Thanks hh, for that. I was at the concert, but I didn't know it had been broadcast. Shows how out of touch I am. (Actually, not only have I missed H&N for more weeks than I can remember, I've got 3½ episodes of Desperate Housewives to catch up on. I need a weekend at home.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/hearandnow/pip/lvm9e/I've always thought that DH Lawrence was a bit wet (also George Herbert (ducks behind sofa)) and Horne's settings didn't do anything to change my mind. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that he didn't seem to have an engagement with the words either.
Well, surely the real problem with the piece was not so much the odd, uninspired-seeming choice of texts (though that was certainly a symptom) as the evident inability of David Horne, whose instrumental music I've often enjoyed and admired, to write vocal music. Which is odd, for a Rorem pupil.
Anyway, yes, nothing in that piece that really got me going.
I'm with you on
Lied, and also don't know exactly why I liked it. But I did. Funnily enough, everyone else I spoke to at the concert thought the harp piece was wonderful. I found it rather boring, really. But the cello and piano piece was a little bit strange, in a good way (the way that Birtwistle used to be). In case you don't know, it's a sort of re-write (what Bryn might call a 'reversioning'
) of a baritone and piano song, hence the title. Birtwistle said he plans to make another version for viola and piano, then for (IIRC) clarinet and piano, each based only on the directly preceding version without reference to the 'original' - like Chinese whispers. I thought this was a lovely idea, not least for being the sort of thing Birtwistle would have done in the '60s and hasn't, much, since he went all monumental post-
Mask.
The Holt was pretty good but I didn't like it. I've never really entered into his soundworld and there's always been something about everything that he's written that has 'tasted' wrong to me.
Gosh, what's going on here? Did you write that or did I? Didn't even read that para until I was already mid-reply, but that's
exactly how I always feel about Simon's music. (And the harmony's always either too static or too random. I must give that violin concerto that won the BCA prize another go, but I'm pretty sure the harmony goes round in circles there, albeit carefully disguised by the manic figuration and the typically gothic programme/narrative idea.)
I don't really know what to write about the Matthews. His intro annoyed me (the source of the title, for example - I thought 'wait till Ian hears about this!') and the 'this is what I fondly imagine Ancient Greek music to sound like'. It all just seemed to be just chugging along until the next commission.
Oh, I thought the 'Greek music' comment was so naive I couldn't really get worked up about it. I liked the piece better than anything else in the programme (with the exception of the Birtwistle cello piece), which isn't saying much. It wasn't the best David Matthews piece I've ever heard, and it didn't quite seem to know what it was doing all the time, but I think that among composers of a certain traditionally-minded cast he's really quite good (especially the Fourth Symphony and a couple of other orchestral works, IIRC), and I'd always listen sympathetically to anything by him.
