Archive for the Music Category
Trouble in Mind
Posted in Jazz with tags Nina Simone, Trouble in Mind on July 10, 2012 by telescoperStravinsky, Dutilleux and Beethoven at RWCMD
Posted in Music with tags Henri Dutilleux, Igor Stravinsky, Lothar Koenigs, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mystere de L'instant, Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, Ragtime, Symphony No. 4 in B flat Op. 60 on June 30, 2012 by telescoperI’m a bit ashamed to admit that, although I’ve lived in Cardiff for almost five years now, last night was the first time I’ve ever been inside the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which is situated by the side of Bute Park. The occasion that took me there was a concert in the fine Dora Stoutzker Hall by the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera under the baton of Lothar Koenigs. When I arrived for a quick glass of wine before the concert there was some nice jazz playing in the lobby which made me which I’d got there sooner, but that wouldn’t have been possible because there was a leaving do had to attend beforehand. I didn’t catch the names of the musicians but I guess they were students from the College.
Anyway, the first half of the programme for the evening consisted of a short piece called Ragtime by Igor Stravinsky and a longer suite called Mystère de l’instant by Henri Dutilleux. The first item was played by a small subset of the Orchestra and involved only 11 instruments, including a cymbalom. Written around 1918, Ragtime is Stravinsky’s personal reaction to his experience of American popular music. It’s a quirky and entertaining piece, clearly influenced by ragtime and jazz, especially in Stravinsky’s deployment of lots of interesting rhythmic devices, whilst remaining quintessentially Stravinsky.
After a bit of reorganization of the stage a larger section of the orchestra, still including the cimbalom, returned to play the Dutilleux piece. This was another work that was new to me. I found it absolutely gripping. It consists of a series 10 relatively short pieces played without interruption, each of which has its own distinct identity. Overall, this work put my in mind of a gallery full abstract paintings, each having it’s own palette and texture, and the whole effect being rather cryptic and undefinable. You can actually hear a performance on Youtube here, which I heartily recommend if you’ve never heard this work in full before.
The hall at RWCMD is much smaller that at St David’s and with a seat just a few rows back from the stage I had no difficulty reading the music the violinists were playing. It’s clearly a very demanding work, pushing the limits of not only the string instruments but also the rest of orchestra. When the interval arrived I nipped to the gents for some much-needed micturition and found two of the musicians doing the same thing. I asked if the piece was as difficult to play as it looked from the music. He said “yes”…
One of the excellent things about Lothar Koenig’s choice of programme for the Orchestra of WNO is that he’s very good at choosing contrasting pieces that work very well together. After the interval we returned to a much more familiar work, the Symphony No. 4 in B flat Op. 60 by Ludwig van Beethoven. This piece is much better known than the others we heard last night but it’s worth saying a couple of things about it. The first is that Beethoven wrote it extremely quickly, over a few months in 1806. I find that pretty astonishing in itself for such a beautifully crafted piece. The other thing is that its opening – an elegaic Adagio passage – would have seemed very unconventional at the time it was written, even more so because it suddenly leaps into a jaunty Allegro for the rest of the first movement. There’s a tranquil Adagio second movement, but the rest of the symphony is filled with that sense of purposeful exuberance in which Beethoven was something of a specialist.
The 4th Symphony isn’t as well known as the 3rd and the 5th, perhaps because it’s a bit less fiery, but the full Orchestra of Welsh National Opera gave it the vigorous and characterful performance it deserves, while the rest of the programme reminded us that classical music didn’t end with Beethoven!
And that was the end of a very enjoyable evening. Leaving the RWCMD I discovered that the gate into Bute Park was still open – the gates usually close at twilight – so I was able to take the short cut home to Pontcanna.
