Vintage, But Was It A Good Year ?

Vintage recordings on the new BBC Music magazine free cover disc.

From 1948, Yehudi Menuhin playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the BBC Scottish Orchestra conducted by Ian Whyte.

From 1936, Vaughan Williams conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Chorus in his own Dona Nobis Pacem with soloists Renee Flynn soprano and Roy Henderson baritone.

I have to admit that vintage recordings are not my thing.

Overdosing On The Sugar

BBC Music magazine Christmas cover disc for 2011.

Performers : The Choir of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, director Geoffrey Webber, Annie Lydford and Nick Lee organ, Joe Shiner clarinet.

Traditional and contemporary, mystical and saccharine. A bit too much of the saccharine for me this time around, not a patch on the same choir's commercial release "Into This World This Day Did Come".

Aspects Of Cello

The latest BBC Music magazine cover disc. Another tie in with the cover interview.

Kabalevsky Cello Concerto No 2 ; Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Karabits, soloist Steven Isserlis.

Mendelssohn Piano Trio No 1 ; Joshua Bell violin, Steven Isserlis cello, Denes Varjon piano.

Brahms Cello Sonata No 1 ; Steven Isserlis celo, Stephen Hough piano.

Anything But Juvenile

Mendelssohn : Double Concerto for Violin and Piano, Piano Concerto in A Minor.

Performers : Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano. Gottfried von der Goltz violin and direction. Freiburger Barockorchester.

Juvenile Mendelssohn apparently but my ear is not sophicticated enough to detect anything other than splendid pieces expertly played.

That Plaintive Oboe Sound

Bach : Concertos and Sinfonias for Oboe.

Performers : Heinz Holliger, oboe. Camerata Bern directed by Erich Hobarth.

Bach and oboes, you can't really go wrong can you ?

Medieval Musings

A Song For Francesca : Music in Italy 1330 - 1430.

Performers : Gothic Voices with Andrew Lawrence-King medieval harp and directed by Christopher Page.

Pieces by Andreas De Florentia, Dufay, Giovanni Da Cascia, Grossin, Haucourt, Landini, Lantins and Loqueville.

When Is A Cycle Not A Cycle ?.......

.......when it is Schubert's Schwanengesang. Marketed as a swansong by publishers after his death but really only loosely connected.

Performers : Mark Padmore, tenor and Paul Lewis piano.

Two other pieces on the disc, Auf dem Strom with Richard Watkins on French horn and Die Sterne.

In Retrospect

Purcell : Twelve Sonatas in Three Parts

Performers : Retrospect Trio

Two violins and bass viol but here also given a restrained continuo accompaniment by Retrospect Ensemble leader Matthew Halls on harpsichord or organ.

Music For Magyars

A two disc set of orchestral music by Bartok, featuring The Wooden Prince Suite, Two Portraits, Music for strings, percussion and celesta and Divertimento for strings.

Performers : Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adam Fischer. Soloist on Two Portraits, Gerhart Hetzel, violin.

How Perception Can Change Over Forty Years !

A re-issue of the first two albums by Third Ear Band, Alchemy and Elements. Rather wonderful. I remember on maybe half a dozen occasions in 1968 / 69 seeing Third Ear Band as the opening act on a lazy sunny afternoon at a free concert or festival and treating them as a bit of a benign joke. But these discs stand up extremely well and in fact sound better with age. Unclassifiable free improv with world and early music elements blended in. So what if there is no guitar hero ! Joyful and deeply serious at the same time.

When In Rome, Use Better Recording Engineers !

The latest BBC Music magazine free disk. A tie in with the cover interview with the conductor.

Respighi : Roman Festivals; National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain conducted by Vasily Petrenko. A live recording from the 2009 Proms and causing some controversy on message boards because of the poor recording quality.

Prokofiev : Cinderella Suite No 1; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko and a much less muddy recording though still live.

Not Bad For A Composer Who Did Not Like The Form

Piano Trios

Victor Kissine Zerkalo

Tchaikovsky Trio for piano, violin and violoncello

Performers : Gidon Kremer violin, Giedre Dirvanauskaite cello, Khatia Buniatishvili piano.

Sophisticated Peasants

The Peasant Girl, Viktoria Mullove violin with the Matthew Barley Ensemble ( Matthew Barley cello, Julian Joseph piano, Paul Clarvis drums and percussion, Sam Walton marimba, vibraphone and percussion )

Arrangements of DuOud, Youssou N'Dour, Weather Report, John Lewis / Bratsch and Bartok, finished off with Kodaly's Duo For Violin And Cello.

Primal Screaming

Screamin' The Blues, Oliver Nelson

Oliver Nelson, tenor and alto saxophone. Richard Williams, trumpet. Eric Dolphy alto saxophone and bass clarinet. Richard Wyands piano. George Duvivier bass. Roy Haynes drums.

Straight ahead modernist blowing of the highest order with interjections from another planet by Dolphy.

Themes, Variations, Transcriptions

Recital : Francesco Piemontesi piano

Handel : Suite in B flat major
Brahms : Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel
Bach : Partita No 1 in B flat ; Fantasy and Fugue in G minor transcribed for piano by Liszt
Liszt : Vallee D'Obermann

He's Really Not Scary

Brahms orchestrated by Schoenberg : Piano Quartet No 1

Schoenberg : Accompanying Music to a Film Scene
Schoenberg : Chamber Symphony No 1, version for full orchestra.

Performers : Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle

No Umlauts On My Keyboard

Schubert : Die Schone Mullerin

Christopher Maltman baritone, Graham Johnson piano

Recorded live at Wigmore Hall.

Lisztomania

BBC Music magazine free cover disk and is is composer anniversary issue time again.

Franz Liszt Orchestral Works

Legend : St Francis of Assisi's Sermon To The Birds
Symphonic Poem No 6 : Mazeppa
Symphonic Poem No 11 : The Battle of the Huns

BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda

Totentanz : Paraphrase on Dies Irae

BBC Philharmonic conducted by Leo Hussain, Martin Roscoe piano.

But Songs All The Same

Songs Without Words : Julius Drake, piano

Known more as an accompanist, this is an intelligently programmed solo recital of Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schubert arr Liszt, Grieg, Debussy, Poulenc, Janacek, Bartok and Britten.

Spring, Spring, Spring

English Spring

Bax : Spring Fire
Delius : Idylle de Printemps ; North Country Sketches : The March Of Spring
Bridge : Enter Spring

Performers : The Halle Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder

Lesser Known Lieder

Carl Loewe Songs and Ballads.

Performers : Florian Boesch baritone, Roger Vignoles piano

From the same era as Schubert.

