NewFrontEars

2011-12-08T02:50:00.000Z

TIPPETT'S RITUAL DANCES

One of my favourite pieces of music of all time: Michael Tippett's 'Ritual Dances' from the 1953 opera The Midsummer Marriage. I'm delighted it has found its way onto YouTube.

2011-12-08T02:25:00.004Z

YES IMPROV FROM 1970

I've only just come across this intriguing little clip of a live Yes instrumental improvisation from 41 years ago - with Bill Bruford on drums (well, cymbals), Chris Squire (bass), Jon Anderson (tambourine) and pleasingly left-field performances from Tony Kaye on organ and a barely visible Steve Howe on guitar. This was probably a segue into the band's fine cover of Stephen Stills' haunting 'Everydays' (Time And A Word). The recording is superb in quality, captured somewhere in Germany, and is sadly the only footage of its kind available. It is also post Peter Banks - thus Howe's presence.

2010-01-21T04:02:00.003Z

MUSIC AS PUNISHMENT?

Slightly depressing news from the BBC: "Detentions where pupils are forced to listen to classical music are an effective deterrent against unruly behaviour, a head teacher has found. Brian Walker, head at West Park School in Derby, runs the two-hour detentions, featuring Elgar, Mozart, Verdi and Bach, on a Friday after school. Pupils on their third official warning that week can expect to attend. As well as listening to classical music for an hour, pupils also have to watch an educational television show."

When you read on, it's not entirely clear that this means they hate the music, though that is the implication. The idea of using music or poetry as punishment feels incredibly backward looking. Rather than encouraging kids to delve into unknown riches, it reinforces the notion that there is something to fear or despise about 'classical' arts. There has to be a better way to motivate and re-direct pupils. (Apparently, playing canned classical music at bus stops improves youthful behaviour and disperses rowdy gangs!)

2009-09-08T16:59:00.002Z

[284.1] DOWN LIKE A LED BALLOON?

The annual jolly that is the Mercury Music (read: commercial music) Prize has thrown up another nominee who, while not necessarily token, probably have zip-all chance of winning... though if there was anything called musical justice, they would walk it. Led Bib (who also have a kind of anti- web page and can be heard on their MySpace) "mash up art rock, jazz, funk and good old-fashioned noise" according to the Beeb. In other words they operate somewhat in the anarcho-jazz zone opened up by the likes of John Zorn, but with rather more recognisably melodic content. Other comparisosn might include Acoustic Ladyland, Basquiat Strings and Polar Bear... with attitude.

On 'Yes, Again' you get a good feel for the way Led Bib (who are touring from September onwards) tread the line that joins head music and body music. Says John Eyles of their nominated fourth album Sensible Shoes : " Contrasting their power with more reflective interludes makes [their] punch more potent when it arrives... The sound of saxophonists Chris Williams and Pete Grogan is Led Bib’s hallmark. The two altos frequently work in tandem as a horn section but both are also fluid, confident soloists."

While I'd be prepared to eat my iPod if they come out ahead of the likes of Bat for Lashes and Kasabian tonight, they have the kind of attitude which might just make it possible for judges to swing their way. BBC Radio 6 will broadcast the verdict. Singer-songwriter Lisa Hanningan is also worth checking out, by the way. I'm no fan of the Mercury, but it has turned out occasional interesting victors like Dizzee Rascal. At least we don't have the previous farce of a contemporary classical entrant who really would be there to be patronised, and Led Bib ought to sell many more discs than would otherwise be the case. You can catch them at the London Jazz Festival and at Ronnie Scott's in London on 29 September '09.

2009-07-27T18:57:00.002Z

[283.1] CIRCUS TRICKS

Unable to bear the pain of her secret love for Jack The Knife, Tanya the knife-thrower's assistant decides to kill herself. Barney, the circus pony, just dreams of running in straight lines. Alice, the adolescent trapeze artist, longs for the deadly sensation of falling. All of them trapped in endless repetitions of that which is agony to them until the moment of crisis ...

The short piece, The Agony Of The Knifethrower's Assistant, that the remarkable Mike Henry and Adey Grummet wrote last year has been expanded into a theatre piece. And the wonderful Tête À Tête opera company is putting it all on stage at their Summer Festival this year. Plus Adey and Mike will be singing Tanya and Jack.

It will all happen on 1 August 2009 at 7pm at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London. Pop into www.tete-a-tete.org.uk or go to the Box Office on: 020 8237 1111

2009-03-19T20:02:00.002Z

[282.1] A GAME OF BOULEZ

While in New York this past week, I took in a fine concert at the Carnegie Hall (thanks to Steve Sullivan for the idea and the company)... Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performing Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements and Four Orchestral Studies, Varèse's Amériques and Ionisation, and Elliott Carter's Réflexions. Carter, now over 100, was there to take his bow, which was great. The performances were both sinuous and intricate. There's a so-so review in the New York Times.

2009-01-01T00:38:00.002Z

[281.1] MUSIC TO OUR EARS

Given the grim situation in Israel-Palestine, especially Gaza, at the moment, the musical and cultural bridges built by initiatives like the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are going to be more important than ever before in 2009. As for the music I am celebrating the New Year with, it's Michael Tippett's entrancing 'Ritual Dances' from The Midsummer Marriage.

2008-12-24T14:56:00.001Z

[280.1] LOOKING AFRESH

My Christmastide listening this year will certainly include the piano cycle Vignt Regards sur L'Enfant Jesus, in recollection also of the Messaien centenary this December.

2008-11-05T20:05:00.002Z

[279.1] TRULY GOING FOR A SONG

When he wrote his autobiography, Sir Michael Tippett decided to call it Those Twentieth Century Blues, bringing together the archetypes of a transformative musical language, historical tragedy, and the light and dark of a life observed and a dream re-visited. There is no doubt that if he was with us today, he would be thrilled by the advent of Barack Obama in the United States, more for what it represents in terms of the experience of Black Americans and oppressed peoples than for any anticipation that the world's political systems will suddenly put themselves in order.

Tippett had an unshakable faith in people, ins pite of everything, and when he put together the defining oratorio of the last century, A Child Of Our Time, he famously adopted African-American Spirituals to perform the function of Bach-like chorales, and to reflect something that had changed in the landscape of our imagining forever. Being married to an American and caught up, as we all are, in the invitation to a sea-change across the Atlantic, the five Spirituals had to be what I turned to musically to comprehend the paradox and promise of what is going on.

2008-09-18T14:11:00.002Z

[278.1] THE LOST CHORDS

So much happening on planet(s) music, so little time to reflect on it. For me, anyway. There's been the Proms Season (which I mostly missed, unfortunately), the 40th anniversary Yes tour in the USA (likewise, due to its cancellation), masses of 'new music' events, the Pierre Boulez birthday celebrations - and a fabulous London reunion gig for Chick Corea and friends in Return to Forever. That was an amazing musical evening, and also a reunion with my friend Jonathan Crawford. He and I had managed to lose touch over the past few years, and then he rewarded me with third row centre at the O2 Indigo. Life has its compensations. Next up, a Tippett orchestral concert, Allan Holdsworth back at the Jazz cafe (unexpectedly soon) and Porcupine Tree. I shall seek to catch up with the scribing, and also some comments on Maestro (BBC2) and Goldie.

2008-06-26T10:02:00.003Z

[277.1] THE LYRICS OF LIFE

The Guardian has this week been giving away a series of booklets (also viewable online) featuring "great lyricists". I'm an enthusiast for both Morrissey and Joni Mitchell (pictured), of course. Dear old Bob Dylan has to be in there, too -- even though he can't sing for peanuts (and still, oddly, has a great voice). I'm less convinced by Chuck D. But Leonard Cohen is on the way, apparently. That will please my wife.

2008-06-23T00:00:00.000Z

[276.1] SPIRIT OF DJANGO

Reviewing the new album 'Spring is Here (Shall We Dance?)' in The Guardian, John L. Walters has its creator well summarised: "Django Bates's music... revels in its complexity like a brainy kitten with a ball of fibre optic cables. But within his own parallel universe (aka Denmark's Rhythmic Music Conservatory), Bates has reduced his simmering brew to its necessary components: sneaky, snarky basslines, asymmetric patterns that groove, sweet vocal melodies, as well as passionate ensemble writing with a sense of humour that redrafts Charles Ives, Spike Jones and Frank Zappa for the age of Britain's Got Talent. Yet Bates is serious too, with such inventiveness, mastery of orchestration and flair that he runs rings around his contemporaries in every genre." [Label: Lost Marbels, 2008, £12.99]

2008-06-22T11:01:00.003Z

[275.1] ASYLA, RATTLE AND ROLL

I'm pleased to see that Sam Wollaston of The Guardian also liked the Berlin Philharmonic programme the other night: "The Berlin Philharmonic is like one of those amazing swarming flocks of starlings, made up of individuals yet able to suddenly morph into a single being, with one brain, operating in extraordinary telepathic unity. Except that they make a nicer noise than starlings. A flock of nightingales then, if such a thing existed."

What pleasantly surprised me was his predilection for Adès (pictured). As soon as I saw the composer's name, I expected the usual "modern music is noise" stuff which you even get from savvy media people these days - those who pride themselves on their cultured taste in theatre and literature, but for whom the world of music ended in the nineteenth century or with the arrival of rock'n'roll. Sam, however, writes: "The Thomas Adès piece they play is eerie and beautiful, and looks fiendishly difficult to play, even for these guys. Then, when they play Beethoven, you can see them relax; they could do this all day, with their eyes closed. They don't even need Sir Simon, who goes and sits down in the auditorium."

The composition concerned, by the way, was Asyla, which was premiered in Symphony Hall, Birmingham in October 1997 by Simon Rattle's previous outfit, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the 1997 BBC Proms. I was there, I'm gratified to say. This work also received the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2000, making Adès the youngest ever to receive that prize.

2008-06-18T06:52:00.003Z

[274.1] SIMON SAYS, IN BEIJING

There was a great documentary film on BBC1 last night, in the Imagine series, looking at Simon Rattle and the legendary Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on tour across Asia - including China, South Korea, Hong Kong... and Taiwan, where, incongruously, they were greeted like teen rock stars. Rattle was eloquent as ever, you gained some insight into the inner machinations of what is probably the best-oiled (and distinctly un-mechanical) musical machine in the world, and it was a joy to see them struggling in rehearsal with some fiendishly difficult Thomas Ades. The instrumentalists provided much of the commentary themselves, talking about what it means to be a musician and the impact it has had on their lives and relationships.

One felt for the young woman on probation, evidently a stellar player in any other context, who didn't make the final vote to get into the BPO. The ruthlessness and ego, as well as the tenderness and passion, of the outfit was all-too-evident. There were telling psychological as well as musicological insights. SR has done a good job pushing the boat out and conserving the tradition of one of the world's great musical institutions. The ghost of Karajan was, of course, at this feast. But the focus was elsewhere, and this Asian encounter was magical and revealing.

2008-06-17T20:35:00.002Z

[273.2] ESJBORN SVENSSON

The tragic death of the 44-year-old pianist in a diving accident has robbed the world of a sensitive and interesting musician. The Esbjörn Svensson Trio, founded in the early 1990s, played an unclassifiable brand of music which incorporated elements of jazz, art rock and minimalist classical music in constantly varying proportions. Here's an accompanied EST with Round Midnight.

2008-06-17T19:04:00.002Z

[273.1] CULTURE IS

"The biggest obstacle to understanding a work of art is wanting to understand." (Bruno Munari)

"Culture is what we are not, enabling us to understand what we are." (Lauren Laverne)

2008-06-13T19:52:00.003Z

[272.1] HOWE NOW AND THEN

I'm looking forward to seeing the Steve Howe Trio doing two sets at the legendary Ronnie Scott's Club in London on Saturday night (15 June 2008). I see that my friend Henry Potts is quoted at the end of the website write-up on the impending gig. Ironically, due to schedule issues, I may miss the concert at the Phoenix Theatre in Exeter (18 June) where I live. The Trio, who re-arrange some of Howe's eclectic compositions and move his guitar stylings ever more in a jazzward direction, may do some more touring this summer - since the planned 2008 Yes tour in the US, marking the progressive rock band's 40th anniversary, has been cancelled due to singer Jon Anderson's ill-health.

