Never do anything before your second cup of coffee

A little alert for everyone. Early today I received a message from a correspondent in the US attaching a petition about the destruction of the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Sign the petition to Mr Villepin to stop it! The pleas seemed convincing, and before having my second cup of coffee I went into the site, signed the petition and forwarded the message to some people I thought would be interested.

A message promptly came back from an agent friend saying that actually the Salle Pleyel has been beautifully refurbished and the programme for next season is excellent. Another well-informed correspondent tells me that the acoustics are being done over by Russell Johnson. It does seem to be true, as the petition protested, that the number of seats has been reduced considerably and that the hall will be housing other kinds of music besides classical concerts. But it also seems to be true that the work is pretty much finished & that this is a strange moment indeed for such a petition to be doing the rounds.

I can't prove that the protest isn't genuine, of course, but I urge caution if you're on the receiving end of this since I've spent the better part of this morning sorting out the mess resulting from forwarding flawed info too fast.

UPDATE, 4pm: It seems sensible to let you all make up your own minds on this, so:

Here's the petition;

Here's the hall's official site containing all the information about the refurbishment.


The season opens in mid-September.

Do you know this man?

My latest package of CDs to review has turned up quite a treasure: a young German tenor named Jonas Kaufmann singing Strauss songs, accompanied by the matchless Helmut Deutsch. I hadn't come across Kaufmann before, but the focus and fibre of his voice knocked me off my chair in the very first phrase of 'Zueignung'. Next, he seems to sing Strauss from the inside, with attention to every word. And thirdly, the voice is very powerful indeed - apparently he has sung Parsifal and one wonders whether he'll be a fabulous Siegmund or Tristan in years to come.

Some internet research revealed that he received a great deal of attention here three years ago at the Edinburgh Festival and he'll be back there on 24 August. And he's just made his debut at the Met in NY. I hope that The Guardian didn't do him too much damage, bless its cotton socks, by entitling its 2003 interview 'I don't mind my sexy image' - most singers don't get far these days without one (and yes, anyone looking for a pin-up won't be disappointed). But Strauss has provided him with his most consistently good reviews so far and if this disc is anything to go by, that's not surprising. It will be out soon on the harmonia mundi label.

Roman in the gloaming

Yesterday I wrote a delicious post about my trip to Rome earlier this week: the glorious remnants of the Forum, the magical Fontana di Trevi, the sunshine, the oleanders, the incredible pizza. Then our host site decided my blog didn't exist. By the time I gave up, the entire post had vanished into the wilds of cyberspace. Today's is by way of an experiment, just to make certain I'm still here. Meanwhile, one lives and learns.

Hmm...

The LPO is having a sweepstake for the World Cup. Guess whose resident violinist drew Paraguy?!

Meanwhile we have been sitting on a Danish island in a dear friend's summer house, eating baby lobster tails and taking things far too easy - though thanks to my new laptop I was able to make some progress with Novel No.3.

Home again to find the Wigmore Hall's own-series programme for next season sitting on the doormat. Hmm indeed. Why can't I get more excited about it? It's full of excellent musicians, wonderful singers and lovely music. One event made me jump out of my chair: the inimitable Andras Schiff playing Beethoven's last three piano sonatas not once but twice - on the same evening! Dear maestro, HOW - ?!? The date for the diary is 29 November and anybody who can beg, borrow or steal a ticket for either performance (6pm and 8.30pm) is going to be very lucky.

Apart from that...Yes, I admire singers like Felicity Lott, Dietrich Henschel, Christian Gerheher, Veronique Gens et al. I'm always happy to listen to musicians like Tasmin Little, Michael Collins, Stephen Hough and Melvyn Tan, or exciting youngsters like violinists Alina Ibragimova and Sergey Khachatryan. There's nothing to beat a good string quartet, and ensembles like the Tokyo, Jerusalem and Michelangelo quartets should be jumped at. So should the Leopold String Trio and the Nash Ensemble. Also they're having a Kurtag festival, with the Hungarian guru himself, which should be very special.

But there's something about it that, overall, looks just that little bit The Same As Ever. Apart from Andras Schiff, I can't see anything else that will actually make me drop everything and run, not the way I did for Gidon Kremer and that incredible, unspellable marimba player last year, or Opera Rara's Pauline Viardot concert a few months back, or the Razumovsky Ensemble which I know and love (their next gig, by the way, is 21st June - book now!). Has the Wigmore abandoned its fledgling adventurousness in favour of retrenchment to St John's Wood? Or is it just the end of a long, hot day?

Aw shucks...

Helen Radice has written the latest review of RITES OF SPRING and I am simply overwhelmed by her perception, sensitivity and insight. She's managed to articulate aspects of what lies behind my book better than I ever could myself. Words about harps and angels may yet come to mind, but meanwhile I just want to say THANK YOU, HELEN!!!

Competitions? Music?

I've been trying to write this all week, but have felt too depressed.

By some malign chance, the finals of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition and the Eurovision Song Contest fell on the same day: last Saturday. I'd been so busy with work that I didn't know the BBCYM was on and missed half the concertos. I was unlucky enough to hear the entire Eurovision.

Come on, folks, let's have some views. This is MUSIC. Is it also legitimate SPORT? Is art about competition? SHOULD art be about competition? Let me put my head on the block and say NO. Somebody in TV obviously thinks so. I disagree. Yes, it's good TV - at least Eurovision is when Terry Wogan's priceless commentary is involved. But have any of the contestants in the BBC competition noticed where their predecessors are today?

