Gertsamtkunstwerk

Bach Choir

And here endeth my half-week residency on London's South Bank. And I still haven't properly looked at the World Press Photo 05 exhibition which is on until 6 June and deserves more than a perfunctory gaze...

Bach Choir and Philharmonia under David Hill.

Programme: Kindertotenlieder - Mahler (soloist, David Wilson-Johnson bass)
And so the night became (World Premiere) - Diana Burrell
A Child of Our Time - Tippett
Soloists, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers (s), Jean Rigby (m-s), Andrew Staples (t) and David Wilson-Johnson (bs).

Hall barely half full, if that, ironically considering that it was better than the two sell-out performances earlier in the week. In my opinion.

First of all, let's get the new piece out of the way. I am not really sure what to say. Tosh? Rubbish? Noise? All of these and more and less. Simulataneously.

Oh I know, it's new music, it's challenging, the public is unreceptive to new music until they've heard it a dozen times over two decades. Except that I would argue that I am very fond of at least four different pieces of twenty-first century music by four very different composers. I justthink that gimmickry and noise is not music. When I am wincing in pain at the screeching of violins, and when I notice that half of each of two verses (of fifteen) have something that approaches harmony and melody, it is really awful. I applauded the orchestra (who looked somewhat embarrassed) and I applauded the choir, but I could not bring myself to applaud the composer. And when I was leaving, I had to brush past her, surrounded as she was in the aisle by a group of admiring students from Guildhall SOM I felt patently unable to meet her eye.

Very poor choice to set alongside the other pieces.

I am not sure that Iwould have selected Kindertotenlieder of itself. PRetty morbid stuff - Songs of the Death of Children. A year after its premiere, Mahler's five year old daughter died. So to say it was enjoyable would be a poor choice of words. But it was meaningful and beautiful and quite moving.

I actually booked for A Child of Our Time, having been to ENO's rather strange staged version in January

It was particularly interesting hearing it after the dreadful preceding piece. Tippett uses dissonance, but it sounds like music. And it can't just be due to familiarity, because I would hardly say that I'm familiar with it.

Overall a very satisfying performance. My main quibble was that the tempi of the spirituals was wrong, in my opinion. the conductor introduced some rubato, but what it needed was soem syncopation. You either got the rhythm or you you don't. All I can say is that we had more at Primary School in the Seventies. With the caveat (a rather big caveat, admittedly) that I don't especially know the piece, I couldn't fault the orchestra or the choir. Perversely, it struck me that I would have appreciated the experience even more if the lights in the auditorium had been extinguished - because that was how I experienced it at the Coliseum, and listening in darkness to a dimly lit stage is profoundly moving experience.

As for the soloists. Well, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers and Andrew Staples were late replacememnts for the indisposed singers originally billed. Gweneth too late to get her name on the front of the programme, although she is inside.

Jean Rigby gave a competent and technically acceptable performance, but her voice seemed generic and her delivery unexciting. I've found her disappointing before. Once I can forgive, twice I draw conclusions.

David Wilson-Johnson was competent throughout. I have to say there is nothing in his voice that particularly draws me, but it's a good solid reliable bass.

Gweneth-Ann Jeffers reminded me for all the world, vocally at least, of Renée Fleming but without the idiosyncratic swoops and scoops. A good strong voice, able to penetrate the orchestra and choir, rich and mature. I would definitely want to hear her again. She seemed to have a stage presence when she was singing, and seemed to understand the meaning of what she was singing. Also, at the end, I took a photo and she smiled warmly in my direction - she'll go far, you know! She has a website but it hasn't been updated in a long time.Under other circumstances, I'd be raving about her, but, despite the fact that I have just become a fan, in my view she was upstaged by

Andrew Staples. When he sung his first few notes I just sat up and listened! What a sweet and beautiful voice. He must be quite young, but his limited web presence suggests a career that is starting with a flourish.

Theer was one point where the sheer beauty of his tone actually brought a tear to my eye. He is far from the finished article, and lacks colouring and drama. But I was so amazed at the sheer natural beauty, and conscious of his youth (mid-twenties, tops, I'd say) and inexperience, that I am overlooking them.

The Art of Criticism

When I go to a concert I like to write about what I liked or what I really didn't like. Usually they are fairly easy to pin down. What I usually don't write about is what I find okay, mediocre, adequate, generic.

It's a funny thing anyway, subjective. One man's meat another man's gravy etc. I suppose the professional critics must also suffer this, too, although they would never admit it. They are always right. So many factors influence one's opinion. The actual music being performed, the quality of the performance. Ooh, that's a difficult one anyway. If you know a piece extremely well, perhaps through regularly listening to half a dozen or more different recordings, having performed it, having studied the score, perhaps you are able to be more objective. But then, you are only saying that the interpretation coincides - or doesn't - with yours.

How pop and television damage our culture

So says Peter Maxwell-Davies, famous cygnocide and Master of the Queen's Musick.

Successive governments have cut back on music education in state schools to the extent that music specialists have become a rarity.

Doesn't he actually mean that for a short, brief period a few grammar schools and a very few secondary moderns taught a narrow curriculum of what they called music, that included absolutely no world context, and generally only taught performance to pupils whose parents were willing and able to pay?

One can look at circulation figures for the "popular" papers in comparison with their so-called "highbrow" stable-mates and realise that most people leave school with a restricted active vocabulary of just a few hundred words, and that the very act of thought is thereby severely restricted. Perhaps not only our children but all of us are being educated to become good, docile consumers, so that we become incapable, or perhaps just unwilling, to question the status quo.

But wasn't that always the case? Does he seriously believe that the vast majority of people of his generation, those condemned to a non-education, are somehow literate, articulate and reading the broadsheets?

Actor Val Kilmer, rather patronisingly, has praised British theatregoers ahead of his London stage debut next month, describing them as

smarter than their US counterparts...very sophisticated and probably the most well-read on earth

John Tusa hit out at the dumbing down of BBC Television. His overall message was somewhat diminished by the rather ridiculous examples he gave.

When the BBC uses Rolf Harris to talk about the Impressionists, and when he paints his version of great masterpieces, the programme is saying: 'Look, there's nothing special about art. Anyone can do it. Don't believe those art snobs. Rolf has just done what they do before your eyes

I happened to think that that Rolf on Art was a ridiculous idea and didn't watch it, because Rolf Harris is only slightly less detested in Gert Cottage than Alan Titchmarsh.

He makes a very big mistake by criticising Michael Palin and Dan Cruickshank as presenters. The most ridiculous quote is

In the world of documentaries, the flight from intelligence has taken on the aspect of a headlong rush," he will argue, labelling the phenomenon "the Blue Peter effect

A few weeks ago BBC4 repeated the famous Kenneth Clark 'Civilisation' programmes. I had never seen them before but for many years I had read of them as being the apogee of British documentary television. I'm sorry, but they were boring and of poor quality.

