Proms 3

It is a standing joke in my family that I didn’t have a typical musical adolescence, as I listened to Wagner rather than the pop/rock music of the day. This is true to some extent, but my enthusiasm for Wagner only really developed in my twenties, so, while I didn’t listen to many chart hits, I was more likely to be focused on Schubert and Britten rather than ‘Parsifal’ and ‘The Ring’.

Despite this, I was, inevitably, influenced by the musical taste of my contemporaries, and, for them, Prog Rock loomed large. So it was that I would spend a good number of evenings listening to Emerson Lake and Palmer, Focus, King Crimson, Osibisa, Mike Oldfield et al.

A lot of energy has already been wasted discussing whether ‘Prog Rock’ is a suitable genre to have at the Proms, but that particular horse has long bolted and the stable door tardily shut so I’ll only say that the concert on !8^th July jammed the RAH to the rafters, and the audience looked pretty much like any other in the Proms season. Most importantly, everyone involved seemed to have a great time, (this does not entirely include me, but more of that below…).

The programme had a generous selection of Prog Rock’s greatest hits. I watched on BBC 1 which didn’t include everything performed, but which gave a reasonable idea of what occurred. It has to be said that a good deal of the singing was quite appalling, although 77 year old Pete Hammill from Van der Graaf Generator made a virtue of having no voice left at all, in an impassioned rendition of ‘Refugees’. The mainly pension aged audience was ecstatic, and quite right too: it was not done well, in any conventional sense, but it was a miracle it was done at all (pace Dr Johnson) and thus worthy of celebration. ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ also made an impact. Having the BBC Concert Orchestra play this music was often an exciting experience (particularly in ELP’s version of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’) but some songs (Focus’s ‘Sylvia’ for example) sounded trite played by an orchestra rather than a band, and the BBCCO’s trumpets did not show themselves at their best at the start of Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ (arr. ELP). Copland was spelt ‘Copeland’ on the BBC surtitles – appalling. Perhaps the highlight of this Prom was Karl Palmer (only survivor of ELP) going hell for leather on ‘a drum kit the size of Huddersfield’, to quote Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson wrote well and movingly about this concert in ‘The Sunday Times’ and if you’d appreciate a more sympathetic view of this venture than I have offered, his piece is well worth seeking out.

The Prom on Wednesday 29^th July has certainly lingered in my memory, although not always for positive reasons. I can certainly be very positive about Judith Weir’s choral piece ‘Moon and Star’, a setting of Emily Dickinson, performed by the BBC Singers conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. Dickinson’s poem is typically exquisite and ineffable:

Ah, Moon—and Star!

You are very far—

But were no one

Farther than you—

Do you think I'd stop

For a Firmament—

Or a Cubit—or so?

I could borrow a Bonnet

Of the Lark—

And a Chamois' Silver Boot—

And a stirrup of an Antelope—

And be with you—

Tonight!

But, Moon, and Star,

Though you're very far—

There is one—farther than you—

He—is more than a firmament—from Me—

So I can never go!

The  poem is complex: whom for example is the ‘He’ of the final stanza? God? a lover? a male fixation?, or all three? Given this complexity, providing a setting where the words are always intelligible would not necessarily be particularly useful, and Weir is wise to suggest atmosphere rather than anything more specific. Rhythm and pitch seem to stretch rather than change (my wife likened it to listening to a warped LP, but in a good way!!). The effect was very beautiful. The BBC Singers are the ideal ensemble for this sort of piece and their virtuosity illuminated Weir’s genius wonderfully well.

The world premiere of Brett Dean’s song cycle ‘The World’s Wife’, setting poems by Carol Ann Duffy, also benefitted from a consummate performance. Claire Booth gave this work her all and any shortcomings I note were certainly not down to her.

The first setting of ‘Valentine’ seemed to me to be completely misconceived by the composer. The poem, as I read it, is playfully sardonic

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

Brett Dean’s setting was melodramatic and over-blown which made an unfortunate start. Two little squibs, ‘Mrs Charles Darwin’ and ‘Mrs Icarus’ were suitably undemanding, while ‘Prayer’ one of Duffy’s best known poems and indeed one of the nation’s favourites seemed undecided as to whether it was going to be lyrical or angst ridden. I wish Brett Dean had stuck to the former, as the poem is very beautiful:

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Including a section from the actual Shipping Forecast was a happy notion and the setting was effective overall.

I am pleased to say that my reaction to the final song, ‘Medusa’, was and is entirely positive. This is a fantastic inspiration, and Claire Booth gave it everything she had, to superb effect.

A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy

grew in my mind,

which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes,

as though my thoughts

hissed and spat on my scalp.

My bride’s breath soured, stank

in the grey bags of my lungs.

I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued,

yellow fanged.

There are bullet tears in my eyes.

Are you terrified?

Be terrified.

It’s you I love,

perfect man, Greek God, my own;

but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray

from home. So better by far for me if you were stone.

I glanced at a buzzing bee,

a dull grey pebble fell

to the ground.

I glanced at a singing bird,

a handful of dusty gravel

spattered down.

I looked at a ginger cat,

a housebrick

shattered a bowl of milk.

I looked at a snuffling pig,

a boulder rolled

in a heap of shit.

I stared in the mirror.

Love gone bad

showed me a Gorgon.

I stared at a dragon.

Fire spewed

from the mouth of a mountain.

And here you come

with a shield for a heart

and a sword for a tongue

and your girls, your girls.

Wasn’t I beautiful?

Wasn’t I fragrant and young?

Look at me now.

Brett Dean gave this the full gothic treatment and achieved a kind of mini opera (I can see enterprising young sopranos taking it up as an audition piece). The smoky, swirling orchestral music before the climactic final line was quite brilliant. In Brett Dean’s interpretation, ‘Look at me now’ is an anguished cry of despair from Medusa lamenting her lost beauty. In his comments for Radio 3, Tom Service seemed to suggest that such an interpretation was somehow revelatory, whereas it seems clear to me that Duffy presents Medusa as vulnerable from the start:

It’s you I love,

perfect man, Greek God, my own;

but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray

from home.

So better by far for me if you were stone.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know Medusa can’t turn Perseus to stone. He is not like the ginger cat who gets turned to ‘a housebrick’, or the pig who becomes ‘a boulder rolled/in a heap of shit’ because he has ‘a shield for a heart/and a sword for a tongue.’ These are not just mythical trappings, (Perseus only looks at Medusa reflected in his shield, so is able to behead her without fear of ossification), these are the cruel attributes which enable men to use women and then move on.  Medusa is the victim here – she was, after all, raped by Poseidon, but it was she who received punishment for this. She wants Perseus to acknowledge her abuse and victimhood with a pitying gaze. The irony here of course is that, if he did so, he’d be turned to stone. This double, or even triple meaning can’t be conveyed in performance, even one as committed as Claire Booth’s.