Sat - July 11, 2009Music from Korea and Russia hen
one sees that a piece of music is receiving its UK premiere one tends to expect
discordant modernity. Not this time, however: yesterday evening's concert at
Cadogan Hall, given by the Royal Philhamonic Orchestra conducted by Young
Çhil Lee, began with Arirang by Jae Eun Park. 'Arirang' is a traditional Korean song which also
became a symbol of resistance to the Japanese occupation of Korea in the first
half of the last century.Here it was presented in a set of orchestral variations: the style is romantic - a cross between Debussy and Hollywood: the use of orchestral colour is skilful and the piece is attractive but forgettable. The rest of the concert was more conventional. Dima Tkachenko gave a spirited performance of Tchaikovsky's very demanding Violin Concerto: a slight tendency to pull the tempo about and very occasional slight inaccuracies didn't detract from a lively and skilled performance. The concert finished with Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony in a warm and involving performance, the hall's splendid acoustic adding to the composer's distinctive Russian tone colouring. Posted at 10:08 AM by Roger Wilmut | |  Sun - July 5, 2009The slow death of grammar
don't know whether any attempt is made to teach English grammar in schools these
days: but even if so it can't be helped by the spread of peculiar usage by TV
reporters. I suspect what happens is that one reporter makes a slip of the
tongue under stress, and others hear it and think it's correct and start using
it. It started with simple mispronunciations; communal instead of
communal, inventory instead of inventory, and so on.
However some odder things have been cropping up over the last couple of years. Collective nouns have always been a problem - 'The Government are' instead of 'The Government is' - but I've heard a number of cases where a singular or plural verb - is/are, has/have and so on - has been applied not to the noun to which it belongs, but to the most recent noun. I heard a particularly blatant example of this a couple of days ago: 'This is only the second time that the changes to the double jeopardy rule has been applied'. - 'has' deriving incorrectly from 'rule' because it's the most recent, rather than the correct 'have' related to 'changes'. The result is of course grammatical (and logical) nonsense, but it's not an isolated case. Is it a slip of the tongue? A miniscule attention span? Or does the reporter think he's speaking correct English? I suspect that nobody thinks it matters any more. They're wrong. Posted at 09:07 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Thu - July 2, 2009Butterfly at the Coliseum  he
tower of the London Coliseum dominates St. Martin's Lane and
the surrounding area: the theatre was, improbably, built as a music-hall - the
auditorium is huge and doesn't seem at all suitable for this. It was
subsequently a theatre for musicals, a Cinerama cinema, an ordinary cinema, and
finally (and most suitably) became the home of the English National Opera, who perform in English.
(The photo was taken in May 1969, shortly after the ENO moved there under its
previous name of Sadler's Wells Opera). A few years ago it was refurbished,
including air-conditioning in the auditorium - something I was glad of yesterday
evening, given the current heat-wave.I was there to see a revival of the late Anthony Minghella's production of Puccini's Madam Butterfly. One of the most famous of all operas, it tells the story - loosely based on fact - of a American sailor, Pinkerton, stationed in Nagasaki, who enters into a contractual 'marriage' with a young Geisha. Though he is affectionate to her, he makes no bones to the American Consul that he regards this as temporary and will eventually marry a 'real' American wife. Nowadays he would be called a sex tourist: and worse, considering that his 'wife', Butterfly, is fifteen. Tragically, she falls in love with him, and when he is reposted to America seriously thinks he loves her and will return. Of course, when he does, he has an American wife and Butterfly has his child. Devastated by his abandonment, she commits suicide. Many productions glamourise Pinkerton, and gloss over his behaviour: here, in a good if slightly strained-sounding performance by Bryan Hymel his callousness came over well, together with his apparent (though probably temporary) remorse at the end. Judith Howarth gave an affecting and convincing performance as Butterfly. The production is visually striking, with the use of black-clad and veiled dancers to move sliding panels: and Butterfly's young child of three is unusually represented by a puppet in the Japanese manner, with three operators holding it - they are clad in black and in Japanese puppet theatre the convention is that they are invisible. The puppet gives a much better and heart-rending performance than the usual bemused ten-year-old of most productions. Occasionally the visual elements seemed a little intrusive - a mimed dream with a dancer as Pinkerton and another, small, puppet as Butterfly during the prelude to Act 2 scene 2 while Butterfly waits for Pinkerton to arrive: but on the whole they add to and don't clash with the spirit of the opera. Posted at 02:44 PM by Roger Wilmut | | Fri - June 26, 2009The other 'M' ritz
