I wasn’t intending to buy an aubergine when I went shopping in Sainsbury’s today, but how could I resist this one? Luckily it sneaked past EU guidelines on the acceptable face of vegetables.

//

At the weekend we visited lots of different artists’ studios under an ‘Open House’ scheme run by the borough of Wandsworth. We’ve been attending this event for years and always enjoy the chance to see artists in their home settings, often with their art displayed for sale in the midst of their own possessions. I [...]

Philippa Ibbotson’s article in Wednesday’s Guardian about ‘the myth of the maestro’ has stirred up a lot of interest. Last time I looked, there were about 130 comments on the Guardian blog. The article questioned the enormous fees paid to orchestral conductors, especially at a time when those fees represent ‘a large slice of a [...]

The Florestan Trio’s new disc, a second volume of Haydn piano trios (Hyperion CDA67757), is just arriving in the shops, and the first review appeared yesterday. The magazine International Record Review (October) has given it their ‘Oustanding’ mark.  The review is mainly about the music itself, but it says:
‘Haydn would doubtless have thought well of [...]

After lamenting the lack of music in Venice churches, I had the opposite experience yesterday when attending Evensong in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. It’s always uplifting to hear the Chapel resounding to the pure intonation and chiselled phrases of the choir, a mixture of male undergraduates from the College and boys from the nearby [...]