Sibelius - Symphony No 1 (Pining for the fjords...)

Sibelius’s First Symphony was one of the first classical records I bought, some 30 years ago (a recording by Alexander Gibson and the SNO with a sheet of ice on the sleeve. I listened to it on Sunday evenings (before “That’s Life”, if memory serves). It was later overtaken in my affections by other Sibelius symphonies (especially Nos 2 and 5) but listening to this again I realise what a fine work it is, or most of it.

When I first listened to this, I couldn’t really understand the comparisons with Tchaikovsky and Borodin. I do now, but this still couldn’t be anyone but Sibelius. Back then I also made comparisons with Dvorak (the New World symphony was another early acquisition) which I thought must be an ignorant beginner’s error, but I don’t think I was totally wrong.

The first movement is especially good. This recording (Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia) is more fiery than I remember the Gibson. What brass! Sibelius was capable of more scrunchy dissonanances than his reputation suggests. I am still undecided about the second movement. I suspect that some Sibelius slow movements are just there to provide a tender interlude in between the real business. That is how this movement starts out, but it morphs into something more serious. The scherzo is really good. Little bits of the trio remind me of Bruckner: surely that can’t be right? But I had forgotten what a clunking disappointment the last movement was.

Anyway, we’re off to France for a couple of weeks, so the Walkpersons and TL2 will get a rest.

How and why

First, a confession. I don’t actually listen to very much music, in terms of quantity. About 15-20 minutes a day, when I’m on the bus or walking. That is a devastating admission for someone who claims to love music (and I do) but I don’t have any more time. I need to read the paper as well and I find that (usually) if I try to listen to music and read simultaneously, it’s a waste of time. (In passing, Inspector Morse is supposed to be seriously into music but he always seems to be listening to it and doing something else at the same time, such as doing the crossword or trying to catch criminals, which I find really odd.) But it’s OK, because what I do listen to I enjoy, or at least, if I don’t enjoy it I enjoy not enjoying it (if you see what I mean).

Last year I started writing down a few comments about the things I was listening to. Then I thought it might be a good idea to post them on my other site “It is not obvious” (see http://uk.geocities.com/terrapin6004/listen.htm). Recently I thought it would be good to move to a blog format. So here I am.

What sort of music? My main interests are classical music (favourite composer is Beethoven) and rock, especially punk/post-punk (favourite band The Fall). But I am trying to broaden my musical interests. Any suggestions would be welcomed. Even if it’s country and western.
If I don’t have much time to listen to music, I have even less time to write this (typically while I am eating my sandwiches at my desk), so please forgive the brevity and the odd tyop.

Beethoven – Cello Sonata in D, op 102 no 2

I was driving back from getting the car serviced yesterday (a stressful annual event, but relatively painless this year, unlike previous occasions - see http://uk.geocities.com/terrapin6004/mot_hell.htm) and I put on the radio. I found Radio 3, and heard this cello sonata for the first time (the recording by Rostropovitch and Richter), from midway through the second movement. Amazing. The funny thing was that I realised after just one bar that it was Beethoven.

Sometimes I hear something by Beethoven for the first time and I think “wow, I didn’t know Beethoven had ever written written anything like that”. When I think that it is always one of the late works. So it was with the contrapuntal last movement of this sonata.

Jazz Library (BBC Radio 3) – Tim Berne

I like jazz. I really do. Whenever I listen to any, I think how good it was, and how I’m going to listen to it much more often. And then it’s another 3 months before the next time. (I don’t count putting on The Jazz radio station as background music in the kitchen.*) I suppose the answer is that I like jazz but I don’t prioritise it. If I listened to it more, I would acquire more of an ear for it, not to mention a vocabulary for talking about it.

I really did enjoy this. It was a Radio 3 podcast set around an interview with the saxophonist Tim Berne (I am not putting in a link because I expect this programme has been superseded by a later edition of Jazz Library). The interview was very interesting, though I would have appreciated more music and perhaps less speech. The wilder and freer the music was the more I enjoyed it – less so, the fusion-type stuff, like the track from the “Miniatures” album. I would like to seek out more of Berne’s music. But will I get around to it?

And I’ve still got La Boulette Russe echoing in my head...

* After posting this I discovered that The Jazz, which I only listened to occasionally, has closed down. Sad, but not very sad.

La Boulette Russe – Pas cher! (Jamendo)

Pas cher, indeed, as this mini-album was a free download at http://www.jamendo.com/en/download/album/21316. I read about Jamendo in an article in the Guardian a few weeks ago, and chose this more or less at random. Downloading whole albums on Jamendo is easy, but you can’t (or at least I couldn’t figure out how to, which isn’t necessarily the same thing) download single tracks without playing them at the same time, so it was difficult to take a wider sample.

I suppose the right spirit in which to approach Jamendo is not to expect slick, first-class performances, because you are bound to be disappointed. It is more like wandering into a pub and listening to a band you haven’t heard before. Sometimes it will be brilliant, sometimes it will be diabolical, but nearly always it will be interesting.

And interesting La Boulette Russe certainly are. They describe themselves as “ska punk festif”, which is fairly accurate – sometimes a bit like early Specials, but punkier, with some Dexy’s Midnight Runners (not just the music but the tang of desperation behind it). I loved the raucousness. The lack of musical finesse (which no-one would really deny) doesn’t make any difference – in fact, I tried to imagine “California Dream” with a competently played trumpet and it just wouldn’t have been the same. There is only one song which isn’t quite as good – the last one, “Vivre en paix”, where they get more serious and Clash-like. But overall well worth listening to.

Paul Patterson – Luslawice Variations

My post yesterday damned the Patterson piece with faint praise. I listened to it again (and again) and it’s very, very good.

Tasmin Little (violin) – Bach/Ysaye/Patterson

The centrepiece of this excellent free dowload from Tasmin Little’s website http://www.tasminlittle.org.uk/free_cd/index.html (great music, though shame about the naff “Naked Violin” title) is Bach’s Violin Partita No 3. I’ve always avoided solo string music, on the basis that because there is only one line of melody it must be lacking in harmonic interest. How wrong I was. Double stopping gives enormous possibilities, but more than that, I can see that the split between melody and harmony is illusory, because melodies are derived from chords. The music itself is wonderful – stately and graceful, but somehow almost sensual.

Although I’m one of the people who thinks contemporary music should be hard to listen to I also enjoyed Paul Patterson’s Luslawice Variations, which seemed to me to have Shostakovitch influences. (For more info see http://www.paulpatterson.co.uk/luslawice.htm)

Ysaye’s Sonata No 3 in D minor however isn’t really my cup of tea. I don’t go for this sort of florid Romantic violin music, which is why I tend to steer clear of violin concertos between Beethoven and Berg.

But the Bach’s the thing.

Elastica – Elastica

This was one of the few records I bought on the strength of one track heard on the radio (“Allnighter”), and I was slightly disappointed. But listening to it again, a lot of it is really good, especially the faster songs like “Annie”, “Smile” and the aforementioned “Allnighter”. The critics talked about a new wave of British punk but were wrong – this was more Britpop with a punky twist (even if you discount the Frischmann-Albarn connection, “Car Song” could easily be a Blur song, a companion to “London Loves”). It’s still an enjoyable game spotting the punk influences – the Wire and Stranglers ones are notorious, but the most striking one for me was the perfect counterfeiting of Pete Shelley’s nasal guitar sound on “Allnighter.

Hello

I like music. And this blog is (mostly) about what I listen to.