A Lark Ascending

Thanks again for taking the trouble to respond everyone. Really interesting. I don't think I answered part 3 myself. Whilst I enjoy jazz and classical equally, I'm not sure I swing between them seamlessly. There's something different (though equally valuable) about them, akin to moving between two neighbouring but very different countries (France/Germany?). The obvious difference is that most jazz, however subtly, emphasises rhythm and puts it up front (the famed 'swing'); where a lot of classical music just implies a rhythm (there are obvious exceptions in both cases). Valid approaches, both. Oh, and (mercifully) they don't 'trade fours' in classical music. I'm quite the opposite there. I've never got into comparing versions of pieces, preferring to explore compositions I'm unfamiliar with. Thinking back, we had a recording of that on two sides of a '45. I think I knew it off by heart in my early teens. Affected an intense dislike of Tchaikovsky from my late teens, but have come to love the symphonies in recent years (I was so much older then,...) There's a connection between history and music for me too. My main historical area for many years was the 17thC yet I never cared for the music of that time (Purcell or William Lawes do not seem to evoke the turbulance of the English Civil Wars). When I started teaching I had to cover much more recent history and that coincided with my growing interest in 20thC classical. I'd say my interest in Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany has been coloured by hearing Shostakovich, Weill etc (as my interest in the Civil Rights Movement has been spurred on by jazz, blues, etc).

I still recall when I was sixth former managing to con a Monk fan into thinking I had a new Monk record by playing the opening bars of the second movement of Bartok's piano sonata! Ha! But could you con a Bartok fan into believing that a solo Monk performance is a little known Bartok piece?

Thanks for the responses. Interesting to read the different ways people became involved and helps explain to some extent the different ways we react to this music. I thought today about an experience that might have laid some very early groundwork. Sometime around 1965/6 (I was about 10) I went with my family to a film in the Orchard Road cinema in Singapore city. The film opened with swirling clouds and a grand orchestral theme with horns up front; the camera gradually peered through the cloud to reveal a vast mountainous scene, finally zooming into a meadow where a woman was twirling around and getting very excited. Somehow we ended up with the LP which I played endlessly (on a 'Show'n Tell' machine!). Now, there's something of the Richard Strauss/Mahler in that overture and I just wonder if 8 years later my very quick adaption to that music might have had its seed in Richard Rodgers' music. I've frequently read the suggestion that the Mahler boom of the 60s and 70s might be related to a generation brought up on Hollywood films with soundtracks by emigre middle Europeans like Korngold whose style was from that same fin-de-siecle milieu. ***************** Without knowing it at the time (early 70s), I think I was put off the more obvious starting points (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms) by the way that it seemed to be music where you could hear the joins. The structure is relatively well signalled, the themes (in the more popular pieces I'd have heard) strongly etched, the repeats clear to hear. What grabbed me with Sibelius was the way the music just seemed to grow, bar by bar, without clearly demarcated sections (of course they are there, but not so clear to hear to an untutored ear). The opening of Sibelius 5 just sounded like a glacier moving slowly and mutating gradually. A bit later Delius and Debussy grabbed me because of the way they would often throw up a delicious melody, harmony or effect and then not repeat it (or not without transforming it in some way). Even as a really inexperienced 14 year old listening to pop radio quite randomly I recall being annoyed by songs that did not vary the music from verse to verse. Repetition has neve been a thing I've taken to easily (one reason Minimalism has taken so long to appeal - the surface repetition has obscured the changes going on underneath, for my ears). With Stravinsky, Bartok and Janacek it's the off-centre rhythms that have always thrilled me - either through unusual time signatures (and maybe prog-rock prepared the ground there) or the accenting. The connection with Monk is not hard to find and that music shares much (often derives from) some similarly of-beat folk musics. Regular beats - the rock 'dun-duh, dun-dun-duh', the drum machine 'dump, dump, dump, dump' - have always grated on me.

Enjoyed this Cold War thriller set in an imaginary Eastern Bloc state and Berlin at the time of the airlift. Just started: Found it cheap in St. Ives a couple of months back. The opening chapter is a bit 'our glorious British past', something I vere away from, but it's proving quite compelling. The account of the Battle of the Nile ('Aboukir Bay') is very well done.

Thanks, Jazzjet. Doesn't become properly nostalgic for me until about 2/3rds down. But fascinating nonetheless.

