Gabriela Montero @ City Halls, Glasgow

The theme for Gabriela Montero's improvisational encore was not promising: an audience member suggested It Ain't Necessarily So from Porgy and Bess, only managing to sing a single line. Yet, after picking out the line on the piano, Montero launched into an improvisation that ignored the song's jazz influences (for the most part), and toured around the pianist's knowledge of classical, romantic and rag-time motifs.

Improvisation is more readily associated with jazz - Adorno, one of those Cultural Marxists who have ruined everything moaned that it gave the illusion of change without ever departing from the theme. It's a political reading (jazz is like a false consciousness, pretending to be radical but relying heavily on existing structures). Montero's deliberate inclusion of improvisation in the concert hall answers his rather disappointing complaint.

This improvisation was a handy spot of musical history - at least for a character like me, who has a relatively shonky grasp of the history of western orchestral music. Kicking off with something that sounded like Bach - ordered, trilling, serious and maybe a little too pleased with itself, Montero soon drifted into more expansive, lyrical and romantic territory. Yet, as Adorno says, she never lost the theme... and that is the point. Putting Gershwin through his paces, pointing out how recognisable moods and atmospheres define the style, Montero both reveals her skills and points out how music is determined by its references to other music.

That last phrase might not be clear - that it, I call a piece 'classical'

or 'romantic' because I recognise it in relation to other romantic pieces. 

Then she went rag-time on it. Syncopated beats, I believe. 

Most of the audience had fun recognising It's Ain't... re-emerging from her runs. I went into the fantasy land of semiotics and thought about how clever I am. That wasn't Montero's fault, but I am learning about this music stuff. 

Wozzeck, BBC, SSO @ City Halls

Thomas J Mayer as Wozzeck at City Halls, Glasgow 2014. Photo BBC, Alex Woodward.jpg

There are many matters to consider in Buchner's unfinished script
Whether it is tragic, melodramatic or simply badly clipped
So the action is uncertain and the main protagonist
May be a dirty villain or just violent when he's pissed.

Other questions spring to mind, when listening to Berg:
Is this the beginning of theatre that's absurd?
Where life has no meaning and a painful godless despair
Is the legacy to which every man is heir?

Then there is the matter of the message that it brings.
Is Maria just a slut or victim of the men who pull her strings?
The main man in the meantime has a life that is a wreck,
Worst of all the problem of how you pronounce Wozzeck.

The music is atonal, experimental avant-garde:
(That's a way of saying that it is very hard).
Berg provides a soundscape that is harsh and frantic
But in poetic fallacies it recalls the late Romantic.

The SSO put it on, they call their approach 'semi-staged'.
This is, the singers act a bit, like when Wozzeck gets enraged.
An outline of a larger version which they could have produced
But despite the lack of scenery, this concert does not feel reduced.

The protagonist himself was done by Thomas Mayer
He portrayed a feckless man whose girlfriend is a player.
The pompous drum major seduces her in no time
We watch Wozzeck's descent to death despite he did no crime - 

Expect, of course, for taking to her throat a knife.
To pay her infidelity, she sadly lost her life.
Poor Wozzeck doesn't get away without punishment:
He is the victim of the carelessness of the establishment.

The music is Wagnerian in the way it works.
It provides subtext behind the singing as it menacingly lurks.
Wozzeck in the army is a lowly grunt:
He feels a fear of nature when goes on a hunt.

The orchestra's heavy and the musicians tight
They rumble in the darkness and rage during the fight
Between Wozzeck and his lady's lover.
And the sense of doom does always hover

In the scenes where his son is ignored by his dad:
Even the lighter moments have the threat of the bad.
Wozzeck claims that being poor means no morality...
He is paid back by his bird's disloyalty.

The SSO take it in their stride, 
whether roaring in the violence
Or bringing nuance to the glide
From the party scenes to the final death
They conjure an absurd world
Where misery comes with every breath.

