STATLER; "This funeral is so boring, I'm jealous of the guy in the coffin! Ah ha ha ha ha!" [Statler turns to the empty chair next to him and sheds one tear]

Choose life: Oramo's Mahler 9 leaves death for the last page ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-oramo...

Sakari Oramo guided the BBCSO through a life-affirming Mahler 9 at the Barbican on Saturday - my ★★★★ review for Bachtrack here: bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

Taking risks that pay off at the Enescu Festival ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-gioco...

After the rivers of blood speech, precisely no one in the major parties patted themselves on the back and declared free speech to be alive and well. They declared Powell a pariah, and he was only able to re-emerge in public life as the incongruous unionist MP for South Down.

Bach on the street, Klimt in the forest: the Enescu Festival goes immersive ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-break...

In these sacred halls: a long Sunday at the George Enescu International Festival ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-kurta...

Oliver Soden tried to get a copy of Virginia Woolf’s uncollected letters. It became a parable about money and the state of literary culture.

Such a treat to hear and see the strange and wonderful Sancta Civitas again. My ★★★★ review @bachtrack.com of the First Night of the Proms. bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

Would anyone like to take issue with the idea of that Berger save as the new Gordon Banks 1970 moment?

What a disappointment after spending all that money.

Bashir!

paradox, you say

Cor, this is more like it. 3 runs an over. Lovely. #propercricket #ENGvIND #bbccricket #DigIn

I should be home at the end of summer so I'll give you a ring.

From ‘Look and Learn’ magazine, 1963. The ceremony of buying shoes

Bentham's panopticon installed at Garsington for a powerful Fidelio revival - goodness this was wonderful story-telling. My ★★★★ review for Bachtrack. bachtrack.com/review-fidel...

A compelling harmony of stage and pit in a radically trad Fidelio at @garsingtonopera.bsky.social ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-fidel...

The film Chicken Town, with music by me, is released in UK cinemas on Friday. It is going to be in four Vue cinemas - Leeds, Manchester, Norwich and Shepherds Bush in London: www.myvue.com/cinema/westf... Please come and see this fun and silly comedy and support independent British cinema

Death by a thousand cuts - my Bachtrack review of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Bucharest Opera Festival. Another showcase for the vocal resources of the Galați Opera. If only there was more of it... bachtrack.com/review-lucia...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Faust in Bucharest - my review for Opera Now. tl:dr - no, the devil doesn't have all the best tunes. Marguerite has most of them, at least when sung by Anita Hartig. www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...

Ah, lovely Bucharest. Looking very fine this evening for the first night of the Bucharest Opera Festival. Gounod's Faust to come, done by the Bucharest Opera itself.

Cautionary tale.

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE BEEN SOBER ENOUGH TO WRITE.

My plans for a major retail emporium are being threatend by wholesalers who won't let me steal the stock.

@yem1.bsky.social UK President Alfred Quantrill strongly hopes for a youth mobility agreement, ideally linked to Erasmus Plus, to restore lost opportunities for young Brits. 🇬🇧 🇪🇺

John Relyea's Gurnemanz carries the day in Glyndebourne’s new #Parsifal - my review for Bachtrack. #Wagner bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

Unhurried suspense in a very English Parsifal at Glyndebourne ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-parsi...

Romania, CURS exit-poll: Presidential election, second round today Dan (*-RE): 54% Simion (AUR-ECR): 46% ➤ europeelects.eu/romania

The alpha and omega: Schumann Quartett’s complete Beethoven cycle in Tokyo ✍️ @peterquantrill.bsky.social bachtrack.com/interview-sc...

Modern life

Whenever I have to succinctly describe an historical event or character in a TV/music review I'm always reminded of the inexplicably revered Nick Kent rock memoir, Apathy For The Devil in which he wrote that Geoffrey Chaucer was “rightly renowned as one of England’s first book-writers”.

“If this Ring were an HBO series, the Emmy awards would be in the can.” Fair to say that Barrie Kosky's new Walküre went down well at the Royal Opera House last night! First review: ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-walku...

The triumph of the little man - my ★★★★★ review of last night's new staging of Die Walküre at the Royal Opera, for Bachtrack. bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

Edward Gardner takes the long view in Mahler's Eighth at the Southbank @lporchestra.bsky.social ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-gardn...

I did enjoy this Mahler 8 on Saturday, even if I have a hunch that Ed Gardner would rather have been conducting Gurrelieder. My review for Bachtrack: bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

Training AI with copyrighted works isn't just theft or plagiarism. It's worse: it is a fundamental devaluation of creativity. When you steal something, you're not denying its individual value. GenAI is a form of automated exploitation and devaluation of human labor

At Budapest zoo, between Parsifals. Spending the morning with old friends.

Dvořák in the bloodstream: Joshua Bell in Rome ✍️ @peterquantrill.bsky.social bachtrack.com/interview-jo...

Lucid dreaming and poetic elegies: Total Immersion with Boulez at the Barbican ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-boule...

Very sad to hear that conductor John Nelson has died. A Berlioz specialist, his concert performance of Les Troyens in Strasbourg was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life. RIP 🌹 bachtrack.com/interview-jo...

Hey, it's me, on Monday I become a normal person again but tomorrow I get to sing Brünnhilde one last time. If you're free tomorrow, and within reach of London, please come. This Ring has been magic and you won't regret it. All of 20 odd tickets left. @regentsopera.bsky.social

Bleeping fabulous: an electroacoustic day of musical continents and galaxies at the Barbican ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-symph...

Anarchy and utopia: Calixto Bieito talks to Richard Bratby about directing Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina bachtrack.com/interview-ca...

Pearls of great price polished by Rattle and the @londonsymphony.bsky.social ✍️ Peter Quantrill bachtrack.com/review-rattl...

Boulez, Benjamin and Brahms: unlikely but absorbing companions in last night's first-rate LSO concert. I wrote about it for Bachtrack. bachtrack.com/review-rattl...

Family affairs: Catharine Woodward on singing Brünnhilde in Regents Opera’s Ring ✍️ @peterquantrill.bsky.social bachtrack.com/interview-ca...

The Tempest at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Design: amazing. Sound and music: gruesome. Sigourney Weaver: a duke, a duchess, a master? No one seems to be sure.