Hello, readers,
I’ve had lots of thoughts bubbling away in my head this month, but the one that’s worked its way to the top as I sit down to write this is about AI. As a writer, I’m simultaneously excited yet afraid of what it might do for my profession. I’m not worried about it stifling creativity; I am worried about whether its existence will make earning a living from writing and editing even harder – when it’s seen by those who hold the purse strings as a viable way to cut costs.
But this month, in the world of classical music there was a timely reminder that there’s at least a small way to go before AI will put writers and editors totally out of a job.
English National Opera came in the social media firing line for mistakes in its online beginner guides, which claimed that the composer Richard Strauss was son of the waltz-king Johann Strauss and that Britten wrote the film score for Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Sure, we all get things wrong (I still cringe when I think of some of my howlers over the years), but these are pretty basic errors to come from a national opera company. And they aren’t ones that a beginner might spot, which undermines the whole idea of a trustworthy starter guide.
Were AI ‘hallucinations’ behind them? Potentially – though nothing’s been confirmed or denied. I’ve just done a quick test run myself on ChatGPT and while it didn’t make the same mistake about Richard Strauss, when I gave it a prompt for Britten’s Romeo and Juliet, it responded with a detailed history of the music’s composition and musical style. Convincing. Expect not a word of it could be true beccause I’d made up the piece.
Read
Three cheers for two humans who’ve written great new books offering fresh takes on music history. I’ve recently reviewed Susan Tomes’s Women at the Piano: A History in 50 lives and Graeme Lawson’s Sound Tracks: Uncovering our Musical Past for BBC Music and BBC History Magazines, respectively, and recommend both books highly. Sound Tracks, in particular, was unlike any other account of music through the centuries that I’ve ever read.
Listen
Are you a weirdo? Do you like books? I’ve had fun hanging out (virtually) with Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd thanks to their Weirdos Book Club podcast. This episode is about Nell Stevens’s novel Briefly, A Delicious Life, a ghost story (sort of) about Chopin and George Sand in Mallorca. Sara and Cariad have the sort of freewheeling chat you’d have with your own friends – and I love the moment Cariad shares she went off to listen to the Chopin Preludes talked about in the book.
Read
Farwell to Michael Tanner, a Cambridge academic and Spectator opera critic – and one of my stalwart reviewers when I worked as reviews editor at BBC Music Magazine. He was kind, gruff and stupendously smart, a true expert on Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert – among many other enthusiasms. He knew what he liked - and he said what he didn’t. I remember his delight when I commissioned him to write about Schubert’s gloomy Winterreise one Christmas, and his only partly tongue-in-cheek moans about cramming a review of a whole Wagner opera into 300 words. I only met him once in person, at a Monteverdi opera in Bristol that he later raved about. His obituaries and remembrances are well worth reading for a flavour of his inimitable spirit: The Spectator, The Times and Engelsburg Ideas.
One to watch
I spotted on Instagram that novelist Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead, The Poisonwood Bible) is penning some words on music:
I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading, writing and listening to recently. Do share in the comments below.
What I’m reading right now: Max Porter’s Shy; Nicola Penfold’s Beyond the Frozen Horizon; Ellie Middleton’s Unmasked; Music and Mind, curated by Renée Fleming
What I’m listening to at the moment: Shostakovich String Quartets Nos 9 and 15 (Carducci Quartet); Fauré Complete music for solo piano (Lucas Debargue); 40 Days (The Wailin’ Jennys)
What I’ve been writing: Seeing red - why opera stars want to talk about periods (The Times)