Meet Henry. He accompanied us to Berlin. Which as you can imagine was quite traumatic - a pig going to the land where currywurst is king. But he survived, and is happy with it.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Henry
Meet Henry. He accompanied us to Berlin. Which as you can imagine was quite traumatic - a pig going to the land where currywurst is king. But he survived, and is happy with it.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Chaulk - Part I
No, that's not a spelling mistake. You say it as it's written, with an "OW" sound in the middle. It's how Rich Anderson used to say it.
Chaulk was the first band I was in at University. It was one of the best bands I've ever played in. It was the hardest band I've ever played in. It's the closest I've ever come to being signed on a record contract. And it was, by turns, fantastic and upsetting.
It started within a few weeks of me joining University. For the first time I was having to make a fresh start with music. My hard-built reputation in the North-West counted for nothing. My long standing band at home, Wug, was on hiatus until the holidays (and, as it turns out, almost permanently). And I was too old to be a member of County Youth Orchestra any more.
To my relief I managed to grab the Bass Trombone seat in the University Orchestra, something I'd been determined to do upon arrival. And the rest of the trombone section seemed refreshingly normal, after the madness of Youth Orchestra. In particular, Richard (AKA Dickie), the first trombonist, seemed like a decent kind of person. A music student, he was very serious and committed, and quite clearly immensely talented. He also had a demented and seriously wrong sense of humour, and was deeply strange anyway, which helped.
After our first rehearsal the conductor, Paulie Brown (a fellow trombonist who played in the Chamber Orchestra alongside Dickie and I when we were needed) invited everyone to the pub for beverages. Dickie and I dutifully went along, and over much drunken carnage, a friendship was born. Along with the friendship came an invitation to audition on bass guitar for his band. Next orchestra rehearsal, we fixed a date for an audition with the other significant band member Chris. Dickie gave me some pieces to prepare. I'd made quite a good impression because I could read music for bass anyway, but one of these pieces was quite possibly the hardest thing I'd ever come across (and I grew up playing jazz bass, which isn't exactly easy). Cue long, late-night practicing after pub visits and last minute essays...
The day of the audition arrived and I turned up at Chris' house. He seemed an amiable kind of bloke - very quietly spoken, and deeply sarcastic, which was a good point. Together with Dickie and Chris was Chris' friend Simon, who was the band's roadie and manager (you can tell this was a bit of a professional set-up now can't you?) - he was a large bear of a man, who, like Chris, was quietly spoken and quite serious, but also sarcastic. And both of them were tremendous beer monsters...but anyway, I played the pieces, which amused them no end, because they genuinely hadn't expected anyone they auditioned to actually be able to play the hard piece, yet I managed to get all the way through it. I then found out a little bit about the band itself...
Apparently, there was a bloke called Benedict who sang "with the voice of a (very masculine, he was keen to point out) angel", Chris on guitar, Dickie on piano and a guy called Rich on drums (who apparently was exceedingly nice). Dickie and Chris had formed the band when they'd been at school together in Nottingham, had recruited Ben and Rich in the first year of University, and had previously been playing with Stephen Poliakoff's nephew on bass. They'd decided he was a tad poo, and so recruited for a new bassist - hence, me.
So, consequently, I found myself a member of Chaulk - named as such because, Rich being a true London boy, pronounced "Chalk" in this way, and it stuck. Rich did turn out to be a ridiculously nice bloke - 6 foot odd of tall Londoner, crowned with a shock of bright ginger hair. Ben too did sing as well as they'd told me, though I didn't really speak to him so much at first. In the end, I ended up spending most of the spare time around rehearsals with Dickie and Rich.
The first few rehearsals were held in the Undercroft to the College of St Hild and St Bede. This is where the University Radio Station, Purple FM, broadcast from, but every few days, we took over the area. It was a fairly massive place, underneath the main hall of the college. The walls were covered in a mixture of band and gig posters, newspaper articles, and graffiti. There was a large entrance hall, where several tables and chairs were normally stacked, before you descended into the main hall section. In the far corner was an extremely grotty unisex toilet area, while along the side ran a raised stage. Bemusingly, in the middle of the main hall section, on the floor, a large, animated carrot had been painted. Finally, along either side of the room ran two large gutters. These were indicative of the Undercroft's dark secret...
We discovered the secret about the Undercroft, when, one rehearsal, we went in to discover that the walls and the floor (and particularly, the carrot) had been covered in clear plastic sheeting. A couple of people were still finishing off the sheeting, so naturally, we asked "why?"
"It's for the Chundering Carrot Club."
Next we asked the question we really shouldn't have done - "what's that?"
"Basically every year, the Chundering Carrot Club come downstairs and lock themselves in here for twenty-four hours, with an unlimited supply of alcohol." One of them pointed to the beer barrels stacked up in the entrance hall. "It's a case of last man or woman standing. The only rule is, if you're going to be sick, you have to be sick on the carrot..."
Chaulk was the first band I was in at University. It was one of the best bands I've ever played in. It was the hardest band I've ever played in. It's the closest I've ever come to being signed on a record contract. And it was, by turns, fantastic and upsetting.
It started within a few weeks of me joining University. For the first time I was having to make a fresh start with music. My hard-built reputation in the North-West counted for nothing. My long standing band at home, Wug, was on hiatus until the holidays (and, as it turns out, almost permanently). And I was too old to be a member of County Youth Orchestra any more.
To my relief I managed to grab the Bass Trombone seat in the University Orchestra, something I'd been determined to do upon arrival. And the rest of the trombone section seemed refreshingly normal, after the madness of Youth Orchestra. In particular, Richard (AKA Dickie), the first trombonist, seemed like a decent kind of person. A music student, he was very serious and committed, and quite clearly immensely talented. He also had a demented and seriously wrong sense of humour, and was deeply strange anyway, which helped.
