Thursday, October 23, 2008

First sight...

I've got some advance copies of Philippe Graffin and Claire Desert's new Hungarian Dances CD. I'm bowled over and a bit wobbly.

The disc is much more than just the music of the book: rather, it's as if we've dived into one pool and surfaced with different finds, independent entities that share the same 'soul'. And Onyx has done a fabulous job. The release date is 29 October, so more then.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Happy birthday, Sir Georg!

Having been taken severely to task by a friend of the ginger variety for a) forgetting, b) not remembering at once, I hasten to report that today would have been Sir Georg Solti's 96th birthday, and am pleased to have discovered this video of him conducting Beethoven's Egmont Overture in Cagliari in 1996...with the London Philharmonic.

Heavens, they all look so young... Tom is sitting 3rd row of 1st violins, 3rd player in. He's the tall dark handsome one with thinning curly hair. At least he had hair then to thin.

Solti fans within easy reach of Cambridge will be interested to hear that Lady Valerie Solti will be giving a talk about her husband's work on 18 November at 3pm as part of Cambridge-Szeged Week, of which more very soon.

Cheers, Sir Georg. You were the best.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Saturated fads

Ready meals in British supermarkets carry 'traffic light' markers to show you the level of sugars, fats etc in what you are about to receive. If you see a red blob next to 'saturated fat', at least you know in advance that you're going to clog up your arteries. I think it's time CDs started carrying traffic-light warnings about the level of saturated fads they contain.

A violin can sound like many things, but I for one would rather it didn't sound like the dog next door. I have just listened to one new disc too many: a clearly gifted and imaginative violinist who nevertheless seems compelled to hack through romantic-era sonatas either Very Fast, Loudly and Aggressively or very slow, playing with around two hairs of the bow to make a wispy vibratoless pianissimo that you can barely hear against the piano (NB it is not the pianist's fault). And full, of course, of those ugly bulges and barks and stops and starts (an effect much like drivers who accelerate after a speed camera, then slam on the breaks just before the next one) that masquerade as expressiveness; the ideal violin territories of beautiful tone, colour through varied rather than absent vibrato, and songful and speaking phrasing are apparently forbidden to any hapless young artist who wants to be noticed.

It reminds me of hearing one of the most depressing piano concerto performances in living memory - either Very Fast and Loud and Aggressive or so excruciatingly slow that I suspected the pianist in question was about to stop altogether. The audience went nuts, of course, but I think the composer, a man of exceedingly discerning taste, would probably have sent in the polonium sushi. This event would have been less depressing if it hadn't been action-replayed numerous times by other pianists in other concertos.

This style of playing has nothing to do with the composers and their music, but everything to do with fashion. Some musicians are inspired enough to pull these stunts off convincingly, but most just seem desperate to do something 'different', exaggerating to project ideas that actually don't exist. Besides, it's not different any more. It is the same as everyone else who's trying to be different...

Such trends have risen to the fore through certain exponents heavily promoted by their record companies, though many are good enough musicians to know better. Younger artists are trying to emulate them, to very little effect.

Why should music leave the listener feeling irritated, infuriated and occasionally nauseous if that isn't what the composer intended? Couldn't a red cardboard blob warn us off?

Now may I please direct you to one of the most wonderful piano CDs I've heard in ages: Maurizio Pollini's brand-new Chopin recital, on DG. This is truly great, fad-free musicianship, delivered with authority, humility and absolute integrity. In case you'd forgotten - many have - that's what it is all about.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Lipatti plays La Leggierezza



Since I'm having a phase of preferring dead pianists to living musical politics, let's make the most of it and mine Aladdin's Cave, aka Youtube, for its latest and rarest gems. This performance by Dinu Lipatti of Liszt's La Leggierezza is apparently a 'copy of a lost BBC recording from 1947' (where do people find these things?!) and the poster is not kidding when he says the performance is 'a miracle'.

There is more where this comes from. I thought I'd heard all Lipatti's surviving recordings, but evidently not...

Speaking of politics, here's John Adams


The Observer today carries strong words from composer John Adams about his life post-Death-of-Klinghoffer. It's an apposite moment: his opera Dr Atomic opens at the Met tomorrow and his musical autobiography Hallelujah Junction is published this month. The report draws on an interview with Adams on Radio 3's Music Matters yesterday and those in the UK can access this on the Listen Again facility.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters yesterday, Adams said he was now 'blacklisted'. 'I can't check in at the airport now without my ID being taken and being grilled. You know, I'm on a homeland security list, probably because of having written The Death of Klinghoffer, so I'm perfectly aware that I, like many artists and many thoughtful people in the country, am being followed.'

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

A voyage around my father

Today should have been my father's 80th birthday. He died in 1996.

He was a neuropathologist, but his greatest passion in life was for music. I owe my knowledge of the classical repertoire to the fact that he used to listen to Radio 3 every morning and every evening, and would spend Sunday afternoons happily ensconced in his favourite armchair comparing a pile of LPs of Brahms's Second Symphony just for fun. Our family holidays often consisted of driving through France to the Swiss mountains; I think those long twisty days on the road were his excuse to spend eight hours at a stretch listening to tapes of the great pianist Julius Katchen. That is where I first heard the Brahms piano music, including the Hungarian Dances (below).

Katchen - the nearest thing the piano had to a literary philosopher - would have been just two years older than my father, but died tragically at the age of only 42. Fortunately for us, he left a wonderful legacy of recordings. I'm thrilled to have found copious film of him on Youtube.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Off the Richter scale

Another one for the Dead Pianists Society. I was looking for something to prove a recent comment that 'Richter wasn't always right'. But then I found this: his performance, live in Leipzig in 1963, of Beethoven Op.111, first movement. Audio only, but you may nevertheless need to don goggles to listen to it.

OK, Maestro Sviatoslav. You win. Every time.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Arrival of the mini-maestro


If you were my height, you'd know that finding someone who's shorter than you is always a delight, and watching them achieve artistic marvels is even better. So, meet my new favourite find, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the pint-sized principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and now also the principal guest conductor of the LPO. He's lovely. He's terrific. He's tiny.

Yannick took up his London podium the other night and did a fine job of steering the orchestra through its backing to the not-inconsiderable antics of Christian Lindberg, Swedish trombonist par excellence. Lindberg's performance in a concerto by Sandstrom based on Don Quixote required him not only to play the instrument but also to execute some superb balletic sautés, shout in Spanish, sing very loudly and strip down to his, er, leopard-spotted leggings. Blimey, guv. Lindberg also transformed a Leopold Mozart rarity from what could have been computer-generated multipurposeclassicaltwaddle to a jewelled butterfly of sweetness.

