Havergal Brian.

[Mirror Image]

Mind you, I'm in the habit of not taking Hurwitz at all seriously . . . .

Nor am I...

[Dundonnell]

I do apologise if I annoyed anyone by my effrontery in referring to the author of several books on Havergal Brian as 'Malcolm' rather than 'Malcolm MacDonald' or 'Mr. MacDonald' or plain 'MacDonald'

I should point out in my defence that the casual and offhand use of the christian name was in my second reference to someone whose full name had been used earlier in my post and that, as an old friend, I am accustomed to referring to him in this fashion.

I had, inadvertently, forgotten that in my post I was not actually addressing a committee meeting of the Brianista Club of initiates

[(poco) Sforzando]

I feel almost like I'm inheriting the mantle of our dear departed friend Iago, who knew just when to press the button that could send a whole thread toppling into consternation. Thanks, y'all. Keep those cards and letters coming. Can't reply to everyone, but just a few:


Mirror Image 1617: I have no problem with Brian's music getting admirers; I have a problem when the admirers act as if anyone skeptical of Brian's abilities is a benighted philistine.

Albion 1618: Nothing gratuitous about my comments at all. They were all occasioned by the attitudes expressed by others commenting previously on the thread. Whether the reviewers did or did not do their homework is secondary in my opinion. The music must make its own case, and if it doesn't, no amount of background reading is going to substitute. But a well-sneered post; I enjoyed it.

Brian 1623: Thank you for not interpreting my comments defensively.

Mirror Image 1626:  I will quote you some of my comments on that Messiaen thread: "I don't much like Messiaen either. I find him often garish, vulgar, and long-winded, and Boulez's description of the Turangalila as "brothel music" seems to me spot on. I like some of his work like the Quatuor, the Trois Petites Liturgies, and the Des Canyons, but I rarely turn to this composer for enjoyment. . . . . I have to admit that of all Messiaen's works, none seems as indigestible to me as St. Francis, and whenever I've dipped into it I've always found it very static and frankly rather dull. On my last trip to Paris in 2004, it was being mounted at the Bastille and I thought of going, but since it started at 5 pm and seemed likely to last till midnight, I demurred." If I have ever "jumped" on you, it has been for rejecting or not being willing to confront music that by your own admission you have not heard - which is similar to the complaints that Sarge, Klaatu and others have made towards Brian's detractors.

JZ 1630: I think that opening paragraph is the most cogent reply to my thread yet, though others have made similar points. There are a lot of interesting ideas here that I would want more time to address.

5:4 1631: I did not call your remarks "asinine." I said you called someone else asinine, and referred to him as a "boy." The word "denigrate" has a variety of definitions, including: "to speak damagingly of; criticize in a derogatory manner; sully; defame; to treat or represent as lacking in value or importance; belittle; disparage."  QED.

Guido 1637: In 1589 you said: "I just can't understand how any serious listener couldn't be riveted by this music. Such extraordinary beauty, and striding elemental grandeur - as Brian said, you just cant help but be happy that this music even exists." I myself feel neither riveted by this work nor particularly happy at its existence; consequently in your eyes, I am evidently not a serious listener. If it helps, I did feel happy this morning listening to the soprano/tenor duet from Bach's Cantata #112.

Mirror Image 1641: We all have a right to like or dislike anything we want. That has never been in dispute.

vandermolen 1653: The reason you first gave for objecting to David Nice's review has nothing to do with what you are stating in this post. Originally you stated merely, "David Nice wrote a predictably dreadful review of the concert for the Arts Desk - I say predictably because he also rubbished Miaskovsky's 6th Symphony - another epic masterpiece in my view, which I was privileged to hear a performance of in London last year (Jurowski)." As for David Nice's review, it is certainly strongly worded, snide even, but more in the sense of someone who enjoys a nice knock-down argument than someone who is putting out his view as the last word. If Nice were simply posing as an ex cathedra know-it-all, he wouldn't have responded to his readers as he does several times in the comments section, taking pains, for example, to compliment Simon Jenner.

Philip Legge 1655:  A very well considered comment. Thank you. Welcome to the forum. Can't say I much like Elijah, however.

cilgwyn 1656: "Sforzando, on the other hand, was 100% pure vitriol." Thanks. I prefer not to do things by halves.

[Mirror Image]

Mirror Image 1617: I have no problem with Brian's music getting admirers; I have a problem when the admirers act as if anyone skeptical of Brian's abilities is a benighted philistine.

