Sibelius and co

...my piece about him was in today's Independent.

The Indy also ran a very good read the other day - stars pick their musical nightmares. Mostly pop, but some intriguing points. For instance, nobody gives as their ultimate hell 'listening to classical music'. Rather they pick on a few appalling pop groups and teen trends, anti-social levels of volume, one or two old-time rockers and the annoyance of mobile phone noises. Only one singled out jazz.

When Josh went busking...

The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten has a fascinating article about what happened when Joshua Bell was persuaded to go busking to see how rush-hour commuters responded. Here's a taster:

"If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?"

Read the whole thing here. Thanks to Alex Ross and Justin Davidson for the link.

Meanwhile, Josh has scooped the Avery Fisher Prize and has a new disc out (follow that link to his website for more details).

New page

I've added (more accurately, Horst has added for me) a new page to my website for my stage works.

Corin Long

I'm so sorry to report that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's principal double bass, Corin Long, has died in a diving accident in Spain. Corin was a sought-after professor at the Royal Academy and Trinity College of Music in London, a beloved colleague to London's orchestral musicians, a busy and popular chamber music player, and much more besides. He will be sorely missed.

A little A.E. Housman

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Ahhh....This was the first poem I ever memorised (probably the last, too) when I was about 10, at which age the 20-year-old poet seems immeasurably and unreachably mature.... Oh, f(&*.