Bravo!

I took a break from being splenetic and incandescent with rage this weekend. No, really. Even someone as permanently grouchy and curmudgeonly as me needs the occasional day off. To soothe my furrowed brow, I went to Birmingham. Or more specifically, because I'm sure you're all wondering how being in Birmingham could help any mental torture, I went to Symphony Hall for a couple of concerts in their international series.

The first one was Mahler's Seventh Symphony, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted by Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel, the hip young gunslinger of conductors who established El Sistema to provide a route out of the favelas for the poorest children in his country. I'm not a huge Mahler fan to be honest, finding too much of it bombastic, but the experience of one of his big symphonies is stunning, and Dudamel did a fine job. Perhaps now there's a vacancy at the CBSO, he fancies his chances?

If you don't know Mahler, you probably do know Mahler through echoes and homages, especially if you watch films much. No Mahler, no John Williams and a host of other soundtrack composers. In particular, no Star Wars Imperial March, no Star Trek theme and arguably no Red Dwarf theme either: the seeds of all these pieces are in there.



The other concert was Maxim Vengerov and the Polish Chamber Orchestra playing Mozart's Violin Concertos 4 and 5, followed by some Tchaikovsky. Again, not my favourite periods or composers but I was in the mood for some high-octane virtuoso stuff, and by Toutatis I got it. Playing the 1727 Kreutzer Stradivarius, Vengerov played like a man possessed (and a man who likes to show off). He wrung everything from that violin, and the orchestra did him proud too. He gave two encores (both Saint-Saens pieces) and got a standing ovation. A superb night. Or it would have been were it not for the man sitting next to me, who appeared to have contracted St. Vitus' Dance. Worse than that, his clothes appeared to be made of foil, his skin was like paper and his beard reminded me of the old guy in this ad.



He couldn't stop rubbing his sleeves, hands or whiskers, even in the quietest, most intense moments. I wanted to relocate his teeth to his lower intestine, which I am sure was not Mozart's intended emotion.

Here he is playing it elsewhere some years back, without any audience sound-effects.

A little bit of culture

Ah, Monday. It seems like only a couple of days since Friday and my office chair is still warm.
That said - excellent weekend. Very cultural, apart from my language while watching Stoke City lose a cup match to Chelsea.

Saturday night saw me attend Mumford and Sons, a young indie-folk band making waves over here. I knew they'd become the centre of a cult but hadn't actually heard a note of their music - I went because I got Emma a ticket for Christmas and thought it would be rude to send her solo. The only other thing I know about them is that Cynical Ben thinks they're the Worst Band In The World.

Are they? No. Live, they (and the support band, Fanfarlo) are brilliant - a mix of folk, Arcade Fire, Beulah and (in the odd apocalyptic number, War of the Worlds). The album, to which I listened the next day, is much flatter and the lyrics don't stand up to close scrutiny, but they are utterly thrilling live.

Sod off, by the way, to the bunch of students behind me. They chattered extremely loudly and inanely through all the songs, breaking off occasionally to shout the first line of a chorus half a bar before the band, presumably to prove that they knew the words. They are, collectively, a warty buttock.

In total contrast, I went to see Simon Rattle conducting Bach's St. Matthew's Passion at Birmingham Symphony Hall (3 hours, distinctly anti-semitic, in German - though with electronic surtitles in an very good typeface). A sellout crowd heard a period-instrument rendition (complete with viols, which I love), a children's choir for the first movement and a stunning set of soloists. The snobs next to me told each other that it was too fast but as I'd read the same opinion in a newspaper recently, I suspect they were trying to impress each other. I'm not expert enough to know whether the rapturous reception Rattle and the performers got at the end was due to the music or his superstar status, but I went away extremely happy.

Back In The Office

…and feeling as weary as Bruce Willis in Die Hard (pick your own number).

The concert at Symphony Hall was wonderful, though it was punctuated by coughing choruses, and the applause started the moment the last note was out, which annoyed me slightly because I like to let the music sink in a bit.

Still - great music, played excellently and a very big crowd (I was the youngest there, as usual).

Off to teach now…

Cultural vole

I'm teaching 6-8 this evening. I usually stay in the office all day, but I've decided to take the afternoon off this time: there's a fantastic concert over at Birmingham's Symphony Hall.

I'm really going for Vaughan Williams's dark, brooding Fourth Symphony, but the Tchaikovsky (Romeo and Juliet) and Chopin (Piano Concerto No 2) will be excellent too.

