‘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.