"Striking a blow against reality television, the dehumanisation of modern society and the warped language of corporate jargon, Brett Dean's 'sociological cantata' shares a social conscience with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7..."

Oh dear.

Big brother where art thou?

Oh dear, indeed. One might have been be tempted to ask if it claims to "share" anything else with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony were the above "information" even remotely more tasteful than what may be scraped from somewhere beneath the bottom of the PR barrel. Those three things (reality television, the dehumanisation of modern society and the warped language of corporate jargon) do, of course, exist, though quite how one could successfully strike a single blow against all three would surely be beyond the skills of the most adept "martial artist", let alone a mere composer (whose duties one would not readily assume to include striking such blows in the first place); that said, one may in any case shudder to imagine what may be meant by a "sociological cantata".

At the risk of sounding unduly optimistic, might there be a possibility that the work suffer the same fate as Mr Hayden's by being allotted rehearsal time of such woeful insufficiency and that, in this instance, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony might have to assume the rôle of last-minute substitute?...

Best,

Alistair

My! What an old fashioned stick in the mud I must be. I plan to listen to the item concerned before commenting further.

Since the publicityspeak already presented can hardly be taken as the composer's own word on the matter, perhaps some of his own words might be worth a look before going off half-corked.

That is indeed a great help, Oz. Obviously a more searching (and knowledgeable?) interviewer than one or two over here...

"Rice can be had down the river.
People in the remoter provinces need their rice.
If we can keep that rice off the market
Rice is bound to get dearer.
Then the men who pull the barges must go short of rice
And I shall get my rice for even less."

Hanns Eisler
Song of Supply and Demand
Text by Bertolt Brecht
Translation by John Willet

http://eislermusic.com/reviews/supply.htm

This recording was also used in a wonderful documentary about Eisler.

Yes, that's right - in that time-honoured tradition of playing difficult contemporary works twice in a programme with a view to helping the audience attune themselves thereto...

(Grrr...!)

Best,

Alistair