Three nights, I'm out

Last week was quite 'busy' - one of those times where I booked a whole variety of things months apart, checking my diary one date at a time, only to find that I was OUT THREE EVENINGS IN A ROW. This is big news for an old fart like me. What ragged shadow of a man would I be come day 4?

Luckily, all three events involved a nice sit-down. In strictly chronological order, Wednesday came first, with a trip to see the Tallis Scholars at Cadogan Hall as part of its 2012/13 choral season. They were performing a programme of Fayrfax and, er, Tallis. The hook of the programme was that the Fayrfax piece, 'Missa tecum principium', is rarely heard live in its entirety. Surprisingly, they had decided to break it up into its separate parts, and 'interrupt' them with parts of Tallis's 'Lamentations'. Reading this in the programme before the concert began, I thought this was going to be odd - as if the group had put themselves on 'shuffle'. Afterwards, though, I think I got the reason why.

It's rare that I go to any choral concert and come away thinking the experience anything less than beautiful. I love that kind of music, and obviously with choirs and ensembles you don't have quite the same risk of the soundman forgetting the keyboards are there or the bass player coming on pissed. But but but - however lovely the Fayrfax was, the difference in quality between that and the Tallis was audible. Actual music critics could do a better job than me here (er, obviously) but I would broadly say that the Fayrfax seemed a little aimless in comparison. Tallis has power, movement, and harmonies to simultaneously lift and chill. Whereas the Fayrfax was 'pretty'. Pleasant. Perfectly enjoyable but somehow thinner, lower on substance. I could understand how hearing all the parts of the 'Missa' consecutively could give us all some kind of gossamer overload without the mighty Tallis stepping in to shore the whole thing up. So - a triumph of programming and a concert full of delightful moments - but you could equally argue that the whole Fayrfax piece is rarely heard for a reason.

And I object to the frankly attention-seeking spelling of the surname 'Fayrfax' as well. I can do without that kind of mucking about.

Inevitably, Thursday came next - when I went with a colleague of mine to see Dara O Briain. I probably shouldn't say too much about this, because otherwise I'll just end up keying in a bunch of his jokes. Not a good idea (especially if you might catch the tour or get the DVD). Add in the fact that I'm not really a comedy expert - some people treat it like I do music, going to loads of gigs and hearing a wealth of talent on the circuit that simply doesn't crop up on 'Mock the Week' or 'QI'. In comparison, O Briain is obviously at the 'aircraft hangar' level of TV shows piling on top of arena gigs on top of TV shows, and so on.

As a result, maybe it's fitting that he now seems to be some kind of comedy Springsteen - bounding on stage just after 8pm, he basically waved us off at about 10.30pm (with just a 20 minute break in the middle - and even then he was Googling stuff to use in gags revolving around particular audience members). Hardest working man in the ho-ho-ho-business.

I knew what to expect from his other DVDs, and the 'Craic Dealer' tour doesn't really deviate from the pattern. He feeds off a few hapless souls in the front one or two rows to improvise a section of the show - and the prepared material ranges across technology, media, and history. O Briain wears his knowledge very lightly and he sees the irony in how large a gap there is between what we think we know, and what we actually know. While it would be impossible for him to pretend he's an idiot, he still reserves some of his sharpest barbs for himself as he pulls the rug from under some of his assumptions about his own intelligence and celebrity. Determined as I am not to reveal any of his gags, I will simply say this in recommendation: I left the Hammersmith Apollo with eyes still watering, hoarse with the after effects of gasping laughter.

With a now total lack of surprise, Friday followed on, and this - I have to say - was the week's main event for me. Dead Can Dance's only UK date of this tour, at the Royal Albert Hall. I had waited around 15 years for this gig. DCD have been one of my favourite bands for years, but I finally booked tickets to see them on the tour following their 1996 album 'Spiritchaser'. Immediately, and no doubt just to spite me, they cancelled the gig and promptly split up. Then, when their reunion shows came round in 2005, I couldn't go to those gigs either. I really thought I'd never EVER see them.

Suddenly, out of nowhere - and no doubt just to cheer me up - they reformed AGAIN. This time it was for a new album and tour. (This picture is from the London show, from DCD's own Facebook page - Brendan Perry - er, left - and Lisa Gerrard.)

Dead Can Dance are perhaps a classic example of the 'creative marriage', with all the telepathic sympathy and understanding - and simmering tensions and differences - that implies. They began as a romantic couple but the band in its first life still outlasted the relationship. Each time operations ceased, the break was apparently due to an almighty barney. They do seem to embody the cliche, though, that whatever bond they share, it's still unbreakably solid, and clearly demands that they eventually come back to collaborate again.

