Culture

Hänsel und Gretel Royal Academy of Music Jenufa Birmingham Hippodrome Pelléas et Mélisande Sadler’s Wells Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel loses none of its charm with repeated viewings, a good thing since there are plenty of productions of it around this year in the UK, the latest being at the Royal Academy of Music. I saw the first and almost wholly excellent cast, with the two children cast more plausibly than I have ever seen them before, though both Robyn Kirk, the Gretel, and Charlotte Stephenson, the Hänsel, are in their twenties. Both their singing and acting were ideal, worthy of DVD-ing, our version of immortality.

The Foggy Dew should be busy tonight. Mind you, so should all the other pubs in Dublin. There'll be more cause than usual for singing now that one hears the sad news of Ronnie Drew's death. The Telegraph obituary puts the appeal of The Dubliners quite well: The Dubliners achieved fame and notoriety as singers of street ballads and bawdy songs, and as players of fine instrumental traditional music. Their emergence coincided with the British folk revival of the early 1960s, and they were one of the first folk bands to break into the pop charts. In Ireland their closest rivals were the Clancy Brothers.

Megan asks for suggestions for a tribute tape to the late and lamented Democratic primary race. A quick glance at my iPod suggests these tunes...

More polling! This time it's Setting the Woods on Fire who wants you to list your ten favourite country music artists. My off-the-top-of-my-head list, then, is: 1. Gram Parsons2. Waylon Jennings3. Townes van Zandt4. Johnny Cash5. Emmylou Harris 6. Hank Williams Sr 7. Dwight Yoakam8. Gillian Welch9. Lyle Lovett10. Merle Haggard Make your vote count here.

A reader asks polymathic Tyler Cowen for his country music recommendations and Tyler responds here, cautioning, mind you, that: I might add the whole list comes from someone who was initially allergic to country music, so if that is you give some of these recommendations a try.  Just think of it as White Man's Blues. Well that was me too, once upon a sad old time ago. Then I saw the light and everything's been better since. Tyler says you have to start with Hank Williams Sr and then move on to the Gram Parsons trio of: The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and, finally, Grievous Angel. That, plus Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Dolly etc etc will see you right. All sound advice.

You don't have to be an Anglican or even especially religious to think that this Oxford Evensong set to jazz is very cool. Beautiful. (You can listen to it again for the next five days by clicking on "Choral Evensong" at the link.

Who else reckons that Mr Darling's plodding budget could have used a lively soundtrack? Well, here's my recommendation: Goody Two Shoes by Adam and the Ants. The lyrics pretty much sum up the whole sorry affair! "Put on a little makeup makeup Make sure they get your good side good side If the words unspoken Get stuck in your throat Send a treasure token token Write it on a pound note pound note Goody two goody two goody goody two shoes Goody two goody two goody goody two shoes Don't drink don't smoke - what do you do Don't drink don't smoke - what do you do Subtle innuendos follow.

Megan finally gets to see The Pogues live and, happily, it's worth the wait: Did I mention that for the actual last song, at the end of the second encore, Spider Stacy did his signature "bashing a beer tray against my head" percussion act?  I mean, it really doesn't get much better than that.

What is a genius? We use the word frequently but surely, to guard its meaning, we should bestow it seldom. To me, a genius is a person whose gift contains an element of the inex- plicable, not to be accounted for by heredity, upbringing, background, exertions and talents, however noble. Thus, we can’t account for the extraordinary imagination of Chaucer, the vintner’s son, brought up at a military-minded court. Equally, where Shakespeare got or acquired his magic is a mystery.

You don't need to like - or know anything about - rap music or cartoons to still think this is pretty neat*: *Though not entirely safe for work since it would be plastered with warning stickers in the stores. But, sod it, it's Friday...

There is a long tradition of the pop intelligentsia getting involved with academe or publishing -- Pete Townshend’s work as an editor for Faber being the obvious example, Jah Wobble’s labours over Blake’s poetry rather less so. Sir Paul McCartney was the driving force behind the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. The Spectator’s own Alex James is the best bassist of his generation, and lived the pop life to the full, but he also has the cerebral firepower to hold his own in an academic common room or editorial meeting. So there ought to be nothing unsettling about the Smiths’ former guitarist, Johnny Marr, becoming a visiting professor of music at Salford University. One only has to hear, say, the opening chords of “How Soon is Now?

Amidst the coruscating party conference commentary might I just slip in a small musical note akin to that so enjoyed by Matthew Parris in his terrific article in this week's Spec? He was entranced by a single phrase played on the violin, cutting through the artificial flurry and tension before the transmission of a live television broadcast. On Friday night I was similarly transported by the glory that is two people making music together. In the eastern crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, as a dirty night pressed itself up against the windows and the rain sluiced down, two old friends – friends who had been choristers together in the same cathedral - played piano and flute in a programme of music they had devised and in some cases arranged between them.

Have you Herd? If you haven't already done so, buy a copy of Mark Earl's Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour By Harnessing Our True Nature  It sounds sinister, but there's not much harnessing in it and lots of exciting ideas about what it is to be human. Mark's thesis is that we're basically group animals, like chimps, and that ideas and fashions spread not as a direct result of some ad campaign, but because of our instinctive desire to mimic each other. This is tremendously cheering. It means all those threatening, cajoling ads -- inside mags, blocking the letterbox, thrust at you in the street -- will come to nothing. However urgent the blurb, it's not going to sway anyone at all. Hooray!

Researchers confirm that rock'n'roll stars lead unhealthy lives and die young. Shockerooni!

I have a piece in today's Independent on the downfall of Amy Winehouse, an extended version of my post earlier this week. Which just goes to show that where Coffee House leads, the press follows.