BPI also has plans for a Madrigal only chart

You might have thought that the Classical Music charts were already pretty specialist, but apparently they're not specialist enough: The Official Charts Company is launching a spin-off, proper classical chart:

Ginny Cooper, of the BPI's classical committee, said: "Within the classical sector, there are many first class performers providing first class recordings which were not registering on the chart radar as the crossover titles were obviously higher profile and selling more.

"We felt, however, that they were just as valid and wanted to provide an outlet to enable the public to see that sales of pure classical music are still alive and well."

Although, presumably, if the sales were that alive and well then the records would be doing well in the ordinary classical charts, wouldn't they?

The test of classical-ness is apparently going to be asking Paul Gambaccinni if he'd have played it when he was a Radio 3 presenter, and only allowing in things he wouldn't approve of.

The serious aim is to keep out recordings of light music written as popular entertainment, like Lloyd-Webber's stuff...

The first published chart is topped by the Gala Ensemble with their album The Best of Gilbert and Sullivan.

... although not Gilbert and Sullivan, it seems.

Kennedy mopes at Brits ban

Nigel Kennedy - effectively Jamie Oliver with a fiddle - is doing his best to bring some of the made-up turmoil of the rock Brits to the sister classical Brit awards.

He's got the hump because he's been dropped from the running order after inviting Bond (yes, they're still going, too) to play with him:

The Brighton-born violinist said he originally planned to perform Mozart or Beethoven but was told by organisers that his performance must last around the same length as a pop song.

When he suggested playing jazz instead, he said the idea was also rejected.

He eventually settled on a gypsy violin piece Czardas, by Vittorio Monti, but after two days of rehearsals with Bond, he was told they had not been approved as performers by the organisers.

Kennedy claims rival record companies on the Brits committee had made the decision because they were "threatened by me" which could "only be taken as a compliment".

"I was looking forward to this because it had become clear that this was going to be one of my best performances, not just musically but as a visual TV spectacle as well," he said.

Ah, yes, the visual television spectacle. A bloke with a thinning punky haircut and four women in low-cut evening gowns. Whatever has the world been denied?

We're intrigued by the idea that three minutes of Nigel Kennedy is, in some way, a threat to record labels - how, exactly, does that fear manifest itself? Are the classical labels worried that a spot of Nigel on his violin will render all other classical music obsolete? Or has a rumour started that Kennedy has the power to shoot lasers from his eyes?

Northerns do it faster

The good people at Uncut have commissioned a spot of research into the musical tastes of the nation, which has produced a diverting - if somewhat dubious - finding that suggests Scottish music fans prefer tracks 110 beats per minute faster than Southern English music fans. As you head north, they claim, the favoured type of music gets faster.

That's another reason for the flopping of Atomic Kitten, then - they should have done something a bit more upbeat. Now it makes sense.

John Lewis, who's done the research, does offer a surprising statistic:

"Half the classical music in the country is sold from two HMV branches in the capital. It's a staggering figure."

We presume he means half of HMV's classical music sales, rather than 50% of all classical music sold in the UK; that really would be an extraordinary claim.

But music slowing down as you head south? Hmm. That sounds even less likely.

[A larger version of the map is available on the BBC News website]

When is a million pounds not a million pounds?

When, we'd suggest, it is the "million pounds", which Jonathan Ansell has supposedly signed to Universal for.

A classical singer, who was in the ridicule-stained G4, signing for a million pounds to a record company in 2007. Obviously, this is an accountant's million, rather than a large stack of actual cash:

"I'm incredibly excited to be signing to Universal, and thrilled to be pursuing a solo career.

"It's been an amazing journey to this point and I think, at the start of this new chapter in my career, anything is possible. Three years ago I was at music college and I went on The X Factor with some mates for a bit of fun, and now I've got my own deal.

"I never, ever expected to be able to do an album with anybody, let alone on my own. I just wanted to be able to earn my living as a singer in whatever way. So I'm completely blown away."

An interesting quote - just a "I do the music I like and if anyone else likes it, that's a bonus" short of containing every new-signing cliche in the book.

The future of music has two faces

There was an interesting contrast in the last half-hour of this morning's Today [Real link]. There was a piece on Radiohead and the honesty-box approach to flogging albums, which fitted in to the "technology has killed the traditional record label" scheme that has been the narrative set running by the RIAA.

By contrast, though, the feature of the Gramophone awards for classical music explored why there is suddenly a large movement of young, exciting and talented classical artists appearing. The conclusion was that, as technology has forced down the costs of production and distribution, allowing small labels to suddenly flourish, with each nurturing their own superstars. In other words, in the classic genres, the breaking of the power of the large labels has stimulated a wider, more vibrant music scene - precisely the opposite of what the rock labels warn will happen if their businesses collapse in the face of the future.

