London Times, June 11, 1995: Difference between revisions
(fix scan error) |
(fix scan errors) |
||
Line 19: | Line 19: | ||
But the eclectic case is being more subtly and persuasively put in other ways. When the psychedelic ambient duo The Orb had a top-10 hit in 1993 with "Little Fluffy Clouds," few of their fans probably realised that the rolling guitar figure that propels the track is a sample from a recording by Pat Metheny of the American avant-garde composer Steve Reich's piece, "Different Trains." Music, as Reich would appreciate, now travels in strange ways. While that most impenetrable of all niche markets, rap, has been thoroughly ghettoised in the media, it has been warmly supported — on stage and in the studio — by respected jazz musicians such as Donald Byrd and Courtney Pine, who see in today's outraged insistence that rap isn't "real" music echoes of the furore created in polite circles decades ago by bebop. | But the eclectic case is being more subtly and persuasively put in other ways. When the psychedelic ambient duo The Orb had a top-10 hit in 1993 with "Little Fluffy Clouds," few of their fans probably realised that the rolling guitar figure that propels the track is a sample from a recording by Pat Metheny of the American avant-garde composer Steve Reich's piece, "Different Trains." Music, as Reich would appreciate, now travels in strange ways. While that most impenetrable of all niche markets, rap, has been thoroughly ghettoised in the media, it has been warmly supported — on stage and in the studio — by respected jazz musicians such as Donald Byrd and Courtney Pine, who see in today's outraged insistence that rap isn't "real" music echoes of the furore created in polite circles decades ago by bebop. | ||
And so to Elvis Costello, a man who likes to stir things up a bit himself. As the artistic director of this year's Meltdown festival, a nine-day celebration of radical eclecticism at the South Bank Centre this month, Costello is offering what amounts to the clearest and most challenging glimpse yet of Future Music, option B. The list of performers and composers featured in the third annual Meltdown is such a far cry from what anybody might have expected of the man best known for writing hummable hits such as Oliver's Army and Alison that charges of pretentiousness — or just a mystified "Whassat?" — are almost inevitable. | And so to Elvis Costello, a man who likes to stir things up a bit himself. As the artistic director of this year's Meltdown festival, a nine-day celebration of radical eclecticism at the South Bank Centre this month, Costello is offering what amounts to the clearest and most challenging glimpse yet of Future Music, option B. The list of performers and composers featured in the third annual Meltdown is such a far cry from what anybody might have expected of the man best known for writing hummable hits such as "Oliver's Army" and "Alison" that charges of pretentiousness — or just a mystified "Whassat?" — are almost inevitable. | ||
In one concert to be given by the London Philharmonic plus guests, Costello has lined up Dowland alongside Duke Ellington, the cartoon movie scores of Carl Stalling, and Korngold's violin concerto. In another, by the Composers Ensemble, a song by Brahms crops up next to one by the great jazz pianist Billy Strayhorn, the evening to be rounded off with a version of the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset." Other unlikely bedfellows include Debbie Harry, formerly of Blondie, fronting New York jazz oddities, the Jazz Passengers, on the festival's opening night (June 23), and what a surprise it is, too, to see Dinah And Nick's Love Song by Harrison Birtwistle jostling for attention on a bill that kicks off with a piece by Chick Corea. Costello's own performances — with the Brodsky Quartet, the guitarist Bill Frisell, the American gospel group the Fairfield Four and his old snarling partner from The Attractions, Steve Nieve — are actually among the mom conservatively programmed concerts in the Meltdown festival. | In one concert to be given by the London Philharmonic plus guests, Costello has lined up Dowland alongside Duke Ellington, the cartoon movie scores of Carl Stalling, and Korngold's violin concerto. In another, by the Composers Ensemble, a song by Brahms crops up next to one by the great jazz pianist Billy Strayhorn, the evening to be rounded off with a version of the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset." Other unlikely bedfellows include Debbie Harry, formerly of Blondie, fronting New York jazz oddities, the Jazz Passengers, on the festival's opening night ([[Concert 1995-06-23 London|June 23]]), and what a surprise it is, too, to see "Dinah And Nick's Love Song" by Harrison Birtwistle jostling for attention on a bill that kicks off with a piece by Chick Corea. Costello's own performances — with the Brodsky Quartet, the guitarist Bill Frisell, the American gospel group the Fairfield Four and his old snarling partner from The Attractions, Steve Nieve — are actually among the mom conservatively programmed concerts in the Meltdown festival. | ||
