First glimpse of Meryl Streep as Florence Foster Jenkins

Meryl Streep's forthcoming new movie about Florence Foster Jenkins looks simply glorious. See the official trailer above.

But why this story, why now? Strangely, it may represent a very current phenomenon of celebrating people who are determined to do something, but do it badly. Perhaps even celebrating the self-deluded. This makes for "heartwarming" tales such as the excellent Victoria Wood TV drama about Joyce Hatto, about the extent of love that will indulge such fantasies, about following your dreams no matter what, about getting your own back on all those nasty, nasty professionals. Great stories, but a very weird trend. (The real Joyce Hatto incident was less heartwarming. It was a disgrace on the music industry, and a tragedy for her.)

Where does this tendency come from? The TV "talent" show? The concept of "crossover", which over the years has packaged up various people who sing rather badly, on the grounds of marketability/accessiblity/audience-doesn't-know-any-better? Inverted snobbery against, or jealousy of, the really good? Or are we a self-deluding society?

Oh come on, it's just harmless fun, isn't it? People have enjoyed freak shows since the beginning of time, haven't they?... Except now this extends through all manner of supposed disciplines. Highly gifted professionals who have given their whole lives to the study and perfection of an art, craft or skill stand by helplessly as the ignorant-and-proud-of-it run roughshod over them, aided and abetted by internet mobs. I suspect it won't be until we have a US president who follows this same pattern that we realise how dangerous it is.

Nevertheless, I can't wait to see this film. It's out in May.

Menuhin: a protégé speaks

This year marks the centenary of one of the 20th century's most extraordinary musicians: Yehudi Menuhin. A plethora of events and recordings surround this anniversary and in yesterday's Independent I had a piece exploring his legacy - essentially, how his pioneering creativity changed the musical world. It's here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/yehudi-menuhins-centenary-year-a-maestro-with-many-strings-to-his-bow-a6919356.html

The violinist Daniel Hope, who was a protégé of Menuhin from the word go - his mother was the great man's PA - has made a new CD paying tribute to his mentor, and I have an e-interview with him to discuss it. Daniel talks about the perfectionism and iron will that underpinned Menuhin's heavenly musicianship - and tells us about the time his father left Menuhin's violin on a plane.

JD: Daniel, Yehudi Menuhin strikes me as not merely a musician, but a great humanitarian and, in many ways, a visionary whose preoccupations with bringing music to the people, training young musicians and collaborating with other genres seemed ahead of his time. Please can you tell us something about the various different ways in which he inspired you?

DH: Menuhin taught me that being an artist is more than just playing your instrument as well as you can. He believed that music had a strong social aspect and that musicians should use it to help others. Of the many wonderful organizations that he created or inspired, I think Live Music Now is the most impressive. Yehudi created LMN in 1977, and the organization works with a very diverse range of people that rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to experience live music - some of whom are very disadvantaged. They often face difficulties in communicating, cut off from the joy and pleasures of participating and sharing with others. LMN's approach to overcoming these barriers is very simple: talented young musicians are given the chance to gather early and essential performance experience, by sharing it in a social context, for example playing in hospitals, retirement homes or for children who are mentally or physically handicapped. LMN now has branches all over Europe: in Germany, where I often give fundraising concerts for them and am on their Honorary Committee, there are 20 branches alone giving over 5000 concerts a year. Worldwide LMN has reached more than 2 million people, with over 50,000 participatory performances for people with special needs.  

JD: What sort of a person was he? Do you have any favourite memories of him or anecdotes about him in daily life (rather than playing/teaching)?

DH: There was a magic about Menuhin and his aura as a musician was inspiring. Though physically of small stature he had a majestic charisma on stage. For a gentle man he was never ever satisfied he got things as good as he wished. He had a habit of turning and staring at the soloist’s fingers during cadenzas. So it was that in the summer of 1998, I was playing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Philip Dukes on the viola. Menuhin was conducting when, without warning, he turned and fixed his eyes on Philip’s left hand - even his baton stopped.  He leaned over and got so close to Philip that the poor fellow blanched. He was watching Philip so raptly we wondered if he’d forget to turn back to the orchestra at the end of the cadenza, and only at the very last moment did he do so. 