I can think of barely a handful of still-performing finalists from 20 years ago or so, who have actually managed to live down the label of being 'a winner' (ie, national concerto finalist) at BBC Young Musician of the Year. Ronan O'Hora is now head of piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and, to judge from the wonderful Faure performance I heard him give last year with the Razumovsky Ensemble at Wigmore Hall, he's going from strength to strength. Nick Daniel, oboist, is still top of his profession; Emma Johnson, ace clarinettist, is still top of hers, but still carries the YM proviso. Tasmin Little escaped the inescapable by reaching the strings final, but not the overall one, and has probably done better than anybody. How many others have simply vanished? Some alumni are stuck doing downmarket gigs where their fading label still carries a bit of weight. They just can't get past it. It's very difficult and a bit awful. Being Young Musician of the Year is a marvellous thing when you're 17. It's not so funny in your forties.

This year's competition was won by clarinettist Mark Sampson. I didn't switch on in time to hear what he had to offer, so can present no opinion. The very best of British luck to him.

As for Eurovision, I usually get it wrong, but was pleased to find that my favourite actually pulled in second this time - the Russian hunk, Dima Something, surrounded by slightly dead-looking ballet dancers. But I turned off the sound several times during the course of the evening because the performers simply couldn't sing in tune. France, nul points from East Sheen!! How could you?!? For the same reason, I also turned off Spain, Israel and something else that was so forgettable that I've forgotten it. The one act that made me flee not just the sound but the vision too was Finland. So who won?!

Did they win because everyone thought 'this is so appalling that they don't stand a chance, therefore we'll tactically vote for them to stop our own arch-rivals getting anywhere' and hence they garnered votes to sweep the board? Was it because they weren't trying to sound like Abba? I think Sweden were; I liked them; but that's because I like Abba, how could I not, formative years etc. Or was it the anti-White-Suit vote? (WHY were so many wearing white suits?! Try those for 10 minutes on the London Underground...) Or did I hate Finland because my hard rock antennae are simply as out of tune as France's moody blonde? Hmm.

Thank God both contests are over for the time being & we can now get back to enjoying music, of all possible genres, for its own sake. Which is how things ought to be.

Mostly birds of prey

A priceless note arrived this morning from that concrete jungle in the City of London, also known as the Barbican, where the Mostly Mozart Festival, appropriately expanded for the Mozart anniversary, is to kick off on 6 June:

Please note: The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has asked the Barbican to cancel Mostly Mozart's opening night fireworks, due to a rare pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting in the vicinity of the Barbican, as the noise from the fireworks may cause distress to the birds and their chicks. In lieu of the fireworks, the Barbican will offer every member of the audience a complimentary glass of champagne after the concert.

I can't help wondering why on earth Peregrine Falcons should pick the Barbican, of all places, to nest. How did they get in? Did they follow the yellow line?

Recommended reading:

Armando Iannucci at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards last week...

Oh dear...

Our hearts go out this morning to our friend Arsenal Muse. Come on, mate. It was only a game. (wasn't it???)

An unrelated apology to our friends at All About Opera, to which I set up a link some months ago. This morning I realised it had never actually appeared on screen, despite existing in my template. Some basic remedial html (a missing ") seems to have worked.

Next, a tip for the person who found this blog by doing a search on "how to train a duchen": it helps if you feed us chocolate.

Last but not least, to anyone heading for Glyndebourne today for the dress rehearsal of Die Fledermaus: WRAP UP WARM AND BRING A BROLLY.

Muggins explained

An innocent remark from Ariadne made me realise that certain expressions I take for granted have simply never made it across the Pond.

Here in Olde Englande, we are a nation sometimes a little backwarde in coming forwarde. This has given rise to a specially Britishe sense of self-deprecatory humour: after all, it just isn't terribly nice to talk about oneselfe too much, let alone blogge to the entire worlde about one's activityes. Hence the expression 'muggins'. It's a useful, self-deprecatory replacement for the word 'me' when one is feeling awfully Englishe and though one is unarguably showing off terrifically about one's achievement, such as it may be, one is trying ever so hard to pretend one isn't. My husband and I are very prone to the use of such olde-fashionede expressions, dating as they may do from the time of Biggles; there is a certaine charme about such things, even in our brash, globalised 21st century.

Love to all
from muggins

phew....

...I sent the second draft of the next novel off to Hodder & Stoughton today. There comes a point when you just can't switch round one more sentence without going totally gaga. The second draft is 40 pages shorter, has three changes of character names, a couple of extra scenes, one moderately enhanced plotline and several location references double-checked in the nick of time, as were a few details about how motorbikes work (don't ask!). The writing - I hope - is somewhat improved.

Yesterday, book picnic on Richmond Green was a big success as well as lots of fun. 5 local authors including muggins, interviewed by the chairman of Richmond upon Thames Arts Council in the May Fair marquee on Richmond Green (amazingly it didn't rain - apparently it usually does) while an audience of devoted locals dined royally on picnics. Fascinating to meet the others: a marvellous novelist, Lee Langley, whose latest book 'A Conversation on the Quai Voltaire' I can't wait to read; Anne Sebba, a celebrated biographer who is currently chronicling the colourful life of Winston Churchill's mother; Sandra Hempel, a medical journalist whose first book charts the eradication of cholera in Britain; and Ellie Updale, creator of the Montmorency series enjoyed by adults and kids alike ("how do you and JK Rowling manage that?" asked our chairman, Clive Bradley. "I don't know how JK Rowling does it - wish I did!" quipped Ellie.).

I felt very much the new kid on the block, but think I managed not to put my foot in my mouth excessively.

Jurowski to be principal conductor of LPO

The London Philharmonic Orchestra announced today that 34-year-old Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski is to take over as its principal conductor as from the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall in 2007. Much jubilation ensued.

