Grandma’s House

Posted on November 9, 2021 by leslie

Sid Vicious, credit Wikipedia

Grandma’s House

by Bill Hartley

There is a listings magazine distributed around the pubs and clubs of North East England called NARC. It’s a good guide to what’s going on and is packed with news and reviews about the Arts and much else. The magazine allows performers, bands and their recordings exposure which they might otherwise struggle to attain.

What soon becomes noticeable is the frequent references to ‘Punk’. Those with a long enough memory will recall a raw musical genre which leapt out of the 1970s, simulating outrage in the British tabloids with its cheek and offensiveness. That kind of energy and rebelliousness couldn’t be sustained indefinitely and eventually Punk faded away, to be followed by Post Punk, New Wave and Alternative Rock; labels hung on bands by music journalists keen to keep abreast of a vibrant and fast evolving musical scene. Evolution is the way it’s supposed to go with popular music though in NARC there seems little evidence of this. The magazine hangs the Punk label on so many bands that it seems as if it’s just an attempt to generate a sense of excitement, which on closer examination seems elusive. Continue reading →

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Why we Fright

Posted on November 8, 2021 by leslie

Daumier, La République

Why we Fright

Guillaume Faye, Prelude to War; Chronicle of the Coming Cataclysm, Arktos, 2021, 497pp, reviewed by Leslie Jones

Introduction

According to ‘Archeo-Futurist’ Guillaume Faye, Islamic culture is sui generis. Inherently totalitarian, its driving force is expansionism, the religious obligation to create a global caliphate. Faye agrees with Samuel P Huntington that the ideological conflicts between capitalism and communism have been superseded by a clash between Islamic and non-Islamic societies. The conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat has given way, in turn, to a new type of class struggle. For the ‘bohemian bourgeoisie’ despise the autochthonous working class and are in an unholy alliance with ‘immigrant colonisers’. Predominantly bourgeois, the left has little contact with immigrants, bar cleaning ladies. ‘Foreigner-free’ schools reinforce its insularity. Only the native working class must endure the insecurity and lawlessness of les banlieues, caused by mass immigration. Yet, for the ‘post Marxist bourgeoisie’, which embraces cosmopolitanism and xenophilia, immigrants are the real victims.

Alain de Benoist maintains that mass immigration has provided cheap labour and a new ‘reserve army of capital’.[i] Faye concurs. One thing, however, remains constant. Material possessions are all important to the bourgeoisie, more important even than ‘the salvation of its own people’. Continue reading →

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The Rake’s Progress

Posted on November 4, 2021 by leslie

Igor Stravinsky, credit Wikipedia

The Rake’s Progress

The Rake’s Progress, from Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Glyndebourne, Wednesday 27th October 2021, reviewed by David Truslove

In this latest revival of Stravinsky’s only full-length opera most of the cast members were not even born when the now celebrated John Cox/David Hockney collaboration was unveiled at Glyndebourne in 1975. Many revivals later, the 2010 run prompted Richard Morrison of The Times to observe that the production is ‘now so old that it probably qualifies for a blue plaque’. It’s certainly the oldest of any surviving UK opera production, and Hockney’s set and designs (replacing those by the cartoonist Osbert Lancaster) have toured the world. An outstanding achievement yes, but is there a hint in Morrisons’ quip of this staging becoming a tourist attraction? In his 2010 review, he was more impressed with the production’s ‘fabulous designs’ than he was with the performance.

Inspired by Hogarth’s 18th century engravings, there’s no denying the genius of Hockney’s cross-hatched patterns which still hold the eye whether in picture book trees, striped wigs or even a stuffed auk. The animation of drawings and designs artfully mirrors the restlessness of Stravinsky’s operatic farewell to neo-classicism, their restricted palette nicely balanced by the score’s primary colours. More vitally, the fabrics, whether canvas or cloth, capture the spirit of 18th century pastiche that is at the very heart of Stravinsky’s work, itself both an emotional pendulum and a patchwork of musical sources shoplifting the late operas of Mozart. For those over-long pauses between scenes there’s much to enjoy too in the ‘schoolboy’ scribbles decorating the backcloth. Continue reading →

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ENDNOTES, November 2021

Posted on October 31, 2021 by leslie

Max Bruckner (1836-1918), Walhalla, credit Wikipedia

ENDNOTES, November 2021

A tribute to Bernard Haitink, KBE, CH, 1929-2021. Stuart Millson on one of the great conductors of our time – a renowned interpreter of the works of Bruckner and Mahler

The recent death of Bernard Haitink – the legendary Dutch conductor, famed for his interpretations of the late-romantic repertoire – represents the passing of a generation in classical music. Haitink, although not one of the autocratic conductors of the recent past  such as Karajan or Bernstein, was part of that intensely serious, inscrutable, disciplined, white-tie-and-tails generation which produced the defining discography – Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler et al – dominating the record shelves of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s; shaping our understanding of classical music and European high-culture.

