Imam Baildi

15 May 2009

Imam Baildi are two Greek brothers, Orestis and Lysandros Falireas, whose wonderful eponymous CD takes old Greek tunes from the 40's, 50's and 60's (from their father's collection of 78s) and adds modern instruments and beats to create music which is cool, mysterious and incredibly catchy. Sounding not quite like anything else I’ve heard, the music of Imam Baildi has really stuck in my head this week – particularly the track ‘O Pasatebos’ which I’ve been playing over and over. Listen to them for free on Spotify.

'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett

5 May 2009

When it comes to Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot', I've been spoiled. I first encountered the play as a teenager - when the hidden meaning in its absurdity comes most easily. And that first encounter was with the seminal 1980 Manchester Royal Exchange production starring Max Wall and Trevor Peacock. My second experience of Godot was a 1991 West End production with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. Mayall and Edmondson were extremely good but hampered by an audience that had come expecting a different kind of comedy. While I was working for the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the early 1990s I helped with a recording of 'Waiting for Godot' which gave me a chance to examine the text of the play in detail. And this week I've been at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, to see Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart as Estragon and Vladimir with Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup as Pozzo and Lucky. As you would expect, the acting was wonderful: I particularly enjoyed the movement - McKellen and Stewart both demonstrating a range of subtle gesture and the occasional dance step to suggest an earlier existence for their characters as a music hall double act. I enjoyed the clear positioning of Vladimir and Estragon on a path between Laurel and Hardy and 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'. But coming to the play again a little older, and with such fond memories of previous performances, I found it less inspiring than I remembered. (It was interesting to see so many young faces in the packed, enthusiastic audience.) There were still some lovely moments and great lines and it was wonderful to see such a stellar cast in a serious play. There was a satisfying sense of completeness when I discovered from the programme that Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart also appeared together in the 1977 Royal Festival Hall premiere of Tom Stoppard's 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour' - a play which we also recorded at RNIB and which I saw at the National Theatre only a couple of months ago (reviewed here in February 2009).

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

28 April 2009

On Saturday I was at St Matthews Church in Northampton to play with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra in a concert which included Dvorak’s gorgeous ‘Symphony No. 8’ – one of my favourite pieces of music. We started with the ‘Peacock Variations’ by Kodaly, a work I hadn’t come across before and one that took me a few weeks to get to grips with – though well worth the effort. Zoltan Kodaly wrote interesting, tuneful music which is often tricky to play but well orchestrated and very enjoyable – an often underrated composer. Our concert also included Mozart’s fourth (and most well known) Horn Concerto played by Katrina Lauder. Katrina is now a freelance professional horn player and teacher but was an amateur member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra between 1991 and 1994 and was taught by our principal horn David Lack. She gave a great performance of the Mozart concerto, leaving us fellow horn players particularly envious of her effortless lip trills! It was a lovely concert and a good programme to work through with our new conductor Alexander Walker, after our excursion into film music in March.

‘Inspector Drake and the Black Widow’ by David Tristram

24 April 2009

On Saturday we were back at the TADS Theatre in Toddington to see ‘Inspector Drake and the Black Widow’ by David Tristram – a very clever spoof 1920s country house murder mystery. Surreal, meta-textual and extremely silly, the play works because it has, at its core, a bona-fide mystery plot with a final twist (in a similar way to Jasper Fforde’s ‘Jack Spratt’ novels such as ‘The Big Over Easy’, reviewed here in April 2007). There’s a rather high body count – though the majority are killed accidentally by the police investigation of the original murder. Great acting from Kevin Birkett as the plodding sergeant, Joe Butcher as the mercurial Inspector Drake and Janet Bray as everyone else. A good example of amateur theatre demonstrating its ability to be ‘excellent’.

Benji Kirkpatrick

17 April 2009

Last night we were at the stables to see fretboard wizard Benji Kirkpatrick. A member of the brilliant folk big band Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006), Benji plays guitar, bouzouki and banjo and was joined by Sam Norman on double bass and the ace percussionist Cormac Byrne. They played a very rhythmic, muscular folk/rock which sounded a lot like Seth Lakeman (reviewed here in April 2006) – with whom Benji Kirkpatrick has toured. Catchy, upbeat music including traditional English songs, Kirkpatrick’s own compositions and, slightly bizarrely, numbers by The Band and Jimi Hendrix (‘Voodoo Child’ played on the banjo!). 

‘Spyski or The Importance of Being Honest’ by Peepolykus

17 April 2009

Last Friday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see ‘Spyski or The Importance of Being Honest’ by the Peepolykus theatre company. Starting, apparently, as a production of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, after a few minutes the actors came out of character to tell us they had stumbled upon the murder of a Russian secret agent in London. They wanted to tell us the details but were being watched by the British security services and would have to switch back to ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ if they spotted a British agent in the theatre. This premise framed a complex, incredibly silly but completely logical tale of murder, intrigue and mistaken identity – which kept occasionally lapsing back into Oscar Wilde. Coincidentally, the spy story ended up with a baby being left in a handbag at Victoria station – you get the idea! At times the actors were playing themselves on an earlier occasion playing the Wilde characters – but it all seemed to make some sort of sense. Great fun, very silly and remarkably clever.

'First Among Sequels' by Jasper Fforde

10 April 2009

Having reached the beginning of Jasper Fforde's series of Thursday Next novels I have now leaped forward to the end, reading the latest instalment 'First Among Sequels'. This book was written much later than the previous four and is set in 2002, fourteen years after its immediate predecessor 'Something Rotten' (reviewed here in August 2008). Literary detective Thursday Next is still coping with the demands of policing both in the 'real' world and within fiction but now has the added pressures of family life and pretending to her husband that she works in a carpet shop. The usual Fforde mix of parallel universes, time travel and surreal nonsense with a nonetheless logical plot are all here - and I think this is one of the better Thursday Next books. I was a little disappointed to spot a couple of plot lines that don't appear to be resolved (unless I missed something) but it's all good fun - with an menacingly dark side as Thursday gets mixed up in cheese smuggling over the Welsh border.

 

St Osyth, Essex

7 April 2009

We had a relaxing week at St Osyth, near Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. We had good weather and did some very nice walks. The seaside resorts (Clacton, Walton-on-the-Naze etc) are quaintly old-fashioned - though most have seen better days. We preferred the villages north of Colchester, towards the Suffolk border, particularly Dedham and Castle Hedingham which are extremely picturesque. And we crossed the border into Suffolk to revisit Constable's Flatford Mill - the site of 'The Hay Wain'. A quiet, restful week.

'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House' by Kate Summerscale

6 April 2009

On 30 June 1860 a child was murdered in a country house in Road, Wiltshire. This crime was to become a national cause célèbre that would influence the fledgling art of detection, policing methods and the judicial system and would launch a new literary genre. The Road Hill House case was the original 'country house murder' - the first in a line leading through Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple to Inspector Morse. 'The Moonstone' by Wilkie Collins, generally considered to be the first real English detective novel, was published in 1868 and was modelled on the Road Hill murder - with Collins' Sergeant Cuff taking the role of the real Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher. Echoes of the Road Hill case also occur in 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' by Charles Dickens and Henry James' 'The Turn of the Screw'. Kate Summerscale's remarkable book 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House' describes the investigation of this horrendous crime in forensic detail. Although it is written in the now familiar murder mystery form, 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' is not fictionalised. Kate Summerscale has written a wholly factual documentary, drawing on contemporary newspaper reports, police records and other sources. Dialogue is quoted verbatim and everything is carefully referenced. The book starts on the day the murder is discovered and the chapters step chronologically forwards, revealing only what was discovered by the police at each stage. The level of detail at first appears overwhelming and I worried that I would not be able to retain enough too follow the unravelling of the story. But within a few chapters I was completely gripped and could not put down this compelling tale. Without ever dropping the thread of the murder investigation, Kate Summerscale manages to weave a social history of Victorian Britain, encompassing class, employment, politics and the influence of Darwinism. 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' is an amazing story, brilliantly told: I urge you to read it.

Ruth Notman

6 April 2009

'Threads', the debut CD by young Nottingham folk singer Ruth Notman, was one of my favourite discoveries of 2008. So I leapt at the chance to hear Ruth live at The Stables. The new 'Stage 2' performance space was absolutely packed: we got the last two seats on the front row and later arrivals were turned away. The music was wonderful - most of the songs from 'Threads' plus some from Ruth's second album (due to be released in July), impeccably performed. Ruth Notman has a great voice - distinctive and characterful - and plays guitar and piano impressively. Her repertoire is catchy and varied - including traditional tunes and modern songs drawing on the folk tradition. Her's is not precious or intense folk music: it's full of vitality and often rather jolly. Like that other young English folk singer (who actually sings backing vocals on 'Threads') Bella Hardy (reviewed here in March 2008), Ruth Notman benefits from a more experienced musician accompanying her and helping guide her through the challenge of developing her stage presence and between-song patter. In this case the older hand is Saul Rose on melodeon and Ruth was also joined by Hannah Edmonds on 'cello. Unfortunately, the number of times she filled the silences with "so" or "right" and the occasions when the performers ended up talking to each other and ignoring the audience were a bit distracting. I am sure her concert presentation will improve with experience. There was no sign of nerves or lack of confidence in Ruth Notman's singing, however. She did not disappoint and I'm really looking forward to her new album.

