A Lark Ascending

Beautiful music from this little noticed Welsh composer. Neoclassicism meets pastoralism. Echoes of Stravinsky, Tippett, Britten. No 2 - sounded wonderful this morning. Britten clicked with me instantly all those years ago but it took a lot longer to get inside Tippett's music (in terms of enjoying it and being engaged by it). No. 4 on here is a gem too. Extraordinary piece. I'd love to hear this one live.

I'd forgotten about the unidentified cat!

Disc 2 of the Zemlinsky; disc 1 (off Spotify) of the Strauss.

Readily available now. Lovely performance and superbly recorded. ********************************* Good to see this Kickstarter campaign to release Keith's most recent larger scale piece (already recorded) - "Keith Tippett Octet - The Nine Dances Of Patrick O'Gonogon"; https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1707230936/keith-tippett-octet-the-nine-dances-of-patrick-ogo?ref=hero_thanks I saw a performance of this at the Vortex in London a few years back (2013, I see glancing above) - hope the campaign succeeds. It was a very engaging piece in his more composed style. Still needs just over £500 to reach its target. Tell your friends!

Another excellent Le Carre. What is extraordinary about his 60s books is that for most of their length they seem to deal with petty irritabilities within bureaucracies. Acts of daring do or violence are few and far between. This one cleverly has you trying to track down a supposed defector to the Soviet Union only to turn the tables in the last 50 pages and find the disappearance has a very different motivation. Lots of exploration of Germany's post-war identity crisis and Britain's troubles facing loss of world status. And a very topical sub-theme about Britain's angling to enter the 'Common Market'.

Disc 1 of the first; No 26 of the second (this morning's exercise choice); No. 1 of the last.

Think I need a rest - a couple more longhairs coming up in the week ahead. I like Mullen - saw a great gig by him with Dave O'Higgins about 20 years back. I can still picture their wonderful take on Ornette's 'Ramblin''. Crosland I only know from record. I remember seeing Morrissey-Mullen around '74/'75 in Aberystwyth whilst visiting a mate. Students union - only place in the area you could get a drink on a Sunday. Packed! He also played in a short-lived rock-soul band called Kokomo in the mid-70s who I remember seeing at one of those free Hyde Park afternoon concerts - didn;t know who he was then so can't be sure he was there.

I think Surman lives in Norway though he came from Devon...you can still hear the wonderful burr when he talks. Kings of the South Seas with Tim Eriksen - Chasing the Whale (Ropery Hall, Barton Upon Humber in North Lincolnshire) Ben Nichols – vocals, double bass, concertina (The Full English, Seth Lakeman Band, Fay Hield Band); Richard Warren – guitar, vocals (Spiritualized, Soulsavers feat Mark Lanegan); Evan Jenkins - drums, vocals (Neil Cowley Trio, Eric Clapton, Bert Jansch); Tim Eriksen - guitar, vocals (Cordelia's Dad, wonderful solo performer in his own right) Excellent set of traditional songs and arrangements associated with the whaling industry. The core trio played the songs straight but with rock-like rhythms and spacey electric guitar providing colour as well as scrunchy foundation. Mostly songs were connected with the British South Sea trade; Eriksen brought in some from the New England tradition. Really enjoyable - foot-stomping, good join in choruses (you don't get that at an Evan Parker (or a Mahler) concert!). Small venue but a near capacity crowd loved it. We didn't get Philip Hoare doing readings who is on the programme in some events. Part of a tour of venues associated with the whaling trade. The previous night the concert had been on the Cutty Sark in Greenwich! Not sure what Basingstoke had to do with the whaling trade though! Interesting venue. Ropery Hall sits right next to the Humber Bridge on the Lincolnshire side of the river, opposite Hull. A really long building that originally, as the name suggests, made ropes for ships. They've taken a segment at the northern end and turned it into an arts centre.

Don't know a lot of his music but his incendiary playing on 'Escalator Over the Hill' and 'Tropic Appetites' were one of the things that got me interested in exploring jazz c. 1975 when I first heard those records. RIP

Disc 2 of the Freddie; Op 132 of the Wiggy; all of the Mantovani (a lovely disc but I couldn't helped but be reminded of his nibs on some of the pieces) . Just watched yesterday's BBC 4 programme on Maxwell Davies which was very enjoyable. Biggest mystery....how did a working class lad from Salford end up with an accent straight out of Eton? St Thomas Wake - the Prom footage of this from the above programme showing 'serious music lovers' letting their hair down was really embarrassing. Reminded me of that dreadful thing they used to do, braying some insider joke in unison before the concert and during the interval to polite titters. They seem to reserve this for a charity appeal nowadays based on my last few Proms. Still pretentious but pretentiousness in a good cause.

PC off latter - heard bits of it on the car radio whilst doing local chores last week and dug out this BBC Music Magazine cover disc. Afraid it didn't keep my attention. The mid-19thC remains a bit of a black hole for my ears.

Glad that went well, sidewinder. As I think we've both said before, one of Mike's best pieces. Sits proudly alongside his extended works of the past. I saw a copy of the album for sale in the Bull Ring HMV in Birmingham the other day. Westbrook goes mainstream!

Disc 1 of the Freddie, K515 + 516 of the Wolfy. Die Seejungfrau, Sinfonietta

Making up for lost time. Whaling songs by the Humber Bridge tomorrow!

