Ignorant Git Hasn't Changed...but neither has the splendour of April 2011

I will not provide the links, you can look them up yourself, but apparently the same jerk Mark Oppenheimer who famously wrote in Slate in April 2011 that any American who got up early to watch the royal wedding live would be a "traitor," now has an article in The New Republic against children taking music or ballet lessons because the arts are pretty much useless for most people, or something. So presumably I as a monarchist musician am basically a Useless Traitor. Whatever.

Earlier this afternoon I watched the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge again, mainly to express my contempt for the worthless philistine moronic feckless troglodyte known as Mark Oppenheimer. I still don't like John Rutter's anthem "This is the day" that much, though I would not have said so on Facebook if I had been a Westminster Abbey organ scholar at the time. Nevertheless there are plenty of musical moments that never fail to thrill no matter how many times one watches the DVD. One is the superb panoramic shot from the ceiling of the Abbey at the end of "I Was Glad." Another is the close-up of the London Chamber Orchestra timpanist giving the opening drum roll to "God Save the Queen." And another is the close-up of the LCO cellists in Parry's "Blest Pair of Sirens," though it makes me wish I had been one of them. What a marvelous day that was.