Seriously good news, I reckon, as Jurowski is the most exciting young conductor I've come across. There are some excellent chaps out there, but his performances have been head & shoulders above the rest. Vladi is currently the LPO's principal guest conductor and his presence on the podium transforms the atmosphere into something collaborative, young, upbeat and not only a little thrilling. More details shortly.

Hildegard? Moi?

Tickled pink this morning to discover a new fan, and a nice new blog too, at least new to me, in Australia: A Beautiful Theme, here. Nice to be compared, in a roundabout kind of way, to the Labeque sisters and Hildegard of Bingen, but there the resemblance ends (to Hildegard, anyway!).

On a different and less beautiful theme, does anybody out there understand the workings of Le Loi de Sod? Why is it that whenever I have to give a talk, the day before it I come down with a throaty/chesty thing that goes directly to the voicebox?! I LIKE giving talks. I never get nervous for them - nothing scares me except playing the piano, in fact - and positively look forward to every instance. But here we go, tomorrow is my first Kingston Readers' Festival event this year. And guess what. Along comes the bug. All you singers out there, depending on your voices for your livelihoods, do you have this problem too?

A busy month ahead

I'm about to clock into a few weeks of fairly busy book promotion. Here are a few of the events:

4 May (this Thursday), Kingston Readers' Festival: What makes new music new? I'll be chairing a discussion on this dynamic topic with two marvellous profs from Kingston University, pianist Robert Taub and composer David Osbon. Coombehurst Music Studio, 7.30pm.

14 May, Sunday lunchtime: Book picnic in the marquee on Richmond Green. I will be one of five local authors appearing to chat about their new books. Bring a picnic & arrive early (12.30 for 1pm) to be assured of a place. £10 entry fee including a glass of bucks fizz.

22 May: Kingston Readers' Festival: will be appearing with literary agent Sara Menguc and Hodder & Stoughton publishing director Carolyn Mays to talk about the thorny process by which a first novel finds its way into print. Borders, central Kingston-upon-Thames, 7.30pm.

Further details of all these are available on my permasite news page.

If you hated that, just try this

Lots of comments came in expressing varying degrees of frustration with the controversial views Norman Lebrecht expressed on British music the other day. But if you think that didn't quite cut the mustard, just try this stuff from the Daily Telegraph about composers' lives & works...

Is the author the same Graeme Garden who used to be a Goodie? (remember? "GOO-DIEEEESS...a-goody-goody Yum Yum" went the jingle... for those not in the know, THE GOODIES was a popular TV comedy in the 1970s, totally off-the-wall, starring G Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor. I liked the one where they got swallowed by a tyrannosaurus rex.) The terrible trio's motto was something like 'We do anything, anywhere, anytime'. Apparently, that now includes writing daft articles about classical music. For all I know, his show may be absolutely brilliant and I may be doing the poor man a great injustice, but I can't say this piece makes me want to rush off to see it.

And still more...

Stormin' Norman is the latest writer to applaud the new Elgar Concerto CD - read his pithy piece from La Scena Musicale here. Recommended heartily for anyone who doesn't like English music, less heartily for patriots of all things green and pleasant, but very heartily indeed for Graffin groupies and Elgar fiddle concerto fans.

More about Elgar violin concerto...

Addendum to Island Mentalities: the CD that sparked my article about Elgar, Kreisler and the original Elgar Violin Concerto manuscript is being released today. The soloist is Philippe Graffin, who I reckon has the romantic sensibility nearest to good old Fritz of any violinist working today, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Vernon Handley. Ordering details from Avie Records.

No excuses for recent hiatus in blog postings...it's just that I haven't been doing much, at least not outside my study. In-study activities have included producing an Indy review section cover feature on Placido Domingo, which appeared last Friday, plus writing up my interview with someone who may be the world's greatest pianist (watch this space) and editing Book No.2. Meanwhile Hodder is reprinting the hardback of RITES OF SPRING, which is rather good news!

And the answer is:

4 HOURS

Well done, Ariadne!

Theatres of the...um...

BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting Wagner's Ring Cycle complete on Easter Monday. The Guardian made Charlotte Higgins test-drive the idea and here's her reaction.

One of the finest Wagner experts I know found his lifelong fascination for the composer sparked into existence when his uni flatmates threw him out for 24 hours so that they could perform exactly the same exercise. He wanted to know what made them tick, and the rest is history: he's now a prof at Oxford.

I've not dared try this at home, but I do broadly share La Higgins's views on the individual operas - Walkure and Gotterdammerung come out as the clear winners, with Siegfried proving less thrilling and Rhinegold whizzing by like a deceptively pleasant fairy-tale. The father-daughter relationship in Walkure is my favourite thing in the whole cycle and the apocalypse of the Immolation Scene is as mind-blowing now as it was that time I switched on Classic FM while driving down the M3, heard it & then discovered I was doing 100mph. It's some of the most astonishing music ever written, but can one swallow it in one gulp? If you want to try, Monday's your chance.

By the way, I was commissioned to write an article about Gotterdammerung & why it's important, ahead of Covent Garden's new production that opens next week. What with one thing and another, it took me a week to do this. Then it turned out that someone in the News section had done something similar ahead of us in Arts, so my piece never came out. I've started a section in my permasite Archive to provide a home for such orphans, which do occur now and then. Find it here (you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the page).

For some light relief, Richard Morrison, in today's Times, is pretty perplexed by his latest evening at the Barbican. Read his write-up of Marina Laszlo's performance here...

Happy Easter/Pesach/Springtime, everyone!