Along with gentleness that nonetheless masked an iron will, Selbst bei größeren Zwischenfällen war Menuhins Humor unerschöpflich.Menuhin's humour was inexhaustible. On one occasion my father was entrusted with taking his priceless Guarneri del Gesù, a violin made in 1742 and known as the ‘Lord Wilton’, on an Alitalia flight to Rome. Menuhin was at the front of the plane and went straight to the VIP room.  When we got to passport control at Fiumicino airport, I asked my father where the violin was. My father looked at me with shock and came out with an expletive. He had left the violin in the baggage compartment on the plane. He ran like an Olympic sprinter back onto the runway and up the stairs of the aircraft - (you could do that in those days). When Yehudi heard about the incident, he giggled like a little boy. Thanks to some kind carabinieri he got his violin back after a tense half hour – tense for my father, anyway. 

JD: I understand he experienced a difficult patch, after his prodigy days were over, during which he virtually had to retrain his technique - can you shed any light on what happened to him and why, and how his playing after this compared to the recordings he made before?

DH: I think like many child prodigies, Menuhin reached a stage in his life where he began to question his astonishing talent. What had seemed entirely natural to him until that point suddenly became a struggle. From what he told me, this seems to have been compounded by emotional problems in his private life and the exhaustion of playing literally hundreds of concerts for the allied troops during the war. He did indeed teach himself to play the violin again, but this ‘crisis’ also led to a new journey of discovery on so many levels: yoga, Indian music with his collaboration with Ravi Shankar and a peace of mind which grounded him as a human being for the rest of his life.

JD: How would you describe his legacy?

DH: One of the greatest violinists of all time, and by far the most vocal classical musician of the 20th century.

Southbank Centre to launch WOW Awards for Women in the Creative Industries

Two or three years ago I wrote my first Cross Article about the sexism inherent in the classical music world and suggested we should have a new award - as there is in literature - for women in this industry. Now the Soutbank Centre is going a step further than that. To coincide with the WOW Women of the World Festival, and International Women's Day yesterday (which annoyingly I had to miss, any likely Budapest version having been in Hungarian), the Southbank is announcing the launch of the first-ever awards for Women in the Creative Industries.

Music forms one little part of this. I hope that the achievements of women in classical music will be recognised in full in future awards, and that as one of the smaller corners of the creative industries this vital and ever more active sphere will not be entirely marginalised. I think there's been a lot of progress since that initial Cross Article. It seems to me that scales - so to speak - have fallen from some eyes (though there's always room and time for more to glitter down). There's been an awakening, and with increased awareness some increased action has come about, from such institutions as BBC Radio 3, the Cheltenham Festival, two important early music festivals last year - Brighton and London - and now the BBC Young Musician of the Year, which has made the inspired choice of the composer Dobrinka Tabakova to be chair of its jury for 2016. Even Pembroke College, Cambridge, is putting up a picture of its alumna Emma Johnson, the clarinettist - the first time it has ever commissioned a portrait of a woman in 650 years. 

Here's to much more celebration. I was looking for a "three cheers" video to post, but the only one that falls roughly within the remit of a classical music blog is an extract of HMS Pinafore that begins with three cheers and proceeds with a pompous man singing about being a captain, with a chorus interjecting "And we are his sisters and his cousins and his aunts..."

So instead, over to the Southbank to explain the awards.

SOUTHBANK CENTRE ANNOUNCES FIRST EVER CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AWARDS FOR WOMEN

@WOWtweetUK #WOWLDN
wow.southbankcentre.co.uk

Today Southbank Centre launches WOW Creative Industries Awards, the first ever awards to honour women who are leading the way across the creative industries.

Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, Serpentine Galleries and Paulette Randall, Theatre and Television Director and Playwright are honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award and Bryony Kimmings, Live Artist, Playwright and Director will receive a Bold Moves Award.

