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Author Archives: A S H Smyth

Celebrating Orwellianism

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Orwell – a celebration, at the Trafalgar Studios, London. For The Oxford Times.

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A little night reading

Friday, May 29, 2009

Nocturnes Five Stories of Music and Nightfall Kazuo Ishiguro faber and faber £14.99, 221p ISBN 978-0-571-24498-0 ‘Their talk was no longer just about music – though everything always seemed to come back to it.’ Whether as opening subject or illustrative decoration, music seems to be a recurring theme for Kazuo Ishiguro. The Unconsoled told of […]

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Alphabetical Order (2)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Chatting to Michael Frayn and Jonathan Guy Lewis about Alphabetical Order. For The Oxford Times.

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Alphabetical Order (1)

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Alles in Ordnung (isch) in Hampstead Theatre’s revival of Michael Frayn’s farce. For The Oxford Times.

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After Dido

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Young Vic’s Purcell update is terribly clever… and largely pointless. For The Oxford Times.

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Temper, temper

Monday, December 1, 2008

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) Ross W. Duffin W.W. Norton, £9.99, p196 . When William Gardiner lamented in 1832 that ‘the Deity seems to have left music in an unfinished state’ he was referring to a seeming paradox of tuning: if you start from C and keep adding fifths, twelve […]

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Diary of an ordinary week

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Monday Interview with retiring British tenor Ian Partridge, at RAM. Highlights: IP’s piano teacher at Clifton had only one arm, which, while apparently being no hindrance at the keyboard, didn’t help his driving any; IP once hit 78 n.o. (a career best) in an effort to avoid an organ lesson with same; and once, while […]

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Barnaby Brown and the triple-pipe

Friday, June 20, 2008

One bulky Sardinian man is yelling and gesticulating at another Sardinian man. My few words of Italian notwithstanding, it is evident these men are not enquiring after each other’s health. The head-to-head has been raging for some 45 minutes, and the crowd has started to join in. I make a mental note of the nearest […]

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Devil May Care

Saturday, May 31, 2008

‘Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming’, reviewed. — For Stop Smiling

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A free album? I don’t buy it

Monday, October 15, 2007

Radiohead’s In Rainbows, considered. — For Stop Smiling

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