What was your last concert?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But it really is Hauser, right? - as in your heading.

Ye, it i

Thanks for the HCMF reports, I've only just come across them, most interesting.

A couple more to come - wait'll you hear about the balloons!

Speaking of the funding discrepancy between HCMF and other events, a friend of mine from Hamburg who runs a series of contemporary music events there (the composer Michael Maierhof, whose name you probably know, and if you don't if would be worth putting that right!) told me that his annual budget from the city was equivalent to the cost of one of the windows in the Elbphilharmonie... which kind of makes me never want to go there, despite its apparently wonderful acoustics.

Interesting and sad. I do know a handful of Michael Maierhof's Splitting pieces - the one on Sebastian Berweck's "Extended Piano" CD (on HCR), and a couple on cassette from H&N broadcasts from fifteen years or so ago (and which I haven't played in nearly ten). I see a ridiculously inexpensive MP3 is available - I'll double the number of works of his I know tomorrow.

[Richard Barrett]

A couple more to come - wait'll you hear about the balloons! (...) Interesting and sad. I do know a handful of Michael Maierhof's Splitting pieces - the one on Sebastian Berweck's "Extended Piano" CD (on HCR), and a couple on cassette from H&N broadcasts from fifteen years or so ago (and which I haven't played in nearly ten). I see a ridiculously inexpensive MP3 is available - I'll double the number of works of his I know tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy them. Coincidentally Michael M is no stranger to the use of balloons as instruments. Some of the stories I heard about the Elbphilharmonie while it was still being built were as eyebrow-raising as the windows - many tales of shady dealings as it soared over budget by a factor of ten: "The cost that the taxpayer has had to foot for the project has also risen from an initial projection of €77 million to €789 million. A parliamentary investigation into the project in 2014 found that planners had spent almost €300 on each toilet brush and that paper towel dispensers cost €957 each." (thelocal.de)

[EdgeleyRob]

Latest Salford freebie today (live on Radio 3)

David Matthews: Sinfonia
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
David Matthews: A Vision of the Sea

Ruby Hughes (soprano)
BBC Philharmonic
Jac van Steen (conductor)

Kindertotenlieder is not a work I know well,Ruby Hughes voice sounded a bit feeble in the studio but I have just listened again on I player,voice and orchestra sounded perfect.
Highlight was A Vision of the Sea,I have taken the trouble of quoting some our Jayne's comments on the premier of the work at the 2013 Proms

Well, I listened again to David Matthews' A Vision of the Sea. I was almost ashamed at how much I had missed in it the first time. It has a craggy, wild beauty and much orchestral colour of a subtle originality, an evocation with at least as many natural and elemental presences above (and maybe below) the waves as human ones floating upon them. I loved the way those Herring Gulls run through the piece like a motif, raucously calling our attention to the start of a shadowy, atmospheric coda which at first made me think of darkness falling on an ebb tide, but climaxes with a sunrise, the blaze ending abruptly, like a directorial "cut!". (Would the composer mind if I think of the coda as a "Night Tide and Sunrise"?)
I could almost say that this coda, marvellously unexpected as it steals in, is the point of the piece - changing your view of all that's gone before. But you'll have to hear it to appreciate that, won't you?
Yes, it will sound better when the BBCPO (or any orchestra) play its solos with a tighter confidence, and find a more virtuoso orchestral abandon. It could really sweep you away then.

But - so much for the poor words; I urge anyone who loves music to listen to it.

I hope you are well Jayne and manage to listen,this was the virtuoso performance you wished for I think.
Mr Matthews was there too,managed to grab a handshake,marvellous.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I hope you enjoy them. Coincidentally Michael M is no stranger to the use of balloons as instruments.

I've been enjoying the Maierhof works - more so, in fact than I'd remembered; I suspect that I'm more aesthetically "ready" for the Music than I was when I last heard it.
Interesting if not surprising to hear that he has used balloons - I presume of the "party"-type, rather than a sort-if greener version of the Helicopter String Quartet?

Some of the stories I heard about the Elbphilharmonie while it was still being built were as eyebrow-raising as the windows - many tales of shady dealings as it soared over budget by a factor of ten: "The cost that the taxpayer has had to foot for the project has also risen from an initial projection of €77 million to €789 million. A parliamentary investigation into the project in 2014 found that planners had spent almost €300 on each toilet brush and that paper towel dispensers cost €957 each." (thelocal.de)

Sad, petty corruption. Puts the Huddersfield budget into an almost heroic light. With a budget of something that'd leave the Elbphilharmonie hands wet, the variety of events looks even more remarkable - in addition to the 48 performance events, ten public discussions with composers, writers, and practitioners, and an exhibition in the Art Gallery retrospective of the work of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio, there were also eleven separate "Learning & Participation" projects (workshops, demonstratings, masteclasses, and educational work) ongoing through most/all of the Festival (I wasn't exactly over-excited by hcmf//in Lego, but you can't have everything - and I don't think it deprived the University of even a single loo brush from Aldi to fund).

