Peter Phillips

Whatever lay behind Radio 3’s decision four years ago to reduce the number of live concert broadcasts to a mere handful, it cannot have been the recent phenomenal success of ‘live’ relays from the Met in New York to local cinemas. Whatever lay behind Radio 3’s decision four years ago to reduce the number of live concert broadcasts to a mere handful, it cannot have been the recent phenomenal success of ‘live’ relays from the Met in New York to local cinemas. Even the service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s has been a hit in this format. The director of the Met says that 6 million people are expected to see his company in action this year via a cinema hook-up.

Chopin is a difficult composer to celebrate, at least in the festivals of larger format. Countless piano recitals don’t really fit the bill and the music which includes orchestra is not the best of him. He surely was a miniaturist — perhaps the most compelling there has ever been. Which other composer can set a mood so securely in the very first bar, and then sustain it as a single shaft of thought to the end? He is like a painter who with three strokes of the brush has told you all you need to know about what is to follow, so that what does follow already seems like a familiar and longed-for friend. Of course this kind of writing doesn’t work very well in a building the size of the Albert Hall.

It’s Proms time again. Peter Phillips is struck by the imbalance between singers and players What with all the talk of cuts, and the Proms being a showcase for the BBC house ensembles, I imagine this year’s season might be a time for each to put their best foot forward. I imagine, in fact, that there must be some talk in rooms that used to be smoke-filled of scrapping one or two of them. In total they are: the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Chorus, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The idea that one can take guns and syringes out of the hands of disaffected youths and replace them with musical instruments, which they then delight to play, is so utopian that most people’s reaction was to laugh it off. The idea that one can take guns and syringes out of the hands of disaffected youths and replace them with musical instruments, which they then delight to play, is so utopian that most people’s reaction was to laugh it off. Yet, as everyone knows, this is exactly what has been happening in Venezuela since 1975, and is still happening. The lives of many young people have been improved by the opportunities offered by El Sistema, and no doubt the mood in society as a whole has been vastly improved.

The demise of French as a useful way of communicating with the wider world has been one of the features of my years as a travelling musician. I can recall many conversations around Europe, the southern Mediterranean and Russia that would not have taken place 30 years ago if I and the local people had not been able to deploy French, which for both sides was a second language. It was then still possible to have the feeling that it was as valuable to know French as English. This was never quite the case with German or Italian (which I did use in Tripoli); nor Spanish — potentially the most useful — which was too site-specific. The speed of this collapse is one of the remarkable things about it.

The Tallis Scholars’ 50th concert in New York City — the first was in 1988 — took place in St Bartholomew’s Church, Park Avenue, on 26 March. The Tallis Scholars’ 50th concert in New York City — the first was in 1988 — took place in St Bartholomew’s Church, Park Avenue, on 26 March. Since we have sung now in 15 different spaces in NYC — more than in any other city in the world and including the Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art — this was an unusual choice of venue for a celebration. St Bart’s is famous for a number of things, but since reverberant acoustics is not one of them I feared we would have an uphill task appealing to a new audience.

News that the archivist of the Booker Prize, Peter Straus, has discovered that in 1970 the prize was not awarded for technical reasons set me thinking about annual music prizes. This thinking was in no way discouraged by an aside, made by Matt Damon at the recent Oscar ceremony, to the effect that it would be a good thing if the only films which were in contention for prizes were those that had been made at least ten years ago. He, of course, would still star — and might be less keen if the wait was 40 years — but that was not the point. He thought that, if these prizes were really meant to stand for excellence, then the longer view was likely to be the truer one.

There is something about the music of Arvo Pärt which does not sit well with Italian fascist architecture. There is something about the music of Arvo Pärt which does not sit well with Italian fascist architecture. Perhaps I am oversensitive, but vast stone lions and super-size friezes depicting epic battles conflict with Holy Minimalism in its most refined flights. Certainly Pärt’s music has its own grandeur and impressive spaciousness, but in the end it is a miniature artform, which cannot be said of much to do with Mussolini, certainly not of the Aula Magna in La Sapienza University of Rome. It is not that I am squeamish.