From his base in Andalucia (aka Eastenders-on-Sea), Mahlerman's thoughts turn to birdsong and its influence on great music... Close to where I live in London, the gentrification of the old East End continues apace, and if Doug and Dinsdale Piranha were spreading their reign of terror today, they would discover that ... Read More...
About Author Profile: Mahlerman
An early Christmas present, from Mahlerman... Working in and around Notre Dame (Paris) from the middle 12th Century were a group of composers who came to be known as the Notre Dame School of Polyphony - polyphony being, briefly, a style of composition employing two, or more, simultaneous but relatively independent ... Read More...
The world has been robbed of too much great music, says Mahlerman... Back around Christmas of 2010, I posted on a quartet of composers (Gershwin, Bizet, Schubert and Mendelssohn) who had achieved greatness, immortality some would say, but left us with the burning sense that, had they lived for just a ... Read More...
Did Beethoven and Tchaikovsky write any bad music? Yes, says Mahlerman, but he loves it anyway. Here are his guilty pleasures... I'm on thin ice this week; I don't think I really know what I'm talking about. A painting or a book is a physical object that we 'read' with interest, ... Read More...
This week Mahlerman searches for serious music in the Emerald Isle, and not in the pubs... 'They lived and laughed and loved and left' James Joyce - Finnegans Wake London, 1741. George Frederic Handel is ill, and virtually bankrupt. The 56 year old has had some success with operas, but a number of ... Read More...
Is serious music a man's game? Not necessarily, says Mahlerman... Back in 2006 Nicholas Kenyon, then Controller BBC Proms, received an unmerciful kicking in the press and elsewhere for not including a single work by a woman in that season's programmes. And even when the compositions of women do appear, they ... Read More...
A disproportionate number of composers have been homosexual, and in an age when it was necessary to hide the fact. This week Mahlerman looks at how repressed or forbidden love might have found expression in great music... If I were to try and make out a case for homosexual composers producing a 'gay ... Read More...
Four greats who proved that inspiration cannot be taught in music lessons... It was the gruff Johannes Brahms who said 'Study Bach - there you will find everything'. But it took the promotion of this great master in the second quarter of the 19th Century by Felix Mendelssohn, and his steady ... Read More...
This week Mahlerman introduces some final compositions... If death comes out of the blue as it did to George Gershwin at the age of 39 there is, of course, no sign of it in his last composition 'Our Love Is Here To Stay', a perky masterpiece that has become a jazz ... Read More...
Mahlerman celebrates the Jewish contribution to the classical canon... What is the world's shortest book? Answer: The Book of Gentile Violinists. And it is quite true that if you made a list of the major fiddlers of the last 100 years, a very high proportion, perhaps more than 90%, would be Jews. ... Read More...
