Tea for two and one for the road

“From Broadway to Moscow. Today's In Tune Mixtape starts with a joke that backfired nearly landing Shostakovich in deep trouble. His famous arrangement of the foxtrot, 'Tea for Two' from 'No, No, Nanette' coincided with a series of vitriolic press denunciations of bourgeois, dance hall decadence as exemplified by the 'Foxtrot'. Quick-thinking Shostakovich wrote an open letter saying that his piece was not a jolly orchestral encore, but instead a sarcastic comment on modern life - and he got away with it. We also spend a little time north of Hadrian's Wall and in the company of one of the great Italian Baroque concertos not by Vivaldi. Add a dash of Bruckner and a cure for spider bites and you have a recipe to take your mind off the day's hardships for half an hour.”