Top conductor feels the pain


Are top musicians sharing the financial pain? Apparently so: in today's Guardian conductor Jonathan Nott, seen above, talks about, and I quote, "working in Europe, and his other passion, his Lamborghini". More drive time music here.

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David Munrow - more than early music

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'David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London transformed our view of medieval music. The impact of their performances far surparssed any that had gone before: by demonstrating how medieval music could sound normal, they created a niche for it in the concert hall and on record that it has never lost' ~ From Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's notes for Music of the Gothic era May 15 2007 is the thirty-first anniversary of the death of David Munrow. His contribution to the acceptance, understanding and performance of early music almost defies summary. He was born in 1942, and learnt the bassoon and recorder as a child. Between school and university he travelled and taught in South America , and started the collection of ethnic instruments that were to give him, and the world, a new perspective on early music making. He read English at Pembroke College , Cambridge, and was encouraged by Thurston Dart to take an active role in the music-making of that most musical of cities. ...
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Classical music must be doing something wrong

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Classical music's website of choice Slipped Disc  today runs a story on the latest RAJAR UK radio listening figures . This story states that a "...record number of individual hours was spent listening to [BBC Radio 3]. They must be doing something right". Which is good news; but only for those who believe that facts should never stand in the way of a good story. Because simple arithmetic shows that BBC Radio 3 is not doing very much right, while UK classical radio in its entirety is doing something wrong.   In the quarter ended September 2024, BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM audiences were 2.039m and 4.416m respectively. Which gives a total audience for the two classical stations of 6.455m. For the same quarter in September 2023 the audiences were 2.002m and 4.467m, giving a total classical radio audience 12 months previously of 6.469m.  So BBC Radio 3's "something right" turns out to be a fractional increase in its audience year on year, and a contribution ...
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Soundtrack for a porn movie

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Late night thoughts after listening to BBC Radio 3

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My thoughts about Radio 3 today are summarised very well in this saying attributed to the sixteenth century  Hindu mystic poet Meerabi . I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders, and now you want me to climb on a jackass?   Try to be serious.  More than a thousand sacred songs - bhajans - and Hindi poems are said to have been composed by Meerabi. Header image is cover artwork from the album Ineffable Mysteries from Shpongleland by the Goan trance duo Shpongle .
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We could be looking at thousands of dollars

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Easter at Aldeburgh

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Iken Church in the distance from Iken Cliff, all photos taken today under a typical East Anglian sky. The overgrown path led me to Iken Church this Easter Saturday morning. The church is on a promontory sticking out into the River Ald downstream from Snape . It is a place of inspiring beauty and peace, a wonderful setting for a monastery. St Botolph built his minster at Iken in the 7th century, and became the first person in Britain to follow the Rule of St Benedict . The monastery was destroyed by raiding Danes in the winter of 969/70, and parts of the current church date from the rebuilding which started in the 11th century. The story of destruction by Viking invaders is a reminder of how this part of East Anglia is on the margins of civilisation. During World War 2 the village of Iken was evacuated and the church closed to make way for a practice battleground. And despite the beauty of the area the Sizewell nuclear power station to the north is a constant, and visible, reminder ...
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