All posts by Jay

Musician, aesthete, lover of concord.
what I'm up to

Soma Quintet

1 Comment

From Evernote:

Soma Quintet

On Sunday, a freezing cold, rainy night in Dublin, when 5000 brave souls were taking part in a nighttime 10km run through the city, I went into the United Arts Club (a members club on Fitzwilliam Street) for a jazz gig. I’ve been to the Arts Club once before, playing piano at a Christmas party, and apparently the place has had a bit of a sprucing up recently. It still retains the homely quality that makes it so charming and was a perfect venue for listening to the music. The room is a double-size Georgian living room and comfortably accomodated the audience of about 30 who attended. Everything sounded good — they used a Nord keyboard rather than the upright that’s there, and the double bass and the guitar went through amps, too.

Barry Rycraft led the group through a set that started with a Charles Mingus tune, Moanin’. Sam Comerford was out front on tenor sax and plays with a great tone through the whole range of the instrument. The head of the tune features a catchy motif — "BooooodlyapBAP", I reckon! I was mightily impressed by pianist Leopold Osio, too, who turned out some lovely playing on this tune.

After this tasty opener, we heard three large-scale compositions of Barry’s. ‘Mister Biscuits’ was influenced by Mingus and this was most evident in the bass solo, accompanied only by the other band members clapping a simple ostinato that Barry played over. Rhythm is something that features heavily in what I’ve heard of Barry’s writing and he really went to town on this solo, exploring all kinds of rhythmic counterpoint that must’ve kept the band on their toes! It was certainly really engaging as an audience member to follow the piece through its various sections.

Next, they played ‘Tuesday’, a swirling bolero in five (as opposed to the familiar three — think of Ravel’s famous ostinato: dum ratata-ta-ta dum-ta). I played piano in a trio with Barry and Satya Darcy (on drums last night) when this piece was in its infancy and it was great to hear it with the augmented group. All grown up but still cute as hell!

Lastly, we had the rocking ‘Twelve Year Itch’. I remember this one, too, from when Barry first wrote it. Again central to the piece is a captivating rhythmic idea that sets the members of the group against each other in counterpoint to create a compelling power chord mosaic over which the sax soars with a muscular minor 3rd riff. (At the very end, everyone’s accents coincide finally in an emphatic ending that releases us satisfyingly from the piece’s grip.) Featured this time was Dan Soro on electric guitar (a rather nice Fender Stratocaster which he used for this tune only). His solo was over a new section of music that seemed to climb ever upwards as he played. Loved it!

Barry and the band are playing on Thursday night in the Kevin Barry Room at The National Concert Hall. He is graduating from the Newpark School of Music BA in Jazz Performance and this marks the culmination of four years training. The gig is free and starts at 7pm.

composers, forthcoming events, Intellectual, songs, Technical, what I'm up to

First solo gig in a long time (and a bit about playing Bach on piano)

Leave a comment

Emma O’Reilly asked me to play at a songwriter evening she curated the other night in The Mercantile bar. It’s a long while since I played my own stuff, so I jumped at the chance. I took out the guitar earlier that day at home to practice and ended up writing a new song — something I haven’t done in a long, long while!

I’ve been meeting up with a friend of mine, Peter Ryan, to hang out and talk about writing and give each other encouragement with stuff we’re working on. My lack of any new material prompted me to go back over the voice memo recordings of song ideas that I’ve made on my phone. It was two of these that I worked up into the song, which I’ve called ‘Panic’. I *do* have a demo recording of just me and the guitar, but I won’t post it up yet. I didn’t do a brilliant job of playing it the other night at the gig, so I feel like it needs to stay on the drawing board for a bit longer. I’m hoping to maybe work it up into a bigger arrangement, so you can hear it then…!

Buoyed by the experience of playing Emma’s gig, I got in touch with Lisa McLaughlin and got a slot on a forthcoming ‘Saucy Sundays’ gig (the regular showcase that she hosts in The Grand Social). Sunday 13 May — I’ll be on first 🙂

