Thursday, September 11, 2008
the indisputable lure of the idiot lantern
Tuesday was a great night for music TV with the one-and-a-half-hour live final of "Maestro" followed by the unveiling of this year's Mercury Music Prize winner.
I'm quite happy for Elbow to carry off this year's Mercury. Although I've only heard radio plays of tracks from "Seldom Seen Kid", general opinions I've heard this week, notably from Messrs Radcliffe and Maconie, claim that over the course of seven years and four albums Elbow have paid their musical dues and are now a band "whose time has come". I also agree with them that it's been a very open field this year, although I don't think there was a realistic chance that the Portico Quartet, as token jazz nomination, would win. No doubt they will benefit from a massive sales boost though as a result of being shortlisted, so it's all good...
It all does mean (sigh) that my Amazon shopping list grows ever longer with the addition of Elbow, Burial, British Sea Power, Laura Marling and possibly Estelle. I'd already bought the Radiohead, Last Shadow Puppets and Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (particularly pleased for them), so hoorah for me...
As for Maestro, well I don't know, is it more than a kind of "X-Factor" for the (cringe) "chattering classes"? It's been compulsive viewing anyway--who wasn't rooting for Goldie, who didn't find Jane Asher really annoying...
Genial chief judge Sir Roger Norrington hopes that the series will rekindle interest in classical music. It seems to be working on me. Recordings in the paltry "classical" category are consigned to the almost-completely-inaccesible bottom shelf of my CD rack and it's been years since I went to a classical concert. Blow me though if this afternoon I didn't get myself down to Balham Library, borrow Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" and Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony, spend half an hour scanning South Bank Centre leaflets for the next two months and pencil in a couple of concerts by the Philharmonia Orchestra.
We'll see if it lasts...
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4 comments:
I got completely sucked into Maestro too, and was actually a bit annoyed when Sue Perkins won. Not that I have a right to be - I could scarcely tell the difference between them.
I wish I had more time to listen to classical music. There is something about the form which makes me feel as though I should sit and listen to it all the way through. Which of course, I never do. Classical music doesn't seem to go with ironing...
And should I buy the Rachel Unthank album?
I know what you mean about listening to pieces all the way through. I hate having music on "in the background" and not listening to it properly (that goes for pop/rock/soul/etc too). I kind of think (in a slightly snobbish way probably) that I owe it to the composer to listen to more than the Big Tunes which everybody knows.
Some classical music is fantastic, really emotional stuff. But then I listened to that Mahler the other day. There were some great bits at the beginning and the end but to be honest my mind did wander a bit in between times. I'm currently working on the theory that a lot of classical music is little more than an intellectual exercise and doesn't actually provoke much of an emotional reaction from the listener and that, in fact, it's only the Big Tunes which make particular pieces stand out. I don't know if that holds any water at all. Am I allowed to just dismiss the whole of Mozart's work in one sentence?!
I would say definitely yes to Rachel Unthank. I was really pleased they made it on to the Mercury shortlist even if they were never going to win. Their version of Robert Wyatt's "Sea Song" (it's on her myspace page) is my favourite track of the year so far...
That is one theory, yes, but I do tend to prefer composers who don't do the Big Tunes anyway. I really, really like Steve Reich for example. His concert 2 years ago at the Barbican was one of the best I have ever been to, and I do regularly find time to listen to Different Trains and City Life. Perhaps you would like opera? Something like Puccini's Madam Butterfly is one big series of emotional blasts from what I remember!
I have contemplated doing a classical music 'appreciation' course (partly to help undo the several years of music theory I was forced to do as a child) but I fear that it might overwhelm me with even more music.
Rachel Unthank is now on my amazon wishlist!
The sort of big tunes I think I go for are more the gentle broody ones: Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, Gershwin, Ravel, stuff like that. I've heard a bit of Steve Reich so will give that another go and yes I like Puccini's big sweeping melodies from what I've heard of them.
I can feel a Top Ten classical tunes coming on...
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