2008-06-04T16:40:00.002Z

[271.1] CELESTIAL SOUNDS

Here's a lovely performance, from the 1950s, of Messiaen's 'Le Banquet Celeste', recorded at Washington's National (Episcopal) Cathedral of St John the Divine.

2008-06-03T12:39:00.002Z

[270.1] FOREVER AND A DAY (OR FIFTY)

Return to Forever, the electric jazz-fusion outfit pioneered by keyboard polymath Chick Corea (pictured) burned brightly between 1972 and 1977. I first discovered them via the late Derek Jewell's valuable 'Sounds Interesting' programme on BBC Radio 3 - one of the the doyen classical station's earlier ventures in the rock and jazz direction. RTF split in '77, reformed on a one-off basis in 1983, and are now making a re-appearance across the world -- or at least, the Atlantic. The only UK concert is at Indigo2 in London (the smaller venue attached to the 02 Arena). Intriguing. But as tickets are £40 plus a variety of charges levied by sole agent, the lamentably greedy Ticketmaster, I fear I shall give it a miss.

Miles Davis’ electric bands in the late ‘60s (featured on albums such as In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew) served as the incubator for several pioneering fusion bands, including Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter’s Weather Report and, of course, Corea’s legendary Return to Forever, whose life span stretched across three different versions of the band.

2008-05-30T02:27:00.002Z

[269.1] SUN AND SHADOWS

A charming little clip of Steve Howe performing his classical-flamenco influenced piece, Mood For A Day.

2008-05-29T13:15:00.002Z

[268.1] VERY GOOD IN PARTS

Adey Grummet writes: "The Curate's Egg is back! We will be performing music of the mystical and magical sort at the Spitalfields Festival on 13 June at 9pm in St Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, London.

"The Festival commission this year, 'Interference', is from Naomi Pinnock and is for the oboist Melinda Maxwell and us. We have also commissioned the handsome Mike Henry to write three tiny pieces of three quartets in canon (brain the size of a planet, you know), 'Transitions', for the Egg as well. Both these pieces will be in the programme along with chart busters written for us in the past - Allwood's 'Charades 5' and Plowman's 'shimmering glimmering'. To this we will add the luscious Poulenc 'Litanies of the Black Virgin' with masterful Nigel Kerry joining us at the organ.

"Oh ... we will do the whole thing in the dark !

2008-05-26T22:04:00.005Z

[267.1] KARL RICHTER IN ACTION

I have long been a fan of the work of the late conductor and keyboardist Karl Richter (he died tragically young, of a heart attack, in 1981), whose recordings of the Handel Organ Concertos, Opus 4 & 7, I regard as the finest available, not least for their superb ad libtum extemporisations. Someone from Ankara in Turkey has been putting Richter archive material up on YouTube recently. Well done and many thanks, whoever you are. Here's the first movement of Concerto No 1 - which has a second movement (here) famously known as "the cuckoo and the nightingale". Confusingly it is No 13 in the Simon Preston set, because of the different cataloguing systems that evolved. Handel put these concertos together from existing material to serve as interval suites for his oratorios. But they are delightful in their own right.

2008-05-24T10:30:00.002Z

[266.1] BARTOK'S ALLEGRO BARBARO

A good account on YouTube by Chris Lee. See also Bartok and the Piano: A Performer’s View by Barbara Nissman (Scarecrow Press, 2001), which includes a CD with fabulous performances by the author. Benjamin Ivry reviewed it for International Piano.

2008-05-11T09:15:00.002Z

[265.1] THE GREAT PROTAGONIST

Among the concerts I've missed recently (I miss more than I get to these days, sadly) is Boulez conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces - the fortieth anniversary of that first happening, reenacted at the Barbican. Andrew Clements is impressed. The series continues. Tonight it's Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and and the British premiere of Osiris by Matthias Pintscher. See Paul Driver (Pierre Boulez looks to the future) in The Times.

"Pierre Boulez might have made the familiar journey from enfant terrible to grand old man, but he has neither renounced his project nor found that popular opinion has come round to his way of thinking. His incendiary comments from the 50s and 60s - for instance, that contemporary classical music which does not follow Schoenberg's lead with sufficient rigour is "useless", and that "the most elegant solution for the problem of opera is to blow up the opera houses" - can still cause him problems..." Nicholas Wroe, profiling Boulez in The Guardian, Saturday 26 April 2008.

2008-05-08T12:11:00.004Z

[264.1] STRAVINSKY PROJECT

Michael Clark's Stravinsky Project was created over three years in collaboration with The Barbican. This project culminated in twelve sold-out performances at The Barbican last November (2007) and now tours to Norwich, as part of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2008. All Stravinsky scores are performed live: Appollon Musagete and Les Noces by members of Britten Sinfonia with The New London Chamber Choir and Jurjen Hempel conducting. There is also a mixed repertory of recorded music from Wire, Iggy Pop and Sex Pistols. Read full details here.

For full programme details, ticket offers and booking visit the Norfolk and Norwich Festival website

2008-05-07T12:13:00.002Z

[263.1] NO FIDDLES OR SENSELESS VIOLINS

Great story from the US. Violinist Philippe Quint who, who left his priceless 285-year-old 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius in the back of a New York taxi cab, has played a personalised tarmac concert to thank the driver who returned it to him. The 30 minute gig took place at Newark Liberty International Airport. The BBC should have a clip soon. Driver Mohamed Khalil got in touch the next day to return the instrument. He has been given a gold medal, a (very small) cash reward, and free tickets for Quint's next public performance.

2008-05-05T00:02:00.000Z

[262.1] AN OUTSIDER IN BRITISH MUSIC

Peter Rivendell of Gay for Today on Michael Tippett: "Under Tippett, the Leicester Schools Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra of ordinary secondary school children aged 14 to 18, regularly performed on BBC radio and TV, made commercial gramophone records and established new standards for music-making in an educational context. Many leading British performers had their first experience of orchestral music in the LSSO under Tippett. [He] was, in the words of his partner Meirion Bowen, an 'unabashed homosexual', and he defied the social taboos of his time by incorporating homoerotic themes in his operas. Tippett was regarded by many as an outsider in British music, a view that may have been related to his conscientious objector status during World War II and his homosexuality. His pacifist beliefs led to a prison sentence in World War II, and for many years his music was considered ungratefully written for voices and instruments, and therefore difficult to perform. An intense intellectual, he maintained a much wider knowledge and interest in the literature and philosophy of other countries (Africa, Europe) than was common among British musicians. His (sometimes quirky) libretti for his operas and other works reflect his passionate interest in the dilemmas of human society and the enduring strength of the human spirit."

2008-05-04T00:01:00.001Z

[261.1] THOMAS ADES' CREATION

Review in The Times of the London RFH concert with the London Sinfonietta on 27 April 2008: "Thomas Adès work [Creation], involving six large screens on which a dazzling fantasy of colour and semi-abstraction sustained itself for half an hour, could hardly have been more alluring. The music was just as dazzling as the visuals, and was its own kind of novel imagery. The title refers to the seven days of creation, and the screen at the start shows the bare ocean, but Adès’s equivalent is a strangely poised and delicate string music with a vaguely Elizabethan-consort flavour. In the fifth of the seven (continuous) movements, there is a parallel display of the upper woodwind, a nine-part burbling that suggested Messiaen birdsong or an excursion from the piano concerto by Michael Tippett. Adès’s solo writing looks even more demanding than Tippett’s, and glories in extremes of register, but one notices that, for all the intricacy of the score’s notation, the actual sounds are transparent and instantly telling. One left the hall lost in a kaleidoscope of colour, touched by an exquisitely decorative experience."

2008-05-03T08:57:00.004Z

[260.1] MACMILLAN WORLD PREMIERE

Last weekend I did get to see Birtwistle's Punch and Judy, I'm glad to report. But sadly I had to miss the World Premiere of James Macmillan's St John Passion at the Barbican Hall, London, on 27 April 2008. It featured Christopher Maltman (baritone) and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Colin Davis - to whom the work is dedicated. I can't wait to hear it next time I get the opportunity.

In his programme note, Macmillan writes: "After writing my Seven Last Words from the Cross in 1993, I always knew that the inevitable next step would be a setting of one of the Gospel Passion narratives. It has since been my ambition to tackle such a project. I decided on St John's text, as it is the version with which I am most intimately acquainted, hearing it recited or sung every Good Friday in the Catholic liturgy. In fact, since my student days in Edinburgh I have regularly participated in the Gregorian or Dominican chanting of the Crucifixion story on that day. This simple music has had an overriding influence on the shape and character of my own Passion setting."

2008-04-30T22:07:00.004Z

[259.1] HAPPY TOGETHER IN BRIGHTON

At the beginning of the year, the news was not good. Innovative multi-vocal ensemble The Shout had their revenue grant from the Arts Council cut ("reason given, it was too small – feel the irony!"). But the musical troupe, headed by composer Orlando Gough (pictured), declare: "We are not dead and buried yet." And to prove it, they are taking to the streets of Brighton in May. Literally. From 15-17th they combine with the Protein Dance Company for a collaboration directed by by Luca Silvestrini. It's already excited attention from The Guardian and, er, the Littlehampton Gazette.

In Happy Together, two groups of people, one male and one female, set out from different points in the city. They move through the streets independently, singing love songs. Sometimes the groups come close to each other, but they do not meet. As they move, the groups grow, picking up more and more people. Along the route, situations develop – games, dares, arguments, incidents, accidents, surprises, encounters.

The singing, a mixture of solo and choral, will range from Geri Halliwell’s sublimely daft It’s Raining Men to an Indian ghazal sung by the Sri Lankan singer Manickam Yogeswaran of The Shout, taking in popular songs, folk songs, classical songs, newly composed songs. High art and low art intermingle. There will be no band, only a ghetto blaster providing an occasional backing track. Solo singers may use megaphones.

Eventually the two groups come, simultaneously, to a club. The dance floor is divided down the middle by a curtain, as in orthodox Jewish weddings.

Just like you'd expect, frankly. The Brighton festival runs from 3-25 May. Box office: 01273 709709.

2008-04-29T22:13:00.004Z

[258.1] ELEMENTAL AT YOSHI'S

Eclectic jazz guitar innovator Allan Holdsworth was touring Europe in April (not the UK, sadly) and will be doing a string of US dates in May 2008. This clip comes from a visit to Oakland CA last year, captured live in HD at Yoshi's, featuring Alan Pasqua, Chad Wackerman and Jimmy Haslip. The 90 minute DVD is available from Seeofsound. More Holdsworth here: Proto Cosmos (one of my favourites) and The Things That You See. See also this profile and interview in Guitar Player magazine (April 2008).

2008-04-25T07:45:00.001Z

[257.2] PRS NEW MUSIC AWARD

The PRS New Music Award is the most financially significant award for music in the UK and has been called music’s equivalent to the Turner Prize. It champions pioneering new music and provides a significant amount of money towards the creation of one adventurous and challenging new musical work.

The winners - sound artist Jane Grant, musician and physicist John Matthias and composer Nick Ryan - have until September 2009 to create their visionary new work, designed to mimic the human brain at work and reproduce the sound of the UK as music.

2008-04-25T00:45:00.000Z

[257.1] TIPPETT VIDEO GEM

Don't know how I haven't come across this before, but there's marvellous archive footage on YouTube of Sir Michael Tippett conducting Putnam's Camp by Charles Ives in 1969. The poster, John Whitmore, has also put up other very valuable Tippett footage, which I will link in due course. He was a violinist in Sir Michael's Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra and now jointly runs the LSSO memorabilia website. Good man.

2008-04-24T21:14:00.003Z

[256.1] BIRTWISTLE'S PUNCH AND JUDY

The story of the murderous Punch and his desire to possess Pretty Polly provides what might initially seem an unlikely scenario for Harrison Birtwistle’s controversial first opera, premiered at Aldeburgh in 1968. But what we think of as a children's fable is, of course, very dark and sinewy indeed. In its latest production at the Young Vic in London (running through to Saturday 27 April 2008) the opera it is directed by Daniel Kramer in the work’s 40th-anniversary year. Conducted by English National Opera Music Director Edward Gardner. I will be catching tomorrow night's performance. Watch videos of the production here. The reviews have been very positive.

