Proms Saturday Matinee 4 - 6.09.14: A Portrait of Sir Harrison Birtwistle

[silvestrione]

1)
2) There's been almost no response to my comments on the previous Cadogans..

[/I]

Jayne, I'm sure I'm not the only one to always jump at the chance to read one of your posts on anything. Sorry I don't always have time or energy or know-how to respond. I will now seek out what you said about Max!

[Quarky]

Oh, the sound in the hall was quite fierce, at times.

Meridian is another engaging Birtwistle piece but the requirements of the broadcast meant I didn't get the time I needed to absorb and settle each piece as it came and went. ...... Half way into Meridian, I just couldn't concentrate any more.

Well it did go on a bit, Blotto. Reminded at times by Hilary Summers of Sea Pictures transposed into a surreal setting - but not sure that helps.

Would be interested, if you have listened again, for your final views of Meridian.

[Blotto]

Likewise, I'd be pleased to hear your thoughts. I listened to both pieces again yesterday. I liked Meridian better from the broadcast than I did in the hall when I lost track of it. There was a longer choral section in the second half of it which lost my interest but listening again on the radio there were no longeurs.

I don't know how you feel, Ob, but I find it very hard to find sensible comments about this music because I find it difficult to grasp firmly. I'm going to try Meridian once or twice more this week and I'll come back to you.

[jayne lee wilson]

Still haven't listened again, still intend to...

But if you really want The Goods at Your Door with VERSES FOR ENSEMBLES, get the stunning-sounding Lyrita issue of it (transfer of the famous DECCA HEAD 7) with London Sinfonietta and David Atherton. Even now we're spoilt for good sound & almost take it for granted, this CD stands out for its palpable physical immediacy - sheer realism and presence. The colours of brass & winds are as gorgeously, brutally conveyed and those quiet interludes are fully explored...

A masterpiece and one of his best works...
Like a surrealist bomb thrown into the core of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind, with a cubist inspection of the scattered remains...which then draw themselves together like Transformers to finish you off!

[Quarky]

I don't know how you feel, Ob, but I find it very hard to make sensible comments about this music because I find it difficult to grasp firmly. I'm often tempted to try to describe the actual sounds of the music but I'm not sure that serves any purpose. After all, the music itself is there, giving its puzzling account of itself.

.

You have put me on the spot, Blot!
A learned discourse by Michael Nyman (half understood): http://www.universaledition.com/Sir-...r/64/work/3621
(work apparently composed for mezzo, but we heard a contralto).

There may be parallels with Elgar's Sea Pictures and Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, but I don't think that is particularly helpful. At the time this was composed, 1970, "new music" had been around for 50 years at least and we must assume HB was fully familiar with the techniques of Schoenberg, Boulez, and all the others. So plenty of plinks, plonks, and "impulse" sounds of Sopranos and orchestra. Viola and Horn important instruments - but what was that strange harmonica-like instrument at the end?

I don't pretend to understand all the subtleties of this work, but my rough and ready guide is that if I can stay with a Composer for over 50% of the time, then I am winning!

A totally original work, imv, and HB maintained the mood of a love song, despite using dissonant, "explosive" sounds - I am beginning to catch some of the enthusiasm of the experts for HB!

[Quarky]

Still haven't listened again, still intend to...

But if you really want The Goods at Your Door with VERSES FOR ENSEMBLES, get the stunning-sounding Lyrita issue of it (transfer of the famous DECCA HEAD 7) with London Sinfonietta and David Atherton. Even now we're spoilt for good sound & almost take it for granted, this CD stands out for its palpable physical immediacy - sheer realism and presence. The colours of brass & winds are as gorgeously, brutally conveyed and those quiet interludes are fully explored...

A masterpiece and one of his best works...
Like a surrealist bomb thrown into the core of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind, with a cubist inspection of the scattered remains...which then draw themselves together like Transformers to finish you off!

Verses for Ensembles was certainly my favourite work performed at the concert

must check whether I have this on CD.

[Blotto]

You have put me on the spot, Blot!

A learned discourse by Michael Nyman (half understood): http://www.universaledition.com/Sir-...r/64/work/3621
(work apparently composed for mezzo, but we heard a contralto).

There may be parallels with Elgar's Sea Pictures and Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, but I don't think that is particularly helpful. At the time this was composed, 1970, "new music" had been around for 50 years at least and we must assume HB was fully familiar with the techniques of Schoenberg, Boulez, and all the others. So plenty of plinks, plonks, and "impulse" sounds of Sopranos and orchestra. Viola and Horn important instruments - but what was that strange harmonica-like instrument at the end?

