Sally Beamish

[Serial_Apologist]

I have to say what a delight Sally Beamish is proving to be this week!

Until this series of programmes, I had only ever heard her 1995 Violin Concerto, a Proms commission iirc, and her 1998 "Between Earth and Sea", beautifully written for the flute, viola and harp combination Debussy used in his late sonata, again iirc for Aldeburgh.

Yesterday we heard her first symphony among other delights, and today a 10-minute string quartet which will definitely bear repeated listening.

I seem at last to have found someone for whom I have been waiting now more than 2 decades: a new modernist composer whose music acknowledges her great modernist predecessors - she has referred to Tippett and Berio. She strikes me as one of the few composers to have emerged since the mid-70s who fully embraces the expressive oportunities atonality opened up, this now informing her more tonally-orientated pieces (such as those heard today) with the expanded musical universe therein revealed, rather after the manner of the great late Nicholas Maw.

It is interesting that Ms Beamish has taken to jazz - the one form (apart from free improvisation) in which I feel the language of music to be still evolving - and if there is anything that appears anomalous in her story, I am surprised that the genre had earlier escaped her notice, and that she had found it necessary to study under Branford Marsalis, when Scotland, where she has chosen to live, offers so much in terms of an indigenous jazz scene, having absorbed folk idioms without resort to the American approach and vernacular.

S-A

[Norfolk Born]

I'm certainly enjoying CotW, and making some enjoyable musical discoveries.

[amateur51]

Thanks for this reminder/encouragement to listen, mes chums

I'll tune in once I've got Marr on Hockney and Bragg on Class off my 'list of things to catch up on', this evening I hope.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

caught ms Beamish in the car as it were what a delightful person, like you S_A i felt here was a composer i could take seriously ...

and amateur51 the Marr Hockney is wonderful ..... not so sure about Melvyn ....

[Chris Newman]

Excellent CotW. Much enjoying her music....and Andrew Marr's Hockney.

[Norfolk Born]

Just finished listening to the 2nd viola concerto - a lot to take in at one hearing, but a fascinating work.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just finished listening to the 2nd viola concerto - a lot to take in at one hearing, but a fascinating work.

I thought just the opposite, NB, for a work which is basically non-tonal in idiom. The main motif is clearly made memorable by virtue of frequent transposition, virtually unaltered in the first movement; subsequently things get a bit more involved, but never at the expense of sensing underlying coherence or lyrical clarity.

Something I have complained about before re COTW is lack of dates and chronology - I have had to check several sites to find out dates of composition for the works so far illustrated, which the exception of one, where we were informed; and without going into technical minutiae I would personally appreciate rather more information about how the composers actually go about composing their music - does Sally Beamish employ tone rows, for example? While from the pov of getting acquainted it is always good to get told about friends, relations, inspirations and events - and Donald Macleod's courteousness and genuine interest in the subjects is praiseworthy - it is almost as though creative detail, which was once very much included in introductions to new music - has now become elevated to some realm of secret, lofty confidentiality, non-divulgeable to the untrained listener.

[amateur51]

caught ms Beamish in the car as it were what a delightful person, like you S_A i felt here was a composer i could take seriously ...

and amateur51 the Marr Hockney is wonderful ..... not so sure about Melvyn ....

In complete agreement wwitgh you & Chris about the Marr/Hockney programme, Calum. I've been fortunate to go to the exhibition twice now & it really has stayed with me. Hockney is so clear about what/why he's doing what he's doing and Marr seemed to get good stuff from him. I loved the way Hockney kept looking into the camera - naughty boy! Ibnspiratioinal stuff.

In contrast I felt that Melvyn's programme was a bit same old, same old. Almost a radio programme with added pictures/film. But he's a bundle of energy too - maybe the second prog is better - and of course perhaps our age group is not his target audience - aaaah right

Still not started on Sally Beamish but perhaps this evening??

[Oddball]

Add my voice to this general approbation.

[Oddball]

"It is interesting that Ms Beamish has taken to jazz - the one form (apart from free improvisation) in which I feel the language of music to be still evolving -"

Well no doubt she has done, and I will have to listen some more, but the music presented in COTW (e.g. Bridge) is at such a high intellectual level that one wonders whether applying the epithet "jazz" to it, is at all helpful. If it is Jazz, it is a hipless form of Jazz.

This is Jazz as far as I am concerned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8q6sR6yZCE