Judith Weir CotW, 30/3/15

[french frank]

Week beginning Mon 30 March, daily at 12 noon and 6.30pm: Composer of the Week focuses on the life and work of the present Master of the Queen's Music, Judith Weir:
Mon: New Directions
Tues: Writing for the stage
Wed: Perspectives
Thurs: Storytelling in sound
Fri: The Composer in society

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nsbm5

(Details supplemented from R.Times, as R3 can't publish Thurs and Fri more than 7 days ahead ...)

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the alert, ff.

Not I have to say a very interesting composer, from what I've heard of her music, so I guess now or never's going to be the time to change my mind.

[StatMallard]

Distinctly underwhelmed by her arrangement of the National Anthem at the Richard III burial service in Leicester Cathedral last week. However, looking forward to broadening my knowledge, as I know very little about her.

[Stanfordian]

As a 'Composer of the Week' I must say how underwhelmed I am by Judith Weir's music.

[Roehre]

As a 'Composer of the Week' I must say how underwhelmed I am by Judith Weir's music.

I am afraid I get the same feeling

[Serial_Apologist]

As a fellow appreciator of things Zen I feel I should get along well with her, but for me there's the "so what?" feeling I get from listening to a lot of Britten, whose music hers reminds me of. And then there's that sense that every utterance seems lifted from some other piece, be it an organ piece by Langlais, a Henze opera, Tippett's Midsummer Marriage, an Eisler Brecht setting - a magpie composer whose only originality is in her ability to stick it together and, where apposite, orchestrate it rather well. I guess it's a kind of Poundbury model of acceptable modernism.

[Roehre]

As a fellow appreciator of things Zen I feel I should get along well with her, but for me there's the "so what?" feeling I get from listening to a lot of Britten, whose music hers reminds me of. And then there's that sense that every utterance seems lifted from some other piece, be it an organ piece by Langlais, a Henze opera, Tippett's Midsummer Marriage, an Eisler Brecht setting - a magpie composer whose only originality is in her ability to stick it together and, where apposite, orchestrate it rather well. I guess it's a kind of Poundbury model of acceptable modernism.

A composer in search of an own style then

[Serial_Apologist]

A composer in search of an own style then

Having just read of David Mellor's attack on her from another link, I almost feel moved to her defense!

There's nothing objectionable in her music - it's innocuous, any style whatever, in the manner of "modern sculptures" in posh shops carefully placed to lend a peripheral air of supposed sophistication.

Claims will of course be made on behalf of her music of the Royal Family's capacity for self-renewal appropriate to these democratic times... and my guessing would be that, rather than asking Prince Charles, their views will have been gauged in the aftermath of Sir Max Davies's more risky tenure.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am afraid I get the same feeling

Me, too / I also.

[ahinton]

Having just read of David Mellor's attack on her from another link, I almost feel moved to her defense!

There's nothing objectionable in her music - it's innocuous, any style whatever, in the manner of "modern sculptures" in posh shops carefully placed to lend a peripheral air of supposed sophistication.

Claims will of course be made on behalf of her music of the Royal Family's capacity for self-renewal appropriate to these democratic times... and my guessing would be that, rather than asking Prince Charles, their views will have been gauged in the aftermath of Sir Max Davies's more risky tenure.

The headline What a Mellordrama! just about sums up sheer the Daily Mailness of what follows.

The egregious "ex-Culture Secretary"'s allegation that Weir's MQM appointment exemplifies Britain's "music establishment cocking a snook at the British people" is risible, given that most British people don't give a monkeys and only a vanishingly small percentage of them would in any case be able even to tell you at any time who the post's incumbent is.

It seems remiss that no one has yet sought to put to the test his claim that he would "rather be thrown into a pit of scorpions than listen to one of Judith Weir's operas"; if only it were, that might at least provide an opportunity for The Mail on Sunday to appoint a new "classical music critic" if it really thought that it needed one.

The assertion that "the chorus of approval that greeted Weir’s appointment was solely because she was the first woman to hold the historic post" is, again, unfounded nonsense; did he ask all members of that chorus if that is the case and was he told that it was? Be that as it may (not), would he have said the same had it been awarded to Judith Bingham or Sally Beamish?

