Andrew Morris @devilstrillblog Twitter profile

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Andrew Morris

3 years

Here is the first part of my unfinished Shostakovich graphic novel. There are no pictures; it's just the text. If you want a look, look now because I might change my mind and remove it.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama told its staff today that it is axeing its junior department at the end of this term. Almost 200 children study there on saturdays. That will all stop in July. This is not rich kids playing expensive instruments. One of them texted...

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

... their teacher today upset that they would not have a violin to play come the summer holidays, as they are loaned one by the college. A lot of the students are on bursaries to help cover the cost of lessons. The RWCMD decision only hastens the death of music education in wales

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Students (present and past) and their supporters protested the planned closure of their junior department at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with a play-in this afternoon.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Thanks to everyone who has shared this. It starts to become difficult to see everyone's replies due to the numbers. But please contact whoever you think needs to know in order to make your feelings about this terrible news known.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

I am so grateful I "found" classical music. It wasn't inevitable; no one was pushing it on me. I'm also very grateful I recieved enough musical education to open the door. It makes me genuinely sad to think how many people will never know what they've missed out on.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

Classical music is a relentlessly "good news" media environment. I don't remember it being like this 20 years ago, but I suppose the space made by the decline of criticism has been filled with PR. I think we ought to see dissenting opinions as a sign of health, not an attack.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Classical musicians: Your biography in the concert programme just contains a list of European orchestras and is not interesting.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

My wife's orchestra is on @bbcradio3 right now, and after a year of near-silence, it feels like a big moment. @wnotweet

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

@silverlawn @RWCMD You'd think.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Would be wonderful if you could share this please @elizathertonsop @amwilson_opera @WatkinsHuw @Bryn_Terfel @susanbu1 @jjohnstonmezzo @houghhough @StevenIsserlis @exitthelemming

Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Students (present and past) and their supporters protested the planned closure of their junior department at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with a play-in this afternoon.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Sign the petition asking the Welsh Senedd to debate this move to destroy youth music and drama services in south Wales.

Petition: Protect the junior departments of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama from closure

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama has provided a junior music and acting programme to students aged from 4 to 18 for the past 25 years. The school currently sees around 300 talented young...

petitions.senedd.wales

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

I know some of you will think it about as exciting as a bowl of bran flakes, but I really do love Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

What is the greatest piano concerto? IMHO Brahms 2 You?

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

Who would you say was the great, underloved composer of the 20th century? I’ll go first: Witold Lutoslawski

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

Can you imagine if people got this wound up about them doing or not doing Gurrelieder at the Proms? I'd get on board with that.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Guys, guys: I'm back on the physical media. I'm blaming Hurwitz.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

@guywalters Black Labbath

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

9 months

Guess I'd better learn this then. @BBCNOW

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Showing Selma for students for the umpteenth time and, as ever, welling up at the end. No, YOU’RE crying, Year 9! Thanks for such a beautiful film, @ava

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Catching up with some Proms and rather wishing we didn't get an instant review from the presenter - a barrage of opinion while it's still settling in the brain. And besides, it's not as if they're going to say "a fairly lacklustre performance of that symphony, by be honest!"

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

Saw all the "unpopular classical music opinions" but most were just "People like this piece/composer but I don't". I mean, I'm not about to air my genuinely unpopular classical music opinions in public.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

Ahhh Brahms's Clarinet Quintet ❤ It's like trapped autumn sunlight

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

I am troubled by the state of the world's oceans and am in the back row #ROHOtello

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

A small example: I can remember "pundits" in the past on the BBC's Proms TV coverage occasionally saying what they actually thought of a new piece or performance, which is unthinkable now.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

For the 8000th time the crescendo is the process of BUILDING TOWARDS THE CLIMAX NOT THE CLIMAX ITSELF AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHFFFFSSSSTTTHHHHH

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

@silverlawn Its all dying very quickly.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

I interviewed people who knew Galina Ustvolskaya and her music, and here's what they had to say:

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

What I've found through hard, thankless trial and error. Sometimes you need to write it on the board, and they just need to write it down.

Tom Bennett OBE

@tombennett71

7 years

To be clear: a novel hook/transition is fine, but trying to substantially teach eg physics through ballet, robs children of learning

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

A new album invites us to “chill” to such relaxed classics as Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, the Leningrad Symphony and the Eighth Quartet. I think Dmitri Dmitrievich might have been dealing in a different sort of “chill”.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

That guy Ravel with those lyrics that get you right there every time. Legend.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Urgh - someone on R3 just repeated that old canard "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" and it won't surprise anyone to know I do not agree. It's a very very musician-looking-outward perspective.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

8 years

@MichaelRosenYes As a teacher, I'm sick of attacks on anything whose effect is not felt in the data. Books are depth in a world of surface.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

I do sometimes feel like classical critics’ reviews read like a search for ever-harder drugs and for the elusive high that follows from hearing too many performances of the same thing.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

My 2-year-old heard Isolde's Liebestod for the first time. Bit distracted at first, but as it surged and built she kept saying "here it comes!" until it reached the high point, when she announced "there it is!"

