Cultural Dessert

Anne Tyler is an author who produces hugely entertaining, readable novels which are all much more clever and profound than they appear – tackling difficult subjects without creating difficult prose – something also achieved by David Lodge but not many others in my opinion. ‘Noah’s Compass’ is Anne Tyler’s 18^th novel and sees her returning to a familiar format after the more ambitious digressions of her previous two books, ‘The Amateur Marriage’ and ‘Digging to America’. Set, as always, in Baltimore ‘Noah’s Compass’ is a seemingly simple tale of family relationships, aging, loneliness and memory loss. It has much in common with one of Tyler’s most celebrated works, ‘The Accidental Tourist’ but shows, I think, a maturing confidence in her writing, relying much less on exaggerated comic characters and set-pieces. Like a stripped-down version of ‘The Accidental Tourist’ everyone is less extreme and more believable, less happens but the emotional interaction feels stronger. ‘Noah’s Compass’ is a short novel – the first book I’ve read at a single sitting for some time – but manages to be intriguing, funny and very moving. Less is more.

Before I start to praise the wonderful concert by the European Union Baroque Orchestra, which we were at St John’s, Smith Square, in London to see last Saturday, I should declare an interest. Our good friend Lindsay Kemp is the Artistic Director of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and had programmed this concert as the finale to the 2010 festival. And it was wonderful. Regular readers may have deduced that baroque music is not one of my usual enthusiasms but I was enthralled by this look at the concerti grossi by Arcangelo Corelli. It helped to have attended a recording of BBC Radio 3’s ‘Discovering Music’ in the afternoon at which Stephen Johnson explained and analysed the three main works to be performed that evening, with the European Union Baroque Orchestra on hand to provide excerpts and examples. The concerto grosso was developed in Rome in the late 17^th century, and employs a small chamber ensemble (the concertino) contrasted with a full string orchestra (the ripieno). Corelli pioneered this form of music with his twelve published concerti grossi – three of which were the focus of Saturday’s concert. At the time he was writing them, it was unusual to expect an audience to listen to purely instrumental music that had neither words for singers nor a clear story to follow and most composers assumed that the attention span for such works was likely to be no more than five or six minutes. Corelli boldly stretched this duration by introducing recurring motifs to create a subtle impression of familiarity, even when listening for the first time. He also expanded the size of the orchestra, on at least one occasion using 76 string players. For Saturday’s concert the European Union Baroque Orchestra was augmented by a number of its former members so that there were around 50 people on the stage – what now seems like a massive number of players for a baroque performance. The EUBO draws together the best young baroque musicians from across Europe each year, with the majority of its alumni going on to perform professionally. On Saturday they were directed from the violin by the charismatic Italian soloist, Enrico Onofri, a fascinating figure on the stage – gangly and hairless, save for his dark, hooded eyebrows, dressed entirely in black but with a bright white scarf laced through the end of his violin and tied around his neck to support the instrument. Constantly moving to the music, nodding his head and, occasionally leaping in the air to push the young players forward, Onofri was a perfect example of the violin soloist as ‘rock star’ – perhaps suggesting the effect Corelli himself had in this role. At the time Corelli was writing, the violin was a relatively new instrument: the concept of the virtuoso violin soloist as the star, accompanied by an orchestra, was still being developed by Vivaldi and others. Most of Corelli’s concerti grossi feature a concertino with two violins and a ‘cello – the violins (here played by Onofri and Margaret Faultless) answering each other in a constant conversation. But Onofri undoubtedly stole the show. The enhanced EUBO created a marvellous sound and showed how exciting this early orchestral music is. A packed St John’s, Smith Square, was thrilled by the performance and the two encores that followed. It was a great concert.

I said here in May 2006 that "I love the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition" but in May 2008 I felt it was a major disappointment “that the impact of this landmark musical event should be so watered down in its thirtieth anniversary year”. So I approached the BBC Young Musician 2010 with some nervousness to see whether full coverage of the competition had been restored after the debacle of 2008. Overall I was pleased and greatly relieved: the extensive coverage of the five category finals on BBC4 showed plenty of the actual performances, mostly uninterrupted, and the concerto final was broadcast live and in full. But clearly the wonderfully indulgent concert of five concertos is something that no longer warrants clearing the schedules, and the price of live classical music on BBC2 was a pruning of the format to only allow for three finalists. This meant the introduction of a semi-final in which the five category winners reprised their solo recitals in order for three to be chosen to perform concertos with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. I really felt for the two unsuccessful semi-finalists, who in any of the previous competitions would have taken their place on the final stage with the orchestra. It was very disappointing that, for the first time in 32 years, the final didn’t include a brass concerto. Nevertheless it was a wonderful concerto final with three fine performances and a clear and worthy winner. Regular readers will be amazed to learn that, for the first time in the history of the BBC Young Musician competition, I correctly predicted the winner! (Though I was only picking from three, rather than five contenders of course.) And all the broadcast performances were beautifully presented and excellently filmed – the BBC really does the visual presentation of classical music brilliantly well. In 2010 the BBC Young Musician competition regained a sense of dignity and I suspect it will long be remembered for the truly wonderful, astounding performance of Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 by the 16-year-old winner Lara Ömeroğlu. See for yourself at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s3fk5