Perhaps the likes of Tusa and Clarke and Maxwell Davies would sneer at me as being symptomatic of the general dumbed-down Great Unwashed. However, I am more highly educated than the vast majority of the UK population, and have participated, for close on 30 years in a range of cultural activities.

I found Civilisation to be dull. Clark was an appalling presenter, talking barely coherently in clichés, making references to an assumed level of knowledge, and pursuing a barely disguised agenda- basically, snobbery against anyone who works for a living (including th eprofessional as well as the commercial classes). The photography/cinematography was to a large extent a product of its time, constrained by primitive technology. But a contrast with Don Cruickshank's Around the World in Eighty Treasures or Michael Palin's Himalaya, both of which were worth watching for the photogrpahy alone.

Perhaps people watched Civilisation back in 1970-whatever, due to the lack of alternatives on TV, but I do not believe it is good enough to cut the mustard in 2005. If I want dry commentary, I will read a book, as so very many Brits do. If I watch TV I do actually want to be entertained whilst I'm being educated. So what if Adam Hart-Davis showed how the Mesopotamians made beer. No doubt the likes of Tusa and Clark (I'll except Maxwell Davies from this) want history to be all about the derring-dos of men in their interminable testosterone-driven battles. And dates and maps. Sorry, but those of us with a more rounded education understand history is also about technological advances, social change, commerce, and all the other factors that explain the difference between then and now. Some of us even ask questions such as 'why?' and 'how?'.

And to use Blue Peter as a term of abuse - well, what a very silly man. Does he not know how many generations of children have learnt so much about the world around them by watching Blue Peter. Why has it been so successful for so very many years - perhaps because it has always understood how to convey a message in an entertaining and informative way, utilising the best visual aids available.

Nicholas Kenyon provides a sort of answer to Max

Audiences, as we know from the Proms, will thrive if you offer them real stimulation and keep formats fresh. What we cannot rely on any more is solidly predictable attendance at uninteresting concerts. Only the best is now good enough to attract a sophisticated audience.

Although he throws in a stupidity

this year we will go to Alexandra Palace to engage with family audiences who may never have been to a concert before

What part of the 'family' won't have been to a concert before? Does he mean children? If so, say so. Is he intending to appeal to couples, singles, groups of friends who have never been to a concert before? The middle-aged and their elderly parents (or don't they class as family?). "Family" and "children" are not generally synonymous.

The Independent has a more balanced view and hits the nail halfway on the head by saying

The great majority of audiences and performers get through life by paying attention mainly to the established masterpieces of the past.

In some ways that is the nub of what differentiates music from other Art forms - except that, really, everyone knows that most Fine Arts afficionados prefer the Old Masters to Brit Trash, or whatever it's called. And what's regarded as the old masters in music change.

It's only relatively recently that Handel, and Baroque in general, have made any impact in the Opera Houses. Nicholas Kenyon's article touched briefly on that. Max may not be that popular a modern composer, but Tavener and Jenkins most certainly are. There wasn't a seat available for the Steve Reich concert I attended in January. Yes, I know it's dumbed-down to like Jenkins, but I'm sure that back in the 18th century Mozart was considered dumbed-down. Many of Beethoven's works, and Bizet's Carmen, to name just examples were flops on their first performance.

I sense that as the years go by, Britten is becoming increasingly regarded as one of the greats. And there seems to be a lot of Tippett around currently, admittedly in the centenary of his birth, but he was a living composer until very recently.

I do feel there is a dichotomy between those who see Arts in general as something to be endured as a painful but intellectually improving experience, and those that see Arts as pure entertainment that needs packaging. This does not seem to be a dichotomy in literature - people read both Jane Austen and Bridget Jones, and there seems to be no conflict. There has to be a Third Way. I think, by and large, the TV documentaries have grasped it, by using Michael Palin, Don Cruickshank, Simon Schama, David Starkey as their packaging, but backing them up with proper research, and sophisticated visuals.

Mind you, I watched a Channel Four programme the other week about Built Britain, introduced by Simon Thurley - from English Heritage, I think. The photography was absolutely beautiful, but I did a lot of wincing at the elementary errors - he couldn't work out when he was talking about George II or George III, and he referred to the Anglican Church as Protestant. I'm not just being pedantic, because I would have thought the non-Protestant nature of the Anglican church is vital to an understanding of church architecture. And his coverage of the Industrial Revolution was shamefully superficial.

Sex

Who needs this when the classics are already bursting with sex? asks the Telegraph, sick and tired of the talentless playing the mediocre being 'sexed up'.

Classical music is mostly full of sex, or to put it better, eroticism - it's just that it's hidden, buried in music's grammar.

Every time you hear a dissonance (a tense-sounding interval or chord) melt into a consonant one, you're hearing the basic erotic pattern of arousal and relief. That's true even in the chaste polyphony of Renaissance church music (which is why some of it doesn't sound half as chaste as it ought to).

But where that pattern is spiced up with really grinding dissonances, or where it's repeated in ascending sequences, each repetition more intense that the last, then the sexual connotation becomes blindingly clear.

There are moments in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde where it seems as if all the eroticism of humanity has been poured into one super-charged phrase. The tension, the agonised delay, purges the erotic quality of any sense of the body.

The sexiness of Bond or Vanessa-Mae seems manufactured. Only a culture that could routinely use the word "sexy" in antiseptic contexts (a "sexy" company logo, for example), could possibly find these vapid creatures alluring.

Definitely worth a read.

Barenboim - Legend

Words fail me!

Tonight I was at the Barbican to hear Daniel Barenboim play Brahms' 1st and 2nd Piano Concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra under the silver baton of Antonio Pappano.

Two very beautiful and powerful pieces of music, with which I am so familiar, having had them in my collection for over half a lifetime.

But this evening was a demonstration of why a live performance is so much vastly superior to a recording.

And I don't even know why. After all, it's just notes on a stave. What's the difference between adequate and utterly spellbinding? The difference is interpretation. When you have a truly great pianist, a superb conductor and an orchestra that's sizzling, what's the cause?

I'm not going to analyse, I'm not going to mention the odd dischord I thought I heard (After all, what are my ears...), because a great performance is far far geater than the sum of its parts. One of those rare occasions when you can't think about that great bit for the horn, or that moving cello passage, or that dramatic timpani phrase. Nor even about that piano. You just sit back and let the overall effect seep into the every pore and through the veins as the music actually makes you want to be a better person, with better thinking.

It's repeated tomorrow at 3pm and there are actually 7 seats left unbooked as I write. I'm almost tempted to book one myself to go again

Piano concertos are quite possibly the most supreme form of music.

