"Berlioz's unstinting lionisation of Beethoven in the pages of La Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris" [12th Sept 2006]

"Berlioz's unstinting lionisation of Beethoven in the pages of La Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris,the most important and influential music journal in 19th-century France, also played a major role in establishing him at the centre of the repertory for the concert hall." In my journal, what would I write about, who would I lionise. I would lionise the Midnight Bell, perhaps, and its dancers, extolling the virtues of Sylvia and -- and Janet above all others. Extolling them in messianic, apocalyptic, grandiose, diva-esque terms, like they are Sarah Bernhardts. Invoking Hungarian history. Giving reviews of their performances just the way one would with reviews of violinists or pianists. They are all on a stage, why not? Instead of one paragraph reviews of Anita Berber's Bethanien or Marlene Dietrich's grave, extend them into full page articles, enabling me to digress into talking about the Blue Angel, Lola, etc. Berber at the Romanisches Cafe, Tucholsky. It would be a journal devoted to the strip clubs of London, the pubs, to Berlin, and Vienna, and Brussels, and Munich. Talk about them the way you would about great opera singers of the 1880s, from the stage side box. Write a magazine where on one page there is a review of Barbara Fritoli at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday night, and on the facing page, a review of the Flying Scotsman on Thursday night, each with equal analysis. My reviews are scurrilous and scandalous, like James Ellroy, Charles Bukowski. Winter is coming. Remember those cold icy days when I first moved in here? Remember the excitement of those Astral  nights? Miising in Action Painter film? The unable to breathe shaking with excitement as I headed down the steps not knowing what I was about to see? Remember that unbelievably huge breaasted beautiful Czech girl at the Boulevard? It is almost like a dream. I cannot believe I witnessed something so spectacularly sexy as her and made so little of it. If only I knew where she was now. 

I would like to write my own magazine like the Fackel, full of my hard-hitting sometimes scurrilous articles and reviews of London life. Write about Barbara Frittoli and the tyranny of not being able to write about the singer's beauty, and sexual allure, as if this must not be mentioned, like some guilty secret. Write about La Traviata at the ENO, a weepy opera about "some consumptive whore, when in real life whores are treated like the lowest of the low, yet here she is celebrated as something glorious".