Author Archive for peter

Page 0 of 83

The etiquette and responsibilities of concert audiences

Published by peter on 2024-07-19 in Concerts and Music. Closed

Earlier this week, at a solo piano recital in the Wigmore Hall, London, a man near to where I was seated started complaining in the interval about how poor he thought the performer was. Apparently, his statements were unsolicited. The people seated either side of him disagreed with his view, and asked him to be more specific. This occurred as people were returning to their seats at the end of the interval, and he could be heard several rows away.

Continue reading ‘The etiquette and responsibilities of concert audiences’

Jesuit Poets

Published by peter on 2024-06-18 in History, Oratory, Poetry, Religion and Rhetoric. Closed

I am belatedly posting about a superb address I heard given at a mass to celebrate the Fourth Centenary of the (then) English Province of the Society of Jesus, held in Farm Street Church, London on 21 January 2023. The mass was celebrated by Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and the sermon given by Fr Damian Howard SJ, Provincial of the British Province. The music at the mass included the world premiere of James MacMillan’s “Precious in the sight of the Lord” (with MacMillan in the congregation).

Continue reading ‘Jesuit Poets’

TBC: RIP

Published by peter on 2024-05-27 in Argumentation and Obituaries. 0 Comments

In a recent post I mentioned that English has no good word for the process reverse to that of abstraction. Writing that reminded me of a long and fascinating conversation in about 2002 on this very issue with my former colleague, Trevor Bench-Capon, who sadly passed on this past week (on Monday 20 May 2024).

Continue reading ‘TBC: RIP’

Music performance and morphic resonance

Published by peter on 2024-05-24 in Creativity, Jazz and Music. 0 Comments

Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance posits the existence (in some metaphysical or conceptual sense) of morphic forms which arise when living beings act in the world. In this theory, these forms are strengthened with each repetition of the action, and create a force field (a morphic field) which can be drawn upon by subsequent beings repeating the same act. The theory predicts that doing the same thing should become easier over time, even when the entities doing the acting are different, in different locations or not not even alive at the same time. Morphic resonance, if it exists (whatever that may mean) is a form of action at a distance and action through time. I have been fascinated by this theory since first reading Sheldrake’s book about it 36 years ago.

Continue reading ‘Music performance and morphic resonance’

On quitting

Published by peter on 2024-04-18 in Decision theory and Heroes. Closed

Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) to Mike Prince (Corey Stoll) in Billions, Season 7, Episode 6, minute 36:20:

Sometimes quitting isn’t capitulation. Sometimes it shows grit and wisdom.”

Concert Concat 2024

Published by peter on 2024-04-11 in Concats, Concert Concats, Concerts, Jazz and Music. Closed

This post is one in a sequence which lists (mostly) live music I have heard, as best as memory allows. I write to have a record of my musical experiences and these entries are intended as postcards from me to my future self. All comments are personal. Other posts in this collection can be found here. The most recent prior post in this sequence is here.

  • Versa Winds Saxophone Quartet at St. Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London, 13 September 2024. The quartet comprised: Louisa Kataria (soprano sax), Lydia Cochrane (alto sax), Alex Dani (tenor sax) and Annabella Trench (standing in for Ethan Townsend, baritone sax). The program was:
    • Pedro Iturralde: Suite Hellénique
    • Fernande Decruck: Saxofonia di camera
    • Richard Rodney Bennett: Saxophone Quartet.

    Some very fine playing to an audience of about 35 people. The playing was very tightly co-ordinated, especially in the interesting rhythms of Bennett’s Saxophone Quartet. The Eastern Mediterranean sounds of the Iturralde work were enchanting.

  • Members of the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra in a programme of mostly classical string quartets and clarinet quartets, in Studio 1 of the Old Museum Building, Brisbane, 29 August 2024. The performers were: Nicole van Bruggen (Basset clarinet, a replica of the original Stadler version, with a bulbous bell), Rachael Beesley (violin), Alison Rayner (violin), Stephen King (viola) and Natasha Kraemer (cello), and they played on period instruments, or modern instruments inspired by period instruments.
    • Vincenzo Gambaro: Clarinet Quartet #1 in B-flat
    • Mozart: String Quartet #4 in C, K.157
    • Beethoven: Cavatina from String Quartet #13 in E-flat, Op. 130
    • Nicole Murphy: Wavelength

    The audience was about 100 strong, in a room with high ceilings and very good acoustics. The composer of the final work, Nicole Murphy, was present for the performance, and her piece, composed only recently, was in three movements (fast, slow, and fast). This piece required the player of the Basset clarinet to stop the hole at the base of the instrument three times – this can only be done by holding the instrument with the knees. The third movement had a syncopated sprung rhythm, which she called a “funky groove”, played as an ostinato by the strings with a clarinet obligato part running over it. The up and down groove was apparently intended to convey the experience of being in a small boat in rough seas. In truth, the funky ostinato would have made an admirable work, in a rhythmic minimalist style, by itself, without the clarinet part. (But then, I almost always prefer watching or hearing just the background in art and music.)

    I do find it ironic (or perhaps hypocritical) to make a fuss about playing on period instruments for 18th Century music when the string players use shoulder rests. We were also in a room with electric light, although not air conditioning in the warmth of a Brisbane winter evening.

    • Continue reading ‘Concert Concat 2024’

On ambition

Published by peter on 2024-03-05 in Rhetoric. Closed

Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) in Billions (Season 7, Episode 2, 11:45):

If a fella doesn’t have his eye on something, how’s he gonna know where he’s going?”

Loud Living in Cambridge

Published by peter on 2024-02-28 in Concerts, Music and Oratory. Closed

I was most fortunate this week to hear Jan Lisiecki in an outstanding recital at the West Road Concert Hall, Department of Music, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, on 26 February 2024, in a concert sponsored by Camerata Musica Cambridge. West Road Hall is a fine modern hall with very nice acoustics, and was fully packed. The hall management turned off the lights over the audience (as in a theatre), which should happen more often. Perhaps that darkness helped create the atmosphere of great seriousness this performance had. I later learnt that this recital was the twelfth time in the series that Mr Lisiecki had played the Preludes program.

Continue reading ‘Loud Living in Cambridge’

Oratory at Nudgee

Published by peter on 2024-01-27 in Oratory. Closed

This is a short post to record for history a very fine speech by Mr Oscar Roati, School Captain of St Joseph’s Nudgee College, Brisbane, Australia, at the Investiture Ceremony for the 2024 Senior Class on 24 January 2024. Apparently, his father Alex Roati was a Vice-Captain and his two brothers were both Captains of Nudgee. The speech can be seen here, from minute 41:20.

Vale: Peter Schickele (1935-2024)

Published by peter on 2024-01-20 in Creativity, Music and Obituaries. Closed

The composer and musician Peter Schickele, manager of that lesser-known last son of JS Bach, PDQ Bach, has just died. He was heavily influenced by Spike Jones, whose music was a strong presence in my household growing up. With the death last year of Barry Humphries, it feels like the 1950s may now just have ended.

From his obituary in The New York Times, Mr Schickele is quoted as having said in an interview with the Times in 2015:

“Years ago I used to watch Victor Borge, still concertizing in his 80s. And it never occurred to me that I would do the same. I’m amazed that P.D.Q. has gone on for 50 years.

It just goes to show: Some people never learn.”