The genius of John Foulds

I have a piece in today's Independent about John Foulds (1880-1939), the extraordinary British composer whose biggest work, A World Requiem, is to be performed for the first time in 81 years at the Remembrance Sunday concert at the Royal Albert Hall this weekend. The work was premiered at the Remembrance Day Festival in 1923 and was given for the same event for four years running, with 1250 performers each time, before being unofficially 'banned'. Apparently Sir Adrian Boult thought it was boring and the editor of the Express thought Foulds was a communist.

Foulds spent his life in a radical exploration of music and spirituality: he experimented with quarter-tones before Bartok did and with Indian music techniques before Messiaen got to them. With his partner, the musician, educator and fellow Theosophist Maud MacCarthy, he moved to India in 1935, becoming head of western music for the country's national radio and seeking a way to make a synthesis of Indian and European music, decades before anyone thought of terms such as 'world music fusion' (see photo). He died of cholera four years later. Most of his manuscripts were subsequently lost or destroyed, rotting in the heat or being eaten by rats.

The concert is a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and you can listen to it on Sunday evening at 6.30pm local time. Be warned: there are 20 movements.

btw...

...cat-lovers and those who have trouble waking up in the mornings should pop along to Solti's blog to see this...

Wot? Classical music on primetime tv? (or is it?)

(updated the morning after....) So are you following Classical Star on BBC2? This series, which brings the world of The Apprentice to a group of teenaged music students, is rather remarkable for how little serious coverage it's had in the national press. I guess nobody is taking it very seriously.

Cellist Matthew Barley, who's head honcho, is more Sugar than Sir Alan, and, with plentiful charm, charisma and a good way with youngsters, is possibly the only person in the country who could have pulled this series off with reasonable success. The thing is, the voyeuristic, ooh-aren't-they-nasty mentality of the Big Brother/Fame Academy/etcetc format is not exactly designed for hardworking youngsters who just want to get on with their practising. Also, the format itself is distinctly tired, music or none.

I'm fence-sitting. I can't decide whether I think it's A Good Thing because it gets music-making onto primetime TV for several weeks running (grand finale next week) or A Bad Thing because when it all goes belly-up afterwards it's the kids who will suffer. So here are a few reactions.

Hilary Davan Wetton in The Guardian:
A society that revels in others' public distress or humiliation, filmed in intrusive close-up, is a pretty sick society. Classical Star harks back to the worst excesses of the Roman arena. The children are exhibits in a human circus. The judges use the thumbs up/thumbs down technique of the Roman emperor; they offer us pretension, patronage and a deep sense of self-importance. We are all being coarsened by this continual diet of exploitation.

Anna Picard in The Independent on Sunday:

...the most enjoyable aspect of Classical Star has been seeing how fantastically resistant classical music is to being sexed up. What dreamy Emily, streetwise Tyler and the others have in common is their absolute respect for the craft they are learning. By the time most Big Brother contestants drag themselves out of bed for a snog or hair of the dog, the Classical Star competitors have been practising for hours. Indeed, the worst incidence of naughtiness to be seen on the series so far was when one violinist snaffled an extra 20 minutes of rehearsal time.

Will the series encourage more children to take up an instrument? Possibly, for it does at least show that kids who like Lutoslawski are not, on the whole, the freaks and geeks of popular imagination. Will it create a real Classical Star? No.

I think I'm inclining around 75% to the second. Any thoughts, people? Send 'em in!

Oops. Left out Lebrecht. Here you go:

Since the aim is to find a classical star, not a classical artist, the series is peripheral to anyone with a serious interest in music. It is mildly entertaining in the way the late-night weather forecast can be when seen through a bad head cold. I shall probably watch it again, with Lemsip. What it is doing on the BBC, I have no idea.

And if we do NL, we must also do Pliable, who's predictably with HDW on this, and adds in his Comments: "Jessica, did anyone ever tell you that public executions drew huge audiences during the French Revolution?" Pliable, did you read the other half of my point?

Not wanting to seem holier-than-thou, I'm surprised that nobody has discussed what's been done to the actual music. That is probably an indication of the degree to which it's been sidelined. We never hear any of the kids perform a piece right through. We can get a mild idea of how they might play, but we can't possibly judge properly on a few seconds at a time, and the way the music has been cut makes no sense. Clearly nobody at the BBC thinks the audience could possibly cope with hearing a whole movement of Mendelssohn - let alone knowing how f***ing difficult the D minor trio is to play.

It's the anniversary of Fauré's death too

Gabriel Fauré died on 4 November 1924.

Here's a little extract from his Piano Quartet in G minor, apparently filmed in Apeldoorn by someone based in Bulgaria. The performers are Philippe Graffin (violin), Asdis Valdimarsdottir (viola), Colin Carr (cello) and Pascal Devoyon (piano). Because listening to Philippe playing Fauré is one of the great joys of life; because turning the pages for Pascal in Messiaen's incredible Visions de l'Amen in St Nazaire was one of the high points of my musical year; and because Gabriel 'The Archangel' Fauré is simply the best; I hope you like it too.

Meanwhile, in Hollywood...

...the writers are going on strike. Go, chaps, go! Tell it like it is! Because today's world doesn't know that without writers there would be nothing. No lines for those billion-dollar celebrities to mouth; nothing to make us think, reflect, laugh, cry, question the way we spend our time, deepen our understanding of the human condition, identify with in Grecian catharsis. No theatre, no books, no films, no philosophy, no politics, no poetry, no newspapers, no magazines and not much worthwhile stuff on the internet. Oh, and no TV. Yet individuals who would never steal a handbag or pirate a CD still can't imagine it's not OK to steal a writer's hard graft. The majority of writers are lumping along at the bottom of the heap, constantly exploited by everything from juggernaut studios to the all-powerful extortions that control chain store promotions, right down to small-time performers who think it's OK to palm them off without payment and sometimes without acknowledgment, let alone a fee that is proportional to the service they provide.

'Hollywood shakes', says the Indy's headline. I should think so too.

Here is 'Texts don't grow on trees': the Authors' Rights Awareness Campaign.