A farmer's wife on BBC's Newsnight was complaining bitterly the other night about the Blair government's bias against the countryside. Not only had it banned fox-hunting and bungled compensation for the mad cow and foot-and-mouth disasters, it was now refusing to grant subsidy to celebrate Edward Elgar's 150th anniversary. This made it anti-rural and unpatriotic. Interesting thought. For the past two months the Daily Telegraph has been whipping up an editorial froth on an almost daily basis … [Read more...]

Congratulations to Alain Levy for walking away from EMI with £4.6 million - that's nine million greenbacks in America - in severance pay. That's his reward for leading the company to a £246 million annual loss and into the hands of equity aliens who will strip EMI of whatever remains of its artistic motivation. In the bad old days, Alain used to attack me for doing down the classical record industry. His payoff represents five years' production budget for a mid-sized label like Hyperion. I … [Read more...]

Universal, the corporate parent of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, has just appointed a new V-P in its so-called 'core' classical division - as distinct from the peel, pips and wrapping. She is Melanne Mueller, co-founder of Avie Records, an independent umbrella label that packages and distributes self-produced records by such as the San Francisco and Liverpool orchestras, the Rumanian pianist Luiza Borac and the Brook Street Band. Melanne, with her partner Simon Foster, has done a brilliant job … [Read more...]