Second City Bruckner

BBC Music magazine free cover disc. Bruckner Symphony No 3 ( 1889 ) version.

Performers : City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andris Nelsons.

I already have a commercial recording but this is a very serviceable live version.

They Don't Let Me Forget I'm Black.....

Miles Davis : A Tribute To Jack Johnson

Miles, Steve Grossman, Herbie Hancock, Billy Cobham, Michael Henderson, John McLaughlin.

Didn't take much notice of this back in the day, thought of it as a film sountrack album. But it represents a storming version of the Bitches Brew era Miles bands.

Not Necessarily All Is Angelic

Jonathan Harvey : The Angels, Ashes Dance Back, Marahi, The Summer Cloud's Awakening

Performers : Latvian Radio Choir conductor Kaspars Putnins for The Angels, James Wood for the rest. Augmented on The Summer Cloud's Awakening by Jonathan Harvey and Carl Faia electronics, Clive Williamson synthesizer, Ilona Meija flute and Arne Deforce cello.

A Bygone Age

Bird Songs At Eventide. Robert White, tenor and Stephen Hough piano. Parlour songs from Britain and Ireland in the main with a few from the US. Played straight and with sincerity which overcomes some of the more saccharine moments. Buttoned up emotion slowly breaking down to real emotion.

Songwriter Extraordinaire

Kinks, The Ultimate Collection.

Now this one does live up to the title. From the early burst of r 'n' b to the extraordinary run of hits through Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Streets, Waterloo Sunset and Autumn Almanac, then onto middle period Victoria and Lola and late flourishing Come Dancing and Celluloid Heroes with much besides. It's all Ray Davies of course.

Slightly Out Of Tune ? Or Is it ?

Ben Johnston, String Quartets nos 1, 5 and 10.

Performers : Kepler Quartet

Investigations of temperament and tonality.

Contemporary Classical Meets Sean Nos

Donnacha Dennehy, Gra agus Bas.

Performers : Crash Ensemble conducted by Alan Pierson.

Gra agus Bas : Singer Iarla O Lionaird....Sean nos meets contemporary classical.
That the Night Come,To Poems by W.B. Yeats : Soprano Dawn Upshaw

Angel Of Consolation

Josef Suk, Asrael Symphony.

Performers : Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras.

A Curate's Egg

Echoes : The Best Of Pink Floyd.

A well filled two cd set which as is often the case would make a wonderful single cd with judicious pruning. Not enough pre Dark Side psychedelia and far too much plodding post Dark Side dirges for my taste. But enough good stuff to make it value for money and to be played in future with extensive use of the skip track facility.

End Of A Cycle

Beethoven Violin Sonatas - 3, including the Kreutzer.

Performers, Alina Ibragimova violin and Cedric Tiberghien piano. Concluding their live cycle of the sonatas from Wigmore Hall.

Transfigured Night

John Fahey, The Transfiguration Of Blind Joe Death. Transcendental and timeless. Influential and Inspiring.

Good Gold Vibrations

The latest BBC Music magazine free cover disc.

JS Bach, Goldberg Variations. Performer, Freddy Kempf piano. Good live performance to supplement the one I already have by Perahia.

Variations On A Theme By Vaughan Williams

David Matthews, Symphony No 2 and Symphony No 6.

Performers; BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Jac Van Steen.

Dowland To Booker T

John Renbourn, Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & Ye Grene Knight.

Timeless instrumental album with Renbourn's guitar augmented by flautist Ray Warleigh, fellow Pentangle member Terry Cox on percussion and an uncredited appearance by David Munrow on medieval insruments.

Hurdy Gurdy Man

Schubert, Die Winterreise.

Performers; Werner Gura tenor, Christoph Berner piano.

Is all as bleak as it seems ? Can the young man in fact "get a life" and snap out of it ? I like to think he can. Superb performance anyway.

Incisive Boulez

Pierre Boulez; Sur Incises, Messagesquisse, Anthemes 2

Performers; Soloists of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Jean-Guihen Queyras cello, Ensemble de Violoncelles de Paris, Hae-Sun Kang violin, Andrew Gerzso electronics, conducted by Pierre Boulez.

Ramble Down The Canal

Gavin Bryars Piano Concerto ( The Solway Canal )

Performers; Ralph van Raat piano, Cappella Amsterdam, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic conducted by Otto Tausk.

Other works; After Handel's Vesper, Ramble On Cortona, both solo piano.

Waspish

Vaughan Williams Piano Concerto

Performers, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Judd, soloist Ashley Wass.

Other works; The Wasps ( Aristophanic Suite ), English Folk Song Suite orch Gordon Jacobs, The Running Set.

Wishing You Were Far Away

The Very Best Of The Jam...very much as it says on the tin. Very much a band, what a powerhouse rhythm section Foxton and Buckler were. Despite crtical acclaim, Weller has never been as vital. Voice of a class generation.

Humaine Touch

Figure Humaine : Choral Works By Francis Poulenc.

Performers, Tenebrae directed by Nigel Short.

Other works on the disc; Mass in G, Litanies a la Vierge Noire, Salve Regina, Un Soir de Neige, Quatre Petites Prieres de Saint Francois d'Asisse.

Parry At The Proms

BBC Music magazine free cover disc for the proms edition. Two recordings from proms concerts in 2008 and 2010 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

Vaughan Williams Symphony No 9, Hubert Parry Elegy for Brahms.

Romance, Blarney, Sentiment, Tragedy

An Irish Songbook

Ailish Tynan soprano, Iain Burnside piano. Settings by Thomas Dunhill, Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Frank Bridge, Herbert Howells, EJ Moeran, John Cage and Herbert Hughes, Arnold Bax, John Ireland, Herbert Hamilton Harty, C.W. Orr.

The Salley Gardens always brings a tear to the eye !

Watch The Birdie

BBC Music magazine free cover disk.

Stravinsky The Firebird : BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov

Balakirev Tamara ( symphonic poem ) BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Thierry Fischer

Peerless Late Miles

Aura Miles Davis.

A suite for Miles Davis, written for him by Palle Mikkelborg on the occasion of a pretigious award given in Copenhagen. John McLaughlin and a big band. Contemporary classical influences alongside the legacy of Gil Evans.

Shades Of VW From The West Coast

Alan Hovhaness. Mysterious Mountain, Prayer of St Gregory, Prelude and Quadruple Fugue, And God Created Great Whales, Alleluia and Fugue, Celestial Fantasy.

Performers Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

Shades of VW.

Keeping Up The Standard

Beethoven Violin Sonatas - 2, "Spring" Op 24, Op 12 No 2, Op 96

Performers, Alina Ibragimova violin, Cedric Tiberghien piano.