Another date of note (for my diary, anyway) is Friday the 18th of May. I just got word yesterday that that’s when my Grade 8 piano exam is scheduled for. Eek! The pieces are coming along nicely and I’m chipping away at the scales day by day — there are so many! I just read Charles Rosen’s book ‘Piano Notes’, which had some really interesting thoughts about playing Bach. One of the pieces I’m playing for the exam is Bach’s Fugue in B flat from the first book of ‘The Well-Tempered Keyboard’. He wrote a Prelude and a Fugue in each of the twelve major keys…and also each of the twelve minor keys…and then he did that all again. The interesting thing that Rosen points out is that these were never meant to be performed in public (and certainly not on a modern piano, more likely on a harpsichord or a clavichord). Bach would’ve used them as teaching material and so the modern practice of accentuating each appearance of the main theme of the fugue (the ‘subject’) is not how he would’ve expected the pieces to be played. For a start, the keyboard instruments of his day couldn’t do gradations of dynamics in the subtle way a piano can (a piano-forte, to give it its full name, is so called because of its ability to do both soft and loud). Secondly, since it wasn’t for an audience, the people hearing the fugue would’ve been the player or a pupil following the score — both of whom would have no need to have the appearances of the subject spelled out to them, since it was in front of them. Thirdly, the subject is the least interesting bit of the piece if you’re Bach. It’s just the bones to which the artistic flesh of the composer’s counterpoint is attached. All that having been said, if the pieces *are* to be performed for an audience who neither know the score nor have the aesthetic sensibilities of an eighteenth century harpsichord pupil, the pianist would do well to bring alive the music (to ‘publish’ it, as Rosen puts it), and some underlining of the structure of these remarkable pieces is the way to go.

All great food for thought. I’d recommend the book to anyone who plays piano or has an interest in classical piano music — it’s an easy read, with loads of anecdotes and insight into the repertoire and life of a pianist.

composers, links, Technical, what I'm up to

Piano practice

1 Comment

Practice continues for the Grade 8 exam. The three pieces I have to perform are coming along: Bach’s Fugue in Bb from the first book of ‘The 48’, Schubert’s Scherzo in Bb, and Shostakovich’s Prelude in D (from the Op. 34 set). Today I got a good bit of work done on all three.

This morning I listened to Murray Perahia’s 2000 recording of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, a piece I fell in love with when I was at university. The beautiful Aria that bookends the variations was featured in the film ‘The English Patient’ and my flatmate George had the soundtrack on CD. It also has a lovely version of ‘Cheek to Cheek’, as I recall… I encountered the piece again while staying on the Scottish island of Arran in my second year at university. A few of us went and stayed in a cottage there — I remember it raining a lot. We were armed with a box set of Bruckner symphonies, but it was a brief snippet in a TV documentary of Glenn Gould playing the fifth Goldberg variation that made the greater impression. It’s really a stunning performance (he recorded them twice, in 1955 and in 1981 — take your pick!) and a real piece of virtuosity. I memorised the first few bars of the right hand part when we got back to Edinburgh as a small act of worship…someday I’ll learn the whole movement!

I have a notion that Shostakovich gives that variation a nod in the Prelude I’m learning. It starts very similarly (although it quickly spirals off into Shostakovich’s sound world): the right hand has a stream of semiquavers which the left hand punctuates sparsely. Both pieces are number five in the set to which they belong…I don’t know…just a thought!

(Jeepers! I just searched for videos of the Shostakovich piece on YouTube and it’s mostly kids playing it at light speed…gulp…

Okay, okay, here’s one…

So, I’ll keep practicing!)

composers, what I'm up to

Grade 8

Leave a comment

 

I have set myself a new goal — to do the Grade 8 piano exam in May. Grade 8 is traditionally the highest level of performance attainment. (It actually just occurred to me that this is probably because there are eight notes in an octave. Huh.) There are a number of examination boards, the best known of which are the ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), London College of Music, Trinity Guildhall, and the RIAM (Royal Irish Academy of Music) here in Ireland. I’ve decided to go with the RIAM for this exam (although I did my other grades many years ago with the Trinity College of Music, now part of the Guildhall). I like the idea of being associated with an institution that I can visit and feel a part of. I’ve lived in Dublin for over a decade now, and I want my music qualification to reflect my subsequently altered sense of identity.

For music exams, the common format is to prepare three pieces from the syllabus. There are also scales and arpeggios to learn, a sight-reading test, and aural musicianship tests. It’s expected, too, that candidates will be able to talk about the pieces they’re playing with the examiner. At the higher grades, the three pieces are chosen from three lists that broadly reflect the main periods of musical history. I’m going to prepare Bach’s Fugue in Bb (from book 1 of “The 48”), Schubert’s Scherzo in Bb, and then something from Group C. I’m torn between a brilliant Shostakovich prelude in D and one of the most famous Chopin Nocturnes (in Eb).

