Bastard Assignments - Hear & Now, Sat. 24th Sept, 2016 - 10:00pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A full two hours of "legit" H&N content this week - Tom McKinney presents the first of two programmes from R3's anniversariat residency at the Southbank Centre. The H&N website rather coyly gives the programme the title "Sound Frontiers" ("frontiers" always makes me think of the Star Trek joke) - but the concert content is curated by Timothy Cape and Edward Henderson, who together put together the ensemble Bastard Assignments, who provide the core of the performances of vocally-centred works by themselves and Josh Spear, Phil Maguire, and Caitlin Rowley.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wr2h5

Never heard anything by these Musicians before, so I'm greatly looking forward to this!

[Serial_Apologist]

A full two hours of "legit" H&N content this week - Tom McKinney presents the first of two programmes from R3's anniversariat residency at the Southbank Centre. The H&N website rather coyly gives the programme the title "Sound Frontiers" ("frontiers" always makes me think of the Star Trek joke) - but the concert content is curated by Timothy Cape and Edward Henderson, who together put together the ensemble Bastard Assignments, who provide the core of the performances of vocally-centred works by themselves and Josh Spear, Phil Maguire, and Caitlin Rowley.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wr2h5

Never heard anything by these Musicians before, so I'm greatly looking forward to this!

Nor me neither.

I note that the programme also includes music from the 1960s by Harry, Liz and Max , so I guess we have to just keep guessing as to what.

[ahinton]

Nor me neither.

I note that the programme also includes music from the 1960s by Harry, Liz and Max , so I guess we have to just keep guessing as to what.

I can see that this might invite the ire of some who (perhaps understandably) believe that Hear & Now should broadly exclude There and Then (especially when the "then" is half a century or so ago), but...

[Serial_Apologist]

I can see that this might invite the ire of some who (perhaps understandably) believe that Hear & Now should broadly exclude There and Then (especially when the "then" is half a century or so ago), but...

... a lot of what I hear these days on Hear and Now sounds to me a lot more There and then than the music Messrs Maxwell Davies, Lutyens and Birtwistle were actually composing there and then!

But who am I to say what is "modern" (he said as he re-positioned his imitation Heppelwhite computer chair).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... a lot of what I hear these days on Hear and Now sounds to me a lot more There and then than the music Messrs Maxwell Davies, Lutyens and Birtwistle were actually composing there and then!

- which is why I'm glad that this programme doesn't seem on the face of it to be one of those "lots".

[Daniel]

- which is why I'm glad that this programme doesn't seem on the face of it to be one of those "lots".

In what I heard of Bastard Assignments I didn't detect too much 'there and then' about it.

I thought the first piece played, No New Ideas by Timothy Cape, in which a Beckett influence could be heard, was the most promising - the sort of piece that can sneak up on meaning obliquely sometimes (though perhaps that's the only way any music can do so?). I also thought the Edward Henderson idea of filtering Chris Eubanks musings through some sort of prism was potentially interesting, but to be honest none of the pieces I heard quite caught my imagination or held much substance for me. Unlike the concluding Lutyens, PMD or Birtwistle pieces, which perhaps is just an indication of my degree of superannuation.

[Serial_Apologist]

In what I heard of Bastard Assignments I didn't detect too much 'there and then' about it.

I thought the first piece played, No New Ideas by Timothy Cape, in which a Beckett influence could be heard, was the most promising - the sort of piece that can sneak up on meaning obliquely sometimes (though perhaps that's the only way any music can do so?). I also thought the Edward Henderson idea of filtering Chris Eubanks musings through some sort of prism was potentially interesting, but to be honest none of the pieces I heard quite caught my imagination or held much substance for me. Unlike the concluding Lutyens, PMD or Birtwistle pieces, which perhaps is just an indication of my degree of superannuation.

Thanks for saying that, Daniel!

[Quarky]

In what I heard of Bastard Assignments I didn't detect too much 'there and then' about it.

I thought the first piece played, No New Ideas by Timothy Cape, in which a Beckett influence could be heard, was the most promising - the sort of piece that can sneak up on meaning obliquely sometimes (though perhaps that's the only way any music can do so?). I also thought the Edward Henderson idea of filtering Chris Eubanks musings through some sort of prism was potentially interesting, but to be honest none of the pieces I heard quite caught my imagination or held much substance for me. Unlike the concluding Lutyens, PMD or Birtwistle pieces, which perhaps is just an indication of my degree of superannuation.

