Steve Reich – Different Trains – Smith Quartet

Tags

Classical music review, Different Trains, Minimalism, Reich - Duet, Reich - Triple Quartet, Smith Quartet, Steve Reich

Beauty and Terror

This is a difficult album to sit with – because of the title piece, Different Trains, which is of course a famous piece of modern music which contains the dreadful weight of our twentieth century history within it. ‘Inspired’ by an awareness of the musical and rhythmic possibilities of the sound of trains, Reich wove these train sounds, together with recorded speech, and strong music, into a 3 movement piece, America before the war, Europe During the war years, Europe after the war. The dark despair of certain train journeys in Europe is overwhelming in this piece, their destinations underscored by the voices of camp survivors woven into the last 2 movements. A horrific, horrifying piece. It IS a piece of music, but one which I find it impossible to relate to in terms of musical interpretation. It is a piece which had to be written, given events, but should NEVER have had to be written, at least the last 2 movements, hence the unbearableness of this piece.

I am grateful for the ordering of the pieces in this. I have a version Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint with Pat Methany, and have to say I cannot listen to anything after Different Trains itself, as I am too overwhelmed. It seems equally impossible, disrespectful, to ignore DT and just play Electric Counterpoint.

On this disc, I can come to DT after the experience of the very very beautiful Triple Quartet, and Duet. Music which is edgy, driving, containing that sense of movement and journey – indeed, it hints, inexorably at the Different Trains which darkly await, but I can be moved by the strange beauty of the dissonance of these cross rhythms, arising lyrical lines which weave through close, jarring harmonic. ‘Triple Quartet’ is so called because the quartet either accompanies itself, having prerecorded, twice, itself playing the music, if it happens ‘live’ or has 3 quartets playing together. Triple Quartet Duet – duetting violins and doubled viola and cello duets is lyrical, sweet, and warm, dedicated by Reich to, and inspired by, Yehudi Menuhin for his humanitarian works

I have recently discovered the Smith Quartet. I am enamoured.

Tracks are: Triple Quartet;Duet:Different Trains
Steve Reich – Different Trains – Smith Quartet Amazon UK
Steve Reich – Different Trains – Smith Quartet Amazon USA

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Jocelyn Pook – Untold Things

Tags

Jocelyn Pook, Music review, Soundtrack, Untold Things, World music

Frankly weird, a mash-up, but definitely haunting

I had never heard of Jocelyn Pook, till a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video of a piece of `sacred style’ Western choral singing composed by her, very much in Early Music polyphony mode (which I love)

Alas, this was a while ago and I can no longer find that particular clip

However I also love the strange atonal, dissonant singing and ululations of Arabic music. And it turns out that Ms Pook, best known for film and TV sound tracks, (Eyes Wide Shut, by all accounts propelled her to a wider audience) works with a fusion of Western classical, and strands of world music which clearly pull in threads from the Balkans, the Middle East, India, and she also incorporates more modern, electronic techniques – reverb, sampled sounds. And then there is a rich and sumptuous vein of high romantic and lyrical use of Western classical strings, lush and emotional.

And, on this particular album  some up-beat, tabla driven rhythmic numbers, which invite the listener to groove, move and sway

This shouldn’t really work, somehow it does! Personally I found the more dance upbeat numbers were not quite as alluring as the other tracks, missing the stranger, more unusual quality of the other, intensely emotional tracks.

The YouTube embed is of Requiem aeternam, a track from another Pook album Flood
Untold Things Amazon UK
Untold Things Amazon USA

 

Chris Greenhalgh – Seducing Ingrid Bergman

Tags

Biography as Fiction, Book Review, Chris Greenhalgh, Seducing Ingrid Bergman

Well written indeed – but left me feeling like a voyeur,

I enjoyed Greenhalgh’s earlier book, Coco and Igor He clearly has an interest in the lives of artistic stars, and the ability to create imaginative and interesting fiction out of the lives of those writ large in the public eye.

And on many levels, he has done the same, equally successfully, with the story of Ingrid Bergman and her affair with the war photographer Robert Capa.

