A Lark Ascending

London, UK - Frost covers the ground in Richmond Park as deer graze on bracken Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2016/nov/29/best-photos-of-the-day-alice-and-the-city-of-light

Symph 5, Norfolk Rhapsody No 1, The Lark Ascending. If I could only keep one piece of music for listening (perish the thought) it would be RVW 5.

Well, it would be a novel way of reorganising record shops. The 'cuisine' and 'propaganda' sections on the ground floor for the riff-raff; the 'philosophy' sections upstairs for the more refined (complimentary glass of fine wine for every purchaser). There could be a warning sign on the stairs - 'Time and Being' or 'Time and Space' being communed with above. The whole thing reads to me as standard 'invent an abstract theory and then shoehorn the music you like into the ideas that you approve of.' One of the most frightening things to happen in 2016 is the attack on 'experts' - what do experts know about the economy? why do I need an expert to carry out my heart by-pass?. But when you see highly educated people coming out with cobblers like this you understand at least one of the reasons for that suspicion. Sorry - I'm being sarcastic but this sort of thing drives me nuts. Way too much space in liner notes, programmes etc is taken up with it when the space [and time!] could be better used to give the listener (especially the new, uninitiated listener) a bit of specific guidance as to what the composer intended (as far as is known) in the music. Music can do all sorts of things from giving you a ditty to whistle to having your brain really challenged trying to unknot how all those different lines are working together or how a piece has been carefully organised to provide a sense of balance (or been disrupted, to throw off the balance). It doesn't need artificial theories projected onto it.

Dhaka, Bangladesh: Fishermen place bamboo, where they will later place tree branches and fish food, to catch fish in a river Photograph: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2016/nov/28/best-photos-of-the-day-magical-lantern-festival-and-a-mosul-blaze

Wonderful piece. Would love to hear it live! Can't imagine it gets out much in these parts. Just the Cooke. No. 2 of the latter. One of Arnie's greatest hits. I'm not totally sure what he was getting at using the line "I feel the air of another planet" in the fourth movement (it's usually explained as referring to his move out of tonality) but it's a perfect description of how you feel when you come across a style or genre of music you are quite unfamiliar with and find yourself simultaneously enthralled and utterly mystified. Beautiful piece. This morning: (still a bit early for Bing).

Disc 52: 61/62/36 for the First Sunday of Advent. Bang on the day. This morning: The world is a-wash with choral Christmas discs - I particularly like this one which steers away from the standard carols. Somewhat Brexity in choice of composers - but those floating voices sound amazing early in the morning when it's still dark.

I've the CD of that which is much like the performance I saw in Bath. I really like the 2CD also called 'Glad Day' that came out in the 1990s that has all the music from 'The Westbrook Blake' plus a few other things like 'The Human Abstract' which was on a single! Very similar in arrangement and performance to the original LP - but I still have a soft spot for that original. Would like to hear 'Tyger' from 1971 one day - maybe they've a copy in the record library beyond the pearly gates (though hopefully they've a celestial version of Spotify up there by now with everything ever performed ready for access - that should kill a bit of time in eternity). Drums – Alan Jackson; Electric Bass – Dave Wintour; Guitar – Gary Boyle; Organ, Piano – Fiachra Trench, John Mitchell; Piano – Mike Westbrook; Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Nisar Ahmad Khan; Trombone – Malcolm Griffiths; Trumpet – Dave Holdsworth; Voice Actor – Adrian Mitchell, Bernard Gallagher*, David Henry, David Kincaid, David Ryall, Denis Quilley, Gerald James, Ian Burford, Isabelle Lucas, James Hayes, Jane Wenham, John Moffatt,Louie Ramsay, Malcolm Reid, Maureen Lipman, Michael Turner, Norman Beaton, Peter Duncan, Riggs O'Hara, Sarah Atkinson, Tony Leary

I struggled with 'Middlemarch' when I had to do it for 'A' Level - don't think I got more than 1/3 through - rescued by changing schools to different set texts. But I re-read it some years later (all the way through) and really enjoyed it (and I'm a lightweight who has little patience for or persistence with books that bore me, whatever canon they are part of).

Stumbled on this little winter gem on Youtube. An arrangement of a Robert Frost poem by Rowan Rheingans and Hanna Read. Two utterly distinctive voices, woody instrumentation. Winter magic.

Don't know the pianist (Dutch?) but Arnie Somogyi's a great bass player - love the projects he does based on his Hungarian roots.

Scandi-noir returns to its rightful Saturday night slot. Fairly standard death-in-the-snow-with-troubled-detectives based on the first couple of episodes but these things normally only catch fire a few episodes in. Nice pictures of snowy woods and Stockholm roof tops.

Parts 4-6 of the Chrimbo sing-a-long.

I'll keep my eye out for the stall next time to say hello, Chris.

