Tag Archives: Beatrice Harrison

On Record – Kathy Hinde: Twittering Machines (TBC Editions)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Twittering Machines is an audiovisual performance by Kathy Hinde that won an Ivor Novello award in 2020. This recorded version presents a single composition, split over two sides of vinyl, marking the centenary of Beatrice Harrison’s famous BBC broadcast, where the cellist duetted with a nightingale, drawing attention to the bird’s perilous plight.

Her study looks at the disrupted environmental cycles that may threaten its future, in a direct and confrontational way, drawing attention to unsettling interactions of humanity and nature. She uses John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale in a morse code translation, used as ‘a metaphor for humanity’s existential struggle with the climate crisis.” The poem has a counterpoint of music boxes, bird imitation toys, singing bowls, gongs, synths and field recordings, along with the voices of British ornithologist Peter Holden MBE and Bavarian bird imitator Helmut Wolfertstetter, which Hinde has cut onto dubplate.

Thus Twittering Machines profiles not just birds but social media outlets of the same name, its name gaining double meaning as the album becomes a ‘lament for our fast-dying planet.’

What’s the music like?

Both enlightening and unsettling – and affecting, too. The Morse code at the start is an arresting combination when paired with the birdsong, but as it dulls and the birds take over the sense of unrest is real, in spite of the ambience of the natural sounds.

Side B features a spoken description of the chaffinch from Peter Holden, and as it proceeds the monologue becomes detached from the sounds around it, which take on more reverb. Soon the bells take over, resonant to the point of overpowering the listener with their rounded profile, and the piece, having reached an apex, subsides back to the messages of the Morse code.

Does it all work?

It certainly achieves Kathy Hinde’s objectives and presents a powerful case in defence of the birds’ welfare. This is a musical message that proves difficult to ignore.

Is it recommended?

It is – but with caution, for this is certainly not music or sounds for all moods and can prove uncomfortable on headphones. Yet that is the point, for Twittering Machines is a powerful wake-up call, a reminder that nature – and birds in particular – are not to be taken for granted.

For fans of… Erland Cooper, Rautavaara, Cabaret Voltaire

Listen and Buy

Published post no.2,206 – Tuesday 11 June 2024

Centenary post – Elgar: Cello Concerto

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Today is the centenary of one of Sir Edward Elgar‘s best-loved works, first performed on this day in 1919. It was not always that way for the Cello Concerto in E minor, however, as an under-rehearsed premiere may well have contributed to a gap in London performances of more than a year.

The first performance took place with soloist Felix Salmond, Albert Coates conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The first cellist to really further the concerto’s cause was Beatrice Harrison, seen above with Elgar in an early recording from 1920. Her official recording with the composer from 1928 can be heard on the playlist below.

Again the work fell into disregard, possibly on account of its darker autumnal hues. The melodies came to Elgar in the aftermath of a painful operation on his tonsils, and while he could hear the sound of fighting in the First World War across the English channel.

It was not really until 1965 that the work reached regular public consumption, thanks to a searing recording by the young Jacqueline du Pre, with the London Symphony Orchestra this time under Sir John Barbirolli’s direction (also on the playlist). This recording preserved du Pré’s reputation as a cellist of great passion and technique, with the considerable help of a seasoned Elgarian in Barbirolli behind the orchestral ‘wheel’. It also apparently convinced a certain Mstislav Rostropovich not to become better acquainted with the piece.

More recently the Cello Concerto has become widespread, most recently with a first night performance at the Proms from Sol Gabetta and an appearance at this year’s season from Sheku Kanneh-Mason.

Gabetta’s recorded version is also on the playlist, with Mario Venzago conducting the Royal Danish National Orchestra. It appears along with two very fine accounts from Julian Lloyd Webber – with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Yehudi Menuhin – and Steven Isserlis, his first recording of the work made with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Richard Hickox:

More recently Isserlis has revisited the work with Paavo Jarvi conducting the Philharmonia, a fine account about which he talked to Arcana here.

The Cello Concerto was Elgar’s last major work, completing an intriguing late set of compositions including the Violin Sonata and String Quartet, which share the concerto’s key of E minor, and the wonderful Piano Quintet in A minor. Those four works can be heard on the playlist below:

For a visual treat, though, you can enjoy Jacqueline du Pré’s playing here – not with Sir John Barbirolli but with her husband Daniel Barenboim, conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra: