On An Overgrown Path

A prime example of classical musicians hunting in packs is provided by the baying pack led by Norman Lebrecht who are hunting the management at Croydon's beleaguered Fairfield Halls. First a dodgy citizen journalist passes judgement on the Halls . Now Stormin' Norman castigates the management for presenting wrestling. Which conveniently overlooks that the Royal Albert Hall, the home of the world's largest classical festival , has hosted wrestling for more than 100 years and recently hosted the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament. In his latest snipe Norman declares 'Not a peep of music'. So instead of sniping let's hear what he would do to kick start classical music at a suburban venue where the adjacent car park is currently closed and there is no budget to attract the celebrity ensembles that pull audiences. As classical's big hitter surely Norman could persuade Mirga and the CBSO to relaunch the Halls, and for the boilerplate four star CBSO r...

Paul Hindemith is not an obvious candidate for my recent thread on musicians as artists . But the sleeve above is from Hyperion's recording of Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis played by John McCabe and the illustration is adapted from a special edition of the work illustrated by the composer. Hindemith's twenty-five 'Studies in counterpoint, tonal organisation and piano playing' were composed in 1942 and their true importance is obscured by an unjustified reputation as dry academic studies. As amazon.com says; if you like The Art of Fugue, or Bach's 48 and Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, or Kurtág's Játékok , you should try Hindemith's 'tone games' or Ludus Tonalis. Hindemith was, of course, no stranger to the world of artists. His 1934 Symphony Mathis der Maler was drawn from material from his banned opera of the same name. Mathis der Maler (Mathis the Painter) is based on the life and ideals of the early-sixteenth century artist Mat...

A thought provoking week. Lunch on Thursday with an old friend who had a very successful career in classical music. He was complaining about the inane chatter of the current BBC Radio 3 presenters, and said he now listens to talk based Radio 4 most of the time, and heard there the Rudolph Dunbar documentary I wrote about recently. That made me realise that the last two BBC radio programmes I have praised here were both talks on Radio 4 about musicians, about David Munrow and Rudolph Dunbar to be precise. The next day my wife and I presented our first Community Chest programme on Future Radio here in Norwich, UK. (Photo above shows us trying to work out how we can slip 70 seconds of Nancarrow's Player Piano Study No. 2B into the station's computer driven MOR playlist to mark the tenth anniversary of the composer's death ). The two hour programme was 80% talk with live guests in the studio discussing public art commissions , farm shops versus supermarkets, the Baha...