BTW, the first photo was taken during the encore; I didn't do anything as crass as take photos during the actual concertos. If anyone hits this post via a search engine and can name the encore piece could you please leave a comment, because I know it but can't place it, and it made me cry

Update: The Independent says

Nor did it disappoint. With Antonio Pappano conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, the introduction of the First Concerto was steady, at times intense, but on the whole more lyrical than fierce. As soon as Barenboim began to play, the experience of the music was transfigured. It's a quiet arrival, but here it was full of restless energy, ebbing and flowing, possessed of a powerful sense of direction. A massive weight of tone soon made itself felt, yet Barenboim used the power of his left hand to create a dialogue with the right.

Also reviewed in The Times

Busy busy busy

No time for blogging...

What I did on Saturday night

Down the tubas: music is dying in our schools

Serious music is under threat because it isn’t taught, concertgoers are conservative and talented new composers ignored

A thought-provoking piece.

And an interesting companion piece.

I was brought up listening to serious music, studied it seriously at school, ended up with a group of music-loving friends at University (I have a suspicion that they allocated people to my Hall of Residence who had a track record of Performing Arts, although the drama people tended to dominate) and ended up doing my Accountancy Training in an organisation that seemed to recruit more on the basis of having Music O-Level than Maths O-Level.

But going to concerts etc is a different matter. During my twenties I found that after a hard day in work meetings, often followed by a hard evening in political meetings, the last thing I wanted to do on a night off was sit and listen attentively to anything.

Mind you, I think there's a trend for saying that concert attendances are dying. I'm not convinced, especially when you see the choice avaialable on any given night in London. I suppose there is room for concern at the supposed decline of music in schools, there again, I know someone who teaches at a Bog-standard Urban Comprehensive and says they have an orchestra for each year in the school.

And then there's parents. If parents can't bring their children up to have a rich tapestry of experiences or, alternatively, to make them intellectually curious, well, that's not my problem. Eventually, the winners will be separated from the losers.

There are loads of things that people get into later in life. How many people in their twenties or thirties are interested in gardening except for maintenance or sheeplike erection of decking as the Forces of Capitalism instruct them to do so? On my two visits to Egypt, and from people I know generally, I am struck by how few young people go diving, and I bet most that do weren't brought up to it nor learnt it at school. I never went abroad until I was twenty-one, I never took responsibility for booking a holiday (as opposed to visiting friends) until four years ago.

I did read somewhere recently that the problem with the Youth of Today is their inability to rebel. They apparently lap up all the mass marketed commercial pap without question, desperate to conform. The real rebels are those who see past the cynical capitalist marketing mantras and quietly pursue excellence.

London Phil

Nice little concert this evening. The London Philharmonic under Paavo Berglund.

I looked at my diary and wasn't that sure whether I particularly wanted to go. But I did, even though that meant missing the rival attraction of Joseph Calleja at St John's Smith Square.

First up was Beethoven's Leonore Overture. Oh, it does go on. Not unpleasant, but Beethoven, I mean, a genius... This was his third version; he revised it again. He tried writing an opera called Leonore, but failed so he rewrote it as Fidelio. I wonder how often it would be performed if it wasn't by Beethoven.

After the interval was Sibelius's Symphony No 2 in D. Not a bad piece of music, in places quite, you know, interesting. In fact, if it fell off free from the front of a glossy mag, I wouldn't bin it. And if it was programmed again in the future with something desirable, I wouldn't mind hearing it again. But with life being so short, and so many pieces of music around, I don't feel I really need Sibelius's Second in my life.

The highlight of the evening was Elgar's Cello Concerto. I went to a concert of this last year and was singularly underwhelmed, so I think I booked this evening in order to expunge the memory.

Oh, it was really quite wonderful. A piece that I really do like, played with amazing skill by Pieter Wispelwey. He really got into the whole dialogue with the orchestra bit; the orchestra were very good. I loved the way he seemed to play each note as if each note mattered. Quite unlike how I've heard it before.

The Concert

London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

We started with Quirk, a concertante written by Karl Jenkins and receiving its premier tonight. Piano, flute and percussion soloists. All playing multiple instruments. The flautist had four different flutes, from a piccolo to a bass flute with a curly bell at the end (lie a sax does...). The pianist had grand piano, harmonium, honky-tonk piano and celeste, and the percussionist had a range of tuned and untuned percussion. Oh, the percussionist also played a whistle (you know, like a ref's whistle) and in the final movement the pianist and flautist played plastic wood blocks. At one stage the pianist was plucking the strings of a grand piano to emulate a sitar.

It was a bit showy, and I did think - why not have a sitar, rather than a gimmick? That having been said, it was tremendously enjoyable and fun. Whether it will become quite the runaway success of An Armed Man, I doubt, but I could probably bear to listen to it again.

Also on the programme was Haydn's Symphony 72 in D major. I don't know but it was gorgeously Haydn-esque, the sort of piece I often think is the archetypal of symphonic music of that era.

After the interval was Brahms' Violin Concerto. The programme notes writer suggested that this is the greatest violin concerto ever written. I had never heard it before, god knows why, but I know a damned fine performance when I hear one - soloist Gordan Nikolitch, who so put his all into the performance of a masterful and passionate piece.

I was in the second row of the stalls, so I have a crick in my neck. I was pretty much in the middle under the conductor's podium, from which is a great position to watch the conductor, and the interplay with the orchestral players, although not such a great place to get the bigger picture - or sound picture - of the orchestra as a whole.

I don't what it is about conductors. I accept that as a breed they do tend to go on in their careers much longer than most people. Sir Colin Davis is 77. In recent months I have attended 75th birthday concerts for Christoph von Dohnanyi and Bernard Haitink. Charles Mackerras is 80 this year.

But what is most striking is how physically fit they are. Of course, they all have strong muscular backs and shoulders, that goes with the job. But most men of that age I wouldn't take a second glance at. Many of the men one sees in audiences are considerably younger but lack the youthful vigour of conductors.

And one has to assume that considering they can conduct a full symphony concert, or, in some cases, an opera, that they are also incredibly mentally agile, too.

After a Prom last summer I strolled past the stage door and there was a teenage girl waiting, desperate to meet Sir Colin.

The Only Classical Album You'll Ever Need

The crappiest stupidest title that anybody could ever come up with. I only bought it because it pushed my Amazon order up to the 'free postage' level.

It contains just 32 tracks, so the arseholes are saying that *you* only *need* 32 arias, choruses and excerpts. I have posted them below... but they didn't have the courage of their convictions, because they also produced a Volume 2. Draw your own conclusions.

The packaging is standard, with a twelve page booklet. The front cover is cheap typesetting. Standard track listing, then a brief paragraph about each track. Basic, reasonably useful information. What pisses me off is the listing on the back, which uses that horrible expression, 'made famous by' as in 'by the Hovis TV commercial (Largo from 'New World' symphony') or Jerusalem, made famous by the film Chariots of Fire.