Stephen Graham writes in Musical Criticism: "Punch and Judy remains profoundly unique to audiences because of its highly peculiar assertion of the applicability of horror, and of fairground surreality, to opera aesthetics. This production confidently reinvigorates every raw and revolting sinew of Birtwistle's marvellously decadent work that arises out of this marriage of aesthetics, and it manages to convey a new horror and snarl all of its own. For thrills and blood spills of a highly unusual character, look no further than this exciting new ENO production."

2008-04-23T17:10:00.002Z

[255.2] QUOTA

"There is no excellent beauty which hath not some strangeness in the proportion." -- Francis Bacon

"Music remains the most strange of the materials because we don't understand what happens when music moves you." -- Michael Tippett

2008-04-23T16:56:00.004Z

[255.1] BRUFORD AND THE BLOG

Jazz drummer Bill Bruford, formerly associated with progressive rock, now has a weblog attached to his website. It includes narrative, percussion tips and responses to comments and queries. Intelligent and insightful, as you would expect.

[From 29 Mar 08] "[H]ow pleasurable and natural the musical life can be once it is removed from the slings and arrows of outrageous commerce. Sure, everyone has to get paid, but generally the world of instrumental improvised music – the stuff well below any record company’s radar – is full of generosity and goodwill between and among musician and audience. Last night in Guildford, brilliant Swiss Guitarist Nick Meier and wonderful Israeli alto and soprano saxophonist Gilad Atzmon charged thru Turkish influenced originals as if the house was burning down, to a warm reception from an uninitiated and unprepared crowd. The music communicated at such a level, everyone forgot they were uninitiated and unprepared, and just got into it. Excellent." {Pic: Atzmon}

2008-04-19T19:15:00.004Z

[254.1] MOTIFS, MOVEMENTS AND MOTIVES

Motif (illustrated) is the overall title encompassing the first volume of a two-album project from eclectic guitarist Steve Howe, best known for his work with Yes, but about to hit the road in June 2008 with his jazz trio - who have 13 dates lined up, happily including Ronnie Scott's in London and The Phoenix in my current home city, Exeter. The line-up for the trio features Steve on guitars, his son Dylan Howe (a highly respected jazz performer in his own right) on drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond Organ.

Cited fretboard influences include Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow and of course Chet Atkins. There's bound to be a bit of Jim Hall thrown into the mix as well.

Regarding the album, Howe says that its primary purpose is to showcase and explore disparate solo pieces otherwise only available on group or other albums. He writes in the liner note: "I recorded the Gretsch guitar tracks in 2005, then the others in 2007, once I'd realized the calling. This was to build up a complete overview of my solo guitar music, afresh in the studio."

He adds: "I've occasionally changed the style of guitar used on previously released tunes, and recorded the first studio versions of others. For these, along with four new pieces plus Trambone, by Chet Atkins, I utilize 9 different guitars: 2 electrics, 3 folk guitars, 2 Spanish guitars, a 12 string and a dobro slide guitar. All are solo performances, no overdubs."

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2008-04-10T21:23:00.003Z

[253.1] A PROM ON THE WILD SIDE

The BBC has announced, a little earlier than usual, the plans and programme for the 2oo8 Proms season. The full concert listing starts here. The full prospectus will appear this week (it usually appears the first week in May). For those of us interested in the music, as distinct from the egged-on but essentially bogus 'culture wars' surrounding the annual festival, the news is that the Elliot Carter, Pierre Boulez and Olivier Messiaen anniversaries are duly marked - especially the latter. There's also a justified remembrance of late Proms director John Drummond, a champion of new music, in Mark Anthony Turnage's Chicago Remains, which is dedicated to him.

Also notable is the tribute to Stockhausen (2 August, including Gruppen), Handel's Belshazzar (16 August), a Janacek evening (the night before), several chunks of Varese, the often overlooked Bach St John Passion (24 August), Shostakovitch's emotionally exhausting and exhilarating 10th Symphony offered by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle (3 September), and a world premier from Anna Meridith on the Last Night (which is otherwise the usual jingoistic embarrassment at the end of what is otherwise surely the world's greatest music festival - time to relocate the dated denouement to the moon, surely?).

The so-called 'Doctor Who prom' is the obvious populist gambit, though it probably won't succeed in pleasing anybody in particular. The new Proms director Roger Wright appeared with Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4 Front Row yesterday, affecting surprise that this is what the general press would pick up on, since none of them are the least bit interested in 'difficult' music.

It looks a balanced programme overall. My only real complaint is about the continuing, inexcusable and shameful neglect of Sir Michael Tippett's music. Surely no other nation treats its recent greats with such contempt? The fact that Wright proclaims "the British Isles" to be a major theme for 2008 only adds insult to injury. [Pic: Ilan Volkov, (c) BBC]

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2008-04-09T21:19:00.003Z

[252.1] TELEVISUAL HEADTRIP

Radiohead, who made alt rock mainstream with the wonderful Kid A and Amnesiac albums, drawing on electronica, experimental and jazz, did two portfolio concerts for the BBC last week. Available online and worth a look and listen.

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2008-04-07T20:46:00.002Z

[251.1] A TIPPETT REVELATION

The New York Times critic Steve Smith writing on one of the most important recent Tippett recordings: "English composer Michael Tippett left an idiosyncratic body of work shaped by keen intelligence and humanitarian spirit... [H]is music has been best served by performers who approach it with sympathy and absolute commitment. The latest to do so is the Scottish pianist Steven Osborne [pictured], whose new collection of Tippett’s piano music is a revelatory achievement.

"The four sonatas span Tippett’s career, providing a concentrated overview of his restless style. The First, completed in 1938 and revised in 1942, responds to Europe’s darkening political climate with virtuoso fireworks and boisterous folk melodies. The Second Sonata, from 1962, shares the brittle, jagged sound Tippett fashioned for his second opera, King Priam, yet passages of gracious lyricism pop up throughout the single-movement span.

"Tippett’s musical language had become still more abrasive by the time he wrote the Third Sonata in 1973, but the icy stillness of the Lento movement and the explosive vitality of the finale speak clearly and directly. The Fourth, finished in 1984, is stuffed with enough material for a dozen pieces, including a quirky fugue, a gamboling fourth movement and a ghostly finale. Somehow Mr Osborne makes it all stick."

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2008-04-03T13:52:00.003Z

[250.1] WE NEED MORE THAN LIP, SERVICE

The Guardian has today published a good and justified riposte from my friend Stephen Plaice to yet another formulaic moan about creative musical hybridity (Hip-hop has a place in the world of opera).

'Tom Service disparages the attempts of opera houses to attract new audiences with "cool", youth-oriented events (Give me divas - not DJs, March 26). I am the co-creator of one of the works singled out for criticism by this hugely generalised polemic.

'Service says that every time opera houses "try to tempt a demographic of young, ethnically diverse, trend-setting opera-lovers through their doors, they end up creating more problems than they solve". From its lofty white perch, this statement deliberately overlooks the coherent work in the major opera houses over the past 20 years in developing young audiences, and ignores many successful productions.

'Service's intention is doubtless to provoke, but should we really accept this kind of lazy hyperbole: "Anyone who knows what opera houses are really capable of in full-scale productions of standard repertoire feels short-changed"? Anyone? Not this one actually. Nor the many who have enjoyed the productions Service so categorically condemns.

'Glyndebourne's main-stage youth operas Misper and Zoë, and its Mozart hip-hopera School 4 Lovers (complete with DJ) - for all of which I wrote the librettos - enjoyed critical and box-office success. A hip-hop audience at Glyndebourne? Yes, it did happen, Tom, and they were thrilled.' Continued here.

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2008-04-02T18:19:00.004Z

[249.1] FOR THE LOVE OF RILEY

My good friend Henry Potts has conducted a very fruitful on-line interview here with contemporary composer Colin Riley, whose work drew itself to his attention, in the first instance, via the recent interesting collaboration with pianocircus and drummer Bill Bruford. The following question was one of mine, and the following two if I recall correctly.

On your MySpace page, you describe yourself as a "composer of no fixed indoctrination" and you've talked about using "non-classical" instruments. How do you go about being "of no fixed indoctrination"? Others generally label you as "contemporary classical": is that term still relevant, and how would you situate yourself in relation to it?

CR: Now … how long have you got? ... I feel very much that this is an exciting time for new music and that the meeting up of the worlds of the avant-garde, of rock, pop, electronic, world music etc. has meant that musical aesthetics have been challenged. The commercial world of buying and selling music (whether in traditional record stores or over the internet) still requires categories, but increasingly we are seeing a healthy proliferation of music which is being made where these are largely swept aside. As with many notions of style, we can see that once you travel in one direction far enough you are likely to come back on yourself. If you look at the world of 'free improvising' for instance it can appear very close to the soundworld of complex, heavily-composed avant-garde composition.

The term 'contemporary classical' really does not mean anything now I don't think. The word composer is becoming pretty hard to define as well. I think that many creators of music are quite wary of working outside their comfort zone in terms of how they feel that they will be perceived by say the media. I've long since given up on this whole rat-race. I'm sure some people regard my music as discordant and difficult, whilst others will scorn it as popularist, simplistic and possibly even crowd-pleasing. The only measure I use is that I compose music that I wish to hear.

[Picture: (c) Tim Whitehead]

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2008-03-28T12:58:00.002Z

[248.1] THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC

Here's a very sensible Guardian article by Victor Keegan on the music piracy argument. He remarks:

"If the industry had spent more time devising a payments solution for the digital age instead of suing customers, it could have cleaned up. The younger generation supposedly nurtured in a culture of non-payment is the same one that pays £3.50 a shot for ringtones. Why? Phones had an easy payment system.

"The latest - global - gambit of the industry is to persuade governments to make internet service providers (ISPs) do their dirty work for them by disconnecting repeat offenders. This must be resisted, even though it is bound to have some effect: an Entertainment Media Research survey found seven out of 10 people would cease illegal downloads if they received a warning. That's not the point. To force unwilling ISPs to take powers to cut off internet connections (a priceless tool for education) without even a judge involved would not only not do the job (there would be an upsurge in ISPs based abroad) but would be a precedent for ISPs to police any other activity that happens in their conduit (cue in MI5).

"One good thing about the industry's misbegotten attitude is that it has spawned a discussion about the nature of copyright."

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2008-03-01T21:09:00.002Z

[247.1] AN ABIDING HOPE

An all-Canadian opera, Lloyd Burritt's Dream Healer, based on Timothy Findley's novel Pilgrim, will have its world premiere on 2 March 2008 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. It is a production of the Chan and the University of British Columbia, marking the university's centenary and the Chan's 10th anniversary.

There's no knowing what Findley would have thought of the opera, but it seems fitting that this is the novel Burritt chose after that long-ago trip to Little Sister's. Findley dedicated Pilgrim to a composer, Michael Tippett. Tippett died in 1998, a year before Findley published his novel about dying and not dying.

For Pilgrim's dedication, Findley quoted Tippett's oratorio A Child of Our Time - for which Tippett himself wrote the libretto.

"Here is no final grieving," the dedication reads, "but an abiding hope."

UBC is also holding a Dream Healer Symposium on Psychiatry and Mental Health beginning Monday evening 3 March. Details at http://www.dreamhealer.com.

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2008-02-28T20:54:00.000Z

[246.1] TOO LONG OFF THE RADAR

Here's a review by Scott Cantrell in the Dallas Morning News of the recent 2-dsic Hyperion Tippett set - Piano Concerto; Fantasia on a theme of Handel; Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-4. (Steven Osborne - pn, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, cond. Martyn Brabbins, two CDs)

Cantrell notes: "Along with Vaughan Williams and Britten, Sir Michael Tippett was considered one of the pre-eminent British composers in the middle decades of the 20th century. And he used to have some profile in the U.S., with Houston Grand Opera premiering his opera New Year in 1989 and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra his Fourth Symphony (in 1977) and Byzantium (in 1991). Since his death in 1998, at age 93 (and active to the very end), he seems to have fallen off the American radar. So it's good to have this two-CD set to remind us of some of his most attractive works."

He concludes: "The First Sonata is utterly irresistible, with its cheerful jazzy tunes and shifting rhythms. Why don't pianists play it? Its successors are sterner stuff, but still represent a thoroughly humanist modernism. The first and fourth movements of the Fourth Sonata sound like boogie-woogie gone crazy.

"This is, after all, the music of a man who went to jail for his pacifist convictions, and who during the Depression worked among the unemployed poor in the north of England. He told of seeing children with sores on their legs because they lacked proper food, and how ashamed he felt returning to the comfortable South. He composed for people... Any one of these works would be welcome in a concert hall..." [Pic: Steven Osborne]

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2008-01-26T21:03:00.000Z

[245.1] NO FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS

"Art is a move from what is obvious and well-known to what is arcane and concealed." - Kahlil Gibran

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2008-01-19T21:51:00.000Z

[244.1] SOUL-MAKING MUSIC

Tapping away at my keyboard the other day, I caught Simon Rattle's Desert Island Discs selection. As I've often commented (as recently as December 07, in fact), this is comfort listening, but it's always better when the interviewee has a passion for music intertwined with observations on their life - rather than the notes forming little more than an incidental backdrop. What it also illustrates is how early and relatively fixed our musical foundations turn out to be. In Rattle's case, Mahler rather than the Beatles. Perhaps that's the reason I rarely find myself particularly surprised by the subject's selections. Predictable or exotic, personal or PR-oriented, there is frequently an indefinable congruence between the appearance of the person and the sound world that sustains them.

My own selection changes somewhat over the years, but not radically so. Sometimes I like to throw the cards up in the air a bit. But some features have to be there. I will always have something by Michael Tippett (the Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage or The Rose Lake, his last major work), Olivier Messiaen (probably Turangalila, though I might end up with Quartet pour le fin du temps), G. F. Handel (one of the Organ Concertos, or Ode to St Cecilia) and Harrison Birtwistle (The Last Supper, when they record it) - the composers who, for various reasons, have ingrained themselves most strongly on my psyche. Then again, Ravel's Piano Concerto in G is a must; the Poulenc Organ Concerto a powerful contender, Shostakovitch's heart-rending Tenth Symphony too, and Bartok's Second Violin Concerto (my introit to 'modern music', as my father once put it when trying to dissuade me from buying it at the tender age of 12).

But hang on, that's one over the limit of eight already, and no space yet for Miles Davis (In a Silent Way), Yes (Awaken, or Ritual from Tales from Topographic Oceans), Allan Holdsworth (something from Secrets), The Smiths (Cemetery Gates from The Queen Is Dead, or Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before from Strangeways Here We Come), Suzanne Vega (Gypsy from Solitude Standing), Hugh Masekela (Coal Train from Waiting for the Rain), Andy Sheppard / Steve Lodder / Nana Vasconcelos (Where we going? from Inclassifiable), Fripp-Sylvian (the exquisite Damage live), or k. d. lang (Constant Craving, of course).

It really is a daunting task. But fun. And like life itself, never quite complete...

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2008-01-16T03:16:00.000Z

[243.1] BRITNEY BREAKDOWN

Yup, you read that right. It's the title of Rambert Dance Company's ever-popular Season of New Choreography: an opportunity to see brand new work created by some of Rambert's versatile dancers. The company has a track record of nurturing young choreographers. One of these is Hubert Essakow, who has commissioned a new work from composer Richard Thomas for soprano Adey Grummet to sing live with the dancers. Those who know Adey won't be surprised to find out that she gets to sing the word "arse" quite a bit. Friday 1 February, 7.45pm, Southbank Centre, London: Tickets £11 - £16. Box Office 0871 663 2500. La Grum is also compering Songs From The Shows: The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and young people from Glasgow schools bring a footlit night of show numbers to the Grand Hall at City Halls.

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2008-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

[242.1] INTO THE NEW YEAR WITH MESSIAEN

A very happy 2008 to all NFE readers! The centenary of Olivier Messiaen's birth will be internationally celebrated throughout the year. As one of the major composers of the last century, concerts and events will pay tribute to his singular and creative personality, his poetic and spiritual world, his revolutionary vision in many paths, and to his fertile musical pedagogy. This website will inform you about Messiaen's works (chronology, works catalogue, discography, bibliography), and keep you updated on all of the events which will take place, from large concert halls to small music schools.

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2007-12-24T16:18:00.000Z

[241.1] SEASON SONGS

Warm Christmas wishes to all NewFrontEars readers, whatever kind of music chimes with your festive mood.

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2007-12-12T19:43:00.000Z

[240.1] BRUFORD AND BORSTLAP LIVE

This year I've missed a host of concerts that, in a less complicated world, I simply wouldn't have contemplated slipping past my ears. Post-minimalist contemporary classical ensemble Pianocircus with Bill Bruford alongside , for a start, and also the London live debut of innovative drummer Brufordfree form pianist Michiel Borstlap in November 2007 at the London Jazz Festival. Thankfully the BBC is helping me (and possibly you) out, because it recorded the show and it can now be heard on Wednesday the 12 December on Radio 3's 'Late Junction' at 11.15pm GMT. The duo have recently released their album, In Two Minds, on the Voiceprint label. Bruford, who is now a well-recognised jazz and experimental musician, but whose fame came from stints with Yes and King Crimson during the 'art rock' era, is interviewed on web radio here and featured in The Times newspaper here. Famous for "never playing the same thing once", he declares: "Happily jazz exists. Everyone hates ‘jazz’ but it’s the only word to describe a musician who wants to say something fresh and react to what others are doing around him." His longstanding project, Earthworks, is currently in abeyance. “It’s parked up, refuelling. The key is still in the car and I can drive it any time but I do think you do need a clear idea of what you’re doing when you play a concert.” Borstlap (left in the picture above), a conservatoire trained musician who has also moved into the zone of freedom labelled 'jazz', has had few headlines over the years (no bad thing, many would argue), but makes up for it in creativity and intensity. They are a formidable pairing.

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2007-12-02T15:37:00.000Z

[239.1] PUBLIC MUSICAL PASSIONS

Virtuoso cellist Steven Isserlis (pictured) was charm itself during his appearance on BBC Radio 4's iconic Desert Island Discs this week. That was not just a personality thing, but a consequence of the fact that he has a real passion for music, which forms an essential part of his life. Well, he's a musician, of course. And I'm certainly not saying that the programme should be restricted to musos. That would miss the point entirely. But too many of the guests that get on to the show these days seem to be there simply because they are 'celebrities' or otherwise prominent in the Beeb's lexicon of 'public life'. The problem arises when it becomes evident that the choice of music is basically an incidental feature of what can easily become another PR interview. ("Ah yes, I need to stick in another record now, don't I? Well, let's try this one. Now, about that important career highlight of mine we were talking about...")

DID is the radio show many music-lovers would die to go on. For my licence-fee money, that ought to be a non-negotiable requirement for anyone appearing, famous or not. BBC Radio 3's Private Passions, with composer Michael Berkeley, is a counterpoint to DID, of course, and one I also love. It's more cerebral, more musically involved, and much less focused on the non-musical elements of its subjects' existence. By contrast, the joy of Desert Island Discs, when it works, is that it shows how good music of all genres can be an illuminating and enlivening part of the fabric of anyone's life, narrating its sorrows, joys and moments of sheer inspiration. But they've got to care about it, in whatever way, for that to be the case. [Pic (c) BBC]

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2007-11-23T13:02:00.000Z

[238.1] PLACES AND SPACES

How delightful to be back in contact with my former colleague and friend Paul Fisher - whose life is now mostly dedicated to composing and the arts. His website is here, and includes details of various recordings - including Places and Stories, available from Priory Records, on which Kevin Bowyer plays Paul's fine organ music on the Willis organ of Glasgow University Memorial Chapel. It was recorded in April this year (2007), and the cover picture is Tintern Abbey. I've only had a brief listen, as I am involved in a writing project right now, but it was a special pleasure to hear the full The Fire and the Rose: A Suite of Six Pieces - the first time it has been available complete on disc. Paul and I share a love of T. S. Eliot's poetry, a key inspiration here, and I have only previously heard excerpts performed live, twice, by the composer himself. Once was on the organ at Southwark Cathedral. I do have the sheet music, however, which was happily made available some years ago. A longer review will follow.

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2007-11-23T08:42:00.000Z

[238.2] HEAVEN KNOWS I'M MISERABLE NOW

Following his recently completed US tour, which included residencies in Los Angeles and New York, Morrissey has decided to start 2008 with six concerts at London's Roundhouse. Tickets went on sale at 9am this morning and, predictably, were sold out in a few hours. So I missed out. I've always wanted to see the Mozzfather live, having inexplicably turned down a ticket to witness The Smiths in Brixton on 12 December 1986. It turned out to be their last ever gig. This is getting to be a habit, of sorts.

There are as yet unconfirmed rumours that Morrissey will play L'Olympia in Paris on 4 February. In the wake of his 2006 album Ringleader of the Tormentors, he terminated his relationship with Sanctuary Records, but says he intends to release a new CD in September 2008. He has been trailing a number of new songs in the US.

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2007-11-22T12:44:00.000Z

[237.1] OSBORNE'S TIPPETT SONATAS

Good to see Andrew Clements' positive review of Steven Osborne's important recording of Sir Michael Tippett's Piano Sonatas Nos 1-4, together with the Piano Concerto and the early Fantasia On a Theme of Handel. It's fashionable to knock Tippett these days. But quixotic though some of his music is, it remains immensely powerful and will have its day again, of that I'm sure. I haven't heard this disc yet, but it's on my Christmas wish-list. I was privileged to see one of Osborne's recitals featuring the sonatas at the Wigmore Hall during the Tippett centenary celebrations in 2005.

Clements writes: "Osborne is superb at delineating the characters of the four sonatas, and underlining how, in their very different ways, they relate to the piano tradition. The First, from 1942, is the most surprising, for its florid, almost improvisatory writing sometimes seems to be modelled on the bravura style of Liszt and Rachmaninov, which Osborne projects dazzlingly, while under his fingers the Second Sonata, composed in 1962, emerges as a gritty and uncompromising masterpiece, indebted both to late Stravinsky and to Messiaen.

"But it's in the less often performed Third and Fourth Sonatas, from 1973 and 1984 respectively, that Osborne's ability to grasp overall shapes while also respecting the smallest details is most thoroughly tested, and his performances are coherent, vivid and coursing with drama."

Hyperion are to be congratulated on this two CD set, which also features Martyn Brabbins and the fine BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

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2007-11-19T23:17:00.000Z

[236.1] TEA AND SYMPHONY

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Oliver Sacks; Knopf, 381 pages, $25

From a review by Scott LaFee: His latest book, Musicophilia, [focusses] upon a subject that his clearly close to Sacks' own heart and mind: the relationship between music and the brain.

Here too are the expected (and yet somehow unexpected) case histories: the woman who suffers spasms whenever she hears songs that remind her of childhood; the psychoanalyst who has hallucinations of a singing rabbi and the surgeon struck by lightning who becomes obsessed with Chopin.

Sacks talks too about people for whom music offers no attraction at all, a condition called amusia in which melody, harmony and rhythm are nothing more than “plinking noises” and “an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds.”

Some of these “amusiacs” are quite well-known. Among them: Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Vladimir Nabokov, William James and Ulysses S. Grant.

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2007-11-18T19:33:00.000Z

[235.1] MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Adey Grummet, über-soprano supreme, writes: "That glorious and magical engine, the Stoke Newington Opera Cabaret, is about to steam off into unknown territories once more. With a very starry cast of singers and the inspirational support of two stalwart pianists, this is an occasion to come and revel in the marvellous excesses of a night of opera greats. I shall compere in my usual, excitable style."

We are promised "an evening of glorious singing, fabulous frocks and operatically heightened emotions. Fight to get a ticket... Bar on site - bring your own picnic!" Sounds unmissable. Well, except that I will be elsewhere that evening, sadly. But you need not be.

Proceedings commence at 6.30 pm on 15 December 2007, at The Round Chapel, corner of Lower Clapton Road & Glenarm Road, London E5. Tickets £16 (£14 concessions) available from the redoubtable Farquhar McKay: farquharmckayATblueyonderDOTcoDOTuk, or telephone 07504 4811 849. Adey's own website is here.

