Was already on Satan's side, of course.
Writer, lecturer, broadcaster, happily bestriding London and Dublin. Classical music/Opera Editor of The Arts Desk, author of seven books including Prokofiev: From Russia to the West (Yale). Running two Zoom courses, one on opera, the other on concert rep.
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Was already on Satan's side, of course.
She doesn't (listen to the haters), never has.
When did Yvette Cooper become a monster? I remember when my trustworthy then-MP @hammersmithandy.bsky.social recommended supporting her as Labour leader over Corbyn. You'd think the whole lot were far-right agents. Andy has @alfdubs.bsky.social as his constituent - what do they both think of this?
Yes.
★★★★ #BBCProms #KatarinaBarruk #NorwegianChamberOrchestra, #PekkaKuusisto - Vague incantations, precise laments, as a first-half mix of #Sámi songs and string things falters, but #Shostakovich scours the soul - review @davidnice.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...
First half didn't entirely work for me - though the Bach/Reger Chorale arrangement was profoundly beautiful - but no strings could go deeper into Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony (Eighth Quartet), and the from-memory aspect helped. theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...
Why all the excitement over President Pizda's possible or imminent demise? The whole pandemonium is as bad if not worse: Vance, Hegseth, Bondi, Miller, Kennedy, Noem, Patel, just to fire off the names that spring most immediately to mind. Mind you, when a nominal dictator falls...
Hatred ueber alles.
It's horrifying and baffling. Has he been some far-right undercover agent all along? All sorts of paranoid thoughts are inevitable. We seem to be only just a bit behind President Pizda and Co.
Treason. Again.
Proves he supports terrorists and has protesters against genocide arrested.
Time to leave Little England. Though I know Mayor Sadiq Khan doesn’t support this insanity.
Looks like he's more likely to help firebomb a refugee centre or a mosque. Bottom line is that he lets terrorism of immigrants pass, but punishes those against the Gaza genocide.
Generations of workers in America bled and died to win dignity on the job. They stood together against those who refused to recognize their humanity. On Labor Day, as fascism rises again, we honor those who came before us and carry forward their spirit of solidarity & defiance. Fight like hell. ✊
Who gets to drive the stake through what's supposed to be the heart?
Shouldn't you stick to Xitter?
There's always one. Imagine the responses on Xitter...
Bulgaria has obstacles ahead in closer ties to the EU. Taking up the Euro in January will meet with manipulated resistance.
Check out HC's 'Erbarme dich' on YouTube. He's also going to be Wigmore Hall's artist in residence so there should be livestreams.
First half didn't entirely work for me - though the Bach/Reger Chorale arrangement was profoundly beautiful - but no strings could go deeper into Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony (Eighth Quartet), and the from-memory aspect helped. theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...
Way back Mrs Mayhem wanting to leave it, making us the only outsiders with Belarus (at the time). And of course the Torons brought it up. But Labour??? Is there some kind of conspiracy?
I hadn't heard about this. Red terror!
Very kind, Gordon, thank you! I'm not replacing the OKers...
Come to Dublin! They may do another Matthew Passion next Easter - both I heard in St Patrick's Cathedral were the best. Cutting as alto the first year, the magnificent Helen Charlston the next.
★★★★★ Rapturous Handel at BBC Proms: Alexander’s Feast, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan Pure joy, with a touch of introspection, from a great ensemble and three superb soloists writes @davidnice.bsky.social theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...
Along with this. I only had the Anda/Fricsay performances on a much played LP.
Lovely, lovely men.
Second step in replacing the destroyed CDs A to P: disgraced JEG may be, but that first cluster of Bach performances will do for the big gaps, with glorious soloists like Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Anne Sofie von Otter. So delighted with this £2.99 purchase in Oxfam Turnham Green today.
Les Fleurs du Mal: a certain terrible beauty about the room in my flat which burned down (never have a tungsten lamp around). CDs Adams to Prokofiev all gone. Puccini to Zemlinsky in the hall saved. Now I have to take things step by step, and the insurance is helping. Won't be back in before Xmas.
