A Russian Legacy

A selection of Russian music on this BBC Music mag cover disk from the issue which coincided with the Tchaikovsky week that BBC Radio 3 did last year. The main featured work is by Tchaikovsky, Symphony No 2 "Little Russian", played by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda. Tchaikovsky always had more feeling for the European tradition than for any kind of Russian nationalism but the influence of his homeland still permeates most of his music and this symphony is no exception with some Ukrainian folk songs being used as a basis for the finale. It is also a predominantly sunny work with none of the angst and shadows of his later work. The Ulster Orchestra play the other two works on the disk. Alexander Anissimov conducts them in Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, while Takuo Yuasa conducts Tamara by Balakirev. The theme used by Arensky is from a Children's song by Tchaikovsky and is a typical melody given characteristic Tchaikovskyesque orchestrations by Arensky. Balakirev's symphonic poem is based on a gory tale from a poem by Lermontov set in the Caucasus and it foreshadows Rimsky-Korsakov with certain passages reminiscent of Sheherazade.

It's That Riff Again

Elmore James was a huge infuence with young white musicians in the blues boom of the sixties but whereas many of his contemporaries such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf lived long enough to enjoy at least some benefits from this unexpected interest and popularity, James died of a heart attack in 1963 while still in his forties. A master of the electrified slide guitar style, he has been made gentle fun of for the remarkable number of times that he re-recorded his signature tune Dust My Broom with just the very slightest of variations. It is a great number regardless, and there are enough slow blues and a few other differing up tempo tracks to make this compilation disk of 22 tracks, called The Sky Is Crying, a feast of late fifties / early sixties hard driving Chicago blues. As well as his slide, the songs often benefit from forceful horn sections. His distinctive harsh voice falls somewhere between Robert Johnson, who he is rumoured to have met, and Howlin' Wolf while another old companion Sonny Boy Williamson occasionally contributes harmonica. Because his death just per-dated the blues explosion and because there doesn't seem to be any film footage of him performing, he retains something of the air of mystery that surrounds Robert Johnson but as long as blues is played, someone somewhere will be churning out that riff and uttering those short asides of encouragement.

A Freebie That's Almost A Benchmark

This will not be a lengthy post because the BBC Music mag cover disk in question consists of just one work, Messiaen's monumental Turangalila Symphony about which I have already written when considering the commercial recording I have. I do happen to know however that many Messiaen enthusiasts rate this performance very highly indeed and listening to it again now, it certainly sounds of the highest quality. The performers are the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Thierry Fischer. I have rarely heard the ondes martenot, played here by Jacques Tchamkerten, so distinctly articulated in a recording, all the more remarkable since it is taken from a live concert. The piano part is also superbly played by Messiaen specialist Roger Muraro. If you don't already have a performance of the Turangalila and are at all interested, this is well worth tracking down from the byways of the internet.

Classically Oriented

A classically oriented BBC Music mag cover disk of music from Mozart and Haydn performed by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. The disk begins with the Overture from the Magic Flute which leads into four Concert Arias sung by soprano Sally Matthews. The arias in question are Vado, ma dove ?, Voi avete un cor fedele, Ah sie in ciel and the recitative and aria Bella mia flamma and Resta, oh cara. Matthews is a lyric soprano ideally suited to this repertoire and she puts across very well the passion and soul that these arias contain. The BBC Phil is slightly restrained in the overture but backs Sally Matthews expertly and then gives a fine modern instrument interpretation off Haydn's Symphony No 3 "Drum Roll" to close the disk. An uncaharacteristically solemn opening follows the drum roll which names the symphony and also unusual is the use of a Croatian theme in the second movement, Croatia not being known as a hot bed of classicism. The symphony eventually unfolds in typically classy Haydn fashion however and since I don't have any commercial Haydn symphonies it is another useful addition.

A Little Bit Of Politics

At the time of posting, the "results" of the latest elections in Zimbabwe are not finalised but it seems an apposite time to be writing about an album by Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited entitled Rise Up. The tragedy of Zimbabwe is all the more poignant because of the way in which the hope of independence, heralded by a joyous Bob Marley concert in Harare and the first crack in the edifice of white supremacist power in Southern Africa, was so totally debased and degraded by the Mugabe regime. Mapfumo as a performer is emblematic of the problems, spending much of his early career in exile from what was then Rhodesia and singing songs of the struggle for freedom, returning for a while to enjoy the fruits of independence before being forced into exile again and to return to composing protest songs. Listening to this album without the benefits of understanding the language, the music comes across as sunny dance music in the main with interweaving hypnotic rhthyms, rippling guitar and mbira ( thumb piano ), often soulful brass and female backing vocals to Mapfumo's gruff voice all adding to the mix. But a glance at the translated titles of the songs ( Suffer In Silence, I'm Not Afraid, It's Payback Time, I'm Mad As Hell, Diseases, What Are They Dying For ? and The Earth's Hunger Is Insatiable being among them ) makes the theme of the album clear. Let's hope he can soon return home once more to help in rebuilding what should be a prosperous and proud nation.

Guitar Hero Throwback

The late sixties and early seventies were the heyday of the guitar hero in rock music. Mainly blues based, the English line led through Clapton, Green, Beck, Page, Taylor and a myriad of other talented but less charismatically endowed characters. Hendrix towered over all and there were idiosyncratic American offshoots from the world of roots and psychedelia, not to mention originators like Buddy Guy who were born survivors. These days, becoming proficient on an instrument is a bit too much like hard work when you can sample everything on a laptop but a little niche area still exists for throwbacks to continue to carve out a nice little career and please a hard core of enthusiasts of the genre. Such a throwback is Joe Bonamassa and this album Blues Deluxe hits the spot when I'm in the mood for a little nostalgia with a contemporary twist. Very much a blues album and very much a showcase for heavy wailing guitar, the roots are deep in the soul of America but the surface feel is British with the guitar work reminiscent of Gary Moore and the vocals of Paul Rodgers , despite Bonamassa hailing from New York. Probably the only Joe Bonamassa album I'll ever need, it nevertheless fills a little gap as a leftover from my rocking past.

Rare Repertoire Worthy of A Hearing

This is definitely one of the more unusual of the BBC Music mag cover disks. For a start it features a first ever recording of a work by Britten which given the place he holds in 20th century British music must be surprising. The piece in question is Plymouth Town, written as ballet music by the teenage Britten and already showing the influence of the sea which was to permeate through his entire career, even if Plymouth is geographically a little removed from his native east coast. The story is a rather more genteel version of something like the Miraculous Mandarin, with a drunken sailor on shore leave being taken advantage of by the "Bad Girl". Much of the scoring is in the vein of his work for documentary film and the sea shanty A-Roving plays a prominent part. Not a major discovery but worth a place in the recorded annals which it is given here by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Grant Llewellyn. The other Britten piece on the disk is Nocturne, played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Douglas Bostock with tenor Andrew Kennedy. Kennedy is going through the Radio 3 New Generation Artist scheme and it seems a rite of passage for any aspiring young English tenor to tackle the Britten / Pears repertoire. The settings here are certainly from premier league sources such as Shelley, Tennyson, Coleridge, Keats, Wordsworth, Wilfred Owen and that upstart Shakespeare. The orchestrations are typical Britten. The disk concludes with more rare repertoire, Ballads For Orchestra by Grace Williams played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Baldur Bronnimann. Very interesting colours, timbres and textures with 20th century flavours from jazz, bluesy chords and a hint of the east in the writing. Much could be written about the dearth of major female composers, I admit to an almost total lack of knowledge of Grace Williams's work but would seek out more after hearing this.

A Great American Symphony

A BBC Music mag cover disk that they decided to title American Landmarks, though I'm not sure why since the pieces vary from the well known to the virtually unknown. In the well known to the extent of being criminally over exposed category comes Copland's Appalachian Spring, played here by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Thierry Fischer in a live concert recording. I've already posted about the Bernstein version of this that I have and I also have an alternative recording of the other Copland work featured, the Clarinet Concerto. The performance here by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Eric Stern with soloist Robert Plane is very competitive with the Sharon Kam version I have. I don't have alternatives of the other two works on the disk, Ives's Central Park In The Dark and Symphony No 3 by Roy Harris. The Central Park of 1906 that Ives would have hoped to evoke was presumably a different kind of place to that which we now think of but it is an atmospheric piece, beginning spookily and then building to typical clashing Ivesian themes battling against each other. Harris is one of those composers whose stock was very high during his lifetime but who has disappeared off the radar since his death, at least outside the US. So much so that he is a barely recognisable name to me coming to classical music from the standpoint that I've outlined in these posts. The third symphony is written as one continuous piece and made a very favourable impact, utilising as it does pre-classical European forms but managing to infuse them with that "Big Country" outdoors feel mainly associated with Copland and Hollywood. It is played on this disk by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster.

A Living Tradition

Holy Heathens And The Old Green Man looks like it will be the final Waterson:Carthy album with Tim Van Eyken as a permanent member of the band alongside the family members of Norma Waterson, Martin and Eliza Carthy. It is another cleverly programmed album with the traditional material featured based around the theme of old English carols. These are carols in the original sense of the term, songs commemorating various strategic points in the year and a much older and more mysterious tradition than the standard Christmas service of 12 lessons and carols. Many of those featured do have a Christmas theme but just as important are New Year and winter solstice carols, together with a nod to harvest time and St George. The wassailing tradition is also very much to the fore and there is a real sense of community to the songs. This is very much a vocally oriented album, with the sheer pleasure and gusto in the singing shining through. The four band members are augmented by the young vocal group The Devil's Interval and alongside the violin of Eliza and Tim Van Eyken's melodeon the small guest brass section also adds telling touches of authenticity. This is a living tradition, the version of While Shepherds Watched is one that can still be heard in pubs in Sheffield each December. It was also good to hear Martin Carthy giving a traditional reading of the Cherry Tree carol used by Vaughan Williams in his Nativity Play, The First Nowell. Recorded around the same time as the solo album from Tim Van Eyken I talked about a few posts back, it makes a fine companion piece.

African Aristocracy

The secondary strap line of "King of the Desert Blues Singers" attached to the album Savane by Ali Farka Toure is an obvious and deliberate reference to the famous Robert Johnson "King of the Delta Blues Singers". AFT was a completely different character to the itinerant Johnson though, preferring to shun the kind of Buena Vista promotion that his record company could have given him to continue to farm in rural Mali and become mayor of his community. His influence nevertheless spread well beyond the confines of his home patch of desert, he was a role model for future generations of African musicians and this final album before his death from cancer is a fitting culmination of his musical life. There is still debate about exactly how closely the music of the west African griots can be linked to the blues of the deep south of the USA, certain guitar riffs are decidedly familiar but there are other influences in this music that don't correspond so readily. In what may be a concscious attempt to play up the link, their are guest appearances on this album from Little George Sueref on harmonica and James Brown alumni Pee Wee Ellis on saxophone but the core of the sound revolves around the guitar of Ali Farka Toure and the interplay with such as the ngoni of Bassekou Kouyate and the multiple percussionists. Even if he didn't take his ambassadorship on the road very often, Ali Farka Toure was a supreme ambassador for his region and his continent.

Precocious Talent

This BBC Music mag cover disk is one of those featuring chamber music played by the current crop of Radio 3 New Generation Artists. Two very substantial pieces feature, Mendelssohn's Octet and Schubert's Trout Quintet. I have already posted about a commercial recording of the Trout Quintet but this version by up and coming young players is well worth a hearing. The quintet is made up of Martin Helmchen piano, Alina Ibragimova violin, Antoine Tamstit viola, Christian Poltera cello and luis Cabrera Double bass. I was considering purchasing a recording of the Mendelssohn Octet when this disk arrived and the performance here by the combined forces of the Royal String Quartet and the Psophos Quartet is of sufficient quality to make another purchase superfluous. Previous attempts at writing an octet, such as that by Spohr, tended to have the two string quartets as seperate entities but in his piece, Mendelssohn fuses all eight instruments into a performing whole. It maybe a commonplace to state that it is a remarkable work to have been produced by a 16 year old but when you give serious consideration to that fact, it does remain noteworthy. One of the more rewarding of the magazine's monthly ventures.

Tenuous Links

The hook on which the rather disparate repertoire on this BBC Music mag cover disk is hung is that of the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. The three ensembles that call this hall home ( The Halle Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata ) each perform a live concert piece. The Halle conducted by Mark Elder play Strauss's Four Last Songs with soprano Anne Schwanewilms. The BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda play excerpts from the concert suites of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Both of these I already have in commercial recordings. The contribution from the Manchester Camerata directed by Douglas Boyd is Mozart's Piano Concerto No 20 with soloist Kathryn Stott. I do have the middle movement romance on a "Mozart's Greatest Hits" style compilation from the early days of my collecting but it is good to have a performance of the full concerto. The entire disk is of a good standard but as I remarked at the outset, there is no linking theme in the programming. Schwanewilms is now a noted Strauss exponent, has sung with the Halle before and captures the mealncholic resignation of he songs. Kathryn Stott directs the sporadic piano festivals held at the Bridgewater hall and gives a languid interpretation of the Mozart.

Moby Has A Lot To Answer For

I've posted several times about disks that have been much better than I remembered them to be on revisiting them for this exercise. Sadly, here is an occasion where the opposite is the case. It is a contemporary blues album by Booboo Davis called Drew, Mississippi. It's not a dreadful album by any means but on listening again I find that it is a bit of a case of style triumphing over substance. As the sleeve note says, Booboo is the real deal in that he was born and raised in the delta heartland of the blues and retains the authenticity of the past masters from Robert Johnson and Charley Patton on through to Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker. The only problem is that he isn't as good and a fairly slight talent is surrounded on most tracks by a boogieing bar band and sub Moby recording gimmicks of the sort that are becoming a bit of a cliche in southern blues albums since the modest success enjoyed by R L Burnside. That all makes it sound like a bad album, which it isn't and I'll no doubt still play it occasionally when in the mood for a blues session. But it isn't essential and I think I was seduced into buying it on the basis of hearing one track on the radio, always a risky business.

Career Defining Album

Every so often a performer will come up with a career defining album and that is the case with English folkie Tim Van Eyken and the album Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves ( no commas on the cover ). Van Eyken has been an established component of Waterson:Carthy but the success of this album, both artistically and commercially, has prompted him to now pursue a full time solo career. The album features English traditional songs given a respectful contemporary twist in the production and featuring a cast of characters falling into the categories of the disk's title. The basic band lineup is Van Eyken includes electric and acoustic guitar, telling vocal violin and viola contributions from Nancy Kerr and a bass and drums rhythm section. Van Eyken plays either acoustic guitar or accordion and there are telling guest appearances, particularly the brass section on the magnificent Twelve Joys Of Mary which closes the disk in triumphant fashion. The opening is equally impressive with new life being breathed into the old chestnut John Barleycorn and all tracks in between are a delight with topics ranging over brutal murder, military misfortune, lusty country lads and comely country lasses, the injustice of the judiciary and all driven along by a couple of medly folk dance tracks. If you want confirmation of the rude health of English traditional music in the first decade of the 21st century, then the proof is here.

A Very Specialist Area

The current issue of BBC Music mag comes with a cover disk of Organ Symphonies, Vierne Symphony No 3 and Widor Symphony No 5, played by David Briggs. The world of the organ symphony has always seemed a curious little backwater to me. I have never quite bought into the "king of the instruments" idea and all the multiple stops labelled flute, saxophone or whatever all just seem to come out sounding like an organ to me. The idea of this world being inhabited by musical train spotters isn't helped by the discussion around the instrument used being as or more important as the music ( here it is a Cavaille-Coll organ in the basilica of St Sernin, Toulouse ) Having said that, it is valuable to have a genre / repertoire gap filled by this magazine freebie which is clearly beautifully played by Briggs. This is a particularly French area of the repertoire and both symphonies occupy similar ground, the final movement of the Widor is the famous toccata that even non-organ enthusiasts will know. I found myself much more appreciative of the lower key more meditative movements than the noisy flamboyant blasts with all the stops pulled out ( strange how that phrase "pulling out all the stops" has entered the language ) There is a neat bonus track at the end of the disk where Briggs improvises on the bell chime of St Sernin, improvisation having been traditionally such an important part of the organist's armoury.

Old Enough To Be Called Vintage ?

I guess it is a sign of age when you are surprised to see a recording from a 1976 Proms performance described as "vintage" but that is the case with this BBC Music mag cover disk. The recording in question is of Elgar Symphony No 1 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. I don't have another recording of this work and this is an excellent example to have, the sound quality isn't at all in what I consider to be the vintage category and it is clear that Boult has an expert feel for this repertoire, being of an age to have been present at the premiere. I have posted before about problems I have with those works of Elgar that have been highjacked by the establishment but I am now able to appreciate much of his other music. This symphony is dominated by the long motto theme which to modern ears now sounds nostalgic of a past Edwardian age and can carry purely English connotations but careful listening shows the symphony to belong squarely in mainstream European tradition and worthy of comparison with any of Elgar's contemporaries. The disk also includes a more recent recording by the BBC Symphony of the overture In The South under Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin's tenure with the band wasn't the happiest, coinciding with a severe dip in the motivation of the orchestra and various political skirmishes not of his making, mostly around the wretched spectacle of the Last Night. He is an enthusiast of this repertoire however and the performance of this vivid tone poem fits in well with earlier recording of the symphony.

Two First Symphonies

There really isn't much for me to say about this particular BBC Music mag cover disk since both works have already been considered when posting about commercial recordings that I have. For the record, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Joseph Swensen play a respectable performance of Sibelius Symphony No 1 and the Ulster Orchestra under Janos Furst give a perfectly reasonable account of Nielsen's first symphony. It's also of interest to have these two works in close proximity for comparison purposes. Both are live concert recordings.

Another "What Might Have Been"

A recording of instrumental music by Purcell, Ayres For The Theatre showcases much of the incidental music he wrote to accompany plays in the Restoration when theatre was once again allowed in England following Cromwell's tenure. The performers here are The Parley Of Instruments directed by Peter Holman, a combination that did much sterling work in the early days of the period instrument movement. Music here comes from such productions as Abdelazar ( which includes the famous Rondeau used by Britten for the Young Person's Guide ) Timon of Athens, The Gordion Knot Unty'd, Bonduca and The Virtuous Wife and it is fair to say that the music has long outlived the dramatic "inspiration" if such it was. Much of the conjecture about the forces Purcell had available to him is guesswork but the band here comprises natural trumpet ( Crispian Steele-Perkins ) violin, violas and bass violin ( including Pavlo Beznosiuk ) theorbo, archlute and harpsichord. Music that leads into the coming baroque style and again highlights a "what might have been" story had Purcell been granted a longer life.

A Lost Giant

It seems almost a given that if there is a poll to discover the "best", "greatest" or whatever jazz album of al time, then the accolade inevitably falls to Kind Of Blue. However, when readers of UK magazine The Wire were asked a few years ago, they came up with the answer of Out To Lunch by Eric Dolphy. That is the album up for consideration here. In a genre littered with sad stories, Dolphy is one of he greatest "might have beens" were his life not cut short in what remain murky circumstances. A multi instrumentalist, his alto sax was formidable, his flute playing idiosyncratic and maybe the most remarkable contributions came on bass clarinet. All are featured on this album in a quintet setting with Richard Davis on bass, Tony Williams on drums, Freddy Hubbard on trumpet and Bobby Hutcherson on vibes. The music begins to stray towards the freer end of modern jazz and some critics think that Hubbard is slightly a fish out of water in this company but he is solid enough. The rhythm section really has a feel for what Dolphy was beginning to do and the inclusion of vibes instead of piano is key to the move away from standard jazz comping, with Hutcherson in inspired and individual form. With the passing of time, this isn't as challenging music to find a way into as it once seemed but it remains impassioned and a great, if not greatest, album.

Growling Basses

This is an album of Arvo Part choral works entitled Beatus and is probably as authentic a performance as you could get since it was recorded in the presence of the composer by a native choir, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir directed by Tonu Kaljuste. Part has been well served in recordings by top vocal ensembles from around the world, often with him in attendance but it has to be said that there is something special about the performances given here and even if it is a bit of a cliche, the quality of the bass singing in particular is remarkable and doesn't seem to be replicated by choirs outside of the old Soviet sphere. As to the music, it is the familiar Part style, sparse in his tintinabuli vein and occasionally perilously close to the chill out zone but retaining enough passion and integrity to place it well above such considrations. The settings are all of sacred texts and the performances mostly acappela with just the occasional instrumental colour supplied by an organ accompaniment. Anyone wanting something other than the more well known Part pieces could do worse than investigate this cd.

Uncharacteristically Upbeat

In my haphazard trek along the shelves of my collection, we now arrive at the final Mahler symphony to be considered which happens to be No 4 in a recording by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly. The most upbeat of Mahler's symphonies, it is probably also the one most connected to the Wunderhorn settings that were such an important part of his work. There is a pastoral feel to much of the music, without too many of the dark shadows that threaten any idyllic passages in many of the other symphonies. The virtuosic solo violin part is played by Alexander Kerr. The concluding song in the fourth movement is an ecstatic childlike depiction of heaven and is given luxury casting here as sung by soprano Barbara Bonney. There is an additional work to fill out the disk which also features Bonney singing Seven Early Songs by Berg. There is a Mahlerian influence to these song orchestrations but they also contain early indications of the move away from strict tonality. They are settings of Germanic verse from the 19th and early 20th century, names that I am not erudite enough to recognise apart from Rilke but receiving fine performances here.

Just Logging This One

More repertoire duplication with this BBC Music mag cover disk, so I'm just noting in passing the performance of Bruckner's Symphony No 7 by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Petri Sakari. The commercial recording I have is by the CBSO under Rattle but I would have been perfectly happy with this fine version if I hadn't already purchased that. Sakari is slightly swifter than Rattle, never a bad thing in Bruckner I feel which can tend to almost grind to a halt at times with too studied an approach.

