MHV International Classical Concert Series

37th season now booking! @LaSerenissimaUK @ECOrchestra @mozartplayers wind ensemble, @sofyagulyak @northernchords @CalidoreSQ and @heijden1990 with @JamsColeman … what a line up! Email concerts@mhvschool.co.uk to get full details or book on trybooking.com/uk/ETLX

@Kristinartz Sensible

What do you call a woman who lives alone, without a husband or partner?

@bachtrack @glyndebourne //However….The singing and playing was magnificent. Qu: why do we get references to Napoleon when it’s obviously not Napoleonic. Surely someone can tweak the libretto ?!

@bachtrack @glyndebourne “I couldn’t stop my mind wandering away from the action to the question of whether Scarpia was going to succeed in clearing the room before being murdered.” Me too!!! Awful last scene. A pointless change of location which added nothing. Last year’s ROH did it so much better.//

Glyndebourne’s first ever Tosca: vocally strong but dramatically imperfect @glyndebourne ✍️ David Karlin bachtrack.com/review-tosca-h…

@Stephen74977713 @stephenpollard @Telegraph Bad breath is worse!

@stephenpollard @VHICCS @Telegraph I’ve been going to operas and concerts for over half a century and this is a problem I have rarely encountered. Never has it been so bad I had to leave.

Here's an extract from what is the most important column I have ever written, for @Telegraph: 'Opera has a BO problem' telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/0… I can highly recommend the current run of Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House. To hear Mark Elder in the pit draw every nuance from Verdi’s wonderful score is a rare treat. To be accurate, however, I should say that I can recommend the first act, because I had to leave as soon as the curtain came down on it. I was gasping for breath, having spent that opening hour unable to take in a single proper, deep breath. The man on my left – smartly dressed, shiny shoes, trim haircut – had body odour (BO) so potent that it could have closed the Strait of Hormuz on its own. I’m not aware of any objective scientific studies on this, but as a regular opera and concert-goer, I’m convinced that the problem of BO is getting worse. Many decades ago I remember having to leave a Prom when the man I was sitting next to in the Royal Albert Hall amphitheatre was – well, let’s say – pungent. It was such a rare and scarring event that I recall everything about the concert that was being played in front of me – Murray Perahia playing Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) and conductor Bernard Haitink – but I could take no pleasure from it as I was focused solely on trying not to pass out. The problem at concerts used to be people who behaved in public as if they were sitting on their sofa at home. There was a Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 – the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and Mariss Jansons at the Barbican – when the man in the row in front of me seemed to think he was the real conductor, waving his hands around so furiously that the entire hall must have been distracted. And then, in those passages when he decided the orchestra didn’t need his help, he started smooching with his neighbour. I assume they knew each other. When the problem is distraction you can at least do something about it and ask them to stop. Although I’m not sure we had it right when, as a student watching a performance of Boris Godunov, the man standing in front of me and my friend was breathing – wheezing – very heavily and loudly. “Excuse me,” my friend asked him. “But would you mind not breathing so much?” What can you say about BO, though? Short of asking them to leave, there is no way of dealing with it. I asked the usher the other night whether I could move seats, but it was a full house, so it was a matter of suffering or leaving. I was physically unable to stay next to the smell so I left. I’ve sat in every part of the Royal Opera House, along with the London concert halls. I can report that nowhere is safe. You’re now as likely to be snuffed out from BO in the cheap seats as in the ones for which you need to take out a mortgage to pay for a ticket. I’ve wondered why BO is becoming more prevalent. I’m struggling for a convincing explanation. I mean, can’t these people smell themselves, or is their stench so permanent that they don’t even notice it themselves? For what it’s worth, I think it may have something to do with the obsessiveness that is sometimes a trait of classical music fans – especially opera and even more especially Wagner, whose music seems particularly magnetic to the great unwashed. A lot of my fellow fans are, well…a bit odd. In that context, I have considered my other passion, football. I can’t recall ever encountering BO at a stadium. There is the fact it’s outside, which must help dissipate any stench. But we are packed in tightly, so I’m sure I’d notice it. All I can say is that BO is worse at the opera than at football. Perhaps it’s that football fans are a bit more cultured.

@classicjacko @BloomsburyBooks @bbcproms I hope more is televised. Just basics .. not flashy stuff with interviews… I just want to watch more. Hopefully without the ludicrous lighting effects we have been subjected to of late.

