:00:17. > :00:21.Monday. Have a good weekend. A journey through five centuries in
:00:21. > :00:26.Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell's epic story turns into cinema. Why do we
:00:26. > :00:31.keep making the same mistakes over and over. Robert Lepage's new work
:00:31. > :00:38.sends a troop of actors up and under, forward and back, round and
:00:38. > :00:43.round. The life of Britten turned around again, this time with the
:00:43. > :00:45.manner of his death turned again. The The Sound and the Fury: A
:00:45. > :00:52.Century of Music brings music into the 20th sent treatment
:00:52. > :00:56.rulebook was torn up, let's make a noise nobody like. In the
:00:56. > :01:03.bicentinary celebrations who gets the panel's vote, Wagner or Verdi.
:01:03. > :01:08.Tonight I'm joined by the classical music critic of the Observer, Fiona
:01:08. > :01:12.Maddocks, Toby Spence and Mark Ravenhill. You can join in the
:01:12. > :01:18.conversation on Twitter. Cloud Atlas was David Mitchell's booker
:01:18. > :01:23.shortlisted epic that tells six stories, from a remote 19th century
:01:24. > :01:28.South Pacific island to a post apocalyptic future. Not an easy
:01:28. > :01:38.sell to Warner Brothers, but three directors imagined the narrative as
:01:38. > :01:43.one continuous thread. The film's six stories span different genres
:01:43. > :01:47.and periods. Unlike the book where each story is begun and resolved
:01:47. > :01:50.separately, the film weaves all the Strands together. Frequently
:01:50. > :01:54.jumping back and forth between narratives as key documents are
:01:54. > :01:59.passed from one story to inspire and pave the way for the next.
:01:59. > :02:03.What are you reading? Old letters. Why do you keep reading them?
:02:03. > :02:11.don't know, trying to understand why we keep making the same
:02:11. > :02:15.mistakes. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are part of a stellar international
:02:15. > :02:21.cast. All of whom take on different roles across the six stories, a
:02:21. > :02:29.device designed to show how the same souls are reincarnated into
:02:29. > :02:39.different lives. Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others.
:02:39. > :02:42.
:02:42. > :02:47.Past, and present. By each crime and every kindness, we birth our
:02:47. > :02:51.future. The film's critical reception has so far been decidedly
:02:51. > :02:56.mixed. It got no Oscar nomination, but topped the box-office chart in
:02:56. > :03:02.Russia and China, after a parallel release with Skyfall. But how is it
:03:02. > :03:08.going to play in the author's home country.
:03:08. > :03:15.Even just seeing that again you realise how much is measured into
:03:15. > :03:20.this film. -- meshed noo intoed film. You can say at least the
:03:20. > :03:25.Wachowski did the Matrix, so that helped. I watched this film again
:03:25. > :03:29.this morning, I had a hoot. It is so silly n a really joyful way. To
:03:29. > :03:32.see that cast keep on popping up with prosthetics and wigs and
:03:32. > :03:35.putting on all these voices and jumping between the different
:03:35. > :03:40.worlds. I thought it was a great, fantastic romp.
:03:40. > :03:45.Did it make any sense, Fiona? don't think sense comes into it. No,
:03:45. > :03:49.it was mad, it had all the stories, six stories that chopped up in
:03:49. > :03:53.every which way, like a Kaleidoscope. There were moments
:03:53. > :03:59.when you wanted to tear your hair off because it was too much, but it
:03:59. > :04:02.was also very funny at times. whole idea, as you run through six
:04:02. > :04:08.genres making this, every single story has a completely different
:04:08. > :04:14.look and feel? It is a beautifully textured film. All of these six
:04:14. > :04:18.streams of narrative that run through it are all given or
:04:18. > :04:23.presented in a way that matches the genre of the country it comes from.
:04:23. > :04:27.I felt that it was like a patchwork quilt. Did you find you had an
:04:27. > :04:34.emotional engagment with each story or not? Only a few of them. The
:04:34. > :04:38.ones that I engaged with were the English stories, really, the Jim
:04:38. > :04:41.Broadbent ones. They felt very foreign. They were meant to, I
:04:41. > :04:47.think. I worried was I just rooting for the home team. I think because
:04:47. > :04:52.you have to play these different characters, it is actually very
:04:52. > :04:56.theatrical. You have to find a theatrical way of playing it. I
:04:56. > :05:00.think Jim Broadbent and others had theatre experience, they were able
:05:00. > :05:06.to put on the wigs and things and find the emotional line. I thought
:05:06. > :05:11.more film-based actors like Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, struggled,
:05:11. > :05:15.they looked uneasy. You were conscious of the amount of make up?
