2010 - a year in pop

So what sort of a year has 2010 been for pop music?

A pretty damn good one, actually – so much so that even if the year had stopped on January 31st I would have still had a number of credible contenders for my album of the year.

As it turns out that was an easy honour for me to assign – but before I do that, a bit about the music I've enjoyed listening to this year. Apologies in advance for mentioning so many records, but I don't want any to lose out!

As far as I'm concerned it's been a great year for electronica, from established producers to new names on the block. Four Tet's There Is Love In You put down a mark for its blissful textures right in the first few weeks, while his mate Caribou came up trumps with Swim, a warm weather treat if ever there was one.

The real finds for me, though, were Pantha du Prince, whose Black Noise album on Rough Trade is a real thing of beauty, incorporating Alpine field recordings to shimmering techno textures, and Jaga Jazzist, who threw everything but the kitchen sink into the space rock and energetic, Reich-influenced funk of One Armed Bandit, stood back and admired the results.

My new discoveries in this field were Reboot, a production talent whose strength lies in the street sounds and sample clips he places in the middle background of his work, Shunyata. Also Clara Moto, who does likewise to fuller house music beats in Polyamour but is equally original and atmospheric. Meanwhile Luke Abbott has been able to make picture postcard sketches of his Norfolk habitat and set them to softly voiced electronic rhythms on Holkham Drones.

Several dance groups made convincing comebacks. Hot Chip made us blush with the masculine romanticism of One Life Stand, while Daft Punk showed off their prowess as orchestrators on the Tron Legacy soundtrack, really packing a punch when its latent tension gets released. Massive Attack showed their pretenders once again how to make a great album, with Heligoland using more guests than might normally be the case, but playing to their strengths each time. Yet perhaps the best album in this field came from Gorillaz, Plastic Beach a statement of the importance of environmental and international unity as well as containing some damn good songs. Bobby Womack's turn on Stylo was not bettered at any point vocally.

Compilation wise I couldn't look further than Ninja XX, their 20th anniversary compilation, with its mass of essential new songs and tracks. In terms of a DJ mix Ewan Pearson's We Are Proud Of Our Choices was by some distance the best, a hypnotic blend of deep house and techno that moved seamlessly and inexorably forward. Other labels performing strongly in this field were Cr2, who took on the Café Mambo series with ease as well as pumping out some excellent party stuff with the MYNC Project. Bedrock still have the nod on tune selection in their field thanks to John Digweed, and their 12th anniversary comp is a bruising triumph. Brownswood, on their fifth instalment of Bubblers compilations, showcased a wealth of original talent.

So what of rock and pop? Well it's not been too shabby there either – and that's where my album of the year comes in. Before that I should wax lyrical on the talents of Everything Everything, whose Man Alive is an adventurous treat both musically and lyrically, Foals, who build impressively on the promise of their first album with Total Life Forever, and James Yuill, who charmed us once again with the winsome sentiments of Movement In A Storm. Special mention, though should go to Edwyn Collins, making an utterly triumphant return with Losing Sleep. Winners, too, were Mystery Jets – brilliant songwriting and uplifting choruses – and School of Seven Bells, bringing shoegaze a new set of wonderful harmonies to enjoy.

And the record of the year? I could tell you exactly where I was when I first heard Gayngs' Relayted – on the train from Cambridge to London. It made me sit up slowly and take notice, before singing into a glorious reverie. It really has been like nothing else I've heard this year, and on paper it shouldn't work. Born out of an obsession with 10CC's I'm Not In Love, it doesn't deviate from 69 beats per minute. Yet it does work, and the cover of Godley & Creme's 'Cry' is the single most beautiful piece of new music I've heard this year.

Onwards and upwards to 2011 we go then, though I'll pen a classical retrospective shortly. I can tell you though, I've already heard a candidate for the best pop album of next year!

Small Craft On A Milk Sea

It's been a while since we heard anything from Brian Eno in a solo capacity, and I suspect his new album, 'Small Craft On A Milk Sea', is the closest we will get, recorded as it is with friends and musical disciples Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams.

The cover gives away a lot of clues to the musical content, a bleak, weather-beaten landscape akin to the planet Mars. Eno wants his listeners to imagine a film that would go with the music – a kind of addition to the 'Music for Films' project in that sense. Sure enough it proves very easy to achieve this sensation, especially if listening on surround sound or headphones.

Yet there is more – and it isn't necessarily what you might expect. The sound pictures, though often disparate, are carefully structured within the context of the album, so that there is a gradual build-up of intensity. The ambience of the beginning doesn't feel comfortable for long, its initially soothing sonorities twisting into foreboding harmonies, as if an explosion is imminent.

