Stamen-wielding Flowermaidens and a soaking wet Kundry - my **** review of a luxuriously cast Parsifal at the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl, @bachtrack.com
bachtrack.com/review-parsi...

Facing up to a grief beyond words - Laura Bowler's new musical translation of Han Kang's novel/memoir, for Barbara Hannigan and the LSO at its UK premiere. My ★★★★ review @bachtrack.com

bachtrack.com/review-hanni...

When you click the "beautify slide" AI feature in Google Slides.

NOT A JOKE

Good carb loading there, Bernard. Toast, hash browns AND chips. Impressive work.

STILL THE CRICKET #TheCricket

It's funny you should raise that one, I saw it myself last night, for the first time in years. And reminded myself, it's a good deal less sexist than most Bond movies. Does the cosmetic op to make him look more Asian count as racist?

Today marks 6 years since the UK left the European Union. On the 31st January 2020, life changed for millions of people, with the impact still being felt across the country to this day.

The long goodbye - Jurowski returns to the LPO for Mahler's Tenth in Rudolf Barshai's completion. My ★★★★ review @bachtrack.com 📸Mark Allan
bachtrack.com/review-mahle...

But where are the bears?!

I can't do that, Cat. Try Bryan Magee or Michael Tanner or... anyone else?

What interests me is - is that the road to the Isle of Sheppey in the opening credits?

The most brutal way of telling someone they’re a few sandwiches short of a picnic that I’ve heard in French is t’es pas la truite la plus oxygénée de la rivière. It means “you’re not the most oxygenated trout in the river.”

* read on for similar insults from around the world (a thread)…

Wife: why do you have 8 cubes filled with ink?
Me: for eggs
Wife: why are you only putting eggs in the eighth cube?
Me: I am ink cube eighting them
Wife: ok, I need to explain something to you...

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's... but we're paddling in the shallows of KB's ignorance here.

And Aus Licht was 2019. Dates never my strong suit.

Ah, they were all formative experiences. The Bach was broadcast live on R3, so can in theory be re-lived...

1991 - Berg: Wozzeck, English National Opera
1995 - Mahler 9, BPO/Abbado, Proms
2001 - Bach: St Matthew Passion, Gloucester Cathedral, cond Sir Colin Davis
2008 - Wagner: Parsifal, Bayreuth Festival, dir Herheim, cond Gatti
2022 - Stockhausen: Aus Licht, Amsterdam

97 (I think) out of 100 made in English.

High performance: Kian Soltani on his Stradivari cello
✍️ @peterquantrill.bsky.social
bachtrack.com/interview-ki...

I know nothing about Dr Who, but, for Londoners, the phrase "Going For Dinner With Billie Piper" is the absolute best way to remember the order of the vertical streets running east to west in Soho (Greek, Frith, Dean, Wardour, Berwick, Poland) and has saved many a late night out

It is a little known fact that tonight's clock re-adjustment was pioneered by German-British artist Frank Auerbach, to the great dismay of the proponent of the original change, politician Konrad Adenauer

Two Nilssons for the price of one: my report @Bachtrack from the award of the Birgit Nilsson Prize to the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. 📸Maja Brandt
bachtrack.com/review-malkk...

A walk through King’s Cross via @KingsPlace
✍️ Peter Quantrill
bachtrack.com/feature-walk...

STATLER; "This funeral is so boring, I'm jealous of the guy in the coffin! Ah ha ha ha ha!"
[Statler turns to the empty chair next to him and sheds one tear]

Choose life: Oramo's Mahler 9 leaves death for the last page
✍️ Peter Quantrill
bachtrack.com/review-oramo...

Sakari Oramo guided the BBCSO through a life-affirming Mahler 9 at the Barbican on Saturday - my ★★★★ review for Bachtrack here:
bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

But is it a constant? Feels like way more than 4% of people believe comparably crazy nonsense.

Don't you think these replies fuse quite seamlessly with potential answers to the question, 'what's the most English-coded thing you actively love?' Now, as to why that is... [shuffles papers]

Taking risks that pay off at the Enescu Festival
✍️ Peter Quantrill
bachtrack.com/review-gioco...

After the rivers of blood speech, precisely no one in the major parties patted themselves on the back and declared free speech to be alive and well. They declared Powell a pariah, and he was only able to re-emerge in public life as the incongruous unionist MP for South Down.