This question related to jazz has generated a few threads. Given the discussions going on in the 'what are you listening to' thread, I'd be interested to hear how people developed an interest in a music that is only marginally more popular than jazz. Three questions (no need to answer all or any...just thought joggers)... 1. Did you grow up in a household with classical music around you? 2. Did you learn an instrument and experience classical music that way? 3. How does classical music relate to your love of jazz? A secondary interest, a primary interest (with jazz in second place) or part of the seamless web of music? ********************** My own experience. I grew up in a household with no concept of 'high culture'. My dad had a genuine but untrained love of light classics, musicals and Sinatra/Crosby type music. So we had random reel to reel tapes with everything from Danny Kaye to Chopin favourites in the house. Being a forces family I was forever moving school so learning an instrument was never even considered. I do recall odd things from school - a bit of Falla's 'Three Cornered Hat', a bit of Grieg, I even sang in a choir very briefly and we did 'And the Glory of the Lord' from The Messiah. Music only exploded into my consciousness in 1969 as first pop and then rock. I began to to hear snippets of Bach, Sibelius, Stravinsky in the prog bands of the time but every attempt to listen to the real thing bored me. Until one night I was listening to Yes vocalist Jon Anderson being interviewed and one track he played was the last movement of Sibelius 5. I was bowled over and borrowed a copy from a friend. It grabbed me straight away. At that point I went off to university and started to pick up the occasional budget classical album. I was also forced to spend long holidays on an RAF base in Germany where the local NAAFI had little of the off-the-wall rock I favoured. So I started buying relatively inexpensive DG recordings of Sibelius, Mahler, Bruckner and Stravinsky. Isolated for a couple of months on this camp I started to really warm to the music. Back at university I had a friend who had grown up in a very different environment with an opera loving father. He introduced me to so much music - I can still recall the day he played me a Barbirolli recording of Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia and 5th - instant adoration! The real tipping point came with the punk explosion from 1976. Rock ceased to have any interest for me and I started following up leads into jazz, folk and classical. Richard Strauss, Janacek and Elgar were early enthusiasms (I'd been to a few Prom concerts around that time). For some reason it was always the 20thC that grabbed me - though I bought records of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven etc it always sounded like music at a distance (still does) where the 20thC music hit me right up front. I also started reading widely - magazines like Gramophone and the string of more popular titles that appeared (and vanished) in the 80s, composer biographies and, most influentially, books and radio programmes by Anthony Hopkins who brilliantly let you into the mechanics of the music without going over your head. I'd also credit the excellent BBC Music guides that could be purchased very cheaply - I do hope they get put online at some point. The last great push came with the appearance of the CD. Classical music was quick off the starting block where it took much longer for (non-mainsstream) rock, folk or jazz to catch up. So virtually all my exploration from 1985 to 1991 was in the classical area. Jazz took centre stage again from '91 but in the last few years classical and jazz have been more or less in balance. *************** So, over to you. What drew you in?

No, I'm a fan of 6 too. It's shortness and rather odd structure - an opening slow movement, then two quick movements - probably counts against it being as well considered as the more traditionally structured 4th, 5th or 10th. [There was an excellent BBC Radio 3 90 min programme by Stephen Johnson on the two Shostakovich pianos trios broadcast this evening - available on the BBC replayer until next Sunday (18th Oct). It was recorded in a school so some of the historical explanation sounds a little simplistic to an adult audience; but it's good to hear the musical side (how the cells in the music generate other themes etc) explained so plainly. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n6thz]

An early Autumn day in Sherwood Forest: Amazed by how green it still is. Trees along the main roads are much more advanced. Do trees protected by others in a forest take longer to go brown? Will be interesting to pop back in a fortnight.

I'm just intrigued as to when those controlling them started to see them as more than a fly-by-night pop band. There's so much mythology surrounding the band it becomes all too easy to recall how 'you always knew they were something different, something deeper'.

Do you know that "Rubber Soul" was their most rushed album (aside from the first one)? Marathon sessions with mixing going on in one studio and recording going on in another. "Wait" was a "Help" reject that they dusted off to make the deadline. Didn't know that. But being rushed doesn't mean that those around them in production were not treating the sessions rather more seriously. As I said, pure speculation. It could just be that with all the previous activity they'd simply become better musicians. They'd certainly become more original and consistent songwriters.

Got to 'Rubber Soul' night. Apart from being (to my mind) their best collection of songs up to that point (I'd say they go even better in that respect on the next one), the sound quality and general care over things like tuning is much, much better. It's almost as if that up to that point they were still being considered by those in charge as a pop band whose audience would not notice an out of tune guitar; where here they were seeing the records might just have a longer term future and be reaching an audience beyond teenagers who might expect a little more. Or maybe technology just got better. Pure speculation on my part. But whereas I enjoy the earlier records in parts and with reservations, this one really holds together on so many levels. Very enjoyable to revisit the music in this way.

Marilyn Crispell was excellent last night. A wonderfully inventive 45 minute improvisation to start with that eventually came to rest on a lovely 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most' (perfect for the season. Shorter pieces in the second half (well one was 25 minutes!) and a couple of encores. Interested is how she sustained the longer improvisations without resorting to the vamps that often root Jarrett's longer solo recordings.

I love the 7th - it gets a lot of flack because of the semi-Bolero section in the first movement (notably Bartok's parody in the Concerto for Orchestra) but as a whole I think it is magnificent. There's a lovely, bucolic passage just before the Bolero starts up that conjours up visions of peasants happily bringing in the harvest on the collective (not a raincloud, purge or grain seizure in sight) - I used to use it in the background of a sequence of slides showing Soviet propaganda photos and posters from around the time of collectivisation. The slow movement is heart-breaking. I don't really have a single favourite - 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 15th all really do it for me in the 'dour' symphonies. I enjoy the greater playfulness of the 1st and 9th and there's plenty to enjoy in the more cinematic 11th/12th. I don't play the 13th/14th so often - I'm not big on classical vocals. It's only the 2nd and 3rd that leave me a bit cold.