Topping and tailing the Swedish showstopper were two wonderful Ravellian warhorses, La Valse to start and his orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition to close.

Yannick is a joy to watch: he moves with grace, enthusiasm and eloquence, the band appears able to follow his beat and he'd memorised Pictures to perfection. There'll be lots to look forward to from him in future. Yet...

...I couldn't help missing Vladimir in the Mussorgsky. I don't need to tell you, dear readers, that Mussorgsky is one of the darkest of all self-destructive Russian romantics and that there is a demoniac quality to those pictures - the horrible ox-cart with its drunken driver, the disgusting antisemitism of the wheedling trumpet solo, the witch herself flying from the chicken-legged hut...and the towering Great Gate of Kiev is an idealised vision of something that never matched up to its plan (I've seen the real thing, and it is quite sad by comparison). But the other night we enjoyed a sort of musical stroll through the National Gallery's impressionism section, relaxed and very colourful, but not remotely disturbing. I could nearly taste the choc-ice. It was nice. Very nice. Too nice.

One final moment to remember: our own Tomcat, not being required for the Leopold Mozart, was backstage munching a sandwich, lost track of the time and wasn't quite expecting to see the orchestral manager hunting for him with a cattle prod. He ended up receiving a round of applause to himself before the Sandstrom began.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Hamari sings 'Erbarme dich'

Sometimes only Bach will do, and an illicit Youtube hunt when I should have been working led me to this spellbinding performance by the Hungarian mezzo-soprano Julia Hamari: 'Erbarme dich' from the St Matthew Passion, conducted by Karl Richter. I can't ascertain whether this was the debut performance that launched her career.

Her biography begins with the words: "Born 21 November 1942, Budapest, Hungary". That was not exactly an ideal time or place to enter this world. She would have been barely 16 months old when the Nazis invaded, and nearly 14 at the time of the 1956 Revolution. I'm not saying that to sing Bach like this you have to have spent your early childhood in a place as horrific as Budapest became while the Germans and Russians killed each other there in 1944, and naturally I know nothing of her life beyond her biography as linked; but one senses a depth to this performance - something trancelike, as the Youtube user comments - that is far indeed from the ordinary. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Adieu, Yonty Solomon


We were desperately saddened to hear the other day of the death of Yonty Solomon, a pianist who was one in a million. Born in South Africa, he became a student of Dame Myra Hess and for many years enriched his students at the Royal College of Music with his wisdom, humanity and humility. He had suffered from a brain tumour.

I will never forget the beauty of his tone, the freshness and deep love of music that infused his interpretations and the terrific regret that I felt, when I finally met him a few years ago at the Chetham's Piano Summer School, that I hadn't met him and studied with him a very long time ago.

His former student Vanessa Latarche wrote this beautiful tribute which was read out at his funeral on 29 September:
"Yonty was for all of his students the best role model that a teacher could possibly be, a colossus of the piano world, warm-hearted, generous, enthusiastic, energetic, and intellectually curious. To say that he will be sorely missed by us is an enormous understatement; his passing has left a huge hole on the second floor of the RCM, but his exceptional legacy is legendary. I know I can speak for all my colleagues when I say we feel very privileged to have known him."

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

OMG



This is Cziffra, playing Liszt's Transcendental Etude no.10.

There seemed to be a lot to say about this, but actually - please, just listen.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Er, right...

Anna, as in Anna&Robin 'Life of a Musician', has 'tagged' me, so I'd better be good and play the game.

The brief is 'to write six things about me, personally, that my readers might not know', and then, 'tag' six other twitter/blogger friends and make them 'it'.

All right, here goes.

1. I got into Cambridge for composing. I had to write something for a school celebration (it was a setting of Psalm Somethingorother) and the headmistress liked it and she wrote me a glowing reference...oh well...

2. My first cat was called Whiskers.

3. But I really wanted a dog.

4. If I could, I would move to France tomorrow. No, today.

5. I wrote 7 novels before Rites of Spring.

6. I was at university in the mid-80s with a hell of a lot of people who went into the financial world with the starry glow of Thatcherian idealism writ large across their wine-sluiced visages, and having seen which people they were I am not remotely surprised that the entire world financial system is in the throes of collapse since this is the generation that is now in charge of the bloody thing. Could have told you that years ago. I believe that Margaret Thatcher wrecked the moral fibre of the western world, and this is the price. (There. Bet you didn't know that about me. ;-) )

Now for the tagging.

1. Opera Chic! Opera Chic!

2. Erin! Put down that cello a minute and get into your Fugue State.

3. Wonderful, wonderful Jeremy, we can't wait to see what you have to say about this over at Think Denk.

4. Come on, Norman, give it a go!

5. Patty in California, a great oboist who's a secret string quartet fetishist just like me...

6. Ruth, of Meanwhile, here in France...because she lives where I'd like to live. Just look at her photos of late-season veg and the reasons for point no.4 will be apparent.

Have fun, folks. I am off to Newcastle in the morning.

The Sage ExploreMusic Library talk tomorrow

I'm off to Newcastle/Gateshead tomorrow to give a talk at The Sage's ExploreMusic library series, which very wonderfully seeks to bring music and fiction together. I'll be talking a little about the different ways music features in my novels and a lot about Hungarian Dances. Plus readings from book. If you're in the area, do come along, it's free.

By the way, if you're wondering what became of our recent poll about the future of JDCMB, the result was a slight but clear lead for keeping this blog as it is and initiating a separate books blog. Naturally it would be handier for me to lump everything in together - after all, they're equal concerns in my mind, and to run two separate ones will mean less frequent posting on both - but I appreciate that not everyone sees it that way. October will therefore see the launch of my new Books, Writing & Culture in London blog. Watch this space!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Meanwhile in Cleveland...

...there's a case of Critic v Conductor.

The New York Times has carried a story explaining that a music critic in Cleveland has lost his job for being, allegedly, excessively critical of the Cleveland Orchestra's conductor, Frankly Worse Than Most, oops, I mean Franz Welser-Most (FYI, the former is what certain musicians in London used to nickname him).

