A Lark Ascending

Off Spotify. Another Ave Maris Stella but I was particularly interested in hearing Image, Reflection, Shadow. Has a prominent part for that famous Mancunian-Scottish instrument, the cimbalom. Originally on the long dormant Unicorn-Kanchana label, these records now seem to be owned by something called Treasure Island music. Unfortunately they seem to have buggered this one. A sound I recall from some mass-produced CD-rs I have - a swishing sound at peaks that sounds like the disc revolving, then vanishes in quieter passages. Not seen them as discs but there are a number on Spotify and also iTunes. Not sure about this. The Violin Concerto reminded me of John Tavener - all a bit gazing into the eyes of the godhead.

Llandudno, which I think started last year, seems to have a similar sort of line-up to Swanage - a bit like Appleby used to be but without the tartness of the Evan Parker Freezone. It clashes with Sidmouth Folk Festival for me but I'm not sure I'd have been tempted if I'd been free. http://www.llandudnojazzfestival.com/#!schedule/ctxb It must be to do with the recession and the cutbacks in local government subsidy as those authorities are hammered by austerity. Ten years ago they were flying in the Mingus Big Band for one gig at Brecon. Most of the festivals seem quite insular with just the occasional American performer with a high enough profile to guarantee sales. A long way from Bath of old where Ned Knowles was regularly lining up performers from all over Europe no-one has never heard of. There also seem to be some more glitzy festivals which cross over into soul and rock. This one gets heavy promotion: http://www.lovesupremefestival.com/lineup We might be able to challenge the 'jazz festival' label under the trades descriptions act! Nothing wrong with it as a music festival but there's not a lot for jazz fans to chew on.

Anything catch your eye? Cheltenham is as tame as it has been in the last few years but I'm going to go down on the Saturday (maybe bring the tent and do a bit of walking) to see: Alexander Hawkins: Environment Music - with Laura Jurd, Percy Pursglove and Nick Malcolm, alongside students from Birmingham Conservatoire. (a free one) Tim Berne's Snakeoil (only ever seen Berne do a walk on for a tune during a Django Bates gig). The Printmakers - the Nikki Iles/Norma Winstone band responsible for the marvellous 'Westerly' last year - saw them in Sheffield several years back. Be good to hear how they've come on - a great band where the front rank players - Mike Walker, Mark Lockhart, Steve Watts, James Maddren - are up there and at the centre, not just supporting the singer. Bath is more or less dead as a jazz weekend. Anything else promising?

Thanks for those - I must try the Cleo Laine even if her voice generally has a nails on blackboard effect on me (reminiscences of those rather bland TV affairs where Dankworth, Galway, John Williams, Laine etc made a big fuss of the lack of boundaries between music and then produced something rather mushy). Racking my brain over the weekend I found it hard to come up with anything on the jazz front. At a real stretch Coltrane did 'Greensleeves' which RVW used in 'Sir John in Love' which is based on 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'. On the outermost fringes of jazz there's 'West Side Story' (Romeo and Juliet) and 'Kiss Me Kate' (The Taming of the Shrew). ********************************************* In the 'out of jazz area' some of my favourites include: A Midsummer Night's Dream - the Britten opera and Purcell's 'The Fairy Queen' Romeo and Juliet - the Prokofiev ballet and the uber-gushy Tchaikovsky tone poem The Tempest - the Sibelius incidental music and Thomas Ades recent opera (only watched it once so hardly a 'favourite' but it was an engaging listen). Henry V and Richard III - some nice Walton incidental music. As well as 'Sir John in Love' RVW used Shakespeare as inspiration elsewhere - I particularly like the "Three Shakespeare Songs" for choir (all over in 7 mins but wonderful minutes) and his gorgeous 'Serenade to Music' is a setting of part of 'The Merchant of Venice'. I also have Sallinen's opera based on King Lear on my 'to watch' pile. ********************************************** As for the plays themselves, I think I've watched/read/heard about 20 over the last 45 years. The ones I especially like are: King Lear The Tempest A Midsummers Night's Dream Othello As You Like It Richard II Richard III Julius Caesar I've just got round to the BBC's 'Hollow Crown' series which collects Richard II, Henry IV (both parts) and Henry V (only watched the first so far which was superb). The Beeb are doing the next batch of the history plays in the same format (i.e. out on location rather than in the theatre) this year as part of the general Shakespeare onslaught.

