25 for 25: Sounds of the Century

[esmondo]

It's surely a good thing that R3 has commissioned 25 composers to write pieces, which are being broadcast once per week on Saturday Morning:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/radio-3-25-for-25-sounds-of-the-century

I happened to catch the second of these - a pleasant jazzy little piano piece by Stephen Hough - and I was just about interested enough to go and listen to the first on Sounds - Anna Clyne's "The Eye". A surprisingly trad bit of light music which would have made a good soundtrack to some 1960s TV documentary.

I shall not give up hope, and will check out the remaining 23 as they become available. Though I'm b******d if I'll sit through 3 hours of Tom Service to do it.

[mopsus]

You may not have to - Hough's was broadcast at about 8.35 this morning and probably will be again during this week!

[smittims]

Yes,the Stephen Hough (not 'jazzy' to my ears, though, rather a reflective piece in his style) was played on Sunday Morning at about 10 am,. I think.

As so often , I am torn between praise and complaint. Yes, it is 'surely' a good thing that the BBC is still commissioning pieces of , at least nominally, 'classical' music , but they are very short (to avoid taxing the attention span of Sam's 'new audience' , perhaps) and they have to fit a pre-set 'theme'. Couldn't someoene just write a piece of music?

I rememeber the days when the BBC commissioned full-length works from composers of the calibre of Hugh Wood, Arnold Cooke and Priaulx Rainier (all cello concertos, coincidentally!).

[Pulcinella]

You may not have to - Hough's was broadcast at about 8.35 this morning and probably will be again during this week!

So rather annoyingly like the Advent calendar, in Breakfast? How randomly, one wonders.
Presumably they're short pieces if they are to be slotted in then.
Silly question.

[willietell]

Though I'm b******d if I'll sit through 3 hours of Tom Service to do it.

Thank goodness Hannah French was sitting in for TS on yesterday's Sunday Morning. Which was the only reason I heard Stephen Hough's piece on its first outing (I always avoid blustering Tom). Petroc played it again this morning.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I was hoping some one else would start this topic as I didn’t want to appear negative . Have to say I find the two pieces so far pretty slight particularly the Anna Clyne Auld Land Syne reworking which seems completely devoid of anything musically interesting. I actively dislike that repeated rising then falling scale figure she introduces. It’s just uninspired .
I bow to no one in my admiration for Stephen Hough’s huge talent as a pianist but I just think he doesn’t write well for the instrument. That wide spacing he frequently employs to me sounds ugly and those repetitive heavily clustered left hand chords - well he should look at Bill Evans and thin things out a bit more.
Both pieces are just so old fashioned really.

I know there are some very talented composers out there - why aren’t we hearing them ?

[smittims]

I often wonder this . I can't believe the narrow selection of living British composers so frequently heard on Radio 3 represents the best currently available. Maybe others were approahed but declined as they didn't want to be subject to the restrictions imposed by the commission (length, subject). I wondered why Huw Watkins, for instance, who in my opinion is one of the finest living composers ( in any country) , didn't write anything for the Coronation. Maybe he was asked but didn't want to be associated with it. Who knows?

[esmondo]

The question of who is the best living British composer is an interesting one that deserves a conversation to itself. My vote would have been for Harrison Birtwistle except he no longer qualifies due to being dead - really not sure who else right now. As to whether a piece has to have a non-musical theme, that's certainly the popular idea these days, especially amongst the young women writing music "representing" climate change, or migration or something.

Anyway, the 3rd of the 25 was aired this morning - "Birds of Paradise" by Erland Cooper. Quite pleasant, tonal, undemanding, bit folky, solo violin being a bit birdlike. Supposedly a tribute to David Attenborough but really more of a tribute to the kind of orchestral music that you get over the title sequence and end credits of his TV programmes.

If you're the kind of person who rubs their hands in glee when "The Lark Ascending" is trotted out again, you may well like this.