Lang's first sound film, M (1931), is one of the great classics of
cinema: even today it is riveting, with a gripping plot and a star-making
performance from Peter Lorre. So it would seem a little foolhardy
of Joseph Losey to remake it in Hollywood in 1951: however you have
to remember that few people in the USA would have seen the original on its first
release, and by 1951 the only place to see it would be specialist film clubs (if
you were lucky).Losey knew the original and wasn't all that keen to make a new version: he would have preferred a complete rewrite to take into account the changed nature of criminal gangs from 1930s Germany, and the change in attitudes to child-killers - by 1951 regarded as mentally ill rather than purely evil. However the censorship office insisted that he could not write a new version, only remake an established classic. He was never entirely happy with the result (which was banned in many states and often censored in others). It was shown yesterday evening as part of a Losey season at the National Film Theatre. In the event the film stands up well on its own, even though it's nowhere near as good as the original. It's not by any means a shot-for-shot remake, but it does stick quite closely to the original plot. In Los Angeles, a serial child-killer (David Wayne) is eluding the police, who are under considerable political pressure to catch him. Their policy of raiding premises used by known criminals is disrupting criminal activity to the point where the local crime boss decides that his gang should catch the killer themselves. Bookies runners, small time street crooks, and a large taxi firm tied up with the gang, are all pressed into watching out for the killer. Eventually he is spotted making off with a small girl: the gang pursue him and he holes up in the Bradbury Building (a large and ornate business premises which has been a favourite film location, most notably in Blade Runner). The gang break in and search the building: they find him and take the girl home (in the original he didn't have a child with him) and drag the killer to an underground car park where a sort of mock trial takes place in front of the gang leaders and a mass of petty criminals. The killer makes an impassioned plea on the grounds that he couldn't help his actions; the criminals are about to kill him when the police arrive and arrest him. Despite Losey's reservations the criminal underworld is portrayed quite successfully, even though it may not be the way things actually were; the plot is updated to include the use of a television appeal by the Police Chief and the use of radios in the taxis, and the seedy atmosphere of the scruffy end of Los Angeles is well conveyed in Ernest Lazlo's photography. Wayne's performance, like Lorre's, creates some sympathy for the character, though the final scene does become a little over-wrought. Inevitably the film is completely overshadowed by the original, which is now much better known (and has been issued on DVD though it's availability is now limited), and it's very rarely shown; but it's good enough to be seen more often. Posted at 09:30 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Sun - June 21, 2009Jam yesterday n
ex-colleague who has been working on the BBC World Service Persian transmissions
tells me that his efforts are being jammed. Nothing new under the sun... when I
worked in the Bush House BBC Control Room in the 1960s the 'Cold War' was still
on and the USSR routinely jammed our short-wave transmissions in Russian and
other Eastern Bloc languages.To do this they had huge transmitter sites which broadcast noise on the same frequencies to blot out our transmissions. This worked well enough for cities, but for the more isolated areas it was more difficult for them to provide a strong enough signal and it was often possible to hear what we were saying - just. One trick listeners used to use dated from German jamming of British broadcasts in World War 2: use two radios, tuned to different frequencies carrying the same transmission, and spaced like what we would now call a 'stereo pair'. This causes the transmission to appear to be in the centre, with the noise on the sides, and that makes it easier for the ear to separate the sounds. With 'glasnost' and the subsequent fall of the USSR this all stopped. In the present case it seems mainly to be the television service which is being jammed - presumably by jamming the uplink to the satellite: I don't know what they are doing with the radio transmissions. But it's all part of a depressingly familiar pattern: jam incoming transmissions, control the news on your own media, restrict foreign journalists, blame the BBC and the British Government for any disturbances, and beat up, and then fire live rounds on, your own people. This upheaval is unique in the use of Twitter and the spread of videos taken on mobile phones, so trying to suppress the evidence isn't working. I'm not about to make any political predictions: but it's evidently going to get worse before it gets better. If. Posted at 09:46 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Wed - June 17, 2009Jewels eorge
