Hear and Now - Plus Minus ensemble / Xenakis (H&N 50) - 22nd October 2011

[Guest]

Enjoyable show, I thought, but Alvin Lucier - I am sitting in a room. What happened to this? Did I miss it somehow in my obsessive concert timing?

Philip Glass: Music in Contrary Motion - Glass' name is enough to get me stabbing at the fast forward button - and the Glass piece ends around 18". I didn't listen.

Aldo Clementi: Madrigale - The Clementi piece is fun. The programme is all about repetition, I gather, and this is for tape and piano. It begins as a glittering chatter of counterpoint but, as it slows down, develops a rather slinky swing rhythm. Less than 10 minutes, it ends around 28".

Iannis Xenakis: Nomos Alpha (for 'cello and two cubes) - Pierre Strauch (cello). The Hear and Now 50 talk (mostly by a man who tells us about the music's mathemadics) begins around 29". The piece itself starts at 39:45 to 53".

Morton Feldman: Bass Clarinet and Percussion - pre-play chat from 53"; piece at 55' 00" to 1hr 14". Did anyone feel, from his responsive descriptions of the piece, that Robert Worby didn't care for this? Not unenjoyable but sounded like incidental music to an ATV thriller.

Simon Steen-Andersen: Study for String Instrument No.1 - 1hr 15" (lasts only 5 minutes). You couldn't live on a diet of it but this was a shaggily cloud of candyfloss.

Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis - This ends the show from 1hr 21". The brass writing didn't add anything much I could make out, trumping away in the background but

[Bryn]

Unfortunately the audio quality via the iPlayer is dire (56kbps HE-AAC). Pre-Hear is at 320kbps AAC-LC!

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Unfortunately the audio quality via the iPlayer is dire (56kbps HE-AAC).

You're right Bryn. I've emailed hearandnow@bbc.co.uk to complain - is it likely to have any effect?

[hackneyvi]

Unfortunately the audio quality via the iPlayer is dire (56kbps HE-AAC). Pre-Hear is at 320kbps AAC-LC!

Dear Bryn, it's wonderful that this issue arose because it means you've mentioned Pre-Hear. I'd completely forgotten it was on and therefore that it included Rebecca Saunders' violin concerto.

I loved the violin whispers that the H&N iPlayer recording started with but just ignored them and went digging for H&N itself. I'd have missed it but for your mention. Every cloud has a silver lining!

[Bryn]

You're right Bryn. I've emailed hearandnow@bbc.co.uk to complain - is it likely to have any effect?

I have reported the problem via the horribly convoluted iPlayer "Contact Us" system, and also emailed both the Hear and Now team and Robert Worby. We can but hope. Robert is certainly on the case, but who knows whether the iPlayer team will respond positively within the next 4 days?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I've had a reply from Philip Tagney saying they're getting it sorted out - and it seems to be at a much higher bit rate now, c 320Kbps is my estimate.

[Bryn]

Indeed. Thanks S's C. 320kbps AAC-LC it now is. Let's hope next Saturday's, which includes a brief extract from a recording I made in 1984, gets the HD Sound treatment too.

[Serial_Apologist]

The sound on tonight's Bartok concert was just terrible. The opening and closing passages of the piano concerto slow movement totally inaudible. I could have started a separate thread on this, but thought someone else might have... so, sorry to interrupt the flow...

[Bryn]

The sound on tonight's Bartok concert was just terrible. The opening and closing passages of the piano concerto slow movement totally inaudible. I could have started a separate thread on this, but thought someone else might have... so, sorry to interrupt the flow...

No such complaint re. the audio engineering tonight from me. I thought the extreme pianissimo at the opening of the night music second movement's night music beautifully clearly captured. There again, I was listening via the iPlayer's HD Sound option, on headphones and in a quiet environment.