The philosophy of music: or the music of philosophy ?
Via opera blog Intermezzo, an article in the Irish Times recently about looking after the voice, in which five professional opera singers discuss how they look after their instrument.
Common themes include regular exercises and the avoidance of alcohol.
That explains why I’m a pianist, then…
We’re delighted to see that the University of Kent’s Music Scholarships were mentioned in an article in the Sunday Times recently – ‘Top tips for funding university.’
Only three UK universities were mentioned in connection with offering scholarships, and Kent was the only one directly connected with music.
The article assesses the potential costs to future students given the rise in tuition fees, and offers guidance on how to lessen the financial burden of studying at university.
With the capping of tuition fees looking set to disappear following Lord Browne’s proposal, allowing universities to charge as much as they might wish for their courses, students are facing increasing debt in order to obtain a degree. The article looks at the implications for three-year courses of study, and avenues of potential financial support that can be accessed to help. Kent’s music scholarships are one such means of lessening the impact of continuing into higher education.
Not to mention having a fantastic musical experience whilst doing so.
Click here to read the article (subscription may be required).
With a programme to include Mozart, Gregson, Godard, Bach as well as a selection of jazz standards, this year’s Scholars’ Festival Lunchtime Concert is going to be a wholesome musical treat. The renowned Canterbury Interntional Festival is currently in full swing, and this year’s recital promises to add a lively and diverse element to the diary.
Featuring Music Scholarship students from various departments including Architecture, Drama, History and Politics, the performers are illustrative of the all-embracing nature of the University’s Music Department, and a tribute to the high standard of music-making that it fosters.
Yours truly will, as usual, be the recital accompanist this year, and there’s an added bonus in the form of clarinet teacher, Big Band and Concert Band conductor and all-round whizz Ian Swatman, who will be playing as part of a clarinet trio. There’ll be an aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, French flute repertoire by Benjamin Godard, part of the Gregson Tuba Concerto, as well as jazz tunes including A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Blue Bossa.
The Festival Club, St. Alphege Lane, Canterbury; 1pm; admission free. Further details on our on-line events calendar here. Bring along a lunch and a coffee, and relax whilst we entertain you. Don’t miss it.
A post on music blog Classical Iconoclast entitled ‘Mahler for Morons’ posed the question a while back – is there such a thing as a definitive recording of a Mahler symphony ? This set me thinking: can there ever be a definite recording of any classical piece ?
Scholarship and performance practice are ever-changing, and what seemed appropriate sixty or seventy years ago may no longer be seen as such.
Composers who conduct their own works, like Stravinsky or Britten, might be thought to create an authoritative recording by virtue of the fact that they are realising their own compositions. Stravinsky made several recordings, but each is different from the other: even composers, it seems, change their minds about their own pieces.
The portamento-riddled orchestral recordings at the start of the twentieth century now seem dreadful; tastes in the expressive nature of orchestral playing have changed. Even the instruments of the orchestra evolve; the change from gut- to steel-strung instruments offering broader possibilities. Tempi have become faster; the funereal Furtwangler has been replaced by the white-knuckle ride of Gardiner or Norrington.
Voices change too, singing styles fall in and out of favour – the thick, fruity tones of Joan Sutherland, the ethereal purity of Emma Kirkby or the light-footed coloratura of Cecilia Bartoli all moving in and out of favour.
The drive for authenticity or an historically-informed approach sees the forces used in Renaissance and Baroque music especially being condensed; one-to-a-part choruses in the Bach Passion settings or Tallis masses, single-player performances of Baroque concerti. The drive for historically-informed performance has reached its tendrils even into early twentieth-century works by Elgar – it’s a monster that looms ever closer on the tail of contemporary music.
It seems unlikely, then, that there can ever be a definitve edition or an authoritative recording of a classical work; as scholarship moves forward, as performance practice changes and attitudes towards playing styles evolve, realisations of pieces also change.
Perhaps, though, that’s a good thing.
Varèse’s Ionisation.
