Anglo Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson

 

This particular reviewer rarely writes a negative review. If it didn’t communicate with me, there’s no need to assume that it will not communicate to you. A positive review has to concentrate on what was communicated, whereas a negative review must live in what was not felt, and that list is infinitely long, so where to start? “I liked it” or indeed “I didn’t like it” say nothing about the work in question, only about the reviewer, and this unknown person, often hiding behind an alias, should never be at the centre of the review.

So when it comes to Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, why should I begin with “I didn’t like it”? Well at least it gets the opinion out of the way, because in the case of this particular book, it needs to be said. Anglo Saxon Attitudes felt like the longest book I have ever read. It wasn’t, but it did feel that way for most of its duration. But the reason for my opinion is complex and, I suggested earlier, has more to do with me than the work.

Details of the book’s plot are available elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the important element is the fraudulent planting of a pagan erotic sculpture into the grave of a Dark Ages Anglo-Saxon bishop that was excavated decades ago. The apparent authenticity of the find had to be catalogued, described, interpreted. For half a century this practical joke at least influenced thinking, at least amongst interested academics, on the cultural and religious origins of the race that now inhabits the country we now call England. Hence the book’s title, rooted both in the historical relics of the Anglo-Saxons, for whom “England” would have been an unknown label, and for the modern British for whom both the concept of “Anglo-Saxon” and “England” are both reconstructed myths.

Amid the need to keep alive the myth of national identity and culture, a certain person who was involved in the original discovery finds he hast to continue to perpetuate the lie. He has personal and professional reasons. He also might even believe it was true. To some extent he has built his career on the existence of the find and, equally, he built half of his life by shacking up with the girlfriend of the person who played the original practical joke on his father by planting the object in the tomb and then claiming its authenticity. Decades have come and gone. Lives have been lived. Relationships have been severed, remade and broken by death and estrangement. Gerald, who knows the truth about several things, has lived with the deception, but dismissed it as possibly false, gives given the character of the person who admitted carrying it out. Gerald now has decided it is time to come clean and tell the story.

But to whom should he tell it? And how? Reputations are at stake. Water under the bridge won’t flow back the other way. People have moved on. Or have they? Anglo Saxon Attitudes thus inhabits a society with what could be described as a rarefied atmosphere. These people are of a certain social class, attend gentlemen’s clubs, regularly drift into French, for some reason, when English is just not good enough. A single paragraph of the thoughts might refer explicitly but opaquely to five or six of the book’s characters, any of whom might have been encountered during the fifty-year span of these memories. For anyone living outside donnish society of the public school, Oxbridge or academe, these people are barely recognizable as English, as archaeological, perhaps, as something dug up from long, long ago. And yet they are the mouthpieces via which the concepts of contemporary identity and culture are lengthily examined.

A strand that figures vividly in every character’s mind, if not explicitly in the English culture being examined, is sex. The erotic nature of the apparently pagan idol in the Anglo-Saxon tomb places a large ellipsis after every mention of the word sex in the book. We have characters who are openly homosexual in a society that has laws against the practice. We encounter respectable men who put themselves around a bit, and women who express their desires via euphemism. And also some who do not. And there’s a lot more besides. Perhaps too much. Perhaps… For this reader…

Anglo Saxon Attitudes is a complex and ambitious novel. For this reviewer it falls short of all its implied goals because it concentrates too heavily on a narrow, unrepresentative section of the nation, was consistently patronizing to working class attitudes and featured characters who spent most of the time living myths. Perhaps that was the point… Perhaps… Why not read it and see what you think?

More Fool Me by Stephen Fry

 

I’ve just read More Fool Me by Stephen Fry.

I finished the book – I don’t know why.

There’s oodles of self-mockery

Couched in torrents of post-hoccery,

Where processions of media dahlings

Murmurate like cantankerous stahlings

Especially at night, often in clubs,

Where one avoids hoi polloi snubs.

In rarefied air of this sort

One can visit the bog for a snort,

Meet actors, directors, all of the kind

While imbibing until dawn’s drunkenness blind

Afore a stumbling or taxi home

Or to one’s next work randomly roam.

Always a sense of the naughty boy

But planned by a promoter’s ploy.

A complex sort, our Stephen,

Whose path in life was oft uneven

Despite a comfy start in middle classes

Before he took to lads, ignoring lasses…

But that’s now a long time past

In memoirs already so vast

This is already number three

While the author’s fifty is yet to see.

No doubt there’s many more

O’er which fans will eagerly pore

But for me, this falls below a parity

Which demands purchase for charity,

Second hand, perhaps twice lived,

Experience cleaned, already sieved

But out of synch, bereft of rhyme,

One wonders if it’s worth the time.