After our first rehearsal the conductor, Paulie Brown (a fellow trombonist who played in the Chamber Orchestra alongside Dickie and I when we were needed) invited everyone to the pub for beverages. Dickie and I dutifully went along, and over much drunken carnage, a friendship was born. Along with the friendship came an invitation to audition on bass guitar for his band. Next orchestra rehearsal, we fixed a date for an audition with the other significant band member Chris. Dickie gave me some pieces to prepare. I'd made quite a good impression because I could read music for bass anyway, but one of these pieces was quite possibly the hardest thing I'd ever come across (and I grew up playing jazz bass, which isn't exactly easy). Cue long, late-night practicing after pub visits and last minute essays...
The day of the audition arrived and I turned up at Chris' house. He seemed an amiable kind of bloke - very quietly spoken, and deeply sarcastic, which was a good point. Together with Dickie and Chris was Chris' friend Simon, who was the band's roadie and manager (you can tell this was a bit of a professional set-up now can't you?) - he was a large bear of a man, who, like Chris, was quietly spoken and quite serious, but also sarcastic. And both of them were tremendous beer monsters...but anyway, I played the pieces, which amused them no end, because they genuinely hadn't expected anyone they auditioned to actually be able to play the hard piece, yet I managed to get all the way through it. I then found out a little bit about the band itself...
Apparently, there was a bloke called Benedict who sang "with the voice of a (very masculine, he was keen to point out) angel", Chris on guitar, Dickie on piano and a guy called Rich on drums (who apparently was exceedingly nice). Dickie and Chris had formed the band when they'd been at school together in Nottingham, had recruited Ben and Rich in the first year of University, and had previously been playing with Stephen Poliakoff's nephew on bass. They'd decided he was a tad poo, and so recruited for a new bassist - hence, me.
So, consequently, I found myself a member of Chaulk - named as such because, Rich being a true London boy, pronounced "Chalk" in this way, and it stuck. Rich did turn out to be a ridiculously nice bloke - 6 foot odd of tall Londoner, crowned with a shock of bright ginger hair. Ben too did sing as well as they'd told me, though I didn't really speak to him so much at first. In the end, I ended up spending most of the spare time around rehearsals with Dickie and Rich.
The first few rehearsals were held in the Undercroft to the College of St Hild and St Bede. This is where the University Radio Station, Purple FM, broadcast from, but every few days, we took over the area. It was a fairly massive place, underneath the main hall of the college. The walls were covered in a mixture of band and gig posters, newspaper articles, and graffiti. There was a large entrance hall, where several tables and chairs were normally stacked, before you descended into the main hall section. In the far corner was an extremely grotty unisex toilet area, while along the side ran a raised stage. Bemusingly, in the middle of the main hall section, on the floor, a large, animated carrot had been painted. Finally, along either side of the room ran two large gutters. These were indicative of the Undercroft's dark secret...
We discovered the secret about the Undercroft, when, one rehearsal, we went in to discover that the walls and the floor (and particularly, the carrot) had been covered in clear plastic sheeting. A couple of people were still finishing off the sheeting, so naturally, we asked "why?"
"It's for the Chundering Carrot Club."
Next we asked the question we really shouldn't have done - "what's that?"
"Basically every year, the Chundering Carrot Club come downstairs and lock themselves in here for twenty-four hours, with an unlimited supply of alcohol." One of them pointed to the beer barrels stacked up in the entrance hall. "It's a case of last man or woman standing. The only rule is, if you're going to be sick, you have to be sick on the carrot..."
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Shostakovich and Gergiev III (and ode to Andy Logan)
I have to confess I've been looking forward to this one less for the music and more for a chance to see Andy Logan the night before he jets off to Taiwan with I-ching to get hitched. But I think he got a good send off from Gergiev and the Mariinsky - he certainly seemed to enjoy it (I now await a comment saying that I imagined this and he found it the most tedious couple of hours of his existence...)
Funnily enough, the Twelfth made more of an impact on us than I anticipated, though it remains, with the best will in the world, a bit fair-to-middling. There are many reasons for this, and to be fair, it's never going to come across as earth-shattering when paired with the magnificent Tenth, or following on the heels of a staggering performance of its more than worthy successor the Thirteenth. It's not that the symphonic ideas or ideals are flawed, but Andy hit the nail on the head when he said "it's good, but there's something missing"...
Thinking about it, I think the charge levelled at both this and the Eleventh - that they owe more to Shostakovich's film scores than symphonies - rings more true with the case of the 12th. The emphatic block scoring seems far more suited to accompanying some action on screen or stage rather than being the focus of our undivided attention., and I think that sums up the problem. It needs something else to make it feel complete. I got the same feeling I got when I saw Howard Shore conduct the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack music - great stuff, but not enough on its own to make it feel substantial. A bit like chocolate I suppose.
The Tenth on the other hand kept us riveted from start to finish. I had thought that perhaps my mind would wander with this, as it does on occasion with pieces I've performed (and consequently rehearsed to death). I remember the surprise when we first got the parts with the University of Durham Symphony Orchestra that, for such an outwardly forceful piece, there was surprisingly little of substance for the trombones. However, this does not make you complacent - "little but often" is often the phrase that you dread as a symphonic trombonist (well, that and the words "Sibelius' Fifth"). It's far easier to do something like Brahms 1 or 4 when you sit on your arse for half an hour or so not playing - for one thing you can skip most rehearsals, and nod off during full rehearsals (as long as you have a good alarm). But we had to rehearse the Tenth a lot, and we had to be at every single rehearsal which is frankly unfair.
Yet familiarity does not breed contempt in respect of this piece, and particularly not in respect of this performance, which was played with utter commitment and passion. I was captivated for the whole performance, and able to admire the phenomenal playing of some people such as the first bassoonist (incredible), the timpanist (beyond belief - such complete musicality) and the tuba player (the first exceptional player I've seen for a while - able to play a perfectly centred, perfectly supported note and sustain it with equal quality for several bars).