A lot of grey areas surrounded the appointing of FWM as principal conductor of the LPO, where he started back in 1990. Tennstedt departed in 1987 due to ill health, a replacement had not yet been named and it was then that the Tory government got a Lord to investigate things and recommend which of the London orchestras should be murdered. To qualify for a chance of survival, an appointment was needed and FWM was named PDQ. Not very many conductors would have been available at that kind of notice. Happily, the Hoffmann Report eventually told the government to get off and leave all our orchestras right where they were. Meanwhile FWM was in place, and if I remember rightly some of his performances were good and others weren't. Fairly normal, then.

BUT: the London press loathed him.

It was the critics, not the orchestra, that wrecked his career at the time in the British capital; he kept talking about this nightmare era in interviews for years. It is not entirely clear how it happened, but seems to go back to his first-ever press conference for the LPO, which most of the critics left with the impression that FWM was arrogant, abrupt, inexperienced and so forth. All of which may have mean that he was just bloody nervous. But what's certain is that the resident vipers developed a serious grudge which only got worse. The difference was, they didn't lose their jobs - whereas eventually the unfortunate youth, after enduring five and a half years of printed hell, packed his bags earlier than intended.

Perhaps what's happened to the critic Donald Rosenberg is a hazard of smaller-city-America cultural life; here in London, just one critic could never have been held responsible for the savaging of FWM. They were all at it like a pack of hyenas. It is easier to target one person operating in a cultural desert, like a gazelle that's been separated from its herd...

All of which does not necessarily mean that FWM is the world's greatest conductor.

Friday, September 26, 2008

And another great recording...

...which is just out. Classic FM Magazine sent it to me to review and it knocked my socks off. Virgin Classics has sensibly made a promotional video, so here it is.

Meet the Quatuor Ebene, four adorable young French fellows (what IS it about the French?) giving their fellow countrymen Debussy, Ravel and Faure the full treatment. And, to my particular joy, according the elusive Faure quartet equal status with the other two. Chapeau!

Gramophone Awards 2008, plus some

Here's the complete list of Gramophone Award winners for 2008. There are several I'm pleased to see, but most of all Tasmin, whose Naked Violin project of course involved no record company, therefore has by nature to be independent of any industry pressure. The list I was sent does not include the labels of each disc, but these will no doubt be available on the Gramophone site as soon as they have all recovered from their hangovers.


Baroque Instrumental
Bach Brandenburg Concertos EBS/Trevor Pinnock

Baroque Vocal
Monteverdi l'Orfeo La Venexiana

Chamber
Brahms. Schumann Piano Quintets Artemis Quartet, Andsnes

Concerto
Elgar Violin Concertos etc. James Ehnes; Philharmonia/Sir Andrew Davis

Contemporary
Harvey Body Mandala BBC Scottish SO

DVD
Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro Pappano/dir. McVicar

Early Music
Nicholas Ludford Missa benedicta et venerabilis New College Choir/Higginbottom

Historic Archive
Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5/Dona Nobis Pacern BBC Symphony Orch & Chorus/Vaughan Williams

Historic Re-issue
Sibelius Songs Kim Borg

Instrumental
Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol 4 Paul Lewis

Opera
Janacek The Excursions of Mr Broucek BBC SO/Belohlavek

Orchestral
Miaskovsky Complete Symphonies Evgeny Svetlanov

Recital
Maria Music inspired by Maria Malibran Cecilia Bartoli

Solo Vocal
Barber Songs Gerald Finley/Julius Drake

Lifetime Achievement
André Previn

Special Achievement
Peter Moores

Classic FM Innovation
Tasmin Little, The Naked Violin

Young Artist of the Year
Maxim Rysanov

Meanwhile over at The Times, readers were presented with a shortlist - drawn up by Gramophone reviewers - of discs deemed to be 'the greatest recordings of the last 30 years', and were asked to vote on them. The winner has been revealed as pianist Stephen Hough's adorable rendition of the complete concertos of Camille 'Twinkletoes' Saint-Saens, which is jolly nice for both Hough and CTSS, who well deserve some kind of accolade.

Stephen is that rarity among today's highest-profile pianists: an artist with both imagination and integrity, and one that I will actually cross a road to hear. The others, frankly, I can count on the fingers of one hand.

Now, I adore Stephen's playing as much as anyone and I am absolutely thrilled for him that he should be deemed 'the best of the best'. What I object to is the shortlist. The Saint-Saens is actually not the best of the best, but the best of a pretty staid and frankly boring bunch.

Hello, folks: there is, shock horror, favouritism in the music business. There is political correctness in the music business. There is a lot of incomprehensible rubbish - indeed, complete, utter nonsense - in the music business. Of course, I have favourite musicians too, but at least I know they're my favourites; I believe them to be among the greatest artists alive today, but I don't go telling Times readers that they've made the five finest recordings of the last 30 years (well, I can't; I don't review for the necessary mag.)

Personally I would rather swim back to shore from my desert island than include Harnoncourt's Beethoven in my eight discs, let alone have to sit through Karajan's Mahler. And how do you arrive at a shortlist that does not include any of the following: Krystian Zimerman's Debussy Preludes; Anne Sofie von Otter's Terezin CD; Richard Goode's complete Beethoven sonatas; Andras Schiff in the Goldberg Variations; Mitsuko Uchida's Schubert B flat Sonata; Matthias Goerne and Brendel in Winterreise; Marc-Andre Hamelin's mind-boggling Chopin/Godowsky set? And those are just a handful of pianists plus a singer or two. Discs are churned out month after month after month; everybody likes different ones; any list is simply invidious.

Music industry awards help to raise classical music's public profile, because the media likes winners and snazzy ceremonies. That is their use, and their only use.

Splash.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

New season ahoy

Barely are the Proms over when the big UK orchestras start their new seasons, and it seems more important than ever to set off with something of a bang. Few pieces are more 'bangy' than The Rite of Spring, and if you head for the Royal Festival Hall tonight, that's what you will hear from the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski. Popular stuff now, unlike 1913, but the rest of the programme is jolly intriguing. Ligeti Atmospheres; the premiere of a new violin concerto 'Mambo, Blues and Tarantella' by Mark-Anthony Turnage with Christian 'golden boy' Tetzlaff as soloist; and Symphony no.8 by Vaughan Williams (I'm promised it is short).

On Friday next week the BBC Symphony Orchestra launches at the Barbican with the Beethoven Missa Solemnis conducted by Belohlavek. The LSO has started already - they had a Rachmaninov festival over the weekend, which passed me by - and tonight at the same spot they do Mozart, Elgar and, er, more Vaughan Williams, with Sir Colin Davis. The Philharmonia is now on tour in the 'provinces' and can be heard tonight in Leicester with the splendidly hirsute Leif Segerstam wielding the baton, but in London they set off with a very big bang last night: a gala concert with Esa-Pekka Salonen and more Stravinsky, this time Oedipus Rex.

So Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams emerge as flavours of the month, which is an interesting combination since Stravinsky could probably have eaten Vaughan Williams for breakfast, given half a chance.

I am delighted to say that tonight in the RFH foyer the South Bank will be selling signed hardback copies of my novel Rites of Spring, to match said Stravinsky, in aid of the LPO Benevolent Fund.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Hava nawarda


A press release in the in-box today brought us this photo of a truly great pianist being given a prize by a truly great violinist. At the Jewish Cultural Awards, held in central London yesterday in aid of the London Jewish Cultural Centre, Murray Perahia (left) was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Maxim Vengerov.

Now all we need is a) for Murray to make his more-than-welcome return to the piano permanent and healthy, as represented to huge acclaim at the Proms the other week; and b) for someone to please, please, please wave a magic wand and make Maxim play his violin again? Of course, after a quarter-century at the grindstone after which he's only an early-thirtysomething, he deserves a bit of a break. But we fiddle fanatics miss him badly.

At the same ceremony, I'm delighted to say that the Music Award went to Anne Sofie von Otter for her Terezin CD, which is still top of the list of my Greatest Ever Recordings.

I am also pleased to see Vengerov credited with the following excellent statement: "Being here tonight is so important to me because the work of the London Jewish Cultural Centre is really indispensible, binding Jewish people together regardless of their religious or political bias...and tonight is a celebration of what can be achieved and what there is still to strive for, in keeping Jewish culture alive in a modern changing multicultural society." Now, will you please pick up that Strad and play the damn thing?

(photo credit: Ed Robinson)

Friday, September 19, 2008

Want to write? Come to my workshop

I'm holding a one-day workshop called KICK-START YOUR WRITING! on Saturday 1 November, 10.30am – 5pm, in London SW14.

"I've always wanted to write, but..." There’s always something to stop you from writing: time, space, or simply not knowing where to start.

Is this you? If so, this special workshop could be just what you need: a one-day course to help give you the spurt of energy you need to set off on your adventures in creative writing – which can be one of the most rewarding pursuits in the world, regardless of your age, level or experience.

Within a small group setting, we will explore ways into writing through discussions, exercises and some practical pointers to help release those blocks and start to plan your story. Places are strictly limited, so book early!

The price is £60.00 per person and includes lunch, coffee, tea and a glass of wine.

For further details and booking, please email me

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Latest news

While we were gone:

# Vernon 'Tod' Handley, the British conductor, passed away (read full obituary from The Guardian here). Tod did more for British music than any of his peer group, and was a musician of tremendous passion, integrity and imagination - but despite constant campaigning, he was never awarded a knighthood, unlike others who probably deserved it less. Hear him in recordings like this and this.

# The LPO's principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski announced his latest creation: his baby son, Yury (George), born on 10 September - many congratulations to him and his wife Patricia, and Yury's proud sister Martha.

# The Last Night of the Proms came and went, vibrato undamaged, but some commentators sound distinctly underwhelmed, Bryn or no Bryn. Meanwhile all the screams and tantrums about jingoism seem to have achieved some perspective for the first time as everyone assents that basically it's good clean fun - and even Safraz Manzoor in The Guardian doesn't accept that it's 'too white' (by the way, if you follow only one link from this post, make it that one).

# Meanwhile, Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi stole the Proms show utterly, receiving the best reviews of anything I've seen in ages. Unfortunately I was sunning myself in Provence (between thunderstorms and the Mistral) and missed it.

# London's first new concert hall since the Barbican 26 years ago is getting ready to open its doors. King's Place, situated in a snazzy new building beside the canal near King's Cross station, on 1 October with a bonanza of 100 concerts in 5 days. Long term, it's a superb new home for contemporary works, world music and the London Chamber Music Series on Sunday evenings (a cheery bye-bye to the Conway Hall, and thanks for all the streaming colds). Amongst others things. Read all about it here.

# An email arrived bearing a sneak preview of Philippe's Hungarian Dances CD, due for release on the Onyx label later in the autumn. It's even lovelier than I expected.

# Hungarian Dances itself was featured on Yours magazine's book club page. :-)

Back now, ready to pick up the pieces (where possible) and assess the way ahead in the strange new world of the credit crunch.

Friday, September 05, 2008

A bientot

I'm off. Back in a couple of weeks! Please have some fun with the blogroll in the meantime, and do please keep those votes and thoughts coming - they are very useful and much appreciated.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Why are the maestros ditching the white tie?

Here's my latest bit of fun from the Indy, in today's edition.

A few lines were cut, notably the one about the pianist who won't wear round-collared black jackets because where he comes from, it's the garb of choice of Russian criminals; and the way that Daniel Harding makes up for not actually looking like Simon Rattle by conducting with his mouth open. But I'm glad the truth about those ridiculous black shirts at the BBC Symphony Orchestra has had a chance to be aired.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Deck the halls with...

The first press release of the year trumpeting a Christmas album has just pinged into the in-box, and the Proms aren't even over yet. Please excuse me while I go and throw myself out of the window.

As a special prize for providing the most depressing moment of a summer that you thought couldn't get any worse, I will provide them with PUBLICITY. It could actually be rather a good disc.


"A LANDMARK RELEASE FROM COLLEGIUM RECORDS - THE FIRST ALL-NEW CHRISTMAS RECORDING IN 20 YEARS FROM JOHN RUTTER AND THE CAMBRIDGE SINGERS - 'A CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL'"

"Recorded in the elegant splendour of Cadogan Hall, London, this is the first all-new Christmas release from Rutter's celebrated Cambridge Singers for twenty years and is the first ever to feature the glorious sound of full symphony orchestra and organ. John Rutter directs the Cambridge Singers, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the award-winning Farnham Youth Choir alongside distinguished guest soloists Melanie Marshall, Clara Sanabras and Elin Manahan Thomas in this unforgettable festival of Christmas music."

"Release date: 27th October 2008 / Price Point: Full Price / Catalogue No: COLCD 133"

Monday, September 01, 2008

Votes, please!

