Things to read and hear

A rash of referrals on my statcounter from a site I hadn't seen before led me to this excellent development: a site for newcomers to classical music that demystifies the whole caboodle without talking down. His hefty referral to this blog suggests another online soulmate. Bravo, Tobin! And thanks for the plug.

Meanwhile I'm listening obsessively to Chopin Waltzes. How peculiar - I haven't experienced this particular addiction since the age of 14. But it's not a second childhood; instead, it's the result of the new recording by Stephen Kovacevich which seems to have cleared my ears of all prior expectations and made me realise anew just what fabulous pieces they are. No salon pussyfooting for our Stephen: instead there's soul, fire, songfulness, pathos and passion. Best of all, a kind of wicked glee about the way he tackles numbers like the yodelly G flat major waltz and the virtuoso flourishes in the Grand Valses Brilliantes. I've never heard Chopin playing quite like this before, but I'm totally hooked. Strongly recommended.

Ten years on

I've had a lot of messages recently about Korngold. It's ten years since my biography of him came out (ouch) and next year is the 50th anniversary of his death, so all of this is very timely. Any musicians who want to schedule 50th anniversary celebrations for 2007 should start planning NOW. Ariadne has been zapped by Das Wunder der Heliane and the possibilities offered by a show named Farewell Vienna!; she also offers links to online Korngold forums. At home, my own Tomcat has started learning the Violin Concerto, for reasons best known to himself. A mysterious correspondent from the States is urging me to do a second edition of the book since so much new material has come to light in the past decade.

Keep up the good works, folks. But don't hold your breath for the second edition. I think that the Korngold field needs new voices now. I'm glad to have been part of it, but I feel I have little more to add. The facts are: my book is out of date, Brendan Carroll's is hard to find, and so if anyone else feels it is timely to write a new one, they should get on the case, fast. I for one would applaud that.

Latest review

This is what CLOSER had to say about RITES OF SPRING a couple of weeks ago:

‘Adam and Sasha appear to have the perfect life - good jobs, a nice home, money and three perfect children. But as their marriage begins to unravel, their ballet-crazy daughter starts starving herself - and her parents are too preoccupied to notice. A haunting, heartbreaking novel.’

Being a tad out of touch with popular culture, I'd never even heard of CLOSER before. Now I see it's piled high on the shelves in the local supermarket.

Apologies for lack of normal blogging recently. Excuses: Tom went on tour for a month, I had too many daft things to deal with in his absence, got ill three times, am still not quite better, and there was the small matter of my first novel hitting the shelves in the meantime. Arguments about the vagaries of British critics and the merits or otherwise of 'Evgeny Onegin' at Covent Garden (principally 'otherwise') started to feel like they could wait for another day.......

Except this: yes, I did write 'Evgeny', not 'Eugene'. Calling the opera 'Eugene Onegin' is one of those tired old customs that make little sense but are hard to change, like saying 'The Marriage of Figaro' instead of 'Figaro's Wedding'... Do we talk about Eugene Kissin? Greg Sokolov? Mike Pletnev? Andrew Gavrilov? I know a few Vladimirs who are known as Bob, but I don't think Pushkin or Tchaikovsky thought of Onegin as a good old Gene.

Sneak preview

The first three pages of RITES OF SPRING are now available to read on my permasite, here.

This Thursday

I've got a gig at East Sheen Library this Thursday evening, 30th March, 7.30pm. I'll be introducing RITES OF SPRING and saying a few words about how it found its way into print; and the actress Geraldine Moffatt, whom you may have seen in 'Get Carter' with Michael Caine, will be reading extracts from it. Hot-off-the-press copies available to buy, too, with author on hand to sign them. The £2 entry fee includes a glass of wine. East Sheen Library is at the Sheen Lane Centre, Sheen Lane, London SW14, about one minute's walk from Mortlake station (South West Trains, 22 mins from Waterloo).

All welcome!