Jonathan Harvey: article in The Guardian/Total Immersion concerts

[bluestateprommer]

Link here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012...t-very-british

I wasn't aware of his motor-neuron disease situation, but from briefly meeting him in the lobby at Cadogan Hall after a 2010 Proms Saturday Matinee, it all makes sad sense now. In fact, JH was working his laptop at the very first Prom I ever attended, back in August 2008.

Are any of you guys going to the Total Immersion programs of JH's music? I guess I'll have to keep an eye on iPlayer. Hopefully JH is well enough to travel and to enjoy the concerts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/events/567

[MrGongGong]

Very sadly I've had to cancel my trip to London
but urge everyone to go ! Jonathan is a wonderful, great man and a much neglected composer who has created some of the most inspiring music I know

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Unfortunately, I believe he is unable to attend, but the BBC are arranging a direct feed of the concerts for him.

[kernelbogey]

The Guardian piece says it 'is broadcast on Radio3' - but apparently not this weekend. Does anyone have a broadcast date?

[Bryn]

The Guardian piece says it 'is broadcast on Radio3' - but apparently not this weekend. Does anyone have a broadcast date?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019pmvq

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bllzk

[kernelbogey]

Thanks Bryn - I didn't look far enough down the schedule!

[Rosie55]

A very original and imaginative composer.
I am really enjoying this profile of his work - R3 have got their act together on this, as I see he is featured on Hear and Now

[3rd Viennese School]

I'm saddend by Jonathan Harvey's condition- I had no idea.

I still play the Hear and Now with Jonathan Harvey talking about his works tombeau de Messian and Other Presences, which feaured Markus Stockhausen. And I always remember the Alwynne Pritchard Discovering Music which was Mortus Plango.

I heard the Hear and Now but I was in Victoria wetherspoons and its all a haze.

Had no idea he had written a symphony- did Radio 3 play this?

3VS

[Serial_Apologist]

Had no idea he had written a symphony- did Radio 3 play this?

3VS

He hasn't............................................ ...............has he??

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

He hasn't............................................ ...............has he??

Not to my knowledge ...

Glad to hear Madonna of Winter and Spring in particular: the fantastic Mr Brabbyns triumphs yet again! Harvey is one of those composers (Finnissy is another) whose work doesn't quite "click" with me for reasons I can't fathom: everything about it (well, with the exception of the religious aspect, but that's never a problem with Bach, Bruckner, Webern or Stockhausen) should tick all my boxes, but it just doesn't quite. I hope these broadcasts finally open the last door.

I was more enthusiastic about Babbitt's Septet But Equal on Pre-Hear: incisive, focussed, witty Music that should be heard more often. And I have very fond memories of following Harvey and Babbitt in conversation on their way to an event at the Musica Nova Festival in Glasgow, 1981: their silhouette made me wish I was a better cartoonist!

[Serial_Apologist]

I was more enthusiastic about Babbitt's Septet But Equal on Pre-Hear: incisive, focussed, witty Music

Which Jonathan Harvey's music isn't, always - though it is often witty. Harvey would himself probably be prepared to admit that his output as a whole is something of a curate's egg (pun intended).

For me it's the underlying subtext that the complex, atonal musical landscapes of the 20th century avant-gardes are more capable of expressing/reaching for the numinous than Minmalism/New Age.

[3rd Viennese School]

According to www. Jonathan Harvey wrote a symphony in 1966 that lasts 18 minutes! Formally Three Pieces for Orchestra.

I was googling, looking for the name of that discovering Music work,which I think is Other Presences.

What he says on that show about electronic Music is very interesting. "I dont know why more composers aren't excited about these new techniques! "

Makes you think.

3VS

[Rosie55]

On the theme of Harvey, a song of his appears on Hear and Now on Feb11th sung by Claire Booth and pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen from a concert I attended at the Southbank last year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bwc1x

[Boilk]

What [Harvey] says on that show about electronic Music is very interesting. "I dont know why more composers aren't excited about these new techniques! "

I agree with Harvey wholeheartedly on that. Yet very few of his own works are purely electronic! Too often he just dipped his toes in and used electronics as an aural exciter or colouristic thickener. Pure electronics can carry the musical argument very well, as he showed in Mortuos.

It's also true that purely electronic composers, even those of the highest accomplishment such as Bayle, Denis Smalley and Dhomont, are unduly marginalised figures due to the legacies handicapping our contemporary 'classical' music culture, still centred on these antiquarian entities, the orchestra and chamber ensemble.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Partly because of the transient nature of the technology, perhaps? A composer "writes" something for the latest bit of kit, only for the equipment to be out-dated within a few months and unavailable within a decade. Even when "authentic instruments" are found in an antique shop, their reliability is unpredictable and the resulting sounds sound quaintly dated (the synthie Trumpet samples in Harvey's Calling Across Time demonstrating this: can we hear these sounds without smiling?)

Meannwhile, a composer can work with such an "antiquated entity" as the Clarinetist Carl Rosman, discover new ways of working with an instrument that will still be around in future centuries, and produce a work that might inspire future performers to "find their own way" with it.