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

I don't care if you're 1st and 2nd in line to the throne - DON'T TALK WHEN SHEKU'S PLAYING

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

I was not expecting the Cossack rapper to be such a fine portrait artist. #FrankieGoesToRussia

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Overheard a guy at the WMC after War and Peace just now saying “I didn’t realise Prokofiev was such a nationalist.” Mate, I don’t think he had much choice.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

@wmarybeard “She wasn’t on my uni reading list” doesn’t speak of great insight.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

2 months

@nedboulting Gary Imlach is a national treasure.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

@tombennett71 I always thought it ironic as a trainee that I was being warned off direct instruction, in training sessions, through the medium of direct instruction.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

So the morning after Gurrelieder, which I'm convinced is a sort of musical Sistine Chapel, and the total bliss of wild hunt and the sun, I readjust to being outside the bubble, where no one knows what Gurrelieder is and Andrew "just went to some classical concert".

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

2 years

@JANUSZCZAK I did my Rembrandt copy in pencil - much cheaper!!

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

You know what - I really like Schubert, and I really like Beethoven and I really like Mozart too. Life would be poorer without them.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Not-doing-Beethoven-250 is the new not-watching-Game-Of-Thrones.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

@amwilson_opera No corkers I’m afraid, but something I’ve observed is people talking through the overture and other purely instrumental sections, which I always think says something interesting about what a certain portion of the audience perceives to be the performance and not the performance.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 months

@tombennett71 In my department, we call this sort of activity "Imagine you're a badger"

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

"Andante first, then scherzo".

internet hall of fame

@InternetH0F

1 year

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 months

Just released. Get yours quick before they sell out and you feel very disappointed and a bit foolish.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

9 months

My first rehearsal on this tonight with @BBCNOW . It was so much fun. I'm still a bit dazed by the absolute privilege of getting to sing this. What a wonder that we had Shostakovich on our planet.

Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

9 months

Guess I'd better learn this then. @BBCNOW

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

I have a joke about Shostakovich but everyone just argued about what it meant.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 months

To my shame, I don't know Vaughan Williams's symphonies as well as I should. Just been listening to the Pastoral. What a profoundly moving work.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

@nfmusic A season full of Finzi and Moeran would at least guarantee social distancing in the arena.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Watching @londonsymphony YouTube stream with Sir Simon Rattle and, using my advanced score reading skills, can confirm that they are indeed playing Mahler’s 10th.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

I done a writing.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

��Ah, so you’re interested in the music of a composer we publish? You’d like to study one of their scores? Well you’ll need to hire the whole set and specify the date of your performance! Have a great day!”

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

You can read an extract from my article on Shostakovich’s violin music for @TheStradMag here, and I just can’t possibly imagine what you are waiting for!

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

Here's a thought: don't angrily quote-tweet Boris Johnson' Mail takes. Don't lurk in the comments. Mute his name. Ignore him. The Mail is counting on your outrage. That's why they are paying him. Don't give him or them ticketless access to your brain.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Oh me oh my look what I finally got my hands on!!!

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

The “debate” over the order of the middle movements of Mahler 6 seems to me to be like two old men shouting “Yes it is”, “No it isn’t” at each other until, presumably, one of them dies and the other claims victory.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

I’m learning Russian, but I’m just feeling deadened by grammar rules. Overhearing all the things my wife can say already after a month of her conversational welsh course with envy. The fact we learnt no English grammar at school doesn’t help matters.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

2 years

Wow - the third mvmt of VW5 REALLY works on the organ.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

2 years

Yeah yeah I geddit you all went to see the Berliner Mahler 7 Prom. At this stage of life with small children, I would just like to go and see ANY concert.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

2 years

Books

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

I mean, do you really need any other books?

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

@RevRichardColes Die Hard With A Pension

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

Realised that I’d never really listened to Karajan’s Shostakovich 10 before - I’m listening to the 66/67 one and it’s GRIPPING. The sort of conducting that’s about finding exactly the right pace and then letting it flow like a river.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

2 years

Hey @guardian - stop by one of my GCSE History classes and we can talk about this sentence.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 month

@katrosenfield "The lab leak theory is still racist, even if it's true" would seem to me to be the ne plus ultra of this trend.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

I'm listening to Nikolai Myaskovsky's symphonies - all 27 of them - and I'll tell you what I think as I go. Myaskovsky's barely registers as a name to most listeners today, but in his time, he was a pillar of the Soviet musical establishment.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

A bit annoyed by yesterday’s BaL on Bach keyboard concertos. Implication that stylistic archeology is the right way. Classical music is not a museum and we do not need to be its curators. Let it breathe, ffs.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

@nathanwpyle Hi, I make pin badges from metal from actual retired airliners! These have flown millions of miles all around the world before landing on your lapel! Boeing 747 and 757 are my first two editions.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Only a Strad article could unironically open “Fingerings are so personal.”

