Music and Opera

For 23 years I lived in the North Cotswolds, heart of National Hunt racing country, where March comes round with a quickening of hearts. From Monday night of Gold Cup Week, helicopters bringing racegoers clattered over my chimney pots, en route to the hotel on the hill. Those were the days when the independent bookie, Simon, of Roughley Racing in Chipping Campden, wore a sports jacket and a flower in his button hole. Sadly, his friendly little betting shop was swept away by the rise of the internet and the demise of a lot of old boys who hung out every day for hours, watching the races on his TV and

Nothing pleased Iannis Xenakis more than a great big rattling storm. The sound of a thunderclap would have him running out of his home half naked to join the elements. If he was at sea, he’d sniff out any lightning and sail his yacht directly at it. The Greek composer was what we might call a hard bastard — a musical Ray Mears. As part of the Greek resistance during the war — battling first the Nazis then the British — Xenakis lost an eye to shrapnel. His compositions betray the same traits: those of the adrenalin junkie, the adventurer, the kamikaze. What would happen if I composed a piece

Why will people simply not believe you when you tell them that you don’t want to dance? Their reactions mimic the classic pattern of grief: first confusion, then denial, then anger. They tug at your arm like they’re trying to pull it from the socket. ‘Come on, you have to dance!’ ‘No I don’t.’ ‘Oh come on! You want to really.’ ‘No I don’t.’ ‘Yes you do! Of course you do! Everybody likes dancing!’ It’s at this stage that I sometimes get all dark on them, losing the smile, injecting a note of firmness or perhaps even menace, and pointing out that if I wanted to dance I would be

Those poor Canadian rappers. Hailing from a country with a functioning benefits system, sensible firearms restrictions and relatively harmonious race relations, it must be a job convincing people of their authenticity. Aubrey Drake Graham, however, has risen above this cruel accident of birth — in Toronto, to a white Jewish mother — to become not only one of the world’s most respected rappers, but its biggest pop star too. For a man with the world at his feet, Drake manages to find an impressive number of things to complain about in his lyrics, from fickle friends to the administrative headache of paying two mortgages. But if the approval of others

It used to be said that Bruckner composed the same symphony nine times, whereas, thanks to the comparative frequency of performances now, we know that his nine numbered symphonies are as different from one another as Beethoven’s nine. Nothing could make that clearer than the performances of the Fifth and the Ninth given by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Andris Nelsons, three days apart, at the Royal Festival Hall. The Fifth, as befits its stature and length, was given alone. It is Bruckner’s most demanding symphony both to listen to and to conduct. Nelsons is still, I think, at an early stage in his Brucknerian pilgrimage, and his account of the

The xx is a trio of Londoners whose eponymous first album, released in 2009, has defined the way pop music sounds today. I remember knowing, when it came out, that I was listening to something both distinctive and familiar, which is usually an indicator of success. The schtick was to plunder various music canons which they were way too young to have heard first hand — Nineties house and rave, lachrymose mainstream Eighties synth-pop, angst-ridden shoegazing — strip it down and mix it all up with very clever beats, provided by the genuine talent of Jamie Smith. ‘Radically pleasant’ is what I thought at the time, a little sniffily, and

Amid the flurry of famous deaths during 2016, one particular passing has been more or less forgotten. Peter Cook’s third and final wife, Lin Cook, died on the eve of Advent, at the age of 71, shortly after the BBC broadcast Victor Lewis-Smith’s new documentary about Peter, for which Lin gave a rare interview. I got to know Lin in the Noughties, while compiling two biographical collections of her late husband’s work. It was an intriguing insight into the world of that strange showbiz phenomenon, the celebrity widow. Celebrity widows are a paradox – ostensibly public people, they’re actually intensely private. Lin personified this odd breed. Although I was in

I bought a record in a second-hand shop in the summer of 1981. A double album. I made sure nobody was looking when I handed over my money, and kept the purchase hidden in its brown paper bag all the way home. Back in my room, I locked the door to make sure my house-mates couldn’t surprise me — and plugged in my headphones. What followed was more than an hour of dirty bliss, a guilty pleasure before the term had been invented. What I was listening to was a compilation album of Status Quo’s singles and most popular album tracks. I can’t remember what it was called — ‘Again

A couple of weeks ago, George Michael announced he was collaborating with another songwriter, Shahid Khan, and for his fans (myself included) it was set to be a highlight for 2017. The strange thing about his music was that it just got better, even if his newer releases had only a fraction of their earlier profile. Some of his greatest songs (like Waltz Away Dreaming with Toby Bourke, above) are hardly known at all. He’d go through quiet phases, followed by an creative bursts and he might well have managed one again. But about an hour ago, it was announced that he has died, aged just 53. George Michael’s voice could be recognised, instantly, anywhere.