‘Cider with Roadies' by Stuart Maconie

23 March 2009

Having enjoyed ‘Pies and Prejudice’ – Stuart Maconie’s exploration of the North of England (reviewed here in June 2008) – I was keen to read his earlier book ‘Cider with Roadies’. This is Maconie’s memoire of growing up in Wigan, failing as a rock star and succeeding as a music journalist – and a chronicle of the changing face of popular music over his lifetime. Very much in the Nick Hornby mode, it’s an entertaining, self-deprecating and very funny tale. Inevitably the best bits were where Stuart Maconie’s musical experiences coincided with my own but his main childhood enthusiasms were a bit before my time and his discoveries as a music journalist came mostly after my own enthusiasm for pop music had waned. Nevertheless I found much to reminisce over and his brushes with stardom are so modestly dealt with they never feel like mere name-dropping. If you like this kind of thing I would also recommend ‘Lost in Music’ by Giles Smith.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

17 March 2009

On Saturday I played in the Northampton Symphony Orchestra 'Film Night' concert at the Derngate in Northampton. It was fitting that an event showcasing storytelling music had so many stories to tell itself. Dr Peter Robertson played viola in the NSO for more than 30 years. When he died last year he left a bequest to the orchestra which funded this ambitious concert in his memory. The occasion also marked the start of violinist Harold Colman's 50th year playing in the orchestra: Harold was presented with a framed copy of the programme from the first NSO concert in which he performed - in 1960. And Saturday's concert was the NSO debut for our new conductor, Alexander Walker. Alex is an exciting, young, professional conductor who is a regular guest conductor with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, works regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and is a regular guest conductor with the Mikkeli and Lappeenranta City Orchestras in Finland, and of the Esbjerg Ensemble and the Vestyjsk Sinfonieorkester in Denmark. This film music programme, including 'Superman', 'The Dambusters', 'Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom', 'Back to the Future' and 'The Great Escape' was a different kind of challenge for Alex. During his first rehearsal, in January, he peered at the score for 'Themes from 007' at one point and commented "it says 'medium rock tempo' - not a phrase I have encountered much in my professional career!". But Alex and the NSO rose to the challenge and it was a wonderful evening - including what I thought was a particularly impressive performance of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' by Paul Dukas. It was very exciting to play to an enthusiastic audience of what must have been nearly 1,000 people. A magnificent, overdue return to the Derngate.

‘Seya’ by Oumou Sangaré

11 March 2009

It’s fascinating how, despite the universality of music, some countries produce a disproportionately vibrant musical culture: it must be something to do with a happy coincidence of tradition, conditions, politics etc. With centuries of musical tradition, Mali in West Africa is today one of the most musical places on Earth. One of the stars of modern Malian music is the Wassalou singer Oumou Sangaré, whose new album ‘Seya’ I have been enjoying this week. Oumou Sangaré is an amazing person – superstar, political campaigner and entrepreneur. Her music is beautiful, joyous and extremely funky. Using a combination of traditional African and modern Western instruments, she is less experimental than fellow Wassalou diva, Rokia Traoré (reviewed here in December 2008) but manages to create a sound which is contemporary without becoming bland Western pop music. And whereas Rokia Traoré’s vocals are almost whispered, Oumou Sangaré’s voice soars over the music. ‘Seya’ is varied, catchy, moving and distinctively Malian.

Mahler's 5th Symphony in Leighton Buzzard

2 March 2009

Keith Saunders is a keen amateur violinist who plays with Milton Keynes Sinfonia. As he approached his 50^th birthday Keith wanted to do something special to mark the occasion and decided to take part in a sponsored Everest Base Camp Trek to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation. On Sunday, to give a focus to his search for sponsors and to fulfil another ambition on his birthday itself, Keith and his friends gathered together, at Vandyke Upper School in Leighton Buzzard, a massive orchestra made up of players from Milton Keynes Sinfonia, Bedfordshire Symphony Orchestra, Northampton Symphony Orchestra, Buckinghamshire Chamber Orchestra and others to play Mahler’s 5^th Symphony. Mahler 5 is a wonderful, mammoth, crazy, challenging work which would stretch the forces and ability of most amateur orchestras. At the end of a one-day workshop, conducted by David Knight, we managed to produce a very passable informal performance. It was great fun – a lovely day with excellent catering by Keith’s family and a rare chance to get to grips with an amazing piece of music. You can contribute to Keith’s British Heart Foundation appeal at www.justgiving.com/keithsaunders  

'Brief Encounter' adapted for the stage by Emma Rice from the words and music of Noel Coward

2 March 2009

Had the phrase ‘kitchen-sink drama’ not already been used to mean something else I would have been tempted to employ it in relation to the brilliant Kneehigh Theatre whose productions tend to involve everything and the kitchen sink! On Saturday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see the Kneehigh production of Noel Coward’s ‘Brief Encounter’. Very much as she did (with Tom Morris) with the National Theatre/Kneehigh production of ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ (reviewed here in May 2007), director and adapter Emma Rice has taken an iconic film and created a stage production which draws out much more than you realised was in the original. Working with Coward’s screenplay, Rice has added an onstage band and a serious of music-hall turns – all featuring Noel Coward songs. The show also features an integration of live action and film, dance, puppetry, juggling and interaction with the audience – and, while there isn’t actually a kitchen sink, there is an ever-present coal fire smouldering at the back of the stage. Some comic touches reminded me of Patrick Barlow's stage adaptation of ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ but Laura and Alec’s heart-breaking relationship at the centre of ‘Brief Encounter’ is played straight. The familiar strains of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto are used very sparingly – creating a very powerful effect when the achingly romantic theme is finally heard in full. Inventive, entertaining and extremely moving – a great theatrical experience.

'John Adams'

27 February 2009

I’ve been catching up with the wonderful HBO drama series ‘John Adams’. Having heard much praise for this tale of the early years of American independence I had high expectations and was a little disappointed at first to find it a fairly conventional historical drama. As the series progressed, however, I began to appreciate how well done it was. The acting was intelligent and subtle – particularly the central relationship between Paul Giamatti’s Adams and his wife Abigail, played by Laura Linney. The gradual character development over a period of more than 20 years was engaging and believable. There were key roles for a number of British actors including Tom Hollander (a brilliant cameo as King George III), Rufus Sewell, Stephen Dillane and a show-stealing turn by Tom Wilkinson as Benjamin Franklin. With hindsight it was very clever to show us some of the key events of the period through the eyes of the ever-present, but often peripheral, Adams rather than focussing more obviously on George Washington. It has certainly improved my knowledge of the history of the period – and the scenes in the pre-revolution French court were a hoot. 

'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour' by Tom Stoppard and André Previn

20 February 2009

In 1974 André Previn told Tom Stoppard that if he ever wanted to write something that needed a symphony orchestra, well he had one (the LSO). After some discussion they agreed to create a play involving an orchestra as one of the characters. ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Favour’ received its debut – a one-off performance at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Previn – in July 1977. The play is set in a Russian psychiatric hospital and tells the story of two men – one a political dissident incarcerated in the hospital, the other a real psychiatric patient who believes he has his own orchestra with him in the room. This leads to the juxtaposition of a serious condemnation of the abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union with a farce of misunderstanding and talking at crossed purposes. And, of course, we the audience can see the imaginary orchestra in the room performing Previn’s score – with the deluded patient playing the triangle (which in turn allows for a very Stoppardian dissection of Euclidian geometry!). I first came across this understandably rarely performed work nearly 20 years ago when I was working for the Royal National Institute for the Blind and we were asked to record the text for a visually impaired student. So I was familiar with the brilliant dialogue (the triangle player continually asks the political prisoner what instrument he plays, assuming he must have come to join the orchestra: at one point, after a few seconds thought, he asks “if I were to strike you over the head with your instrument, would you need a welder, a carpenter or a brain surgeon?”). But I had never seen the piece performed so I leapt at the chance to see the revival directed by Felix Barrett and Tom Morris currently playing at the National Theatre. Using the massive Olivier stage, Barrett and Morris have made ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Favour’ more theatrical and less of a concert hall piece. In this production the players of the Southbank Sinfonia are integrated into the action in a range of inventive and surprising ways. Toby Jones and Joseph Millson are great as the two patients but this is an ‘ensemble’ work in every sense of the word, with a cast of around 60 people. It only lasts just over an hour, without an interval, but it was one of the most exciting, entertaining and though-provoking theatrical experiences I’ve had for a long time. My understanding and enjoyment was enhanced by attending a pre-show talk: on most occasions when you go to the pre-show talk you find yourself amongst a handful of people sitting at the front of a large auditorium but on this occasion the enormous Olivier theatre was packed, with people standing at the back, to hear Tom Stoppard himself talking about the writing of ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Favour’. Stoppard is a thoughtful, careful speaker – self deprecating without false modesty – and it was fascinating to hear his insights into the creative process.

Bellowhead at the South Bank Centre

20 February 2009

On Saturday we were at the South Bank Centre in London to hear everyone’s favourite folk big band, Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006 and July 2008), performing as part of the ‘Imagine’ children’s literature festival. This free performance in the huge Clore Ballroom space was great fun, slightly hampered by the fact that the set of bookshelves framing the stage meant that most of us couldn’t actually see the band. That didn’t stop us dancing while we craned our necks to see the Bellowhead heads appear above the bookshelves as the band themselves bounced up and down in time to the music – you can’t beat a band that dances to its own tunes. In a sort of English folk music ‘Mamma Mia’ a storyteller wove a fantastical tale to incorporate most of Bellowhead’s repertoire – with occasional vital contributions from the children in the audience (which resulted, for example, in the scary giant having purple hair and black fingers but wearing a ‘I love New York’ t-shirt!). An uplifting, inspiring performance from one of the best live acts of the moment – even when you can’t see them!

‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’ by Lily Allen

12 February 2009

One of the benefits of using Spotify is that, even when you’re snowed in, you can try out the latest musical releases free of charge and completely legally. This week I’ve been listening to ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’, the new album by Lily Allen, which was released on Monday. And it’s actually rather good. Extremely catchy electronic pop tunes which have been playing continuously in my head. Witty and playful lyrics – though often quite crude (definitely post-watershed). On ‘Him’, an irreverent  speculation on the nature of God, she sings: “I don’t imagine He’s ever been suicidal. His favourite band is Creedence Clearwater Revival.” – great lyric. Lily Allen sings in a cool, quiet, laid-back semi-spoken style. It took me a while to work out what this reminded me of but I finally traced the sound back to the Pet Shop Boys, particularly their wonderful 2002 album ‘Release’. 

