It has been literally decades since I gave a monkeys about who was number one in the charts, probably since Iron Maiden brought out their Number of the Beast album. This year the race for Christmas number one has been fantatstic and I'm very pleased that Rage Against the Machine won it. I have no argument about Joe McElderberry or whatever his name is and I'm sure he's a very nice young man with a pretty face who will sell lots of records over the next few months before becoming an answer on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 2020 ("Who came 2nd in the 2009 race for Christmas no 1".."erm...Joe something...?"). Honestly, I wish the chap well in his career in an already oversubscribed arena and I may be proved wrong when he achieves long lasting fame and success as a performer and songwriter.
The backlash will probably be fierce from the "moral majority" in the papers tomorrow morning. However, take this from Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV who said the following to the BBC re RATM
"The expletive-laden song is a "powerful protest", he said, adding: "Rage Against The Machine may not be the ideal expression of the Christmas spirit - and many people will have preferred a more appropriate song to top the festive charts, but their anti-corporate message proved a perfect vehicle through which to register such a powerful protest."
The words of "Killing in the Name of" are powerful and certainly aren't "festive" but what is meant by "festive" lyrics? Some sort of glowing, romanticised view of the world in which robins dance on the snowy lawn outside while the yule log burns on the hearth and everyone gets wassailed as a newt? "Mistletoe and Wine"? Jonah Louis' (excuse spelling) "Stop the Cavalry" song is probably the best Christmas song ever as it has something approaching a message of reconciliation and hope in it. It isn't jolly (despite the ripping brass band break in the middle), doesn't exude warmth but it is a good song with good lyrics or at least it did until it became an advert for John Smith's beer.
I think "Killing in the Name Of" is the perfect Christmas chart topper. In my lifetime Christmas has become over commercialised with the pressure on everyone, especially parents, to provide huge amounts of presents or their offspring will feel unloved, worthless and different ("Everyone else is getting Call of Duty when they're 8 years old..."). I would argue that the sentiment of the lyrics of "Killing in the Name Of", if not the exact wording of the sentiment, is entirely in keeping with the spirit of Jesus' ministry. Bear with me on this while I explain...
Throughout his ministry Jesus openly pointed out the hypocrisy of the religious and political leaders of his time ("Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses"), he cured the lame, spoke to prostitutes, threw the money changers out of the temple and refused to be kowtowed by the Sanhedrin, the Temple authorities, the Roman authorities ("F*** you I won't do what you tell me") but, unfortunately, due to humans interpretations of the Bible, we have been "killing in the name of" Him for the past 2000 years and counting.
(By the way, before anyone complains or starts spitting hellfire and brimstone at me, I'm not trying to convert anyone or denounce anyone and certainly don't want to get into a religious slanging match about matters of doctrine etc or to annoy anyone of any religious faith. I've got an A level in RE, have read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation twice and am entitled to my opinion & interpretation)
Of course it is ironic that the label RATM are signed to is the same one as Simon Cowell's acts but this is beside the point as far as I am concerned. They are a band who have written and performed some of the finest rock music of the past 20 years and their longevity is guaranteed.
Now, if you want a truly awful Christmas song and to donate to a good cause, go to www.justgiving.com/statusold where you will find a video of a Christmas song I've written which perfectly sums up the festive spirit whilst raising money Maggie's Cancer Care Charities.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
7 The "c" word part 2: Singing Carols
Now that we are well into the Festive season I feel that I can now say the word "Christmas" without a sense of panic. As a music teacher in a huge school that caters for pupils from the age of 4-18 there are plenty of carol concerts and services to keep me busy at the moment. Four this week, four last week, two next week...
The most positive thing about having a choir involved in several of these performances is that it gives them the chance to perform the music more than once. Usually, for the non-professional performer, you rehearse a piece for months then perform it only once. You get an amazing adrenalin rush at the thought of this one off gig but you also have in the back of your mind the thought that you only get one shot at getting it right and that all depends on one performance.
One of the great things about going on tour with an amateur orchestra or choir is that the performances get tighter yet more relaxed. By the end of even a short 3 concert tour you feel relaxed enough to enjoy the performance and, as a conductor, to really work the performers eg by using rubato and so on, safe in the knowledge that everyone knows the music well enough to move with you. As a performer you get to know the music very well and start to enjoy performing without being a slave to the dots on the page.
The same is true of the Christmas season if you happen to be performing at several events. The choir I run also had to deal with having two different conductors with very different interpretations of the music involved.
The other thing which performances at this time of the year bring to the fore is performing in different cicumstances to very different audiences. In the past fortnight my choir have sung at a church service, a church concert and a private dinner and have done so with great professionalism (average age 15). They've adapted to the differing occasions - solemn, solemn yet light hearted, light hearted yet potentially very pompous - and to the differing acoustics but all the time singing music they have got to know well. The final time they sing this repertoire together, at a huge carol service, they will be relaxed enough to enjoy the performance and experienced enough to deliver a great performance.
So, despite all my usual "bah humbug" at this time of year there is such a lot to be said for singing carols in concerts, services, out and about carol singing and so on. Rehearsals are fine. Performances are great. Several performances over several occasions in varying locations can really bring a group of performers close to their peak.
Obviously I'll be cursing Christmas music once again in October 2010 but, until then, let's hear it for the Green and Orange books!!!!!!!
