A Lark Ascending

Hope it goes well for you, sidewinder. The weather makes such a difference. I endured dreadful weather last May at the English Music Festival which...sorry...put a dampner on things. This year the weather was glorious - I was able to do some walking and just generally enjoy everything in full colour. Barbecue summer, perhaps?

I may well join you in 2016! Don't miss Trish Clowes who is making some very distinctive music and the Mark Lockheart Ellington band. The latter did a great concert up here in the depths of the last winter.

Can't claim to have got to grips with him yet but I've been listening to and enjoying his symphonies and other music in the last few years. This recent release, including a a late composition, is very good:

Great player. He's best known for his free work but he could play beautiful straight trombone - some marvellous examples in various 60s/70s Westbrook bands. I'm especially fond of his playing on 'Creole Love Call' - a track on the as yet to appear on CD 'Love/Dream Variations' from 1976. I think I must have seen one of his last performances at the EP Freezone at Appleby in 2006. There's a nice tribute here: http://eartripmagazine.wordpress.com/articles/articles-issue-1/paul-rutherford-tribute/

I did. Attended a couple of very enjoyable concerts in Silk Hall - a string orchestra that opened my ears to Alwyn's Sinfonietta for Strings and a marvellous quartet/quintet concert doing Britten/Ireland/Elgar. I prefer the concerts there as you have good sight lines whereas in the Abbey the orchestra is crushed at the end. The only disappointment was the new commissions concert in the Abbey where the new commissions were very tame. You need to organise an equivalent to Evan Parker's Freezone at the old Appleby there, Alex! Might bring the average age of attendance below 80! Looking forward to the solo record.

I think that's a pretty valid generalisation. I came of age a bit later - 15 in 1970 when music took me over. 'Aspirational working class who made it to university' would describe my background perfectly - it was Prog Rock (not called that at the time) that grabbed me and then, when that faded, jazz, classical and folk. People I knew at school who just wanted to leave as soon as possible were much more into Tamla Motown, Bowie, more physical dance-related music etc [and their younger brothers and sister would have been the first punks, rapidly followed by my younger brothers and sisters who wanted to be in on the fashion!]. They found my listening preferences boring and pretentious. From 1970 to 1973 what I enjoyed was definitely considered 'modern'. By late-1976 it was anything but!

Good article from The Guardian from composer George Benjamin: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/may/29/stravinsky-rite-of-spring All about the music!

Glad to see you cut to the heart of what really matters! Despite my aversion to 'who's best?' whittling, The Rite of Spring is a piece I've been through a few versions of. I started with a 60s Karajan version on LP which suited me just fine (I subsequently read that owning a copy led to certain expulsion from The Wine Club...even Stravinsky hated it!). When CD came along I got a later Karajan version which never quite did it for me (I can't quite work out if this was because of a less cutting performance or just that I was now overfamiliar with it). Eventually I was recommended on this very site a version by Muti which I really like. I think for me the crunch comes after the introduction when those first stamping beats come in. Often they can sound a bit muffled - but this latter version stamps very loudly in hobnailed boots. Stravinsky would have been good at morris dancing. That'll do for me (I have the Stravinsky CBS box with one of his versions there but much prefer the Muti). Except...there's a wonderful accordion duo who have just done a tremendous version of Petrushka. Now if they ever do The Rite, I'll be there. Of course there's always... Download for £40 off Amazon and you could play it all day!

I hope you all sent a card. The story (in all sorts of versions) is well known, but... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22691267 Think I must have first heard it in 1973 though it was another year before a bought a copy. Still sounds exciting and edgy today yet it contains some gorgeous melodies (especially the start of part 2). The thing I love most is the off-centre accenting. Its influence on 20thC classical music is obvious, but what about 70s Prog-Rock?

Finished the Beevor D-Day book which was excellent. The chapter on the liberation of Paris brought a tear to my eye; at the same time making me think a lot about human nature - the jealousies of the military commanders, the determination of the French military to be first there regardless of any wider strategic concerns and the behaviour of the liberated towards one another. Having lived a life a million miles from what people experienced in those years you just wonder how you would have reacted. Two new ones on the go: That last one is full of fascinating details. Has a bit of a smug 'aren't we special' feel to it (I suspect most countries feel like that about themselves), but I do like its celebration of the irregular, slightly shabby.

