or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

[LisaL]

4. That's what it looks like.

Doesn't she have a right to a political opinion?

[NCTraveler]

30. She does have that right and it has been proven she does.

They have the right not to have her play, as they have done.

[LisaL]

31. So if your employer were to read something you post here or somewhere else, disagreed, and

decided to fire you, you'd be o'key with it too?
Maybe your employer is supporting Republicans and he sees that you support Democrats?
Based on your logic, he should have a right to terminate your employment, no?

[NCTraveler]

32. 1)Employees can't fire me. Normally doesn't work that way.

2)It depends on the disagreement and if the publicity came back to my company.

Do you believe the owner of a business should have no rights as to who they pay?

We are a small family at my business. We look out for one and other. If one person jeopardized that, I would first try to correct the issue. If that didn't work, bye. I care very much for the people I work with and will protect them.

[Pooka Fey]

33. Back in my youth, the McCarthy era was presented as a disgraceful and shameful period in US history

Not a matter of the employer's rights to hire or fire whomever they happen to agree or disagree with. How perceptions do change.

[NCTraveler]

34. That really doesn't work as an arguement against anything.

Using words like McCarthy here truly don't apply. It is a fallacy. What you are saying makes no sense during any era in history. Taught or the reality of the era.

If I had an interview with a perspective employee, did an internet search, and found they were publically part of a white supremacy movement; you are saying it would be McCarthyism if I used that as a determining factor.

If I had an interview with a perspective employee, did an internet search, and found they were publically supportive of storm front, including political aspirations; you are saying it would be McCarthyism if I used that as a determining factor.

[Pooka Fey]

36. Yes it does. This OP describes textbook McCarthyism,

which I won't bother explaining AGAIN since interested parties can look it up on Wiki. This pianist is a Ukrainian of Russian heritage - her political views are formed from an understanding of the political situation in Ukraine and in Russia that no Western DUer could ever possibly grasp or match.

Why did she lose her job for speaking her truth? She earned her place as a concert pianist through her hard work and talents. The fact that she has lost work because she voiced her views about the facts of this story speaks volumes about censorship and authoritarianism currently taking over in the "free" West.

Many many people worldwide, and many Western intellectuals, have a different take on the Ukraine situation than the views expressed by Washington and the Western Anglo-American Media Industrial complex -- these same people who sold us on the Iraq invasion who are now selling us on War with Russia.

Seeing this situation through a different lens than that of NATO does not make one comparable to white supremacists or fascists.

[NCTraveler]

37. You are making up your own thoughts of McCarthyism....

and using it to fit your own views. You are doing exactly that to which you claim others are. It simply doesn't work and is one hundred percent an argument based on a fallacy. Truly textbook.

[Pooka Fey]

38. "Sympathy for the Reds/Russkies equals You're Fired" Is there another definition you'd like to share

???

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Joe not Eugene.

[Pooka Fey]

7. Whoops - Thank you!

I'll correct it now! Appreciate it.

[whatthehey]

6. Would have been simpler to drop her for all the bum notes

Admittedly her Beethoven is less sloppy than Nikolayeva's, but that's like saying Jeb's the smarter brother.

[Pooka Fey]

9. Jeb can perform Rachmaninov Piano Concerto N°2 with a major symphony orchestra?

I'm only asking because I'm surprised at the comparison, it's rather like saying Jeb is an accomplished politician - but we don't have graded piano literature with which to judge politicians, unfortunately.

This work is one of the most technically difficult in the literature. Furthermore, the piano is an extraordinarily difficult instrument to master to a professional level. I'm not familiar with this pianist in particular, but the subject is her getting fired for her political beliefs.

If she couldn't play this work well enough to sell tickets, there are approximately 10,000 other young pianists in the world in line to take her place - so we have to assume that the extremely competitive world of professional classical music has already weeded out the weaker links.

[whatthehey]

15. Here's how analogies work

Lisitsa and Nikolayeva are comparable pianists because they are both known for playing with fiery technique that sometimes gets away from what's on the page. The sound and spectacle are there, but at the cost of secure mechanics. It's a long Russian/Soviet/Diaspora stylistic tradition going back to at least Rubinstein (Anton that is) if not before. Of the two, Nikolayeva gets, or I suppose got as she is long dead, wilder, but both are very different from, say, Hamelin as the current archetype of iron-clad mechanics (tellingly, he is criticized as being passionless and robotic. Concert pianists can't win).