Live from Wigmore Hall, second volume in a definitive cycle.

Deep In The Heart Of The Hippie Dream

The Incredible String Band, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter. Ever deeper into the hippie dream, before it all went pear shaped.

Classic Classical Concertos

Mozart Piano Concerto No 22, Mozart Piano Concerto No 18

Performers, Imogen Cooper piano / director. Northern Sinfonia, Bradley Creswick Leader / Co-Director

Polish Pride

Andrzej Panufnik Symphonic Works Volume 1. Tragic Overture, Nocturne, Heroic Overture, Katyn Epitaph, A Procession For Peace, Harmony.

Performers, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Likasz Borowicz.

Country Zep

Led Zeppelin III, cottage in the country Zep, as laid back as they ever got.

Comfortable Crumb

George Crumb Quest, Federico's Little Songs For Children, Night Music 1.

Performers, Speculum Musicae, David Starobin guitar, Susan Narucki soprano, Donald Sinta saxophone.

How Bach May Have Heard It

The latest BBC Music magazine free cover disc goes with the self explanatory title of J S Bach Great Organ Works. The organist is David Goode and the organ used is an historic 1714 Gottfried Silbermann organ in Freiburg Cathedral, Germany. It is a carefully maintained and little modified organ from Bach's time and while there is no firm evidence that he ever visited and played it, he "could" have done. It does at least provide a reasonably authentic idea of how Bach's organ music would have sounded in his own time. David Goode provides a nicely varied programme ranging from a concerto written "after Vivaldi", graceful sweeping chorales, louder and more aggressive preludes and fugues and masterful toccata and passacaglia accompaniments to yet more fuges. These show off both Bach's genius and the qualities of this organ and the light and shade and different sound worlds it can replicate. I would not be inclined to purchase discs of organ music and so these occasional BBC Music discs in the genre are extremely useful.

Latin American Passion

Like his later works based on Arab / Jewish themes, Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasion Segun San Marcos ( St Mark's Passion ) bears more resemblance to a prog rock concept album than to Bach. That in no way implies that it is of less relevance. The work is a South American take on the Passion but a modern South American take as opposed to what is becoming more familiar from the Latin American baroque period. The music includes salsa with screaming jazz influenced brass, lilting Cuban rhythms and guitars, more ancient candomble percussive effects and wistful folk strains from the mountain regions. The closest the piece comes to western classical music is in the second half with a solo violin accompaniment. The Passion does not deal in the role of Jesus and Evangelist but the chorus comments on behalf of all almost throughout. The ensemble is conducted by Maria Guinand, though many of the musicians manage to imply an improvisatory air to what they are doing. The mood is more one of carnival in many parts of the work, establishing the festive air of the mob. But eventually, the work resolves in a quiet and meditative extract in Aramaic from the Kaddish. Golijov brings the various strands of his familial background and upbringing to bear on the Passion story and it is a worthwhile and original addition to the tradition of such works.

Way Out In The Swamp

The album Gris-Gris was where clean cut New Orleans r 'n' b musician Mac Rebennack metamorphosed into Dr John The Night Tripper and embarked on a distinguished decades long career as that persona. Recorded and released at the height of psychedelia and the hippy dream, it cast a unique New Orleans perspective on those days. The novelty weirdness and other wordly qualities helped it to be embraced by the hippies but listening from this distance it is clear to see the solid strands of New Orleans varied musical history buried in the tracks. From the slaves of Congo Square, to the more latin afro-Caribbean rhythms, through early jazz and onto the distinctive shuffle beat of New Orleans r 'n' b and the Mardi Gras Indian tribes, it is all there. But what makes the disc special and sets it apart are the two tracks which open and close the album, strangeness that has rarely been heard before or since. Both Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya and the remarkable Walk On Gilded Splinters inhabit this dream world of humid, steaming swamp, voodoo religious imagery, ambiguous and mysterious spirituality and superstition. The recording technique adds to the effect, Rebennack's distinctive throaty vocals recorded up close and in your face and backing vocals, sparse instrumentation and hypnotic percussive effects placed way back in the mix but building an atmosphere at all times. Listen and enter a different world.

Italian Abstractions

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda obviously has an affinity for the music of fellow countryman Luigi Dallapiccola and has used his tenure with the BBC Philharmonic to record some of his orchestral music. This is an attractive disc which gives a fine overview of Dallapiccola's work. It begins with Dallapiccola at his most approachable in the piece Tartiniana which orchestrates sonatas by Tartini. Such endeavours were a trend among 20th century Italian composers with Casella, Respighi and Berio among others doing similar things in the footsteps of Stravinsky and Pulcinella. The soloist here with the orchestra is violinist James Ehnes. The remaining works on the disc are more typical of Dallapiccola's interest in serialism and more contemporary approaches but they are never too far out on the edge. Due Pezzi is a twelve note score but retains echoes of early music, solo violin duties here and in the remaining works falling to orchestra leader Yuri Torchinsky. Piccola Musica Notturna is a programmatic night music piece, a generally serene and reflective piece with one or two harsh outbursts, cries in the night. The remaining two contrasting works are extracts from his ballet score Marsia, which combines lyrical and even impressionistic elements with harsher grinding rhythms, and the more abstract Variazioni per Orchestra which develops his own experiments and individual take on the 12 tone system. This disc makes a good introduction to a composer who is not at all forbidding despite the modernist garb the music is dressed in.

More Than Just A Teacher

Pianist Mark Bebbington has been slowly building up a reputation as the current leading exponent of English piano music from the first half of the 20th century. This disc is the first volume of the piano music of Frank Bridge. The reputation of Bridge himself is also slowly coming out from beneath the shadow of simply being known as Britten's teacher and his music is becoming more widely available and appreciated in its' own right. This well filled disc contains several small scale miniatures covering most of the span of Bridge's piano compositions from early to late, 1905 to 1925. He tended to write with particular performers in mind and was aware of both French impressionists and Russian visionaries ( such as Ravel and Scriabin ) as well as fellow English contemporaries ( Ireland, Delius and Bax ). They often inhabit a fantasy world, are not immediately identifiable as stereotypically English, are sometimes descriptive and occasionally programmatic as in the Vignettes De Marseilles. The most substantial work on the disc both in terms of length and content is his one Sonata. This is the most experimental and the most emotionally challenging and it is no coincidence that it was written in the aftermath of WW1 when Bridge's music, in common with that of many others, underwent a significant change in mood and method becoming something altogether darker and more brooding. Bebbington has all the technique and affinity necessary to bring out the quality of these pieces.

