This is adapted from something a friend posted on Facebook (15 Authors in 15 Minutes).
The Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen composers and/or musicians who have always influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes, and they don’t have to be listed in order of relevance to you.
On Friday 12th November, the Polish composer Henryk Gorecki, died aged 76. Gorecki is perhaps best remembered for his Third Symphony, the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’, a work of sacred minimalism whose dominant themes are motherhood and separation through war. More often than not, this work is considered to be a meditation on the Holocaust, but it is more than that. Each movement is sung by a soprano: the first is a 15th century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus, while the third is a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her child killed in the Silesian uprisings just after the First War. The second movement is a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during the Second War, and has become a ‘soundtrack’ for the Holocaust after a canny film-maker picked it up and used it in the 1990s. Along with Part’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ and ‘Fratres’, this piece more than any other seems to express the inexpressible about this dreadful rupture in modern European history. Sadly, it has been given the “Classic FM treatment”, and its wonder and beauty has now been somewhat devalued through over-exposure.
The music is very approachable, perhaps surprisingly so, since Gorecki’s earlier music drew influences from the dissonant works of Stockhausen and Nono, and this has undoubtedly contributed to its popular appeal: it is not “difficult” music to listen to. It is reasonably straightforward in its construction and its harmonies, and makes use of Medieval musical modes. Premiered in 1977, it remained relatively unknown, except amongst connoisseurs, until 1992, when a recording was released with the London Sinfonietta, conducted by David Zinman, with the soprano Dawn Upshaw. It topped the classical charts in the UK and US, and has sold over a million copies.
For me, its Medieval influences, the simplicity of the thematic material and, more than anything else, the soprano line which soars above the orchestra, are what make it so remarkable. It is “tingle factor” music par excellence, and I only need to hear a few bars to feel the hairs rise on the back on the neck. Admittedly, the greater part of its power comes from its association with the Holocaust. Hear a few bars, and one is forced to pause and meditate on that genocide.
Dawn Upshaw’s clean soprano voice is has a wonderful translucence on the 1992 recording. She lacks the heavy vibrato of “old school” sopranos like Dame Janet Baker or Renée Fleming, and there is an innocence in her voice which reinforces the “story” of the music with an almost painful clarity. The rising, scalic motif in the second movement, sung by the soprano and supported by the orchestra, drives the music forward until the voice climaxes on a top A flat. According to the composer, the soprano voice should “tower” over the orchestra, and there are places in this movement where she almost seems to take flight, soaring ethereally above the orchestra. Beneath the voice, the music pulses and “breathes” with an almost audible “lub-dub” beat of the human heart.
It is a shame that the Third Symphony has largely eclipsed Gorecki’s other music, much of which is very fine indeed, and it would be a great pity if he were remembered only for this work, except amongst more esoteric music lovers and scholars. What is certain is that the Third Symphony, and all that it expresses, will continue to resonate with many people for years to come.
In the opening chapter of his new book, Listen to This, Alex Ross declares that he “hates” ‘classical music’ – “not the thing, but the name”. He argues that it “traps a tenaciously living art in the theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today. It banishes into limbo the work of thousands of active composers who have to explain to otherwise well-informed people what it is they do for a living….”
So what else can we call it?
“Serious music” seems inappropriate, since there is a good deal of ‘classical music’ which is humorous, comical and witty.
“Intellectual music” smacks of elitism – and aren’t we supposed to be trying to dispel the elitist image of classical music?
“Great music”? By doing that, we exclude the greats of the jazz, rock and pop genres – and not forgetting World music…..
“Art music”? But some of the songs of Kate Bush, the Cocteau Twins or Goldfrapp (who I heard last night) could be considered “art music”.
And some suggestions from Radio 3 listeners:
“the People’s Music” (since “so many people can participate in it”). Sounds a bit communist to me!
“Ephemeral music”
As Ross says, all these terms are useful, but are not its defining characteristics. Classical music can also be crazy, confused, stupid and vulgar.
Readers: can we find a new name for classical music?
Your thoughts, please – clever, witty, humorous, vulgar or just plain stupid!
In the tapas bar before the concert, there was much discussion amongst fellow diners as to what time She would be on. “I thought She was on at eight”, said my companion. “Oh no, She’s definitely on at nine – ’til eleven” said someone at the next table. This was confirmed by another couple. So we ordered more drinks and tapas, knowing that arriving at the venue too early would mean jostling for a place at the overcrowded bar or listening to a mediocre support band.
Inside the venue, the foyer was heaving with concert-goers, and upstairs in the circle bar, it was positively throbbing. We drank our drinks out of plastic cups and enjoyed half an hour of people-watching. More used to refined surroundings of the front bar at the Wigmore, and its largely superannuated clientele, I was fascinated by the demographic. Yet, there were similarities with the classical music crowd: we were all there to enjoy the music, and the shared experience of music-making.
She emerged, through smoke, from an Anish Kapoor-style soft sculpture, which bore more than a passing resemblance to the female anatomy, and pranced to the front of the stage, all sequins and spangles and feathers: in her shiny cape, tight leggings and platform shoes She looked like a rare, exotic bird. As the raw opening beats of the first song began, the crowd cheered and whooped in recognition of the song. Of her. The heavily amplified music vibrated in my chest and the pit of my stomach; my ears hurt. I was loving it.
Formed in 1999, a duo between singer Alison Goldfrapp and composer Will Gregory, Goldfrapp specialises in electronic music, but they are more than that because with the release of each new album (and there are five – I have them all), they have always cunningly reinvented themselves, while retaining their distinctive style and sound. Seventh Tree, the-last-but-one album (2007-8), is folksy, down-tempo and ambient, with a greater use of acoustic guitars than on previous albums. The latest release, Head First, is a nod back to the synthpop of the 1980s, while Black Cherry, their second album, shows the influence of glam rock.
Throughout the concert, I was struck by the many musical influences Alison Goldfrapp draws on, and, like the music of Schubert or Messiaen, her music ranges from a whisper to a scream. It’s redolent of early Pink Floyd, T-Rex, Donna Summer, Kate Bush, Portishead and the Cocteau Twins. Wider influences include Polish disco, and the cabaret music of Weimar Germany, and indeed Alison Goldfrapp’s on-stage presence owes much to burlesque and cabaret. Her music is dreamy, erotic (especially in the use of the Theremin), surreal, raunchy, hypnotic, quirky, while her lyrics are inspired by films, her childhood, her sexual fantasies. Most impressive is her voice, which croons one moment, growls the next, then switches to a high-pitched aria of almost heart-stopping beauty. Around her, the band look like throwbacks to Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era, in their shiny catsuits and platform boots, and, as they play, she stomps and struts, prances and pirouettes, like Marc Bolan or Mick Jagger, her amazing costumes creating weird and wonderful shadows on the walls.
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