Change channel.

I've not posted on this blog for such a long time that it's obvious to me and you that there aren't enough topics to warrant the blog. So I'm leaving what posts there are on here, but shall not be adding any more. My "Random Thoughts" blog on the other hand is still going strong, and is where I shall post any future music topics which may arise. So see you over there perhaps, and, to quote Douglas Adams "So long, and thanks for all the fish"!

Couldn't live without.....

I’ve been asked who my favourite composer is. This is always a terribly difficult question, because there are so many composers I love for many different reasons, but if I was forced to choose one, I think I would have to plump for Edward Elgar, if only because he has given me more of those "magic" moments than anybody else.
What do I mean? Well, I’m sure you’ve all had that experience listening to music, when something unexpectedly wonderful happens, and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. That’s what I mean by a magic moment, and for me, Elgar is the man. Here are four examples -
Perhaps the best known is the transition from "W.N." to "Nimrod" in the Enigma Variations. W.N. ends on a chord of G, and everything stops except the violins quietly holding the note G, and then, so, so softly, the orchestra creeps back in for the start of Nimrod in the key of E flat. It’s a well-known enough trick - the tonic of one chord is the mediant of the relatively distant chord four semi-tones below. I used to play piano in a club, and it’s the basis of a standard "out" at the end of a tune (e.g. C, A flat seventh, C), but in Elgar’s hands it becomes a thing of sheer enchantment.
Then there’s the Violin Concerto, which starts out very much in classical form, so you think you know when the violin entry is going to come, but then Elgar catches you completely unawares by bringing the violin in at the "wrong" time on the "wrong" note, but the effect again is just delightful.
The slow movement of the Second Symphony was written as a valedictory tribute to Edward VII, who had just died. There’s a point at which the music swells, and you’re expecting a big crescendo, when suddenly Elgar switches off everything except the violins, which are left shimmering on a high chord - tremendously moving.
And the ultimate - the ‘Cello Concerto, where having come through the gut-wrenching slow movement with it’s oh-so-poignant melody, you get to the final movement and, after the initial statement of the themes, the ‘cello seems to go walk-about, meandering sadly around without any apparent purpose, and then - you realise what’s going to happen just before it does - it slides softly into the melody from the slow movement. I must have listened to that hundreds of times, and it still brings tears to my eyes every time.
There are many composers whom I would miss terribly if I were never able to hear anything by them again, but none more than Elgar.

Promenading.

Now that the Proms programme for this year has been published, there has been much comment on the lack of music by British composers. But why? Neither Henry Wood, nor the man who really deserves the credit for the idea, Robert Newman, intended the Proms to be in any way a showcase for British music, or for that matter any other particular kind of music. Their idea was simply to "demystify" classical music by presenting it in a relaxed and informal atmosphere and at an affordable price. So no composer has any God-given right to have his music included.

Whose adagio?

Just heard a rather attractive choral version of Albinoni's "Adagio". The funny thing is that, despite this being just about the only piece associated with this composer's name that anybody's ever heard of, it wasn't actually written by Albinoni at all. The credit should really go to Remo Giazotto, an otherwise unknown 20th Century Italian musicologist, who composed the piece based on a small six-bar fragment of music he came across whilst researching material for a biography of Albinoni. So, credit where credit's due.

A pinch of Saltzburg

250th anniversary of Mozart's birth - am I alone in thinking "so what"? Firstly there's this whole business of anniversaries. Does Mozart or his music become more important or relevant today than yesterday, or than on any other date you wish to pick at random from the last 240-odd years? We count in tens because of the biological accident of having ten little waggly things on the end of our arms - if we were the Simpsons we'd count in eights, and doubtless be celebrating the 256th anniversary of his birth. And then there's Mozart himself. No question that he was a child prodigy with an ear for wonderful melodies and a keen sense of what his audiences wanted to hear, but was he any more than that? I know it's virtually heresy to suggest anything other than that every note he produced was a work of genius, but to me much of what he wrote was nothing more than musical wallpaper - very good and classy wallpaper to be sure, but wallpaper nontheless. Of course, what might have been had he not died young is anybody's guess, but I think we need to keep a sense of perspective.

Hark the wotsit doo-dahs thingy

A carol was originally a round-dance-cum-song associated with the harvest festivities, but by the 13th to 14th centuries had come to mean any festive song, and quickly became connected with Christmas. Oliver Cromwell banned them in the mid-1600's, and it wasn't really until the Victorians invented our modern image of Christmas that they really took off. There are many myths connected with certain carols, one of the most enduring being that "Silent Night " was written on the spur of the moment by a parish priest on learning that the organ of his church was out of action, and needing something which could be sung to a guitar accompaniment. In fact, he'd written it several years before, and the organ was fine.

If you want it....

25th Anniversary of the death of John Lennon. So just how does he rate musically? Like many in the public eye who have died before their time, he has achieved in death an iconic status far beyond that which he probably would have achieved had he lived. Difficult to assess his work as a member of the Beatles because most of their stuff was collaborative, irrespective of whose name it appeared under. Certainly between them, Lennon and McCartney produced some of the most memorable and significant music of the middle 20th century. As a solo writer however, I feel his songs will be remembered more for their brilliantly acerbic lyrics (Imagine, Merry Christmas, War Is Over, Give Peace A Chance etc.) than for their musical worth.