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Britten Quartets

2010-04-03T22:16:00.001-07:00

Researching Britten Quartets at the moment (to write programme notes for my East Neuk Festival). They're wonderful pieces, of course, but especially poignant as he did only write three actual quartets - an early a middle and a late - so late that the 3rd quartet is pretty well the last music he wrote. I came across a review of a recording which asked the question: did Britten, as he got older lose inspiration and dry up - or did he become ever more masterful at creating great music from minimal resources. For me the jury's out on the whole: the 1930s - 1950s are definitely the periods I enjoy most, but that last quartet is the exception. So elegiac, and purely beautiful, particularly given its connections with Venice, but also angry and sharp-edged. There's a real sense of "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" which throws the final slipping away into sharp relief.

That time of year...

2010-03-31T08:58:00.000-07:00

One thing that will always keep life interesting is bumping into those situations in which everything seems to be going wrong and coming out the other end with something better, richer and altogether more satisfying than you could imagine. Doesn't often happen in cooking, in my experience. If it's turning brown and gritty it's probably beyond saving. But in planning music events it happens all the time: almost as though someone up there wasn't yet convinced that you've done your best so shakes things up a little to prod you around that last little corner from which the whole view is different. Happened this week: disaster! Ensemble double-books itself - everything seems to be falling down. Actually what happened was they made space for a new project which has made the total programme immeasurably more fun.

Brook and Snow

Went to see "11 and 12" by Peter Brook - his much trumpeted return to Glasgow's Tramway. The play's had extremely mixed reviews. Its trouble is that it is although it has some magical theatre, the script simply fails to achieve any kind of emotional depth or heat of debate on issues of faith and difference in an age when people are blowing themselves up and taking innocent souls with them to protect their differences of faith or territory. At this time, is it valuable for Brook to have his actors spend 100 minutes musing portentously on a pretty floor cloth?

Much more dramatic was the journey home. Through a blizzard. In March. At one point we imagined sleeping in the car...

Porty today

2010-02-27T00:24:00.001-08:00

It's definitely a time of year for fresh thoughts (though it can't be Spring in the air - the only hints of new growth have been cruelly crushed this week by a fresh fall of snow: now somehow grey and grubby and definitely last year). There's a lot to do, with the build up to the launch of my first season at Glasgow's Concert Halls. Still haven't lost my childish delight that I get to do that job: no not even in the week of the 3rd discouraging meeting of the day. It's a great inspiration simply because the canvas is big enough to allow your imagination to fly and remember all that music you never hear live (at least in Scotland); all those composers who never get a look in - it's a chance to give them a platform and work with a great team to bring audiences to them. I need to go lie down..... Out of the office it's been a week for making plum jam, R to Turin buying nice parmesan and socks, bad back, coldy nose and weird films.

Let it snow...

2009-12-24T00:47:00.001-08:00

2009-12-16T11:02:00.001-08:00

Finally I've discovered something useful in an in-flight magazine. Half asleep on the dawn Easyjet this morning I spotted an article about a club in Istanbul called Babylon which has become the hot spot for 'Turkish Fusion.' The pictures were fantastic, showing screwy line-ups of traditional instruments and electronica and I was intrigued. Handily there was a playlist of bands to follow up so I googled them and have just enjoyed one of the most uplifiting days of music for a long time. Being an utter ignoramus about Turkish music I can only speak on a 'I know what I like' basis, but I like this!! My current favourite is a fantastic band called Kolektif Istanbul.

Google them and you cannot fail to come up with plenty of YOU TUBE videos - and I downloaded their album KRIVOTO from iTunes. I defy anyone to listen to Damda without a smile on their face.