The storm arrives in 'Horse' and '2 Forms Of Anger', the sixth track, with the scenery suddenly hurrying past at breakneck speed, emotions fraught and close to losing control. Then, almost as soon as it arrived, the storm is past. This makes the album almost like an inverse hurricane, its eye a seething cauldron of sound.

It's this that makes 'Small Craft On A Milk Sea' so compelling, as the following ambient interludes are far from comfortable and often hint at a second wind. As an overall structure it is proof positive that ambient music can be so much more than the sum of its parts, and it provides confirmation too that Eno remains at the top of his game.

The Lied and how to sing it

For some five years now I have been a regular attendee at the Wigmore Hall of a Monday lunchtime, taking in the BBC Radio 3 concert of the day. The standard of chamber music making is consistently high, but what has been relatively new to me in this period is the world of classical song.

Early on I really struggled with vocal or operatic classical music. "A lot of shouting in a foreign language" is how I heard opera described on the radio once, and that stayed with me for a long time as I struggled to get past the barrier of not knowing the words or, worse, not being able to hear them. And now, thanks largely to the Wigmore concerts, things have changed.

A composer's songs are, perhaps not surprisingly, among the most expressive parts of their output, and it is amazing how helpful it is to either follow the text or preview it beforehand, perhaps along with a synopsis of the piece itself.

My gradual thawing through the world of song has its roots in England and France. A study of Benjamin Britten's 'Serenade for tenor, horn and strings' at university revealed this incredibly emotional music, beautifully structured and orchestrated, with plenty of room given for Peter Pears to project the words. A few years later for a birthday present I was given Anne Sofie von Otter's album 'La Bonne Chanson', and loved the Ravel setting of three Mallarmé settings – more, it has to be said, for the instrumental colour, but gradually the wonderful voice above it shone through.

Yet it's the Wigmore concerts that have really made the difference, and have gradually opened my eyes to the writing of the 'Lied' composers, Schubert, Schumann and Wolf especially.

Five of those concerts really stick out in my mind. Firstly Mark Padmore, singing 'Winter Words' in a way that brought through Britten's stunning Hardy settings, vividly pictorial. Then Gerald Finley sang a concert of Schumann and Grieg, concentrating on settings of the poet Heinrich Heine, and giving a remarkable account of the former composer's 'Belsatzar'.

Then it was Anne Schwanewilms, with the best vocal concert I have yet seen, showing amazing control of the long phrases in Debussy's 'Proses Lyriques' before the same in some sumptuous Richard Strauss. Just as important in this respect was accompanist Roger Vignoles, who proved capable of realising the quasi-orchestral textures on the piano.

Christopher Maltman also proved a surprise hit, with an imaginative program of Richard Strauss, Korngold and four songs by Gustav Holst, an unexpected source. The timeless 'Betelgeuse' was by far the strangest of the quartet, a kind of shorter cousin to 'Saturn' from 'The Planets' in its cumbersome old age, but one that resonated for long afterwards. Finally Véronique Gens, performing the Berlioz song cycle 'Les Nuits d’été', gave an especially sparkling performance of the opening song, 'Villanelle'.

So why am I sharing these five special experiences? To show, I think, that with repeated attempts to get to know a style of music better, it can on occasion be possible to achieve a breakthrough and to grow to love it, especially given the right performers and venue.

I have been very lucky in this case, though I can't yet see how this is going to happen with Country & Western!

Hyperion and 30 years of musical exploration

Something about Hyperion Records brings out the record collecting anorak in me. Of all the new release listings that I get to look at in a month, few give as much anticipation as Hyperion's.

Added to that, none have inspired so many purchases from the cover image alone! A few people would say that's the worst way to buy things, but some of my very best musical discoveries have been made that way. So as the independent record label celebrates its 30th anniversary this month, I thought I would take a bit of time to consider how influential it has been on my musical life. Bear with me while I self-indulge a bit…

The first Hyperion record I bought was a tape – of Frank Bridge works for piano trio and quartet. I'd heard the 'Phantasie Trio' on Radio 3 and liked it – and it seemed perfect Autumnal music. Beautifully presented, performed and recorded, it has a special place in my collection. With such an auspicious start it wasn't long before more followed – and next up was the revelatory John Scott CD of Dupré organ works. I have known few moments as thrilling as when the 'Prelude and Fugue in B major' erupts from the speakers, a wall of euphoric sound that few can rival, music played at the highest possible voltage. Extra enjoyment is added on headphones, when turning the volume right up reveals the background sound of St Paul's Cathedral coming in to focus, before the organ sound blazes a trail across the sky.

