Vanity Fair has a regular column called Hall of Fame, where someone of note is nominated not just for their talent but for their philanthropic achievments.  In this month’s magazine, I nominated violinist Itzhak Perlman. Here are my reasons.

-DF

This is a bit meta, but I’m going to write about an article I recently wrote for http://www.classicaltv.com. Well, actually I’m not going to write about it much. It’s about the BBC Music Magazine Awards – the best of the year in classical recording. There’s some amazing stuff out there. I can’t say I’ve listened to everything from back to front, but the Bach motets from the Bach Collegium Japan is superb, as is the Melnikov recording of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues. Check them out.

-DF

I hope it will give comfort to great numbers who are passing thro’ the world in obscurity, when I inform them how easily distinction may be obtained. All the other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, who will meet the slow and encourage the timorous; the want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she recompenses with malignity.
–The Idler, 9 June 1759