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2007-11-04T20:42:00.000Z

[234.1] THE AUTUMN OF LOVE

Frighteningly enough, in transit to a quite different TV experience, I found myself catching a few minutes of BBC1's Antiques Roadshow tatfest this evening - a programme I would normally go out of my way to avoid, as one would any kind of hospice, until it is strictly necessary. What caught my attention, though, was a classic Jefferson Airplane poster from Haight Ashbury in 1967. One of Wes Wilson's psychadelic graphic creations. So this is what the post-modern retirement home looks like? There is hope. Of a kind.

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2007-10-20T20:27:00.000Z

[233.1] HARRISON BIRTWISTLE ON OLIVIER MESSIAEN

This, slightly edited to read, from a good BBC radio interview by John Tusa. One inspiration on another (very different one), from my point of view. Read the whole thing here. It's about Birtwistle's formation, his journey in music, his approach to it, and the often confused controversy that has followed him. The idea that he writes atonally, for example, which, as he says, is "far from the truth".

[H]ow things are introduced, how things gather... that moment is extraordinary. And Messiaen to me is rather like that. The first Messiaen that I heard, I thought, there is another way of writing music. And he sort of explained it. I think that I performed in the first performance of the Quartet for the End of Time... but at the beginning of the Quartet for the End of Time, is that little chart about rhythm... And that was pretty moving because I thought , it gives you courage... somebody else is doing it, maybe there is something there. To talk to him about it, to listen to him talking, you'd think that he was in [that] tradition of music from the beginning of time, but he really did invent a sort of music in one go and he was still doing the same thing at the end of his life. I mean he managed to shuffle the cards in different ways ... but you know, the melodies he invented at the beginning were the same melodies at the end.

[Pic: Olivier Messiaen]

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2007-10-19T09:51:00.000Z

[232.1] THE RHYTHM OF BLOG

Maybe Blog Action Day (on the environment) passed you by in 2007 - it was 15 October - but you can sign up for 2008, and they have a groovy little toooon going on in the background which will make you smile (unless you're a bit of a fuddy-duddy). "March to your own green beat"...

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2007-10-18T00:04:00.000Z

[231.1] WHEN HANDEL MET HENDRIX

I can't believe I missed out on this. Careless. And tragic. Hope it isn't the last ever performance.

The Handel-Hendrix Experience is a fascinating comedy about a surprising meeting between musical revolutionaries Handel and Hendrix, who lived in adjoining houses on Brook Street in London but over two centuries apart. For one night only, the dramatised reading took place at the splendid Handel House Museum on Sunday 2 September, with two performances at 5pm and 7pm.

The Handel-Hendrix Experience is a play by Perry Pontac, from an idea by Jack Rosenthal, directed by Maureen Lipman and starring Timothy West as Handel and Joseph Mydell as Hendrix. Laurence Cummings performs on harpsichord.

The play imagines how both immigrant musicians might have influenced and changed each other's musical careers. Some comic moments include Hendrix helping Handel to finish Messiah, and Handel advising Hendrix how to dress like a rock star and play the ‘guitar’ with his teeth.

See also: From Handel to Hendrix – The Composer in the Public Sphere by Michael Chanan, Verso, Londres, 2000, 342 pp. ISBN 1-85984-706-4 (Hbk)

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2007-10-06T09:41:00.000Z

[230.1] STOCKHAUSEN'S MASTERWORK

Extraordinary though it may seem (I blush at the memory myself), I once tried to date someone by inviting them to hear a five-hour performance of works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, including Stimmung, which I still think is wonderful. Needless to say, the response wasn't exactly "you've pulled". Though the fine woman concerned has since discovered an admirable taste for contemporary music, I gather, it certainly had little to do with me, I'm sure. Ah, well. That was 31 years ago. But Stimmung still marches on, and has been well reviewed by Andrew Clements in The Guardian.

"Like all the greatest music it is unclassifiable - part meditation, part gigantic motet, part phonetic game - and totally resistant to imitation. Though in essence it is a vast elaboration of a single six-note chord based on the overtones of the note B flat, it never seems to stale in performance, partly because of the extraordinary variety of rhythm, attack and colour that Stockhausen generates within the 51 "models" into which he divides the 70-minute piece, and partly through the freedom for performers that is built in to the score, allowing the singers to decide the order in which the models are sung and where in the sequence a series of 66 "magic names" and four erotic poems are inserted. This is only the third commercial recording of Stimmung; 25 years ago Paul Hillier was a member of Singcircle, the British group behind the second, following the original by Collegium Vocale Cologne, who gave the first performance in 1968. Now, with his Theatre of Voices, Hillier has directed his own version, recorded in Copenhagen last year." Continued here.

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2007-10-05T04:48:00.000Z

[229.1] SOUND CHASER

Mercurial jazz-fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth has announced the dates on his upcoming and long-awaited British tour, featuring an established trio and no keyboards. I shall certainly make every effort to be in London, and perhaps Southampton, too. The line-up is as follows:

Allan Holdsworth - guitar
Chad Wackerman - drums
Jimmy Johnson - bass

THU, NOV 22
International Guitar Festival Of Great Britain,
Birkenhead, Pacific Road Arts Center
www.bestguitarfest.com
www.pacificroad.co.uk
Tel. 0151 647 0752
Pacific Road, Birkenhead, Wirral CH41 1LJ.

SAT, NOV 24
Kendall, Brewery Arts Center
www.breweryarts.co.uk
Tel: 01539 795090
Highgate, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 4HE

SUN, NOV 25
Swindon, Arts Centre
www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/entertainment/theatre/artscentre.shtml
Tel: 01793 614837
Devizes Road, Old Town, Swindon SN1 4BJ

MON, NOV 26
London, Jazz Caffé
www.jazzcaffe.com
Tel. 0207 534 6955
Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1

WED, NOV 28
Milton Keynes, The Stables
www.stables.org
Tel. 01908 280800
Stockwell Lane Wavendon, Milton Keynes MK17 8LU

THU, NOV 29
Manchester, Academy
www.manchesteracademy.net
Tel: 0161 275 2930
Manchester University Students Union, Oxford Road,
Manchester, M13 9PR

FRI, NOV 30
Newcastle, The Cluny
www.theheadofsteam.co.uk
Tel. 0191 2304474
36 Lime Street, Ouseburn, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne
and Wear NE1 2PQ

SAT, DEC 01
Leeds, Rios
www.rios-leeds.com
Tel. 0844 414 2182
The Grand Arcade, Leeds LS1 6PQ

SUN, DEC 02
Southampton, The Brook
www.the-brook.com
Tel. (023) 8055 5366
466 Portswood Road, Portswood, Southampton SO17 3AN

MON, DEC 03
Nuneaton, Queens Hall
www.queenshall.net
Tel. (0)2476 347402
75 Queens Road, Nuneaton, Warwickshire CV11 5LA

TUE, DEC 04
Abertillery, Metropole
www.the-met.co.uk
Tel. 01495 322510
Metre Street, Abertillery, Bleaneau Gwent NP13 1AL

WED, DEC 05
Bilston-Wolverhampton, Robin 2
www.therobin.co.uk
Tel 01902 401211
The Leisure Factory 20-22 Mount Pleasant,
Bilston-Wolverhampton WV14 7LJ

THU, DEC 06
Penzance, The Acorn
www.acornartscentre.co.uk
Tel. 01736 365520
Parade Street, Penzance, Cornwall TR18 4BU

2007-10-04T00:11:00.000Z

(International bloggers' day for Burma... let the music of justice and freedom play on...)

2007-09-29T04:44:00.000Z

[228.1] THE NFE TIPPETT FOCUS

As part of my gradual re-curating of links, I have added a 'Michael Tippett Focus' section, to indicate that one of the regular intentions of NewFrontEars is to maintain interest in the late, great and (comparatively) sadly neglected composer - one of my favourites. Eventually I will index some of the key material on this site, with MT material a particular priority. In the meantime, I hope to be able to signal forthcoming performances of his work, live and on the radio. Below is an upcoming R3 broadcast touching on Tippett's life and music.

The Making Of Music – War Again
Monday 8 October 2007
4.00-5.00pm BBC RADIO 3

BBC Radio 3 presents performances of the music James Naughtie mentions in his BBC Radio 4 programmes (3.45-4.00pm) charting the relationship between 1,000 years of history and the classical music that became its soundtrack.

This programme explores the Thirties and those composers who didn't join the artistic diaspora out of Europe, but instead stayed behind to deal with the catastrophe of war.

Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony (the Leningrad) was written during the 900-day siege of that city in which 750,000 Russians died.

In Britain, Michael Tippett spent a few years in the Communist Party during the Thirties, but soon lost faith in its creed. On the day war broke out in September 1939, he began to write the oratorio A Child Of Our Time, inspired by the story of the Polish Jew Herschel Grynspan, whose assassination of a German diplomat in Paris in 1938 was one of the causes of Hitler's organised assault on German Jews on Kristallnacht in that year.

As a pacifist and conscientious objector, Tippett was jailed for refusing to undertake war work as an alternative to military service. In A Child Of Our Time, he deals with the question of the outsider, or the group that can't be understood.

Presenter/Louise Fryer, Producer/Anthony Sellors

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2007-09-27T20:08:00.000Z

[227.2] SHATTERING THE GLASS BATON

Thanks to Deirdre Good for drawing my attention to this one: "Tonight Marin Alsop will shatter the glass baton. As she steps onto the podium for her inaugural concert as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO), Ms Alsop becomes the first woman to assume the leadership of a major American symphony. The baton she will grasp will be a simple wooden one, worn and slightly crooked, handcrafted by her father. Here's the website of Marin Alsop."

Formerly PO of the Bournemouth Symphony, Alsop was also involved with the Building on Excellence: Orchestras for the 21st Century statement, which Andrew Clements comments on here.

Back in April, she declared: "Britain has some of the leading voices of the 21st century, composers that I revere such as Thomas Adès, James MacMillan and Oliver Knussen. What we have to do is maximise on that stature and encourage younger voices."

The 10-year mission statement also promises that musicians will perform in non-traditional venues. The document is signed by the orchestras' chief conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Jurowski and Vasily Petrenko, and a lone British name, Mark Elder, the Hallé's music director.

Marin Alsop added: "The UK's orchestras are ... filled with musicians who want to make a contribution to the future of humanity."

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2007-09-27T17:20:00.000Z

[227.1] PROTO COSMOS REVISITED

I've just been listening to some wonderfully chromatic Bach, and for some reason found myself wanting to hear Allan Holdsworth. I love his effortless legato style, weird modes, and ability to rework a tune harmonically (this one is by the late Tony Williams, of Lifetime fame) while improvising. Leaves some people cold, I know. But I could listen to him for hours. And Have. Sadly I missed him last time he was in London, so I'm delighted to learn that Allan will tour England in November/December 2007. Venues and dates are due to be announced soon. The band will feature Chad Wackerman on drums and Jimmy Johnson on bass. Then 2008 will see Allan splitting his time between recording and touring. He will focus on the completion of several delayed recording projects of his own and has plans to play in Japan, Australia, Europe, and the USA, apparently. Unmissable.

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2007-09-11T21:21:00.000Z

[226.1] FAREWELL TO THE INIMITABLE JOE

While most of the media attention has gone, understandably, to Pavarotti, the musical demise that has impacted me most has been the death today of the extraordinary Austrian pianist Joe Zawinul. His time as keyboard player with Miles Davis and his co-founding of Weather Report with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, guitarist Miroslav Vitous and bass player Jaco Pastorius are true milestones in contemporary jazz. But he was so much larger than this. I was privileged to see him in improvisatory mode (a pulsating set of avant, blue note-inflected classicism and world beat) in Cardiff a couple of years ago. He was sharing the honours with Bill Bruford's Earthworks.

In 2004 Zawinul bought a jazz club in Vienna, the Birdland, but continued to tour with his new group, the Zawinul Syndicate. He was due to play this September at the La Villette jazz festival in Paris, but the performance was cancelled due to his ill health. Over the course of his career, Joe was named pianist of the year 28 times by the American jazz magazine Down Beat. That speaks volumes. But not nearly as eloquently as the notes he modulated.