Balanchine's ballet Jewels, created in 1967, was publicised as
the first ever three-act abstract ballet. In fact it really consists of three
separate ballets - Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds, each with the
appropriate colour scheme for the jewel of the title and in a different
choreographic style. Rubies has been performed separately by a number of
compaines, including the Royal Ballet; they first performed the full version in
1989 and have revived it in the current
season.Although each ballet is attractive, with no narrative structure the evening is a bit like a three-courses dinner consisting entirely of low-calorie desserts. The first, Emeralds, to some of Fauré's less interesting music, is mostly adagio and consists of graceful arabesques in classical style. Though very well performed by Roberta Marquez, Valeri Hristov, Leanne Benjamin and Bennet Gartside there is little variation of style throughout and at thirty minutes seems overly long. Rubies, set to Stravinsky's lively Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, is more entertaining (and shorter at 21 minutes): the choreography is angular and witty (though in the end becoming a little repetitive) and Alexandra Ansanelli, Carlos Acosta and LauraMcCulloch gave every impression of enjoying themselves. This is the most effective of the three sections. The final ballet, Diamonds, is set to Tchaikovsky's Third Symphony - a slightly odd choice as it is much weaker than the better-known second, fourth, fifth and sixth, and relies far too much on repeated phrases to build up tension (shades of Bruckner here, in technique though not style). Though it's the longest of the three ballets, the graceful choreography stands up well: in particular the extended pas de deux in the slow movement was danced by Alina Cojocaru and Rupert Pennefather with masterly fluidity and control. The whole evening makes for an attractive experience, but I'm not sure I could be bothered to see it again in the future. Posted at 09:26 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Tue - June 9, 2009Lincoln Cathedral
t's
two years since I posted a photo
of WInchester Cathedral as an illustration of my interest in
photographing the interior of churches: here is another example, this time of
Lincoln Cathedral. It was taken in September 1985, on 35mm film using an Exa 500
single-lens reflex. The irony is that I doubt I could get as good results with
my current medium-priced digital
camera.Click here to see a larger version. Posted at 10:05 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Wed - June 3, 2009Ondinerederick Ashton's last three-act ballet,
Ondine,
takes its plot from a novel, play and earlier ballet from the first half of the
nineteenth century: a fey romantic tragedy. Prince Palemon, is advances to a
lady of the court, Berta, having been rejected, meets a water-nymph, Ondine.
They fall in love, and over the objections of Tirrenio, the Lord of the
Mediterranean Sea, they marry: Tirrenio warns that should Palemon be unfaithful
he must die.On board a ship, Berta's jealousy towards Ondine becomes apparent: the sailors, who are afraid of her, throw her overboard: Tirrenio creates a storm to protect her and the ship is wrecked. Palemon and Berta survive: he marries here, only for Tirrenio's servants to take revenge by drowning Berta and for Ondine to reappear: Palemon realises that he loves her, but it is too late and he dies: Ondine takes his body to the deep sea. Ashton created his new version of the story in 1957, to music specially composed by Hans Werner Henze. It has never been a great success - critically mauled at the time, and infrequently performed (though even so yesterday was its 121st performance at the Royal Opera House). After a long gap it was revived in 1988: I saw it then with Almeida and Dowell,: yesterday's cast included Roberta Marquez as Ondine and Federico Bonelli as Palemon. It's certainly not Ashton's best work. Despite some attractive choreography the thin plot gave him little to hang the work on. The best is in the first act, indluding a long pas de deux for the lovers; the second act, on board the ship, has little actual dancing as opposed to mime and is more about Victorian style spectacular theatre (complete with shipwreck) than ballet. A good chunk of the final act is taken up with a group of Comedia del Arte style dancers who entertain Palemon and Berta at court - all rather obvious eccentric dancing which goes on for too long. The music is a cross between impressionism and modernism: in the first act there are numerous passages reminiscent of the quieter parts of The Rite of Spring (particularly the second section) and the music for the Comedia del Arte dancing owes something to Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements; but a deliberate decision not to include a forward pulse most of the time, letting the dancers make their own rhythm against the music, gives it all a rather vague air. Despite the reservations there is much to enjoy, and after twenty years it was well worth seeing again. Posted at 08:31 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Thu - May 28, 2009The Sound of 78s - final episodeEpisode
