In the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend magazine today, David Marr writes that the prospects for this year were “rather drab”.
“Nor did 2008 offer much by way of centenaries to celebrate. Little was discovered or invented in 1908. No great composers or writers came or went.”
Despite enthusiastic musical celebrations and acknowledgements all over the world, all year, I guess Elliott Carter and Olivier Messiaen don’t count then…
And never mind that Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908, whichever calendar you go by. [Although to be fair, no one’s been making much of that one. And I don’t mind – celebrating the anniversary of someone’s death, while a handy pretext for performing the music, has always seemed a bit macabre to me.]