'The Eyre Affair' by Jasper Fforde

6 February 2009

Regular readers will remember that I have been paying homage to the surreal complexities of Jasper Fforde’s ‘Thursday Next’ novels by reading the series in reverse order. I have now reached the end/beginning: ‘The Eyre Affair’ introduces us to literary detective (LiteraTec) Thursday Next. But my expectation that this first novel would be a simpler tale, from which the confusing later books developed, was unfounded. ‘The Eyre Affair’ throws in a large, five-star hotel’s worth of kitchen sinks – time travel, cloning, dodos, Neanderthals, fictional characters coming to life and much, much more. And it’s all set in a parallel reality where the Crimean War has lasted a hundred years and Wales is an independent socialist republic (tourist board slogan: “not always raining”!). It’s inventive and very funny and Fforde cleverly plants seemingly insignificant characters and plot devices in the early chapters that reliably return to play key roles in the climax. But I still think the bizarre comic style Fforde plays with through the Thursday Next novels finds a more complete home in his ‘Nursery Crime’ series – where a more conventional whodunit plot drives the surreal nonsense on with more pace. If you haven’t tried Jasper Fforde yet start with ‘The Big Over Easy’ (reviewed here in April 2007).

‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ by Stef Penney

28 January 2009

1867, Canada: the setting for ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’, the debut novel by Stef Penney. When it won the 2006 Costa Book of the Year prize there was some media fuss about the fact that Stef Penney had never actually been to Canada (let alone Canada in the 1860s!). Well, call me old fashioned but I’ve always thought it an asset for a fiction writer to be able to make things up! ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ is a gripping tale told from the various viewpoints of an engaging cast of Dickensian characters. It opens with the discovery of a murder in a remote community of Scottish settlers in Ontario and the narrative follows various trails through the snowy wilderness to unravel this and several other mysteries. And throughout there is the constant sense of being watched by the lurking, unseen menace of wolves. The story is revealed through chapters which each take the perspective of one of the principal characters – all in the third person with the exception of the first person narration of the central figure, Mrs Ross. The alternating viewpoints reminded me of Matthew Kneale’s wonderful novel ‘English Passengers’ though the humour of ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ is more restrained. The Dickensian tone and unravelling of family mysteries also made me think of ‘The Little Friend’ by Donna Tartt – another recent favourite. I liked the way the reader’s understanding of what happened grows only in line with the characters whose viewpoints we have been following – meaning that at several points we think we have discovered the truth, only to have to adjust our understanding again later. While some key puzzles are resolved by the end of the book, there are plenty of remaining loose ends which help to avoid the story seeming tool artificially neat and tidy (or leave you frustratingly scouring the internet for answers!). And there’s a small, final twist which alerts you to a further mystery that you haven’t noticed was there all along, lurking in the shadows with the wolves. A very impressive, gripping and entertaining debut.

Spotify

23 January 2008

This week I’ve discovered ‘Spotify’ – a new online music streaming service. If you’ve got a broadband connection and you’re willing to put up with listening to a very occasional advert you can listen to a massive catalogue of recorded music completely free of charge. You download a small program which handles the streaming (without any of the buffering delays you get with most streaming audio) and the interface looks very like itunes. It works remarkably well and the choice of popular, classical and world music seems pretty good. At the moment you can only sign up for the free service by invitation but, if you’re interested, you can get an invitation by using this link: tinyurl.com/spotifylink 

'Smoke of Home' by Megson

16 January 2008

I’ve been enjoying ‘Smoke of Home’, the 2007 album by English folk duo Megson. Stu Hanna and Debbie Palmer come from Teeside and sing uplifting folk/pop with interesting lyrics – similar territory to Karine Polwart (reviewed here in November 2005, April 2006 and April 2008). The rhythmic guitars and catchy tunes sound a lot like Seth Lakeman (reviewed here in April 2006) – though with North East rather than South West accents. If you’re looking for an antidote to the post-Christmas blues Megson might be the answer. Take a look at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ppdj6abEFWo

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Viennese New Year Gala

9 January 2009

We brought in the New Year in a cottage in Herefordshire and, not being able to manage the journey to Vienna, decided instead to join the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for a Viennese New Year Gala concert at the Malvern Theatres. A packed house enjoyed a marvellous evening of works by Mozart, von Suppé and the Strauss family culminating in the inevitable ‘Blue Danube’ and the ‘Radetzky March’. Austrian conductor Carlos Kalmar was the perfect host, providing fascinating introductions to each of the pieces, entertaining with his exuberant, choreographed conducting and looking the part with wild hair and a mischievous grin. Two days before the concert soprano Gillian Keith was looking forward to a quiet New Year at home when she got a call from the CBSO asking if she could step in to replace an ill Mary Hegarty. Gillian Keith gave a great performance: I particularly enjoyed her ‘Spiel Ich die Unschuld vom Lande’ from ‘Die Fledermaus’ by Johann Strauss II. A lovely way to start 2009. 

'The Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum, with music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg

9 January 2009

On Christmas Eve we made an impromptu journey up the yellow brick road to the Royal Theatre, Northampton, where we bought the last two tickets for Laurie Sansom’s wonderful production of ‘The Wizard of Oz’. It was a magical show – managing both to recreate faithfully many of the iconic moments from the 1939 MGM film and to demonstrate ingenious and original stagecraft. Sara Perks’ colourful design gave each scene a different colour scheme until Dorothy had travelled through an entire rainbow. I particularly liked the stilt-walking apple trees and the use of a trap-door which allowed Kate Russell-Smith’s Wicked Witch of the West to melt before our eyes. Once again Laurie Sansom presented a seamlessly integrated cast with the professional principles supported by 15 local amateur actors and 3 rotating groups of 20 local children as the Munchkins. Natalie Burt (who we had previously seen at the Royal in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' – reviewed here in September 2008 – and ‘The Glass Cage’ – reviewed here in November 2007) was a brilliant Dorothy. But the undoubted star of the show was the Scottish terrier Parker (or Bradley – not sure which we saw) as Toto. Wonderful.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

17 December 2008

Last Sunday’s Northampton Symphony Orchestra ‘Christmas Cracker’ concert marked the end of an era, with our conductor of more than seven years, Graham Tear, wielding the baton for the final time. It was an emotional occasion in the enormous atrium of Unity College, Northampton, spoiled only by the lack of heating as the result of a flood at the college earlier in the week. While it was quite cold, the sight, on Sunday afternoon, of a packed audience in hats, coats and gloves under the vast glass ceiling of atrium as the sun sank slowly away, somehow seemed even more Christmassy – creating an image of massed carol singers assembled in a town square. The ‘Christmas Cracker’ concert has become a valued Northampton tradition and all the usual elements were present: classical music with a Christmas theme (including the ‘Sleigh Ride’ by Delius), carols for the audience to sing, a narrated work (Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’) and an orchestra dominated by Santa hats and tinsel. The climax, as always, was provided by trumpeter Nick Bunker’s entrance at the beginning of the second half of the concert to play the ‘Sleigh Ride’ by Leroy Anderson: this year, with several younger members of the audience still traumatised by the cries of the eaten-alive duck in the wolf’s stomach at the end of ‘Peter and the Wolf’, Nick appeared in a 6-foot Daffy Duck costume, with one arm in a sling! A lovely afternoon, ending with an encore of Ronan Hardiman’s ‘Lord of the Dance’, providing a great send-off for Graham Tear.

'Junctions' - The Tacet Ensemble with Spiers and Boden

10 December 2008

John Spiers and Jon Boden are two of the stars of the current young wave of English folk music - a fantastic duo and the foundations of the wonderful folk big band Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006 and July 2008). On Saturday we were at The Stables to see Spiers & Boden in 'Junctions' - a fascinating new collaboration with the classical chamber group, the Tacet Ensemble. Over the past few months, the Tacet players, Spiers & Boden and the composers Alison Kay and Ed Hughes have taken part in a series of 'collaboration days' resulting in four compositions (by Kay, Hughes, Spiers and Boden) for these combined folk and classical forces. These new works were performed on Saturday alongside traditional English folk music from Spiers & Boden and chamber works by contemporary English classical composers including Graham Fitkin, Michael Finnissy and Julian Anderson. It made for an interesting and varied evening though the comparisons between folk and classical sometimes seemed a little unfair: by their nature the traditional folk tunes were much more instantly accessible whereas the classical pieces, whilst not 'difficult' listening, probably needed to be heard several times to be fully appreciated. Nevertheless it was an enthralling evening with some wonderful performances: I think my pick of the new compositions was Jon Boden's arrangement of the traditional song 'Barbara Allen' which seemed most effectively to present something with clear folk origins as serious, thoughtful, contemporary music.

    

‘Tchamantché’ by Rokia Traoré

5 December 2008

Rokia Traoré is a Malian musician, now based in Paris, who sings in the Wassoulou style, using traditional instruments, rhythms and harmonies to create a remarkably innovative, modern sound. I love her 2003 album ‘Bowmboi’ – I think it’s my favourite African CD – and have been looking forward to its long-awaited successor, ‘Tchamantché’. It’s probably a little too early to say but on a first listen ‘Tchamantché’ sounds just as good, if not better. It’s a fascinatingly varied collection of songs with the traditional Malian instruments augmented by a range of unlikely partners. But all the tracks are dominated by Rokia Traore’s distinctive, haunting, intimate, breathy voice. It’s strangely both shocking and completely natural when, towards the end of the album, she sings, in English, Billie Holiday’s ‘The Man I Love’. A sophisticated, engaging and beautiful CD.

'The Uncommon Reader' by Alan Bennett

26 November 2008

In 'The Uncommon Reader' Alan Bennett imagines The Queen happening upon a mobile library and developing a passion for reading books. As she becomes less interested in her royal duties and more interested in getting back to her latest novel her staff begin a battle to discourage her new obsession with the printed word. In a mere 120 pages of light, humorous prose, Bennett manages to say a lot about monarchy, the royal household, the benefits of reading and the importance of writing. Novelist Lionel Shriver described it very accurately as "A beguiling bedtime story for grown-ups."

