A Lark Ascending

I seem to recall Surman was put off by what he saw as Vitous' egotism. Regardless, I've enjoyed the discs he's made, especially 'Journey's End' with Surman and Taylor. Has a glorious version of Surman's 'Tess', a track that over the years has found its way onto various mix tapes and playlists I've made for the car. Give the new one a listen - I like it.

No 5 off the first, disc 1 off the first. Disc 7 + 8 - Lully - Armide As hot as Spain in the UK yesterday - ideal for basking in the garden.

I think we're talking about different things. Yes, simplified Minimalism (and other musics - 'classical music' is just a small part; compare the use of rock/pop/jazz/blues, especially 'classic' rock/pop/jazz/blues) is used manipulatively to sell product but then it was ever thus. But with meta-data it's all just better targeted. I'm interested in why certain things in 'classical music' catch on whilst others languish (the original article is saddened that a particular area of music that proved not to fit the 'artistic' fashions immediately after its time has not enjoyed a revival of some degree). Now if you come from a background of 'art and culture' you are likely to get taught the correct things to be seen appreciating. But most people bump into things from various sources - what they hear randomly on the radio, bits heard in school, music caught in film or on ads, things that catch an interest from being written about in a newspaper, magazine (or website!). Minimalism (largely in watered down form) has proved very adaptable to being used in promotion. I suspect this just gives a point of introduction that is one of the ways that carry people into listening to it as music in itself. The mid-20thC American music doesn't have the same recognition factor. The parallel between the largely tonal and melodic [in the common use of the word as a musical line that sticks in your head] mid-20thC US music and the early-to-mid 20thC 'second division' English classical music is interesting. The elite who pronounce on what is significant have generally been sniffy about both. Yet in Britain the latter music has gained a foothold in spite of the disapproval from on high. The way I read the initial article is - 'Hey there's some interesting and enjoyable music here which did not get a great deal of attention after its initial composition, it would be nice to programme it now and then.' More music than ever, fewer laces to put it than ever, no wonder why everybody makes records and none but a few have gigs....perhaps the other way around would be fun? That's just the way we live now. Technology has allowed us to do in our homes what we once had to go out for. You can't undo that. But I don't see it as unsolvable. When I was growing up cinemas were dying on their feet. But they've enjoyed a renaissance in the last 30 years - people rediscovered the pleasure of going out, meeting friends, making a bit of an event of it (doesn't prevent anyone staying in the next night and watching a boxed set). We're constantly told in Britain that there has been a huge expansion of concert/festival going in recent years (and that is where the money is made). People will go to live music - in this case live classical music - if they know they are going to have fun. If you present the experience as 'communing with the arts' then you will lose much of your audience (and you might want to doubt the reasons for attendance of some who are there). I was talking to my sister a week or so back - an educated, well read person for whom music is largely peripheral. She could not understand my frequent concert attendance. At one point she said "The trouble is I don't know what to do at a concert." In that sentence you have the problem of building the audience for live classical music beyond those already committed (and those who like to be seen being 'cultured'). People who go to pop/rock festivals know they are going to have fun because they know they will be 'doing' - dancing, socialising, flirting, crowd-surfing etc. Now I wouldn't want crowd-surfing through 'Das Lied von der Erde', I like the quiet, respectful listening of the classical concert. But if classical musicians want 'more gigs' they are going to have to address that 'what to do' question. Most people go out to 'do', not just to receive.

Olden days music today (the first proper summer's day of the year!): The second needs a sticker - "Includes the chord sequence from the Stairway to Heaven court case".

Of course. Though some of the Minimalists have written for cinema directly; and some of the New Deal era composers wrote pieces for theatre alongside a general idea that at least some of their music ought to have a wider social usefulness. I suspect that before we become consciously interested in music as music we pick up a lot of our musical reference points from things like film (there's a strong argument that the Mahler boom of the 60s came on the back of the emigre Hollywood scores of the 40s and 50s). The presence of Minimalism in so many contemporary film scores, jingles etc probably makes that music more approachable to a wider audience today, making it a reliable ticket seller. You can often hear Copland in Westerns and the like in the 40s and 50s - you still hear it today (especially in science fiction themes). But it hasn't created a revived interest in the mid-20thC US composers. Maybe if they were programmed more lights would go on. Of course, only some of the music made in the mid-20thC relates to that broad-screen, Western approach. Much of what I've heard is pretty dry (not a criticism), owing a lot to Stravinsky and the pre-war French composers.

I never took to Branagh's version; loved the Henriksson version. Though the books are even better than both. **************** Can't get into The Americans - I've watched five episodes and find the main characters creepy with rather cardboard cut-out true believer and doubter personas. More kung-fu'n gadgets (admittedly 80s gadgets) than I'd expected. I get the impression the series will evolve with their adventures tying in with the key Cold War events of the 80s. Will probably bale. New Blood (BBC 1) Just watched the first two of this series about to end this week - really enjoyed them. Standard tale of corporate skull-duggery in the pharmaceutical industry with associated murders being investigated by a rooky detective and financial irregularity investigator. Quirky characters, oddball plot and some interesting camera work. Already looks rather old-fashioned - definitely not portraying the Britain June 23rd chose.

"Donkey Riding" Recall singing this in music lessons in primary school. "Were you ever in Quebec..." There's a nice instrumental version by the Cock and Bull Band (an Anglo-French dance band) from the 1970s/80s. Not sure if Family's "No Mule's Fool" counts.

I thought it was a musical style that (initially at least) tried to use some non-Western approaches; the relentless, machine-like repetition creating a sense of modernity, the relative harmonic simplicity and exotic timbres giving a point of contact for the ordinary listener. Can't say I've ever felt any more egotistical listening to Reich or Adams rather than Carter or Ives.