No 3 of the Rach. My favourite of the three. No 2 again. Still largely in a fog but the last, long slow movement is very beautiful. Reminds me of those slow movements in the Beethoven quartets (but without the striking melody (as in singable tune) lines). In the same neck of the woods (or on the same north Atlantic cliff face): Ava Maris Stella is a wonderful piece.

'The Night Manager' has built up to a cracking pitch of tension. Grand finale next week.

No 1 for a third time, this time reading the notes. Can't quite work out the sectioning in the first movement but the middle one grows with each playing. And the very short third movement that dissolves into nothing (but apparently re-emerges in a later quartet) really got my attention this time. Definite links with Bartok's 'night music'. Disc 4 of latter - mainly arrangements of other concertos for violin, flute etc. The Bream is a dream.

Or 'Spin' as it was retitled in the UK came to an end on Friday after two series broadcast since New Year. Really enjoyed both series and I believe a third is in production. I now need to catch up on the recent Icelandic series; and there's a new Danish political one just started plus a Swedish one called Blue Eyes starting next week. Great to see all these non-English language series appearing. They get dismissed by some as affectations for the sub-title loving middle classes but I just like the completely different scenery and political contexts from London, Oxford, New York or L.A. ************************** This afternoon: Never seen this before. Fascinated by the Hermann soundtrack - oozes old Europe right down to the Wagnerian leitmotifs. There's even a bit of tremolo strings that sounds like a cousin of Verklarte Nacht. Intriguing story though it could never be made today, Kim Novak compliantly being manipulated by two men.

Read the first (Greek half) of this a couple of years back and then got distracted by something else. Read the Rome bit over the last week. Although I've covered a fair bit of Roman history in my time (including an excruciating two term subsidiary course in Ancient History taught by classical statues back in the 70s) I've never properly got my head round the chronology, especially during the Republic. This sorted that out (though after Hadrian is still a blur - Fox stops there). Did the job without being wildly exciting. I got the impression that Fox would rather be writing for academics but kept having to remind himself this was for a general reader. Like a lot of 'proper' historians, got a bit bogged down in his sources (Cicero, Tacitus etc) which put the breaks on the narrative. I intend to read Tom Holland's book on the Republic, 'Rubicon', soon (and his early Empire one when it comes out in paperback). He's a popular writer with a real flair for narrative drive - his book on the Persians, 'Persian Fire', was a model of popular history writing.

First three a bit dull (sounded like Mendelssohn); Die Brautwahl sounded richer. Latter is a lovely disc with music by Jean-Louise Dumont Farrenc - Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano, Op. 45; Sally Beamish - Words For My Daughter for Flute and Piano; Thea Musgrave - Impromptu for Flute and Oboe; Amy Marcy Chene-Beach - Theme and Variations for Flute and String quartet; Hilary Tann - From the Song of Amergin for Flute, Viola and Harp. A second listen to Maxwell Davies SQ 1 - still have not got the 'thread' of this but some of the textures are especially affecting...the middle largo especially so.

Stick in the Wheel at the Royal Hotel, Dungworth (on't moo'ers above Sheffield) First time I've been to a 'proper' folk club in decades. A few squeezebox tunes from Jon Boden (of Bellowhead and Spiers and Boden fame - he runs the club with Fay Hield), communal singing with hymn sheets (never seen that before) and two marvellous sets from folk music's hippest band at the present (expect some victories in the Folk Awards next month). Plain singing, simple instrumental accompaniment, totally engaging. They don't just sing like Eastenders...they talk that way too. Absolutely no polished stagecraft. All in the main room of the pub (rather than tucked away in a back room) with the fiddle player's bow threatening to take off my ear. No Christmas Tree or friend of Dave Boy though.

I quite forgot that. Have it on my shelves - must give it a play. Didn't really take it in when I bought it but I've a context now.

