Category: Music

SRO

This is an LP I bought in the 1960s. SRO signifies Standing Room Only, a reference to Herb Alpert’s popularity. My taste in music has evolved since then. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-fifties that I began to enjoy Wagner.

Published
Categorised as Music

The Go-Between

What’s up, after reading this remarkable post i am too cheerful to share my experience here with mates This is the sort of spam that arrives. It is atypical only in that usually it’s a desire to share my stuff with their mates, if they have any, and the World Wide Web. A reader has… Continue reading The Go-Between

Piano Concerto

The opening chords of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 are instantly recognisable; you can listen to the whole piece at the end of this post. The reaction it evoked when it was first played may come as a surprise to you.

Published
Categorised as Music

The Guards Chapel

On a Sunday morning in June 1944 the Guards Chapel was hit by a flying bomb during Matins. The whole building was destroyed, except the apse, and 121 people died.

Sounds of the ’60s

Everyone can remember the first record they ever bought. I was reminded of this by a reader telling me that her’s was Lily the Pink, see London House Prices, mine was A Hard Day’s Night.

Thoroughly Modern Manon

Puccini’s Manon Lescaut was screened live from the Met in HD, as they frequently remind us, in cinemas on Saturday.

Wiggers

On Sunday I went to a concert at the Wigmore Hall. Wiggers works its socks off: they put on about 400 performances annually and don’t just sit back and enjoy the million pounds they get in funding from the Arts Council; they both raise money and sell tickets – hoorah!

Fulham Opera

As English National Opera struggles to fill their £5 million annual deficit a new opera house is born. This is St. John’s church in Fulham, West London.

Published
Categorised as Music

London House Prices

I’ll write those three most hated dinner party words again, “London house prices”.  Like Glenda Slagg in Private Eye, aren’tcha sick of ’em?