Yes, I was worried my partner was getting a bit authoritarian when he suggested that way back. Our underclass could do with a spell in some remote prison, preferably Russian.
It's 'them', and they will destroy us all.
Of course the press are longing for a kerfuffle. Still not enough real news out there for them to cover, it seems.
Is this for real? He was always a weirdo, but I didn't think he was that cruel.
Incredible scenes in Genoa, Italy as 50,000 people join a procession to bid farewell to the boats joining the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza. Over 50 boats from 44 countries, loaded with 100s of tons of food aid, have set sail to Gaza to attempt to break the Israeli siege. (📸 Hidden Palestine)
Only reasonable to hear the answer, though it will be outrageous.
Murdered, please.
Is that it? Why on earth didn't Trevor Phillips ask her to be specific?
Like the entire front bench?
WHAT changes? Not addressed here. And Phillipson, like the rest of them, speaks robotically and without conviction.
The original sin was letting him run for election once he'd said 'Russia, are you listening' and mocked a disabled reporter.
Have you listened yet? I'll be tuning in on BBC Sounds. Sheer joy, as I wrote, in total contrast to tonight's very introspective programme from Pekka Kuusisto and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra: peak Shostakovich from memory and in the costumes they wore for the 90 minute DDS show I saw in Oslo.
Meaning you love them?
The defining image of Berlin 2025
Pure joy from start to finish, with some of my favourite performers. Worth coming back from the Lahti Sibelius Festival a day early for. theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...
Yes, well, no chance of that. Tory party might as well jump into the North Sea.
Worst of all is Germany's attitude.
Israeli soldiers killed. Tons more Palestinian civilians murdered. All horrific.
This monster's removal is a matter of national emergency - as, for that matter, is everything in the USA right now.
Trouble is, I suspect you might find more English folk in Kernow than Cornish. Our experience walking the coast path and staying at various B&Bs.
Congrats to Pliny (a strong voice on here) and Jay. Looking good!
America is sick in the gun laws department. And always has been.
The usual hypocrisy of the press. Nevertheless though the reaction was excessive, I shared the shock at the loss of a young woman who'd risen to something remarkable. And I still think that those who go on about the privileged princes can't imagine what losing a mother at a young age can do to you.
We'd just got back to London from Shropshire. Woken at 9.30 by an insensitive friend calling to say 'Di's dead'. Went to see Plein Soleil at Curzon Mayfair and walked back via Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, where the crowds were laying flowers at the Palace gates.
Remember the Portsmouth protests against paedophiles which mistakenly attacked paediatricians? Graham Vick featured them in his production of Britten's Peter Grimes. This is farcical, but people will get hurt.
Carry on blundering. But people will get hurt.
Swimming place in Lahti yesterday - some distance from the big lake. Lucky it didn't rain and that I got a fine sunset on Thursday - it's pouring on my departure and will carry on for the next three days. Watch the phenomenal Sibelius/Mahler/Wagner concerts here: sinfonialahti.fi/en/sl-classi...
This Putleresque nightmare has been going on for months now. Come on, USA, sort yourself out!
Clearly Labour hasn't done the checks it promised. No point asking my Labour MP for anything. @chelfulhamben.bsky.social doesn't respond in any shape of form.
Oldie but goldie. Worth repeating, though probably preaching to the converted here.
Wanted only for those crimes, for which you should be in jail. Only in America?
The look of the fanatic...or the vacant. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
I belonged to the Green Party but didn't vote for them before. Unless it means Tories or Reform getting in, I won't vote Labour again.
But we must counter-protest if we have the energy.
Well, that all worked. Properly electrifying but also nuanced Walküre Act 1 after a colossal performance of Sibelius's Lemminkäinen Suite In Lahti. Värelä and Vogt delivered in every crucial passage, and Hannu Lintu is a great Wagnerian. Watch and listen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW2h...
Netflix is good and honourable (I think). Prime is out of bounds because it's Amazon.
Who knows if it will be big or not. And there may be more counter-protesters. I'd go but it's Norfolk Churches Walk day.
