I can’t get no Satiesfaction

After peaking at around the tenth instalment, birthday celebrations get progressively less interesting, for their subjects at least. I remember the lunch we held for my great-aunt Winnie’s 100th birthday. It was a jolly affair and she received the toast with a fine speech of thanks. When the cheering subsided, she delivered the speech again, verbatim.

Classical music nowadays seems largely to be propped up by birthday celebrations for people who couldn’t care less, mostly because they’re dead. For some decades, the planning of concert seasons has come down to whether the number of years since a composer died or was born has a zero on the end of it. Perhaps in 2050 we’ll celebrate the bicentenary of the centenary of Bach’s death, since 1850 was the first year the centenary business really established itself. Pop music is of course heading the same way (with its piffling double-digit numbers), but that’s small comfort really because, however you look at it, life should involve more than the sending of birthday cards and souvenirs to oneself.