Igor blimey

Biopic fans are going to have some fun with this: an interview with actress Marina Hands in today's Times (re her new film of Lady Chatterley in French) reveals that she'll be starring in a film about Stravinsky and Coco Chanel:

Having taken a small part in Julian Schnabel’s forthcoming The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Hands is now readying herself to play Coco Chanel in a film that concerns the French fashion icon’s relationship with the composer Igor Stravinsky. “She supported him financially and they had a fascination for each other,” says Hands. Called Coco & Igor, bizarrely it is to be directed by The Exorcist’s William Friedkin, though this is just one of the talking points that has set the French media buzzing. “They all have a point of view [on her] and no one agrees,” she sighs. “I might go to Rome to rehearse, so I don’t feel the pressure!”

Presumably this is the film of the book by Chris Greenhalgh? Come on, Timesy, credit the author when credit is due. Stories don't get there all by themselves.

Last night...

...there was a screw-up which would take too long to explain, but means that anyone trying to listen to the interview wouldn't have been able to...

More about the piano competition very soon, though.

'Thorn in the flesh' dies at 94

The Russian composer Tikkhon Khrennikov has died at the age of 94, decades after the geniuses he helped to persecute. The Independent's obituary is rather kind to him.

UPDATE: Allan Kozinn in the New York Times is a little less kind.

The truth about Scotland

James MacMillan, one of the finest composers in Britain, never mind just Scotland, has written a fascinating article in today's Guardian about why music has tended to remain a 'black hole' in the soul of his home country.

Scotland's place in the history of European music suffered two near-fatal body blows in 1560 and 1603. The ancient universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen were founded in the 15th century, and music played a vital role. Collegiate chapels cultivated, besides Scottish music, English decorative composition, music by the Burgundian Dufay and Flemish-inspired polyphony. Scottish liturgists travelled to Rome, Paris and the Netherlands, absorbing the fashionable musical traits of the day.

In 1560, the Scottish Reformation stopped this all abruptly. The liturgy became a principal battleground, involving a violent repudiation of the past and of foreign influences. The second blow came with the departure of the Scottish court in 1603. At the very time when aristocratic courts all over Europe were becoming central in sponsoring great composers, Scotland lost the main arena where great music could be created and thrive. The result was an absence from our culture which has damaged the national soul and psyche, and the reverberations of this are still apparent today.

Manchester International Piano Competition kicks off

The semi-finals of the First Manchester International Concerto Competition for Young Pianists, to give it its full name, kicked off yesterday; the finals are on Thursday and Friday.

Organised by Murray McLachlan, head of piano at Chetham's School of Music, the contest's top-notch jury is made up entirely of concert pianists, many of them figures I admire for their sensitivity and musical integrity - Philippe Cassard, Noriko Ogawa, Anton Kuerti, Peter Donohoe, Kathryn Stott and more - and the finals are to take place in Manchester Cathedral, with the Manchester Camerata accompanying the candidates. What's relatively unusual is that the age limit is from 16 to 22 - I'd anticipate that a competition like this will perhaps help to provide invaluable experience for youngsters with their sights set on Tchaikovsky, Chopin or Leeds, occasions on which you definitely don't want to be playing a concerto for the first time. The semifinalists include pianists from the UK, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, France, Norway, Canada and India.

I'm going to the final night: Murray thought a reading from Alicia's Gift might help to entertain and distract everyone while the jury makes up its mind. Since the book is about a young pianist from the Manchester region and features competitions in quite a big way, it's maybe appropriate to some degree...