In an edition of Event magazine, we are then told, he apparently asks "rather than focus on her being the first woman to hold the post, would it not be better to concentrate on whether this is a job she is capable of doing?". That's fair enough as far as it goes, but (a) presumably whoever appointed her thought her capable of it and (b) might it not be even more to the point to consider whether the job's necessary at all?

"The Master of the Queen's Music has to musically celebrate great national events in a way the British public can relate to", says Mellor, splitting his infinitive along with his argument and failing to conceal his gaffe in implying that all of "the British public" want the same kind of music, before adding "try as I might, I find her music pretty impenetrable and, when penetrable, unrewarding"; trying as Mellor indeed is, the music' either penetrable or it isn't (or maybe sometimes it is and other times it's not), but to whom? Since when was an MQM appointed on the basis of the personal opinions of Mellor or any of his Culture Secretarial predecessors or successors? Who is he to say whether or not she can do the job, or whether someone else could do it better?

"If they can't get someone more accessible than her, maybe it's time the post was abolished", he continues; well, maybe it is, but for one thing that's not up to him and, for another, who decides – even among those who are charged with considering candidates for the MQM appointment – what is "accessible" or otherwise and, again, to whom?

The journalist goes on to explain to his readers (most of whom know nothing about MQM) that the post dates from 1626 but its precise duties are unclear; if the latter is true, on what grounds does Mellor contend that Weir's unsuitable to fulfil a post with no clear job description?

PMD is then reported as having politely but firmly berated Mellor over his remarks, adding "I could use stronger language but I don't think it would be in keeping with the dignity of the post"; as he admitted to having recommended Weir for it, one might wonder whether Mellor thought PMD was unsuitable for it as well.

The journalist's observation that Weir's "most recent opera, Miss Fortune…was panned by critics, with one branding it 'an embarrassment'" is at least mildly amusing in the light of its title, I suppose.

Weir herself is then reported as having responded that "listening is also a skill and I intend to uphold our rights to quietness and even silence, where appropriate"; somehow, I doubt that Mellor would read this as referring to anyone's rights to quietness and sinlce from him, so he wold be unlikely to take it as advice.
do
I'm no apologist for my compatriot, finding most of what I've heard of her music about as unengaging as most other members who have so far responded to this thread, but had her response to this undignified and wholly unnecessary diatribe from a comparative loud-mouthed attention-seeking ignoramus (or "former Minister of dubious merit, lacking in morals and a cringeworthily full-of-himself mediocre presenter on Classic FM", as a commentator rather better put it) by reaching for her lawyers, I would hardly have blamed her; as I remarked to a fellow composer (no names, none of the other stuff) at the time of her appointment, "steer clear - Weir here"...

I wonder what HM the Queen thought of his outburst? (assuming that she read it or was told about it – and she has a long-standing reputation for being well informed); somehow I imagine that she was not amused…

[EdgeleyRob]

I enjoyed the piano trio today.

[DracoM]

For me, a delight of a week - no warhorses, music that stimulates, intrigues, that is for me at least new and inventive. Thanks all.

[Stanfordian]

As a fellow appreciator of things Zen I feel I should get along well with her, but for me there's the "so what?" feeling I get from listening to a lot of Britten, whose music hers reminds me of. And then there's that sense that every utterance seems lifted from some other piece, be it an organ piece by Langlais, a Henze opera, Tippett's Midsummer Marriage, an Eisler Brecht setting - a magpie composer whose only originality is in her ability to stick it together and, where apposite, orchestrate it rather well. I guess it's a kind of Poundbury model of acceptable modernism.

Hiya Serial_Apologist,

I agree with your observation. I'm sad to say that Weir's music is to my ears very much without an individual voice and seems like a series of borrowings.

[ahinton]

Hiya Serial_Apologist,

I agree with your observation. I'm sad to say that Weir's music is to my ears very much without an individual voice and seems like a series of borrowings.

The sense that I invariably derive from it (or at least from such as I've heard of it) is of something waiting to happen - and waiting in vain, at that; "a series of borrowings", whilst an understandable and far from inaccurate response, doesn't quite account for the whole exWeirience, methinks. Usually, one can derive some sense of why a composer writes something - some kind of intimation of the motivation, or whatever - but in what I've heard of Weir so far, this seems largely to pass me by; I don't get that kind of thing with, say, Bingham or Beamish...