Part of the difficulty, though, must lie in the fact that they are poles apart creatively. This is band that stays together due to 'musical differences'. For those of you unfamiliar with DCD, they are often lumped in with goth or post-punk due to their very early tracks (and being on 4AD can only have encouraged that) but within an album or two they were incorporating world and early music into their sound until they arrived in some kind of separate genre that no-one really thought existed. And within their own rather wide remit (Medieval dances? Check! Scott Walker-style ballads? Yep! Persian laments? Natch) ... they began to move further adrift from each other. A relatively early record, 'Within the Realm of a Dying Sun', had them taking charge of a side each. (The arrival of CD must've presented a problem. Another fight, no doubt... 'I want the side with the music on!' etc..)

To simplify to a ridiculous extent, Lisa is the dramatic one - a voice of operatic range and quality but with a kind of sensual control that's all her own - she is the avant-garde improviser, and absorber of exotic 'world rhythms'. Brendan is more song-orientated and has a rich boom of a voice well-suited to hypnotic, nagging ballads. When they work together, though, Lisa's material gets Brendaned, and vice versa, each lifting the other's material. One of the crucial joys of all the DCD albums - including the terrific new one, 'Anastasis' - is coming across the scattered moments when they sing together, exact compass points where their two directions meet.

If their Facebook page is anything to go by, they are having a whale of a time on tour. And that seemed to be borne out on stage. Gerrard is without doubt a 'diva' - but in the best sense, positively regal, utterly serene, looking spectacular and at every moment she isn't actually singing, she smiles affectionately and delightedly at the audience (who are showing their love back by, in general, going bananas). Even better, she blows kisses towards the end, which is exactly the kind of thing you want from someone you don't know but you're nuts about. Perry is not as demonstrative, but the admiring looks he gives Gerrard when she's in full flight, and the smiles they exchange every now and then suggest that at least on this particular evening they weren't flinging hammered dulcimers at each other before the opening number.

As the sound reverberated around the hall, every song felt like being enveloped in a warm glow. The band - all keyboards or percussion - were modest but propulsive, driving each hypnotic number along without eclipsing the two stars. I was fully aware that even as they struck up my favourite DCD song ('Rakim') I couldn't quite believe I was really seeing them live at last. An enterprising soul has already put the track on YouTube, so please have a listen for yourself (below). It contains at least two heart-melting moments for me - three and a half minutes or so in, when Gerrard starts the chant, and then the point a little later when Perry sings the outro over it. An absolutely unforgettable evening.

Celebrate Good Times (Bad Times)

Last night, Mrs Specs and I went to the cinema to see Led Zeppelin. Some of you may be aware that, in typical 'lumbering behemoth' style, Team Zep have finally got round to releasing a live album and concert film of the legendary reunion gig they played at the O2 in 2007. (The event was arranged as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records - but inevitably, 99.99% of the focus was on the headliners.)

The CD and DVD, both called 'Celebration Day', are out in November, but advance screenings of the film have been lined up at various local picture houses, including one just down the road from us. So, faster than you could say, 'Ooooh yeeeahh mama, ain't no denyin' etc', I booked tickets. Stairway to Heaven (or Row K, to be more precise), pictured below.

In many ways, the film is a masterclass in simplicity. There's no build-up or epilogue, no pesky bits of documentary inserts, no backstage interview or even candid out-takes. Once your eyes adjust to the screen, there appears to be ancient footage of the band playing back, suspended in darkness; then you realise that this is an intro visual projected on-stage at the O2. Then - bang! - they're on.

Much was made at the time of how the band seemed to treat this a bit like a club gig. The O2 stage is roughly the size of the universe (ish) but they stick very close to each other, gathering supportively in front of the drum kit and beaming with encouragement at Jason Bonham - son of their late drummer John and for one night only, taking his place. (Jason does a fine job - it's unlikely that any drummer alive could emulate Bonham Snr's power, but the new JB has clearly been playing these parts all his life. He nails the precision and technicality, and sits happily high in the mix. Any potential 'he's not his dad'-style carping can also be laid to rest just by seeing, close up, the teary excitement in his eyes - who could begrudge him this experience? Especially when he's obviously so bloody good.) When they're not grinning in Jason's direction, they're darting smiles and knowing glances at each other, obviously having a fantastic time. What's easy to notice now, of course, is how well this whole approach lends itself to the film, with many shots able to contain at least three of them at once and make sure we are voyeurs when they make eye contact.

