A Lark Ascending

Wonderful. Last time I came across this was in 1969 as a reluctant 13 year old at school. Marvellous performance by an all male cast (which made the plot even harder to follow - woman disguised as a man is actually a bloke!). My teacher must have done a better job than I thought because I remembered a lot of this.

Another interesting one just out: Guitar/Nyckelharpa, Bass, Vocals and Sarangi Has the feel of Pentangle album with dippy ISB vocals overlain with Indian music (Very 60s!). The bass is particularly effective, heping to loosen everything up and provide a flexible rhythmic feel, a la Danny Thompson. Getting quite a bit of attention outside the folk world: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/24/folk-jon-thorne-james-yorkston-suhail-yusuf-khan Clearly a light day on the Adele/Taylor Swift/Amy Winehouse front at The Guardian.

No 20

England is small but densely populated. If you are prepared to travel a bit (or more to the point, have the time for it) there are a fair few centres that put on operas within 2-3 hours journey (and some much closer).

Just the two Liszt concertos. Nowhere near as scary as I'd expected - I always associate Liszt with 'Me! Me! Me!' celebrity helden-maestro posturing. Proved far more attractive than that.

Handel: Orlando (Birmingham Town Hall) The English Concert; Harry Bicket director / harpsichord; Iestyn Davies; Carolyn Sampson; Erin Morley; Kyle Ketelsen; Sasha Cooke ...or 'Trouble in Arcadia'. Enjoyed 'The Messiah' in Cambridge (which also had Davies and Sampson as featured chirps) just before Xmas so much that I was on the lookout for another big Handel oratorio or opera. I don't think I've ever seen a baroque opera in the flesh before (though I've enjoyed a few on DVD and CD). A concert performance without staging or costumes. I was a bit apprehensive as to whether I'd be able to keep my attention through three hours of 18thC opera. In the event it was utterly compelling. Needless to say the playing and singing were highly professional (I'm not qualified to comment on where it lies in the grande hierarchy of 'performance'). What amazed me was how Handel used the slender resources at hand - essentially strings and harpsichord with occasional use of bassoon and two oboes and one early aria with two horns - to created such a rich and varied setting for the singers. The mad scenes in Act II and early Act III were just so restrained compared with what I'm used to in 19th and especially 20thC operas (Wozzeck or Peter Grimes it was not!). Despite being in civvies (sort of) and just stood on the stage the singers did enough acting to convey the drama of the preposterous plot. I'm not sure if it was meant to be a comedy but they played it for laughs in places (and got a genuine response from the audience rather than that annoying cognoscenti tittering you get so often at the jokes that most listeners know are there) without disrespecting the piece. Some of the arias had spine-tingling moments - an absolute beauty where the singer was shadowed by two violas and, the moment that really brought the house down, one of Sampson's arias. I used to find baroque/classical note-warbling incredibly irritating but last night I really got a sense of the difficulty and sheer physical effort that must require. On the look out now for more baroque opera/oratorio (I'd love to see a Rameau) - shouldn't be long. Handel wrote a zillion. Birmingham (a place I've not been to for about ten years) was, like Manchester, Oxford and every motorway in England, a building site. Can be seen in London, Amsterdam and New York in the next few weeks - highly recommended. Not sure how the theorbo player gets his instrument on the plane. Not sure how he manages to play it...John McLaughlin, eat your heart out.

Maz O'Connor at the Greystones Sheffield Young up-and-coming folk singer - beautiful voice (her diction often brings back the ghost of Sandy Denny), very strong songwriter, lovely stage personality. Mostly previewing her new album with a few songs from her first two. Had the audience eating out of her hand. Saw her last year playing solo at Sidmouth, tonight she had a double bass player and fiddle/banjo/pedal-steely-sort-of-thing as well. The bass was especially effective in adding colour and rhythmic drive to the songs. Suspect she'll be a major player on the folk scene within a few years - just hope she doesn't get grabbed for the mainstream. She's got the talent and the looks for cross-over.

Disc 1 off latter: Melodien, Chamber Concerto, Piano Concerto, Mysteries of the Macabre

Blue skies all week. Think that's over now.

...or vinyl...

'One Child' (BBC2) - first episode of this engaging drama about a Chinese orphan brought up in a loving middle class family in England, suddenly having to confront the country of her birth. Think this went out in 2013. Watched all three programmes over the last few days. Initially thought it might be a bit dull but it turned out to be gripping - an intriguing take on British maritime and imperial history, seen through shipping disasters. Traces the impact they had on changing practices. The section in the last episode on the ship owners (and their parliamentary protectors) tooth and nail opposition to Samuel Plimsol on the grounds that it would adversely affect profitability and competitiveness rang many a bell (not just the Lloyds one!) with today's world (of course we can't possibly pay a living wage!).

No 5 of the Bartok string driven things. No 14 of V-L.

