Hear and Now - tonight (Sat 15 June)

[Serial_Apologist]

10.30 Hear and Now

A concert recorded at the Southbank Centre last month. Introduced by Tom Service.

Luke Bedford The Wonderful No-Headed Nightingale (first UK performance of ensemble version)

Gerard Grisey Periodes (Les espaces acoustiques)

Luke Bedford Renewal (first performance)
London Sinfonietta, conductor Sian Edwards
And in the second of four interviews with British composers celebrating their 70th birthdays this year, Gavin Bryars chats to Robert Worby.

Gavin Bryars 1,2,1-2-3-4
Gavin Bryars (double bass) Christopher Hobbs (piano) Cornelius Cardew (cello) Derek Bailey (guitar) Mike Nicholls (drums) Celia Gollin, Brian Eno (vocals) Andy Mackay (oboe) Stuart Deeks (violin) Paul Nieman (trombone)

Where is one less likely to find such a combination of performers than in the final Bryars piece?

[Bryn]

Where is one less likely to find such a combination of performers than in the final Bryars piece?

Recorded last month? How on Earth did they manage to get Cardew and Bailey (and other possibly late performers) to participate? Bet your life the Bryars was recorded four or more decades ago.

[Serial_Apologist]

Recorded last month? How on Earth did they manage to get Cardew and Bailey (and other possibly late performers) to participate? Bet your life the Bryars was recorded four or more decades ago.

That's what it says in RT, Bryn! Congratulations on spotting the Goof of The Day!!!

[Richard Barrett]

The Bryars recording would surely be the one with exactly that lineup from the Obscure Records LP "Ensemble Pieces" released in 1975, at a time when such a combination of performers would have been by no means odd (Derek Bailey, whose collaboration with Bryars went back to the 1960s, also played on the first recording of Jesus' Blood never failed me yet; Brian Eno set up and curated the Obscure label; and so on).

[Bryn]

Hmm, the Bryars is there on the iPlayer now but the first half hour of the programme is currently missing, and it's not tagged onto the end of the Pre-Hear file either. I've reported the error to both the iPlayer team and the Hear and Now folk. Let's hope the problem gets resolved soon.

[Bryn]

The Bryars recording would surely be the one with exactly that lineup from the Obscure Records LP "Ensemble Pieces" released in 1975, at a time when such a combination of performers would have been by no means odd (Derek Bailey, whose collaboration with Bryars went back to the 1960s, also played on the first recording of Jesus' Blood never failed me yet; Brian Eno set up and curated the Obscure label; and so on).

Indeed. Just been spinning that very LP, replete with pops, clicks, age-related groove distortion, etc. Will listen to last night's version in the very near future.

[salymap]

That's what it says in RT, Bryn! Congratulations on spotting the Goof of The Day!!!

Even I, old and dotty, was puzzled by the reincarnation of CC. Didn't he play piano works [prepared piano] with John Cage yonks ago.? I remember seeing them somewhere.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Even I, old and dotty, was puzzled by the reincarnation of CC.

"Mature and pointilliste" surely, sals?

Didn't he play piano works [prepared piano] with John Cage yonks ago.? I remember seeing them somewhere.

Cardew was well-regarded by Cage and similar-minded Musicians working in New York. Feldman described him as "the only English composer who really gets what we're doing".

[Richard Barrett]

age-related groove distortion

FInding it hard to hold down a steady beat these days?

[Sydney Grew]

Gavin Bryars 1,2,1-2-3-4
Gavin Bryars (double bass) Christopher Hobbs (piano) Cornelius Cardew (cello) Derek Bailey (guitar) Mike Nicholls (drums) Celia Gollin, Brian Eno (vocals) Andy Mackay (oboe) Stuart Deeks (violin) Paul Nieman (trombone)

I am certain that persons of musical discrimination would never be attracted by the "guitar" and "drums." They give off a whiff of the "pop" world do they not? When a great composer sits down to write a symphony I doubt the sounds of "guitars" and "drums" would be foremost in his mind. Yet especially in Britain so many of the most lauded "contemporary composers" have a background in "guitar" and "drums." I suspect that in the long run this will be seen as just one more instance of the "Land ohne Musik" phenomenon.

Who was it that first used that expression? Mr. Boris Johnson thinks it was one Oscar Schmitz in 1904 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...u-Schmitz.html). But I have also seen its first use attributed to Mendelssohn no less, which seems more likely to be correct. Can any one tell us?

[Serial_Apologist]

I am certain that persons of musical discrimination would never be attracted by the "guitar" and "drums." They give off a whiff of the "pop" world do they not? When a great composer sits down to write a symphony I doubt the sounds of "guitars" and "drums" would be foremost in his mind. Yet especially in Britain so many of the most lauded "contemporary composers" have a background in "guitar" and "drums." I suspect that in the long run this will be seen as just one more instance of the "Land ohne Musik" phenomenon.

Who was it that first used that expression? Mr. Boris Johnson thinks it was one Oscar Schmitz in 1904 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...u-Schmitz.html). But I have also seen its first use attributed to Mendelssohn no less, which seems more likely to be correct. Can any one tell us?

OT, the Eno 1975 recording was mentioned in the b/cast, but I'll havde to listen again to find out if that was the recording used.

[Richard Barrett]

OT, the Eno 1975 recording was mentioned in the b/cast, but I'll havde to listen again to find out if that was the recording used.

It would certainly be inteersting to know if there's another one - maybe it's also a better recording than the one on the LP, which would be nice. Going back to the programme, though, it's quite hard to work out why that piece was included at all - I don't see what possible connection there could be between it and the other items.

[ahinton]

I am certain that persons of musical discrimination would never be attracted by the "guitar" and "drums."

Then enjoy your certainty; alone. Everything in its place - or rather places - n'est-ce pas?...

They give off a whiff of the "pop" world do they not?

They do not, except when they do. Drumming goes back millennia and guitars and their forebears likewise have a long and interesting history.

When a great composer sits down to write a symphony I doubt the sounds of "guitars" and "drums" would be foremost in his mind.

So what? Everything in its place/s, as I said. Albéniz never wrote a symphony. Nor did Granados. Were they not "great composers" and, if so, were they not so purely because they didn't? Was Chopin a great composer? He did not write for guitar but is reported as having declared that there was only one thing finer that the sound of a guitar and that was the sound of two guitars. Why do you suppose that a composer as obsessed throughout his life with expressing his finest thoughts through the medium of his own instrument, the piano, would have said such a thing?

Yet especially in Britain so many of the most lauded "contemporary composers" have a background in "guitar" and "drums." I suspect that in the long run this will be seen as just one more instance of the "Land ohne Musik" phenomenon.

I don't hold out much hope for your "suspicions", then, especially as so many contemporary British composers have no such background - not Stevenson, not Goehr, not Birtwistle, not Adès, not Benjamin, not Knussen, not Ferneyhough, not Maxwell Davies...

Who was it that first used that expression? Mr. Boris Johnson thinks it was one Oscar Schmitz in 1904 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...u-Schmitz.html). But I have also seen its first use attributed to Mendelssohn no less, which seems more likely to be correct. Can any one tell us?

I do not know but, whatever temporary lull Britain might have experienced, to describe a land whose composers included Tallis, Byrd, Purcell, Elgar and a host of more recent composers as such does seem somewhat absurd, wouldn't you say?

[Quarky]

I am certain that persons of musical discrimination would never be attracted by the "guitar" and "drums." They give off a whiff of the "pop" world do they not? When a great composer sits down to write a symphony I doubt the sounds of "guitars" and "drums" would be foremost in his mind. Yet especially in Britain so many of the most lauded "contemporary composers" have a background in "guitar" and "drums."

Unfortunately, and disregarding 20th Century developments in classical music (Boulez, Cage etc), one of the major features of 20th Century music was to reawaken interest in the Drums. Not only pop music, but most forms of Jazz, which would not be regarded as pop, and classical music - Xenakis, Reich, for example. I don't know how the Drums became emasculated in European Classical Music - may be the influence of the Church, and the Salons of the European rich and powerful?

I agree that Bryars composition has a whiff of the pop world - more than a whiff, it takes as direct material for development the world of popular music in Northern Clubs. Well why not? We live in the 21st century, and those with genuine talent for musical composition will be exposed to a huge spectrum of sounds and musical genres.

[Richard Barrett]

We live in the 21st century

Actually I think Sydney Grew might not.