Today, I have mostly been listening to…

… the new recording of Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Polymorphia, which comes with Jonny Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver and 48 Responses to Polymorphia.



OK, it's a bit mean listening to a piece of music in the office which tries to reproduce the Hiroshima nuclear bombing using an orchestra - it's utterly brutal - but it does have a kind of tortured beauty too. What interested me about this CD was the Jonny Greenwood stuff. I've got other recordings of Threnody and am a fan, though I think the elegant later Penderecki, when he discovered religion, is actually rather dull. I'm no Radiohead fan (there, I said it), but Greenwood's been getting some serious props from his homeboys on Radio 3. Any good? Actually, yes. There's still a little fanboy element in his recreation of Penderecki's sound, but he's clearly a very gifted musician with a serious grasp of postmodernism. Popcorn is very indebted to Penderecki, but it's a piece by someone who really understands the liberatory potential of orchestral noise.

The really impressive piece is 48 Responses to Polymorphia. Penderecki's original is stunning piece for string orchestra, using odd techniques and incorporating encephelographs in its structure. In the finale, the composer follows several minutes of utter noise with a C major chord - the one used for beauty in classical music. I don't know if this is Penderecki announcing his return to tonality (a reactionary step) or if he's making some other point (perhaps mocking the pre-modernists for their presumption in asserting the possibility of harmony in a world of concentration camps and nuclear war), but it's a dramatic moment.



Greenwood takes this final chord and uses it as the starting point of his 48 tiny pieces, all variations on a rather pretty chorale, sometimes soothing, sometimes as brutal as Penderecki's original. It's formally a little experimental without being tonally particularly progressive, and it sounds wonderful. Perhaps he's making a point about the shared heritage of classical and electronic music? I have no idea. But I like it.



Some later Penderecki: seductively beautiful, but not intellectually challenging at all - it's all about surrendering to religious awe. But if you've played the clips above, you'll probably want some soothing aural balm.

Ears bleeding for culture…

There's a piece about one of my favourite composers, Krzysztof Penderecki, in the Guardian today. He's the perfect example of late modernism. The theory goes that the world isn't a pretty, and coherent place. It's confused, confusing and filled with pain. Music shouldn't deny that, it should be honest. I must play some to my students…

Not being a fan of horror movies, I didn't realise that his work has been used widely in the genre, but I can understand why: here's his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. Don't have nightmares!



and a chunk from Polymorphia. I used to play these when I wanted everybody to go away. It always worked.

Today's musical interlude

Penderecki's Symphony No 7. Not sure what to say about this one. I respect Penderecki's work in general, but can't help feeling that his late discovery of Romanticism and Catholicism led to a general softening and decay. The early stuff is stunning - particularly the almost unlistenable recreation of the Hiroshima atrocity, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (if you're going to tackle nuclear war, you can't do it with pretty tunes).



However, Symphony 7, celebrating the foundation of Jerusalem (strictly from a Jewish perspective, therefore ignoring the complex and multicultural history of that city) is a much easier listen. Massive choir, big orchestra, powerful stuff. Just, well, a bit safe, though very beautiful and thrilling. It feels like a brilliant 19th-century piece rather than an exploration of new frontiers.

Wig Out to the In Sound from the 18th Century

Today's an all-Mozart, all-CD affair. The latter because S-Z in rock and all my classical vinyl are inaccessible due to the 1m x 1m x 1m cube of unread books currently testing the floor joists at the end of the bed. The former because I decided that I should acquaint myself a little better with old Wolfgang and invested in a 170-CD complete works. I'm heavily into medieval and Renaissance music, utterly devoted to Bach (the cello suites will be this planet's greatest contribution to galactic civilisation long after our extinction), and hugely into 20th-century classical music, but there's a yawning void where my knowledge of Mozart, the Classical composers and the Romantics should be.

I'm no snob - I'll happily make comparisons between the Field Mice, the Boo Radleys and Johann S. and distrust those devoted solely to classical music (the last one I met recommended Bruckner because 'the Fuhrer listened to his music after dinner every evening'), and there's an awful lot of conservative dross (on heavy rotation over at Classic FM), but at the same time, classical music doesn't have to pander to playlists, short-term profit or people half-listening. Dylan eviscerated mainstream America in the 60s and 70s - many of the major classical composers did the same. You can't listen to Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, or certain Stockausen without understanding that music, even wordless music, can pose just as great a challenge to the status quo as any other protest song. It's only when rich people, subsidies and 'the great and the good' hijack this stuff that all the life's sucked out of it.

So I guess that all I can do is encourage you to storm the concert halls and take them back. Start by going to the Music Maze for Adults run at the CBSO Centre by the Birmingham Contemporary Music group. Turn up with any old instrument from your loft (they'll give you one if you don't have anything), and spend the evening making thrilling, visceral music - skill levels unimportant. 15th May, CBSO centre, 6.o0-9.30, £10. Listen to Late Junction on Radio 3, the show that plays anything from anywhere in the world (including rock, dance and probably even donk) as long as it's interesting.

First video up is an extract from the Penderecki - it's horrible because, well, nuclear war is horrible. Could pop music do this? Possibly, but the industry and our expectations aren't really set for 'searing' as a positive term. The second on is Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach rather beautifully.

I've given up - the people across the road are playing dancehall so loud that my windows are shaking. I'm unmoved.

This time it's personal

After five years, my old mobile phone is defunct and I've replaced it. Not, you might think, earth-shatteringly interesting or notable even in the life described to you so lovingly day-by-day. 

However, it's a big thing for me. At last, I can have my revenge. I'm tormented on the street, on trains and on buses by selfish, arrogant, noise-polluting gits who play music through those rubbish little speakers on their mobiles. It's a form of bullying, an announcement that their pleasure is more important than the comfort of the many people around them. When I'm in charge, there will be a special camp for them, with Penderecki's Threnody piped into the cells 24 hours a day.

In the meantime, my new phone will suffice. It's a cheap, boring phone, but it has a radio, a speaker and a 'record radio' function. I shall abuse these features mightily. I intend to record Veg Talk, You and Yours, Moneybox or even a specially bad episode of The Archers, one of the ones with Linda Snell or Jack Woolley in, and use them as weapons of retaliation. The next time some selfish bastard poisons the air with Akon, or Pussycat Dolls or some godforsaken emo, I shall blast them with the very worst of Radio 4 until they go away. Or stab me.