A Lark Ascending

Nice review from Richard Williams - a pity he ended up majoring in sport; always liked his writing. Remember him fronting 'Disco 2', the programme that became 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' in the early 70s. Like this bit from Westbrook - “I often enjoy playing the piano in a crowded room where people are talking. Though almost no one is paying any attention to the music, it nevertheless affects the general atmosphere.” The ambient impact of music can be greatly underestimated.

All thoroughly engaging music from relatively recent times. Especially enjoyed the Mary Wiegold Songbook - a range of songs by contemporary (for 1990) British composers (including Keith Tippett!), interspersed with arrangements of John Dowland. And some shorter things off various discs - Birtwistle 'Refrains and Choruses' and 'Tragoedia'; string quatets by Nicholas Maw and Judith Weir. This morning: Extracts disc.

NW (BBC1) - 90 minute drama set in modern London based on a Zadie Smith novel. Never read any Smith but I enjoyed this story of interlocking lives in north London, even if my brain could not make it all add up at the end. "Paul Nash: The Ghosts of War" - nice little documentary about the painter. My knowledge of painting is limited and rather scattergun but Nash is someone I've always been taken by. Missed this in the cinema. Really enjoyed it on a rented DVD. It doesn't just capture Jane Austen's wry irony but has an extra layer of gentle mockery that seems to be directed at the genre of TV/film 18th/19thC drama in general. Almost a pastiche...but not quite. Nice soundtrack even if it was mainly anachronistic (my 'Irritated' of Tonbridge complaining about the wrong type of steam train moment) .

Very nice review. Balanced, reasonable and about the music. Made me dig out 'London/Paris'. And want to hear this new release.

Starthrower wrote : I haven't heard of any of those in my town, but I know they have showings 90 miles west in Rochester, NY. Anyway, i've been listening to many Saariaho pieces on YouTube, and so far i like Circle Map, 6 Japanese Gardens, and Laterna Magica. And her viola work, Vent Nocturne. (Can't get quote to work!) I'm not sure if I'll go - I have a video of the piece and it is visually very static. There's a good CD with a sort of suite from the piece. I like the sound worlds that Saariaho creates and have a few records by her. But have yet to connect with a piece that makes me say 'this is wow!' But that's my unfamiliarity. Someone worth coming back to. I'm a bit late celebrating the Feast of the Reformation this year - 79/192/80 from disc 47. Trying to listen to these in vaguely calendar order from 3/4 through. Next week I get aligned with Advent. Both the Schoenberg pieces are very enjoyable - I've known the Chamber Symphony a long time and would nominate it as a good candidate for the 'so you think you don't like Schoenberg, well try this' award. The Suite is new to me. Apart from the interest value of the Partch disc it also indicates where Carla Bley and Paul Haines were coming from in the late 60s/early 70s. Disc 6 of the organ - various relatively short pieces. This morning: Just the symphony - a bit Strauss, a bit Brahms in their sunny, genial moods.

Unlucky, Jim. But these things happen. Hope your wife is better.

Keep your eye out at your local cinema - there's a Met broadcast of 'L'Amour De Loin' on Dec 10th (think that's worldwide). If they are showing it in the backwater where I live I'm sure it won't be far away from most places.

Heard the newly arranged 'Electra' suite on the radio last week and it jumped to the top of the list. I've always found the opera a tough listen but with the voices stripped away the music doesn't sound that different to the tone poems and you can hear quite clearly the link to 'Rosenkavalier'. I suspect that in the opera everything is so tense with lots of hysterical screeching that it can sound more challenging than it really is. 'The Rosenkavalier Suite' is the usual one from the 1940s...pity someone hadn't had a crack at 'Salome'. Nothing like as scary as you are often led to believe - I was pulled in from the off and played both discs straight through without a break. Clearly structured around repeating (but varied) scenarios, much like in a nursery rhyme or ancient myth (the old three tests type thing) leading, surprisingly, to a happy ending (Punch gets the girl despite all the murders en route). Small scale chamber orchestra (not unlike a Britten orchestra) that is very well recorded so all the individual instruments stand out. It's not 'Madam Butterfly' so you'll not be humming the tunes - but a completely engaging piece. Just finished reading: A set of interviews over a six month period - rambling, constantly going off track but very interesting, especially on his Lancashire origins and early days as a clarinet player and student in pit orchestras and as a student. I saw him interviewed in London a few years back and he was exactly the same as here - gnomic, a bit irritable but generally good humoured. He was writing his piano concerto while the interviews took place so details the problems he's having, the solutions he's come up with (though explained in a rather abstract way). Maddocks is brilliant at probing him, like a teacher with a reluctant schoolboy. Though she fails throughout to get him to say much about his school days which he clams up about again and again. This morning: Enjoying Symph 1 this morning. Symph 4 is a Late Romantic wonder and I've always been disappointed with the previous three by comparison which seem to work of earlier models. But, as ever, taken on its own terms....