Island mentalities

I never got round to hitting back at the individual in the US who not long ago took exception to a comment I made in print about the Elgar Violin Concerto being one of the greatest works of its kind. It appears that this person, whose name I don't actually know, thinks all British critics are tub-thumping patriotic morons who will cheer anything British for the sake of it when actually everything British is mediocre, and that just because I like the Elgar Violin Concerto, I am one of those too.

First of all, just as stupid as British critics supporting British artists for the sake of it is American critics knocking anything British for the sake of it and tarring all critics in the UK with the same brush.

Secondly, if you think the Elgar is not one of the great violin concertos, then kindly give reasons for your opinion rather than knocking all the glasses off the shelf in your anger at all us dreadful Brits? I bet you can't. It's a fabulous piece.

Thirdly, I may have been born within the sound of Bow Bells, but I'm not the sort of critic who indulges in automatic Brit-bravoing, having an ingrained dislike of much British period-instrument performing (with some important exceptions), much music by Benjamin Britten and Gerald Finzi, swathes of contemporary music and a few singers, instrumentalists and conductors who do keep winning prizes but whom I find boring, pretentious, misguided etc. I love Delius, but that isn't because he's British - rather, because he can sound so wonderfully French.

Fourthly, critics write nonsense everywhere in the world.

Last but not least, the article in which my comment appeared was focused on a violinist who isn't British at all, but loves the Elgar Concerto so much so that he was willing to spend painstaking hours in the British Library going through Elgar's manuscripts with a toothcomb, sifting out the differences between them and the printed version of the concerto. This somewhat scuppers any view that you have to be a Brit to like British music.

I could bring American politics and double standards into this, but some of my best friends are American and I'm not going to tar them with the aforementioned same brush.

Please, folks, stop writing twaddle. Life is short. Get one while you can.

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!

A bit of a scoop

This, published today in the Independent, has been really quite thrilling. A number of the specialist magazines have picked up on it, but I've been fortunate to be able to take it mainstream in the national press. Having been treated to a sneak preview of the Violin Concerto recording, I know, too, that it is simply stunning.

Cool it...

Anyone interested in ways of making classical music 'cool' could do worse than have a look at this programme tonight on BBC3, the BBC TV digital channel that is aimed at people younger than I am. It's about the power of marketing to influence kids and the way those kids then pester their parents to buy them X, Y and Z. Saw a trailer for it this morning...

They stage a trick: they market a classical string quartet to a primary school of multiethnic kids as the latest rap sensation, Wolf Gang. They bring one band member, a beautiful, glamorous black girl, to visit the school. There's merchandise - stickers, t-shirts, you name it - which the kids lap up; and she rolls up in a stretch limo, exquisitely dressed, to be met with shouts and screams and many small hands reaching out to beg for autographs. The children think it's the coolest thing ever.

A little later, the kids are told what music this band actually plays. Have they heard it? No, of course not. They just fell for the marketing.

Lessons there, classical comrades. Should we make graffiti-style I heart THE LPO t-shirts, sold at as high a price as possible so that people think they're valuable? Should we have stickers bearing pictures of... um...OK, Helene Grimaud, on sale at designer outlets? Should we drive her, or Julia Fischer, or Lisa Batiashvili, or Gabriela Montero, or whoever, to visit a primary school in a stretch limo - not to play music and make kids listen, but to wave, smile and preen, getting the message across that this is a beautiful superstar whose autograph it's worth having? Would it really help? What do you think?

UPDATE, 7.15pm: I've had a stroke of inspiration. It's often said that classical musicians need to 'ditch the penguin suits'. Various orchestras have tried other uniforms: black trousers and shirts (looks like they're not actually there), bright shirts & jeans (looks naff) etc etc. What they need is this: designer wear. It doesn't much matter which label, as long as it's famous. Let's try dressing the LPO from top to toe in identical Armani outfits & see what happens.

Unfortunately, nobody in the LPO can currently afford an Armani suit, so the company would have to be prevailed upon to hand 'em over free, or much reduced, as sponsorship.

So here it is:

It's 13th March 2006. Publication day! As from now, my novel is available all over the Commonwealth, and that slot on the bookshelf that I spotted as a kid - somewhere between Drabble and Du Maurier - will at last be occupied by RITES OF SPRING. Is it possible to know, when you're 10 years old, that one day in 30 years' time there will be a 13th March 2006, there will be a book on a shelf, and the dream everyone says is just a dream will become real? Actually, if anybody had told me then, I'd simply have been horrified to think that it was going to take 30 years.

Tom, the lucky old thing, is in San Francisco today as the LPO is in the middle of a three-week tour of the US. Kurt Masur went off sick the day before the tour began, unfortunately (rumours of high blood pressure, which I can't confirm), and Osmo Vanska stepped in for the first few gigs, with Masur's assistant Minchuk taking over for the rest of California. I have 13th March all to myself here in London. It's a suitably spring-like morning: very cold, but bright, with that pale, silvery sunshine that's unique to March. What shall I do with my special celebratory day?

The answer is easy: get on with the next book.

Author Compromised By Fiddle Passion

I can't believe I did this. But today I went against all my principles and bought The Daily Telegraph. It's a newspaper that I feel takes a political stance light years away from anything I find vaguely acceptable. But today was different, because - dreadful admission - I fell for the special offer.

How could I not? It was a 'free' DVD of INTERMEZZO. This movie, dating from somewhere in the 1940s, was Ingrid Bergman's first English-language film and it stars Leslie Howard as a famous Swedish violinist who falls in love with his daughter's piano teacher (Bergman). The first time I saw it was on TV one afternoon during the half-term holidays. I was about 16. My mother came home from work five minutes after it finished and gazed aghast at my red eyes and the heap of tissues on the floor. I had to explain that I'd just seen this movie where.......

