Open Ear; H&N, Sat, 15/9/18; 10:00pm

[Quarky]

As an habitual ghetto-ee, I resent the implication that we are in some way inferior to mainstreamers! Equal rights for ghetto-ees!

The issues are well-known, and I can't see any alternative to a specialist programme. Jazz, Early Music fit quite naturally into a mainstream programme (assuming careful selection), in fact they improve matters. But so much of contemporary music requires a complete change in aural coordinates, it's a bit much to ask of the average ear of the Classical follower.

[Beef Oven!]

The issues are well-known, and I can't see any alternative to a specialist programme. Jazz, Early Music fit quite naturally into a mainstream programme (assuming careful selection), in fact they improve matters. But so much of contemporary music requires a complete change in aural coordinates, it's a bit much to ask of the average ear of the Classical follower.

I think there's a binary-choice with this. Specialist programmes, or mainstreaming. Much contemporary music does, as you say, require a complete change in aural coordinates and is a challenge to the common or garden 'classical follower'. We can either 'wean' the audience or continue with the self-fulfilling prophecy. In my mind it's pretty straightforward.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Was this "experimental" music ?
(I didn't listen to it so not sure)

No, not really - some improvisation involved (particularly the two Sarah Angliss sets), but mostly works each of which will sound fairly similar in different performances, and by different performers.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As an habitual ghetto-ee, I resent the implication that we are in some way inferior to mainstreamers! Equal rights for ghetto-ees!

Oh, I've been with H&N from the go-ghetto.

The issues are well-known, and I can't see any alternative to a specialist programme. Jazz, Early Music fit quite naturally into a mainstream programme (assuming careful selection), in fact they improve matters. But so much of contemporary music requires a complete change in aural coordinates, it's a bit much to ask of the average ear of the Classical follower.

My problem with this argument is that I believe that R3 should make "big asks" of its listeners - even (?"especially"?) those with "average ears". Not all the time, but regularly - I see it as part of the BBC remit to make cultural developments in the Arts known to audiences regardless of whether or not they "enjoy" such encounters. Had the current "preaching to the converted" scheduling policy been in place in the '70s when I was a teenager, I would never have heard Berio, Boulez, Stockhausen, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies. (A radio on at that time of night - even playing Mozart - wouldn't've been allowed in the parental home.)

Besides, there should be such programmes if only to "balance" the oceans of tad mediocrity that's broadcast during the morning schedules!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, impossible to say without comparison how the radio picked up the effects in the Languillat. I’m not sure that the full on attack and intensity that ferney referred to came over, but in any case I though it was the outstanding piece on the programme, (pr possibly one of two)although I may have missed the odd thing at the end. In retrospect, the repetetive attack put me in mind a bit of Glenn Branca ( well ,the little I know) which is no bad thing.

Well, that would certainly be a major turn-off for me!

By neat coincidence, as I was writing up the details of next week's H&N (and getting several of 'em wrong ) the current issue of Tempo arrived in the post. There is a review by Robert Barry of this very concert which (whilst neglecting to mention the names of either the work or the composer!) contains these comments:

But it was pianist Gwen Rouger who stole tonight's show. Dressed all in white like the nuns in Jerzy Kawalerowicz's classic (1961) film "Mother Joan of the Angels", she hunched over the keyboard, rocking back and forth, shoulders shaking, as if, herself, possessed. A thunder of quarter notes, hammered at speed and high volume, mostly at the extremes of the piano, spilled forth, sounding more like a Glenn Branca electric guitar symphony or the industrial electronics of Einsturzende Neubauten than most piano repertoire. By the end of the piece, the sustain pedal now permanently depressed, the quavers blurred into a dark cloud, pregnant with rain, which continued to resonate for a full minute after Rouger's fingers left the keys.

So, of you ever get fed up of working in publishing, ts, a new and glowing career in Music Journalism awaits!