brisbane hate

It's Groundhog Day: everyone is dissing the Proms. Every year the same thing happens: the niche interests complain that their particular Thing isn't there, or is not there enough, there aren't ever enough women composers or conductors or musical figureheads of colour, and there'll be a couple of not-strictly-classical concerts to which the reactionaries, er, react. There is a lot of standard fare from decent orchestras, with famous pieces; some see this as padding, others might recognise that tickets have to be sold now and then. Dissing the Proms is a sort of annual tradition, like cheese-racing or dancing round the maypole. We don't wholly interrogate the deeper reasons for why we're doing it, or what the context really is, or what the realities might be of programming a magnificent summer of concerts that truly can please everybody (i.e., there goes another of those flying pigs over Kensington Gardens). The fact is that we simply don't know how lucky we a...

One of my highlights of 2018 was my trip to the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Far North Queensland. The pianist Kathryn Stott was in her first year as artistic director and we all had a ball: an absolute bonanza of music, companionship, sunshine, palm trees, whale-watching and seriously amazing seafood. But a few months later, parts of Townsville were devastated by floods. As AFCM gears up again towards the 2019 festival, I spoke to Kathy about what happened and how AFCM can help to make Townsville shine again. How are things in Townsville after the floods?  The floods were terrible. On the surface now you don’t see much sign of it - on the Strand the lovely palm trees are still there and everything looks OK, but someone told me that more than 2000 homes have been condemned. There were several deaths, and I know of some people who were ill with a “flood disease”. And one person said they weren’t frightened of floods, but of being eaten by a crocodile. It...

UPDATED, 2pm: Miraculous news indeed from Paris: the great organ is UNTOUCHED. It is unusable because of soot and dust, but it is structurally intact.  From Europe 1: Laurent Prades, régisseur du patrimoine intérieur de Notre-Dame de Paris, a passé la nuit à sortir des œuvres de la cathédrale pour les sauver des flammes. Sur Europe 1, il rassure quant à l'état des orgues. EXCLUSIF Sous la toiture éventrée de Notre-Dame de Paris reposaient des centaines d'œuvres magistrales, historiques, inestimables. Dans quel état sont-elles aujourd'hui, après  le terrible incendie qui a dévasté lundi soir la cathédrale  ? Et notamment l'immense orgue principal, dont certains tuyaux dataient du 15ème siècle. En exclusivité sur Europe 1 mardi, Laurent Prades, régisseur du patrimoine intérieur de Notre-Dame de Paris, a apporté des informations rassurantes. "Pas une goutte d'eau".  "Le grand orgue n'a absolument pas été touché, si ce n'est qu'il est très emp...

We had a whale of a time at Kings Place, performing the UK premiere of  Being Mrs Bach on Saturday afternoon. Left to right: Ben Bevan (baritone), Steven Devine (harpsichord), me, Jonathan Manson (cello and gamba) - what an absolute privilege to work with them! Totally knocked out by the brilliance of Steven's harpsichord playing, which provided the effect of an entire orchestra or two, the apparently effortless beauty of Jonathan's solos and the way he switched between instruments as if simply taking another breath, and the warm, gorgeously tender tone of Ben's baritone, which we understand will be gracing Opera Holland Park this summer. Onwards... next up is Odette: A Celebration of Swan Lake , which takes wing on Wednesday. The award-winning Fenella Humphreys (violin), also-award-winning Viv McLean (piano) and I will be at Bob Boas's series, Music at Mansfield Street, London W1, on 17 April, and St Mary's Perivale on 27 April. St Mary's will be LIVE STREAMED!...

This week I've been adjudicating at the Whitgift International Music Competition - a wonderful initiative at Whitgift School in Croydon at which musically gifted boys from around the world arrive to compete for prizes and in some cases scholarships to study at the school. I've been involved with it from the beginning in 2013 and following the progress of the entrants over the ensuing years has been quite tremendous. The standard this time was absolutely gobsmacking, with entrants from Moldova, Montenegro, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Belarus and the UK in junior and senior categories for each of strings and brass/woodwind - and our breath was taken away by quite a number of the performances we were lucky enough to hear. Last night at the gala concert that concluded the event I gave a little speech. There were things I Really Wanted to Say, and I still really want to say them - so here they are. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour to be here today as chair of the jury for the Wh...

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My words&music show BEING MRS BACH is at Kings Place on Saturday at 5pm, part of the venue's magnificent Bach Weekend. More info here: please join us! With harpsichordist Steven Devine, baritone Benjamin Bevan and cellist/gamba Jonathan Manson we explore the story of Anna Magdalena Bach, looking back on her life from her last days when she was tragically forgotten - even by most of her large family. From gifted young soprano to mater familias and sidekick-in-chief to her overworked husband, and the terrible operation that hastened his death, we follow her through arias and solos that reflect the emotions and preoccupations of the Bach family's Leipzig life.  https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/classical/being-mrs-bach/ Here's a little interview I did for Kings Place's website: Why did you want to create an event around Anna Magdalena Bach? The initial suggestion for ‘Being Mrs Bach’ came from the pianist Kathryn Stott, artistic director of the Australian Festival...

