John Amis online

Monday, April 30, 2012

Seabirds and Edwardian Opulence

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The odd men out have been often the ones who produced masterpieces, often men under sentences of death or crippled on way or the other, comp...

Middle Period Masterpiece

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If Benjamin Britten had lived in the nineteenth century he would have had to spend time battling with censors. Can you imagine them passing ...

Beethoven Quartets

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Belcea Supreme The Belcea String Quartets started to get known at the Aldeburgh Festival, had residence there. It took some time to pronoun...
Friday, March 23, 2012

Amis at 90

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The Tait Memorial Trust presents John Amis 90th Birthday Celebration talks to Humphrey Burton John Amis and Humphrey Burton have been friend...

ROSSINI IN A BARN

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REKINDLED CINDERS SPARKLE Andrew Staples is a newly risen star in the operatic world who has proved his outstanding tenor with Das Lied von ...
Monday, February 27, 2012

ALFRED BRENDEL

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Master Musician – Great Pianist Now that he has retired from the concert platform, do we call him a past master? No, he is still in our mind...

DMITRI AND DEATH

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The Overture, Concerto, Symphony concert programme that existed for such a long time seems to have been overtaken by the American habit of a...
Thursday, February 23, 2012

HOFFMANN'S TALES

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Jones Brilliant Production "I prefer Offenbach to Bach often" – Also sprach Sir Thomas Beecham. So, hurry to the London Coliseum w...
Saturday, February 11, 2012

Cosi fan Tutte

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6th Covent Garden Revival The revival of Mozart’s COSI fan TUTTE at Covent Garden, Friday, January 27th, was like a curate’s egg. Not good ...

Bream: Master of the Frets

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"Mr. Bream" asked the German Ambassador after young Julian played some solos "you play this Spanish music so marvellous, you ...

Sibelius at Sixes and Sevens

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In the nineteen-thirties Walter Legge, the great record producer, ran the Sibelius society, a collection of albums containing six of seven 7...

Just One Mastersinger

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Tomlinson Wins the Prize but not the girl We all know that Wagner's Mastersingers of Nürnberg is about a singing competition. At Coven...
Friday, December 16, 2011

PORGY AND DULWICH

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200 Alleynians lustily singing the Gershwin indestructible tunes of Porgy and Bess was thrilling, heart-warming and mind-blowing. No doubt ...

A FINE YOUNG PIANIST

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Alice Sara Ott gave a piano recital on November 22 in Queen Elizabeth Hall. There was nothing unusual about the programme: Mozart late varia...

CRITICAL PASTMASTERS

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Having been a music critic for more than sixty years perhaps it is time to spill a bean or two. My first bean is dated 1951 when I was not o...
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CHERISHABLE SINGER

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To Parson's Green, SW6, to talk to my favourite baritone, not only mine but everybody's who has had the luck to hear him. His is not...
Wednesday, December 07, 2011

NOT FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

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Onegin at the Coliseum Eugeny/Eugene Onègin stands out amongst the operas of Tchaikovsky; none of the others have so securely captured the h...

RAMEAU ON THE TROT

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On October 24 the English Opera Company at the Coliseum ventured for the first time into the world of French baroque opera with a run of Ram...

Wexford Operas

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TWO WINNERS, ONE ALSO RAN The Wexford Opera Festival has since 1951 been famous for its championing of works rare and neglected. It was star...
Tuesday, November 01, 2011

MALCOLM ARNOLD AT 90

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Malcolm Arnold's 90th birthday was celebrated October 21 – 23 in the Royal Derngate Concert Hall in Northampton, his birthplace. This wa...
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About Me

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John Amis
Six weeks in a bank was enough for him to decide to live by and with music. Selling records and writing about them for a high-class gramophone shop, working with London Philharmonic, Symphony and Royal Philharmonic, organising concerts for Myra Hess at the National Gallery and for Michael Tippett whose secretary-dogsbody and friend he was, concert manager for Beecham, music critic for The Scotsman, organiser of the Summer School of Music with William Glock at Bryanston and Dartington for 34 years, broadcaster on radio and TV for 40, during which time he interviewed some 500 of the most famous and interesting musicians, Hindemith to Bernstein, Cage to Swann, Stravinsky to Stockhausen. He has narrated parts in Façade, Peter and the Wolf, Enoch Arden and Babar the Elephant. For his 70th birthday made a CD with friends Leslie Howard, Steve Race, Malcolm Arnold, Donald Swann, Jeffrey Tate and Ian Wallace. His books include an autobiography Amiscellany, an anthology Words about Music and My Life in Music 1945 – 2000, A Photographer at the Aldeburgh Festival (Nigel Luckhurst) and Musicians on Camera (Lelia Goehr).
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