It's not the triumph of the will
It's a Gesamtkunstwerk
Where words and music come together
To illuminate the story hidden in the murk
Of a world that does not care
About the human doings
And a man who wouldn't dare
To think above his station.

In the final doomy scenes
When poor Wozzeck comes to his end
The doctor who had him eating beans
Strolls past with his general friend.
They hear the drowning man
As he accidently dies
They stroll past chatting
And ignore his cries.

It's a magnificent piece
Given energetic show
By a sharp piece of playing
By the SSO.

We may talk of the triumph, the glory
Of the will and the soul
Of the music and the story
And recall the majesty of Sophocles,
But beyond all this, the man of the day
Is the conductor Runnicles. 

The Piano in Glasgow

Being a theatre writer, I proudly march into other areas of performance and shout that I understand exactly what is happening here. However, that review I did of Beethoven's First when I spent 500 words complaining that some guy got in the way of the orchestra and kept waving a stick at them might have destroyed my musicological credibility. Consequently, I now try and sit next to David Kettle and copy his notes at the interval. 

Anyway, if you want to see me make a fool of myself, the City Halls are putting on their annual Piano festival (it's year four and counting). I'll be somewhere at the back, hoping that there isn't too much of the difficult stuff... then I look at the programme and realise I might be okay...

Saturday 8 November


6PM ALASDAIR BEATSON & HEBRIDES ENSEMBLE
Judith Weir Arise! Arise!

Adès Piano Quintet
Schubert Notturno in E flat major, Op.148 (D.897)
Adès Darkness Visible

“Artistry incarnate – that was Beatson” Sunday Times
An outstanding pianist himself, Tom Adès writes wonderfully for the piano and his Piano Quintet is fantastical and brilliant. Not short on references to the grand Romantic tradition of piano quintets – Schubert, Brahms, Dvorák – it bristles with new ideas and possibilities. The wonderful young Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson joins Hebrides Ensemble for this special performance.

Well, I am sure to spot the references.

Recital Room, City Halls (unreserved seating)
7.30PM DENIS KOZHUKHIN
Haydn Sonata in D, Hob.XVI:24
Schubert Sonata in D major, D.850
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition

“flawless technique, combined with a healthy musical approach, intense lyricism and a beautiful touch.” Trouw (The Netherlands)

Denis Kozhukhin is no stranger to Glasgow having thrilled audiences with his stunning performances of Prokofiev and Rachmaninov concertos in recent seasons. We’re delighted to present his debut recital of Classical and Romantic favourites, with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition delivering a mighty climax:

“… in Kozhukhin’s hand it rose to the final peroration with magnificent, unforced grandeur.” Daily Telegraph

I thought I would be okay with Haydn and Mussorgsky (they use Pictures to introduce classical music to the kids, sometimes). But I have no idea what a peroration is. David?

Grand Hall, City Halls (reserved seating)


SUNDAY 9 NOVEMBER

3PM KATYA APEKISHEVA

Scarlatti Sonatas in F minor Kk.466, E Kk.380 and B minor Kk.377

Janácek In the Mists

Schumann Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op.26

“a profoundly gifted artist” Gramophone

A prizewinner at the Scottish International Piano Competition, Apekisheva has forged a multi-faceted career as soloist and chamber musician. This solo recital juxtaposes the brilliance and poise of Scarlatti with Janácek’s passionate miniatures and Schumann’s Viennese Carnival scenes.

Recital Room, City Halls (unreserved seating)





5PM ELISABETH LEONSKAJA & EMERSON STRING QUARTET

Shostakovich Piano Sonata No.2 in B minor, Op.61

Beethoven Quartet No.11 in F minor, Op.95, ‘Serioso’

Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.57

“The popularity of mercurial Elisabeth Leonskaja… has never been higher, perhaps because she is one of “the last of the great Russian school”” Sean Rafferty, Bach Track

Hang on, is there really a magazine called Bach Track? 

