Tall Guy
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My liking for classical/concert hall music was already blossoming thanks to a wide selection of LPs from the local library in my mid-teens, but Previn’s Rollerball really blasted the door open with his Shostakovich selections.
I never enjoyed ANY rap or hip hop music until I heard Desplat’s Nid de Guêpes, the French-language rap track from which I thought was fantastic. It didn’t lead to a fondness for any other rap.
I think the only genre that really qualifies for this would be jazz, in the respective hands of Legrand, Mancini, Morricone, Barry, Schifrin and later, Komeda. And others, I imagine, which currently escape me.
I don’t know much of Grieg apart from the towering piano concerto, Peer Gynt, the Holberg Suite and that wedding day piano piece. Looking at his works I’m surprised to see a symphony (and sketches for a second one) which I’d like to hunt out. Otherwise, I’m not a huge fan of songs and solo piano works.
Really a big Grieg supporter, Thor? Or is it like me saying, yeah, Elgar could beat up Smetana any day of the week!
… and when I think about Sibelius, my mind usually turns to Carl Nielsen, who wrote just one symphony fewer than his better-known Scandinavian colleague. I mentioned attending the Proms concerts; there was a time when we had seen every Proms performance of the Nielsen third symphony they ever put on.
In other words, we saw its Proms debut (only took them 80-odd years!) and again when they played it a few years later. I don’t know often it’s been played since.
Each symphony has its own character, with probably more variation than Sibelius but still evoking in most cases the wide-open vistas and forests of his homeland. The sixth throws in many nods to 1920s modernity.
In addition, he wrote concertos for violin, flute and clarinet, all of which are worth your time, plus a very punchy wind quintet. Another great composer mostly overlooked by Classic FM and other mainstream media.
Does it have anything to do with the QUILLER MEMORANDUM? Great theme, btw, shades of Stevie Wonder’s «Superstition».
Yes – the same source material. Originally “The Berlin Memorandum”, the George Segal / Max von Sydow film was a decent stab at the book, apart from making Quiller an American. Adam Hall (a pseudonym of Elleston Trevor) wrote 19 Quiller novels,from 1966 up to his death in 1996. Along with the Fleming Bond books, this was a series of spy stories that I read and re-read.
10 goals, wow. Congratulations to England with your first medal since 1966!
Shows how entertaining games can be when there’s little or no pressure. We’ve now finished first, third and fourth in various world cups, which doesn’t sound too bad until you look at the records of most of the other major European football powers. France, Spain, Germany and Italy have all won it at least twice.
The Netherlands have finished second three times, and should probably have won it twice on quality.
Mind you, our record in the Euros is worse, having lost in two finals in a tournament that Czechoslovakia (as was), Greece and Denmark have all won.
But I did discover Sibelius some years ago, after being sceptical of Finlandia for a long time. His symphonies are brilliant, quite unique, and very beautiful
I quite enjoy his nationalistic works and tone poems but I needn’t ever hear them again. On the other hand, his symphonies and the violin concerto are required listening and I work through them all in order every so often. The fifth is my very favourite, followed by the second. The finale of the fifth is stunning and rarely fails to raise the hair on the back of my neck.
Some time in the 1990s we found ourselves sitting next to a very old Finnish lady at the Royal Albert Halls proms for a Sibelius-based concert. We got talking to her, and she said she’d known Sibelius when she was young. I asked her why he wrote very little for the last thirty years of his life and she got a twinkle in her eye and with her hand she made an unmistakable drinking motion.
I think I’ve mostly heard of Weinberg via you, to be honest (although I’ve taken note whenever the name has been mentioned elsewhere…he was the answer of a classical quiz show question in Denmark a few years ago, and I immediately thought of you!)
That’s very sweet 😉 !
Here’s another favourite, Violin and Piano sonata no 5. A deceptively simple basic melody which keeps burrowing into your soul…
One of my favourites is the Quiller theme from the short-lived mid-seventies series starring Michael Jayston. I was excited to watch it, as I’d been reading the marvellous Adam Hall books for a few years by then.
You can find all the episodes now on YouTube, and honestly it’s a pretty poor series! Only one of the episodes was based on the books (The Tango Briefing), the writing was cliched, the acting not great and it lost entirely the main attraction of the books, which is the first-person stream of consciousness that makes up the narrative. It was replaced by giving Quiller various partners to whom he could mansplain, not that it was called that then. I’m convinced that there remains a great untapped source of thriller/spy stories in the books.