Follow @telescoperA Little Bit of Hummel
Posted in Music with tags Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Lewis, Tine Thing Helseth, TV on June 24, 2012 by telescoperI came across this bit of music a while ago. It appears in the very first (pilot) episode of the detective series Lewis. You can find it at the start of this clip and later on about 6.30 into the clip. It’s the central Andante movement of a Trumpet Concerto by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, of whom I knew nothing at all before hearing his name on this programme.
It turns out that Hummel is actually a leading figure in the history of classical music and in his own lifetime was every bit as famous as Haydn and Beethoven; he was a pallbearer at the latter’s funeral, in fact. He died in 1837 with his musical reputation apparently secure, but was quickly forgotten. Always a bit overshadowed by Mozart, when the romantic era dawned Hummel’s classical style was considered extremely old-fashioned. It’s just another illustration of a fact that applies not only in music but also in many different spheres of activity: popularity in one’s own lifetime is by no means certain to turn into renown thereafter…
I don’t usually like the sound of the classical trumpet that much- I prefer the broader and more expressive way the instrument is used in Jazz, whether it’s the brassy brilliance of Dizzy Gillespie or the moody melancholia of Miles Davis – but this piece is really lovely, especially when played with beautiful clarity by Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth.
Follow @telescoperMy Little Suede Shoes
Posted in Jazz with tags bebop, Charlie Parker, Jazz, Johnny Griffin, My Little Suede Shoes on June 23, 2012 by telescoperIf this wonderful video is anything to go by, the late great Johnny Griffin had splendid taste in footwear..as he got these shoes from Charlie Parker himself.
Follow @telescoperMozart and Strauss, and the End of Term
Posted in Music with tags Angela Hewitt, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, St David's Hall, Thierry Fischer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on June 16, 2012 by telescoperYesterday (Friday 15th June) was officially the last day of teaching term at Cardiff University. I think most of our students toddled off some time ago when their last exams were finished, so for us on the staff side the teaching term has fizzled out gradually rather than go out with a bang. Yesterday I met with a couple of next year’s project students to give them some background reading to do over the summer and that was that for another year of undergraduate teaching.
There was something of an “end-of-term” feeling too to last night’s concert at St David’s Hall, which was also broadcast live on BBC Radio 3; you can listen to it yourself by clicking on that second link. This was not only the last concert of the 2011/12 season by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, but also last concert at St David’s Hall to be conducted by Thierry Fischer, who has been principal conductor for the BBC NOW for the past six years. Next year Thomas Søndergård will take over.The concert turned out to be a fitting finale to the season and a fine farewell to Thierry Fischer.
The first item on the agenda was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 played by none other than the wonderful Angela Hewitt. I wasn’t all that familiar with this piece beforehand, and was surprised to see such a large orchestra on stage before the start. Apparently this work was the first time Mozart had used clarinets in a piano concerto, and the larger force than I’d normally have associated with a Mozart piece of this type gave the performance a much more opulent sound than I’d expected. It’s an interesting work, with a particularly fine Andante second movement which is both sombre and expansive sandwiched between two quicksilver Allegro movements, the last being a kind of rondo. Angela Hewitt played it with crisp elegance and perfect articulation. Some people find her playing a bit fussy and punctilious, and indeed there were times when I thought the performance could have had a bit more fire in it, but for my part it was a treat to get the chance to see a great artist in the flesh; she has an engaging presence on stage too, clearly enjoying the performance, and smiling from time to time in appreciation at the orchestral playing. We even got a nice little solo encore, which is quite unusual for a live broadcast from St David’s.
Then there was an interval so we could all check the football score, and guzzle a quick glass of overpriced wine before returning to hear the Alpine Symphony, Op. 64 by Richard Strauss. If the orchestra for Part 1 had been large by Mozartian standards, then this one was immense! Well over a hundred musicians, with a huge brass section (supplemented by many more standing off-stage and just visible to me through an open door), harps, percussion (including cow bells and a wind machine), and some unusual instruments including a Heckelphone (what the heck?…). Oh, and the fine organ in St David’s Hall got a full workout too.