36
  y
thirtysixth, and final, podcast episode is now available: British Dance Bands -
The Kit-Cat Band, Roy Fox, The BBC Dance orchestra directed by Henry Hall, and
Bertini and the Tower Blackpool Dance
Band.You can listen to it here, or see the enhanced version here, or subscribe to receive new episodes automatically (see links below). You can see a large version of the photo in the logo here. The file is 10.2MB and the recording lasts 14m 53s.  Posted at 08:31 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Wed - May 20, 2009Olé! illed
as 'Castanets at the Cadogan Hall', yesterday evening's concert featured the
visiting Orquesta
Nacional de España conducted by Josep Pons.Two Spanish composers
in the first half: Joaquín Turina's Danzas
Fantásticas with its distinct feeling of the Spanish sun, rhythmic and
colourful: and Joaquín Rodrigo's popular Concerto de
Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra, played with flair and precision by
José María Gallardo. The hall's splendid warm acoustic added to the
romantically enveloping sound of both
works.The second half consisted of works by Ravel: Alborada del Gracioso, Rapsodie Espagnola, and (inevitably) the Bolero. Here the Spanish atmosphere is filtered through a gently haze of French impressionism: masterly orchestrated but not quite with the authentic Spanish sound - it would perhaps have been nicer to have had some more Spanish composers such as de Falla; but no-one could fault the committed and colourful playing. I could have done without the Bolero, though - a tiresome and repetitive crowd-pleaser in my opinion, no matter how well played: but received, as was the whole concert, with considerable enthusiasm by the packed audience. Posted at 08:36 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Thu - May 14, 2009Beware the Aphorismn
aphorism is 'a short, detatched, pithy sentence, containing a maxim or wise
precept'. Politicians like them because they make good soundbites for TV and
radio. However they can come home to roost: recently Hazel
Blears used what is quite a clever aphorism: 'You tube if you want to'
- a reference to Gordon Brown's ill-advised appearance in a
You-Tube video, and based on Margaret Thatcher's famous line 'You turn if you
want to - the lady's not for turning' (10 October
1980).I rather suspect that, enamoured of the remark's cleverness, Ms. Blears didn't stop to consider the consequences: she spent the following week denying that she was not supporting the Prime Minister, nor involved in a plot to oust him. Other clever remarks have come back to haunt the perpetrator. On 19 November 1967, having (probably wisely) devalued the pound, then Prime Minister Harold Wilson stated: 'It does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.' 'The pound in your pocket' was hurled at him many times thereafter. On 15 October 1981, in a speech to the Conservative party, Norman Tebbit stated: 'I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot; he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking 'til he found it.' 'On your bike' promptly went into the language to mean 'unemployed' - usually as a result of Conservative policies - 'A price worth paying', as Norman Lamont later tactlessly put it (16 May 1991). One of the most famous of these was Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's alleged assertion 'You've never had it so good' - repeatedly used by others as a demonstration of his complacency, though what he actually said was 'Let's be frank about it, some of our people have never had it so good' (20 July 1957, and meaning, I suppose, members of the Conservative party, who he was addressing at the time). Clement Attlee (Prime Minister 1945-1951), however, had little time for reporters or soundbites: this exchange (which I can't date but have seen the film of) took place on his return from (I think) a conference abroad: at the airport he was approached by a film crew and a breathless reporter: Reporter: Mr. Attlee, is there anything you'd like to tell us about the conference? Mr. Attlee: No. Posted at 08:42 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Fri - May 8, 2009The future - but not as we know it
enjoy Star Trek: I don't go to conventions decked out in pointy ears, and I do
have other interests; but I've seen all the episodes and all the movies, and