But the ultimate pull of INTERMEZZO, for me, is the last word in slidey violins: a sound-track featuring Toscha Seidel. Seidel was a classmate of Heifetz's, studying with Auer: while Heifetz was described as the angel, Seidel was the devil. Guess which one has the hot sound, the burning tone, the passion that sings out that bit too far? Heifetz, beside Seidel, sounds cool as the proverbial cucumber.

Toscha had some measure of success, but was constantly overshadowed by Jascha's - though a song by George and Ira Gershwin about a bunch of leading violinists went 'Mischa, Jascha, Toscha, Sascha, we're four fiddlers three!' Seidel ended up in Hollywood, like so many amazing European musicians; and he recorded Korngold's suite from 'Much Ado About Nothing' with the composer at the piano (available on Biddulph Records). If you love Korngold for his emotional generosity and overblown, sensual heart, you will love Seidel too; and if you love slidey violins, you will find none slidier. Naturally, with my fiddle fetish, I can't resist him for a moment.

So, dear friends and editors forgive me, I compromised my reputation by buying the Telegraph. Rest assured, however, that I did not read it.

In today's Indy

This is the tip of a Schumannish iceberg. It speaks more or less for itself, but I would like to thank everyone who took part and talked to me at such length about Schumann, Clara, the two of them and what really happened...

Brought to book...

RITES OF SPRING was officially launched on Wednesday evening. More pics at my permasite.

Spring(ish)

First of all, a big thank-you to All About Opera, which has kindly made this blog its Featured Site for the month of March. Quite apart from that, it's a useful, informative resource and all opera buffs should check in and explore it.

Brilliant sunshine here in London today. Perhaps spring is on the way at last, despite the snow in the north. Solti saw fit to leave the bed this morning and went outside for a whole two hours, so something must be changing.

Viardot reborn

Last night I attended an extraordinary concert staged by Opera Rara and Prima Donna Productions at the Wigmore Hall: a programme with narration by Fanny Ardent about the life and music of Pauline Viardot, the great mezzo-soprano who inspired everyone from Chopin to Berlioz to Turgenev, whose lover she may or may not have been (this account, twinkle in eye, suggested the former). It was quite a marathon, starring three stunning singers: fabulous dramatic soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, classic Russian bass Vladimir Chernov and the legendary Frederica von Stade, as radiant as ever and in fine form at 60 - remarkably, it was her very first appearance at the Wigmore.

The narration, written by Georgia Smith, was witty, informative and sensitive, even if Ardent didn't always sound comfortable speaking in English. If you're in Paris, try to catch the same concert at the Chatelet tomorrow, 1 March, presumably in French - it may go with a little more pizzazz. But the real star was Viardot's music. I've heard a number of her songs before, but many of yesterday's were new to me - heavens, they're beautiful! The variety is astonishing - she set poems in four or five languages, including Russian; and the warmth, melodic flow, drama, sensitivity to words and imaginative flair mean that, programmed alongside her admirers Gounod and Berlioz (his gorgeous La Captive, for mezzo-soprano, cello and piano) and her friend Chopin, her music more than holds its own. For me, top spot was the gorgeous Die Sterne, again with cello: breathtaking lyricism and a profound soul shone out of it.

Viardot has been a special interest of mine for a few years, but until now, I must admit, mostly because I adore Turgenev. I wrote a piece trailing this concert for the Indy which was in last week (read it here), but came away from the event itself feeling I'd discovered a new dimension to a story I thought I knew. This concert wasn't merely a rare music faction trying to convince us that second-rate music is worth hearing. Instead, it revealed a composer of real genius.

Opera Rara recorded the concert live and the CD will be released in due course. Grab it when you can and hear these unsuspected wonders for yourself.

UPDATE: 3 March 2006 - read The Independent's review by Robert Maycock here.

I've got an iPod...

...and I'm gonna use it. I must be the last person on earth to acquire one of these little snazzcards, but it's worth the wait. It's a Nano, a birthday present from my brother, and it's taken a few months for me to get it up and running due to what is now a defunct computer. New computer works smoothly and beautifully with it, however (touch wood), and this morning I uploaded my current favourite CD and switched the thing on. A second later I was swimming in technicolour Chausson.

HEAVEN.

Now I understand why people wander about in worlds of their own while using their iPods. I well remember the Walkman effect in the early 1980s - when everyone went nuts for Sony portable cassette players, a friend of mine wrote a song for his band called 'Year of the Zombie'. The difference with the iPod is staggering. They're light, the sound quality is amazing and you can carry hundreds of pieces without resort to plastic boxes. But of course, everyone else knows this already...

It makes me wonder how we'll be playing our recorded music after another 23 years.

Time out

Apologies for lack of blogging at the moment - a lot going on - but I'm still here (kind of) and will attempt something nice, normal and sensible, like CD recommendations or a concert and/or opera report, over the next few days.

Today...

...my book arrived.

I have been waiting all my life to hold my first novel alive and printed in my hands. Today it happened.

To say this is a happy day would be rather an understatement!

What do you mean, French horn?!

The latest issue of MUSO, the upbeat magazine for youthful classical musicians, has a nice article this month about blogging. Yours truly got interviewed for it (thank you!), as did Swen Emmerling and Zachary Lewis.

As I am distinctly longer in the tooth than the mag's target market, I must admit I don't always read this publication in detail, but my eye was caught this time by a quiz that aims to identify which instrument you ought to play by your physical and character traits. Results proved interesting.

Do you enjoy your own company? Yes, I quite enjoy spending time on my own
Do you enjoy reading? Yes, I read a lot
Do you have big hands? No, they're fairly small
Do you have full lips? No, my lips are quite thin
RESULT: FRENCH HORN

Eh??!? That's one instrument that never so much as occurred to me...

