What was your last concert?

[eighthobstruction]

Just for those Forumistas who were unable to get tickets for this Sold-Out event - this was a terrible performance, you're really lucky not to have been able to attend.

Okay? Very good - nothing else for you to see here: move onto another Post.

Right, now they've gone - this was one of the most uplifting, moving, and optimism-boosting concerts I've ever attended. After my often rather lacklustre reactions to events in the first half of the Festival, it was a tremendous relief to be privileged to experience this performance. Completed 23 years ago, after five years in the making, this was the first public performance of Denyer's 57-minute work (the recent recording by the same performers, available on another timbre label was put together from four different sessions) - and, despite the severe "limitations" arising from the non-"standard" instrumentation (including several created/adapted by the composer himself) and from the various different tuning systems involved, the overwhelmingly positive response from the packed audience in Huddersfield Town Hall (extra seats had to be put out on the day to accommodate the demand) should - if there's any justice at all in this world - ensure that word-of-mouth reports lead to the many future performances the work deserves. To put it bluntly, it was, I felt, a major contribution to our cultural life.

Scored for around 40 performers arranged in various groupings around the hall, The Fish is a continuous sequence of Musical events/sections ranging widely in mood and scope. Music of great delicacy is answered/interrupted by moments of fury; humour by despair; terror by optimism - all cohering in a total, single Work, throughout characterised by that fusion of lyricism and ... I don't know how to describe it ... "timbral violence" (???!!! - they'll be getting me to write the Programme Booklet next year if I carry on like this!) ... that is familiar to everyone who knows any of Denyer's other work.

To pick just one of the "highlights" - about 10/15 minutes from the end, the Music is interrupted by a pair of children, singing a nursery song. They are interrupted by growling brass chords, threatening and ominous. The kids continue regardless, and gradually the aggressive material is "soothed" - but that material has "corrupted" the kids, and by the time the brass has settled down, the kids' singing had become taunting, sinister, threatening. The Turn of the Screw in 5 minutes - and making the James work seem like something by Enid Blyton!

Wow! Phew! Astonishing - and, I believe, recorded for future broadcast on R3 ('tho' not as part of the current run of New Music Show features from the Festival).

Interviewed by Robert Worby before the concert, Denyer came across as a lovely, funny, humane, insightful, and honest individual - 'though of NO use whatsoever in explaining the title of his great work! Nonetheless, for me nothing less than a milestone in my life.

....brillant, glad you got there fhg....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HCMF 2019; Jurg Frey "Grounds of Memory"; Sun 24/11/19

The Bozzini S4tet together with members of Ensemble Dedalus and Soprano Payee Chen gave this World Premiere of this 60-minute work in St Paul's Hall; settings of Emily Dickinson, together with a Haiku by 15th Century poet Arakida Moritake, and words by the composer himself.

I don't know how Frey does it - to attempt to describe this Music would give no indication of the haunting magic it creates, and would leave entirely the wrong impression of its effect. The last part, for example, is a setting of the complete Because I could not stop for Death - in which the ensemble of ten instruments whispered gentle chords and isolated notes to each other, whilst the soprano sang the whole text in a gentle monotone (at a pitch around the B in the middle of the treble staff) - and all with tender pregnant pauses between each sound. From any other composer (and Frey has many would-be imitators) this would just be a dull series of very quiet spurts of sound, leaving me wanting to scream at the singer to sing just one different pitch. But the beauty of Frey's individual sounds (together with the lovely timbre of Payee Chen's voice) just held the audience spellbound; breathlessly entranced and deeply moved. Quiet consummation - solace and ... something else. Took me from myself, and put me back in a better place.

And, whilst a "timeless" experience, I was shocked to see that the performance did indeed take just under an hour to perform: it seemed more like 40 minutes.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HCMF 2019; "Evan Parker at 75"; Sun 24/11/19

The final concert of this year's Festival was given by an ensemble of eleven players, assembled by "the greatest living saxophonist" (as Festival Director Graham McKenzie described him - irrefutably on this evidence) for a 90-minute Improvisation in Bates Blending Shed. Normally a venue I avoid (too cold, and if it rains you can't hear anything from the stage) but this was clearly going to be special, and, as it turned out, the weather smiled on the event.

Which was staggering.

The performance consisted of 7 or 8 continuous "tides" of events; each beginning quietly and gradually, inexporably surging to huge climaxes - each very different from the others, varying in length/duration and volume, and with a great variety of sounds and moods. It was a triumph, too, of co-operation; the performers clearly understanding each other, paying attention to each other, responding to each other: rarely did the whole ensemble perform as a tutti (but by 'eck! you could feel it when they did) - and Parker himself was silent for about a fifth or a qurter of the performance. But each Musician also kept their personal integrity and personalities within their contributions - I know a fair amount of Parker's work, and also that of FURT (Richard Barrett & Paul Obermeyer, who were also involved), and could clearly hear their contirbutions as being entirely of themselves with no sense of their "disguising" their characteristic voices to "fit in" with a false idea of a compromised consensus. I presume this was true of the other 8 performers, too - but the result wasn't a chaotic "jumble" of conflicting voices: more like hearing familiar voices speaking in a gathering of friends discussing a mutual point from their discrete perspectives and talents. I have never encountered this sort of co-operation before in a concert.