One of the world’s greatest pianists teams up with one of the greatest quartets for an unmissable pairing of Shostakovich and Beethoven. Georgian pianist, Elisabeth Leonskaja was rewarded with a standing ovation in 2012. Here she plays music very close to her heart due to her strong association with Shostakovich and his music, not least his hugely popular Piano Quintet.

I'll be fine here: I like Shostakovich. I can hunt for clues about the pressure of Soviet censorship during the quiet parts... and he is one of those relatively modern composers who can do all the fancy technical stuff, but still likes a good tune. A Russian tune, so pretty tough, but I can dig it.
Grand Hall, City Halls (reserved seating)

This is just the first weekend. I am going to continue you this as soon as I find my Idiot's Guide to Classical Music.

John Oswald (I'd Love To Turn) @Grand Hall, City Halls

Christian Wolff (Ordinary Matter, version for two Orchestras) @ Grand Hall, City Halls

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Fred Frith / George Lewis / Roscoe Mitchell

Sat 22 February, 8pm
City Halls, Grand Hall

Press release begins...

Fred Frith The Right Angel
Roscoe Mitchell Nonaah
Frith, Mitchell, Lewis Improvisation
George Lewis New Work (World Premiere)
Fred Frith Guitar
George Lewis Trombone and electronics
Roscoe Mitchell Saxophones/reeds
Ilan Volkov Conductor
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Frith, and George Lewis have long been at the forefront of new musical expression: saxophonist Mitchell, an original member of the AACM, with his groundbreaking performances with the Art Ensemble of Chicago; guitarist Frith, a founding member of the important English avant-rock group Henry Cow; and trombonist Lewis, a pioneer in interactive computer music. 

Henry Cow were a rare example of a British psychedelic band who genuinely engaged with exploring improvisation and the like: various members have turned up in other bands (Frith was in John Zorn's Naked City project, Tim Hodgkinson was in GOD, my favourite noise free jazz collective).

AACM have provided hours of difficult listening pleasure, especially when they put down the proper instruments and used toys instead.

For many years all three have been engaged with composition and in this special concert, for BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now, their works for orchestra are featured, with an arrangement of the title track of Mitchell’s 1976 album Nonaah; Frith’s 2003 work The Right Angel, with the composer performing on guitar; and the World Premiere of a new work by Lewis. In addition, Mitchell, Lewis, and Frith, who have known each other for decades, will perform together for the very first time. Join conductor Ilan Volkov, members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and three icons of experimental music from both sides of the Atlantic for a genre-busting evening.


The SSO have been trying to mix it up over the past few years: making connections beyond the predictable and putting together events that bridge the gap between the orchestral and the world beyond classical music. After last year's evening of John Zorn, and the Tectonics festivals, they seem to be making an argument that the boundaries are dissolving...

Beethoven Weekend In Glasgow

There are few things that I enjoy more than trying to explain art as if I know what I am talking about. Sadly, I do have an idea of what I am talking about when it comes to theatre (an idea - not necessarily a good one, but I have something). A weekend of Beethoven, however, is a little out of my range. My music collection is okay until about 1500, then takes a few centuries holiday until 1913 and The Rite of Spring got my attention. 

Then again, I have learnt to trust Sven Brown, who is behind this mini-festival. After three years of Minimal at the City Halls, I know he can programme forty eight hours of fun. He has even made it easy for me by kicking off with Beethoven: An Introduction Lecture by John Deathridge (Thu 26 September, 8pm).

Press Release Begins...City Halls, Recital Room
John Deathridge is one of the world’s leading Beethoven experts. To open this first Beethoven festival in Glasgow, he offers an insight and overview of the works we will hear, linking the music with events in Beethoven’s life, and considering its impact on Beethoven’s contemporaries.

Vile adds...

Plus, this one is free... and is followed by another chat and play session the next day. Brown's structure provides me not just with tunes to hum but ideas to pilfer for my blog.