Conrado Moya plays marimba and Shostakovich 10 brings the house down in Alicante

 

A piano concerto played in a transcription for marimba is not a common event. It is even rarer when it is the Concierto Heroico of Joaquin Rodrigo, which, unlike his moderately popular harp concerto and his enormously popular guitar concerto, is itself also quite a rarity. And so, this first half of the programme promised to be a doubly rare experience.

Rodrigo‘s Concerto is an eclectic mix. Across four movements his largely neoclassical style is here and there mixed with some modernistic tendencies, especially in the rhythms and the harmonies within the orchestral tutti. These elements are placed alongside some themes whose banality, on occasions, could generally and generously be described as “popular”. These apparently disparate strands are woven into the piano part, which ranges from the virtuosic to the repetitive. On disc it comes across as an inconsistent and only moderately successful work. Episodic would be the least critical label that might be attached to the music. Refreshing, different, and surprising would be an alternative.

But this concerto also has music of great effect, immediacy and expression. And all these qualities found expression in the playing of the marimba soloist, Conrado Mora, and in the lively interpretation offered by Josep Vicent and the ADDA orchestra.

The marimba soloist can muster only four simultaneous notes instead of the piano’s potential of ten, but the resulting lightening of texture seemed to make the musical argument, hardly linear in this piece, rather clearer. And Conrado Mora played with such virtuosity and energy the audience probably felt exhausted just watching. The arrangement itself and its execution were real triumphs of musical imagination, and the performance was rapturously applauded. An encore for solo marimba featured the instrument in a more reflective style. I think it was a piece by Keiko Abe, but please do correct me if I’m wrong.

The second half of the evening was devoted to Shostakovich’s tenth symphony, a performance that the program predicted would last 57 minutes. Josep Vincent’s tempo at the start and end of the first movement and the start of the fourth was slow, very much slower than the overall moderato of movement one’s marking. This gave the performance weight and a psychological intensity that brought the composer’s internal struggles to the fore to great effect. The balance, of course, was achieved by playing the first movement’s central outburst significantly quicker than moderately.

The scherzo was a gnashing snarl, exactly as it should be. But when the symphony is played in this way, the third movement is transformed into perhaps the emotional centre of the work. This music becomes wholly personal, probably a neurotic’s plea to be noticed as an imagined waltz is shared with a certain Elvira in what can only be a musical dream. And then, after a return to the continuing darkness, we suddenly go to the circus and meet tumbling clowns pulling faces at us, or perhaps mocking a recently deceased dictator. The performance was not only vivid, but also brilliantly interpretive. Everything made sense here.

The evening and the season finished with a rip-roaring Marquez Danzon No2 and the audience went home impatient for the start of the new season.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Julia Fischer and Academy Of St Martin In The Fields at ADDA, Alicante

There are times when words fail, and this is one of those occasions. Feel free to read no further, because what follows cannot be described better than simply “perfect”.

The orchestra was London’s Academy of St. Martin In The Fields and the soloist-director was non-less than Julia Fischer. All potentially perfect thus far, it seems.

The program in the ADDA auditorium, Alicante, was an intriguing mix, with two pieces from the classical or early romantic era, mixed with two pieces from the non-atonal style of the twentieth century. Such programs can often come unstuck through a lack of focus. This one worked perfectly.

The Rondo For Violin And Orchestra Deutsch438 by Franz Schubert which began the program was a celebration of the melodic, beautiful lines for beauty’s sake. Julia Fischer’s solo playing appeared to be effortless, displaying the kind of complete perfection and ease that can only be achieved through absolute dedication. But what was also obvious was that this playing, orchestra and soloist combined, was not founded merely on technique, but of an undiluted joy that came from being able to communicate via music. And what was also clear from the start was the strong and mutually enjoyed bond that developed between the orchestra in the guest director. And perhaps this is a close as Schubert approached to the concerto. It was perfectly delightful.

Britten’s Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge is a work that, personally, I have never warmed to, its highly episodic nature often not sustaining my interest through a recording. But what recorded sound often cannot convey is the sheer beauty of the sonorities that Benjamin Britten exploits in the piece. The Academy Of Saint Martin In The Fields not only played this piece perfectly, but they also brought out all the nuances of expression that Britten wrote. Hearing the work for the first time in concert had the effect of assembling what had previously only been experienced as isolated sketches into a major work. Separately, these pieces sound interesting. Together the create a picture of a personality, far from perfect, but perfectly portrayed. The experience was perfectly magical.

Mozart’s Rondo For Violin And Orchestra K373 is hardly his most memorable work. But in the hands of this orchestra and with Julia Fisher as soloist, this was five minutes of a standup comedian, a monologue full of wit and humor, like a child captivated by the process of keeping a balloon in the air. A perfect image.

