Avi Avital: Between Worlds

Avi Avital: Between Worlds

Royal Albert Hall

Having had my fill of concerts for one day, I toyed with the idea of leaving this Prom until tomorrow. After some indecision, I eventually bit the bullet and listened live.

This is a late-night Prom, commencing on BBC Radio 3 at 22:15. We have - according to https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ebngfx - 'Avi Avital and his ensemble Between Worlds for a sonic tour of the countries that border the Black Sea'.

Opens up with a tribal chant, and all I can think of is that New Zealand rugby team [the All Blacks] who do that dance [haka] before a match. Not sure why the BBC keeps insisting on putting on these unsettling features before bedtime?

Anyway, the second piece of music starts and it is much nicer. I think this is where the mandolin comes out, and it sounds a little Irish to me - which is a good thing, because I adore Irish trad music. The mandolin is capable of such beautiful sounds, and I'm reminded of the time I saw Bill Bailey play the mandola (a close relative), while looking through YouTube once. [I'm too tired to pull out any Aker Bilk references].

Some more percussive music follows. Very nice and exotic.

I really enjoy the number just before eleven o'clock, which I note has a brilliantly unique style of weaving vocals.

Later there is some music featuring the clarinet, and I am getting a blurry flash of another famous piece of music, but I can't for the life of me remember how it goes... its a very famous clarinet opening, which eventually my brain does decode - so I'll know it if hear it. I ask the following question to ChatGPT:

"I'm listening to a clarinet piece and I'm thinking I'm in Paris. There's a really famous clarinet opening I'm thinking about, do you know the one I mean?"

ChatGPT replies:

"I think I know the one you mean! The most famous clarinet opening associated with Paris is almost certainly Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin (1924).

It begins with that unforgettable slow clarinet glissando, sliding upwards into the jazzy main theme. It’s iconic, and it often conjures images of big cities (Paris, New York, etc.), even though Gershwin was American."

I search for 'Rhapsody in Blue' on YouTube - YES, that's the one!! I can now bank that information for future reference and enjoyment.

As the show nears an end there is some male operatic-style singing. Don't ask me which register, but I am now getting the odd flash of the Go Compare man [Wynne Evans], for whom I have a long-standing and intense repulsion.

Good night!

Image: Pixabay.com

Folk Songs and Dances

Folk Songs and Dances

Royal Albert Hall

The Prom this morning begins at 11am at the Royal Albert Hall. I am in the car, having just enjoyed our usual Saturday morning family breakfast at Ness Gardens.

It's the London Symphony Orchestra this morning, and that usually bodes for quality listening. The first piece of music is English Folk Song Suite by Ralph Vaughan Williams. As you would expect, it's a jolly outing, stopping short of pompous.

Next it's Gunther Schuller's Eine kleine Posaunenmusik (A Little Trombone Music) - should be a laugh. The poor trombone is an instrument plagued with unintentional comedy. This piece, though, does have some depth. For all involved, I'm grateful for that.

During the interval there is some discussion about military bands and music, which interests me muchly. Ironically for an all-English programme, my mind can't help but wander to Scotland and one of my favourite instrumental sounds, that of the Bagpipes [for the record, I am aware there are certain English propagations of the Bagpipes]. Maybe the most ceremonial of all instruments. From a primal military perspective, I guess that, when you hear a troupe of those coming for you, you'll almost certainly run in the opposite direction.

My concentration is starting to wane during Tippett's 'Triumph', which I must say I'm struggling to decipher. I'm likewise unsure of what to comment about Michael Almond's English Dances and Percy Grainger's The Lads of Wamphray - except to say that the name 'Percy Grainger' is a perfect fit for this region of theme. And on that note, it's the one we've all been waiting for to break the monotony: Percy Grainger's arrangement of English Country Gardens. I imagine myself at a May Day fete on a village green somewhere in Buckinghamshire [we don't tend to get them in the North West.] You know what I'm talking about: there's Morris dancing, hoopla, and a coconut shy. 

Closing the show is A Lincolnshire Posy, and if I'm expecting it to follow suit of the Country Gardens, I am a little mistaken. Not so frilly is this piece; sounds more serious. What it does have in common with Country Gardens is that it carries that same, grounded richness.

Image created with ChatGPT

From Dark Till Dawn: All Night Prom

From Dark Till Dawn: All Night Prom

It's Friday night: I have just finished listening to the two previous proms from today, and in the morning I am due to board a National Express coach to take me from Liverpool One Bus Station to London. Not the most convenient time to throw in an all-night prom at the Royal Albert Hall, spreading thru the hours of 11pm to 7am. I will need to break this down into digestible chunks.

