Pekka Kuusisto and Katarina Barruk

Pekka Kuusisto and Katarina Barruk
Royal Albert Hall

A fairly regular Sunday routine. The food shop and laundry for the week ahead has been done. I have been trying to clean the house up, and it now looks like a pigsty. 'A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place' - well, that is the opposite of my current situation. One of those where it will need to look worse, before it looks better.

Otherwise, it is the last day of August, and I cannot help but feel melancholic at the thought of the summer slipping away from us. I have seen and heard a few flocks of Canadian geese flying away over the last week or two, and every time it puts me in a blue mood.

This evening's Prom I play on the kitchen radio, although for tea I'm only having a ready-made butty. [nice than it sounds - M&S deli range]. This afternoon I picked up a craft stout from the Bow-Legged Beagle on Telegraph Road in Heswall, and a Pistachio and Caramel Bar from the M&S there. [Yes, I have succumbed to the pistachio/Dubai chocolate craze this year, being a chocolate lover.]

I look at the roster for tonight's Prom and sigh to myself. It's a mixed bag of tunes which, for me, means it's going to be difficult to document it all. Much easier when it's a long symphony or something like that. I fear also that I am going through a bout of mental fatigue - with the Last Night of the Proms just under two weeks away, I can almost taste freedom from the chains of my own project. But the show must go on, and I transport myself once again to South Kensington via Radio 3.

Tonight it's the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and a vocal performance by Katarina Barruk who, according to the BBC website, is one of the few remaining speakers of the Ume Sámi language. 

I once visited Norway. It was around April 2017. I went on a long-weekend expedition to Tromsø (and as far out as Kilpisjarvi in Finland), on what was a fruitless quest to see the Northern Lights. [As it happened, I had slightly greater success in Runcorn last summer.] One thing I did take away from that trip was a love of Norway; it's people and culture [and Smash! (not the mash) - if you know, you know!].

On to the music itself which, for my own coherence, I need to pool together for it to make sense:

The first vocal performance I can only describe as 'abstract,' but it's only because the language deviates so far from my own mother tongue. Haven't been too enamored with Michael Tippett's tunes so far, and this one doesn't break the rule. But I know instantly when the Phillip Glass starts - who could mistake those repeating string whirls?! The Kendall, Bach, and Shaw all blend into one, so it must have been all right. The Avo Part I almost miss, but it blends neatly into the Shostakovich. And the Shostakovich is as dark as my stout. It sustains the feel throughout. If it's about human injustice, he did it justice. If that makes sense?

We are treated to a very unexpected ukelele and whistling encore. It takes me a few moments to catch myself on but, is that John Lennon's Imagine? It is! What a lovely nod to my home county. As it progresses, some of the audience hum along. Words then emerge! May we all live as one.

Tromsø, 2017

My house, 2025

Handel’s ‘Alexander’s Feast’

Handel’s ‘Alexander’s Feast’
Royal Albert Hall

It has been a somewhat subdued Saturday. The weather overcast with sporadic showers. Had our semi-usual family lunch at the Brown Bear coffee shop in Irby Village. My baby niece has been in Arrowe Park hospital overnight with a cellulitis of the eye - fortunately it was treated promptly and she is in full recovery and good spirits at home this afternoon, but heartbroken when my brother and I have to leave.

In a copy of last Saturday, I purchase a bottle of Ayinger dunkel bier from the Crafty Tavern, and sit down in the front room of my parents' house to listen to the Prom on BBC Sounds. I'm about half an hour behind the live broadcast on Radio 3.

Tonight it's Alexander’s Feast, by Handel. It's conducted by Peter Whelan [any relation to Bill Whelan, of Riverdance fame, I wonder?!]. It's the Irish Baroque Orchestra, and I think I catch the presenter saying something like the hall is 'glowing green.'

It's a long piece of music so, rather than shower it all with commentary, I'll just offer a few general points on the music, and a few of my random takeaways about Handel himself.

The music at whole is, I guess, textbook Baroque. It's decorative... ornate. It's powdered wigs, doublet and hose. When I reflected on some of my favourite composers the other day (Bach, Vivaldi, Saent-Sains, Grieg), I probably forgot to include Handel. With him in the mix, three out of five of these are of the Baroque period, and I do think I have a penchant for this style.

