Podcast!

Hooray! I've found a podcast player on Blogger. So, if you missed the podcast the other day of Philippe and me talking to Bob Jones of Classic FM Arts Daily, you can listen to it right here on JDCMB by selecting the one and only podcast in the box at the top of the sidebar.

Hickox's last interview

Broadcaster, film-maker and writer Tommy Pearson (check out his excellent blog, One More Take) discovered that his interview with Richard Hickox was the conductor's last. Three days after their meeting, Hickox suffered his fatal heart attack. The interview is strong on Vaughan Williams and English music in general. It's illuminating, fascinating and good humoured - and leaves one with a distinct lump in the throat, given the hindsight. It's now available to hear on Tommy's latest podcast for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's website; you can hear it here. The programme also includes a substantial discussion of the glorious Carl Nielsen with Stephen Johnson.

Poetry by Erich Fried

It's the day when I start to feel longer in the tooth than before, and I'd like to mark it not with music but with poetry. The other evening we went to a beautiful soiree at the Austrian Embassy dedicated to the Viennese-born poet, political commentator and author Erich Fried. His widow Katherine presented extracts from her memoirs and several close friends of his spoke about him and read some of his poems. They are concentrated and focused. They go straight to the heart. Here is my favourite.

What It Is

It is madness
says reason

It is what it is
says love

It is unhappiness
says caution

It is nothing but pain
says fear

It has no future
says insight

It is what it is
says love

It is ridiculous
says pride

It is foolish
says caution

It is impossible
says experience

It is what it is
says love.

MESSIAEN 100 UP!

Today is Messiaen's centenary!

I just couldn't choose a piece of his on Youtube to celebrate here - there's a shortage of first-class footage and questionable online sound quality does Messiaen few favours. Instead here is the man himself talking to his analysis class at the Paris Conservatoire about the work he described as his greatest influence: Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande.

Tom Stoppard, Andre Previn and...

The latest newsletter from the National Theatre here in London tells us that rehearsals are underway for Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn, opening on 12 January. It describes the work as "a chilling play for actors and orchestra" about "a patient in an asylum who believes himself to be surrounded by an orchestra".

I wonder if it's based on me?! ;-)