'New Europe' by Michael Palin

25 November 2008

  

I've just finished reading 'New Europe' - Michael Palin's book from the TV series of the same name. Quite strange reading the book having not seen any of the programmes but it's a fascinating series of snapshots of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, nonetheless. It was particularly interesting to read Palin's thoughts about Slovenia, having been there myself in June - but slightly disappointing that this familiar territory was dealt with in the first chapter, rather than being something to look forward to. Because of the scale of the expedition - covering 20 countries from the Mediterranean to the Baltic - some countries are covered very briefly. And I think the book suffers a bit from the nature of the TV programme which clearly requires plenty of 'set piece' events and meetings: where I would have liked a bit more general background, the limited time allotted to some locations is dominated by meeting a local celebrity. Nevertheless Michael Palin's voice and personality come through clearly and are very easy to read. And I now feel much clearer about the differences between all those Eastern European countries we tend to lump together: I now know the difference between Macedonia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova and Moldavia, Republica Serbska and Republika Slovenija etc. Education with a light touch.

 

Tim Minchin

25 November 2008

 

Whenever I hear a comic song I always think of Harris: "Well, you don't look for much of a voice in a comic song. You don't expect correct phrasing or vocalisation. You don't mind if a man does find out, when in the middle of a note, that he is too high, and comes down with a jerk. You don't bother about time. You don't mind a man being two bars in front of the accompaniment, and easing up in the middle of a line to argue it out with the pianist, and then starting the verse afresh. But you do expect the words." ('Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome, 1889) Australian comedian Tim Minchin is a modern master of the comic song (and has no problem remembering the words!). We had heard a lot about Tim Minchin at the Edinburgh Fringe but we hadn't managed to see his show so we took the opportunity last Saturday to see him closer to home at The Stables at Wavendon. Every time we go to The Stables I get nervous, as we enter the car park, that we're going to be part of a select few - it's a big auditorium that can often look embarrassingly empty. On Saturday I was relieved to see the car park stewards at full stretch to pack us in: it was almost a full house and clearly most of the audience were already much more familiar with Tim Minchin than we were. There were cheers of recognition at the beginning of most of his songs and plenty of people singing along. To his credit Minchin didn't play on this adulation, treating each lyrical 'reveal' as if it was the first time he had sung it. He is a brilliant pianist - demonstrating some of the most amazing boogie woogie piano playing I've seen. And he incorporates a wide range of musical styles/pastiches. I'm very wary of sounding a critical note given the vitriolic revenge Tim Minchin took on a savage review by the Guardian journalist Daoust, which is now an integral part of his show - but actually that song is a good case in point. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems a shame that much of Minchin's witty wordplay and excellent observational humour is undermined by resorting to unnecessary bad language to generate a cheap laugh. Modern stand-up comedy seems to have established a culture where it cannot be edgy and cool unless it involves swearing. Tim Minchin is by no means the worst offender but I think he'll be much funnier when he gets his own Radio 4 series and has to ditch the bad language.

 

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

17 November 2008

On Saturday I played with Milton Keynes Sinfonia in a concert which contrasted early and later works by those near contemporaries Richard Strauss and Ralph Vaughan-Williams. We started with the delightful ‘Serenade for Wind’ by Strauss – described by our conductor, David Knight, as ‘super-charged Haydn’. We were then joined by the wonderful soprano, Zoe South, for a thrilling performance of Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’ – delicate, powerful and immensely moving. (‘Beim Schlafengehen’ must be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.) After the strings played Vaughan-Williams’ ‘Variations on Dives & Lazurus’, we finished with his ‘Symphony No 6’ – a fiendishly difficult piece which manages to echo Shostakovich without ever straying from the distinctive VW sound. I thought we gave an impressive performance of an ambitious and interesting programme.

‘Alex’by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor

17 November 2008

Investment banker ‘Alex’ is the star of a Daily Telegraph strip cartoon by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor. Opportunely milking the current financial turmoil, Peattie and Taylor have adapted ‘Alex’ for the stage as a one-man show, currently touring with Robert Bathurst, which we saw last Friday at the Royal Theatre, Northampton. The show ingeniously combined Bathurst’s performance with animated characters from the cartoon, projected on an assorted series of screens around the stage (the second week running where projected animations threatened to steal the show). Robert Bathurst’s interaction with his two-dimensional co-stars (for whom he provided all the voices) was very slick. It was also interesting to see the integration of the four-frame gags from the strip cartoon with over-arching plot and characters development (also so effectively achieved by Harry Venning and David Ramsden in the ‘Clare in the Community radio series, reviewed here in January 2007 and December 2007). ‘Alex’ reminded me a lot of Radio 4’s excellent ‘Weak at the Top’ sitcom by Guy Browning – though I think Alexander Armstrong’s John Weak was slightly more cynically ruthless. Great fun.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

14 November 2008

Saturday was Graham Tear’s penultimate appearance as conductor of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. After seven years on the podium Graham is stepping down, to be replaced in the New Year by Alexander Walker. Our programme on Saturday was an ambitious one but the orchestra rose to the occasion. Elgar’s Second Symphony is a long and complex piece: when we started to rehearse in September, I wasn’t convinced we were going to get to grips with it. I think we really benefited from the different perspectives of the four conductors who worked with us on the symphony as their audition piece. By the time we reached the concert it felt like the orchestra understood the work well and I think we gave a good account of it. I enjoyed Walton’s ‘Johannesburg Festival Overture’ which opened the concert, at St Matthew’s Church in Northampton, and I was pleased to be able to enjoy Lucy Parham’s impressive performance of Ravel’s ‘Piano Concerto in G’ from the audience – it’s a fiendishly difficult piece but the slow movement, in particular, is beautiful.

‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ apapted for the stage by Clive Francis

14 November 2008

Last Friday we were at the Royal Theatre, Northampton, to see ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ with Peter Egan as Holmes and Philip Franks as Watson. It was a very enjoyable evening but the star of the show was undoubtedly the set. The stage was dominated by two open pages of an enormous book, onto which a variety of pictures, animation and text was projected. As the pages appeared to turn over, using the sort of animation you see in an e-book, we dived further into the story – looking out of the window of 221B Baker Street, racing across Dartmoor or recoiling from the rapidly advancing silhouette of the hound. While most of the acting happened in front of the pages, back-lighting was used occasionally to reveal actors behind (or within) the book. It was a very inventive and effective mix of technology and live action. Unfortunately, I don’t think the production had really settled on whether or not to play it for laughs. It reminded me at times of the wonderful Patrick Barlow stage adaptation of ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ – particularly with just three actors playing all the subsidiary parts. But, whereas ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ was entirely tongue in cheek (and very funny), ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ seemed to veer between melodrama and spoof. Franks’ Watson was a little too much in the Nigel Bruce, bumbling buffoon, line for me. And I was particularly puzzled to see Egan holding his violin and bow in the wrong hands – was he doing this for a bet or were we actually watching a mirror image? Good fun and visually stunning but we came out humming the set.

'Night Must Fall' by Emlyn Williams

6 November 2008

Torrential rain last Saturday deprived the Woburn bonfire of our company. Instead we made the short journey to Toddington to see a performance of Emlyn Williams' 'Night Must Fall' by the Toddington Amateur Dramatic Society (TADS). TADS operates from its own 75-seat theatre and has just secured a grant of £50,000, from the Landfill Communities Fund of the Waste Recycling Group, which will fund a major programme of refurbishment. 'Night Must Fall' is a psychological thriller written in 1935 in which the focus is more on the mind of the killer rather than on a 'whodunnit' plot. This makes it a fairly ambitious undertaking for an amateur company - added to which it is quite a long play - but the TADS production was very impressive with some outstanding individual performances.

BBC Philharmonic concert

30 October 2008

Erich Wolfgang Korngold is now remembered principally as a film composer from the golden age of Hollywood – one of those Jewish artists exiled from Europe by the rise of fascism. A few years ago I first discovered his wonderful later works for the concert hall – particularly the lovely ‘Violin Concerto’ which the Northampton Symphony Orchestra performed with Thomas Gould (reviewed here in April 2008). But I had not appreciated that Korngold was also a remarkable child prodigy. The ‘Schauspiel Overture’, which opened the BBC Philharmonic concert we attended at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester last Friday, was Korngold’s first published orchestral work, composed at the age of 14. (By this age he had already completed two piano sonatas, a two-act ballet and a piano trio!) The overture was performed across Europe by nearly every great conductor of the day and Henry Wood introduced it at The Proms in London in 1912 – making Korngold, to this day, the youngest composer ever performed at The Proms. The ‘Schauspiel Overture’ (‘overture to a drama’ – though with no specific play in mind) is a sumptuous piece, already demonstrating what would become the Korngold sound. The BBC Philharmonic followed the overture with the world premiere of ‘Beautiful Passing’ – a violin concerto by the American composer Steven Mackey. Violinist Leila Josefowicz gave a very physical performance of this challenging work which reflects on the finals days of Mackey’s dying mother. There were some beautifully moving quiet passages and lots of fascinating sound effects from the percussion department – including bowed cymbals and tennis balls being dropped onto the skin of the timpani. The concert concluded with Dvorak’s ‘Symphony No 9 – From the New World’ with the BBC Phil in fine form under the young Slovakian conductor Juraj Valcuha.

 

'The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul' by Douglas Adams

23 October 2008

If you loved the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of the Douglas Adams novel 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' (reviewed here in November 2007) half as much as I did, then I'm probably enjoying the sequel, 'The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul' (currently being broadcast at 11 pm on Thursdays - listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dp6hx) twice as much as you. Dirk Maggs and John Langdon have done a wonderful job of realising this equally bemusing and entertaining novel as a radio serial. Wonderful cast, excessive use of sound effects, great music and a totally incomprehensible plot. You really need to listen to each episode at least twice to have any idea what's going on. The title is a quotation from an earlier Douglas Adams novel, 'Life, The Universe and Everything': "...it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in ... as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul...". Marvellous! 

