Music and Opera

I have been writing a book this summer, in the usual mad tearing hurry. (Much as I admire those who take four or five years to write one, I have to ask, how do you eat? This isn’t by any means a sensible way of making a living.) Intense workload, though, means music, and lots of it. Many writers simply cannot work with tunes blaring out of nearby speakers; I cannot work without them. Music masks my tinnitus and distracts the part of my brain that would otherwise be trying to distract me from my work. You know, the Facebook part. The videos-of-cats part. The Marks & Spencers chocolate-covered shortbread

Walking around central London, I’ve been struck by how many shows Frank Sinatra has been performing in town recently. He played a string of concerts in July at the Royal Albert Hall (which as any schoolboy knows was actually named after Sinatra’s middle name), and he is currently performing an extended summer season at the London Palladium. Quite how Frank is going to cope this Friday evening, when this eternal Sinatra séance requires his spirit to put in an appearance as his life and music is celebrated at the Proms, at the same time as he gigs at the Palladium, I’m not sure. The good news for Sinatra fans is that

Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret discussion they have chosen Kirill Petrenko — reminds one of little less than the election of a pope. In both cases the expectation is the same: the organisations are so iconic that they must continue into the future without a hitch and without question. Whatever sort of job they are doing, or have done, they have become too much a part of normal life to be abolished. Why is it that symphony orchestras of any standing are expected to survive indefinitely, where smaller musical organisations, though they may be just

Saul Hudson, more commonly known by his childhood nickname ‘Slash’, turns 50 today. It is safe to say that the next 50 years of his life are unlikely to be quite as hectic as the first. The heroin-addicted lead guitarist of Guns ‘n’ Roses has settled into a routine of philanthropy and Angry Birds. He is always mentioned in magazines as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. The opening to ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ is routinely voted the best guitar riff ever. But the true extent of his genius — which stretches far beyond his ability to produce a nice tune — is still not fully recognised. Many in fact think he’s overrated. They say he didn’t do enough to transform the

Lucas Debargue, a 24-year-old French pianist, came fourth in the finale of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow on 30 June, yet he’s the only competitor anyone is talking about. Why? The main reason is that they’re riveted by his backstory. Have you noticed how we all say ‘backstory’ these days, instead of boring old ‘background’? It’s defined as ‘the things that have happened to someone before you first see or read about that person in a film or story’. Neal Gabler wrote a book called Life: The Movie, about our entertainment-obsessed society’s urge to stretch and squash everything from terrorist attacks to an argument at the checkout into an imaginary

Popular culture is all about the shock factor, especially when it involves female popstars. The late Eighties set a precedent for women making statements in their music videos. In 1989 Madonna broke taboos with an interracial love story, complete with burning crosses and a crying saint. A year later Sinead O’Connor was the first woman to cry in a music video. Since then pop-feminism has produced a steady stream of provocation, from the Spice Girls kicking girl-power in our faces, angry man-hating from Alanis Morissette to the independent women of Destiny’s Child. The noughties were pretty much a romp through string bikinis in preparation for Lady Gaga borrowing an outfit

The main thing that strikes you as you watch AC/DC whip 70,000 people into a frenzy at Wembley stadium is, of course, how very similar they are to David Hockney. And Peter O’Toole, come to think of it. Not to mention Beryl Bainbridge, Eric Morecambe and Sheridan Smith. What all these people share in common is perhaps the most important quality any artist or performer needs: the ability to take your work seriously without taking yourself seriously. It is very, very difficult to play guitar as well as Angus Young, or to hold an audience as well as Brian Johnson. Watch a pub band cover ‘Highway to Hell’ and you’ll

I had meant to write a dispassionate account of this year’s Glastonbury, really I had. But I’m afraid my plans were ruined by a chance encounter on the final day with my old friend Michael Eavis — the distinctively bearded dairy farmer who founded it 45 years ago. Rather sweetly he has got it into his head — long story — that I once helped him save the festival. Gosh, I hope this is true because it would annoy so many people: suck on that, all you Guardian readers, you lefty stand-ups, you Greenpeace activists. Every time you go to Glasto from now on you must offer a silent prayer

When Margaret Thatcher imagined perfect power, she thought of the orchestral conductor. ‘She envied me,’ said Herbert von Karajan, ‘that people always did what I requested.’ Power, however, is a mirage that fades as you get close. What Mrs Thatcher saw were the trappings, never the essence. Great conductors might get the glory, but someone else pulled the strings. Behind every power there is a greater force. Behind every conductor, there was Ronald Wilford. It is hard to think of Wilford, who died last week, aged 87, without a sneaking admiration. A self-schooled Machiavellian, a Mandelson of music, he invented a chimera of ‘the great conductor’ and, as president of

All hail Taylor Swift. How she must give baby boomers the fear. Not just baby boomers. Also those who came next, the Generation Xers, who seemed to define themselves culturally mainly via goatees, apathy and heroin. And my own rather listless, half-generation thereafter, with our bigger beards and binge-drinking. Taylor Swift makes us all look old. Because we are old and the world will be hers. You will have heard about her victory over Apple this week — you must have heard about it, because an opportunity to put Taylor Swift on the front of a newspaper is an opportunity not to be missed, particularly now that Elizabeth Hurley is

Like a lot of essentially cautious people, I like my music to take some risks, play with fire and damn the consequences. In truth, of course, most musicians are every bit as conservative as the rest of us: they do whatever it is they do and if it sells, they keep on doing it until they drop. Three small cheers, then, for Mumford & Sons, who with their recently released third album took a completely unexpected swerve away from the phony banjo-intensive folk that had made their name and their fortune, into the stadium rock’n’roll they have obviously always wanted to play. As may have been gently hinted at in

‘I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to get this chance in life,’ said Christine McVie, as the opening jangle to ‘Everywhere’ rang out. Judging by their ecstatic reaction, the audience felt much the same way. Look, I’ll be honest. I’m not going to give you a dispassionately critical review of Fleetwood Mac, together again in their classic line-up — Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and, for the first time in 16 years, Christine McVie. But then, who would give you that? A puritan arrived on a time machine from the 16th century? A shadow minister for work and pensions? Who could possibly be so