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The nightingale
The Observer
|May 25, 2025
Don't get me started on critics. A true creative artist has no time for them. OK, we've been misunderstood and misrepresented for centuries: but for me what matters is the music. Only and ever the music. What else should matter to a nightingale?
Monday
I prefer to sing at night. The competition has mostly shut up: it's hard work singing through a haze of wrens and chiffchaffs and other sub-standard performers. It was a still night: you could have heard me a mile away. What's more, someone did. Someone who actually matters.
Tuesday
I've heard it all. They say that a nightingale has a repertoire of 250 phrases made from 600 units of song. Rubbish! I've got far more than that. I'm a composer and a performer and every song I sing is a world premiere. Don't try to restrict me. It's not about arithmetic. It's about music.
Wednesday
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