The programme is confirmed. The official guide has gone to print with @BloomsburyBooks. And two weeks tomorrow, we’ll unveil the 2026 @bbcproms season. Eight glorious weeks of music-making in store… 🎶 bloomsbury.com/uk/bbc-proms-2…

Thought for Good Friday .. @BBCRadio3 Why are there so few good recordings of the St John Passion in English? It’s time that @ChCh_Oxford or @NewCollegeChoir or King’s set a new standard for this great work.

@Stephen74977713 😂 It eaa Siegfried feeling hot and wanting to sit in the shade of a tree that got me. It was clever to have borrowed one of Elton John’s outfits for the dragon!

@VHICCS Well I was worried the naked lady might slip or get frost bite but I didn’t mind it,

Took the girls to Siegfried

@WestmorlandLady @RichardBratby It’s after her when things go wrong! I can’t bear the droning Scot and then Jools Holland ( who needs to push off to Radio 2). So it’s Classic FM in the morning or lots of choice on Apple Music. Or YouTube for really obscure things!

@VHICCS @RichardBratby Saturday mornings with Hannah French are divine! Nothing is perfect, we all have different tastes and fav presenters I guess. I still would like Petroc back on the morning stint! 🙏🎵🎵

Sorry not to be more angry with Radio 3. It seems to be expected of me. But when I turn on the radio I generally go for R4. And the R3 shows I do listen to when circumstances allow - Record Review, Composer of the Week, Essential Classics - all seem...well, fine, tbh. Sorry.

It's been a long, lonely country lane but we finally have a National Trust director who accepts that my ethnicity means I'm too thick to know what to do, wear or how to behave in the countryside. How very condescending, I mean understanding, of her. Bravo! apple.news/AtTXYiBzJRlORc…

So, bets on PMQs this week? Kemi: When did you find out Morgan McSweeneys phone had been stolen and what did you do to recover and secure the critical data on it? Starmer: We’ve announced a new breakfast club in Barnsley.

@campervanwoman Gotten is appalling and must be stamped out. Same with ‘on the weekend’ instead of ‘at the weekend’.

I’m not happy about the creep of ‘gotten’ into common usage. I’ve read it several times in the last few days, including in The Times (The Times, forsooth!) Come on now, we’re not American.

@rhysrmann Agreed! Just a stunning evening .. and being up in the gods was no problem with this work. Great to have the full orchestra up on stage! They deserved it.

Andreas Schager is absolutely phenomenal as Siegfried: what a mind-blowingly great performance leading the third chapter of Barrie Kosky’s production of the Ring at the Royal Opera House. Is Antonio Pappano our best conductor of Wagner? Sensational Siegfried on all fronts

Happy memories of our St Patrick’s Day recital at @wigmore_hall last week!

@StevenIsserlis He has his uses - I needed a concerto for 2 oboes, bassoon and strings to balance a programme with Vivaldi and Bach Brand. 1 and of course Telemann had one! It’s good, too. TWV53:d1

Georg Philipp Telemann - reputed to be the most prolific composer of all time! - b otd 1681. Celebrated in his day, highly respected by both Bach and Handel, his star has fallen somewhat; but he has his moments! A composer whose music, at the very least, gives constant pleasure.

@jdoyleDoyle1 @musicandroots Really? Why? I wish I could stop thinking of Beethoven melodies at times. Do you mean they aren’t as long as other composers or not as catchy?

@musicandroots I basically agree, but Beethoven is not a great melodist

Too many classical music historians/critics aren’t honest enough about how much distinguished melody matters for a composer’s wider stature and acceptance. It’s something they can’t analyze, or place into their little theories. And they hate that.

@WestmorlandLady @RichardBratby Saturday mornings are dire. Just because there is no flurry of discontent doesn’t mean we’ve all fallen in love with the new schedule. Radio3 still has the same problems but let’s remember the ONLY thing that matters is audience numbers … 😂😂😂

@RichardBratby There was a flurry of discontent when the schedules changed last year. But all as you have noticed now seems fine. Could do with less trailers, but the presenters are the finest professional and very knowledgeable. 🎵🎵- 🎵🎵

@rowenamezzo @marksandspencer Have you noticed that their escalator goes down only? This is bizarre … going upstairs is much more difficult for those with shopping or the elderly! I commented once in store and got a shrug as if to say ‘that’s how it is, tough!’

@marksandspencer there are 2 customer lifts at High Street Kensington branch. Nothing to say they’re not working until you’ve purchased your heavy food shopping when the asst cheerily announced ‘They’re both out of order’. Staff had no idea when they’d be fixed. Very poor service

@engcathedrals Why? I don't follow you but I am sure plenty of decent people do, who don't want to move platforms. If you think Bluesky is all sweetness and light, you have been misinformed, even if its users see themselves as holier than thou...