That is exactly what I do, opting to tune in for the first hour from my bedroom radio. It's fitting, I feel, that this prom opens with a organ-centered, Transylvanian haunted house feel. As someone who has tasted the pleasure of shift work in the past, my opinion is that anyone staying up all night - whether on the radio or at the venue - needs their head testing. But despite my repulsion at the idea of staying up all night, I cannot deny that I struggle to switch the radio off after the first hour. The Pirates of the Caribbean organ music takes me back to St George's Hall, pre-covid, listening to Professor Ian Tracey reciting Bach and others on the pipes. [Side note: I was once told that Liverpool hosts the first and third largest organs in the country (Anglican Cathedral and St George's Hall, respectively), with the second being the Royal Albert Hall!].

There follows a Spanish Ale House session that I'm really enjoying, and, as mentioned, I find myself reluctant to turn off the radio, But turn off I must, because the morrow brings my coach to the capital.

When I awake the next morning, I'm amused and disturbed by the fact that the music is still running at the Albert Hall. I grab a shower and get in my car to drive to Liverpool. By this time the broadcast is available on BBC Sounds, so I pick up where I left off the night before, and catch another thirty minutes worth of listening. There are Slovakian ale house songs which sound a bit Celtic, and this is followed by some more meditative music (maybe part of the first interval, I can't remember). Next there is some Irish music and this is a tour de force. We party like it's 1699, and, according to the announcers there is a 'bar fight' on stage, which I was sorry not to have seen with mine own eyes.

On the final leg of my coach journey (Milton Keynes to London Victoria), I manage to catch another hour. 

Later that day I pick it up again in my hotel room, on the bluetooth speaker I have just purchased (a convenient coincidence) from IKEA on Oxford Street. [Side note: I bought it for £2.07 with the aid of a TopCashback voucher. Had my eye on it for a while and it will match the decor in my back room perfectly. I am made up with it!]

This prom is so long that I also need to catch up on other sessions the next day, including about two hours sitting in Norfolk Square, and finally about 90 minutes on my return bus ride.

Some personal highlights across the entire duration of this prom include (but are not limited to):

- The choral rendition of Bob Dylan's Make You Feel My Love

- Saint Saens Danse Macabre played on the piano [you having a laugh?! that's the second time it's been played this season and neither time was I there - Grrrr!]

- A bit of Bach (never a bad thing).

- The smooth Eastern tones heard towards the end of the programme.

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To sum up, it was a very exciting and varied running order. Fair play to Anna Lapwood for organising. Some really great music, and the spirit and atmosphere of everyone there was likewise great.

Images: The speaker, and my evening view from Lancaster Court Hotel.

Angeline Morrison: The Sorrow Songs

It's half past five, I am just getting over this afternoon's Traitors prom at the RAH, but now it is back up to Gateshead.

Angeline Morrison delivers the Black British story in the medium of folk music arrangements. This prom immediately takes me back a few years, to 2020 and 2021, when Black Lives Matter became hotly topical as a result of the brutal murder of George Floyd. At the time, I became deeply engrossed in Black British history, joining walking tours through the city of Liverpool, and I saw a wholly new side to the city I thought I already knew inside out. Indeed, the race riots of 1919 are described later in this programme; the blue plaque to Charles Wooton was just one of the many landmarks I visited 'during covid'.

Morrison offers a lullaby for lost babies, championing the story of the 'Unknown African Boy,' the vocals and instrumentation are lilting and undulating. We hear of Black history in Wales in the guise of 'Black John' - the first Black British horticulturist.

'The Beautiful Spotted Black Boy' tells a story of an enslaved child exhibited as a curiosity, as was the tradition of the time. The accordion accompaniment adds to the circus theme.

At the moment, there are too many other stories to give them all the absorption they deserve, but when I finish this Proms marathon I will definitely be coming back to visit Angeline Morrison's album of the same name, to give each my full attention and cognition.

And to conclude this post, my own thoughts on the proms and diversity: 

The proms audience demographic is, let's face it, an elitist realm populated by the white middle classes. There are - of course, and quite rightly - deliberate efforts being made to increase diversity of the proms performers (what did the artist roster look like 50 years ago compared to now, one wonders?). But what of the audiences? Only when we see the same amount of diversity here will we truly know progress.