Business as usual

To reassure you, dear readers, it is business as usual at JDCMB - the Felixcitations blog is As Well As, not Instead Of. There will be a 2-week hiatus over Christmas & New Year, but this is coincidental.

And to reassure one or two from Sniffsville, East Anglia, I have no intention of compromising my independence. Just because R3 has invited me to write extensively about a composer I love, that does not mean I will be reverently tugging the forelock here to the channel's ecstatic reviews of new early-music CDs, unless I can stand the way said discs sound.

Fiddles in the Library!

THURSDAY 22 January 2009, 7.30pm

HUNGARIAN DANCES: AN EVENING WITH JESSICA DUCHEN AND PHILIPPE GRAFFIN
We'll be talking about our collaborations and especially the book & CD of Hungarian Dances. I'll read from the book and Tom will join Philippe to play Bartok Duos. Come and meet us!

East Sheen Library, Sheen Lane, London SW14 (2 mins from Mortlake station, South-West Trains). Booking in advance is advised via the library: 020 8876 8801.

The day before, Wednesday 21 Jan, you can hear Philippe playing the Chausson Poeme, among other things, at the Wigmore Hall with members of the London Sinfonietta, in a special concert devoted to the memory of Charles Darwin.

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.