Oct 20: Scallop Shells

The Scallop on Aldeburgh beach is a sculpture by Maggi Hambling. It was a little controversial when it was first positioned on the shingle between the village and the neighbouring village of Thorpeness. Not everyone liked its design or look.... but then that's art... you can't please everyone...

Images: Alan Parkinson

The scallop is incised with the words ''I hear those voices that will not be drowned' from the opera 'Peter Grimes'.

Hambling sees Scallop as more than just a sculpture. It was designed to also be a shelter and a seat, a place where visitors can rest and 'contemplate the mysterious power of the sea'. She wants people to interact with it: 'When somebody climbs up on it to sit down and watch the sea, or when a couple creeps in underneath it to make love, then it will be complete.'

Benjamin Britten was associated with the area.

He lived in Suffolk.

One of his famous pieces was 'The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'.

I've been to see a number of concerts at Snape Maltings over the years - most recently the band Altan.

The building is beautiful and the acoustics are great.

Sep 9: One Soundtrack to rule them all...

A cross posting from my Geography in/on Film blog.

Classic FM viewers have been voting for their favourite film scores.

The results are here - you can count down from 100 to the winner.

The top five are as follows:

Here's an extract from the winning score.

And the first part of a series on the making of the music... seek out the others.

Aug 14: "The Lark Ascending" #1: Vaughan Williams & KES

"The art of music above all other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation"

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Richard King's 2019 book explores British music and its link with the landscape of Britain.

I have a copy of the book and enjoyed reading it when it first came out. I've mentioned it previously on the blog.

I've now revisited it for this blog and there is plenty of relevance to the blog's theme, so there will be a number of posts to follow through the next month or so.

Vaughan Williams is referenced in the prologue and his quote that "Folk music is not a cause of national music, it is a manifestation of it'.

He wrote 'The Lark Ascending' which was premiered in 1920 having been started at the outbreak of the Great War.

It was premiered near Bristol.

Vaughan Williams believed that music was a latent force in all people... "the only means of artistic expression which is natural to everybody."

The soundtrack to the Ken Loach film 'KES' (from Barry Hines' book) has a wonderful soundtrack by John Cameron.

"Kes flies higher" has a link to 'The Lark Ascending' in its structure and feel...

Chapter 1 of the book explores the piece in more detail.

It epitomises an idea of place, and because there are no lyrics it hasn't been (mis)interpreted as Blake's 'Jerusalem' has been.

It invokes a reverie: a country dance observed by a bird in flight, "a lyrical expression of grace and freedom".

King says that Vaughan Williams "achieves a synthesis of air and earth as the skylark shares in the merrymaking taking place below and the intoxicating sense of euphoria is absolute."

Vaughan Williams described folk songs as "an individual flowering on a common stem".

The book is available from all the usual places and comes highly recommended.

Aug 8: Can you map music?

That's the question asked by GIS consultant Madeleine Ratcliffe, who works for ESRI.

On a recent LinkedIn post she described the inspiration for an ESRI StoryMap she has created.

I first heard Smetana's Vltava (or The Moldau) while driving with my mum. We're both flautists, and she knows the piece well. As we listened she explained how it traces the course of the Vltava River through Czechia. It begins where two mountain streams meet, represented by two intertwining flutes. From there, the music carries you downstream past hunters in the forest, a village wedding, moonlit dancing by the water, the dramatic St. John's Rapids, and finally to Vyšehrad Castle in Prague. 

She gave a running commentary as we listened, and it completely changed how I thought about music. I hadn't realised it could tell such a vivid geographical story.

When I joined Esri UK two years ago, I couldn't shake the idea of bringing this piece to life on a map.

Using an ArcGIS StoryMap, I've traced the journey of Vltava along the river itself. As you explore, you can listen to each section of the music, discover the historical and cultural context behind it, and see how the landscape, geography and composition are all woven together.

Thanks to Brendan Conway for the tipoff to Madeleine's work.

Here's the details of how the map was created.

Aug 4: 2007

Rush released 'Snakes and Arrows'.

I saw the tour in support of this album at the Sheffield Arena.

There are fewer memorable songs on this album than most of the other Rush albums.

Lifeson had met guitarist David Gilmour during Gilmour's tour stop in Toronto who inspired him to write on an acoustic guitar as an indicator of how strong a tune is. 

Gilmour is thanked in the liner notes of Snakes & Arrows.

The track Hope was one result of this conversation.

Several instrumental tracks from this album feature in their live set.

Peart was inspired to write lyrics on various themes including faith, fear, the association of religion and war, hope and despair, and the religious billboards he saw on his motorcycle journey across the United States which he detailed in his fourth book Roadshow: Landscape with Drums – A Concert Tour by Motorcycle (2006), written during the R30 tour (which I also saw). He was also inspired by Robert Frost's epitaph: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world". The album's producer had previously worked with Foo Fighters.

Source: Wikipedia

Mike Oldfield ventured into classical music with his 'Music of the Spheres' album. The live world premiere of Mike Oldfield’s Music of the Spheres took place in the Atrium of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The Basque Orchestra was the formation chosen for the world launch of the British musician's first inroads to symphony music.

Arrangements for orchestra: Karl W. Jenkins
Conductor: Enrique Ugarte
Artists: Mike Oldfield, guitar; Hayley Westenra, soprano; Bilbao Choral Society.

I had visited the Guggenheim several years previously. It's an amazing building...

I was very keen to go along to this event and looked into the possibility of getting there, but it was difficult time wise to guarantee to fit around teaching... 

What were your favourite albums from the year 2007?

Let me know in the comments.

May 9: Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds'

The 80s saw some interesting releases which bridged rock and classical music to an extent.

One rock-classical crossover album was 'Variations' by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

I loved this album at the time and played it a lot. There was a disco element to some of it, but also a lot of musicians who played other styles of music including rock and blues

Julian Lloyd Webber – cello
Gary Moore – Gibson Les Paul, Rickenbacker electric 12 string & Fender Stratocaster electric guitars, Guild acoustic guitar
Rod Argent – grand piano, synthesizers (Minimoog, Roland RS-202, Yamaha CS-80)
Don Airey – grand piano, synthesizers (ARP Odyssey, Minimoog, Solina String Ensemble), Fender Rhodes electric piano
Barbara Thompson – flute, alto flute, alto and tenor saxophone
John Mole – Fender Precision Bass, Hayman fretless bass guitar
Jon Hiseman – Arbiter Auto-Tune drums, Paiste cymbals and gongs, percussion

It also featured Phil Collins. Seek it out on Spotify.

Another crossover between rock and orchestral music came out in 1978. This is still going strong almost 50 years on.

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.

The album was a huge success, and later spawned a long running stage show. I had the double album with gatefold sleeve and booklet.

It does have some wonderful moments.

Forever Autumn has a wonderful feel to it, along with Thunderchild.

I went to see a live performance of the album at the O2 - it was in 2014 and billed as 'the final Arena tour'.

Here's an image of mine from when I saw the show, with some well known musicians.

They were accompanied by the Ulla Strings, conducted by Jeff himself - he has now stepped back from conducting duties.

Image: Alan Parkinson

All together now.... ulla!!

And here's an extract from Variations...

Apr 25: Music Books #6: 'The Lark Ascending' by Richard King

This book from 2019 is subtitled:
People, Music and Landscape in Twentieth-Century Britain.

Over the course of the twentieth century, The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams is the piece of music that has come to define the mythical concept of the English countryside, with its babbling brooks and skylarks. 

Yet, the landscape is not really an unaffected utopia, but a living, working and occasionally rancorous environment that has forged a nation’s musical personality. On a journey that takes us from post-war poets and artists to the free party scene embraced by the acid house and travelling communities, 

Richard King explores how Britain’s history and identity have been shaped by the mysterious relationship between music and nature.

This is a really interesting book on how landscape and nature have influenced composers over the decades.

I am preparing a longer piece on the book for publication later in the year.

It starts with an exploration of the story of the composition of one of the most popular pieces of English music.

Here's a performance specially filmed in... er, Queensland, Australia....