The quiz may upset others by declaring that if your answer to the question 'Are you clumsy?' is 'Yes, I'm always knocking things over,' then your instrument is the cello. Apparently if you're ill a lot you should take to the recorder. Are you a couch potato? Do you daydream all the time? Then play the flute. Do you have big teeth? Go for the guitar.

My beloved piano, according to this, would be removed from under my lilywhites just because they're smallish. But actually plenty of pianists have small hands - Pletnev's are almost the same size, or lack of it, as mine. That seems to prove that it ain't what you've got, it's what you do with it. Meanwhile I'm trying to recall whether I've ever spotted a horn player reading a book.

Possibilities of the Internet no.4826503

Tasmin Little is in Slovenia and she's writing reports on her progress there - yes, blogging - which you can read on her website here's the News page, follow the links to her Letters from Slovenia. She has just given the Slovenian premiere of the Elgar Violin Concerto - ! In her second letter, she describes her surprise when a member of the first violin section came up to her before the performance and told her how much he'd just enjoyed reading her first Letter from Slovenia on her website...

Figaro on freedom of speech

The programme for Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House includes a meaty extract from Beaumarchaias's original: Figaro's controversial speech from the last act. It includes not only the part Da Ponte used, re fickle women, but also several passages which are more than topical at the moment. Such as this:

"The idiocies that appear in print don't mean a jot until someone tries to block them. Without the freedom to criticise, there can be no such thing as praise. Only little men are fearful of little scribblings."
-- Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

PS - on a totally unrelated matter, I have just come across the blog of composer Alex Shapiro, which has convinced me I live in the wrong place.

You had to be there...

[Apologies for lack of links in what follows...still trying to work out what should be simple technology on new machine!]

Terry Teachout's You Had To Be There memories are a must-read even if I'm a little late getting to them. Moments that you never forget; moments you know you are lucky to experience even as they're happening. Terry's been around slightly longer than I have and my list can't begin to compete with his, but I can boast the following top ten You Had To Be There moments:

1. Hearing Mieczyslaw Horszowski on several occasions, but most memorably at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1986, where he gave a staggeringly moving performance 0f the Franck Prelude, Chorale & Fugue. I 'got' the piece for the first time that night: its three-in-one Holy Trinity aspect shone out. Backstage afterwards with my then-boyfriend, we found Horszowski in an armchair with three people virtually sitting at his feet: Murray Perahia, Andras Schiff and Radu Lupu. Horszowski, cool as the proverbial cucumber, was reminiscing about how he had been present at the first performance of Franck's Piano Quintet at Franck's house.......... I approached to shake his hand and ask for an autograph. I was 20 and was wearing an Indian cotton dress I'd bought in Cambridge market. Horszowski's eyes lit up and he exclaimed, "What a beautiful dress!" If I could stop time, I'd have stopped it then.

2. Hearing Krystian Zimerman, aged 24, playing Brahms's F minor and Chopin's B flat minor Sonata at the RFH in London in 1980. That evening changed my life. I understood that music wasn't only about being coerced into practising: it was a gateway into another world.

3. A Royal Ballet anniversary gala at the Royal Opera House, which must have been in 1981 or 82. A programme of excerpts from their greatest hits, essentially, but the end of one section was the finale of Act 1 of Ashton's Cinderella, closing with Cinderella in her coach heading to the ball. But on board the coach were an elderly couple. A bemused whisper went around the house - then, as the audience realised who they were, the place went up in flames. People were on their feet, yelling... The culprits? Margot Fonteyn and Frederick Ashton.

4. Not exactly a performance, but something equally astonishing: a late evening at the St Nazaire 'Consonances' music festival 2004 when my husband briefly had his arm around Maya Plisetskaya.

5. Hearing Claudio Arrau in recital at a music festival somewhere in Switzerland when I was about 12. I've forgotten the venue, but still remember his tone, especially in the Liszt Dante Sonata. There was something about it that reminded me of the colour of rubies. It has stayed with me ever since.

6. The 10th birthday celebrations at Verbier a couple of years ago, in which the Bach 4 keyboards concerto was played by Argerich, Pletnev, Levine and Kissin, with an orchestra of 12 of the world's greatest string players. The results were captured on DVD...but you had to be there...especially when the strings, led by Gidon Kremer, stole the show playing variations on 'Happy Birthday'...

7. Sviatoslav Richter playing the Schubert G major Sonata at the Royal Festival Hall - the only time I heard him play live. The first note went on for about 9 seconds... and he took 40 minutes to play the first movement. Yet this, too, has stayed with me forever.

8. Mstislav Rostropovich playing three Bach suites in a 14th-century church in Ascona, Switzerland - must have been in the early 1980s. Pure magic. But what I remember most is glancing at the floor during a mesmerising Sarabande and seeing...a small scorpion scuttling around...right next to my foot...

9. Watching my favourite dancer, Anthony Dowell. Which ballet to choose? Perhaps a now almost-forgotten Hans van Manen ballet called Four Schumann Pieces (actually the A major String Quartet). It was created specially for Dowell and I drank in the sensuality of his movements, the glorious, soft plasticity of line, the sense of focus, the subtlety of emotion, the sheer, absolute beauty of the man. He was fabulous in Swan Lake, Romeo & Juliet, A Month in the Country or The Dream too, of course. But every time that Schumann quartet crosses my ears - as it does too infrequently - I glimpse him in that billowing-sleeved shir. And I am 14 all over again.