Down In The Basement

It has become accepted wisdom that Exile On Main Street is the best Rolling Stones album, although it wasn't received as such at the time. It remains a bit of a hotch potch reflecting the infamous circumstances of its' recording in the basement of Keith Richards's mansion in the south of France. But the fullness of time have seen it benefitting from the lack of any concept or marketing conceit, it is simply a collection of songs reflecting the various influences on the band from blues, soul and rock through to country and even gospel. There are telling contributions from extra band members such as the horn section of Bobby Keys and Jim Horn, the contrasting piano styles of Ian Stewart and Nicky Hopkins and the organ of Billy Preston. It is probably the album that sees guitarist Mick Taylor at his most integrated into the band ( though it doesn't stop some of his solos being buried way down in the mix nor Mr Jagger rapping needlessly over the top of others ) He certainly is given his head on a storming version of Robert Johnson's Stop Breaking Down. Mick Jagger is just about the most mannered of rock singers but on this album he is in good voice and it is before he became something of a self parody. He also displays his harmonica skills on several tracks to good effect. "Keef" remains the beating heart of the band as always. On this anniversary release of the album there is a bonus disk which features a couple of alternate takes ( which prove the right choice was made originally ) an instrumental throwaway of no great value, a fascinating early incarnation of the song that became Tumbling Dice and six songs that could have sat happily on the original album if they had been selected ahead of any of those finally chosen.

Things That Dwell In the Night

This is a fine collection of Britten's orchestral songs played by experienced specialists in his repertoire. The two cycles for tenor , in this case Philip Langridge, are perhaps his most famous in this genre. Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, also featuring Frank Lloyd on horn and the English Chamber Orchestra under Steuart Bedford, is a superb illustration of Britten's ability to set an anthology of texts bound together by a similar theme which in this case is night, sleep and dreams. It is also a novel setting in the way that the one solo instrument interacts with and bookends the singer's contributions. The other tenor piece, Nocturne, also features Langridge with the Northern Sinfonia. The theme of the texts set makes it a later companion piece to the Serenade and it also had similar solo instrumental duets with the singer but in this case different instruments for each setting including bassoon, harp, horn, timpani, cor anglais, flute and clarinet. The members of the Sinfonia undertake these tasks admirably. The final piece is a late work, Phaedra, back with the English Chamber Orchestra and this time soloist mezzo-soprano Ann Murray. Setting an ancient Greek theme, this is more operatic in tone and is a dramatic showpiece for Murray packing a wide range of emotions into its 15 minute span.

Providing Consolation

I have to own up to a superstitious avoidance of requiems. I don't have Brahms, Verdi or Britten. I do have Mozart but only because it came one month as a free BBC music magazine cover disk. So this acquisition of Faure's Requiem is something of a first. Faure's approach is more to my taste, consolatory and resigned with the emphasis on peace and beauty with memorable melodies but staying on the right side of sentimentality. This performance by La Chapelle Royale and Ensemble Musique Oblique directed by Philippe Herreweghe uses modest forces and is all the better for it, with a kind of chamber like intimacy. The soloists, soprano Agnes Mellon and baritone Peter Kooy, are perfectly suited and the children of Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Louis charming but again without being saccharine. The other work on the disk complements the requiem well, it is a small mass composed as a joint venture by Faure and Messager for a local fishing village while on a relaxed holiday. Messe des Pecheurs de Villerville is for female voices, chamber orchestra and harmonium and inhabits the same sound world as that chosen by Herreweghe for the requiem, with similar forces used. Not in the same class as the requiem perhaps but not a throwaway either.

Jazz by Any Other Name

Occasionally, a disc arrives that really does fall outside of easily identified categories, with content that really should just be called music. If one wanted to pin a label on Dance Of The Three Legged Elephants by cellist Matthew Barley and pianist Julian Joseph, then jazz is the one that comes most readily given Joseph's jazz credentials. As jazz tries to forge a new direction and identity for itself, with the line of Afro-American pioneers that swept from Armstrong to Coleman hitting a dead end with the puritanism of Marsalis, it is not stretching a point too far to call this jazz. The tracks that are not Barley / Joseph originals are by jazz figures like Jaco Pastorius and John McLaughlin, or figures sometimes influenced by jazz like Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim or Ravel ( no christian name necessary for Maurice ! ) But there are nods in the direction of Cage's prepared sounds and while Barley's cello is often played in a style very much in the jazz violin tradition, he also experiments with found sounds and Joseph also demonstrates his classical training. In some ways, this is a follow up recording to that made several years ago by the duo with Barley's wife Viktoria Mullova but edging a little further out into experimental territory.

Thousands Of Them

For the latest edition, BBC Music magazine pushed the boat out with an epic production for the free cover disc, Mahler's Symphony No 8 "Symphony of a Thousand". I have already posted way back when about the commercial recording I have of this work so will not go into detail about it here, except to say it is a predominantly choral symphony with vast forces, though the full scale blast effect is used sparingly. This recording was made live at last year's Edinburgh Festival and is performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Donald Runnicles. They are bolstered by the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior Chorus and a battery of soloists; sopranos Erin Wall, Hillevi Martinpelto and Nicole Cabell, mezzo-sopranos Katarina Karneus and Catherine Wyn-Rogers, tenor Simon O'Neill, baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore and bass John Relyea. Some message board posters have gone as far as to say it is the best available recording of this work, even allowing for the difficulties of getting the sound balance right for such large forces which occasionally prove too much. I would certainly agree that it is a very fine performance and would be happy to have it as my only copy if I did not already own another.

Two Of Three

I was so taken with Transatlantic Sessions 3, Volume One that I decided to indulge myself with the other volume called, not unexpectedly, Tranatlantic Sessions 3 Volume Two. The "three" refers to this being the third tv series of Transatlantic Sessions and so far the most recent. It does seem as if the series has come to a natural end which is a shame but if it has finished it went out on a high with the strongest series of the three. This actual disc is more of the same from Volume One with the same performers and house band but that is more of a recommendation than a criticism. Each track has merits, standouts include Sharon Shannon's Neck Belly Reels for instrumental exuberance, the country gospel of Iris Dement's He Reached Down and the pure folk of Cara Dillon's P Is For Paddy. The absolute standouts for me though are Tim O'Briens's masterful bluegrass on Look Down That Lonesome Road, Darrell Scott's powerful You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive and the contrastingly good time singalong of Paul Brady's session closer Rainbow. Catch them all on Youtube !

