Silence

John Cage, whose birthday I noted recently, is of course the first name you'd associate with silence, as enshrined in his notorious piece 4'33". But there's another composer whose career is partly defined by silence.

It's 50 years since Sibelius died, and approximately 80 years since he produced any significant work. I can't think of any parallel to this. It seems he worked on an eighth symphony for some years, before burning everything he had written in 1943. Tom Service in today's Guardian suggests that this 30 year silence was simply the only appropriate response Sibelius could make after what he achieved in his final symphonies and Tapiola; he simply could say nothing which would not diminish those achievements.

There's probably some truth in this, although it may be romanticising crippling self-doubt on the part of Sibelius. After he burnt the eighth symphony, he became much happier. Maybe this was because he had reached a point where he felt able to let go of his idea of himself as a composer.

I often think about what makes one a composer*, especially when I'm not actually writing anything. If I at what point do I cease to be a composer? Elisabeth Lutyens used to say "If you're a composer, you bloody well compose", which implies that you're only a composer if you're actually writing. This appeals to me, as I've always felt uncomfortable with the presumption and pretension that seems to go with a declaration of "I am a COMPOSER!". And yet, I'm always conscious, even during those dry, unproductive periods, that I feel that I am, in some way. And this is a disturbing feeling, because if I'm a composer, why am I not composing? Generally, before the suspicion that I'm not a composer anymore takes complete hold, I have an idea, start writing,and become myself again.

But that awesome, oppressive 30 year silence of Sibelius continues to haunt me, and sometimes seems as powerful as anything he wrote. I wonder if that happiness that was noted in him after his immolation was due to a sense of freedom, that he had finally abandoned ambition, had unshackled himself from reputation, had admitted to himself that he was a man who had once been a composer, but no longer was.



*Harrison Birtwistle once gave a talk to an audience of schoolchildren, one of whom asked him, "But how do you become a composer?" Birtwistle replied, "Well, you've got to write music. There's no way round it."

A sell-off by any other name...

The BBC Philharmonic has announced a £20 million sponsorship deal with Salford Council. I believe that having an orchestra to call its own (in riposte to the Hallé's association with Manchester) was a major selling point for Salford Council to become the BBC's new Northern host. The band will retain its name, but this means it has effectively been outsourced. I wonder how long it will be before the other BBC orchestras find themselves the subject of such schemes? As the Beeb is merrily selling off all the means to make television programmes, it seems hard to believe they will continue to fund several orchestras.

Comics Britannia

A couple of years ago I mentioned to someone working in BBC television that it would be a great idea to do a series on the history of British comics. Now I'm not suggesting that some bugger nicked my idea, but what do I now find on BBC4 (the channel everyone thinks should be shut down, although it accounts for at least half the TV I bother to watch these days) but Comics Britannia, a 3-part documentary series at the centre of a season of comics-related programming.

It's quite a decent show, although I'd rather read Little Plum myself than watch Steve Bell reading it, to be honest. Comics is such a personal medium (as the great Leo Baxendale pointed out) and it seems intrusive to watch other people reading them out, as well as inadequate - it's a medium you really have to engage with yourself.

It's an exaggeration to say that Baxendale, Dudley D. Watkins and Ken Reid were single-handedly responsible for all British comics from the 30s to the 80s - but not that much. it was great to see their work discussed like this, and BBC 4 have assembled a wonderful array of talking heads. Good to see such issues as the incredibly racist (to our 21st century eyes) characters that have been quietly forgotten, as well as the wartime propaganda strips.

It tends towards a bit of a nostalgia-fest for my liking, but maybe the impression that comics are something that happened in the past will dissipate as the series goes on, and I suppose given the parlous state of the industry in this country, it's inevitable that it's going to be rather backward-looking. I'd have liked to see some mention or discussion of, say, the recent relaunch of the Dandy, but maybe that would have been too depressing a note to end on.

Anyway, it's worth watching, it seems to be repeated about 20 times over the week, and there's two more programmes to follow, as well as a welter of associated documentaries and reruns of Batman, so give it a look. Or better still, go out and buy some comics and stop them going down the pan.

