Can critics and artists ever be friends?

The Guardian is having a debate about this, which makes sobering reading for those of us who sometimes try.

You'll have noticed a heading in my sidebar called 'Musician Friends'. Heck, some of my best friends are musicians. I've never pretended otherwise. Do I review them? Sometimes: a) if my editors know darn well that we're friends, but still send me their CDs; b) if I've enough faith in their abilities to know that the review can be genuinely positive; c) if I know they have enough faith in me not to take it badly if the review is negative. Honest reviewing has sometimes strengthened friendships, because it can result in genuine mutual respect.

I treat friendly overtures from some musicians with suspicion; one can usually sense the 'caution needed' occasions pretty fast. A few experiences have left me cynical - some people don't bother to disguise their ulterior motives, but even individuals you've trusted for years sometimes cool off when they realise you're spending more time writing novels and less editing magazines, or, worse, that your 'art' (yes, "general fiction" is an art) is suddenly as much in the limelight as theirs.

True friends, though, are the dearest and most valued people on earth, and if they happen to be terrific musicians, so much the better. And the interesting thing is that these friends don't regard me as a critic at all.

Yikes, it's Tchaiks

Everything is covered in snow this morning. One of those gorgeous every-twig-and-every-blade-of-grass falls, more common when one was a kid pre global-warming; the world looks like a black and white movie with splashes of colour spliced in where lights illuminate distant windows. A disgruntled-looking blackbird is huddling in the apple tree outside my study; and for once, following the paw-prints, I can see something of where Solti goes after breakfast.

What composer could be snowier than Tchaikovsky? The BBC is about to have one of its little bonanzas: his complete works on Radio 3. Oh, and Stravinsky's too, only nobody's been shouting about that. Is it a little add-on to please the R3-diehards for whom wall-to-wall Tchaik just sounds too nice? The Russians are coming on 10 February, until 16th.

Of course there's nothing nice about Tchaikovsky. Pain, yes; tragedy, yes; and this greatest of Russians beats the Germans at their own game because there is no musical sehnsucht that can compare with his. Yet this is the quality for which people denigrate him. Dearie dear, he wears his heart on his sleeve. How Russian. How Romantic. How very un-Anglo-Saxon.

The intriguing thing is this: musical hearts don't get worn on sleeves unless their composers have the technique to put them there. And the articulation of longing is not easy. It's hard enough in words, as I've been discovering to my cost while revising third novel (go through manuscript taking out every superfluous adjective and every mention of hearts, souls or spirits, then try to convey how it feels to fall head over heels in love during the course of one conversation on a train. hmm...).

It must require a certain genius to express longing through the metaphor of music to the degree that Tchaikovsky does. Tatiana's letter scene, the transforming swans, princesses and nutcracker princes, the first, fourth, fifth and sixth symphonies, the violin concerto, the Suite no.3 - there's no end to his yearning for the unattainable. It's so perfect that we take it for granted. Yes, people long for the unattainable, yes, so did Tchaikovsky, so it gets into his music, so what? Actually, so plenty.

My favourite Unintentionally Appropriate Tchaikovsky-related quote is from ballerina Alina Cojocaru in a piece currently on the Indy website: 'I find the Sugar Plum Fairy pas de deux terribly uplifting'. I'm sure her partner Johan Kobborg would agree...

They're showing The Sleeping Beauty on BBC2 on Saturday 27 October. Ballet on terrestrial TV is so rare these days that that's newsworthy.

UPDATE, Thursday 25 January: Solti requests that anyone confused by the above mention of paw-prints should come on over to his blog to see how he won his battle to be allowed outside again...

Wish I'd had my camera...

Just back from doing an interview at Covent Garden. Walking down Floral Street towards the stage door, I saw outside it the vehicle that chauffeurs the real star of Carmen: a van bearing the words ISLAND FARM DONKEY SANCTUARY. Polyanne the grey donkey is seriously, seriously cute and has worked with all the biggest names, darling, including Domingo. Van deserved a photo, had I been equipped.

'La Stupenda' was supposed to have been at the House today, opening the new exhibition to celebrate 60 years of the Royal Opera. But unfortunately Dame Joan had broken a bone (I think) and had to cancel. Instead, Juan Diego and Natalie came along to cut the cake. And was I there? No, I bloody wasn't! I declined the invitation in order to stay home tussling [cue: brightening halo] with third novel and a pile of CD reviews as tall as me. (OK, I'm not tall, but it's all relative...) And all I really managed to do was listen to two uninspiring discs and screw up the timescale that I was trying to fix. As Solti would say: grr.

The interview wasn't with any of the above, not even Polyanne. More soon...

birthdays...

Any of my friends will confirm that I'm 99.9 per cent useless at remembering birthdays. Yesterday, I forgot Chausson's. At least he's not around to ring up and say "well, where were you, then?" Bravissimos to Operachic in Italy, who not only remembered, but gave him a suitably celebratory hat.

Operachic, like me, adores the Poeme de l'amour et de la mer. What about Monsieur Ernest's opera, Le roi Arthus? A couple of years ago, I went to Walthamstow to listen to some of the BBC Symphony Orchestra recording sessions for their CD. Arrived at the last stop on the Victoria Line just as the performers, in the run-down recording venue somewhere in the town hall complex, were tackling the final pages of the opera. Heaven had come to north-east London. Any Chausson fan who hasn't heard the opera yet should do so a.s.a.p... Bonne anniversaire hier, maestro.

By the way, a note to Ionarts, who, bless him, has got quite the wrong end of the stick: Tom would have a thing or two to say about this...

UPDATE, 8.40pm: Good old Opera Chic is ahead once again, celebrating that other underrated French genius Henri Duparc, whose birthday is not yesterday but today! And yes, guess who didn't remember... What is it about composers and the Capricorn-Pisces cusp?? We haven't even got to Mozart on 27th yet.

On 'dumbing down'

I've been basically mute on the matter of dumbing-down in the British media (and elsewhere), because the topic is so huge and so miserable - besides, everyone's written such reams about it, including much dross, that I don't want to add to the heap. But today in The Independent, Howard Jacobson says everything I'd like to say, only better, so here it is.

After the Revolution, the Terror. This - the invariable consequence of filling the heads of the uneducated with grandiosity - is what we are seeing on Celebrity Big Brother. In the days when she sweetly knew herself to be pig ignorant, Jade Goody had neither the reason nor the confidence to launch the sort of terrifying tirades to which poor little rich girl Shilpa Shetty has been subjected - never mind with what provocation - this last week.

But then television made Jade a star. Television rewarded her with renown for all the things she didn't know...

Read the rest here.