Andy felt the same - seeing his enthusiasm after the concert about the piece reminded me of the enthusiasm he used to show after a particularly good gig. Few people have such a fantastic appreciation of music as Andy when he gets going. And it's an infectious enthusiasm - I blame him entirely for some of the more silly things I did when playing in Cactus Lounge, mostly involving injuring myself at some point. And the other thing was seeing this enthusiasm carried over to his forthcoming wedding. It was great to see him like this and it cheered me up no end.
So in conclusion - Andy, here's to you!
Gergiev and Shostakovich II (a crash course in Russian history)
This is going to be a long one...
Tonight was the first of the three final concerts in the Gergiev / Shostakovich cycle, featuring symphonies 6 and 13 - an unusual pairing to say the least.
The Sixth Symphony is a gloriously schizophrenic piece, which I can't fathom at all. The first movement is of an epic nature, sending you out on a long journey into the heart of Russia. Then the final two movements grab the wheel and propel you full pelt into a brick wall. I confess my mind wasn't on the piece 100% this time, though, as I spent a large portion of it trying to quell a panic attack brought on by claustrophobia.
During the interval I managed to calm down, and with the help of two of the ushers and a fellow concert-goer, was able to move seat to one which was easily escapable from. This calmed my nerves and allow me to give my undivided attention to the Thirteenth Symphony.
--------------------------------
Since I started this cycle, I've been giving a lot of thought to which Shostakovich symphony I would preserve for all eternity, which one I would take to my own personal desert island. There are a lot of candidates - the Fourth or the Fifteenth, both of which you could listen to for years without fathoming out their true depths, or the Fifth or Tenth which have such strong memories associated with them. An that's not even thinking of the First or Third (strongly associated with our time in Nice), or the Eleventh (more on that in a later post...)
But after tongiht, I think there's no contest. It has to be the Thirteenth. This is a piece that needs to be listened to in a coccon of your own, oblivious to anything else but the words and music.
The first time I heard it was in my upstairs room in 22 Elvet Crescent, sat on my bed between my speakers, with the door shut, the curtains open on a beautiful clear night in Durham, with the illuminated Cathedral clearly visible, and just a small reading light on so I could follow the poetry. It was in every sens an emotionally devastating experience, and the only esternal intrusion on my feelings only hightened this sense - during the frankly terrifying fourth movement ("Fears"), a helicopter from the Prison began flying over, shining its searchlight into the gardens and windows. It was an eerie contemporary echo of the watchtowers in the gulags during Stalin's Great Terror.
------------------------------------
The concert tonight was every bit as moving. It's a piece which has to be digested as it was written, in one go, with 100% of your attention. As a result, it's difficult to find opportunities to hear it - I think I've only heard it a handful of times in total, the last time in a concert in teh Royal Festival Hall. But this was as perfect a rendition as I could imagine. With a Russian male choir and a Russian bass, they knew exactly where the emphasis in Yevtushenko's poetry should lie.
The relative importance of music versus words in choral music is a fascinating area of study. In the case of Shostakovich however, I think that, despite the poetry of four of the five movements existing prior to the symphony, it is impossible to imagine either aspect of this work carrying as much weight if performed without the other. The words alone have a devastating effect, but when coupled with music which, particularly in the case of the Third and Fourth movements, has no clear solid tonal base, it makes you feel as if your soul is being slowly torn apart.
And then the final movement, with the exquisite flute melody entering like soothing balm to your poor damaged psyche. The effect this had on me tonight cannot be underestimated. And at the end, as the music dies away with this beautiful melody, I had a strong impression of being on a mountain top in Romania, on New Year's Eve two years ago, and looking out over a snow covered valley. Exquisite.
-------------------------------------
To add a postscript to this post, I would say that, if ever I wanted to give someone a crash course in Russian history over the early-to-mid Twentieth Century, I would furnish them with two items. Aleksandr Solhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" ( a short book capable of being digested in one sitting, but of living on in your brain for all eternity) and Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony.
Tonight was the first of the three final concerts in the Gergiev / Shostakovich cycle, featuring symphonies 6 and 13 - an unusual pairing to say the least.
The Sixth Symphony is a gloriously schizophrenic piece, which I can't fathom at all. The first movement is of an epic nature, sending you out on a long journey into the heart of Russia. Then the final two movements grab the wheel and propel you full pelt into a brick wall. I confess my mind wasn't on the piece 100% this time, though, as I spent a large portion of it trying to quell a panic attack brought on by claustrophobia.
During the interval I managed to calm down, and with the help of two of the ushers and a fellow concert-goer, was able to move seat to one which was easily escapable from. This calmed my nerves and allow me to give my undivided attention to the Thirteenth Symphony.
--------------------------------
Since I started this cycle, I've been giving a lot of thought to which Shostakovich symphony I would preserve for all eternity, which one I would take to my own personal desert island. There are a lot of candidates - the Fourth or the Fifteenth, both of which you could listen to for years without fathoming out their true depths, or the Fifth or Tenth which have such strong memories associated with them. An that's not even thinking of the First or Third (strongly associated with our time in Nice), or the Eleventh (more on that in a later post...)
But after tongiht, I think there's no contest. It has to be the Thirteenth. This is a piece that needs to be listened to in a coccon of your own, oblivious to anything else but the words and music.
The first time I heard it was in my upstairs room in 22 Elvet Crescent, sat on my bed between my speakers, with the door shut, the curtains open on a beautiful clear night in Durham, with the illuminated Cathedral clearly visible, and just a small reading light on so I could follow the poetry. It was in every sens an emotionally devastating experience, and the only esternal intrusion on my feelings only hightened this sense - during the frankly terrifying fourth movement ("Fears"), a helicopter from the Prison began flying over, shining its searchlight into the gardens and windows. It was an eerie contemporary echo of the watchtowers in the gulags during Stalin's Great Terror.
