brisbane hate

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Ivan Turgenev I learned, a little late, that today is the bicentenary of one of the writers I love best: Ivan Turgenev. (Some give the date as '9 November new style', though; take your pick.) He's perhaps the quieter, undersung hero of Russian literature, sometimes submerged under the tidal waves of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky and the rest. Yet to encounter his novella First Love is to find a work so perfect that it encapsulates an ideal story structure before anyone thought there was any such thing, and - perhaps more importantly - there is not one spare paragraph in it. I once attempted to abridge it for reading with music and it simply couldn't be done. Remove any tiny element and the edifice is wrecked. Ballet-lovers are - as so often with rare music and literature - better informed than many of us. A Month in the Country is probably seen more often in Frederick Ashton's beautiful Chopin-filled interpretation than as Turgenev's original play, at least in th...

My Top 10 ODETTE FAQs... Q: Ooh, Odette? The World War II spy? Or Proust? J: Er, no. Swan Lake. Q: The Tchaikovsky ballet? So did you go to Russia to research it? J: Actually, the book's set in a university town in East Anglia in 2018. Q: So it's, like, real fiction? J: Well, one of the main characters turns into a swan every day, so, yep. Q: How did you get the idea? J: I had this recurring dream about looking for my Swan Lake book, and it was never there, so I thought I might write it... Q: Maybe I should get it for my 9-yr-old daughter. She's mad about ballet. J: Well, it's not really suitable for 9-yr-olds, and there's no actual ballet in it. Q: If there's no ballet, what's it about? J: Outsiders. How we treat them. How they respond to us. How we change each others' lives. How much responsibility do we have to look after other people?   Q: And it's for which age group? J: Adults, though could probably be enjoyed by the young adult market. Q: But...

I just photographed the packaging of my latest assignment While I'm writing this, I ought to be writing a CD review. Yes, my copy for BBC Music Magazine is late. Why? Because yesterday I spent so long picking and scratching and scrubbing at the plastic wrapping on the CD I have to review, trying to get the damn stuff off, that I found myself virtually shaking with rage and had to go and make a nice cup of tea to calm down, and then the phone rang, and then the plastic was still on the bloody disc, and... OK, OK, I exaggerate. In fact, my copy is late because I am still agonising over what to say about the recording's content. But I do wonder: what is the earthly use of wrapping CD boxes in clear plastic which then has to be removed and, crucially, "thrown away"? Given the state of my study bin, I can't imagine the state of CD-wrapper landfill sites. Add to that the amount of the stuff that results from a single trip to the supermarket - plastic packaging, sometime...

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Tomorrow, Saturday, in central London, the biggest anti-Brexit march ever is taking place. Starting at noon in Park Lane and ending with a rally in Parliament Square. People are coming in from all over the country to be part of it. Some friends have said to me "I'm not going because it won't make any difference and they won't listen to us...". To which I can only respond: I understand, but that is not a reason not to go. Everyone who can go needs to be there. A million+ people on the streets of central London yelling that we want to save our youngsters' futures, and our own, can't go wholly unremarked by the rest of the world - though the only people who seem not to understand how desperately dangerous the current situation is are our own government. Think about it. At present, the Northern Ireland boundary issue looks insurmountable, given the different directions the various pressure groups (DUP, 'ERG' etc) are pulling Theresa May. The chances ...

You know...when you go to the Last Night of the Proms and fall abruptly in love with a composer you know of, but don't know well, wonder where he (in this case) has been all your life, and then someone offers you a guest post by the world expert on that composer about a rare work that's he's just unearthed and edited? It is with great delight that I welcome Professor Jeremy Dibble to JDCMB with his chronicle of preparing Charles Villiers Stanford's Mass Via Victrix 1914-1918, Op.173 - the composer's personal response to the First World War - for its world premiere complete performance on 27 October. The concert will be recorded for broadcast on BBC R3 later, and a commercial recording is in the works for next year. Thank you, Professor Dibble! JD Stanford’s Mass ‘Via Victrix 1914-1918’ Op. 173  A guest post by Professor Jeremy Dibble Born in Dublin in 1852, Charles Villiers Stanford was born into a community of brilliant Anglo-Irishmen in the mid-nineteenth centur...