Two more revelatory discoveries followed - firstly the sumptuous sound of Granville Bantock's 'Celtic Symphony', with massive string orchestra and twelve harps turning their hand to some infectious folk-inflected material - and then Tatiana Nikolayeva's recording of Shostakovich's '24 Preludes and Fugues', written for her and played with strong personality. Over 3 hours the sense of a musical voyage being made, through each major and minor key, is inescapable.

For me, Hyperion has excelled on pretty much every level it turns its hand to, though chamber and instrumental music is a real specialty. The Domus Piano Quartet recordings of Fauré are terrifically exciting, absolutely on the money technically but also deeply emotional. I have also greatly enjoyed the Salomon Quartet's recordings of Mozart and Haydn, which are currently hard to find but contain great personality and humour, proof that period instrument recordings don't have to be stripped back too far. On the piano I have especially enjoyed Steven Osborne's Debussy 'Préludes', Angela Hewitt's Schumann, and the bits I have heard of Leslie Howard’s monumental traversal of the complete piano works of Liszt. Yet among their piano canon one set of recordings stands out, that made by Howard Shelley early on in the label's history of the complete Rachmaninov piano works. These are not necessarily the most fiery of recordings, but have an honesty and clarity that I really warm to.

More recently my discoveries on the label have been vocal ones. Hearing a sensational concert of Richard Strauss at the Wigmore Hall by Anne Schwanewilms prompted me to go in search of her disc on the label, and I was not disappointed. Where Hyperion have triumphed in this respect is giving creative license to their accompanists, and building a series of songs around their direction. Roger Vignoles has done it for Strauss, and each disc is a winner, presenting the composer’s vocal output sensibly and in the company of great singers such as Christine Brewer, Christopher Maltman and Andrew Kennedy.

Choral music is another strong Hyperion preserve, and here I'd go for the Corydon Singers' recordings of Vaughan Williams (especially the Dona Nobis Pacem) and Rachmaninov (the Vespers, an outstanding performance). The Holst Singers have also charmed, and earlier recordings of Poulenc and Janacek by the New London Chamber Choir have proved very striking.

Early music is another field in which the label excels, and many Kings Consort recordings have brought this field alive for me. Chief among them is Handel's 'Water Music', coupled with an equally pictorial 'Water Music' by Telemann. I tried to play the cello part for this once and couldn't, so it was great to hear a cello section that could master it! Meanwhile Gothic Voices, under the leadership of Christopher Page, have made several cleverly themed CDs that celebrate the music of Mediaeval times. 'Music for the Lion Hearted King' was one that especially left its mark.

The gathering at a recent party to celebrate the label's achievement told its own story. Artists such as Stephen Hough, Steven Osborne, Angela Hewitt and Leslie Howard were all clearly delighted to be celebrating the label’s achievement, the boundaries between their administration, marketing and creative sides completely blurred.

So a very happy birthday Hyperion – and here's to another 30 years of musical exploration. My bank manager might not like you, but you're a real asset to classical music listeners in this country!

Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes

If you are in any way connected with 20th century classical music, the Diaghilev exhibition running for the rest of the year at London's Victoria & Albert museum is a mandatory visit.

On a walk round the generously filled tableaux, a vivid picture emerges of life on and off stage with the Ballet Russes in Paris, and it was certainly no place for shrinking violets or introverts!

There are many great things to see in the exhibition, but none have the impact of the backdrop used for later performances of Stravinsky's 'Firebird'. Walking round the corner to see this huge piece of cloth is a genuinely breathtaking moment.

What also becomes clear is the sheer number of ballets commissioned and staged by Diaghilev, and all are given plenty of exposure here. As well as the obvious examples - the Stravinsky trilogy of 'The Firebird', 'Petrushka' and 'The Rite Of Spring', Debussy's 'Jeux' or Ravel's 'Daphnis et Chloé', there are other startling pieces of modernism. Erik Satie's 'Parade' features strange, mechanistic figures, two of which stand silently towards the end of the exhibition. Prokofiev's 'Chout', a noisy rabble of a piece, is represented by garish costumes, while other composers we might consider minor are also covered - Liadov, Hahn, Nikolai Tcherepnin and Florent Schmitt all writing stage works for the impresario.

There are more artefacts, with commendable space given to Diaghilev's love of arranging 'old' music. One of the masters in this discipline, Respighi, is represented by a florid letter, while there is a page from 'The Firebird', a backdrop from Milhaud's 'Le Train bleu', and four murky impressions of the 'Rite' itself. A beautiful blue background adorns the design for Stravinsky's 'Apollo', while blazing oranges and yellows stand behind Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Golden Cockerel'.