------------------------------------
The concert tonight was every bit as moving. It's a piece which has to be digested as it was written, in one go, with 100% of your attention. As a result, it's difficult to find opportunities to hear it - I think I've only heard it a handful of times in total, the last time in a concert in teh Royal Festival Hall. But this was as perfect a rendition as I could imagine. With a Russian male choir and a Russian bass, they knew exactly where the emphasis in Yevtushenko's poetry should lie.
The relative importance of music versus words in choral music is a fascinating area of study. In the case of Shostakovich however, I think that, despite the poetry of four of the five movements existing prior to the symphony, it is impossible to imagine either aspect of this work carrying as much weight if performed without the other. The words alone have a devastating effect, but when coupled with music which, particularly in the case of the Third and Fourth movements, has no clear solid tonal base, it makes you feel as if your soul is being slowly torn apart.
And then the final movement, with the exquisite flute melody entering like soothing balm to your poor damaged psyche. The effect this had on me tonight cannot be underestimated. And at the end, as the music dies away with this beautiful melody, I had a strong impression of being on a mountain top in Romania, on New Year's Eve two years ago, and looking out over a snow covered valley. Exquisite.
-------------------------------------
To add a postscript to this post, I would say that, if ever I wanted to give someone a crash course in Russian history over the early-to-mid Twentieth Century, I would furnish them with two items. Aleksandr Solhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" ( a short book capable of being digested in one sitting, but of living on in your brain for all eternity) and Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Richmond Park in the Evening
Hello all
I've been quiet since my exam passed, with the exception of Pumpy Joe (who stopped crying after meeting a kindred soul in Cyberpumpkin, and who ended up being sent off in the most magnificent fashion you could imagine - stuffed full of fireworks on November 5th).
Perhaps the reason I've been quiet is also the reason I'm able to post now. Yes, the dreaded "stress" has finally caught up with me (you lot know how normally calm and collected and suave I am...). Having been barrelling along at the usual rate of knots, my body has finally decided to give up on me and demanded I take a few days off for R&R.
So with the complete approval of Lou, Line Manager John and everyone else I am spending a few days...well, the best description would have to be "bumming around". As you can imagine, this has involved a lot of lying in bed, watching DVDs (Buffy Season 5 has been getting a welcome repeat showing), listening to music (a lot of Brahms - Fourth Symphony and Piano Concerto, plus Bruckner's Fourth, Corelli's Op.6 No. 4 Concerto Grosso, a whole host of Big Band Jazz, and a lot of Pixies and Captain Beefheart), and reading (I had to give up on Proust as my poor fried brain couldn't cope, so have moved to something at the other end of the spectrum - "You Only Live Twice" by Ian Fleming, and "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" by Dumas (because I can't QUITE give up on pretention). Have successfully avoided any trombone or piano practice so far though, (although given I've been doing 40 minutes a day on Bass Trom in the basement at work I probably need a break. My workmates do...I hear a party's been organised...)
Anyway, the whole point of this post is to share what I've just been through. I decided I needed to get out of the house and have a bit of exercise, so I headed up to Richmond Park. It was about 3:15pm so still quite light. It's culling season at the moment as the deer are a) numerous, b) randy and c) vicious, so they close the park to traffic earlier than usual. It was fantastically peaceful, and I set off with the plan to walk to Roehampton Gate, and a little beyond to the public Golf Course, as I've never been that way before.
It was fantastic - the sun was low, and as I walked, a mist began to fall across the park. I got up to the car entrance to the golf course and, as it was still light, thought I'd carry on to a rickety bridge I could see a little further on. Upon getting to the bridge, across a little creek, I saw a sign saying "Robin Hood Gate - 1 mile". As it was still reasonably light, and I was wrapped up warm, I continued on round the path. It meandered gloriously, seeming to prefer any other route than a straight line, and I confess I kind of lost track of things, and didn't notice it getting dark and people disappearing.
By the time I got to Robin Hood Gate it was pretty dark. Having no idea where Robin Hood Gate actually IS in London (it MIGHT be south of Roehampton), I looked at my map and decided to follow the road way back through the middle of the park, past the White Lodge, to Sheen Gate. It was only about 3 miles, so I thought I'd get through it in no time.
When I was about a mile in, I became aware of a large mass of something on the hill to my right. It was too dark to tell for sure, but I was fairly certain they were red deer. This was confirmed when two blobs broke free from the mass and charged down for the road. I stood still, and watched as two of the largest stags I have ever seen thundered across the road in front of me.
It was about now, given the previously mentioned points A, B and C, that I realised I may be doing something daft.
I became aware of a herd of red deer on the left of me also, but what was also catching my attention was the progress of the two stags. They kept stopping, then chasing each other again. Every time they started chasing, I stood still, as common sense tells you to do. So it was that both of them arrived on the road next to me, staring at me. Then, they turned to each other and started rutting. Really battling each other with their antlers. About a couple of metres from where I was stood.
I was transfixed, but at the same time realised that I should be getting the hell out of there as quickly as possible. So moving slowly I continued on my way. By this time it was pitch dark, but my eyes had adjusted well enough to be able to see that the path I was following was completely swamped with red deer, cutting off my access to the White Lodge. So, I took a detour across the grass, and ended up getting a bit lost. Luckily, at the precise moment I needed, I came across a dog walker, the only other soul about, who pointed me back in the direction of Sheen Gate.
After passing through some woodland (which, after having watched last week's Torchwood about cannibals living in the forest, was great for the imagination), and negotiating through some herds of fallow deer - far less scary than the reds - I finally found my way on the path to Sheen Gate. 15 minutes later at 5:15pm, I was back in the real world, by the gate, (for those in the know, outside the house with the balcony, which I'm determined to buy one day just so I can play trombone naked on the balcony as the sun comes up. After all, what's a balcony for except naked trombone playing?)