However, my absorption with this beautifully written, sharply observed portrait of two real people, one of whom still has living children, kept getting a bit uncomfortable. A straight biography is one thing, whether authorised or not – information exists in the public domain and can be accessed – that this happened and that happened can be shown. And an authorised biography will allow the author access to a certain amount of private information, so more detail may be given.

But I found myself slightly queasy reading this fictional account of a real woman and a real man’s motivations, drives and private laundry, somehow laid bare by the author’s skill – in an extremely convincing way – but this still is FICTION, but somehow blurs into a possible/probable reality – that they did have an affair IS known, but the laying bare of the failing marriage Bergman and her Swedish husband had – what is the effect for the child of that marriage?

This book gave me MUCH to think about, aside from its own excellence. Is there a difference between the high quality turning into fiction of the lives of the Brontes which Jude Morgan did so successfully in The Taste of Sorrow and this book, which Greenhalgh seems to manage equally finely. It somehow feels as if there is, because it is fairly recent history, and the central character’s children are still living.

I wanted to easily award 5 stars for the quality of the writing, for the beautiful unfolding of psychology, place and time, but the ethics of the book, and my ensuing discomfort have left me with disquieting questions, which I can’t easily answer. If this book had been written another 50 years in the future, I would not be feeling this edge of unease

And unlike my usual habit of putting photos in wherever I can, it feels curiously wrong to upload photos of Bergman and Capa. The question is, does the quality of the writing (and it is fine, the managing of the voices of Bergman and Capa is done well) excuse the subject matter. Curiously, I found myself almost feeling that it was the good writing itself that was part of the problem, persuading the reader of an interior truth, whereas in fact, although the affair DID happen, there is no ‘interior truth’ – this is the author’s invention only. Less good writing would have left me feeling less ambivalent

Do I think this is worth reading. Definitely, in terms of the writing. And yet, those doubts remain

Michael Pollan – Cooked

Tags

Book Review, Cooked, Food politics, Health and wellbeing, Michael Pollan, Nutrition

A deep meditation on alchemy in the kitchen

Michael Pollan is a writer whose mind so excites me that I often feel I need to take a cold shower in order to calm down my over stimulated thoughts, which start veering off into several directions simultaneously.

Pollan is a philosopher and mystic of the mundane, in my book. Some philosophers and mystics begin from the ineffable and the intangible and whirl you around in concepts almost impossible to get a handle on.

By contrast, Pollan is like another favourite writer of mine who performs the same trick, – Sharman Apt Russell Hunger: An Unnatural History. Both start with the quotidian (Bread, potatoes, barbecued pigs, roses and the like) and expand outwards , opening them out to reveal worlds – anthropology, evolution, economics, psychology, desire, history, chemistry, biology, physics, feminism, capitalism, poetry, metaphor, the interconnectedness of all…………….I could spool on, endlessly, the big concepts Pollan (and Apt Russell) connect, by starting on the basic stuff of matter – food, shelter, and weaving it all together

In this book, he examines something so basic, cooking – and indeed the lack of it, in the `developed’ Western world. Something which once created social bonds and community disappears as we spend more time in front of screens, eating `convenience’ ready meals which have not been made by anyone we know.

Almost the first gauntlet which Pollan throws down is the one which asks, `just what is it which makes us human, and different from `dumb beasts?’ And as the things which formerly we thought of as `human’ – for example, language, empathy, ability to problem solve, are increasingly shown by animal behaviourists to occur in other species – he concludes `we are the cooking animal’ – and perhaps controversially suggests that from cooking all else of our developed, intelligent humanity, flowed

That sounds a ridiculous statement – except when it is put together with the fact that cooking not only tenderises sinewy animal muscle, softens and makes available resistant plant fibres – but means we no longer have to spend most of our waking hours chewing, in order to get at nutrients. Even more usefully the chemical changes produced by cooking releases nutrients more easily, in an easier to assimilate form. More calories available for less expenditure of calories. Less work for the gut (and the jaw) and a higher yield of glucose for the brain.

Cooking is all about connection….between us and other species, other times, other cultures…..but, most important, other people

This book compares cooking to alchemy – and indeed, he breaks his chapters down to the poetic and alchemic four elements of fire, water, air, earth.