In truth it's not a bad little compilation of some of the best heartstrings tunes - Nimrod is emotionally and melodically gorgeous; Fauré's Pavane is one of my 'up there' instrumental pieces; the Alleluia from Exsulatate, Jubilate is a lovely aria, but Lesley Garrett is overparted; I've only just realised that a particular piece I know and love well is the Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliette (note and store for future reference, and see Post Script);

Is there anybody who doesn't love the 1812 Overture. Always best when performed with full bells and whistles, and this version sounds like it has a good few explosions, but a very anaemic orchestra  We had a damn good explosive 1812 at the Proms this year, but my favourite version is one I have on video featuring corps de ballet, chorus, cannons, and my favourite conductor...! Of all orchestral pieces 1812 is the one that must be seen as well as heard.

I know that some people absolutely hate Pachabel's Canon, partly because of its ubiquity on this sort of compilation. I am not the greatest Baroque fan in the world, but what I really like about this is its mathematical exactitude. Although I recall my brother telling me that it was the most boring piece for a cellist to play in school orchestra, because it's the same bar repeated over and again. Of course, I should have said "You're a cellist, you play continuo, get over it." But these retorts come fifteen years too late...!

The Pearl Fishers' Duet, as performed by the great Jussi Bjoerling and the late Robert Merrill, is for many people, one of the greatest recordings ever. It is a splendid rendition of a good song, perhaps one that is made to sound great in this recording. Even though the  actual recording does sound a tad dated.

'Why Do The Nations' has just come on. This is one of my favourite arias from one of my favourite oratorios, and a piece I have known since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Who is this bass? I ask myself. Whose is this wonderful gorgeous voice? I look at the liner notes and discover it is Bryn Terfel. On the basis that one  can never have too many copies of Messiah, I may well add this to my wishlist - it's a 1989 recording with London Musici and London Musici Chamber Choir under Mark Stephenson.

It has some very great artists on it - the front cover says 'Featuring Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, James Galway, Bryn Terfel, Angela Gheorghiu and, er, Lesley Garrett..." Although whether I actually need any more copies of Plácido singing the Flower Song from Carmen, or Luciano singing Che Gelida manina, is a matter of some doubt.

I find the packaging a deterrent to playing it, but it's actually a litte treasure of a cheap compilation, thoughtfully put together, and without any pop or *crossover* music in disguise. It's not the *only* classical album you'll ever need, but you could do worse than use this as a starter, or a spur to branching out. The companion The Only Choral Album You'll Ever Need also looks a nice little number. Both are them are currently available from Amazon for less than £6, so go on, go ahead and order them. Indeed, I've just ordered the Choral one. You will thank me.

Despite the packaging and inappropriate marketing.

*Post script. I actually played the first disc of this on the afternoon before the UK Webloggers Christmas Party, including the comment on the Prokofiev. In the evening, I was stood at the bar and was approached by the lovely, hiating Dragon, and we got chatting. Very early on, he mentioned this exact track, and I was like, "Wow!"

Lieder recital

This evening I went to a disappointingly half empty Barbican Hall for a recital by Barbara Bonney (soprano) and Angelika Kircshclager (mezzo), with famed accompanist Malcolm Martineau on piano. The recital was a tie-in with an album they released late last year.  I haven't bought the album, and, on the basis of the recital, I think it's 'add to wish list' rather than 'buy asap'.

Don't misunderstand me, I enjoyed the recital, but not one of the pieces was familiar to me. I've never really gone for Leider in a big way, thinking that it starts and ends with Schubert and Deitrich Fischer Diskau, with a bit of Schumann thrown in as an afterthought* So tonight was definitely an education to me.

Six Duets by Mendelssohn Op. 63
Three Duets (1,3,& 8)from Spanisches Liederspiel Op 74 by Schumann.
One each from Saint-Saëns, Chausson and Massanet
Two Duets Op 10 - Fauré
3 Duets from Soirées musicales - Rossini
Moravian Duets Op 32 - Dvorák

Although short pieces, that's still a lot to take in. I enjoyed the Mendelssohn. For Abschiedslied der Zugvögel (The migrants ' farewll song) and Volkslied (from Burns' Oh wert thou in the cauld blast) I wrote v nice - for the latter, I also wrote 'German improves on the Burns'.

After two of the Schumann, I comented that the piano was better than the vocal line, but I thought Botschaft (Missive) to be beautiful.

I didn't like the Chausson at all.

I did like Fauré Puisqu'ici-bas tout âme (Since every soul on this earth)

I was pretty knocked out by the Rossini. I sort of know Rossini as a composer of opera - including William Tell and its overture -  but I can take or leave him. But these three songs were beautiful: La serenata: Mira, la blanca luna (See the pale moon) -   'gorgeous: the best so far' and La pesca: Già, la notte s'avvicina (Fishing: Already night is approaching) - 'even gorgeouser'. La regata veneziana: Voga, o Tonio (Venetian regatta: Row, oh Tony) I wrote - 'fun, rhythmic - Malcolm Martineau the star'. These three would be reason enough to buy the album - but they aren't on it. The album's title 'First encounter' suggests perhaps a follow-up.

The recital finished with about half an hour of Dvorak, that, I'm afraid to say, just went on a bit and became a bit dull at times. Some bits were pleasant.

As for our singers. Well, Barbara apologised beforehand that both were just recovering from colds.  I hope that was the reason that Barbara was straining at the high notes, because it wasn't a pretty sound. Se sounds much deeper lower in her register. She has a bigger, or more penetrating, voice that Angelika, which is again a shame, because I happen to think that Angelika has a truly beautiful instrument. I will definitly listen to Angelika Kircshlager again and again. Barbara Bonney, I'm afraid I can take or leave, which is a shame because she came over tonight, as she does on TV, as a thoroughly likeable and fun person.

* I don't really...

Steve Reich at the Barbican

Interesting. Very interesting.

I'm not really a contemporary music fan, but I kind of vaguely sort of know what I like.

I was introduced to the music of Steve Reich by my percussion teacher over twenty years ago, and I just like it. Can't explain why. Why should I be able to anyway, when music transcends words.

Three pieces, Eight Lines, Tehillim and the UK Premiere of You Are (Variations), performed by Ensemble Modern and Synergy Vocals, conducted by Stefan Asbury.

Steve Reich's music is driven by rhythm, unrelenting repeating rhythm. I overheard someone say that melody doesn't matter to him, I think that's crap actually, but whilst many composers use rhythm to add texture and colour to melody, Reich lets the melody emerge from the rhythm. Percussion is an important component, but not so that it dominates.

It's relentless, it's repeating, it's mesmerising, and somehow, this cacophonoy melds together to become a coherent whole. I adored the Eight Lines; about five minutes into Tehillim, I mentally composed my blog post - 'there's nothing to draw me into this and I don't think I want to be drawn'.  Twenty five minutes later conductor and performers were receiving the enthusiastic applause of the audience, myself included.  Time had passed in an instant as I was utterly absorbed in the compelling driving unrelenting repeating rhythms and their organically created melodies.

You are (Variations) was even better!

He's 70 next year, and there will be a major retrospective of his work at the Barbican, as well as in New York and Los Angeles. I am much looking forward to that already.  EC2, that is, not NY or LA.

And, in a genuine star spot moment I was actually, like, four feet away from him. At the end of the interval he ascended the stairs. I was third seat in, and the man on the aisle seat behind me grabbed his hand to shake it and I was "Oh. My. God. I'm sitting practically next to Steve Reich. Oh. My. God."

I think tomorrow night's Beethoven's 6&7 will be a somewhat different experience.

Classical Chillout

I am ambivalent towards this sort of compilation album. On the one hand, compilations serve two useful purposes - one, as a tin-opener, alerting one to stuff that one might not necessarily otherwise have noticed. Also, if one is entertaining, pottering or, er, chilling out, it's sometimes nice to have bleeding chunks rather than an entire work which requires greater mental concentration.

I'm not sure that I am entirely comfortable with the packaging of music as a commodity. Of course, ultimately, all music is a commodity, but this idea of being told what music will suit your mood is a bit...presumptuous. Perhaps I am more likely to chill out to some Monteverdi motets or to some Eric Coates tunes, or Schubert sonatas, but I think these collections are lacking in such things.

What counts as classical is a bit dodgy - William Orbit's immolation of Barber's Adagio for strings, or of Handel's Largo from Serse, or Ruichi Sakamoto's tune which I know as the pop hit 'Forbidden Colours', which I often heard on Timmy Mallett's radio show. Or My Heart Will Go On, which despite thankfully lacking the eminently-shootable Celine Dion and being played by an orchestra is still a sub-pop dirge. And is now being used as the hold music for our IT Helpdesk at work. Eeurgggh. Or the pointless Sarah Brightman singing the pointless Figlio Perduto, which is just a steal from Beethoven's 7th Symphony

There are some tunes that crop up time and again on these easy listening compilations, especially those that have been featured in well known-ish films but the plus point of these particular compilations are the tunes plucked from obscurity eg Reich, Tavener.

My especial favourites are Faure's Cantique de Jean. Indeed I have a theory that so many of these compilations feature some gloriously sublime Faure that he is probably the best loved unknown composer...! Part's Spiegel im Spiegel - I know Part is really raved about, but this is one of the very few pieces of his that I actually own. It's so gorgeous, I ought to get more... Ungar and Mason's Ashokan Farewell - I'm sort of intrigued by this, especially it's Celtic feel and this site explains all! I also like Nagoya Marimbas, by Steve Reich, who is hideously and wrongly under-represented in my record collection. Also, Tavener's Song for Athene.

And then there are the horribilisation of great works - a Going Home by Issy (who?)

I am slightly irritated by the references to pieces being from passingly ephemeral pieces of pap culture - Elgar's Nimrod from the film 'Elizabeth'. But still better than the phrase 'made famous by'.

The Gregorian Chillout is a slightly different animal from the other two albums. A purist would rant and rave about the misappropriation of Gregorian Chant which was designed for devout worship. I have an ambiguous view of Gregorian Chant. There was this ghastly teacher at school who was nuts about it (the Geography teacher who didn't know that Hawaii is one of the United States and swore blind that Pearl Harbor is in the Philippines. Moments after she had told me to take more interest in current affairs as I sat there wearing an against-school-rules CND badge with a copy of New Socialist on my desk; she had previously taught me Maths). Our school chapel, whose acoustics were appalling for the spoken word, was splendid for anything contrapuntal and gorgeous for Gregorian chant, as the notes echoed and re-echoed.

I'm not a purist, so I don't mind the adumbration of Gregorian Chant for dubious 'Chillout' purposes. It does include Gregorian Chant, and stuff like Byrd, Lassus, and Taverner (with an 'r') as well as Mozart, Brahms, Fauré, Bruckner, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Still one cannot have too many versions of Ave Verum Corpus, quite possibly the best thing that Mozart ever wrote.

Leif Ove Andsnes

I recently blogged his Schumann piano concerto. The Grieg is excellent, too. It was deservedly, a finalist in the Gramophone Awards. James Cracknell failed to do it justice with his celebrity endorsement.

The packaging is bland and unremarkable.

Viennese Music

Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna features overtures and waltzes from Suppé, Waldteufel, and Lehár. Pleasant, light, untaxing music. Can't really knock 'em. Some people wouldn't class them as classical - in my crude classification I think they are. Not really a great deal to say. They were always intended to be light pieces to entertain and to dance to. Mission fulfilled.

Easy listening on the South Bank

I booked this concert five months ago. I was a little surprised when I checked the programme that it was so familiar. It was the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - possibly London's most populist band, under a conductor I had not heard of - Matthias Bamert. The concert, to be broadcast on 11 October, went under the Listen Up! banner.

Indeed, it started with the Listen Up! fanfare, specially composed by Gareth Wood, RPOdouble bass player. It was nice little fanfare - nothing special. Then they went straight into the first main piece, Sibelius's Finlandia, which rather confused the stewards, who were trying to sit latecomers as the music began.

Finlandia is not a long piece but manages to combine both bombast and lyricism, with a main theme that I really like.

Next up was Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, with Tasmin Little. It's a piece that i do really like, but I'm not sure that I heard anything in it that I hadn't previously heard. I was impressed by her technical flair. And there is not a great deal to say about it. It's very listenable-to, even though it hasn't the inyerface melody that a Mozart or Beethoven would offer. Very many violinists have recorded this. I have a version with Nigel Kennedy, which I like very much - although not quite as much as Amazon's biased reviewer...! . I note that EMI have Yehudi Menuhin in their Great Recordings of the Century series - I don't think you can go wrong with that!

After the interval was the highlight of the concert. Surprisingly, actually. Holst's Planets. I have heard this piece so many times, over so very many years, that I thought I was entirely familiar with it. But I was hearing things in it I have never heard before. I will take my hat off this conductor, whom I have never even previously heard of - he did this work proud. Mars was precise and clipped, thus adding to the doom-laden throbs of war. Mercury sounded like dance music, Jupiter was as good as I have ever heard it; for the first time I really heard the beauty in Saturn; and Uranus was splendid, loud, raucous. I applauded long and loud - this was a special Planets for me, yet I actually thought I had Planets-fatigue. It's so fab when you can hear an oh so familiar piece but hear it so differently.

Schumann

One of my teenage idols, so it's kind of surprising that he's relatively unrepresented in my collection. But that's economics for you.

You know, one can be very protective about teenage icons.  A few weeks ago I read somewhere that Schumann was not very good at orchestration. I huffed and puffed, how dare they insult my idol. Then I thought - he was adequate, but he was no Beethoven or Wagner.

