Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert
21 July 2017
The last concert of each Northampton Symphony Orchestra season is always a private performance for the Friends of the Orchestra - a chance to say thank you for their support and an opportunity for the orchestra to explore repertoire that might not fit into one of our main concerts. This year's NSO Friends' Concert, last Sunday, concluded our season of Fifth Symphonies with Beethoven's 'Symphony no 5'. With such a famous piece of music it is easy to take it for granted and assume you know it all. So it was good to have the opportunity, over the past few weeks, to really get to grips with the symphony and to appreciate why it is such a successful and well known work. During 2016-17 we have played the fifth symphonies by Shostakovich, Glazunov, Sibelius, Alwyn, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. It has been a really enjoyable and interesting season of concerts, cleverly programmed by NSO Conductor, John Gibbons. But I'm not sure whether we really identified any particular characteristics of fifth symphonies. It is interesting that for many composers the fifth symphony seems to be a particularly significant work but, beyond the fact that getting as far as writing five symphonies is likely to indicate a maturing of the composer's skill, I don't think we noticed any other common features.
The rest of our programme on Sunday included Sullivan's overture to 'The Yeomen of the Guard' and Handel's 'Music for the Royal Fireworks'. But the star attraction was the return of the brilliant young saxophonist, Jess Gillam, who played John Williams' 'Escapades' with the NSO at our February 2017 concert. Jess is due to make three appearances at this year's BBC Proms, starting with the John Williams Prom this Thursday (which is being shown on BBC4 on the evening of Friday 21 July). She joined us again on Sunday to try out some pieces by Chick Corea that will form part of one of her Proms performances. Jess Gillam is an amazing performer and it was a privilege to see her in action again.
Sunday's concert also marked a final appearance with the NSO by my fellow horn player, Ian Frankland. Ian has been with NSO for 19 years and we have played alongside each other since 2000. We've had a great time and played in some amazing concerts together. I'll really miss Ian and wish him well for his forthcoming move to Copenhagen.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'Alan Partridge: Nomad' by Alan Partridge with Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons and Steve Coogan
14 July 2017
When I reviewed the Alan Partridge ‘autobiography’, ‘I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan’ (in May 2012) I was particularly taken with how it managed to replay many of the best known Partridge moments (from radio and TV series going back more than 20 years) without making the book feel like a ‘greatest hits’ exercise, merely replaying old jokes, but actually adding a further layer of hindsight humour by re-telling the various incidents in exactly the way Alan himself would. The ‘sequel’, ‘Alan Partridge: Nomad’ by Alan Partridge with Rob Gibbons, Neil Gibbons and Steve Coogan (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Alan Partridge) cleverly extends this technique. In this diary of Alan’s ill-fated attempt to get a TV commission for a celebrity walking series (in the style of Julia Bradbury or Clare Balding) by embarking on an emotional trek across East Anglia in the footsteps of his father, he includes his reflections on almost everything that has happened to Alan Partridge since the publication of ‘I, Partridge’. This includes telling us about the events that form the plot of Declan Lowney’s excellent 2013 film ‘Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa’. The whole Alan Partridge canon has become increasingly meta-textual. Rob Gibbons and Neil Gibbons are genuine Partridge fans who have turned their obsessively pedantic (Patridgean?) attention to detail regarding Alan’s history to superb effect in the books.
Labels: Books
'Respectable' by Lynsey Hanley
14 July 2017
Since the EU referendum in June last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the class divisions that were highlighted by the vote in so many communities that clearly felt disconnected from, and disillusioned with, Government and the ‘metropolitan elite’. In September 2016 I saw the Guardian journalist Lynsey Hanley give a brilliantly entertaining and provocative presentation about class and culture at the Creative People and Places conference in Doncaster. Lynsey Hanley’s book ‘Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide’ has been my timely, inspiring and challenging companion over the past few months. It has made a significant impression on my thinking in a very similar way to ‘Welcome to Everytown’ – Julian Baggini’s exploration of mainstream culture (reviewed here in April 2008). So it was particularly interesting to discover a reference in ‘Respectable’ to ‘Welcome to Everytown’ – especially as I hadn’t come to this reference when I met Julian Baggini for the first time in February and encouraged him to read ‘Respectable’. Lynsey Hanley uses her own experience of social mobility as a platform to explore and explode many middle class assumptions about working class people and culture. It is an important and fascinating book – highly recommended.