Inspired by the exhibition I turned to Spotify for a musical complement, which can be found here as a playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/benjammin22/playlist/594U5AK8jXv3KPxQvCnbCB

On listening to this it was a delight to rediscover the melodically attractive Poulenc suite for 'Les Biches' and Igor Markevitch's masterly conducting of Rimsky's brilliant suite for 'The Golden Cockerel'. Even without the obvious figures of Stravinsky, Ravel and Debussy, these two alone show how Diaghilev was capable of bringing out the best from his composers.

As something to brighten up the Autumn and provide creative inspiration, this is an hour incredibly well spent - and I will certainly return for more before the exhibition ends in January.

Sending classical music into Orbit

Almost imperceptibly, Decca have sneaked out a second volume of William Orbit's 'Pieces In A Modern Style'.

This may not seem like a massive event, but I remember the furore over the first album when Orbit was on Warners. Copyright issues prevented its release for a long time, and when it did finally come out in 2000 the reaction amongst many of the classical press was one of horror. It sold well, though, and introduced a lot of people to new music in the process.

Especially successful was his arrangement of Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' was hugely successful, a sort of cloudy synthesized registration that stayed faithful to the original, like a mottled Wendy Carlos. Orbit maintains this second volume is more to do with his love of the music rather than a desire to turn more people to classical music, which I firmly believe having interviewed him twice in recent years, but it may have the same effect once again.

It's fair to assume the classical press will continue in their indifference, especially when there are arrangements such as Elgar's 'Nimrod' to be heard. It seems here that Orbit has drawn from the success not just of Barber's 'Adagio' but also its remix by Ferry Corsten, who turned it into a floor filling trance music monster.

'Nimrod' ends up pitched some way in between, with some odd sounding bleeps and atmospherics that break down to a slightly psychedelic bit in the middle. Unfortunately the impact is harmed somewhat by the piece ending that bit too fast. Listening to it I was reminded of the time I tried to write a piece of trance music lifting the chords from Elgar's Cello Concerto, which was certainly unusual but petered out all too quickly once it had run its course.

Some of Orbit's arrangements stand the music on its head. 'Morning' from Grieg's 'Peer Gynt' has a very strange emphasis rhythmically, and while it loses a lot of its charm it benefits from an interesting choice of instrumentation. Likewise 'In Paradisum', which leans on Fauré's beautiful harmonic sleights in the last movement of his Requiem, while Bach's 'Arioso' tries some neat spatial tricks. Unfortunately Saint-Saëns' 'Aquarium', from 'Carnival of the Animals', is not so successful, laced liberally with cheese.

While the above proves is that these arrangements won't please everybody familiar with the originals, and might even annoy, but at no time is Orbit trying to preach from a soapbox. He simply loves the music, and wants to use his abilities in the studio to present it in a different light.

Even if the only thing to come out of the listening experience is a greater respect for the original, that surely has to be a good thing too.

More riveting than magnetism?

So goes the description of Herbert Glossner, as he talks of light directed through a glass prism in a physics class. The writer, a frequent contributor to booklet notes for ECM Records, is using this as a parallel for the music of Arvo Pärt, who himself has said, "I could compare my music to white light, in which all the colours are included". As Pärt reaches his 75th birthday it seems a good time to look again at a composer who to this day proves divisive.

There are some who would say the simplicity of Part's much vaunted 'tintinnabuli' style, relegated to 'holy minimalism' by lazy journalists, steers him away from the idea of any harmonic development. As Glossner points out, though, it is wrong to speak of tonality in the case of Pärt - better, perhaps to look at the triad itself that he has chosen with which to operate in a particular piece.

'Fratres' is a great example here. It is an incredibly flexible piece, a meditation just shy of ten minutes that has been arranged for all kinds of instrumental combinations, from violin and piano to string orchestra. It is definitely the original setting of twelve cellos that works the best, though, and this appears on the first ECM disc to feature the music of Pärt, which remains their most important classical music release.

In this version, 'Fratres' stays rooted to its pedal note of 'G' throughout, making the most of the cellos' open strings and casting a haunting spell as the melody repeats, the harmony bending in response to the melody. The cellists themselves gently knock their instruments at the end of each phrase, giving a natural resonance for a helpful punctuation point.

Since 'Fratres' and 'Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten', the first examples of his 'tintinnabuli' style, Pärt has been incredibly popular for a modern composer, and his Third symphony, an important junction in his output, shows how he has drawn from early music to inform his harmonic and melodic thinking.

