Teaser Tuesday - 22nd May

Nearly Tuesday! Teaser tuesday's now hosted here.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

A sad Sunday: on the radio some glum piece for cello and piano by Shostakovich. I can't stand cello sonatas, this impossible combination of banging and scraping, helplessness and pathos, with the piano's silvery cascade of notes paying not the slightest heed to the desperate actions of the cello as it scrapes away in its tartly tormented fashion.

Hans Werner Henze in his book Bohemian Fifths - a diary entry while working in Cuba in the 1969. I assume that was the Shostakovich D minor - a lovely work! I see Henze wrote a work for cello 20 years previously

Amarok and Strawberry a comparison

Introduction

A few years back I wrote an article here comparing amarok and clementine, two media players. Since then amarok development seemed to have stalled and strawberry was more active so I moved to that application. Recently development has been happening again with amarok and version 3.0 has just been released. So here's a rewrite of the older article comparing amarok and strawberry. I'm a long term user of Amarok the KDE media player - for probably 10+ years. I've now got Amarok to run successfully and thought I'd put down my comparison of pros and cons of both. Below, for each, I'm giving the pros (at least for me!).

Amarok

I'm using nightly build for Kubuntu the ppa version from Joe Yasi version KF5 2.9.71 but the 3.0 release is available here

• Can order by date in collection view with more recent at top - Strawberry date ordering only appears to be from oldest /undated with the newest right down at the bottom and those are probably the ones you want to highlight/listen.
• Filters on collection - history of filters available via pulldown and editable using a user friendly form. Collection filter functionality is vastly superior and more friendly, there's a dialog with dragging from various options related to tracks, and there's a history of previous filters in that session. Strawberry just gives you the ability to type a filter.
• Add ons - e.g. viewing the rest of the album contents automatically while listening to one track.
• Track info in wikipedia - and selectable via various options, artist, composer etc; links are clickable in case you want to browse. No wikipedia in strawberry. You can even, now, pause the wikipedia display so that the whole article can be read even if the track is finished.
• Scripts are available!
• Dynamic lists remain tied to the selection - if you change it the selection changes. In Strawberry it appears to be a snapshot of the time you invoked it, and having turned off dynamic selection in a tracklist, there's no clear way of turning it back on.
• Tracks are named as such rather than the genre specific term of (wince) "songs" - yes I know that's what certain big music suppliers use!
• Albums can be played in order as part of a dynamic playlist, It's just about possible in Strawberry but only very hackily.
• The view of the collection is a lot more structured, click on an album and there's a secondary level showing the artist, in my mainly "classical" collection that's very useful.
• Amarok starts up far more quickly than Strawberry unless you remember to close Strawberry without the collection showing in the sidebar (if not it appears to do a lot of loading of data - album covers I assume).
• You can exclude subdirectories from the collection, with strawberry if you select a directory there's no possibility of excluding an area under that.
• You can use the mouse wheel to zoom into the album cover - from Display Cover - with Strawberry you can only view the cover at actual size.
• A couple of cons (and see the ogg format comment below) con - sometimes when starting up Amarok, the volume is set to zero - clearly not just me - see this report
• If you look carefully at the above screenshot and the dynamic playlist contraints, you'll see a very large number (supposed to be in seconds)specified for the maximum length, this value is actually treated as milliseconds, this bug is expected to be fixed soon!

Strawberry

Version 1.0.23

• Multiple playlists can be visible and edited while another is being played.
• Wide selection of track data can be shown in the playlist (screenshot!). I find it useful to show the last played time so that, for instance, you can see where you've played to in the list if you've clicked elsewhere in the list.
• Huge playlists are handled well.
• Retrieval of album covers is far better.
• Playing ogg format works (well it 'works' for amarok but the track is frequently not marked as played)
• Playing CDs works without having to rip them. In amarok it works to an extent though the whole cd is seen as a single track.
• While building a dynamic list you get a preview of what is going to be chosen with your current options, with Amarok you do it in the dark and only when using it do you find you've done something wrong (and what is wrong??!!).
• Showing lyrics seems to work a lot better than Amarok, though it's something I rarely use.
• "Right" click on a track and there are a lot more options than in Amarok (eg search for artist) - and there's edit tag directly!
• Auto completion of tags when editing from existing data - good in Strawberry, this used to work with Amarok but currently doesn't - I guess this will eventually be rectified.
• The wonderful "complete tags automatically" - it usually works even with some of my more obscure listening!
• Importing of last.fm stats works. In amarok I lost all the "last played" and "playcount" data from before my upgrade to Ubuntu 20.10 - which is when I had to migrate to the new Amarok.
• Cue files work!
• And a couple of cons- if you have a playlist filter, you can't see the "smart playlist" option!
• Spotify appears to be available - but the plug in is not installable and causes an instant crash! I believe that fixing this is in progress.
• You can't create a smart playlist using "file format", this works in Amarok, and for Strawberry using file name contains doesn't appear to work at all.??
• Filtering the collection by typing in the textbox has a tendency to crash the player, when I remember I select to only display the tracks added this week, typing my filtering string and then changing the selection to all tracks which seems to avoid the bug.

