It ended with a whimper rather than a bang, but after 1,636 consecutive days of ⁦Duolingo⁩ German (without missing a single day) I appear to have completed the course, so my odyssey is at an end. Feeling a bit bereft tbh

This description, from Sam Freedman’s brilliant Failed State, of how the destruction of GCSE Music was brought about by the ‘need’ for Michael Gove to have something to say on a Sunday morning, is enough to make you cry

Withnail and AI

My friend and colleague Jeff Brown is doing really essential work at the moment - here’s a telling case of a composer who inflated his CV and plagiarised a lot of his work, and largely got away with it.

Nice laid-back final #ChoralChihuahua episode of the season, which I enjoyed on a bus through the Vietnam countryside. Interesting to hear about ⁦Robert Hollingworth⁩’s family ‘car tape’ and reflect on what mine would be podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cho…

You know how classical music is so supposedly elitist? Tonight, to witness a band of the U.K/Europe’s finest musicians on fire playing jaw-dropping American classics will cost you EIGHT POUNDS. Day tickets for tonight’s BBC Proms go on sale at 10.30. GRAB ONE.

This is brilliant

It is beyond belief that people over the age of 40 or even my age are saying that public disorder in Britain is a modern, post-Blair/mass immigration phenomenon. Where on earth were you in the 70s and 80s?

★★★★ Two warhorses and a femmage: Beethoven and Brahms give weight, Sarah Gibson light and colour writes Bernard Hughes on BBC Proms 26, Feldmann, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Bihlmaier theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

Two great, underrated 20th century composers, both nattily dressed. Read more: theartsdesk.com/classical-cds-… Black Dyke Band BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Chandos Records Christine Moore Vassallo Meridian Records Bill Laurance Signum Classics Bernard Hughes

#ClassicalCDs Graham Rickson 🇮🇪🇪🇺 Bernard Hughes - Queens, crotales and secret gardens, brass band Bliss, plus two Spanish anthologies #ArthurBliss @BlackDykeBand Graham Fitkin #RobertoGerhard BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Christine Moore Vassallo Bill Laurance The Untold Orchestra theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

★★★★ @BBCProms 32 Jess Gillam BBC NOW #NilVenditti - Belated debuts and a dancing delight, as Karl Jenkins brings fun & Beethoven brings fireworks - review Bernard Hughes theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

This week's eclectic assortment, boldly exploring interesting new repertoire: theartsdesk.com/classical-musi… Bernard Hughes Hervé Niquet Alpha Classics Oslo Philharmonic Klaus Mäkelä PENTATONE Sean Shibe Nicholas Phan Karim Sulayman TYXart William Shatner National Symphony Orchestra

★★★★ @BBCProms 36 Anthony McGill BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Gemma New - Summery Shakespearean mummery, with an intimate #Mozart concerto followed by theatrical, colourful #Mendelssohn - review Bernard Hughes theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

#ClassicalCDs Graham Rickson 🇮🇪🇪🇺 Bernard Hughes - Dinosaurs, harmonicas & final frontiers, two works with narrators, tenor recitals, a young conductor in Russian symphonies Le Concert Spirituel Oslo Philharmonic Tom Wood Music Nicholas Phan William Shatner Sean Shibe theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

Joins us TODAY from 4.40pm Magdalen College Chapel as our exciting new and fourteenth #GenesisSixteen Genesis Foundation cohort deliver Choral Evensong at 5pm, preceded by 1-per-part consort performances in the Antechapel. Music by Clemens, Rose, Lassus, Parsons & Bernard Hughes 🙌🎶

★★★★ @BBCProms 44 #LahavShani Rotterdam Phil #RotterdamPhilharmonic - Impressive multi-tasking by conductor-pianist, with #Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto turned into a giant piece of chamber music - review Bernard Hughes theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

Lots of GREAT stuff in this jumbo selection: theartsdesk.com/classical-musi… Sebastian Scotney Bernard Hughes Warner Classics & Erato Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Kristoffer Hyldig Benoit d'Hau Paloma Kouider LatvianRadioChoir SKANi label Dalia Stasevska 🇫🇮 🇺🇦 BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

Beans, carrots and bassoons: Danish pianism, a great conductor's Italian recordings and a bold contemporary compilation feature in Graham Rickson 🇮🇪🇪🇺's latest #classical #cd round up w Bernard Hughes Sebastian Scotney theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

Coinciding with her new album Dahlia's Mixtape, Finnish-Ukrainian conductor Dalia Stasevska talks to Bernard Hughes about bringing the music of today to new audiences theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…