The photo above is what the orchestra looked like in the big room at Bennetts, as we lounged in the doorway, turning up towards the end of the first set, and inevitably in the middle of a quiet bit. It was actually a Scott Tinkler bit... where in the concert from 11 August, Miriam's notes say he sound pied-piper-like, leading us into a mysterious green forest. Not quite so pied-pipery this time but still that same sense of mystery and fairy tale in those sounds. Then the sinister notes of Erkki's strings, a kind of dissonance and we feel as though the forest is not the nurturing welcoming place it first appeared to be. This is music that seems to evoke landscape - it moves through this forest with bird-calls and hidden messages, and later the sky seems to widen and the sea is not far away. Miriam has confided in me that she thinks perhaps her lack of musical knowledge forces her to rely on metaphors within her own realm of understanding to articulate some of the things she hears. Like landscape. Always with the landscape. Possibly because it allows her to 'move forward' through the musical 'narrative'. I tell her (again and again actually, but she still worries) that that's okay. And in any case, the musicians don't seem to mind. They're happy to be playing for people who can listen - whatever form that listening takes.
Hanging out with His Nibs, Paul Grabowsky |
Here's a little bloggy item Miriam wrote on this subject for SPUNC a while back >>>>
So... on with the writers festival... More music in the next post, with Shaun Tan's The Arrival and the Orkestra of the Underground
Thanks to Paul Grabowsky for the lovely chat and for letting me hang off his glass of wine, briefly. Thanks (no really, thanks, Paul) also for the Rabbit Ears. Humph
No comments:
Post a Comment