We’re closing 2016 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 9: James Woodall on celebrating the musical contribution made by the forgotten Beatle: Ringo Starr ‘He was the most influential Beatle,’ Yoko Ono recently claimed. When Paul and John first spotted him out in Hamburg, in his suit and beard, sitting ‘drinking bourbon and seven’, they were amazed. ‘This was, like, a grown-up musician,’ thought Paul. One night Ringo sat in for their drummer Pete Best. ‘I remember the moment,’ said Paul, ‘standing there and looking at John and then looking at George, and the look on our faces was like …what is this? And that

They will be sitting there right now, listening tearfully to the song for one last time on their dinky little iPods, before deleting it for ever. ‘-Heathcliff — it’s me, Cathy, I’ve come home, so co-wo-wo-wold, let me into your window.’ No, Kate. You are never coming in through our windows again. What about the cuts? What about the refugees? What about Brexit? How could you? The window is closed, double-glazed and with a mortice lock. ‘Wuth-ering Heights’ — which once I loved — is dead to me. Also that one about going up a hill or something. That’s gone too. Die, Bush, die. They are strange people, and perhaps

Elvis Aron Presley departed this world on 16 August, 1977. Even if you delight in conspiracy theories and believe the film Elvis Found Alive was a documentary, he is currently unavailable for personal appearances. So his presence at the O2 Arena and five other UK cities in November was confined to giant screens. Actually present on the stage beneath was the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra under conductor Robin Smith plus a rhythm section and three backing singers. It’s not the first time something like this has been done — former members of Presley’s band took a similar show around the world and it worked surprisingly well. A friend suggested that

Last week, my 13-year-old daughter Sasha and her friend Tess were taken by her god-father, Sean, to see Catfish and the Bottlemen at the Wembley Arena. I bought the tickets myself on Viagogo, one of the biggest secondary ticketing websites, and had no reason to think they wouldn’t be valid. As a QPR season-ticket holder, I’ve used Viagogo in the past to resell tickets to home games and it’s worked fine. Not on this occasion. I knew some-thing was wrong when I received a message from Sean asking me to email him a picture of my driving licence. The concert organisers were refusing to admit anyone who’d bought their ticket

For millions of people around the world the shock of the US election results will be enormously magnified by news of the death of Leonard Cohen, 82, a singer poet icon who had long sung about his own impending death. Thin and frail he died in Los Angeles in the early morning hours of November 8 — the day of the US elections — according to sources close to the family. A Canadian by birth he had long said that he wanted to be buried in his hometown of Montreal in the family graveyard lying alongside his Jewish forefathers, before any public announcement of his death was made. The formal

Everyone has a special place in their heart for the late Leonard Cohen – from his 80-something contemporaries to middle-aged musos to teenage girls. The last – quite unusual for an artiste of Cohen’s generation, especially one so apparently glum, uncommercial and downbeat – is largely thanks to his composition ‘Hallelujah’, which was what Alexandra Burke sang to win the X-Factor final in 2008.  It was memorably covered for Generation X by the doomed Jeff Buckley in an angelic rendition on his 1994 album Grace. Oh and also it appears in a very sad moving scene in Shrek. And it’s not even Cohen’s best song. Cohen himself thought little of it

Years ago, when I met a famous concert pianist, I was surprised when he greeted me in a northern accent. A soft one, mind you, but completely intact. I’d assumed that, by the time a conductor or soloist reached a certain level of fame, the northern vowels would have been erased by Received Pronunciation or some painful mid-Atlantic hybrid. I was such a little snob in those days, affecting a languid drawl that had my old schoolfriends in Reading rolling their eyes. But my social climbing had at least given me a good ear for other people’s doctored accents. London was crawling with northern choirmasters and music critics whose self-taught