Press Release Resumes...
Getting to the Heart of the ‘Harp’ QuartetFri 27 September, 6:15pm
Free to ticket holders of the 7:30pm concert
City Halls, Grand Hall
Spend 45 minutes with the Elias Quartet taking a close-up look at Beethoven’s 10th Quartet (Op.74), and discovering it from the inside – from the point of view of the performers.

The Tempest and The HarpFri 27 September, 7:30pm
£15
City Halls, Grand Hall
Each of the concerts this weekend focuses on a different period of Beethoven’s life: early, middle and late. The music here all comes from the 1800s when Beethoven was in his 30s and the period when he moved centre stage in Vienna.

Getting to the Heart of the ‘Waldstein’Sat 28 September, 6:15pm
Free to ticket holders of the 7:30pm concert
City Halls, Grand Hall
Svend Brown joins Llyr Williams at the piano to look in depth at this fiery, radical piece of music and consider its place in the total cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

Waldstein and RasumovskySat 28 September, 7:30pm
£15
City Halls, Grand Hall
Here Beethoven challenges everything that meant ‘music’ in his own time. Performers, instruments and listeners are pushed to extremes in exhilarating, demanding music that leaves you breathless and transported. Arguably more powerful and extraordinary than his symphonies.

Getting to the Heart of Op.132Sun 29 September, 2pm
Free to ticket holders of the 3.15pm and 4.30pm concerts
City Halls, Grand Hall
T.S. Eliot called Op.132 ‘inexhaustible to study’ and envied Beethoven’s achievement in this piece. The Elias Quartet consider the piece’s emotional and technical complexities ahead of the afternoon’s final concert. 

Vile pipes up...

TS Eliot has got a cheek calling anything 'inexhaustible to study.' He had to give The Wasteland footnotes himself, thereby ruining the fun of certain A Level Students in the 1990s who wanted to pretend they got all his references. For anyone confused by the nomenclature of classical music, it's a string quartet. I looked it up on wikipedia. 

Hang on, I can go to YouTube.

Press Release Resumes...

Beethoven’s Distant BelovedSun 29 September, 3:15pm
£15
City Halls, Recital Room
Beethoven’s lyrical song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte is a miniature delight – the first proper song-cycle of the 19th century, paving the way for Schubert and Schumann, among others. Stephan Loges places it amidst songs by Beethoven’s contemporaries and admirers, including Schubert.

Beethoven: Closing ConcertSun 29 September, 4:30pm
£15
City Halls, Grand Hall
Bringing works from three decades together, this programme opens with Beethoven turning 30 and ends with one of the very greatest ‘Late’ Quartets, dating from 1825. A tumultuous and enrapturing finale.

Vile concludes...

With the range of compositions being played, it is interest to notice how Beethoven's music was influenced by his life circumstances. It's funny how he stops using high notes in his mid-career but seems to bring them back towards the end, an intriguing fact I noticed the last time I perused a selection of his scores.

Red Note Schedule

I love me some Red Note Ensemble. Since they are constantly coming up with premières, theatrical concerts, or revivals of contemporary classics, it's not surprising that I get mildly excited when their latest press release arrives in my inbox. 

I can forgive them being based in Edinburgh, even forgive them for touring work outside of the central belt. When RNE come to town, the only thing that doesn't surprise me is the quality.

Their first gig on this tour is one, sadly, not aimed at me. Who says contemporary classical can't be for all of the family?

PRESS RELEASE BEGINS.


Saturday 28 September 2.30pm: Noisy Nights Jnr @ UNESCO Family Day, City Halls, Glasgow 
Following on from the success of their informal Noisy Nights new music series, Scotland’s Red Note Contemporary Music Ensemble perform new music about Creatures and Fairy Tales written by students from King’s Park Secondary School. Come and hear the first works by tomorrow’s composers … and maybe get the chance to write some of your own.
Ticket Price: Free
Venue Candleriggs, Glasgow.

