Varèse: Music for orchestra, Mon 8 May

[french frank]

Radio 3 in Concert, 7.30-10.00 From the BBCSO's Total Immersion event at the Barbican:

Varèse: Arcana
Varèse: Nocturnal
Varèse: Poème électronique
Varèse: Étude pour Espace [UK premiere of arrangement by Chou Wen-Chung]
Varèse: Déserts
Varèse: Tuning Up [arrangement by Chou Wen-Chung]
Varèse: Amériques

Allison Bell (soprano)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)

[Beef Oven!]

Thanks for the heads-up ff.

I have a ticket for the actual concert on Saturday 6th May - is anyone going to record the programme on Monday night?

I don’t have the know-how to record it and I’d love a copy (or if anyone can advise me how to record this broadcast).

Thanks

Beef Oven!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wasn't this superb!!! How I envy BeefO and anyone who was in the Hall to hear (and feel) this astonishing Music. Every time I hear Varese, his Music just gets fresher and "newer" - astonishing Music, absolutely astonishing!

I'll be returning to the i-Player several times over the next month to take it all in piece-by-piece. Wow - ah say - Wow!

[Beef Oven!]

Wasn't this superb!!! How I envy BeefO and anyone who was in the Hall to hear (and feel) this astonishing Music. Every time I hear Varese, his Music just gets fresher and "newer" - astonishing Music, absolutely astonishing!

I'll be returning to the i-Player several times over the next month to take it all in piece-by-piece. Wow - ah say - Wow!

Spot-on, fernie - it is simply astonishing that this music sounds as though it was composed last week!

It was an excellent concert and I was lucky to have had one of the best seats in the house! Alison Bell was captivatingly trance-like in her performance (visually and aurally). Too many highlights to mention.

If anyone recorded the radio broadcast, please let me know - or if anyone can explain how I can record it from iPlayer.

[Bryn]

Let's hope we get broadcasts of all the other works performed during the Total Immersion event before long. Annoying that only the first 10 minutes of the Frank Scheffer film is available on YouTube, and it's not to be found on DVD.

[Beef Oven!]

Let's hope we get broadcasts of all the other works performed during the Total Immersion event before long. Annoying that only the first 10 minutes of the Frank Scheffer film is available on YouTube, and it's not to be found on DVD.

Yes, that really is frustrating. After the immersion day I went on YouTube to see if it had been loaded up and checked Amazon et al to see if I could get the DVD.

And it put me in mind of something else that is similarly missing - some years ago there was a TV programme on Sir Reginald Goodall that among other things had some marvellous footage of the rehearsals for The Valkyrie. Most annoying that this is totally unavailable, as far as I can tell.

But I suppose we shouldn’t be too quick to moan. So much stuff is available that could only be dreamed of years ago. These days we are blessed and it’s easy to take it all for granted.

[Richard Barrett]

it is simply astonishing that this music sounds as though it was composed last week!

... or is it that most of the music that was composed last week sounds like it comes from before Varèse existed...?

[Beef Oven!]

... or is it that most of the music that was composed last week sounds like it comes from before Varèse existed...?

Sadly, your conjecture is probably accurate. But, to be fair, Varèse's music was composed with a devining ear to the future. In some ways this has held up.

However, I’m not the best judge; apart from your music and a handful of others, I mainly listen to "old-hat modern music" (my description). I hope that my intention to tune into H&N on a regular basis will help. Wild horses couldn’t drag me to Huddersfield, so that’s a non-starter!

[Bryn]

... Wild horses couldn’t drag me to Huddersfield, so that’s a non-starter!

How about a train or coach?

By the way, the Frank Scheffer film is available to Medici Premier subscribers (£12.99 a month).

[Beef Oven!]

How about a train or coach?

I was just being an arrogant London-obnoxonist. I’ve been to Huddersfield an what I saw was lovely. The people are also so much nicer than us Londoners - the real problem is that it’s over a few days and that would be quite inconvenient for me. But maybe I should make the effort next year.

By the way, the Frank Scheffer film is available to Medici Premier subscribers (£12.99 a month).

I’ve got monthly subscriptions coming out of my ear-holes! Perhaps I could join, watch the film with a few beers, then terminate my subscription within a month. I don’t think that’s unethical - no robbery in a fair exchange.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How about a train or coach?

Or Café Oto?

(Which, I've only just noticed, isn't that far from Leyton, where I lived between 1982-85 - they never had anything like that in my day!)

[Serial_Apologist]

I’ve been to Huddersfield an what I saw was lovely. The people are also so much nicer than us Londoners.

You live in the wrong part of London! My ex next-doors moved to Huddersfield 5 years ago, so as to be on hand to help care for their grandchildren, and say it's OK, apart (Jackie tells me) for "those bloomin' stubborn Yorkshiremen types, with their 'I'm a proper Yorkshireman, no pussyfooting from me, I always speak my mind" attitudes!

[Serial_Apologist]

Or Café Oto?

(Which, I've only just noticed, isn't that far from Leyton, where I lived between 1982-85 - they never had anything like that in my day!)

Well worth going to, for the musical menu - slightly tatty, naked light bulbs, much resembling the bar of the average student's union in a provincial uni, ca. 1973, furniture seemgly picked up off the local streets - the beer's a bit expensive though.

I have it on reliable information that the house piano is good - Keith Tippett said so, so it must be!

[Richard Barrett]

Wild horses couldn’t drag me to Huddersfield

In a way it's sad that London doesn't host an event like that, but on the other hand why does everything need to be only in London? Most of the headlining stuff in HCMF is for obvious reasons clustered around the weekends anyway. As for Café Oto, it's fantastic that it exists, but its programming could be regarded as somewhat exclusive, which is all very well given that it's run by a fairly small team, but if there were half a dozen or more such venues in London, like there are in most comparable cities, you'd be getting somewhere.

[bluestateprommer]

Wasn't this superb!!! How I envy BeefO and anyone who was in the Hall to hear (and feel) this astonishing Music. Every time I hear Varese, his Music just gets fresher and "newer" - astonishing Music, absolutely astonishing!

I'll be returning to the i-Player several times over the next month to take it all in piece-by-piece. Wow - ah say - Wow!

Caught this slightly (as opposed to just, FWIW) before the end of the 30-day limit a few weeks ago. Quite the event, as BeefO and fhg rightly noted, with Oramo, Alison Bell, the BBC SO and the chorus and all doing Varese's works proud. This is the kind of event that could virtually never be done on this side of the pond, except maybe by students from Juilliard, if enough from all years and levels can be put together. You guys have that luxury with the BBC orchestras and BBC patronage that we just don't have here in the US. (Also rather amusing to hear Oramo say that if they had gotten more rehearsal time, they might all have dropped dead .)