Already Mature Newcomers

The latest free cover disk from BBC Music magazine features current BBC New Generation Artist scheme members the Elias Quartet. Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, it is a solid selection of core repertoire, starting with Haydn's String Quartet Op 64 no 6, progressing to Mendelssohn's String Quintet no 2 Op 87 where they are augmented by violist Malin Bronman and backtracking to Schubert's ten minute Quartettsatz. One or two contemporaries were also looking at the string quartet form around the time that Haydn was but it is his body of work in the form that was really responsible for establishing it and it is a typically classically proportioned piece played here. Mendelssohn is taking the form towards the height of the romantic era by way of contrast. But it is the Schubert piece that perhaps carries the most emotional depth, packing much into the brief one movement span. It is obvious why it is a favourite with performers despite the problem its' length poses in programming. Alhtough given "newcomer" status, the Elias have been playing together for over ten years since student days and are already approaching musical maturity.

What Jazz Means To Me

If I had to play somebody a disc epitomising my idea of what jazz was, it is tempting to think of the obvious and play them Kind Of Blue. But I would also be inclined to spin Monk's Music by the Thelonious Monk Septet. I came to own this disc as a vinyl album quite by chance at a young age, when it was jettisoned by my elder sister who had it as an unwanted gift from a would be beau. It was a fascinating glimpse into a sophisticatedly hip, cool world totally unlike late fifties / early sixties Britain and it was only later that I began to appreciate what a fine and important disc it was in its' own right. One of the main points of interest, apart from the remarkably singular approach of Monk himself on piano and the individuality of his compositions, was the contrast between elder statesman Coleman Hawkins and young turk John Coltrane on tenor sax. And how both had so much to bring in their different ways to the music. A top notch rhythm section of bassist Wibur Ware and drummer Art Blakey was augmented by Gigi Gryce on alto and Ray Copeland on trumpet to complete the septet. The six tracks from the original vinyl release are augmented on cd by four other tracks featuring Coltrane playing with Monk and a leisurely blues from the Monk's Music lineup minus Monk himself. The story behind the session and the taking of the iconic cover photo is detailed in Monk's biography and gives further insight into this superb document of the period.

An Outsider Finally Gets His Hearing

One of the big advantages of the annual BBC Proms concert series is the ability to stage works that would hardly ever get a performance under other circumstances due to the forces required, the venue required or simply commercial viability. A highlight of the 2010 season was a performance of The Music Of The Spheres by Danish composer Rued Langaard performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Choirs conducted by Thomas Dausgaard with choir master Soren Kinch Hansen. Those same forces were able to put on the work on one earlier occasion for the purposes of the live recording contained on this disc. Dating from the beginning of the 20th century, The Music Of The Spheres is an experiemnal work that sounds as if it could date from much later. The forces required are a huge orchestra, choirs and solo soprano ( Inger Dam Jensen in this case ) with off stage musicians etc, all of which make a staging difficult. But these forces are in fact used very sparingly and most of the work is subdued with small filigree details and only the occasional extraordinary outburst from the entire company, such as the sustained choral and instrumental chords that resonate for around a minute each. The disk contains two further works for chorus and orchestra, From The Abyss and The End Of Time. These are not quite so far outside the norms of the time but all three pieces involve a musical contrast between a chaotic doomed world and a vision of celestial beauty and light. Langaard was under appreciated, if not scorned, in his own country during his lifetime and it is good to see Danish institutions finally championing this music.

Clues, Signals And Improvisation

Contemporary English composer Peter Wiegold occupies an interesting position straddling the worlds of improvised music and notated composition. This dic, Earth and Stars, gives a good indication of where this approach has recently been taking him. There are four works on the disc, two featuring his performing group notes inegales who perhaps exemplify this dual approach and two of a more traditional nature with the Southbank Sinfonia and a soprano / pianist combination. The latter, a collection of settings of poems by Jo Shapcott written in response to the writings of Rilke and titled Les Roses, is performed by soprano Juliet Fraser and fellow composer Martin Butler on piano. There are faint jazzy tinges to both the vocal and piano contributions. The Southbank Sinfonia are here conducted by Wiegold himself in the piece Earth, Receive an Honoured Guest which is named after a poem written by Auden commemorating Yeats. Not especially funereal but certainly elegiac, it is a showpiece for the cor anglais of Melinda Maxwell and there is also a significant solo viola part played by Christopher Beckett. Of the two notes inegales pieces ( the group eschews capital letters ) Kalachakra is perhaps the most challenging. They are a group of performers devoted to improvisation to given clues and signals from Wiegold and include brass, percussion, strings, wind and the piano of Butler in a flexible lineup of up to a dozen. Kalachakra expands outwards from a central bell like theme celebrating Tibetan Buddhist disciplines. The title work also featuring notes inegales, is the more immediately accessible and has a Viennese theme with inspirations ranging from Mozart, his pet starling, the decadent fin de siecle period through to the work of the second school. There are reflections on death and funereal rites but also on infinity and rebirth and the shadow of jazz is ever present.

Wily Coyote

A variation on the rock and pop world's "best of" compilation albums, this disc entitled " A Portrait" is a collection of works by 20th century American composer Lou Harrison. The performers are the California Symphony conducted by Barry Jekowsky and it is fitting that they should be so, since Harrison's music is very much of the west coast. It has roots in native American music and values but is also facing Asia and taking in much from the music of Japan, China and particularly Javanese gamelan. Certain aspects recall Copland and even Dvorak before him but on the whole, Harrison is deliberately turning his back on European music, both from the classical and romantic period and more relevantly from any serialist approach. That is not to say that it eschews the experimental, the percussion piece that closes the disk, Double Music, is a joint effort with John Cage. Elegy, To The Memory Of Calvin Simmons is a simple moving piece dedicated to a young conductor who died in an accident, mainly written for strings but with solo oboe played by William Banovetz. Solstice is the work which most features those Asian influences and spotlights the solo flute of Timothy Day, while Concerto in Slendro pits the violin of Maria Bachmann aggainst a battery of percussion. Symphony No 4, which he correctly sub-titled Last Symphony, is a substantial forty minute work with a native American / ecological backdrop which culminates in the final movement with Three Coyote Stories sung / narrated by jazz soul singer Al Jarreau. These wise and humourous folk tales seem to sum up the composer himself.