A few nights ago I blogged that I had enjoyed a pint of Guinness at The Harp Inn, at Neston. Well, on his way back from Ireland our man Handel allegedly lodged just down the road from there, at Parkgate, which, at the time, offered a maritime gateway to traffic of the Irish sea.

Back in 2016 I visited the Handel and Hendrix exhibition in London. I still have some pictures I took, which I've uploaded here as a matter of interest.

I've even had a more recent encounter with Handel! Earlier this year, I started attending history talks at Preston Brook village hall. They are put on monthly by the Preston Brook and District History Group, and the talks are always varied and interesting; nicely informal and with visitors from all over the country. Anyway, the subject of one of the talks was the Foundling Hospital in Chester, and this led on to a wider discussion about the Foundling initiative, and the Foundling Museum in London. I thought that I must visit this museum when I was next down in the capital and, in May, I did just that. Turns out, Handel was a big proponent and donator to the scheme, and there's an important collection of his works on the top floor - see my final photo below. [The ticket I bought included a one-year valid entry, so I'll be returning for a second visit for sure.]

I was actually thinking of attending this Prom; the plan being to bus it down in the morning, see the show, then get the bus back through the night. In one way I'm regretting I didn't do it because, being familiar with the acoustics at the RAH, I know it would have sounded spectacular in there. But in another way I'm glad I've stayed at home and saved some money and energy - both of which I suspect I'll need to acquire a ticket for the Last Night of the Proms in two weeks time. 

We get an encore of 'Hallelujah' from Messiah. Suppose that was obligatory wasn't it, but I'm not in any way complaining!

Handel & Hendrix in London exhibition, 2016

Gerald Coke Handel collection at the Foundling Museum, 2025

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

Late Junction Prom

Late Junction Prom
Lantern Hall, Bristol Beacon

Listening back to highlights [if that's what we're calling it] of this Prom via its Radio 3 broadcast. The original show was performed at 9pm on Friday 22nd August.

It starts off with Angel Bat Dawid, and I think she's effectively 'tuning' the audience. She's playing single piano notes and encouraging a "ah / ee / oooh". Sounds pretty good - novel idea!

Next it's a musician called Sarahsson, and I'm afraid this is where the show loses me. Please don't misunderstand me: I'm all for the expression of 'femininity, transition and synaesthesia,' but from this piece I get very little, apart from a couple of nice bird tweets. And those don't last long.

I listen through for the purpose of completion of my 2025 Proms project. But, on the same plane with Yoko Ono's artistry [oh no!], I fear I may never reach a level of intelligence to appreciate this appalling cataclysm that we're calling music. Sorry!

Image: Pixabay.com

Khatia Buniatishvili Plays Tchaikovsky

Khatia Buniatishvili Plays Tchaikovsky

Royal Albert Hall

For me, it's been another proud Friday afternoon of running. Managed a 10k in 01:06:51 to be precise. The route was perfect. Started at my house, along the Bridgewater canal to Walton Hall and Gardens, then through Warrington towards Warrington Bank Quay train station. All of this was bang on ten kilometers in distance, and I was overjoyed. Got the train back, one stop.

The first piece of music at the Royal Albert Hall tonight is Haunted Hills, by Margaret Sutherland. The opening is ostentatious and a trifle kitsch. Not to say unpleasant - the underlying strings are definitely giving it a good old 'haunted house' feel. It's not so much haunted in a modern American way, but rather I would place it in a film accidentally stumbled across on Talking Pictures TV on a Sunday afternoon. Introduced to the music is, what to me at first, sounds like someone playing the part of a ghost or ghoul. There's some incoherent kerfuffle, and I wonder is this part of the act? [this is culture, after all]. No - it seems there is something of an indiscretion at the Royal Albert Hall. The presenter Ian Skelly [I'm getting to know the Radio 3 presenters now] declares it a 'coordinated situation', keeping his consummate cool and eloquence.