One Of The Less Essential Cover Disks

This BBC Music mag cover disk features more music by Debussy, in this case orchestral works played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Ilan Volkov conducts them in the longest piece, Images, of which I also have a commercial recording on a double disk Debussy compendium. This is a competitive version of the piece which ranges over what Debussy thought was a Scottish theme ( The Keel Row ) but which is in fact from the north east of England, to Iberian influences. The other two works I don't have elsewhere. They are both scores that now exist only as piano duets in Debussy's hand but are here performed in the orchestrated versions by Henri Busser. Busser's arrangements of Printemps and Petite Suite are suitably impressionistic in typical Debussyan style. Volkov is again the conductor for Printemps, while Petite Suite sees the BBC SSO under Pierre-Andre Valade. A slightly run of the mill monthly offering to be honest

Left Field Chamber Music

An excellent budget release of Russian chamber music by an English ensemble calling itself Capricorn. The recording is from 1984 and Capricorn seem to have long ceased to function as a performing entity, although I recognise some of the individual names of the players. The two works featured are Grand Sextet in E flat major by Glinka and Quintet in B flat major by Rimsky-Korsakov. Neither work strikes me as having a particularly Russian feel, or not at least what we have come to think of as Russian. They were composed over forty years apart with the Glinka being the earlier. It is more from the mainstream European tradition with the occasional gypsy touch. Certainly enjoyable chamber music for piano, string quartet and double bass. The Rimsky-Korsakov quintet is more interesting to me, a work for the unusual lineup of piano, flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon. the opening allegro con brio sounds for all the world to me like the latin jazz of early Chick Corea and Return to Forever, although Rimsky thought it to be in the classic style of Beethoven. The flute drives this movement while the slightly more Russian sounding modal style of the subsequent andante is a feature led by the clarinet. A hopping bassoon accompaniment goes on throughout the closing movement in which each of the other four instruments enjoys a short cadenza. An unexpected little gem of a disk.

Through A Glass Darkly

Richard Thompson doesn't exactly have "greatest hits" but one of his most popular and enduring songs, 1932 Vincent Black Lightening, appears on this album from ( I think ) the early nineties Rumour and Sigh. A Leader of the Pack style live fast and die young saga, 1932 Vincent is given a simple folky setting with fine guitar picking from Thompson and the narrative tale obviously struck a strong chord with his audience. Taken as a whole though, Rumour and Sigh is quite a dark album, especially lyrically. Relationship songs invariably centre on failure ( Read About Love, I Misunderstood, Keep Your Distance, Backlash Love Affair, Why Must I Plead, You Dream Too Much ), Mystery Wind speaks of unseen malevolant forces and I have always taken Mother Knows Best, with its' violent guitar work, to be an anti-Thatcher rant. The outwardly cheery musical setting of Feel So Good in fact contains lyrics about wanting to take someone apart and Grey Walls is almost unbearably sad in its depiction of the treatment of mental illness. Having said all that, these songs are set in fine melodies with excellent guitar playing and the assistance of a fine band containing notable contributions again from Aly Bain and John Kirkpatrick on violin and accordion / concertina. Keep Your Distance contains deliciously painful memories for me since it perfectly sums up a situation I found ( find ) myself in. I will just say that the album contains 14 tracks and I could happily do without the final two, the irredeemably maudlin God Loves a Drunk and Psycho Street where the disturbing nature of the lyrics finally oversteps the mark for me. Fortunately, since these are the last tracks on the disk they can easily be bypassed.

Whiskers On Kittens

My Favourite Things is one of the most famous of John Coltrane's recordings. Is it the incongruity of the leader of cutting edge jazz taking on material previously only associated with the wholesome witterings of Julie Andrews surrounded by a troupe of adoring kids ? Is it the prominance of the soprano sax, at the time still an under used instrument as a lead solo ? Is it the modal piano accompaniment of McCoy Tyner ? Probably a combination of all those reasons and then more. It certainly provided a gentler introduction to the genius of Coltrane without in any way diminishing the power, fire and originality. The title track is undoubtedly the main attraction of this album but the other three tracks, also standards, are equally fine. For the record, these tracks are Every Time We Say Goodbye, Summertime and But Not For Me. As well as Coltrane and Tyner, the quartet comprises bassist Steve Davis and Elvin Jones of course on drums. Many soloists in jazz have mentioned the importance bearing in mind the lyrics when interpreting standards and that is especially noticeable with Coltrane on Every Time We Say Goodbye. The other two tracks can seem more straightforward run throughs on first listening but the rhythm sections particularly have much to offer in these and occasionally burst through over the piano or sax to be the dominant sound. If the thought of Coltrane is still challenging after all these years, this remains a most accessible place to begin.