We returned to the main house at Chichester Festival Theatre for the opening night of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ – a new play by the writers of the original BBC sitcom, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. David Haig and Henry Goodman took on the roles of Prime Minister Jim Hacker and Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby in a story which brought the action up-to-date with Hacker the leader of a coalition government in a hung parliament attempting to deal with a massive recession. There was some good fun to be had with the real political theatre of the previous few days with the insertion of a few last-minute gags, but in the main this was an enjoyable nostalgia trip back to the glory days of ‘Yes, Minister’. All the familiar elements were present – Sir Humphrey’s lengthy, erudite, obfuscating soliloquies (all the more impressive delivered live and flawlessly by Henry Goodman) and the naïve bewilderment of private secretary Bernard Woolley (here played by Jonathan Slinger). The addition of a modern ‘special advisor’ (played by Emily Joyce) and a few references to Blackberrys didn’t really alter the feeling that we were back in the 1980s. It felt like ‘The Thick of It’ had never happened (despite David Haig having appeared in the latest series). But it was good fun and there was a carefully constructed plot which made it feel like a proper 2-hour play. Haig and Goodman were both excellent but with neither attempting (quite correctly) any sort of impersonation of Paul Eddington or Nigel Hawthorne, I wondered why it was necessary to retain the original characters in this updated setting. I think the play would have worked as well with Haig as a different Prime Minister and Goodman as another variant on the long-serving civil servant (‘Sir Rupert’, perhaps). And I would have loved to see the two actors cast against type with David Haig as the civil servant and Henry Goodman as the politician.

Our first ever visit to the Chichester Festival Theatre was to the smaller Minerva auditorium to see Patrick Stewart as William Shakespeare in Edward Bond’s 1974 play ‘Bingo’ which looks at Shakespeare’s final days in Stratford-upon-Avon. It was a high-quality production with an impressive cast but I wasn’t overly taken with the play. I was left with the feeling that I might have missed the point of what appeared to be a fairly miserable, factual tale. The historical detail was interesting but I found it to be a production to be admired rather than enjoyed. The high point was the appearance of Richard McCabe (who I last saw as Sir Toby Belch in ‘Twelfth Night’ reviewed here in November 2009) who stole the show with a single scene cameo as a Falstaffian Ben Jonson at the beginning of the second act.

We concluded our visit to the Brighton Festival with a late night performance of ‘I, Malvolio’ – a one-man show written and performed by Tim Crouch. We’ve seen Tim Crouch a few times in Edinburgh and he is a completely compelling performer. Most of his work seems to blur the boundaries between actor and character and involves extensive interaction with the audience. He manages to be likeable, extremely funny and deeply unsettling. ‘I, Malvolio’ is his fourth exploration of Shakespearean characters, telling the tale of ‘Twelfth Night’ from Malvolio’s point of view – while constantly slipping in and out of character. An amazing, hilarious and strange theatrical experience – take any opportunity to see what Tim Crouch does next.

Our brief sampling of the Brighton Festival started with a great concert by the Brighton Youth Orchestra at St Bartholomew’s Church. Conducted by the indefatigable Andy Sherwood, the BYO were in fine form, opening with an impressive performance of the ‘Overture to Candide’ by Leonard Bernstein. But the concert was dominated by two very different soloists. The legendary bass, Sir John Tomlinson, joined the orchestra for the premiere of ‘Midnight Skaters’ by local composer Peter Copley – a beautiful, thoughtful piece. This was followed by the fascinating spectacle of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe’s ‘Earth Cry’ for orchestra and didgeridoo. The didgeridoo soloist Steve Heath (originally from Portsmouth rather than Australia!) created an amazing range of sounds and demonstrated an incredible feat of circular breathing. Sir John returned after the interval to sing excerpts from Mussorgsky’s ‘Boris Godunov’ – a powerful climax to a very enjoyable evening.

We had a lovely week in West Sussex: we stayed at a cottage in Middleton-on-Sea and took advantage of some very good weather to do lots of walking, both along the coast and across the South Downs. We particularly liked the pretty towns of Arundel and Midhurst and small Cathedral City of Chichester and managed a brief excursion across to Brighton.

I first discovered John Irving’s 1989 novel ‘A Prayer for Owen Meaney’ through the excellent BBC Radio 4 dramatisation last year, in which Toby Jones created the distinctive voice of Owen Meany (which in the book is always IN CAPITAL LETTERS). Reading the novel for the first time I felt the ‘present day’ (1987) passages focussing on the Reagan administration and the Iran-Contra affair – which were largely omitted from the radio abridgement – seemed strangely dated and irrelevant in a way in which the main ‘historic’ story, told in flashback, didn’t. The various impacts of the Vietnam War on the principal characters – perhaps originally intended to sew warnings about Reagan-era foreign policy – now seem much more the centre of attention. ‘A Prayer for Owen Meaney’ is a great comic (and tragic) novel with some brilliant set-piece scenes (the Nativity Play is a beautifully-constructed and hilarious passage). Irving plays around with time, flashing forward and back as he gradually moving through the characters’ lives in chronological order. And he teases the reader remorselessly, constantly hinting at what is to come and drip-feeding key details to build the final picture. The final revelation takes so long to come that the anticipation almost becomes irritating but it’s so worth waiting for you finish the book in awe and with a smile on your face.