One that wasn't an April Fool but sounds like it was. The other day a petition to have Parliament recalled to discuss the steel crisis got enough signatures for it to be raised in Parliament. But Parliament is in Easter recess so it can't be raised until they return. I also liked the one today about Olivia Coleman being chosen as the next James Bond: (Her character in the recent 'The Night Manager' was adapted from a male part in the original novel) Though maybe the funniest thing there is the Daily Mail making a joke instead of screaming at its readers about some 'politically correct' outrage!

It's hard getting one past you these days but I was half-way through this piece before it clicked. The Daimlers gave it away: Exclusive: royal family considering dramatic Brexit intervention Probably incomprehensible outside Europe.

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Collon, CBSO Youth Chorus Webern - Six Pieces Op. 6 (chamber version) Brahms - Four Songs for Women’s Voices, 2 horns and harp Op. 17 Mahler - Symphony No. 10 (completed by Deryck Cooke) Webern - Extraordinary to think how this was composed a couple of years before the Mahler. Although it grew out of the same soil you're in a completely different world. I can't claim to 'love' Webern but find his music beguiling without really understanding what is going on. Like looking at a sequence of dazzling but mysterious jewels rather than following an evolving narrative (the narrative might be there...or maybe it's deliberately not...but I can't hear it). Brahms - Not pieces I know. Very attractive without having me rushing to return. Mahler 10 - I'm obsessed with this piece. First heard the detached Adagio (the only part to have anything close to a full score in Mahler's hand) on the 4th side of a Mahler 6 in the mid 70s. Bought Rattle's full version in the early 80s...I can still picture the room I was in when the whole thing first overwhelmed me. There was also a wonderful TV documentary around that time as part of a short series on the music of 1911 with Rattle again. Saw a Rattle performance in 1992 also at Symphony Hall (thank you programme for chronologically pinpointing that one). Last night the two great outer movements proved as mesmerising as ever. The searing, ever-varying opening with it breathtaking dissonance 2/3rds through; and above all, in the last movement, the most beautiful melody you will ever hear emerging on a flute from an extraordinary texture of muted bass drum, tuba and horns, flowering into a series of waves on the strings, interrupted just over halfway through by a return of the nightmare music from the first movement. I'm afraid I well up every time that melody emerges from the mist. But for me what I most got from last night were the three shorter middle movements which can get a bit overshadowed by the massive frame either side. Never noticed before that the second is actually a mammoth concerto grosso, a bit like the end of the 7th. The third also reminded me of the 7th but the inner movements with their serenade like feel. Most revelatory was the fourth movement which sounds like a constant tension between utter anguish and a desire to sit back and enjoy a good Viennese cream cake. Very unsettling. Watching and listening from slightly to the left of the image above (from net) it was also noticeable just how exposed some instruments were - the trumpet during the two 'nightmare' passages in 1 and 5, one of the horns, the tuba and the flute at the start of 5. It must be terrifying to be spotlighted like that. Back when I first heard it there were conductors and orchestras who would not touch 10 as inauthentic. Rattle made a big thing of championing it (I seem to recall one of his riders when going to Berlin was programming it). I've long claimed it as up there with 2, 6, Das Lied and 9 as my favourite Mahler. After last night I think I'd go one further and place it as my favourite. What would 20thC music have sounded like if he'd lived another twenty years (there's a novel in that thought!)? Good 30 minute talk before the concert too - about the background of the Mahler (leaving Vienna for New York, diagnosis of his heart condition, death of his daughter and marital difficulties) and how the reconstruction from the sketches by Cooke (and assistants) came about.

Disc 1: K174 and K406 Disc 2. An awful lot of very short things. No. 8. He was in a good mood when he wrote this one. Disc 5 - Violin Concertos 1041 + 2 and Two Violins 1043. Absolutely spiffing, as Bach himself might have said (not sure how it translates).

Disc three No 4. The Beethoven symphony I've listened to least over the centuries. A marvellous piece, especially the ever-varying slow movement (a little like the slow movement in 6) - there's a heart-stopping moment on the (I think!) third statement of the main theme when a flute (flutes?) picks up the tune. And one thing I'd never noticed before - at the start of the development of the first movement a wonderfully mysterious section that seems to pre-echo Gotterdammerung.

Beijing, China: Cherry blossom starts to bloom near a bridge in the Summer Palace Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Media http://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2016/mar/30/photo-highlights-of-the-day-tate-steel-and-cherry-blossom

The only Elvis CD I ever needed. No idea where it went...I've a suspicion a workman half-inched it.

Thanks - I now have a big gap up to (and including) The Boer War. This seems to cover it - reviews are good on Amazon.

Fascinating account of the ad hoc imperialism of the first half of Victoria's reign up to 1861 (things got much more systematic in the latter part of her reign as powerful rivals emerged and communications improved to allow greater direction from London). The Afghan and Sikh wars, Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the the attack on China in the late 1850s. David tells the tale without making judgements about the imperialism except lightly in the concluding chapter. I'm just staggered that Britain has got anyone left talking to it in the rest of the world. The arrogance, brutality and downright theft is appalling. Down the years I remember several Tory spokespeople on education advocating a teaching of the British Empire to children emphasising how it was a 'good thing'. Unbelievable.

The MD reminded me of Sibelius in places; I seem to recall he was an influence from the 70s onwards. Re: Bartok - the early Suite sounds like Brahms/Liszt with a tiny bit of folksy flavouring; the folksiness is much more pronounced in the later pieces - straightforward and tuneful but with a rough, tart feel.

Ballard had a strange way of looking at the world. Interesting film though I couldn't help but notice the irony of a satire on the dangers of social inequality being played by the cream of our public school educated actors. Quite disorienting to see Irons and Hiddleston together only a couple of days after watching them as Henry IV and Prince Hal.