Reflecting back on your post, I understand your criticism and I agree that people need to accept that not everybody enjoys the same composers. I haven't read any of the concert reviews for this performance, but, then again, I don't really need to: I like the Gothic, so only naturally will I hear this performance.

Mirror Image 1626:  I will quote you some of my comments on that Messiaen thread: "I don't much like Messiaen either. I find him often garish, vulgar, and long-winded, and Boulez's description of the Turangalila as "brothel music" seems to me spot on. I like some of his work like the Quatuor, the Trois Petites Liturgies, and the Des Canyons, but I rarely turn to this composer for enjoyment. . . . . I have to admit that of all Messiaen's works, none seems as indigestible to me as St. Francis, and whenever I've dipped into it I've always found it very static and frankly rather dull. On my last trip to Paris in 2004, it was being mounted at the Bastille and I thought of going, but since it started at 5 pm and seemed likely to last till midnight, I demurred." If I have ever "jumped" on you, it has been for rejecting or not being willing to confront music that by your own admission you have not heard - which is similar to the complaints that Sarge, Klaatu and others have made towards Brian's detractors.

I'm sorry, I must have you mixed up with somebody else here. My apologies.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

@Sforzando I await your further thoughts with interest.

I absolutely recognise your dislike of Messiaen's St Francis, btw. I sat through the work when it was performed in Amsterdam last year - the first and final half hours or so alone were enjoyable, but everything in between was sleep-inducingly thin and completely undramatic. Thus runs my verdict.

And here's the crux of the matter, which also concerns your dismissal of The Gothic - how to discriminate between a rejection based on temperament and one based on arguments, as the latter is informed by the former? With accepted classics thought and feeling are in accord, simply because enough people through a period of time started to have the same conviction. I won't touch on the problem whether quality is intrinsic to a work or not...

I am absolutely convinced that The Gothic is a great work, both because I can feel it and because I can give aesthetic reasons for thinking so. If enough people are persuasive, tenacious and influential enough, this conviction will turn into orthodoxy: Brian will be seen as a great composer, and his detractors as people who either have perfectly valid temperamental reasons for disliking this particular composer or, when they turn nasty in their dislike, are simply ignored. (I personally don't particularly love Bach's vocal works, but I can see and hear their mastery). This, then, is the battle that still has to be fought, almost 40 years after Brian's death. The end result must be that people will come to accept that Brian has basic merit, because even that is still doubted. (Messiaen's importance is not contested). When that is achieved, there won't be any 'Brianistas', but simply music lovers with a liking for a certain great composer, who won't need to defend him, nor to fight for him.

We're not there yet.

[vandermolen]

Sforzando,

Perhaps you could look at the David Nice Arts Desk review for Myaskovsky Symphony No 6 (Jurowski) - actually the worst review of any concert I have attended. In reaction to the criticisms of his views (including mine) Nice wrote "Increasingly it's best not to comment to hostile 'I know best comments'". This is very hypocritical of him as it's exactly what he does himself! I agree that he has responded more to the HB comments thread and that he does acknowledge Simon Jenner's balanced and perceptive contribution. Nice's suggestion that those who are interested in and seek to promote lesser-known composers have some kind of personality disorder is both nasty and vindictive.

[Wanderer]

Nice's suggestion that those who are interested in and seek to promote lesser-known composers have some kind of personality disorder is both nasty and vindictive.

And, more importantly (regarding the criticism towards his reviews), beside the point.

[John Whitmore]

Some of the critical reviews of the Gothic performance have, in my opinion, been an absolute disgrace. I'm no Brianite as many of you will have gathered. My LSSO connection has at least given me some interest in the man's work and I enjoy reading this forum. I find some of his music very appealing but - to my ears at least - somewhat patchy and inconsistent. Returning to the reviews, to be so dismissive of a 2 hour "musical monster" is disgusting. Brian should at least be given the courtesy of acknowledgement for even attempting to write such a piece. Some high level compositional skills are certainly required! My review (if asked) would have raved about the conducting, the sheer triumph of bringing it off with very few flaws and the fact that the audience were carried with it. The third point speaks volumes. Something else struck me that nobody else has mentioned. Having been involved in loads of performances with choirs of 300 including children and orchestras of 100 (chamber groups compared to HB!) it's very difficult to get through even 30 minutes without mutes being dropped, bows hitting music stands, coughing fits setting in and scores being fiddled with and dropped. The 1,000 performers must have been entranced to have been so quiet when the need arose. Silence in music is very special and this was certainly triumphantly achieved. I would also have to suggest that, unlike yourselves, I do feel that there are some passages that are just too long and maybe an edit down to an 80 minute symphony would have given the piece even further impact. What really pleases me is that the HB fans on this forum, who hold this piece very close to their hearts, have had the chance to witness what happened at the RAH on Sunday night. Take no notice of the critics. I remember some years back when the LSSO had a series of good reviews and one really bad one for a performance we gave of The Child of Our Time. The critic said that children shouldn't even attempt such a piece. Tippett - who was conducting that night - told him that he had missed the point entirely. The work has some deep messages that children should learn and in his view those taking part would never forget the experience. I certainly remember it very well indeed and it started a life long love of Tippett and his music. Tippett 1 Critics 0. Positive criticism needs to be welcomed. Destructive criticism serves little purpose. For myself the opening 4 bars (a statement of intent that we are confidently striding off on a journey), the manic xylophone passage and the last two minutes (blimey, where did THAT come from?) made the experience very worthwhile. I might just listen to it again after my brecky.