I once read an interview with John Surman where he did not have a good word to say about Vitous as a boss. And Surman is always the gentleman in his interviews.

Another fan of that one. Many years ago I saw James Newton and David Murray do an Ellington concert with a large-ish band. Might have leaked out on a live bootleg somewhere (from another date) but I don't think it ever made the studio. Pity.

One I enjoy a lot - from a pianist who openly acknowledges the paramount influence of Monk (along with Ellington) on his style.

Anyone here speak Texan?

What I find odd is that both Copland/New Deal classical Americana (via John Williams and others) and American Minimalism (ostinato motor rhythms with rich chords alongside and a tune on top) seem to be two of the key ingredients to much film/TV drama music today (even Downton Abbey uses it rather than the English cowpat you might expect). The latter is healthily alive both in the concert hall and in recordings, the former lost to the margins. Maybe Minimalism goes better with fashionable contemporary painting, IKEA decor and nouveaux cuisine.

That last one is a bit dainty - school teachers, civil servants and social workers pretending to be 17thC peasants (or journeymen, perhaps). The opening 'Jamaica' is intriguing - sounds just a few steps away from American Old Time music. The following morning: Op 18 No. 4 of latter. Musicke for weepeing of the creul slightes of my ladye. Well, if I was younger.

Korngold seems to be catching on in Britain of late - lots of new recordings and the Violin Concerto is appearing frequently, even out in the provinces beyond London (performance in Nottingham in October). Agree about the Symphony - though the Korngold piece I'm surprised hasn't taken wing is the Symphonic Serenade. All it will take is a film or TV producer to use part of it for a theme tune and it will be there. Malcolm Arnold has at least three symphony cycles on record, Alwyn at least two. Seems a pity there are not modern cycles of Piston, Sessions etc. Regardless of how 'important' they are (or are not) it would be nice to be able to hear them and make our own mind up as to whether we like them or not. I'm sure a few Beethoven or Brahms cycles could be put on hold to let one or two through.

Really enjoyed this. I was never much of a Weather Report fan at the time - heard the funkier things from the mid-70s before the earlier music (and duly dismissed alongside most American fusion of the time [not a criticism of that music, just not what I wanted to hear then]) and only came round to the band about ten years back. Excellent review by the original poster - like with the previous Vitous album I like the way this one smudges the musical lines and hits the melodies at odd angles. The version of 'Birdland' is a marvellous re-imagining.

Sixth of Hill's Serrailler series of detective novels set in an imaginary cathedral town (with nearby modern town with sink estate etc) in central England. Good plots, likeable characters (and unlikable villains) but often with sub-plots revolving around the medical profession. Much of this one revolves around care homes and the issue of assisted suicide. Warm book revolving round the lives (and deaths) of characters in the the west Cornwall villages of Morvah and Pendeen, near St. Just. Quick survey of music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque. Lots on the revival of the mid-20thC. Now: Glad to see the main characters are as bad tempered as ever. No room for Tom Hiddleston here.

Some lovely music on the first but recorded in what sounds like an aircraft hanger. The recording of the clarinet concerto on the Hyperion is much more pleasurable. Need to get a recording of the Love's Labours Lost incidental music and then retire the first disc. Different Trains; Tehillim; Eight Lines off the Reich; Op 18 No. 6 off the Beethoven.

Immediately reminded me in places of 'You are here...I am there'.

SQ2 off latter.

The Tempest: A Dramatick Opera (Matthew Locke and others) - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York A mid-17thC adaptation of "The Tempest" (much excluded, new story lines added) with music by mainly Locke but also Banister, Hart, Humfrey, Hart Reggio (no, I don't know who they are either!) and one Purcell piece. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was actually a quintet - two violins, viola, cello and theorbo (with one violinist playing a little hurdy gurdy). All the drama played very entertainingly by just two actors, music largely incidental. Not a style I'm all that familiar with - early 17thC consort music - but very engaging. Some excellent singing especially by soprano Augusta Herbert.

The article, to my mind, exaggerates the programming of comparable British composers (those who have gained recognition but are not considered in the front rank of 'innovators'). Outside of London, Elgar turns up regularly, one Holst piece frequently, Vaughan Williams less often. Otherwise, regional programmes are dominated by bums-on-seats warhorses from the traditional classical European repertoire, mainly Classical/Romantic era. Where I do notice a difference is in recordings. There are now multiple recordings of the likes of Bridge, Moeran, Bax, Finzi, Alwyn etc (not all 'symphonists', I know) with regular new issues exploring deep into the nooks and crannies of their output (reconstructions of sketches included). Maybe I'm just missing things but I don't see the same for similar American composers of a similar era - Piston, Schuman, Harris etc. The recordings I have are on labels knocking around in the 80s/90s like Delos and Albany and more recently Naxos (often reissues from other labels). A pity as I've always enjoyed the music of such composers. Ives probably doesn't fit the sort of composers the writer is referring to - he's pretty generally accepted as one of the big guys these days.

Resonate: the great British symphonic revival "A new fund will encourage orchestras to programme the best works by British composers of the past 25 years. Gillian Moore MBE selects the pieces that deserve to be heard again There was a time, about half a century ago, when the symphony orchestra was deeply out of fashion with composers. The enfants terribles of mid-century modernism and American minimalism had little time for it either politically, institutionally or musically. They preferred inventing bespoke ensembles for every piece or, in some cases, using electronic instruments. But the orchestra survived, composers started writing for it again and, I’d argue, we’ve seen a particularly exciting revival of orchestral composition here in the UK in recent years........" https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/13/resonate-the-great-british-symphonic-revival