Act now while it remains possible! If they did not already hear it on the day or even if they did and if they wish to obtain and "listen later" to last Saturday's "Hear and Now" members are advised a) to turn off "javascript," b) to use "Streambox VCR 1.0" to do the download, and c) to install "Real Alternative" to play the programme.

"Hear and Now" is notoriously jingoistical and all five lucky fellows are therefore only "local lads"! Here we may read what each of them wishes to note about his piece, while in the course of the programme itself we may hear both a short spoken introduction from each of them and his actual musical production.

The names of these youths are Charlie [sic] Usher, Chris [sic] Litherland [a Jeremy Thorpe look-alike is not he], Brian Noyes [who although described as "young" does not look particularly youthful but contributes much the longest work], Christian Mason, and Symon Clarke [that "y" in "Symon" already sets off several pseud-alarms does it not].

We intend if there seems to be much interest carefully to consider and rate in turn the effort of each one, but what we can already say is that none of these youths talented in his own way as each no doubt is is on a par with the young Mozart, the young Korngold, or even the young Beethoven. They have not lived long enough to develop good taste feeling for form and an adequate discriminatory sense. They are in short not geniuses are they? Mathematicians are said by some to produce their best work when scarcely out of their "teens" but the same cannot be said of composers. So can it be right to give these five an entire first-rate and no doubt expensive orchestra with which to play (for "play" is all it can possibly be, really, at their age)? Would it not have been better and fairer to have chosen five middle-aged or even dare we suggest elderly composers?

Would members care to contribute opinions of the five pieces of music?

We hope Members such as Mr. Harmony on his bus have been enjoying these five works of the "young Britons" - each in its own way is quite pleasant to listen to.

Let us to-day examine "Charlie's" contribution in a little more detail. It is inspired he tells us by the work of some Northern American painter - inspired to such an extent that he has incorporated the wretched man's name into the title of this piece: "Rothko Monody." Well we cannot approve of that - as a rule we as do all persons of discrimination steer well clear of Northern American "artists." The Northern Americans in our experience have very little concept of what art in fact is! And again, Charlie relates that a virtue of this Northern American painter is that it is not possible to know where his work begins or "finishes." And again, that as we see it is not a virtue but a fault! It is done in a style called "abstract expressionism" which is merely a fancy name for laziness. A final point might be that the word "monody" too is entirely inapt and ill-chosen, because everything is in fact accompanied!

But enough adverse critism! Let us now say something positive about the music itself. For in the music itself there are neither painters nor Americans nor abstractions nor phosphorescent colours nor horizontal slabs nor hovering infinity nor ambiguity nor even monodies. The composer claims that we may not really know where the work begins or "finishes" - of course that is not the case because it does indeed have a beginning, middle, and end. There is in fact a pleasantly non-diatonic melody at the beginning! The whole thing is delightfully old-fashioned and quite derivative of course; it is written in the style of a hundred years ago: mostly Schoenberg's Five Pieces, with an admixture of bits of Wozzeck. It reminds us of nothing so much as Sir Eugene Goossens's inspired early symphonic poem The Eternal Rhythm (written in 1913 and later inexplicably withdrawn).

Charlie's production is too short and we wish it could have gone on twice as long! The only musical feature (if it may be called "musical") for which we do not really care is the use of fashionably non-pitched and abominable percussion - "wood-blocks" are they? - on the final page. Has not every one now heard enough wood-blocks to last them a life-time?

Perhaps Mr Rothko failed his art-classes in Dvinsk (Russian Empire at the time - now independent Latvia) ?

Interesting isn't it Madame Pianiste. But the Corporation do not explain the greatest mystery - why are they all of the masculine persuasion? Why are we offered no numbers from talented young ladies?

This is indeed a good question since as far as we are aware young and youngish UK composers of quality who happen to be of the female orientation are certainly not as thin on the ground as they used to be!

(Actually they weren't that thin on the ground even some decades ago if Mesdames Lutyens, Maconchy, Musgrave and Smyth, to take just a few examples, are any guide...)

This is a very lovely disc, t-p:

Perhaps there were none in the SPNM's current list: the composers are their choice rather than the BBC's. There does appear to be one in a future session.

Had the member listened instead to the previous programme, before the short break for the Proms, he would have heard two works by a young lady, by no means a rare occurence in this series.

oh dear but did it really HAVE to be that one?