And then I came home and wrote this, and put on "Shiny Beast" by Beefheart, which right now seems to sum up the world perfectly.
I've been quiet since my exam passed, with the exception of Pumpy Joe (who stopped crying after meeting a kindred soul in Cyberpumpkin, and who ended up being sent off in the most magnificent fashion you could imagine - stuffed full of fireworks on November 5th).
Perhaps the reason I've been quiet is also the reason I'm able to post now. Yes, the dreaded "stress" has finally caught up with me (you lot know how normally calm and collected and suave I am...). Having been barrelling along at the usual rate of knots, my body has finally decided to give up on me and demanded I take a few days off for R&R.
So with the complete approval of Lou, Line Manager John and everyone else I am spending a few days...well, the best description would have to be "bumming around". As you can imagine, this has involved a lot of lying in bed, watching DVDs (Buffy Season 5 has been getting a welcome repeat showing), listening to music (a lot of Brahms - Fourth Symphony and Piano Concerto, plus Bruckner's Fourth, Corelli's Op.6 No. 4 Concerto Grosso, a whole host of Big Band Jazz, and a lot of Pixies and Captain Beefheart), and reading (I had to give up on Proust as my poor fried brain couldn't cope, so have moved to something at the other end of the spectrum - "You Only Live Twice" by Ian Fleming, and "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" by Dumas (because I can't QUITE give up on pretention). Have successfully avoided any trombone or piano practice so far though, (although given I've been doing 40 minutes a day on Bass Trom in the basement at work I probably need a break. My workmates do...I hear a party's been organised...)
Anyway, the whole point of this post is to share what I've just been through. I decided I needed to get out of the house and have a bit of exercise, so I headed up to Richmond Park. It was about 3:15pm so still quite light. It's culling season at the moment as the deer are a) numerous, b) randy and c) vicious, so they close the park to traffic earlier than usual. It was fantastically peaceful, and I set off with the plan to walk to Roehampton Gate, and a little beyond to the public Golf Course, as I've never been that way before.
It was fantastic - the sun was low, and as I walked, a mist began to fall across the park. I got up to the car entrance to the golf course and, as it was still light, thought I'd carry on to a rickety bridge I could see a little further on. Upon getting to the bridge, across a little creek, I saw a sign saying "Robin Hood Gate - 1 mile". As it was still reasonably light, and I was wrapped up warm, I continued on round the path. It meandered gloriously, seeming to prefer any other route than a straight line, and I confess I kind of lost track of things, and didn't notice it getting dark and people disappearing.
By the time I got to Robin Hood Gate it was pretty dark. Having no idea where Robin Hood Gate actually IS in London (it MIGHT be south of Roehampton), I looked at my map and decided to follow the road way back through the middle of the park, past the White Lodge, to Sheen Gate. It was only about 3 miles, so I thought I'd get through it in no time.
When I was about a mile in, I became aware of a large mass of something on the hill to my right. It was too dark to tell for sure, but I was fairly certain they were red deer. This was confirmed when two blobs broke free from the mass and charged down for the road. I stood still, and watched as two of the largest stags I have ever seen thundered across the road in front of me.
It was about now, given the previously mentioned points A, B and C, that I realised I may be doing something daft.
I became aware of a herd of red deer on the left of me also, but what was also catching my attention was the progress of the two stags. They kept stopping, then chasing each other again. Every time they started chasing, I stood still, as common sense tells you to do. So it was that both of them arrived on the road next to me, staring at me. Then, they turned to each other and started rutting. Really battling each other with their antlers. About a couple of metres from where I was stood.
I was transfixed, but at the same time realised that I should be getting the hell out of there as quickly as possible. So moving slowly I continued on my way. By this time it was pitch dark, but my eyes had adjusted well enough to be able to see that the path I was following was completely swamped with red deer, cutting off my access to the White Lodge. So, I took a detour across the grass, and ended up getting a bit lost. Luckily, at the precise moment I needed, I came across a dog walker, the only other soul about, who pointed me back in the direction of Sheen Gate.
After passing through some woodland (which, after having watched last week's Torchwood about cannibals living in the forest, was great for the imagination), and negotiating through some herds of fallow deer - far less scary than the reds - I finally found my way on the path to Sheen Gate. 15 minutes later at 5:15pm, I was back in the real world, by the gate, (for those in the know, outside the house with the balcony, which I'm determined to buy one day just so I can play trombone naked on the balcony as the sun comes up. After all, what's a balcony for except naked trombone playing?)
And then I came home and wrote this, and put on "Shiny Beast" by Beefheart, which right now seems to sum up the world perfectly.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Greatest Symphony of Them All?
I have had my nose to the grindstone rather recently, revising for my upcoming exam on the 18th, after which I will officially be one year down the line towards my dreams of academia.
Despite the obvious perils of a nose-grindstone interface, it has not actually been that unpleasant, consisting mainly of going over basic elements of musical theory, history and style from the years 1600 - 1900, as well as thorough listening to and analysis of our set works. We've had some tremendous set works too - Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.
But recently I've been going back over Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This surely has to rank as one of the most familiar pieces of classical music in the world today, if from nothing else than its opening motto. And I think you could make a pretty good case for it being one of the finest pieces of Symphonic writing in existence.
What is the key of it though? Not in a literal sense (that would be C minor), but what holds such sway in this piece? After all, the essence of this symphony is perfectly capable of being distilled down to two bars' worth of music, as demonstrated by one of our tutors the other day. The familiar "ta-ta-ta taaaaa" finishing on a chord of C minor, followed straight away by a chord of C major, and you have the whole piece in a nutshell. But the thing about it is, it teeters on this tremendous precipice between the ordered, still relatively structured and constrained Classical era, and the unbridled inhibition of the Romantic era. A lot of this symphony can be traced backwards, and likewise a great deal of its contents can be seen as harbingers of the new world to come.