I'm not a musician but I've often read that Faure, Debussy and Ravel had a huge influence on the likes of Jobim; it might account for the richer harmony in Brazillian music than, say, Cuban music. Though I know classical influences long predate the Bossa Nova era. You'll find lots of enthusiasm for the Afro-Sambas (in their various recorded guises) on the Brazillian recommendations thread. Baden Powell has been one of the great delights of my discoveries of the last few years. Egberto Gismonti probably fits here too - his latest ECM is even reviewed in the main classical review section of the current Gramophone magazine!

Talking of Lucys, does anyone else feel totally let down by the chorus of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds'? I can still remember first hearing Sgt Pepper in early 1973 after having read in so many places of its legendary status. I was really hooked by the dreamscape of the verse; but I just couldn't believe how dull the chorus was, losing all the magic set up so far. Put me off the whole record for several years. In fact there's probably a whole thread in songs with great verses let down by crass choruses! Richard Thompson...one of my favourite musicians...has a weakness here.

Don't know if this would interest you, MG, but this young UK band have had a project going for a few years with drummers from Guinea. They played Cheltenham last year and were excellent - Ornettish jazz with African rhythm: http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/artist_id_1044/cd_id_1561 Their drummer, Dave Smith, is the most impressive young jazz drummer I've come across since Seb Rochford emerged. Sorry. Bugger all to do with the Hollies. ****************** Can I also say the wolf whistles on Jennifer Eccles annoy me. Along with the un-English line about 'making the grade'. Should have been 'One Monday morning, found out I'd passed the 11-Plus.' Might have made rhyming difficult. And god knows what they'd have made of it in Peoria.

I'm all in favour of a national campaign to send all the drum machines to Guinea. Perhaps we could operate a reciprocal arrangement, getting all the Guinean drummers to move here in exchange.

Yes, but they're much easier to do now. You can easily assemble a master take of a track digitally using bits and pieces of things. My point was digital technology allows you to obsess to a whole new level. Most jazz records, however, still seem to get recorded pretty quickly. Except for Verve recordings where it takes ages to get Herbie Hancock/Sting/Peter Gabriel etc to phone in/e-mail/upload their parts.

Suits me. The 'dance underground' is way outside my experience. Just get them out of Joni Mitchell's hands!

Did you ever notice on "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" how flat the opening vocals are in relation to the piano underneath? Yes! This evening! I'd have thought George Martin - with his reputation - would have dealt with that. Maybe he was guilty of assuming a pop audience wouldn't notice.

There's a lot to recommend among their early 70's recordings, although as times changed, so did their music. My issue, I'm sure, but whatever the first record was that featured that plodding 4/4, hit a chord on everry beat piano style that rapidly became the Kudzu of Pop, I'd like to get a time machine and go back to the session and STOP IT BEFORE IT EVEN GOT STARTED. No, I'm with you there. I'll fund the time machine as long as you also agree to take out everyone from the electronics industry who might have been partially responsible for the eventual appearance of the drum machine.

I always liked it for the melody, harmony, and arrangement. I've never been a lyrics person, in fact I'd have to admit I've always been somewhat of an voluntarily apathetic dunce in that regard. Never cared much for poetry, either. At any rate, I would have thought that the dislike that a lot of people have for this song would also have a lot to do with the "bombardment" I referred to earlier. I mean, was there anybody who didn't record that tune back in the day? If you had the radio or the tv on for longer than 10 minutes, I'm pretty sure you would have heard it. And yet I still like it. When I hear it now, it has kind of an (appealing) haunting quality to it. In my place and time it probably sounded different. The vocal is quite Americanised...even at that early age I was irritated by this in British singers. Probably doesn't get noticed t'other side t'Atlantic (that's Yorkshire!). It always seems a very 'dense' arrangement - at that time I was veering towards the more luminous, space filled arrangements of people like Free, the Fairports and so forth. 'He Ain't Heavy' just seems like a harbinger of the overwrought arrangements of the mid-70s onwards (Bohemian Rhapsody etc) that (together with punk) shut down my pop/rock interest. I can see why it might appeal to others - in some ways it has an almost gospel feel to it.

Just finished 'Help' I'd always assumed the 'approximate' tunings were a fault of off-centre disc pressing or rushed CD mastering. But I still hear some dodgy instrumental intonation on these recordings. The falling arpeggios after the initial verse on the title track, for example. Just sounds a bit flat to me.

My guilty nostalgia records are the first 6 Moody Blues albums (the prog version of the band). I couldn't listen to them from the late-70s until a few years back - they seemed so mawkish. Yet I now have them all on my iPod and inevitably play one or two when I get down to Cornwall. That's where I bought my first records and they were my first favourite group. So regardless of merit - and I can list their faults - they still move me. Perhaps an example of where nostalgia has made the inherent merit (or lack of) quite irrelevant.

Absolutely nothing, as long as we recognise it for what it is. An airbrushed version of the past (or our past). I find myself overcome with nostalgia for the 60s/70s listening to music I never knew or hardly knew at the time.