[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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

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

[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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[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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