This one forced little girls to strip and held their heads under water while acting out some bizarre fetish. He’s a London choirmaster, 73 years old, and he was jailed yesterday for seven years at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the full details appearing in The Daily Telegraph (and why is it always the Telegraph that is first to the sleaze?).
And then ask why it always has to be music teachers, and why so often in Britain. Is it because music, like sport, has tactile teaching elements that attract perverts? Or does music grant a license to perverts to act out their fantasies?
I have no statistics to hand, but it’s Don Giovanni to a string quartet that there are ten times as many music teachers who are caught molesting pupils as chemistry or geography beaks. Now why is that? Does music, in some obscure way, attract sadists and corrupters?
This one forced little girls to strip and held their heads under water while acting out some bizarre fetish. He’s a London choirmaster, 73 years old, and he was jailed yesterday for seven years at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the full details appearing in The Daily Telegraph (and why is it always the Telegraph that is first to the sleaze?).
And then ask why it always has to be music teachers, and why so often in Britain. Is it because music, like sport, has tactile teaching elements that attract perverts? Or does music grant a license to perverts to act out their fantasies?
I have no statistics to hand, but it’s Don Giovanni to a string quartet that there are ten times as many music teachers who are caught molesting pupils as chemistry or geography beaks. Now why is that? Does music, in some obscure way, attract sadists and corrupters?
The BBC has just reported that the zebra crossing outside Abbey Road studios have been listed by English Heritage as a site of supreme cultural importance. They cannot now be altered in any way without massive bureaucratic procedure.
The
studios themselves will probably be up for sale next month when EMI is broken up by Citibank in pursuit of its heavy loans.
The BBC has just reported that the zebra crossing outside Abbey Road studios have been listed by English Heritage as a site of supreme cultural importance. They cannot now be altered in any way without massive bureaucratic procedure.
The
studios themselves will probably be up for sale next month when EMI is broken up by Citibank in pursuit of its heavy loans.
Another two indy labels, impressed by the download rush here over the past two days, have asked me to put up free tracks for your leisure and pleasure over the holiday period.
Before they roll out, here’s free classical download #3 featuring British violinist Matthew Trusler in the concerto that matters more to him at the moment than any other – Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s intricate and subtly anguished interweaving of movie themes into a Heifetz showpiece.
This is the glorious finale, played by Matt with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra (Schumann’s old band) under conductor Yasuo Shinozaki. Unlike some starrier recordings, this one is played with much forethought and deep feeling.
Here’s my original www.scena.org review:
Korngold violin concerto
(Virgin/Orchid)
***/****
Like London buses, you can wait years for a Korngold concerto and then four turn up in a row. Nikolai Znaider (RCA) was sulky and Philippe Quint (Naxos) I haven’t heard, but both Renaud Capucon on Virgin and Matthew Trusler on Orchid bring fresh qualities to the work and good reason to reconsider its virtues. Capucon pitches the opening sweetness to perfection and underplays the finale’s recycled movie themes. Trusler takes a more nostalgic route, finding exquisite love and pain in Korngold’s yearnings for a vanished Vienna.
Both are thoughtful, distinctive and engagingly personal. Capucon is disadvantaged by his paring – a solid account of the Beethoven concerto, conducted in Rotterdam by Yannick Nezet-Seguin – while Trusler in Dusseldorf (cond. Yasuo Shinozaki) offers the stunning and apt concerto by another film composer, Miklos Rozsa, as well two prime Heifetz encores. In Korngold, though, I cannot choose one over the other: I’m keeping them both.
And here’s Jessica Duchen’s lyrical biography of the composer:
Downloads
#1 and
#2 are live and running. Enjoy.
Another two indy labels, impressed by the download rush here over the past two days, have asked me to put up free tracks for your leisure and pleasure over the holiday period.
Before they roll out, here’s free classical download #3 featuring British violinist Matthew Trusler in the concerto that matters more to him at the moment than any other – Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s intricate and subtly anguished interweaving of movie themes into a Heifetz showpiece.
