Joan Armatrading, Symphony no. 1

Chineke!, Radio 3 from Queen Elizabeth Hall, Nov 28

One tunes in to such things as the Joan Armatrading Symphony no. 1 mostly to hear what they're like, possibly in hope more than expectation but because it should be worth it.

Afterwards, yes, that's fair enough. What more did one expect. It's not exactly 'orchestrated', one would never mistake it for Beethoven, it follows its own straightforward line and doesn't even think about doing anything outlandish. It lasts half an hour and is in the four classical movements that are at least approximately Allegro, Adagio, Scherzo and Allegro.

Applause punctuated the movements suggesting that the audience had come determined to be impressed and expecting Joan to be there, which she was. She has a head start on most new composers by being much-loved already. It would have come as a shock if her first 'classical' work had owed a debt to the School of Gyorgy Ligeti and, while entirely listenable, it was hardly compelling but it did what it turned up to do, got in and got out again and in hindsight was very much what we might have expected except you can never know for sure. Remember how dull Elvis Costello was with the Brodskys.

The last movement built to something more substantial, vaguely redolent of the Karelia Suite perhaps and maybe gathered together earlier themes. I recorded it on the Virgin box and so can go back to it again and probably will.

It can't be more than a 6/10 where the likes of Beethoven and Schubert usually score at least 9's and Dvorak, Schumann and the like are 7's and 8's for the most part but it would have been astonishing if Joan had delivered an 8 or 9 as she regularly did for the last almost 50 years in what was 'pop' music with no pejorative implications intended to imply that that is anything of lesser standing.

We are assuming that this having been Symphony no. 1 there will be a no.2.

I'm not in love with it but I'm open to persuasion. 

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One of those bargain sets of '5 Classic Albums' arrived yesterday and added a few more fine songs to those I knew already.

Listening to quite so much of one person's music, that took several years to make, in such a short time does it few favours. As well as discovering great things one hadn't been aware of, one sometimes thinks one spots the 'fillers' that seemed like good ideas at the time. But, Me, Myself, I and Drop the Pilot notwithstanding, she's best at the slow, emotionally vulnerable ones. 

What I'm missing from the vinyl I so carelessly sold off is Rosie but I'm sure it's on You Tube.