And Listening to Kreisleriana and Carnaval, as played by Mitsuko Uchida, all piano, not an orchestra in sight, I think this is pleasant-enough music, but more than that, I think not. Except for the last few movements of Carnaval, especially Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins, which is ace. This apart, relegate to aural wallpaper. But I should listen to it more often, and maybe I shall get more out of it.

I have two versions of his Piano Concerto, so thought I would do an A-B comparison, but then I decided against it. I love both versions - one is Alfred Brendel (who I saw on Thursday) with the LSO under Abbado and the other is Leif Ove Andsnes. It's coupled with the Grieg, which I saw him play last year at the Barbican.

It has to be one of my favourite pieces of all time - the piano crashes in, and then plays happily against the background of lyrical strings.  I love the way in the first movement there is such a fab dialogue between the paino and the orchestra. The intermezzo is a bit ponderous, but then it goes into the Allegro, which is rather stirring and has one of the more melodramatic long-drawn out climaxes in the canon.

It would take a better ear than mine to really tell the difference between the two versions I have, but impressionistically I would say that Brendel's is more intimate and Andsnes's is more dramatic.

My final Schumann excursion is his 3rd and 4th symphonies with the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnányi. I have had this for years - this is taped off vinyl. Schumann is not especially highly regarded as an orchestral composer, but I do so like the Third Symphony in particular, especially the use of brass.

Reviewing the reviews

kd lang, Hymns of the 49th Parallel is released on Monday. It will quickly find itself a place at Gert Cottage

lang's Canada, as seen in the CD booklet, is a snowbound place of forest and sky; this collection brings it memorably to life. Easily the best of her extensive catalogue of covers albums.

It's just over two months til I see her live. For the first time in - count them - twelve years!

Handel: Ode for St Cecilia's Day; Cecilia Volgi Un Sguardo

the soprano Carolyn Sampson and tenor James Gilchrist, are cultured, elegant soloists. What the performances lack, though, is any sense of engagement or presence; this is efficient rather than inspired music-making.

I have this CD; I really rather like it. I think it inspired. But, fair dos to the Guardian, perhaps Andrew Clements has a wider selection of other versions.

Faint praise damns Massanet's Werther, to which I go next week.

Pappano's intelligently paced conducting is the only saving grace. He ratchets up the tension of the last two acts mercilessly, with the orchestra playing wonderfully for him; the moments when it all seems too loud are down to vocal weakness rather than its over-exuberance.

The Times similarly:

Antonio Pappano likewise sacrifices the score's elegance to something more Italianate, full of foreboding rumblings and Wagnerian buzzes of neurotic brass, but also creating the tenderest web of strings, woodwind and harp to cradle the singers as Werther expires prettily in Chattertoni's room beset by a snowstorm.

Whereas the Independent has a slightly different take

A tenor for a tenner. That's not just a bargain; that's a giveaway when the tenor in question is Marcelo Alvarez, probably the best in the world right now...what - better than Crooner Bocelli? Surely not!...the singing is fabulous...His quiet singing was, as ever, a joy, thanks to his ability to support the sound on barely a breath and then let it melt away like his dreams. These are the enticements that separate the artists from the singers, the purveyors of bel canto from the merchants of can belto.

Stephen Fry on Music

Rock me Amadeus

It's funny how most of that generation of comedians have trasformed into washed-up has-beens or else are producing safe, unchallenging cosy comedy for the 35-55 age group. Yet Stephen Fry just keeps being himself, a little bit of National Treasure here, a little bit of eccentric there.

He refers to when Tchaikovsky got his honorary degree from Cambridge:

he wasn't the only composer being honoured at that June ceremony - he was in good company. Saint-Sa�ns and Bruch were also getting degrees, and the three of them got together to give a small concert the night before. Just imagine that.

I only just found out the other day that Saint-Sa�ns was homosexual. I wonder if the powers-that-were at Cambridge had any idea they were honouring two homosexual composers in one ceremony...

Happy Birthday Maestro von Dohnányi

Well, his 75th birthday was a few days ago, but his birthday gala concert was this evening. One of my favourite conductors conducting one of my, if not the, favourite bands. I knew I had to be there.

I checked the programme before I went out and felt I was incursing into unfamiliar territory. Still, how better to discover new pieces than live, at the Royal Festival Hall. The first piece was totally unfamiliar - Stele (pronounced steely) by György Kurtág. The orchestral line up was impressive, including for example alto and bass flutes, which I have never heard of before, let alone seen. The percussion was especially impressive - five timpani, and lots of sound effect type instruments, tam-tam, whip, wind machine, and various tuned percussion, along with the usual. The piece was interesting, but I'm not going to rush out an buy a CD.

Next up was Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, soloist Alfred Brendel. What is there to say? I don't actually know this piece but Beethoven's style is unforgettable. His orchestration is second to none, and even when the melody is unfamiliar, it is definitely within the comfort zone of familiarity. Alfred Brendel is a master and his playing was sublime. But yet, yet, it was a pleasant concert piece, and I enjoyed it, but it won't be on my wishlist.

After the interval was a reminder of why I love Christoph von Dohnányi and the Philharmonia. Ein Heldenleben - a Hero's Life (I think; I'm translating this with my non-existent German) , a tone poem. It's taken me a long time to get into Richard Strauss, and this piece perhaps explains why, and also explains why he is growing on me. It's challenging music, at least for me. There's something about it - I know what I mean but I'm not sure I'm entirely correct in saying dissonance - certainly some intervals and chords you would never hear with Beethoven.

But it's loud, and raucous, with a wonderful contrast in some reflective solo violin passages, played by James Clark, the Leader, or as he is termed in an unnecessary adoption of an Americanism, Concert Master. It was played with passion and fire, by a massive orchestra. The orchestration was brilliant, in an entirely different way from Beethoven. I kept looking for the organ, but there wasn't one, it was how the brass and harps, in particular, combined. I so wish it were possible to do a live rewind of a concert, without going to Basingstoke tomorrow night. I don't suppose this piece will be performed again in London for another ten years.

A few weeks ago I read two people's opinion on what makes a good conductor. The first is that you don't notice him. Secondly, watch the orchestra, and if they are watching the conductor, he's good. If their head is buried in their scores, they know they're on their own.

Well, even though I am a fan of Christoph, I quite forgot he was there for most of the concert. Then I recalled what I had read, and I watched the orchestra, who were watching the conductor closely. I am definitely going to put this piece onto a wish list. Either with von Dohnányi conducting or with von Karajan.

Looking at the programme, the more unusual instruments included Alto Flute, Bass Flute, E flat clarinet, bass clarinet, contra bass clarinet, contra bassoon, Wagner Tubas, bass trombone, euphonium, pianino, celeste and cymbalom. But don't tie me down to what went in the Kurtág and what in the Strauss.

Next week will be some easy listening - Finlandia, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, and The Planets. Oh, and a trip to Covent Garden.