The most positive thing about having a choir involved in several of these performances is that it gives them the chance to perform the music more than once. Usually, for the non-professional performer, you rehearse a piece for months then perform it only once. You get an amazing adrenalin rush at the thought of this one off gig but you also have in the back of your mind the thought that you only get one shot at getting it right and that all depends on one performance.
One of the great things about going on tour with an amateur orchestra or choir is that the performances get tighter yet more relaxed. By the end of even a short 3 concert tour you feel relaxed enough to enjoy the performance and, as a conductor, to really work the performers eg by using rubato and so on, safe in the knowledge that everyone knows the music well enough to move with you. As a performer you get to know the music very well and start to enjoy performing without being a slave to the dots on the page.
The same is true of the Christmas season if you happen to be performing at several events. The choir I run also had to deal with having two different conductors with very different interpretations of the music involved.
The other thing which performances at this time of the year bring to the fore is performing in different cicumstances to very different audiences. In the past fortnight my choir have sung at a church service, a church concert and a private dinner and have done so with great professionalism (average age 15). They've adapted to the differing occasions - solemn, solemn yet light hearted, light hearted yet potentially very pompous - and to the differing acoustics but all the time singing music they have got to know well. The final time they sing this repertoire together, at a huge carol service, they will be relaxed enough to enjoy the performance and experienced enough to deliver a great performance.
So, despite all my usual "bah humbug" at this time of year there is such a lot to be said for singing carols in concerts, services, out and about carol singing and so on. Rehearsals are fine. Performances are great. Several performances over several occasions in varying locations can really bring a group of performers close to their peak.
Obviously I'll be cursing Christmas music once again in October 2010 but, until then, let's hear it for the Green and Orange books!!!!!!!
Friday, November 27, 2009
6 The Emancipation of Dissonance
Let's face it, who actually sat down and listened to Webern for the first time and thought "that is absolutely brilliant!!!!"? Have any of you?
My dissonant emancipation started in my first year at university. In their infinite wisdom they started the first year of our music degree with Music of the 20th Century and an instruction to read Erno Lendvai's book about Bartok's string quartets before we even arrived. At the time I considered Vaughan Williams to be dangerously avant-garde so for a time I really did question my decision to study music.
I told Bojan Bujic, my tutor at the time, and someone who had been taught by someone had been taught by Schoenberg, that the music of the 20th century "hurt my ears". No, really, these are the words I used. I just didn't get Bartok, let alone Webern and Berg. Or Boulez.
However, experiencing a variety of music outside lectures and tutorials helped enourmously. I was gently coerced into being on the committee of the "Oxford Contemporary Music Festival" and ended up being one of the performers in Erik Satie's Vexations (which isn't really all that dissonant or atonal, just odd) and working front of house in a performance of Messiaen's Des Canyons aux Etoiles. I don't remember much about the piece but I do remember finding the timbres, if not the melodies, fascinating. I've spoken in an earlier blog about the effect Stravinsky had on me - and it was after one of these committee meetings that I first heard Rite of Spring - but it was meeting other people, other youngsters like me (well, except the working class Welsh part) which made me reconsider what I considered to be "not really music".
Singing avant garde vocal works also helped. Hideously difficult though it was, Jonathan Harvey's Come Holy Ghost was an amazing piece to learn and perform (even if I totally murdered the tenor solo in my final year) and is one I still use to teach aleatoricism. Even Tippett's St John's Service had good points (eg it was brief if nothing else). Of course, like most new things it was exposure to atonality, electronic music, music theatre (no, not Lloyd Webber and Les poxy Mis...Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle etc) and so on that allowed someone like me to start to not only appreciate but to enjoy what was, at the time, still fairly avant garde music.
I've come full circle now. I rave to my pupils about Bartok and force them all to listen to and study the score of the last book of Mikrokosmos if they are struggling for a role model in composition. I get my first year pupils to listen to Pierrot Lunaire and Berio's Sequenza for Voice to learn about using the voice expressively. We also listen to parts of 8 Songs for a Mad King and Curlew River and compare the use of voice and flute in duet. All fairly weird stuff but, at 11/12, the pupils don't yet fully realise that it is "weird". With older classes I also blackout a room and play them Threnody: The Victims of Hiroshima. I'm not saying that they all dash to amazon.com to try to buy Penderecki's greatest hits at the end of the lesson but their ears and minds have been opened a little and a lot earlier than mine were. And there's always one or two who do want to borrow the cd and have a listen, get hold of the score, find out more...
Older generations always complain about the music of younger generations. Listening to the grindcore metal (or whatever its called) of some of my pupils it reminds me of music I listened to as a first year undergraduate. Loud, dark timbres - imagine Varese played by guitars detuned down a 5th with heavy distortion and you'll get the idea. How can these kids not like dissonant music?
Dissonance is relative. The church bells I heard on Sunday morning near Milan on tour in 1989 sounded incredibly dissonant as I was hearing the wrong overtone (they were playing Ave, ave, ave Maria which I knew in the carol arrangement by Andrew Carter). Gamelan music sounds dissonant to most "western" ears. Quite a bit of medieval choral music sounds dissonant due to the rules and characteristics of music at that time. A 7th is dissonant but does a dominant 7th chord sound dissonant? A suspension is a dissonance and, back in the day, an unprepared suspension was only a close 2nd to murder (to music theorists at least) but the suspensions make the resolutions so powerful and meaningful.
So, open your mind and ears and listen. There is no such thing as bad music.