If you have a look at the sidebar, you'll see a poll. I know what I want to write about - but what do you want to read about here, and how? Please vote for what you think is the best (or the least worst) of these ideas over the next two weeks and there will be some changes later in the month. Thanks!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Howard Jacobson, I <3 you

In today's Indy, columnist Howard Jacobson says everything I would like to say about the f*****g Olympics, only he does so so elegantly that it not only makes me laugh but also makes my heart sing. Honest. Here's an extract:

"I am not blind to the beauty of the body. I have watched film – because my wife made me watch film, wishing me to see what she had seen in the flesh – of Nureyev dancing with Fonteyn. I know sublimity when it's before me. But they shake my soul to its foundations not because they are athletes but because their bodies strive to express what their hearts feel and what their minds almost dare not think. Love, of course, will always make a difference. But so will any narrative when the emotions convey it to the body. In itself the body is nothing: it is what the body serves that makes it noble."

Friday, August 29, 2008

Carmen: best of the lot

Seeing the second-to-last performance of Carmen at Glyndebourne yesterday left me convinced all over again that this opera is a complete no-holds-barred masterpiece. The performance there had grown tremendously since the dress rehearsal: huge assurance and relish from the LPO and conductor Stephane Deneve, and Tania Kross as Carmen was a knockout.

But never mind the melodies, the spectacle and the toreador costumes from Seville, it's the last scene that counts the most; and Glyndebourne just can't quite match the Covent Garden production which, as performed here by Anna-Caterina Antonacci and Jonas Kaufmann, has the most powerful interpretation of it that I've ever been lucky enough to see. Voila.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Re HD

A very nice interview re Hungarian Dances from ASWOMAN, a Hungarian online magazine, with many thanks to the lovely Erika Orban! It's in English, btw.

http://aswoman.net/en/view.php?cisloclanku=2008080001

Beware of titles

Especially those proclaiming the death of this, that or the other. Far as I can tell, in this piece from The Times, Stephen Pollard is actually saying that British music is in better shape now, with the likes of James MacMillan and Thomas Ades on board, than it's been for decades.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

O ciel


Mikhail Rudy has written his autobiography, Le Roman d'un pianiste - his 'Russian story', which will be published by Editions du Rocher, France, next week. Few performers are as perfectly au fait with writing as they are with their instruments, but Micha is a notable exception and tells his tale with power and eloquence. Andy Sommer is making a film about him, too, which is due for release in the autumn.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Larking about in the Lakes





Ah, summer in rural England. The Pina Coladas on the beach. The heat and sun thumping down from dawn to dusk. The trays of fresh tropical fruit spread out by the hotel swimming pool. The...

OK, never mind. While we dodged from shelter to shelter (ie pub to concert and back) we pretended that it was autumn and we were students again. The Lakes are probably the most beautiful region of England, replete with walkers, dogs and bunny rabbits, and the Lake District Summer Music festival and summer school, based at the University of Cumbria in Ambleside, makes the most of the lovely venues in the area with concerts in Kendal, Ambleside itself, nearby Windermere and, in the case of the Messiaen project, the Theatre By The Lake in Keswick. The theatre is slightly out of the village and if you turn left and walk for one minute you are indeed on the lake - Derwentwater - which may be the loveliest of all. LDSM is the brainchild of Royal Northern College piano doyenne Renna Kellaway, who has run it for more than 20 years now; it's hard to imagine a more wonderful region in which to celebrate nature and music rolled into one.

Naturally the Lakes are overrun with tourists, so it's hard to get away from the cars, not to mention Peter Rabbit. Beatrix Potter settled there after she made the big time, and the cafe in which I stopped for soup and sandwich during a post-rehearsal stroll on Saturday was piping an audio-book of The Tale of Benjamin Bunny into the ladies' loos. To make the most of the area, you need strong boots, a good raincoat, a dog, a large chunk of Kendal Mint Cake and some very warm socks. You also need a pack of sandwiches, especially if you are giving concerts, because, anywhere in provincial England, it is very difficult to find a square meal after 10pm. I know we are supposed to be part of Europe now, but there are corners of the country to which this news doesn't appear to have penetrated. Like most places outside central London.

I have to say that Sunday evening was one of the most memorable events of my life. If anyone had told me 10 years ago that on 17 August I would be performing my own play with Robert Tear, that it would be created to complement the Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time and that there'd be a team of some of the finest musicians I know playing the music, I think I'd have passed out with shock. We also very much enjoyed our pre-event event in the late afternoon, when festival boss Andrew Lucas interviewed me, Philippe and Charles about music, words and Messiaen, and the lads gave the UK premiere of an early violin and piano piece by Messiaen entitled Fantaisie which has just been published for the first time.

Pictured: top, Philippe, Charles and me by Derwentwater on Sunday afternoon; bottom, Bob and me in the dressing room before the show; middle, the Indian takeaway with which we attempted to solve the sorry-luv-the-kitchen's-closed-now post-concert conundrum when we got back to the campus on Sunday night - left to right, Charles Owen, Philippe Graffin, Hayley Wolfe (who played in the Saturday concert), Oleg Kogan and Chen Halevi. Not certain how the First Aid box got there, but I think we were hoping there might be a corkscrew inside it. The four boys and I shared a student cottage for the weekend. It was an enjoyable team-bonding experience, but being the only female resident I have now renamed the Messiaen work 'Quartet for the End of Time in the Bathroom'.

Sadly I didn't have my camera to hand for the most memorable image of all. After the lads arrived on Friday night, we headed for the pub, as one does, and being a Friday, it was full of very merry young locals. Now, a momentarily unattended cello case is not the commonest of sights in The White Lion in Ambleside, and Oleg's precious Italian instrument quickly attracted two feisty northern lasses who proceeded to drape themselves over it at some interesting angles, then turned the thing on its side, sat astride it and snogged one another. Their boyfriends took photos and promised to put them on Facebook...

It was all a very, very long way from where the Quartet itself started out: in a prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag VIIIA, near Gorlitz in Silesia in January 1941, where Messiaen and his friends performed in temperatures far below freezing, on rickety instruments, wearing what threadbare clothes they had, and clogs. Yet as it turned out, the story was closer to Keswick than we'd imagined. In the box office at the theatre, one of the members of staff is - like the woman in my play - the daughter of a former PoW. Her father was shot down over Germany during the war and was captured and sent to Stalag VIIIB, down the road from Messiaen's camp. We had tea; she showed me his letters, his diary, some photos from the time...one of which was stamped with the mark STALAG VIIIA. Incredible.

