20. Rhythm - and something to dispel the blues.

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Do you think that classical music is not for you and you don't know where to start? Or maybe you're a fan already and would welcome a fresh approach? You've come to the right place. Perfect pitch is for everyone, beginners or experts, whatever your age. Lend Nick Healy Hutchinson your ears for his weekly dose of classical music that will enrich your life.

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Here's a question. When was the first time you realised you liked cheese? You've always liked it. Spinach then liver? Avocados. Offal Brussels sprouts? Fair enough, you still don't like those. Chances are though that a liking for one or maybe all of these has come over time. Mozart, Haydn, and Puristes, forgive me, are the chips of classical music. Nobody ever popped a chip into their mouth, chewed it over, weighed it all up, and after a lengthy deliberation concluded, I quite like that, I suppose. It's the same with Mozart and Haydn. You can't help but love them. Other foods, uh composers, creep into our senses with age and immaturity to experiment. Is it the abandonment of an almost congenital prejudice? Mozart Chips, sure. Stravinsky kidneys nah, I just don't like the sound of it. So without any rationale, which you simultaneously acknowledge, you then decide you're not even going to give it a try. You know what's coming now, don't you? In my efforts to persuade new listeners that there will always be something to like in classical music, I've tended to err on the safe. Melody has been at the heart of everything we've listened to so far. Not today. Today I'm going to challenge your ears with something altogether less comfortable. Brace yourself for an assault of dissonance and fury. Don't you dare quit or fast forward. My guess is that if you're new to classical music, and especially if you're young, this can only excite you. Our first piece today is not about a tune, it's about rhythm alone, and how multiple changes of musical time signatures can combine to leave you almost scared, bewildered, and shocked. Rhythm can exist on its own, by the way. A melody, however, can't. It depends on rhythm, the space between the notes, to give the tune its meaning. At the risk of bringing forward that dissonance, I'll try and give an example with my voice, not having a piano to hand anymore. Could you imagine a more banal series of notes than this? La la la la la la la la la la la la la. Add some rhythm, and you land up with something close to a tune. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la and so on. Which I hope despite my voice, you might recognise as Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations. We've listened to Stravinsky before, the lovely romance from the Gadfly. Now I want you to imagine yourself in the Teatro de Champs-Élysées on an evening in May nineteen thirteen. Without knowing it, your delicate ears are about to be bludgeoned with the most influential and controversial piece of the twentieth century. The Right of the Spring, a ballet staged by Sergei Diagolev and choreographed by the greatest ballet dancer of the early twentieth century, Vaslav Dojinsky, lasted just thirty-five minutes, but it caused a stir from the moment the curtain went up. Some have put this up brought down to the choreography, but the music was so alien that its impact can scarcely be surprising. I won't trouble you with a plot here beyond summarising that it's a ballet which culminates in a chosen maiden dancing herself to death. Nowadays, the music is one of the most performed of all 20th century pieces in the concert hall. Here's the final part the sacrificial dance. It's outrageous, scandalous, daring, groundbreaking, menacing, deranged, almost offensive. At its many rehearsals, some of the musicians were having to stifle their laughter in disbelief. But for all that, in its multiple changes of rhythm, drum thumps requiring two players, it's unquestionably intoxicating too. A final thought. All of them seemed to rave about all food, whatever it is. Pierre Monteur, the conductor on the first night, had no such qualms. He admitted freely that he loathed the piece, but went on to conduct it another fifty times. What an honest professional. Try and see it through. It's only a few minutes. Who knows, in time it may rank alongside a newly acquired taste in food. But if it remains your Brussels sprout, at least you'll have tried it. The sacrificial dance, the final part of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, is played here by the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Essa Pekka Saladin. This is from a man who says that Schubert is his favourite composer. But that's precisely why I get such a kick out of classical music. Because it's so full of unexpected, and in this case, I believe, really thrilling surprises. Back to Melody and a composer we've also listened to in the past. It prompts me to ask another question. Do you ever turn to music to lift your spirits when you're down? A few of us would question the ability of music to do this, but have you ever stopped to think how or why? It's more likely that when we are in need of a pick-me-up, we will instead select music which reflects more closely to the frame of mind we're in at