Except country and western
My dissonant emancipation started in my first year at university. In their infinite wisdom they started the first year of our music degree with Music of the 20th Century and an instruction to read Erno Lendvai's book about Bartok's string quartets before we even arrived. At the time I considered Vaughan Williams to be dangerously avant-garde so for a time I really did question my decision to study music.
I told Bojan Bujic, my tutor at the time, and someone who had been taught by someone had been taught by Schoenberg, that the music of the 20th century "hurt my ears". No, really, these are the words I used. I just didn't get Bartok, let alone Webern and Berg. Or Boulez.
However, experiencing a variety of music outside lectures and tutorials helped enourmously. I was gently coerced into being on the committee of the "Oxford Contemporary Music Festival" and ended up being one of the performers in Erik Satie's Vexations (which isn't really all that dissonant or atonal, just odd) and working front of house in a performance of Messiaen's Des Canyons aux Etoiles. I don't remember much about the piece but I do remember finding the timbres, if not the melodies, fascinating. I've spoken in an earlier blog about the effect Stravinsky had on me - and it was after one of these committee meetings that I first heard Rite of Spring - but it was meeting other people, other youngsters like me (well, except the working class Welsh part) which made me reconsider what I considered to be "not really music".
Singing avant garde vocal works also helped. Hideously difficult though it was, Jonathan Harvey's Come Holy Ghost was an amazing piece to learn and perform (even if I totally murdered the tenor solo in my final year) and is one I still use to teach aleatoricism. Even Tippett's St John's Service had good points (eg it was brief if nothing else). Of course, like most new things it was exposure to atonality, electronic music, music theatre (no, not Lloyd Webber and Les poxy Mis...Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle etc) and so on that allowed someone like me to start to not only appreciate but to enjoy what was, at the time, still fairly avant garde music.
I've come full circle now. I rave to my pupils about Bartok and force them all to listen to and study the score of the last book of Mikrokosmos if they are struggling for a role model in composition. I get my first year pupils to listen to Pierrot Lunaire and Berio's Sequenza for Voice to learn about using the voice expressively. We also listen to parts of 8 Songs for a Mad King and Curlew River and compare the use of voice and flute in duet. All fairly weird stuff but, at 11/12, the pupils don't yet fully realise that it is "weird". With older classes I also blackout a room and play them Threnody: The Victims of Hiroshima. I'm not saying that they all dash to amazon.com to try to buy Penderecki's greatest hits at the end of the lesson but their ears and minds have been opened a little and a lot earlier than mine were. And there's always one or two who do want to borrow the cd and have a listen, get hold of the score, find out more...
Older generations always complain about the music of younger generations. Listening to the grindcore metal (or whatever its called) of some of my pupils it reminds me of music I listened to as a first year undergraduate. Loud, dark timbres - imagine Varese played by guitars detuned down a 5th with heavy distortion and you'll get the idea. How can these kids not like dissonant music?
Dissonance is relative. The church bells I heard on Sunday morning near Milan on tour in 1989 sounded incredibly dissonant as I was hearing the wrong overtone (they were playing Ave, ave, ave Maria which I knew in the carol arrangement by Andrew Carter). Gamelan music sounds dissonant to most "western" ears. Quite a bit of medieval choral music sounds dissonant due to the rules and characteristics of music at that time. A 7th is dissonant but does a dominant 7th chord sound dissonant? A suspension is a dissonance and, back in the day, an unprepared suspension was only a close 2nd to murder (to music theorists at least) but the suspensions make the resolutions so powerful and meaningful.
So, open your mind and ears and listen. There is no such thing as bad music.
Except country and western
Sunday, November 15, 2009
5 awful gigs I've done
As this is post 5 here are the 5 crappest gigs I've played. Crap for any number of reasons and in no particular order...
1 9th December 1993. Some Greek restaurant in Soho. A friend was the regular restaurant pianist and he could actually play. He got himself double booked so I played instead, thus allowing him to keep his other better paying gig. I was crap, was openly laughed at and asked to stop playing by the owner. This gig was on my 23rd birthday.
2 2004-ish. April. St John Passion in the Scottish Borders somewhere. I'd never done the Evangelist before. I sang really well in the rehearsal but my voice gave out two thirds of the way through the performance. The last half an hour was the worst musical experience I have EVER had. I redeemed myself two weeks later when we performed it again and I nailed it (no pun intended) but that one still gives me nightmares
3 Negociants, Edinburgh, 1994. We were called up last minute as there had been a cancellation. Our drummer couldn't make it as he had a real job so we did an "unplugged" set with piano, bass and guitar. There was a sound activated "trip switch" due to decibel levels. This went off when the pianist played an A for us to tune to (no digital tuners back then boys and girls) and went of at regular intervals throughout the gig. One of the more generous comments from the audience was "Fuck off you're awful". And we were. But we played to the bitter end!!!!!!!!
4 1995-ish. St Andrew's & St George's Church, Edinburgh with a programme of music by unknown (for very good reasons) Renaissance composers. The music was dreadful. My old university tutor was in the audience having been the external examiner for Edinburgh University Bmus performers. A viol consort came on and kept missing the point of imitation in an In Nomine or something like that so this music from 1570 sounded like Webern. OK, I'm being a bit pompous and haven't got time to explain to non musicians what this means but try youtube-ing Webern Bagatelles and Byrd In Nomines to hear what I'm on about. It was tongue-bitingly hilarious and skin crawlingly embarrassing, mainly as the players didn't have a clue. Thankfully I was just watching at this point.