I had a really enjoyable practice session yesterday working on the Bach and the Shostakovich. One of the first tasks when learning a new piece is working out the best fingering. Often a piece will have the editors suggestions marked in, but this is only ever a guide and a deeply personal part of piano playing. I made a quite a few changes to the Bach fugue edition I have. It’s a fairly knotty piece, especially the last line, which is notoriously tricky and involves lots of swapping of the hands to cover the notes smoothly. Emerging at the other end of all that work with a fingering that suits me was really satisfying, though. Now to practice, practice, practice!

composers, composition, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, reviews and reports, what I'm up to

Superbos!

Leave a comment
'Called' - Bruce Herman (click for article about the artist)

Last night was the performance of Bach’s Magnificat and it was such fun. We met at the concert hall at 4.15 and went through the programme with the organist and the orchestra. We stood on the stage (five rows, I think it was, of about twenty-four singers each). In front of us were the orchestra — it’s quite a small band: double bass, cello, bassoon, chamber organ continuo, oboe/cor anglais, two flutes, triple strings (as far as I can recall) and timpani. Also not forgetting the trumpets that play such a great part in the outer movements. The choir is in five parts and there are five soloists, too, each of whom gets a solo aria.

The instruments are all given a moment to shine, too. I love the ‘Esurientes implevit bonis’ (the text of which translates as “he has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty”) — it features a flute duet obbligato (music-speak for the fact that they play all the way through, as importantly as the vocalist) that at times trips along in thirds or sixths, and at times has the two lines tumbling over each other. Bach plays a little joke with the words at the end: the flutes stop short of the final note, leaving it to the bass instruments. Sending us away empty.

Bach dissects the text of the Magnificat (the song that the writer of Luke’s gospel ascribes to the awestruck teenage mother of God), making twelve separate movements. I was at a talk during the week by theologian Terry Eagleton and he mentioned that the lines I quoted above sound like a political chant — the sort of thing that crowds would’ve shouted in protest against a corrupt and oppressive ruling class, say.

Another musical joke (a traditional one — Durrante does the same thing in his setting of the Magnificat, which we also sang in the concert) is the use of the same music at the end of the piece as the start. The last line of the doxology (Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.) lends itself nicely to the musical task of recapitulation (music-speak for having the first tune come back at the end). And what an ending it is! All trumpets (one of them a wee piccolo trumpet, playing gloriously high, piercing through the bustling music with a high, descending chromatic line. It’s as if, for a moment, we catch sight of something amazing before getting on with the business of jubilation.

Brilliant, composers, composition, forthcoming events, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, Technical, what I'm up to

Notes tremendous thundered out

1 Comment

Today is St Cecilia’s Day, the patron saint of music. It’s also the day Benjamin Britten was born. One of his compositions, the ‘Ode To Saint Cecilia’ (from whence comes the title of this blog post), is a setting for unaccompanied choir of a poem that his friend WH Auden dedicated to him. We sang it in New Dublin Voices a couple of years ago and it is included on our CD, ‘Something Beginning With B’.

(The album is available to buy from the website, newdublinvoices.com, or on iTunes…)

Tonight I’m going to attend the rehearsal of the Goethe-Institut Choir. Hopefully they’ll let me sing with them in their forthcoming concert on 5 December in The National Concert Hall. They’ll be singing Bach’s setting of the Magnificat, which I fell in love with as a student in university. In the first term we (the fifty or so students in the first and second years of the BMus course) did the piece in a scratch performance just for ourselves. Our tutors told us about the various little compositional signals that Bach uses in his setting of the words of Mary’s song, and I’ll blog more about it another time. Right now I have to go and get ready. Have to make a good impression if I’m to convince them I’m up to the task!

Oh yes, and I found this charming video by the Anderson & Roe piano duo (whom I’ve written about before on this blog). Vivaldi was a near contemporary of Bach and would have probably *loved* to play a grand piano, had it been invented. Anderson & Roe achieve a delicate sound, more akin to the Baroque keyboard instrument sound, by dampening the strings of Ms Roe’s piano. Mr Anderson’s uneffected (but wonderfully affected) playing allows the piano to sing the melody as only a grand piano can. A beautiful effect from a continually interesting musical partnership.

what I'm up to

Interesting times? Ides, say!

Leave a comment

Blog – 1nov11

I’m writing this on the DART on my way into meet Jen—we’re going to see ‘The Ides Of March’, the trailer for which appealed to our post-‘West Wing’ longings. 

