Making the case for contemporary music

In his masterly book A Concise History of Western Music Paul Griffiths explains that “The past is not a path we and our predecessor's have travelled but a labyrinth, and a labyrinth forever in flux”. Concert planners usually view the musical past as a narrow path that must be followed closely, and as a result they produce predictable programmes that overlook the many riches hidden in the labyrinth of music history.

So how wonderful to see the King of Hearts in Norwich departing from the familiar narrow path for its Autumn Festival, and challenging performers to explore the musical labyrinth. This Journey Across Time provided fascinating perspectives. Not only was it a rewarding musical experience, but it was also very enlightening to see how both audiences and performers responded to the challenge of musical diversity.

The Festival started rather unpromisingly with a recital by violinist Catherine Macintosh and harpsichordist Maggie Cole. These performers are no strangers to contemporary music, and played two works by Stephen Dodgson, including his Inventions which are dedicated to Maggie. But, despite this, the music was presented in a strangely detached way, rather like being introduced to a teenage relative with body piercings. But perhaps it wasn’t just the contemporary music. The Bach and Biber in the programme were rather like being introduced to an elderly relative with a taste for Agatha Christie. Not the most vibrant of starts, and not helped by empty seats. Teenagers with piercings may be the norm outside in Norwich's Magdalene Street, but sadly they are a lot less popular in the King of Hearts.

No lack of spark in the lunchtime Bach from King of Hearts’ regular Carolyn Gibley. There may have been a capacity audience, but her Journey Across Time stopped at 1750, apart from one singularly inappropriate pastiche item. I know Carolyn is quite upfront in her preference for eighteenth century harpsichord music. But a work such as John Palmer’s Koan from 1999 would have taken us much further into the labyrinth than P.D.Q. Bach.

Different strokes for different folks, and both The London Handel Players and Jane Chapman proved just how rewarding exploring the labyrinth can be. Bohuslav Martinů’s Promenade for flute, violin & harpsichord from The London Mozart players showed that twentieth century music need not be feared, while, in the same concert, Rachel Brown’s performance of a work for flute and tape by Barry Guy eased the King of Hearts into the age of electronica.

Either by luck or good planning Aude Gotto had left the best to last. Jane Chapman (photo above) fears nothing in contemporary music. No tokenism or apologia in her harpsichord recital, which went for the jugular with music by Gyorgy Ligeti, Tōru Takemitsu, plus a first performance, with the composer present, from Jeremy Peyton-Jones who is right there in the labyrinth as a colleague of John Cage. Those that chose the competing television coverage of England losing the Rugby World Cup final instead of Jane’s recital missed a real opportunity to celebrate.

The concerts by The London Mozart Players, Jane Chapman and others were a triumphant endorsement of the vision of a Journey Across Time. I really don’t feel that in 2007 I should be making the case for contemporary music. But the empty seats at several of the concerts suggest I should. If you only feed children baby food they never develop proper teeth, and can’t move on to a nourishing diet that allows them to grow. There is too much baby food in today’s concert programmes and radio schedules. Contemporary music is the aural equivalent of the spicy Hungarian goulash served in the King of Hearts restaurant after Jane Chapman’s inspirational recital. More please Aude.

(c) Bob Shingleton 2008, first published in the newsletter of the King of Hearts Centre for people and the arts winter 2007 newsletter. Related articles:

* Contemporary music - I really enjoyed it! - link
* More of Martinu's music please - link
* Brand new music for harpsichord - link
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The essence of the music itself is there

When does a recording become a forgery? How much can be added that wasn't created by the musicians on the label before it is a fake? My post on a 'recreation' of Glenn Gould's 1955 Goldbergs raises some interesting questions, and so does the following story.

By chance I bought last week the excellent transcriptions of Handel's recorder sonatas for cello and harpsichord played by Tatty Theo (cello) and Carolyn Gibley (harpsichord). The girls are part of the local baroque ensemble, The Brook Street Band. The recording was made a few miles from here in Raveningham Church in Norfolk, the label is Avie, and the producer and engineer is Simon Fox-Gál.

Now here is the first interesting point. The sleeve contains the following message: 'Reverberation included in this recording from Classical Reverberations Impulses produced by Ernest Cholakis for Numerical Sound'.

Research reveals the Toronto based Numerical Sound: 'develops low level manipulations of sound's primary elements. Essentially, we deconstruct, analyze and separate sound by recognizing individual events, elements, or spectral properties, and depending on the situation use the resulting components to modify existing sounds or reconstruct new ones. For example, we might separate a tone into its harmonic or partials or percussive components, and then rebuild those elements into something new.'

A number of high profile classical recordings use Numerical Sound's technology, which shapes sounds to pre-determined profiles in a similar way to the Loft Recordings Tournemire project that I wrote about here. The Numerical Sound website includes some musical examples before and after reprocessing.

I don't want this to get out of proportion. Artificial reverberation has been added to recordings for decades (although why it is needed in the acoustics of a church is a puzzle). On the Handel sonatas disc we are told the sound shaping technology has been used for the reverberation only. But this technology can also reshape instrumental sounds, and this is where the story gets very interesting.

Producer and engineer Simon Fox-Gál of the Handel disc is the grandson of the Viennese born composer Hans Gál (photo below), and he has created recordings of his grandfather's orchestral scores using another technology that has featured here before - Vienna Symphonic Library - which synthesizes music using digital samples of real instruments. Here are Fox-Gal's words about the Hans Gál project: ' It's not a real orchestra, but the essence of the music itself is there, time and our imagination being the only limits to the extent to which we can achieve perfection in the smallest of musical details.' You can listen to the 'not a real orchestra' playing Hans Gál's Symphony No 2 here.

Yes, all perfectly above board, and just the wonders of technology. But let's not forget these words - 'He thinks he began editing “ambience” in the late 1980s.'

Now wonder How much is Stravinsky, and how much is Craft?
Fractal sampled from Jing-reed with many thanks. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk