Last week's Hear & Now, "Scottish Inspirations", failed to inspire - it comes to something when the most interesting and freshest-sounding piece by far on a programme devoted to new Music is Oliver Knussen's Third Symphony from 40 years ago; the other orchestral works at best gave a sense of deja entendu (with one sounding so similar to the climax of the Lutoslawski 'cello Concerto that Chester Music should be claiming royalties) and at worst a disspiriting feeling of "deja deja entendu; the sense that you've previously experienced the same sense of disappointment at having previously heard a piece of Music before. Still very worth i-Playering the edition in order to hear the two works for Bass Clarinet ensembles; Isn't This a Time for quintet by Christian Wolff and Gnomen for quartet by Thanos Chrysakis, both recorded at Café Oto:
This week, there's no "Inspirations" apparently from Wales, and Amfortas' surgery means that the programme is ... erm ... cut to ninety minutes. And the BBC H&N website teasingly gives no further indication of what's going to be played, other than "including Music by Huw Watkins [b1976 in South Wales] and Ryan Wigglesworth" (b1979 in the Welsh county of ... Yorkshire).
The programme of Music from Iceland from a fortnight ago is still available on the i-Player:
... and next week's edition of H&N looks more ... well ... inspirational:
This week, there's no "Inspirations" apparently from Wales, and Amfortas' surgery means that the programme is ... erm ... cut to ninety minutes. And the BBC H&N website teasingly gives no further indication of what's going to be played, other than "including Music by Huw Watkins [b1976 in South Wales] and Ryan Wigglesworth" (b1979 in the Welsh county of ... Yorkshire).
The programme of Music from Iceland from a fortnight ago is still available on the i-Player:
... and next week's edition of H&N looks more ... well ... inspirational:
- the Beeb might have been more courteous towards Mr Lewis (and the other composers featured) if they'd actually mentioned his name on the H&N website.
But it was definitely "Music from Wales" rather than "New Music by Welsh-born Composers" (just as with the "Scottish" programme the week before). With work not only by Wigglesworth but also Goehr, neither sounding "New" (something by Daniel Jones would have sounded fresher than anything in the programme, for Bangor's sake!) nor being Welsh, the programme was a waste of time for me.
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