This too is clear from the St John Passion, which I saw at the Proms last week (reviewed on Classical Source), though less so in the Fourth symphony (which I reviewed over on musicOMH), given its UK premiere at the festival by the Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

It made me wonder if the adulation he receives in the West these days means he spends less time in his home country of Estonia, and if his music and its effects are now more Hollywood than Tallinn. In the two concerts I have wondered at the St John Passion and its subtle repetition and meditation, spun over an hour and ten minutes, then have scratched my head rather more at the structure and apparent lack of climax in the Fourth Symphony. This work, subtitled Los Angeles, shows just how far from home Pärt is now operating, and though its style is unmistakeably his, it feels much more preplanned than a piece such as 'Cantus' or 'Fratres'.

It will be interesting to see if Pärt continues to respond to overseas commissions in this way. When he's at his best his music truly is captivating and entrancing, but it seems that as with so many contemporary composers the early works are the best – or, for now, the best understood. Time will tell, but I will continue to head to his music of the 1970s and 1980s for an assurance of originality and truly wonderful other-worldliness.

Schumann - a birthday wish

Two centuries ago this year, one of my favourite composers was born – Robert Schumann. His influence on his contemporaries, notably Brahms, is considerable, while Elgar, Shostakovich and more recently Kurtág are just three composers to acknowledge his influence and recognise his subtle innovations and melodic skills.
In this month's Gramophone magazine, the cellist Steven Isserlis, an ardent exponent of the composer, delights in his unpredictable style, focussing on more unsung pieces such as the piano trios to prove his point, and pointing out that these, along with several Schumann chamber works, are now regular features of the concert repertoire.

And yet it remains fashionable for journalists and critics to take pot shots at him, and they find it all too easy to criticise orchestration, melodic style, harmonic invention and form. On one of the sites for which I regularly write, I have found three separate reviewers condemning the 'Rhenish' symphony as a deeply flawed work. One even goes as far as to say that 'most famous for his lieder, Schumann's skills as a symphonist are questionable to say the least'.

This, in my view at least, is utter rubbish - whichever of the composer’s four symphonies you choose to listen to. Steven Isserlis also argues on the composer's behalf, both in the characteristically passionate Gramophone piece and in an interview I did with him for musicOMH, where he affirmed Schumann to be his favourite composer.

In my opinion, Schumann proves a highly gifted melodist, an extremely perceptive mood setter, and a composer with a beautiful harmonic turn to his writing. Many of his works bear this out - and as I write I continue to discover more. Two examples will suffice, however, despite the temptation to turn to the piano music – the first the glorious Adagio and Allegro for horn or cello and piano, and the second the unfairly maligned 'Rhenish'.

That no less a figure than Oliver Knussen performed the symphony at the Proms recently shows how much esteem in which he holds the work. In the best performances this piece bursts from the blocks with an expression of undiluted joy, and in the two period instrument performances I have been lucky enough to enjoy that has emphatically been the case.

Sure, there are plenty of notes at times, and the good tunes are repeated relatively frequently, but the notion these techniques are somehow backward is a hackneyed one. Indeed, when Mahler revisited the symphonies to change some of the orchestration and form this was out of love and admiration, so that he could use them as a conductor – a fact lost on several writers who have used this as another stick with which to beat the composer.

So let's hear it for one of the 19th century's true musical greats and finest composers, and let's hope he gets his due recognition, despite the current state of misunderstanding.

Recomposing Mahler

Deutsche Grammophon's occasional series 'Recomposing' invites recognised electronic producers to offer a fresh take on their chosen piece of classical music. Carl Craig and Jimi Tenor are previous targets in the series, but when the label asked Matthew Herbert to contribute, they may not have envisaged that he would go to such lengths to air his thoughts on the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony.

Herbert takes the recording made by Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Philharmonia as his starting point, and feeds it through his own studio technology. I listened to his reinterpretation for the first time late last night, conditions ideal for one of the finest nocturnal pieces of nocturnal music I have experienced.

Herbert bravely starts with the famous, all-encompassing chord from the symphony's climax, but floats it past the listener like a thick cloud, completely out of focus. There is then a sudden cut to a relatively scratchy viola playing the movement's main theme, recorded live at Mahler's graveside – a typical touch of Herbert reverence and invention (some would say eccentricity) rolled in to one. The movement then unfolds as you would expect, musically, but spatially we're on the move, tumbling forward through space, then suddenly stopping to take in an atmosphere, then zooming in on a micro theme.

