Sound and Music

I've been avoiding this year's Proms on principle - the principle that there's not been anything very tempting on. But I was enticed out by yesterday's late night mix of English and American Experimentalism, and there was lots to enjoy in the performances by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov.

Some composers seem like a better idea than they turn out to be. Like bouncing cheques they make promises they can't live up to. They may sound like interesting characters, the ideas behind the music may intrigue - and yet the pieces themselves itself fails to live up to expectation.

Arnold Schoenberg was born in 1874 and died in 1951 at the age of 77. George Gershwin was born in 1898 and died in 1937 at the age of 38. What if it had been the other way round?

What if Schoenberg had died in 1912 and Gershwin lived until 1975? Would the history of 20th century music been completely different?

For my latest interview with professional performers I spoke to the trumpeter Dave Ward.
 
Tell me about a good piece you have played recently.

To the Barbican on Saturday with a young companion in tow for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group’s children’s concert Serenade for a Satellite. The concert, presented (a bit diffidently) by composer Peter Wiegold, was a multi-media affair with a big screen, onstage mixing desk and the vague theme of ‘space’.

Of all the books, essays and articles I have read on music history, the most insightful piece is not by an academic, but is a twenty page short story called 'Farts and Longing' from the 1995 collection The Music, by James Hamilton-Paterson.

There is a quirk about the way we speak about different types of illness. Siri Hustvedt points out in her memoir The Shaking Woman:

After a longer-than-planned delay, here is the second instalment of The Earwig Interviews, in which I talk to professional performers about their experiences of playing new music. This time I spoke to lutenist and guitarist Jamie Akers and asked him my three searching questions.

Can you tell me about a good new piece you’ve played recently?

I have been sheepish for a while about my ignorance of the music of Wolfgang Rihm. Last weekend's 'Total Immersion' festival was the perfect opportunity to put it right. But I couldn't go. So I am having to rely instead on the coverage on Hear and Now - three consecutive weeks of programmes - to Rihmmerse myself as best I can.

Historians, like novelists, are in the business of telling stories. But one of the most difficult things about telling stories is knowing when the story starts. How can you write about a war without delving into the run-up to it? And what about the lead-in to the run-up? How far back do you go? A biography usually needs some account of the parents of the subject - but grandparents as well?