Monday 30 September 8pm: Noisy Nights at Traverse

Monday 9 December 8pm: Noisy Nights at TraverseNoisy Nights is fun, free and your chance to listen to (and compose for) the musicians of Red Note. Noisy Nights is a place to meet music-lovers, curious minds, musicians, composers and artists in an informal space and hear some of the best examples of brand new music. All sorts of music are welcomed here - as are all sorts of listeners. And, with the established 10 Minute Composer’s Challenge, the audience also get the chance to write their own pieces to be played by the ensemble after the interval. Students from King’s Park Secondary School will have their compositions performed from the UNESCO Family Day. If you’re a composer, visitto find out the instrumental line-up each time, and how to submit your scores.
Ticket: Price Free
Location Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge Street, Edinburgh,

Wednesday 23 October 6pm: Sound Festival - Framed Against The SkyOver the past few months Red Note Ensemble, Irish composer Brian Irvine and Scottish poet Billy Letford have been touring Aberdeen-Shire & City introducing people to new music and holding workshops in schools and open workshops during events. Participants have been helping Brian and Billy create a new piece of music which is being premièred tonight with their involvement alongside Red Note Ensemble.
Ticket Price: £8 / £6 / £3
Location Woodend Barn Banchory

Wednesday 23 October 8pm: Sound Festival - Go Compose! New pieces created by participants of the Go Compose! composition course. Young composers aged 13-18 who are still at school have work with professional composer Brian Irvine and musicians from Red Note Ensemble to create original pieces performed at Go Compose!
Ticket Price £5 (free to ticket holders of Framed Against The Sky)
Location Woodend Barn Banchory AB31 5QA


Monday 7 November - Saturday 9 November 7.30pm: Enough Already (Lachez Tout) Tramway, Glasgow (World Première)LOD|muziektheater / Red Note Ensemble / François Sarhan
Enough Already (Lachez Tout) is a music-theatre performance created by French composer-artist François Sarhan for actor, musicians, live sound effect artists, stop-frame animation and film. It is a funny secular parable in which meanings and relations between people, objects and events become increasingly absurd.
Ticket Price: £12/8 Early bird offer book by 28 October
Venue Tramway 1, 25 Albert Drive, Glasgow, G41 2PE



Monday 11 November 8pm: Torsten Lauschmann - Inconsistent Whisper & Matter in the Wrong 

Glasgow-based German artist Torsten Lauschmann explores the limits and possibilities of technology in an experimental performance-installation at Woodend Barn with Red Note Ensemble and local musicians. Taking inspiration from a variety of phenomena, from talking drums and Morse code to the game of Chinese Whispers, this absorbing work looks at the problems and the beauty of misinterpretations, misinformation and misunderstanding. Torsten will also present the results of his open visual lab residency at the Barn with Charlie Hammond. This work will use projections and objects, static and animated to explore play, failure and mistakes as creative potential.
Ticket Price: £12, £10 (conc), £7
Location Woodend Barn Banchory AB31 5QA



Tuesday 12 - Wednesday 13 Nov: (Enough Already) Lachez Tout performanceLOD|muziektheater / Red Note Ensemble / François Sarhan
Enough Already (Lachez Tout) is a music-theatre performance created by French composer-artist François Sarhan for actor, musicians, live sound effect artists, stop-frame animation and film. It is a funny secular parable in which meanings and relations between people, objects and events become increasingly absurd.
Ticket Price: £12/£8
Venue Summerhall, 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL

Edit-Point: Sight/Sound/Place

Sound competes with vision. Sense competes with  non-sense. Edit-Point presents three audio-visual works in which various kinds of chaos are brought to order.

In Lexicon, a poem by Tom, age 12, is the source for a poignant visual and sonic meditaDon on dyslexia. Words, image and text, distort and reform. There is at once a sense of kaleidoscopic brilliance and thwarted progress as the child’s poem slowly unfolds.