All Prommed Out

Coming out of the Albert Hall the other night, I felt a mixed bunch of things: a certain elation, but also relief and weariness. As much as I've enjoyed pretty much all the concerts I've been to over the summer, there's a slight but inescapable gladness that it's over now, rather like the feeling you might get after a delicious meal where all the portions have been slightly too big. While the Proms are undoubtedly a Good Thing, you can have too much of a Good Thing, and I wonder how those people who turn up night after night for the best part of three months do it. Perhaps this is why the audience seems to disappear rather than decamp to the Barbican, Festival Hall etc; they're simply sated, and need nine months to let their ears refresh before the next marathon. I wonder if it's entirely healthy to binge on music like this. So I'll raise a glass to another year done, and briefly wonder what the regime change will bring next year. I'm not sure what I'll be doing tomorrow night, but I know where I won't be.

Pavarotti R.I.P.

So farewell then, Fat Lucy. In between all the references to the World Cup, and possibly the odd reference to the fact that he was an actual proper opera singer who sang whole operas, on stage (not something certain other "opera singers" can claim to have done), let us not forget his abiding fondess for elephants.

A post about Nothing

I am saying Nothing. Actually, that's not accurate: I'm not saying anything, but I am typing Nothing. As the time progresses, I type more and more of Nothing. I shall shortly type Nothing again, and then I shall be done, until I type Nothing once more and finish this paragraph.

This is the second paragraph of this post, and I am still typing Nothing. As time passes I am typing more and more Nothing. Is Nothing happening when I type Nothing, or does typing Nothing preclude the possibility of Nothing happening? I continue to type Nothing. More and more I am typing Nothing. This is the end of the second paragraph.

I have now reached the third paragraph of this post. I am typing Nothing. As time passes the amount of Nothing increases. I am not the first person to type Nothing, nor shall I be the last. I shall continue to type Nothing until the end of this post, whereupon I shall type no more. I shall stop typing Nothing. This is the third paragraph of this post, and it ends with Nothing.

The previous paragraph ended with Nothing, but now I am in the fourth paragraph, and still typing Nothing. Nothing will be typed after this paragraph ends. This paragraph will end after the last time I type Nothing in this paragraph. This does not mean that there will be no more typing after the last time I type nothing in this, the fourth paragraph, only that it will end after the last time I type Nothing within it.

Nothing begins the fifth paragraph of this post. As the time passes I am typing Nothing more and more. The fifth paragraph continues with Nothing, and ends with Nothing. Nothing is present in this paragraph. The next paragraph will consist of Nothing.

Nothing.

I am now typing the seventh paragraph of this post, and I am still typing Nothing. I shall shortly stop typing Nothing, as I have been typing for approximately 4 minutes and 33 seconds, which seems a reasonable amount of time to spend typing Nothing.

I have now typed Nothing for the penultimate time in this post, and shall shortly end it. John Cage would have been 95 today. I have now finished typing Nothing.

Prom 68: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (RAH)

The Vienna Philharmonic have one hell of a history behind them, and a tradition that stretches way back. This isn't necessarily a good thing: it's only within the last five years that they've abandoned the tradition that women may not play in the orchestra. I recall Mahler's definition of tradition as "sloppy habits". They make a fabulous sound, rich and warm and unlike any other orchestra. But it's also a comfortable and slightly lazy sound. And that doesn't entirely suit Bartók, whose Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta opens this concert. They play with astonishing virtuosity, and conductor Daniel Barenboim brings out a wealth of detail, but it lacks the edge that's needed. The same can be said of Kodály's Dances from Galánta, which is given a surprisingly soporific performance, which nevertheless manages to whip itself into a lively finale.

They play better in Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No.1; a shame, because it's a less substantial piece than either Bartók or Kodály. The piece that comes off best in this (for the VPO) unusual programme is, curiously, the most modern: the slowly shifting textures of Ligeti's Atmosphères seem to suit the VPO's lush sound very well, and I find myself wondering if this is because its glacial thought processes resemble those of Bruckner, whose music is part of the orchestra's soul.

Barenboim is an astonishing man, buzzing with energy that belies his 64 years. The VPO are an astonishing band, too, rich in tone and dazzling in virtuosity and style. They play an encore, something by Johann Strauss (I presume). They play it wonderfully. That's both what's great and wrong with them.

Who: It's back, then gone, then back again

The Beeb have announced that there will be a fifth season of the resurgent Doctor Who, but not until 2010, with 3 specials bridging the gap after season 4.

