Moral Maze - British Places : Better Represented By Classical Music Than Other Forms

[vinteuil]

When is Portugal Portugal?

... a portuguese guitar -

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_guitar

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is similar to but not the same as an english guitar -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_guitar

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU-Z0SiQKgU

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[Richard Tarleton]

So going back to your start

I present this

and this place

Mr G, you've reminded me of a related discussion we had a few months back on the BAL: Tapiola thread....jayne referred to La Mer here....

There was much discussion on that thread between people who saw scary pine forests, and people who just heard music. Vints's and ferney's ##91 and 93 on that thread also refer.

[Richard Tarleton]

... a portuguese guitar -

Fascinating how such different instruments (and musical traditions) have evolved alongside eachother...did you hear EMS on Sunday?

Citterns always make me think of bitterns

[french frank]

Citterns always make me think of bitterns

It's those booming bass strings!

[vinteuil]

...did you hear EMS on Sunday?

... missed it (on way back from hols).

But I like this chap -

http://amzn.eu/0hkUzIL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Caldeira_Cabral

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3hxxl--zL4

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[Richard Barrett]

But I like this chap -

http://amzn.eu/0hkUzIL

Thanks for that, vinteuil, the Portuguese guitar is one of my favourite sounds.

[Lat-Literal]

... a portuguese guitar -

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_guitar

.
is similar to but not the same as an english guitar -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_guitar

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU-Z0SiQKgU

.

.

Portugal Portugal in a music context would be Portuguese music that depicted the country of Portugal and/or places in it.

Whereas (one) Portugal or Portuguese in the same context would be simply music from Portugal without that connotation.

That was what I had in mind at the time and it was I think provided as an example. I could have phrased it more clearly.

But, yes, I think you got that and I do take the point you are making. It is good of you to respond in an informative way.

[MrGongGong]

RVW never went to Antarctica
but Max did

How is that reflected in their respective symphonies ?

[Lat-Literal]

Slightly off-topic (British Places) but I see we've already got to Portugal, Spain and Italy...

I've always loved the story of a visitor to Ainola walking with Sibelius in the grounds and suddenly bringing a passage of S's music (part of a symphony IIRC) to mind. On being told of this Sibelius said they were actually on the spot where he'd conceived it.

Love the story - just wish I knew whether to find it deeply significant or merely a sweet coincidence...

Anyone have any similar stories to 'help my unbelief'??

It is a good story and I don't have anything similarly specific. But I would see two things there. One, it could have been a meeting of minds - that what inspired the one was felt by the second at that moment with reference to environmental context and knowledge of the music. Two, the broader synchronicity angle which can go a long way beyond music and seem either coincidental or deeply other worldly. Some of the latter may be best left to the likes of Icke - invisible wavelengths etc - but seeing that when it happens it often comes in clusters one might talk to some extent about connections made at times of change and perhaps heightened awareness. Not that it ever fully explains but if it did there would be no gaps.

RVW never went to Antarctica
but Max did

How is that reflected in their respective symphonies ?

This raises an additional question. Is knowing or visiting a place essential?

Villa-Lobos claimed he spent decades on adventures in Brazil's "dark interior" but few believed him at least on the extent of it so who is to say re "Amazonas" etc? RVW's was for the most part originally for "Scott of the Antarctic" so there is the possibility for channelling what is known of storybook depictions or film music or even certainly many years later what would be commonly recognised as a glacial soundscape. The latter is arguably especially fascinating because we all think we know what for example the sea in music sounds like but for a composer to provide something that sounds completely different and is yet still recognisably the sea - well, that is a huge challenge with the potential for considerable achievement.

[MrGongGong]

This raises an additional question? Is knowing or visiting a place essential?

To me it is.

I know one electroacoustic composer who lives in a fairly remote cottage on the edge of a forest in Scotland. When he was commissioned to make a piece for voice and recorded sounds (what old folks used to call "tape") for a festival in North Wales based on a Welsh myth he went all the way to Anglesey to record the sound of a stream. There is a rather lovely one at the end of his garden. For some folks, the idea of provenance is very important.

On the other hand, I know another composer who composes pieces starting from looking at photographs of places she has never been to nor intends to visit.

[Lat-Literal]

To me it is.

I know one electroacoustic composer who lives in a fairly remote cottage on the edge of a forest in Scotland. When he was commissioned to make a piece for voice and recorded sounds (what old folks used to call "tape") for a festival in North Wales based on a Welsh myth he went all the way to Anglesey to record the sound of a stream. There is a rather lovely one at the end of his garden. For some folks, the idea of provenance is very important.