The 'mature' Led Zeppelin are, collectively, an extraordinary sight. I used to wonder why old concert clips of Jimmy Page showed a man literally soaked from head to toe in sweat. Now I know. He began the concert in a shirt, waistcoat and long overcoat. Someone could've taken him to one side and said, 'You know, you probably won't need all those layers, Jimmy. The heating's on, and everything.'

Also, Page has the most dizzying repertoire of variations on the 'guitar face' that I have ever encountered. (I did wonder if this experience would prove as traumatic as seeing the Rolling Stones 'Shine a Light' concert film at IMAX, where every on-screen wrinkle was the size of the Grand Canyon. Fortunately not.) But for each wailing note of each solo, each razor-sharp turn in every riff, Page would also pull a gurn of such complexity, I thought he might be half-man, half-camel. There were times when it looked like his face, by itself, had entered zero-gravity.

Amusing though this was, the music nerd in me did have time to be taken aback by Page's playing. One of the pleasures, for me, of Zeppelin's records is their excess - dense with overdubs, a thick stew of a sound. Here, though, you can only hear one guitar line and it's fine. Does the job. No gaps. Page clearly isn't playing 'everything', but he's worked out how to suggest that he is. Spellbinding, even if there's the very real fear that he'll perspire onto something electrical and short himself out.

By contrast, Robert Plant may have been bitten by a radioactive lion in his youth, but here he is lean and unruffled, prowling the stage, throwing a few well-timed shapes and most importantly, giving a terrific vocal performance. Again, he can't do what his younger self did on the records. In fact, his younger self couldn't always do it (for example, they speeded up the vocals on the original 'Song Remains the Same'). But he's now a performer of such vast experience that he simply, subtly changed the pitch or melody where appropriate without ever undermining or departing too far from the fabric of the song.

If Plant is calm and imperious, John Paul Jones - the band's quiet genius - sticks mainly to two facial expressions (delight and concentration) and just gets on with proving why he was and is so essential to the group. How can there be such a talented bassist - whose funky and catchy parts provide a kind of liquid surface for Page to lurch all over - who can then get behind a keyboard and play so well that you forget the fact that for those numbers, there's no bass at all?

The set list was clever. Most of the big tunes, but not quite all (wasn't expecting 'When the Levee Breaks' - apparently that's impossible to play - but missed 'Heartbreaker') ... at least one monumental surprise ('In My Time of Dying'!!) and a song they never played live at all first time round ('For Your Life'). As a result, everyone was thrilled and pleased.

Well, I say everyone. One of the weirdest things about this whole experience was the audience. No surprise that they were quite easy to spot (instead of looking for our screen number on the ticket, we could just follow the chaps with the long grey hair). But once in there, everyone was on 'gig' rather than 'film' behaviour. People clapped between songs - quite nice, actually. Less nice was the near-ruckus in the corner where one bloke asked another to stop talking, only to be met with a torrent of intimidating abuse at top volume. Add to that the well-refreshed woman a few rows down 'singing along' tunelessly at every opportunity, waving her arms around, and on a couple of occasions, standing up to dance, much to the chagrin of the poor sod behind her. Fortunately, she was accompanied, so her sheepish other half could pull her back down into her seat before she caused another scrap. And a few seats along from her, someone was filming bits of the, er, filmed gig on the screen. What's the matter with these people?! It's coming out on DVD in a few weeks! For a few, maudlin minutes, I felt that everyone in my town was an idiot. Out of 200 or so people, who'd all gone to the trouble of tracking down a local Led Zep screening, we had, say, 10 people - an unacceptably high percentage - who felt that they were so important that it didn't matter if their way of enjoying themselves spoilt things for others. That said, I soon got over it. I was watching an almighty film. I focused on the screen, and the music, and tuned the miscreants out.

Should Zeppelin have ridden the wave of interest generated by this gig and toured? No. I think it was Plant who ruled it out (I might have done myself if I'd been on the point of touring with Alison Krauss) but with the blessing of hindsight, he had his head screwed on. This was perfect. Any more would have diluted the triumph and amplified the disappointment. It is sad in some ways that Page seems to be rather trapped by the band's legacy, whereas Plant in particular has just got stuck into new projects and collaborated widely. (This seems to happen sometimes when a band collapses - the 'musical' one is stranded without the frontman/woman ... whereas the muse in question goes off to a spectacularly varied solo career. In my generation, I think this might be the case with Marr/Morrissey post-Smiths as well... Discuss!)

But 'Celebration Day' must be the kind of absolute pinnacle that any great band would want to leave as their epitaph. See it on a big screen if you can... but I confess - I'm already looking forward to another viewing on the laptop with headphones. I can always get Mrs Specs to start yelling or wave her arms around in the middle distance if I feel like recreating the cinema experience.