 

'Love's Labour's Lost' by William Shakespeare

15 October 2008

We didn't manage to get gold-dust tickets to see David Tennant as Hamlet but we were organised enough to book (back in February!) to see him in the Royal Shakespeare Company's parallel production of 'Love's Labour's Lost'. So on Saturday we made our way through the Stratford Mop Fair, which had taken over the streets of Stratford-upon-Avon, to the Courtyard Theatre - the temporary home of the RSC while the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is being renovated. I hadn't seen 'Love's Labour's Lost' before: it's a relatively early Shakespeare and not the most complete of his plays. The plot is more or less over by the interval, leaving the second half to a series of set-piece dances and pageants. You can clearly see elements that will become 'As You Like It' and 'Much Ado About Nothing' (as well as a flavour of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'). David Tennant was a great Benedick in BBC Radio 3's production of 'Much Ado About Nothing' a few years ago, so it it was fascinating to see him as Berowne - very much the prototype for Benedick. He was fantastic - an electric stage presence - very hard to take your eyes off him - and extremely funny. A very enjoyable production with a great cast - I particularly liked Mariah Gale as the Princess of France and Nina Sosanya as Rosaline and it was lovely to see a familiar face from the Northampton Royal Theatre, Natalie Walter, in her RSC debut season. But it was very much David Tennant's show.

Kings Place opening festival

7 October 2008

Kings Place is London’s newest concert venue – a gleaming glass and steel block round the back of Kings Cross station, overlooking Regent’s Canal. It houses two concert halls, two galleries and the new offices of The Guardian. The building opened last weekend with a festival of a hundred short concerts over five days. We dropped in on Sunday afternoon and saw two performances. ‘Sound Walk’ was a collaboration between sound artists Tony Whitehead and Matthew Sansom, presented by the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Tony Whitehead had spent a day in and around Kings Cross, keeping a sound diary in which he wrote descriptions of the noises he heard, then honing these descriptions into a poem. Whitehead’s words were projected, verse by verse, onto a screen while we listened to Matthew Sansom’s composition – a soundscape constructed from recordings he had made of the ambient sounds of Kings Cross. This was serious, contemplative work which benefited from being presented in a concert hall: had I encountered it in a gallery or on a CD my attention span might not have been long enough to appreciate it, but sitting in a darkened room, concentrating on the patterns of sounds and words, it was fascinating how things were gradually revealed. We then moved to the main concert hall to hear the Brodsky Quartet, and clarinettist Mark van de Wiel, perform Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘Hymn to Artemis Locheia’, introduced by the composer. Max explained that the work had been commissioned by the head of the London Fertility Clinic, to commemorate his father, and dealt with the idea of creation, the creative process and the cycle of life. A fairly long piece (around thirty minutes) it was often difficult and challenging listening but I found the quieter, slower passages very beautiful. It was a very impressive performance with virtuosic playing, particularly by Mark van de Wiel. There was a compelling moment, a few minutes from the end of the piece, when one of the violinists broke a string, as a result of a particularly violent pizzicato, but kept going seamlessly – the only clue that anything was wrong being the additional furrowing of his brow as he concentrated on working out how to play the remaining notes on his three remaining strings. Kings Place is an impressive venue – a monument to the new.

'Lost in a Good Book' by Jasper Fforde

3 October 2008

Another week, another Jasper Fforde novel. Time travelling my way backwards through the Thursday Next canon at an increasing rate of daypers, this week I've read 'Lost in a Good Book' - the second novel in the series. It is fun to see how many hidden nuggets there are in Fforde's books that could only really make sense with the benefit of hindsight, having read the later works - though it does remove some of the tension to know, for example, that the world doesn't end next Thursday (having been saved, of course, by Thursday Next). I'm now really looking forward to finally getting the full picture by reading the first book, 'The Eyre Affair'.

'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' by Muriel Spark, adapted for the stage by Jay Presson Allan

29 September 2008

Another trip to the Royal Theatre in Northampton last Saturday to see another excellent in-house production. I had seen clips of the celebrated 1961 film of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' but had never watched it in full, nor read the original novel by Muriel Spark. Nevertheless it felt quite familiar so it was exciting to discover, through the stage adaptation by Jay Presson Allan, that the story was much darker and more complex than I had expected. I was surprised to discover how much Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys' owes to 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' - and, in a neat reciprocation, how much Laurie Sansom's Royal & Derngate production was indebted to Nicholas Hytner's staging of the Alan Bennett play. I loved the set - apparently constructed entirely from blackboards covered in the chalked memories of earlier lessons. And it was fantastic to see Sansom once again integrating local amateur performers into the cast (as he did in Follies - reviewed here in November 2006 - and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - reviewed here in February 2008). This time the senior chamber choir of Northampton School for Girls, 'Madrigalis', was used to populate Miss Brodie's class and provide musical interludes. Anna Francolini was great as Brodie - confident, charismatic, quirky, inspirational yet strangely naive: truly the crème de la crème.

'Ivanov' by Anton Chekhov, in a new version by Tom Stoppard

24 September 2008

On Saturday we were in London to see Kenneth Branagh in ‘Ivanov’ – Chekhov’s first play in a new version by Tom Stoppard. It was an impressive production with a starry cast and it was wonderful to see this rare appearance on the London stage by Branagh. His naturalistic performance subtly gripped rather than punching you between the eyes – resisting the temptation to wear his technique on his sleeve – and you had to look closely to see the small mannerisms betraying his character’s developing depression. It was very much an ensemble piece with a show-stealing comic performance from Kevin McNally and excellent contributions from the wonderful Gina McKee and the Andrea Riseborough as young Sasha. I’m not sure I was convinced by the play – I found the tone uneven and the allusions to Hamlet a bit laboured – but there were some stunning moments and it was often very funny.

‘The Well of Lost Plots’ by Jasper Fforde

24 September 2008

If you’ve been swept along by my enthusiasm for the bizarre comic crime novels of Jasper Fforde you’ll love ‘The Well of Lost Plots’, but if you’ve not developed the taste you’re probably getting fed up with me going on about him. (I’d still recommend starting by reading ‘The Big Over Easy’.) ‘The Well of Lost Plots’ is the third novel in the ‘Thursday Next’ series and I feel it is completely appropriate to Fforde’s surreal time-travelling narrative to be reading the books out or order. Having already read the book which follows it (‘Something Rotten’ – reviewed here in August 2008) ‘The Well of Lost Plots’ made much more sense and it was great fun following certain storylines with the benefit of hindsight. This novel involves Thursday Next trying to keep order within works of fiction – counselling the characters in ‘Wuthering Heights’ and trying to prevent them from changing the ending. There are quite a few gags which you might miss if you are not familiar with the relevant books but the humour is enjoyably corny rather than pretentious. As always, Fforde plants a few ideas early on which return satisfyingly at crucial moments, just when you had forgotten them. And it was wonderful to see the emerging explanation of a link between the Thursday Next stories and Fforde’s Nursery Crime series of novels. Incredibly silly fun.

Warsaw Village Band

16 September 2008

The Warsaw Village Band were one of my highlights of the 2007 WOMAD Festival (reviewed here in August 2007) so I jumped at the chance to see them closer to home at The Stables last Sunday. WVB are six young, classically-trained musicians on a mission to seek out and learn traditional, rural, Polish folk music and re-interpret it for a generation raised on rock 'n' roll. Seriously authentic and reverent to their sources they manage to create a nonetheless modern and distinctive sound. Traditional acoustic instruments (violins, 'cello, cimbalom and a variety of percussion), amplified with plenty of echo, create rapid, repetitive, pulsing textures. Sudden shifts of rhythm and time signature add interest and uncertainty. The three female voices are strong and piercing, their jarring harmonies placing them, geographically and musically, between the distinctive Bulgarian choral sound and the Finnish folk vocals of groups like Värttinä (reviewed here in August 2006). The contrasting timbres of the three vocalists add interest as they take turns with the melody and create an effect of harmony even when they are in unison. WVB are very musically slick, bringing precision to the rough folk sound without losing any of its edginess. They are very exciting to watch - though sometimes a little overly serious: it would be nice to see a bit more interaction with the audience and the occasional smile! I particularly enjoyed some of the tracks from their new album, 'Infinity', which used pizzicato violin and 'cello to conjure up beautifully hypnotic music - an entrancing contrast to their usual excitingly frantic whirl. ‘Uprooting’ (2004) was the album that brought them to international attention but, after listening to it this week, I think ‘Infinity’ is even better.

‘Keep Your Silver Shined' by Devon Sproule

11 September 2008

I didn’t manage to see Canadian-born singer songwriter Devon Sproule at WOMAD but I have been listening to her album, ‘Keep Your Silver Shined’. It’s a lovely acoustic blend of country-flavoured swing – featuring Sproule’s gentle, whispered vocals over delicately picked guitar, pedal steel guitar, brushed snare drum, bass and occasional fiddle or clarinet. At times it sounds a lot like Fairground Attraction – but with a Virginia accent rather than a Scottish one. A consistently slick album, though I would have liked more of the exuberance of its stand-out track ‘Old Virginia Block’.

