Even in the best case scenario they are playing the humor police to please a performer with whom they are close. Or to appease a close friend of the upper management, as it were… Whichever it is (see footnote.), it’s a PR disaster for the Berliner Konzerthaus, because even if the events did not transpire just like this, it certainly appears as though they sensed the threat of Hope’s leverage and rushed to minimize economic damage for the apparently small prize of throwing integrity to the four winds. Rather than standing up for one of their own, they obsequiously went to sack the little, the expandable guy… in order not to incur the wrath of the locally very present and popular star violinist. Not much less culprit, methinks, is the Berliner Konzerthaus which allowed itself to be bullied into – or convinced of – or happily abetted – the firing of one of their own employees removing of an employee because a thin-skinned diva said so. (Incidentally, if you want to read something nice about Hope his superb “ Vivaldi / Four Seasons Recomposed” CD was one of my favorite releases in 2012.) His actions as detailed in Eggert’s letter below speak for themselves… including those where he contacted the magazine for which Lücker also writes tried to attack freedom of speech and the freedom of the press – which apparently is anyone’s natural instinct these days, when reading something one doesn’t like. In an article in the bilingual Van Magazine titled “ Critic Bashing” he was called out for taking a dig at me, actually, responding to my Forbes article “ The Real Top 10 Bach Recordings” in a public Facebook comment by suggesting that “it demonstrates the egregious level to which certain internet music journalism has sunk.”īut let us let Daniel Hope be Daniel Hope. Is it more revealing that he considered the shred legitimate criticism (which is to say: worthy taking seriously and responding forcefully to) or how he responded thereafter? We know that he is not one who likes criticism of any kind other than the obsequious type (of which he gets plenty in the German and English press). The former seems to display a case of severe humorlessness, considerable insecurity, liberally spiced with a vengeful streak. Only that it is very difficult to say who gets off worse, in this case, Daniel Hope or the Berliner Konzerthaus. If this is in fact how matters transpired, it is a “ Reveal Magnifico” (as the NFL’s Dan Hanzus would say) – a tearing away of the curtains of a superficial niceness, revealing the true character of those involved. Eggert’s letter is cited in full (in translation, with permission) below. But it appears that this was not enough: For once Daniel Hope’s wrath was incurred, he did not cease to throw around his weight with the employer of Arno Lücker’s, the Berliner Konzerthaus, until told Lücker, a free-lance at the Konzerthaus, that his services were no longer needed – despite the latter’s immediately conciliatory reaction to the lawyers’ demands and the plain obvious lack of malice of his satirical contribution to YouTube.Īt least this is what we gather from the response of Moritz Eggert’s, who – as a co-founder of the blog on which the video was published – was prompted to write an open letter to Daniel Hope, explaining the background, detailing the chain of events and Daniel Hope’s reaction, and pleading reason. Cease and desist and threat of fine and all that good stuff. Despite his carefully groomed public image as a cheery, genial multi-talented classical musician with a decidedly hip edge, Daniel Hope released the hounds – in form of his lawyers. It turns out that they poked at the wrong guy. It appears that around the jolly Christmas season the young journalist and dramaturge Arno Lücker, along with co-conspirative Carlotta Joachim (a music student and a prize-winning junior musician and composer herself), put together a music video – a so called “shred”, the kind of which exist about several of the greatest musicians with a YouTube presence (see one with Itzhak Perlman below) – in which they poked some fun at Daniel Hope and composer/pianist Ludovico Einaudi (already the subject of several such shreds).
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