Alex James follows Myleene Klass and Simon Bates

Alex James has signed up to present a programme on Classic FM, the radio network which is a bit like being put on hold during a phone call to a company which considers itself a bit blue chip.

James is going to present a programme which is an important addition to its schedules and not simply an invention designed to allow Classic FM to promote themselves off the back of. It's called 'When Classic Meets Pop':

When Classic Meets Pop will feature classically inspired songs such as Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic, Eric Carmen's All By Myself and The Farm's Altogether Now.

If they hoped hiring Alex would give a breath of fresh air to the station and help break down the impression that classical music fans are a bunch of haughty snobs, they might be a little worried:

"Why would I want to listen to Hard-Fi piffling around when there is Rossini?" said James. "Bring me cellos. Bring me French horns. Bring me a choir. And some cannons, maybe, for the end."

The question might equally be phrased "Why would I want to listen to the man who helped create Naughty Christmas (Goblin In The Office) detailing what music is and isn't acceptable to enjoy", of course.

Carlos D: Classics stole my shoegaze years

Carlos D out of Interpol has confessed - not that there's anything wrong with it, like - that he spent his teenage years listening to classical music rather than rock:

When I got bored of banging my head and pumping my fists as a teenager, I turned to the opposite extreme, which for me at the time was listening to classical music. I was looking for a sound that would take me away from my surroundings and transport me to places that the four or five-person rock band ensemble simply wasn't equipped to do. Because of this, and somewhat regrettably, I missed the boat on a lot of excellent 90s rock like shoegaze, Britpop, and even some grunge that I've come to adore over the years. I had immersed myself so much in the structure and history of western classical music that I was painfully ignorant about modern rock's state of affairs.

Curse you, Ludwig... I could have been listening to Feral all this time.

Now, it seems, Carlos has returned to his first love, having tired once more of rock. Which is fine, but there is a hanging question that, if you don't cant stand to eat burger and chips, is it right to be running a McDonalds franchise?

The loving plagiarist

William Barrington-Coupe, who issued other people's recordings under his wife's name, has admitted his actions. He says he wanted his wife to receive the praise ill-health had denied her:

On its Web site on Monday, Gramophone said that in his letter to BIS Records, Mr. Barrington-Coupe said he had used other pianists’ recordings to give his wife “the illusion of a great end to an unfairly (as he terms it) overlooked career.”

Mr. Barrington-Coupe is quoted as saying that after CD technology arrived in the early 1980s, his attempts to transfer her cassette recordings to CDs proved unsuccessful. He and his wife therefore decided to re-record her repertory.

“Although she kept up a rigorous practice regime, Barrington-Coupe says that Hatto was suffering more than she admitted, even to herself,” Mr. Inverne wrote. “Recording session after recording session was marred by her many grunts of pain as she played, and her husband was at a loss to know how to cover the problem passages.”

Barrington-Coupe insists his wife, Joyce Hatto, was unaware he had started to use passages of other people's work to cover her weaker parts.

He may have been misguided, but he was motivated by love. Part of me wonders if it might have been better if we'd never known:

But Mr. Barrington-Coupe, 76, apparently declined to provide more information in his conversation with [Gramophone editor James] Inverne on Monday. “I’m tired,” Mr. Inverne quoted him as saying. “I’m not very well. I’ve closed the operation down. I’ve had the stock completely destroyed, and I’m not producing more. Now I just want a little bit of peace.”

Let's hope nobody is as vindictive to use copyright law to make the story have an even more heartbreaking end.

The classical Milli Vanilli

It's not just the pop audience, it turns out, who'll fall for a pretty face and nice story only to have their trust thrown back in their face. According to analysis of the tracks, every one of the hundred CDs attributed to Joyce Hatto may very well have been a simple copy of an older peformance by somebody else.

Hatto died last year; her reputation had been building almost entirely on the strength of internet word-of-mouth. Very few people had seen her play, as ill-health had led to retirement from the stage 35 years earlier, so it was the recordings which won her plaudits - recordings released on Concert Artists Recordings. The boss at the label? William Barrington-Coupe, who also was Mr. Hatto.

Now, Gramophone magazine has announced an investigation which has uncovered proof that the recordings weren't those of Hatto:

Sound engineer Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio, who performed an analysis of Hatto's recordings on behalf of Gramophone, says every one of the CDs he has analysed can be attributed to another artist.

"We have yet to investigate a Hatto recording that has not proved to be a hoax," concludes Rose. In several cases, says Rose, the original sound recording had been manipulated to disguise the source.

We're surprised, actually, that the tireless beaks at the RIAA hadn't already picked up on this terrible bootlegging scandal. They're meant to specialise in spotting goings-on like this, aren't they?