Tallis in Northumberland

Came back - reluctantly - from our hols in Northumberland at the weekend. One of our very favourite parts of the world, and it was still the most gloriously relaxing and recharging of fortnights, despite the weather being a little 'brusque' at times. (We weren't a million miles from Morpeth, one of the flooded areas that made it onto TV, but comfortably far enough, thank heavens.)

I hope to blog at some point about the amazing walks, castles, coasts and the like (this will depend on when I get my photos sorted, I suspect) but perhaps inevitably, I've ended up bursting to tell you about something 'arty'.

We used one of the wetter days to head into Newcastle. First we headed to the still-shiny arts complex the Sage for breakfast. (Its cafe affords such a glorious sausage sandwich, I think in honour the whole  venue should be renamed either the Sausage - or for grammar-hostile typographical larks, the SauSage - or for arched-eyebrow obliqueness, perhaps the Sage & Onion - BUT I DIGRESS.)

A short hop along the bank of the Tyne is the BALTIC contemporary art gallery. (In the photo you can see in the middle distance the new footbridge. The building on the immediate right is BALTIC. The cocoon-style building on the near right is the Sage.) A poor - but easy - comparison in London might be Tate Modern, in that BALTIC also resides in a beautifully re-purposed industrial shell, but BALTIC is a bit younger in both feel and actual age, and - with only temporary exhibitions - seems to be moving faster.

We were going there to satisfy our curiosity about a piece of sound art. Obviously, there are certain areas of 'sound art' - like records and concerts - that I have been immersed in for decades. But audio installations - noise made for the gallery rather than the gig - have mostly eluded me, despite studying the pages near the back of Wire magazine with a furrowed yet curious brow.

The installation is by Janet Cardiff. It's called 'The Forty Part Motet', and at face value, is simply a playback of the late 16th-century choral work 'Spem in alium' by Thomas Tallis. The motet itself is unceasingly spectacular. It requires 40 voices (in eight groups of five) and the piece passes between the mini-choirs, building up then ebbing away, with all 40 singers coming together at a few key points during proceedings for maximum impact. It's an incredible achievement already, before some Modern Art Person got their hands on it. What gives, etc?

Cardiff's idea feels like one of those notions that is now obvious, but only because someone has conveniently already thought of it. When you walk into the gallery, all you see is a minimalist hi-fi enthusiast's nirvana - a totally blank white room, with forty speakers in a big circle. Except it isn't quite a circle - if you looked down from above, it would be an octagon, with each of its eight sides a line of five speakers. Each speaker plays back one voice. If you manage to enter the room at the right time (we did - yay!) you hear the choir chatting to each other before starting to sing. Nothing quite prepares you for when they do.

This really is surround sound. The music travels from in front of you to behind you, or seems to glide around the circle as if music really could be passed like a gift from one person to another. Some people stay fixed to the middle of the circle, or as near as they can get; others are constantly on the move. Most of us did a bit of both. At one point, I parked myself by a silent quintet and waited for my chosen choir to get their turn; the sudden rush of sound physically moved me and I shuffled into the centre to recover.

(A brief point just to say how astounding I think the technical achievement is, too. My hearing might not be perfect after God knows how many noisy gigs and pairs of mega-bass headphones, but I could hear more or less no bleed between the speakers. Each one really did seem to broadcast just one singer.)

Cardiff describes how people in a choir all hear their own unique mix of any piece they sing, and that she tried with this work to give that experience to the audience. If anything, she has enhanced this idea, because we're not rooted to the spot, and we can 'sample' different positions during the motet just by wandering about the circle. I started thinking even at the time - with Tallis's notes washing around my ears - that everyone has a unique reaction to any bit of art. You look at a painting or sculpture, and the person next to you sees their own individual version of what you see. But Cardiff has created something which is absolutely different for everyone at the point of experience. No-one can replicate the version of this I heard.

There are infinite ways to stand, to move, to listen.

(We arrived towards the end of the run, and the installation is only at BALTIC for a few more days, to 14 October. If you ever get the chance to see/hear this, in Newcastle or anywhere else, please go. I've reproduced the photo from the BALTIC site here so you can see what it was like. The image is copyrighted to Colin Davison - brilliant picture. Link to the full site here.)

Last Two Nights of the Proms

A week or so late, but at last I'm managing to write up my 'report' on the Big Finale, which for Mrs Specs and I, was spread across two nights. The Last Night of the Proms was, as usual, on the Saturday - but we had been unable to resist the Prom on the Friday night before.