At the beginning of each section of the book, are different displays of circle logos. Don’t miss these – they are actually quite profound in terms of visually, what they are saying about the inner nature of each cooking process. Pollan thinks like a mystic!

Cooking is one of the more beautiful forms that human generosity takes;…….the very best cooking…..is also a form of intimacy

Fire, the first, the earliest cooking – the `dangerous’ primitive cooking of the hunt (and still, today, men are more willing to take charge of the `mysteries of the `barbie’ then to move indoors to the deeper alchemy of the kitchen)

Water – the next major step, the more mysterious, more advanced `inside the home’ cooking – which needed to wait for the development of cooking vessels – this became what was seen as `women’s work’ – cooking in a liquid. No longer the fire directly heating the food, fire tamed to heat liquid which heats a more complex possibility of flavour, not to mention a greater complexity of chemistry, as this is cooked in combination with that, that and that.

Air – the mysterious agency when our `cooking’ gets done by some other transformational agent – yeasts, enabling us to finally access the nutrients in grain (as we evolve to an agricultural society) – the alchemy of yeast, grains and breads. In this section he almost for me rounds the journey of the book. He reminds us again of the evolutionary advance cooking represents – a way of processing what is, or what might be, edible, in order to make more of its nutrients available, so giving us the advantage towards greater health and wellbeing. Traditional bread making, whereby WE are able to get at the seed potential, the embryo for the germination of new seed.

And then, as he reminds us, we score a fatal own goal – moving from the health giving ‘processing’ of cooking itself, to OVER processing whereby we strip what is nutritious, producing a substance quickly (the commercial white bread loaf) that not only has no nutritional value at all, but is in fact detrimental to health. This then has to have other, synthetic forms of what WAS nutritious in the first place, added back in. The contrast between mankind’s initial discovery of how to utilise the goodness of whole grains – time an integral part of the process, allowing slow fermentation to break down and transform proteins, fats and carbohydates – and modern breeding of strains of wheat which are easier (quicker) to process, fitting modern machinery, but are less rich in nutritional value, is clear.

The final chapter, `earth’ continues the process with preservation through the fermentation process without ‘cooking’ – salting, pickling, cheesemaking, brewing – or, as Pollan much more evocatively subtitles this section – Earth – Fermentation’s Cold Fire. Indeed, he takes his conceit further, what we are seeing, in fermentation is the move from life to death – the grape, once perfectly ripe, begins to decay, break down, and ferment to wine; the milk soured into yoghurt or cheese; the cabbage into sauerkraut. Or, put another way

” these transformations depend on the fermenter’s careful management of rot, on taking the decompositions of those seeds and fruits and fleshes just so far and no farther”

I could go on – and on – and even more on about the delights of this book, but really, yours is the journey to make.

If you don’t much enjoy cooking, this might inspire you to connect with its mysteries (though its not `a cookery book’) if you love cooking, you will feel like some entrant into ancient mysteries as you engage with your next kitchen assignment

‘Hand taste’…is the…experience of a food that bears the unmistakable signature of the person who made it – the care and thought and idiosyncrasy that the person has put into the work of preparing it….Hand taste is…I understood all at once….the taste of love

Pictures: Barbecue, Braise, Wikimedia commons
Finnish Rye Bread; Commons, Flicr; Pickles, Flicr originator link inactive; Cheeses Flicr North Devon Farmer

Cooked Amazon UK
Cooked Amazon USA

Ken Kalfus – Equilateral

Tags

Book Review, Equilateral, Ken Kalfus, Literary Fiction, SF

Please judge this book by its cover…………..

It may seem wrong to begin a book review by spending time reviewing the physical book itself, rather than its content. After all, the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is in common parlance.

