Classical, Our Contemporary

Perhaps it is my age - and the damage caused to my ears by Japanese free-form rock - but I am increasingly attracted to classical music these days. It all started when I saw a rehearsal at Scottish Opera - sitting so close to the singers, I suddenly realised that musical muscle isn't a simple question of volume.

That said, Ben Frost is going to be very loud and very intense, and I am enthusing about the return of Swans... 

Thanks to the wise advice of my sometime co-host on the Radio Hour, Matthew Whiteside, I have a slightly deeper appreciation of contemporary composition than I used to - but I can't help being thrilled by the appearance of the minimalists on a programme. Arvo Part at the weekend - Minimal 2012 getting off to a populist start - makes good my occasional claim that religion has been responsible for much of the most emotive art and a glance across to Edinburgh, where the Calton Consort are performing at Canongate Kirk, reveals a programme that includes a Hymn to Cecilia (Benjamin Britten), Arnold Bax's tribute to the Blessed Virgin Mary and James MacMillan's Strathclyde Motets. These Motets both uphold my opinion on religious music and demonstrate how even the East Coast needs a bit more Glasgow in their lives. 

Closer to home, next Tuesday sees the premier performance of Chris Hutchings' Requiem for All Souls. It's taking place at 9pm in Glasgow University's Memorial Chapel, just across from the Subcity Office on University Avenue. Since many of my friends would, in fact, explode if they crossed the threshold of a church, I am delighted to note that Hutchings has arranged for the performance to be streamed online. 

For all my sophistication, I can't resist making a joke about how part of the score includes a cover version of a Stone Roses number. 

Following that up, I am interested to revisit Arvo Part this weekend: the two evenings tell the same story from different perspectives, an appropriate response to the Gospel's habit of examining events from diverse angles. I've always enjoyed the irony of a supposedly monolithic religion - from the way Christianity is described by both atheists and fundamentalists, you'd think it only had about three chapters, and lacked the vigorous intellectual engagement with ideas and narratives that made it so influential in the first place - having a multiplicity of versions describing key events. 

This probably isn't the place to start on my rant about the Book of Genesis having two versions of creation...


Calton Consort 
7.30pm Saturday 17 November 2012
Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh 

Chris Hutchings
9pm Tuesday 30 October 2012
Glasgow University Memorial Chapel

Arvo Part
27- 28 October
City Hall, Glasgow