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2007-09-10T21:18:00.000Z

[226.1] PERFORMANCE IN TRANSITION

Open Rehearsal is a Mayor of London campaign taking place across the Uk capital from 27 September to 2 October 2007. Piloted in 2006, the campaign was well received, with South Bank, the Barbican, Wigmore Hall, Dance Umbrella and a variety of commercial and non-commercial theatres participating, and is therefore being expanded this year.

Open Rehearsal will offer the public an opportunity to sample London’s finest music, theatre, dance and opera, free of charge, through access to rehearsals and behind the scenes activity, thus providing a mix of passive and participative activity. As a result more people can enjoy the world-class music, theatre and dance that London offers. Among those participating are the wonderful Britten Sinfonia.

Regular Open Rehearsal partner meetings are held at City Hall. Our next partner meeting is from 3pm-4.30pm on Friday 24 August 2007 in Committee Room 3. Please email openrehearsal@london.gov.uk if you would like to attend.

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2007-09-08T20:55:00.000Z

[225.1] ALL THINGS MUST PASS

I'm afraid that, much though I love the Proms as a (indeed the) classical music festival, wild dogs wouldn't force me to watch the embarrassing anachronism that is the Last Night (tonight, BBC 1 & 2). Well, not unless there was a re-run of Harrison Birtwistle frightening the horsey types and yahoos with 'Panic' for sax and percussion. That was great.

I will, however, tune into BBC1 shortly to catch a glimpse of ex-Pink Floyd front man David Gilmour at the Albert Hall - if only because there might be an excerpt from 'Echoes', far and away my favourite PF piece. To be honest I'm not massive on them post Syd Barrett and the promise that sprung out of 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn'.

Prior to the film, which was recorded last year (2006), Gilmour came on stage and performed 'Castellizon' - the guitar piece from his solo album 'On An Island'. He took to a darkened platform with just a spotlight on his guitar.

The footage included several tracks featuring Crosby & Nash performing vocals alongside Gilmour - 'On An Island', 'The Blue' and 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond.' The Albert Hall gig also included David Bowie on two songs: 'Arnold Layne' and finale 'Comfortably Numb.'

After the concert (which included an immense laser light show in the auditorium for 'Echoes') finished, Gilmour came back onstage to take questions from the audience and appreciators around Europe.

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2007-09-07T02:31:00.000Z

[224.1] SOUND MITIGATING FURY

"In the poetry for the Third Symphony, I included a line which I had been ‘forced’ to write: “My sibling is the torturer”. It is a frightening line, and I do not know that I understand what it means. And yet I know instinctively that it is something that we have got to face up to; there is some element, which we have not yet understood, about why people do things in this violent form. I am afraid that unless we make some definite effort to understand we shall not get ourselves round this corner. My emotional responses in favour of the victims of war and in opposition to notions of military heroism do not necessarily make me a better person than the ‘heroes’."

Composer and life-long pacifist Sir Michael Tippett, Individual Responsibility, Talk at PPU AGM.

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2007-09-04T22:56:00.000Z

[223.1] NOT MERCURIAL ENOUGH

"Music is a shout of foregone conclusions, as long as music plays its part", the song goes. On the other hand, the Mercury Prize, originally hailed as a genre-busting new music award, has become long on foregone conclusions while remaining comparatively short on musical daring. Industry hats go on about 'innovation', but what they mean is previously little known talents in fairly predictable pools. This year those psycho-darling Klaxons (Myths of the Near Future) outvoted rehab Winehouse and the net-tastic Artctics, among others. Congratulations to them. But it's still a scandal that the Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford (drums) remained an afterthought even on the Independent's arts pages. The Mecuries almost immediately reduced contemporary classical and jazz to token shortlist inclusions, before ditching them altogether (honest, at least). The Basquiat broke the barrier again this year, because, as John Walters put it, "they rock". The dubious honour has at least secured them some valuable additional sales. Not to be sniffed at. But their fine aroma is not sufficient to re-odorize the stench of music biz commercialism surrounding the Mercury muppett show. Music alone is not good enough to pipe its message, it seems.

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2007-09-04T07:45:00.001Z

[222.1] SAVING RADIO 3 FROM ITS DEFENDERS

Edward Pearce, who has issued a passionate plea for 'traditional values' on BBC Radio 3, is a delightful man. Some years ago, when he worked as a commentator and journalist on a national newspaper and I scribed for an obscure weekly, I sat next to him at a political conference we were both covering. Unlike many 'name hacks' he was unfailingly courteous and good-humoured, even saving my hotly-competed-for place while I went in search of a cuppa. I've always enjoyed his writing, too. It is thoughtful, informed, quaintly punctilious and wryly Swiftian in its denunciations. A breath of fresh air also, because Pearce moved ground from conservatism to a Whiggish and idiosyncratic form of liberalism during the Thatcher era.

That said, his squeal of anguish over Radio 3 is spoiled (as one respondent says) by "[needless] words and phrases such as 'tributary tosh', 'kitsch', 'inferior music', 'inferior taste', and 'long live cultural snobbery'." Ah, well. That's the bluff North Riding traditionalist in him. Bless. Likewise, film music isn't necessarily the best target - Prokofiev, Britten, Walton, Tippett and Korngold didn't despise the medium per se. And rightly so. 'Light music' is, I admit, anathema as far as I'm concerned - Gilbert and Sullivan included, which drives me nuts. And there is surely plenty of other airspace for it?

But sorry Ed, the idea of re-building cast-iron walls between resplendent classicism and resolute modernism depresses me. Drummond and Glock may have seemed over-zealous in their educative missions, but the Proms at its best is now testimony to the fact that musical trenches are unnecessary. I don't mind jazz seeping in and out of the mix, either. Far from it. Given "those twentieth century blues" it's inevitable, as well as desirable. Radio 3 should still unashamedly be about music as art rather than music as distraction. With that I readily concur. But it should seek to discharge this remit by breaking barriers as well as upholding traditions. Both are possible. Quality should never be confused with stuffiness. And as you say, "[a]n audience of 1.78 million for a programme of classical music, long in earnest talk and flecked with avant garderie, is nothing to apologise for."

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2007-08-31T23:31:00.000Z

[221.1] AUTHENTIC HANDEL AT THE PROMS

A good BBC 1 TV Proms broadcast this evening - the Baroque concert from last Thursday (23 August 2007) featuring a lively collaboration between two leading period-instrument groups, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (with Rachel Podger violin/director) and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (with Gottfried von der Goltz violin/director ). The programme centred on Handel, including the famous the ceremonial fireworks music written in honour of King George II, the Concerto a due cori in F major, HWV 333, and arias and duets performed by Kate Royal (soprano) and the wonderful Ian Bostridge (see pic - tenor). We also got Purcell (arr. Catherine Mackintosh), Sett of Favourite Airs, Fantasies and Dances. Telemann's Suite in G minor for two solo violins, strings and basso continuo, TWV 55:g8, didn't make the TV cut, unfortunately.

Some kind of comment on the 'period instrument' issue is inevitable, I guess. The overall sound mix was certainly fascinating, and the virtuosity of the performers extraordinary. The strings are duller in tone than their modern equivalents, and the breath control required for valveless horns and woodwind is considerable. I was full of admiration. The passion and communication of the performers lent the whole concert an undoubted vibrancy.

Yet I remain slightly sceptical. 'Authentic performance' can make a genuine contribution to our understanding and appreciation of the music, yet it is still a tentative exercise, historically speaking. I also can't help wondering how Handel would feel about it. He would find some 'modern instrument' performances of his instrumental pieces quite remarkable, I'd wager, and would crave the control and modulation available to the contemporary performer. "Why deny yourselves the best?", I can hear him saying. There's room for both approaches, of course. But music is alive and should be allowed to develop. We owe it to those who gifted it to us. Not least Handel, whose zest for life was always forward-looking.

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2007-08-29T07:46:00.000Z

[220.1] BRUFORD AND THE PIANO BEAT

I've long advocated that eclectic jazz-rock drummer Bill Bruford (latterly heading up Earthworks, also ex-Yes and King Crimson) should delve more into the 'new music' arena. I'm delighted to see that this is going to happen at the end of next month. The concert concerned will take place on 21 September 2007, starting at 19:30, 170 Kensal Road, London, W10 5BN Cost : £10 (£8) advance booking or £12 on door.

The blurb proclaims: "Legendary drummer Bill Bruford and new music’s star keyboard collective pianocircus have teamed up with innovative composer Colin Riley. They perform an evening of this new material at a special performance in London. Riley has created create a set of high-energy and ambient tracks to harness the power and range of the performers, blending electronica, jazz, and the avant-garde."

www.cobdenclub.co.uk/sitemap.html Tickets www.wegottickets.com/20834.

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2007-08-25T01:28:00.000Z

[219.1] A SONG FOR CONGO

I caught this on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, and it was both heartening and moving. Norwegian jazz musician Bugge Wesseltoft has used Beeb journo Mike Thomson's interview with Zawadi, a woman horrifically caught up in the conflict in Congo, as the basis for a song on his new album. Bugge Wesseltoft, who has worked with musicians like American guitarist John Scofield and Britain's eclectic composer and performer Django Bates, is to feature parts of the interview in the track called 'Wye'. Lyric royalties from the song are to be donated to the woman from Bukavu in Eastern Congo, who finally escaped her Rwandan Hutu abductors after witnessing the murder of fifty of her friends and family. The album will be released in October 2007. There is a clip on the BBC's website story here. It was in searching for Wesseltoft that I discovered the Maria Kannegaard Trio, too. [Pic: Thomson and Wesseltoft]

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2007-08-24T23:33:00.000Z

[218.1] BACKED INTO THE FUTURE

Thanks to Sequenza21 for highlighting this one. Back in 1994, the following composers were invited to weigh in on what music would be like in 150 years: Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez (predictable, this one!), Harrison Birtwistle, Brian Ferneyhough (minimal answer), Steve Reich (maximal, funnily enough), Franco Donatoni (looks eerily like the late footballer George Best, on an off day) and Louis Andriessen. The ones who didn't take it as an opportunity pompously to state the bleedin' obvious (that prediction is a mugs game, and not to be taken seriously) wound up having some pretty interesting things to say - offbeat and onbeat.

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2007-08-24T21:49:00.000Z

[217.1] MONK IN MORSE CODE?

While searching for something entirely different, I had one of those happy chancing-upon internet adventures - discovering for the first time the Maria Kannegaard Trio {pictured}. They have some sound files up on their MySpace page, too. Their latest album, Quiet Joy, has been published on Jazzland Records, the label of the daring Bugge Wesselhoft - about whom, more anon. According to Rondomagazine the music "at one moment sounds like Bill Evans having the hiccups, at another like Thelonious Monk in Morse code (...) or like gumbo-backbeat when the drums peu à peu are losing all of their metal parts. That's one of many ways to describe the incredibly surprising style and positive craziness in the music of the Maria Kanneegaard Trio."

This from Roald Helgheim: “I immediately sat up and noticed Maria Kannegaard the first time I heard her … She was playing beautiful tunes, and then there was something about the way she was improvising. Something well defined, conscious, well-thought through: … she speaks to me with music so soulful it leaves one with a massive impression, but at the same time this music possesses an inner calm. … the most original trio-debut in Norwegian jazz for a long time.”

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2007-08-23T21:07:00.000Z

[216.1] TRUE VENEZUELAN SWING

Rather unjustly, I think, Andrew Clements has a reputation in some circles for being a 'dour modernist'. Well, he certainly champions demanding new music and maximalism. Good for him on that. But he also operates from a wide musical palette, as is indicated by this enthusiastic review of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra's appearance in London. The progamme included Shostakovitch's stunning Tenth Symphony - one of my favourite works, and a piece of daunting musical and emotional scale.

Clements begins: "I am not sure anything quite like Gustavo Dudamel and his extraordinary group of young musicians have ever hit the Proms before. Whatever you have read about the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra - and the astonishing Venezuelan system of musical education that brought it into being - can't convey the brilliance and disarming exuberance of their playing, or the importance of Dudamel's role in channelling that energy. There are some great youth orchestras around today, but none of them is as exciting to behold as this." Read on.