[Luke]

This, from Sfz, was @ MI

If I have ever "jumped" on you, it has been for rejecting or not being willing to confront music that by your own admission you have not heard - which is similar to the complaints that Sarge, Klaatu and others have made towards Brian's detractors.

Exactly. So where is the problem? That complaint is the only one I was making too, the one I think everyone was making - negative reviews are fine when the reviewer has actually listened to the work and bothered to try to understand it. But when the reviewer is making high-and-mighty value judgements (hence my 'pontificates' and the like, which you quote) without actually having done the piece and its composer the courtesy of listening to it, or without even bothering to check their facts, are those that love the work, who passionately feel its quality, not entitled to feel aggrieved on its behalf? The above quotation suggests that you agree, so where's the beef?

You find the Gothic bombastic and so on - that is fine. But I find [GMG's] Brian's penetrating thoughts on Ambition, prompted by the Gothic, far closer to the truth. Here is no bombast, no calculating attempt to please the masses (as, if one wanted to, one could say of e.g. certain Mahler symphonies). Here is a work the man had to write, written, as Brian says, almost for the drawer, against all logics of money and career an practicality but out of an inner compulsion.  I detect nothing in it but a laudable ambition to fulfill his own goals. I actually find it a very humble work, believe it or not, in the sense that the composer is submitting to what he has to do even though he knows he will probably 'lose'. None of that is a guarantee of quality, of course, but personally I find in it a great vision and a profound utterance. By the time we reach the last 15 or 20 minutes, the music is on a level as exalted as anything I know. No - the music has lifted me, as a listener, into levels that very few other pieces have ever lifted me. That is why I value it so highly.

So. It is not Brian's finest symphony by most measures, in fact, at least certainly not his most typical or mature, but its very scale and heaven-storming against-all-odds ambition put it in a class of its own, and it is his greatest work in a much bigger sense. I feel like a bit of Robert Browning here:

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! ...

Give me the perhaps flawed but laceratingly vital and human aspirations of Brian's Gothic or Tippett's Vision of St Augustine or Janacek's Glagolitic Mass over many a more 'placid and perfect' and finished piece any day!

[John Whitmore]

Please forgive me if this has already appeared on the forum. Well worth a look.
http://youtu.be/-4lC9LzJ_LI

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Thanks, John! Colin (Dundonnell) put this link on Facebook last night, but I forgot about it.

I have footage of parts of the closing minutes of the performance, two files with excellent sound, courtesy of my sister who had a good camera with her. The files are in Apple's mov. format and 600MB and more than 2GB respectively, far too big for me to upload. There are two things I could do - convert them (for which I need software I don't have) or share them in another way...

The Opera browser, which I use, has the possibilty of turning your computer into a server for file-sharing. It's called Opera Unite. People will be able to access my computer. If I use that route, people here will have to download the free Opera browser and turn this function on.

I'll drink my morning coffee and see what members think.

P.S. My internet connection is quite patchy at the moment. I don't know whether that will impact the usefulness of Opera Unite...

[5against4]

Thanks, John! Colin (Dundonnell) put this link on Facebook last night, but I forgot about it.

I have footage of parts of the closing minutes of the performance, two files with excellent sound, courtesy of my sister who had a good camera with her. The files are in Apple's mov. format and 600MB and more than 2GB respectively, far too big for me to upload. There are two things I could do - convert them (for which I need software I don't have) or share them in another way...

