ONE/ONE/ONE-ONE

***HAPPY NEW YEAR!***

And here, on 1.1.11, are a selection of 7 Top Reasons to Welcome 2011:

1. Last night our home was the unexpected host of a proposal and subsequent engagement at midnight. CONGRATULATIONS, RUSTEM AND DANIELA! With you around, who needs Wills & Kate? And a huge Mazel Tov to my beautiful Ozzie cousin Mandi and her bridegroom Dean, who tied the knot in sunny Sydney the other day. May 2011 be a year of weddings!

2. Hugh Canning has named the London Philharmonic as Best Orchestra of 2010 in his Sunday Times Best & Worst of the Year. Bravo, orchestra-in-law!

3. The New Year's Day Concert from Vienna was full of Liszty Czardasy stuff and there will be lots and lots and LOTS more to look forward to in the Liszt Bicentenary.

4. Some really good people got New Year Honours, including MBEs for the admirable and energetic Simon and Pamela Majaro of the Cavatina Trust, an OBE for composer Colin Matthews and a CBE for composer/presenter Howard Goodall. Best of all, there's a Damehood for the glorious Felicity Palmer, mezzo gloriosa.

Admittedly, as Michael White points out in the Telegraph, the precise ranking may be disputable. Still, it is good to see anyone in classical music receiving due recognition at the moment. (By the way, we're still waiting for Dame Tasmin. I don't know how these things work, but it's scandalous that our leading British violin soloist has never been awarded any official honour whatsoever.)

5. Glyndebourne is doing Meistersinger this summer, with Vladimir Jurowski conducting and David McVicar directing. Roll over, Bayreuth...

6. I have some terrific projects on the go. For now, let's just say that they may pop up in such diverse locations as San Francisco, Australia, France, Suffolk and the Middle East.

JDCMB housekeeping has taken place in the sidebar and involves weekly links to interesting musical Youtube channels, plus a shameless plug via which you may advertise here, take part in a writing course, etcetera, etcetera.

7. Katie Fforde this morning tweeted the adorable idea that we are now living in the Elevenses. Here's to honey for all!

Happy New Year, folks, with lots of love from me, the Tomcat and Solti.
 

...and a special Strauss Friday Historical

...apropos of Johann Strauss for new year, it's Friday and time for historical treats. Here's Miliza Korjus, accompanied by the matchless solo violin playing (on the sound track) of Toscha Seidel, singing Tales of the Vienna Woods in the 1930 film The Great Waltz. After this, all we need is a bit of cut-price bubbly and we're ready to meet 2011 and whatever it may do. "Something so sweet and so dangerous..."

BRING IT ON!

Merry Christmas from my Orchestra-In-Law

The London Philharmonic Orchestra would like to wish you...this! As you'll see, they are a multinational lot, and this effort does not include possible further contributions in Russian, Latvian and Hungarian. Tomcat is the one speaking Danish. Actually he's from Derbyshire.

Please stand by for the annual JDCMB Ginger Stripe Awards, which take place tomorrow...

Rubinstein plays Chopin

This will probably be the last Friday Historical of Chopin Year, so it's a very special one: Arthur Rubinstein plays Chopin's Etude Op.25 No.1 in A flat major in recital in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. This was in 1960-something. The picture looks older, the sound seems newer and the playing is a sliver of timeless wonder. I'm not sure that Chopin could be any more perfect.

A sop to our consciences...

Here's my piece from today's Independent on the iniquities of musical organisations that promote themselves with the concept of peace. "If we accept "music for peace" as the panacea of all evils, we are selling short not only everything that music can achieve, which is prodigious, but also the nature of peace itself."

(Update, 23 Dec: the "Quartet for Peace" points out that the four instruments it comprises were actually crafted by the Cape Town-based luthier Brian Lisus. Apologies for misidentification.)