Virus toll, week 9: Silence in Russia

There has been a merciful diminution in the number of Covid deaths reported worldwide in the music community over the past fortnight. Let’s hope we’re coming to the end of it.

What’s puzzling, though, is that not a single musical death in Russia has been ascribed to Covid-19. There has been an unusually high number of fatalities reported in the past week – a Bolshoi curator, a respected violin professor, a music critic, a conductor, a ballet professor and more. No mention of the virus, except here and there a euphemism ‘of a swift disease’. There is pressure from above not to report Covid. Self-censorship is back.

These are our losses this week in the rest of the world:

76  Derek Weber, veteran Salzburg Nachrichten music critic, 73 (pictured)

77  Joseph Policelli, Massachussetts organist and music professor, 71

78 Queen manager Jack Nelson, 77

79 Alabama music teacher Carl Matthews, 92

80 Bristol musician Junior Hines, 67

81 Paschal Allen, Covent Garden opera singer, 87

82 Minneapolis pianist Thelma Irene Johnson, 96

Previous weeks here.