Wails and Whales

For various reasons (a friend's birthday being just one, and needing to conserve my energy, such as it is, for actually going to the RAH tomorrow for Gerghiev, another) I hadn't intended to listen to the Jonathan Harvey part of  Prom 45, but I caught just a few minutes of 'Speakings' because the concert seemed to be running late.

I was quite entranced by what seemed like a sonic philosophical dialogue between whales and dolphins, being a bit prosaic about it.  It will have to wait until the R3 repeat next week, though, now, before I can listen to it properly. I suggest you try it on the iPlayer in the meantime if you didn't hear it. 

The Varese (which I was longing to hear again) I've recorded, however, and I'll try to write that up soon. I was rather struck by how well the two composers may have fitted together in this Prom, but I could be wrong . . .

I see whoever uploads the notes to the 'About the Music' pages has done it again! The Varese links are the wrong way round. Get a grip over there, will you?

(Why is it every time I write about somebody like Stockhausen, Varese or Messaien, half my readers disappear? They aren't communicable diseases, you know! Some of these pieces are half a century old, or more, and composers didn't become extinct about 1870 . . . I'm getting upset. It'll be Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty tomorrow, OK, so you can come back now! )