The score for the TV series was drawn from the classical (in the broad sense) and light music repertoires and never really convinced. The killer main theme by Denton and Cook can still be brought to mind without any effort.
In HMV, maybe ten years ago, I noticed a Naxos disc of someone called Mieczysław Weinberg, whose Symphony no 12 is subtitled “In memorium D.Shostakovich”, which at any point since the late seventies would have raised my eyebrows.
Being Naxos, it was cheap enough to take a risk on, so I bought it and listened to it in the car, expecting a load of Shostakovich quotations. There were hardly any obvious ones; a chord here, a hint there. But the noise it made was (heh) music to my ears.
In no time at all, I’d bought every Naxos Weinberg disc I could find – symphonies, concertos, string quartets, sonatas. Some of the chamber music hasn’t properly landed with me yet, but the majority of it is fantastic. Some favourites:
Cello concerto – a beautiful klezmer-inflected first movement with three energetic following movements, written for and premiered by Rostropovich.
Third Symphony – If you’re a fan of Sibelius, this will be a revelation, fresh air and mountains, quite unlike most Soviet-era works.
Violin concerto – opens with a frantically urgent first movement, and the rest of it is close in intensity but more introspective.
Eighth Symphony “Polish Flowers” – a song cycle, which normally wouldn’t appeal that much, but this is so melodic and dramatic that I find it thoroughly haunting. It’s dedicated to the young Polish victims of Nazi atrocities.
Several of the Naxos discs have short fillers, all of which are enjoyable.
Weinberg was a friend of Shostakovich, not a pupil, and the two “competed” from the 50s through to Shostakovich’s death, demo-ing their symphonies and string quartets to each other. Sadly, Weinberg (also sometimes spelled Vaynberg) doesn’t feature in many musical encyclopaedias. There isn’t a single work of his in the 2026 proms programme, for instance, and he’s never on Classic FM, which is a shame because he deserves to be more widely known.
On reflection, I think it would be perfectly appropriate for Argentina to be disqualified for the (pointless) political gesture by the players at full time…
🙂
Good way of putting it. Clever Argentina players, very good at just staying out of the ref’s book while winding up the opposition. Then crying when the tables are turned.
Wow – is everyone shocked into silence that I not only managed to quote Kev but also embed YouTube?
Heh – come on England! You’re not Leeds United, of course, but I’d still quite like you to win 😁
Yes, Leeds Utd and Man City and he was involved in two famous incidents involving Roy Keane of Man Ure.
Haaland injured Keane in the first incident, but stood over Keane shouting and accusing him of feigning injury.
Keane recovered and much later, exacted revenge by targeting his knee, in a deliberate challenge which led to Keane standing over Haaland shouting whatever, before being sent off for the deliberate challenge. All very unsavoury.That’s mostly but not entirely true, as you can establish by watching the first incident on YouTube.
In the first incident Haaland ran past Keane from behind him, and whether by accident or design, Keane clipped Haaland’s ankle, bringing him down and injuring himself. Haaland remonstrated briefly with Keane for what Haaland felt was a dangerous tackle on him, not realising how badly Keane was injured. Leeds keeper Nigel Martin ushered Alfie away. No blame whatsoever on Alfie’s part.
Keene’s misplaced and appalling revenge should have resulted in a lifetime ban, if not a criminal charge. It wasn’t a footballing incident, it was premeditated actual bodily harm. He’s another tosser who shouldn’t get a penny of income from TV punditry. (See also Jamie Carragher.)
For many years, I confused Sam Neill with Pierce Brosnan. But Neill was always the better actor.
If I have this right, Sam Neill was pushed into auditioning for Bond in The Living Daylights by his agent, the reluctance being because Neill knew that his friend Pierce Brosnan was very keen on the role.
As we all know, Timothy Dalton got the job when Brosnan was obliged to continue with Remington Steele. Personally, and well off topic, I’d have preferred Brosnan to have The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill under his belt and Dalton to have done Goldeneye through to Die Another day. Realistically, as Tim would have been 55 for DAD that might have been a stretch. Although Moore was of course older than Connery. But I’m going around in irrelevant circles, now.
RIP Sam Neill. You were excellent in Peaky Blinders.
We have a Sonos One gen 2 in the kitchen, which produces a fantastic sound for its size. Mrs TG is a former rock chick and after a gin and tonic or two is known to revisit her younger days via the miracle of Spotify.
