Dessay today

Dark, petite and fiercely intelligent, with a quick, cutting sense of irony, Dessay is anything but a traditional diva. Indeed, she had never intended to become an opera singer at all. "It's not a choice. Opera chose me," she declares. Originally, she wanted to be a ballet dancer. "At 13, I realised that I wasn't gifted enough, and I was disappointed. But I thought, OK, I can go on stage as an actress instead."

Read the rest of my interview with the glorious French soprano Natalie Dessay in today's Independent. She will be singing in Bach's Magnificat and Handel's Dixit Dominus at the Barbican on 17 December, with Le Concert d'Astree and Emmanuelle Haim conducting; she'll be back in London for a recital of Italian operatic arias in January; and we can see her in the Laurent Pelly production of La fille du regiment on TV (with JDF) over Xmas.

It's my birthday, so...

...if I can't post a last blast of Korngold today, then when can I?! Here is the beginning of the rarely-if-ever-seen Give Us This Night, with the incomparable Jan Kiepura singing his heart out in Sorrento. Enjoy.



In case you were wondering, my birthday present is an Enescu letter from 1947 to add to our autograph collection. We missed a Korngold one on Ebay by 2 seconds.

Speaking of Enescu, who taught Ida Haendel, there will be more very soon about the extraordinary day we spent at the Razumovsky Academy listening to Haendels' masterclasses on Sunday. There was also a surprise in the evening concert.

RIP Stockhausen

It's the end of an era. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who for decades embodied the very meaning of 'avant-garde', died yesterday aged 79. Yet it's alarming that most people only seem to measure him by his unfortunate comment about 9/11. Whither his legacy? Here's the report from The Guardian.

The Red Hedgehog, tomorrow evening

Tomorrow, Saturday 8 December, I'll be at The Red Hedgehog in Highgate to give a reading from 'Alicia's Gift' before a piano recital by Peter Donohoe. North London's new, vibrant and intimate venue for salon-style listening, The Red Hedgehog - named after Brahms's favourite Viennese inn - has a superb concert series and is almost opposite Highgate tube station. Tomorrow Peter will be playing music by Bach arr. Busoni, Liszt, Chopin and Brahms. Reading & book signing at 7pm, concert starts at 8pm. The Red Hedgehog seats just 100, so it's a good idea to book in advance: 020 8348 5050.

Ida Haendel again

UPDATED Thursday 9am: Mad props to my editor at the Independent who agreed to get something about Ida Haendel's London visit into the paper at incredibly short notice. Short and sweet, it's out today.

If anyone wants to read my 1986 article about her from The Strad prior to her Wigmore Hall masterclasses & the Razumovsky Academy concert this Sunday (or even after it) the piece is now in my permasite archive, here.