Labels: Books
'Titus Andronicus' by William Shakespeare
14 July 2017
Last Tuesday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the new RSC production of ‘Titus Andronicus’. I had never seen ‘Titus Andronicus’ before and, although this was a stunning production, I don’t think I want to see it again. I knew the play has a reputation for being particularly gory but I found the plot incredibly discomfiting as well as not making a great deal of sense. There is a horrifically brutal rape scene that sits very uneasily with the dark comedy that follows. There is also an incredible amount of blood spilled during the performance: don’t sit in the front row! Blanche McIntyre’s modern-dress production is an amazing theatrical experience which compares contemporary crises to the decline of Roman civilisation, opening with anti-austerity protesters in hoodies trying to storm fences protecting the Roman Senate. There were some very witty touches, such as making the messenger Titus Andronicus sends to the Emperor into a cyclist with a padded ‘Deliveroma’ box on his back. And having some of the speeches delivered from a podium with a microphone allowed for a quiet comic undercutting of some of the more declarative text. The (very) dark humour reminded me of the 2005 National Theatre production of ‘Theatre of Blood’ (adapted by Lee Simpson and Phelim McDermott from the 1973 MGM movie). The always-impressive David Troughton, who I last saw at the RSC as Gloucester in ‘King Lear’ (reviewed here in September 2016) is wonderful as Titus Andronicus (is he working his way through the goriest Shakespearean parts?). This is a quality production of a very peculiar play.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens, adapted by Laura Turner
14 July 2017
On Saturday 1 July we were at the National Trust stately home at Claydon near Buckingham for an outdoor theatre production by Chapterhouse Theatre Company. We have seen many Chapterhouse productions over recent years (at a variety of venues) and they always bring an impressive cast of young actors who rise to the many challenges of an outdoor performance. Laura Turner has made a specialism of adapting classic novels for Chapterhouse outdoor productions and this time we saw her adaptation of ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens. It was a beautiful evening to spend in such a lovely setting, with Claydon itself playing the part of Satis House and a wonderful sunset providing the backdrop to the play. The cast were all very strong but Dominic Quinn, making his Chapterhouse debut as a late replacement for the actor playing Magwitch and Jaggers, was particularly impressive.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'Small Great Things' by Jodi Picoult
29 June 2017
Jodi Picoult's novel 'Small Great Things', which I have just finished reading (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Noma Dumezweni, Jeff Harding and Jennifer Woodward), is a very impressive exploration of racism in contemporary America. When Ruth Jefferson, an experienced and highly respected nurse working in a hospital in Newhaven, Connecticut, is removed from caring for a newborn baby because his white supremacist parents do not want an African American touching their son, she is understandably angry and upset. When the baby then dies suddenly and unexpectedly, Ruth finds herself suspended and charged with murder. But 'Small Great Things' resists the melodrama this plot suggests and focuses instead on the prejudices, explicit and implicit, of everyone involved. Telling the story through the eyes of Ruth, her white liberal lawyer and the baby's skinhead father, Picoult alternates narrators, often overlapping different views of the same scene. She makes all these characters very real and believable - even making the fascist father almost sympathetic. Ultimately she shows the unconscious racism of well-meaning people like the liberal lawyer to be as damaging as the more blatant prejudice practised by the baby's parents. I was struck by her distinction between 'equality' and 'equity' - suggesting that treating everyone the same is often not enough to redress the balance. What appears, initially, to be a fairly grim thriller turns into a thought-provoking examination with well drawn characters and some beautiful writing.
Labels: Books
Aegon Birmingham Classic Tennis
27 June 2017
On Saturday we were at the Priory Club in Edgbaston, Birmingham to see the semi-finals of the Aegon Birmingham Classic tennis tournament. It was great to see the former Wimbledon Champion, Petra Kvitová, returning to form following an enforced absence from the game after being attacked and injured by an intruder in her home at the end of last year. It was a shame her semi-final was cut short by an injury to her opponent, Lucie Šafárová, but still good to see her playing so well. The second semi-final was a thriller, with Garbiñe Muguruza – last year’s French Open winner – losing in three sets to the young Australian doubles specialist Ashleigh Barty. It was one of those tennis matches where you genuinely couldn’t tell who was going to win. Even at 5-1 down in the final set Muguruza looked as if she still might triumph. It was a really exciting match. We finished the day with an entertaining, if fairly one-sided, doubles semi-final won by Chan Hao-ching and Zhang Shuai. We had been looking forward to seeing Ashleigh Barty again in the doubles but her semi-final was a walkover after one of her opponents pulled out through injury. The problem with a pre-Wimbledon tournament is that anyone who feels the slightest twinge is clearly not to going to risk missing Wimbledon. Nevertheless we had a really enjoyable day of tennis in Birmingham.