10. Becoming an unintentional extra in a Tony Palmer movie. I was invited to Sussex to report on the filming of his Chopin not-quite-biopic The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka and turned up with my notebook at the ready - only to find myself being bundled into a 19th-century crinoline and having ringlets pinned in my hair. In the film, I'm in the front row of the audience at Chopin's recital in Paris, sitting in front of George Sand.

Rio by the Sea-oh

My new computer is up and running and is deliciously compatible with Blogger. So here we go: a taste of Rio de Janeiro... From top left: the view from Corcovado; Jess & Tom join the Copacabana Beach Samba Band; and the girl from Ipanema...

Molto andante

In view of the comments arriving re the closure of Andante.com, I should mention that the message I referred to in my last post was a personal communication from the editor, not something on the site itself, and that apparently I'm wrong in referring to Naive as "new" owners - seems they've been on board longer than I'd realised. Time flies as you get older.

As time goes faster, articles get shorter, classical music has to fight harder for its minute corner, and the more TV channels there are on which to find nothing you want to see. I have just been out to see a marvellous French film starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, entitled HIDDEN (CACHE in French) and very refreshing it was. Sometimes it's good to escape. Or is it just the weather that's getting to me?

Top tips for surviving February in London:
Hot baths;
Camomile tea;
Rioja, the more expensive the better;
Home-made chocolate cake;
Concerts coming up including a recital by Piers Lane, Lucy Parham's Schumann Festival at Cadogan Hall and Frederica von Stade and friends singing Pauline Viardot at Wigmore Hall;
Piano practice: Beethoven Waldstein Sonata for energy, Mendelssohn Songs Without Words to get the fingers moving and Faure Nocturnes for transferral to magical, poetic universe far removed from the flight path.

Figaroooooohhhhh

Looks like David McVicar's Figaro is going over rather well. I'm going to see it on Tuesday and will report back then, but for the time being here's Ed Seckerson in The Independent, Tim Ashley in The Guardian and the marvellous Richard Morrison in The Times, comparing Gerald Finley's Count to 'a cornered dinosaur who senses the impending Ice Age...' and pointing out pithily that Rinat Shaham (Cherubino)'s future 'probably doesn't lie in impersonating boys' (we well remember the shapely Rini as a simply sensational Carmen at Glyndebourne). David McV meanwhile has proved himself the sort of person who does win things - namely, the South Bank Show Award for Opera - and I bet there'll be more to come.

Meanwhile, less happy news from New York: a farewell note from the erstwhile editor of the online magazine at Andante.com, which has been killed by its new owners, the French record label Naive. How naive. How daft. How pointless. It will be sorely, sorely missed by its many readers.

No holds barred

Here's my piece about David McVicar in today's Independent. He has plenty to say, on the day of the State of the Union address, about the State of the Art of opera here in the UK and he doesn't mince his words. How some of his comments got past my editor, I'll never know. So far there hasn't been nuclear fallout...not yet...

You can also read/download a PDF the article at my online archive on main website.

I'm going to see the resulting production next week & will report back then.

Meanwhile computer nightmares continue, but there are some exciting things happening later this week...more soon...

Mozart day

It's the Big Birthday: Mozart is 250 today. Happy birthday, Wolfie.

BBC news is marking the occasion by showing all the kitsch for sale in Salzburg and interviewing Lesley Garrett. Kenneth Branagh is making a film of the Magic Flute with a text by Stephen Fry setting the whole thing around the era of the First World War. Channel 5 is the only terrestrial TV station that's shown anything like a celebratory documentary. Norman Lebrecht is busy slagging WAM off again (it's clear, from what he writes, that he's never heard the Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments) and Ian Bostridge in The Guardian penned something about how Idomeneo contains the only interesting tenor role Mozart ever wrote. David McVicar, who is directing Figaro at Covent Garden, decided, when I interviewed him the other day, to be incredibly outspoken about all of this. All being well, the piece should be appearing next week (fingers crossed). My feature on why this anniversary is not likely to be the greatest thing since sliced bread seems to have missed its sell-by date, gazumped by something in the news section that covered some of the same ground.

While despairing over the state of music and attitudes towards it, I'm simultaneously gob-smacked by the levels of artistry that still exist among today's greatest musicians, and especially by a new DVD that I watched yesterday: Thomas Quasthoff and Daniel Barenboim performing Winterreise from the Philharmonie in Berlin. Words fail in the face of such musicianship, and musicianship doesn't even begin to describe what they do. It's staggering. Try and see it. Yes, we live in an age of appalling Philistinism, but if Quasthoff and Barenboim are in the world, it can't be all bad.

3.40pm UPDATE: Nice to see that Google has joined the celebrations.

Housekeeping

I'm feeling too ill to think creatively and my Internet Explorer keeps crashing now. This is the third time I've started writing this post to explain that I have removed all my articles from further back than October from the sidebar. This is because I now have a snazzy web archive of articles on my permasite (good word, that?), which you can find here. It's not complete, but has a good selection and will be updated periodically, once I have the capability to scan articles and send them to my webmaster.

Gig of the week: Tasmin Little joins the Britten Sinfonia for her 1000th concert. She'll be playing Mozart and Bach and the programme also includes plenty of Shostakovich. Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

Hello

I'd been planning to regale you all with the musical and Terpsichorean delights of my trip to South America, but I'm still fighting with my computer. I have lost all e-mails from the last three and a half year and my entire address book. I am planning to go out and buy an old-fashioned paper address book in which you write your info by hand and which can be stored safely in a drawer. Still, I need info to put in it.

Therefore, please can I issue an appeal to all my friends & family who are reading this to please, PLEASE email me with all your contact details?!?

Thank you!

Back. Sort of.