5 Wedding in Troedyrhiw circa 1986. I was church organist and one of the bridesmaids reckoned she could sing and was asked to sing during the signing of the register. I accompanied her and it was completely dreadful. Oh deary deary me...Having said that I was asked to play the Widor at a friend's wedding in 1996 and totally murdered it. And at the first funeral I played the organ for (as a 15 year old in Troedyrhiw once again) the choir mistress sat next to me murmuring "slower, slower" all the way through the Dead March from Saul. if I'd played any slower I'd still be there now. On a more positve note I played the organ for a funeral 2 years after this in a neighbouring church, got an afternoon off school to do so and was commended on my improvisation. I'd run out of music as the hearse was 45 minutes late due to roadworks.
I've done plenty of gigs as a performer, conductor or composer with which I have been thoroughly pleased but it has been more fun trying to remember details about these awful ones than trying to remember details about really good ones.
1 9th December 1993. Some Greek restaurant in Soho. A friend was the regular restaurant pianist and he could actually play. He got himself double booked so I played instead, thus allowing him to keep his other better paying gig. I was crap, was openly laughed at and asked to stop playing by the owner. This gig was on my 23rd birthday.
2 2004-ish. April. St John Passion in the Scottish Borders somewhere. I'd never done the Evangelist before. I sang really well in the rehearsal but my voice gave out two thirds of the way through the performance. The last half an hour was the worst musical experience I have EVER had. I redeemed myself two weeks later when we performed it again and I nailed it (no pun intended) but that one still gives me nightmares
3 Negociants, Edinburgh, 1994. We were called up last minute as there had been a cancellation. Our drummer couldn't make it as he had a real job so we did an "unplugged" set with piano, bass and guitar. There was a sound activated "trip switch" due to decibel levels. This went off when the pianist played an A for us to tune to (no digital tuners back then boys and girls) and went of at regular intervals throughout the gig. One of the more generous comments from the audience was "Fuck off you're awful". And we were. But we played to the bitter end!!!!!!!!
4 1995-ish. St Andrew's & St George's Church, Edinburgh with a programme of music by unknown (for very good reasons) Renaissance composers. The music was dreadful. My old university tutor was in the audience having been the external examiner for Edinburgh University Bmus performers. A viol consort came on and kept missing the point of imitation in an In Nomine or something like that so this music from 1570 sounded like Webern. OK, I'm being a bit pompous and haven't got time to explain to non musicians what this means but try youtube-ing Webern Bagatelles and Byrd In Nomines to hear what I'm on about. It was tongue-bitingly hilarious and skin crawlingly embarrassing, mainly as the players didn't have a clue. Thankfully I was just watching at this point.
5 Wedding in Troedyrhiw circa 1986. I was church organist and one of the bridesmaids reckoned she could sing and was asked to sing during the signing of the register. I accompanied her and it was completely dreadful. Oh deary deary me...Having said that I was asked to play the Widor at a friend's wedding in 1996 and totally murdered it. And at the first funeral I played the organ for (as a 15 year old in Troedyrhiw once again) the choir mistress sat next to me murmuring "slower, slower" all the way through the Dead March from Saul. if I'd played any slower I'd still be there now. On a more positve note I played the organ for a funeral 2 years after this in a neighbouring church, got an afternoon off school to do so and was commended on my improvisation. I'd run out of music as the hearse was 45 minutes late due to roadworks.
I've done plenty of gigs as a performer, conductor or composer with which I have been thoroughly pleased but it has been more fun trying to remember details about these awful ones than trying to remember details about really good ones.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
4 Mozart
I'm not a big fan of Mozart. Obviously he was a genius, a prodigy and so on and his music will live on for ever and ever. It's just that it is so pretty. It's so well balanced, perfectly proportioned, just a bit clinical and clever for me. A gross generalisation of course, and there are bits I like. The Requiem for example (except for Süssmeyer's bits) is great and I love the opening movement of Symphony no 25 in G minor but then balanced against all that are the slow movements!!!!!
Ah, the slow movements. The only reason I sort of liked the slow movement of the Mozart sonata I played for grade VIII piano is that it was slow enough that I could play it reasonably well. Playing double bass in the slow movement of a Mozart symphony is like a creeping death by down beats. I just don't "get" it. Maybe if I played the violin I'd think differently.
Most musicians I know think me a philistine and that is probably fair enough. However, there is a part of me which doesn't want to like Mozart because everyone else does and, as a musician (as a human for that matter), you are meant to like Mozart. It's like part of the the job description. I remember buying "classical" collections as a teenager (in particular an LP of overtures with my O level set works on and ZZ Top's Eliminator in the same transaction which seemed to freak out the girl in Merthyr WHSmith for some reason) and inevitably you got Eine Kleine bloody Nachtmusik followed by the overture to Le Nozze de Figaro (when the best part of that is the trio in Act I (or is it Act II? Can't remember.) There's a lovely horn pedal point though...whoops, I'm getting enthused about Mozart now which isn't the point) plus there would be the Facile sonata...the scales, the alberti bass, that prissy tune, the fact that everyone tries to play it and slaughters it, usually (myself included). The same tunes over and over again on every damn "classical" collection. Obviously I should listen to more. Maybe the recitatives from Cosi or similiar. Or one of the other movements from Eine sodding Kleine.....
Having said that one of my favourite musical memories involves Eine bloody Kleine. I was busking around Europe after university and, in Salzburg, this guy was playing the opening arpeggio motif on the penny whiste whilst standing outside the Mozart Gebortshaus. He couldn't get past the 8th note without playing a C# instead of a D and kept repeating the same bit over and over again. It was even funnier than my cello playing in Copenhagen but that is a different story for a different post.
I gave some pupils homework to listen the first movement of a Mozart symphony (most of them went for 40 or 41) and the first movement of Bruckner's 7th symphony as a way of telling the difference between Classical and Romantic symphonies (sweeping statements but this SQA after all...). I asked them to also tell me which one they preferred and why. The ones who preferred the Bruckner did so because it seemed to have more going on, was less predictable, more "interesting". Those who preferred the Mozart found the Bruckner long winded and ponderous. I suppose Bruckner is long winded and ponderous, over the top, bombastic, repetitive, over blown, etc and that is precisely why I love his symphonies and motets in particular. I just switch off when I hear Mozart, however. Shame on me.
The more I listen to and play Haydn the more I enjoy it. Beethoven I love, especially the late stuff like the Grosse Fuge. Schubert is alright, especially the lieder. But Mozart...hmm...maybe I am a Philistine. I don't like the Beatles that much either. And I'm a huge Status Quo fan. So who am I to talk about music?
Ah, the slow movements. The only reason I sort of liked the slow movement of the Mozart sonata I played for grade VIII piano is that it was slow enough that I could play it reasonably well. Playing double bass in the slow movement of a Mozart symphony is like a creeping death by down beats. I just don't "get" it. Maybe if I played the violin I'd think differently.
Most musicians I know think me a philistine and that is probably fair enough. However, there is a part of me which doesn't want to like Mozart because everyone else does and, as a musician (as a human for that matter), you are meant to like Mozart. It's like part of the the job description. I remember buying "classical" collections as a teenager (in particular an LP of overtures with my O level set works on and ZZ Top's Eliminator in the same transaction which seemed to freak out the girl in Merthyr WHSmith for some reason) and inevitably you got Eine Kleine bloody Nachtmusik followed by the overture to Le Nozze de Figaro (when the best part of that is the trio in Act I (or is it Act II? Can't remember.) There's a lovely horn pedal point though...whoops, I'm getting enthused about Mozart now which isn't the point) plus there would be the Facile sonata...the scales, the alberti bass, that prissy tune, the fact that everyone tries to play it and slaughters it, usually (myself included). The same tunes over and over again on every damn "classical" collection. Obviously I should listen to more. Maybe the recitatives from Cosi or similiar. Or one of the other movements from Eine sodding Kleine.....
Having said that one of my favourite musical memories involves Eine bloody Kleine. I was busking around Europe after university and, in Salzburg, this guy was playing the opening arpeggio motif on the penny whiste whilst standing outside the Mozart Gebortshaus. He couldn't get past the 8th note without playing a C# instead of a D and kept repeating the same bit over and over again. It was even funnier than my cello playing in Copenhagen but that is a different story for a different post.
I gave some pupils homework to listen the first movement of a Mozart symphony (most of them went for 40 or 41) and the first movement of Bruckner's 7th symphony as a way of telling the difference between Classical and Romantic symphonies (sweeping statements but this SQA after all...). I asked them to also tell me which one they preferred and why. The ones who preferred the Bruckner did so because it seemed to have more going on, was less predictable, more "interesting". Those who preferred the Mozart found the Bruckner long winded and ponderous. I suppose Bruckner is long winded and ponderous, over the top, bombastic, repetitive, over blown, etc and that is precisely why I love his symphonies and motets in particular. I just switch off when I hear Mozart, however. Shame on me.
The more I listen to and play Haydn the more I enjoy it. Beethoven I love, especially the late stuff like the Grosse Fuge. Schubert is alright, especially the lieder. But Mozart...hmm...maybe I am a Philistine. I don't like the Beatles that much either. And I'm a huge Status Quo fan. So who am I to talk about music?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
3 Byrd Four Part Mass
The Byrd Mass for Four Voices is a new set work for OCR A2 music. What a
fantastic choice. I enjoyed teaching the Integration of Music and Drama course for the last 5 years but this new, broad historical course gives real scope to look at the development of music and how social and economic history have played their part in new directions in music. After Byrd we move on to Bach's St Matthew Passion and from there to Stimmung!!!! The topic is called Music and Belief and, while it mainly looks at Christian belief in the context of "Western European Art Music" (I love labels like that..) the Stockhausen brings non-Christian ideas eg Tibetan chant and so on, plus the names of all manner of Mexican and Australian deities, not to mention Stockhausen's own erotic poetry. I'm particularly looking forward to that bit!
Back to Byrd. BBC broadcast a documentary called "Saced Music - Tallis and Byrd"a couple of months ago and it gave in interesting insight into the religious (and, given the era, therefore political) upheaval of the age and the way in which composers adapted in order to survive, not just "commercially" but just survive any purges of Catholics or Protestants (according to which monarch was in charge at any time). Out of such turmoil some of the most beautiful music imaginable has been created. In addition to teaching the Four Part Mass I'm rehearsing it with my school choir (all
my A2 class are in the choir I'm pleased to say) and, despite the high tessitura for the tenors and very low tressitura for the altos they are coping remarkably well with the contrapuntal lines.