By contrast, the Chamber Symphony Op110a by Shostakovich that followed presented a work of vast, contrasting depth and not a little psychological anguish. Dedicated to the fallen in war, but certainly with its gaze focused firmly inwards, it presents an acerbic view of humanity. Perhaps the performers might fall at this very different hurdle? Well, they did not.  Far from it. The playing and interpretation probably got even better, if there is a level higher than perfection. The eighth quartet, of which this chamber symphony is an arrangement by Rudolph barchai, is monumental. It also finds much of its power in the interaction, often argumentative, between the solo instruments. Potentially this tension could be reduced in the version for string orchestra, but the addition of the double bases married to the perfect cohesion of the string players and, not least, the skill of the arranger ensured that none of the drama, none of the impact was lessened. I proved perfectly moving.

A theme from a Tchaikovsky Souvenir was a little lollipop offered as an after. After the drama of the Shostakovich, it was a little out of place, but nothing slipped below the established level of consistent perfection.

 

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Daniel Harding and the Swedish Symphony play Brahms 1 and 3 in ADDA, Alicante

 

Basically, in normal circumstances I would not regard a concert offering two Brahms symphonies as resembling a cup of tea. If that’s not mixing too many metaphors… But an advantage of subscribing to a series of events is that it prompts one to attend all of them and not to try to edit experience out of reality on the basis of preconceived standpoints. To have missed Daniel Harding with the Swedish Symphony Orchestra in Brahms Three and One in Alicante would have been a big mistake.

My problem with Brahms is long standing. It’s the same with many nineteenth century novels. I can’t empathize with the characters. I feel they are often preoccupied with irrelevance, and I hear the main mode of expression as circumlocution. I have always tended to find musical equivalence of these perceived shortcomings in the work of Brahms until very late in his creative career.

But my criticisms of the nineteenth century novel could come about because this particular reader does not fully enter into the world that is being described, or the lives that are being lived. It is not a criticism of Shakespeare that his work does not address quantum mechanics. Likewise, I should not criticize Brahms’s compositions for living within the scope of their time. So, it was this new attitude of toleration that I began this first exposure to the presence of Daniel Harding!

Daniel Harding does not simply conduct the music, he shapes it. He rarely beats time and equally rarely makes bold, eye-catching gestures aimed the audience’s attention. What he does do is coax the music into shape via visual interpretations of its meaning, gestures that clearly convey the right messages to his players. Here in these Brahms symphonies, the musical experience unfolds like in the novel, the themes almost characters in the telling of the story, the harmonies the events, which often surprise.

But to shape a piece of music into such a drama, one also needs an orchestra that can deliver the parts. And here in Alicante, the Swedish Symphony Orchestra clearly has such a superb understanding with its principal conductor that collectively they understood precisely what the demands and they clearly can always deliver it.

As a result of this chemistry that was so strong it could almost be felt by the audience, we heard two beautiful performances of these cornerstones of the repertoire. Both fresh and surprising throughout, these performances of the two Brahms symphonies prompted this skeptic to listen to them again and again.

Sideshow by William Shawcross

 

When we consider Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia, Sideshow by William Shawcross is probably the main event, if not the last word. On completing the book, it’s hard to imagine that the author has left a single document on the subject untouched, a single actor in the saga un-researched. The level of detail here is forensic, to such an extent, perhaps, that the actors in the story never really develop character, because they are always too busy, apparently, acting out their explicit roles.

Perhaps, it’s easier at the start to say what Sideshow is not, so that its focus can become quite clear. Sideshow is not about the Vietnam War, though of course this almost continually figures, sometimes over the border, sometimes just this side of it. Sideshow is also not a description of the Khmer Rouge government, its attempted genocide or its atrocities, though of course it and its actions do figure large in the final chapters of the book, after it took power following the collapse of the American-backed regime, if this is not an oxymoron.

What Sideshow does describe is US policy towards Cambodia from the late 1960s, its effects on Cambodian society, its attempted manipulation of Cambodian politics and the rationale, if that be a relevant term, that underpinned the involvement. The utter confusion that is described is perhaps best illustrated by the sequence of the start of the book where the first B-52 raids on targets within Cambodia are described. Not only were these missions secret, but it seems that even the aircrew flying them did not know beforehand where they were going, and in the first instance the radio operator aboard acknowledged mission complete still ignorant of his position. In addition, all logs relating to the completion of the tasks were falsified in an attempt to hide from the rest of the world the location of the dropped bombs. Not bad for a start.