Particularly impressive was a Primary Schools project based on Universal Edition's series of New Music for use in classrooms Music for Young Players from the 1970s. Directed by composer Duncan Chapman (whom some of us know on this Forum), six local primary schools (looking about KS2 age - so about 8 - 10-ish) worked with composers Julian Brooks, Eleanor Cully, and Tom Lawrence from Sound & Music using the original graphic and text scores as the bases of their performances and as instigators in works of their own.

The largest audience - and the most diverse in terms of age and ethnicity - of this year's Festival, it was also one of the most moving events in a year that has seen of the most exciting Festivals of the twenty-three that I have attended. The concentration and co-operation of the kids was exactly what one hopes to achieve from education, but which is so often absent - one of the pieces (Hugh Shrapnel's Raindrops from 1970) involved the kids being split into several smaller groups scattered around the Hall, and seeing one trio working a few feet from me revealed eye contact, encouraging nods to each other, and constant referring back and forth from instrument to other performers that had also been a feature of the best professional ensembles performing at the Festival. With such performers, it would be invidious to attempt to single out individual works or groups that were particularly successful - but, as was pointed out in the programme, Poppy Tedder's conducting of Julian Brooks' Soundsnakes was admirably clear and confident, and contributed to the success of one of the more outstanding pieces and performances in the evening.

Each of the individual schools involved performed two pieces (sometimes working in partnership with one of the other schools involved in the project) and the concert culminated in a tutti perofrmance of David Bedford's 1973 Balloon Music 1 - two hundred primary school kids each armed with a balloon - very brave these Music educators! Some of the Music performed was of a very high level of intricacy that really challenged the performers in the best senses of the word. I was - and remain - humbled in my respect for everyone - the composers, the class teachers, Duncan, and, of course, the kids themselves - who helped ensure that they relished the challenge and met them with such creative aplomb.

[Ferretfancy]

Yesterday was the centenary of Finnish independence , and was celebrated at the Royal Festival Hall, I think most of the Finnish population of London were there.

It was,naturally, an evening of Sibelius with the Philharmonia conducted by Esa-pekka Salonen, comprising Finlandia, the Violin Concerto and the Four Lemminkainen Legends

Vilda Frang was the soloist in one of the finest performances of the concerto I have ever heard, well nigh flawless in both technique and feeling. I was told afterwards that she was very unwell with a feverish cold, you would not guess this from the magic of her performance.

The orchestra were on their very best form, particularly in the Lemminkainen Legends. I know the work well and treasure the CDs with Alexander Gibson, but I have never heard a live performance of all four. It does seem a little long in places, but the orchestration is terrific. If there's a better cor anglais player than Jill Crowther I would like to hear her.

This was an exceptional evening, very well received by our neighbours from Finland.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

To celebrate 6 months of living in S. Devon, Frau A, Alpensinfonietta and I went to hear an all-Russian programme by the Bournemouth SO in Exeter. A quite stunning Shostakovich 5 ended the concert.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HCMF 2017: Ensemble Grizzana; St Paul's Hall, Sun 26/11/17

My final visit to what was a quite superb Festival - usually at this time, I'm very rather tired, my brain is full, and I'm slightly grateful that I don't have to do the journey for another year. This year, I was really sorry that there was nothing else to go to - it was the most exhilarating series of concerts I can remember. As I write, a fortnight on, the buzz from the Festival is still vivid.

Two works featured in this concert, Magnus Granberg's How Vain are all Our Frail Delights, and Jurg Frey's Late Silence; both receiving their World Premieres, both based on material from Ockeghem's Deploration sur la Mort de Binchois and Byrd's Oh Lord How Vain, and both providing a perfect "easing off" from the heady pleasures of the preceding ten days.

Granberg is a composer who has fascinated me since buying the CD of his How Deep is the Ocean; How High the Sky? a couple of years ago. He is "affiliated" with the Wandelweiser group of composers, and his Music has that same sort of sense that things will happen in their own good time, and the same post-Cagean use of performing material from which the players can liberally choose how and what to play - but (as his titles often suggest) he is also interested in popular Music from the era of the Great American Songbook, which "nudges" his Music calmly along (and, in addition to the Byrd and Ockeghem material, the composer also incorporated material from Jerome Kern). It was a soothing, teasing, peaceful parade of breath-like sounds, creating its own world for the forty minutes of its existence - a world that left a feeling of depravation when it came to a close.

Frey is my favourite composer of the Wandelweiser group - he has a miraculous gift for creating single sounds that simultaneously have the "weight" to sustain interest over vast edifices of silence, but also the weightlessness to just rest on the earlobes as they occur - barely audible, rarely rising above ppp, but nonetheless captivating. It' like Fred Astaire; it seems "easy", but when you attempt it yourself ... well; you just end up flat on your backside looking a twit.

The producer of that Granberg CD, Simon Reynell, initiated this project of commissioning the two composers (both of whom played as part of the eleven-strong ensemble in both pieces) to write a work with the same "remit" completely independently of each other. He and his microphones were present - I'm hoping for a recording of the concert from his Another Timbre label before very long.


