Tonight I was at the Royal Albert Hall to hear the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta perform some of my favourite works, including Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, and the popular Bruch violin concerto with Gil Shaham as the soloist. Unfortunately, a small number of people in the audience chose to spoil the concert with protests […]
I was sorry to hear that Henryk Górecki had died today at the age of 76. Earlier this year, I attended what should have been the world première of his 4th symphony. Unfortunately, the performance didn’t go ahead, we were told because ill health meant Górecki had been unable to complete the work. It was […]
Question: which composer is the most popular when it comes to mobile phone ringtones? Just the other day when I was on the train, I heard someone’s phone ring with the familiar Nokia ringtone. My first thought was to wonder why so many people leave what is in effect a free advertisement for their handset […]
Tonight was the annual Last Night of the Proms, the finale of the BBC’s famous concert series. While the Last Night featured the usual eclectic collection of music: the old, the newly commissioned and the bizarre (for example, Sir David Attenborough “playing” the floor polisher) the BBC managed to spoil it by messing about with […]
The EU Commission is proposing an extension to copyright on sound recordings, the same idea having been rejected by the UK government last year. At present, copyright on a recording lasts for 50 years, after which it enters the public domain. The proposal is for the copyright to be extended to 95 years. Unsurprisingly, the […]
Following the news that GCap Media are to scrap their theJazz and Planet Rock digital radio stations, it seemed that Classic FM, as an analogue station, would emerge unscathed. Unfortunately, the closures have had a knock-on effect that has changed Classic FM for the worst. In the week, I’m only really able to listen to […]
Copyright law in the UK allows few exceptions for fair use. People who rip their CDs to make MP3 files for their portable players are actually breaking the law, although record companies have indicated in the past that they won’t pursue people for doing so. Today, a consultation was announced on changes to copyright law […]
I was quite surprised to hear the name David Gaukroger on the Classic FM Evening Concert this evening. His Romany Wood was the first work played on tonight’s programme. David Gaukroger taught my GCSE music class at King Charles I School, Kidderminster, in 1993–94. There were only seven of us in the class, so I […]
Yahoo! have released their first music download in MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) copy protection. This means the track can be played on any hardware device, or played using the software and operating system of your choice. The track in question is A Public Affair by Jessica Simpson. What is most surprising is […]
Last month I described how a new licensing regime has meant that listeners from outside the UK may no longer listen to British independent radio stations. But certain stations, including Classic FM, only required the listener to enter a valid UK postcode to listen. Then, at the start of this month, something changed again, and […]
