A Lark Ascending

Many thanks for these recs. As it happens I acquired a disc of the first 4 Carter Quartets today (Arditti) and one of some of the Ben Johnston Quartets. The Crumb dis is likely to get sucked of e-music too.

Done properly, the talking is one of the main reasons for radio. Especially in this day and age when you can amass a large collection at reasonable cost and play uninterrupted music on your record player, streamer or iPod...or just get Spotify to let it pour out. Get the right person able to enthuse and you get taken down all sorts of side tracks (would John Peel's programmes in the 60s and 70s have been better without talking?). Now, Radio 3 has made some populist errors - most notably the breakfast show with classic hits and phone-ins. I tend to have it on at work between 7.00 am and the first lessons as a way of easing me in to the day and get really irritated by some of the jabber. I really don't want to know about composers and their dogs or the favourite coffee of celebrity piano virtuosi (alive or dead).

There's also the Barbara Thompson documentary on Sunday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cc76r Plus a concert.

Just listened to this utterly enthralling performance. Totally improvised, a real trio - the bass and drums are right out front alongside the piano. My reference point is Keith Tippett; but it's going to send me to have another crack at Cecil Taylor. One recommendation that is very different from the usual improv: What you'd expect from a Wheeler disc and very wonderful with it. In fact, I'll play it next. These two are wonderful too: Stan did a few freer things around the time of these after a long lay-off from that side of the music. There's a great disc with Louis Moholo.

I'm trying to rememver if I've ever heard a more positive review of a book in my life; don't think so. Actually, 'A' Level was quite encouraging. The downer was two terms doing an English literature subsidiary at university. We read a book and then went to a lecture where a) it was assumed we'd read everything else by the author and his/her contemporaries and b) we were told why we shouldn't have enjoyed it. I was relieved to get to 100% History in the latter part of my first year.

Well, it's not the concert part that interests me. If you are not in easy reach of the capital then whatever has been done in the past to 'introduce' is an irrelevance. The London experience only reaches so far. I take your point about needing to go beyond 'introductions' - but outside of a few urban centres (and Huddersfield!), even the introductions to the late-20thC have rarely been tried in a sustained way. I just speak as someone on the outside, not completely unknowing about more recent music and with a willingness to take on the non-tonal, looking curiously in. As with more avant garde jazz, those who curate this music rarely show much interest in exciting that outside world. I get more of a sense of 'this is our world, it's very hard, you have to pass our tests.' Maybe the insiders should be trying harder to communicate their excitement in the music (as you have in Boulez recently - I'm still hoping for some more inspiration from you in that thread on music of the last 50 years) rather than sighing every time the BBC or LSO lets them down. The sigh sometimes comes across as relief...phew, it's still exclusive to us.

I was listening to those two discs earlier in the week. I won't pretend to even begin to understand it but it was certainly fascinating. Which other discs did you order?

It will be commercially driven. But that's what is interesting. The success of Ross' book seems to have made something on this scale seem financially viable. There's a wider interest in more recent 'classical' music. On the TV front, I suspect the BBC is buoyed along by the success of its Friday night documentaries that have shown there is an audience for a wide variety of non-mainstream musical documentary (Sonny Rollins tonight!). This side of the BBC doesn't seem to be about producing academic treatises to engage in a debate with a small number of 'connoisseurs' on their own terms, keeping 'culture' in the family of those who 'know' and can properly appreciate it (and should therefore be left the responsibility of interpreting it). It's a recognition that there is an audience beyond that sphere who are musically curious but get put off by the 'insider' culture of the contemporary 'arts' world. To me it seems a much more interesting project than playing non-stop Schubert for a week!

I suspect its aimed at middlebrows like myself, the sort of people who enjoyed the Ross book. The arts establishment will sneer as usual...they might even dismiss it as bourgeois!

Actually, jazz is the new folk. Did you ever hear a horse sing hip hop?

Information is appearing about a major year long project based around 20thC music in 2013. Includes lots of concerts and a major BBC 4 TV series. Seems to be using Alex Ross' 'The Rest is Noise' as a label (which will inevitably lead to a rash of scowling over pince-nez from certain quarters). Some details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2012/bbc-four-southbank-partnership.html More details here: http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/classical/2012-13/the-rest-is-noise

Of Human Bondage is superb. I did it for 'A' Level in 1972-3..and still enjoyed it!

I have some of these from the early 80s. They were the only way to hear this music at the time. Remember picking up a fair few at Eric Rose's 'Music Inn' in Nottingham, the only specialist jazz shop in Nottingham. It was big band-o-centric (and Kenton-o-centric in particular) but you could stumble across interesting things from the Bebop/Hard Bop era there as well. Never could work out the logic in their stocking policy (though they seemed to bring in batches of things like the Carrere every few months). As for pressing quality, well I just remember most LPs as being a bit of a gamble then. I welcomed CD with open arms.

Continuing my journey through this series - this time an evocative setting in Cambridge. You'd never know the writer was American given her geographically accurate descriptions of various parts of Britain and her character descriptions. Enjoying this long but engaging biography. He's just arrived in Gaul and is chasing down the Helvitti.

Only time will show the wiser.

...does anybody really care...

Actually, yesterday is the answer. (History-buff's response!)

Currently taking another trip through this wonderful box. Seems to be available on e-music now. Also exploring more Fred Frith. Enjoyed 'Freedom in Fragments' yesterday (thanks for the recs above). I'm especially keen on this recent one; gives a real sense of a complete record with songs and careful arrangements. Frith's records often sound more collage like. They have a second disc coming out later this year. http://www.fredfrith.com/

This 5 disc Ligeti mp3 set is going for £13.49 on Amazon UK. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ligeti-Project-digital-booklet/dp/B0061TI7FO/ref=sr_shvl_album_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1329115976&sr=301-4 I took a chance on it, knowing little Ligeti, and am enthralled.

I watched the first Inspector Montalbano and, like you, wasn't that drawn in - in fact I watched it over two nights. Nice scenery. The second Borgen series isn't due here until the end of the year.

Um, if they do then - uh - not very well... I did what any self respecting person does ...uses Google translate.... Didn't the Picts and the Scots do something similar when negotiating at Hadrian's/Antonine Wall?

The two (original) Matching Mole albums are getting a reissue (with second discs of twiddly bits). I'll go for these as the existing releases are a bit muddy. http://www.burningshed.com/store/canterburyscene/ Strongly recommended to Wyattophiles or those just interested in this particular byway of improvised rock. Matching Mole is mainly instrumental with Caravan's Dave Sinclair in the organ chair; fairly rambling but in a nice way. Two wonderful Wyatt vocals at the start - 'O Caroline' and 'Signed Curtain' were wonderful balms when suffering the inevitable disappointments of unrequited longing as a 17 year old. Little Red Record has vocals dotted throughout though it's still mainly an instrumental record. Tremendous electric piano from Dave McRae. A bit more focussed than the first.

Thanks for all the recommendations here. Some I shall explore over the next few months. I think Veryan Weston will be a target - he seems to be incredibly active yet hardly registers above ground. That 'Gateway to Vienna' looks like a starting point. [i notice he originates from Cornwall - wonder if his first name is related to the village of the same name near Truro] Agusti Fernandez I'll follow there to - I know him from his discs elsewhere with the likes of Barry Guy. Played the first disc of this 2CD I've had for a few years last night: A pot pourri of Lol from a 1954 'Autumn in New York' through R'n B in the early 60s to all manner of experiments. I have half a dozen Lol records but will take this further too.

That does look good!