{"id":1104,"date":"2019-12-13T13:24:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T13:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2019-12-16T18:50:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T18:50:04","slug":"widdens-review-can-music-comment-on-a-political-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2019\/12\/13\/widdens-review-can-music-comment-on-a-political-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CAN MUSIC COMMENT ON A POLITICAL SITUATION?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Contributed by Martin Widden<\/span><\/div>\n
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Some music is composed to celebrate a person – probably the best known example is Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, composed in honour of Napoleon, although Beethoven later withdrew the dedication in disgust at Napoleon’s declaring himself emperor; some portray an actual event, such as Verdi’s opera The Masked Ball, about the very real assassination of King Gustav of Sweden in 1792. But music is usually a self-sufficient form of art, existing without needing to refer to any external person or event. Nonetheless, two recent recitals in the Great Hall have been programmed to respond to the present situation in the world.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The first of these was a performance on 7 November by English Touring Opera of The Silver Lake, by Kurt Weill. (Weill was the composer who collaborated with the playwright Bertolt Brecht on The Threepenny Opera, which includes the well-known song Mack the Knife.) The story of the opera centres on an impoverished youth, Severin, who steals a pineapple and is shot and wounded by a policeman, Olim. Conscience-stricken at what he has done, Olim visits Severin in hospital, and from this follows an increasingly fantastical story, leading the pair finally to a silver frozen lake, which they are able to cross and make their way to a new future. On the bare Great Hall stage without scenery, and to the accompaniment of a 30-strong orchestra, ETO gave a compelling performance of this story about poverty, hunger and deprivation. It is particularly encouraging that, as at all ETO’s performances, the chorus was recruited locally from choirs based in and around Lancaster.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

On 5 December, the Great Hall hosted a recital entitled The Labyrinth by the Israeli-American pianist David Greilsammer. Based loosely on Janacek’s suite On an Overgrown Path, this was a series of short pieces, generally improvisatory in nature, by composers ranging from the 17th century German JJ Froberger, via CPE Bach and Mozart, to the contemporary American Philip Glass. The recital lasted only about 70 minutes, but afterwards Greilsammer returned to answer questions from the audience, and it was here that he remarked that he had put together the programme to reflect the chaotic times we are living in. It was a very interesting series of works which made sense in his hands, even though in the printed programme it looked like a random list. Greilsammer was able to master the varied styles of the pieces very convincingly.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributed by Martin Widden Some music is composed to celebrate a person – probably the best known example is Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, composed in honour of Napoleon, although Beethoven later withdrew the dedication in disgust at Napoleon’s declaring himself emperor; … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[65,539,412,537,63,410],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributed-article","category-review","tag-classical-music","tag-david-greilsammer","tag-english-touring-opera","tag-issue-191","tag-martin-widden","tag-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-hO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":796,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/11\/08\/review-st-matthew-passion-in-the-priory-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":0},"title":"REVIEW: ST MATTHEW PASSION IN THE PRIORY CHURCH","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 8 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed by Martin Widden The composer J S Bach was very skilled at reusing pieces he had composed for other purposes, a practice he often adopted to enable him to meet the many tight deadlines he was set by his employers. 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Indeed, the music critic Paul Griffiths has written that 'if modern music may be said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":861,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/12\/17\/martin-widden-wielding-his-pen-like-a-knife-to-the-heart\/","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":2},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘WIELDING HIS PEN LIKE A KNIFE TO THE HEART’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"December 17 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Leeds Piano Competition Winner gives first-class recital The Great Hall concert on Thursday 1 November was a solo piano recital by Anna Tsybuleva, winner of the 2015 Leeds Piano Competition. The Leeds competition has become, in its short life of just over 50 years, one of the world's foremost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/03\/01\/martin-widden-the-man-with-the-golden-ears\/","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":3},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: \u2018THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EARS’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 1 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Kabantu at the Nuffield Five young musicians in line across the stage of the Nuffield, one of them squatting over a bongo drum. This was Kabantu, the Manchester-based band that played in the Lancaster Arts Concert Series on 17 February. As well as the drum, the line-up consisted of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":287,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/01\/18\/martin-widden-britains-fiercest-music-critic\/","url_meta":{"origin":1104,"position":4},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘BRITAIN\u2019S FIERCEST MUSIC CRITIC’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"January 18 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Ella Remembered This was the title of a performance given in the Great Hall on 7 December as part of the University\u2019s International Concert Series. 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