I'm home again, but not sure I'm really back, if you get my drift. I'd hoped to kick off a new year of blogging with a stunning photo of myself sipping a green coconut through a straw on Copacabana Beach - and yes, I have such a photo - but I arrived home after two glorious weeks in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires to find major computer problems waiting for me. Partly the result of abruptly dead Entourage, partly too the result of outdated operating system.

To mend or not to mend, that is the question. Whether tis better in the end to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Microsoft Entourage, pay someone to come out & try to mend it & buy an upgrade to newer operating system, or to take arms against a sea of computer problems and by buying an entirely new machine, end them?!

Anyway, I have had the most wonderful holiday of my life, so I shouldn't complain. If I can find some way of loading the pictures onto my outdated computer, I will post them...Here's a quick summary.

In RIO, we:
Ate a lot of tropical fruit;
Sipped caipirinhas by the beach, watching the sunset;
Went up Sugarloaf Mountain, started chatting to a fellow English speaker at the top & then discovered he was Nitin Sawhney;
Walked around Santa Teresa and almost didn't return, it was so beautiful;
Went to intimate venue in Ipanema to hear bossa nova singer Ricco Duarte, who has a voice like a bass saxophone;
Felt safer than in New York or even London.

in BUENOS AIRES, we:
Had two tango lessons;
Bought leather jackets & the most sensual of all tango shoes, in multiples of 3 (Argentina is cheap leather land);
Ate steak, steak and more steak;
Drank fabulous local red wine;
Met up with some friends whom Tom got to know during his tour there a couple of years ago & went with them to a real tango Milonga, where we watched the experts and realised that none of them were doing the one basic move we'd mastered...
Walked around La Boca, where the tango was born;
Poked about the antique shops of San Telmo;
Were glad to escape with our lives from the taxis....

That's the summary. Off to solve computer situation now. Don't forget that Solti is blogging too! Go to my website's Links page and click on the Solti blog box to access Paws for Thought.

NEW YEAR! NEW WEBSITE!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

I'm celebrating the new year by launching, today

my new permanent website, www.jessicaduchen.co.uk

There you will find:

All the latest news about forthcoming events, including the imminent publication of my novel RITES OF SPRING;
Details and reviews of my books, with links to Amazon in case anyone wants to buy them;
A large selection of my articles in downloadable PDF format in the Archive;
Links to friends and favourite websites;
Unique access via the Links page to a new blog, PAWS FOR THOUGHT...? chronicling the tribulations of a certain resident ginger feline...

Business here at JDCMB continues unimpeded, of course, but I will be rationalising the sidebar a bit.

I am, however, decamping for a short break. While I'm away, please have a dekko at the new site and enjoy exploring some of the links and the blogroll!

All the best to everyone for 2006!

Bring on the sunshine

It's so grey and wintery here in London that I thought I'd try and cheer everyone up with ten of the sunniest records I can find.

1. Haydn: The Creation. If you want to smile, this should do the trick. I've had some trouble finding a recording I like, though: the choice seems to be Old, Earnest, Stately But Beautiful or New, Period-Instrument, Sparky But Train-Chasing. In the end I stick with the old Karajan recording on DG because the tenor is the unmatchable Fritz Wunderlich.

2. Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe. Not only the dawn episode, but the whole score oozes Mediterranean azure. You can almost hear the sun sparkling on the sea. I am extremely fond of the Pierre Boulez recording with the NY Philharmonic. It was given to me years ago by a friend who knows what to recommend, and I've not found one I like better.

3. Schubert: Trout Quintet. There aren't many Schubert works that are pure sunshine but for a few leafy shadows - this, however, breaks the mould. I haven't yet heard this recording by the Hagen Quartet with James Levine, but the cover looks summery. Smell the country air, see the fish playing in the stream, then eat them in the open air with parsley, lemon and lots of butter...

4. Mozart: String Quintet in C major, K515. Mozart feeling spacious, relaxed and generous. Hear the opening and feel the clouds clear away. Alban Berg Quartett with Markus Wolf is a good option.

5. Dvorak: Violin Concerto. Dvorak is generally one of the most cheerful, sunny fellows in the catalogue - try keeping your feet still to the last movement of the violin concerto, among his loveliest 'Furiant' compositions. There are some super recordings, of which just two are Tasmin Little, Royal Liverpool PO/Vernon Handley (Classics for Pleasure) and Philippe Graffin, Johannesburg PO/Michael Hankinson (Avie).

6. Mendelssohn: Symphony No.4, 'Italian'. Felix kicks in with something that vaguely resembles a tarantella but goes much further in evoking the total thrill of arriving in Italy, soaking up the atmosphere and hitting the Chianti. Two minutes and you're basking in joy. Barbirolli conducts the Halle Orchestra in a classic.

7. Bizet: Carmen. Tragic the story may be, but if you want to feel the heat in Seville without getting on a plane, this is the best possible way. Try Cotrubas & Domingo with Abbado conducting and don't forget to sing along with the Toreador's Song.

8. Album 'Una furtiva lagrima' - Juan Diego Florez. Genuine Italian sunshine with Bellini and Donizetti, but the voice alone is enough to make you melt. Isn't he a dreamboat?

9. Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat (with Albeniz Iberia, orchestral excerpts). If Carmen is just too, well, French, then go for the real Spanish McCoya. Falla stomps and sparkles his way through his irresistible ballet score, and the Albeniz makes this recommendation a neat two-in-one job. Find it here.

10. Abba Gold. Oh yes. It starts with Dancing Queen which brings out the sunshine like there's no tomorrow, if only because it makes me think I'm 13 again. (What am I doing? I hated being 13. Making up for lost time? Or mid-life crisis??...nah. I just like Abba.)