I'm not sure what to make of this. Is it a sign that David Tennant will stay for another series, and they're taking a break to accommodate his other commitments? Will Series 5 be an effective relaunch with Tennant and Rusty Davies replaced with new blood? Will they move the show to Autumn/Winter (which is where it ought to be, after all)? Who can say? Well, Who fans can, of course, and you can read some thoughts here. (And probably here, too, but possibly not such sane thoughts.)

I'm apprehensive at the prospect of an almost Who-less year. Still, there's always Torchwood to tide us over, isn't there?

Oh god...

Two wheels, solitude

It's surprising how many people you see by the riverside at night. Those kids having a smoke, maybe a cigarette, maybe something else, giggles from the dark far bank, men with fishing rods eking out those last few moments before they must return home. Riding in the dark, it occurs to me that if something were to happen, if a tyre were to burst or if I were to twitch so that I steered myself into the water or the other way into a barbed-wire lined ditch, there'd be no-one to help me, it'd be all up to me, and that thought seems more adult than going to work or paying bills. It seems true self-reliance, responsibility for one's own actions, but in a liberating way, not the things that ties us down that we define as "grown-up".

It's also rather satisfying to get home, see that there's a tube strike tomorrow, and realise that it doesn't matter to me. Fuck you, the RMT!

Sonic Youth, Roundhouse

Sonic Youth have always trodden a fine line between experimentalism and indulgence, occasionally stepping over it. One thing they don't have much truck with, though, is nostalgia, so this performance of their classic 1988 album Daydream Nation was never going to be a matter of running through a reproduction of what's on the record. They didn't go as far as John Martyn did when I saw his Don't Look Back concert, where Solid Air was performed in a completely different order and completely different arrangements to the original recording (Martyn's reasoning being that as he didn't have his 1973 band with him there was no point in playing it like that), but when you're a band that deals in feedback as a staple of your sound a certain amount of unpredictability is inescapable before you've even played a note.

Listening to the album before the gig I was struck by how gentle a lot of it sounds now (which may be due to the fact that pretty much all music now seems to be recorded at a monotonously blistering level). Live, you're reminded that Sonic Youth's roots are in the New York punk scene, with the emphasis put on the driving rhythms and a much rawer sound than on record. Then there are those extended moments of feedback, where they sit back and let nature take its course with just the odd movement to manipulate the sound. Although (of course) very loud, there's a strange beauty in here (I'm reminded of the extended feedback Neil Young and Crazy Horse are prone to live, which they even edited into an album). In a way, they're at their most compelling when there's almost nothing happening.

It'd be easy to poke fun at the idea of a band with "youth" in its name consisting of people mostly in their 50s, but Sonic Youth belie this contradiction. Daydream Nation stands up well after 20 years, and, gangling enthusiastically about the stage like the Bash Street Kids with guitars, they play it with the same enthusiasm and commitment they bring to the newer songs they play as encores. Although "encores" isn't really the right word, as it's effectively a whole other set. They bring to mind the observation that youth is simply a state of mind.

Prom 59: Tchaikovsky/Prokofiev (RAH)

It seems almost inconceivable that there could be any such thing as a little heard piece by Tchaikovsky, but that was exactly what we had here: his Hamlet Overture, which began the second half of the concert. It's cut from very much the same cloth as his considerably less unheard Romeo and Juliet Overture, which opened the show, and it would be nice to hear it again, if a few concert programmers might want to think beyond the blindingly obvious every now and again.

The main meat in this concert by the LSO and their principal conductor, the hardest working man in show business Valery Gergiev, was two works by a more recent Russian composer, Prokofiev. His Second Piano Concerto is a behemoth of a piece, and finds the composer in full-on enfant terrible mode. You need a big personality to stand up to this piece, and fortunately we had one in the form of the wonderful Alexander Toradze. I've seen him play this and other concertos before, and he's mesmerising to watch; a great bear of a man whose gesticulations as he prepares to attack the keyboard are an extraordinary sight, and who, when he's not playing (not that that happens often in this particular piece) turns round and pays keen attention to what the orchestra are doing. Entertaining as this eccentric stage presence is, it'd be nothing if he didn't have the musical intelligence to back it up, and he certainly does: there's a fierce intelligence to his playing, as well as an emotional depth, and a variety of touch that stretches from the most delicate playing to a full-on assault on the instrument. An extraordinary performer in an extraordinary piece, he receives rapturous applause at the end of this marathon, although strangely he suddenly seems to come over rather shy at this point, and I'm suddenly struck with a sense that he feels unhappy with his performance. I suppose it must be difficult to feel satisfied when your standards are this high.