Yet the spark of genius is elusive, and I have been desperately trying to think about what it is that makes this symphony carry such an impact. Certainly the famous opening movement is relatively conventional. The layout fits exactly what we expect from something founded on sonata principle, with a few characteristic Beethovian flourishes - the extended coda, the recapitulation being subtley different from the first subject. And you cannot overlook the fact that the entire symphony grows organically from the first five bars of music - the bulk of the main themes in the piece bear some kinship to the opening motif.
So if not the opening movement, what about the last movement? It has some bold statements of romanticism - as a trombonist I am obliged to love the last movement purely for the fact that for the first time in symphonic history, the trombones proclaim themselves present at the party (and, by the end of the movement are reduced by one, as the first player expires from having to play the highest symphonic trombone part written). But no. While this is a bold stroke, the trombones are there to add weight and volume, not for some grand expressive purpose. Then you have the second subject, upon which Nicholas once commented that John Williams (the film composer) had built his entire career. I'm sure you can think of the moment. After the strident horn theme, keeping resolutely to the "new" tonic of C major, boldly appears, the music takes a strange, almost modernistic lurch towards a new key.
(As an aside, as I know Mr Moore was interested in what marks this out so strongly, the harmony moves from being founded on a C major triad, to being founded on a D major triad. This creates two effects. Firstly it is the movement from C-E-G to D-F#-A - this is the movement from the tonic (I) to a chromatically altered supertonic (II), both in root position. If chord II was in its unaltered state according to the C major scale, this would be frowned upon, and thoroughly against "the rules". However, the chromatic alteration allows Beethoven to sidestep that. The fact is D-F#-A is not a chord in C major, but it is present in the dominant of C, which is G major (a D major chord being the dominant of the new key). But C-E-G is also present in G major, as chord IV. So you realise that far from being in the tonic of the movement, C major, the horn theme was actually based on the subdominant of G major, and suddenly you find yourself rethinking what has gone before. It's a peculiar situation for sure!)
But ot return to the fourth movement, despite the broad brush of instrumental innovation, and with the exception of what I mentioned above, there is very little harmonic innovation in the movement itself. Mostly it is based on tonics and dominants, and I know certain people have been driven to absolute distraction by the seemingly endless repetition of C major at the conclusion, all 100 plus bars of it. This does serve to point out something remarkable - this symphony is one of the first to chart the "romantic" journey from darkness into light, through the transformation of an opening minor key into its tonic major by the end - but it is not here that genius resides.
The second movement is largely traditional too. There is a curious instability in the founding harmony at the end, mainly around the problem of timpani tuning which I won't go into here, but otherwise this movement moves exactly as you would expect.
You can tell that I am leaving the third movement until last for a reason. This, I feel holds the key to the whole symphony, which is a remarkable claim for a section of music that has no proper ending, and about which no-one knows for certain what the composer's final thoughts were - the whole "repeat-or-not-repeat" question, which could be the subject of a whole separate post. But I think this movement really is a work of genius, be it in the ever-expanding bass and 'cello line of the scherzo, which ebbs and flows, rises and falls, like the swelling of great waves, or in the scurrying of the trio with cascades of string figures building up and up on each other, yet never causing any crowding. And who could forget the majestic horn theme, when the second horn comes in in thirds with the solo and rounds out the sound so well.
The innovation of this section is not vast either, though the way the end of the music builds and launches into the fourth movement without pause is a truly revolutionary moment. But I think this is the one movement where everything - the form, the melody, the dynamics, the emotion - coalesces to form a whole that is truly magnificent. This for me is the centr of the whole symphony, and sets a benchmark for everyone else to follow. Not bad coming from someone virtually deaf, perpetually irrascable and possibly certifiable.
There is one other reaosn why I like studying this symphony. It reminds me of Nicholas enthusing passionately over this symphony and why he considers it is the greatest of all works. And that's not a bad image to have in your mind.
Despite the obvious perils of a nose-grindstone interface, it has not actually been that unpleasant, consisting mainly of going over basic elements of musical theory, history and style from the years 1600 - 1900, as well as thorough listening to and analysis of our set works. We've had some tremendous set works too - Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.
But recently I've been going back over Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This surely has to rank as one of the most familiar pieces of classical music in the world today, if from nothing else than its opening motto. And I think you could make a pretty good case for it being one of the finest pieces of Symphonic writing in existence.
What is the key of it though? Not in a literal sense (that would be C minor), but what holds such sway in this piece? After all, the essence of this symphony is perfectly capable of being distilled down to two bars' worth of music, as demonstrated by one of our tutors the other day. The familiar "ta-ta-ta taaaaa" finishing on a chord of C minor, followed straight away by a chord of C major, and you have the whole piece in a nutshell. But the thing about it is, it teeters on this tremendous precipice between the ordered, still relatively structured and constrained Classical era, and the unbridled inhibition of the Romantic era. A lot of this symphony can be traced backwards, and likewise a great deal of its contents can be seen as harbingers of the new world to come.
Yet the spark of genius is elusive, and I have been desperately trying to think about what it is that makes this symphony carry such an impact. Certainly the famous opening movement is relatively conventional. The layout fits exactly what we expect from something founded on sonata principle, with a few characteristic Beethovian flourishes - the extended coda, the recapitulation being subtley different from the first subject. And you cannot overlook the fact that the entire symphony grows organically from the first five bars of music - the bulk of the main themes in the piece bear some kinship to the opening motif.