On the other hand, I know another composer who composes pieces starting from looking at photographs of places she has never been to nor intends to visit.

So you are suggesting it differs from person to person and as with life wouldn't that just be the case!

I think I am more for the first than the second of the people you mention but not, actually, on the point of visits per se. Right back to the age of seven or something, I'd write what seemed rather visual in its way but I will never forget the day we all had to take a picture out of a box and write about that picture. My mind went blank. In other words, to write about France when one hasn't been to France. It is very possible with all the stuff acquired earlier but a picture of Paris is so blunt and stark it is confining. Do people see the sea in a sea symphony? Perhaps they do as if there is a photograph in front of them but I would have thought that any seeing is not ostensibly visual but rather about feeling it atmospherically.

To be told that a chap went to Anglesey to produce music for a Welsh myth. One might listen to it and say "yes, it is obvious he went there". Whether the woman who produces music from a photograph is at any disadvantage I don't know but in respect to her I have never heard anyone say about a piece of music that it sounded like it was only based on a photo.

[Lat-Literal]

Well, I've mentioned Wiltshire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3I7JMkK6bI

This is good:

"This is hard to talk about. The idea of modern music when I was a kid, particularly in England, was something which reflected landscape. In the case of Elgar, I think that that’s something that has been imposed on it, it’s English so this is what landscape sounds like – but in fact a landscape doesn’t sound like anything". (Sir Harrison Birtwistle, 2009)

https://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/delayed-post/

There is something individually organic about Birtwistle - it can be like a musical version of the I-Spy books - butterflies, birds, archaeology, and had there been such editions, the elements, even metal and wood. Is it British? I think it is so given the often considerable use of brass. And while it isn't Empire, it possibly denotes in a post-modern sense something of a time when early history and even universal truths could be felt as in our command because of industrialization. It is not "The Hay Wain" and certainly it will last. He's a key figure.

Generally, it seems to me that we are all mostly agreeing that the urban doesn't fare well in British classical music, nor even perhaps a sense of technological and geographical travel. Because of a longer time context and more scientific leanings, does Birtwistle ever produce the equivalent to a Turner train which is wholly set in contrast with the ruralism immediately pre-dating it? In fact, did anyone? The peace and any accompanying unease or malaise in the early 20th Century composers was surely based upon concepts of war rather than the perceived threat of technological advance. As for any great lost past, I am not sure they strike me quite in that way. In the present day, they can be a call from the city to the hills.

Silbury Air and Solsbury Hill

For what it is worth I found this track which I later loved disturbing when it was first released because I always felt the "boom, boom, boom" in it, Basil Brush aside, as a race in my pulse. It had the power of triggering it. Anxiety essentially while stateside "Hotel California", a song which was in the UK around the same time (and has recently been spoken about by Brexiteers as being about EU membership), was felt literally as a nauseous drop in the stomach whenever I heard it. The depressive aspect not that I would have used either word then. For decades it was impossible for me to listen to it. Gabriel's is about letting go apparently although it seemed oblique. And here one does have the city light in view at a distance. Its best word today is, of course, "net". In contrast, the Hotel - at best sleazy - is just one of so many American popular song establishments. Still, it is interesting given the size of the US that it was that which underpinned a sense of claustrophobia and not the one from what was to become Uncle World Pete in little ole England. The only reason for this I can think of is the cultural contrast. And a part of that may have been the early 20th Century romanticism here in a lot of art - more sketching and "poetting" than land as to conquer with hard graft.

Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OO2PuGz-H8

[vinteuil]

Well, I've mentioned Wiltshire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3I7JMkK6bI

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Silbury Air and Solsbury Hill

Silbury Hill is of course in Wiltshire; Solsbury Hill is in Somerset...

[Lat-Literal]

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Silbury Hill is of course in Wiltshire; Solsbury Hill is in Somerset...

Yes indeed.

Gold Hill is in Dorset.

Dvorak never went there although the advertisers did and for them it was up north.

From memory, for Margaret Thatcher on DID the piece of music in question evoked returning from the Falklands War.

Not too sure where we are now.

Actually, I think I know where I would like us to be. I'd like classical music on cities and towns outside London.

[cloughie]

Yes indeed.

Gold Hill is in Dorset.

Dvorak never went there although the advertisers did and for them it was up north.

From memory, for Margaret Thatcher on DID the piece of music in question evoked returning from the Falklands War.

Not too sure where we are now.

Actually, I think I know where I would like us to be. I'd like classical music on cities and towns outside London.

Mozart in Paris, Prague or on Jupiter? Haydn in Paris and London? ...and no Holst didn't go to.......
RVW did have the Westminster Carillon on his Sym 2!