Prokofiev's Seventh Symphony is at the other end of the spectrum. A product of the end of his life, it's tuneful and lush occasionally to the point of blandness, hardly recognisable as the same composer who wrote the concerto. It's partly a reworking of ballet music, and that's reflected in its simplicity: themes tend to be repeated rather than developed, and sometimes the material seems a bit thinly spread. By the end of his life when he wrote it, Prokofiev was a broken man, both in body and spirit, and what redeems the symphony is the palpable sense of this; beneath its surface sheen of divertimento atmosphere and lush yet oddly pale orchestration there's an overwhelming sadness suffusing it. Prokofiev later wrote an alternative, "upbeat" ending which sounds as tacked on as it is. Gergiev and the LSO eschewed this in favour of the original, which winds down to a wistful, heartbreaking close.

Proms 53 & 54 (RAH)

"I could tell everyone thought it was great, but I just didn't get it."

Well, Bruckner's like that, and it took me years to get him. Once I've got something, though, I tend to forget how much work it took to find my way in, so it was a salutary reminder when my companion at Prom 54, at which Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performed his Eighth Symphony, came out with this conclusion. Bruckner is hard work, especially when you're stuck in a hall for an hour and a half, and it's a credit to him that although she was left bemused, she was also surprised that it had been that long. My first impressions of Bruckner as a lad were that nothing happened, and it didn't happen for a very long time. My mature impressions are actually pretty much the same, only now I think that this is a Good thing. It seems superfluous to say that the performance was superb, but I shall say so nonetheless, because it was.

It's not often I have the luxury of going to a late-night Prom, so it was especially fortunate that one of the few occasions when circumstances allowed me to stay for the late shift that we should be treated to the wonderful Pierre-Laurent Aimard performing some of Ligeti's wonderful Piano Studies. These works are real gems, mind-bending in their complexity, yet also generous in their approachability, and I can never tire of hearing them, especially in the hands of such a wonderful player as Aimard. Before this, he took on the role of conductor for a romp through Haydn's 102nd Symphony with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. This juxtaposition emphasised the generosity and humanity of both composers. Next to these, Beethoven, whose 2nd Piano Concerto finished the concert, seemed overbearing, though this may have been down to the fact that we were tiring rapidly by this point. They played it beautifully though, and those parts where Beethoven wasn't intent on showing off were beautiful. These two concerts constituted a marathon, and we struggled to stay awake on the train home, though our exhaustion was tempered with a sense of worlds traversed.

Slint (Koko's, Camden)

Slint aren't big ones for showmanship. They barely say a word during this gig, which is mostly a presentation of their neglected classic Spiderland for the Don't Look Back series. "We love you!", shouts the odd punter every now and then. It puts me in mind strangely of Robbie Williams.

I say neglected - it was neglected in 1991 when it was released. It's accrued a following since then, and Koko's is absolutely rammed full. When we entered, there was a sign at the door saying that tickets were available, but god knows how that was possible given the crush inside. Maybe there were a lot of people who turned up on the off chance.

I wonder what it must be like for the band, to reconvene after the best part of 20 years and revisit their songs? When I look back at things I wrote in 1991 they seem the product almost of a different person, and I've remained active since then.

It's a strange atmosphere - even more so than when we saw Low here, and heard audience members calling out for them to play their favourite song: "Whore!". On the one hand there's an air of reverence, as though we're hearing some long-lost Beethoven quartet. On the other hand, as a song begins, there'll be a smatter of applause and cheering, much as you might encounter at a Barry Mannilow concert.

It feels odd to be standing in a packed hall listening to music that seems designed to be listened to alone. Which is not to say it's not a powerful experience. Fragments of rock 'n' roll hang in the air, like the tattered curtains in Miss Haversham's house. Innocuous, insignificant meanderings slowly build to thundering, relentless climaxes. This sort of thing gets described as "post-rock", and you can see the meaning of that - it sometimes has the feel of looking at an archaeological find, of a long lost and forgotten thing called rock music. There's a strange combination of intensity and distance, sometimes seeming almost like Led Zeppelin playing Kraftwerk (or should that be the other way around?).

Slint only made two albums, so they've a limited repertoire to follow on after they've taken us through "Spiderland". They do play a new song though, a haunting, majestic beast that's hugely impressive. Rumour has it they may work themselves up to a new album. If they can match what we heard here tonight, it'll be well worth waiting for.