I've always found the Byrd very singable. As an undergraduate choral scholar I sang mass every Sunday morning and some weeks it was more of a trial than others. Palestrina, though beautiful in its own way, was so difficult, especially for an 18 year old 1st year tenor. The Haydn and Mozart masses were quite twee, the Stravinsky just plain weird (at the time, I love it now) and the Vaughan Williams still gives me nightmares (especially "Qui sedes..."). The Byrd 4 Part was always lovely though (the 5 part mass less so as the tenors were split and on one occasion I was the only cantoris tenor on this line which was just great). Byrd seemed to float out effortlessly despite the early hour (well, 11:30ambut that is very early for an undergraduate) and the sound fitted theacoustic of the chapel perfectly. It was usually paired with the Byrd Ave Verum as a communion motet and this also remains one of my firm favourites.
The Four Part Mass is also one of the reasons I'm so keen on smaller vocal ensembles performing music from the Renaissance. I've been party to (as a soloist in another item on the same programme) the mass being sung by a choir of 120. For me it loses all its vitality, the dancing rhythms, the contrasts between sections for paired voices and those for the full choir in counterpoint and so on. It can also get quite turgid with a choir that large singing something slow and unaccompanied eg the "Sanctus". Devotional is one thing. Lethargic is another. For similar reasons I prefer my Handel with 3 or 4 to a part rather than the "Huddersfield Choral" take. Keep it light. Let the rhythms dance. It's all dance music, really....anyway, I digress...again...
Obviouly, as a music student we "did" the Renaissance and, as a choral scholar, I "did" the Renaissance too but its only since going into depth personally to prepare myself for teaching this course that I have really got into the detail of Byrd's style of writing, the way the text is infused with so much meaning via the music, the way he changes textures to reflect the meaning of the text, the sonority of the music, the difficulty of being a Catholic composer in a Protestant country who expressed his Catholicism in subtle ways through his music. He reminds me of Shostakovich in Soviet Russia writing subversive music in his symphonies which the authorities were too blinkered to understand.
fantastic choice. I enjoyed teaching the Integration of Music and Drama course for the last 5 years but this new, broad historical course gives real scope to look at the development of music and how social and economic history have played their part in new directions in music. After Byrd we move on to Bach's St Matthew Passion and from there to Stimmung!!!! The topic is called Music and Belief and, while it mainly looks at Christian belief in the context of "Western European Art Music" (I love labels like that..) the Stockhausen brings non-Christian ideas eg Tibetan chant and so on, plus the names of all manner of Mexican and Australian deities, not to mention Stockhausen's own erotic poetry. I'm particularly looking forward to that bit!
Back to Byrd. BBC broadcast a documentary called "Saced Music - Tallis and Byrd"a couple of months ago and it gave in interesting insight into the religious (and, given the era, therefore political) upheaval of the age and the way in which composers adapted in order to survive, not just "commercially" but just survive any purges of Catholics or Protestants (according to which monarch was in charge at any time). Out of such turmoil some of the most beautiful music imaginable has been created. In addition to teaching the Four Part Mass I'm rehearsing it with my school choir (all
my A2 class are in the choir I'm pleased to say) and, despite the high tessitura for the tenors and very low tressitura for the altos they are coping remarkably well with the contrapuntal lines.
I've always found the Byrd very singable. As an undergraduate choral scholar I sang mass every Sunday morning and some weeks it was more of a trial than others. Palestrina, though beautiful in its own way, was so difficult, especially for an 18 year old 1st year tenor. The Haydn and Mozart masses were quite twee, the Stravinsky just plain weird (at the time, I love it now) and the Vaughan Williams still gives me nightmares (especially "Qui sedes..."). The Byrd 4 Part was always lovely though (the 5 part mass less so as the tenors were split and on one occasion I was the only cantoris tenor on this line which was just great). Byrd seemed to float out effortlessly despite the early hour (well, 11:30ambut that is very early for an undergraduate) and the sound fitted theacoustic of the chapel perfectly. It was usually paired with the Byrd Ave Verum as a communion motet and this also remains one of my firm favourites.
The Four Part Mass is also one of the reasons I'm so keen on smaller vocal ensembles performing music from the Renaissance. I've been party to (as a soloist in another item on the same programme) the mass being sung by a choir of 120. For me it loses all its vitality, the dancing rhythms, the contrasts between sections for paired voices and those for the full choir in counterpoint and so on. It can also get quite turgid with a choir that large singing something slow and unaccompanied eg the "Sanctus". Devotional is one thing. Lethargic is another. For similar reasons I prefer my Handel with 3 or 4 to a part rather than the "Huddersfield Choral" take. Keep it light. Let the rhythms dance. It's all dance music, really....anyway, I digress...again...
Obviouly, as a music student we "did" the Renaissance and, as a choral scholar, I "did" the Renaissance too but its only since going into depth personally to prepare myself for teaching this course that I have really got into the detail of Byrd's style of writing, the way the text is infused with so much meaning via the music, the way he changes textures to reflect the meaning of the text, the sonority of the music, the difficulty of being a Catholic composer in a Protestant country who expressed his Catholicism in subtle ways through his music. He reminds me of Shostakovich in Soviet Russia writing subversive music in his symphonies which the authorities were too blinkered to understand.
Monday, October 26, 2009
2 Music that changed my life
I grew up listening to 70s rock as my brother is 12 years older than me and therefore his music dominated the house when I was young. My father was sort of into swing, Glenn Miller, that sort of style but also had a few LPs of classical music, the usual suspects such as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma and so on which I, to my eternal shame, described as "poofter music" at the age of 9. The first piece of music which I really became aware of was Rossini's Thieving Magpie overture which my father had on an old 78rpm shellac disk to be used on an ancient gramaphone he had come by somehow.
You had to turn over the 78 as the piece lasts longer than the 3 minutes per side available. Despite the tinny quality to the sound reproduction, and the fairly shonky performance, I loved it. It sort of started my interest in music which took off when I started the piano at the age of 10. I've recently rediscovered a 78rpm version of this piece when teaching my AS class about early sound recording and reproduction. If you want to listen to it click HERE. There's a crazy gramophone shop in Edinburgh called The Gramophone Emporium, on St Stephen Street in Stockbridge, where the owners and clientele will wax (if you pardon the unintentional early recording technique pun) lyrical about these early recordings by Sir Thomas Beecham amongst others.
The next piece which really blew me away was Liszt's symphonic poem Les Preludes which I heard performed by my county youth orchestra in a big gala concert when I was 15. I'd never heard such fantastic music, such moving music, such sounds. I'd not been playing the double bass very long and this inspired me to get to a standard where I could play in this group. I've still never performed Les Preludes on the bass. I did get to battle my way through 1812 Overture about a year later when I was of the required standard, however.
Overhearing my music teacher playing Saint-Saens Organ Symphony to a 3rd year class when I was in lower 6th again made me reassess the music I was listening to. I rushed out to buy a pocket score (well, rushed in the sense of saved up and travelled 25 miles one Saturday to Cardiff). I loved listening to this piece. I still do and am still amazed that everything flows fromjust a couple of motifs, much in the way that Les Preludes flows from the first bar. Of course, most people now only know this piece as the loud bit was used as part of the sountrack to the film Babe. Again I've not played this one live though I was asked to be one of the piano duet part once. Anyone who knows my piano playing (ie can't do scales or indeed anything else technical, I'm better with honky tonk improvisation) will understand why I politely declined.
I got hold of Bruckner's 7th Symphony by accident when it was record of the month in the Britannia Music Club and I forgot to send back my slip saying that I didn't want it. Thank goodness I didn't. The 2nd movement, the coda of which was written as a memorial to Wagner, is awesome in the truest sense.
I only found out two months ago that German radio played it when it was announced that Hitler had died. Apparently he liked it too. However, Hitler didn't listen to it with the stereo on full blast with the speakers either side of his head like I did when I was 16. Again I've never performed this (do you see a pattern emerging) but I have seen it live at least. A pupil at the school I work in was playing the cymbal part, all one note of it in the 2nd movement. Very nerve racking!!!! Seriously...imagine getting that one note wrong on the cymbals...)
Then Rite of Spring came along after a drunken night out in my first year at university when one of the third year music students took pity on me when I said I'd never heard it (and I considered Vaughan Williams to be fairly avant-garde at the time). 10 pints of Wadworths and a kebab later a gang of us were back in his room and he stuck on the Stravinsky.
It was the first time I'd even seen a cd let alone heard one (we were quite behind the times in my neck of the woods). Wow...And yes, I've not performed it.
And since then very little has changed my life, well, musically anyway. I still tend to listen to the things I listened to for pleasure years ago eg Saint-Saens and so on, plus things I've learned to love through performing eg the music of Byrd and Palestrina, Bach and Handel. But very little new music comes through to you as you get older as you're not learning new ideas, finding new paths and so on unless, like me, you're a teacher of music and not afraid to ask your pupils what they listen to. In the last 5 years I've "discovered" bands I should have been listening to for years eg Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down. And then one day I bought a cd on the off chance, having read something about the band involved in a music mag. This cd was Absolution by Muse and, for the first time in maybe 15 years, I had a revelation and my musical life was changed. I stuck the cd in the car cd player, pressed play and within 2 bars of Matt Bellamy's piano kicking in I was hooked. It gave me the same buzz, the same sense of excitement, the same sense of something new and wonderful that Liszt's Les Preludes had 20 years previously. I bought their back catologue on the basis of this one cd and was not disappointed. And live they are BRILLIANT.
I'm waiting for the next piece to of music to change my life. Any style, any era, I'm waiting...
You had to turn over the 78 as the piece lasts longer than the 3 minutes per side available. Despite the tinny quality to the sound reproduction, and the fairly shonky performance, I loved it. It sort of started my interest in music which took off when I started the piano at the age of 10. I've recently rediscovered a 78rpm version of this piece when teaching my AS class about early sound recording and reproduction. If you want to listen to it click HERE. There's a crazy gramophone shop in Edinburgh called The Gramophone Emporium, on St Stephen Street in Stockbridge, where the owners and clientele will wax (if you pardon the unintentional early recording technique pun) lyrical about these early recordings by Sir Thomas Beecham amongst others.
The next piece which really blew me away was Liszt's symphonic poem Les Preludes which I heard performed by my county youth orchestra in a big gala concert when I was 15. I'd never heard such fantastic music, such moving music, such sounds. I'd not been playing the double bass very long and this inspired me to get to a standard where I could play in this group. I've still never performed Les Preludes on the bass. I did get to battle my way through 1812 Overture about a year later when I was of the required standard, however.
Overhearing my music teacher playing Saint-Saens Organ Symphony to a 3rd year class when I was in lower 6th again made me reassess the music I was listening to. I rushed out to buy a pocket score (well, rushed in the sense of saved up and travelled 25 miles one Saturday to Cardiff). I loved listening to this piece. I still do and am still amazed that everything flows fromjust a couple of motifs, much in the way that Les Preludes flows from the first bar. Of course, most people now only know this piece as the loud bit was used as part of the sountrack to the film Babe. Again I've not played this one live though I was asked to be one of the piano duet part once. Anyone who knows my piano playing (ie can't do scales or indeed anything else technical, I'm better with honky tonk improvisation) will understand why I politely declined.
I got hold of Bruckner's 7th Symphony by accident when it was record of the month in the Britannia Music Club and I forgot to send back my slip saying that I didn't want it. Thank goodness I didn't. The 2nd movement, the coda of which was written as a memorial to Wagner, is awesome in the truest sense.
I only found out two months ago that German radio played it when it was announced that Hitler had died. Apparently he liked it too. However, Hitler didn't listen to it with the stereo on full blast with the speakers either side of his head like I did when I was 16. Again I've never performed this (do you see a pattern emerging) but I have seen it live at least. A pupil at the school I work in was playing the cymbal part, all one note of it in the 2nd movement. Very nerve racking!!!! Seriously...imagine getting that one note wrong on the cymbals...)
Then Rite of Spring came along after a drunken night out in my first year at university when one of the third year music students took pity on me when I said I'd never heard it (and I considered Vaughan Williams to be fairly avant-garde at the time). 10 pints of Wadworths and a kebab later a gang of us were back in his room and he stuck on the Stravinsky.
It was the first time I'd even seen a cd let alone heard one (we were quite behind the times in my neck of the woods). Wow...And yes, I've not performed it.
And since then very little has changed my life, well, musically anyway. I still tend to listen to the things I listened to for pleasure years ago eg Saint-Saens and so on, plus things I've learned to love through performing eg the music of Byrd and Palestrina, Bach and Handel. But very little new music comes through to you as you get older as you're not learning new ideas, finding new paths and so on unless, like me, you're a teacher of music and not afraid to ask your pupils what they listen to. In the last 5 years I've "discovered" bands I should have been listening to for years eg Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down. And then one day I bought a cd on the off chance, having read something about the band involved in a music mag. This cd was Absolution by Muse and, for the first time in maybe 15 years, I had a revelation and my musical life was changed. I stuck the cd in the car cd player, pressed play and within 2 bars of Matt Bellamy's piano kicking in I was hooked. It gave me the same buzz, the same sense of excitement, the same sense of something new and wonderful that Liszt's Les Preludes had 20 years previously. I bought their back catologue on the basis of this one cd and was not disappointed. And live they are BRILLIANT.
I'm waiting for the next piece to of music to change my life. Any style, any era, I'm waiting...
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
1 The "C" Word
In September I cannot mention the "C" word...the festive period in December...the time of midwinter celebration...you know what I'm on about? I like "that time of year" as much as anyone else and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the music involved, well, some of it. Its just that for me and folk like me (ie music teachers) it starts in August when we need to start rehearsing for it. I'm lucky that I usually manage to put it off until about mid October - ie in a week when I go back after half term - but its always there nagging in the background or lurking somewhere in the music department. Sleigh bells, cheesy slushy string arrangements, chestnuts roasting...from early October onward on TV (I have already seen a Christmas "C-word" ad on TV. 1st week of October)...at least supermarkets have the decency these days to go overboard about Halloween so at least you get "The Monster Mash" or similar for the last week of October.
But then it will be wall to wall jollity with the occasional piece of slow fluff for grandma. To be fair to all the songwriters of the 30s-50s at least their songs had some sense of longevity and were well constructed (OK, Slade are OK too). But then last year even Status Quo did one...
How the mighty have fallen.
A few years ago I was asked to present an assembly to our entire senior school (1200 11-18 year olds in a hall) about carols and then produce a cheesy "sing-along" backing track. I'm sure they were fascinated (not) by the historical perspective of the carol as a celebratory song sung to a circle dance and so on. Well, maybe not. They at least sang with gusto for a change. Still, the cheesy backing had all manner of sleigh bells and jingly synth sounds and I'm really quite ashamed of it.
However, we at least have the doyen (however it is spelled and whatever it means) of popular song composers to cut through to the heart of the matter. All power to Tom Lehrer's elbow!
But then it will be wall to wall jollity with the occasional piece of slow fluff for grandma. To be fair to all the songwriters of the 30s-50s at least their songs had some sense of longevity and were well constructed (OK, Slade are OK too). But then last year even Status Quo did one...
How the mighty have fallen.
A few years ago I was asked to present an assembly to our entire senior school (1200 11-18 year olds in a hall) about carols and then produce a cheesy "sing-along" backing track. I'm sure they were fascinated (not) by the historical perspective of the carol as a celebratory song sung to a circle dance and so on. Well, maybe not. They at least sang with gusto for a change. Still, the cheesy backing had all manner of sleigh bells and jingly synth sounds and I'm really quite ashamed of it.
However, we at least have the doyen (however it is spelled and whatever it means) of popular song composers to cut through to the heart of the matter. All power to Tom Lehrer's elbow!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)