Iain Bellamy...Concerto for Tenor Sax and Orch R3.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just now on R3 live...Gary Carpenter..."Concerto for Tenor Sax" featuring Iain Bellamy and Martin France.

Worth checking out. I am rewinding my C90 as I missed the first movement but what I heard sounded impressive.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just now on R3 live...Gary Carpenter..."Concerto for Tenor Sax" featuring Iain Bellamy and Martin France.

Worth checking out. I am rewinding my C90 as I missed the first movement but what I heard sounded impressive.

BN.

Damn, missed it.

I'll have to listen again - I just hope it's better than that awful concerto Richard Rodney Bennett composed for Stan Getz, which Stan never got to play. That was 22 years ago - can one believe it!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I need to re-listen to judge fully but very impressed with Bellamy's tenor...I think he's one of Tenor Freaks heros?

BN.

[Quarky]

I need to re-listen to judge fully but very impressed with Bellamy's tenor...I think he's one of Tenor Freaks heros?

BN.

Yes most impressed. The composition miles away from Gil Evans - really original. Compared to others, I had the impression Ian Bellamy is rather conventional - but not in this piece.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes most impressed. The composition miles away from Gil Evans - really original. Compared to others, I had the impression Ian Bellamy is rather conventional - but not in this piece.

He's rather been into a Getzian approach in recent years, but he can certainly do free when circumstances call. Gary Carpenter co-ordinated a multi-composer Millennium thingy for R3 in 1999, and his inter-movement pieces, which were about the best thing about it, are the only stuff of his that I've heard.

It's Ballamy, btw, but don't worry - he's probably used to it by now!

[MrGongGong]

Who is Iain Bellamy ? or Ian Bellamy?

Surely you mean Iain Ballamy ?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I stand corrected!


These Soviet names.


BN.

[edashtav]

Why is this thread concentrating on Iain Ballamy who contributed 20 % of Cary Carpenter's new Concerto? That piece was, IMO, the slightest work in this Macunian Way Concert:

Peter Maxwell Davies: Throstle's Nest Junction
Gary Carpenter: SET - concerto for tenor saxophone and orchestra (BBC commission, world premiere)

James MacMillan: The Confession of Isobel Gowdie
HK Gruber: Dancing in the Dark
BBC Philharmonic
James MacMillan and HK Gruber (conductors)
Iain Ballamy (saxophone)

Let me be fair, Carpenter's new concerto was prefaced by Max Davies tone poem on his youth in the Trafford side of Manchester Throstle's Nest Junction which Max openly declares to be light music. A fair description because the piece ( a tone poem) is descriptive, almost onamatopeic and doesn't claim profundity. Yet, it has plenty of dark moments and shows its Sibelian roots in an open-handed way. A curious, gawky, but intensely personal memoir.

I found much of Carpenter's new concerto to be surprisingly fluffy and lightweight, too. The sort of crosssover score that a modern Englsh Darius Milhaud might compose. It was idiomatic and confidently played but little remained in my memory. I got more from Richard Rodney's "Stan Getz" piece! I did become more involved with the slower "sets" which often had a plaintive, plangent quality that seemed akin to Mark-Anthony Turnage, a composer whom I revere.

Jimmy MacMillan's shocker always does what it says on the can. It's high voltage and scored in a most direct, visceral manner. It's a great compendium of modern "effects" and designed to bring the house down - which it did ( It should have been placed last in the programme!). The performance under Jimmy's "control" was no doubt, authoritative, but... Jimmy, sometimes less means more... I thought you drove some of your faster music too strongly, leaving the BBC Phil desperate for breath and their notes became a little skimped.

I warm HK Gruber's ebullient vitality - just to hear his gravel-filled, drawling voice as he spoke in his introduction of "Wagner tubes" (sic) emerging RRRRRRUSSSTTTEEEEEEEE from a century of neglect at the bottom of the musical sea was to gain a vivid impression of his joyful response to life's more ridiculous facets. The piece purports to be a tribute to the sounds of the Viennese tradition. I found the slower music dominated by a trio of these growling, ugly tubes difficult to love at first hearing, and, frankly,I could not sort out the wood from the Viennese trees, but the faster dance-like elements were a delight.

A well-designed, well-played programme that only the BBC PO and Radio 3 can give us. More praise is due to the station's planners.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Wow. Wagner Loose Tubes!

Anyway, listened back to the prog and found the Concerto very enjoyable if somewhat filmic (but a film I would like to see) ...bits reminded me of the
Getz/Sauter date with Roy Haynes updated.

Good stuff and yes, well done R3. Through clenched teeth.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bluesnik

Wondered if you had heard the Alan Ferber recordings with strings which seem to work extremely effectively in my opinion?

[Quarky]

Why is this thread concentrating on Iain Ballamy who contributed 20 % of Cary Carpenter's new Concerto? That piece was, IMO, the slightest work in this Macunian Way Concert:

I warm HK Gruber's ebullient vitality - just to hear his gravel-filled, drawling voice as he spoke in his introduction of "Wagner tubes" (sic) emerging RRRRRRUSSSTTTEEEEEEEE from a century of neglect at the bottom of the musical sea was to gain a vivid impression of his joyful response to life's more ridiculous facets. The piece purports to be a tribute to the sounds of the Viennese tradition. I found the slower music dominated by a trio of these growling, ugly tubes difficult to love at first hearing, and, frankly,I could not sort out the wood from the Viennese trees, but the faster dance-like elements were a delight.

:

Thanks for reminding me to listen to HK Gruber.

[Tenor Freak]

I need to re-listen to judge fully but very impressed with Bellamy's tenor...I think he's one of Tenor Freaks heros?

BN.

Yes indeed and not only that I had a lesson with him (that is IAIN BALLAMY TENOR SAXOPHONE PLAYER) as he lives just down't road from me....a very memorable afternoon for many reasons I must say...must listen...