So if not the opening movement, what about the last movement? It has some bold statements of romanticism - as a trombonist I am obliged to love the last movement purely for the fact that for the first time in symphonic history, the trombones proclaim themselves present at the party (and, by the end of the movement are reduced by one, as the first player expires from having to play the highest symphonic trombone part written). But no. While this is a bold stroke, the trombones are there to add weight and volume, not for some grand expressive purpose. Then you have the second subject, upon which Nicholas once commented that John Williams (the film composer) had built his entire career. I'm sure you can think of the moment. After the strident horn theme, keeping resolutely to the "new" tonic of C major, boldly appears, the music takes a strange, almost modernistic lurch towards a new key.
(As an aside, as I know Mr Moore was interested in what marks this out so strongly, the harmony moves from being founded on a C major triad, to being founded on a D major triad. This creates two effects. Firstly it is the movement from C-E-G to D-F#-A - this is the movement from the tonic (I) to a chromatically altered supertonic (II), both in root position. If chord II was in its unaltered state according to the C major scale, this would be frowned upon, and thoroughly against "the rules". However, the chromatic alteration allows Beethoven to sidestep that. The fact is D-F#-A is not a chord in C major, but it is present in the dominant of C, which is G major (a D major chord being the dominant of the new key). But C-E-G is also present in G major, as chord IV. So you realise that far from being in the tonic of the movement, C major, the horn theme was actually based on the subdominant of G major, and suddenly you find yourself rethinking what has gone before. It's a peculiar situation for sure!)
But ot return to the fourth movement, despite the broad brush of instrumental innovation, and with the exception of what I mentioned above, there is very little harmonic innovation in the movement itself. Mostly it is based on tonics and dominants, and I know certain people have been driven to absolute distraction by the seemingly endless repetition of C major at the conclusion, all 100 plus bars of it. This does serve to point out something remarkable - this symphony is one of the first to chart the "romantic" journey from darkness into light, through the transformation of an opening minor key into its tonic major by the end - but it is not here that genius resides.
The second movement is largely traditional too. There is a curious instability in the founding harmony at the end, mainly around the problem of timpani tuning which I won't go into here, but otherwise this movement moves exactly as you would expect.
You can tell that I am leaving the third movement until last for a reason. This, I feel holds the key to the whole symphony, which is a remarkable claim for a section of music that has no proper ending, and about which no-one knows for certain what the composer's final thoughts were - the whole "repeat-or-not-repeat" question, which could be the subject of a whole separate post. But I think this movement really is a work of genius, be it in the ever-expanding bass and 'cello line of the scherzo, which ebbs and flows, rises and falls, like the swelling of great waves, or in the scurrying of the trio with cascades of string figures building up and up on each other, yet never causing any crowding. And who could forget the majestic horn theme, when the second horn comes in in thirds with the solo and rounds out the sound so well.
The innovation of this section is not vast either, though the way the end of the music builds and launches into the fourth movement without pause is a truly revolutionary moment. But I think this is the one movement where everything - the form, the melody, the dynamics, the emotion - coalesces to form a whole that is truly magnificent. This for me is the centr of the whole symphony, and sets a benchmark for everyone else to follow. Not bad coming from someone virtually deaf, perpetually irrascable and possibly certifiable.
There is one other reaosn why I like studying this symphony. It reminds me of Nicholas enthusing passionately over this symphony and why he considers it is the greatest of all works. And that's not a bad image to have in your mind.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Interlude
I was sat in a meeting this morning, on the second-to-back row, with just a few of my immediate colleagues on the row behind me.
After the meeting, one of said colleagues commented on how nice my hair was at the back. Naturally I laid the credit at the feet of the last person to give me a haircut, which was Lou.
However, afterwards I realised that it's the first, and possibly going to be the only, time someone has ever said that to me. And as such, it's worth recording in a little blog post.
After the meeting, one of said colleagues commented on how nice my hair was at the back. Naturally I laid the credit at the feet of the last person to give me a haircut, which was Lou.
However, afterwards I realised that it's the first, and possibly going to be the only, time someone has ever said that to me. And as such, it's worth recording in a little blog post.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Sir Malcolm Arnold, 1921 - 2006
This weekend, I was saddened to hear Sir Malcolm Arnold died.
I think the best tribute I heard was a friend of mine, who has never been a fan of Classical music, but said "Oh yes, Malcolm Arnold - he was fantastic, the second Elgar." His score for "The Bridge over the River Kwai" won him massive acclaim, and the unlikeliest of fans.
And I think this was the key thing about him - his wide-ranging appeal to people of all walks of life. He resolutely stood against all types of genre segregation, believing that there should not be such viscious distinction between jazz, folk, classical etc. His "themed" orchestral dances (two English sets, plus a set for each of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall) are an absolute joy, drawing heavily on folk sounds and styles and incorporating them into various dance styles. He wrote a concerto for Larry Adler, the harmonica player, and treated it every bit as seriously as he did his concertos for "standard" instruments, such as 'cello.
He was also a fantastic trumpet player, and wrote excellent, but phenomenally difficult, brass parts in his music. The second set of the English dances still gives me nightmares.
The appeal that Arnold had is something that I believe a lot of modern British composers have lost. I read a very good article some months ago where the writer was bemoaning the fact that few modern composers engage with their audiences the way earlier composers did. Mozart and Haydn were integral players in their court orchestras. Shostakovich played music for cinema. Sibelius played violin in several orchestras. Arnold played trumpet with the London Philharmonic. They all had an inherent understanding of what audiences appreciated, and what performers appreciated.
Yet several of today's composers do not have this "grounding", for want of a better word. They prodcue finely crafted pieces, of tremendous intellectual cunning and wit, yet which are intelligible to most average concert-goers. I am loathe to single out people, but I have never forgiven Sir Peter Maxwell-Davies for his contribution to the Queen's 80th birthday celebrations this year. One would expect a triumphal march, or even a jolly dance, based perhaps on some folk melody appropriate to the Queen, or a favourite piece of hers. Instead Maxwell-Davies produced a sombre dirge. The construction of the piece was extremely clever, and would have offered month's worth of analytical possibilities. But it was utterly inappropriate for the occasion.