:05:15. > :05:19.Hugh Grant especially. He was unrecoginsable. I was absorbed, we
:05:19. > :05:23.will show another clip in a moment, working out who was who in their
:05:23. > :05:33.different guises. Let's have a look at the characters in action against
:05:33. > :06:10.
:06:10. > :06:17.Tom Tykwer composed the music for Cloud Atlas Sextet. What did you
:06:17. > :06:21.make of it? The music worked for me. Did you see the film Perfume Skup
:06:21. > :06:25.where the music ran the whole way through, it was there as the sense
:06:25. > :06:28.of smell, the colour of the smell, he got the Berlin Philharmonic to
:06:28. > :06:36.play the score for that film. I think the music was as important in
:06:36. > :06:39.this film as well. It was restrained unlike one of those
:06:39. > :06:42.blockbusters, it didn't tell you how to think and feel t hung back
:06:42. > :06:46.nicely. The real coherence of the film was the music. Because just as
:06:46. > :06:50.you were thinking visually that you had gone to our 14th film of the
:06:50. > :06:54.day, and you were about to be completely confused, the music
:06:54. > :07:01.actually held it from scene-to- scene, because the music remained a
:07:01. > :07:04.constant. That whole story of Robert Frobisher? That is that
:07:04. > :07:08.beautiful moment in for once, where the music to transcend all music is,
:07:09. > :07:12.in fact, very beautiful music. still couldn't, I had a great time,
:07:12. > :07:15.I still couldn't really work it out. The film seemed to want to be
:07:15. > :07:18.telling me something, I really couldn't figure out quite what that
:07:18. > :07:22.was. Something to do with the interconnectedness of all things.
:07:22. > :07:26.Then it seemed to say sometimes we are interconnected because of love,
:07:26. > :07:29.and sometimes it seemed to say because of the choice we make. It
:07:29. > :07:36.seemed to have about 15 different thesis about the interconnectedness
:07:36. > :07:41.of it. Then, of course, there was particularly the Korean, the post-
:07:41. > :07:51.apocalyptic, you had this amazing Chinese star in it called Martin
:07:51. > :07:53.
:07:53. > :07:59.Bayfiled, perhaps that why it has Duna bay, she was supposed to be
:07:59. > :08:05.the autonomon, but she was great? Her performance was so wonderful.
:08:06. > :08:10.Even though the film slows down at the end. She starts as an android
:08:10. > :08:13.figure, and these enormous eyes fill up with tears, and you feel
:08:14. > :08:18.amazing about someone you had no sense of until that moment. Who is
:08:18. > :08:22.the film aimed at? In some ways it is a teenage film, in some ways it
:08:22. > :08:28.has a lot in common with the graphic novel. Some of the
:08:28. > :08:32.storylines are adult about ageing. I enjoyed the old aged caper movie
:08:32. > :08:36.that Broadbent broad found himself in. It is not a film for the Scots.
:08:37. > :08:42.How did you feel about that representation, I thought not
:08:43. > :08:49.minutes Mary pop pin's cock niece had a people been so caricatured in
:08:49. > :08:52.a film. Yes. Who do you think it is for. Is it an action movie, a bit
:08:52. > :09:01.of this and that. That is where it is so different from the novel in
:09:01. > :09:07.way. The idea of humanity and links between the past, present and
:09:07. > :09:11.future? The thing with the Wachowskis, their films feel like
:09:12. > :09:15.an indulgence for themselves, they make those films for themselves and
:09:15. > :09:21.not to appeal to anything other than aesthetic. They trust that.
