Lovin' summer

The country may be plunging still deeper into what is shaping up to be its third summer soaking in as many years, but while the nation's heliophiles curse, its melomanes at least have reason to be a little more cheerful.

The summer months are a time of musical abundance, with festivals both small and large striking up all over the place. And unlike the (sez I) misguided souls for whom a music festival equals feeble bands wailing away somewhere in the distance, drug-induced stupefaction and trench foot, your average classical music festival-goer will probably have to endure little more than unyielding church pews - the rest is all quality music at affordable prices in interesting venues and locations.

But it's not just the audiences who benefit from this musical bonanza. Musicians can buzz off to the numerous summer schools, as equally widespread geographically as the festivals and covering every conceivable aspect of music. There you'll find internationally renowned performers and teachers of the highest quality providing expert tuition to students of various ages and standards, all in the spirit of open musical collaboration.

Of course, such institutions are found in many other countries, often, dare we say it, with more reliably attractive climates. But with literally hundreds of courses on offer, Britain is at the forefront of the summer school movement.

Indeed, you can look forward to Barlines' own despatches from the granddaddy of British summer schools (actually more of a cross between a festival and summer school, with a substantial number of public performances) at Dartington, where, from the second week of August, your correspondent will be working away in the ranks of the Dartington Festival Orchestra. It's the school's house band, made up from freelancers, teachers, students and others, and accompanies the opera and choral courses, works with student conductors, and gives about 7 concerts over the three weeks it operates. Hard work for sure, but it gives a real insight into life at a classical music summer retreat.

Barlines salutes the CBSO

I love Stephen Hough and I want his babies. I also want Andris Nelsons' babies. And Laurence Jackson's. And Eduardo Vassallo's. Hell, I want the whole of the CBSO's babies. I'm going to be up the duff for the next 50 years.

In case you hadn't worked out, last night's Prom was stunning. Hough was sensational in Tchaikovsky's unfairly neglected 2nd concerto (Why is this a neglected work??? WHY??????) as were leader Laurence Jackson and principal cello Eduardo Vassallo, who took pivotal roles in the gorgeous slow movement. Then after the interval, the orchestra, under the baton of new musical director, the impossibly young-looking Andris Nelsons, dispatched an awesome Firebird that was full of fairytale magic, power and delicacy, overwhelming Russianness, everything you could possibly want from this piece and more. Particular kudos to principal horn Elspeth Dutch, who was just fabulous.

After cheering like a madwoman, I staggered out of the hall to the bus stop in a complete daze. I still don't think I've quite woken up from it. And to think that you can get that experience for a mere £5...

Nirvana vs Rick Astley

We at Barlines applaud musical genius in all genres. It is in this spirit that we bring you this masterful amalgamation (or "mashup", as the kids are calling it these days) of two of the most famous popular songs of the last 30 years: Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. DJ Morgoth, Barlines salutes you.

Ugandan music school needs your help!

Students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) have developed a relationship with a music school in Uganda. The Kampala Music School only exists due to the kindness and donations of others, extending the musical education of the Ugandan children through the help of volunteers. The school strives to offer as much musicianship development as possible, but due to lack of funds struggles to keep up with the demand. There is only a small core of teachers, who attempt to keep up with all the instrumental teaching.

Last summer, three RWCMD students spent their summer holidays volunteering at the school, teaching woodwind instruments, forming a choir, orchestra, wind band and other ensembles, and taking general musicianship classes. This summer, four string players are flying out to volunteer.

Elspeth Addicott however will be going one step further. The recently-graduated saxophonist is going out to Kampala for six months to teach saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe and bassoon, and is appealing for donations as the school is desperately short of resources. All donations – instruments, reeds, accessories, sheet music, cleaning equipment, etc – are gratefully received. There is a particular shortage of oboe materials, but donations of any kind are extremely welcome.

If you are able to help, contact Elspeth directly at elspetha93@hotmail.com.

Classical Music Rules!

Well, if the masterminds behind http://www.musoc.org/ are to be believed, art music rules, this being its preferred term (and one, naturally, pooh-poohed by the editors at Classical Music magazine). Taking its place in a centuries-old tradition of polemical writing about learned music, musoc.org has nailed its cholers to the mast and decided to speak up.

In so doing, it has come up with seven conditions, all of which a piece of music must fulfil to be classified as art music*. In summary:

1 Must be written for acoustic instruments or unamplified voices**
2 Must be by a single author and be an original work***
3 Must be written down in traditional score, with the composer having sole right to amend it****
4 Must take its place in a long-established musico-historical tradition (western or equivalent)
5 Must remain faithful to the composer's intentions, performers obliged to follow the score as closely as possible*****
6 Must be musically complex, making use of a range of manoeuvres, techniques and characteristics (an unhelpfully inexhaustive list is provided) to the extent that its performers will require advanced musicianship and musical education on the part of its performers, and 'high levels of concentration, understanding and competence from listeners for appreciation and (even basic) comprehension'; and 'be susceptible to theoretical analysis'******
7 Must communicate 'transcendent reflections on the human condition', thereby satisfying the listener emotionally and/or intellectually.