Vanishing Point describes the moment when abstract images pivot on the point of becoming tangible. They fleetingly become real and then collapses back into the unknown. The soundtrack, based on the noise of an old valve radio, glues everything together.

Taking an almost entirely different approach, Are You Everybody distils the chaos of the Kosova war into moments of quiet reflection.

The films are framed by a series of six, new, sonic postcards based on field recordings made in Scotland. Just as the photographer can tweak an image on a computer, there may be digital sleights of hand here too. Less than two minutes each, these sound pieces reveal as much as any photograph: capturing a place and a moment.



Andrew Lewis: Lexicon / John Young: Are you Everybody? / Jo Hyde: Vanishing

Point. Sonic postcards by Timothy Cooper, Nick Fells, Diana Salazar, Pete Stollery,

Nicholas Virgo and Matthew Whiteside

7.30pm Wednesday 25 September, Recital Room,

City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow G1 1NQ Tickets £6

(£3)






sound lab:

Taraf de Haidouks

Svend Brown is shaping up as something of a visionary programmer. Not content with pushing the Minimal Extreme Festival, he invited Johnathan Morton - the fiend witha violin who fronts the Scottish Ensemble - to curate another minimal festival. And while there were a few moments of disappointment - Icebreaker's ponderous yet loose reading of Glassworks, The Hilliard's strangulated modern choral take on Paradise Lost - the line up was diverse and provocative. And in Taraf de Haidouks, he selected a strong argument for the importance of the violin as a boundary busting, hard-rocking instrument to shame the rebellious hegemony of the guitar.

Morton's no slouch on the four stringn himself - last year he demonstrated that Vivaldi's Four Seasons has more edge than any popular global commodity deserves. Yet in Taraf, and the supporting electronic/ violin maestro mash-up from Pekkar Kuusisto, Morton selected artists from the wilder parts of the musical world. Taraf de Haidouks look disreputable, with one member lurking like a gangster until called upon to throw out some argumentative lyrics, and the whistle player disappearing during the encore for a cheeky cigarette: yet when the  dual violin frontline, a couple of wheezing accordions and a jazzy clarinet are driven along by a frenzy of double bass and hammered dulcimer, they cross beyond their gypsy sound and land squarely in punk energy territory.

Not that Taraf have anything in common with the brain-dead punk revivalists, who mistook thuggish monotony for rebellion (a few members of Taraf appear to remember the 1920s, both musically and physically): it's the reckless abandon that informs their precise playing. Melting down Eastern European melodies, a touch of Hot Jazz, fragmentrs of Klezmer, they are so fast, so abrupt, so assured.

Of course, Morton has now set Brown a challenge: can he curate a programme that has the same eclectic energy as this combination? Kuusisto did the experimental modernity - tinged with a few adventures into Finnish folk romance - while Taraf just shock the Fruitmarket. Brown has admittted that he is influenced by the lamented Triptych Festival: can he go one louder?

More Minimalism (Hippy hate and love for Riley)

“You have never done anything in your life but listen to this music as if that is all there is or ever will be.”

I distrust hippies. Not as much as punks used to – I distrust them even more, and most of their music is a degenerate two chord thrash that pretends to a brute intelligence while betraying lack of imagination. But hippies are only ever two puffs of a joint away from revealing some seriously chauvinistic attitudes, and they all went on to cut their hair and get jobs in silicon valley. Cheers.

Hang on, this was meant to be an article about In C by Terry Riley.Where was I?

Yes, so, before there was Pink Floyd or The Doors, there was Terry Riley. The quotation at the top of the page was from The San Francisco Chronicle. And while it might sound like a typical acid head explaining why The Beatles’ White Album is so cool, it was written about In C, in 1964. Riley was just early enough to avoid getting sucked into the whole mess of hippy culture, but late enough to be part of the scene that was inspired by world music and repetition.