:09:21. > :09:24.is not high-brow or low-brow it is no-brow, whatever that means F you
:09:24. > :09:29.want philosophy, it is the wrong film, if you want enjoyment, it is
:09:29. > :09:33.great money. You want enjoyment and have two-and-a-half hours to spare,
:09:33. > :09:40.Cloud Atlas opens next Friday. Expectations are always high when
:09:40. > :09:45.Robert Lepage mounts a new work, Playing Cards 1: Spades is one of
:09:45. > :09:54.four productions around a deck of cards. Central to the idea is the
:09:54. > :09:59.idea of a spherical rather than square performance. A 360 degree
:09:59. > :10:06.performance. French Canadian Robert Lepage has gained the reputation as
:10:06. > :10:12.one of theatre's bolder innovators, he has created opera, drama, circus,
:10:12. > :10:18.and film. Now he's giving audiences at the round house in London, a 360
:10:18. > :10:27.degree experience -- The Roundhouse in London, a 306 degree experience.
:10:27. > :10:32.It is set in 2003, as America invades Iraq.
:10:32. > :10:36.A disparate group of soldiers, gambling addicts, show girls and
:10:36. > :10:40.hotel workers have gathered in the gambling Mecca. Their stories,
:10:40. > :10:50.performed in a variety of languages explores everything from sex and
:10:50. > :11:08.
:11:08. > :11:11.As ever, with a Robert Lepage show, Spades fuses visually spectacular
:11:11. > :11:20.stages, with thought-provoking themes. But in trying to tackle the
:11:20. > :11:23.war on terror, has Lepage played an ace?
:11:23. > :11:27.I couldn't work out whether Robert Lepage was more interested in the
:11:27. > :11:31.story that the troop indeed workshoped and put together, or the
:11:31. > :11:35.staging? Yeah, he's so keyed into the technical aspect of what he
:11:35. > :11:38.does. You have worked with him a lot? I have worked with him three
:11:38. > :11:43.times. It is funny watching him direct in the studio. He's not very
:11:43. > :11:49.engaged with the text, or prescriptive with how to present it.
:11:49. > :11:52.But when it comes to, the technical rehearsals on the stage. He's so
:11:52. > :11:57.engaged, moving things around, bringing things in at very precise
:11:57. > :12:01.speeds. I saw that in this show. Did you find that was taking your
:12:01. > :12:05.attention too much? No, not at all. I was looking for it, I'm
:12:05. > :12:09.fascinated by his precision. Like Cloud Atlas, he has all these
:12:10. > :12:14.stories and people colliding, it is the same length of time, but it is
:12:14. > :12:19.on stage as opposed to a vast movie set. Did you like the way that he
:12:19. > :12:23.used Las Vegas as, that have the anchor for everything going on?
:12:23. > :12:28.don't think I particularly liked or disliked it. I think the strange
:12:28. > :12:33.thing about the whole experience was that I found it engaging, I
:12:33. > :12:37.found it absorbing while I was sitting there, but talk about
:12:37. > :12:41.deserts and oasis, for me it was a mirage. The further I have got from
:12:41. > :12:47.it a week on, I can't remember what I was engaged with. He does like to
:12:47. > :12:51.tick off the themes, so if somebody says earlier on I'm in palliative
:12:51. > :12:55.care, someone else says string theory, we find out there is a
:12:55. > :13:01.simulation for the Iraq War happening just outside Las Vegas.
:13:02. > :13:05.He's a manage buy pie, but -- magpie, but you want him to dig
:13:05. > :13:09.deeper. It was good given we were in Vegas and it was good on the
:13:09. > :13:14.slow ache of addiction. The sense of being addicted to gambling that
:13:14. > :13:17.earned its place. It was good on immigration and the Latino workers.
:13:17. > :13:21.There again with the beating heart I thought were the back workers.
:13:21. > :13:24.The reason I said about Las Vegas, it is the one place where nobody
:13:24. > :13:27.comes from. Everybody comes into Las Vegas, which is of itself a
:13:28. > :13:32.weird world. I wondered if he started with the idea of the town
:13:32. > :13:36.in the desert where the elite forces actually trained. That was
:13:36. > :13:40.actually quite a good idea for a play in itself. That is great image,
:13:40. > :13:45.we sort of follow this young soldier through to a sticky end.