It’s mid-term break and the schools are off, so my piano teaching in Dunboyne is on hold, too. I’ve really been enjoying getting to know the students. Most are beginners, and it’s been an absolute delight guiding them on their first interactions with the instrument. The teacher at the school wants them to do a wee recital at the beginning of December, so I got a book of Christmas tunes (Eleanor Pike’s cream and red classic that my sister and I had when we were learning) and also one of graded Christmas duets. 

This week has been a dramatic one in Ireland. More rain fell in one day than usually falls in the entire month of October. We elected a new president, Michael D Higgins. And The Irish Times Crosaire crossword got a new composer, Roy Earle. Crosaire was the pseudonym of Derek Crozier, who set the cryptic puzzles for sixty-something years, and his great memory is honoured in the retention of the name and in the style and layout of the puzzles. I always shied away from the cryptic crosswords, preferring the ‘Simplex’, the Irish Times’s other long-running staple. This week, what with the excitement over the new incumbent and what not, I took the plunge and found myself utterly absorbed. And pleasingly able to not just get a few clues, but complete the puzzles (after *much* sucking of the end of my specially-purchased 2B pencil). Jen has had to put up with my excited explanations of the clues, as I elucidate Mac An Iarla’s brilliance. Not sure she’s as sold as I am!

I’m also growing a moustache. Feeling rather self-conscious about it the moment, as it still looks a bit rubbish. At least I don’t have to show it in the secondary school for another week…!

(The Ides of March is excellent, by the way. Nice, tense score by Alexandre Desplat. I particularly enjoyed the note bending in the bass part for the cue under the scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character (Paul, the campaign manager) is talking to George Clooney’s Governor Morris in the stretch Chevrolet outside the barbers. Nice, unexpectedly groovy end title music, too.)

composition, songs

Come to His presence

1 Comment

I wrote the first verse of this gospel song about five years ago and added the other two verses just a few months ago. Jen and I played at my friend Peter’s wedding in All Souls, Langham Place, London a few years ago and I played this song as they signed the register. I’m pleased with this version of the chords and it’s a good key for me, too (G major). Probably a bit high for general use—it goes up to an ‘E’—but it would work well on piano in F or Eb.

Come to His presence
Come lay your cares at His feet
Come find your healing
Come and be made complete
For He is faithful and He will care for you
Draw near to God
Draw near to God

Come with your hunger
Come with that thirst in your soul
Come to His open arms
Come with those fears untold
For He is faithful and He will care for you
Draw near to God
Draw near to God

Come with your grieving
Come with the pain that you feel
Come with your broken heart
Don’t be too proud to kneel
For He is faithful and He will care for you
Draw near to God
Draw near to God

A PDF of the lyrics and chords is available on request. Please pass this on to anyone you know who you think might like it, or who’s involved in church music. If you use it, let me know 🙂

Brilliant, Intellectual, links, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, reviews and reports, Technical, what I'm up to

Grace and poise

Leave a comment

This weekend, New Dublin Voices took part in a production of ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ at the National Concert Hall. It was a full week of rehearsals starting with the conductor, John Wilson, putting us through our paces on Monday evening before we went along to the full orchestral rehearsals during the week. It was a wonderful experience—I really enjoyed sitting beside the bass clarinet player, having done a lot of orchestral clarinet playing in university. Being inside the orchestra was great. John Wilson reconstructed the score, the original having been tragically consigned to landfill many years ago. (In an article I read in Classic FM magazine with John, he also sadly notes that a lot of the music libraries of the big studios were destroyed. There was nothing for it but to literally write it all out again. It must’ve been a mammoth task!) The RTÉ Concert Orchestra were augmented with a rhythm section (piano, guitar, bass, drums) and, behind us on stage, a full saxophone section. They had some really lovely moments in the score, providing that close-harmony sound that only saxes can do. Seriously, it was a real treat sitting in the middle of it all and watching the realisation of this sublime music.

Here’s the sequence from the film for ‘Moses Supposes’, which the amazing dancers did pretty much step-for-step at the NCH:

A couple of my friends posted links to this video, too. Jaw-droppingly good. Danny Macaskill is to a trail bike what Gene Kelly is to tap shoes.

Brilliant, Technical

Pure beauty

Leave a comment

Nothing for weeks, and now two posts in as many minutes! Just saw that Michael McGlynn had posted this. Knowing some of the strange and awful things I’ve gotten wind of from Michael before (I’m thinking of a particularly hideous rendition of ‘O Holy Night’ from years ago… *shudder*), I confess expecting this to be in some way funny. Well, it’s not. It’s disarmingly beautiful. I’m not going to give any biography or information about the singers (because I don’t know any!). Just enjoy…