But in addition to this astonishing technical and personal co-operative Music-making, there was the power of the resulting piece,full of defiant optimism which simultaneously overwhelmed and empowered this listener. An unforgettable experience, for which I was fused with gratitude to have witnessed.

There could not have been a greater way to bring the Festival to a close - and just as well it did: nothing could have followed it.

[Richard Barrett]

Glad you liked it!

Speaking for myself I had the feeling of being present at some kind of milestone in the history of this music, or at least a culmination of the work this ensemble in its various lineups has been doing in the 16 years or so I've been involved with it. For me it's more a matter of sounds and forms in some kind of complex evolving network rather than of personalities in discussion (although this isn't to say I "disagree" with your description - there are probably as many equally valid ways of characterising the situation as there are listeners/participants!). A kind of "collective intelligence" comes into being, which is composing the music at every structural level as the music unfolds....

[Bryn]

Glad you liked it!

Speaking for myself I had the feeling of being present at some kind of milestone in the history of this music, or at least a culmination of the work this ensemble in its various lineups has been doing in the 16 years or so I've been involved with it. For me it's more a matter of sounds and forms in some kind of complex evolving network rather than of personalities in discussion (although this isn't to say I "disagree" with your description - there are probably as many equally valid ways of characterising the situation as there are listeners/participants!). A kind of "collective intelligence" comes into being, which is composing the music at every structural level as the music unfolds....

Are we likely to get the chance to hear a snapshot 3D aural image of it?

[Richard Barrett]

Are we likely to get the chance to hear a snapshot 3D aural image of it?

A multitrack recording was made. I shall certainly be pushing to get it out into the world in some form.

[Dave2002]

Every year, the Festival puts on free concerts throughout the Monday held at various venues around the University Campus. There are usually around 16 fixed events, each lasting about half-an-hour or so, plus three or four "fixed" features, some of them inter-active, which continue non-stop throughout the day. It is a brilliant way for people either to sample a few of the activities associated with what's today's composers and performers of New Music are doing - or to stay for the whole twelve + hours.!"

Is the date used as a header for this post a month out?

[kernelbogey]

Yesterday I went to the Wigmore Hall (for the first time in decades) to hear Beatrice Rana perform piano works by Ravel and Chopin. I have become a serious fan of hers since I acquired her Goldberg Variations disc after hearing an extract on Record Review. Somehow her interpretation speaks to me in a way that others', including Hewitt and Schiff, don't quite. I believe she is going to be a huge international star: she is 26.

Some of her rep from yesterday features in her new Warner Classics CD, which came out in October: Ravel, Miroirs, La Valse; Stravinsky, Trois Mouvements de Petrushka, and The Firebird (Guido Agosti transcription).

She also played Chopin's twelve Etudes Op25: she reportedly received rave reviews for her Carnegie Hall debut in March which included these.

She's back at Wigmore Hall on 7 February and comes to Turner Sims Southampton on 19 June.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Speaking for myself I had the feeling of being present at some kind of milestone in the history of this music

YES!!!

A kind of "collective intelligence" comes into being, which is composing the music at every structural level as the music unfolds....

A multitrack recording was made. I shall certainly be pushing to get it out into the world in some form.

- yes, please!

I should, in all fairness, have mentioned the names of all the performer/creators involved:

Evan Parker (soprano Saxophone); Richard Barrett & Paul Obermeyer (sampling keyboards); Matt Wright (laptop & turntables); Paul Lytton (percussion & analogue electronics); Sam Pluta (electronics); Mark Nauseef (percussion); Peter Evans (Trumpet); Peter van Bergen (Bass & Ab Clarinets); Sten Sandell (Piano & Synthesiser); Adam Linson (Bass & electronics).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is the date used as a header for this post a month out?

Not any more! (But yes, the date on the Header did have a "Tchaikovskian" element to it )

[MrGongGong]

Just for those Forumistas who were unable to get tickets for this Sold-Out event - this was a terrible performance, you're really lucky not to have been able to attend.

Okay? Very good - nothing else for you to see here: move onto another Post.

Right, now they've gone - this was one of the most uplifting, moving, and optimism-boosting concerts I've ever attended. After my often rather lacklustre reactions to events in the first half of the Festival, it was a tremendous relief to be privileged to experience this performance. Completed 23 years ago, after five years in the making, this was the first public performance of Denyer's 57-minute work (the recent recording by the same performers, available on another timbre label was put together from four different sessions) - and, despite the severe "limitations" arising from the non-"standard" instrumentation (including several created/adapted by the composer himself) and from the various different tuning systems involved, the overwhelmingly positive response from the packed audience in Huddersfield Town Hall (extra seats had to be put out on the day to accommodate the demand) should - if there's any justice at all in this world - ensure that word-of-mouth reports lead to the many future performances the work deserves. To put it bluntly, it was, I felt, a major contribution to our cultural life.