Labels: Sport
Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert
20 June 2017
One of the first things you are taught about classical music is not to clap between the movements of a piece. I can remember my primary school teacher telling us, before we attended a schools concert at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester that, even if every other child in the audience applauded at the end of the first movement, we should not. My former boss, Robin Osterley, while he was a music student, attended an early music concert at the Royal Albert Hall at which he felt he was the only person not clapping between movements – only to discover that this mid-piece applause was a deliberate part of the authentic recreation of early classical music. As a performer, audience applause that is a genuine response to the exciting conclusion of a movement (rather than a polite ripple because the audience feels it is expected) is always welcome. I fondly remember such a spontaneous reaction to the end of the first movement of Grieg’s ‘Piano Concerto’ performed by Peter Donohoe in a concert I played in as a teenager at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. So when, in our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday, the thrilling climax of the first movement of the Tchaikovsky ‘Violin Concerto’, played by the incredible young Polish violinist Kamila Bydlowska, drew rapturous applause, it felt like fitting appreciation of a stunning performance. Admittedly the concert programme failed to mention how many movements there were in the Concerto – so some audience members might have been anticipating an early interval glass of wine! But nobody seemed disappointed when we embarked on two more movements that showcased the breathtaking skills of this stunning young soloist. We started the concert with Hubert Parry’s ‘Symphonic Variations’ – an interesting missing link between Brahms’ ‘St Anthony Variations’ and Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’ which really grew on me over the weeks we rehearsed it. I was also intrigued to get to know the ‘Overture to King Lear’ by Hector Berlioz – an exciting piece with two great tunes that seems to have far too happy an ending for Shakespeare’s great tragedy. The concert concluded with the latest in our season of Fifth Symphonies, Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation Symphony’. I watched the symphony from the audience, as there are only two horn parts, and really enjoyed the orchestra’s performance. This concert programme was another interesting mix of the familiar and lesser-known repertoire from Conductor John Gibbons. We will complete our exploration of Fifth Symphonies next month with perhaps the most famous of them all, Beethoven’s Fifth.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng' by Orchestra Baobab
15 June 2017
My interest in ‘world music’ stems from reading Robin Denselow’s glowing review, in The Guardian on 6 September 2002, of ‘Specialist in All Styles’ - the spectacular reunion album by the legendary 1970s Senegalese band, Orchestra Baobab (see:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/sep/06/worldmusic.artsfeatures). Inspired by this five-star review I bought the album and then took the opportunity to see Orchestra Baobab live at the Derngate in Northampton. At that concert I bought a copy of Songlines magazine (which included a major feature on Orchestra Baobab). I soon became a Songlines subscriber and then a regular attender of the annual WOMAD Festival. I owe Orchestra Baobab a huge debt of gratitude for opening up a world of music to me. I have a particular soft spot for their retro fusion, and that of the other great big bands of the 1970s such as the Rail Band of Mali and Bembeya Jazz of Guinea. Their re-appropriation of Cuban salsa – which itself stemmed from an adaptation of traditional West African music – created an infectiously danceable mix. This week I have been listening to the new album from Orchestra Baobab, ‘Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng’, which honours one of the band’s original singers who died last November. This is an interestingly varied album with the classic Orchestra Baobab sound (guitars, percussion, brass) augmented by the inclusion, for the first time, of a kora – the West African 21-string harp-lute. The album also features guest vocals from some other stars of West African music, Cheikh Lo and Thione Seck. It is a confident, assured, laid-back set of songs from one of the great African bands.
Labels: Albums, Music
'White Tears' by Hari Kunzru
7 June 2017
Having really enjoyed Hari Kunzru’s brilliant debut novel ‘The Impressionist’ (reviewed here in September 2013), I was looking forward to his latest book, ‘White Tears’, which I have just finished reading (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross). ‘White Tears’ starts as a tale of two young, white record producers in contemporary New York who create a fake recording purporting to be an authentic 1930s blues track. They decide to call their imaginary black blues singer Charlie Shaw but are disconcerted when they are approached by someone who claims to have met Charlie Shaw in 1959. As the novel progresses boundaries between the present and past get increasingly blurred as we struggle to work out what is ‘authentic’. ‘White Tears’ at times feels like a ghost story, with the mythical singer seeking vengeance for the wrongs done to him a lifetime ago. The book uses magical realism to create a dreamlike atmosphere which reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Unconsoled’. But unlike that often deliberately frustrating novel, ‘White Tears’ does eventually arrive at an explanation, of sorts. The first half of the book, with its its New York setting and two young partners in crime, reminded me of Donna Tartt’s ‘The Goldfinch’ (reviewed here in 2014). ‘White Tears is an interesting and ambitious undertaking and Hari Kunzru is clearly a very accomplished writer but I’m not convinced it fully worked. The book was slow to get going and felt far too long. It was hard to sympathise with any of the main characters and, although the denouement was cleverly satisfying, it was hard work getting to it.
Labels: Books