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

4 years

Painted the cat. Was difficult to get him to sit still for that long.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

@tombennett71 @SueRoffey All of this "behaviour is unmet needs" stuff misses the point so widely. The issue for most teachers is "I want to teach my class without losing acres of time to silly, off task behaviour - how do I do that?"

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

It would be funny if Sheku won again. #bbcyoungmusician

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Book research meant it was absolutely necessary for me to buy these miniature Soviet cars from the 1960s. Visual references, you understand. The “vroooom” noises I’ve been making are also an important part of the Book Research.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

@PaulCareyJones Yes, that's a very good point. It's interesting to note that the BBC Proms coverage on TV did used to regularly feature music critics as guests, and now is almost only musicians. Now, I like musicians, but it does lead to a lot of "oh yes, (X) and I had such fun working together"

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

@tombennett71 I remember when I read you saying that high expectations and consistent consequences *were* creating a relationship, and a positive one at that. It was like being given permission to be the teacher and not their pal.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

Daughter’s current favourite “toy” is this Beethoven-shaped timer which plays Fur Elise when the cake or whatever is done. Lying in bed this evening, she was sleepily saying “Beethoven... Beethoven...”

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

I must say Prokofiev's 2nd isn't a piano concerto I ever thought I'd see anyone play at #BBCyoungmusician ! Rather pleased Lauren Zhang is doing it, and so well at that - it is a favorite of mine.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

@ElizAthertonSop I know... it's tragic. And I had my 1yo daughter on my shoulders while I filmed this. I thought my kids might go there one day on a Saturday but it doesnt look likely 😔

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

@DonaldClarke63 It’s like he saw the Pub Landlord and thought “what a straight-up guy. The world needs a middle class one.”

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

🚨Please sign and share 🚨 If you oppose proposals to close the Royal Welsh College's junior music and drama department, please sign this petition, which aims to prompt a debate in the Welsh Senedd. Please repost to spread the word.

Petition: Protect the junior departments of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama from closure

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama has provided a junior music and acting programme to students aged from 4 to 18 for the past 25 years. The school currently sees around 300 talented young...

petitions.senedd.wales

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Great to see an article on Ustvolskaya by @gcornish91 published in the @nytimes , with, what's more, a quote from my own @vanmusicmag article!

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

Philip Glass's 3rd Piano Concerto is really, really bad.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

@Markgatiss I don't buy this "talked about production too much" line. It came from Dirk on FB, but you surely don't erase someone from the show over that. He surely wasn't talking cameras in the banishment. I think something much bigger went on but they weren't able to cut him entirely.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Is it ripping off Korngold?

Classic FM

@ClassicFM

5 years

John Williams has a secret formula, and he uses it EVERYWHERE 😲

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

The piano version of some Tchaikovsky ballet music on R3 at the mo leaves me imagining what a wonder it must have been to learn the rep in the C19th as piano reductions, and then hear it with an orchestra when it arrived in your local concert hall.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 months

Prom I attended in 2005 with the most incongruous programme item to encore choice ever.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

Competition: Write us a piece of hoax Norman Lebrecht. No journalistic standards required.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

Classical music these days feels a bit like a band whose audience only wants to hear the old hits and not their newer material.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

Was listening to a previously unreleased live recording of Richter playing a very difficult Shostakovich fugue, and about 2 mins in its not going very well, so without missing a beat, he just starts again!

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

Some wonderful music by Danish composer Rued Langaard on @BBCRadio3 now, new to me. There's just so much out there, isn't there?

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

1 year

The coming AI revolution is a hostile takeover of creative industries by tech companies. They will seize control of human creativity from artists and extract profit accordingly. It must be resisted.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Pauline Fairclough has written a fantastic short book about Shostakovich, valuable particularly for its succinct and crystal clear analyses of many of the major works. It feels like an up-to-date take on a composer otherwise weighed-down by too much antiquated historiography

Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Got it.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

7 years

Would love it if Katie Derham said "well I thought that missed the essential spirit of the piece" in a Proms voiceover.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

3 years

My longstanding suspicion that Max Richter's Four Seasons Recomposed was advert music awaiting an advert has been confirmed by... hearing it on an advert.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

5 years

Norman won’t let me comment on his blog to admonish him for an unnecessary sneer at WNO in a post, so I instead come here to tell him not to be an obnoxious berk.

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Andrew Morris

@devilstrillblog

6 years

Listening to Dutilleux’s First Symphony, and all I have to say is WOW!

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