Music

There is something otherworldly about Rory McEwen’s paintings of plants, leaves and fruit. They are indisputably beautiful, often breathtakingly so, but they are almost eerie in their self-possession. They are like planets vibrating to the music of the spheres – quivering with arrested energy. These images are super-real (rather than surreal) but they sometimes have a surreal edge that can be disturbing. ‘I paint flowers as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive as the truth’ Although best known for painting these botanical watercolours on vellum, Mc-Ewen (1932–82) was a man of many parts: an extraordinarily talented figure, a poet and broadcaster, a folk and blues musician as well as, for many, the greatest botanical painter of the past hundred years.

Surely charity is about helping others, not massaging your own ego? Ed Sheeran’s boycott of Band Aid is yet another example of putting virtue-signalling above doing actual good. I thought of delicate petal Ed when I was asked to join some media friends to record a cover version of ‘All You Need Is Love’ to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital, which is building a children’s cancer centre. Our group – shamelessly called The Celebs – included Christopher Biggins, Frank Bruno, Anne Hegerty, the terrifying star of the quiz show The Chase, and a clutch of actors. It was my first time singing in public since I leapt to my feet, aged 12, to lead a singsong at the end of Ramsgate pier on a family summer holiday. The pianist passed a hat round which raised £3.

Years ago Lord Patten of Barnes – Chris – was our guest for my Great Lives programme on BBC Radio 4. He championed the life of Pope John XXIII, a mid-20th-century pope from humble origins who (his admirers would say) did much to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the 20th century. He had his detractors too, Evelyn Waugh for instance: ‘Easter used to mean so much to me before Pope John and his council… I have not yet soaked myself in petrol and gone up in flames, but I now cling to the faith doggedly without joy.’ The muscle memory of today’s pop-musical taste is half a century long I leave Catholic culture wars to Catholics, mentioning this recording only for a remark of Patten’s that struck a chord with me.

Summer study courses for young composers have been popular for a few generations. After the second world war, up-and-coming experimental composers started flocking to places like Darmstadt in Germany for the Internationale Ferienkursen für Neue Musik. Olivier Messiaen taught there in the late 1940s and 1950s, when among his students were Stockhausen and Boulez. Attending the 1980 course as an undergraduate, I benefitted from a lesson with Brian Ferneyhough and conversations with Wolfgang Rihm, who died last week and was described in one obituary as ‘the last great German composer’. In the US, the summer activities at places such as Tanglewood and Aspen have become part of the learning process for many young composers over the years.