But all credit to the guy - he wrote an orchestral piece and got it performed, which is more than I've ever done.

[Ein Heldenleben]

The question of who is the best living British composer is an interesting one that deserves a conversation to itself. My vote would have been for Harrison Birtwistle except he no longer qualifies due to being dead - really not sure who else right now. As to whether a piece has to have a non-musical theme, that's certainly the popular idea these days, especially amongst the young women writing music "representing" climate change, or migration or something.

Anyway, the 3rd of the 25 was aired this morning - "Birds of Paradise" by Erland Cooper. Quite pleasant, tonal, undemanding, bit folky, solo violin being a bit birdlike. Supposedly a tribute to David Attenborough but really more of a tribute to the kind of orchestral music that you get over the title sequence and end credits of his TV programmes.

If you're the kind of person who rubs their hands in glee when "The Lark Ascending" is trotted out again, you may well like this.

But all credit to the guy - he wrote an orchestral piece and got it performed, which is more than I've ever done.

Best piece so far by some margin I thought .The BLBC accolade would go to Thomas Adés I suspect but a commission from him is presumably outside the BBC’s budget and I’m not sure he’d be interested. It’s a bit of a naff idea - Radio Three is obsessed with anniversaries - I think that’s really lazy penny in the slot thinking . The sort of idea that in news would be dismissed by most news editors but seems par for the course in other genres.

[kernelbogey]

... Radio Three is obsessed with anniversaries - I think that’s really lazy penny in the slot thinking...

Well otherwise they'd have to have something interesting to say about the music itself...!

[oddoneout]

Well otherwise they'd have to have something interesting to say about the music itself...!

That shouldn't be too hard for the 'new' R3 audience - Wiki is your friend for "interesting" soundbites. Would be a bit more of a challenge for the 'old' R3 audience, just as well the new regime doesn't have to consider that group these days.

[Pulcinella]

Part of an article in today's Times about Hough's piece:

His other new piece, which just premiered on Radio 3 (available on BBC Sounds), is more sombre. Commissioned as part of Radio 3's Sounds of the Century project, in which 25 composers each draw inspiration from a significant event in the first 25 years of the 21st century, Hough was given the tough task of memorialising 9/11. He took an unexpected approach. His piece is called Nocturne (September 10, 2001). Note the “wrong” date.
“Yes, it's reflecting on the night before the planes went into the Twin Towers,” he explains. “I wanted to capture the unease of a world that's about to change but hasn't done so yet. So the piece begins very innocently, all on the white notes of the piano. Then disturbing elements creep in until there's a big climax. After that the ending is exactly the same as the beginning, except that the right hand is playing in a different key. I wanted to convey the feeling that it seems to be the same world yet nothing will be the same again.”

[Ein Heldenleben]

They’re playing that Birds Of Paradise piece every morning now . A listenable enough pice but that constantly repeated 6 note figure C - D-E -F -D-E is really starting to irritate.,
Any one else struck by the thought that these pieces supposedly marking the first 25 years of the 21st Century appear to ignore all the musical developments of the 20th and could pretty much have been written in 1925?

[LMcD]

They’re playing that Birds Of Paradise piece every morning now . A listenable enough pice but that constantly repeated 6 note figure C - D-E -F -D-E is really starting to irritate.,
Any one else struck by the thought that these pieces supposedly marking the first 25 years of the 21st Century appear to ignore all the musical developments of the 20th and could pretty much have been written in 1925?

Perhaps it could be alternated with Little Jimmy Dickens's hit song of the mid-60s - 'May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose' - which may prove to be the more enduring of the two.

[smittims]

Indeed, Heldenleben. I listened carefully to the 'Birds of paradise' on Sunday Morning. Repetitious, derivative, and so unlike David Attenborough! Possibly the weakest and most uninspired music I've heard for a long time. I confidently expect it to be a big hit on Radio3 Unwind where people will text in to say how 'cathartic' 'they found it.