Thursday 14 July 2011

Bruichladdich
I’ve been looking at Britten’s version of The Beggar’s Opera, and how he very carefully ‘ramps’ between dialogue and song, so that the singer can make a smooth transition between spoken material and singing. In the 1720s original this would have been completely unnecessary, as with the actors so close to the audience, singing at a 1940s operatic level just wouldn’t have been appropriate – it would have been downright bizarre. I’m sorry I can’t get to the production currently running in London, but I’m looking forward to having a peek at Dolly Collins’s version in a couple of weeks’ time.

Further to thoughts below on generic classical music skills, I think one extreme case is in the work of some modernist composers, where the musical end result can be riveting to listen to, but the musical process is less than ideal. Particularly in the UK, with its culture of short rehearsal time, musicians may have to follow closely detailed and fiendishly difficult instructions in their part, which can take days or weeks to prepare, but which on their own make no musical sense whatsoever.  A principal in a British orchestra famed for its work in contemporary music performances told me that at one point she got so frustrated with the way that she was expected to behave as a very precise machine rather than a musician, that she played Happy Birthday throughout a performance of a particularly dense score being conducted by its composer only a few feet in front of her. She took care to keep the right look of commitment on her face throughout, and was thanked sincerely for her sterling efforts by the composer afterwards. That’s not to say that dense modernist scores are a bad thing; it’s the process of preparing them for performance that can be inhuman. The musicians are kept in ignorance of the grand plan, which stays in the (usually male) composer’s score and head.  Come to think of it, another principal in the same orchestra, a player with a vast experience of and commitment to new music, is so tired of this process that they have asked to be released contractually from all of the orchestra’s contemporary music performances. So something is going badly wrong somewhere. Why listening to André Popp made me think about all of this I’m not sure. In his masterly Delirium in Hi-fi (also credited in some editions to Elsa Popping and her Pixieland Band), the musicians are just a mechanistic part of a whole, to be sure … but it’s got STYLE. And French style at that.

Meanwhile, there are developments about potential ConCal performances in February, and I should just also mention that the tiny pub in Portnahaven is an absolute gem, and that I’ve belatedly come across Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro series which is great. And thanks to the complete strangers on the beach at Claggain Bay last night who, just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better, fed me scallops poached in white wine and butter.