Nige watches Tony Palmer's curious 1995 film about Henry Purcell and finds that the music triumphs over the clunking polemics... On Christmas Day in 1995, Channel 4's TV treat was a two and a half hour film about Henry Purcell (how times change!). I didn't watch England, My England at the ... Read More...
Classical
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...
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...
From the brothels of Hamburg to a place amongst the musical Gods, Mahlerman tells the story of Johannes Brahms... In 1854 the now-obscure composer Peter Cornelius coined the phrase The Three B's by way of describing, for him, the so-called 'Holy Trinity' of composers comprising J S Bach, Beethoven and Hector ... Read More...
This week Mahlerman introduces one of Poland's most original composers - now rarely performed, but capable of near-genius... Most of the composers we have run a slide-rule over in these pages have, with a few exceptions, come from modest, even impoverished backgrounds. The great good fortune of Karol Szymanowski was that ... Read More...
Today Mahlerman looks at composers who also painted, or painters who also composed... The overlap and admixture of musical composition and painting was not something I had even considered until, quite recently, I heard a piece of music (thank you Radio 3) by the Lithuanian composer and painter Mikalojus Ciurlionis - ... Read More...
Steerforth remembers one of the more flamboyant dabblers of the 20th century... One of the most colourful and unjustly forgotten characters of the last century is Lord Berners. Born Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson in 1883, Berners went to Eton and worked as a diplomat until he inherited his title. For the remainder of ... Read More...
This week Mahlerman considers musicology, and the difference between knowledge of music, and mere knowledge about music... Most Dabblers will know that when a sociologist goes to a strip-club, he watches the audience. Similarly, as the great Lancastrian Sir Thomas Beecham reminded us, a musicologist can write music but he can't ... Read More...
Hitler's propaganda specialist Joseph Goebbels determined to keep German music pure with his 'Reich Music Chamber'. But some composers were able to create music to rise above the cultural tyranny... Regular Dabblers may remember my post Degenerate Music a couple of years ago where I pondered, albeit briefly, the loss of many talented ... Read More...
What is it about Hungary that it has thrown-up an almost constant stream of great musicians and composers over the last two hundred years? Mahlerman investigates... Is there something in the water in Hungary? About the same size as Portugal, and with roughly the same population (10m), it was a real struggle ... Read More...