World Music Before There Was World Music

In the heady days of guitar heroes in the late sixties and early seventies, there was one hero for whom the term unsung might have been invented and that was Mick Hutchinson. Who knows why superstardom did not materialise. It may have been luck, temperament, discipline, contacts, the right setting. It certainly wasn't lack of talent; together with multi-instrumentalist Andy Clark the duo Clark-Hutchinson boasted superb musicianship and imagination. We can be grateful though that there is still the phenomenal album A=MH2 to appreciate. A unique album that is impossible to pigeon hole. Not quite jazz, not quite prog rock, not exactly psychedelic and yet containing elements of all these and more. The "more" including classical, and various world musics particularly from India and the Middle East. The track Acapulco Gold even ventures into flamenco territory laced with Tudor English lute styles. Hutchinson's remarkable guitar playing is drenched in a blues feel but goes so much further into all the above mentioned influences and it is a masterclass in how to produce so many varied tones and effects from an electric guitar in a way that would even make Hendrix think twice. But all in service of the music. The contributions from Andy Clark on sax, piano, organ, bass and percussion should not be overlooked either, his piano and sax work producing telling solos and the rest providing a perfect foil for the flights of Hutchinson's guitar. The five lengthy instrumental improvisations that make up the album induce an hypnotic and ecstatic feel but by its' very nature this was destined to be very much a one off. Attempts to expand Clark-Hutchinson into a conventional band never really worked as witnessed by the bonus disc here of fairly routine blues workouts, albeit still with some fine guitar. But they never found a strong enough vocalist or front man to stand up to and complement their own strong musical personalities. Let's just be glad to hear this album.

Choral Focus

On Photography is the title of this disc on Gavin Bryars's own record label which showcases the Latvian Radio Choir and on which Bryars allows pieces by the Latvian Arturs Maskats and the more widely known Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov to appear alongside his own work. The conducting duties for the choir are shared between Sigvards Klava and Kaspars Putnins. Among the Baltic Sates, it is perhaps Estonia that is most famous for its' choral tradition, the singing revolution and all that. But the Latvians here show that they are a force to be respected in their own right. It is perhaps a bit of a cliche to talk about the bass sound produced by choirs from this region. On this disc that is indeed evident but there is also some spectacular solo work in the female upper registers too. The pieces by Maskat and Silvestrov are both devotional. Maskats sets text from Psalm 141 while Silvestrov's Diptychon sets the Lord's Prayer in Russian and Testament, a religious poem by a Ukrainian poet Tarass Shevchenko. Bryars's own works are secular but the sound world they inhabit retains this devotional sense. There is a prose setting, And So Ended Kant's Travelling In The World, and settings of three poems by Italian Cecco Angiolieri. The title piece was meant for a large scale work for the Los Angeles Olympics but has devolved downwards in size but not in stature and focuses ( no pun intended ) on the fascination with early photography by such luminaries as Jules Verne and Pope Leo XIII. The only deviation from the acapella recording is the addition of some subtle and understated percussion but the disc is never less than entrancing.

A Genuine Partnership

Wigmore Hall in London is renowned as THE chamber music venue and this disc on its' own Wigmore Hall Live label is chamber music par excellence. The title is Violin Sonatas - 1 and is the first of a traversal of all Beethoven's violin sonatas by the duo of violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cedric Tiberghien. This particular generously filled volume contains four sonatas from early and middle period Beethoven. The violin sonata was a form that he only tackled during a concentrated period of his life, six years as opposed to for instance the string quartets which covered most of his career. There is still a clear progression to be traced however. The recording quality here is crystalline and shows all the qualities of the hall's famous acoustics. The pair of performers are both rapidly rising solo stars in their own right but have an obvious love and affinity for chamber music and play as a genuine partnership, each sensitive to the demands of the music and each other. There is no grandstanding, just a sense of joy in shared music making. This is a genuine partnership and the remainder of the cycle wil be well worth collecting.

The Best Back Porch Session Ever.....

.....is the tag line given at the beginning of each programme of series three of the BBC4 tv show Transatlantic Sessions. This disc somewhat confusedly is Volume One of Transatlantic Sessions 3. All three series contained much fine music but the songs on series three particularly grabbed me. The conceit of the programmes was informal get togethers of folk and country musicians from Scotland, Ireland and the US in a remote farm house in the Highlands of Scotland converted into an impromptu recording studio. The constants in the series, representing each side of the coin, are the Scottish violinist Aly Bain and the American dobro virtuouso Jerry Douglas. They act as musical directors and arrangers for the various combinations of musicians that are put together for each song. Obviously the musicians have been hand picked to gell and combine and the whole thing is seamless and proves, if it needed proving, the shared roots of this music. What works is that it is not in fact a loose "session" or jam but a collaboration of like minded individuals helping out friends to give the best possible setting for each song. Gems on this particular disc in the series are Paul Brady's Lakes Of Pontchartrain, Darrell Scott's Shattered Cross, Bruce Molsky's Blackest Crow and Joan Osborne's Saint Teresa but there is not a dud among the nineteen tracks, including several spirited instrumentals.

Paradise Found

During the anniversary celebrations last year, I became aware of one piece by Schumann that I did not previously know; his oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri. The peri is a mythical fairy like figure, the supposed offspring of a human and a fallen angel and as such denied access to heaven. The conceit of this tale ( based on four lengthy peoms by Thomas Moore ) is the quest by this particular peri to gain admission after being given the task of finding the thing that is of most value to the heavenly hosts. After two failed attempts bringing the blood of a fallen hero and the dying sighs of the grieving lover of a plague victim, the peri ultimately succeeds with the tears of a penitant sinner. It is not clear if the heaven represented is a Christian or an Islamic one, perhaps generic would be a better term. Schumann was in two minds whether to make this an opera or an oratorio and there are certainly operatic sections, in particular the vocal quartets. It is a tuneful and substantial work and the orchestration makes ridiculous ( as do so many other works ) the contention that Schumann could not orchestrate. The performers here are the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiques and the Monteverdi Choir conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. The fine cast of soloists is led by Barbara Bonney as the peri and also includes Alexandra Coku, Bernarda Fink, Neill Archer, Gerald Finley, Cornelius Hauptmann and Christoph Pregardien. The oratorio does not quite fit onto one disc and so there are two other short works filling out the second disc, Requiem fur Mignon and Nachtlied. These are also well worth hearing and the Requiem benefits from the work of solo baritone William Dazeley as well as the talents of the Members of the Hanover Boys Choir. The Mignon being remembered here is not a real person but a child character from a Goethe novel but that does not make the poignancy any less deeply felt.

Showcasing The Cello

This month's edition of BBC Music magazine had a cello theme which was followed through by the free cover disc of two cello concertos, Saint-Saens's Cello Concerto No 1 and Walton's Cello Concerto. The Saint-Saens is written in one continuous span, though there are distinct passages in the piece which more or less folllow the traditional three movement convention anyway. It is an important early piece in the genre of cello concertos for the way in which Saint-Saens combats successfully the difficulties of balancing the instrument with the orchestra. It is given a fine performance here by ex BBC New Generation Artist scheme member Andreas Brantelid with the BBC Philharmonic and their upcoming new chief conductor Juanjo Mena. The BBC Philharmonic also feature in the Walton concerto under Tuomas Hannikainen and accompanying soloist Paul Watkins. Walton's concerto was his favourite among the three he wrote ( the others for violin and viola ) and it is more introverted and low key than the Saint-Saens, so much so that the original commissioner Piatigorsky pestered Walton to change the ending to a more grandstanding crowd pleasing finale. Such an ending was written but here, as is normally the case, it is the graceful elegiac completion that is performed.

A Respectful Mutiny From Caine

Jazz pianist Uri Caine has made a succession of remarkable discs deconstructing pieces by classical composers and this "best of" compilation titled The Classic Variations is an ideal place to begin sampling them and a fine listening experience in its' own right. Composers given the Caine treatment here are Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Wagner, Verdi and Mozart. Writing of the Caine treatment might imply some lack of respect from him but these are serious musical endeavours where the source music is thoroughly respected and used as a jumping off point for thoughtful expansion, as opposed to a vehicle for ego and empty virtuousic display . There is humour in some of the adaptations where humour fits into the context but in most cases the works have serious musical intent. The other notable aspect of these variations is the variety that Caine is able to impart. They are by no means simply piano jazz improvisations on his part. He does play very well on several tracks but there are also stellar contributions from clarinet and violin by Chris Speed and Mark Feldman among others plus lute, string quartet, viola, gospel vocals, organ and guitar and scratch turntables. The disc is summed up by the two lengthy closing tracks. Mozart's Turkish Rondo morphs from an Arabic call to prayer to a klezmer jazz workout while Mahler's famous Adagietto from Symphony No 5 is deconstructed and put together again in the most haunting yet respectful way.

A Life Well Travelled

Vincent Dumestre's ensemble Le Poeme Harmonique is very much a mainstay of the idiosyncratic Alpha label, especially since the defection to the mainstream of Christina Pluhar's L'Arpeggiata. This disc is typical fare, Carnets de Voyage by Charles Tessier. Tessier was active in the late 16th and early 17th century and was widely travelled, often leaving his native Languedoc region of France to seek fortune in England, Italy and the German states. The material featured on the disc is not entiirely by Tessier, there is a Dowland song for insance which reflects the influences that came to bear on Tessier. The songs are secular in the main and deal with that kind of chivalrous lovelorn subject matter that may have been on the verge of becoming antiquated by this time. The music similarly shows influences from various times as well as places as indicated by the "voyage" of the title. Tessier's Languedoc roots reflect earlier troubador songs, there is the Tudor English influence of Dowland and there are pieces which look ahead to the baroque era. Le Poeme Harmonique play in the most committed fashion throughout and the vocal contributions add much colourful characterisation to their parts, in some places even reminding of Orff's Carmina Burana.

Digging Peace Man

I remember as a kid in the sixties watching Jazz 625 on tv and being fascinated by the extreme playing posture adopted by pianist Bill Evans; one that made Glenn Gould look the epitome of convention. Now I finally have a disk of his, Everybody Digs Bill Evans. It's an original album with one bonus track rather than any best of compilation but I think it adequately distils Evans's work and it contains one particular track I have long coveted. It is a piano trio album with just a couple of solo piano tracks and the accompaniment from Sam Jones on bass and in particular Philly Joe Jones on drums is exemplary. The artistic drive is very much that of Bill Evans though. The vehicles for the trio workouts are mainly either compositions by post boppers such as Gigi Gryce and Sonny Rollins or standards such as Tenderly, Night and Day and Young and Foolish. Very much the playboy manifestation of what it was to be hip in the late fifties and early sixties. That one track which was the motivation for me getting this disk and no other by Evans is the remarkable solo tune that he wrote himself, Peace Piece. Peace as in calm and quiet, peace as in the opposite of war, peace as a forshadowing of "peace and love man." It is a Satie like concoction, in no way a virtuosic show off piece but creating a little nugget like gem where time is stopped and the world seems a better place. The bonus track, Some Other Time, almost replicates the mood and for once it is a bonus that adds something to the original vinyl album.

A Concerto For The Don

Quite early in my classical collecting, I acquired most of the tone poems of Richard Strauss. They don't fit as well with my tastes as they have developed but I do still admire them and this disk fills in a notable gap with a performance of Don Quixote by the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich conducted by David Zinman. It marks the final volume of a survey they did of Strauss's orchestral works and it also includes the Romanze in F major for cello and orchestra and the Serenade in E flat major for 13 wind instruments. Don Quixote is a programmatic work wound around depictions of several of the major incidents from the novel but in another context it is virtually a cello concerto since the "part" of the Don is played by the cello throughout. at times it is a double concerto with the viola used to portray Quixote's sidekick Sancho Panza. There is also a minor part for oboe as the character Dulcinella. The principal soloists here are Thomas Grossenbacher cello ( also in the Romanze ) and Michel Rouilly viola. The Romanze and Serenade make enticing fillers and the main work tells the tale in an entrancing mix of variation, lietmotif and concerto form.

Breath On Me Breath Of God

"A feather on the breath of God", Sequences and hymns by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen was a surprise best seller on its release in the early 1980s and it went a long way to ensuring the long term viability of the then fledgling Hyperion label. Performed by Gothic Voices directed by Christopher Page, guest soprano Emma Kirkby has prominent billing on the booklet but in fact the stand out soprano duties are more often undertaken by group member Emily Van Evera. The disk stands the passage of time since its' recording flawlessly and it is hard to think of a better performance of this repertoire. Hildegard was born on the cusp of the 11th and 12th centuries and spent all of her adult life in holy orders but she is most remarkable for her music and poetry, some of it inspired by visions. Her music illustrates the first opening out and expansion of basic plainchant but retains the profound spirituality and communication of that form. The commercial success of the disk no doubt owed much to a fashionable new age chill out mentality prevalent at the time but that was incidental to the production of the disk which did not forsee such success and was made without any concession to it. The music is primarily acapella but some tracks benefit from Robert White playing reed drones and Doreen Muskett playing symphony, which I think is a kind of hurdy gurdy.

Gym But No Gymnastics

Three Gymnopedies and six Gnossienne are surveyed along with other piano works by Erik Satie on this disk by Pascal Roge. Satie's output was not large anyway but the Gymnopedies and Gnossienne are by far the most well known and they do inhabit this restrained miniature world that is so atmospheric and evocative. It is apparent that they share time and space with such as Debussy but the pared down minimalism of them is totally individual but thoroughly charming. Roge takes the Gymnopedies fractionally faster than some but not in a way to jeopardise their hypnotic effect and the playing of the Gnossienne is pretty well perfect. The other piano works included are given strong advocacy by Roge but they do suffer in comparison with the famous pieces, several showing touches of very early jazz and ragtime and of French music hall. If Satie achieved nothing else, with these two cycles he began an influence that resonated down through the 20th century to figures as diverse as Cage and Bill Evans and their followers.

