Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Here we go, here we go, here we go...again
Late August, everyone's away on holiday and it's time to start blustering about the Last Night of the Proms. Yes, it's outdated, too British and pretty bloody silly. Yes, it's probably not the most appropriate programming at times when Tony Blair & co are helping GWB to blast apart his latest choice of adversary. No, it doesn't put people off music. Actually, it attracts thousands to imitation Last Night of the Proms concerts all over the place. And to some, it could also be classified as harmless fun. Naturally, the papers have to come out with the usual stuff all over again. Could that be because there's not much else going on here right now, bar a few nasty Russian operas, one of the most journalistically uninspiring Proms seasons I can remember and...um...?
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
How not to write a book
Right now I should be battling my way through the difficult third quarter of my third novel. This is always a tricky point in the plot - how many operas, for example, founder exactly there? I'll save that topic for another day. Suffice it to say that I've been resorting to unfortunate displacement activities, and the latest I've discovered is the BBC Radio 3 Message Boards, onto which I had previously failed to venture.
I was amused by a discussion that had a good dig at Gramophone.co.uk's news section, which was a little slow at the Schwarzkopf obituary starting post. Readers commented on how annoyed they were that the site had posted next to no news for two weeks in July (er, was someone on holiday, perhaps?). Cue a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek contribution from BBC Music Mag editor Oliver Condy, inviting the said annoyed readers to try his online news section instead, and with a dry charm that few could resist. I think he won...
...You see how easy it is to get sucked in to this useless fun. You just pop a few details into the form, pick a user name (obscure composers are popular: in one sitting I found both 'Charles Valentin Alkan' and 'Sorabji'), click a response to the confirmation email they send you, and away you go. Did I come out better informed than before? Not sure. But I managed to while away a perfectly pleasant hour that should have been spent more productively elsewhere on my computer.
Still, with broadband it works out cheaper than your average 'Sex and the City' fan's retail therapy. And it's less fattening than chocolate.
I was amused by a discussion that had a good dig at Gramophone.co.uk's news section, which was a little slow at the Schwarzkopf obituary starting post. Readers commented on how annoyed they were that the site had posted next to no news for two weeks in July (er, was someone on holiday, perhaps?). Cue a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek contribution from BBC Music Mag editor Oliver Condy, inviting the said annoyed readers to try his online news section instead, and with a dry charm that few could resist. I think he won...
...You see how easy it is to get sucked in to this useless fun. You just pop a few details into the form, pick a user name (obscure composers are popular: in one sitting I found both 'Charles Valentin Alkan' and 'Sorabji'), click a response to the confirmation email they send you, and away you go. Did I come out better informed than before? Not sure. But I managed to while away a perfectly pleasant hour that should have been spent more productively elsewhere on my computer.
Still, with broadband it works out cheaper than your average 'Sex and the City' fan's retail therapy. And it's less fattening than chocolate.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Out?
I'm sorry to say that the latest on carrying hand-baggage on flights to/from Britain is that violins appear to be a no-no.
Tom has been carrying his violin into the cabin as hand-luggage for 25 years. Yesterday we hung on for about ten minutes to get through to the airline on which we are meant to fly to France next month, listening to pre-recorded platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service. Finally Tom was told by some idiot of a rep that he can put his violin in the hold. He explained that he can't: it's liable to be smashed by those shott-putting bag handlers, being 150 years old and worth a five-figure sum. 'In that case you can afford to buy another ticket for it,' said the rep, who evidently hadn't listened to the platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service.
Another call to the same company, answered by a different rep, produced the information that the new regulations about the size of hand-luggage have been in place since 1 August. A visit to the website produced, after much searching, a kind of afterthought suggesting that they've been in place since 1 July. Nobody mentioned this when we bought our tickets to France. We have the distinct impression that the airline is using the current crisis to cash in.
We're supposed to fly to Nice for a week's long-awaited holiday, then to Nantes for the St Nazaire Festival (hence Tom's need for his violin), then home from Nantes. We may have to ditch the whole plan and drive across northern France to St N instead, thanks to the airline, which by the way is refusing to offer a refund even though this situation is their fault, not ours.
Apparently orchestras on tour should be OK because they have organisational clout and proper equipment. It's the individual violinist, travelling between small chamber music festivals, who is basically up s**t creek without a fiddle.
BUT even as I write, conflicting information is still emanating from every orifice of the airline in question: the latest this morning is that the 'new' regulations about hang-luggage size are the same as the 'old' ones and that the airline can be 'flexible'. Confusing, but promising. So, no panics yet, please...
