'Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned' (G. B. Shaw).
I was one of many Christchurch children who played in orchestras in the Christchurch School of Instrumental Music, founded and directed by Robert Perks. I played the recorder for a year or two, with Mr Loretto, and then graduated to playing the flute, with teacher Ms Colthart. A highlight was playing in the overture to Rossini's William Tell.
The first classical music I came to enjoy were pieces we played in the Christchurch Boys' High School orchestra: The Great Gate of Kiev, by Mussorgsky, at the end of the Pictures at an Exhibition, and the overture to Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. I was second flautist to David Pugh-Williams, in particular.
A step in my understanding of music came from reading Colin Wilson's book, Brandy of the Damned, some time during my late teens. Wilson discusses Mozart and Beethoven in two main chapters, the 'modern' music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, as well as jazz, with notes on English music. Here I got to learn of the music of George Butterworth. Butterworth was killed on 5 August 1916, during the Battle of the Somme at the age of 31. Before the war he composed an orchestral piece, The Banks of Green Willow, and set to music a number of the poems of A. E. Housman from A Shropshire Lad. As Wilson says, Butterworth's music is very English but never cloying.
The concerts I remember best were the King's Singers in Dunedin around 1977, and then Kyung Wha Chung playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. in London in 1979. A string broke on her violin in the second movement; she kept on playing, amazingly, for a few bars but then had to pause to change violins. I still enjoy the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, as well the Bruch and Mendlessohn violin concertos.
This afternoon (20th November, 2016) I listened to Sayaka Shoji playing the Tchaikovsky Violin concerto. I'm not astute enough to judge between different violinists' performances.
My copy of Brandy of the Damned (Colin Wilson) has fallen apart. I've ordered a new copy through the Book Depository. PS It arrived in December, 2016.
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Clive James, the Australian commentator and writer, is very ill (December, 2016) but still full of wit. (PS Clive James died on 24 November 2019). He speaks of music:
‘I’m saving music up. My wife and I were sitting here a few months ago on that couch and I was playing her one of the Beethoven late string quartets, Opus 131, which is a towering work of art. If the time comes when I can’t see, I’ll start listening to all the old stuff. I could spend a couple of years just listening to Stravinsky, so I’m not going to run out of material.’"
(The Mail online, 1 December 2016)
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I listened to a podcast with Christine McVie (Fleetwood Mac) recently. She mentioned that her father, a violinist and music lecturer, Cyril Perfect, often played Vaughan Williams 'The Lark Ascending' (a favourite amongst radio listeners in England) at home. She then went on to say that some of the phrasing in that piece influenced Peter Green's 'Albatross'. I've heard both pieces many times but hadn't heard a connection. ______________________________________________________________________________
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/mozart-grace-notes/
Mozart: Rational Revolutionary - Stephen Brown, Times Literary Supplement, May, 2019 _______________________________________________________________________________
Oboe, and flute
I like the oboe, especially in slow movements. I remember the sound of the oboe on National Radio around 5pm in my very early childhood. I was usually playing outside and I was transfixed by the haunting, melancholy sound coming through the window from the radio in the kitchen. It might have been just before or after 'Readings from the Bible' or some other such regular daily programme in those days.
More recently - Eric Ewazen's Down a River of Time
Helen Jahren (oboe) playing Giuseppe Ferlendis' (1755–1810) - Oboe Concerto in F-major
Yun-Jung Lee, with the Chuncheon Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Mozart's Oboe Concerto in C major.
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The Rite of Spring - the Music of Modernity, by Gillian Moore (2019)
The first night audience for Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) included Jean Cocteau, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
The music was accompanied by ballet from Diaghilev's Ballet Russes company.
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From Fiona Maddocks, Music for Life
Childhood, Youth
1. Perotin - Alleluia nativatus (c.1200)
Perotin lived in Paris at the turn of the century, dying in 1226, at a time when the cathedral of Notre Dame was being built. This three-part motet was written for the Feast day of St Mary. 'The effect is sprung and vital, haunting and unearthly' (Maddocks, 2016, p.3).
2. Mozart - Twelve Variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je, Maman' (1781-82)
Played by Natalie Shwamova (aged 11)
"Solemn simplicity of the opening theme to growing complexity..." (Maddocks, 2016, p.4).
3. Robert Shumann - Abegg Variations (1831)
Jorg Demus playing the Abegg Variations