I don't pretend to understand all the subtleties of this work, but my rough and ready guide is that if I can stay with a Composer for over 50% of the time, then I am winning!

A totally original work, imv, and HB maintained the mood of a love song, despite using dissonant, "explosive" sounds - I am beginning to catch some of the enthusiasm of the experts for HB!

Apologies, Oddball, I didn't mean to do that but you kept your nerve, I see. "Impulse sounds" is a good term to describe the "Ooh!"s "Ah!"s though these are other noises which don't explain themselves to me. They aren't beautiful or particularly interesting as sounds nor do they express anything to me.

There was interest in both pieces and I'm able simply to hear the music a bit more - catch some of the motifs and find some kind of pattern in the music. I can't really say yet that I like any of it.

Birtwistle does say that he composes very spontaneously. He may want to explore particular musical ideas that he's noticed but that when he sits down each day he starts more or less from scratch. Whatever ideas he had yesterday or in the night, he disregards.

He says repeatedly in the Fiona Maddocks book (an easy, non-technical read from an Amazon vendor for about £9) that, I think, he wants to write music which never discloses itself. I find that is the case and whilst a little acquaintance helps me hear it better, there's none of it that comes close to me yet.

I do hear - more and more - phrases and timbres in Verses for Ensembles from music of Michael Tippett's which was written afterwards (the third and fourth symphonies especially and repeatedly). Usually, these sorts of recognitions help me to connect composers but I'm very familiar with the Tippett and actually prefer his usages of the style and their incorporation into something more familiarly musical.

I don't think I've ever had any particular interest or definite use for the new. Novelty tends to impress me as frivolous, something of a waste of time and materials. I quite like old jokes, too!

[Quarky]

Still haven't listened again, still intend to...

But if you really want The Goods at Your Door with VERSES FOR ENSEMBLES, get the stunning-sounding Lyrita issue of it (transfer of the famous DECCA HEAD 7) with London Sinfonietta and David Atherton. Even now we're spoilt for good sound & almost take it for granted, this CD stands out for its palpable physical immediacy - sheer realism and presence. The colours of brass & winds are as gorgeously, brutally conveyed and those quiet interludes are fully explored...

A masterpiece and one of his best works...
Like a surrealist bomb thrown into the core of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind, with a cubist inspection of the scattered remains...which then draw themselves together like Transformers to finish you off!

Well that's a coincidence - arrived through the post this lunch-time! forgotten I had ordered it!

[Serial_Apologist]

I do hear - more and more - phrases and timbres in Verses for Ensembles from music of Michael Tippett's which was written afterwards (the third and fourth symphonies especially and repeatedly). Usually, these sorts of recognitions help me to connect composers but I'm very familiar with the Tippett and actually prefer his usages of the style and their incorporation into something more familiarly musical.

I don't think I've ever had any particular interest or definite use for the new. Novelty tends to impress me as frivolous, something of a waste of time and materials. I quite like old jokes, too!

Either Tippett took something useful from Birtwistle, or novelty is something of a waste of time and materials.

You can't have it both ways!

[Blotto]

Either Tippett took something useful from Birtwistle, or novelty is something of a waste of time and materials.

You can't have it both ways!

I'm working backwards and forwards from Tippett who is a composer that's musically central to me so there are all sorts of forces working on me in this but I don't see any contradiction.

Tippett re-uses a novelty that he encounters to my later benefit. Their work isn't the same nor shows the same results. It's as if Birtwistle left the ground bare after digging over his land where Tippett planted out a garden. At this stage, to my ears, Tippett's work improves the view.

[Quarky]

Birtwistle does say that he composes very spontaneously. He may want to explore particular musical ideas that he's noticed but that when he sits down each day he starts more or less from scratch. Whatever ideas he had yesterday or in the night, he disregards.

I quite like old jokes, too!

It helps I think to have a sense of humour to appreciate his stuff. Verses for Ensembles, Panic, he seems to take fiendish delight in making each successive sonic event even more outrageous than the previous. Stockhausen was another in the same way, but much more explicitly making musical jokes.

This may fit with his dyslexic, unhappy time at School - (I'm not fond of books, but I'm picking up a lot of info from this forum).

The most valuable comment I have noted is that HB has a great sense of theatre in his works. This certainly applied to the semi-staged version of Orpheus at the proms a little while ago. The action carried me along and the music fitted somehow, rather like film music.