After teaching - Comedy Night at the new Little Civic. I always like a good laugh after teaching…

Bravo, maestro

Morning. Chained to your workstations again? I'm feeling rather sunnily-disposed today.

Saturday saw me, neatly attired in a decent suit, attend a very dull but useful fencing meeting (a whole region's AGM with 7 people present…) during which we picked the teams for the competition I'm managing. It dragged on so long that I missed the first few minutes of the concert I tootled off to - Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony and Delius's Sea Drift. Luckily, they started with the Delius and the man was right - it really did drift, interminably, so missing a few minutes wasn't too terrible.

The performance of A Sea Symphony was something else entirely. It's a dramatic piece, drawing on Walt Whitman's poetry and using a full choir as well as orchestra. At times the sea is a sparkling, friendly place, busy with trade and international encounters - at others, it's a dark, uncontrollable threat to lives. The piece swings between these views, with periods of prettiness, of sadness and of dread.

The performers were the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the CB Choir, Julie Cooper on Soprano, James Rutherford on Baritone and Adrian Lucas conducting. It was, I think, amongst the best couple of concerts I've ever attended, up there with Philip Glass in Lichfield Cathedral. The choir, after a slightly blurry start, showed how sensitive they could be, as did the orchestra and soloists. They wrung every drop of emotion from the piece - in parts of the second and third movements I was genuinely on the verge of tears.

Special mention too for the leader of the viola section. Vaughan Williams knew how to write for viola, which many composers don't - the solos were beautifully judged and the tone was exquisite.

I knew from the first ten minutes of this performance that a standing ovation was required. Unfortunately, the rest of the (sparse) crowd were either too cynical or too physically incapable to join me. I was certainly, apart from the children dragged along, the youngest in the crowd by several decades - and I'm 34. Sad, isn't it? They did engage in prolonged applause and multiple curtain calls, so justice was done.

Then home, for a solitary curry at the place by my flat. Actually, I wasn't lonely at all. I had most of the newspaper to get through and my head was still full of music.

Yet more culture

I've just received Tove Jansson's novel for adults (not an 'adult novel'), The True Deceiver, and my ticket for The Dream of Gerontius, Elgar's massive oratorio, performed at Birmingham's wonderful Town Hall. Thus inspired, I've just bought a ticket for Symphony Hall's performance of Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony. It's a monstrous work, scored for full orchestra and a massive choir, with settings of Walt Whitman's poetry: not avant-garde or atonal but emotionally powerful and with thoughtful, even profound settings of unsettling poems. Cheap tickets for students and young people (though not for me…).

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.

Cravat Twats

The Map Twats went indoors yesterday, for a performance by the National Youth Orchestra at Birmingham Symphony Hall. Before that, we went to The Wellington, a fine real ale pub in central Brum which encourages customers to bring their own cheese. Dan did the honours, providing some fine Brie, and Oxford Blue, some goats' cheese, good bread, Greek olives and onion marmalade. I turned up with Italian salami and game pie. The other customers seemed to be divided between admiration and contempt for our effete picnic. 

The concert was partly aimed at getting under-25s into classical music. Musically, it was a great success, but demographically it was an utter failure. The thin crowd consisted of players' relatives, very old people and the Map Twats (average age 33). The 12-year old behind me loftily informed his mother that the NYO are 'copying the NCO and aren't nearly as good this year as they were last year'. I moved seats. Unfortunately, the man next to me was no improvement. He poked me every time the Berio and Strauss pieces quoted from Mahler, recommended Bruckner's Fourth because 'Hitler played it after supper every evening' and then poked into my shopping bag. I'd bought a new shirt from Lewin, reduced from £85 to £25: he told me that when he worked in the city, Lewin used to make 'good' shirts but now they might come from anywhere…

Anyway, audience aside, the concert was stunning. The Berio was complex, fun and compelling, the Wiegold piece they started with was a nice piece of lightweight contemporary theatre, and the Strauss (Richard) was, well, German. Huge orchestra, kitchen sink, post-Romantic but impressive in its way. 

Today, it's the university's Black Wednesday meeting - I'll be live-blogging my last day in employment.

Culcha

New year's resolution: actually do more cultural stuff than buying Crumb CDs and listening to them in my room. As a good start, the Map Twats are having a rare foray inside, to hear the National Youth Orchestra playing Strauss (yuck), Berio and something new by Wiegold. All for £5: it's tomorrow so you can still make it.