:13:45. > :13:49.There is great leaps in his journey that aren't quite explored. He has
:13:49. > :13:52.to make many explicit and on the nose statements about the Iraq War,
:13:52. > :13:56.that don't feel earned, there is a much more gradual exploration of
:13:56. > :14:00.things like addiction. We got a hint at the beginning of what was
:14:00. > :14:05.in the centre of the story, without it being spelt out. It was done in
:14:05. > :14:09.mime. There was a wonderful set piece for the gambling, which was
:14:09. > :14:14.almost mesmeric, when all the different four sides, each with a
:14:14. > :14:18.gambling table came up. It was choreographed like a dance. It was
:14:18. > :14:22.equisite, and the centre piece of the whole evening for me. Along
:14:22. > :14:25.with the watering hole scene, we saw that clip there of them coming
:14:25. > :14:28.to the pool. A lot of the characters come to the pool like a
:14:28. > :14:33.watering hole in Africa, that is different animal, and then leave it
:14:33. > :14:38.and more come. You can't help being swept along by the technical skill
:14:38. > :14:42.of T I assumed there was a false floor, all the cast, there was six
:14:42. > :14:47.playing multiple character, were in this thing three metres tall, there
:14:47. > :14:51.was a series of tunnels underneath. On a technical level, the magic box
:14:51. > :14:55.rolls along fantastic. It was like you were having this swan on the
:14:55. > :14:58.water and paddling furiously underneath. I want to see the
:14:58. > :15:02.paddling, it was almost like a mirror image, and as part of the
:15:02. > :15:06.audience you would have liked half of you sitting. I would have paid
:15:06. > :15:11.to come back and watch the other side of it. It was a mixed trick,
:15:11. > :15:16.the staging and technical side of it was as much as the performance
:15:16. > :15:20.you were saying. You could enjoy it while you were there. Some bits
:15:20. > :15:24.were so clunky and the characters so unlovable. It was hard to know
:15:24. > :15:29.what you were responding to. There was one so laughable, the bit about
:15:29. > :15:33.the woman with the early menopause, you would have thought she had
:15:33. > :15:37.every terminal illness in the book. It is a wonder there are women her
:15:37. > :15:41.age walking around in the street. It was very heavy-handed. He's not
:15:41. > :15:45.very good at digging deep, either on a theme or character. I think it
:15:45. > :15:51.is part of the appeal, in a way, to his international audiences, is
:15:51. > :15:56.there are these very accessible spectacles. They are only one step
:15:56. > :15:59.of sophistication away from that themselves. You were talking about
:15:59. > :16:04.themes, this is to be an Eight Great Technologies-to-ten year
:16:04. > :16:09.project using the deck of cards. Hearts are to be superstition and
:16:09. > :16:13.magic, diamonds, business, trade and jewellery, clubs, working-class
:16:14. > :16:17.uprisings. All to be in the 360 degree. That is bettering a feat
:16:17. > :16:20.technically than this is going to be, he's going to have to hold
:16:20. > :16:24.pretty big stories together. don't think I will be rushing back
:16:24. > :16:28.to them. This was so much faster moving than the operas that one has
:16:28. > :16:32.seen him do. And I think that's why I was happy with it. I didn't mind
:16:32. > :16:35.the two-and-a-half hour length that a lot of people seemed to find very
:16:35. > :16:39.difficult. Would you be back for the other three suits? I think I
:16:39. > :16:44.would, I'm interested enough to see, but speculatively. I'm not drawn
:16:44. > :16:48.back there. I don't feel like I have to go. Would you go back?
:16:48. > :16:54.would go every time to enjoy the box of tricks. I'm unsatisfied, but
:16:54. > :16:59.I guess after the other three I would be dig a bit deeper. Give
:16:59. > :17:03.half the number of stories. Playing Cards 1: Spades runs at the
:17:03. > :17:07.Roundhouse in London until March 2nd. This year is the centinary of
:17:07. > :17:12.the birth of Benjamin Britten, it is being marked with performances
:17:12. > :17:16.an the world and a new biography by Paul Kildea. Recent discussion
:17:16. > :17:21.about the composer has tended to concentrate on his sexuality, and
:17:21. > :17:27.Kildea seeks to score with the instantly disputed assertion that
:17:27. > :17:37.syphilis played part in Brynhildr's death. More interesting is the awe
:17:37. > :17:37.
:17:37. > :17:42.-- Britain as death. Brittan was born in 1913 by the sea.
:17:42. > :17:46.The son of a dentist and amateur musician. He began writing music as
:17:46. > :17:51.a child. And went on to become one of the greatest British composers
:17:51. > :17:55.of the 20th century. The Suffolk coast would play a significant part
:17:55. > :18:01.in his life and music. The sea and the environment pervading his
:18:01. > :18:04.compositions. I was always felt I wanted to live by the sea. I have
:18:04. > :18:12.tried living away from the sea, something has gone slightly wrong,
:18:12. > :18:17.I always felt. Much has been written about Britten
:18:17. > :18:21.in the past, but a new autobiography by Paul Kildea seeks
:18:21. > :18:28.to set him out in his original context. The songs that he wrote
:18:28. > :18:33.and his operas, the or kestral song cycles, displayed his real disquiet
:18:33. > :18:37.with human behaviour and themes of violence and betrayal, which he saw
:18:37. > :18:47.as peculiarly, not necessarily correctly, a 20th century
:18:47. > :18:48.
:18:48. > :18:53.phenomenon. The book has initiated a flurry of debate about Britten's
:18:53. > :18:57.death, Kildea saying it was due to a sexually transmitted disease, a
:18:57. > :19:01.claim strongly refuted by Britten's own doctors. But this revelation is
:19:01. > :19:06.part of a larger excavation of Britain's sexuality, and its effect
:19:06. > :19:12.on his -- Britten's sexuality and its effect on his music. He felt
:19:12. > :19:16.uncomfortable being a gay man in a straight society. He felt very
:19:16. > :19:20.uncomfortable being a conscientious objector in a country at war. When
:19:20. > :19:23.he found himself more drawn to a Suffolk country lifestyle than
:19:23. > :19:33.anything London could offer. By that stage the behaviour was set
:19:33. > :19:40.
:19:40. > :19:46.and remained with him for life. Britten is the third-most performed
:19:46. > :19:56.opera composer of the 20th century. With the Turn of the Screw, and
:19:56. > :19:57.
:19:57. > :20:01.others still much add tired mired. -- admired.
:20:01. > :20:08.Should Britain or any composer be assessed in terms of their personal
:20:08. > :20:14.life. Could this year-long glut of Britten leave us with indigestion.
:20:14. > :20:21.It has been such a contrast, this book is incredibly scholarly, I
:20:21. > :20:24.think ref latery just about Britten, then it -- revelations about just
:20:24. > :20:29.Britten, and then it is like the tab Building Society revelations
:20:29. > :20:34.and it is case of who cares -- tabloid revelations, and it is case
:20:34. > :20:38.of who cares? There is a lot of people asking this question maybe a
:20:38. > :20:42.decade ago, is it possible Britten had syphilis, adding on but who
:20:42. > :20:50.cares. It is enough that he died, frankly, and left a huge amount of
:20:50. > :20:54.work. The book is very solid, it is a synoptic view of the letters, the
:20:54. > :21:00.diaries, the many publications that exist on Britten. It has everything
:21:00. > :21:04.you need, and it has five pages, I actually counted them, of which
:21:04. > :21:14.only half the pages are on the subject of syphilis. This is the
:21:14. > :21:19.only thing everybody is talking about. What did you find the most
:21:19. > :21:25.revalatory about Britten? It wasn't that, it was familiar to me but
:21:25. > :21:28.well ordered, which I found useful. I found Paul Kildea's exploration
:21:28. > :21:33.of the relationship between Britten and peers interesting, it was
:21:33. > :21:38.something I hadn't particularly thought about, how that divided
:21:38. > :21:45.into Britten being in Suffolk, writing, not wanting the flesh pots
:21:45. > :21:50.of London, which apparent low Piers slightly tended toward. He was more
:21:50. > :21:53.of a sypher in this. What is incredible is how little time they
:21:53. > :21:59.spent together. He was touring so much, the number of nights they
:21:59. > :22:09.spent together was pretty limited. That is a central problem for this
:22:09. > :22:10.
:22:10. > :22:14.book for the biographer. There is another one that is very detailed
:22:14. > :22:20.and that covered all the ground. This is a well-written book, it is
:22:20. > :22:23.slightly more conversational than the Carpenter. That is very
:22:23. > :22:28.readable but this moves along easily and pans out to the social
:22:28. > :22:32.situation, and manages to be personal, without doing the
:22:32. > :22:38.annoying thing of "that morning he must have felt", the guessing thing
:22:38. > :22:45.that biographers do. We haven't discovered anything so big since
:22:45. > :22:52.Carpenter to justify a new biography. The publisher and that
:22:52. > :22:57.have had to focus on the syphilis issue to give it a novelty value. I
:22:57. > :23:01.like the way the author can say such and such is a terrific piece.