This is the glorious finale, played by Matt with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra (Schumann’s old band) under conductor Yasuo Shinozaki. Unlike some starrier recordings, this one is played with much forethought and deep feeling.
Here’s my original www.scena.org review:
Korngold violin concerto
(Virgin/Orchid)
***/****
Like London buses, you can wait years for a Korngold concerto and then four turn up in a row. Nikolai Znaider (RCA) was sulky and Philippe Quint (Naxos) I haven’t heard, but both Renaud Capucon on Virgin and Matthew Trusler on Orchid bring fresh qualities to the work and good reason to reconsider its virtues. Capucon pitches the opening sweetness to perfection and underplays the finale’s recycled movie themes. Trusler takes a more nostalgic route, finding exquisite love and pain in Korngold’s yearnings for a vanished Vienna.
Both are thoughtful, distinctive and engagingly personal. Capucon is disadvantaged by his paring – a solid account of the Beethoven concerto, conducted in Rotterdam by Yannick Nezet-Seguin – while Trusler in Dusseldorf (cond. Yasuo Shinozaki) offers the stunning and apt concerto by another film composer, Miklos Rozsa, as well two prime Heifetz encores. In Korngold, though, I cannot choose one over the other: I’m keeping them both.
And here’s Jessica Duchen’s lyrical biography of the composer:
Downloads
#1 and
#2 are live and running. Enjoy.
In the January 2011 issue of The Strad I discuss drink and drug use among string players, especially in symphony orchestras. It’s a problem that no-one wants to address in public and the more it is swept under the carpet the worse it gets. Here’s a taster:
Between us, we know what’s what. We have colleagues who hit
the bar before, during and after a concert, others whose nerves are so shot
their bathroom cabinet looks like a medieval apothecary’s and their nostrils
are in need of relining. The intonation goes and the family disintegrates. We stand
by as children suffer. And we say nothing. We deny that drink and drugs are
every bit as prevalent in classical music as they are in recovering members of
the Rolling Stones. We live a flagrant lie.
Why is that? Why does our particular form of music maintain
a pretence of Victorian rectitude under Sicilian vows of omerta while others
let it all hang out. Why does classical music gasp in shock-horror when there’s
a drugs bust in Nigel Kennedy‘s Bavarian hotel room and a few innocent players
are disturbed at their alleged spliffs.
Face the facts. American orchestras had their fastest growth
spurt during Prohibition because they were the best place to get a drink. The
Berlin Philharmonic served beer during concerts when they started out. Music is
culturally inseparable from light refreshment. We play, we listen, we drink,
sometimes to excess. No big deal.
I maintain we need more openness. Your views, please?
In the January 2011 issue of The Strad I discuss drink and drug use among string players, especially in symphony orchestras. It’s a problem that no-one wants to address in public and the more it is swept under the carpet the worse it gets. Here’s a taster:
Between us, we know what’s what. We have colleagues who hit
the bar before, during and after a concert, others whose nerves are so shot
their bathroom cabinet looks like a medieval apothecary’s and their nostrils
are in need of relining. The intonation goes and the family disintegrates. We stand
by as children suffer. And we say nothing. We deny that drink and drugs are
every bit as prevalent in classical music as they are in recovering members of
the Rolling Stones. We live a flagrant lie.
Why is that? Why does our particular form of music maintain
a pretence of Victorian rectitude under Sicilian vows of omerta while others
let it all hang out. Why does classical music gasp in shock-horror when there’s
a drugs bust in Nigel Kennedy‘s Bavarian hotel room and a few innocent players
are disturbed at their alleged spliffs.
Face the facts. American orchestras had their fastest growth
spurt during Prohibition because they were the best place to get a drink. The
Berlin Philharmonic served beer during concerts when they started out. Music is
culturally inseparable from light refreshment. We play, we listen, we drink,
sometimes to excess. No big deal.
I maintain we need more openness. Your views, please?