We get played a peaceful Brahms, Chopin, and Bach to settle us, censoring the disturbance for those of us hooked up on the wireless. We are informed that the concert is going to start again from the beginning. Also, the Dvořák is going to be played before the Tchaikovsky, in a change to the running order, as the soloist is a little shaken up by the disturbance in the hall. 

With it being the BBC Proms, it's not rocket science to work out what the 'disturbance' is in aid of. I have a quick look at Twitter [X, if we must], and see there are 'unconfirmed reports' - guesswork, basically. I look up the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and it seems they've got themselves into some political hot water over the last couple of years. However, I am not going to offer my own thoughts on the matter, simply because I don't understand it enough to provide a meaningful opinion. Whenever I try to read up on it, all I'm faced with is noise. [Politically, the far-right and the far-left dislike the BBC in equal measure, so it only takes a simple mathematical equation to tell us that, in actual fact, it tries to float somewhere around the centre.] One thing I do know is that there is nothing noble in frightening someone. And as with all 'protests' of this nature, the subject of their protestation is the same thing they literally funded on the way in. Such is the idiocy of these people.

Just been thinking back to some other times when I've witnessed unsettling disruptions during a performance. One of them was actually at the Royal Albert Hall, back in 2013, when I went to see Eric Clapton perform there. It's documented on YouTube somewhere. Near the end of the show, a 'fan' jumped onto the stage and (if memory serves) tried to grab EC's leg, probably so he could boast about it to his mates. Fortunately, security at the RAH was on to it like a flash. EC, to his credit, managed to virtually ignore what was going on, and continue playing the song (it was either the encore, or the final song of the main set). Something very similar happened when I saw Sterophonics at the Liverpool arena in 2022, to which Kelly Jones quipped: 'you've got to pay extra for that.' Classy comeback!

Back to tonight's schedule at the Proms, and the second piece is Dvořák's Symphony No. 6. I wouldn't call it relaxing, but there's a beautiful energy to it, and it's very pleasing to the ear.

During the interval there's some chat about what it means to be a 'assistant conductor' - I didn't know this was a thing, but I suppose it makes sense!

And finally, the Tchaikovsky. God, it's glorious. I think Ian Skelly is right to compare its famous opening to Beethoven's Fifth - because it really does make for a worthy competitor. As I mentioned when Tchaikovsky's 2nd was played earlier in the run, I was first introduced to his 1st when I watched the 1990 film Misery: and I often visualise a romantic version of myself typing away furiously at my laptop keyboard, trying to keep up with all these Proms blogs - as Thchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 plays in the background.

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Saint-Saëns’s ‘Organ’ Symphony

Camille Saint‐Saëns, Symphony No. 3 in C minor

Royal Albert Hall

I decided to take today off work, using up the lieu day I have accrued from working the bank holiday on Monday. My parents take care of my niece on a Thursday, so I decide to spend the day with them. It's such a tonic being in the company of my nearly two-year-old niece, who is developing quickly now and repeating lots of words. As has become customary when I can get there mid-week, we go to Carr Farm in Meols, and I enjoy a coffee and sample one of their fantastic sweet treats! [today it was an Americano, and a chocolate-topped waffle with a Mars Bar on it. 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream.]. 

I am back home late-afternoon, and in time for the live broadcast of tonight's Prom on BBC Radio 3. I listen in the back kitchen while cooking. It's an all-French Prom tonight, but it's a mixed bag [or is it just me starting to struggle after listening to so many Proms?!]. For my own benefit, here is a snip of the running order taken from the BBC website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ej3wxj

First up it's the Bizet piece, and his is a name I have been taking note of over the last few days. I'm sure I heard a piece of his that I liked on Classic FM earlier today in the car, and was there something of his played at the CBeebies Prom the other day? Not too sure. Anyway, this L' Arlésienne is really interesting. The presenter tells us that this means 'the girl from Arles,' and I have to say that Arles is a place I've long had on my list to visit, reason being that I know Van Gogh had an association with the town. Sounds like a romantically cultural sort of place. Wonderful music.