I would like to confirm my impression of this group by listening again, but I can't bring myself to do so. I gather there is amultimedia element in these works, so that they have to be appreciated visually as well, something Radio 3 cannot do. Bastard assignments I think are best appreciated in a room upstairs in a pub, or in someone's front room. There must be a limit of what can be broadcast on a national station with a potential audience of 2 milion - this sort of thing best left to Resonance FM.

It would be nice to be cutting edge, but I can't see this fitting into the Radio 3 format - unless it goes fully internet/ digital.

P.S. Really enjoyed the Lutyens piece. So she's derivative, but who cares? A candidate for CoTW?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What's the point of being annuated if it isn't super?

I agree - as perceived through radio waves, there wasn't very much that stuck in my memory, and whilst I can think of many better things I can do in preference to listening to the performance again, I quite enjoyed the experience of hearing it "Live". It's unfair to programme Lutyens, Birtwistle and PMD immediately afterwards, and for us to deduce from that that today's composers aren't as good as those from fifty years ago: there were as many mediocre Artists in the '60s alongside those three figures - it's just that they've been filtered out over the years. (James Saunders' name was mentioned in passing during the programme - had a work of his been included, we would have heard something that could stand up even in the company of those now-established - and formerly derided and considered unworthy of BBC broadcasting - names.)

But the suggestion that this concert has no business being on R3 is wrong. If the BBC still stands by its mission to "educate, entertain, and inform", then this programme did precisely that - introducing (to me at any rate) interesting work by Musicians of which I was previously unaware - exactly what PSB should be doing+, and a balance to the television programmes devoted to equivalent figures in contemporary visual Art - or even those Horizon* programmes that feature controversial scientific ideas: not as presenting "The Truth", but making the general public aware of what might become wide-spread thinking in the future. With New ideas, the quantity of work that isn't going to make a permanent impression is bound to be greater than in broadcasts which play safe and only feature the tried and trusted. And there will be somebody listening (or even involved in the performances) whose life and ideas will be changed by the potential in such works, who will go on to refine and realize that potential in their own work.

This risk-taking, this willingness to chance occasional failure in the search for success - that is what H&N needs to be about: if it doesn't get people's goats as much as it thrills and excites what's the point?


* - in fact, Horizons might be a better name for the programme than Hear & Now. Some bright spark would probably make it "Hearizons", though.

EDIT - + = NOT just me!

[Richard Barrett]

if it doesn't get people's goats as much as it thrills and excites what's the point?

So there was a method behind the Matthews after all.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Richard Barrett]

* - in fact, Horizons might be a better name for the programme than Hear & Now. Some bright spark would probably make it "Hearizons", though.

The Deleuzians among the new music fraternity, who are many of course, might prefer Horhizomes. Actually, though, looking at how interesting the "Our Summer BaL" threads often are, there's no reason why there couldn't be a similar series here of "Horizons", given that so much material is available online and more new stuff is added all the time.

[Bryn]

Only now getting round to listening to this. Good to hear Jenni Hogan again. Last time I heard her was when she, Siwan Rhys and George Barton played Feldman's marathon For Philip Guston to close the Principal Sound weekend at St. John's, Smith Square this spring. A fine young flautist.

[Daniel]

Thanks for saying that, Daniel!

You're most welcome ... they seemed to refer more than once to their recently out of college status, and the thought occurred to me that the chasm in our ages might be translating into one of understanding. Who knows, but my boat remained resolutely docked on this occasion, sad to say.

If the BBC still stands by its mission to "educate, entertain, and inform", then this programme did precisely that - introducing (to me at any rate) interesting work by Musicians of which I was previously unaware - exactly what PSB should be doing+

I'd agree with that (though in this instance I didn't find the work that interesting), I want to hear more progs like this. Whether I like the music or not is irrelevant, it's an unholy raffle out there, but loins can be girded, I just want the opportunity to hear it.

[Quarky]

A very relevant programme:
Charlotte Higgins investigates how the BBC chose new pieces of music for performance and broadcast through its Music Reading Panel:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07y9qy7

Just wondering what sort of filter if any was applied to Bastard Assignments.