This is to commemorate Linda Shaver-Gleason who passed away last week, aged 36. A public musicologist, as she used to refer to herself, Linda appeared as a scholar of Mendelssohn’s reception history, as a highly valued author writing for diverse outlets, and not least as an influential blogger who reached out via her own website Not Another Music History Cliché. Her eloquence, commitment, and courage will be missed. May she rest in peace and her legacy continue.

It’s not that I attach particular importance to jubilees and anniversaries, and the upcoming BTHVN 2020 celebrations will leave me largely indifferent. However, I suppose I am unlikely to let this day pass unnoticed: Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was born 140 years ago. Happy birthday, mate, your music is an infinite source of inspiration to me, and will continue to give me moments of passion, joy, and utter beatitude. It is my sincere hope that you would have condoned the following arrangement which I prepared in 2018, and am now re-posting here as a posthumous present—I borrowed the catchiest tunes from your C major Sonata, Op. 11 No. 3, added an English translation of the Goethe lyrics which you chose as a motto for that work, and compiled these ingredients into a little jazz ballad named Atonement. I’ll be more than content if this trifle serves no other purpose than provide a humble delight for the fellow admirers of your art.