My huge and heartfelt thanks to everyone at LDSM and the Theatre who made the event possible, to my wonderful and now very bathroom-bonded quartet friends and to the incomparable Bob Tear. It was the project's first UK airing; but let's hope it will not be the last.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Swanning off to the Lakes

I'm heading for Lake District Summer Music today, where on Sunday Robert Tear and I will perform my play A Walk Through the End of Time in its UK premiere. We're presenting it as a semi-staged rehearsed reading at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick and in the second half the Messiaen Quartet will be played by Philippe Graffin (violin), Chen Halevi (clarinet), Oleg Kogan (cello) and Charles Owen (piano). At 5pm the same day, also in the theatre, Philippe and I are doing a talk about music, fiction, music&words projects and Hungarian Dances and Philippe and Charles will give the UK premiere of a violin and piano work by Messiaen. The concert in Ambleside on Saturday night features the Razumovsky Ensemble, with Philippe, Chen and Oleg among others, playing the Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet.

Since summer isn't happening this year in the UK, I am packing a warm jersey and an umbrella.

Back next week.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Magic? What magic?

It's mystifying to sit through the kind of evening that gives contemporary opera a bad name and find that most other people are determined to enjoy it. Maybe that was for the picnics. Peter Eotvos's Love and Other Demons, which received its world premiere at Glyndebourne the other night, has garnered rather good reviews. It also has the distinction of being the first opera Glyndebourne ever commissioned from a non-Brit, and an extra mark for being by a Hungarian; the singing is glorious (Allison Bell and Felicity Palmer particularly), Vladimir and the LPO are on cracking form in the pit and someone had some fun filming the projections.

But...oh heck. First, the persistent 'lento' of the score mentioned by Ed Seckerson in today's Indy is probably a result of the same very basic libretto trap that scuppered Maw's Sophie's Choice and many others: the no-brainer that words take longer to sing than they do to speak. But worse: there could have been drama, and there wasn't. The Exorcist might be the scariest film ever made, but here we had an exorcism which was frankly ridiculous - a few stylised demons in gargoyle masks wandering rather decorously about, a nun smearing red paint on Allison Bell and Nathan Gunn (yes, we do see his pecs and very nice they are) slumping in a deck chair, maybe dead or drugged or asleep. But crucially, lacking musical drama and very short on imagination. It's a missed opportunity.

As for Gabriel Garcia Marquez - there is more magic in one paragraph of Marquez's prose, more richness of imagery and allusion, more imaginative flights of wonder and more magical music in his words, than in the whole opera.

Here are some alternative views from Andrew Clements in The Guardian, Rupert Christiansen in The Telegraph and Andrew Clark in the Financial Times (closest to my response). And here's a fascinating interview with the composer by Fiona Maddocks in The Evening Standard.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

My Top Ten 'Gypsies' in Literature

Over at Guardian Unlimited website you can find my Top Ten Gypsies in Literature from today (mad props to GU for linking to JDCMB!). In case you've landed here by following that link - hello and welcome!

BTW Hungarian Dances is my *third* novel, as the intro says, not my second.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Toxic waste...



Closer to home, in today's Indy the following appears in Deborah Orr's column. Topic: Vanessa-Mae and her mother.

So much for motherly love

Even though she had studied child prodigies for 20 years, Ellen Winner was visibly gobsmacked. The violinist Vanessa-Mae had just announced that her mother, Pamela, had always made her feelings clear."You're special to me," she would regularly tell Vanessa, "only because you play the violin." After a few seconds of understandable indulgence in the flannel of conversational recovery, the psychologist replied: "That's a very hard thing for a child to hear."

The BBC television series The Making of Me has illustrated that whatever field of endeavour a person excels in, the chances are that they achieved their success only because they were utterly remarkable in a number of other respects as well. Vanessa-Mae is remarkable in that she has survived her childhood at all. When she sacked her controlling mother as her manager at the age of 21, Pamela broke off all contact. She has continued to ignore her daughter ever since.

Vanessa-Mae, with some wisdom, said in an interview that her own experience of childhood has left her wary of having babies herself. She fears she would not know when to "stop pushing". How touching and sad. You stop pushing, surely, when you feel those tiny shoulders shrug out, and start encouraging as much as you can from there on in.


When I was assistant editor of Classical Music Magazine, longer ago than I'd like to admit, we all got invited to a little press launch by a lady named Pamela, who was starting a record label to promote her 10-year-old fiddler daughter, Vanessa-Mae. This supposed 'child prodigy' played a bunch of Christmas carols nicely enough on the first release. The label didn't go too far, but it didn't need to: four or five years later, there was the under-16 VM wandering romantically (or not) out of the sea in a wet t-shirt, courtesy of EMI.

I went to a post-concert dinner in Paris sometime in the mid 1990s at which an EMI exec was present, and somehow the topic of VM rolled round. "C'est la mere, n'est-ce pas?" I suggested. "Taisez-vous," came the quiet response - that's "shut the f*** up" to you and me. Ah well, must have been spot-on.

A toxic waste indeed, because mother and daughter's relationship is ruined and a wonderfully talented young girl had her entire direction warped as a result. She's a brave woman to carry on carrying on.

History lessons?

Sod the sore hand, this needs to be typed.

Autumn 1956. While the world watches the Suez Crisis, the Hungarians rise up against the Soviets and declare they want freedom. The Russians hold fire until they're sure everyone else is looking at Egypt, which they are. Then they send in the tanks, declaring that they are going to help their allies in government restore peace to the streets of Budapest. The city is devastated and the buildings bear the scars to this day. The West does nothing. They're busy with Suez, they hadn't really noticed what was going on until it was too late, and in any case the Russians say they're only trying to help. Several thousand people are killed. A democratic election is finally held there in 1990.

Summer 2008. The Olympic Games open in Beijing to an estimated global audience of 4bn. Nobody is looking at South Ossetia, where someone fired first. About a thousand people have been killed in one day. The Russians say the Georgians attacked their peacekeepers. The Georgians say that actually it was the other way round. Here in Britain, we seem more concerned about whether the UK might win an actual medal, if only bronze, in the Olympic judo. The media swallow Russian mouthing-off about how the South Ossetians are loyal to Russia and not Georgia, though the Georgian ambassador explained on the news yesterday that actually nobody could know this because the South Ossetian people had not been asked. Besides, it makes no sense: you ever heard of a majority of people in any European country being primarily loyal to the EU? Would any small country really attack a Kraken like Russia against which it knows it doesn't stand a chance? Is Russia really 'protecting its citizens'?

Of course South Ossetia isn't precisely identical to Hungary 52 years ago...but after all that Hungarian homework, some aspects of this development look unbelievably familiar. But here nobody learns much about that bit of history unless they have to, most people are off on holiday, and anyway they'd rather watch sport in, er, China.

