A Lark Ascending

Death and the Maiden off the middle one - can't for the life of me work out why this recording set my teeth on edge when it came out a couple of years back. Sounded great this morning. "Music for 18 Musicians" from the Reich.

Some very nice 17th C landscapes: I like 'The French Sea' - don't let the Brexiteers see that! http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2016/may/21/albions-glorious-ile-the-400-year-old-colouring-book-in-pictures

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo22955331.html Imagine this one would cause feathers to fly. Be interested to read what he has to say. According to the review in 'Jazzwise' he recommends bringing a note pad when going to free improvisation concerts. Maybe he gives fashion advice too: I'm intrigued by "and the counter-intuitive challenge of listening while asleep" mentioned in the blurb.

Sextet 1 off middle; disc 5 of Byrd.

Never seen this before. Beautiful. What a wonderful, life-affirming film. Like 'Brassed-Off', more than a little sentimental, but my does it warm the cockles of your heart.

I've been wanting to see Barry Guy and the LJCO since the 90s. One year doesn't seem far away in those terms.

Nearly a year away but this looks rather good. From Vortex website: The Vortex is delighted to be hosting a festival of the innovative and well-established label Intakt in 2017. "15th April is at King’s Place for London Jazz Composers Orchestra (which is their first performance in the UK for over 15 years) and celebrating Barry Guy’s 70th. The rest is at the Vortex and is just now getting confirmed. But we are particularly excited that it will also include Irene Schweizer who is celebrating her 75th birthday this year and hasn’t visited UK for over a decade. (Though she was here in 1961 working behind the bar at Ronnie Scotts making sandwiches!) And others hopefully involved will include Sylvie Courvoisier, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Louis Moholo (who first played with Irene in 1963 when the Blue Notes first left South Africa), Aki Takase, Ingrid Laubrock, Sleepthief, Mark Feldman and a number of the leading Swiss musicians such as Lucas Niggli, Pierre Favre, Christoph Irniger and Sylvie Courvoisier. It has been about 4 years in the making since initial discussions with Patrik Landolt in Zurich. Until the funding was sorted out was not simple and so, only now, can we start firming up the line-up. The only other time that Intakt has done something similar is when they did a two week festival at the Stone in New York.It is also the first time that the Vortex is giving over such a substantial period to one particular festival like this." http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/2016/04/30/intakt-festival-15-27-april-2017/ That LJCO concert is a must - hopefully there will be a few more over the next couple of days to make an Easter long weekend of it (Easter Sunday is 16th). London residents will be spoilt for choice.

Disc 1 of the middle one.

At the more neoclassical end of mid 20thC British music - Rawsthorne territory. Enjoyable without knocking your socks off [edit: actually, it's more engaging than that lukewarm assessment suggests]. 29 of the Ludwig.

Watched the first two episodes but I don't think I'll take it further. Found it unpleasant - one of those series where I find myself asking 'why am I watching this?' Tried a 6 part comedy series with Olivia Coleman called Flowers but had to give up after half an episode - about a oddball dysfunctional family. Seemed a bit Harry Potter without the spells (I'm not a Harry Potter follower so it's more how I imagine Harry Potter). However, before I get too 'look how unimpressed I am everybody' I started watching another comedy series called 'Love, Nina' about a young Leicester girl going to work as a nanny in London in house full of luvvies - that I did like. Like a lot of UK comedy, works off the clash of class. Finished 'Follow the Money' last night - excellent series all round. Some of the bad guys got their comeuppance, the nice people survived (I loved the hapless car mechanics) but there was enough 'worm in the bud' there to keep you unsettled - the key female character who you warmed to throughout yet who was up to her neck in the fraud; and the king pin and hit man who lived another day. 'Blue Eyes' reaches its conclusion this week - another winner from the Nordic lands (could have done without the rather graphic knifing in the last episode, however). Looks like there's another Danish thriller to follow it - "Dicte: 'Front Page News" . Also "Magnifica 70" ["A stylish, sexy, South American series about desire and repression. Set in 1970, Brazil.] Music should be good at the very least!