Teaser Tuesday - 19th March

Teaser tuesday's now hosted here.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

In the Faustian seriousness of the B minor Sonata there is no room for ambiguities. One has to take Liszt seriously in order to play him well.

Alfred Brendel 'Music, Sense and Nonsense' And I've just got rid - clearing music I'm never going to seriously attempt - of my score of the Liszt B minor! A difficul read - at least at first! Skip though to the 'Music Classical Music be entirely serious' essay and that got me going - and interested. Brendel on music, lots of fascinating information.

ABRSM Performance Diploma

I see I first posted about my intention to do the ABRSM diploma 10 years ago - it's still not done, but I'm getting to the point of asking for the date! Here's my thoughts from 2011 The programme has changed a bit since then (as have the piano teachers, though I'm now back with the same one as then),and I'm now doing the performance diploma which is slightly easier and intending to submit it remotely - here's the lineup

• Scarlatti Sonatas in C K 308 and 309
• Stravinsky Tango
• Chopin Mazurka in C# minor Op 50 No 3
• Scriabin Preludes Op 11 Nos 10 and 13
• Mompou Cancion e Danza no 6
• Rachmaninov Etude Tableau Op 33 No 3 in C minor

The last 2 items are my own choice, I see 2 items are the same as in 2011, hopefully here I've lived with them a good long time, hoping to submit in April. Here's a recent video of me playing the Stravinsky.

very chunky chords! A couple of rhythmic issues still to be addressed!

Two Op 1s!

An interesting day musically - piano meetup at z-arts - 4 Rachmaninov preludes by different players, a stunning Berg sonata (Op 1) I've never heard it live before and this was I assume an amateur playing it! Someone else played the first movement of the Beethoven Op 111 sonata- I played some Bach (fugue from WTC in G min we had a lot of that key from various people!) and then in the evening to the Northern chamber orchestra chamber evening with the Mozart clarinet quintet (played with the contrabass clarinet version) some Schubert songs for baritone acc by string quartet - including the Erlkönig (another Op 1!) and then the Schubert string quintet a wonderful performance. The string quintet was interrupted when the second violin's bow broke at the end of the scherzo, but a performance of intensity throughout. The baritone Matthew Sharp doubled as the second cello in the Schubert!

Here's Glenn Gould playing the Berg Sonata

Chetham's Piano Summer School

I've recently returned from a week at the Chetham's Summer School for Pianists. I've not been before and was treated as a unseasonal Christmas/birthday present from Beth.
It takes the form of a number of lessons with an assigned teacher - I was on the amateur course though I don't think there's a hard and fast division between that and the more skilled course. There are 2 or more (piano!) concerts every night and possibly a talk. There's workshops in the afternoons and you are assigned a practice room which I shared with 2 others though we never saw one of the people and clashes were not a problem. The practice piano was a little bright and I often found a teaching room that wasn't being used.

I booked late and being local I decided to attend as a non residential. This involved a lot of early morning travel and as the course was over the bank holiday and I was trying to use the train things were a little disruptive, also concerts often went on after the last train, so I missed some of these, though the days were very intensive so an early night was welcomed! My lessons were with Marta Karbownicka. I brought along a number of pieces that were in various stages and found the lessons of benefit in all cases - well apart from one where my playing and understanding of the piece just fell apart (the Fauré 11th Nocturne) but the Mompou, Scriabin, Ravel and even the Rachmaninov Etude that I've been given by my teacher - maybe as summer work - so was at an early stage - went well. There were also workshops with Marta. All the lessons and workshops are open so you can benefit from teaching from a whole range of very experienced, and in some cases, very well known pianists.

Frances Wilson gives some useful advice on preparing and attending. There are a huge number of attendees, maybe it's more useful to be residential so you get to know people more quickly especially over meals! I spent the last night with a room I requested during the course so I could hear all the last nights events - including the cabaret - which in some years has gone on until 1am - thankfully not this year!

I found that a lot of the larger workshops on the amateur course clashed with my lessons/teacher workshops so I missed on some of the experience on playing to larger groups but I was kept very busy. Before I went I thought that asking for a 2 hour use of a practice room was hopelessly ambitious. But lots of practice was done - with an absence of most other distractions and my playing improved. I also had useful discussions with Marta over repertoire for the ARSM diploma I'm hoping to take.