Jeb and W are both comparable poiiticians, family aside, in that they are known for not being the most incisive and deep intellects, but of the two Jeb is, probably rightly, perceived as being less dumb. Both are very successful politicians however, as Lisitsa is a succesful pianist. It's not about being able to play a piece. Anyone who couldn't wouldn't be on a pro concert stage, it's how you play it. People who care about these things, like me, will no more agree on who the best pianist is than bloviating sportts bar wannabes will agree on who is the best QB in NFL history, and with far fewer statistics to help ground the debate; but like them we have criteria that matter more or less to us in that analysis, and they include mechanics, tone, pianism, etc. Being able to play Rachmaninov is like being able to throw a tight spiral. It's the ticket to enter the draft, not to be the best.

[magical thyme]

12. seriously. listen to that mess...

[whatthehey]

16. I can't get embedded videos at work, but I ask in advance

Did YOU listen to it with the score in your hand and follow along? Or know the piece from memory? It's not like I said she was a grade 2 newbie, but that she loses and misses notes too often. Does this video demonstrate no missed notes?

[Pooka Fey]

19. "No missed notes" is a standard best reserved for robots and software packages, not human artists

At another time Mr. Horowitz said: "I am a 19th-century Romantic. I am the last. I take terrible risks. Because my playing is very clear, when I make a mistake, you hear it. But the score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots. You search for it, and that is what I mean by the grand manner. I play, so to speak, from the other side of the score, looking back."

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1001.html

[magical thyme]

21. I've listened to it enough to know it pretty well from memory.

no technical issues and I like her interpretation.

[Pooka Fey]

18. No problems in the technical department

People who listen to classical music in order to count mistakes have it all backwards.

As Vladimir Horowitz said, "Perfection itself is imperfection."

[magical thyme]

20. exactly.

I dated a concert pianist through college on into my early 30s. I remember him lamenting the problems of a generation of listeners who grew up with studio recordings and had them confused live performances, when in fact they are performances that never existed, constructed of spliced and diced takes and re-takes.

[hifiguy]

23. Agreed. Few things are as boring as sterile technical perfection.

Give me a musician who takes some risks and goes out on the thinnest part of the ice once in a while. I happen to love Lisitsa's playing.

Horowitz constantly took chances, Richter's sometimes eccentric tempi made people's heads explode and even the rightly sainted Artur Rubinstein kept takes where the feel was perfect but the technique was not.

[Pooka Fey]

25. I agree with you entirely. Sadly, I fear that the artistic freedom to take those kind of risks

is gone now, for the reasons that "Magical Thyme" explained in post 20 on this thread:

I dated a concert pianist through college on into my early 30s. I remember him lamenting the problems of a generation of listeners who grew up with studio recordings and had them confused live performances, when in fact they are performances that never existed, constructed of spliced and diced takes and re-takes.

Risk and originality of any kind is becoming a rather rare and dangerous thing to indulge in, as evidenced in the OP. I'm a big Murray Perahia fan - I hear more sensitivity and nuance in his Beethoven, based on my 1st impressions of Lisitsa after 6 minutes - but I'll listen to her again and maybe update my 1st impression with more familiarity.

I love the early 20th century Musical Romantics - their lives, their passions, their eccentricities. Unfortunately, the state of recording in that era doesn't do justice to their genius - the technology was too new. I just saw the recent film RACHMANINOV by Pavel Lounguine (I liked the film) (link to Version Originale in Russian with French Subtitles) and then stumbled on this clip about Rachmaninoff. Politics and music make strange bedfellows.

Cool stuff!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[hifiguy]

26. Go find some of the late Earl Wild's recordings.

He was a pure temperamental and stylistic throwback to the days of High Romanticism. Like Liszt he played a lot of transcriptions and played them with a go-to-hell bravura and flashiness that Liszt himself would have admired. His Rachmaninoff is also something special, and not unlike Lisitsa's playing. Superb technique but a unique approach to his chosen repertoire.

I love Perahia's Bach and Mozart. Truly a thinking listener's pianist.

First clip is blocked here in the US.

I loved Stravinsky's quote about Rachmaninoff - "The man is a six-foot tall scowl."

And the actor playing Sergei in the second clip looks disconcertingly like a young Putin.

[Pooka Fey]

27. Thank you - I've never heard of Earl Wild

and I love piano music, so I will search him out. I plan to listen to Lisitsa again. I like that you enjoy Murray Perahia also - I have the 1987 CBS recording of his Beethoven Piano Concerto #5 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra directed by Bernard Haitink. I highly recommend it.

WOW how ironic that the US has blocked access to a video clip about Rachmaninoff, a Russian who had to flee his country and immigrate to the USA because of the oppression of the Soviet Communist Revolution and regime. Talk about how things come full circle. The clip is a talk by the representative for Steinway Pianos in the USA, about what a pleasure it was to know and work with Rachmaninoff.

[hifiguy]

28. Here's a link

that lists a load of Wild's recordings. He just passed a few years back at the age of 94. His Rachmaninoff collection of the concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody has been a go to reference of mine for years both for performance and astonishingly lifelike sound.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Wild

[Pooka Fey]

29. ...