Except, of course, when ‘judging a book by its cover’ is a perfect illustration of the contents. As it is here. Dear would be reader, I really urge you to pay the extra pennies and make space on your bookshelves for this decidedly, but deceptively, slim tome, rather than go for the Kindle download. Firstly, you will have one of the most beautiful, alluring, evocative cover images I have seen for a long while. Like Kalfus’ meticulously crafted language, the carefully assembled juxtaposition of images will snag away at your subconscious. Much more is going on than you will initially see. As befits a book where Victorian engineering – where many ideas were held inside those intrinsic bold construction projects – is a major grounding and springboard, we have a beautiful, weighty, piece of craft. There are the beautiful geometrical illustrations. The pages are satisfyingly thick, a pleasure to turn, there is a sensory delight (and a subtext of the sensuous is part of Kalfus’ writing) The binding has been done in such a way that rather than lying flat across, it forms a little ridged trench along the long edge – and as much of the book is precisely about a fantastic engineering project in the Egyptian desert – the building of an enormous equilateral triangle of trench – this is like the book itself manifesting the construction! Sadly at the moment the book only seems available in the UK on Kindle

Ken Kalfus has written a book dense with ideas, every word, it feels, carefully chosen and slotted into place. You could, easily, race through pursuing a great story – the construction of a Victorian engineering feat in order to make contact with sentient beings on Mars. This is, if you want, an easy and enjoyable read, you won’t feel as if you have to work enormously hard to understand what the author is saying. It is not in the least bit one of those magnificent literary reads which you know ARE excellent, but need very dense study to yield up their riches.

Except – somehow it is, and what Kalfus does (like the picture on the cover) is give you something immediately arresting to respond to, but, but, and, and – if you make yourself pace yourself – well, he is hurling thunderbolts of ideas at you, often on the turn of a sentence.

Think of a modern day H.G. Wells; like Wells more is always going on than just a very exciting story about the edges of science and the stars. Except that the lengthier fuller construction of Victorian writers has been pared down. Kalfus’ sentences are compact, short, and in some ways are more like poetry – that ability to make one word hold the weight of others.

To avoid drivelling on endlessly (me, not Kalfus, who is economy personified) here is an early example:

An Egyptian royal band in full military dress played the anthem of each participating nation, as well as selections from Bizet and Offenbach, the horns glaring under the morning, then noonday, then afternoon sun.

It was that choice of horns glaring – the obvious would have probably been shining, or flashing, or sparkling – but glaring not only suggests and makes the reader feel, the hurt of the light, but contains the other thing horns do – blare! So one word suggests assaults on both the eyes and the ears.

To try to and get a bit more Kalfus succinct – what you have here is an enthralling story, a novel crammed full of ideas – evolution, maths and sacred geometry as a language, beings from outer space, class, race and sexual politics, Victorian empire building, human hubris, all wrapped up in compact yet playful, light touch writing…….there were a couple of points I shouted out loud with delight……but can’t say why, to avoid spoilers…..oh, just get the book!

I am extremely grateful to the publishers, Bloomsbury, for making a copy available to review.

And probably even more grateful to fellow reviewer FictionFan for once again alerting me to a book that I needed to read – here is her review

And as for that cover, it is the stuff of dreams, a melancholic, sorrowing, beautiful surreal juxtaposition suggesting layers upon layers of poetic meaning……….oh, JUST GET THE BOOK! (and read it, of course!)

Picture credits : Suez Canal and Earth from Apollo 17 Wikimedia Commons
2 views of Mars from Flicr on Commons
Equilateral Amazon UK
Equilateral Amazon USA

Birds-Parandeh’Ha

Tags

Homa Niknam, Hossein Alizadeh, Iranian music, Madjid Khaladj, Persian classical music, World music

Floating on Thermals

This is music of wide horizons, spacious and with no sense of strain in its production from the musicians. This is particularly, and spectacularly, true of Homa Niknam’s vocals. You can really hear how open her throat must be to produce these soaring, floating, turning sounds, ululations, undulating vibrato, pure held notes, sudden stops. This music touches something ancient, almost primeval, a melancholy, and an awestruck acceptance; humankind, gazing up at the stars, aware of distances and scale

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky

to quote another troubadour (Leonard Cohen)

The musicians are Hossein Alizadeh on setar, Madjid Khaladj, percussion, and Homa Niknam – vocals don’t describe the half of it. Amazing Persian classical music
Birds-Parandeh’Ha Amazon UK
Birds-Parandeh’Ha Amazon USA

Zelenka – Missa dei Filii

Tags

baroque, Classical music, Czech composer, Jan Dismas Zelenka, sacred music

Enjoying Zelly with due zeal

Having recently discovered Zelenka by some chance or other, I very quickly became enamoured!