Maybe more reflections to be added - work in progress!

Teaser Tuesday - May 10

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

While a dowry was an accepted part of a young woman's admission to holy orders, advance payment may have bordered on irregular practice. Gradually as the women started to show their worth, local support grew and the carping decreased.

from Fiona Maddocks Hildegard of Bingen The Woman of her Age lots of interesting historical detail but I'm not sure it quite gets to the person of the woman, though as a lot of the documentation is rather sketchy maybe that's not surprising? From the Observer review:

The 12th century anchorite Hildegard of Bingen possessed a clutch of talents which would make even the most eclectic of media-donnas curdle with envy. Writer, visionary, prophet, composer, artist, herbalist, politician, preacher, property owner, upbraider of emperors and favourite of Popes, she could even exorcise demons and heal the sick. She invented her own language, wrote one of the earliest surviving morality plays, established her own convent, terrorised her detractors, and, when she died, was mourned by nuns and reverently biographised by monks.

Maddocks reluctant view - in so far as she passes it on - is that Hildegard is more likely to have encouraged the music rather than written it herself.

Teaser Tuesday - April 7

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Yes it's even later than usual, I blame the bank holiday (possibly!)

Eventually, he too, like Handel, travelled all over Europe, but precious little is know about what he got up to. He spent the last couple of years of his life in Vienna, where sadly, he pulled off the Composers End No 207 - the so called 'Death in Poverty' position - perfectly.

The last years of Antonio Vivaldi from Stephen Fry's 'InComplete & Utter History of Classical Music' - this was a Christmas present and I'm quite enjoying it. Quite a bit of uinformation I didn't know - though my reading the pre 19th century music was a bit lacking. There's some cringeworthy references to Jimmy Savile - the book was published in 2004. It's also sometimes a bit disconnected, reading like bits have been shoved together - - p113 compares the Beethoven Eroica with Haydn and Mozart symphonies saying it's not in the same playing field 'It's EPIC it's AMAZING'; then p118 on the Beethoven 5th 'Up to now the most amazing thing in the world of symphonies has been Mozart or Haydn' - he should make up his mind! I was also surprised last night to get past 1827-8 with no mention of the deaths of Beethoven or Schubert.

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 29

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

One report describes a 'faint drizzle of applause at the end, and at a party afterwards the opera was jokingly described as 'Boriana' or 'Yawniana'. The journal Musical Times quipped 'Sic transit Gloriana'

from Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Benjamin Britten describing the premiere of Britten's Gloriana which celebrated the coronation, it was inevitable that the audience of the high and mighty were rather over-challenged. The biography doesn't avoid the darker side of Britten's character, someone of extraordinary generosity and yet, and yet... I acquired this book shortly after publication back in 2003 and this is a re-read, deliberately for the centenary of his birth and not sparked by the hoo-hah over a recent new biography. After my initial read I kept away from the Turn of the Screw for a few years I think now I can treat it in a more measured way.

Teaser Tuesday - Nov 13

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Alicia strides to the piano and begins the B minor Sonata. A shock wave wobbles through the room as the piano rings out, abruptly massive-toned. The American boy sits forward, chin on hands, watching her every move.

Adding another sentence to lead more than musicians in! Another teaser from our book group book of the month - Jessica Duchen's Alicia's Gift - the other teaser came two weeks ago, for me, a second read - an easy read after a few more involved novels!
And here's Gilels playing that movement:


I think the very start needs something less than a massive tone!

Islamey

Balakirev's Islamey (arr Zhyltsov)

..on an acccordion (h/t Kip W on rmcr). Apart from the hair-raisingly fast parts I thought the arrangement was especially effective in the slow atmospheric parts of the work.

VAT and Listed buildings

The recent budget is proposing to remove the zero rating of VAT on alterations to listed buildings, this is going to cost some churches a lot of money, Wakefield cathedral is having to stump up another £200000 before their current work can proceed - enter the youtube above and Pamela Greener, the wife of the dean with a song - I posted this on facebook but if you don't know me there - here it is! For UK voters, there's a petition on the govenment website!
I kept expecting a hard-hatted chorus to enter from behind the singer....

Teaser Tuesday - 27th March

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Yet infants hear tonal music almost from the moment of birth, and so have been conditioned to accept it as "natural". Moreover visual arts research demonstrates that children prefer representational images to abstract ones.

From The Bedside Guardian 2011 - an anthology of writing from the Guardian over the year - this is Alex Ross on modern classical music. And on that theme, here's an article also from the Guardian from last weekend on children and 'difficult' music.