A theme in Sideshow is just how thoroughly random the process of making policy was in Washington at the end of the 1960s. You have powerful personalities using platforms to promote themselves and themselves only. You have influential actors more influenced by Hollywood‘s vision of reality than anything they experienced, either via reality or by informed briefing. Somehow the world was always wrong if it did not conform to how it should be. A quote endures relating to how democracy should prevail as a ubiquitous goal alongside how people should not be allowed to be so stupid as to elect socialists, as in Chile.

An instructive and memorable passage describes the Huston Plan, which sanctioned the wire-tapping, mail-meddling and general surveillance of anyone deemed of interest, which included anyone who wanted to question what turned out to be a fallacious orthodoxy. William Shawcross writes: “Nixon approved the plan… (whose) …discovery in 1973 helped enormously to build such Congressional outrage that the legislature was finally able to force the White House to end the massive bombing of Cambodia, which was just beginning to spread as Huston formulated his proposals in summer 1970. It was to become a crucial part of the impeachment proceedings. When, much later, Nixon was asked by David Frost to justify his actions he bluntly produced a new version of presidential infallibility – ‘Well, when the president does it, that makes it not illegal’.” Which just goes to show that other, more recent incumbents were not actually responsible for inventing the concept of infallibility.

And in another passage relating to a different set of events, William Shawcross quotes Senator William J Fulbright saying, “I don’t think it is legal or constitutional. But whether it is right or not, he has done it. He has the power to do it because under our system there is not an easy way to stop him”. Some things, it seems, do not change, no matter how pressing proves the need, nor how many decades have passed in the meantime.

A long way before the end of the book, an ending we now know to have unfolded, the descent into chaos for Cambodia seemed inevitable. It is a small nation and like a thorn in the foot of an elephant, it was toyed with, scraped, pulled out and discarded. The elephant moved on and the thorn was apparently left to its own devices, eventually to prick itself.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Josep Vicent, Julia Gallego perform Dvorak, Joan Albert Amargos and Holst's The Planets

 

Dvorak’s Carnival Overture provides a stunning opening to any concert. It’s exuberant, tuneful, spectacular and exciting. It’s all these things if it is played by its performers with the requisite virtuosity and enthusiasm, and neither quality is usually absent from Alicante’s ADDA Simfonica. And this was no exception. The overture shone. And shining was the theme for the whole concert, in that it was to finish with a performance of Holst’s The Planets, musical biographies of celestial bodies that regularly shine.

The concert’s first half, however, was completed by Julia Gallego playing a flute concerto called ConCERT Expres by its Catalan composer, Joan Albert Amargos. Musically this was a spectacular success in its ability to feature a soloist in front of a full orchestra all playing in a jazz idiom that seemed to preserve a feeling of improvisation, not, as so often is the case, obscuring the very quality that should underpin jazz, clearly the composer’s inspiration. The work, of course was fully scored, but it maintained a spontaneity that really did sound like free expression. And, after the concerto’s brilliant flurry of sound, an arrangement for flute solo of a Piazzolla milonga provided contrast as an encore.

And so we graduated to The Planets. This music has become so popular in parts that it takes a complete performance for audience members to be reminded of what a ground-breaking work it was and indeed remains. It’s true there are sections that sound like Debussy, and others that are pure Ravel. There are, here and there, remnants of the folk song that had so preoccupied Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. There are even moments when an aural blink might suggest Elgar, but equally the work prefigures Walton here and there.

But in the end, it’s pure Holst and, it must be remembered, The Planets was written between 1914 and 1917 during the first world war. When Mars brings war in the opening movement, it can be heard like musical journalism. The various sections of this suite are often played - especially on bit-part radio stations – as isolated pieces. But it takes a complete performance to understand their context and, frankly, symphonic conception. Viewed as a whole, this suite can become a contemporary symphony, but without obvious structure – and that’s the point. It hangs together because each section’s difference and individuality is a respected part of the whole. When viewed as such, the status of the last section, Neptune, becomes much more than just another piece. Given the work’s wartime setting, the finale might suggest that the world has just been changed for good by the conflict that still raged. The music seems to search for something lost that will never again be found. In this performance the women’s voices of the Coro Amici Musicae from Zaragoza were placed on the wings of the balcony, above and on either side of the orchestra. The strangeness of the sound world depicted in Neptune, even the century later, reminds us also of how little we can grasp about the nature of the solar system itself, let alone of the universe. It also gives an indication, perhaps, of how much the composer was influenced at the time by alternative visions of our universe, especially those originating in Indian religion.  This inspired performance was received rapturously. An encore of a gallop from Shostakovich’s Moscow Cheryomushki provided a rousing way to tell us all to go home, to start the drive home under a clear sky with unusually bright planets.