Friday, January 18, 2013

JD on R3 talking FAURÉ tomorrow

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On Saturday morning - ie, tomorrow - I'm on BBC Radio 3's CD Review, discussing various recordings of Fauré's miraculously beautiful Cello Sonata No.2. Start time is about 9.30am. A bit more info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pyffm




Friday historical: Gigli sings 'Non ti scordar di me'

It's been a tenory week, so why break the habit? Listen to this...a voice to melt all that forecast snow.


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Reflecting on the Rite


It won't have escaped the notice of canny JDCMB fans that 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's seismic ballet score, Le sacre du printemps, or The Rite of Spring.

A special website has been set up for the occasion by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: https://www.theriteofspringat100.org/ One section is 'Spring Encounters: Reflections on the Rite', and for this Will Robin asked me to contribute a post about my own relationship with the music.

It so happens that the ballet score inadvertently inspired my first novel, which was called, er, Rites of Spring. (Book plug: paperback here, Kindle edition here.) So I wrote about how and why, and what it tells us about the ballet, the music and life today. Here's the link to the piece.

https://www.theriteofspringat100.org/reflection/spring-encounters-jessica-duchen/