You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2006.
I realised the other day when reading about the launch of the new Google Custom Search Engine (yet another example of a really simple but innovative idea well executed) that the concept of life without ‘the Google’ as we now must all call it, is pretty far fetched. I run my life with G Mail and Calendar, navigate with Maps, write my documents with the rebranded Writely word processor and apparently they do quite a good general Internet Search Engine too. As soon as Google Coffee Maker is launched my life will be complete.
Yes. I know I don’t use Blogger. But I love WordPress more.
I was given this as a belated birthday present last weekend and it’s been by far the most played thing on my iPod since. If you saw Bellowhead at this year’s WOMAD you won’t need any further persuasion. What is it that makes this so attractive? It’s a combination of superb and original arrangements (the use of brass and woodwind in particular is really inspired) being performed by an outrageously gifted group of musicians. That this issomething different, special, leaps out at you from the first notes of ‘Rigs of the Time’ and keeps you hooked. For variety there are a couple of really well judged instrumentals as well.
The album can be downloaded from eMusic. I have to say though that the CD is a thing of beauty with some fascinating liner notes on the songs and the arrangements together with full texts of the songs. What can more I can say? Hats off to Jon Boden!
I mentioned Oliver Knussen’s new composition in my post yesterday. I do recommend you hear it for yourself when you can. In some respects it’s unlike anything he has written before and I found it compelling, demanding repeated listening.
However you will have to do it around the wrapper of the presentation Radio 3 has thought it appropriate to give to the Listen Up! programmes.
These include:
- Talking at the start over one of the pieces of music to played later in a style that reminds me of 5 Live Sports Programmes. How is this helpful?
- A discussion with a guest between each piece usually not in any way related to the music we are about to hear. Not necessarily uninteresting but why not do it as an interval discussion?
- A gimmicky and pretty tedious A-Z of music
- A truly terrible ’short’ story that is being read (badly) in installments
The BCMG concert in which the new Knussen piece is the last item has some other really striking items, not a least a beautifully judged performance of the Webern op 10 5 orchestral pieces. But be warned, the whole listening experience will try your patience. The concert is available from here until Monday.
Gramophone magazine, which now modestly styles itself as ‘the world’s best classical music magazine’ has recently published the results of a survey which purports to show the changing attitude of those who listen to classical music in the ‘iPod age’. The way it’s been reported perhaps says slightly more about Gramophone’s own perception of its readership than the readers themselves. The summary of the survey on the website for example begins ‘Far from being fuddy-duddy traditionalists, classical music fans are embracing new technology as never before’. Oh dear. James Jolly its editor writes elsewhere on digital music: “…Gramophone readers prefer to own their music”. Excuse me?
I am an avid reader. But I wish I had a better vibe that those in charge of the magazine had a more informed feel for its changing demographic
I enjoyed this post. My sympathy is with the guy with the 90,000 songs I’m afraid. But for now an 80 GB iPod will do.
Don’t know how many of you have seen the interesting interview with Microsoft on the Zune . It’s described as ‘in depth’ and actually what it demonstrated to me that there was not a huge amount of depth to the product, certainly in terms of innovation. The much touted WiFi sharing of music the player enables with other Zunes is nice, but hardly a killer feature. Not much there to tempt me away from my iPod, save possibly for the pricing model, although what that will be when the product launches in the UK of course remains to be seen.
Not entirely sure that Microsoft couldn’t have made more effort too. Some very odd body language from the interviewee and couldn’t he have been slightly better prepared? Surely it wouldn’t have been too much to ask for there to be a second charged up Zune nearby? Oh well.
Incidentally I always get deeply envious when American friends start talking around now about the holiday season. What a great idea that sounds…
Snappy title no?
Tom Service published a really interesting interview with Oliver Knussen last week in The Guardian. Talking about the requiem that he had written for his wife Sue, (Songs for Sue) Knussen said that he started sketching the piece in hospital last year, recovering from a major illness. He went on:
“You have a lot of time to think when something like that happens to you…In the first month or so, I found listening almost unbearable. One was so sensitised in that condition; it surprised me a great deal, but I found myself being very teary. So finally I just stopped listening to music.”
When he was able to start listening again:
“There were two pieces I listened to obsessively: the Stravinsky Symphony in C – Stravinsky is a very good person to cheer you up – and precisely the opposite, expressively speaking – the Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra. The Stravinsky suddenly became this three-dimensional object; the structure of the piece became a physical experience. And likewise the enormous density of the Berg.”
I’ll try and write more on the piece Knussen composed later. There’s so much to comment on in what he said here though. One could talk about when music is or isn’t a good healer, Knussen’s choice of pieces, how they affected him and how he categorises them. It got me thinking though in a slightly different way because by coincidence I had also been listening obsessively to the Berg (Berg is on my inner circle of essential composers and this piece was part of some research I am doing for a web based project to be launched in early 2007, again more anon). What I would have liked to have known though was how physically Knussen was listening to it.