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2007-08-21T02:25:00.000Z

[215.1] SHOUT IT OUT AGAIN

The indefatigable Adey Grummet writes: "The Shout will go into rehearsal on their newly devised theatre piece, Fingerprint in September 2007. Directed by Emma Bernard, it deals with the multilayered and kaleidoscopic aspects of [human] identity. The tour is as follows:

* Linbury 27, 28, 29th Sept
* RNCM Manchester 20th Oct
* Portsmouth New Theatre Royal 31st Oct
* Sage Gateshead 8th November
* Dartington Plus (Ariel Centre) 29, 30th November

Details of all this will be here as well as on The Shout's own website. Why not contact them there to be put on their mailing list?"

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2007-08-19T22:15:00.000Z

[214.1] DOCUMENTING NEW MUSIC

Among the very best 'new music' web initiatives is undoubtedly the NetNewMusic/Sequenza21 New Music Wiki - and, of course, the Sequenza21 blog, which is essential reading. (Yes, I know, I must update my links.) "What we hope to do here is to build a reader-created community/encyclopedia of new music composers, performers, history, schools, important works - you literally name it. Since first person sources are always the best place to start, I am hoping that all of you who are active in creating and playing new music will create entries for yourself and the groups you are associated with."

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2007-08-17T21:05:00.000Z

[213.2] MAX ROACH - THE SYNCOPATION LIVES ON

I haven't always been successful in seeing my musical heroes in the flesh, before they pass into dust and artistic immortality. I missed Miles Davis' last-ever appearance in London - so never witnessed him play live. I sadly never got to see Shostakovitch, Zappa or The Smiths, either. I caught Ligeti, Copland and Tal Farlowe, but missed out on Messaien - a huge lode star in my sonic firmament.

So I am thankful this evening, having heard the sad news of Max Roach's demise, that I got to see the ground-breaking jazz drummer in action, aged well into his 70s, along with pianist Cecil Taylor at London's Royal Festival Hall. It is a night I wont forget. Roach wasn't walking that easily and looked petty frail. But when he sat on the drum riser he was a man transfigured, and his deftness of touch, tome and rhythmic sensitivity never lost him. There were even signs of the controlled muscularity which he applied in such a customary way -- in the service of a greater musical cause, rather than for its own sake.

The BBC gives a pithy summary of what he was and what he bought to jazz "Born in North Carolina in 1924, Roach became the house drummer at the legendary New York club Monroe's Uptown House in his teens. He helped develop the bebop style while playing with the likes of Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie at Monroe's and another influential New York venue, Minton's Playhouse. Before bebop, jazz was primarily swing music played in dance halls, and drummers served to keep time for the band, Blue Note spokesman Cem Kurosman said. Roach, along with fellow-drummer Kenny Clarke, changed that by shifting the time-keeping function to the cymbal, allowing the drums to play a more expressive and melodic role.

"Roach began drumming before the age of 10In the process, he contributed to the shift of jazz from popular dance music to an art form that fans appreciated sitting in clubs, Kurosman added.
The self-trained percussionist also took part in sessions with Miles Davis, which were later released as The Birth Of Cool. The quintet he co-founded with Clifford Brown in 1954 is considered one of the classic ensembles in jazz. After Brown's death in a car crash with bandmate Richie Powell in 1956, Roach led a series of bands that included a who's who of jazz associates."

He was also a stalwart campaigner for human dignity and civil rights.

There is more on the BBC Radio 3 Profile - which adds: "Some of his duo performances are masterpieces of improvisation, notably his 1989 Paris collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie and a long-lived partnership with pianist Cecil Taylor both on record and in a series of occasional concerts. In the 1980s Roach formed a regular group which included Odean Pope on saxophones and Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet. In addition he worked in an amazing variety of contexts from all star jazz groups to the Beijing Trio, which explored Asian-American links."

See also: Art Taylor: 'Max Roach' in Notes and Tones (New York, USA, Da Capo, 1993); Drummerworld: Max Roach; Max Roach: The Hard Bop Homepage; Max Roach - Wikipedia; Max Roach - Verve Records.

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2007-08-17T16:48:00.000Z

[213.1] ORCHESTRAL CONCERTS GO 'VIRTUAL'

In The Guardian (whose online redesign really is fab): Second Life goes symphonic - a British orchestra is staging the first full-scale classical concert in the virtual world. Meanwhile, in the 'real world', we're at the Proms halfway point, the paper reminds us.

"The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has created a virtual, 3-D version of its concert hall and on September 14 users of the website will be able to attend a concert led by the orchestra's chief conductor, Vasily Petrenko."

Encouragingly, the report adds: "Far from compromising with popular classics, the orchestra will perform, aside from works by Ravel and Rachmaninov, two premieres, by Liverpool composers Kenneth Hesketh and John McCabe."

A different kind of 'virtual orchestra experience' was provided by an installation on London's South Bank last Summer (August-September) called Play.orchestra - see illustration. "56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots are laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker. Sit down on the cube or stand in the hotspot to turn on that instrument and bring 58 friends to hear the full piece. "

An intriguing initiative of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Play.orchestra was reviewed at the time by Frankie Roberto.

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2007-08-14T15:23:00.000Z

[212.1] TIPPETT'S DANCING ENERGY

Ivan Hewett of the Daily Telegraph writing about Prom 18 (Thursday 26 July 2007, while I was in the United States):

"Then came another piece which was thought to be a swan-song: Michael Tippett’s Triple Concerto, written when the composer was 75 (in fact he went on composing for another fifteen years). I remembered its exulting melodies, the three soloists singing like one, but I’d forgotten its dancing energy, the ingenious cyclic form, and the virtuosity of the orchestral as well as the solo writing. The three soloists – violinist Daniel Hope, violist Philip Dukes, and cellist Christian Poltéra, played like heroes. But the orchestra was no less wonderful; in fact the most entrancing part of the performance was the sinuous duet between Hope and alto flautist Michael Cox.

Listen to the Proms on BBC Radio 3’s audio-on-demand service bbc.co.uk/radio3

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2007-08-11T01:35:00.000Z

[211.1] A BIRTWISTLE PERCUSSIVE FAVOURITE

...and an unexpected find on YouTube. For O, For O, the Hobby-Horse is Forgot, by Sir Harrison Birtwistle (April 12, 2005). There are two further portions. Courtesy of OberlinPercussion [Clockwise from top: Ross Karre, Jared Twenty, Michael Lehman, Andrew Burke, Zachary Crystal, Matthew Jenkins]

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2007-08-10T20:11:00.000Z

[210.2] TONY WILSON'S PERFECT KISS

My friend he took his final breath
Now I know the perfect kiss is the kiss of death
(Bernard Sumner Peter Hook Stephen Morris Phil Cunningham)

I was delayed, I was way-laid
an emergency stop
I smelt the last ten seconds of life
I crashed down on the crossbar
and the pain was enough
to make a shy, bald buddhist reflect
and plan a mass-murder
(Morrissey Marr)

Sad to hear on the BBC this evening of the death of Tony Wilson - the impresario who created the context for the glorious emergence of The Smiths, in my view the indie band of the 1980s, and who is immortalised (warts and all) in the fine 24 Hour Party People.

"The Salford-born entrepreneur, who managed New Order, Joy Division and the Happy Mondays, was diagnosed [with cancer] last year during a routine visit to the doctor. The 57-year-old, who launched Factory records and the Hacienda nightclub, underwent emergency surgery in January to remove a kidney. He passed away on Friday evening in hospital. Doctors recommended he take the drug Sutent after chemotherapy failed to beat the disease, but the NHS refused to fund the £3,500-a-month treatment. However, members of the Happy Mondays and other acts he supported over the years stepped in and started a fund to help pay for it."

NP in my head: The Smiths, 'Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before' and New Order, 'The Perfect Kiss'.

Sound and vision files:

The Smiths – Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Ten-minute version of 'The Perfect Kiss' on YouTube.

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2007-08-10T05:15:00.000Z

[210.1] THE REAL FIFTH DIMENSION

The fastest going JSB-related group on Facebook at the moment is the delightfully whimsical "Every time you write parallel fifths, Bach kills a kitten". (You need to be registered to view it). I have gently raised the thorny and well-trampled issue of whether, therefore, he actually wrote Toccatta and Fugue in D Minor, which has plenty of PFs in it. They're mostly students on there. And that's what students are for. In the nicest possible way.

For the baffled, the relevant Wikipedia entry has a pretty succinct summary:

"In music, consecutive fifths (also known as parallel fifths) involve the concurrence of successive intervals of a perfect fifth between two voices in parallel motion; e.g., a parallel movement from C to D in one voice, and G to A in a higher voice. Intervening octaves are irrelevant to this aspect of musical grammar; for example, parallel 12ths (i.e., as created by successive intervals of an octave plus a fifth) are equivalent to parallel fifths. During the common practice period, the use of consecutive fifths was strongly discouraged. This was primarily due to the notion of voice leading, which stresses the individual identity of voices. Because of the powerful presence of the fifth above the fundamental in the overtone series, the individuality of two parts is weakened when they move in parallel fifths."

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2007-08-09T02:54:00.000Z

[209.1] BETTER THAN IT SOUNDS

"Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, followed by Mahler’s 10th Symphony; it would be hard to think of a more intense pairing than this one, given to us last night by the BBC Philharmonic and its new chief conductor Gianandrea Noseda", writes Ivan Hewett in his Telegraph BBC Proms review. Indeed. He adds: "It’s a clever pairing too, as the two pieces go together so beautifully. The doom-laden thump of the bass drum colours both pieces, and they both lead through strange, tormented areas of experience before subsiding in serenity and acceptance. Where they differ hugely is in scale."

For the at-home listener (like me in this instance - go to the Beeb's 'listen again' facility: bbc.co.uk/radio3) the immensity and gradualism of the Mahler [pictured] can be a challenge. In years gone by I have struggled with it, rather sympathising with the person who once famously commented that "Wagner's music is better than it sounds" - and applying it to Mahler too! Complexity and density in music (Birtwistle, Ferneyhough, etc.) has never been something that has especially daunted me. But lyrical density and ponderousness has. I know for many it is the other way round.

In the 1970s I got into Bruckner a little, partly by way of self-education. Wagner passed me by. And Mahler 10, except in bruised chunks. But the Proms is an ideal environment in which to stretch one's listening experience. Long may it be so.

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2007-08-06T22:58:00.000Z

[208.1] BACH TO BASICS

Ouch, sorry about that. What I wish to commend, however, is the short 15-minute-per-broadcast series on BBC 2 and BBC 4 (TV, around 11.20pm, after Newsnight) - York Minster organist John Whiteley performs a series of JS Bach's organ works. The BFI blurb, such as it is, talks up the "innovative camera techniques". Thankfully these enhance, rather than obscuring, the beauty of the music.

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2007-08-03T22:23:00.001Z

[207.1] THE APPALACHIAN SONGBOOK

I am staying in West Virginia at the moment, in a country spa hotel situated near the foothills of the famous Appalachian mountains. I've been listening to a young fiddle player called Rob Mann, a street musician and function player, who has been busting a cat gut or two taking us through some of the repertoire for this region. And very talented he is, too.

Of course the vernacular music of the area owes a good deal to English and (especially) Irish folk music, whence it borrowed some ideas and reworked them across the homesteads and bars. One or two of the better known tunes (from a wider span of possibilities) are included in Aaron Copland's famous ballet suite Appalachian Spring, which has always been a favourite of mine.

"An emotional highpoint of the score is a melody based on a traditional Shaker song, 'Simple Gifts.' We hear a chorus sing the original hymn that provided Copland his inspiration, then listen to Copland’s beautiful solo vocal and instrumental adaptations. Throughout the work, Copland brilliantly weaves melodies that evoke simplicity and the “earnest but good-natured piety” of Shaker culture. Composer John Adams discusses the Shaker influence on American culture and how Copland allowed that to shape the piece."

Adams' own orchestral work 'Shaker Loops' is one of the most widely adapted in the neo-minimalist canon, and has been set to words in an abbreviated version by Jon Anderson on the album Change We Must.

