Ariane Todes

@realzoestrimpel Awful. Hope you’re ok.

In Margate. My cheeks are red. I am shaking. I popped into an exhibition that turned out to be the insane fever dream of an artist called Matthew Collins: ‘Drawings Against Genocide.’ The exhibition is described as ‘drawings… raising consciousness about hell…. Israel is the pure encapsulation of it. Zionism is this terror state’s ruling ideology.’ Shocked by the use of Nazi imagery - the room is full of the Star of David pasted around figures meant to be Israelis and the Jewish ‘lobby’ spewing blood, to say nothing of blonde yummy mummies wearing ‘globalise the intifada’ shirts, I spoke to the artist to share my reaction as a Jewish person. He was instantly aggressive. As soon as I started to say I was shocked and threatened by what I was seeing because it was Nazi imagery, the artist started yelling at me that I didn’t mean anything I was saying. Anytime I tried to speak (calmly) he said: ‘you don’t mean any of what you said, you’re just repeating ‘hasbarah talking points’ because ‘you’re defending a genocide’. On and on he yelled, in my face. I said: ‘if I was a Black person…’ but couldn’t finish the sentence because: ‘you’re not are you?’ On the Nazi ideology point he said: ‘yeah. Why do you think it’s there. Israel are the Nazis’. His breath was disgusting. The crowd began booing and closing in around me, making to shoe me out. I said: ‘fine, get the Jew out’ and he yelled more across the room at me, ‘repeatedly jeering ‘call the police, go ahead, call the police’. I said I would, and the community security trust, which features as a devil in his exhibition. This was met with even more jeering. ‘Yeah, call the CST’ was the last I heard before leaving. Someone snapped pictures of me while I was being shouted at. Short video shows the artist. The longer video, of our final almost surreally disgusting exchange, didn’t record.

Great quote and an excellent argument for amateur music!

Esther Perel is doing serious couples therapy with a CHATBOT or have I finally lost touch with reality?? 🤯 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/whe…

@NLebrecht This image is one of the new wave of AI-generated classical music slop. My Facebook feed is full of it – including even fake images of Perlman in hospital. 😡 I have no idea why they bother, but I don't trust any image on socials now!

The sound has to be a recording? 🤔

Twoset filling the Barbican with a diversity of violin geeks (cheapest seats £39) as they advocate for classical music as the antidote to the ‘brainrot pandemic’, all while playing concertos and showpieces AND hula hooping without dropping a beat…

The main theme. Might beg the question, why, but then again, why not? 🤷🏻‍♀️ youtu.be/2Y2ru57ONbs

Discovered the somberly sophisticated May-to-September 1960s Parisian love story Goodbye Again in time for my KSO concert on Monday – with Auric’s sumptuous arrangements of Brahms Third, which we’re playing. Original title, Aimez-vous Brahms? Mais oui! youtu.be/IU_IDHLd6DE

@stephenm68 Ah yes, I suppose ‘associate’ is ambiguous as to composition or performance. Lots of composers for whom viola would be correct answer if the latter! I’ll always associate him with this image.

@ArianeTodes Piano. But it’s true only in the sense that it’s true for pretty much any composer who played the piano. There are dozens of other composers for whom piano would be a much more reasonable answer.

Sorry @BBCRadio4 Counterpoint but “With which instrument do you associate the composer Johannes Brahms?” is a terrible question.

@stephenm68 What was the correct answer? Surely not violin (however wonderful his violin music)! He himself only played piano, I think?

The contestant said “violin”. Brahms wrote as many concertos for violin as piano; he wrote as many violin sonatas as piano sonatas; he wrote lots of piano music (as do most composers), but also plenty of chamber music without one. And the piano music was mostly for Clara to play.

@wikivictorian All Chaplin films, of course (if you don't have time for all, start in 1916), but for one of my favourites, which he isn't even in, try A Woman of Paris – it's exquisite! imdb.com/title/tt001462…

Hello friends! I've been getting into silent cinema recently, and I enjoy it very much! So, in this lovely day, I'm asking for recomendations, if any of you have! There is so much silent films that I don't know what criteria to follow in choosing my next ones 😅 I have watch only a handful of movies, like It (1927), Stella Maris (1918), Nosferatu (1922), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Zaza (1923) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Any recomendations welcome, thank you so much in advance <3

Excited to play in this concert with KSO and Petar Pejčić next Monday. Come if you can! kso.org.uk/event/brahms-3…

@roseandfriends There will always be a great big David Watkin-shaped gap in the world. Enjoy your memories and his music. ❤️

Listening to this AMAZING recording this evening, and remembering my brilliant friend David Watkin..

Transcription software: 'Del Jay-Z'. An idea for rebranding 18th-century Cremonese violin makers?

@ScottMcCreaWest And as if by magic… (although I recently rewatched all the Petherbridge ones and thought they stood up very well). bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0…

Ian Carmichael is still the best Lord Peter Wismey. Curious that movies and television seem to reluctant to revisit this character, a cross between Bertie Wooster and Sherlock Holmes. (Unpopular opinion: he became less interesting when Harriet Vane arrived.)

@operalastnight I hadn't heard. Very sad news, although I suppose not surprising (I say as a former magazine editor). I've always enjoyed your pieces online, and can heartily recommend Substack – you could probably even make money from it (I'm too lazy to try at the moment!).

Sad to hear that Classical Music magazine is to close. Thoughts with those losing posts and salaries. April 2027 would have marked 10 years since my monthly Long View column started. Nine years and 110 columns will have to suffice.

@SohrabAhmari This is my running turf, but I prefer Hamilton Terrace, parallel to Abbey Road – much grander and less polluted. But actually, the Heath is much more dramatic (and harder work) than either…

This is the most beautiful urban run in the world. Sorry, Central Park doesn’t come close.

@eggsbened Watched it with my mum and really enjoyed it, though it’s quite weird and dark in the middle! But loved the orchestral stuff and the whole subtext of getting lost in music. Beautifully filmed, too. Read that it was modelled on Beecham! 🤭 Thanks for the rec, anyway!

@ArianeTodes The trouble is that on the big screen it is flat out extraordinary and very very funny. My chum Bryony and I wept with laughter and quote it still. I then showed it to a film critic friend on his TV. Neither of us cracked a smile. Its scale needs a huge screen and an audience.

Rex Harrison was a cast-iron shit so it’s hard to wish his birthday to be happy but he could be a terrific actor. Preston Sturges’ dark comedy Unfaithfully Yours has him seething with jealousy, running from murder to slapstick, his revenge literally conducted with his orchestra.

@QcWynter It's covered with tags. Seems to have got worse since lockdown. It's like dogs marking their patch. So nihilistic and depressing. I saw someone trying to clean it once, but he didn't get very far. Maybe the type of concrete is hard to clean. London is covered with it now.

Crossing Waterloo Bridge by bus, I was shocked at the physical state of it. I remember it as being pristine. Now, every block of stone is covered in graffiti & since it seems unlikely that it was all done last night, I assume those in charge feel no urgency to remove it.

Dinu Lipatti. Of course. What a touch. 🪶💔