Miscellaneous Writings

July 3rd 1999 Dear Sir, Two short items on your sports pages today raised my heckles at the recent decision of the FA to give Manchester United the chance to

(preceded by letter to Sally Groves, Schott Music) Dear Sally, As the very clever German Leeson/Kerry impersonator walks through Frankfurt Airport not uttering a word, (interestingly enough I have not

Dear Sir, The review of Sinfonia 21’s Contemporary Music Network concert (February 6th) drew attention to the inconsistency in our attitude to musical anniversaries. Ockegham’s 500th allows him a week

Dear Sir, I enjoyed the article on the unfortunate translations of the names of certain British cars that you published the other day. There is one which could be added

I have an old suitcase which used to belong to Lord Berners. His heir Robert Heber-Percy was about to throw it out when I saw that the ‘rubbish’ inside was

When I wrote my first opera Medea I had written nothing for the human voice, nothing for orchestra and nothing, for that matter for the stage. In the circumstances it

James Hugonin and music My first encounter with the work of James Hugonin was when I was asked by Paul Hillier, founder of The Hilliard Ensemble, to write a piece

September 15th 1995 Memo: to Nick Kenyon From: Gavin Bryars Subject: The Proms Welcome to your new job and the best of luck. On the few occasions that we’ve met

Carla Bley (for The Gramophone) Whenever I am asked in the course of an interview who my “favourite composer” might be I usually reply “Carla Bley”. Although I cannot admire

A listener hearing the music of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt for the first time might be forgiven for thinking that he had inadvertently strayed into another century, or had

(various people were asked what they would like to blow up and remove from existence) I would like to blow up the entire works of Brahms. I remember that I

This curious and quite elegant little book originated in the packaging design for a CD of four adaptations of Van Dyke Parks’ Palm Desert, from his seminal 1968 album Song

Without doubt this is the most useful and intelligent book on Satie’s life in English. Robert Orledge, an authority on French music who has already written the best book on