1/ On Wednesday I went to a wonderful concert by @EnglishSymphony and @kennethwoods. What a thrill to hear real symphonies played live in a real hall with a real audience for the first time since March 2020. I spent the whole afternoon grinning from ear to ear behind my mask!
2/ We began with music by @emily_doolittle, a composer new to me. Woodwings is based on birdsong from Canada, the country of her birth. Cool, fresh and well-ordered in the first of its five short movements, it evolved into wild and free twilit fantasy by the last. Most effective.
3/ Originally for Wind Quintet, this was the first performance of Doolittle's own arrangement for 10 winds and bass made especially for @EnglishSymphony. An excellent curtain-raiser, the northern saw whet owl and friends certainly whetted my appetite. emilydoolittle.com
More on this great concert later. First I have to go and eat an outrageous hotel breakfast.
4/ The #21stCenturySymphony project, brainchild of @EnglishSymphony conductor Kenneth Woods (left), aims to commission nine new symphonies from nine composers. Steve Elcock's Symphony No. 8 is its fourth fruit and, given the quality of the first three, my expectations were high.
5/ The first, the 3rd Symphony by Philip Sawyers, rightly received rave reviews. You can read all about it in my thread on the composer and his music. Sawyers' 5th Symphony is due to receive its premiere later this year. Wish I could be there!
7/ Most recently, the 5th Symphony by Matthew Taylor seemingly blew everyone who has heard it away, myself most definitely included. Could Elcock 8 maintain this exceptional standard?
You'll have to wait for the full answer until after I've driven to my dear old mum's for Sunday lunch, but here's the short version.
8/ Steve Elcock's Symphony No. 8 is only 20 minutes long, but a huge symphonic heart beats inside its compact frame. The symphony in part reflects the impact on Elcock of hearing Allan Pettersson's 6th, a work still awaiting a UK premeiere 55 years on.
9/ There are certainly stylistic similarities, but Elcock compresses the Swede's epic expansiveness into a far more concentrated form. I heard as many echoes of the turbulent symphonic style of Vaughan Williams 6 & 9 and the profound processes of another Nordic God of Music.
10/ There is so much going on in this symphony! I sometimes felt on first hearing as if late Sibelius had slipped some of his tonal moorings and gone to explore strange new worlds. The music strives to return to a safe harmonic harbour at the end, but never quite reaches it.
11/ My heartfelt thanks to composer and performers alike for letting me hear new music that harnesses the great symphonic tradition to create an experience with so much personality of its own. Is it a masterpiece? Too early to tell, but I can hardly wait to hear it again!
12/ Until then I'll content myself with the two Elcock symphonies that I can hear thanks to recordings from the ever-enterprising @ToccataMusicGr label.
"Music of awesome power and majesty that has gone completely unheralded" - @ObserverUK
13/ Does any symphony make you happier to be alive than Beethoven's 7th? The joy was so tangible it was as if the Bonn Bombshell himself was in the hall with us. If he had been I'd have given the big lug a hug and social distancing be damned!
14/ The roof almost came off @Kiddy_Town_Hall, but there was plenty of thoughtfulness among the thunder and thrills. @kennethwoods & co. maximized the momentum by playing the first two movements without a break, making the major-minor transition all the more powerful.
15/ The tumultuous coda had me concerned for the foundations as well but the hall survived and the thunderstorm that pounded me as I left was a fitting tribute to elemental power of the music making.
All said, not a bad way to spend a wet Wednesday afternoon in Kidderminster!
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#Holst150 #87: The Planets, H. 125 Op. 32 (1914-17)
I'm listening to every Holst piece I can find in the order he composed them. Gus's greatest triumph emerged from the ashes of disaster. He learned to treat those two impostors just the same. /1
That disaster was the 1913 premiere of The Cloud Messenger, after which he wrote to friend and fellow musician Frank Duckworth: "The 'Cloud' did not go well and the whole thing has been a blow to me. I'm 'fed up' with music, especially my own." /2
Another musical supporter, Henry Balfour Gardiner, invited Holst to accompany him on holiday to Spain along with fellow composer Arnold Bax and Arnold's brother Clifford. The melancholy Holst often struck out on his own, but he and Clifford discovered a mutual interest. /3
Adrian Williams dedicated his symphony to Kenneth Woods "for giving me hope". With five premieres and four recordings to its name already this project gives me hope that it will banish the baffling (to me anyway) idea that no one wants to write, play or hear new symphonies today.
The symphony opens with an arresting theme on violins and violas whose first three notes (E♭ - F - C) are soon driving the thematic and harmonic progress. I quickly realised that here was a true symphonic architect: this expansive 50-minute four-movement structure never falters.
For almost two years orchestras round the world have found ways to carry on making outstanding music despite the formidable ongoing challenges of #COVID19. This countdown of my twelve favourite symphony and orchestral records of the year salutes them all.
Follow my playlist for fresh takes on old favourites and a wealth of wonderful music I'd never heard before 2021. My survey continues until #NewYearsDay 2022 when I reveal my Record of the Year.
I'll let my mother, a Brahms symphony stan for 70 years, review this for me: "Wonderful! Exciting, plenty of oomph and the instruments are all so clear."
First things first: If you care about symphonies AT ALL and don't know Simpson 9 then stop what you're doing and buy this record RIGHT NOW. It will repay you many times over.
2/ "BUY?" I hear you cry, "But Symphs, can't you just post a Youtube link or something?"
No. The single 10-minute extract available online is in poor sound and doesn't begin to convey the cumulative experience this symphony's unbroken 50-minute span can deliver. Don't go there.
3/ You just googled it didn't you? Disappointing wasn't it?
1/ Why not recreate the legendary Akademie concert held #OnThisDay in 1808, by turning off your heating and listening to 4 hours of badly-played Beethoven in the freezing cold?
Here's (nearly) all the music heard that night.
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2/ The evening began with the premiere of the symphony that we now know as No. 6.
Mars, the Bringer of War
Venus, the Bringer of Peace
Mercury, the Winged Messenger
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Uranus, the Magician
Neptune, the Mystic