With Herbert using the principal material early on it would seem there is nowhere to go, but these spatial variations are intriguing. They become disconcerting on headphones, like a piece of David Lynch film music, and several times I found myself looking round for noises that were not there. Herbert does, however, keep the serenity of the original. There is more than a hint of Damien Hirst, especially in the idea of recording some of the symphony being played in a coffin - but Herbert stops well short of the artist's sensationalist tactics, composing out of reverence for Mahler rather than a desire to shock. And yes, he is 'composing' in the true meaning of the word, taking the elements of the music that hint at an extra dimension - the harmonic advances, the silvery wisps of melody and the occasionally sudden gear change from slow to manic - before a restful return is made. Herbert gets all of that with modern recording techniques that move between the affectionate, the macabre and the downright strange.

The focus on spatial awareness means Herbert can pan out from the orchestra when he wants to, taking us underwater, out of body, out in to the open. It's a reimagining of the traditional 'sat down' concert experience, a response taken on the move. Sometimes the bass is really ramped up, with a sudden sense of anger in the fourth section, where the searing violins pierce a raft of warped distortion in the middle.
Perhaps inevitably the tension lags, and a passing hearse (recorded live, of course) offers relatively little, until the chord itself comes back in its proper place. Here the effect is massive, with everything to the max, especially the trumpet - and then the hammering drums and something like a massive windscreen wiper get to work, the only time Herbert employs his own percussion. The comedown is truly spooky and unsettling, before the music ends in weightlessness. And then, a door shuts – a simple and poignant moment.

So why go to this level of description? It is an attempt to show how much Herbert has put into his view of Mahler's final completed symphonic movement, a kind of a musical analysis of his reaction. It proves to be fascinating stuff, if a little macabre at times, but shows ultimately just how much electronic music and classical music rub shoulders. Composers of the former kind are much more plugged in than you might think.

A Postcard from Paris - The World's First Musical Art Gallery

An intriguing first session of the IAMA conference in the Cité De La Musique ten days ago was bolstered by the considerable presence of Pierre Boulez. We saw the presentations of new concert halls in Paris, Porto and Miami, with the latter visible on this link: //www.nws.edu/NewCampus/ImageGallery.html

Being Miami, intentionally or not, image comes right to the fore. In this case the images are those projected onto parts of the new concert hall, to complement or accompany the music made by the New World Symphony, or as projections to accompany DJ mixes.

This last point is worth exploring, as more and more classical venues seem to be throwing wide their horizons and casting off their aversions to the other genres, embracing the possibilities instead.

I was briefly mulling over this while having a beer to Tom Middleton's DJ set before the Stereo MCs' gig on the South Bank the other week, the Royal Festival Hall seemingly able to adapt itself to all kinds of music without being compromised. The Clore Ballroom had been turned into a club, as had the RFH itself a few months earlier when Carl Craig came to town.

It's encouraging to see this cross pollenisation taking place. I wonder if it means we'll see Mozart symphonies at the Ministry of Sound, or Paul Weller playing at the Wigmore Hall?

Both are unlikely of course, but in this session, Pierre Boulez came up with several pithy phrases of wisdom. One was the observation that his teacher, Olivier Messiaen, used colours for chords. This was all very well, Boulez said, but he did not operate in the same way. Instead he chose to say he was not sceptical about the concept, but actively negative - the same way he felt about the new concert hall. "I don't want to see the open mouth, that is why I am not a doctor!" he offered as a comparison.

Proof, then, that there are many ways of taking in a classical concert - and that this new approach is going to walk a fine line between bringing in new concertgoers and frustrating the current ones.

More thoughts on the IAMA conference to follow anon...

Port O'Brien 1, Arsenal 0

Music or football?

It's a question I occasionally have to grapple with – and am expecting to more this year than most, with the World Cup coming up in June. The most recent conundrum occurred on Tuesday night just gone. With Barcelona and Arsenal looking to reprise their amazing Champions' League game from the week before, where they pretty much turned football into an art form, I found myself double booked with Port O'Brien at the Borderline.

Now for all sorts of reasons it hadn't been a good day – the normal sort of post-Easter blues, having drunk and eaten too much over the holiday – and with a headache as well I was beginning to think I'd made the wrong choice. This was made worse by a quick glance at the phone on my way out to see it was already 1-1 in the football with just half an hour gone – and that two of my trains had been cancelled. Thankfully I rolled up at the Borderline – or down the stairs – just as the band were coming on.

And there it all changed. Seems Port O'Brien had experienced a day far worse than mine, as half their band were still back in Oakland, having decided not to tour for some reason. They had two freshers out on the stage, their guitars and equipment were playing up, and the odds, even with a sell-out crowd, were stacking up against them.
They reckoned without charismatic front man Van Pierszalowski, who showed us just how much he believes in his own music and lyrics. Giving him an ideal balance were the softly spoken trio around him – and it soon became clear all they wanted to do was play music and sing their songs. It wasn't long before the crowd were smiling, laughing at his jokes – but also appreciating the raw emotion he was putting into the darker songs from last year's 'Threadbare' album.