Strictly speaking, this is not actually a symphony; it’s more of a tone poem. But Strauss was rather good at them and this one is a wonderful evocation of a day’s journey in the Bavarian Alps, from a resplendent dawn to a tranquil sunset, with summits to be scaled, thunderstorms to be endured, glaciers to be traversed, and so on. It’s certainly a very vivid piece of programmatic music.
As you might have inferred from huge band gathered on stage, this is a work that gets very loud, especially when the organist literally pulls out all the stops. What was especially fine about the performance was that, although the musicians of BBC NOW weren’t afraid to give it some welly whenever it was called for, their playing never became wild or ragged. I don’t know what it sounded like on the radio, but it was a thrilling experience to be in the hall. I lost count of the number of towering crescendo passages, and just let the waves of wonderful noise wash over me. At times I could feel it through my feet too.
There were cheers at the end, and a standing ovation for Thierry Fischer not only for this performance but for his service to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. And that brought the term and the season to a close; both start again in late September 2012. There are some cracking concerts in store in the next season in St David’s Hall.
Follow @telescoperTo the dark, and the endless skies….
Posted in Music with tags Roberta Flack, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face on June 14, 2012 by telescoperPort of Call
Posted in Jazz with tags Buell Neidlinger, Cecil Taylor, Dennis Charles, Port of Call, The World of Cecil Taylor on June 9, 2012 by telescoperThis morning I was listening to a classic jazz album recorded in 1960 (in New York City) and called The World of Cecil Taylor. I’ve had for a very long time, but haven’t listened to it for ages. I don’t know why that is, because it’s brilliant. I haven’t posted much about Cecil Taylor on here so I thought I’d do a quick post about it with a sample in the form of my favourite track, Port of Call.
The 1960s saw a number of crucial innovations in the development of jazz, e.g. removing the bar stucture, making improvisations no longer dependent upon recurrent chordal patterns, and getting rid of fixed tempos. Looking back of the evolutionary history of this music, it’s clear that this album should be placed right at the spot where the old coalesced with the new. Throughout, Cecil Taylor’s solos are built by mixing paraphrases of thematic elements with very free improvisation but on Port of Call you can see more obviously signs of the transition between past and future. On the whole, this track conforms more closely to past keyboard transitions than the others: Taylor’s solo divides cleanly into 8-bar segments, with his left hand accentuating the harmonic shifts while his right supplies the melody. But there are also dazzling parallel runs which still sound strikingly modern and which few pianists could pull off so effortlessly at such a fast tempo. His total command of the instrument allows his imagination to find expression through it. Idea after idea comes flooding out as his solo progresses, quicksilver clusters of notes falling like heavy rain on crystal. Awesome.
P.S. The other members of the trio are Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums.
Follow @telescoperThe Rain Falls Down
Posted in Music with tags Last Year's Man, Leonard Cohen on June 3, 2012 by telescoperThe rain falls down on last year’s man,
that’s a jew’s harp on the table,
that’s a crayon in his hand.
And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled
far past the stems of thumbtacks
that still throw shadows on the wood.
And the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
and all the rain falls down amen
on the works of last year’s man.
I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark
oh one by one she had to tell them
that her name was Joan of Arc.
I was in that army, yes I stayed a little while;
I want to thank you, Joan of Arc,
for treating me so well.
And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight;
all these wounded boys you lie beside,
goodnight, my friends, goodnight.
I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived;
Bethlehem the bridegroom,
Babylon the bride.
Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me,
and Bethlehem inflamed us both
like the shy one at some orgy.
And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil
that I had to draw aside to see
the serpent eat its tail.
Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain
so I hang upon my altar
and I hoist my axe again.
And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began
when Jesus was the honeymoon
and Cain was just the man.
And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin
that the wilderness is gathering
all its children back again.
The rain falls down on last year’s man,
an hour has gone by
and he has not moved his hand.