From his earliest days with the orchestra of Netherlands Radio, through his famous years with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, to a productive time in London with the LPO, Royal Opera House and the Philharmonia; then star appearances with the Chicago Symphony and Lucerne Festival orchestras in his late career, the unassuming Dutchman built up a legendary status with audiences. The wild acclamation he received from the Proms audience, although acknowledged and enjoyed, sometimes prompted a wince of embarrassment from Haitink – keen to curtail the clapping, eschew hero-worship and get on with the music. Continue reading →

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Liberty’s Identity Crisis

Posted on October 28, 2021 by leslie

Stop the Steal protest, credit Wikipedia

Liberty’s Identity Crisis

by Monty Skew 

Liberty is the leading human rights advocacy group in Britain. Readers, especially those concerned for democracy, may be interested in Liberty’s briefing before the Voter ID Bill. A recent letter from a variety of civil society groups, co-ordinated by Liberty, objected to the Voter Integrity Bill currently before Parliament. The Bill would make it mandatory for photo ID to be shown before casting a vote.

There are many reasons for opposing voter ID. It is not part of the British democratic tradition and even Tory MP David Davis has opposed the proposal. If implemented, it could be used for more than voting. Northern Ireland was for many years a hotbed of electoral fraud. Sometimes more people voted than were on the electoral register. The slogan was ‘vote early vote often’. The province was the first area in Britain to be allowed PR proportional representation for European Parliamentary elections. Soon afterwards photo ID was introduced for all elections in NI. Voter fraud has virtually disappeared although there have been cases of dead individuals ‘voting’. Continue reading →

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Madama Butterfly from WNO

Posted on October 15, 2021 by leslie

Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1904, credit Wikipedia

Madama Butterfly from WNO

A bold new Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, from WNO in Cardiff, at Wales Millennium Centre, Saturday 2nd October 2021, reviewed by David Truslove

Welsh National Opera’s return to live performance ushers in Lindy Hume’s strikingly modern Madama Butterfly. Silk screens and sliding panels associated with Joachim Hertz’s traditional staging, in place since 1978, now move aside for Isabelle Bywater’s dazzlingly white cubes set on a revolve. This neon-lit slice of minimalism does for Butterfly’s executive suite. Bedroom and shower loom over kitchen and utility room, a deliberately misshapen apartment conjuring not so much comfortable domesticity, but chilling alienation. Its strong visual impact artfully situates the audience as voyeurs to Butterfly’s naivety and disintegration which Hume likens to an “exquisite sadism”.

Given the heated discussions whether much-loved operas should be jettisoned if they affront modern sensibilities, Hume has removed specific Japanese references and historically contentious imperialism. Everything is rerouted to engage with contemporary obsessions on coercion, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. She has ditchedNagasaki for a more culturally neutral space, creating what she loftily claims is an alternatively “imagined biosphere”, an unspecific location in a “dystopic near-future version of our own society”. By these means she smooths away cultural stereotypes that have enraged those who, like the musicologist Susan Clary, want to “pin this opera up in the museum of strange cultural practices of the past”. Continue reading →

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Spart Lad Wanted

Posted on October 8, 2021 by leslie

Louis Althusser, R.I.P. credit Wikipedia

Spart Lad Wanted

Paul Mason, How to Stop Fascism; History, Ideology, Resistance,
Allen Lane, 2021, 298 pp, h.b., reviewed by Leslie Jones

“Fascism is back”, according to Paul Mason. He flatly rejects Ernst Nolte’s conclusion that it was contingent on now superseded social structures and historically contingent economic factors. For Mason, a former activist in the Anti-Nazi League and a one time member of the Trotskyist groupuscule Anti-Fascist Action, fascism “is a recurrent symptom of system-failure under capitalism”. We may therefore have to go on defeating it “over and over” until capitalism itself is abolished. But to be replaced with what? Mason pointedly tells us that his mother was the daughter of a Polish Jew (introduction p xviii). But he rarely mentions the crimes committed by the Soviet Union, including those at the expense of the Polish people. How to Stop Totalitarianism would have been a preferable title.