Bookmarked for reference for my upcoming CD buying binge - (I still like CD's and I bitterly miss my vinyls).

BTW, if you download a privacy browser to hide your IP address, you might be able to access that Rachmaninoff video. CNET is a great source for free downloads.

[magical thyme]

8. well I guess now she's my favorite pianist. screw Mccarthyism. Music triumphs politics.

besides which, she's right.

&feature=player_detailpage

[hifiguy]

24. Sweet! She's marvelous.

Criticising a pianist for playing Rachmaninoff and Liszt with a showy technique is existentially hysterical. Those two were among the hammiest technical showoffs that ever scooted up to a Steinway.

[magical thyme]

10. if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck

it's a freakin' duck.

Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis
MARIUPOL, Ukraine — A volunteer brigade with self-proclaimed Nazis fighting alongside government troops against Russian-backed separatists is proving to be a mixed blessing to its cause.

Though the 900-member Azov Brigade adds needed manpower to repulse the rebels, members who say they are Nazis are sparking controversy, and complaints of abuses against civilians have turned some residents against them.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/10/ukraine-azov-brigade-nazis-abuses-separatists/24664937/


Nazis In Ukraine? German TV Shows Ukrainian Soldiers Displaying Nazi Symbols
By Dennis Lynch@neato_itsdennison September 09 2014 9:23 AM EDT

A German television station Monday night showed video of Ukrainian volunteer soldiers with Nazi symbols, which are outlawed in Germany, on their helmets. One soldier was seen with a Nazi swastika on his helmet and another had the distinctive lightning bolt-like runic symbol of the SS, which carried out the Holocaust and many other atrocities under Hitler.
http://www.ibtimes.com/nazis-ukraine-german-tv-shows-ukrainian-soldiers-displaying-nazi-symbols-1682784

?55ac53

Though the article provides much color and detail – and quotes an Azov leader prominently – it leaves out one salient and well-known fact about the Azov battalion, that it is composed of neo-Nazis who display the Swastika, SS markings and other Nazi symbols.

But this inconvenient truth – that neo-Nazis have been central to Kiev’s “self-defense forces” from last February’s coup to the present – would presumably disrupt the desired propaganda message. So the New York Times just ignores it and refers to Azov as simply a “volunteer unit.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/11/nyt-whites-out-ukraines-brown-shirts/

Is the US backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine?
As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.

White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/25/is_the_us_backing_neo_nazis_in_ukraine_partner/

[stevenleser]

17. Yes, and the South fielded all black units at the end of the civil war. Does that mean the south

was pro African American equality and rights? Or, is it as simple as 'any port in a storm'.

This doesn't say what you desperately want it to say.

[magical thyme]

11. Hah! Her replacement quit and now they've dropped Rachmaninoff from the program

Boycott Russian music. That'll teach'em!!!!

TSO’s Ukraine flap worsens as pianist filling in for Valentina Lisitsa quits
“In light of this week’s events, the TSO has taken a decision to remove Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 from this week’s programme,” the symphony’s website reads. The concerts originally set for Wednesday, April 8 and Thursday, April 9 will now focus entirely on Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2015/04/08/tsos-ukraine-flap-worsens-as-pianist-filling-in-for-valentina-lisitsa-quits.html

[Pooka Fey]

14. Wow. I read the linked article and this has devolved into a major clusterfuck

When politics become insane, art suffers. What a disgusting spectacle.

The replacement pianist, Stewart Goodyear, started getting harassed and bullied.

“Words of bile and hatred were hurled in my direction from all sides,” the statement read. “Suddenly I was accused of supporting censorship, and bullied into declining this engagement. What started out as one of the happiest moments of my life turned into a shattering display of mob hysteria.”

Litsitska is getting death threats.

Earlier, Lisitsa’s own Facebook page contained a post suggesting that the energy of the Ukraine’s Maidan uprising a year ago had been channelled by the country’s elite and used to create division, adding that she had received death threats and been called a “paid Kremlin whore.”

And now the concert ticket holders are going to be robbed of a lovely evening of enjoying one of the most beautiful and romantic pieces in the classical literature. What a stupid mess.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2015/04/08/tsos-ukraine-flap-worsens-as-pianist-filling-in-for-valentina-lisitsa-quits.html

[stevenleser]

13. The funniest thing about this is the pro-Putin crowd's triumphal reaction to it as if

this pianists ability to play this concert means they were right to be apologists for Putin's unprovoked war of aggression.

[Comrade Grumpy]

22. I dunno, your reaction is pretty funny, too.

Take a stupid and offensive move by a Canadian orchestra and turn it into an opportunity to bash your favorite targets.

[Blue_Tires]

35. I despise Kremlin agitprop as much as anyone

but even I'll say the TSO has gone way too far with this one...