One great advantage of buying books or music with one's disposable income rather than going to Fontwell Park to blow it on a series of hapless investments in races that one surely wouldn't give a second look if you'd stayed at home, is that it takes so much longer to appreciate them and you can also go back and appreciate them however many more times you want to. A couple of alternative results at Fontwell might have made that look like a profitable night out but the money that I came home with would only have eventually gone to my more regular bookmaker eventually. And so, I will have these CD's for much longer than if I'd spent the cost of them on some other, less worthwhile, project. At least I don't throw all of my money away in the hope of instant gratification.
Both of these purchases were generated by the Brodsky Quartet's performance in Portsmouth Cathedral last month. Of course, with Britten, there is an admirable lost beauty that you can share with him, if you think you have any idea what he's on about. It is rarified and not immediately attractive. He wouldn't be among my favourite composers and yet I'm often impressed by his music. I recognized the first quartet here and I'm guessing that I probably have it on vinyl somewhere but it will have been twenty years since I played it. The third quartet is what I bought the set for, a 'swansong', and far better to listen to than write about.
Why would any musician ever have gone to the lengths of writing out a score if they could have expressed themselves in a few words. And so, why do I comment on it here. I don't know.
Whereas, the Golijov piece played by the Brodskys very quickly took me to the Couperin it was based on and that made me investigate any other French baroque settings of the Lecons de Tenebres and I thought Charpentier, roughly a contemporary of Francois Couperin, was worth a bet and I turned out to be right. It is bound to happen once in a while.
These two discs of two sets of Tenebres are apparently made up from smaller relevant pieces by Charpentier. Never mind, for once, whether the composer intended them to be heard like this or not together. It is deep, dark and ostensibly profound music and it's been skimming round in my CD player for a few weeks now.
I quite often end music reviews by saying, quite honestly, that I hope the disc in question will continue to be played here for quite some time. That doesn't always happen. In this case it already has.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (c.1643- 1704) has a new admirer in his firmament. It's me.