Demidenko

On Saturday we had a trip out to Holmes Chapel to hear Nickolai Demidenko performing at the Music Society there. We turned up on spec - our local music society often suffers from poor numbers - things were rather different on Saturday - we guessed that there isn't the musical competition that there is within Macclesfield - and the closer link to Manchester. We were put on a waiting list until they checked that full season ticket holders didn't seem to have turned up. So we were lucky!
It was an all Schubert recital the Impromptus D899, the 3 Klavierstücke D946 and the C minor sonata D958. Concentrated interior pieces (maybe that goes without saying with Schubert). I used to attempt the Klavierstücke and they're very strange works with stabbing chords and rhythms, there's a set of podcasts on the Guardian Website from Paul Lewis which are worth hearing. Both the middle one of the Klavierstücke and the last Impromptu have excursions into the wild key of Ab minor, Demidenko played these works with a intimacy and control. Then the C minor sonata which I remember for the seemingly endless loop of the finale - Beethoven looms large here (throughout the sonata) but it's taken in Schubert's own direction and the finale almost manic obsessive rhythms were powerfully communicated.
Demidenko played the same concert at the Wigmore Hall last night - the Independent review is here - I don't find exuberance in that final movement - and we got an extra (3rd!) encore of a Glinka Farewell - all the encores having a Russian connection.(A review from the Guardian has now appeared)

Still contemporary!

John Cage's Living Room Music performed by the Conservatorium Van Amsterdam X'q Percussion Quartet. I don't think I've heard this before and it made for an absorbing lunchtime listen - though I'd put the crockery away...

Make our garden grow

Last Sunday, Jessica Duchen posted a complete performance of Leonard Bernstein's Candide obn her weblog. Here's the finale (but I recommend a watch of more!): May your garden grow this Christmas!

Teaser Tuesday - 25th October

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

With Mary's coaching and the exercises she practised every day at home, Terri slowly felt her throat opening, lengthening and widening and the voice starting to form lower and lower in her body. It grew stronger and clearer, rounder and more beautiful.

As last week, a teaser from Jessica Duchen's Songs of Triumphant Love this is turning into a good read - I had mixed feelings at the start where it felt as if musical details were being thrown at you sometimes for effect and the same with the sexual encounters but it has found an interesting pace binding together musical careers, the breakup of Yugoslavia and British troops in Afghanistan.

Teaser Tuesday - 18th October

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

`D'ye know what it means', he'd asked.

'No' She was flat out underneath him at the time 'It means: "tell me, fair ladies, what is love? What is this burning, yearning, seething desire?"

Jessica Duchen's Songs of Triumphant Love - I've read most (all?) of her previous books - she's a music writer - written a biography of Fauré - all of her novels are around the theme of music - and I've enjoyed them so am looking forward to this. The quote is the main character's - an opera singer's introduction to love and the Italian language (as well as singing it!). Yes there does appear to be rather a lot of sex in this work - maybe inevitable from the title - I'm looking forward to the development of other themes! Here are the reviews on her website - the amazon ones are also pretty uniformly positive.

Sacconi Quartet in Bollington

Its over a week ago now but here's a quick reaction to seeing the Sacconi Quartet perform in Bollington. Due to the job situation I've not been to the Bollington Chamber Concert series for some time - when we arrived we found that the proscenium arch has been removed and the performance area is (apparently) much closer to the audience - I gathered that this was the first of these concerts since the change - I welcomed the lack of distancing and I think audibility was better. This was apparently the quartet's 4th visit to Bollington - I'd not seen them before - so obviously they were enjoyed on their previous trips.They performed the first of the Haydn Op 77 quartets and then the Bartók Quartet No 3 - I know this well (bette rthan the Haydn) and have loved - if you can love it(!) - for many years. There appeared to be a certain nervousness and a statement that it was new to their repertoire - comfirmed later that this was the first public performance for them - even the page turns looked hairy - I've never seen it performed and the live performance showed how difficult it is - bits where I thought where all 4 instruments are playing turned out to be just 2 of them. Only just over 15 minutes but what an intense work it is. After the interval came the Schubert Death and the Maiden - far longer but it didn't seem so, the rapt silence of the audience at the end of the slow movement (the variations) showed how much the audience were involved by the performance.

They had cds available at the interval but after persuading a friend to get their Ravel/Lalo/Turina disc I then discovered that there weren't any more of that one - still I see that the Sacconi's repertoire is on emusic - I expect to be downloading...

For a Friday evening

Here's a little something to enjoy after a busy week (assuming you had one)

A loving ripoff of Lehrer and (at one remove) of Gilbert & Sullivan. Probably a little difficult to sing after this evening's glass of red so I won't attempt it!