A Wing and a Prayer

Reading this post made me think about some of the ideas I've been having lately about what music and/or composition is actually for. Especially this bit:

"it's a tremendous loss that nowadays most people solely consume music,

rather than try to make music themselves. "

I'm reminded of something Ives said: "Can there be any such thing as bad music?" There's such a huge amount of judgmentalism in music, especially classical music. People who sit around comparing different recordings of the same piece, rather than thinking about the piece itself. Who go to a live performance and compare it to an old recording (always unfavourably, of course). I feel sorry for such people. They are missing the point in a spectacular manner, dwelling in the tombs of their recordings when they could be out with the living.

An old colleague of mine used to say, "Professionalism is the enemy of music." And the more I dwell on this sentiment, the truer it seems. I've nothing against professional performing groups, but it seems very unhealthy that the audience is increasingly regarded as a passive absorber of product. Music should be something you do, not something you consume.

Take a stand. Buy a cheap instrument (you can pick up a ukulele for about 20 quid, and they're very easy to play) and make a noise with it. Sing along to your records. tap out a rhythm on your table. it doesn't matter what it sounds like. It just matters that it's a sound you're making.

Prom 50: Copland/Adams

John Adams, with his white jacket, bow tie and white beard, looks like an old Southern gentleman, possibly Mark Twain or something like that. This is what I keep telling myself in an attempt to drown out the other thought: that he looks a bit like Colonel Sanders. The ploy almost works.

I remember playing Copland's Billy the Kid Suite at school, and quite enjoying it. With more years' experience, I now realise it's not one of his better pieces. In fact, in all honesty, it's pretty dull, something a slightly scrappy performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra does nothing to belie.

My companion remarks that Billy the Kid is the sort of piece that gets played to children to make them like classical music. She's right, and it's a shame. What we should be playing The Kids is something like John Adams' Century Rolls, which follows. It takes me a while to get into this, possibly because I'm slightly jaded from the Copland (I find myself wondering if I'm suffering Proms fatigue), but soloist Olli Mustonen and the band win me over. In the slow movement there's hints of Satie and Rachmaninov, while the driving, angular finale has echoes of Nancarrow and even Ligeti. Which is obviously a Good Thing.

The other Adams work in this prom, his new "Doctor Atomic Symphony" derived from his recent opera about Robert Oppenheimer, is, I fear, not on the same level. The ideas are thin, and spread thinly, the whole thing waffles on without really going anywhere, it's bitty and fussy and frequently sounds like second rate John Williams or Ennio Morricone. There are some nice enough moments, but to paraphrase Rossini, too many bad quarter hours. We find ourselves struggling not to fidget, and when the end finally comes after what seems like an interminable age, we clap politely and make our way out without waiting for the inevitable curtain calls.

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness

If you didn't see the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela at the Proms last night, you missed a treat, and you should hunt down the TV and Radio broadcasts on your internet without delay. They're an astonishingly accomplished bunch, and play with a verve and enthusiasm that's truly inspiring.

Of course, life's rarely that simple. As an excellent post by the estimable Pliable explains, the orchestra and their conductor Gustavo Dudamel find themselves in an unfortunate political position as representatives of a country ruled by Hugo Chávez, and some accuse them of being de facto apologists for his regime, particularly when they performed the national anthem at the launch of the state-controlled TVes channel, following the closure of RCTV.

it's very easy for the likes of us in Europe to criticize, and I wonder what any of us would do in the same situation. I think of those who condemn Shostakovich for not being openly dissident enough for their liking, and wonder how they'd last in the sort of totalitarian terror he had to endure. I also wonder if, in his choice of Shostakovich, as well as the unapologetically American Bernstein, for their prom, Dudamel is perhaps sending a more ambivalent message about his homeland than we're giving him credit for.

Sound vs. Noise (7)

Article on today's Grauniad blogs debating noise pollution. For myself, what the neighbours are playing is largely irrelevant, I want to get some fucking sleep, thank you. And no, plugging into an iPod isn't a solution. I don't want to listen to music while I'm asleep. I'm quite lucky, in that while the kids next door do occasionally pump up the volume, they generally bring it down again before I reach the point of banging on their door. I'm a very tolerant neighbour, y'know.