He is sometimes referred to as `the Catholic Bach’

There is certainly a greater degree of sumptuous opulence in this music than in JSB, and indeed I had many images of gold, red velvet, richly painted icons, stained glass windows and the like fill my mind, as I listened. There is also a particularly, I can only describe it as bouncy, quality to his music – listen to that opening Kyrie, which is almost folksy.

This is music which has a certain earthiness to it, a flesh and blood quality. It never quite leaves the ground, there is some sort of pragmatic, tangible joy, rather than austerity or mysticism (both of which I also love, musically) Here, I almost expect the choir to be dancing with each other, swinging each other round, wearing elaborate traditional high-days-and-holidays costumes (listen to that Gloria!) Most unseemly behaviour in a church – but why not!

This is a delight in the divine, a joyousness. The musical runs in the Gloria made it hard to sit still. Had I heard it in a church setting I’m sure I would have been expelled for bad behaviour, as it would be necessary to skip and twirl in the aisles!

What a very happy and energetic performance of Zelly this is. Reviewer bounces off into the sunshine, skipping and leaping the Gloria!

Here is a website devoted to all things Zelenka – including also the fact most ‘supposed’ images of Zelenka are NOT of Mr Jan-far-from-Dismal at all! Zelenka site

Zelenka – Missa Dei Filii Amazon UK
Unfortunately there does not appear to be an option to hear this version on mp3 on Amazon USA though the CD exists, albeit with a different cover, though it IS the same version, reissued
Zelenka – Missa Dei Filii Amazon USA

Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement

Tags

Classical music, Early music, Music review, Ockeghem, sacred music, The Clerk's Group

Crystalline castles In The Air

This beautiful collection of music by Ockeghem
, Brumel and de la Rue is stunning.

For the first time, I can really see the close connection between music and maths. These pieces are composed of such close and weaving harmonies, that they seem to create a sacred geometry of sound space, constructing something almost architectural in its balance and perfectly poised tensions. Listening to this, its at times impossible to work out whether the music is rising or falling, expanding or diminishing and contracting, as it seems to perform those oppositions all at once.

Though I am particularly drawn to music which is suffused with a longing, which feels as if can never come to fruition or resolution, this music comes from a different place. The devotion and faith which created it seem totally secure. The musical lines seem always to be resolved, even as they move to resolution. There is such a sense of always renewing balance.

That’s the music itself, and then there is the combination of fluidity and control from The Clerk’s Group, an effortless, everflowing stream of voices, building this rare fantastical soundscape.

The whole CD is a delight, but track 4, Fors seulement l’attente, chanson for 3 voices, is a pinnacle of pinnacles

Pictures of Manuscript and Ockeghem from Wikimedia Commons
Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement Amazon UK
Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement Amazon USA

Amanda Craig – Hearts and Minds

Tags

Amanda Craig, Book Review, Hearts and Minds, Literary Fiction

Amanda Craig’s compassionate heart and intelligent, creative mind

Amanda Craig, a writer who was born and spent formative years in South Africa, but now lives in London, combines the ability to create hugely satisfying narratives, deal with meaningful subjects in a non-polemical manner, people her worlds with well-written characters, and, at sparingly chosen points, offer beautiful, lyrical, elevated, writing, without being self-consciously ‘poetic’

In many ways, she reminds me of another author, Barbara Trapido, again with a South African childhood, as both share the ability to look at England both from within and without, give deep themes a light touch, and enjoy at times playing with myths, fairy stories or adaptations of classic plays into a more modern, ironic setting.

Hearts and Minds looks at London and twenty-first century England, through the eyes of 5 immigrants. 3 of them are legal, privileged, middle class migrants, 2 are illegals, one an ‘economic’ migrant from Eastern Europe, the other, victim of Mugabe-torn Zimbabwe.

