Visiting King’s College in Cambridge the other day, Bob and I were horrified to see that several of the lawns had been badly damaged (see photo). It looked as if hooligans had been let loose there, or as if a rugby scrum had taken place there during the night. What on earth had happened? We [...]

Yesterday I was in King’s College, Cambridge to hear the ‘Carols from King’s’ service, which will be broadcast on Christmas Eve on BBC2. When I was a student at the college, the choir sang Evensong every day and I missed most of the services, telling myself that I could go any time I liked. Now [...]

Still feeling cross that the Guardian, in its review of classical music in the past decade, did not say a single word about chamber music. Guardian writer Tom Service devoted almost his whole summary to opera and orchestral music. This happens year after year, no matter who the writer is. Each Christmas I have to [...]

At last Gramophone, the UK’s leading classical record magazine, has reviewed the Florestan Trio’s latest Hyperion disc of Haydn Trios (volume 2). Here’s an extract:
‘The Florestan Trio display their customary virtuosity, elegance and caprice, once again capturing the full emotional range of what may, on the surface, appear to be merely domestic entertainment music… Peter Quantrill has [...]

I was fascinated to read recently about an experiment to find out what goes on in the brain of actors when they pretend to be other people. Actress Fiona Shaw volunteered to recapitulate her celebrated performance of TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ while lying motionless inside an MRI chamber at London University’s psychology department. She [...]