“Das Land Ohne Musik?”
Paul Serotsky wrote this note to introduce a programme of English music given by the Vancouver Symphony.
For more of Paul’s sparkling words on great music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Home | Views And Reviews
Paul Serotsky wrote this note to introduce a programme of English music given by the Vancouver Symphony.
For more of Paul’s sparkling words on great music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky, an outstanding encourager of the appreciation of good music, introduces us to Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2.
Paul Serotsky introduces us to the symphonic poem Les Préludes” by Liszt, “the originator, for better or worse, of modern pianism’’.
To read more of Paul’s vibrant words on great music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotksy introduces two works by Franck, a man who was humble to a fault.
This note was written to introduce part of a concert given by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
... In 1930, along came Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist damaged by the self-same conflict (World War One), but whose indomitable spirit demanded music for his remaining hand to master. Imagine the effect on Ravel, imagine the challenge!..
Paul Serotksy tells how Ravel rose triumphantly to the challenge of writing a piano concerto for the left hand.
For more of Paul’s choice words on the greatest music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
…Sacheverell Sitwell. When Walton, having failed his exams, bemoaned his fate, the Sitwell siblings’ solution was to “adopt” him, organising an income so that their “pet genius” could compose in comfort. Living in London, mingling with the cream of artistic society, Walton had everything on a plate….
But the cosseted composer produced some fine works. The inimitable Paul Serotsky introduces us to one of them, Walton’s violin concerto.
For more of Paul’s fizzing words on music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky introduces Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjues – not his finest work by a long chalk, but probably the most tuneful, engaging, evocative and colourful.
To read more of Paul’s satisfying and illuminating words on great music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Rossini’s overture to “The Italian Girl in Algiers”.
To read more of Paul’s sparkling words about some of the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
…Admirably recorded in an ambience to die for, these are spirited performances of music that’s a cut above the needs of its original purpose, and will fail to entertain and edify only those who over-indulge their appetites…
Paul Serotsky enjoys performances of Domenico Cimarosa overtures, recorded in St Anne’s Church, Toronto, Canada.
Paul Serotksy introduces us to Tubin’s Prélude Solennel, a work which can be thought of as the Estonian equivalent of “Finlandia’’.
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, a work of which one respected critic said “The violin is no longer played, [but] beaten black and blue . . . [this is] music that stinks in the ear.”
For more of Paul’s well-informed words on some of the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
“The primary purpose of music is neither instruction nor culture but pleasure; and this is an all-sufficient purpose,’’ commented the composer Charles Ives.
The inimitable Paul Serotsky tells us something of Ives’ variations on the tune America.
Continue reading "Charles Ives - Variations On "America''" »
Scottish composer James MacMillan drew inspiration fo his work “Britannia’’ from Elgar’s “Cockaigne Overture”.
Paul Serotsky introduces us to a work which shows us an uncomfortable vision of what the future might hold if we don’t mend our ways.
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Mozart’s motet “Exsultate, Jubilate”, a bit of a rush job.
For more of Paul’s sparkling words on some of the greatest music ever written please visit Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
…Much as we’d like to believe that Great Music is above Grubby Money, the fact remains that even composers have to eat. There are many ways to juggle the balance between “doing your own thing” and raking in the brass. Being a “composer-performer” is just one, and Prokofiev was just one such…
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto.
…Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestral genius seemed tailor-made for ballet, then becoming the height of fashion. Yet, curiously, he opted for the world of opera…
Paul Serotsky introduces us to “The Snow Maiden’’ - the third of the composer's 15 operas.
Continue reading "Rimsky-Korsakov's Suite “The Snow Maiden”" »
Paul Serotsky introduces a work by Alexander Campbell Mackenzie – “An accomplished and prolific composer, in his day he was – within Britain’s parochial shores – highly influential. Nowadays, though, he is almost entirely neglected. Yet, the impression he made on Elgar was such that, on hearing his music, folk tend to think it sounds rather like Elgar. That’s reason enough, I reckon, for dusting it off and putting it back where it belongs – before the public.’’