We're about to be buried under an avalanche of Shakespeare with the 400th anniversary of his death - not much so far but I imagine his birth and death dates next month will kick things off. Thought he deserved his own thread as there is a fair bit of jazz that alludes to him and his works. The obvious one being: I'm going to an Andy Sheppard concert next week based around Shakespeare. But don't stick to jazz - plays, poems, opera etc. Share your enthusiasms. I'm no Shakespeare buff - did him at school and have bumped into him on or off over the years. But since retiring I've been awake enough to start enjoying him properly via DVD, cinema theatre broadcasts and a trip to Stratford. We tend to over-obsess on him in Britain (and things can get all luvvy terribly quickly!) - but there's no doubting that he's one of those people you can keep coming back to and finding new things.

Disc 1. I'm sure I heard the first two bars of 'Rule Britannia' (Arne's greatest hit) in the third concerto.

There's an article in the current Radio Times where a commentator says he doesn't remember a stronger time for TV drama. I'm inclined to agree (though my impression is distorted as I only watched the occasional thing during my working life). There were lots of superb shows across the years but they seem to be coming thick and fast now. Maybe there's been a realisation that man and woman cannot live by fly-on-the-wall documentaries and game shows alone. We've a tendency to idolise the past and the 'classic' and feel the best is behind us but I sense we're actually living in a bit of a golden age (I'd say the same about British folk music).

Off latter - Harpsichord Concertos 7, 8 + 2 Concertos for 2 Hpschds + 2 Concertos for 3 Hpschds + 1 Concertos for 4 Hpschds.

Never knew that. I withdraw my complaint. Excellent. Did this for 'O' Level. Haven't touched it in 45 years. Amazed at how much I'd remembered of the language.

No 5 of the PCs. I still find all but No. 3 a bit cold. Not surprising that one is the only one to appear regularly. The Satsuma Suite off the latter.

It died in 1976, actually (and I'm a sprightly 60!). Though there were occasional acts of resurrection, REM being one. My favourite was the first I heard, 'Fables of the Reconstruction', which connected with my Fairport and Byrds interests. I enjoyed the run up to 'Automatic for the People', lost interest after that.

I think you mean that she scores a succession of sixes (or even better, gives it one with the nipsy stick). Come on, get a grip!

Superb. Counterfactual tale where Roosevelt is defeated in 1940 by Lindbergh on an isolationist platform and the subsequent rise in anti-semitism. I enjoyed 'The Man in the High Castle' with a similar premise but this one really hooked me. Excellent at showing the way such extraordinary events can tear families apart internally. Some very clever touches - at one point after the assassination of Walter Winchell he comments that this was the last assassination of a leading public figure until Robert Kennedy was shot in June 1968. Which has you thinking 'How did that still happen at that time given the disruption to history?' And then you think 'What happened to Jack?' Brilliant at the sort of everyday description that roots the fiction in reality - from stamp collecting to a kid getting stuck in a bathroom. Couldn't help thinking about the current Presidential campaign whilst reading the descriptions of the lionising of Lindbergh.

That middle one is highly recommended to anyone with a taste for RVW. The Howells in particular is a translucent beauty.

I must watch that at some point. I read the book many years ago.

Sarah Lancashire came to fame via soaps. She then did a number of rather weepy type hard luck story series. I never paid any attention to her until 'Happy Valley'. Completely changed my view on her. Have you seen 'Last Tango in Halifax', also with Lancashire and written by Sally Wainwright (and set in a similar part of Yorkshire)? Unpromising premise - two retired people rekindle an old flame in late life (Lancashire plays a daughter). I ignored it until Happy Valley, then tried it and got gripped. More of a comedy than HV but has that same down-to-earth grittiness (I'm sounding like a spokesperson for the Yorkshire tourist board). Also has Nicola Walker in it in a wonderful role. Enjoyed this last night. Hugely simplified from real life with some rather stock Eureka moments and sub-plots...and, I read on Wiki, takes huge liberties with historical fact (inevitable in telescoping complex events into a two hour film, although it seems the portrayal of Turing's eccentricities as Aspergers went over the line). But good entertainment. My mum worked at Bletchley Park in the war as a teleprinter operator so the story has special meaning. Trying to portray Knightley's character as a dowdy bluestocking was a complete failure!

No 4 of Prokoviev. Very agile, very Prokofiev...but has never really grabbed my ears.