Stephen Hough has slightly jumped the gun on one of the topics in tonight’s Lebrecht Interview by setting out his views on assisted suicide in his telegraph blog, here.

We were discussing the deaths of the conductor Edward Downes and his wife Joan who, in their own way, jumped the gun recently by opting for euthanasia in a Swiss clinic, Dignitas, rather than awaiting the inevitable.

Stephen, a devout Roman Catholic, argued lucidly against the legalisation of assisted suicide on the grounds that it would encourage elderly people to makes themselves ‘less of a burden’ on younger relatives, and that it would subject doctors to more moral stress and executive authority than they are qualified to exert.

Quite by coincidence, a very junior hospital doctor told me yesterday of an elderly patient in the final stages of cancer who refused to sign the DNR (do not resuscitate) forms, only for the attending physician to attempt to persuade her son to sign them by proxy. The doctor will have thought he was acting in the patient’s best interests – resuscitation of a comatose aged person is not pleasant for anyone – even as he overrode her express wishes. It is for such reasons that I believe we need to think very carefully before altering the laws on euthensia.

You may feel differently … feel free to discuss below.

In our intense and extensive conversation, Stephen – who is by far the most successful British pianists of recent times – touches upon his own near-death experience, as well his battle to convince the Church to recognise gay relationships.

The Lebrecht Interview airs tonight at 2145 UK and streams all week online on BBC Radio 3.

The Age of Melbourne used to be one of the world’s serious newspapers. During the 1990s it kept its finger on the pulse and was in the market for good journalism, wherever it reared its head. Many of my own pieces were syndicated in its pages.

Lamentably, like many city papers, the Age has gone into steep decline – especially in its coverage of anything above the middle of the brow. even so, I am distressed to learn that, four days after the death of Australia’s leading pianist, Geoffrey Tozer, a Melburnian proud and true, the Age has neither recorded his passing nor bothered to publish an obituary.

This is not just dumbing down; it’s downright bad journalism. If someone interesting dies on your doorstep and you don’t bother to report it, you are not a paper where the community, local and global, turns for news.

On a warmer note, a mutual friend in Melbourne reports a Tozer anecdote. One day a student asked if they could work together on the John Ireland concerto, a piece of considerable obscurity. No worries, said Geoffrey, sitting down at the second piano and playing the entire orchestral accompaniment from memory. He was a polymath of musical byways. And how lovely to see a video of him in an unplayable De Schloezer etude on artsjournal.tv

Some respondents to my first posting have resisted my assertion that no Australian pianist since Percy Grainger has made it onto the world’s leaderboard. One of them has posted a list of contenders. Worthy, indeed, some of them – but not world leaders.