To read more of Paul’s exhilarating introductions to some of the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Continue reading "Alexander Mackenzie's Britannia Overture" »
It took Smetana five years to complete “Má Vlast”, an integral cycle of six symphonic poems. Paul Serotsky thinks that the work speaks volumes for the composer’s sheer guts – and the intensity of his nationalistic feelings – in completing the first two within a few weeks of the onset of his deafness.
“As a 'hymn' in praise of a homeland, it is peerless,'' says Paul.
For more of Paul’s enthusiastic and informed words of the world’s greatest music please click on views and reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky presents a most appealing introduction to Mendelsshon’s violin concerto.
Mendelsshon, a prolific composer who was dubbed “the Mozart of the Nineteenth Century’’, was immensely gifted, multi-talented and unusually fortunate, enjoying the luxury of a very comfortable and relatively trouble-free life in which to ply his prodigious trade.
To read more of Paul’s enticing words about some of the greatesat music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
...If you’ve a Ph.D. in Shostakovich, or are still wearing your “L” plates, this is utterly essential listening...
Paul Serotsky sums up his marvelously comprehsive and engrossing reviews of the CDs in a boxed set of the 15 symphonies of Dimitri Shostakovich.
To read those reviews, and more of Paul's words about the greatest music ever written, please click on Views and Revues in the menu on this page.
…Not for the first time, the subliminal sense of “community” that comes from hearing ordinary folk performing before their peers, straining against the limits of their capabilities, affected me in a way that confounds conventional criticism….
Paul Serotsky is moved by a performance last month of Handel’s Messiah in St Francis Xavier Church, Whangarei, New Zealand.
...I remember one chap who beat his brains against the brick bastions of the Fifteenth for ages, then concluded (not unreasonably, if a little harshly, given his frustration) that the whole shebang was the rag-bag product of a composer on the threshold of senile dementia. Me? I don’t believe that for one second...
Paul Serotsky, an ebullient and informative music critic, considers Shostakovich's Fifteenth and final symphony to be a not unreasonable combination of reminiscence and valediction.
To read more of Paul's words on music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
...Lots of Shostakovich rubbed off onto Britten, but rather less Britten rubbed off onto Shostakovich. My immediate impression of the Fourteenth Symphony is that it is not so much influenced by Britten as a deliberate adoption of elements of Britten’s style, and thus part and parcel of the tribute to a friend implicit (or even explicit, for that matter) in the work’s dedication. “Immediate” is the word! I don’t think anybody’s going to miss, in the very opening violin line, the allusion to Peter Grimes – it breathes the very same bleak, chill air that drifts in from the grey North Sea in the first Interlude...
Paul Serotsky is impressed by a superb recording of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony - perhaps the grimmest of all his works.
...The work gets its title, and to a large degree its overall tenor, from the poem Shostakovich sets in the first movement. Yevtushenko’s Babi-Yar is a “protest song” of blood-curdling intensity, condemning the Nazi mass-murder of a sizeable proportion of Kiev’s Jewish population, railing mightily against anti-semitism and, pointedly, against the nasty anti-semitic underbelly of the Soviet, which mirrors the tyrannical regime itself – all, I’m sure, very embarrassing to the Soviet leadership. Small wonder, then, that as soon as the work had seen the light of day, that noble leadership tried to suppress it, even though it should have perhaps been obvious even to them that such things were getting less easy to do...
Paul Serotsky, whose enthusiastic flow of words invariably matches and does full justice to some of the greatest music ever written, welcomes a performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar''.
Continue reading "Shostakovich - Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar''" »
Critics thought that Shostakovich, who had finally become a member of the Communist Party, had thrown in the towel and had produced a crude piece of Soviet propaganda with his Twelfth Symphony.
Paul Serotsky begs to differ. "Shostakovich’s Twelfth is, under its propagandist clown’s mask a damned fine symphony that doesn’t deserve to be as damned as it has been...''
