When Steven met Clara...

Here is Steven Isserlis's take on the Schumann, Clara & Brahms story, from yesterday's Guardian. Today, in Aldeburgh, he and Simon Callow will be giving their music-and-words account of it. I can't make it to Aldeburgh myself (I'm currently closeted in my study, in the last throes of finalising the manuscript of ALICIA'S GIFT), but would be very interested to hear from anyone who does. Please write in with your comments! I will post any newspaper reviews I find.

TODAY

A quick reminder that this afternoon, Saturday, from 2pm I'll be at Waterstones in Richmond (2-6 Hill Street), Surrey, signing copies of RITES OF SPRING.

Hmm...

An item in the redoubtable Hornblower's Diary of Classical Music Magazine draws attention to a resemblance between the Prime Minister of the UK and a certain Hungarian grand maestro of the piano. There is indeed something about that steady, steely gaze...

Perhaps Mr Schiff would do a more statesmanlike job of sorting out the current horrific world situation than Mr Blair...
[UPDATE, 10.45pm: Mr Blair has not, as we all thought earlier, gone on holiday today, though he was planning to. He's postponed his trip to Barbados for the time being.]

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, 1916-2006

The great soprano has died at the age of 90. An iconic figure without whom opera in the 20th century would not have been the same.

I never met her, but when I was a kid, she and her husband Walter Legge lived in the next street from us in Hampstead. The complex of back gardens adjoined. And sometimes, when the weather was fine and all the windows were open, one could hear the sound of singing across the leaves...

UPDATE: Saturday 5 August, 10.25am: read obituary from The Independent here.

CDs for a summer Sunday

I got a bit hot under the collar over the business of my article in The Australian, so thought I'd calm down by recommending some nice CDs for you.

The youthful Pole Rafal Blechacz was the winner of the last Chopin Competition in Warsaw and this is his first CD: it's pretty stunning. Beautiful tone quality, plenty of variety and an individuality which feels like a genuine response to the music - for example, a marvellous grandeur about the A flat major Polonaise. The Szymanowski variations are fascinating. I think we'll be hearing more of this fellow; I certainly hope so.

This is Elektrafying: Semyon Bychkov and the WDR in Strauss's completely OTT masterpiece, starring a nuclear-powered trio of Deborah Polaski as Elektra, Anne Schwanewilms as Chrysothemis and Felicity Palmer as Klytemnestra. If an ideal of Greek drama was catharsis, I'd say this does it: after listening, I felt exhausted, exhilarated and, peculiarly, less stewed up than usual over daft things in the rest of my life. Watch this space in a few months' time for an explanation of why my new name for Maestro Bychkov is 'The Big Cheese'.

Korngold fans might like to discover Miklos Rozsa, another central European immigrant to the US, who wound up writing film music of a rather different kind. That dynamic duo of Philippe Graffin and Raphael Wallfisch, with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth, have recorded Rosza's Sinfonia Concertante, coupled with the Cello Concerto: ascerbic, stirring, edgy stuff with a highly individual flavour - plenty of paprika. PG & RW will be performing it live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall next May, again with the BBCCO and Wordsworth - more of that soon, since the second half will be Korngold's scandalously underprogrammed Sinfonietta...

Last but not least, here's one of the latest and best from the LPO's own label: Vladimir Jurowski conducts Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, live at the Royal Festival Hall. It's a glorious piece - I urge you to hear it if you don't know it - full of Byronic angst, high drama and marvellous melodies. Vladimir shapes and paces it with enormous intelligence and sensitivity. Marvellous despite the less than ideal acoustic (hopefully when the RFH reopens next year, that pigeon-hitting-wall deadness will be a thing of the past).

Enjoy...