Another listen to 'The Triumph of Time' - actually one of the easier Birtwistle pieces to follow as he clearly marks out the sections and highlights the instruments being given prominence. Had me thinking of Holst's 'Egdon Heath' which I played straight after - clearly a completely different idiom with clear, tonally sculpted melodies, but shares a sense of moving slowly and relatively quietly through a bleak landscape. Followed by: Just the Planets. Listened to all the above on a train journey from London through the East Midlands - not a landscape I usually care for but yesterday the low sunlight caught the still surviving autumn leaves in their glorious range of colours beautifully; newly ploughed fields, the odd little church...combined with the music, all quite magical. Just the Lulu Suite. This morning:

I loved season 1. I don't usually watch nature films, but ended up seeing clips when I had to teach a bit of Geography. I was utterly enthralled. Will wait for the DVD. I share your dislike of 'awesome' - I used to rant on to kids that the Grand Canyon was awesome, Dayna's new hair style was not. Didn't take long before it was being sarcastically quoted back at me. Then I remembered the tiresome (rather than awesome) teacher I had around 1966 who used to grumble on about the misuse of the word 'tragedy'. ************************************** Finished 'John Adams' last night - one of the most enjoyable history-based series I've seen. Restrained, focused on dialogue and ideas and sparing in 'action' sequences. And completely free of any nationalistic myth making of the 'And this is how our great nation was founded' type (common to history films from any nation that regards itself as 'exceptional'...I hate to think what we're in line for here in coming years). I thought Paul Giamatti as the endlessly irascible Adams was excellent but the star for me was Laura Linney as Abigail Adams. Favourite bit was them arriving and living in the White House when it was still a building site, their own bodies already looking worse for wear and teeth falling out. Though the last episode - starting with a pre-anaesthetic mastectomy and then focusing on the decrepitudes of old age was unrelentingly grim. Nice bit where Adams denounces the a-historical nature of the famous Declaration of Independence painting - ironic given that the series itself also (inevitably) did its own telescoping of historical reality.

It was on sale in Rays on Thursday, Nearly bought a copy, influenced by high praise here, but decided to wait. Would have liked to have seen one of those concerts but they didn't come close to me (apart from in London when I was at another event). Maybe next tour.

One of my regular insecurity dreams is to find myself on stage with a cello, the concert about to start, and then I suddenly realise I don't know how to play (not as regular as standing in front of a class and being completely ignored....though that might have been real life rather than a dream). A favourite instrument of mine too - I can't resist a cello concerto. If I come across an unfamiliar composer and there's a cello concerto, it won't be long before I'm exploring it.

Berg - Lulu English National Opera - Coliseum, London A bit of a bucket list one here. Absolutely superb. Lulu must have one of the most beautiful orchestral scores in 20th C music - often dissonant and violent but with gorgeous throwbacks to late-Romanticism seeping up to the surface regularly. Marvellous production - suitably seedy stage sets and costumes but briliamt use of projections evoking German painting and cinema in the 20s and 30s. Two strange Dadaesque actors conducted an unnerving commentary through mime throughout. I also loved some of the servant figures early on who looked like those decrepit servants you see in early horror films. I've seen some marvellous opera this year - this one was up there withe Opera North Ring as highlight. After a rather over the top few weeks that's it for live classical until January (apart from a couple of possible film things) - though things have a habit of springing up from nowhere.

Save up La Nativite du Seigneur for Xmas. Goes well with Bing and your own seasonal tracks. Yesterday - Birtwistle : The Triumph of Time.

I'd have gone to that if I'd have been here for another day. Buy the new solo record when you are there - it's a gem.

At a concert last night Nick Smart (trumpet player, head of jazz at the Royal Academy of Music) mentioned that he was currently working on a Kenny Wheeler bio. Another book to look forward to.

Norma Winstone 75th Birthday Concert (Cadogan Hall, London) A game of two halves - first with her longstanding European Trio with saxophonist Klaus Gesingand pianist Glauco Venier; then backed by the orchestra from the Royal Academy of Music. At 75, Norma Still sounds in amazing voice - a bit frayed in places, intonation a bit strained in those demanding scat flights, but still as rich and individual as ever. Some lovely reminiscences of colleagues like John Taylor (their two sons joined for one song), Kenny Wheeler and Ralph Towner. And a very pointed references to how her career had depended on being able to work freely in Europe. Nikki Iles joined for one song; and Vince Mendoza contributed a new arrangement. A year ago Norma was central to the Kenny Wheeler tribute in the same venue. This time a well deserved celebration of her 50 years of wonderful music.

