Summer reading: a list for music-lovers

I'm in the middle of a major summer runaround at present - and the single most important thing to take along when you are dealing with planes, trains and so forth is a good book, whether paper or electronic. Here are a few suggestions for what to pop on your iPad if you fancy a good read that involves musicians and other artistic animals...

ASTONISH ME
By Maggie Shipstead (Harper Collins)
A ballet novel to cherish, this delicious multi-generation story features writing that flies. Shipstead's style can make your heart sing; and even if you are not into dance, you could still love the book for its metaphorical powers and its liveliness of atmosphere. One might think that there are too many clichés and coincidences - the Russian defector, the tangled web of relationships, the twist that you can probably see coming from the beginning - but Maggie Shipstead's touch is so light, her command of detail so vivid and realistic, and the way she adds layer after layer to our understanding of the characters so convincing and compassionate that her writing quashes every doubt. Weeks after reading it, I could still imagine any of the characters wandering into the room and speaking to me.


STRINGS ATTACHED: ONE TOUCH TEACHER AND THE ART OF PERFECTION
By Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky (Simon & Schuster)
I've reviewed this at more length for Sinfini.com, but suffice it to say that anyone who has ever wondered about the value of "tough love" teaching needs to read this book, and fast. Written jointly by the daughter and ex-pupil of "Mr K", a supposedly terrifying Ukrainian cello teacher in the US, it's a heartrending memoir in which the vital nature of self-discipline as a tool for life is to the fore. Learning music here means learning rigour, high standards, self-criticism, determination and resilience; and while music brings life skills, life brings a need for music as sustenance in times of desperation and, indeed, tragedy. These are points of which we all require reminding as a matter of urgency. It's hard to imagine that cause being better served.


ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE
By Clemency Burton-Hill (Headline Review)
Our favourite Radio 3 presenter turns her skills to her second novel, which is not musical per se but does, deliciously, feature someone named Wagner sacking someone named Bernstein in Chapter 2. It's a strong and sensitive slalom of a story that tackles the thorny matter of Israel and the Palestinian territories by way of the relationship between two young New Yorkers whose romantic involvement brings them into conflict with each other's respective backgrounds. The book morphs from apparent chick-lit in its first half to Middle Eastern thriller in the second; Burton-Hill makes the point about love and peace without lecturing, and I believe she has found a way to show some very real situations without upsetting anybody, too. These days that takes a lot of doing.

Two happy birthdays!

Two musicians I feel very lucky to know are both celebrating birthdays today. Have a listen to celebrate.

First, here is my very special colleague Philippe Graffin, the poetic and creative French violinist, in a track from the album Hungarian Dances, recorded in 2008 and inspired by my novel of the same title.  Claire Désert is the pianist. This is the enchanting Marche miniature viennoise by Fritz Kreisler - OK, not Hungarian at all, but huge fun and gorgeously played. (Onyx)



The second very happy birthday goes to British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, who's turning all of 22 this sunny Tuesday. He has a new album out soon, a delicious mixed programme celebrating dance all the way from Bach to Boogie-Woogie (that marvellous etude by Morton Gould). Tip: make sure that when you get it you download the "deluxe" version so that you also have the bonus tracks. They include possibly the most stunning performance of Liszt's Gnomenreigen that you or anyone else will ever hear in this day and age. Since it's not out yet, here's his Ravel 'Ondine' from Gaspard de la Nuit. (Decca)

What does it mean to be an artist?

I had a note the other week from a hip-hop songwriter/rapper in the US, Anthony Tomaz, asking me to have a look at his story. I don't cover much rap, as you've probably noticed - it's never been my cuppa - but this film from Fuse News touched me very strongly.

Most of Anthony's family seems to have been jailed; he was homeless in New York for two years; but now he has a recording contract. He suggests that his music saved him. And he talks in this video about the way he is always writing, wherever he is, anytime and all the time - the way the sounds and words grip him and demand expression comes over unmistakably.

What does it mean to be an artist? Exactly this. Your medium, whether it's microtonality or minimalism, rap or Rachaminov, news or novels, takes hold of you and insists you make it real. You therefore learn how to do it and develop your ability to the utmost, or you feel you're letting down more than only yourself.

It's never easy to explain this to anyone who hasn't experienced it and thinks you should shut up and get a proper job. (I had a Twitter message yesterday from a gentleman who thinks I'd be a good traffic warden, but it turned out this had something to do with women in uniform...er, right...)

But the concept of the creative artist is not dead, despite the 21st century's best efforts to kill it, because it is a human phenomenon that stays with us and can keep us on the rails, or restore us to them when we've fallen off.

I said to Anthony that I would run his story, because it's an inspiration and he is an artist. Nothing stops him from making music. Here it is.

Just in: Fallen? Aber nein!

This is the cast of La Traviata at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich tonight (NB, in the interval) as Germany progresses to the semi-final of the World Cup. "Something I've never, ever witnessed at Glyndebourne," says my spy.

Longborough Festival Opera: TOSCA

This is my review of lovely Longborough's terrific Tosca for the Independent. Four stars.  

Among the UK’s country house opera destinations, Longborough stands out as possibly the most audacious, unlikely and lovable. Near Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds (beware: sat-nav black holes), it was founded as Banks Fee Opera in 1991 by its owners Martin and Lizzie Graham, Wagner devotees who have converted a barn into a Palladian-fronted theatre; last year it became the first privately-funded opera house in the country to stage Wagner’s complete Ring cycle, a magnificent effort duly recognised with a nomination for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.

This year’s festival got off to a flying start with Puccini’s Tosca. As with the Ring, the production proves that wacky concepts and costly sets are not necessary to create compelling drama. Take a row of pillars that can suggest church, palazzo and fortress, some steep slopes to be fallen down or jumped off, and a billow of dry ice; add a few very fine singers; and we have lift-off.

Richard Studer’s direction and designs hint at the Mussolini era without labouring the point. Rather than relying on spectacle, the entire drama is focused on the opera’s toxic love triangle of diva, artist activist and malign dictator, portrayed respectively by the soprano Lee Bisset, the tenor Adriano Graziani and the baritone Simon Thorpe; the characters emerge as very believable people caught up in events for which none of them are cut out.

Bisset’s Tosca – as she reflects in her aria ‘Vissi d’arte’ – really has lived for art and love; she is naïve enough not to suspect at first that her lover Cavaradossi is being tortured. She wants a quiet life with the man she loves; instead, faced with blackmail and rape, she first considers suicide, then turns murderer. She finds her weapon embedded in a loaf of bread – and afterwards wipes off the blood and puts it back.

Musically there are thrills aplenty. Bisset’s soaring soprano inhabits the full gamut of the role’s expressive possibilities: she has fabulous power at the top of her considerable range and her beauty of tone carries her from flirtation to fury, desire to despair. Graziani’s tenor is a fine match for her voice; his performance warmed as the evening went by, glorying in roof-raising high notes and culminating in a no-holds-barred account of ‘E lucevan le stelle’.

Thorpe’s Scarpia does not quite echo them in terms of vocal power, but his character is convincing: physically imposing, but psychologically weak, this dictator is a pathetic bully boy who does his dirty work by proxy. In the pit, the conductor Jonathan Lyness keeps the pace gripping and the score’s drama paramount. 

The set’s rather cumbersome mix of steps and rakes, the cut-down orchestration and chorus, and some slightly ropey amplification – notably for Act III’s offstage shepherd boy and the Act I finale’s pre-recorded canon effects – are a tad problematic. Otherwise, it is a thoroughly enjoyable occasion.

The 2014 festival continues with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Handel’s Rinaldo. Next year: Tristan und Isolde.