Wake up!

Reports from:
The Independent
The Guardian
The Times

Friday, August 08, 2008

Aw shuks!

Blimey - after a rather fraught day due to hand/wrist trouble, it was evening before I discovered that the Indy has reviewed 'Hungarian Dances'!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperbacks-hungarian-dances-by-jessica-duchen-887849.html

Thursday, August 07, 2008

une petite pause

Will be off for a while - not on holiday, but urgently in need of reducing extraneous typing while trying to finish corrections on new manuscript. But if you are within reach of Keswick, come and see us (me, Robert Tear, Philippe Graffin, Chen Halevi, Oleg Kogan and Charles Owen) and our Messiaen project at the Lake District Summer Music Festival on Sunday week, 17 August!

Ciaociao for now...

Sunday, August 03, 2008

...and now hear how a violin can sound when allowed

I stumbled over this while looking for a recording of Leopold Auer on Youtube. Apparently Sir Rog once declared on the radio that this legendary prof who taught Heifetz, Milstein and Elman didn't use vibrato...believe that and you can believe anything, especially when you hear this magical tango from another of his pupils, one Georges Boulanger. I've not come across him before, but he shows exactly what you can do with a violin when you know how. Enjoy.

Norrington 'goes too far'

Big piece in today's Observer, resulting from a furious letter from veteran violinist Raymond Cohen telling it like it is about Roger Norrington's Elgar.

Please pardon my French, but the you-must-not-vibrate-ever-ever-ever movement is a load of utter bollocks. I don't know how people have been duped by it for so long. Has everyone forgotten that Leopold Mozart in his mid-18th-century treatise provides exercises for practising something that any Grade V violin pupil would recognise as vibrato? (Yes, he calls it 'tremolato' instead, so what?) LM complains about the application of indiscriminate 'tremolato' - the implication being that in the mid 18th century string players didn't use no vibrato: they used too much! That does not mean 'you mustn't use any'. Most irritating of all is that audiences who lap it all up in good faith have been swindled.

Apropos de which, has everyone forgotten, too, that the cut-down forces of the misleadingly-named 'authentic' movement in the 1980s coincided beautifully with political funding slashes which meant fewer musicians need be employed?

Enough, already!

Bravo, Raymond, and happy 89th birthday! Now have a listen to this...

UPDATE: Monday 4 August - here's Stephen Pollard's take on the same issue from today's Times.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Meet the Three new Tenors

Here they are, fresh from today's Independent. They may not be The Three together as yet - but they are the best.

We had a little flurry about this here on JDCMB not long ago, and it was all good clean fun. Trouble is, when their individual discs hit my desk recently - each in a snazzily designed shiny folder with video material, huge pics (very nice too) and all the rest - it seemed just a little too much of a coincidence. What exactly was Universal thinking of? It's not hard to guess.

This started off as speculation, plus a little wistful thinking - I'd love to hear my three top chaps sing side by side. What opera fan wouldn't? They're some of the loveliest voices on earth, and Florez and Kaufmann especially have provided some of my best-ever musical memories.

But what worries me now, after speaking to some guys from Universal yesterday, is that it may even be true.

When Domingo, Pavarotti and Carreras hit the trail, each of them was big enough and fulfilled enough artistically to withstand it. One critic I spoke to, who eventually didn't make it into the article, pointed out that certain singers (notably a soprano or two) don't care how long their voices last, but just want to do stadiums and make as much money as they can as quickly as possible. He felt that at least two of my three are much more serious artists than that and will want to be in the profession for the long haul.

But the long haul isn't the fashion. Squeeze 'em now and hang the consequences, that's the industry today. Instant gratification. And all that crap. We know this already, of course, and I think Florez and Kaufmann are strong enough, fine enough and sensible enough to plan otherwise; and hopefully it's not too late for Villazon.

I don't know about you, but I want to be at Covent Garden hearing Kaufmann sing Otello in 15 or 20 years' time. I want to watch Florez, as he gets middle-aged, grow into Rodolfo. I still want to be writing then, too, assuming I'm still alive. Long-term thinking should be what it's all about. Like a good marriage. Or sensible finance management that doesn't land the world in a credit crunch.

Today's hype-em-up, squeeze-em-dry, pay-em-trillions then chuck-em-out-into-landfill mentality totally misses the point of being on the planet. If it means we get rid faster of certain phony artists who shouldn't be there at all, then OK - but real beauty, real artistry, deep creativity, is a living entity that grows like a rose garden if you take care of it, and makes life worth living for everyone who comes into contact with it.

Blimey, guv. Time for a cold shower and a headache pill.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Muzsikas in the park

Here is Muzsikas, unplugged, at that party the other weekend! I tried to upload my own video but couldn't get it to work... fortunately another guest had the same idea.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Happy birthday!

It is Tom's birthday today, so here is a special gift from Richard Tauber. xxx

Friday, July 25, 2008

The ultimate in Hungarian dances




It was paperback publication day yesterday (follow that link for a 25% discount at Amazon...) and to celebrate here are some photos of the fabulous Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas at my friend Simon Broughton's big birthday party in Regent's Park last weekend. Muzsikas, who have been working together since 1973, arrived fresh from performing at the Folk Prom...

Huge thanks meanwhile to the Sussex Hungarian Society for a wonderful evening yesterday in Lewes, complete with Eva's Vineyard wine and terrific goulash, and to the Cheltenham Festival for a roof-busting Saturday night, more of which soon.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Beware of critics on a cold night


The first night of Hansel und Gretel at Glyndebourne was cold and damp, so broadly speaking, ignore the bad reviews. They only mean that certain people couldn't picnic on the lawn.

Laurent "La fille du regiment with Florez and Dessay" Pelly's junk-food-nightmare production is audience dynamite: pertinent, original, unsentimental, touching. Yes, the family live in a cardboard box; yes, the witch's house is a humungous structure made up of four supermarket aisles piled high with packets of cakes and crisps and fizzy drinks. As for the witch itself (word chosen with reason), the progress is from the humorous - the Witch's Ride is a shadowplay in which Witch tests recalcitrant broomsticks, progressively smaller, culminating in a mop - through the supermarket checkout lady from hell, to the truly loathsome: a hermaphrodite monstrosity with massive boobs and a bald pate, whom you can easily believe would cook and eat the kiddies. It's quite a relief when they get rid of her/him/it. An admirable performance by tenor Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke,

Yes, H&G is a sensitive subject for Glyndebourne, land of privilege and Pimms, where the interval is usually spent overindulging in some style. But my dear colleagues have short memories: if you think this is overdoing the point for the Glyndebourne Guzzlers, please note that it isn't so long since Graham Vick's parting present to the place was Don Giovanni gorging on the innards of a dead horse.