while recognising the outrageous silliness of some of it I think the overall
future history they've created is remarkably well
done.So it was logical (Captain) that I should go to see the latest film, Star Trek, in its IMAX presentation. It should be said that it was not filmed in IMAX; it was shot in Panavision and blown up to an IMAX print for projection (which doesn't increase the definition but is necessary to punch enough light through it for such a large screen). Consequently it doesn't have the sharpness of a true IMAX film, and also though it uses the full width of the very large screen it doesn't use the full height, having a standard 70mm aspect ratio. The photography and editing is intended for normal cinema viewing, which does make the close-ups rather overpowering and some of the editing too fast to take everything in; and the spectacular scenes don't have the definition achieved in, for example, Monsters vs. Aliens (which was computer-generated at a definition to suit the film size). That said, the impact is considerable; which would go for nothing if the film wasn't worth watching purely as a Star Trek narrative. On the whole it works very well in achieving the difficult task of presenting younger versions of very well known characters, in particular Chris Pine as the impulsive James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as the young and rather priggish Spock, who learns in the course of the story to temper adherence to logic with sensibly applied feelings: Quinto has the difficult task of appearing with the elderly Spock (played by the original actor, Leonard Nimoy). In the story, a calamity 200 years in the future projects the elderly Spock and a seriously annoyed Romulan into the time period when Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura are StarFleet Academy students. The chaos caused by the Romulan causes the destruction of the Vulcan home world and the death of Spock's mother; and the three are drafted to the Enterprise together with several of their future crewmates to help defeat him. Once again Kirk's ability to fist-fight saves the universe. The film pulls a neat fast one (cheat, if you like); because the Romulan's time-travel causes events which did not happen in the familiar Star Trek history (the destruction of Vulcan, and the emergency drafting of the cadets to the defence fleet), all the subsequent plot takes place in what is in effect an alternate timeline. This means that any sequels can do whatever they want, brushing off fans' complaints of 'this couldn't happen because in <name of episode> <an event> happened' - the answer is, 'this is an alternate timeline: it's all different'. It's the future, Jim - but not as we've known it. Posted at 08:37 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Sun - May 3, 2009The Sound of 78sEpisode
35
y
thirty-fifth podcast is now available and featured three famous violinists:
Joachim, Ysaye, and Kreisler.You can listen to it here, or see the enhanced version here, or subscribe to receive new episodes automatically (see links below). You can see a large version of the photo in the logo here. The file is 10.7MB and the recording lasts 15m 34s. Posted at 08:44 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Wed - April 29, 2009Height, Width - and Depthhen
I was small my eyesight was poor - short sight, with a weak left eye. My
parents, wanting to find out whether I could actually see in 3-D, bought a book
of 3-D pictures (using the red-green method and complete with glasses). I was
fascinated by it, particularly those photos where something appeared to stand
out above the page - I felt I could slide my finger under it. So my eyesight
checked out in that regard, and it left me with an interest in
3-D.In 1951, when I was nine, my parents took me to the Festival of Britain exhibition on London's South Bank: I saw some colour 3-D films at the 'Telekinema' and again was fascinated by the effect. (I saw them again some forty years later at the National Film Theatre and they stood up pretty well.) Subsequently I've seen a number of the colour 3-D films (Polaroid™ system) made in the 1950s, including Kiss Me Kate and House of Wax. (I've also seen demos of excerpts from some of the other systems, including the messy method used for Flesh for Frankenstein, which was very eyestrain inducing). Yesterday I saw the latest incarnation of the process - IMAX 3-D, at the BFI IMAX cinema at the south end of London's Waterloo Bridge. This has been around for some time, but until recently only for short films. The newest feature is DreamWorks' computer-animated Monsters vs Aliens, presented on the massive IMAX screen (though not using quite the full height of the screen as the computer images are in a standard widescreen aspect ratio). The film is lightweight comedy science-fiction - a normal girl becomes a giantess, and with the help of three monsters hidden away by the government fight off an invasion by a power-crazed alien - undemanding fun. I'm more concerned here with the 3-D than the