To be more specific. I love my iPod. Along with my piano my bike and my laptop it’s my essential possession. Now that gapless playback exists it’s pretty close to perfect. But there is some music it is really difficult to listen to on it. The Berg is one. Gubaidulina’s Offertorium, which I have also been listening to a great deal for the same reason, is another. What’s the problem? You’ll say that both have extremes of sound which might be difficult to take. That’s true to some extent, but I have no problem listening to Mahler or Shostakovich on the train regularly on my iPod. (Incidentally I discovered last week that the perfect piece for the long train journey between London and Norwich is Mahler 3 in the Tilson Thomas recording. I hit play as the train left London and the final notes sounded as the train came to a stop at the platform in Norwich. Spooky.)
For me the problem is having to internalise this extremely intense, dense (to use Knussen’s terminology) and I suppose ultimately disquieting music. It’s really difficult I find, particularly on the train on a daily commute! There has been so much talk about the way the iPod has changed the way we listen to music, what its sociological implications are even, but it seems to me that there will be some music that will defy the essential confinement the iPod brings. And okay, I know this is nothing to do with the iPod really. I could have written the same article 10 years ago about a Walkman, yet there is something about the assumptions that go with thecommoditisation and packaging of music in digital form for personal listening which feels different to me and maybe needs to be challenged.
As usual, just some seeds, not a developed thesis, at least not yet, but I’d love to know your experience. I should add that despite the fact that I write mostly about ‘classical’ music I do listen to an awful lot of non classical music too but I haven’t yet come across the same difficulty.
One footnote. I mention above music and the power to heal. One of the best programmes I’ve heard on a related theme, called A Journey into Light was broadcast on Radio 3 over the summer. Its starting point was how the music of Shostakovich had helped Stephen Johnson, a talented music critic and a very accomplished broadcaster, who was diagnosed with serious clinical depression. I have to say that I found it hugely illuminating, very moving and personally very helpful. The programme itself doesn’t appear to be available any longer unless I have missed the links, but there is a lot of fascinating material still available on the web page devoted to the programme, not least the transcript of the extraordinary interview with Viktor Kozlov, the clarinettist who played in the first performance of the Leningrad Symphony during the siege of Leningrad.
I thought I had it all sorted for the last few months. New MacBook running beautifully and with the fantastic Parallels Desktop able to delve into XP whenever I needed to. Until the weekend before last when I had a spectacular hard drive crash.
At the moment I am back to using a 15″ G4 PowerBook which has a number of notable limitations, unsurprisingly given it’s an older machine. One thing it does have though is a bigger screen and I know it sounds really trite but I had forgotten what a difference that made.
So that made me think perhaps it would be best not to go back to the MacBook at all and try something with a bigger screen and then with perfect timing Apple released these. The 17″ version must be close to being the perfect machine. Slightly subjective view I suppose. Anyway, my order is in!
A number of interesting developments since I last wrote about this.
First, the iTunes classical catalogue within the UK has improved immeasurably over the last few months. Including not just the headline ‘popular’ classical releases but some real depth. To pluck one example at random, the excellent Bridge Records complete Elliott Carter can mostly be found there now.
Second, there have been a couple of companies who have sought to mine the riches of the huge historical recording archive that now exists. I haven’t tried Classical Music Mobile yet, but it looks extraordinary value (although one day I would really like to properly understand just how the out of copyright model practically works, i.e. how are the recordings acquired etc). I have sampled Pristine Audio Direct however, which similarly is concentrated on ‘historic’ performances but remastered with great skill with often stunning results. I downloaded Mahler 4 in a performance by Mengleberg and the Concertgebouw. The sound is unbelieavable (the interpretation fascinating and valuable in many ways although its idiosyncrasies mean you wouldn’t want this as your only version!). Do take a look at the site. There is already a lot of material there and more being added all the time.
Finally, I have to mention e-Music. Its pricing model means it is possible to build a representative collection of good performances very cheaply. I have gone for the 90 downloads option with which I have acquired several more Mahler symphonies (in the Tilson Thomas San Fransisco SO cycle), loads of Shostakovich (Rostropovich’s LSO Live recordings are there plus the newish cycle from Oleg Caetani and the often superb Mark Wigglesworth recordings), the new Anonymous 4 record and loads more besides. e-Music lists its mission as providing a pro-consumer experience that gives subscribers the ultimate in flexibility, and just as importantly, ample opportunities to discover new, exciting music. (Flexible because there is no DRM!). It really delivers.
I buy 99% of my music online now, classical or otherwise. The only thing I miss when buying classical music is the sleeve notes and texts and no one has come up with a good solution to that yet. However, given on a conservative estimate only 1 in 3 sets of notes is worth reading maybe that’s not such a huge problem!
There’s a load of reasons for the gap but given that this blog isn’t about sharing my problems with you all (where would I start??) I won’t go into that (hears sound of distant applause).
I’ve had some really helpful feedback. Some of you think that the mix of technology and ‘culture’ was great. Others wanted more technology. Others more art. Others…
I intend to go on more or less as before in the absence of definitive feedback, probably posting more about music than anything else but we’ll see.
When I next get to work on a remotely compliant computer, I’ll fix the header image.
One other thing that I hope will help the variety. The sidebar shows the feed from my link blog derived from the brilliant Google Reader. I’m not alone in loving this. Mr Scoble does too and he’s rarely wrong in my experience.