NPR continues: "Music critics were in awe of Copland’s ability to capture a vast emotional world within the limits of the 13-piece orchestration prescribed by the original score (which, in turn, was dictated by the size of the Coolidge Auditorium orchestra pit at the Library of Congress, site of the ballet's premiere). With some strings, a few woodwinds and piano he achieves remarkable effects."

See also Classical Notes on Copland and Appalachian Spring.

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2007-08-01T02:49:00.000Z

[206.1] NEWS FROM GRUMMET CENTRAL

"Lore Lixenberg [pictured] and Adey Grummet have worked together for years. Between them they sing some of the scariest contemporary scores know to humanity. Perhaps this is sheer foolhardiness and perhaps this is true courage. Whatever, it means that they never get cast in standard repertoire or considered for nice polite parts in nice polite opera houses with music where you know how many beats are in the next bar. Funny that. And a bit sad.

"However, Graham Coatman, the new artistic Director of the Hexham Festival, heard them whinging about this one day and decided to take them at their word. Dragging their good friend and stalwart support and all-round-nicest-man-we-know, Jonathan Williams, with them, they will be singing just what they fancy singing on 4 October 2007 in Hexham Abbey and no-one is going to stop them!" Updates here.

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2007-07-29T20:37:00.000Z

[205.1] A NEW YORK STATE OF SOUND

New York, where I was staying with friends recently, is a city pulsating with music. From bars and clubs to concert halls, buskers, street sounds and stores – melody, harmony, rhythm and dissonance seeps uncontrollably from its pores.

As I arrive on Amtrak from Washington DC, a man on the train next to me is listening to Charles Ives on his headset. I can tell this from the CD sleeve by his side rather than any discernible notes emerging from his earphones, but it is enough to evoke the music in my head.

On a Realty company’s forecourt a reggae trio, unlikely and popular with the passing lunchtime crowd, strike out with Bob Marley’s Exodus and more.

Then on one walk the Lincoln Centre comes into view. I remember hearing the Lincoln Jazz Orchestra at the Proms in London several years ago. In the aesthetic battle between Wynton Marsalis and the variegated memory of Miles Davis, I’m on Miles’ wing. But you don’t have to choose. The custodians of tradition and its innovators into new forms and possibilities can live together, if they are smart.

Mostly Mozart is on. But it seems to be mostly Beethoven, Mido, and the merest smattering of contemporary composition – which would not please Wolfgang Amadeus, surely? Steven and I talk Thomas Ades.

Across the road, of course, is Strawberry Fields, the shrine to John Lennon (‘Imagine’) and Yoko Ono’s overlooking apartment. The ‘found sounds’ beloved of John Cage are everywhere. And the imagined silences. Laurie Anderson haunts the sidewalks, resting between the cracks and rushing the red lights.

Somewhere else is the building depicted on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti album. And in a studio I get a personal performance (well a rehearsal, actually) from R.U.B...with my friend Steven Sullivan doing the maths on bass for some reworked ‘80s material – including Depeche Mode (when they finally do the gig on 6 August 2007) and Elvis Costello’s ‘Pump It Up’.

Not quite The Juliet Letters, admittedly. But my mind slips naturally to the Balanescu Quartet, Nonesuch, Eno, Kronos Quartet and other border-crossings on the musical superhighway.

Talking of which: in Borders itself, I pick up Suzanne Vega’s new NY-centric collection, Beauty and Crime (11 songs bursting with hope, anguish and delight). Plus I note the relative absence of Tippett, A Child Of Our Time and some Ogden piano sonatas aside.

In another store I peek at the New Orleans jazz (is Woody Allen at Michael’s Pub tonight?), I peer at a Gramophone article on Ian Bostridge rescuing Handel, and I hear a track from the New York Dolls – who I never really liked, to be honest. But beloved Morrissey gets them, so there must be some point.

On CD in Jane and Steve’s apartment I take in, at various times, Bartok, Kodaly, Messiaen, Yes, Starcastle (don’t ask), Montreux, Arctic Monkeys, and the not-quite-forgotten John McLaughlin, Tony Williams (of Lifeime) and Jaco Pastorius power jazz trio. Press random again.

Something I listen to – I forget what, exactly – reminds me of that quintessentially NY downtown new music ensemble and festival, Bang On A Can. And in Virgin records I pass racks of Glenn Branca, whose post-punk orchestrations beat the eardrums into submission while enlivening them with sub- and après-sonic overtones, allegedly.

Last, but not least, is the Summer of Love psychedelia art exhibit at the Whitney – Jimi Hendrix, the artist who painted the cover of Miles’ experimental classic Bitches Brew, Jefferson Airplane, Ginsberg, Warhol and the Velvet Underground, a picture of Adrian Mitchell on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall (he now lives on my street in NW5), Janis Joplin, Julie Felix… more memories than my mind an hold.

Sing on, New York… from The Met all the way out West to Haight Ashbury. And well beyond. [Picture: Suzanne Vega, Beauty and Crime]

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2007-07-28T20:14:00.000Z

[204.1] STRIGGIO 40-PART MASS

Thanks to Deirdre Good for drawing my attention to this - missed in the rush to get ready for my US trip. "The rediscovery of the gigantic Mass in forty parts by Alessandro Striggio (1536-1592), lost since 1726, sheds important light on the connections between music and politics in the sixteenth century. Dating from 1566-7, it is one of the most extravagant pieces ever composed in the history of music. Here's a link to the lecture recounting the discovery by Professor Davitt Moroney, University of California, Berkeley."

From The Guardian review of the BBC Prom earlier this month: "Thomas Tallis may have written his revered 40-part Spem in alium motet after meeting the Mantuan composer Alessandro Striggio in London in 1567. Perhaps Tallis even took as a model Striggio's own 40-part mass Ecco si beato giorno, which in its final Agnus Dei rises to 60 parts. For centuries, the missing link in this theory was Striggio's lost mass itself; its rediscovery is an astonishing moment in musicological history. Unveiled in this late-night Prom by the augmented Tallis Scholars, possibly for the first time in half a millennium, Striggio's work is a masterpiece; richer and more extravagant than Tallis's more austerely English motet, but more than fit to be mentioned in the same breath as twin landmarks of 16th-century polyphony."

And here's the choral wiki for Ecce beatam lucem.

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2007-07-27T12:47:00.000Z

[203.1] SINGING FOR A CHANGE

At this year’s WOMAD world music, arts and dance festival (27-29 July 2007) UK-based international development agency Christian Aid is asking visitors to join its 'Climate Changed' campaign as they listen to acts from developing countries which are struggling to adapt to the devastating effects of climate change.

Nazmul Chowdhury from Practical Action in Bangladesh, said: "Forget about making poverty history. Climate change will make poverty permanent."

More information here.

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2007-07-26T15:04:00.000Z

[202.1] LISTENING RIGHT NOW

... to Kodaly (in his most lyrical phase) and, before that, some wondrous excerpts from Bela Bartok's Microcosmos - in a New York apartment, on a warm day with a beautiful blue sky visible through the wide windows. On piano, though it could also be on a harpsichord. Here's a Summer present for you, then: Bela Bartok. MIDI (free download) & MIDI/ZIP.

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2007-07-21T18:51:00.000Z

[201.1] DISAPPEARING YOUTUBE

Loads of interesting stuff in the jazz and rock areas has disappeared off YouTube, thanks to the pointless greed of ViaCom and other 'majors' - who are mostly not preserving profits, but denying potential purchasers a chance to sample music they might not otherwise contemplate. But whatever. There's a lot less 'classical' and new music. But thankfully these Michael Tippett clips, which I mentioned last year, are still around. At the last time of checking.

Tippett rehearsing the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra in the Ritual Dances; Tippett rehearsing the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra in Cockaigne; Tippett rehearsing the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra in Suite in D and Nimrod; Tippett rehearsing the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra in Putnam's Camp.

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2007-07-16T03:14:00.000Z

[200.1] HISTORIC PROMS PARTNERSHIP CELEBRATED

The BBC Proms classical music festival (sadly still best known for its jingoistic last night - but hugely brader in scope, not least in popularising new music) has kicked off the 12th and final BBC season curated by outgoing director Nicholas Kenyon.

It is being described as a celebratory season that marks the 80th anniversary of the partnership between the Proms and the BBC. While referencing the past, it looks to creating the music and performers of the future through concerts and broadcasting.

There are many new works (including 12 BBC commissions), and what the BBC calls "unparalleled opportunities for talented young performers as well as more ways than ever for a new generation to get involved."

In just two months the season spans eight centuries of music in 90 concerts. From the 13th-century Icelandic sagas that inspired Wagner, to the rediscovery of a lost Renaissance Mass, through the Baroque genius of Handel, Bach and Rameau, to the great orchestral repertory from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries (including new commissions), the music is performed by leading artists from across the globe.

Nicholas Kenyon says: "I hope that BBC Proms 2007, 80 years after the BBC took over this great concert series, is as exciting and innovative a season as it has ever been.

"In my final season I am especially pleased at the huge range of major orchestras and events, the new works, and the unequalled opportunities to hear the very best of young musicians.

"From an extraordinary Venezuelan youth orchestra to our own National Youth Orchestra, young brass players making music alongside the BBC Philharmonic on Brass Day, and talented young singers – found in a nationwide talent search – singing Rachel Portman's dramatic new piece about climate change. The future of classical music is right here at the BBC Proms."

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2007-07-08T12:38:00.000Z

[199.1] MUSIC WITH PASSION

Darn, I've just missed Private Passions on BBC Radio 3 again. Still, there's always Listen Again. It's a great programme, hosted by a contemporary clasical composer with an eclectic range of interests and guests. And it is so much better than its analogue Desert Island Discs, because the people invited to participate are always those for whom music is central rather than decorative in their lives.

"Michael Berkeley's guest this week is US-born jazz trombonist, conductor and composer Scott Stroman, who is currently Head of Jazz Studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His wide-ranging musical tastes are reflected in his choices, which include music by Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Mingus (of course) alongside a Bach suite, a Beethoven string quartet, a movement from Haydn's Symphony No 99 and an extract from Stravinsky's ballet Apollon musagete." [Pic: M. Berkeley]

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2007-07-07T18:59:00.000Z

[198.1] LIVE EARTH... SOME LIKE IT HOT

Well, I was intending to write about Ian Bostridge on Handel. More of that later. Meanwhile, in the midst of catching up with some writing, I've been on-and-off watching the BBC broadcast of today's Live Earth concerts across the world - a noble effort to mainstream concerns about global warming and Al Gore's necessarily ambitious seven-point programme to tackle the human impact on climate change. Not much that lands vertically on my musical universe, admittedly. But the Red Hot Chilli Peppers managed to combine rockist sensibilities with some accomplished playing, good use of dynamics (not that easy at the cavernous New Wembley Stadium), high energy material and strong harmonies. Bloc Party are also interesting, and Corinne Bailey Ray brought a beautiful voice and some jazz and soul vibes to the proceedings. Perhaps surprisingly, I also love The Beastie Boys [Mike D, Adrock and MCA, pictured] and their wry, experimental, MC scratch-driven, hard-edged punk rap. The Blues Brothers gone 'Intergallactic' for the C21st. Kinda. Then there's Shakira, whose appeal (like that of the Pussycat Dolls, who actually performed well) is perhaps not exclusively musical. And don't forget the raw, hook-laden power of Foo Fighters' 'Times Like These'. Predictably Gore has been attacked over the environmental impact of an eight gig satellite linked event for an eco-cause. He has hit back. Let's put it this way. The nay-sayers are not motivated by compassion.

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2007-07-06T23:30:00.000Z

[197.1] BACH TO THE FUTURE

Sidewalk Dances: 14 Moondog pieces has now been available in the shops for a few months. Sidewalk Dances was performed by Britten Sinfonia, pianist Joanna MacGregor and saxophonist Andy Sheppard in last year's (2006) London Jazz Festival. Read press reviews. The Britten Sinfonia website [see its left-hand column] has put up an online video, 'Bach meets Moondog' - a wonderful pairing of music from the Baroque master and the underground American street musician who has become legendary in new music circles. Somewhat reminds me of the curious Handel and Hendrix festival pairing a few years ago, based on the London House that both occupied in Brook Street, now the Handel House Museum.

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