Yves Saint Laurent fashion to be auctioned off

NEW YORK —

A month after the death of Yves Saint Laurent, Christie's is auctioning seven pieces of the legendary French fashion designer's clothing and jewelry representing nearly every decade of his career.

The items at the July 2 auction include a 1958 cocktail dress for Dior and a 1970s Rive Gauche camel cable-knit sweater trimmed in fox fur similar to one Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wore.

"What's exciting about the collection is that you see the progression of his career. He was a real style-setter," said Christie's couture specialist Laura Leyfer.

Saint Laurent died on June 1 at age 71. Considered one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, his creations - from pop-art print mini-dresses to peasant skirts and elegant pantsuits - endure to this day.

The cable-knit sweater - with a pre-sale estimate of $250 to $400 - is a version of one Onassis was often photographed wearing, a style she owned in several colors, according to Christie's auction catalog.

All of the items are in excellent condition and are relatively inexpensive because they aren't new designs and have been worn, Leyfer said Friday. "That's part of the appeal and it's what makes it a collectible," she said.

Another item for sale is a dusty pink layered tulle evening dress with metallic pink and silver embroidery, which Saint Laurent designed for Dior in 1958. It's could fetch $1,000 to $1,500.

The costume jewelry includes a floral gold-tone metal and crystal stone necklace from 1990, estimated to sell for $1,000 to $1,500, and a hammered gilt-metal "ethnic" necklace from the 1970s that could bring $600 to $800.

The sale also includes pieces from other designers including Christian Lacroix, Thierry Mugler, Balenciaga and Gianni Versace.

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On the Net: http://www.christies.com

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Capitol Music Group's Trink stepping down

Chairman and CEO of also may leave





NEW YORK -- The remaking of EMI continued Tuesday with the announcement that Lee Trink will step down as Capitol Music Group president at the end of June.
Because of EMI's new management structure, which breaks down label walls and in many cases eliminates the need for label presidents, Capitol Music Group chairman and CEO Jason Flom may also soon be leaving the company, sources indicate. The company declines comment on speculation.
Trink's departure would come two weeks after the scheduled June 17 release of the new Coldplay album "Viva La Vida," which is expected to be one of the biggest records of the year and a critically important release for EMI.
During the interim, Manhattan Records GM Ian Ralfini will work with the existing senior management, including Trink, and marketing staff to manage the marketing function, according to an EMI spokeswoman. He will report to EMI Music Global Marketing president Sam van der Feltz, according to an internal EMI memo.
Meanwhile, the company is searching for someone to head marketing for EMI Music North America.

'Friendly Persuasions' at Pacific Serenades

With 22 seasons under its belt, Pacific Serenades still makes a major point of trying to freshen the chamber music repertoire with newly commissioned works. Sunday afternoon in Pasadena's Neighborhood Church, the series presented its 90th commission -- the U.S. premiere of "Friendly Persuasions," a song cycle for tenor by Jake Heggie (composer of opera's "Dead Man Walking") built on a great idea. Working in a form crammed to overflowing with sentimental love poetry, Heggie and his lyricist, Gene Scheer, deal instead with snapshots from the life of French composer Francis Poulenc in imaginative ways that ring true. In the first song, Poulenc has a frantic conversation with the pioneering harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, who gives him love advice -- go after that young man whom you fancy -- while demanding that he finish his new concerto for her (which turned out to be the Concert Champêtre). In another, Pierre Bernac, the baritone for whom Poulenc wrote many songs, looks on in horror as Poulenc destroys a draft of a new song.
Heggie deftly and quickly sketches the multiple musical personalities of Poulenc without imitating him per se: the manic clown in the Landowska and Bernac songs; a nostalgist in the slow waltz that ends the song lamenting a female friend, Raymonde Linossier, who died young; a serious citizen in the martial air of the song featuring French Resistance poet Paul Éluard.Heggie and Scheer also give their tenor a chance to do some vocal acting as if this were an opera, a freedom that the gifted Nicholas Phan exercised to the hilt. And the unusual ensemble for which Heggie wrote this version -- harpsichord, oboe, flute and cello -- relates directly to Poulenc's sound world (the London world premiere in April was for tenor and piano). With the configuration for Heggie's songs as a base, Phan, flutist Mark Carlson, oboist Leslie Reed, cellist David Speltz and harpsichordist Patricia Mabee were elsewhere deployed in various combinations in a clutch of Baroque sonatas, trio sonatas and arias. Phan's fresh lyric tenor found more expressive outlets in three arias from J.S. Bach's Cantatas Nos. 99, 73 and 78. Reed expertly articulated everything she touched in Boismortier's Trio Sonata in E minor, Opus 37, No. 2, and Vivaldi's Sonata in C minor, RV 53. Carlson displayed graceful Baroque chops in Bach's Sonata in B minor, BWV 1030. Speltz brandished a light, leathery, period-performance-influenced tone, and Mabee underpinned everything with solid rhythmic playing. Overall, though, Bach provided more in the way of substance and ingenuity here than his Baroque colleagues.