The awards, which will be presented annually at Southbank Centre’s WOW- Women of the World festival, will recognise significant achievements made by women in the arts, tech, music, film, games, media, fashion and advertising.

The three inaugural awards are presented by Southbank Centre Artistic Director Jude Kelly CBE at today’s Women in Creative Industries Day and will be followed by a call for submissions ahead of the first full awards ceremony at WOW-Women of the World festival 2017.

Founder of the WOW Creative Industries Awards and the WOW Women of the World festival, Southbank Centre Artistic Director,  Jude Kelly CBE said:

“I am launching the WOW Creative Industries Awards to recognise how pivotal women have been in making the sector as strong as it is today. Through our Women in Creative Industries Day we strive to bring recognition to the role women play in the creative industries and address challenges women face in reaching their creative goals. I believe these awards will help us reflect on the risks individual women have taken to push the arts, digital, music, film, fashion, games, media and advertising sectors forwards and encourage women who are passionate about carving their own creative path to pursue their dreams.”

Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy Ed Vaizey MP said:

“Congratulations to Julia Peyton-Jones and Paulette Randall on their outstanding efforts being recognised with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and also to Bryony Kimmings for her valuable contribution to the arts.

"I hope that the WOW Creative Industries Awards will help inspire the next generation of female entrepreneurs, artists, designers, coders and writers to pursue their dreams. The UK is home to so much talent in our thriving creative industries, but we can’t forget how much we still need to do to eradicate the barriers many still face when trying to achieve their goals.”

Julia Peyton-Jones, Director of Serpentine Galleries, said:

“I am very proud to be the recipient of the inaugural Women of the World Lifetime Achievement Award. International Women’s Day and occasions such as WOW serve as both an opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements and also as a reminder that there is still much to do. Equality is not yet a given and we need to be on the barricades for as long as it takes.”

Bryony Kimmings, Live Artist, Playwright and Director and winner of the Bold Moves Award said:

“I feel very humbled by this award. I often feel I exist at the peripheries of art forms and that being an activist often annoys people, it's bloody great to be told that being bold is a good thing... It makes you want to go even bolder!”

Paulette Randall, Theatre and Television Director and Playwright, said:

“I'm very honoured to receive this award. Working in the arts is not the easy option, it takes courage and determination to succeed. These awards send a signal to women who have a creative passion that if they work hard it can be possible to realise their ambition and I want them to hold on to that.”

The WOW Women in Creative Industries Day is part of Southbank Centre’s week long 6th WOW- Women of the World festival. The day is an opportunity for men and women working across the creative industries to discuss how to achieve gender equality in the sector and a chance to celebrate some of the important improvements that have taken place over the last year.

WOW Women in Creative Industries Day will include appearances from Alice Bah-Kuhnke, Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy and Louise Jury, Director of Communications & Strategy at the Creative Industries Federation, Maria Eagle MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Damian Collins MP, Chair of the Conservative Arts and Creative Industries Network and previously a member of the Select Committee for Culture, Media, Sport and the Olympics. There will be speeches from Kate Mosse OBE, international bestselling author and Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Lucy Crompton-Reid, CEO of Wikimedia, Amali de Alwis, CEO of Code First: Girls, Caroline Norbury MBE, founding Chief Executive of Creative England, Melanie Eusebe, award winning business expert and founder and chair of the Black British Business Awards, Sue Hoyle OBE, Director of the Clore Leadership Programme, Mira Kaushik OBE, Director of South Asian dance company Akademi and Zoe Whitley, Curator, Contemporary British Art at Tate Britain and Curator International Art at Tate Modern.  

For the complete London WOW 2016 programme, visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk/wow

A Hungarian dance...

More of a quick march than a dance, really, but I've just spent 24 hours in Budapest, where I went to meet a remarkable and highly creative musician. Those who are not only conductors but also composers, creators, communicators and founders, with an instinct for the big picture and an ability to build audiences at a time like this, are, to put it mildly, few and far between. I've often written here about the joys of listening to the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and I've talked briefly to Iván Fischer before, but this was my first in-depth interview with him and I look forward to bringing you the finished piece when it's out. He and the BFO will be in London in May to perform The Magic Flute at the Royal Festival Hall.

