Contemporary music

Thursday

Richard Bratby

The music we need right now: James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio reviewed

From our UK edition

The two most depressing words in contemporary classical music? That’s easy: holy minimalism. I know, I know. Lots of people love the stuff, and I wish them joy. But the notion that one simply jettisons the whole western tradition of struggle, of purpose, of wholehearted emotional argument — and that the greatest and most crucial of human questions can be answered by a mush of soothing stylistic mannerisms — well, I’ve tried and so far I just can’t do it. I can’t simply tune in and drop out amid a haze of Yankee Candle harmonies. I hear those static choral clusters and watery melismas, and it feels like being suffocated in velvet. Silently, the spirit begins to scream.

Friday

Damian Thompson

The virtuoso virtue-signallers of classical music

All my life I’ve wanted to compose music, and now I’ve done it. I’ve written a sonata for solo flute that boasts two highly original features; it’s five hours long and must be performed by a badger. Though it took me only five minutes to write, my opus one is guaranteed to get through to the second round of the next competition for new composers sponsored by Sheffield University and the Centre for New Music. That’s because they operate a ‘two ticks’ policy, as the Scottish pianist Philip Sharp — possibly the only classical musician in Britain who calls himself a classical liberal — revealed in his blog earlier this year.