‘The Invention of Everything Else’ by Samantha Hunt

5 September 2008

Five years ago we saw a great show at the Edinburgh Fringe called ‘Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla’ by The Electric Company Theatre. This told the amazing story of the life of Serbian physicist, inventor, and electrical engineer, Nikola Tesla – the inventor of alternating current. Largely forgotten now, Tesla’s brilliance and vision was hampered by a combination of his altruistic attitude to wanting share his inventions with mankind and the more capitalist and self-serving approach of his rivals, particularly Thomas Edison. Tesla was a fascinatingly eccentric character with few close human relationships but a particular passion for pigeons. I’ve just been reading ‘The Invention of Everything Else’, a new novel by Samantha Hunt which fictionalises Tesla’s final days and tells the remarkable story of his life. It’s a wonderfully ‘inventive’ novel, eschewing linear narrative and piecing together Tesla’s story like a jigsaw puzzle. Hunt also creates a number of fictional characters whose lives overlap with the 86-year old Tesla at the Hotel New Yorker in 1943. These characters’ own stories echo the main themes of Tesla’s life and (unknowingly) visit various places that were significant to him. It’s great fun – a really enjoyable and unpredictable read. My only criticism was that, knowing a little about Tesla from the play, mixing his biography with fictional elements might lead you to believe Hunt has made it all up. But the true story of Nikola Tesla is truly incredible: in this case truth is stranger than fiction.

'The Rain Before It falls' by Jonathan Coe

26 August 2008

Jonathan Coe is one of my favourite contemporary authors: I loved his novels 'What a Carve Up!', 'The House of Sleep', 'The Rotters' Club' and its sequel 'The Closed Circle'. Coe's latest novel, 'The Rain Before It Falls' is quite a different kind of book. It feels more conventional and straightforward though it does use an interesting narrative device: most of the story is told as the main character reflects on her life by describing a series of twenty photographs. This creates an episodic telling of a dramatic family saga focusing mainly on mothers and daughters. It's a sad tale without any of the set-piece comedy or the political links to current events of Coe's earlier books. The story kept my attention and was very moving but I was hoping for something more. After finishing the novel I began to wonder whether I was missing a subtle twist. Were we not supposed to trust the narrator through whose eyes we have been looking? Was there something she wasn't telling us? Or was this simply what it seemed - a well-written, gripping, melancholy tale?

Edinburgh Festivals 2008

26 August 2008

Despite the endless rain and the notorious box office software failures, we had a really good week in Edinburgh. We packed in 25 shows in 6 days and saw some wonderful things (and only one turkey!). Particular highlights included: Prokofiev's second violin concerto played by Leonidas Kavakos with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Usher Hall - stunning; 'Are There More of You' - a one-woman play written and performed by Alison Skilbeck (who a very long time ago was Polly Perks in The Archers!) at the Quaker Meeting House; and I am very grateful to Kelly Donaldson for pointing us towards 'Pericles Redux' - an amazing production of Shakespeare's play by physical theatre ensemble Not Man Apart at The Pleasance - enthralling, beautiful, hysterically funny and moving to the point of tears - totally brilliant! We also enjoyed the one-woman shows 'One Day I'll Go To Compostela' and 'Another Kind of Silence' (about the environmentalist Rachel Carson) - both at Hill Street Theatre - and 'ABFCAP: the life and rhymes of Ian Dury' at The Zoo. We always try to take in a concert at the Festival of British Youth Orchestras at Central Hall, Tollcross, and saw a great performance there by the RSAMD Junior Academy Orchestra. We were lucky enough to get tickets to see Denis Healey - a week before his 91st birthday - speaking in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament about his life in politics as part of the Festival of Politics. Lord Healey is still a very entertaining raconteur and had some interesting reflections on current political issues. It was fascinating to be sitting in an audience with many well-known faces including Tam Dalyell, Clive James and Brian McMaster (who we saw at several shows during the week - I think he is following me!). And no visit to the Fringe is complete for us without starting the day at the Spiegel Tent in George Square Gardens to see the live broadcast of BBC Radio Scotland's 'MacAulay & Co' - a great way to see the best bits of this year's comedy shows, without the swearing.

'Bleak Expectations' by Mark Evans

15 August 2008

I was delighted to see the return of 'Bleak Expectations' - Radio 4's wonderful Dickens spoof by Mark Evans which started a second series last week (listen again at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bleakexpectations). Mixing its metaphors and Dickensian clichés in an enormous Victorian cauldron of gruel, Bleak Expectations creates a hilarious surreal world that could only exist on radio. Our hero Pip Bin is now a wealthy man - having made his fortune inventing the waste paper bin - but is still being pursued by the dastardly evil, and erroneously named, Mr Gently Benevolent - with only his one remaining sister, Pippa, and his best friend, the eternally optimistic Harry Biscuit, to help him. This week Pip and Harry find themselves building an entire railway network in their bid to catch Benevolent. Harrumble!

'Low Culture' by Jim Moray

7 August 2008

Jim Moray is one of the young stars of the current English folk music revival. I enjoyed his 2003 debut album, ‘Sweet England’: armed with his fine folk voice and a laptop computer he reinterpreted some of the best known traditional songs in a very modern way. What seemed like the natural reaction of someone from a generation that grew up with rock and pop provoked some controversy amongst folk ‘purists’. In his new album, ‘Low Culture’, Jim Moray takes this approach further, including electronic beats, rock drums and a rapper. But coming after some of the pillars of the folk establishment entered similar territory in The Imagined Village (reviewed here in August 2007) the shock value has diminished and Moray can be appreciated for his honest attempt to make traditional music relevant today. ‘Low Culture’ is a more varied and interesting album. It features an eclectic mix of styles and instrumentation – including strings and brass that make some tracks sound remarkably like Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006). Moray includes the song ‘Three Black Feathers’ by Bella Hardy (reviewed here in March 2008) – fast becoming a modern folk classic. And having made traditional folk songs sound like rock music, he stunningly reverses the trick with a re-interpretation of XTC’s ‘All You Pretty Girls’ which transforms Andy Partridge’s pop classic into a centuries-old sea shanty – joyous, rhythmic and incredibly catchy, I can’t get it out of my head.

World Music Celebration Prom

1 August 2008

On Wednesday I was back at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the World Music Celebration Prom – a concert by five of the winners of this year’s BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music. It was a very hot evening but one which built in musical intensity as the temperature cooled. We heard slick Latin-flavoured African pop from Mayra Andrade from Cape Verde and dramatic flamenco from Spain’s Son de la Frontera (including the most amazing display of flamenco dancing from Pepe Torres). China’s rising star Sa Dingding gave a visually spectacular performance – though I would rather have heard more of the traditional Chinese instruments and less drums and synthesisers. The ‘culture crossing’ award winners, British rock guitarist Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara from Gambia who plays the riti (a one-string fiddle) showed that ‘fusion’ need not be a bland dumbing down. Their music is a genuine partnership – uncompromising, infectious and rhythmic – dominated by the other-worldly sound of the riti. I recommend their album ‘Soul Science’. But the night belonged to Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba (reviewed here in December 2007). Winners of both the Africa and ‘album of the year’ awards, they provided a wonderful finale – virtuoso playing, joyous dancing, a fantastic sound – they brought the house down. (The Independent called them “the best rock'n'roll band in the world”) You can watch the World Music Celebration Prom on BBC4 on Monday 4 August and Monday 11 August or catch it on iPlayer.

'Something Rotten' by Jasper Fforde

1 August 2008

Having really enjoyed Jasper Fforde’s ‘Nursery Crime’ novels featuring Inspector Jack Spratt – ‘The Big Over Easy’ (reviewed here in April 2007) and ‘The Fourth Bear’ (reviewed here in October 2007) – I turned to Fforde’s other series of novels. These feature the literary detective Thursday Next and I’ve been reading the latest, ‘Something Rotten’. Whereas the Jack Spratt books create a surreal parallel world – familiar yet inhabited by characters from nursery rhymes, Greek gods and aliens – ‘Something Rotten’ takes things considerably further. This felt more like Terry Pratchett than Douglas Adams (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your point of view). I was amused, confused and exhausted by the combination of characters from fiction, characters in fiction, time travellers, Neanderthals, clones, genetic experiments, dodos and much more. It probably didn’t help that I had started with the fourth book in the Thursday Next series but it did feel like Fforde was throwing in everything including the kitchen sink. Having decided not to bother trying to make sense of it all and just going with the flow, I began to enjoy the journey – and it is very funny. And as we headed towards the dramatic conclusion it gradually all began to make some sense. Despite the silliness, Jasper Fforde is a master plotter and it is very satisfying when numerous early episodes and references return towards the end of the book and fall into place. Whereas Jack Spratt lives in a version of Reading, Thursday Next is based in a kind of Swindon. It was the weirdest experience, last weekend, to be reading the chapter about Leigh Delamare services on the M4 being a hidden gateway to the underworld while sitting in Leigh Delamere services! Don’t worry, I didn’t cross to the ‘northside’ …

WOMAD 2008

29 July 2008

The weather was the star at this year's WOMAD Festival at Charlton Park in Wiltshire. After the rain and mud of last year we enjoyed a very hot weekend of almost unbroken sunshine. At first the positioning of the BBC Radio 3 stage in the arboretum, with a tree directly in front of part of the stage, seemed bizarre. But by Saturday afternoon, as the temperature soared, this leafy shade was much appreciated. Everything seemed to work effectively this year and it became apparent how much more room there is at Charlton Park compared to the previous festival site in Reading - a much more pleasant experience all round.

Pacing myself more carefully than in some previous years (it was hot!) I still saw 12 full performances and dipped in and out of many more – seeing a total of 28 bands in 3 days! Highlights included the wonderful Israeli Ladino singer Mor Karbasi, Malian diva Mamani Keita, the mighty Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (reviewed here in December 2007) and the legendary Orchestra Baobab. It was a great nostalgic thrill to see recently reunited Squeeze singing 'Up the Junction', 'Cool for Cats', 'Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)' etc. And Martha Wainwright gave an amazing performance on Saturday evening: very much the rock star, looking like Debbie Harry and sounding like The Pretenders - I'm really enjoying her new album, 'I know you're married but I've got feelings too'. But my pick of the festival were the six-piece male polyphonic vocal group from Marseille, Lo Cor de la Plana - unaccompanied singing (except for a collection of hand drums, foot stomps and hand claps) in the Occitan language of southern France. Their close harmony singing and solos with drone-like accompaniment are reminiscent of the singing shepherds of Sardinia (reviewed here in June 2007). Lo Cor de la Plana are incredibly rhythmic and exciting, weaving a trance-like quality into songs that build ever more frantically to thrilling conclusions.

