Modern Art* Is Rubbish

(*music)

Is it? When I stagger out of the cold into a modern art gallery (a gallery displaying ‘modern art’ or ‘art installations’) I walk round at high speed, tutting and shaking my head in disbelief. Who could forget the talking mushrooms or talking garden shed in the 'Playing John Cage' exhibition at the Arnolfini in 2005, or the film of a guy dressed as a bear wandering at night round the entrance hall of a deserted airport at Tate Liverpool in 2007 (Mark Wallinger's Turner Prize winner), or the piece of graph paper with dots on it (possibly also in Liverpool)? I have to admit that I liked those metal statues on Crosby beach by Antony Gormley, and there’s been the odd painting or sculpture along the way that I’ve not guffawed at, but most things leave me cold or muttering ‘I just don’t get it’.

The same goes for music. Last week, it was James MacMillan. This week, it was Sally Beamish. Cue the plinky-plonky, the screechy or the downright tuneless (or any combination thereof). I don’t doubt that they’re gifted individuals, and both they and others of that ilk (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies springs to mind) enhance the reputation of Scotland throughout the world (well, anyone who’s not a violent drunk or a sectarian bigot could do that), and they are probably kind to children and animals, but until they can write a decent tune that the Old Greys (of Whistle Test fame) could walk down Buchanan Street (Glasgow or Milngavie) whistling, they are not what I want to listen to. I like Max’s ‘Farewell to Stromness’, though, and that’s a big compliment coming from me.

In June, the BBC SSO gave us ‘Made in Sweden’, a free concert which was recorded for BBC Radio 3’s modern music series ‘Hear and Now’. The second piece featured the young Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth (cue comical attempt at pronounciation of her name by presenter Jamie MacDougall) and this was the programme:

Victoria Borisova-Ollas Angelus (c.20') (UK Premiere)
Britta Byström Förvillelser (Delusions)* (c.16') (UK Premiere)
Tobias Broström Transit Underground (c.10') (UK Premiere)
Anders Eliasson Symphony No.4 (UK Premiere) (c.25')

No, I can’t whistle any of the tunes, but I recall liking a couple of them, and promised myself that I’d investigate further. I’ve not done so, as yet, but I’m hoping that this particular blog jogs my memory. Not all music composed in the last few years is inaccessible or impossible to listen to, but some composers seem to love driving people nuts.

Milngavie Music Club’s November recital was given by the Elias Quartet, comprising two French sisters on 1^st Violin and Cello, a Swede on Viola and a Scotsman on 2^nd Violin. They opened with Haydn’s String Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2. I’d not heard this piece before, and though it was quite old-fashioned in its style (dating from 1772), it was enjoyable. The other work in the first half was ‘Reed Stanzas’ by the aforementioned Sally Beamish. She wrote about it in the concert programme, but it didn’t help. Even as someone who has attempted to play Scottish fiddle music in the past, this did not leap out at me as something inspired by that tradition (probably more a lament on the pipes, actually, when Donald Grant was playing on his own) and it did suffer from two of the symptoms mentioned above. Beethoven’s String Quartet in B Flat, Op. 130 (from 1826), with the Grosse Fuge, Op 133 as its finale, took up the entire second half. This extravaganza lasted over 50 minutes, and if I’d known I was going to suffer from a dodgy tummy, I’d probably have left at the interval. I felt, as I do with Bach, that I can tolerate most things in small doses, but there is a finite time during which I can sit without distress or an excess of fidgeting. After it was over, it was time for a nocturnal visit to Tesco in a monsoon. What an exciting life!