film itself. The effect is certainly impressive, particularly in the huge interiors when there is a genuine sense of space. The large film format has pretty well eliminated the standard problem with the older method - sprocket weave causing the two strips of film to jiggle about differently, resulting in a headache by the end of a feature: here the images had minimum jiggle and aligned well. The very large picture, filling most of one's range of vision, allows the 3-D to work better than it did in smaller frames, particularly in placing images apparently close in front of the viewer: the illusion of a close solid object is extremely effective. The other main problem is seemingly insoluble: a cut from a distant view to something close up causes the eyes to have to converge very rapidly, and this can have a straining effect. However, though I did experience a mild headache briefly during the film I didn't have the after-effects which used to be all too common. It would be interesting to see a live-action feature in 3-D - I'm not sure whether any are coming up: and as IMAX cinemas are few and far between I doubt that this is going to become the standard format of the future, but it's an impressive way of seeing a movie. Posted at 09:23 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Fri - April 24, 2009Haydn and Mozart at the Queen Elizabeth Hallt
has been suggested that listening to Mozart makes you more intelligent (at least
temporarily). I wonder what effect listening to Haydn has?: probably a feeling
of well-being and an ordered world (a feeling in rather short supply at the
moment). Haydn's musical self-confidence and geniality, coupled with a lively
sense of humour, makes listening to any of his music a pleasurable
experience. As
he wrote 104 symphonies, it's inevitable that a particular handful get most of
the exposure: so it was useful to be able to hear three of the less well-known
ones at yesterday evening's concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The Orchestra
of the Age of Enlightement, conducted by Edward Gardner, performed numbers 7, 64 and 90,
in proper period style using original instruments (or modern copes of them) and
in the first two works including the harpsichord continuo which modern
performances avoid.Number 7, 'Le Midi', was performed by the small orchestra Haydn originally expected - only three each of 1st and 2nd violins, for example - and is a lightweight but engaging piece which includes, unusually, a solo for the single double-bass. Haydn scrawled the phrase 'Tempora mutantur' (Times change) on the score of number 64, and this has become the work's title: here Haydn was able to use a full-sized orchestra and his symphonic style was more fully developed. Number 90 was composed shortly before his very successful period in England, and shows him in the full confidence of his composing powers: a more complex construction and a distinct wit - including a false ending intended to catch the audience out (it worked). In all three the use of the period instruments and techniques gave the works the spring and liveliness which many modern performances tend to mute. The other work, which began the second half, was Mozart's 2nd flute concerto, performed by orchestra member Lisa Beznosiuk on a period flute - wood instead of metal, and without the complex array of keys on a modern flute: the tone is gentler than a modern flute, with something of the sound of a recorder. The concerto makes considerable demands on what must be a more difficult instrument to play than the modern version, and Ms. Beznosiuk gave a skilled and involving performance. The background to the flute concertos is a little odd: Mozart was comissioned by one Ferdinand Dejean to compose three flute concertos: the fee was to be 200 florins and the concertos were to be short and easy (Dejean was an amateur flautist). In the event Mozart delivered only two, both full-length and difficult, and the second was simply a transcription of the Oboe Concerto: Dejean was not pleased, and Mozart received only 96 florins. Plainly listening to his own music had done little for Mozart's intelligence. A recording of this concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 10th July. Posted at 09:32 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Sun - April 19, 2009Astronomical y
friend and colleague David Godwin has a long-standing passion for photography:
he has taken a particular interest in astronomical photos, and produced some
excellent pictures. These are particularly remarkable for having been taken with
fairly simple equipment - mostly an 80mm (3.15 inch) refractor telescope and
medium-priced digital SLR cameras - proving that you don't need an observatory
to produce good results.Click here to see an album of his photos. Posted at 08:47 AM by Roger Wilmut | | Entries 2006-7 | Entries May-Dec 2007 | Entries 2008 | Entries 2009 |
MY PODCAST
Archives
Calendar
Blogroll
WEBRINGS
Statistics
Published On: Jul 11, 2009 10:11 AM |
||||||||||||||||||