Scored for around 40 performers arranged in various groupings around the hall, The Fish is a continuous sequence of Musical events/sections ranging widely in mood and scope. Music of great delicacy is answered/interrupted by moments of fury; humour by despair; terror by optimism - all cohering in a total, single Work, throughout characterised by that fusion of lyricism and ... I don't know how to describe it ... "timbral violence" (???!!! - they'll be getting me to write the Programme Booklet next year if I carry on like this!) ... that is familiar to everyone who knows any of Denyer's other work.

To pick just one of the "highlights" - about 10/15 minutes from the end, the Music is interrupted by a pair of children, singing a nursery song. They are interrupted by growling brass chords, threatening and ominous. The kids continue regardless, and gradually the aggressive material is "soothed" - but that material has "corrupted" the kids, and by the time the brass has settled down, the kids' singing had become taunting, sinister, threatening. The Turn of the Screw in 5 minutes - and making the James work seem like something by Enid Blyton!

Wow! Phew! Astonishing - and, I believe, recorded for future broadcast on R3 ('tho' not as part of the current run of New Music Show features from the Festival).

Interviewed by Robert Worby before the concert, Denyer came across as a lovely, funny, humane, insightful, and honest individual - 'though of NO use whatsoever in explaining the title of his great work! Nonetheless, for me nothing less than a milestone in my life.

Really sad to have missed it... but fantastic to see Frank's work finally getting the recognition is so deserves.
He is a wonderful man with an extraordinary global musical perspective who has spent most of his life being an inspirational teacher to many.

His music is extraordinary, detailed and extremely precise with an attention to texture and rhythm that is very indeed to play (I played "shell trumpet" in the first performance of Marine Residua which I remember having really tricky rhythmic gestures that were at the far end of what was possible to notate in "conventional" notation) and draws on a lifetime of experience of many of the musics of the world.

Looking forward to the broadcast.

[MrGongGong]

My last concert was part of the Aural Diversity conference at Leicester University

a bit about the project here

http://auraldiversity.org/about.html

this was the concert

http://auraldiversity.org/concert2.html

The concert had 5 parts all of which could be listened to in the hall live, on wireless headphones (so you could control the level of the sound), in the cafe, in a room lying on a vibrating floor so you could feel the music and had the option of also listening through headphones or loudspeakers.....many of the pieces were created specially for the event (this is the second concert we have done in this way) and featured a range of performers/composers who have been exploring this field for a number of years.

Some wonderful detailed listening experiences and also one of the few opportunities that those who find "normal" concerts impossible to go and listen to music in a way that works for their particular hearing. The conference had some fascinating insights into music/musicology/audiology/aesthetics and soundscape studies .....worth keeping an eye(ear) out for future events.

[Richard Barrett]

From the sublime to the gor blimey... on Wednesday evening I had a chance to go and see Laibach, and, remembering the enthusiasm of ex-member and fervent Corbynista (I think I have that right) Beef Oven, I decided to go along. Well it isn't for the easily offended, that's for sure. The first half was Laibach's take on a selection of songs fromThe Sound of Music, which I'm not sure I'd have believed if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes; and the second half was a return to their more familiar fayre of rather interesting complexly layered sound-textures, growled vocals and a video backdrop swerving between Nazi, Soviet and North Korean imagery and hardcore pornography. The "message" of all this is (no doubt intentionally) highly confusing, but the musicianship is clear, and I ended up finding the whole package impressive, original in many different ways and memorable, in a way that occasionally hearing their records over the last 30-odd years hadn't prepared me for.

[Serial_Apologist]

ex-member and fervent Corbynista (I think I have that right) Beef Oven

Shurely Shome Mishtake?

[teamsaint]

From the sublime to the gor blimey... on Wednesday evening I had a chance to go and see Laibach, and, remembering the enthusiasm of ex-member and fervent Corbynista (I think I have that right) Beef Oven, I decided to go along. Well it isn't for the easily offended, that's for sure. The first half was Laibach's take on a selection of songs fromThe Sound of Music, which I'm not sure I'd have believed if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes; and the second half was a return to their more familiar fayre of rather interesting complexly layered sound-textures, growled vocals and a video backdrop swerving between Nazi, Soviet and North Korean imagery and hardcore pornography. The "message" of all this is (no doubt intentionally) highly confusing, but the musicianship is clear, and I ended up finding the whole package impressive, original in many different ways and memorable, in a way that occasionally hearing their records over the last 30-odd years hadn't prepared me for.

Interesting thoughts. Because Beefy is so enthusiastic, I have given their records a decent listening to, and I never got it at all really. It sounds as if the live package is the way in though.
Possibly not one for a first date though ?


My last concert was pretty unremarkable, though enjoyable enough.
Philharmonia playing Dvorak 9 and the Mendelssohn E minor VC , Esther yoo soloist,and Ashkenazy doing conducting .

All very enjoyable Friday night stuff, but not perhaps to live very long in the memory . I was going to say that I heard Isabel Faust play the concerto in sensational style in the same venue a couple of years ago, but it turns out it was 6 years ago. Blimey !!!

I do have to say that, whatever his stylistic limitations, Ashkenazy’s on stage demeanour wins me over every time.