Yes, the iplayer is a superb resource. I've given up on Netflix and it has all I need.
You only need President Pizda and Kash 'Crazy Eyes' Patel in there to complete the picture.
You can, and see it too. The link is in the next post down, and in another - it's on the Lahti SO's website (and YouTube), free to watch for a month. As will be tonight's Valkyrie Act 1 and Lemminkainen, and tomorrow's concert with Karita Mattila singing Grieg and Sibelius songs before Sibelius 1.
Looks like ICE monsters aren't the only ones emulating the SS.
It's a decade since I was last in Lahti, for the Sibelius 150th anniversary celebrations, and the return is if anything even better. I'll be writing that up for The Arts Desk in due course, but the spadework about the miraculous concert hall and the situation of the town has at least been done.
Yes, this is the big objection, but I don't watch TV news and current affairs programmes. What I value most of all are the orchestras and the Proms, incredible institutions.
Thousands are speaking up, but they're not in the public eye. The figures for the anti-immigrant protests are low.
Yes, this showed the banality of evil. And I think one of the Palestinian participants has since been murdered by Israel, but would need to double-check. At least it reminds those doubtful of how the TV licence is spent what the BBC does that's good.
The other half is either ignorant or extreme-Zionist.
The Undead can't always tell who's actually dead. Stakes through hearts soon, though, please.
To paraphrase Mozart's Magic Flute, death and despair are his only legacy.
The full performance is on the Lahti Symphony Orchestra's website. If you want to go straight to Sibelius's 'Kullervo and his Sister' movement, it's at 1h31m23s. sinfonialahti.fi/en/tallentee...
I want to hear Johanna Rusanen as Brünnhilde NOW (a role she's sung at Finnish National Opera, but nothing on YouTube). Have caught her vivid characterisation of Kullervo's Sister thrice now - last night's performance, her intensity matched by Davóne Tines and Hannu Lintu in Lahti, was the greatest.
Including our hapless government, but Starmer won't say so any more than he will use the term 'genocide' of his mate Israel's actions in Gaza.
Training to be the worst. Horror-in-waiting.
It's split, isn't it? But so many Democratic representatives are tainted by Big Money, which ultimately dictates so much. Sadly increasingly true in the UK - our Labour government is unworthy of its predecessors.
Not much difference between the Dead and the Undead...
And even then it's not always as good. Biden was (the Palestine issue excepted) a good president but the USA was still inwardly rotting. What happened then led to this.
Not something I imagine he ever wants to do even shamming.
THE countenor voice as far as I'm concerned. Iestyn sings beautifully and acts superbly, but HC seems to have everything. Just played a friend 'Erbarme dich' and she was amazed. Do we meet on Saturday (email me)? I'll be back from Lahti mid-afternoon, inshallah.
The lake at sunset after last night's stupendous Mahler/Sibelius concert from the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu (watch here, available for a month: sinfonialahti.fi/en/tallentee...). Tonight, Valkyrie Act 1 and Lemminkainen.
Dr Death.
The mask-like face of evil.
Oh, who knows? That wouldn't work for him.
Ludicrous pretence at diplomacy from Lammy. Why the hell do we still have that poisonous Kelin creep in the UK? He's been laughing at us for years. And the number of casualties is awful. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
If only it could be across the board. Is there enough support for a national strike?
Catch for free what I've just experienced live by the lake at Lahti. First of two exceptional programmes placing early Sibelius in the contexts of Mahler and Wagner. Nothing compares to the sound in this hall, though - maybe the best in the world? Lucerne and MUPA certainly provide competition.
Let's see what shape the resistance takes. Though so much is being lost daily.
Making the statement is the important thing - he knows what's right.
My student Karen Banks never liked countertenors until she discovered Hugh Cutting at Dublin Castle....I told her so.
And let's face it, it didn't take much.
Unfortunately the Old Testament mentality - wipe out your enemy - will just ignore the New. It makes horrible sense.
Television.
Emma Thompson never became PM. Her character in the drama. Seemed clear to me.