The Viola Holds The Key

Is it jazz ? Well, not really, although where do you categorise it if you are one who needs to have categories ? World music ? Ambient ? More the latter than the former I would suggest. What am I talking about ? In Praise of Dreams by Jan Garbarek. Garbarek has committed the cardinal sin amongst jazzers of being commercially successful ( relatively speaking of course, he hardly sells rock star quantities of albums ) His chosen instruments being the tenor and soprano saxophone, there remain jazz traces of course but there isn't much, if any, straight ahead improvising going on, the music being much more compositional. What gives this disk a particular individuality and attraction to me is the substantial contribution from viola player Kim Kashkashian, whose voice is often the most dominant and gives a soulful, yearning sense to the music and some much needed humanity. That feel is backed up by drummer / percussionist Manu Katche. Very much a typical ECM house style release and as such easy to parody but there is a musical direction and spirit that is rewarding when in the right mood to be receptive to it. Although not in the accepted classical sense, these short pieces could be called tone poems and portray a sense of landscape and the natural world of the north.

Roman Epics

I've been a little defensive about having so many recordings by Herbert von Karajan in my collection ( because of the critical hammering that Karajan habitually gets these days as both a musician and as a man) explained by the record club special offers in the early days of my classical collecting. I still find most of them to be acceptable recordings of core repertoire and a few to be outstanding because of the sound of the Berliner Philharmoniker. This is in fact the final such offering to come off the shelf, a disk mainly of music by Respighi featuring the Fountains of Rome, the Pines of Rome and Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute ( which are orchestrated lest there be any confusion ). Both the Fountains and the Pines are programmatic works with strong narratives behind each section and they are showpiece tone poems. Respighi doesn't have any overtly Italianate style, being in a more general European tradition, but he was a master orchestrator. Karajan was no early music authentic instrument practitioner, so the anachronistic orchestrations of the lute pieces are to his taste. The disk is filled out by Boccherini's Procession of the Military Night Watch in Madrid, a quintettino that follows logically from the Respighi lute arrangements, and by what to me is a largely redundant plod through of Giazotto's take on the "Albinoni Adagio" with an organ part taken by Wolfgang Meyer.

Works That Need No Defending

I have a few issues with Sir Roger Norrington as a conductor. His evangelical and fundamentalist approach to banning vibrato ( I've always been a creature of compromise and moderation ) and some of his more ingratiating behaviour on the podium. But I am prepared to forget about all that for the wonderful introduction he writes in the booklet notes to this cd in which he pays tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams. The entire piece would bear repeating but a couple of snippets; following an anecdote about the eighty year old VW kissing all the female members of the cast of Sir John In Love prior to going home on the underground, Norrington writes that "these were important clues to the composer as well as to the man who was passionate and idealistic, a natural socialist and man of the people; a marvellously individual composer who just happened to be English but chose his tonalities as freely as Debussy and Ravel and his rhythms as deftly as Stravinsky and Bartok; he may have worn tweed and liked cream buns but his soul was ablaze with glory, pity and anger; he was the greatest man I am ever likely to meet." I quote these remarks at length here since the disk in question is of Symphony No 5 and Symphony No 3 ( Pastoral ) performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Norrington and the two symphonies most likely to be pilloried with the ill considered "cow looking over a gate" criticism. The packaging can't resist a cover photograph of rolling English countryside but to any careful listener it is clear that the symphonies concern much more than a nostalgic depiction of a fading era. And anyway, what's wrong with a little beautiful and evocative orchestral scoring ? Happily, I think a stage has been reached when it is no longer necessary to defend aspects of VW's output from these criticisms.

It's Almost That Time Of Year

I've posted about quite a lot of Stravinsky's music on this blog but finally it's time for the most famous. But because The Rite Of Spring is such a famous piece with such a familiar tale about the premiere, it does make it hard to think of what's worth saying about it here. Well, I can start by saying that it is given a very fine performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Dorati in good modern sound with plenty of the drive and passion that the piece needs and to my mind perfectly judged tempos, another crucial aspect. Of course it was originally composed as ballet music, it was given controversial choreography by Nijinsky, there was a riot ( of sorts ) at the premiere, it concerns ancient pagan fertility rites announcing the ending of winter and the beginning of spring through a young virgin dancing herself to a sacrificial death. So much so familiar but I think it remains a unique piece, the culmination of Stravinsky's three great youthful ballet scores and although steeped in a feeling of Russia it remains outside the tradition. As opposed to the other work on the disk, Firebird, which is the first of the three great ballet scores, is a very fine work but retains noticeable links with the school of Rimsky-Korsakov etc. It surprises me when people talk about what can be done to introduce a younger generation to classical music ( a generation so used to pounding rhythms ) that the obvious visceral attractions of the Rite aren't more widely suggested.