In some ways, the Penultimate Night of the Proms was very modestly programmed but performed by giants: the mighty Vienna Philharmonic (conducted by Bernard Haitink) tackling two pieces, one each side of the interval. Haydn's 'London' Symphony, then Richard 'not the waltz bloke' Strauss's Alpine Symphony.

I hadn't heard the Haydn before. It was his last symphony - only his 104th, the slacker - but it's hard to imagine a less valedictory work. Possibly because he spent the 14 years remaining to him on other, perhaps weightier stuff - oratarios and masses, it would appear, but with a light sprinkling of chamber music to cleanse the palate.

It's tempting - if no doubt massively simplistic, but hey! that's my habitat - to think that he might have given up on the symphonies simply because he knew this one was perfection. It sounds 'easy', because it is lovely. That's not to say it is light, or minor - rather that it is not aiming to challenge or provoke. It wants to make you smile. Admittedly, there is a bit of 'Adagio' at the start, but it's not long before Haydn goes 'Ha! Got you there!' and ups the pace to a happily melodic dance pace, reaching its zenith in the Minuet & Trio. A half-hour of pure pleasure.

The Alpine Symphony - WARNING, NOVICES! Not even a symphony! - is in fact a 'tone-poem', in other words, the music throughout is specifically designed to evoke something real-world or visual. Now - I love everything I've ever heard by R Strauss, so I'm not really impartial here. If you like the soprano voice, seek out his 'Four Last Songs' - you will melt like an ice lolly, in a furnace, dangling inside a volcano, on the sun. Or the famous theme from 2001 - that's RS as well ('Also Sprach Zarathustra').

The Alpine Symphony lasts a full 50 mins with no pauses for breath, although Strauss itemised the individual sections of the piece carefully. It depicts a day in the mountains and glacier from sunrise to sundown, and even 'tells a story' of a tricky expedition where the climbers reach a summit then leg it down as a storm kicks off. The whole thing is tremendously captivating and exciting, but trust me - if you get the chance to see an orchestra 'do a storm', take it. The percussion guys at the back were larging it with actual SHEET METAL in their arsenal for some proper thunder and lightning action. It's always refreshing to see classical players behaving with the same in-your-face gusto that you'd expect at other types of gig. Life-affirming.

(And they went down a, er, storm, too - so much so that the whole orchestra encored, with a piece by Johann 'yes! the waltz guy!' Strauss. Slightly odd but very delicate after the Alpine tour de force. Haitink is adored by the Proms crowd - a delicate figure himself now, but all the energy clearly goes into the conducting.)

So - to the Last Night itself. I think there's actually a bit less to say about this, partly because if you're interested in the Proms at all, you probably know what the last half-hour is always like. We bought into it completely. We had flags. We had a HAT. Okay, there were two of us, so one hat was obviously a bit limited in scope, but Mrs Specs made up for it with antennae with crowns on.

And there were really three of us, because our classical music guru David was also there (a few rows along) and his total, all-consuming love of the occasion was infectious. (David loves the Proms so much, I think he feels the same way about Proms the way I do about food - except that David would go to more than three square Proms a day if he could.) We wondered if the climax of the concert would 'get to us' emotionally - would we tear up at 'Jerusalem', or the anthem? Answer: no, because the main atmosphere at the Last Night is 'Huge Party'. Everyone is just larking about. With an eye on bar profits, I can only assume, the Hall opens a good 1.5 hours before the start time (for other Proms, it's much closer to 45 minutes) so a large percentage of the attendees are 'adequately refreshed' and, in a good way, it shows.

Which makes the rest of the concert all the more interesting. It's clearly programmed for gnat-like attention spans, and that's not a criticism. This Prom has its sights on revellers and casual TV viewers, and if you don't like one thing, something else will be along in a minute. It's like one of those 'Only Classical Album You Will Ever Need' compilations, except that it's live, and rather excitingly off-piste. Yes, we had evergreens 'Nessun Dorma' and Bruch's first Violin Concerto (and both 'stars' of the night, tenor Joseph Calleja and violinist Nicola Benedetti were brilliant value) - but I was also treated to unfamiliar (to me) Shostakovich, Massenet and Dvorak. In particular, there was a charming duet between violin and voice by Leoncavallo, called 'Mattinata'.

And the whole evening kicked off with a brand new work by Mark Simpson called 'sparks', seemingly included just for its Mrs-Specs-scaring qualities (although I rather enjoyed it).

This is an occasion so utterly steeped in tradition that you could easily imagine it wading through a quagmire of Empire-era pea-soup-thick treacle. This year in particular, some of our successful Olympians made a cameo-appearance to an understandably wild reception. But the Last Night also succeeds in the rather less predictable aim of sneaking some relatively unusual spice in with the sugar. It definitely moved me. But for two-thirds of the running time, it jangled my brain more than my heart.

Janice Whaley: the Sequel!

And in a break from the advertised programme... 8-)  I have two more Proms to write about - including the genuinely unhinged Last Night - but that can wait for a day or two. Especially since we have months stretching out in front of us with no Proms. The memories can only comfort us.

Instead, I'm going to revisit another of my favourite subjects - Janice Whaley - who announced a new campaign on Kickstarter today, making this probably my most topical blog entry yet. *places finger on pulse*.

Most of you reading this will have probably read my first post about Janice, but just in case you haven't, it's here. Please read through it if you can and play some of the videos I posted. For now, I will be ludicrously brief.

Janice's gifts are at the exact meeting point between sublime vocalist and precision engineer. Her first release was an impossibly bold statement (at least, until she made it possible) - 'The Smiths Project' - every single Smiths song performed with just her voice. Layer upon layer of seemingly infinite variations of sound, all fed from larynx to laptop and mixed with some kind of natural (yet painstaking) genius.

Post a video? Oh, ALL RIGHT THEN. 'Rubber Ring' it is.

Then she discovered she was a brilliant songwriter as well, and her album 'Patchwork Life' emerged as something by turns uplifting, eerie and certainly fully-formed. Crucially, it isn't in any way reminiscent of The Smiths. Again, it's 90% voice but with some piano and percussion samples. More than a capella, more than electronica. Here's 'Megalodon' from the album.

Why go back and blog about Janice for a second time? Well, I mentioned the campaign earlier, and if you want to call this an 'advertorial', be my guest. I want as many people as possible to visit Janice's page and back her music. It's a genuine pleasure, actually, to return to an artist after only a couple of months and find how far things have actually moved on.

For a start, Janice has now received some support to hire a marketing specialist - so all of a sudden, she will now be cropping up in more record shops and on more radio stations in her native US. It's easy to sound glib about this sort of thing, but absolutely everything Janice has accomplished musically has been achieved against a more fraught and relentless background than you would ever imagine from the glacial calm of her work (again, see my earlier post). The business support will free up more of her time to focus on her music and her growing fanbase.

The latest campaign - says this totally biased fanboy - has everything the discerning and sophisticated music lover could want. There is a wild - wild, I say - array of packages to choose from. Because some of us are now starting to collect her music (and making suitably arcane format requests), the lead items in the new offers are on limited edition vinyl. But scratch the surface (ho ho ho!) and all of her back catalogue is there on download or CD as well. I don't believe you will regret a single note of anything you buy.

Here ends the message from our sponsors. If my writing about this woman's music communicates half the enthusiasm I feel for it - and a minute fraction of the pleasure the records give me - then it will have worked. It's not the first time I've written about Janice Whaley, and it won't be the last, either.

Other musicians are available. But very few of them are as original and talented as this one. Investigate.

More Proms: Nixon ... and Cameron

Last night I went to 'The Opera' for only about ... (*counts on fingers*) ... the fourth time in my life. As this was the Proms, it wasn't a fully-staged affair, more of a concert performance - but of the whole work. I was slightly apprehensive, as the opera in question was 'Nixon in China', the first by contemporary composer John Adams, and first performed in 1987, only 15 years after Nixon's visit to Mao actually took place. (The folk sitting next to me began to discuss where they were in 1972 when the trip made the news. Felt quite young, which is pretty unusual at gigs these days...)

I suppose I am a textbook 'casual' opera fan - I own a few on CD, but if pressed, I'm more familiar with particular arias or excerpts from opera compilations or TV. Any I've tackled before in their entirety have been the conventionally accepted classics - Puccini, Verdi ... oh, and I saw a production of Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin' in my student days. More of that later.

But I'd never seen any contemporary opera. How 'challenging' was it going to be? And the subject matter - would it be just ... silly? If by now you're wondering what the hell I was doing there - it's because I love Adams's instrumental music. Seek out 'Shaker Loops' or 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine' if you don't know them (there's a Naxos disc containing both). Adams often seems to be described as a minimalist composer but not, I suspect, in the sense that everything is basic and bare; more that a fixed number of ideas are fully turned over and explored. He is totally unafraid of hooks and repetition and, surely, for any of us who have come to classical music after, say, electronica or metal, it seems like a very natural way to put a track together.

So I was curious about how this would translate to opera. Answer: with absolutely zero fuss. The libretto, by Alice Goodman, is an endlessly fascinating piece of poetry in its own right. It banished my fears that an entire opera sung in English might just strike me as odd after hearing the indecipherable beauty of performances in another language. (I've now decided that the old production of 'Onegin' is to blame for this prejudice - that was sung in translation and I've always remembered one of the nerve-shredding climaxes to an act being graced with the words: 'There goes a shepherd. The world is at peace. I'm not.')

The action of the story is by turns satirical and surreal. Richard and Pat Nixon arrive in (the then) Peking and a series of events take place across the first two acts: Dick and Mao's first verbal sparring match; a welcome dinner for the US party; Pat's sightseeing tour; and finally an extraordinary section where the Nixons watch a ballet performance that features the violent punishment of a peasant girl and, basically, get stuck in and try and help her out. My immediate reaction to this is that it symbolises the wider action, suggesting the US blundering in to try and engage foolishly with a culture and people they can never understand. Who knows?

Mao's wife - a terrifying creature who is portrayed as the engine driving her husband's actions - emerges as a key figure in this scene as she sings a climactic aria about power and revolution. Like Lady Macbeth, she uses visceral, anatomical imagery to convey her conquering any potential weakness. After the mayhem subsides, the final act features the story's main players - from East and West - reflecting quietly, not only on the visit, but on their lives and careers. There's no attempt at realism by this point - the characters' thoughts zig-zag across each other as though they could almost converse, but they cannot all be in the same room or space at the same time. The dialogue is both abstract and affecting, leaving you - deliberately, I'm sure - in two minds about where your sympathies, if any, might lie.

Excitingly, Adams was there himself, to conduct. And his music was in fact - just as I expected. The same repetitive hooks and driving rhythms but with colourful and evocative touches - the use of sax, for example, to add a jazz feel (at one point Pat sings, 'I like it when they play our tunes'). Somehow he finds the meeting point between 'riffs' that one could arguably recognise as his own, fully-formed style, and motifs that are reminiscent of Chinese music - especially when played on synthesiser, so you can't readily fit the noise to a familiar instrument. I also think he must have a highly attentive ear for speech and how to match the music appropriately - for example, characters speaking in an 'aside' would suddenly sing more quickly and quietly.

I was absolutely rapt for every single minute. I want to mention one bit of stagecraft in closing - all the more brilliant because, at the Proms, performances like this are only ever 'semi-staged', if that. One of the original huge moments in the opera is the landing of the American plane at the airport. Musically, it's tremendous, but in 'proper' productions, an enormous plane facade is used on stage to deliver the Nixons into the action. Instead, last night, as the music built to the jet's arrival, the chorus began passing a model aeroplane along the row, above their heads. It then went down to the row below, that little bit nearer to us, until finally, one of the chorus gave the plane to Nixon, who by this time was walking down the steps to the stage. Nixon took it without missing a beat, then presented it as a gift to Mao later in the scene. Genius.

I should also quickly mention the Proms matinees Mrs Specs and I caught last weekend. Both were recitals by Cameron Carpenter, a virtuoso organist, of Bach - and other pieces (some by the performer) influenced by the great wigateer. Carpenter is certainly eccentric - he comes across as a kind of Morrissey or Marc Almond of the organ, and performed on both days in a sleeveless t-shirt and sequined trousers. (More of this sort of thing.) His brief half-time interviews with the Radio 3 bloke were full of pithy quips and wry observations, but crucially - and I appreciate this wouldn't have been amazing for the radio audience - he simply appears to be doing things that humans cannot do.

He arranged one piece for pedals only, so he could lean back on his chair and rest his arms. The noise he was making with his feet alone seemed to render the rest of the machine unnecessary. He mashes up material - some of which was never intended for the organ in the first place - from different composers to create new organ works. And even better than that, he's DESIGNED a portable digital organ, which - once built - will allow him to tour freely with whatever repertoire he likes and not rely on any unpredictable pipe organs he might find in various venues. Chap!

iPlayer links for the next few days (so don't tarry) - 'Nixon' starts here, and Cameron Carpenter starts here.

Always good to catch the chap in the picture, too. Surely we can get him onto the Proms stage one day...?

The Broadway Sound

I’d been wondering what the atmosphere would be like at one of these ‘event’ Proms. John Wilson and his orchestra (and they do seem to be, literally, his orchestra – presumably he got them off eBay, or something) are now a regular feature of the season, finding a mass audience – a sell-out, I understand – for his painstaking reconstructions of showtunes and musical numbers.

