No no no no no! Horrible performances!!! (Though the liner note, by Kevin Volans, is among the most perceptive things I've ever read on Barry.)

Evan, if you want to hear those orchestral pieces (especially Chevaux-de-frise, which really is worth having) please PM me and I'll send you some much better performances conducted by Tom Adès (I'm not joking, nor am I trying to wind Ian up ).

Intelligence Park recommendation definitely seconded, though!

TIN, could you summarise what Volans says about Barry?

I have pasted in below what Andrew Clements had to say about the concert in The Guardian.
(Its a review that makes you think, "what is the point in having short reviews. Really, don't bother." And, I have no idea what he means when he states that "Alongside" is Finnissy at his most "maximalist". Strange.)


Fair point James. I am not sure what word(s) to use then. All I am saying is that in "Wiener Blut", at the beginning I think Barry sets up a situation that creates a certain set of expectations, and those expectations quickly dissipate having proven entirely false. So far so good, but my problem is that nothing fills this void – no new expectations are created, or, no new way of understanding why we are passing through these places. So, when Clements says "conventional notions of continuity and perspective are no longer relevant", my reply is: cool, but what is relevant?
 “Lisbon” was very different for sure, primarily I think because the time-flow is so much more varied and erratic, not least the aforementioned looping moments that really ground the thing to a hault.


****
St Luke's, London
Andrew Clements
Friday May 11, 2007
The Guardian

The BBC has been a champion of Gerald Barry's music for nearly 20 years now, and its latest invitation concert, given by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Richard Baker, included superb performances of three of his works. One, Wiener Blut, is almost a contemporary classic now. It is the perfect introduction to Barry's musical world, in which conventional notions of continuity and perspective are no longer relevant.
Wiener Blut's manic energy, which leads to a slithering Petrushka-like trumpet tune, shares a family likeness with Barry's latest orchestral piece, Lisbon. Receiving its British premiere here, the new work has a curious obsession with a tag that sounds as if it should come from a Mozart piano concerto, but doesn't quite fit. There was an arrangement, too: Handel's Favourite Tune is the aria Cara Sposa from Handel's opera Rinaldo, transplanted to a typical Barry soundworld including guitar, trumpet and trombone.
In between the Barry pieces came something completely different. Michael Finnissy's Alongside was written for the Sinfonietta in 1979, and wears exceptionally well; it's Finnissy at his most maximalist. Ian Vine's Ocre Oscuro is an exploration of musical layering led by a skirling violin solo that gives way to more introspective and mysterious ideas from the rest of the ensemble. It's as if a microscope was shifting its focus between the levels of an intricate three-dimensional object.

i agree about the commercial recording of Chevaux de Frise-a crushing let down compared with the far from perfect premiere in 1988 (i'd like to hear the Ades perfromance) -The dry recording adds to the joyless feel to the whole thing.
Barry said something interesting during the interval chat. -he liked the idea of pieces which ended inconclusively (mid-air)and cited Ive's 2nd Violin Sonata as a good example of this(he'd been listening to it at the time)

Ives's ?

Sure. I wasn't saying it was describing anything impossible. It's just that 'It's as if a microscope was shifting its focus between the levels of an intricate three-dimensional object' doesn't seem to me to contribute anything useful by way of metaphor that's not already present in 'It's as if a microscope was shifting its focus between the levels of an intricate object.'

Make sense? I was being a bit harsh, but it did come at the end of a spectacularly inane review.