To read more of Paul's sparkling essays on some of the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
...The thing is that, as an uncultured yob (relatively speaking), I’m very well placed to be moved – or even shaken to the core of my being – by this music, which is one reason why I do so love this symphony (the cultured will, if they read on, be similarly appalled at my attitude to the even more maligned Twelfth). Mind you, one of my assessment criteria for music is that if, as I strive to “understand” a piece of music better, the music gets even more impressive, then it is “good” music. Shostakovich’s Eleventh passes this test with flying colours, so for me it’s “great music”, end of argument! A measure of my affection is that I nearly wore out my LPs of the recording made by Berglund with the Bournemouth SO, which orchestra Barshai has also conducted. Fearing that my stylus might start to slice right through the vinyl, I replaced the LPs with the CD remastering of the same recording...
Paul Serotsky expresses his enthusiasm for Shostakovich's much-maligned Eleventh Symphony.
After the ending of the Second World War Joseph Stalin screwed his totalitarian vice even tighter. During a period of renewed oppression composer Dmitri Shostakovich kept his head down while churning out "sweet-meats'' to please the State.
Whether Shostakovich actually waited for Stalin to die before starting on any further major works, or simply kept what work he did quietly tucked away for that “rainy day”, is now probably neither here nor there, says Paul Serotsky. "Nevertheless, it seems to me that the latter would be more in character, and certainly the first movement of his Tenth Symphony sounds like the sort of music he might well have written to while away the sleepless nights during that grim period.''
Paul Serotsky says that Dimitri Shostakovich was in a right old quandry when he came to write his Ninth Symphony. "Should he do the expected, and be seen to kow-tow? Should he seem to kow-tow, and subvert the surface celebration with some secret code? Did he even want to challenge Beethoven’s Ninth? Suppose he tried (either way) and flopped? Then again, there were the ordinary folk of Russia, the brave, long-suffering people, the life-blood of the homeland he so loved: these people above all he did not want to let down. What was he to do? The answer he found was completely gob-smacking in its brilliance: to the people he gave the joy and celebration – and commemoration – they deserved, and to the masters he gave his challenge to the perceived supremacy of Beethoven. Only it was not Russia’s answer to the mighty Ninth, but Russia’s answer to the flighty Eighth!'''...
Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony turned out to be unremittingly gloomy and laden with the grimmest foreboding.
"The reaction to its first performance (under Mravinsky) was hardly surprising: puzzlement, confusion – and ominous rumblings of accusation: noises on the lines of 'Why, when the tide of the war is turning, does he not write something to encourage our valiant workers and warriors?' Why indeed, especially when he had, so to speak, already experienced the rough edge of Uncle Joe’s tongue?,'' Paul Serotsky writes.
For more of Paul's effervescent words about the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
...The legend of the birth of this symphony is the stuff of spy-stories. It was composed amid the horrors of the siege of Leningrad, where (it is said) its composer defied the air raids to continue his task. Its value as both propaganda-piece and contribution to the Allied war effort was immediately recognised by the Soviet authorities (who, it must be said, had thus far failed abysmally to comprehend anything of his), and so the score was microfilmed and smuggled, presumably at appalling risk, to the West. Almost overnight, no doubt aided by the titles given to the movements, it became an icon of the war against fascism...
Paul Serotsky is once again bowled over by a peformance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony - the Lenigrand.
For more of Paul's ebullient words on music please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky confesses that he is puzzled by Shostakovich's sixth symphony. The composer announced his intention to “set in sound the immortal images of Lenin” in a symphony on the same lines as Beethoven’s Ninth.
"Instead of the expected Beethovenian monument to the founding father of the Soviet State there was just this lop-sided, three movement curiosity which sets out making all the right preparatory noises but then 'comes off the rails' in a big way. People were puzzled. Quite frankly, so am I. In all the writings about what’s come to light in recent years I haven’t yet come across anything remotely like a convincing explanation of just what Shostakovich thought he was playing at.''
...Having been publicly shamed by the State via the state-controlled press, having been labelled a public enemy (which carried the “sentence” of being unemployable), having become aware of the unnerving tendency of outspoken people to “disappear”, and having hurriedly hoicked his latest and biggest symphony out of rehearsals, Shostakovich must have felt somewhat insecure, exposed, and in fear for his life. Clearly, he had to do something post haste to get the b******s off his back...
Paul Serotsky tells of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, his best known and most frequently performed work.
