In my current conversation in The Strad, I raise the issue that most afflicts the lives of modern musicians:

We fly to live. Anyone in classical music who is grounded for more than a month is commonly presumed to be hungry, heavily pregnant or halfway to oblivion.

What are we to do about it? You’ll have to buy a copy of the magazine, or subscribe, to discover the alternative models that I propose – but you’ll also find a bonus between the same covers. The Strad has commissioned a survey of string players on which airlines treat them worst (and sometimes best).

Since writing the piece four weeks ago, more than 1,000 players have joined the Facebook group Musicians against Ryanair, raising the total to 12,400. Ryanair are by no means the worst offenders.

We must find a better way of organising our musical lives. 

In my current conversation in The Strad, I raise the issue that most afflicts the lives of modern musicians:

We fly to live. Anyone in classical music who is grounded for more than a month is commonly presumed to be hungry, heavily pregnant or halfway to oblivion.

What are we to do about it? You’ll have to buy a copy of the magazine, or subscribe, to discover the alternative models that I propose – but you’ll also find a bonus between the same covers. The Strad has commissioned a survey of string players on which airlines treat them worst (and sometimes best).

Since writing the piece four weeks ago, more than 1,000 players have joined the Facebook group Musicians against Ryanair, raising the total to 12,400. Ryanair are by no means the worst offenders.

We must find a better way of organising our musical lives. 

I was sad to read of the death of Maurren Forrester at 79, after a long, debilitating illness.

I met her only once, during the Cardiff sessions for Gilbert Kaplan’s first recording of Mahler’s second symphony in July 1987. Although slightly over the hill, she had recorded the work in 1957 with Mahler’s disciple, Bruno Walter, and brought along a kind of secondhand authority that she bore with consummate solemnity.

‘Doctor Walter did it like this,’ she pronounced in orotund tones, or ‘Doctor Walter said that’. It would have been inappropriate to remind her that Walter had left at least three recordings of the work – his arch-rival Otto Klemperer made six (see Why Mahler? for comparisons) – and that hers was by far the smoothest and most benign of the bunch.

Walter understood that performing Mahler is a matter of mood. Mahler told interpreters to follow momentary feeling. There is no cast-iron rule in the Resurrection. Maureen never quite got that, but she was lovely to have around and her slightly faded grandeur remains, for me, unforgettable. The recording, with the LSO and Benita Valente, is pretty good, too.

I was sad to read of the death of Maurren Forrester at 79, after a long, debilitating illness.

I met her only once, during the Cardiff sessions for Gilbert Kaplan’s first recording of Mahler’s second symphony in July 1987. Although slightly over the hill, she had recorded the work in 1957 with Mahler’s disciple, Bruno Walter, and brought along a kind of secondhand authority that she bore with consummate solemnity.

‘Doctor Walter did it like this,’ she pronounced in orotund tones, or ‘Doctor Walter said that’. It would have been inappropriate to remind her that Walter had left at least three recordings of the work – his arch-rival Otto Klemperer made six (see Why Mahler? for comparisons) – and that hers was by far the smoothest and most benign of the bunch.

Walter understood that performing Mahler is a matter of mood. Mahler told interpreters to follow momentary feeling. There is no cast-iron rule in the Resurrection. Maureen never quite got that, but she was lovely to have around and her slightly faded grandeur remains, for me, unforgettable. The recording, with the LSO and Benita Valente, is pretty good, too.