Capping it off was one of those classic audience participation moments, as we were invited to holler at the tops of our voices to one of the band's best songs, I Woke Up Today. It was an exhilarating experience, and for the first time in the evening I felt sure in the knowledge I'd made the right choice, a choice borne out by Arsenal's 4-1 defeat. Proof, perhaps, that music has the power to reach places even football can't get to!

The Artful Fare Dodgers

It's taken me a while, but thanks to recent reviewing for musicOMH.com and DMC Update I've finally come around to the idea that, in electronic music at least, dubstep represents a big part of the future.

Initially I was tempted to write it off as a bit of a one hit wonder, like 'two step' (or 'UK garage', 'speed garage', or - cringe - 'raggage', as it was briefly known in the late '90s). But then it occurred to me that particular style, whatever you call it, hasn't really died out either. If anything, dubstep takes its lead from the likes of Tuff Jam, Double 99 and 187 Lockdown, all prominent names in 1998 or thereabouts.

Few styles evoke the empty streets of night time South London so vividly. I remember falling asleep once on the night bus, missing my stop and waking up in Penge (don't ask!). The Bug's 'London Zoo' album was still on the headphones – and it seemed totally appropriate to be listening to that, if not a tad scary once the lights were off and the bus empty. Caspa, too, had quite an effect, and so did the recent album from Scuba that I finished reviewing last night. This record, his third if you include a recent DJ mix, shows that dubstep is actually a really flexible musical form. Along with the likes of D-Bridge and Instra:mental, whose Fabric compilation I recently reviewed for DMC Update, Scuba has brought it into focus alongside house and drum 'n' bass, reminding me a bit of the music of Photek in the late 1990s. When done at its best like this, dubstep might have a pretty basic set of elements, but it creates a mean and moody atmosphere.

The pinnacle of the genre remains Burial, and that wonderful pair of albums, thickly layered with fog and not a little paranoid. His approach is among the darkest, with little upward movement through either record, but the music is deeply emotive. Skream and Benga more club friendly, and we await their second albums with interest. But proof that dubstep is here to stay comes with the fact most of its main producers have now made and released successful second albums, carrying them off to better effect than their first. Very few areas of dance music can claim that as an achievement – big beat certainly couldn't, nor drum 'n' bass, and definitely not UK garage, as none were really suited to the long playing format.

Dubstep's next move, then, will be well worth watching. While some of it might be a touch on the bleak side, this is understated but very powerful music, especially when powered up on headphones late at night, whatever night bus you're on...

Oversteps and step overs

Recently I've been listening a lot to the music of Autechre, marvelling at their way with sound, colour and structure. Their new album 'Oversteps' is out next week, and a few weeks ago I interviewed the band's Rob Brown about their music.

For a duo who profess to having no musical education, the instincts for musical motifs and their development is uncanny – and just goes to prove that while musical schooling can be incredibly useful, a sixth sense when writing it is as important, if not more so. The band are far from alone in this – many of today's top pop / electronic artists don't have any musical education, surviving on raw talent, instinct and experience. It's like football I guess – some of the world's best players don't need to train, while others, David Beckham for instance, got to an even higher level through relentless practice.

It's one of the areas where pop and classical differ most. Classical music is taught thoroughly, and opera singers especially are advised not to approach the music of certain composers – Wagner for instance – until they have built up a solid experience and allowed their voices to develop fully. It explains why many of the leading singers are in their fifties at least.

But back to Autechre. In the interview with Rob Brown, he confirmed my sentiments. The pair are at their happiest in the studio, trying out ideas, moulding them together, seeing what works and what doesn't, drawing on their influences and imagination to bring something totally unique.

If I heard their music without knowing their background, I would suspect them of having a classical past, and when reviewing previous album 'Quaristice' two years back, suggested a similarity in approach to the music of Anton Webern, due to the way they use small pockets of sound and melody as part of a bigger whole. No Autechre album proceeds without a challenge to the listener, but this is music that rewards those prepared to take up the baton.

Ultimately, though, their music proves a great thing – that to be successful, you don't necessarily need to train first. A little instinct goes an incredibly long way.

The sea is calm tonight

What do William Orbit, Ferry Corsten, Escala, Leonard Bernstein and the Emerson String Quartet have in common?