Prom 45: Schoenberg, Knussen, Henze, Stravinsky

A great bear of a man with a proudly bushy beard, Oliver Knussen reminds me more and more of Brahms. He and the BBC Symphony Orchestra open this concert with Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, once the future of music, now almost a century old. Schoenberg is one of those blamed by those who think it all went wrong at the turn of the last century, although if they bothered to listen properly they'd notice the Viennese part of the Second Viennese School. Nostalgic memories of older Austrian music is an integral part of Schoenberg's aesthetic, and Knussen and the BBC SO brought this out beautifully in a delicate, poised performance.This is wonderful music, passionate, urgent and beautiful (yes, beautiful). It's probably too much to hope at this stage that Schoenberg will ever be popular, but isn't it about time people stopped being scared of him?

It's obviously a day for lookalikes, as with her long blonde hair and blue and white dress, violinist Leila Josefowicz reminds me of no-one so much as Alice. Quite appropriate, as it turns out, as Knussen's Violin Concerto (as all his music) is filled with a quicksilver wit that seems to breathe much the same air as Lewis Carroll. I've long admired Knussen as a composer; he's far from prolific, but everything he produces seems so beautifully judged, expertly crafted and heartfelt without ever becoming overwrought.

I've only started really listening to Henze's music recently, so this was a welcome part of the programme. Sebastian im Traum has the same Tippett-ish feel to some of it as I've previously noted (though considerably more tautly argued than that composer's somewhat more diffuse music), and for a brief moment there even seems to be a hint of Elgarian wistfulness there, which leaves me to reflect on how curious it should be that a composer so much in his own tradition should sound so English.

What can be said about The Rite of Spring? Everything and nothing. It's one of the lodestones of the past century, the last piece that everyone agrees about, as someone wiser than me said, and casts a shadow over anyone who wants to write this stuff we inaccurately call classical music. But really, in the face of it, it's better to shut up, as a good performance leaves discussion unnecessary. This was one of those performances, rugged, rough, violent, full of that contradictory sense that this is the birth of Modern Music, and also a monument that defies all who stand before it.

Last Orders

Nitin Sawhney, in his notes to his Prom last week, makes reference to "images of exuberant flag-waving at the Proms... unnervingly imperious". Does this matter? If you're a regular patron of the Albert Hall of a summer, you'll know that this sort of image is unrepresentative of the Proms, that it's only the Last Night where the flags come out. It's only one night out of 70-odd, what harm is there?

Well, there's a lot of harm, because Sawhney is exactly the sort of intelligent, open-minded person the Proms should be attracting, and if his overriding impression of the season is one of an orgy of jingoism, then it's fair to say there's a major image problem here. It's not just the cringe-worthy sight of socially inadequate persons of questionable personal hygiene dressing up in tails and bawling along like the chinless wonders they are to Rule Britannia while draped in the Union flag, it's not that even someone with a classical background like Sawhney takes that as the image of the entire Proms season. It's that for the vast majority of people, this bunch of idiots represent the entire classical music world. This is the harm - all the talk of elitism, dumbing down, accessibility, artistic integrity, etc etc, is a side show to the real problem. The rot spreads beyond the actual event - look up listings at this time of year and you'll see a plethora of "Last Night of the Proms" events advertised, that strip the model of even the limited integrity it has and plump wholesale for the flags and rampant nationalism. If this is most people's only experience of classical music, no wonder they don't want to experience any more of it.

Tradition? Sloppy habits, as Mahler defined it. All this guff about the sacred tradition of the Last Night is just that, guff. The whole thing dates back no further than Malcolm Sergeant's tenure after the war, and the timing of its introduction tells you all you need to know about why it is as it is, and why it is so purely awful. This sorry sight of a nation in decline, drunk on nostalgia for its imperial past is an affront to all human dignity, and the most poisonous cup from which all classical music drinks. Why else was it such an affront to the Daily Mail and their like to introduce Harrison Birtwistle into the pantomime 10 years ago? Because for a moment they were confronted with the Now, a real Dionysian moment that showed up the moth-eaten pomp and that peculiarly stilted, forced "party" atmosphere so unique to the British in public around it as the shabby rot that it is. The single act that could do more than anything else to restore the reputation of concert-going would be to get rid of it. But that, alas, is only slightly less likely to happen than getting rid of the monarchy. And like that similarly archaic institution, it keeps us retarded, in thrall to an imaginary past and unable to grasp a future. We need to put the Last Night behind us, and face the dawn.