Music to my ears
What the classical world has been listening to this month
Anoushka Shankar
Sitar player and composer
I recently went to see the cellist and composer Ayanna
Witter-johnson at Wigmore Hall. She’s a friend who I have worked with a lot, so it was lovely to see where she’s got to and where she’s going. I loved how she centred the show on her compositions. She pulled in two quartets, and lots of different guests, and so you really got to hear the scope of one person’s compositions.
The singer Arooj Aftab’s newest album, Vulture Prince, came out last year. It’s impossible to say if it’s my favourite, but it’s probably my most listened to. I love what she’s done with these beautiful old Sufi songs – really gorgeous, minimalist arrangements that bring them into a subtly different space. People seem to be responding to these songs from all over the world in a way that maybe wouldn’t be possible in their more traditional arrangements.
Radio 3 asked me to host a three-part show about Indian classical music and as a result I have had the chance to go back and listen to so much music. I’ve heard things I’ve never heard before, or things I haven’t heard since childhood. So it has been a really beautiful, immersive experience. MS Subbulakshmi’s ‘Bhavayami Gopalabalam’ is a beloved song in Carnatic music; it really made me feel nostalgic when I heard it again.
And also…
On my bedside table there’s a book called On Connection that Kae Tempest released during the flux and madnesss of the pandemic.
It’s a really compassionate, loving book about connection and how to access it. And I think one of the things that is so incredible about Kae is that their work is so accessible and so modern, and yet the themes are so spiritual and so bravely core.
Anoushka Shankar performs at the Cheltenham Music Festival on 9 July
Clare Hammond Pianist
The works that have stuck in my mind recently are Elizabeth Maconchy’s string
quartets in a recording of the complete set by the Hanson, Bingham and Mistry quartets. I have been aware of Maconchy for years, but I had not really engaged with her before.
The quartets are incredibly invigorating on every single level: physically, emotionally, intellectually. The quality of music is breathtaking, and she has real vision and expressive scope. They are quite extraordinary and on a par with the Bartók quartets.
I’ve been playing George
Walker’s Variations on a Kentucky Folk Song on the piano, so I started exploring his orchestral works for an idea of his style. His Violin Concerto is so distinctive, and I found it wove its way into my consciousness. When you listen to something enjoyable and powerful, and have to keep coming back to it, that’s a really good sign. I have been listening to the recording of it by his son Gregory Walker, the Sinfonia Varsovia and Ian Hobson.
After a day of practice, I don’t really want to listen to classical music as I have reached saturation point, so I have been listening to jazz pianist Tord Gustavsen’s
When you have to keep coming back to a piece of music that’s a really good sign
Opening, which is his latest album. I love the atmosphere he creates and the way his music takes me out of myself. I also use it when the children are screaming – I put Gustavsen on and they calm down. I don’t really know if you should use music in such a utilitarian way!
And also…
The TV series Derry Girls is absolutely hilarious, but also the soundtrack brings back a lot of memories. I can hear just one line and I will remember being at the kitchen table. I never really engaged with pop music much when I was growing up as I had my head in my classical bubble, but even so I have realised how deeply embedded a lot of that music was between the ages of nine and 15. Clare Hammond appears at the Up Close and Musical festival at the Fidelio Cafe, London on 24 June Cheryl Frances-hoad Composer
I’m currently living in Oxford, where they have a terrific jazz club called The Spin. A couple of weeks ago, I heard
the David Gordon Trio perform there and they were fantastic. They’re a jazz piano trio, but Gordon himself is a classical harpsichordist as well, so you can hear all sorts of references in the music. And after the last couple of years, simply being able to get up and go to things is just wonderful.
I’ve been listening to an awful lot of choral music and going regularly to Evensong, particularly at Merton College where I have been the visiting research fellow. The college choir were brilliant at the beginning of the academic year, but it’s been wonderful to hear them get to know each other over the months and hear their sound and ensemble developing.
Hearing them sing Palestrina’s Missa Brevis recently was particularly memorable.
I have also been listening non-stop to The Tallis Scholars singing Byrd’s O Lord, Make Thy Servant Elizabeth Our Queen, as that is the work that I have been commissioned to base a new piece on for this year’s Jubilee Prom. I had it on constant repeat – and particularly the final ‘Amen’ section – for about a fortnight. Listening to Byrd really is a composition lesson, and I’ve been trying to absorb his sense of neverending lines but without making it sound like a pastiche.
And also…
As my job at Merton includes accommodation and full dining rights, I have recently started jogging in a bid to prevent doubling in size! Last Sunday, I set a new personal best for a 10km run, of which I was very proud. Usually I run through Christ Church Meadow and down along the river past the Isis Farmhouse pub which you can only access by foot – though I don’t stop there while jogging, I do go there at other times.
Cheryl Frances-hoad’s Excelsus for Solo Cello is reviewed on p92