So. That's it for another year. Huge thanks to Graham McKenzie and his team for the astonishingly high amount and quality of work that they have given producing such a remarkable - invaluable - Festival. Although with a couple of weeks still left, I think I'll chance my arm and say that this was the highlight of my Music year - I'm left with a great sense both of optimism and excitement for the future of Music; and I'm eager to hear how that future develops.

[jean]

Yesterday afternoon, Stile Antico's first visit to Liverpool, and I hope not their last.

We do very well for most kinds of music here, and we do have two Cathedral choirs and a number of small amateur groups singing this kind of thing. But apart from a visit from the Sixteen on their Choral Pilgrimage, we don't get the professional groups - either British or foreign - who would show us how it ought to be done.

[Bryn]

Schott Recital Room last night, Hugh Shrapnel's belated 70th Birthday Concert

A very enjoyable evening's music making introduced )(and partly played) by Sarah Walker. A short tribute to Hugh from Keith Potter opened the second half. Many luminaries of the English Experimental Music tradition in attendance, including Sarah's colleague, Robert Worby.

[MrGongGong]

Schott Recital Room last night, Hugh Shrapnel's belated 70th Birthday Concert

A very enjoyable evening's music making introduced )(and partly played) by Sarah Walker. A short tribute to Hugh from Keith Potter opened the second half. Many luminaries of the English Experimental Music tradition in attendance, including Sarah's colleague, Robert Worby.

Sad to miss this
(but was doing South Indian lullabies with Shakuhachi and live electronics in an art gallery in Preston so a good gig as well )

Did she play Houdini Rite ?

[HighlandDougie]

Pleased to see that Andrew Clements was rather rude about last Wednesday's LSO/Rattle outing (his indifference is usually a sign that it was actually rather good). On the evidence of last night, he must have have been in a parallel universe, although I agree with him about Simon O'Neill's tone. Sir Simon had the violins stand in a semi-circle for the Metamorphosen (à la Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra), with him sort of in the middle of the musicians. If his intention was that there would be an added physical impetus to the playing, he succeeded very well. It's a difficult piece to get right - in the wrong hands it can seem over-wrought rather than elegiac but, even allowing for the Barbican acoustic, it came across very powerfully as a lament for a world which Strauss thought had been lost for ever.

The care over orchestral placing was even more evident in Das Lied von der Erde where Sir S had the double basses in a row at the back above the other musicians (where the percussion is usually to be found). Divided violins. And woodwind playing which was superlative. In fact the orchestral playing as a whole was magnificent. One simply forgot about the acoustic shortcomings of the hall as everything had a chamber-music like clarity. I suppose some people (clearly including Mr Clements) prefer a mezzo with a big voice but Christian Gerhaher brought his usual lieder-singer's sensibility and clarity of diction (as opposed to Simon O'Neill's slightly barking "pinched tone" - but the tenor always has a hard job with his songs), especially to 'Der Abschied'. It made the song even more poignant than usual. Anyway, if all Sir S's LSO concerts reach this standard, Berlin's loss is very much London's gain.

[EdgeleyRob]

Live on Radio 3 from Salford today

Steve Elcock: Choses renversées par le temps ou la destruction, Op 20
Bach arr. Reger: O Mensch, bewein' dein' Sünde gross, BWV 622
Berg: Violin Concerto
Bach arr. Elgar: Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537
Michael Barenboim (violin)
BBC Philharmonic
Moritz Gnann, conductor.

Very enjoyable afternoon.
Discovered a marvellous new English composer,heard some wonderfuly played Bach arrangements and a super rendition of the Berg vc

[Old Grumpy]

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conductor
Ning Feng violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela
Brahms Violin Concerto in D
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Alerted to this by Ning Feng's appearance on In Tune I got some tickets late on Friday. Wow - what a performance!... and a very good house. I was unfamiliar with the Bartok - glad I've now heard it. It was interesting to watch Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's acrobatic conducting style - crescendos taken from the crouching position to a full two-footed leap in the air!

OG

[Zucchini]

Well done OG. I was keen to go to that but the weather and uncertainty of public transport put me off. Ning Feng is a new name to me but reviews say that his playing and beauty of sound were a bit above superlative! Also that the orchestra stood for the Haydn at the Symphony Hall one, encores were wonderful etc.

Mirga is a wonder. I find her great to watch, the CBSO wonderfully responsive to her and the sound she's getting has become ever more beautifully balanced and transparent (I heard a magnificent and memorable La Mer before Xmas).

You should be able to get to some reviews from the CBSO twitter page. The second performance at SH is tonight of course:

https://twitter.com/TheCBSO

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/concert-review-cbso-grazinyte-tyla-at-symphony-hall-birmingham-h88rthsnh

[pastoralguy]

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conductor
Ning Feng violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela
Brahms Violin Concerto in D
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Alerted to this by Ning Feng's appearance on In Tune I got some tickets late on Friday. Wow - what a performance!... and a very good house. I was unfamiliar with the Bartok - glad I've now heard it. It was interesting to watch Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's acrobatic conducting style - crescendos taken from the crouching position to a full two-footed leap in the air!

OG

Was that at the Sage, Gateshead O.G.? I was there too. A fantastic concert. Well worth the trip and overnight stay from Edinburgh. Some of the most amazing violin playing I've EVER heard!