BBC Proms Folk Day

21 July 2008

The last time I saw Bella Hardy she was performing to an audience of 18 people in the bar at the Queen's Theatre in Barnstaple (reviewed here in March 2008): on Sunday she was standing in the middle of the Royal Albert Hall singing, unaccompanied, to an audience of thousands. We were in London for the BBC Proms Folk Day - an enjoyable and varied innovation in the Proms calendar. Firstly we joined the crowds in Kensington Gardens to see live music on the bandstand, dancing round the maypole and much more, culminating in an electrifying performance from the wonderful Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006). Bellowhead went on to conquer the Albert Hall in the Sunday evening Prom (broadcast live on BBC Four and available on iPlayer) but being part of the crowd dancing in the sunshine in front of the bandstand to 'London Town' was very special. We then crossed the road to the Albert Hall for the free afternoon Prom which featured a huge cast of performers including Bella Hardy, the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta conducted by Martyn Brabbins, the mezzo-soprano Monica Bacelli and the amazing Hungarian folk group Muzsikas. The concert compared and contrasted traditional performances of folk melodies (by Bella Hardy and Muzsikas) with classical settings of the same tunes by Vaughan Williams, Grainger, Berio and Bartok. I particularly enjoyed Monica Bacelli's theatrical approach to Berio's hauntingly sparse 'Folk Songs' and the perfect joins between the Muzsikas insertions in the London Sinfonietta's performance of Bartok's 'Romanian Dances' (with the orchestra augmented by young musicians aged 14 - 18 from the Camden and Hertfordshire Music Services). Muzsikas were fantastic - amazingly precise and polished performers of a very rough village folk band sound. But the show was stolen by the young players of Folkestra - an ensemble of 13 - 19 year olds based at the Sage, Gateshead. Their set was the most exciting thing on the programme - toe-tapping, virtuosic and fascinating to watch - with wonderful clarsach playing by Emily Hoile and a thrilling moment when Sarah Norris put down her whistle and, amid the frenzied playing of her colleagues, walked slowly to the small dance square at the front of the stage to add her clogs to the frantic rhythm of the piece - magical. The concert finished with the premiere of 'Confluence' - a work for the joint forces of the London Sinfonietta, Muzsikas and Folkestra by Folkestra's Musical Director, Kathryn Tickell. It was a super day.

'The Damned Utd' by David Peace

21 July 2008

David Peace's novel 'The Damned Utd' is an unusual book: it tells the tale of Brian Clough's ill-fated 44 days in charge of Leeds United Football Club in 1974, reimagining events through Clough's eyes in a first person narration that reads like a very candid diary or autobiography. This narrative is interspersed with Clough's back story (bizarrely told in the second person) taking us from his playing days, through his early managerial experience, forward to meet the main story in 1974. Peace brings the familiar character of Clough back to life so vividly it is often difficult to remember you are reading fiction. The short alternating sections gripped my attention and whipped me through the book in two sittings. There is an enormous amount of swearing, drinking and smoking and anyone who is not interested in football might find it hard-going but, for me, it was completely compelling. Read alongside Gary Imlach's wonderful 'My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes' (reviewed here in January 2007) and Nick Hornby's 'Fever Pitch', 'The Damned Utd' completes a detailed social history of football in England. In Brian Clough, David Peace creates (or re-creates) that most fascinating of characters - someone who is unredeemably unpleasant and unlikeable but for whom you find yourself totally rooting. Early 1970s football is just beyond my childhood memories and though I had a vague idea of the sequence of events in Brian Clough's career there was much for me to fill in. The structure of the book made for a very satisfying experience as the pieces gradually began to fall into place as I raced towards the bitter-sweet conclusion. An amazing book.

'Dangerous Obsession' by N J Crisp

21 July 2008

It's Summer Rep time again at the Little Theatre, Sheringham so we made our annual pilgrimage to North Norfolk last week to see 'Dangerous Obsession' - a thriller by N J Crisp. The ingredients suggested familiar territory - a three-hander with comings and goings through the French windows - but this was cleverer and more thought-provoking than it first appeared. Well cast and well acted by Georgina Carey, Richard Sandells and Andrew Castell.

'Pieces of Light' by Adam Thorpe

21 July 2008

Adam Thorpe first came to my attention when his incredible debut novel 'Ulverton' received glowing praise from the critics. This tale of an imaginary English village over centuries of history through a series of 'discovered' documents is a tour-de-force but I'm afraid the painstaking use of historically accurate dialect made many sections of the book unbearably difficult for this reader to plough through. It was with some trepidation, therefore, that I approached Adam Thorpe's third novel 'Pieces of Light' - but I needn't have worried. 'Pieces of Light' starts as the story of a young boy growing up in a English missionary family in Cameroon in the 1920s. This is an interesting, if fairly unremarkable, tale but when the narrative shifts at the end of the first section you realise you're entering a much more complex and satisfying work. Without the difficult-to-read dialect to wade through I realised how much I had forgotten about the strengths of 'Ulverton': Thorpe is an intricate plotter and can be very funny. In 'Pieces of Light' he continues to use the narrative device of 'found documents' so, while the novel is all told in the first person, you begin to appreciate that it is very important in each section to work out who is telling the story and when they are telling it. It reminded me at times of 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell (which it pre-dates). 'Pieces of Light' is maybe a bit long (nearly 500 pages) and drags a little in the middle but I found it compulsive reading - desperate to try to work out its riddles before being left puzzled by its remaining ambiguities. Now I want to read it all again! In particular Thorpe very cleverly evokes both the confused world-view of a young boy and the adult's less than perfect reinterpretations of mis-remembered childhood events.

Wimbledon 2008

8 July 2008

We've been extremely lucky in the Wimbledon ballot for the last few years but this year was even better as we landed centre court tickets for the Ladies' Singles Final. Knowing that this chance might not come around again for some time creates a fair amount of anxiety as you scour the weather forecasts to see whether your big day is going to be wiped out by rain. Again we were remarkably lucky and were treated to six and a half hours of continuous tennis. The Ladies' Final between Venus and Serena Williams was high quality, hard-fought and extremely close with Serena initially looking like she would walk it before Venus found her form and began to edge ahead. The Men's Doubles Final was exciting but dominated by strong serving with Daniel Nestor and, particularly, Nenad Zimonjic worthy winners. And as the light started to fail we were treated to the most entertaining match of the day as the Williams sisters returned to claim the Ladies' Doubles title. My centre court debut was a brilliant day - I hope to be back next year.

'The Winter's Tale' by William Shakespeare

8 July 2008

The only thing I knew about 'The Winter's Tale' was "exit pursued by a bear" so it was great fun to discover unfamiliar Shakespeare last Friday - and the bear was great fun too! For a second year running we were very fortunate that our visit to the open-air Shakespeare in the gardens of Woburn Abbey benefited from wonderful weather. This year we saw the Globe Touring production of 'The Winter's Tale'. The team at Shakespeare's Globe know a thing or two about acting in the open-air and the there was a high standard of acting throughout and a welcome volume of projection. A very silly plot but a very enjoyable evening.

Danesborough Chorus concert

1 July 2008

On Saturday we were at Woburn Church for the Danesborough Chorus summer concert. It was a lovely evening and a very enjoyable concert - with an extended interval for a picnic outside the church. I particularly enjoyed the 'Berliner Messe' by Arvo Pärt. Pärt creates a very distinctive, delicate, ethereal sound which must be very difficult for the singers but the effect was hauntingly beautiful. We were on easier ground in the second half with John Rutter's 'Magnificat'. Rutter always looks like great fun to sing and is invariably tuneful, varied and enthusiastically received. Ian Smith and the Danesborough Chorus were joined by the Milton Keynes City Orchestra and the excellent Soprano, Claire Seaton.

Slovenia

27 June 2008

We had a brilliant week in Slovenia – it’s a fantastic country. We spent a few days at Lake Bled in the North West of Slovenia – a fairytale lake overlooked by a clifftop castle – beautiful scenery reminiscent of Austria or Switzerland. We then headed to the capital, Ljubljana, a beautiful old city, small enough to walk around but with plenty to see. We had a day trip to the medieval town of Piran on the Adriatic coast where everything is bilingual Slovene/Italian. Slovenia is the size of Wales – and has a similar dislike of vowels in its place names! The people were friendly and helpful and English is spoken almost universally. It’s a confident, proud and modern young country. We’ll be back …

'Pies and Prejudice' by Stuart Maconie

27 June 2008

Stuart Maconie comes from Wigan and is therefore a ‘pie-eater’. In his very funny and fascinating travel book ‘Pies and Prejudice’ he revisits Wigan and everywhere else between Merseyside and Tyneside to cut through the clichés and paint the real picture of the North of England. Bill Bryson fans will recognise Maconie’s style – though like Bryson he sometimes wears his research on his sleeve and tends to ramble engagingly from one topic to another leaving this reader amazed by a myriad of incredible facts but almost completely unable to remember any of them! I particularly enjoyed his accounts of the places I already knew but the real strength of the book is the clear distinction drawn between places that too many Southerners tend to lump together as ‘The North’.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

27 June 2008

Our latest Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert included the ‘Tuba Concerto’ by Vaughan-Williams featuring our regular tuba player, Nick Tollervey. Because he had been preparing for this solo performance, Nick has not been attending rehearsals but came along a couple of weeks ago for the orchestra’s Annual General Meeting which was held at the start of a rehearsal. At the end of the AGM, under ‘any other business’, Nick stood up to make a plea for the orchestra to improve its communications with members. Over the past year, Nick said, he had often turned up at rehearsals to be told he wasn’t required as we were rehearsing a piece with no part for the tuba. Couldn’t we make sure that players were told what pieces were going to be rehearsed each week to avoid them making unnecessary journeys. Having been in the same position myself on several occasions I agreed wholeheartedly with Nick and was very pleased he had brought this up. The AGM finished and Nick made his way to a seat at the front of the orchestra so that we could rehearse the tuba concerto – at which point I thought “hang on a minute, I’m not in this!” and had to sit for half an hour twiddling my thumbs: the revenge of the tuba! Nevertheless I really enjoyed Nick’s magnificent performance in our concert of English music which also featured the wonderful ‘Peterloo Overture’ by Malcolm Arnold, ‘Song of Summer’ by Delius and Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’. A less ambitious programme than some of our recent concerts and I think this paid off with one of our best performances for some time.

