Horacio Gutierrez

A virtuoso talent in the hands of a young pianist can be very different given 20 years to mellow. Take Horacio Gutierrez, for instance, who, when he burst upon the scene with the Liszt B-minor Sonata as an early calling card, was a red-hot firebrand producing the kind of excitement that made the blood pump and the brow sweat.

SEATTLE - Darth Vader is supposed to be menacing. But when Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy counsel of intellectual property and licensing, dressed up as the ominous Star Wars Sith Lord one Halloween? Not so much. "I've never seen a happier Darth Vader," said Gutierrez's boss, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith. In some ways that image captures perceptions of Microsoft in the patent battles now raging among tech companies - and Gutierrez's role in them. Microsoft has signed a number of licensing agreements with - or filed lawsuits against - companies it says infringe on its patents, most notably manufacturers of devices using Google's Android operating system.

Hammerklavier. Two hundred years ago it was just the German term for the still rather newfangled piano. Today, it means Beethoven's Sonata in B-flat, Opus 106, the ultimate expression of the instrument's aspirations and a definitive cultural monument more honored in textbooks than in recital halls. Which made Horacio Gutierrez's recital at Royce Hall even more of an event.

Hammerklavier. Two hundred years ago it was just the German term for the still rather newfangled piano. Today, it means Beethoven's Sonata in B-flat, Opus 106, the ultimate expression of the instrument's aspirations and a definitive cultural monument more honored in textbooks than in recital halls. Which made Horacio Gutierrez's recital at Royce Hall even more of an event.

On a hectic Monday afternoon recently, violinist Elmar Oliveira motored the 75 miles from his home in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., down to pianist Horacio Gutierrez's Manhattan apartment. They were eager to rehearse for one of their rare duo dates Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where they'll grapple with music of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Ravel.

In the performed arts, substance and seriousness are not enough, as listeners at the Thursday night subscription concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center found out, again. With Debussy's languid but demanding "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune" as the curtain-raiser, two large-scale works--contrasting concertos, actually--dominated Andre Previn's latest Philharmonic program (repeated Friday night and Sunday afternoon). Before intermission, the subscribers heard the local premiere of Steven Stucky's recent Concerto for Orchestra; after, Brahms' Second Piano Concerto, with Horacio Gutierrez the soloist.

Fourteen conductors will occupy the music director-less podium of the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the 1989-90 season being announced today. Some of them--former music director Andre Previn, current principal guest conductor Simon Rattle, Erich Leinsdorf, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kurt Sanderling and Vladimir Ashkenazy--are familiar faces and known quantities. Others--Gennady Rozhdestvensky, David Zinman and Andrew Litton, for example--are less well known to us. And three of them will be making L.A. Philharmonic debuts in a season when every new podium personality will be scrutinized as a candidate to replace Previn.

SEATTLE - Darth Vader is supposed to be menacing. But when Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's deputy counsel of intellectual property and licensing, dressed up as the ominous Star Wars Sith Lord one Halloween? Not so much. "I've never seen a happier Darth Vader," said Gutierrez's boss, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith. In some ways that image captures perceptions of Microsoft in the patent battles now raging among tech companies - and Gutierrez's role in them. Microsoft has signed a number of licensing agreements with - or filed lawsuits against - companies it says infringe on its patents, most notably manufacturers of devices using Google's Android operating system.

Horacio Gutierrez's reputation as a pianist--and it is a considerable one--has to date been based largely on bravura playing. He is a veteran of countless concerto wars, in which he has triumphed with almost every major orchestra around the world. Whether he has now renounced that style and put it all behind him, or whether he is simply indulging in a temporary change of pace remains to be seen.

Microsoft Corp. probably will be fined for failing to comply with an antitrust order, European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said. Competitors and regulators say Microsoft, whose products run on about 95% of all personal computers, resisted complying with a March 2004 order to license information to rivals on how Windows communicates over a network. "We believe fines to be unjustified and unnecessary," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's associate general counsel.

A virtuoso talent in the hands of a young pianist can be very different given 20 years to mellow. Take Horacio Gutierrez, for instance, who, when he burst upon the scene with the Liszt B-minor Sonata as an early calling card, was a red-hot firebrand producing the kind of excitement that made the blood pump and the brow sweat.

On a hectic Monday afternoon recently, violinist Elmar Oliveira motored the 75 miles from his home in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., down to pianist Horacio Gutierrez's Manhattan apartment. They were eager to rehearse for one of their rare duo dates Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where they'll grapple with music of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Ravel.

Fourteen conductors will occupy the music director-less podium of the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the 1989-90 season being announced today. Some of them--former music director Andre Previn, current principal guest conductor Simon Rattle, Erich Leinsdorf, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kurt Sanderling and Vladimir Ashkenazy--are familiar faces and known quantities. Others--Gennady Rozhdestvensky, David Zinman and Andrew Litton, for example--are less well known to us. And three of them will be making L.A. Philharmonic debuts in a season when every new podium personality will be scrutinized as a candidate to replace Previn.

In the performed arts, substance and seriousness are not enough, as listeners at the Thursday night subscription concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center found out, again. With Debussy's languid but demanding "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune" as the curtain-raiser, two large-scale works--contrasting concertos, actually--dominated Andre Previn's latest Philharmonic program (repeated Friday night and Sunday afternoon). Before intermission, the subscribers heard the local premiere of Steven Stucky's recent Concerto for Orchestra; after, Brahms' Second Piano Concerto, with Horacio Gutierrez the soloist.

Horacio Gutierrez's reputation as a pianist--and it is a considerable one--has to date been based largely on bravura playing. He is a veteran of countless concerto wars, in which he has triumphed with almost every major orchestra around the world. Whether he has now renounced that style and put it all behind him, or whether he is simply indulging in a temporary change of pace remains to be seen.

Pianist Jon Kimura-Parker will replace Horacio Gutierrez as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Music Center concerts Thursday and Saturday nights at 8 and Sunday afternoon at 2:30. Gutierrez is ill at his home in New York, and is under doctor's orders to remain there, a Philharmonic spokesman said Tuesday. Kimura-Parker will play the scheduled Piano Concerto No. 2 by Brahms.

Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy will be replaced at his originally scheduled February solo recital in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by Horacio Gutierrez. The recital has been rescheduled for April 23. According to a representative from the sponsoring Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ashkenazy "has had to rethink his recital commitments," due to a heavy conducting schedule. (Ashkenazy will conduct the Philharmonic at the Music Center for two weeks beginning Feb. 20.