Cornflower

Cornflower enters the modern age

    Thanks to the prompting of a daughter and a change to my mobile phone contract I have now got a Spotify Premium account which, thus far, is a revelation to me. I've discovered that I can embed music here via that platform (previously I was relying on Youtube), so for starters here's a lovely rainy piece* by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. She touches on it in this interview.

*See also.

A little colder

    After Friday's unseasonal flowers it's minus 6 degrees here today - but we have no snow, unlike much of the rest of the country. Happily, the heating system is working again, the new radiator is a big improvement on the one it replaces*, the leak through the laundry ceiling has been fixed, and we've said goodbye to plumbers and decorators until the new year.

    But harking back to last week and the cold song, if you're watching the new series of The Crown, you'll have gathered that the theme music is another reworking of the frosty Purcell.

 

*its demise has been a blessing in disguise.

The cold song

     Here at Cornflower Towers we are without heating and hot water for two days while the boiler is being replaced. Front and back doors are open to the elements as work progresses, the radiators have been drained - so no residual heat, even - and the Aga is off. It is 4 degrees outside and likely not much warmer in, but we can layer on the knitwear and fill hot water bottles so we can't complain.

    Purcell* does seem appropriate, though, and for those of us who like that sort of thing, here's the Nyman version.

 

    *Edited to add: here's Alexandra Harris on the song; she goes on, "Cold sings as if his were the bass voice of the earth itself [...]".

Just because

    I see we haven't had any music on here since July - not that I need an excuse to post something as lovely as this.

    If you want audio alone, this recording is the one I have.

I've started so I'll finish ...

    ... as Magnus Magnusson famously used to say. It sounds straightforward, finishing what you've started, but as Anne notes in her comment here, it doesn't always follow. If anyone has any suggestions on how to find a more direct route from the start of a project - of whatever nature - to the finish, please do let us know. I'm sure that having few distractions/competing tasks is key, but then if you have a lot of interests, as many of us do, you will be drawn in different directions, and sustained focus is harder to achieve ...

                                                ~~~~~

    On the subject of doing only one thing at a time, this week's All of Bach recording is BWV 598 - Pedal Exercitium: look, no hands!

A perfume through the music

    If you were listening to Petroc Trelawny at 6.30 this morning you'll have heard this lovely piece, Elena Kats-Chernin's Reinvention after J.S. Bach No. 1. It was new to me, and if it's unfamiliar to you too, I hope you'll enjoy it as I did.

    In this interview the composer talks about her use of Bach's original material as a starting point, becoming "more like a perfume or memory throughout the music rather than a set of rules or boundaries".

After the Italian taste

    

    Giving us a tour of his cottage in the delightful A Thatched Roof, Beverley Nichols notes Bach's Italian Concerto* on top of a pile of music on his study floor and comments thus:

    "Here are the qualities of the Italian Concerto. It is completely masculine. It is as virile a chant as ever echoes through the world. It is also completely positive - it sings the glory of God; there is no negation about it, no sad sighs, no doubting passages, for Bach wrote the first movement in the same mood that Shakespeare wrote that sonnet, whose opening lines are like a flare of trumpets:

    Full many a glorious morning have I seen / Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye ...

    The Italian concerto is morning music: it flatters the mountain tops. Perhaps it is because one is so often in the valleys that one loves it, and drinks so eagerly from its eternal source."

    Here then, on a very lovely May morning, is the piece played by András Schiff -

    If you haven't time for the whole thing, the first movement (under four minutes) should set you up for the day.

 

*'The first works of Bach to be published by himself were for the keyboard. Put out in groups beginning in 1731, they were amassed under the encompassing title Clavierübung, clavier being the generic term covering all keyed instruments, including organ, übung meaning exer­cise or practice. The second part of the Clavierübung was published in 1735 and testifies to the provincial Bach’s cosmopolitan inclinations, for the title page reads: “Keyboard Practice Consisting in a Concerto after the Italian Taste and an Overture after the French Manner for a Harpsichord with Two Manuals, Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh Their Spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Kapellmeister to His Highness the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen and Director Chori Musici Lipsiensis.” '

Read more here.

Sound the trumpet

    As I took this picture, Purcell came to mind.

Alison Balsom; Iestyn Davies.

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Private Passions

   

    Over on Cornflower Books today I'm talking about neurosurgeon Henry Marsh's memoir Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery. The book came out a couple of years ago and won prizes and plaudits galore, and rightly so as it's superb.

    For some of Henry Marsh's story and to get a feel for the man himself you may like to listen to his Private Passions - again from a little while ago - where in conversation with Michael Berkeley he discusses his work and his love of music.

All together now

    A very short video from John Rutter on the power of choral singing. I hadn't thought of it before in quite the terms he describes, but he is, of course, right.

    There is information on his 'Come and Sing' days (and other events) here.

On the slow train

    Unwittingly I must have boarded the slow train when I cast on these Railway Children-inspired socks  as they took me an age to make - nothing to do with Kay Jones' clear pattern or Skein Queen's beautiful blue wool, simply my own lack of steam. Glad to have drawn into the station at last!

    Three Chimneys Socks, inspired by the Waterbury family's Yorkshire home in E. Nesbit's novel.

    Skein Queen 'Crush' (merino/nylon) in Soft Cornflower.

    I couldn't mention a slow train without posting this much-loved, poignant Flanders & Swann song.

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Applauding ...

    ... Freda for this, and for what she says in her second paragraph here.  

    Brava!

Crowning glory

    The Crown: highly recommended.

Lovely things

    A miscellany for you:

    - Cornflower reader Deborah Vass has a website for her paintings and prints up and running. There are some beautiful things there, so do take a look.

    - Yesterday's post mentioned Dunwich which is adjacent to the RSPB's reserve at Minsmere. I'm no birdwatcher, but if I were to be in the area on Saturday I'd go and see jewellery designer Alex Monroe talk about his RSPB collection and the background to his designs. I read Alex's fascinating memoir Two Turtle Doves a couple of years ago and there's a post on it here.

    -  Still on the creative process, composer John Rutter talks so engagingly about the genesis of his new work Visions* in this short video which is lovely on so many levels; watch, listen, and enjoy.

 

*To be released later this week.

Houghpost

   

    At The Queen's Hall this morning, Stephen Hough gave a breathtaking performance of pieces by Schubert, Franck, and Liszt, and a sonata of his own (the only work, interestingly, for which he used a score). The recital - minus the encores which included Mr. Hough's own sparkling arrangement of 'Waltzing Matilda' - was broadcast live on Radio 3, but you can hear it here for the next four weeks or so.

    Mr. Hough is quoted here talking about possible changes to the typical concert format in order to attract younger audiences. We remarked yet again today on the high average age of the audience at concerts we've been to in recent years. Admittedly for many, work would have precluded attending this morning's event (11.00 - 1.00 on a weekday), but there was a similar preponderance of snowy-headed concert goers at Saturday evening's Matthew Passion. Where are all their younger counterparts?

    At the other end of the scale, we have noticed some children in the audience. If you listen to today's broadcast you'll hear Donald Macleod refer at the end to a little Chinese girl who sat "motionless and totally attentive throughout" (she did indeed), while on Saturday there were some equally well-behaved under 10s at the Bach. Neither programme seems an obvious choice for youngsters, but I hope they all found these concerts memorable, and for the right reasons.

    Back to Stephen Hough himself for a moment: world-renowned pianist, composer, writer, artist .... there's a nice interview with him here in which he talks in passing of the musician as a bringer of joy; he played that role to perfection today.