UPDATE: 12 noon. I think Tom has got it sorted, though I'll only believe it when we are actually on that plane. There's no problem with the French internal flight from Nice to Nantes - the rep we spoke to there seemed to think that Britain and the US have gone completely bonkers, and she may be right. Advice in the meantime: check with the airline before you travel, be polite and persuasive and try to get something in writing about taking the fiddle aboard. A forum on Violinist.com earlier this year about problems on a particular US airline saw several ladies advocating tears as a suitable last resort!
Tom has been carrying his violin into the cabin as hand-luggage for 25 years. Yesterday we hung on for about ten minutes to get through to the airline on which we are meant to fly to France next month, listening to pre-recorded platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service. Finally Tom was told by some idiot of a rep that he can put his violin in the hold. He explained that he can't: it's liable to be smashed by those shott-putting bag handlers, being 150 years old and worth a five-figure sum. 'In that case you can afford to buy another ticket for it,' said the rep, who evidently hadn't listened to the platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service.
Another call to the same company, answered by a different rep, produced the information that the new regulations about the size of hand-luggage have been in place since 1 August. A visit to the website produced, after much searching, a kind of afterthought suggesting that they've been in place since 1 July. Nobody mentioned this when we bought our tickets to France. We have the distinct impression that the airline is using the current crisis to cash in.
We're supposed to fly to Nice for a week's long-awaited holiday, then to Nantes for the St Nazaire Festival (hence Tom's need for his violin), then home from Nantes. We may have to ditch the whole plan and drive across northern France to St N instead, thanks to the airline, which by the way is refusing to offer a refund even though this situation is their fault, not ours.
Apparently orchestras on tour should be OK because they have organisational clout and proper equipment. It's the individual violinist, travelling between small chamber music festivals, who is basically up s**t creek without a fiddle.
BUT even as I write, conflicting information is still emanating from every orifice of the airline in question: the latest this morning is that the 'new' regulations about hang-luggage size are the same as the 'old' ones and that the airline can be 'flexible'. Confusing, but promising. So, no panics yet, please...
UPDATE: 12 noon. I think Tom has got it sorted, though I'll only believe it when we are actually on that plane. There's no problem with the French internal flight from Nice to Nantes - the rep we spoke to there seemed to think that Britain and the US have gone completely bonkers, and she may be right. Advice in the meantime: check with the airline before you travel, be polite and persuasive and try to get something in writing about taking the fiddle aboard. A forum on Violinist.com earlier this year about problems on a particular US airline saw several ladies advocating tears as a suitable last resort!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Violin - or out?
You may find the comments on this BBC site interesting re the problems musicians are now facing because they're not allowed to carry their valuable and delicate instruments on to the planes. The security guard who says 'if you don't like it, don't fly, there's more to life than music' is rather missing the point: music is a musician's livelihood! Get real yourself, Laura.
Dear friends who play violins, violas, or anything else that normally flies as hand baggage - please write in and tell us your experiences about travelling over the past few days? What are you going to do? I haven't heard any reports that terrorists are planning to blow up planes using fiddles, which are not liquid, but the blanket ban on hand-luggage nevertheless is playing havoc with musicians' plans. I sincerely hope that the Musicians Union will be able to tackle the airlines and work out something sensible, and fast.
UPDATE, MONDAY 11.45am: this is the latest on the hand baggage situation here in the UK - seems to be easing a bit. As far as I can tell, this means that flutes, oboes and, I hope, violins will be OK, but not sure about violas, cellos and tubas.
Dear friends who play violins, violas, or anything else that normally flies as hand baggage - please write in and tell us your experiences about travelling over the past few days? What are you going to do? I haven't heard any reports that terrorists are planning to blow up planes using fiddles, which are not liquid, but the blanket ban on hand-luggage nevertheless is playing havoc with musicians' plans. I sincerely hope that the Musicians Union will be able to tackle the airlines and work out something sensible, and fast.
UPDATE, MONDAY 11.45am: this is the latest on the hand baggage situation here in the UK - seems to be easing a bit. As far as I can tell, this means that flutes, oboes and, I hope, violins will be OK, but not sure about violas, cellos and tubas.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Literature for this day
This is from Ian McEwan's SATURDAY (published by Vintage Books):
There are those rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself. Out in the real world there exist detailed plans, visionary projects for peaceable realms, all conflicts resolved, happiness for everyone, for ever - mirages for which people are prepared to die and kill. Christ's kingdom on earth, the workers' paradise, the ideal Islamic state. But only in music, and only on rare occasions, does the curtain actually lift on this dream of community, and it's tantalisingly conjured, before fading away with the last notes.
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