The Opera browser, which I use, has the possibilty of turning your computer into a server for file-sharing. It's called Opera Unite. People will be able to access my computer. If I use that route, people here will have to download the free Opera browser and turn this function on.

I'll drink my morning coffee and see what members think.

P.S. My internet connection is quite patchy at the moment. I don't know whether that will impact the usefulness of Opera Unite...

If you're sufficiently savvy to do it, i'd recommend setting up a torrent. While my broadband is sufficiently fast that uploading several Gbs really doesn't take that long anymore, there are times when a torrent is easiest & much less time-consuming. i recorded a 12-hour webcast a few years ago, resulting in a 7.15Gb wav file - setting up a torrent was really the only decent way of sharing it. Of course, all of this is assuming that frequenters of this forum are au fait with the dark arts of peer-to-peer file sharing...

[John Whitmore]

I seem to have been severely affected by the Gothic. I was compelled to put this on Facebook 5 minutes ago:
"Just listening again to the 3rd movement of Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony from the Proms performance on Sunday. Tremendous playing and wonderful music. Martyn Brabbins in superb form. Best version in my collection by far. Beats Lenard, Boult and the live Brisbane recording by quite a margin. Can't get it out of my head!!!!!"
Maybe I will call for an ambulance. By the way, is that a contra bassoon in the bass line at 6' 30'' in the 3rd movement? It has tremendous presence and bite. The word bite is rarely associated with contras.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

If you're sufficiently savvy to do it, i'd recommend setting up a torrent. While my broadband is sufficiently fast that uploading several Gbs really doesn't take that long anymore, there are times when a torrent is easiest & much less time-consuming. i recorded a 12-hour webcast a few years ago, resulting in a 7.15Gb wav file - setting up a torrent was really the only decent way of sharing it. Of course, all of this is assuming that frequenters of this forum are au fait with the dark arts of peer-to-peer file sharing...

I am quite savvy, so I could do that. But Opera Unite works like a torrent and the only thing you have to do is install the browser, which could be the easier route for many...

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I seem to have been severely affected by the Gothic. I was compelled to put this on Facebook 5 minutes ago:
"Just listening again to the 3rd movement of Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony from the Proms performance on Sunday. Tremendous playing and wonderful music. Martyn Brabbins in superb form. Best version in my collection by far. Beats Lenard, Boult and the live Brisbane recording by quite a margin. Can't get it out of my head!!!!!"
Maybe I will call for an ambulance. By the way, is that a contra bassoon in the bass line at 6' 30'' in the 3rd movement? It has tremendous presence and bite. The word bite is rarely associated with contras.

Yes, that's the double bassoon. A really grinding noise, isn't it? You could hear it clearly in the hall, too. Wonderful!

[John Whitmore]

Johan, I read your post with interest. The videos are very welcome. Would you really give me access to your computer? Very kind. Thank you. PS Can you email me your bank account log in details, please?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Johan, I read your post with interest. The videos are very welcome. Would you really give me access to your computer? Very kind. Thank you. PS Can you email me your bank account log in details, please?

Just wait a sec.

[John Whitmore]

Hurry up Johan. I'm off to Valkenburg and Wassenaar in 2 weeks time and need some holiday spends!!!!!!!!!

[Philip Legge]

Johan, I recommend opening the movies in QuickTime and using the Export... option under the File menu – do a bit of experimentation with the various options for exporting different format movies and seeing how small the files can be made while preserving quality. 2 GB strongly suggests almost no compression whatever.

Johnwh51, yep! Contrabassoon doubled by tuba and double basses at the unison, with the other tuba and the cellos at the higher octave.

I wouldn't write off Curro's Part One : remember, the internet stream from 4MBS is arguably inferior to the low-quality Radio 3 stream that was available – and having listened to your high-definition MP3s of excellent quality, they do not possess the limitations of the low-quality stream – the tuning of the high-pitched clarinets, cornets and trumpets is much less shrill, and tonally they actually sound like they are supposed to.

[5against4]

By the way, is that a contra bassoon in the bass line at 6' 30'' in the 3rd movement? It has tremendous presence and bite. The word bite is rarely associated with contras.

i was extremely struck by this passage too (& mentioned it in my article). It's true what you say about the contra's relative lack of bite; the way forward might just be the recently-developed contraforte, which sounds very much more powerful. If you're not familiar with it, head here: http://www.eppelsheim.com/kontraforte.php?lang=en. i've recently started work on a new piece for solo contra & ensemble, & would dearly love the soloist to get their hands on one of those things!