...Try to imagine what it would be like to sit down to breakfast one sun-soaked morning, basking in both sun and successful career, open the paper, and read that in your absence you have been tried and condemned for a crime that wasn’t even considered naughty when you did it. Worse, the “crime” is the very reason that you are successful and much admired by your peers. Bemused, you set off for work, only to see posters publicly displayed declaring you to be an “enemy of the people”....
Paul Serotsky, writing with a power to match the music, tells why the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich decided to withdraw his Fourth symphony.
To read more of Paul's enlightening words on some of the greatest music ever written please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
...My feeling is that Shostakovich deliberately sacrificed the relatively conventional form and much of the melodic invention of his First Symphony at the altar of colourful and rhythmic effect, so that he could concentrate on honing his argumentative techniques – and that’s why the Second and Third symphonies are generally regarded as the crucibles in which he forged his mature style. Once he’d cracked that, he would turn his attention – in no uncertain terms – to the question of symphonic architecture...
Paul Serotsky brings us a perceptive assessment of a performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 3.
...To be perfectly honest (which I usually am), I think that the Second Symphony is actually a very good piece of music, lacking only a decent belter of a singable tune for its choral finale....
Paul Serotsky continues his review of a set of recordings of Dimitri Shostakovich's symphonies.
...What really brings you up short about this music is not so much the oft-voiced “astonishing accomplishment for one so young” – as a symphony, it’s as short on structural integrity as it is long on youthful bombast (and that’s not a grumble!) – but that, like Mahler’s equally youthful Das Klagende Lied, it already contains all the key elements of his maturity bar only one, and that is the ability to “carry the line”. Not that we should worry – here’s a burgeoning genius, revelling in a Brave New World of Cultural Revolution, singing his socks off at the top of his voice (it would be quite a few years yet, before he had to sing his socks off to save his life)...
Paul Serotsky, writing his socks off, introduces us to Shostakovich's First Symphony.
Paul Serotsky reviews recordings of the symphonies of the man that many consider the Twentieth Century's greatest composer - Dimitri Shostakovich.
Paul was inspired by these great interpretations to write almost at book-length. His vivid impressions of each symphony, which serve as a splendid introduction to the work of this great Russian composer, will be appearing in Open Writing for the next 15 Saturdays. Today he presents an overture to his reactions to this great music.
Paul Serotsky introduces Delius’s The Walk to the Paradise Garden, from “A Village Romeo and Juliet” – a score drenched in perfumed harmonies and sultry textures.
…Spending eternity sitting on a fluffy, pink cloud, dressed in only a pure white nightie, and playing on a harp is not my idea of “heaven”, either with or without a capital “H”! Don’t get me wrong: as far as I am concerned the harp is the most sumptuous-sounding instrument ever to grace a concert platform, and so often the lynch-pin of all the glow and glitter of our most colourful music. Yet, the prospect of listening to nigh on two whole hours of wall-to-wall harping fills me with foreboding: what if some misguided Superior Being should slightly misinterpret my purpose – as some sort of wishful thinking?…
Despite this vigorous caveat Paul Serotsky finds much to like in a collection of romantic harp music.
Paul Serotsky says he would lay odds that when Gustav Mahler was beavering away on the symbiotic First Symphony and Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen, not even for one millisecond did he think, “These might not fill a concert programme, but they’ll make a really neat coupling when CD is invented, 70 years after my death.”
“Of course,’’ Paul adds in this review of a recording of these two fine works “if he had (which, of course, he didn’t), he’d have been spot-on, because that’s exactly what they do make!’’
For more of Paul’s ebullient words on music please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky, who conveys in words his effervescent enthusiasm for the greateast music ever written, reviews a biography of one of his favourite composers, Malcolm Arnold.
(Please note that this review was written before the composer’s death).
For more of Paul’s sparkling words please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
…If you’re familiar only with “big band” Britten, this programme will be a revelation. If you already know and love the spartan upholstery of “bare-boned” Britten, this programme will be a disappointment. Beautifully packaged and presented, with full if somewhat florid documentation, and poised performances that are too nice to deliver the devastation demanded by the music….
Paul Serotsky reviews a recording of works by Benjamin Britten.