Costello is well aware that having thrown the cat among the pigeons, some unfriendly observers might now be looking forward to kicking the cat. "I know there are some people who are going to say, 'Who does he think he is?' or imagine that I'm looking for approval, or that I'm trying to act grown-up now by doing some worthy thing. I know those thoughts am out there. But it's rather like when I started, then thud to be very aggressive because sometimes you have to clear the ground around you, to lean a certain way — too far maybe — to get your point out. You have to scare people up a bit." | Costello is well aware that having thrown the cat among the pigeons, some unfriendly observers might now be looking forward to kicking the cat. "I know there are some people who are going to say, 'Who does he think he is?' or imagine that I'm looking for approval, or that I'm trying to act grown-up now by doing some worthy thing. I know those thoughts am out there. But it's rather like when I started, then thud to be very aggressive because sometimes you have to clear the ground around you, to lean a certain way — too far maybe — to get your point out. You have to scare people up a bit." | ||
Line 34: | Line 34: | ||
Peer-group pressure during his teenage years held him up. "I had really sophisticated taste until I started buying my own records. Then I'd deny I'd ever listened to certain things, and sold records, only to buy them back three years later." When he started performing himself in Liverpool in the 1970s, he came up against a keenly policed frontier that separated the traditional and the contemporary folk clubs. "Of course, real talent always outlives labels, but there is something about English taste that seems very oppositional. It's like, The Beatles ''or'' the Stones, the Clash ''or'' the Sex Pistols." Mindful of the need not to trip any wires during his elevation as a new-wave godhead, Costello deliberately held back on recording some of his more intricate songs until the fans of punk had abated. | Peer-group pressure during his teenage years held him up. "I had really sophisticated taste until I started buying my own records. Then I'd deny I'd ever listened to certain things, and sold records, only to buy them back three years later." When he started performing himself in Liverpool in the 1970s, he came up against a keenly policed frontier that separated the traditional and the contemporary folk clubs. "Of course, real talent always outlives labels, but there is something about English taste that seems very oppositional. It's like, The Beatles ''or'' the Stones, the Clash ''or'' the Sex Pistols." Mindful of the need not to trip any wires during his elevation as a new-wave godhead, Costello deliberately held back on recording some of his more intricate songs until the fans of punk had abated. | ||
He started attending classical and contemporary "not-rock" concerts about seven years. ago. "Initially it was just something different to do. There comes a point in your life when you find you don't want to sit in a club all night." If any conversion was necessary it was supplied by a performance of | He started attending classical and contemporary "not-rock" concerts about seven years. ago. "Initially it was just something different to do. There comes a point in your life when you find you don't want to sit in a club all night." If any conversion was necessary it was supplied by a performance of Schoenberg's thunderous ''Gurrelieder'' at the Festival Hall. "I knew absolutely nothing about the piece, but I found it overwhelming. Very physical. I firmly believe that music ''happens'' to you. I don't analyse it when I'm listening to it. It draws its own response. | ||
Soon the owlishly bespectacled figure of Costello was a regular fixture on the London concert circuit. Alike Wigmore Hall one night after a Schubert recital he was surprised to be recognised and invited backstage by the pianist Andras Schiff. Less surprising was a warm welcome teems young and fashionably untidy foursome called the Brodsky Quartet, whom Costello went to hear at the QEH, performing a cycle by one of his favourite composers, Shostakovich. Out of this relationship came both the 1991 song-cycle collaboration, ''The Juliet Letters'', and a trip to | Soon the owlishly bespectacled figure of Costello was a regular fixture on the London concert circuit. Alike Wigmore Hall one night after a Schubert recital he was surprised to be recognised and invited backstage by the pianist Andras Schiff. Less surprising was a warm welcome teems young and fashionably untidy foursome called the Brodsky Quartet, whom Costello went to hear at the QEH, performing a cycle by one of his favourite composers, Shostakovich. Out of this relationship came both the 1991 song-cycle collaboration, ''The Juliet Letters'', and a trip to Dartington summer school, where the Brodskys happened to be quartet in residence. It was there that Costello received the invitation to programme this year's Meltdown. | ||
The album ''The Juliet Letters'', though it received a slightly sniffy response over here at the time of its release, has sold 250,000 copies worldwide and is still much in demand; as a "catalogue item", it now sells more than Costello's most commercially successful album, 1989's ''Spike''. In territories where his reputation as a rock 'n' roller precedes him less forcefully, the response has been encouraging. The song-cycle is still being performed in Spain, and this autumn the Gothenburg opera in Sweden is mounting a full-scale adaptation. | The album ''The Juliet Letters'', though it received a slightly sniffy response over here at the time of its release, has sold 250,000 copies worldwide and is still much in demand; as a "catalogue item", it now sells more than Costello's most commercially successful album, 1989's ''Spike''. In territories where his reputation as a rock 'n' roller precedes him less forcefully, the response has been encouraging. The song-cycle is still being performed in Spain, and this autumn the Gothenburg opera in Sweden is mounting a full-scale adaptation. | ||
His connection with the Brodsky Quartet has prompted a few changes in Costello's modus operandi as well. Because of pressures of time and the need for a more precise system of instructions than the one-two-thee-four-go style of the Attractions, Costello has taught himself to write music. There am no symphonies planned just yet, but one three-minute piece, titled New Work, will be performed by the LPO. "It's | His connection with the Brodsky Quartet has prompted a few changes in Costello's modus operandi as well. Because of pressures of time and the need for a more precise system of instructions than the one-two-thee-four-go style of the Attractions, Costello has taught himself to write music. There am no symphonies planned just yet, but one three-minute piece, titled New Work, will be performed by the LPO. "It's just a thumbprint really. I'm still guessing. But I'm not afraid of writing things down now." | ||
There is nothing remotely pretentious in the maybe discusses his new enthusiasms. In fact, Costello has teamed to appreciate a wider range of styles in many of the same random or indirect ways as the rest of us — through film soundtracks, for example. It was only after he now the Sean Connery movie ''The Offence'' and enjoyed some of the accompanying music that Costello came to terms with the work of Birtwistle. The composers he likes most, he says, tend to be either Russian or east European and often thaw their inspiration, as he has done over many pop albums, from folk themes or what he terms "remembered music". The idea behind many of this year's Meltdown concerts is quite straightforward: to toy to communicate the same mood — usually a melancholic one — by attacking on many fronts. The link he perceives between Dowland, whom he refers to as "the deep blues man of English music", and Birtwistle is purely subjective. "People will probably say that you're implying that one piece here is the equal of the next. Well, I'm not." | There is nothing remotely pretentious in the maybe discusses his new enthusiasms. In fact, Costello has teamed to appreciate a wider range of styles in many of the same random or indirect ways as the rest of us — through film soundtracks, for example. It was only after he now the Sean Connery movie ''The Offence'' and enjoyed some of the accompanying music that Costello came to terms with the work of Birtwistle. The composers he likes most, he says, tend to be either Russian or east European and often thaw their inspiration, as he has done over many pop albums, from folk themes or what he terms "remembered music". The idea behind many of this year's Meltdown concerts is quite straightforward: to toy to communicate the same mood — usually a melancholic one — by attacking on many fronts. The link he perceives between Dowland, whom he refers to as "the deep blues man of English music", and Birtwistle is purely subjective. "People will probably say that you're implying that one piece here is the equal of the next. Well, I'm not." |
Revision as of 14:19, 5 March 2014
|