Vaughan Williams and Walton

I've had the Walton viola and Violin Concertos for years - they're on tape after all, which seems to indicate that they date frommy student days. I must have played them a thousand times over at least fifteen years, but whilst I don't actually dislike them, I can't really get into them.

I got the Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony a couple of months ago with the BBC Music magazine, an dI have only listened to it a couple of times. I didn't like it the first time. the second time, it began to speak to me. I thought I would probably like it better if I could follow the words. Then I realised belatedly that the libretto is included - taken from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. So next listening...So far, what really stands out is the richness of Simon Keenlyside's voice.

I have a CD of songs by Vaughan Williams and other English composers. I've played it a couple of times. I'm not yet sure that I like it very much. Perhaps we will see in time.

Tchaikovsky and Tavener

Just lumped together for alphabetical convenience. Too very different composers, and both under-represented in my collection, although Tchaik features heavily on compilation discs.

The Tavener I have is the Akathist of Thanksgiving. I bought it almost exclusively for the organist. Who, of course, is good but does not feature prominently. I have decidedly mixed feelings about the piece as a whole. It's lovely, sometimes really quite gorgeous, but I'm left feeling is that it? It's good background music- meditation, worship perhaps - but I am not sure that repeated listenings would derive any greater profundity from the music itself. Of course I am entirely missing the point, but, on my blog, that's my prerogative...!

I also have somewhat mixed feelings about Tchaik. I very much enjoy his orchestral, and, of course, ballet music, but I just can't get into his operas. But when I say I 'very much enjoy' I don't mean that I get emotionally involved or moved by them. Nice tunes, though, especially the Capriccio Italien.

Spurious Compilations

I'm reviewing a couple of compilation discs. The first is called 'Aquarius' - featuring composers born under the sign of Aquarius - some of them quite unknown to me!

I do like Auber's overture to Fra Diavolo - very sub-Beethoven; plus Herold's Clog dance from La fille mal gardee - I'm waiting to receive a ticket from Covent Garden for this! It also includes: Schubert's Trout Quintet theme and variations; Boccherini Minuet from String Quintet #5; Mendelssohn's Andante and Rondo Capriccioso, which one of my friends used to frequently play at school, so this always reminds me of her; Mozart's Soave sia il vento from Cosi fan Tutti - which is achingly beautiful and gets me right in the solar plexus. And I'm off to Cosi in three weeks!

The liner notes are full of astrological clap-trap. All the composers, and me, and the rest of one twelfth of the world's population, are inventive, intelligent, bold, witty and daring. Sensitive, deep, emotionally intense, aloof, analytical, as relentlessly logical as Star Trek's Mr Spock, heartless as a tax demand (and what's wrong with that?).

Aquarians have heart, Aquarians have soul, Aquarians have passion, and perhaps more than anything else, Aquarians care

Bit of a larf if you don't take it seriously.

However, despite the bullshit, it is a hidden gem of an album. Even somehow Delius's Walk to the Paradise Garden seems to thrive in such gorgeous company

Then I move onto Cinema Classics, a compilation of some great music with some first rate performances. But somehow, it makes me grouchy. The grouchiness was brought about in no small part by my adding it to my music database using the resources of CDDB etc. I appreciate that sources like that are collaborative and are only as good as what we the users input. But there was obviously an idiot inputting this, because as the title, they decided to put in the name of the film, despite the fact that most of the pieces pre-date films sometimes by some centuries. Then under Artist/Composer, they put the song title - eg 'Piano Sonata'. And believe you me, this is not the worst example I have found - how about Title Air on a string by Ludwig van B, which I found on another album?

Mind you, just about all the films are at least fairly well known. I have some album somewhere that says 'made famous by the TV series X' and I think - I can't remember a TV series of that name. And, not featured on this album, but - has anybody under 70 actually seen the film Elvira Madigan, and, without looking at imdB, know anything about it?

I wrote the above a few days ago, and now I'm not grouchy at all. I think this CD is actually a rather splendid collection of bleeding chunks, and thoughtfully put together. Although its vehicle is the use of music in film, it doesn't make the patronising assumption that the film made the music famous. Instead, it makes the link, but then gives a short contextual note about the actual music. It's an EMI compilation and I suspect that it's compiled from their archive of fabulous recordings by a stable of stars.

I would find it difficult to single out any particular tracks to name, and, indeed, I have many of them on other albums. It seems from the Amazon that this item is discontinued, which is a shame.

Schubert

My goodness, I had quite forgotten just how pleasant Schubert is to listen to. I played a tape containing his 5th and 6th symphonies. They are really quite lovely; he wrote them when he was 19 and 20. But I only realised very recently that he died when only 31, of syphilis. Quite extraordinary, making Mozart look positively ancient at his death.

A half tape of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert Lieder - accompanied, of course by Gerald Moore - has for a long time been amongst one of the favourites of my collection. I had sort of forgotten about DFD, not withstanding the fact that he is slightly represented in my collection, until I started hanging out on rec.music.opera, where he is definitely one of the most argued about singers. My parents, and my music teacher are/were all big DFD fans - indeed this tape is taped from my mother - so I was familiar with him from an early age. I really can't imagine who I would prefer to sing Schubert Lieder. I can't imagine what people don't like about his voice.

I also have a CD of DFD singing Winterreise. It's on EMI Classics Great Recordings of the Century. It's a recent acquisition, and, I think needs listening to again before I make a comment. Unbelievably, I really don't know Winterreise. But I am currently very susceptible to seduction by the packaging of the Great Recordings of the Century. Shallow? Moi?

The other side of the tape is Brahms' 3rd Symphony, but I shall ignore it for the time being, until I get back round to blogging the Bs. This is a von Karajan version; the Allegro con brio comes in at 9.36, whereas the Levine version I have on CD is 13.28. the 2nd and 3rd movements are 14.21 - 16:46, although, interestingly, the 4th movement has Levine 21 seconds faster than von Karajan. I shall have fun doing an a-B comparison. Probably won't be for a couple of years yet (but I still won't be forty...)

The String Quintet in C has some beautiful moments.

I have some items of solo piano music: Alfred Brendel on tape playing Sonata in Bb and the Wanderer Fantasie, Radu Lupu also doing the Bb sonata, together with an A major and Mitsuko Uchida doing C and G Sonatas. Again, really quite lovely, also familiar because of the length of time I have owned them. But making me think, maybe I should have a lot more solo music, especially piano, especially Schubert, in my collection.

In fact, I am surprised at how little Schubert I have in my collection. Put more Schubert on to-do list.