Bartok - SQ5 and Concerto for Orchestra Schoenberg - Suite Op. 29; Chamber Symphony 1 (Webern cut down arrangement)

Disc 5 of the first, including the piece he wrote for Dracula. No. 3 'Pastoral though not as we know it' Symphony. Disc 1 of the Finzi - Earth and Air and Rain, Till Earth Outwears, I Said to Love cycles. This morning:

Listening to that Lutoslawski at this moment as it happens - think you'll love it (if you don't know it already). That Mozart is marvellous! Last night: György Kurtág - Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 44 Anton Webern - Six Bagatelles Elliot Galvin - Valentine György Ligeti - String Quartet No. 2 Igor Stravinsky - Three Pieces for String Quartet Béla Bartók - String Quartet No. 5 Ligeti Quartet at Frith Hall, University of Sheffield Second visit of this marvellous quartet to Frith Hall this year (they are engaged in an 'in residence' type programme with the university). As with the summer concert, superb programming. Mainly music I did not know at all or only in passing. The Kurtag was the piece new to my ears that really struck this time. Elliott Galvin is a young jazz pianist who plays with Laura Jurd and the Chaos Collective - like Laura he also seems to have a foot in the longhair world (seems to be increasingly the case). His was an entertaining piece that wove 40-50 familiar love songs into a post-modern stew. I continue to marvel at the accuracy and precision of these musicians (never any sense that the intonation might be drifting) in music that often requires lightning reactions. I'll go to any programme they put on. Most pieces preceded by a short talk - things to look out for, why they particularly like it. 'Golden Knock The Stuffiness out of Darling Art Award' subsequently presented. Well attended from across the age range.

The last disc of the latter - Rodney Bennett, Gordon Crosse, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies.

Lady Maisery at the Greystones, Sheffield (Hannah James (vocals, piano accordion, clogs, foot percussion); Hazel Askew (vocals, concertina, harp, bells); Rowan Rheingans (vocals, fiddle, banjo, bansitar)) Lovely, imaginative arrangements of English folk music (with the odd splash of Scandinavia and the USA).

'Delta Lady' was my favourite, initially in the Sheffield version. Remember the LPs on sale in the early 70s but only listened to them for the first time a few years back. Really enjoyed them. RIP

Cold Sunday indoors: First is a lovely piece rather like Britten's 'Spring Symphony' with added John Adams; London Symphony from the RVW. Never noticed the similarity between the Largo and the corresponding movement in the Dvorak New World before. CD 1 - 16, 17, 18 of first; 132 from second. This morning: No 4 + 5

Four separate hour long concerts from a weekend festival organised by Sheffield University. Wigmore Hall visits The North: Nights Not Spent Alone - Songs by Jonathan Dove, Debussy, Faure, Vaughan Williams, Barber, Sondheim (Kitty Whately - mezzo soprano; Simon Lepper - piano) Seven Romances - Shostakovich Piano Trio and Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok (Joan Rodgers - soprano; Phoenix Piano Trio) Harawi - Messiaen (Gweneth-Ann Rand - soprano; Simon Lepper - piano) Cabaret Songs - Poulenc, Satie, Schoenberg, Marx, Lehar (Raphaela Papadakis - soprano; Sholto Kynoch piano) Mainly music I don't know at all or only in passing - the only piece I was reasonably familiar with was the Shosty piano trio. Excellent all round. Highlights (for me) were: - the Dove songs - a prolific contemporary writer who composes very much with the audience in mind in a style not a million miles away from Britten or Tippett (often with the influence of Minimalism though not on display here). Whately is the daughter of Kevin 'Lewis' Whately (and something like cousin to folk singer Martha Tilston); - the Shostakovich concert - the Seven Romances from towards the end of his life - quite severe but with brilliant instrumental parts (using seven different permutations of the trio) that really sounded amazing in the acoustic of the chapel in which they were performed; - and Messiaen's ecstatic cycle combining the Tristan myth with Peruvian folk poetry and birdsong (not sure of his idea about decapitation as the perfect fulfilment of passion! Don't knock it until you've tried it, I suppose). Sadly not that well attended - about 40 maximum. The performers were all top notch so it can't have been cheap. Intended as the first of an annual event but I'd not like to see their accounts! Pity. More today though I'm having a rest.