As an avowed Marxist and historical materialist, Mason needs to explain how fascism could return with a vengeance in the absence of any palpable threat of a socialist revolution. For he demonstrates that it was worker and peasant uprisings in Italy and Germany that “triggered a new form of violent, ultra-nationalist, right-wing politics”. This begs the question. Is there today any comparable threat to the power of the elites? The right, admittedly, despise cultural Marxists, feminists, people of colour, refugees, BLM, human rights lawyers and LGBTQ+ people. But, unlike the workers councils in Russia in 1917, or the peasants who seized the land in post-war Italy, or the workers who occupied factories in Turin, Milan and Bologna in 1920, this hardly constitutes an imminent threat to the ruling order. Indeed, Nike, Pepsi Cola, the Premier League etc support BLM and feminism as a marketing strategy. Continue reading →

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Two Poems by Robert Heard

Posted on October 6, 2021 by leslie

Caravaggio, Narcissus, credit Wikipedia

Two Poems by Robert Heard

I

Echo and the Narcissists

Deep in her cave,
Is Echo, distracted,
Helplessly watching
Narcissists in flower;

Who toward her are stalking,
In her direction are pointing
Up the bright road,
Where are voices in caves;

By herself unheard,
But always answered,
Drowned in the test
Of who loudest can shout.

Continue reading →

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ENDNOTES, October 2021

Posted on October 4, 2021 by leslie

ENDNOTES, October 2021

In this edition – Legends from the Bohemian Forest; Symphony No. 3, by Sibelius, reviewed by Stuart Millson; Alchymia by Thomas Adès, reviewed by Leslie Jones

Eero Järnefelt, Iltausva Kolilla, Wikimedia Commons

Dvorak was one of the 19th-century’s greatest masters of melody: his Cello Concerto, Slavonic Dances and Seventh and Ninth Symphonies standing as timeless testaments to the romantic tradition in music. Everything that the composer turned his hand to produced that same natural flow of feeling – as if the music had just drifted from the fields, villages and folk-festivals of Bohemia.

A perfect example of Dvorak’s genius has recently arrived from the Melism label, a recording for piano duet of the Op. 59 Legends and the Op. 68, From the Bohemian Forest. The pianists Anna Zassimova and Christophe Sirodeau conjure a magical mood of fairytale innocence; delighting in the composer’s simple scene-painting and love of local airs and memories from the countryside and hills. The sense of rural atmosphere – contemplation, wandering, the beauty of the seasons, love of the open air – is truly infectious.

The booklet which accompanies the disc contains an interesting insight into Anna Zassimova, who is a talented landscape artist in her own right – and there must be, in her playing of Dvorak, an instinctive sympathy and understanding for this most scenic music. The sequence on disc begins with In The Spinning Room (Op. 68, B.33, No. 1) – an effortless, gentle evocation of the folk-past, highly reminiscent of Dvorak’s tone poems. There is also the more sinister portrayal of Walpurgis Night, but the tension and air clears for Silent Woods. Anna Zassimova’s fellow pianist here is Christophe Sirodeau – an artist trained at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, a great campaigner for neglected repertoire, and one who has achieved great acclaim from many prestigious artistic bodies, including the French equivalent of Radio 3, France-Culture radio

Continue reading →

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The Ideology of Failure

Posted on September 29, 2021 by leslie

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, detail, credit Wikipedia

The Ideology of Failure

Stephen Pax Leonard, The Ideology of Failure: How Europe Bought into Ideas that Will Weaken and Divide It, Arktos, London, 2018, ISBN 978-1-912079-5 (softcover), xxi + 266 pp, reviewed by Mark Wegierski

This book has been published by Arktos, a publishing company that is considered alt-right but this isn’t really an alt-right book. The reviewer would doubtless say that he is traditionalist conservative, or even classical liberal. Dr. Stephen Pax Leonard was a Senior Research Fellow at St. Chad’s College, Durham. A linguist and anthropologist, he has published five other books and held positions at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The frontispiece of the book features a poem by Rudyard Kipling “Norman and Saxon (A.D. 1100).” The poem is a compliment to the honest, fair-dealing Saxons, and how they are to be approached with honesty and fair-dealing by their Norman overlords for the sake of social peace. This is followed by the “Acknowledgements” (pp. viii – ix). Dr. Leonard evidently established a rapport with a number of British university students in putting together the book. Two prominent names in the acknowledgements are the late Sir Roger Scruton, and Professor Jonathan Haidt. The book has a Bibliography, pp. 243 – 248, in a small typeface, and Index (pp. 249 – 262). Continue reading →

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