In C was released in 1968, and was the first work that really made minimalism a popular genre. Since Riley would later get more and more into Indian music, it chimed with the general vibe of the time: since the score is made up of a series of musical phrases, and performers are invited to play ‘em how they feel ‘em, it can take on all sorts of different styles. The version I played on the radio show is African in tone: this Sunday’s version is rumoured to be more eastern.

 In the meantime, here's an appropriately trippy version of another Riley classic, A Rainbow In Curved Air. I can hear the similarities with Dark Side of the Moon period Floyd - it was released before it, so I console myself with the thought that the hippies were ripping off the classical composer. Fortunately, it doesn't have Roger Waters shouting all over it (an experience akin to going on a date with a man who explains why you ought to fancy him throughout the film).

Eno gets Brewed

Shock Upset at City Halls as Local Boys Take Down Magisterial Soundscape artist


Music at the Brew House 4: Icebreaker 3

Brian Eno, long established as the defining artists for both ambient and electronic music, has lost out to Edinburgh's contemporary classical underdogs Stephen Deazley and Martin Parker. This long-awaited clash, pairing Edinburgh's Music at the Brewhouse against Icebreaker's recreation of Eno's Apollo, ended in upset as Deazley's collaboration with media designer  Andy McGregor emphasised an idiosyncratic story of one man's bravery over The Science Museum's 2009 commission featuring Eno's music and NASA's footage of the moon landing.

On paper, it was no contest. Eno's 1983 album Apollo, Atmospheres and Soundtracks had been scored for Icebreaker, known for their driving soundtrack to Ashley Page's seminal ballet, Cheating, Lying, Stealing. The addition of BJ Cole upfront on pedal steel, and the unseen images from Apollo's mission to the moon, seemed to ensure that Brewhouse, more frequently seen at Tramway creating multi-media musical happenings and relying only on a film of the barely known test pilot Joseph Kittinger, would provide little more than a distraction.

Brewhouse chose to bat first, offering a taut introduction. Guided by Kittinger's journey into the outer reaches of the stratosphere, and his descent, Man High made optimum use of the chamber line up: Peter Furness' clarinets summoning up the woozy splendour of the ascent, while the three violins held steady, lending a romantic swoon to the adventure. Driven by Joby Burgess' diverse percussion and David Knotts' pulsating keyboards, Brewhouse illustrated McGregor's mixing of the 1960 footage of the pilot's 32  kilometer leap.

In the second half, Icebreaker began with a solid summary of the space race's intentions. Footage of Kennedy giving it patriotic pride and the tension at Cape Canaveral soon resolved into iconic imagery of the Apollo spacecraft reaching to the moon. Because of the emphasis on new footage - no countdown to blast-off or amusing zero gravity snacking - the familiarity of the journey does not detract from the spectacular surrealism of the moon landing. By the time the astronauts finally reach the moon, Icebreaker have established both the bravery of the mission and the splendour of our species' trans-planetary ambition.

For all Brewhouse's dynamic drama, the relaxed majesty of Eno and Icebreaker looked set to triumph. Then, sometime between the landing and the larking about on the moon, Icebreaker lost the game. Cole's pedal steel adds an awkward sentimentality to the sequences after the US flag has been planted. The new footage is given the intensity of holiday film, a schmaltzy, thoughtless celebration of a couple of guys arsing about in outer space. Eno is not just an avant-garde electronic experimentalist: he is the producer of U2, and this is audible in the later half of For All Mankind. Ironically, the astronauts are brought back to earth by his sterile theft of Hawaiian and country motifs.

Of course, the real winner tonight was contemporary classical music: Deazley and Parker established themselves as accessible, forceful composers, and even Icebreaker's disappointing result linked ambient electronica to lush orchestration. A show of two halves, perhaps... but both halves demonstrated how music can reanimate obscure heroes of history and events that familiarity has rendered empty.