'Wild Wild Women' by Nola York and Michael Richmond

10 June 2008

At the end of a week where I had been pre-occupied with arguing that the voluntary arts can be excellent, it was a delight to attend an amateur performance that was one of the funniest and most enjoyable evenings in a theatre I've experienced in a long time. On Saturday we were at the Trestle Theatre Space in St Albans - home of the celebrated Trestle Theatre Company - to see local amateurs MeMe Productions perform 'Wild Wild Women' - a musical by Nola York and Michael Richmond. This Romeo & Juliet story set in the Wild West in the 1880s was great fun with some wonderful individual performances and big set-piece ensemble numbers. The show itself was a little varied in tone and the music was mainly in a 1980s rock-ballad style. There were a few problems with balance - some performers being drowned out by the musicians. But none of this detracted from a splendid romp that had me smiling throughout. And the show stealing performance from Dawn Travell as Sister Priscilla included a hilarious death scene to rival Sam Hayward in Little Me (reviewed here in August 2007). Excellent!

'Laurel and Hardy' by Tom McGrath

3 June 2008

On Saturday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see Tom McGrath's 1976 play 'Laurel and Hardy'. Ben Fox and Christian Patterson gave wonderful performances as Stan and Ollie re-telling the story of their careers - with the assistance of Greg Palmer at the piano. Incorporating affectionate and impressive impersonations of the duo's screen personas alternating with the real world Stan and Babe literally at the drop of a hat. A touching story but also genuinely funny - slapstick truly never dates! There were recreations of some of their most famous routines - all the more impressive for being performed live on stage without the benefit of re-takes - wonderful physical comedy. But best of all ending with a perfect copy of the dance from 'Way Out West' - ridiculous, serious, graceful - a joy!

'Olivier Messiaen: Chamber Works’ by the Hebrides Ensemble

29 May 2008

I first encountered the ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ by Olivier Messiaen many years ago in a hot, packed hall in the Pump Rooms during the Bath Festival. It was a mesmerising experience. The quartet was written in a German prison camp in 1940 for a performance by the composer (on piano) with three of his fellow prisoners (a clarinettist, a violinist and a ‘cellist). The eight-movement work was premiered in the camp in front of 5000 prisoners. It is a difficult, serious, quiet and extremely moving piece of music – not easy listening but completely compelling. Best listened to as part of a massive audience holding its collective breath. The marvellous Hebrides Ensemble make their Wigmore Hall debut tomorrow with a performance including the ‘Quartet for the End of Time’. Unfortunately I’m not able to be there but I have been enjoying their new CD ‘Chamber Works’ by Messiaen, marking the composer’s centenary – more details at www.hebridesensemble.org.uk

'Music Hole' by Camille

27 May 2008

French singer/songwriter Camille Dalmais is an amazing vocal gymnast. I was impressed by her 2005 album ‘Le Fil’ which wove a series of inventive, quirky songs (mostly in French) around a single continuous drone note (‘the thread’). ‘Le Fil’ put Camille squarely in Kate Bush/Bjork territory but sometimes felt a little too coldly intellectual. Her new CD ‘Music Hole’ is much warmer and funkier. Sung almost entirely a capella – with ‘human percussion’ of clicks, claps, snaps, smacks and beatboxing plus occasional piano (by Jamie Cullum) – it’s a playful collection. There is some inventive use of stereo - listen on headphones with plenty of bass. Her (mostly English) lyrics are witty and clever. The songs encompass a variety of styles and are catchy, pretty and funny. Songs to admire and enjoy.

'Hamlet': a ballet by David Nixon

23 May 2008

Last night we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see 'Hamlet': a ballet by David Nixon performed by Northern Ballet Theatre. Setting the story in occupied Paris in 1940 gave the ballet a distinctive, ominously dark style with period costumes, references to Berlin cabaret and ever-present Nazi regalia (and incorporating some brutal torture scenes). There was some great dancing, particularly from Nathalie Leger as Gertrude and Darren Goldsmith as Claudius, and Ophelia's mad scene was performed with beautiful delicacy by Georgina May. I very much enjoyed the music by Philip Feeney – a varied and impressive orchestral score. But I thought there were some substantial problems with the plot: by adding new elements (such as the use of written death warrants) and cutting some key scenes, an already complicated plot became quite confusing. And in some cases the changes just didn't make sense: why would Laertes seek out Hamlet to avenge his sister's death when, in this version, Ophelia has not committed suicide but has instead been raped and murdered by Nazi officers? Nevertheless, a stylish and enjoyable production.

'The Thirty Nine Steps'

20 May 2008

The Rex in Berkhamsted was described by the BBC as "possibly Britain’s most beautiful cinema": after our first visit on Sunday I am inclined to agree. This beautiful art deco picture house is celebrating its 70^th anniversary and looks glorious following its recent refurbishment. With cabaret tables and large, high-backed swivel chairs in the stalls and rows of the most comfy cinema seats with masses of legroom in the gallery, it’s a luxurious experience. But it’s the décor and lighting that make the occasion. We went to see a new print of the 1935 Hitchcock classic ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’. It was wonderful to see it on a big screen, framed by a proscenium arch and elegant curtains: we could almost have been in the London Palladium watching ‘Mr Memory’ ourselves. And it was very exciting to discover that the audience at the Rex on Sunday included Joanna, the daughter of the film’s star Robert Donat, accompanied by her family including her great grandchildren. The film bears its age well: while there are some awkwardly long pauses and unintentionally funny exchanges (and the plot never made much sense!) it has great style (with camera angles that could have been from ‘Citizen Kane’) and some fantastic comic performances. Hitchcock combines exciting chases and serious menace with screwball comedy and a memorable set-piece finale. But it’s the scenes with John Laurie and Peggy Ashcroft as the crofter and his wife that stand out – Laurie’s wide ‘Private Frazer’ eyes flitting from suspiciously from side to side across the straightest of faces. “Am I right sir?”

BBC Young Musician of the Year 2008

13 May 2008

As I said here in May 2006 "I love the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition" so it was eager anticipation that I sat down to watch the broadcast of this year's concerto final. I don't think I would go as far as Susan Tomes who says on the Guardian website "the BBC ruined the Young Musician of the Year" but it was a major disappointment not to be able to watch the five concerto performances in full. This year the concertos were performed un-broadcast on Saturday (though later available on Radio 3 and can now be watched in their entirety at www.bbc.co.uk/youngmusician) and the finalists then returned on Sunday to each play an unaccompanied piece followed by a movement from their concerto. Apart from depriving us of the luxury of five full back-to-back concertos, it also reduced the fun of trying to guess the judges' decision as they had seen more of the finalists than we had. Nevertheless I maintained my record of failing to pick the winner. The performance by twelve-year-old trombonist, Peter Moore (the youngest ever winner) was actually the one I enjoyed the most but I was convinced he wouldn't be the judges' choice. I had narrowed it down to two - neither of whom won! As usual I enjoyed discovering some fantastic pieces of music. I really liked the Tomasi Trombone Concerto and the Flute Concerto by Ibert - neither of which I had heard before - and it was wonderful to hear the Rachmaninov 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini'. Do watch the full performances online while you can but don't bother with the 'Grand Final' programme. How sad that the impact of this landmark musical event should be so watered down in its thirtieth anniversary year - I do hope we can return to a full live broadcast of the concert in two years' time.

Toumani Diabaté

6 May 2008

For nearly 400 years, from around 1235 to 1600, the Mandé Empire covered a massive area, extending (at its peak) from central Africa (today's Chad and Niger) to West Africa (today's Mali and Senegal). With no written tradition, the archivists of the Empire were the 'griots' - hereditary musicians whose songs chronicled history and tradition. The Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté, who we saw performing at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester last Saturday, claims to be able to trace his lineage back through 71 generations of kora players. The kora is the West African 21-string harp-lute built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin and Toumani Diabaté is the outstanding kora player of his generation, described by BBC Radio 3 as "on a par with Glenn Gould or Rostropovich - the sort of musician you only encounter once or twice in a lifetime". His new solo album, 'The Mandé Variations', sets out to make a case for Malian griot music as 'African classical music' - equivalent to Western or Indian classical music. It was fitting, therefore, to see him in a classical concert hall where the (amplified) delicacy of his playing received rapt attention and concentration from a packed audience. Toumani's technique is amazing - using only four fingers (the thumb and index finger of both hands) to pluck the strings, he manages to generate the most intricate effects, tunes, accompaniments and rhythms. You really need to see him live to convince yourself it is only one person playing! The pieces from 'The Mandé Variations' build slowly and quietly - each lasting around 10 minutes and certainly bear comparison with the steady, repetitive development within an Indian raga. The kora is more an equivalent of a harp than of a fretted instrument such as the sitar, requiring the most amazing dexterity. I had heard many recordings of Toumani Diabaté and had been impressed but not moved: seeing him live I was gripped - perhaps because the concert hall atmosphere allowed me to give the music the concentration required to understand, appreciate and be entranced by it. Toumani is a regular visitor to Manchester as his uncle has lived there for 20 years and I was delighted to hear that they will both be rooting for Manchester United in the forthcoming European Cup final! Toumani himself lived briefly in London in 1986: I loved the piece 'Elyne Road' which is based on his time in London and built around a quote from the UB40 song 'Kingston Town'. A magical evening.