Next on the running order is Carmen Fantasy, which ChatGPT now informs me was "Sarasate’s virtuosic adaptation of Bizet’s opera Carmen." Something annoys me though, because I instantly recognise the Habanera section - I think it's from a recent TV advert that has been played to death. And so, sadly, all I get from this section of the programme is a mild annoyance. It's a shame when TV destroys music. This is something I was chatting with my friend about, in Hoylake, this Saturday afternoon just gone. The same tragic fate fell upon Buddy Holly's Heartbeat, and Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King movement which, once you shake off the naff Alton Towers association, you come to realise the raw, terrifying magic of the instrumentation:

After the interval it's Andromède, which is nice enough but I only note that the opening brass falls short of a state-coronation vibe [not even sure if that was Augusta Holmès's intention]. 

Finally, we have Saint-Saëns’s ‘Organ’ Symphony:

The organist at the Royal Albert Hall this evening is, I gather, a resident of Coventry Cathedral. I went there on a school trip once, must have been circa 2002. The cathedral stood out to me because it had a huge tapestry of Jesus Christ, overlooking the central nave. Seem to remember hearing that Jesus here was drawn (or stitched) with no pupils in his eyes, to give the illusion that he is looking straight back at you, no matter where in the room you are looking from. [Side note: I bought a luminous-blue bottle of Powerade during the coach rest stop on the way back - funny the things you remember!].

As I have previously mentioned, Saint-Saëns is a favourite composer of mine. His Danse Macabre is, to my ear, one of the finest pieces of music in existence. This third symphony of his shares some of the traits of the aforementioned. It's a restless sea that forces you off balance. It's music that not only evokes emotions, but threatens to snatch away your control over them. It's dangerous, it's thrilling. And just like all adrenaline-inducing phenomena, it's strangely addictive. 

The Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro

Royal Albert Hall

Tonight I'm taking a detour into Liverpool after work, as I need to collect an Ikea Kallax unit (1x4), that I've bought from someone on Facebook Marketplace. £10 and ready assembled. A couple of light marks. Perfect for my little bedroom which I use to store my own musical instruments and music books, the latter for which I need said shelving. These books have been the best part of two years in plastic bags all over the show.

This evening's Prom begins at the earlier-than-usual time of 18:30, due to the length of the work, (Mozart's Marriage of Figaro) that is going to be performed. I'm driving back home when it begins, but at least I'm with the live broadcast this evening, for the first time since the busy Proms weekend in Bristol.

Let's talk about two irreverent things my mind wanders to when the music starts:

1) The opening tinkle of this piece of work is a famous one, and it always takes me back to the 1971 Gene Wilder film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There's a scene where Wilder's Wonka [the one and only, IMO] plays a little melody on tiny piano, in order to unlock the door to the chocolate room. Mike Teevee's mother pipes up, proudly declaring it to be the work of 'Rachmaninov,' in an arrogant effort to showcase her cultural knowledge. In actual fact, it's the opening to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro - and this is how I like to remember it's Mozart, hoping I never fall into the same embarrassing trap.

2) Secondly, my mind is floating to the 1993 film Mrs Doubtfire, in which Robin Williams sings 'Figaro, Figaro, Fi-Ga-Ro!', while holding up a funny little music stand. Chat GPT informs me that this is actually a reference to Rossini's Barber of Seville, but it is the same Figaro we're talking about here - the character having been invented by the French playwright, Pierre Beaumarchais. 

As for what is happening at the Royal Albert Hall, I'm speechless. Even though I'm only listening on the radio, the quality of the performance is crystal clear. It's spotless. These are seasoned pros, and I wish I was there to witness it all in raw vision and hearing. Anyone who knows nothing about classical music will tell you that their favourite composers are 'Beethoven and Mozart.' There's nothing wrong with that, and it's obvious these boys are mainstream for good reason: their music gets as close to touching perfection as is humanly possible. 

 

It does drag on a bit though, and I'm left wondering when the interval is going to kick in.

There's the odd titter from the audience which is over my head at home. Something I'm recently starting to take away from Mozart is that he seems to like a bit of playful extravagance. The presenter calls it 'Mozart's Comic Masterpiece', and I think that's a fair conclusion.