Goehr

[ardcarp]

Anyone hear Alexander G. on Music Matters today?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018smp9

[Ed: This is the new Music Matters http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qjf43 . ardcarp's is an earlier programme with one section about AG - ff]

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I started the Alert thread to discuss this important programme.

[Beef Oven!]

Anyone hear Alexander G. on Music Matters today?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018smp9

Is it available on iPlayer? I missed it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Is it available on iPlayer? I missed it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qjf43

[french frank]

Very thought provoking on several counts. Interesting man.

(I have a long letter he wrote on the subject of R3 - but that's another matter … )

[Serial_Apologist]

Very thought provoking on several counts. Interesting man.

(I have a long letter he wrote on the subject of R3 - but that's another matter … )

Ardcarp's link is to an earlier interview, I see.

[Beef Oven!]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qjf43

Thanks very much.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks very much.

The Goehr section on ardcarp's 2012 link starts 30 minutes in.

[french frank]

Ardcarp's link is to an earlier interview, I see.

It is - I will amend it.

[french frank]

Wonderful, down-to-earth sense of humour. [Loved the bit about not demanding anything of students - except that they turn up …] But thoughts on Boulez were revealing. I think I find AG's perspective more appealing.

Btw, this is surely sets a high standard for Music Matters - 45 minutes on one subject, which it needs to do justice.

[french frank]

'Scuse my ignorance. But once you've downloaded a podcast, does it last for ever or only while the programme is on the iPlayer?

[Bryn]

'Scuse my ignorance. But once you've downloaded a podcast, does it last for ever or only while the programme is on the iPlayer?

As far as I am aware there is no DRM on BBC radio podcasts. They are just low data rate mp3s IIRC.

Just checked. In this case it's a 128kbps joint stereo mp3.

[Serial_Apologist]

Wonderful, down-to-earth sense of humour. [Loved the bit about not demanding anything of students - except that they turn up …] But thoughts on Boulez were revealing. I think I find AG's perspective more appealing.

Btw, this is surely sets a high standard for Music Matters - 45 minutes on one subject, which it needs to do justice.

For me Goehr always sets the standards and values, musical and ethical I suppose, for want of a less self-important term, that I find myself going along with. But there is one remark in this interview which has really set me thinking and made me wonder if I have been mistaken in my appreciations of modern music in one important way, and that is where he spoke of his disagreements with the Messiaen/Boulez appraisal of different aspects of works by particular figures as either being of worth, and worthy of following, or of no worth. Frankly this has largely been the way I see many composers' music; for instance it's what leads me to reject the sugary and the bombastic in Messiaen's works from the 1940s, for instance, or the surface prominence I find in much of Neo-classical Stravinsky, while being less harsh on composers in whom I am prepared to take what I consider their creative downsides, seeing any negative traits as minor blemishes among otherwise great achievements - whereas (unless I am misunderstanding him here) Goehr is probably correct in saying one should see all their work as a totality with inseparable aspects.

[Tony Halstead]

Wonderful, down-to-earth sense of humour. [Loved the bit about not demanding anything of students - except that they turn up …] But thoughts on Boulez were revealing. I think I find AG's perspective more appealing.

Btw, this is surely sets a high standard for Music Matters - 45 minutes on one subject, which it needs to do justice.

Yes you are absolutely right, Sandy G has a wonderful down-to-earth sense of humour.
I experienced this first-hand when I played in the premiere of his Sinfonia, written for the ECO in or around 1980.
The conductor was Daniel Barenboim.
At the first rehearsal I found myself suffering from 'lip fatigue' owing to the very high and rather sustained (many long notes) horn writing.
During the interval break I spoke with Sandy about this. He was very kind and understanding, saying that I wasn't to worry, he would 'make some changes'.
At the next day's rehearsal he gave us the revised horn parts (this was the day before the concert at the Royal Festival Hall, recorded by the BBC) .
He had re-composed the horn parts so that they were no longer 'high and sustained' but 'high and super-active'....!
Lots of semiquaver 'scurrying around' in the high register. OMG we really needed to have had a few weeks' notice of this - for practice purposes!

In the concert ( I hope I can say this) I think we 'brought it off OK' !
Since then I have wondered whether the Sinfonia has had many other performances...? It certainly deserves to as it is a wonderful piece.

[ardcarp]

or the surface prominence I find in much of Neo-classical Stravinsky,

I follow the drift of your argument in #13 SA, but am struggling with 'surface prominence'. How does this apply to (for instance) The Symphony in C, Pulcinella or L'Histoire du Soldat? Does it imply superficiality?