Alas, we have neither the time nor space to delve further into musoc.org's ideas and motivations here. But Barlines is particularly taken by the way the e-pamphleteers insist that music is art music or it is nothing, hence their use throughout of the formulation 'pop "music"'. But if there is no other form of music than art music, then isn't the very term 'art music' itself redundant?

*although a piece which does not satisfy these conditions may be counted if most of its composer's other work does
**although mechanical/electronic devices are allowable in some unspecified circumstances
*** although it is not a requirement for the composer also to have written any verbal text used
****unless he/she dies before completion.
*****except where improvisation or ornamentation is explicitly allowed or tacitly expected
******although making its susceptibility to analysis a defining condition of music seems, in more ways than one, rather too much like defining someone as a musician by his/her susceptibility to being punched in the face

Own your environment!

Luke Jerram’s ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ project, in which decorated pianos are installed in public spaces – inviting the public to indulge the titular act – has come to London.
Thirty street pianos, in locations including the British Library, Leicester Square, Portobello Road, Tate Britain, London Wall and Millennium Bridge, now ‘belong to everyone in London’ until 13 July, when they will be donated to local schools and community groups.
‘Questioning the ownership and rules of public space “Play Me I'm Yours” is a provocation, inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment’, Jerram writes on his website, http://lukejerram.com.
Barlines has been intrigued to receive a press release from the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) saying that five of its members will descend on the Liverpool Street Station instrument for an hour and a half, starting at 1.30pm on 3 July. Booking the thing out for professionals seems a strangely elitist thing to do to a project which is intended to question ownership and rules, and in the interest of artistic integrity we warmly invite anyone in the area to take ‘ownership of their urban environment’ at exactly that time and place in noisy and creative ways.
John Alley, LSO principal keyboard player, will be joined by principal flute Gareth Davies, violinist Sarah Quinn, viola player Malcolm Johnston, cellist Rebecca Gilliver and anyone else who wishes to partake of this piece of public art.

www.streetpianos.com

Ultimate Jackson Tribute

From moonwalk flashmobs to candlelight vigils, Jackson mania has gripped the world since the untimely death of the King of Pop. But by far the most impressive tribute to Michael Jackson so far has come from Robert Ridgell, organist at Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church, who played a spectacular improvisation on Beat It and ABC in the postlude for the service on 28 June, including a fughetta section and some genius harmonic shifts. Fortunately it was recorded for posterity.

World’s oldest musical instrument ‘played intro to Beat It’

Yes folks, the oldest musical culture known was one of sex-mad, proto-motown tonalists. An early analysis of the oldest known musical instrument (a flute carved from the wing bone of a large vulture, recently discovered in Southern Germany – see full barlines article below), which was found alongside an anatomically intriguing figurine of a female nude, has reportedly revealed that the first three of the five finger holes roughly correspond to a major triad, making the most famous synthesised minor third fall of all time a doddle for even the most cack-handed early human.

So, tens of thousands of years before Pythagoras had his harmonic revelation whilst eyeing up the local blacksmith muscularly beating an anvil, it seems the first humans to settle in Europe had a music culture based on the primary intervals of the harmonic series. There would seem to be ample opportunity here for some critical-theory-booting backlash along the lines of the natural superiority of a now historically-endorsed Western tonal system, especially with this glorious piece in the Times: ‘World’s oldest musical instrument 'played Star Spangled Banner’, and you would be in the distinguished company of many of this country’s best-loved bel canto conductors. But, as the late King of Pop taught us through his immortal flat-seventh/dominant usage, it's not the spacing or the size of your holes that counts, it’s what you do with them that’s important.

Full story from Barlines Classical Music, 4 July

Oldest musical instrument holds key to rise of man

A bone flute, radio carbon dated to be at least 35,000 years old, has been discovered in the Ach Valley in southern Germany. It is the oldest instrument known, dating from the early settlements of modern humans in Europe. Originally carved from the hollow wing bone of a griffon vulture, the five-hole flute was reassembled from 12 pieces found in Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany and is nearly complete, measuring around 8.5 inches long. Precisely carved fine lines alongside the finger holes possibly indicated where they should be cut during construction.

The instrument is one of several important artifacts recently discovered at the site, including a similarly ancient, anatomically-detailed carving of a woman. Two fragments of ivory flutes were also found in the cave, adding to a growing collection of instruments found in the area, including a seven-inch, three-hole flute, made from mammoth ivory, which was uncovered in 2004, and two instruments carved from the wing bones of a mute swan.

‘These finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonised Europe,’ wrote Nicholas J Conard, lead author of the project and a professor at the University of Tübingen, in an article in journal Nature, published online in late June.

As to the nature of the music it would have produced, playable reconstructions of the earlier finds have revealed a propensity for primary intervals, based on the first few modes of the harmonic series, and the recent discovery is expected to conform to this. Conard said of the 2004 discovery, ‘The tones are quite harmonic’.

In terms of music history, a preference for primary intervals at the earliest stages of known music history would seem to endorse the manifesto of the tonalists, but Conard’s team has suggested that the discovery may have significance for the emergence of man itself:

‘Music could have contributed to the maintenance of larger social networks, and thereby perhaps have helped facilitate the demographic and territorial expansion of modern humans relative to a culturally more conservative and demographically more isolated Neanderthal populations.’