Disc 2. Beautiful double disc. No 19. Especially like the last movement - the way the motto theme invades the episodes all over the orchestra and fugal effects. One of the first non-20th C 'classical' pieces I bought on LP back in the late-70s. I was a long way from engaging with 18th/19thC music then though for some reason this clicked. Still love the piece.

Yes, the more you think about it, there is so much going on it's hard to take in at the time. I rarely re-watch films or TV but these two series I'll return to in a year or two.

Should be out on DVD in a few weeks - the Beeb are very quick off the mark there. I was late to series 1 and only managed to watch episode 1 before the entire series vanished. However, I was able to rent the DVD from the place I use immediately. I'll let you know if I spot a rebroadcast.

I don't think so. You can see it for 30 days on the BBC iPlayer but I don't know if that has any reach beyond the UK. I've not watched the current series yet (stored on the digibox for leaner times) but another good one is "Shetland". Nice, distinct location with odd customs. The starring role is played by the weather which is usually awful.

No. 18 No 1 of the Matthews. The Wooden Prince - played this last week but was reading about it today and decided to give it more attention. It's a piece I've usually played in the background without it making much of an impression (it doesn't have those 'big tunes' that allows ballets like The Firebird or Petrushka to jump out when half-listening). Lots of fingerprints of the mature Bartok but it still seems in a Straussian world - huge orchestra, thick orchestrations. What really did catch my attention were the two dances by the princess with the wooden doll that frame the centre of the piece - the influence of his folk music collecting really jumps out there with strange harmonies and off-centre rhythms.

Happy Valley (episode 3) was brilliant last night. Apart from the storyline(s) there are so many clever touches. The sequence where Catherine tries to wheedle her nickname in the office and then under the hanging man was priceless. The prison visiting scene with Tommy and the obsessed girl was incredibly disturbing, superbly acted. It also had a classic 'don't do it moment' when the young woman PC accepts the offer of a drink with the middle aged letch. Sarah Lancashire just amazes as the tough but deeply troubled main character.

If you are a student the top ten looks different according to a Guardian article from a few months back: http://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/dec/01/10-best-cities-in-the-world-to-be-a-student-2016-in-pictures Imagine you'll walk out at the end of your course in most of those with a pretty hefty loan to pay back. Oh, the joys of hierarchical lists. (Student accommodation seems to be one of the big investment opportunities in Britain at present - every time I go to Sheffield a new tower block or conversion seems to have sprung up).

Disc 1

Be interesting to see a hierarchical list of cities based on income differentials. Narrowest at the top. I suspect that would equate with quality of life.

Lovely disc of feathery music. Don't know Hahn apart from a disc of songs but this fits nicely with some of those inter-war French (and some Francophile Brit) composers. Hahn was Venezuelan originally though grew up in France; the partner of Proust for a time (I always expect a chorus of Monty Python whenever I see the name Proust). No 4. One off this disc and again off the online breakdown. Particularly taken by the middle movement with its central 'night music', the twitterings of which reappear in the coda; the dazzling fourth movement that is all pizzicato and unorthodox snapping; and the demonic opening to the fifth movement. Well into David Cooper's new biography of Bartok - highly recommended to Bartokettes. I've tried several books on Bartok over the years and got lost (sometimes because of translation issues). Cooper tells the life story well but also analyses the music in some depth, as it appears chronologically in the book. A bit too technical for me, but he's paragraphed it in such a way so you can skim it and come back when your brain is feeling up to the challenge. Never knew Bartok and Delius were mates. Apparently Bartok used to collect beetles - connection there with the 'night music'. Bought the latter a few years back for the rarities though it's always great to hear Flos Campi.

Forget who the best jazz pianist is or which dead maestro it's best to be seen 'appreciating'. Are you living in the best city (if you live in a city)? The winner, apparently, is: Vienna named world's top city for quality of life Don't see Rotherham on the list. [To save you looking London comes in at 39, New York at 44]

Not talkin' bout a revolution: where are all the protest songs? http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/22/protest-songs-folk-music-nancy-kerr-martin-carthy Interesting article - though a bit one-swallow-making-a-summerish with regard to the 'Sweet Liberties' project. (A rare Guardian article that is not about Taylor Swift or David Bowie)

No 17. Exercise music - Mozart piano concertos were almost perfectly designed for it. Heard a fragment of this on the Previn programme yesterday and dug it out (not hard on an iPod). Especially taken by the middle movement with its melancholy A theme and wrist-slashing episodes; and then the tune that seeds the variation movement which sounds like it could have been a Papageno song from The Magic Flute. Love the gallop at the end too! Had me pedalling like the blazes. It took me a long time to enjoy Mozart - on the surface he sounds like wig-doffing court music for people who like to say 'sublime' a lot (better than 'awesome', I suppose!). Perseverance paid off.