I am not saying that our beliefs should not be subverted. Shostakovich frequently confounded all expectation, taking wild turns when a more orthodox line would have been expected. But even he knew that there was a time and a place for this. Maxwell-Davies was given a wonderful opportunity to reach out and engage with public, given a platform that many other composers would have longed for. And instead of producing something which could have done more good for the world of classical music than any number of "outreach" programs, he produced a piece which smacked of intellectual snobbery, and which reinforced the opinions of those who believe that modern classical music is an impenetrable confusing murk. Great British composers such as Walton and indeed Arnold had no qualms with producing music which, while not perhaps giving them as much intellectual stimulation in the writing, was appropriate to the occasion. They had a sense of what was expected, and I find that few modern composers, and particularly, modern British composers, have this any more. I do believe however, that in fifty years' time, Walton's "Crown Imperial" will still be playing to full houses, whereas I doubt that Maxwell-Davies' piece will receive a single performance.
Sir Malcolm Arnold, with his unpretentiousness, and his ability to synthesise whole musical worlds, was to my mind far more of a "modernist" than Maxwell-Davies, Taverner, or Turnage. His belief that music should transcend all genre barriers was a truly modern concept, and one that I feel should be revisited by others with more urgency, in order to prevent classical music ceasing to be. In many ways, while not as avant-garde and seemingly a world away, Arnold's synthesis of jazz, folk and classical is the closest we have produced to Steve Reich or John Adams.
To my regret, I know comparatively little of his music - specifically, Arnold the symphonist is an unknown quantity for me. Often the words "British Symphonist" are seen as an oxymoron, Elgar aside, though there is a lot to be said for the works of William Walton, Arnold Bax, and not forgetting the absolute genius that was Ralph Vaughan-Williams. I wish I had heard more Arnold, and shall now seek out all nine of his symphonies and discover a whole new world.
I think the best tribute I heard was a friend of mine, who has never been a fan of Classical music, but said "Oh yes, Malcolm Arnold - he was fantastic, the second Elgar." His score for "The Bridge over the River Kwai" won him massive acclaim, and the unlikeliest of fans.
And I think this was the key thing about him - his wide-ranging appeal to people of all walks of life. He resolutely stood against all types of genre segregation, believing that there should not be such viscious distinction between jazz, folk, classical etc. His "themed" orchestral dances (two English sets, plus a set for each of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall) are an absolute joy, drawing heavily on folk sounds and styles and incorporating them into various dance styles. He wrote a concerto for Larry Adler, the harmonica player, and treated it every bit as seriously as he did his concertos for "standard" instruments, such as 'cello.
He was also a fantastic trumpet player, and wrote excellent, but phenomenally difficult, brass parts in his music. The second set of the English dances still gives me nightmares.
The appeal that Arnold had is something that I believe a lot of modern British composers have lost. I read a very good article some months ago where the writer was bemoaning the fact that few modern composers engage with their audiences the way earlier composers did. Mozart and Haydn were integral players in their court orchestras. Shostakovich played music for cinema. Sibelius played violin in several orchestras. Arnold played trumpet with the London Philharmonic. They all had an inherent understanding of what audiences appreciated, and what performers appreciated.
Yet several of today's composers do not have this "grounding", for want of a better word. They prodcue finely crafted pieces, of tremendous intellectual cunning and wit, yet which are intelligible to most average concert-goers. I am loathe to single out people, but I have never forgiven Sir Peter Maxwell-Davies for his contribution to the Queen's 80th birthday celebrations this year. One would expect a triumphal march, or even a jolly dance, based perhaps on some folk melody appropriate to the Queen, or a favourite piece of hers. Instead Maxwell-Davies produced a sombre dirge. The construction of the piece was extremely clever, and would have offered month's worth of analytical possibilities. But it was utterly inappropriate for the occasion.
I am not saying that our beliefs should not be subverted. Shostakovich frequently confounded all expectation, taking wild turns when a more orthodox line would have been expected. But even he knew that there was a time and a place for this. Maxwell-Davies was given a wonderful opportunity to reach out and engage with public, given a platform that many other composers would have longed for. And instead of producing something which could have done more good for the world of classical music than any number of "outreach" programs, he produced a piece which smacked of intellectual snobbery, and which reinforced the opinions of those who believe that modern classical music is an impenetrable confusing murk. Great British composers such as Walton and indeed Arnold had no qualms with producing music which, while not perhaps giving them as much intellectual stimulation in the writing, was appropriate to the occasion. They had a sense of what was expected, and I find that few modern composers, and particularly, modern British composers, have this any more. I do believe however, that in fifty years' time, Walton's "Crown Imperial" will still be playing to full houses, whereas I doubt that Maxwell-Davies' piece will receive a single performance.
Sir Malcolm Arnold, with his unpretentiousness, and his ability to synthesise whole musical worlds, was to my mind far more of a "modernist" than Maxwell-Davies, Taverner, or Turnage. His belief that music should transcend all genre barriers was a truly modern concept, and one that I feel should be revisited by others with more urgency, in order to prevent classical music ceasing to be. In many ways, while not as avant-garde and seemingly a world away, Arnold's synthesis of jazz, folk and classical is the closest we have produced to Steve Reich or John Adams.
To my regret, I know comparatively little of his music - specifically, Arnold the symphonist is an unknown quantity for me. Often the words "British Symphonist" are seen as an oxymoron, Elgar aside, though there is a lot to be said for the works of William Walton, Arnold Bax, and not forgetting the absolute genius that was Ralph Vaughan-Williams. I wish I had heard more Arnold, and shall now seek out all nine of his symphonies and discover a whole new world.
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