EMI is the label that introduced us to Schnabel, Richter, Argerich, Barenboim and Pollini. Myleene Klass is a pop singer who was chosen for stardom on a television talent contest and has followed up with appearances on reality shows. She has just signed to EMI Classics. It would be tempting to imagine that an EMI producer, straying beneath her window in South London as she practised Chopin, decided that he was hearing the next Argerich; or that Simon Rattle conducting her in a concerto, demanded … [Read more...]

In its endless quest for harmony and balance, the BBC put me between the hip-hop artist Tor and the former Hear'Say singer Myleene to discuss the pop-ularisation of classical music, in front of an audience made up mostly of radio production staff. My role, I discovered, was to be the patsy. Tor and Myleene want old music to get real. Tor told of her great day out as soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestras; she wondered why the symphony bands weren't doing more hip-hop (perhaps because that's not … [Read more...]

The Times obituary of Ray Minshull, who died last month aged 72, was as bland, and as kind and as colourless as he could possibly have wished. There was not even a passport photograph at the edge of the page to break his social anonymity. Minshull was a big man in classical recording. He was head of the classical division of Decca from 1967, and of the whole company from 1981, right through to his retirement in 1994 - after which the demolition began. As successor to the visionary and … [Read more...]

Reading my review today of the new Simon Rattle release, the editor of Opera magazine John Allison spots an alarming similarity between Rattle's cover and Christian Thielemann's for the Schumann third symphony. Compare and contrast. Is there only one park bench in the whole of Berlin? Is Rattle trying to snuggle up to the man that many Germans see as the next Karajan? Did they both visit the same corner-shop photographer with the dated background? Or was Rattle simply photoshopped into the … [Read more...]

The new book went live last night with a well-attended lecture at the British Library and a big piece follow-up in the Evening Standard. Jonathan Summers, the wonderfully erudite curator of recordings at the BL, said the audience was the biggest he'd had for any lecturer bar Mitsuko Uchida. What pleased me most was its diversity - every type of record fancier from bone-dry discographer to rock band member. Nice. Whenever I talk about records in London, some distinguished old gentleman will come … [Read more...]

John Wilson, the ever-alert BBC presenter who was with me in China the other week, was so impressed by the confluence of civilisations that he came home with three half-hour Front Row shows, the first of which went out last Wednesday. His industriousness and versatility were astonishing. John not only interviewed, narrated and recorded his material, he edited and produced all three programmes on the road - the kind of herculean effort that normally requires a team of three. Even if I had the … [Read more...]

I never thought I'd feel much regret when Alain Levy went through the window, but either I've seen too much blood on the record floor or else I'm going all gooey in my old age. Or maybe I just prefer to deal with the devil you know. Levy was the man in the black suit and matching black shirt who, in the mid-90s, was responsible for sacking dozen of classical artists on the Universal labels, Decca, DG and Philips. Ousted in a boardroom ruck, he popped up at troubled EMI where, instead of reaching … [Read more...]

Why blog? It's a question that has been taxing me for months. As one who makes his living by writing for profit (none but a fool would do so otherwise, said Doctor Johnson), I feel as much reluctance at doing it for free as any blue-lipped sex worker on a busy intersection. On the other hand, I see esteemed colleagues taking to the blogosphere like birds to worms and some of the amateurs out there stealing our thunder by reporting events and conveying opinion on their blogs faster and more … [Read more...]