I had seen his variety concerts from previous years on TV – one tackling MGM musicals, another Hollywood tunes – and enjoyed them, but this would be the first one, focusing on Broadway songs, that I’d got to in person. (Well, ish – Wilson was also the architect of the ‘My Fair Lady’ Prom I went to earlier in the run, but as a complete performance, that was clearly a totally different enterprise.)

Wilson always seems to make sure key elements are in place. He assembles a crack team of vocalists – a trio of women who between them cover soprano and sass, with three male counterparts for tenor, baritone and bass. Not forgetting the splendidly-named Maida Vale Singers as back-up.

As for approach – there are the big hits (‘Another Op’nin’, Another Show’, ‘Bess, You Is My Woman Now’), but even more prominent are the relatively obscure gems unearthed from shows that are – perhaps – justly neglected these days (that’s you, ‘The Boys From Syracuse’), but which threaten to take with them into oblivion one amazing set-piece or number. Wilson is on a rescue mission for these pieces.

When not conducting, Wilson is – inevitably – a slighter-looking man than his telly appearances might suggest, and has the look of an impish scholar. Serious, but with tuck concealed somewhere about his person. Once he starts batoneering, though, it’s all change. There is absolutely no question that he loves this music. He is clearly dancing on the podium, feet constantly in a waltz-style shuffle, torso swaying in a non-existent breeze. The orchestra is his partner, and they love him, too. We could see the beams on their faces, and we were in the circle.

Two solo performances stood out for me, but the first for perhaps a slightly odd reason. Rodney Earl Clarke, the bass, gave a show-stopping rendition of ‘Ol’ Man River’. I have a bit of ‘form’ with this song. The first Christmas after my nan died, my mum and I made what you might call ‘the mistake’ of watching ‘Showboat’ on the telly. This song’s incredible lyrics (‘I get weary and sick of trying, I’m tired of living and scared of dying’) are of course about something so much larger than a single life (or death), but who knows what has the power to push particular buttons? The two of us ended up in floods. Hearing it again – live, inescapable – reminded me of that, so that could well be my first and last experience of wiping away a few tears at a Prom. (Mind you, I’m going to see ‘Nixon in China’ later in the season, so who knows, it might happen again...!)

Seth MacFarlane – yes, that one, who created ‘Family Guy’ – sang baritone. He is a very accomplished vocalist, but perhaps more importantly for tonight’s purposes, his default setting – as you might expect from his other job – is ‘wise-ass’. His numbers not only demanded someone in fine voice, but also presented technical challenges, like ‘Ya Got Trouble’s near-rapping, ten-to-the-dozen rhyming delivery which he carried off in exhilarating style. Everybody sang beautifully, but MacFarlane seems to inhabit the songs more like an acting performer would, bringing the character alive as well as the music.

But the real stars were the orchestra. A significant part of the programme was made up of soundtrack or ‘overture’ music where the band had the chance to really shine. I have to single out the drummer. In his head, this guy is in a touring rock band, probably from the 70s. He would thrash out complicated rhythms, stop at the exact moment necessarily to turn the page of his score, before switching to or from woodblock or tom-toms back to the main kit. Also extra points for shoving one his drumsticks in his mouth to assist in a particularly tricky manoeuvre.

Overall, though – and I have no idea how this effect is achieved – the music sounded ‘old’. In my mind’s ear, I could easily supply the shy thrum of the radio or the crackle on my dad’s old vinyl. The strings have that woozy elision that make all the notes flow into one curve of sound, and the Maida Vale Singers have perfected the old-fashioned tones that you only seem to get if someone is singing into one of those huge mics that hang down from the ceiling. 

Final mention to the rather delicate-looking couple who tried to leave before the encore. Their ‘nearest exit’ happened to be the brightly-lit staircase next to the stage. A few titters went round the Hall as some onlookers realised that the pair had chosen the most conspicuous place possible to sneak out. Imagine everyone’s delight, then, as a few steps above the horrified escapees, a legion of tap dancers started pouring down the stairs, pushing past them to get to their positions. Inevitably, a round of applause began, as the luckless twosome progressed gingerly upwards, no doubt thinking, ‘Surely....just one more dancer to negotiate, then all this will be over...’

You can still hear the concert on iPlayer for a bit (link to part 1 here), but take note that on Saturday night, it’s being televised. If this kind of music is your cup of tea, you will appreciate the skill and affection that all the performers poured into it. As a parting shot, please enjoy this picture of an illustration in the programme of Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and – for it is he – Jules Munshin (?) apparently yelling in each other’s faces in ‘On The Town’.