A Journey To the Darkest Realms

A work of central core repertoire that has taken a while to have its' turn off the shelf. Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6, Pathetique, performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The Pathetique is another of those works that has much myth making surrounding it, partially because of the nature of the music but mainly because of the circumstances of the proximity of the premiere to the composer's death under possibly dubious circumstances. There is no denying the utter bleakness of the closing movement which seems to signify nothing other than total disillusionment, despair and defeat. Other of his works including earlier symphonies had fate motifs associated with them but the sixth uses fate more subtly as a means of painting a wholly pessimistic view of life. The finale is all the more surprising coming as it does after movements that contain much typical Tchaikovskian melody and elegance. Much has been made of whether or not Tchaikovsky's death was a kind of semi suicide but it is interesting to ponder how he might have followed on from the sixth symphony if he had been granted an extended creative life. The lush sound of Karajan's Berlin Phil works well for me in this work, Karajan does bleakness pretty well, in Metamorphosen for instance. The work also raises questions about listening to such naked pain portrayed in music for purposes of relaxation and entertainment. But music can convey so many moods and experiences and this is but one of them.

The Suitabilty Of Voices

And more repertoire duplication on this BBC Music mag cover disk which features two settings of the Stabat Mater, the one by Pergolesi of which I have a magnificent recording and one by Domenico Scarlatti that I don't otherwise have. The pergolesi is performed here by The Choristers of New College Oxford and the Academy of Ancient Music ( leader Pauline Nobes ) directed by Edward Higginbottom. I have to admit that I find the boys voices totally unsuitable in this work, they lack the life experience for the subject matter musical tradition for the Baroque settings. The Scarlatti version is performed by the BBC Singers directed by Harry Christophers with solo contributions from soprano Elizabeth Poole and tenor Neil NacKenzie. The instrumental backing is provided by small forces; David Miller ( theorbo ), Frances Kelly ( baroque harp ) and Gary Cooper ( organ continuo ). Not as melodically memorable as the Pergolesi, it is nevertheless the more satisfactory in this instance because of the maturity of the singers.

From Romantic To Ironic

With the passage of time, it becomes inevitable that the monthly BBC Music mag cover disks will produce more duplications in repertoire in my collection and that is the case here with this offering from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov. The centre piece of the disk is Brahms Symphony No 1 and a good solid performance it is too. There are two brief makeweights on the disk of music that I do not otherwise have. It begins with Schumann's Faust Overture to his oratorio like work scenes From Goethe's Faust, which concentrated on the final part of Faust's redemption. The overture was in fact written after the main work and often forms a short concert piece with its' depiction of intense inner struggle. The final work on the disk is Kleine Sinfonie by Hanns Eisler. Eisler was a lifelong Marxist and being born Jewish at the turn of the 20th century in Leipzig, those factors condemned him to a wandering life lived variously in the USSR and the USA. He was a one time pupil of Schoenberg and also involved with Brecht and wrote works ranging from strict 12-note method compositions to film scores. Expelled from the USA by McCarthyism, he settled in East Germany where he became an important figure in musical life in that neglected era. The Kleine Sinfonie is short but embraces 12 note methodology in a parodic style with Shostakovichian irony and cartoonish elements.

Not Damned By Faint Praise

It sounds like damning with faint praise to describe this as a very pleasant record but there is a place in life for small pleasures and beautiful sounds that can be appreciated without too much stenuous thought. The disk in question is a budget release titled Five Italian Oboe Concertos and these are played by the Peterborough String Orchestra under the direction of the oboe soloist Nicholas Daniel. The Peterborough ensemble may not be among the world's most stellar groups but they are representative of the sterling work done by many provincial outfits around the world, not only in England. The playing here is fine and provides good accompaniment to Daniel, a former BBC Young Musician of the year winner. Daniel plays a modern oboe in these performances but writes about how his playing has been informed by period instrument practitioners. The composers whose concertos are featured here mainly straddle the 17th and 18th centuries ( Vivaldi, Albinoni, Marcello and Cimarosa ) with only Bellini straying into the early part of the 19th. I am very fond of the sound of the oboe in any repertoire but especially in the baroque. Maybe a full disk is a little too much of a confection but the sunshine sound goes down well for stress free afternoon listening.