Congratulations to Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä and concertmaster Erin Keefe, who have announced their engagement on social media.

Vänskä had been questioned about their relationship earlier this year by a prurient New York Times reporter, at a time when Keefe was auditioning for the front-seat vacancy at the Philharmonic.

Both have been previously married.

We have received more than the average torrent of cynical abuse this year in response to our articles and observations on the Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s concert.

Unlike these tunnel-visioned respondents, Slipped Disc tries to see both sides of most stories. We report verbatim the claims by Vienna Philharmonic directors that they are trying to practice equal opportunity employment and we record with regret their repeated failure to do so.

We have no axe to grind against this excellent orchestra. We have friendly contacts with several of its members.

However, what is wrong remains wrong, no matter how beautiful it sounds. An orchestra that selects just five or six women players for its greatest showcase is making a statement about its identity.

If discrimination against women and minorities is an offence in the sight of God and law, then the VPO is a flagrant, persistent offender. It must change its ways or face the condemnation and disgust of civilised humanity.

If, on the other hand, you happen to think discrimination is right and reasonable and ought to be ignored, please leave this site. You are, in the classic Viennese phrase, nicht erwünscht.

Bob Gilmore, editor of Tempo, the contemporary music magazine, has died of cancer, aged 53.

He took over after the death last May of the magazine’s veteran editor, Malcolm Macdonald.

Tribute here.

She was about to sing La ci darem la mano from Don Giovanni when, instead of her intended duet partner coming on stage, up popped her boyfriend on bended knee.

She is Finnish soprano, Marjukka Tepponen. He is British baritone, Kevin Greenlawn.

Well, what could she say?

The pop-up happened during a New Year’s gala concert in Jyväskylä, a small Finnish town with its own opera and symphony orchestra.

photos: Lasse Allonen

Peter Kaldor left Hungary aged 16 in 1956, taking with him two rounds of sandwiches and his most important possession, his trumpet mouthpiece.

A refugee, he tells the BBC, ‘loses everything except his accent’. And, in Peter’s case, his mouthpiece.

‘One way or another, I spent the rest of my life in music,’ he says.

Watch his moving story here.