The vision scene with the skittering kiddies in white is indeed slightly disappointing given the transcendental and inexplicably tear-provoking marvel of the music, but there are moments of real magic elsewhere. Gretel - the radiant Slovakian soprano Adriana Kucerova acting her ankle-socks off - peers through a coloured plastic bottle drawn from the litter strewn across the dead forest, and our world turns momentarily orange and purple. Later, she takes shelter and sings huddles up under a haphazard log, vulnerable as an abandoned kitten. Irmgard Vilsmaier as Mother nearly stole the whole show: powerful presence and more powerful voice, despite the pink slacks and house-coat.

As for the obese children clustering around at the end - well, what else could come out of Planet Junk alive? If there's pain in this production, there's a good reason for it: it gets under the fat, straight to the bones.

Friday, July 18, 2008

A fun activity for the weekend

Why not devise your own Fantasy Football Prom, or several, or season, and post to the Comments box, or email them to me, and we'll see if we can beat Messrs Kenyon & Wright at their own game here on JDCMB?

It's Friday, it's mid-July, it's tonight...

...and it's the First Night of the Proms. Less celebrated than the Last Night, but musically rather more rewarding.

Read my piece from today's Indy on Everything You Wanted To Know About The Proms But Were Afraid To Ask.

UPDATE, 11.20am. Oh dear, my friend Pliable at the Overgrown Path is upset, mainly because of a passing remark about Britten. As I've explained in my response to his post, he has taken this out of context. Of course there's more to Britten than 'chilly glumness', just as there is more to Walton than 'social climbing' and a hell of a lot more to Elgar than 'pomp and circumstance', but what we were doing at the time was plugging Vaughan Williams. And 'chilly glumness' is not why there's no Britten in the Proms this year, at least I hope it isn't. In fact, I don't know why there's no Britten as I don't make the decisions. Presumably it's for the same reason that there is no Korngold, no Rautavaara, no Barkauskas, no Shchedrin and no Indonesian Gamelan. Come to think of it, I didn't spot any Birtwistle either. Everyone always wants their 'thing' better represented at the Proms.

Even in 76 concerts, you can't do everything. It really is as simple as that. If it is any comfort, I have shouted loudly about the wonders of Stockhausen, Messiaen and Elliott Carter.

What's more, it is true about the high heels. Please don't remind me of the time I wore the wrong shoes to Des canyons aux etoiles. It doesn't bear thinking about. And Pliable would presumably suffer even more than I did were he to arrive in stilettos for Saint Francis.

Lighten up, folks. This piece was meant to be fun. Or is that forbidden within a 20-mile radius of opening Proms night?

Monday, July 14, 2008

The frog prince, aka JDF

Midway through the second half of his sell-out 'recital' at the Barbican on Saturday night, Juan Diego Florez vanished. A chap in a suit appeared and had a quiet word with maestro Carlo Rizzi, who trotted after him off the podium, then vanished too. Minutes ticked by (and the orchestra, bussed in from Welsh National Opera, was probably trying to calculate what time they'd get home to Cardiff if he left it any longer). Eventually they came back and Florez made a little speech.

"Global warming," he said, "seems to be affecting tenors too these days." He had a 'frog' in his throat. A little problem of phlegm, which he was sure would be better the minute he got under a hot shower, but meanwhile there were all kinds of fluids around and the audience members in the front row opposite him should beware! Before 'Amici miei' (Italian version of 'Ah, mes amis' - and it sounds better in French), he disappeared again. Long pause. Carlo Rizzi turned to the audience and raised one immensely expressive eyebrow...

Florez sang beautifully anyway, most of the time. When he was singing at all, that is (the programme, entirely bel canto to help launch JDF's new album, consisted of six short arias and five long overtures). That voice was still that voice; but what was missing was the sense of effortlessness, the flying honeypots of exquisite legato that we remember from La fille du regiment, the total technical security which makes his singing such a joy. When he wasn't turning on the charm and making the audience laugh, he looked uncomfortable, holding on to the chrome rail around Rizzi, his expression visibly anxious.

What happened? I have a little theory.

Saturday night wasn't especially warm - this summer has been c*)p, wet, miserable and chilly, and that evening was no exception. But the Barbican was heaving. The concert hall was sold out, with a queue for returns. So, too, was the theatre, which is staging the massive hit Black Watch, also with a queue for returns. The restaurants were busy, and the foyers and bars teeming. And, in the concrete bunker of the Barbican, there was no air.

I felt it pretty badly in the audience - rarely have I been so relieved to get out into the rain - and I can't imagine how the performers must have felt. Well, I can, as my companion for the evening had friends in the orchestra and we went backstage to say hi. "It's really hot out there..." they said, clustering around the water bottles.

The Barbican's artistic programme is one of the best in the entire world. But it's not my first choice of venue for a fun night out. Twenty-one years ago, I bottled out of the Barbican-based Guildhall School of Music and Drama after only three weeks - long enough to start thinking that the place might have a bad case of 'sick building syndrome'. The Guildhall - which I'm glad to say is now constructing a state-of-the-art new block over the road, due to open in 2011 - is directly above the Barbican's car park and we all suspected that the CO2 was wending its happy way up into the school and our lungs. What's certain is that there wasn't one day during those three weeks in which I didn't go home with a headache and nausea. The Barbican itself, meanwhile, seems to have a ventilation problem, not to mention a serious lack of natural light. There was no air in that hall on Saturday night. No wonder Florez was feeling froggy.

As a cheerful footnote, my companion assessed the frog prince and his gleaming smile, then remarked that he looked like one of those footballers who are brought on at the end of the match to do the penalty shoot-outs and win the game without having played it.

Here's JDF himself singing 'Ah, mes amis' in the Laurent Pelly production of La fille du regiment last year in Vienna.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Observer asks...

..."Is it curtains for critics?" This article asks whether bloggers are putting the pros out of business.

It ignores several big points:

1. A number of bloggers are also professionals in their field.

2. A lot of critics are amateurs. Total amateurs.

3. The issue is focusing attention on the role of the critic as never before. Until arts blogging came along to show that commentary is both wanted and needed, newspapers could shed critics and arts coverage with equanimity. Perhaps they need us more than they thought.

Present blogger/critic is happy to send own list of credentials to anyone who wants it.