the time, and actively seek out something to shift us into a different mood. A few of us are disciplined enough to make that a mental resolve. But if we should overhear something uplifting, not necessarily of our choosing, on the radio, for example, we can soon find ourselves transported to a different and happier place. We know music can do this, it doesn't much matter why. Acknowledging that, therefore, means that all we need to know is whose music we need to call upon to effect this shift. Simple enough on the face of it, but the choice can be daunting and almost so overwhelming that we give up trying and resort for the quicker, simpler option of selecting the melancholy. To the rescue, one completely reliable cast on default who will never disappoint, the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. When one of our great conductors, Sir Simon Rattle, was asked not long ago which composer he would invite to dinner, his answer was an unhesitating Haydn. And I'm fairly certain it was one of the world's leading cellists, Stephen Isalis, who recently questioned whether Haydn was even capable of writing a sorrowful note. Haydn, a teacher of Mozart and Beethoven, dispels the myth that classical music needs to be serious. The man had a real sense of humour, as we've already heard before, and his audiences came to know it in his vast output, which included over fifty string quittets and more than a hundred symphonies, earning him the nickname of father of each of these disciplines. His first cello concerto lay hidden for nearly two hundred years when it was conclusively identified as being by his hand as recently as nineteen sixty-one. It's a piece brimming with exuberance, and we're going to listen to this really spirited last movement here played by Stephen Isilus. This is chamber music at its very finest. I can't see the joint collaboration between soloists and fellow musicians. It can be tempting to take this movement too quickly to demonstrate virtuosity. It's technically very demanding, but to do so is to risk tripping up and losing sight of the melody. There is no such danger here. The final movement of Haydn's first cello concerto is played here by Stephen Islis with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. His Andante Festivo began life as a string quartet in 1922, but Sibelius was asked to deliver a piece of music to celebrate the New York World exhibition, which would be broadcast on the radio. Accordingly, he went back to the string quartet and adapted it for orchestral strings with a majestic statement at the end provided by Timpany. Sibelius, you might remember, had always aspired to being a violinist, and although that never happened, it did mean he had some idea of how to write for the violin. It comes over as a sort of solemn hymn, which was indeed played at his funeral. The quality of the sound here is not very good, I'm afraid, but there's a good reason for that. This recording is from 1939, and it's the only example we have of a composer conducting his own work. So it's reasonable to infer that it's as close to sounding what Sibelius wanted as anything since. In later years, composers conducting their own works has become commonplace. Leonard Bernstein, for example, and nowadays, of course, John Williams, both of whom have reaped the rewards of improving sound technology. Makes you wonder how different, if at all, the music of Mozart or Beethoven would sound if either of them were alive today, with modern instruments at their disposal. There's something particularly intimate about the composer being with us as we listen to it over eighty years later. It isn't just bad luck, I suppose, but there are several operas which are defined by one standard aria, often concerning the rest of the piece to something of a supporting role, almost turning them into one-hid wonders. Ruchini's Diani Zigi has an Omio Balbino Caro at his heart, as he's a Tolandot as an endorma right at the end. Even Don Idis and Elisa D'Amore has us all waiting for Diva Lagrima. And Rosini's barbers as well, seems to be most well known for Lago Alpha Toto. While the operas of Verdi and Mozart unquote have their own big numbers, they are rarely alone and always backdown like a candle other than that. Among those other lovely music the Voyager also wrote nine operas. And even if you have heard of Roselga, most of us would struggle to name many or even any of the others. And the chances are that you will only be familiar with the nine as a number along to the moon. Like many fairy tales. Accompanied by the danger that if you betray, the only way to redeem his love is to agree to eliminate all of which I'm afraid of it about. The opera was a great example. Even if not without the old hate joint is opening night. And had to be replaced by an ARIA standard. The Aria is a pretty moon. Many of the world is hoping to brand as I recorded it. But only very few do adjust it. The fact that it isn't isn't adding complication. Or it's a notoriously difficult language in which any naturally not to do it at all. And many planning doesn't even have anything to do. But the American method has a problem for the recording data. The name which almost has a wizard is my favourite. We need to get to the music, but I can't represent it.

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