…You could say Strauss made an art form out of the pot-pourri. He exercised immense skill in coordinating the tunes pulled from his capacious headgear, combining them with imaginative introductions and bridging phrases to transmute mere dance sequences into exquisite tone-poems. I believe that Strauss remains so universally well-loved because his music is not just stylish and attractive, but also edifyingly well bolted together…
Paul Serotsky, whose words about music are always edifyingly well bolted together, introduces Johann Straus the Younger’s Emperor Waltz.
…Attracted to dance rhythms both ancient and modern, in 1907 he had planned a work in celebration of the Viennese Waltz. However, it was only after the War that, prompted by Diaghilev, he wrote La Valse, a work with one foot solidly planted in the old world, and the other shifting uncertainly in the quicksand of the new,..
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Maurice Ravel’s disturbing work, La Valse.
For more of Paul’s effervescent words about the greatest music ever written please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
…"A Symphony must be like the World!" proclaimed Mahler, and justified it with eleven stupendous works, in each setting himself a new challenge…
Paul Serotsky introduces Mahler’s great Sixth symphony.
For more of Paul’s ebullient words on the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
This note was written by Paul Serotsky to introduce a performance given in 1996 to mark Malcolm Arnold's 75th. birthday.
Paul described it as a sincere tribute to a composer who has been sidelined in the most deplorably shabby manner by the musical establishment. Were it not for the faithful support of such as Sir Charles Groves, it was possible that Arnold's wonderful music might have sunk without trace. The emergent, gradual recognition of the exceptional quality and originality of his music is small compensate.’’
For more of Paul’s vigorous words on classical music please click on View And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Continue reading "Malcolm Arnold's Fantasy On A Theme Of John Field, For Piano And Orchestra" »
“William Alwyn, composer, pianist, flautist, poet, painter, and translator, is not a name to set the masses flooding to the box-office.’’ says Paul Serotsky.
However, after reading what Paul has to say about Alwyn’s Symphony No.5 you will want to hear it played.
For more of Paul’s engaging words about the greatest music ever written please click on Views and Reviews in he menu on this page.
…What makes a performance “successful”? More specifically, considering that even critics need criteria, how do we measure “success”? In the absence of, say, any overriding “revelatory” aspect – as, for example, when I heard Paul Watkin conduct Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony earlier in the season – we generally adopt the show-jumping method: the fewer “faults” the better…
Paul Serotsky reviews a concert given by the Orchestra of Opera North.
“Forget the famed and fêted of the Nineteenth Century opera stage – they were small beer when compared with Liszt, the man who kick-started the entire modern concept of ‘stardom’, with all its attendant adulation and excessive income. Then, quite suddenly, in a plot twist worthy of the grandest of soap-operas, he 'dropped out', abandoning the bright lights in favour of a quiet life as Weimar’s Kapellmeister,’’ says Paul Serotsky.
However Paul is puzzled by the fact that Liszt wrote piano works obviously intended as showpieces after his retreat from stardom.
For more of Paul’s virtuoso articles on music please click on View and Reviews in the menu on this page.
Visit also MusicWeb http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm
…This book is unusual in content, candid to a fault, thoroughly absorbing, moving and mirthful, and requires virtually no prior knowledge of – or even particular interest in – “symphonic” music…
Paul Serotsky reviews the book Wrong Sex, Wrong Instrument by Maggie Cotton.
…Sibelius is every bit as Finnish as Dvorak is Czech, and for precisely the same reasons. There's nothing wrong with that – even when his North Wind blows at its chilliest, we know that within beats the warm heart of a composer who can (and very often did) write music to touch the simplest of souls…
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1. For more of Paul’s informative words on the greatest music ever written please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
Tchaikovsky started work on his Sixth Symphony in the idyllic surroundings of his country house near Klin. “It's therefore more than likely that, in the music, he was merely recalling memories of past anguish,’’ Paul Serotsky suggests. “Had he felt anything like it sounds, would he have been in a fit state to write it at all, never mind so brilliantly?’’