This isn't about a bizarrely conceived talent show or a fantasy musical program. No - all have recorded Samuel Barber's 'Adagio For Strings', in one way or another. Orbit made an especially effective arrangement for synthesizers as part of his 'Pieces In A Modern Style' album in 2000, while Ferry Corsten took the baton and ran with it to create a trance monster, pulverising dancefloors later that same year. Escala - well, the less said about their post 'Britain’s Got Talent' mutilation the better. Bernstein, of course, wrought maximum feeling from the piece in its beefed-up, emotionally wrenching arrangement for full string orchestra. That's the arrangement that appears in the film 'Platoon', where it was really made famous, unfolding in a seemingly endless phrase as the soldiers lost their lives.

Of these performers, only the Emersons have played the piece in its totally original form, as the second movement of the composer's String Quartet. I got to see the whole piece as part of a Barber centenary concert at the Wigmore Hall on Monday, and it reminded me that Barber should be much more than a one hit wonder.

For me, his overall style is different to that of the 'Adagio'. Exploring beyond that brings you naturally to the Violin Concerto, a highly attractive, Spring-like piece with a warm heart. For a more steely edge, one of the composer's 'Essays' for orchestra - preferably the second - works extremely well.

The Wigmore concert revealed several aspects to the Barber's writing. His 'European' side is more serious, with longer structures that can be fiercely expressive, romantic even. The Cello Sonata and Piano Sonata fell into these categories, the latter exploring jazz syncopations. For a more carefree, American approach, the piano duet 'Souvenirs' did the job perfectly, telling a tale of time spent in a New York hotel listening to the house band. All sorts of dance forms played off each other, wrapped up in spicy harmonies and catchy melodies.

The hidden treasures in Barber's output are the songs. The title of this post is actually the first line from 'Dover Beach', a tragic but romantic setting of Matthew Arnold for baritone and string quartet. Early Barber songs charm with their simplicity, while the later works are sometimes elusive but ultimately more rewarding. Into this category fall the 'Hermit Songs', recorded by the soprano Barbara Bonney and pianist André Previn just over ten years back.

So while Messrs Orbit and Corsten might not find any more source material for further ambience or trance, the curious will have plenty to reward their endeavours.

Alex Ross - The Classical Concert

Enjoyable though it was, the Royal Philharmonic Society annual lecture from the author Alex Ross felt like something of a missed opportunity. That's not to say we learned nothing from his understated piece, but that the audience didn't go away feeling new resolve for classical concerts to try new methods of development.

Through his lecture entitled 'Inventing and Reinventing The Classical Concert', Ross gave us a potted history of applause. We heard how the premiere of Mozart’s 'Paris' symphony was disrupted – in a good way – by the audience clapping and enjoying the composer's pranks of orchestration. We then heard how Serge Koussevitsky rounded on his own audience for applauding between movements, part of a perceived climate where the maestro conductors looked after not just the orchestra but the audience too. We didn’t hear about 'The Rite Of Spring', whose premiere Ross sets up so compellingly in his outstanding book 'The Rest Is Noise', nor famous examples of outrage that greeted premieres by Schoenberg, Cage or Steve Reich.

There was the intriguing idea of classical music's acoustic properties versus pop’s electronics, as well as the thought that coughing, sighing and shushing are all bad things. Yet while these explorations were worthwhile, there were no solutions of substance, little suggestion as to how classical music can get round the problem.

For me the problem narrows to two things in particular – freedom of expression, and respect of other people's tastes. These vary from one venue to another and from one ensemble's concerts to another. Regular UK concert goers will expect more audience freedom for concerts by the Britten Sinfonia, for instance, than they will from the English Chamber Orchestra. The audiences are – without discriminating – very different, but there is still some overlap. Some people are flexible enough to enjoy both approaches, others prefer to stick to one approach. Both viewpoints are valid, and there must be room for both in concert going.

Where I have a real problem with classical concerts is the way they often discourage newcomers. If I was taking someone to a concert for the first time, I would choose my ensemble, repertoire and venue carefully, because before you even get to the music, and the challenges that offers, you have to acquaint yourself with some often bizarre audience etiquette. It's a bit like going to church, and having the need of a sixth sense to know when to stand up, sit down, sing, kneel or speak – and all of that while the performer leaves the stage and comes back on. Not as easy as it sounds!

So how can classical music get round it? The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment offer a sound solution – a regular concert experience in their company might now involve a pre-concert talk, the concert itself, and the 'Night Shift', where potted highlights of the concert are performed again, and elements of the music are taken outside into the bar, mingling with the audience through improvisation.

Some ensembles are using websites to their enormous advantage too. The London Philharmonic Orchestra allows you to listen to the music before the concert, which is a huge plus given the explorations their programmes promise at the moment.

Ultimately, then, the Ross lecture raised more questions than it did answers – but that of course makes it a success, as that's what this sort of event is supposed to do.