I was obsessed with the French Revolution in the 80s/90s. I stopped teaching it around 1999 and haven't read a thing since. So this was like going back to a once favourite musical genre. The last Robespierre bio I read was of a 'yes he killed lots of people but his intentions were good' type. Scurr, whilst telling the tale largely with an historian's detachment, can't hide her distaste for Robespierre's priggishness, self-absorption and ultimate indifference to the real suffering of human beings in his pursuit of the interests of abstract humanity. Excellent study of what happens when the machinery of a state falls apart and then the country falls victim to the ambitions of a sequence of politicians prepared to up the ante and manipulate popular discontent to further their own interests. I had a university tutor who maintained that you could read the whole of human experience in a study of the French Revolution. Couldn't help but be reminded of that hearing various contemporary politicians claiming to speak on behalf of 'the people' in pursuit of personal power.

Parts 1 - 3. Time to let the reindeer loose.

The Blake is my favourite Westbrook alongside The Cortege. I saw a performance a while back in Bath of the current arrangement - just as powerful as the original.

I very nearly bought a copy of that in Fopp last week. Might give it a go next time I see it.

The 'Sea Symphony'. Never my favourite RVW - always sounds like a bunch of public school boys and girls playing at being sailors (admittedly the sort of sailor likely to gaze skyward and mumble things about 'the soul'). RVW in his best rumi-cum-roar-um mode at the start. But it sounded nice whilst decorating - one needs to commune with the beyond when sticking on masking tape. . The two symphs. The 3rd is pleasant without remaining long in my mind; but the 4th is a Late-Romantic gem, very much of the world of Mahler or very early Schoenberg ' - 'Further Adventures of the Verklarte Nacht couple'. SQ 1 off latter.

Afraid not. I was in London on Wed/Thu and went to the Norma Winstone 75th but couldn't stay on to Saturday. Would have gone if I'd been there. Good news. I don't have Live and I'm working off an CD-r transfer from my old LP of Westbrook Blake. The new solo record really is a beauty.

A couple of mainstream movies I enjoyed that I had stacked on the recorder. First was a sort of compressed Mad Men. Second was a bit airbrushed with stock characters and problems all sorted, villains punished by they end but heart-warming.

4th of a murder mystery series set in Cambridge. Standard for the genre but with nice characters and a good sense of place. I have a few long-hauls on the go so this was a bit of break.

Bloody wet here. Flooding all over though not here.

No. 4. Since hearing a live performance earlier this year, the 4th has shot up my personal RVW hot 100, up there with 2, 3, 5 and 6. Never noticed the similarity between the slow movement and Britten's Peter Grimes Passacaglia before, not composers I usually associate with one another. Just 'Twinkly Night' off the last. Disc 9 of the Eisler - vocal and orchestra pieces that range from the agit-prop to almost Richard Strauss. And who can resist a requiem entitled 'Lenin'? This morning:

Methera (Lucy Deakin - cello, John Dipper - fiddle, Emma Reid - fiddle and Miranda Rutter - viola) (St Martin's Church, Stoney Middleton up in't'ills of deepest Derbyshire) A bit niche, this one. Four English folk string musicians playing together as a quartet (well, 3 1/2 English and 1/2 Swedish). Mainly tunes collected from manuscripts or self-written - mostly English but a Shetland and Irish thrown in and several from across Scandinavia. All superbly arranged so the tunes weave into complex patterns but always remain visible (that should be aural). Especially taken by Emma Reid (the half-Swede) who seems to incorporated some marvellous, haunting techniques from the Scandinavian traditions to give an extra layer of colour. A band clearly loving every minute - big grins, lots of eye contact. And humorous introductions of the pieces throughout. There's a lovely build up of music like this at present - The English Acoustic Collective, The Rheingan Sisters, Leveret, Wood and Cutting - music that originates in dance music but is taken at a gentler and more subtle pace, bringing out other colours. Reminds me a little of Sweden's Vasen too. Puts your faith back in England (and its ability to look outwards) after a year in which we've thoroughly humiliated ourselves. Great venue - octagonal church out in the sticks, built in 1415 by a wife giving thanks for the safe return of her husband from Agincourt. Though as it was pitch dark I didn't get to see the outside. A good place to start a daytime walk.

Nicholas Maw string quartet again. No 4 of middle one. Really taken to Johnston's very strange quartets - often reminiscent of Bartok, Ives and even Beethoven but employing microtonal and other effects that take them to other places. On an earlier disc he does strange things with 'Amazing Grace' in one quartet; hear we get a 'Danny Boy' after one too many Guinnesses. Watched the video over the last three days an act at a time. I've been through this one about six times over the years (on CD and then video) and can't really warm to it. Opulent Strauss score as ever with some gorgeous sections but nothing quite sticks in mind (I played the suite afterwards to see if I could fix the main tunes but they still seem a bit Strauss-generic). Don't care for the plot at all - a strange fairy tale full of symbolism that moves between a fantasy land and the world of humans (in this production, a particularly ugly launderette). Strauss apparently thought very highly of it. I'm missing something.