But everything will happen if he only gives the word;
the lovers will rise up
and the mountains touch the ground.
But the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
and all the rain falls down amen
on the works of last year’s man.
The Boy in the Boat
Posted in Jazz with tags Charlie Johnson, Jimmy Harrison, Paradise Orchestra on June 3, 2012 by telescoperI’ve written over a hundred posts about Jazz since this blog started, during which time I hope I’ve demonstrated that my ears are open to all its forms, from the traditional Jazz of New Orleans through the bebop era and on to the avant garde. In fact I enjoy writing about the music almost as much as listening to it. I guess it’s a form of evangelism. Or something.
I’m not at all sure who the typical reader of this blog is, but on the occasions when I’ve met people who say they follow my ramblings I’m quite surprised how many say that they enjoy the jazzy bits. Perhaps they’re just being polite. Some people say they like the traditional stuff and can’t bear “all that modern rubbish”; others say that I’m too conservative and should post some more challenging material. I guess that means I’ve accidentally got it about right. In any case I’ll continue posting whatever takes my fancy, and if anyone else out there likes it too then so much the better.
All of which unnecessary preliminaries bring me to a rare old record that I heard years ago on Humphrey Lyttelton’s radio show The Best of Jazz. It’s by Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra which played at the Paradise Club in Harlem, New York City, in the late 1920s. It’s simplifying the history of jazz a bit too much to put its evolution in one-to-one correspondence with geographical locations, but the “New York” style of that period does represent the third phase of the music’s evolution; “New Orleans” and “Chicago” preceded it. The New York of the 1920s was home to a phenomenal concentration of great bands led by great bandleaders: Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Luis Russell; the list is almost endless. I suppose given the competition it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that in this environment some very good bands didn’t become as famous as they deserved. This is definitely the case with Charlie Johnson’s Band (or Orchestra, I should say; everything was an “Orchestra” in those days).
In some ways this was a pretty rough old band, but it had a very distinctive voice all of its own and some superb soloists. Indeed in the track below – heard scratchily on an old gramophone – you can hear one of the very best solos from one of the very best soloists of that period, the brilliant trombonist Jimmy Harrison, whose name is not famous for the simple reason that he died young, in 1931. Unusually for a trombone player, Harrison was inspired and influenced by trumpeter Louis Armstrong, to the extent that he often used Satchmo’s favourite entry into a solo as demonstrated on this track, announcing his arrival (about 1.04) with a three-note BA-DA-DAA. His solo is beautifully poised, rhythmically assured, and over the insistent syncopated clarinet riffs, he builds up a wonderful sense of forward momentum. You can always tell the very best jazz musicians, as they can produce that sense of propulsion even when the tempo is not particularly fast.
Anyway, I think this track, The Boy in the Boat, is a forgotten masterpiece that belongs in the same class of atmospheric classics as Luis Russell’s Call of the Freaks, Don Redman’s Chant of the Weed and Duke Ellington’s The Mooche.
P.S. As far as I’m aware, this tune doesn’t have any connection with the rude song of the same name upon which Fats Waller based his tune Squeeze Me.
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Posted in Jazz with tags Dizzy Gillespie, Lalo Schifrin, Long Long Summer on May 28, 2012 by telescoperI know it’s tempting fate to post something with a title like Long Long Summer, but we’ve had such lovely warm weather for the last week or so I couldn’t resist putting this up while the sun’s still shining. I particularly wanted to share this track (a) because it matches the weather perfectly and (b) because it’s by the great Dizzy Gillespie Quintet of 1962 with Lalo Schifrin on piano, man best known as a prolific composer of film and TV scores. The band also featured Leo Wright, a very under-rated saxophonist and flautist. They all play terrifically on this original composition by Lalo Schifrin. There’s also a chance to see an interesting collection of photographs of Dizzy Gillespie, and his amazing cheeks!
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In the Dark 