Don't know a lot of his music but have enjoyed what I heard - remember hearing a track on something like Charles Fox's 'Jazz Today' way back in the late-70s but being quite unable to locate the record at the time. RIP

Following up a live performance of SQ 1 I heard last week. Absolutely beautiful piece that will get a lot of attention in the next few days. SQ2 needs more listening; The earlier Andante and Allegro could have been mistaken for a couple of tracks on the John Ireland CD I was listening to previously.

More exploring in the outer regions. ***************************** Half a day later: Cello Sonata, two Piano Trios and a couple of shorter things.

BBC4. A beautiful little programme about the role of gardens in the move from the centre of London to its fringes from the early 20thC. A celebration of ordinary people (and some not so ordinary) creating little outdoor worlds of their own (and some welcome ridicule of the self-anointed intelligentsia's demonisation of 'suburbia'). One of the nicest documentaries I've watched in a while.

SQ1 and 2. Had this a while but was really taken by No. 2 this morning. 1 sounds like a pretty generic late-19thC thing but 2 seems of the world of Verklarte Nacht, Pelleas and Melisande. Disc 8 - No. 5, 6, 7. The middle movement here is one of my favourite pieces of Mahler. Off Spotify. Exploring.

Thanks, Roger. I'll be chasing that one down.

That could be fun! Who needs a Tardis! Merci.

Finished this. Very good (if that era of popular music interests you). Marketed from what is only really a passing, tongue-in-cheek assertion about 1971 being rock's greatest year, this is actually a fascinating account of music and the music industry in transition. He's hugely enthusiastic about the music, very down to earth about the 'celebrity' musicians. Instead of the usual portrayal of them as mighty stars and 'artistic' geniuses, you end with a more believable image of young men and women of talent catapulted by sudden stardom into a world they don't really know how to handle (the pretensions of the Stones [not their music] come in for a fair amount of flak, not just Jagger (the obvious target) but the cult-of-Keef too). One of his main ideas is how unformed the management/marketing side of rock was at this time and how the first steps towards the machine of today were being laid around this time. One of his more provocative assertions is that 1971 was the year of punk; 1976/7 was revivalism (he also sees 1971 as the year when rock started to look back nostalgically on its past, creating the heritage element that figures so largely in its current marketing (not just rock!)! The other weird thing is how the book shows the imperfection of memory. There are records and bands pinpointed to a time here that I've always remembered in the following year. Probably an accident of when I heard them - I've always associated the T. Rex phenomena with 1972 but it actually kicked off the year before...probably the result of being subjected to endless T. Rex by a cousin I was staying with one summer! ******* Just over half way with both 'Mahler' and 'The Reformation' - both excellent but long, dense books. E.T.A. late June!

The ceiling at Jameh mosque, Yazd, Iran The Pink mosque, or Nasir al-mulk mosque, is a historic site in Shiraz From a set of extraordinary photos of Iran's 'travel hotspots' here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/gallery/2016/may/19/irans-travel-hotspots-in-pictures

Op 4 of the Beethoven.

Beautiful record of music for a variety of small groups on the first. Disc 3 - Cello and Violin Concertos, Clocks and Clouds and With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles from middle. The two violin sonatas off the last. And a third listen to the Nancarrow SQ3.

Marcella ending was a bit flat. Left us still in the dark about her role in moving the body (not to mention her actions in other blackout moments) - presumably left dangling for follow up series reasons. Also more than a bit implausible that she's allowed to waltz straight back onto the case after multiple infringements of procedure (including trying to suffocate a suspect!). Enjoyed it nonetheless. Interesting the way all the male characters are made to look weak in one way or another. Nice bit of character reversal from traditional scripting. Workers or Shirkers? From a few weeks ago - Ian Hislop drawing parallels between 19thC attitudes to the 'poor' and those expressed today. The one where Ian Duncan Smith weeps because of his deep concern for the little people.

Crown engine at Botallack mine in the 1890s - Photograph: Gibson of Scilly/BNPS One of my favourite spots in Cornwall (and, by chance, my avatar). Fantastic range of old photos of Cornwall in the Guardian today: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2016/may/19/everyday-life-in-cornwall-captured-in-the-19th-century-in-pictures