When it comes to music most of what I listen to is from the past (though most of it would have been 'Modern' in its time). But I can't bring myself to live totally in the past - I'm always pulled by the thought of the new (though even there I tend to find things more rewarding with aural roots in the past). Quite different with reading - I did my period of reading (some of) 'the classics' a long time ago. Today I'm much more likely to read a recent piece of fiction than something from the past. And with history books I'll always reach for a newer account of an event or period over a 'classic' account from the past. I've never been drawn to an exclusive focus on either the modern or the (perceived) classical canon (bizarrely - or maybe not - Modernism is now part of the latter).

I thought Webern and Kandinsky were modern and we were Post-Modern (or maybe Post-Post-Modern now that irony is frowned on). Modern is a word like today.

I always liked making mix tapes for the car. Of course iPods do that much better now with the random facility. I used to hate stopping in a lay by, splicing the tape into segments and then reassembling to get the surprise element.

Listened to disc 1 this evening in an Oxford bathed in sunshine. Compulsory purchase order, I'd say, for anyone who liked the original LP, the Dean era Soft Machine or any of the edgier end of UK jazz/jazz-rock in the 70's. Only one tune from the original that I could make out. Extremely varied - chordal bits, lengthy Coltranesque blowing, burbling early synth, piano and e-p + drums in places. And a couple of instances of Surman's folky side.

Not listened yet - whizzing around and my car sound thingy has packed up. Hope to listen over the holiday weekend. Try the Ogun - it got a reissue a while back. It's varied with overdubbing and some nice steam powered early synth providing bubbly backdrops on some tracks. I'm intrigued to hear how they worked outside the studio.

Recommended - I saw the band in Norwich back in 1976. Well, the first half - had to get the last bus home and missed the second.

The Ogun SOS album was a hugely influential record for my ears. Bought it in late '76 at the point when I was tiring of rock and was starting to investigate jazz (and other things). Great to notice this advertised in the latest Jazzwise: Another thank you to Cuneiform (though the pretentious twaddle about connoisseurs could have been debolloxed)! http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/sos.html A double CD already on Amazon for download (now happening!).

Dare you to try it in a well stocked record store (if any exist) with a 60 year old jazz fan!

Love Verklarte and Pelleas (I'm sure I was a suicidal Viennese painter in another life). Very drawn to the two Chamber symphonies and the 2nd SQ. Pierrot Lunaire too. Most Schoenberg I have yet to engage with (though I've 'heard' quite a lot) - but I like the sound worlds.

I got rid of my washing machine a few months back. I take my washing down to the banks of the Chesterfield Canal and do it there. You get a far better wash. And it's HIP too so you can act really cool.

With International Housecleaning Day almost upon us I really hoped this was about cheap bleach, dusters etc,

I've read of places in London where they do small scale concerts in nightclubs late at night. Music is played but the audience can drift in and out as they might in a club. I think I'd find it pretty distracting; but seems like a good way of appealing to a different audience. I recall all sorts of experiments over the years - lighting, amplification etc - yet the same old rituals seem to survive. I like the quiet and attentiveness of that format; but could happily lose the rituals, the penguin suits. And wouldn't it be nice if the conductor talked to you?

Can't remember the last time I saw someone writing a cheque in a shop. Cash or chip'n pin in Ye Olde Englande these days.

Lots of British music on Radio 3 in June. Think it might by an artificial coronation anniversary tie in. Unfortunately, what could have been an interesting TV series on Music and Monarchy (don't care for monarchy but it's generated a fair bit of wonderful music) is fronted by the dreadful David Starkey. A man (along with Gove) I would gladly morris dance on the head of in hob nailed boots. http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/starkey-music-monarchy.html

JRR back at the time God intended (all those pagans cast away now). And, if the BBC Music Magazine is to be trusted, it stays that way all through June.