Vale of Glamorgan Festival; H&N Sat, 18/08/18, 10:00pm

[Beef Oven!]

Interesting to read your comments, as I had written that piece off, as being neither one thing nor the other.

I hadn't thought of categorising it. Anyway, as you say, it's interesting that we have very different takes on the same thing.

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting to read your comments, as I had written that piece off, as being neither one thing nor the other.

Neither of which appealed to me at all, I have to say. The style of female singing in traditional Chinese opera is fine, but in the syrupy musical context presented here the philistine "cats wailing" cliché came immediately to my mind, I fear.

[Beef Oven!]

Neither of which appealed to me at all, I have to say. The style of female singing in traditional Chinese opera is fine, but in the syrupy musical context presented here the philistine "cats wailing" cliché came immediately to my mind, I fear.

I thought the cliches were in the first Chen piece, in the first part.

I enjoyed the singing and I think it's it's unfair, insensitive and casually racist to think of this type of singing as "cat's wailing".

[Serial_Apologist]

I thought the cliches were in the first Chen piece, in the first part.

I enjoyed the singing and I think it's it's unfair, insensitive and casually racist to think of this type of singing as "cat's wailing".

It sounds fine to me in traditional Chinese opera though, and not at all resembling cats wailing in that context!

[Beef Oven!]

It sounds fine to me in traditional Chinese opera though, and not at all resembling cats wailing in that context!

Was it Dennis Healey who said 'when you're in a hole, stop digging?'

[Serial_Apologist]

Was it Dennis Healey who said 'when you're in a hole, stop digging?'

Who was it who said, "It takes one to recognise one"?

[Beef Oven!]

Who was it who said, "It takes one to recognise one"?

I thought you were against cliches!

[Serial_Apologist]

I thought you were against cliches!

Only ones without (a)cute little accents!

[Beef Oven!]

Only ones without (a)cute little accents!

It's too much faffing to all those omelettes and cicumcisions correct on my keyboard.

[Richard Barrett]

What did you think, Richard? I know Sorensen's work from various performances at Huddersfield, and have a couple of the Da Capo CDs ... I respond much more enthusiastically to his chamber/small ensemble works than to those for orchestra. The Trumpet Concerto seemed to me (on this single hearing) a bit ... well ... "Vale of Glamorgan Festival-ly".

I'm not sure what the latter is, having only attended the festival once (to see Henze conducting his Voices with the London Sinfonietta). The Escaich piece did nothing for me, I don't really see the point of this kind of anonymous orchestral virtuosity. I think I concur with you about Sørensen's orchestral music relative to his ensemble pieces. Generally his music steers a fascinatingly mysterious path between shadows of things you think you might have heard before, and things you know you've never heard the like of before, but when he's writing for orchestra his essentially tradition-bound approach tends to pull the music too far in the former direction, although in this case it was the solo part I found less imaginative than I would have liked. I'll still be looking forward to hearing what he does next, however. As for the second Chen piece (I didn't last very long with the first), I liked the singer a lot, but I thought it unfortunate that the composer seemed willing to shape the influence of Peking opera to his own purposes while keeping the Western influence firmly in cheesy and undeveloped territory. A piece like that could have been an opportunity to imagine a new "style" independent of both its points of origin, but as is often the case it didn't involve much more than a polite and picturesque "east meets west" atmosphere.

In other words, if this is "Vale of Glamorgan Festival-ly" music I agree with you about it.