See also - there were lots of good things about the 60s/70s/80s but none of them are what the crap nostalgia accounts ever mention

‘Wants change’ - very informative

And ironically the economic regime in the 70s was more left wing than it is now, with higher tax rates for the rich, more generous welfare etc - reform aren’t going back there.

There is no way those photos are the same person 10 years apart. Unless he used an old photo in 2015?

No doubt more energy will be devoted to finding the source of the leak for this story than to investigating why he was appointed

On a youth orchestra course when I was about 14 they showed us all One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. I didn’t know cinema could be so viscerally powerful - I was blown away by it. But officially too young of course

The feature on the Today programme this morning seemed to me to be very much focused on immigration advisors behaving improperly, and not suggesting that the idea to do this had come from the asylum seekers themselves.

I can forgive his lack of empathy on this occasion, having had his groin cut open without anaesthetic.

Musicians who don’t like Mendelssohn are like people who don’t like dogs - although they’re probably ok there’s something not quite right somewhere

I love a surprise ending.

And they wonder why they lose votes to the Greens.

Clearly they’ve stopped worrying about the threat from the Green vote already. Hopefully they’ll get a rude awakening at the local elections.

Do they know that opera singers and musicians are paid, and brass band players are not?

I’m pleased you’re happy, as long as you’re aware that this is how civilisation ends

Spoiler alert….

The RSC’s music cuts fundamentally diminish our experience of theatre | Tom Service From Mendelssohn’s scherzo in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Grieg’s Morning Mood from Peer Gynt, music composed for the theatre was never just ‘incidental’

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

Was he related to the Lawes whose music Pepys greatly admired a couple of decades later?

I can’t believe Lili Boulanger is nowhere here - she’d be top of any list for me. And Ethel Smyth should be somewhere on it too.

Why Max Richter’s Hamnet needle-drop left me cold | Tom Service on music In a new weekly column about the world of classical music, Tom Service bemoans Hollywood turning pieces into slop through overuse. Plus: Philip Glass withdraws his symphony from the Kennedy Center

I saw the following article opening after this thread and thought it fitted. "I realised just how far the association of classical music with relaxing affect instead of real emotion had gone."

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

The Prince Regent wouldn’t have either, his splendid trousers would have given the game away

Whatever the reason, I hope it stays that way. Being an author (or composer for that matter) doesn’t make you a good critic

I love Shostakovich 4 (I even wrote my dissertation on it) and if it could ever be exhilarating then Noseda is probably the conductor to do it. But is it meant to be?

Very occasionally. More often slightly adjust notes or rests to line them up. It’s every chorus director’s least favourite job.

It is a stunning recording. And so beautiful towards the end.

I’ve kind of given up with Pletnev tbh. The rubato especially seems almost random, and contrived. But he’s pretty popular so perhaps I’m missing something!

East Yorkshire is fascinating in its landscape and architecture, too often overlooked I think.

He was only 21 when Mozart died, and not a prodigy in the way Mozart was, their paths just might not have crossed much

Thanks! Will check those out.

I don’t know it but I remember quite liking his Bruckner 5 a while ago. To be honest I’ve never found my ideal no 5 though.

If it’s like the Mahler, all very violin heavy. Woodwind very much in the background. I got so used to this as a teenager I didn’t like the balance in live concerts at first.