Craig likens her approach with this book to Dickens – she is at heart a storyteller, a narrator, but also has investigative journalist skills, and researches the hidden, dirty, foetid underbelly of London life to give realism and credence to the story she weaves from her research. In many ways, this wonderful book reminded me less of Dickens than of another Victorian great, Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (Penguin Classics), a clear-eyed portrayal of the hypocritical face of Victorian England and the corruption and savagery behind the mask.

Craig’s often satirical, slightly savage pen, when dealing with some of the powerful movers and shakers of society, is heightened because she is always able to write from the heart.

She recounts the truth of terrible things, from the heavy handed methods of political dictators to the savagery visited upon women, seen as commodities to be trafficked, to the whittling away of compassion by the corporate state, obsessed with number crunching whilst forgetting the human edge behind the numbers. Her writing in this book fills the reader with desolation, despair at the sense we are heading towards destruction – but we are held, always, on the edge of realising redemption through the tiny accretions of goodness, individuals in their small ways making a huge difference. All of her immigrants have their hopeful humanity to the fore. These ordinary people, making a difference are, I guess, how we all hope to be, in our best dreams for ourselves.

As an added little ‘fillip’ for keen Craig readers, many characters from earlier novels flit through the pages – clever Craig for using memorable names – Ivo Sponge, Hemani, et al. Some of these characters have a central role in this book – human rights lawyer Polly, for example, some are briefly glimpsed – for example, Benedick, central character in my personal ‘Craig favourite’ – In A Dark Wood – is briefly recognised by one of the central 5 in this book, as a ‘famous face’ in the audience at a concert. This book, like all Craig’s writing, is a perfect ‘stand-alone’; one doesn’t NEED to have read any of the other books. Her insertion of ‘regular cast members’ is not a writer showing off, or trying to make her fans feel self-congratulatory at spotting the allusion – what it does do, is to add to something which permeates her writing – the sense of connectedness, despite our solipsistic tendency to think we may live our lives in disconnect. A book of darkness, despair – and fiercely warm hopefulness. Years a writing, as Craig was seriously ill for some time during its gestation, very well worth waiting for. I hope her next one will happen sooner rather than later.

Hearts and Minds Amazon UK
Hearts and Minds Amazon USA

Amanda Craig – In A Dark Wood

Tags

Amanda Craig, Book Review, In A Dark Wood, Literary Fiction

Sad, beautiful and haunting

I’ve long felt that Amanda Craig is an under-rated writer, and am not really sure why she seems not to get the attention she deserves. In a world where almost any moderate writer is often puffed into genius by the publicity machine, it seems there may be much better writers who languish, and whose jewel like work sparkles unseen.

I think Craig is in one such: thoughtful, perceptive, creative, with a fine sense of crafting a story and interesting, layered characters.

In A Dark Wood is one of my favourite books of hers. She is a writer who often recycles her characters, so someone who was a minor (or even a major) character in one novel will appear as a major (or bit-part player) in another. Each book however stands on its own, but the Craig-aficionado will get a little frisson of extra pleasure as someone from another book makes an entrance (she cleverly uses memorable names, hence even the forgetful will get that nudge!)

I have recently read a little spate of books where writers have been weaving (or over-weaving) myth into their writing, and this has seemed gratuitous or a creative writing device, or self-indulgent. Oh that they had read Craig, and learned to do it WELL! This is an old book now, but I still think it is a powerful one, and has stayed in my consciousness.

Darker and more heartbreaking than her other books, Craig weaves powerful myths and fairy stories through the journey made by the central character, an actor coming to terms with the breakup of his marriage.

She explores, as she often does, the complex relationship between parents and children, a power struggle, held by love and need on both sides.

Initially the book seems as if this will be its major focus. Benedick, the central character, finds that the world of fairy and myth, as exemplified by his dead mother’s book, which he reads to his young son, fractures through into his own life, so that the meaning of the stories seem to be echoed in what is happening to him. As the book continues it becomes clear there is a deeper layer to the story, a dark descent into mental illness, a tragedy that has passed through the generations. Craig is both an easy, effortless read, and a profound one – and I can feel a desire to re-read her books coming on fast!
In a Dark Wood Amazon UK
In a Dark Wood Amazon USA