Donaueschingen 2016

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In what is billed as "the first of two programmes of highlights from this year's Festival", Tom Service introduces three works:

James DILLON: The Gates
Arditti Quartet/SWR Symphony Orchestra/Pierre-André VALADE

Michael WERTMULLER: Discorde
Steam Boat Switzerland/Klangforum WienTitus ENGEL

( Steamboat Switzerland comprises the force of a fully cranked-up Hammond organ, an E-bass distorted beyond recognition and drums as hard as nails. Driven by the highly explosive mixture of metal-riffs, contemporary sound material and free improvisation, the steamboat resolves its interfering noises into strangely moving harmonies. Watch out for the engine room which crashes, bangs and chirps quite cunningly. )

Joanna BAILIE: Music from Public Places
SWR Vokalensemble/Améi String Quartet/The Composer (electronics)/Marcus Creed (conductor)

For me a covetable programme - Dillon is always worth repeated hearings; I've lost track of Bailie's work over the past decade or so, so it will be wonderful to catch up; and Wertmuller is a composer I've not heard before. A pity it's another shortened programme; just 90 minutes this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b082k7yc

(Not sure when "Episode Two" will be broadcast - the programme on the 19th is a Live broadcast from some Festival or other in the frozen wastes of the Pennines.)

[Serial_Apologist]

V. much looking forward to this. Dillon is someone who has had a lot to say with which I have found myself strongly in agreement, in both his music and on several related subjects.

[Beresford]

Klangforum Wien sound very accomplished. They are playing at Huddersfield on 20th November, to be broadcast 17th December. I found the Wertmuller "Discorde" hard to follow - my simple mind - but I loved "Music from Public Places" by Joanna BAILIE. The iPlayer web page link says Joanna BAILLIE (sic) died in 1851 - glad she didn't.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I found the Wertmuller "Discorde" hard to follow - my simple mind

I'd've preferred Simple Minds! Quite a weak piece - and quaintly old-fashioned for what I'd expected from Donaueschingen - and it went on and on, didn't it!

- but I loved "Music from Public Places" by Joanna BAILIE. The iPlayer web page link says Joanna BAILLIE (sic) died in 1851 - glad she didn't.

Ms Baillie may well have done - who am I to question the veracity of the i-Player - but, like you, I'm very happy to hear that she's still alive, well, and active. I liked her work, too - with the slight misgiving that she seems still to be writing the same Music that she was over ten years ago.

Mr Scruton's ideas, though, certainly kicked the bucket over 150 years ago. Was he an installation piece, I wonder?

I need to catch up with the Dillon - I missed the start.

[Beef Oven!]

I'd've preferred Simple Minds!

Not the rubbish they’ve been peddling at the Hackney Empire, you wouldn’t!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b082byrv/radio-2-in-concert-simple-minds

[DracoM]

Good Grief, do you mean real and articulate people actually still inhabit up there?

[Orphical]

V. much looking forward to this. Dillon is someone who has had a lot to say with which I have found myself strongly in agreement, in both his music and on several related subjects.

a hugely enjoyable piece by Dillon, wonderful orchestral effects and textures and with that forward momentum that is so characteristic of his work.

[Quarky]

A brilliant programme - even Roger Scruton fitted in a bizarre way.

I have been searching for the source of the River Danube for some time. But to claim, as the town does, that a well in the town centre is the source, seems to me an awful cheek, when it is quite clear from the map that two smaller rivers join just west of the town, then becoming the River Danube ( Donau - shwingen, schlingen, but not quelle). I guess the tourists are happy to believe it!