Pierre Boulez conducting the Ensemble InterContemporain.
Playing around with different kinds of pitch (fixed, variable or indefinite) and rhythm, Ionisation was the first piece written for percussion ensemble alone. Nicholas Slonimsky, who conducted the premiere in 1933, talks about the composer in an archived recorded interview here from 1973. He describes Varèse as ”a huge, French desert.”
It definitely gets funky at around the 2-minute mark.
As reported in The Guardian yesterday, efforts are already underway to fix this year’s Christmas no.1: although this time, it’s a piece with a difference.
A campaign on Facebook is attempting to drive John Cage’s notorious 4′ 33″ to the top seasonal spot this December, in order to confound the usual hopes of chart-topping crooning from the Simon Cowell X-Factor stable.
I’m up for it: who’s with me ?
There’s a challenge going round at the moment, inviting you to name your top fifteen albums in no more than fifteen minutes’ worth of contemplation.
Intrigued, I undertook the test, and present here the result: my only rule was that they had to be listed in the order in which they occurred to me, and I had to stop at fifteen. (What the list says about their impact or my tastes in music is another matter!) They should be albums that have stayed with you, or made the greatest impact.
I have to admit, I was surprised that Music for 18 Musicians came third! I can still recall exactly where I was the first time I heard Reich’s Vermont Counterpoint, which opened the door in the low wall to Reich and to Minimalism for me. The Bach concerti used to be played repeatedly in the car on the school run when I was going to school. The Debussy / Ravel quartet disc was the first CD I ever purchased, and was a revelation: the colour, the language, the nuance of French Impressionism.
I’ve never heard as charismatic a performance of Ravel’s Histoire naturelles as that given by Souzay / Baldwin, and although my tastes have changed since, I still have a soft spot for the Barbara Hendrix recording of the Debussy songs.
And for solid swing, the flugelhorn of Art Famer on Manhattan is unforgettable.
Nearly all of these were influential in defining my musical interests which still hold sway, and none of them, interestingly, came from my music studies for GCSE / A-level: they were the result of listening outside the curriculum-imposed works from the Classical tradition. Apart from the Pärt, these had all wormed their ways into my life by the time I left school. There have been fantastic albums since then – the Tallis Scholars singing Tallis’ Lamentations of Jeremiah, Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle¸KidA by Radiohead – but these occurred later, both in life and in the order of recall when writing the list, so they didn’t make it.
Your turn….
It’s 1pm, and Freshers’ Fayre is in full swing across the campus. The marquees are thrumming with eager society members cajoling passers-by into signing up for everything from rock-climbing to capoiera, reps from Subway are handing out vouchers alongside a giant walking hot-dog (no, I’ve not taken anything to affect the senses…) and, over by the Marlowe building, teams are having a tug-o’-war over ‘Spots and Stripes’ from Cadbury’s, a most popular stand, I can’t think why… I kept an eye out for the Pirates’ Society, which had a lively and visible presence last year, but I seem to have missed them this time. Everywhere from The Venue to the Templeman Library and the Gulbenkian Theatre, you can’t move without being accosted by enthusiastic teams, eager to sign you up for a range of activities and societies that show how rich and diverse the University’s community life is each year.
Down in the Eliot College marquee, members of the Music Society, Music Theatre Society and RockSoc are busy signing up new and returning members keen to participate in Kent’s rich musical life. Brochures, hand-outs and flyers are rushing off tables; there’s a general air of bewildered excitement at the prospect of all the cultural activities across the campus starting anew this year. I’m sure the other music-related societies are there as well, it’s just the vibrant crowds always seemed to be moving the opposite way to me. Eventually I had to ride with the throng until I was regurgitated out of the other side like Jonah from the whale, along with a second-year Chorus member who’d come to sign up again. (Wherever you are, Ed: we did it: we survived!).
Phew.
Well done to all the Committee and society members who have worked tirelessly throughout this afternoon, and who have now repaired to the Gulbenkian Café with the Director of Music for some well-earned refreshment. It will all be worth it.