For more of Paul’s enlightening words on the creative endevours of composers and musicians please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
…Even with many years of familiarity, I have only to hear the pitch-black brooding of the opening bars to be transported from this World into that other of the bold Ivan, the evil Kaschei , and the exotic Firebird…
Paul Serotsky introduces Stravinsky’s magical, exciting ballet suite, The Firebird. For more of Paul’s articles, which are brim-full of enthusiastic new thooughts on some of the greatest music ever composed, please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
…It is emerging how truly courageous were artists like Shostakovich, and how appalling the danger. As an eminent composer, he was terribly exposed. One wrong word, a nod to the wrong person, music a shade too abstract, and he was in mortal danger. Imagine how it must feel to see official posters advertising a recital "given by D. Shostakovich, Enemy of the People". Once, he evaded arrest only because the arresting official was himself arrested…
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Symphony No. 8 by Dmitri Shostakovich, who produced great musical works while living through the horrors of the Stalinist years in Russia.
Paul Serotsky introduces Malcolm Arnold’s Symphony No. 2, a work “worthy in every respect to be ranked alongside the best. It is full of technical subtlety for the cerebral listener, and yet (no mean feat, this) is not afraid to entertain the public at large.’’
This introduction was part of the programme notes for a concert by Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra.
For more Paul’s perceptive articles on classical music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
….Franck made a deliberate and wilful choice of sonority that beautifully complements the sinuous slitherings of the chromatically lubricated themes, just coincidentally sounding a bit like an organ…
Paul Serotsky introduces us to the only symphony composed by the Belgian composer, Cesar Frank.
For more of Paul’s illuminating words on the greatest musical works please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky introduces us to the mighty Symphony No 3 - one of the most wonderful, uplifting, mind-blowing experiences in all music – by Gustav Mahler, a composer who “stretched conventional tonality to the limit, just as he pushed symphonic architecture about as far as it would go.’’
For more of Paul’s erudite thoughts on the greatest music ever written please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Paul Serotsky says that it comes as a pleasant surprise to learn that the Zulu, of all musical traditions, favours male-voice “a capella” singing. Paul introduces Alan Jenkins’s arrangement of Siyahamba, a traditional Zulu song.
…we hear every scintillating note of the thrusting dynamism of Elgar the imperial rabble-rouser in full flood…
Paul Serotsky writes a programme note on an unofficial English National Anthem.
For more of Paul’s ebullient words on some of the greatest musical works please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on his page.
…Like countless others, my childish blood was moved in a mysterious way, my juvenile imagination set ablaze by those words, even though I hadn’t the slightest idea what they meant…
Paul Serotsky tells of the effect that William Blakes’s words, set to music by Charles Parry, had upon him during his primary school days.
For more of Paul’s exuberant words on music please click on Views And Reviews in the menu on his page.
…I’ve often wondered why, when so many highly influential people had recognised the immense value of Partch’s work, he remained so obstinately obscure. It’s common enough knowledge that Partch was quite contrary and cantankerous. However, perusing some of the stuff herein brought it home to me, with far more clout than any biography could, that there was much more to it. Numerous exchanges dotted around Enclosure 3 show us that Partch must have had an itchy finger hovering over the self-destruct button, because he sometimes went out of his way to bite the hands that fed him…
Paul Serotsky enthuses about an extraordianry book featuring the work of Harry Partch, the controversial American composer and instrument designer.
To read more of Paul’s enthusiastic articles about Partch – and his words on other composers – please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
…Both musicians and vocalists were clearly as hot as the proverbial iron that they were striking. Flushed with success but, presumably, champing at the bit, they took full advantage of the studio conditions and got it as near spot-on as they could possibly manage…
Paul Serotsky – Britain’s number one Harry Partch enthusiast? – is impressed by a performance of the controversial American composer’s music.
For more of Paul’s powerful articles on Harry Partch – and other composers – please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
This review first appeared in http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm
…You know how it is: you meet someone, eventually you get talking about matters musical, and inevitably you start to “trade names” of composers you particularly like. On such occasions, I am wont to toss in the name of Harry Partch. Almost invariably, I get one of two responses – either, “Who the hell is Harry Partch?” or, “Wasn’t he the bloke who wrote music in a 43-note scale, or something?” As it happens, in respect of the latter question the answer is, “Well, he is – and he isn’t!”…
Paul Serotsky shares more of his ebullient thoughts on the music of Harry Partch, the highly original American composer and instrument designer.
For more of Paul’s essays on Mr Partch – and other composers – please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
This article first appeared in http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm
Continue reading "Harry Partch - Enclosure 5 – “. . . On an Ancient Greek Theme”" »
…“I am Harry Partch, a composer. My compositions, a few of which are here recorded, employ a scale, instruments and manner of performance different from that of current musical practice.” Thus, with what must be the Understatement of the Century, does Partch’s own dark-brown voice, sounding mildly uncomfortable in front of a microphone, introduce the original recording of Intrusions. Although he couldn’t have known it at the time, he also neatly introduces this Enclosure 2. The recording of the subsequent short snippet of the music is horribly distorted, forcibly reminding us that we are lucky to be able to hear much of this music at all…
Paul Serotsky, a man with an irrepressible and infectious enthusiasm for great music, continues his series on works by Harry Partch, the challenging American composer.
For more of Paul’s articles please click on Views and Reviews in the menu on this page.
This article first appeared in http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm
….The plain fact is that this recording is an historical document of immense, immeasurable value, and, as such, we would be fortunate even if it was a tatty and dog-eared affair. Doubly fortunate we are, then, that by anyone’s standards it is altogether superb. It encapsulates a vindication of Partch’s entire life’s work, a testament to his radical imagination, and proof beyond all reasonable doubt that even if his chosen path was a blind alley, then it was also a tunnel terminating in a great and enchanting light….
After reading Paul Serotsky’s enthusiastic well-informed words you will experience an irresistible urge to listen to the music of Harry Partch. This is the third in a series of articles by Paul about the maverick American composer and instrument designer.
This article first appeared in http://www.musicweb.uk.net/
Paul Serotsky is firmly of the opinion that the American composer Harry Partch is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the entire history of music. “Each new encounter with Partch makes me more gob-smacked than ever at the sheer breadth and depth of his astounding achievement…’’
Here Paul writes about films featuring the composer’s music.
This review first appeared http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm
...So, I said to him, "Harry Partch was an amazing bloke, and what he did is amazing. I reckon that he is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the entire history of music", and he came straight back at me with, "OK, Mr. Clever-Clogs, so how come hardly anybody’s even heard of Harry Partch, then, eh?" I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Well, he does have a point...
There's nobody better able to answer that point than Harry Partch enthusiast Paul Serotsky. After reading Paul's review you will be eager to sample Mr Partch's music.
This article first appeared in http://www.musicweb-international.com/index.htm
…Partch relates to the “American musical tradition” - or any other Western European-based musical tradition - in much the same way as a human hand to a hot brick. Indeed, the whole point about Partch is that he made a somewhat drastic move of washing his hands of the entire shooting-match, a move he consolidated by consigning all the music he had already written to the tender mercies of a pot-bellied stove.
What was the source of his dissatisfaction? Everything! Performing practices and traditions, the cult of the virtuoso, musical theory and education, the role of music, the subservience of words to music - you name it and Partch was “aginn” it. It seems that, most of all, he despised the mystique that had been built, like an ivory tower, around the hallowed feet of Music-with-a-capital-M…
In this review Paul Serotsky gives full expression to his enthusiasm for the music of Harry Partch, the American composer and instrument maker/inventor for whom the word “original’’ might have been invented.
This is the first of a series of seven articles about Mr Partch’s music which will be appearing on forthcoming Sundays in Open Writing.
This review first appeared on http://www.musicweb.uk.net/
“…bring “Sylvia” out into the light, and it shines: the music is, in its own right, both vibrant and colourful, evocative and atmospheric... ‘’
Paul Serotsky introduces us to Léo Delibes’s ballet suite “Sylvia’’.
Paul’s infectious enthusiasm for classical music shines through every paragraph, sentence and phrase of his writing. Read more of his columns by clicking on Views And Reviews in the menu on this page.
Continue reading "Delibes (1836-91) – Ballet Suite: “Sylvia”" »