I’m going to refuse to buy anymore cocaine from America
Posted in General on 23. Aug, 2010
“I’m going to refuse to buy anymore cocaine from America.” Had he been in earshot Earle, whose political activism and past addictions have brought him into conflict with the Texas police (and prison system), would have appreciated the grim humour.Grinding into a hard-faced, steam-hammered fusilade of caustic guitar and twanging, anguished vocals, Earle began the show with a selection from the current Transcendental Blues album. The impressive force and veiled menace may be perfect for attacking a cold, hard world and exorcising the post crack-addiction demons, but with the hall filled mostly by appreciative but sedate thirty- and fortysomethings, the essential audience feedback is not forthcoming.Even so, with so many good songs in his canon and the particularly high standard of his work since the 1995 comeback Train A Coming, it was only a matter of time until he broke through the mire. The Civil War lament “Taneytown”, the pop flash of “Last of the Hardcore Troubadours” and particularly “Someday” – a scalding indictment of small-town anomie and frustration, seething with montony and claustrophobia – all delivered.More musical flavour emerged as the show progressed. McCoury nurtured instrumental virtuosity was to the fore on his electric mandolin intro to “Copperhead Road”, while “Galway Girl” teemed with the high-spirited punk-folk of The Pogues.
But it was when he dispensensed with the standard set list and hit the home straight of the long (two-and-a-half hour) show that political activism and musical might locked together on a truly corusucating version of the Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today”. A case of rebel victory seized from the jaws of the death penalty.. I’ve never thought of Mahler as being an especially balletic composer, though a new Teldec Classics recording of his all-encompassing Third Symphony comes close to dancing This is Mahler’s evocation of nature’s first awakenings. But while most conductors home in on the first movement’s Jurassic horn calls and percussion thunder, Kent Nagano makes a play for the village band episode at the movement’s centre. Low strings bounce in first (from about 19′30″), then woodwinds follow their cue (with a lusty oompah bringing up the rear), before the merry forces march off leaving the brass to restate their opening alarm. I’ve never thought of Mahler as being an especially balletic composer, though a new Teldec Classics recording of his all-encompassing Third Symphony comes close to dancing This is Mahler’s evocation of nature’s first awakenings.
But while most conductors home in on the first movement’s Jurassic horn calls and percussion thunder, Kent Nagano makes a play for the village band episode at the movement’s centre. Low strings bounce in first (from about 19′30″), then woodwinds follow their cue (with a lusty oompah bringing up the rear), before the merry forces march off leaving the brass to restate their opening alarm.
Nagano likes to keep things on the move. The Menuetto second movement is pliant and breezy, while Joachim Pliquett’s posthorn solo adds a deeply nostalgic perspective to the Scherzo. Dagmar Pecková sings movingly of eternal depths while choral forces from Berlin and Hanover chime in harmony of heavenly joy. The loving finale is uninhibited in its ardour and yet the overriding impression is of an epic fantasy, rarely pausing save for those precious moments where Mahler makes space for contemplation. I’ve not enjoyed a Mahler Three as much since Leonard Bernstein’s first (Sony) version, and this one is a good deal better recorded.Nagano’s 95-minute Mahler comes ungenerously spread over two full-price CDs, whereas Fazil Say’s staggering multi-piano recreation of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring ballet – which is also released by Teldec – sits alone on a single 31-minute disc.
Mind you, that’s largely down to Say himself, who boldly asserts (rightly in my view) that The Rite is so powerful and self-sufficient that any coupling would have been inappropriate.The miracle here, aside from the sheer technical wizardry needed to superimpose various lines of music, is in how Say manages to avoid even the slightest suggestion of rhythmic rigidity. True, the “Dance of the Young Girls” pounds away much as it would on a full orchestra and the “Dance of the Earth” is properly propulsive. I’m thinking more of “Spring Rounds” or the introduction to “The Sacrifice”, where Say’s overlaid contributions suggest a single flexible gesture.The performing ground plan is based on the composer’s own version for “one piano, four hands”, though the appliance of science allows for extra interpolations that a mere four hands could never have managed. Every note remains intact and every pulsing gesture is given its full force.