Very excited to be heading tomorrow to Great Malvern to do a pre-concert talk about the Schumann Violin Concerto with conductor Ken Woods – whose concert with the English Symphony Orchestra includes this haunting work as centrepiece, with soloist Zoe Beyers. We are at Great Malvern Priory, talk at 6.30pm, concert at 7.30pm. Booking here. Incidentally, I will also be presenting a concert themed around Jelly d'Arányi, World War I and World War II for the  Oxford Philharmonic on 1 June , including the concerto alongside music by Bartók and FS Kelly. As a preview, here is an article I wrote for the Independent in 2016 about the extraordinary history of this long-forgotten work, its traumatic composition when Schumann was on the cusp of mental illness and its bizarre rediscovery in the 1930s when the world itself was tipping over into madness...  Robert Schumann Photo from Wikimedia When I first heard the story of how Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto came to light in the 1930s, I ...

"I told you no good would come of Brexit!" (Photo courtesy of the LSO) In a move that will shock the orchestral profession worldwide, Sir Simon Rattle is rumoured to be on the point of announcing his intention to throw his hat into the political ring, instead of the Wagnerian one. While the UK government is in meltdown over Brexit, sources close to the maestro say that he hopes to be a candidate for Prime Minister, standing at the next (no doubt imminent) election with a national unity manifesto. "Music is a force for unity and cohesion," said one source, who preferred to remain anonymous. "Sir Simon has a uniquely charismatic, positive personality and the power to transcend the venomous divisions currently besetting both government and opposition in the House of Commons. We are not the only ones who think he's just the person to bring the country together again." Another source remarked, more sourly: "If he can get an orchestra with its inevitabl...

So on 29 March 2019 something momentous was meant to happen, but it isn't - phew, at least for now - thank EU very much! And we can, instead, celebrate what is apparently International Piano Day. Here are a few of the pianists who helped me to fall in love with the piano as a child/teenager and were among the formative influences in how I think and write about it today. This is a tribute to them all. DAME MYRA HESS I never heard Dame Myra Hess in person (I was born the year she died), but I became aware of her very early on. First of all, my mum's name was Myra too - unusual and 'clockable' when you are small - and there is something similar about their profiles. We lived in north London and used sometimes to go for walks on the Hampstead Heath Extension. There was a blue plaque to Hess on her house in Wildwood Road and we always used to try to park outside it. Later, of course, I heard all about her National Gallery concerts during World War II, which was enormously in...

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No, not those parties. These are Baron Zeta's embassy ball, and Hanna Glawari's glamour-trip do. We're in Paris and we're at a different party in each act of The Merry Widow , where the filthy-rich Hanna, having inherited millions from her deceased spouse, is the target of Baron Zeta's determination to marry her off to a fellow countryman to bolster the national economy of their homeland, Pontevedro. A moment of magic: Sarah Tynan as Hanna sings 'Vilja' from the moon. All photos from ENO (c) Clive Barda The great thing about operetta is that it is "light". But the trouble with operetta is that it has to be "light", otherwise it becomes heavy and goes clunk . Treat its subject matter with too much earnestness and it can be a total disaster. But what is "light"? It's in the music, it's in the drama, it's in the touch. It's in the teasing out of meaning, rather than the hammer-head of fate. It's in the quality...

We do. Plenty of us were there, too. Cheers to everyone who marched yesterday, using our democratic right to peaceful protest. And with a turnout of an estimated 1.8m, don't forget that each of us were also representing those who couldn't make it due to work, rehearsals, family and other commitments, but were there in spirit and asked us to remember them there. I had at least 10 requests to "march for me". Who knows if it will make any difference - but that is no reason not to try. Similarly, if you haven't yet signed the Revoke Article 50 petition - which at time of writing is just short of 5m - please do so here.

I don't think I'm the only person who's currently so cheesed off with the behaviour of our dear country on the international stage that I've been feeling disinclined to listen to any British music. This is not good. Brexit isn't the fault of our composers - anything but.  Therefore I'm making an effort to get back to them  and I've asked William Vann to write us a guest post about Hubert Parry's oratorio Judith , which he is conducting at the London English Song Festival at the Royal Festival Hall on 3 April, no matter what happens on 29 March. He tells me this will be the work's first airing in London since the 19th century and that its neglect seems  to  him to be "a gaping hole in the heart of British choral music". Nevertheless, you might find some of it sounds familiar... Please read on, have a listen and (unless you're in Great Malvern that night for the Schumann Violin Concerto) do give the concert a whirl. If you can't make ...