Contemporary music goes Dutch

Good news from my friends in Holland. Radio Mona Lisa programmes are now available on demand for two months after broadcast. The weekly programme is hosted by Patricia Werner Leanse, and is devoted to women composers and performers. Patricia, who is seen in my photo above, is a mezzo soprano from California. She has lived in the Netherlands since 1989, and also writes for the influential Dutch magazine "Opzij". Her recent recording of the complete vocal music of Marjo Tal with pianist Patrick Hopper (BVHaast # 0302) received considerable attention in Europe. Listen to some fine contemporary music on demand via this link.

American ladies are doing some very good things in Holland. I wrote about Dutch based composer Vanessa Lann here a while back. Follow this link to Vanessa's Myspace site for a complete performance of her song cycle "Memory Demands So Much" based on a poem from Denise Levertov.
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BBC Proms and beyond

Here are Pliable's personal picks for the coming week's BBC Proms. All Proms are available for seven days online, detailed programmes and broadcast times for every concert are available from the BBC web site.

* August 13, 1.00pm Cadogan Hall, Philip Langridge sings Elizabeth Maconchy's Four Elizabethan Songs together with Britten and Schumann.
* August 13, 7.30pm - Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet Op. 25 is played by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony conduced by Paavo Järvi.
* August 15, 7.30pm - a rare performaance of Sibelius' complete incidental music for The Tempest in an authentically Finnish performance by the Lahti Symphony orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä.
* August 16, 10.15pm - a nice chewy programme of contemporary music by James MacMillan and ending with Harrison Birtwistle's Panic which was infamously premiered at the 1995 Last Night of the Prom. Martyn Brabbins conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. It's a sign of the times that under John Drummond Birtwistle was programmed in the most popular Prom of all, while under Nicholas Kenyon Birtwistle is marginalised to the bedtime slot.
* August 17, 7.30pm - More Schoenberg (the Five Orchestral Pieces) coupled with Stravinsky, Oliver Knussen's Violin Concerto and the UK premiere of Henze's Sebastian im Traum.
* August 18, 6.30pm - the Elgar anniversary is celebrated with his oratorio The Apostles. Outgoing City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra music director Sakari Oramo conducts. Let's hope there are no silly Guardian articles written by his spin doctors this time.
* August 19, 6.30pm - Gustavo Dudamel, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and the Deutsche Grammophon PR machine play Shostakovich, Bernstein, Revueltas and Ginastera between Edinburgh, Essen, Schleswig Holstein, Leipzig, Dresden, Bonn and Frankfurt.

There's also lots of great music making elsewhere.
* Delft Music Festival, Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft (The Netherlands), August 12, 2.15pm - chamber music by Dutilleux, Hindemith, D'Riviera and R. Schumann and the world premiere of Springs Eternal by Vanessa Lann.
* Edinburgh Usher Hall, August 13, 8.00pm - Thomas Adès conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Beethoven, Stravinsky, and his own Violin Concerto.
* Snape Maltings, Suffolk, August 14, 7.30pm - Mr McFall's Chamber mix classical, jazz, tango and rock, including a brand new piece by Gavin Bryars.

And now read Gavin Bryars on independent record labels.
Photograph On An Overgrown Path. 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

New positions for a string quartet

Vanessa Lann emails - Today is the world premiere of my string quartet, Landscape of a Soul's Remembering. In this work there are six separate locations on the stage where the musicians will stand or sit throughout the performance, changing to new positions between each of the four movements. At each spot there is specific music to be played, consisting of recognizable, repeated patterns that the players will interpret in turn - on their respective instruments - during each movement. As these patterns emerge again and again in new contexts, played on different instruments by different performers, they will each be heard in a new light.

Rather than this being a string quartet where the discussion exists in real time between the players, this is a study of the discussion, or realization, that takes place in one human soul - between the present, the future and one's understanding of Memory.

The premiere of Landscape of a Soul's Remembering is being given by the Doelen String Quartet, in the Eduard Flipsezaal, Concertgebouw De Doelen, Rotterdam on Sunday, March 18, 2007, 8:30 pm. The concert also includes the first performance of a work by Giel Vleggaar, and John Adams' John's Book of Alleged Dances.

Now read about another contemporary chamber work.
It is a Vanessa day - the sculpture is Sad beaver by Vanessa Pooley, bronze 13" high. 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

Don't let's prejudge music

Some interesting reactions to my story The hoax that fooled the music critics for 30 years, including this email:

As co-founder of the Newt Hinton Ensemble in the mid-90's (unconventional performances of exciting music - with players from The Netherlands, France, Germany and the UK), one of our practices was to hand out programme books/notes AFTER our concerts. That way the listeners would open their minds to the "experience" of a piece of music, without prejudging its merits because the composer happened to be male or female, young or old, living or deceased, famous or unknown, European or non-European, etc. It was amazing how the works on the programmes were appreciated for their intrinsic musical power, rather than for the biographical or historical contexts into which one otherwise might have placed them - Vanessa Lann (photo above)

Now open the New music lunchbox
Photo credit Theo Krijgsman. 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