It's an interesting exercise, this playing, and blogging my entire record collection. On the one hand it shows the paucity of my vocabulary. It also brings to mind a Leonard Bernstein quote I was sent on 25 August to mark his birthday

Music of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning except its own, a meaning in musical terms, not in terms of words

On the other hand, it is making me think a bit. Sometimes - most times - it's so easy to say "I like this" because "this" is so familiar, and, thus, within a comfort zone. Sometimes, if something isn't familiar, you have to actively listen, and you have to think - is this technically good, is this saying something to me, and, most of all, is this affecting me. often, it's just easier to wallow in the comfort zone, or sing along to the familiar.

Nigel Kennedy

 I have just one cassette of Nige - playing Bruch's and Mendelssohn's violin concertoes. The Mendelssohn I heard twice live last year, and I would find it difficult to improve upon Nige's version. Although when, eventually, the cassette gives up the ghost, I might be tempted to replace it with Yehudi Menuhin's version.  The Bruch is also a delight to hear. I can see why Kennedy was so popular ten or fifteen years ago - his selection of popular pieces was welcomed by 'newbies'; his technical and musical ability did not displease most (reasonable) 'experts'.

Malcolm Arnold

A moving feature in The Independent, echoing a similar piece in one of the glossy mags.

Malcolm Arnold's Scottish Dances - which are great, fun pieces, especially the drunken bassoon - were one of the six set works on my O-Level syllabus. The one and only time I have ever heard one of his pieces in concert was the special exam concert arranged by Youth and Music and played by the (then) BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra.

And the only version I have of Scottish Dances is on a 'taped off the radio' tape, even though I taped it off school's record. So I don't play it very often...

I look forward with interest to the South Bank Show two-parter, September 26 and October 3. Tony Palmer is an excellent film maker.

20/100

A Double CD entitled "Top Twenty - Your hundred best tunes". A Dodgy Concept if ever there was one. Made even dodgier by the presence of a Radio 2 logo, before the days when Radio 2 became the station of choice for Eighties Pop Tarts...

Ain't gonna work, is it?

Except, that the CDs contain such gems as:

• Arrival of the Queen of Sheba;
• Pachabel's Kanon (my friend Clive declared his love for this; I happened to mention this to my brother, he groaned and showed me the cello part - he was in school junior orchestra at the time aged maybe 13, the same four notes over and over and over again. He didn't like it...);
• Mozart's sublime Ave Verum Corpus - the piece that contains my equal favourite phrase - interval - in the entire musical canon that I have ever heard, ever, in my life;
• Sibelius's Finlandia, which is just wonderful;
• Bizet's Pearl Fisher's Duet, which is almost certainly the favourite recording I possess by Luciano Pavarotti. I have decidedly mixed feelings about Pav. at his peak, he was good. No, he was better than good. He was technically superb. But I don't feel any warmth or personality coming through his voice, and certainly would never dream of using terms such as 'gorgeous' or 'lush'. And he is certainly always better on audio than video...

Of course, these are, ultimately, only bleeding chunks, making you beg for more, (many of the other, unmentioned tracks are chunks from stuff I have in full), but really rather appropriate for the tedium of phlog re-categorisation...

One chunk I have elsewhere is Wolfie's Clarinet Concerto 2nd Movement. I have to confess this always leaves me crying out for Wolfie's Clarinet 5tet!

It also contains Mascagni's Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana, which is one of the weirdest pieces of music, ever. For me, that is, not objectively. I have so many different versions of it - it is such a popular one for compilations, plus I have it in context, too. I even have it with words on an arias album. Sometimes I really like it, sometimes I really hate it. there is no in-between, and there is no logical explanation.

Ravel and Rutter

No reason to put these together except alphabetical proximity...

When we think Ravel, let's face it, which one of us does not think 'Bolero'? And those over a certain age will then think Torvill and Dean or Dudley Moore and Bo Derek. Come on, admit it!

However, M. Ravel did write some other stuff. This CD, featuring Krystian Zimerman, piano, and Pierre Boulez conducting The Cleveland and London Symphony Orchestras (not together...), includes Concerto for piano in G major, Valses nobles et sentimentales, and Concerto for the Left Hand in D major. There's a nice story behind the last piece; it was written especially for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right hand in WW1.

The year of production is 1998; I guess that's when I got it. I don't think I have played it very often. You know, I went through a period of two or three years when I barely ever listened to music. Very strange, compared with at least twenty five years of continual need for continuous music.

All the tracks are certainly playing again a few times in the near future. I'm simply not familiar with them. But I like them, I think...

That last paragraph could equally apply to Rutter's Requiem, which has an crystalline exquisitivity about it. In particular, I like the Pie Jesu. the CD also contains miscellaneous other songs, which are pleasant.

Russians

By slightly strange circumstances, my tapes and CDs are both up to group of Russian composers.

I open with Prokofiev. I think that Prokofiev is one of the first composers most of us encounter, because Peter and the Wolf. It is some time later that we learn that Prokofiev's music was regarded as somewhat challenging in the middle of the last century. No, not that nice man that wrote Peter and the Wolf. This particular version is narrated by Sting. And narrated very well, I might add. And I really like the Overture on Hebrew Themes.

Next up is Rachmaninov. On cassette we have Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Concertgebouw/Philharmonia orchestras under Bernard Haitink playing the first Piano Concerto and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. strange really, I can listen objectively and say that not only are they fine tunes but also really rather beautiful music. But only objectively. They don't affect me emotionally. Strange, innit?

We have a tape of the same artists, with the Concertgebouw, playing Rachmaninov 2 and 4 piano. No 2 is one of those pieces that, even if it was the only piece he had ever composed would be enough to convince of his place in the pantheon of Greats. Soaring and lyrical. I am listening to the first movement of Four with new ears. It really is quite something

His Vespers has a strange beauty all of its own. Based on the order for the Russian Orthodox church, it does not strike me as especially Russian. But it is clearly different from Western plainchant. I can't really put my finger on it, but I have realised that it is seriously underplayed in my life, and definitely merits more frequent airings, especially when I want to be contemplative.

Perhaps I ought to put Rachmaninov on my to-do list and the 2CdD four concerti on my longer term wishlist...

I have a tape that I bought when I was a stude, for �1.50 or something, and despite frequent plays, it is still in tip-top condition. It contains, on one side, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, which has been on my long-list for the desert island for twenty years now. One of the pieces is in 1/4 time, which must be devilishly difficult to conduct. a comment that makes me realise that I have never seen a performance of this live or on TV, because that would be the sort of thing to watch the conductor for. I used to play along to this in my percussion lessons all those years ago.

The other side is Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. Very pleasant and lyrical, although far from being my favourite Tchaik.

Where to sit in concert hall

Best seats in the house

I find the front terrace at the Royal Festival Hall vastly superior to the Balcony. And I prefer the circle to the stalls at the Barbican.

I haven't really sussed out the Albert Hall. I always seem to end up in the circle, which is too high. I am annoyed at myself for forgetting that I had a ticket - a Stalls ticket - for Curlew River the other night.

This Sunday I'm in the circle for the Britten and the stalls for the Taverner.