The other night, after a visit from the family, she played Fleetwood Mac on it for an hour and it was as if they were in the room with us. It’s been much, much worse.
Talk to me of ducks and duduks…
My father-in-law started to learn piano in his early 80s and is terrible 😂.
I don’t play anything. At various times from the age of 11 I’ve tried the violin, guitar and keyboard, obviously not at the same time, and found myself to be both untalented and too lazy to practice.
My half-sister-in-law had a clarinet from school which she demonstrated and offered us to try. I couldn’t get anything out of it at all, until she said to do something with teeth on the reed and sure enough a pure note miraculously escaped. Of course, I wanted immediately to be able to play La Califfa, but there remained the issue of fingering.
One thing I certainly can do with a degree of success is whistle. The best environment is a pub toilet, where the consistently hard surfaces produce a beautiful tone. Unfortunately, breathing in isn’t always palatable in such a situation.
Can’t help thinking that the footballing gods have let us into the semifinal just so we can manage our usual self-immolation against the Argentinians. I wonder what lies in store for us this time…
I get nostalgia (by proxy as I was too young to be aware of it) for when Argie players were sent off for “the look in his eyes”.
Where Norway won last night is in the members of the crowd whom the camera-operators chose to feature. Must visit there one day!
I missed the earlier game, but am currently watching Sui vs Col. It feels as if, for this game only, the concept of goals has been eradicated in favour of deciding the game by number of fouls committed.
I blow hot and cold about supporting our fellow “home nations”. Currently it looks like like this:
Wales – I’ll support them when playing anyone except England. That’s because over a third of their starting team play for Leeds: Karl Darrow, Ethan Ampadu, Joe Roden, Dan James.
Scotland – currently not a fan! Not as long as John McGinn is playing for them. He put Archie Gray’s career back a year with a scummy, eyes-closed tackle in a pre-season friendly. While Archie plays for Spurs now, he’s one of our own.
Northern Ireland – indifferent. Good luck to them but I’m disinterested.
So yes I’m petty. Sue me.
Edit: but not as petty as Kev 🙂
Wow – great result for your guys, thanks to Leeds United fan Erling and a stellar performance by the keeper. I hope your next game is against England, but we’ve got a tough match later on.
Equally difficult to stay awake for it!
Did you listen to the 2010 recording from Akira Ifukube Works for Piano, Volume 2? That recording required two pianists on the second piano. What I watched yesterday was a live performance of the piece performed by Reiko Yamada on the first piano and Patrick Godon on the second. The 2010 recording was also performed by the duo with Brett Rowe being the other pianist on the second piano.
I’m not too sure, but two of the hands definitely belonged to Reiko Yamaha 🙂
This may be common knowledge, but I’ve found a version of Ritmica Ostinata for two pianos. Like any good piano reduction it gives new insights into the bone structure of the piece and makes demands of the player or players that don’t exist in the orchestral original.
My favourite piano reduction is the Shostakovich 4th symphony, arranged for two pianos by DDS himself and played on CD by Heyroudinoff and Stone, where it sustains the excellence from start to finish. The Ifukube glitters all the way through except the last couple of minutes, where the pianos can’t quite do justice to the brilliant crescendo.
My top five all time favorite movies could be categorized as belonging to the genres Western, Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy, and Science Fiction, so it’s a bit spread out.
I can’t think of one film that fits all those criteria, never mind five…
We saw this film on release, and found it hard to sit through. At the time our kids were very young and Mrs TG found it especially challenging when David was abandoned in the woods. I’m sure most parents of young children would feel the same.
We’ve watched it once or twice since then, and I do like it, both for the film and the score, but it’s not one we regularly return to. I have no problem with the ambitious ending.
I can honestly say that I’m not familiar with any of the scores you’ve listed above, only having a superficial exposure to his Godzilla scores from his film work.
I know – shameful!
However, one of my favourite pieces of music of any type is his “Ritmica Ostinata”, roughly twenty minutes of driving orchestral music which features the piano more as a percussion instrument than a melodic one. I suspect it may be really demanding on the pianist, as it hardly pauses for breath throughout. If I never do hear any of your listed scores, Ifukube will still remain a composer for when I have an enormous fondness for this piece alone.
There’s a great version of it on the Naxos label, played by Ekaterina Saranceva under Dmitri Yablonski and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, who made such a great job of Boris Tischchenko’s absolutely bonkers 7th Symphony.