On An Overgrown Path

On Slipped Disc Norman Lebrecht crows that "BBC Radio 3 bounces back after summer disp... Radio 3 has risen again to 1.91 million, a quarterly increase of 106,000 listeners". This is misinformation. Because comparing the autumn/winter Q4 (Oct to Dec) figure of 1.91m with the summer Q3 (July to Sept) 1.81m is deliberately misleading. It does not take into account the seasonal change in radio listening: more people listen to the radio in autumn/winter than in the summer. The meaningful analysis, which is omitted from Norman's puffery, is the audience movement from the same quarter the previous year. BBC Radio 3's audience in Q4 2024 was 1.952m and in Q4 2025 was 1.912m. So, in fact, rather than bouncing back, Radio 3 showed a small - 40k - drop in audience year on year. For those preferring facts to misleading spin, the two relevant RAJAR reports are reproduced here - Q4 2025 above, Q4 2024 below.        

Award-winning author, environmentalist, Zen Roshi , and womanizer Peter Matthiessen - seen in photo above - featured in a recent post here . This drew on Lance Richardson's engrossing new biography of Matthiessen. So now here is a a short and deliciously inappropriate vignette from the biography. When he wasn't hosting his girlfriend, Matthiessen smoked pot at Polgeto , swam in the castle pool, and caught up on writing. He also took LSD which was readily supplied by John Abbot . On a previous visit, Matthiessen had bought a small green notebook with ' Appunti ' stencilled on the cover - this became his LSD journal. One day he added 300 micrograms of Sandoz LSD to a cup of coffee, put Fauré's Requiem on the stereo, and pushed through an onslaught of paranoid self-pity.

That photo was taken by me today on the seafront at Lowestoft . Here is the opening section of Young Britten  in Alex Ross' acclaimed book The Rest Is Nois e. Homosexual men, who make up approximately 3 to 5 per cent of the general population, have played a disproportionately large role in composition of the last hundred years. Somewhat around half of the major American composers of the twentieth century seem to have been homosexual or bisexual: Copland, Bernstein, Barber, Blitzstein, Cage, Harry Partsch, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, Gian Carlo Menotti, David Diamond, and Ned Rorem. In Britain, too, the art of composition skewed gay. The two young composers who seized the spotlight in the early postwar era were Britten and Michael Tippett, neither of whom made an effort to hide their homosexuality.   Alex's book provides a salutary reminder of what we have lost in the era of lowest common denominator music writing . As does his long-running The Rest Is Noise website ;...

There is increasing concern about political involvement in the arts, with Trump's sequestration of the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC - see photo above - a prime example. Which raises the important question, should creative artists be politically engaged? One position on this is the one taken by Benjamin Britten. When he was asked in 1942 by a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" Britten replied "I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example". But a contrary position is encoded in a 1985 speech by the award-winning author, environmentalist, Zen adept , and womanizer  Peter Matthiessen . Lance Richardson's masterly new biography of Matthiessen contains the following quote, which in these increasingly dark times  is an important wake-up call not just for American writers, but for creative artists all over the globe.   At a meeting of the Association of Writers & W...

That photo was taken by me as my wife handed out sweets to these young Senegalese footballers. (Football followers will appreciate the irony of my engagement with both Morocco and Senegal.)  During our recent travels in Senegal we were struck both by the physical presence and beauty of the people, and by the shocking poverty. 60% of the population is under 30 years old, which is at least partly due to a Senegalese husband being legally allowed up to four wives. 'The Youth's Magic Horn'  (Des Knaben Wunderhorn ) is the anthology of folk poems from which Gustav Mahler's  'Poor Children's Begging Song' ( Armer Kinder Betterlied ) for boy's and women's choirs and contralto soloist in his Third Symphony is taken. My recent listening has included returning to Jascha Horenstein's recording of this symphony. Horenstein (1898 to 1973) was a truly great interpreter of of Bruckner and Mahler, and his recording of the latter's Third Symphony is amon...

Very sad news about  the death of Ralph Towner at the age of 85. Understandably most tributes have focused on his career as a solo guitarist. But his ensemble work also demands celebration. This included his work with the underrated Paul Winter Consort . This resulted in the 1972 album Icarus produced by George Martin.on which Towner classic's The Silence of a Candle and Icarus debuted. The moonlighting Beatles producer described the album as 'the finest album I ever made' in his memoir All You Need is Ears , which is quite remarkable coming from the person responsible for Sgt Pepper . In 1971 Ralph Towner was a founding member of the ensemble Oregon with Consort bandmates Collin Walcott and Paul McCandless, who were joined by Glen Moore on bass. Oregon never received the attention they deserved, simply because their adventurous and innovative music was impossible to fit into any of the music industry's meaningless genres. As bassist Glen Moore explained "We...