Budapest is, of course, full of music and tributes to its musicians. Here's the latest new memorial: to Sir Georg Solti, outside the lavish Art Nouveau marvels of the Franz Liszt Academy.

Liszt Ferenc himself, naturally, gets everywhere. I paid a happy visit to the Liszt Museum, in his apartment just off Andrássy Street, where one may view several of his pianos - including one by Chickering & Sons with 'Franz Liszt' inscribed in inlaid wood, with a giant wrought-silver music stand glorifying said musician. Downstairs is the dedicated Liszt Research Centre.

In my perambulations around downtown Pest I saw more statues of Liszt than any other individual - and the airport is named after him, too (how about renaming Heathrow Henry Purcell Airport, chaps? Perhaps that wouldn't be fair to Purcell...). This bust of him is simply a fountain on a street corner between the Basilica and the Danube...

Here is a plaque to Joszef Joachim, who lived in a big and beautiful late 19th-century apartment block with ornate marble and curved windows, near the start of Vaci Street (the main pedestrian shopping street) and about one and a half minutes from Gerbaud's - the gorgeous big coffee house that offers some of the best cakes I've ever had, as I remember from my last visit some seven or eight years ago in the days when I could still eat them.

I also found myself by accident on the street where, according to the one extant biography of her and her sisters, Jelly d'Arányi was born - Wesselényi Street, which is right beside the magnificent synagogue of Dohány Street.

There's a cat café in Budapest and I didn't have time to go there, but I'm now wondering if there's perhaps room for another...with gluten-free specialities and a family of resident Somali kitties and a Gypsy band to play every weekend... I even found a Ricki lookalike in stone on the Chain Bridge...

In a brief visit like this, you see only the superficial enchantment of a place like Budapest. A local journalist friend recommended a restaurant round the corner from the opera house (the theatre itself has an extraordinary fairy-tale foyer, full of colour and mosaics and soaring staircases) and after a feast of pomegranaty duck and a glass of local wine I took a long stroll through the centre of the city to see the Beautiful Black-and-Gold Danube.

One thing disturbed and slightly unnerved me, though: I didn't see any Roma. Violinists or otherwise. When I visited Budapest to research Hungarian Dances about ten years ago, no street corner was complete without a busker; indeed, wherever you went, you'd hear a violin somewhere, with the sweetness, gentleness, sparkle and slidiness so characteristic of Gypsy style. I remember a pair of musicians, clad in the trademark waistcoats and hats, busking on the square close to Gerbaud's, clarinet raised and hornlike, fiddle rhythmic and irresistible. Now: silence. Then, you'd find the Roma women in headscarves and long skirts, their faces weathered, their eyes deep and somehow knowing, begging near the tourist spots and along Andrássy. But this time I encountered not one. I would like to know what has become of them and I don't think it's the weather; this was a spring-like visit - about 11 degrees and warmer in the sun yesterday morning. Budapest without its "Gypsies" is missing a part of its soul.

Walking through the End of Time in Ealing

Hello. I'm taking a short blogging break at present because I am very busy and a bit down and it's not the best combination. All week I've been trying to write a coherent post about the debacle unfolding at ENO, yet feeling quite confounded with disbelief, anger and uncertainty that anything one says can be remotely helpful, and wondering just what the heck really has gone on in the back rooms these past few years. In other news, the book is (sort of) finished and I'm heading for Budapest on Monday (unrelated to book).

So this is just a quick shout-out for the Ealing Autumn Festival's performance tonight of my play A Walk through the End of Time, at the Church of Christ the Saviour, which is a couple of minutes from Ealing Broadway tube station. The play is given by actors Caroline Dooley and David Webb and is followed by a complete performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, performed by Colin Bradbury (clarinet), Adrian Bradbury (cello), Richard George (violin) and Gillian Spragg (piano). Do come along if you can. All details here.