Never Yet You Heathen Dog

Given access to his entire back catalogue, I might have been able to come up with a slightly better selection of tracks for Martin Carthy The Definitive Collection. But this one is pretty good to be going on with. One of the problems, if problem it is, is that Carthy has revisited many of the songs most associated with him several times over the years and made different versions. These versions might be solo, as a duo with Dave Swarbrick, as joint leader of the ensemble Brass Monkey or with Waterson : Carthy ( no mention is made of the time in the original Steeleye Span )And it is a matter of subjective preference as to which version of the song might be the best and whether one prefers the more mature Carthy voice to that of the younger firebrand. I don't have too many issues with the selections, though would have preferred a couple more songs / versions from the Swarbrick era. But it is good to have such perennials as Sovay, Prince Heathen, The Maid and the Palmer, The Bows of London and Jolly Tinker all in one place. It complements very well the other Carthy and Waterson: Carthy disks that I have. I have already mentioned in earlier posts concerning these the pivotal place that he holds in the English folk revival / post revival / nu revival !

Young Turks

Although not a youth orchestra, there are some similarities between the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. Both are from countries perhaps not previously noted for being in the forefront of classical music and both are intent on making a major international reputation for themselves ( with the Bolivars admittedly having a head start ) But what really brought the comparison to mind when listening to this first recording by the Borusan orchestra is the way in which they have decided to feature pieces with what might be termed a Turkish feel, in the same way as the Venezuelans have championed South American music. Though none of the composers are Turkish, there is that kind of Arabian, middle eastern orientalism apparent in much of the music here. They may not have included Sheherazade but Respighi's ballet Belkis, Queen of Sheba owes a fairly large debt to Rimsky, while also incorporating elements of typical Respighi bombast but all displayed with superb orchestral colouring which helps show off the ensemble under conductor Sascha Goetzel. Much of what I have said about Belkis could also be applied to Florent Schmitt's ballet music The Tragedy of Salome which concludes the disk and occupies the same sound world. Not quite so oriental but still a fine orchestral showcase, Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber lies sandwiched between the two ballets. This is the second recording I have of this piece and the Borusan Istanbul Phil do not suffer in comparison with the LSO under Abbado.

Heaven and Hell And The Earth Between

An atmospheric and almost completely acapella disk from Gothic Voices ( director Christopher Page plays medieval harp on one track ), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell presents motets and songs from 13th century France. I was expecting a mix of the sacred and the profane, plainchant and troubadour airs. But I learned from the booklet notes that it was a much more intertwined situation and that motets, a term I had associated purely with church music, could also encompass more wordly subject matter. The songs often seem to take the form of a round, passed among the voices of the group who appear on the disk in various groupings of five comprising alto, three tenors and baritone. The notes also explain the differences between the motet world and that of the troubadours from further south in France but the lyrics tend to occupy that same region of courtly love, with the object of desire worshipped from afar. The eroticism sometimes spills over into the Marian settings too. The singing throughout is beautifully rich and the polyphony and dissonances in the music constantly stimulating.

Mozart Marathon

The first 12 days of 2011 on BBC radio 3 were devoted to programming that would play the entire works of Mozart. Every note that he wrote. There were worthwhile programmes and fine performances contained within this marathon but the concept was a banal one and gave rise to the real danger that a force fed diet would ultimately lead to indigestion. Nobody would have been able to listen throughout the 12 days, no matter how much recording and time shifting was attempted. I wonder about the point of all those juvenile operas being broadcast in the early hours of the morning. Anyway, the reason I am bothering to comment on this is that the latest edition of BBC Music magazine was a tie in with the Mozart fest and the free cover disk contains performances of the Mass in C Minor and Symphony No 40. I happen to have both of these works on disk already and so don't propose to comment on the music. Suffice it to say that both pieces receive very competant performances. The mass is played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by David Robertson and with soloists Jeremy Ovenden ( tenor ) James Rutherford ( bass ) and sopranos Laura Aikin and Emma Bell. Both are live recordings, the symphony from last year's Proms by the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda.

Completing The Trilogy

The final disk in the Californian trilogy that marked Ry Cooder's return to recording solo albums after such a lengthy gap goes by the somewhat gnomic title of I,Flathead. The theme this time seems to revolve around a fading drag racer and there are various automotive references but these tend to pass me by since I am no kind of petrol head. The sub title, the Songs of Kash Buk and the Clowns, is similarly impenetrable and the packaging is less lavish than on the two previous releases. All of this is of no consequence to the music of course and the disk contains a fine set of songs. The styles range through Tex Mex, western swing and country with a touch of early rock 'n' roll and pop thrown in and as on the two other disks in the trilogy there is a cocktail jazz track. I think that it is fairly clear now that there is to be no sentimental return to the slide guitar blues that marked the very early first stage of Cooder's career. The guitar here is strictly at the service of the songs, to complement and embellish but not to overwhelm. On the whole, the disk seems less angry and political than the other two with much sardonic humour. The pervading sense of melancholy for a passing age remains however, especially evident on two of the standout tracks which bookend the album, Drive Like I Never Been Hurt and the gently poignant 5000 Country Music Songs.

Riley's Rainbow

Released as a vinyl album in 1969, A Rainbow In Curved Air by Terry Riley was a cult hit with those whose normal listening might have encompassed the lengthy psychedlic jams and meanderings of such as the Grateful Dead and the Quicksilver Messenger Service and it came out of the same Californian ambience. It also had a lasting influence on rock musicians of the more adventurous ( pretentious ? )kind. But fewer of the listeners at that time, amongst whom I include myself, were aware of the founding father status of Riley within the minimalist movement. What set Riley apart and on this album in particular, was his status as composer / performer. The title track features him playing electric organ, electric harpsichord, a hydrid christened a rocksichord, and percussion. Not a synthesiser in sight but it presaged many of the synth experiments that were soon to follow. The piece has an irresistable forward momentum that never completely loses control and is in fact meticulously put together. The companion work on the disk, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, is a piece for soprano saxophone and electric organ and incorporates a Coltranesque sax style with oriental and middle eastern modes and drones. Whereas Rainbow powers forward relentlessly, Poppy just seems to emerge and hang around in a timeless static fashion before taking its' leave. Enough time has now passed for this to be called a timeless album.