:23:01. > :23:06.I like his voice and he's a great writer. It is like Robert Hughes,
:23:06. > :23:12.that very high-handed evaluation of a worker of art. It is certainly a
:23:12. > :23:15.very confident work. It is a gritty read, I find. There is a whole
:23:16. > :23:25.central section, which I found the most fascinating n a way it says
:23:26. > :23:26.
:23:26. > :23:35.little, it is really about the whole passism, it is the whole con
:23:35. > :23:39.shenous object -- conscientious objecter subject. I think he was
:23:39. > :23:45.niave and thought it was enough to be a composer but I don't want to
:23:45. > :23:50.go to war. But to accept a commission from jap nan in 1940?
:23:50. > :23:53.doesn't come -- Japan in 1940? Doesn't come out well in that
:23:53. > :23:59.respect. He himself said he was a child in an adult's body. His
:23:59. > :24:02.ability to think things through. Whether that was an excuse Oregan
:24:02. > :24:06.winly who he was. This does, it is not as developed as the political
:24:06. > :24:15.philosophy, that comes out more in this book than the other one. He
:24:15. > :24:20.did have this very imlimited, but very -- very limited but passionate
:24:20. > :24:25.belief in passiveism, that it was an essential part of human life,
:24:25. > :24:30.even when it was unIsrael isic. goes to Belsen in the months after
:24:30. > :24:33.the war, he plays for the survivors at Belsen, meanwhile there is
:24:33. > :24:43.bodies there, there is dreadful disease, soldiers all about. And it
:24:43. > :24:45.
:24:45. > :24:49.comes back that maybe he absorbed the war. Kildea was saying it seems
:24:49. > :24:52.like Britain was saying that's what happens when you get war? I think
:24:52. > :24:57.it is what you say and do. He was unable to speak about that Belsen
:24:57. > :25:01.experience until late in his life, and only it a few close friend. He
:25:01. > :25:07.was the sort of person who couldn't speak about stuff but put it into
:25:07. > :25:12.the work. I think the work that's there is a lot of it is "post-
:25:12. > :25:18.Belsen" music. What do you think about that music? There is a
:25:18. > :25:23.definite change, the Holy Sonnets, there is a new gravitas, and
:25:23. > :25:31.poignancy, and a new seings relation to the depth of the texts
:25:31. > :25:35.he was choosing -- a new relation sensation of the depth of the texts
:25:35. > :25:42.he was choosing. What do you like? It was the poetry and the way it
:25:42. > :25:45.feeds into his music and inform as great depth of music. Maybe on the
:25:45. > :25:49.surface he seemed withdrawn from world affairs, and that the world
:25:49. > :25:54.affairs don't really touch his music. Actually, I think, the
:25:54. > :25:58.author of this book is very, very good at putting Britten into the
:25:58. > :26:03.context of the world. Up like any other book. Which is what he set
:26:03. > :26:07.out to do. To look at the 20th century? That is what I find quite
:26:07. > :26:13.awkward. He's writing it quite a lot as an outsider. Decribing an
:26:13. > :26:19.era that a lot of people still remember. He's Australian, and you
:26:19. > :26:23.get slightly uncomfortable senses of him constructing what it must
:26:23. > :26:27.have been like. For you, Britten what does he represent for you?
:26:27. > :26:34.Britten? Yes. I have lived with him all my life, in a sense, I wouldn't
:26:34. > :26:41.be doing what I do if it weren't for Britten, in fact. In what way?
:26:41. > :26:44.I heard Serenade for Ten Horn and Strings, which Toby sings often
:26:44. > :26:47.enough, when I was very young. I liked the relationship between the
:26:47. > :26:52.music and the poetry and the wildness of it. I wrote something
:26:52. > :26:57.about it t and here I am now. That is a short version. It doesn't mean
:26:57. > :27:01.I'm a worshipper. I have areas I really don't get on with, and I
:27:01. > :27:07.have areas that I think are absolutely marvellous, particularly
:27:07. > :27:11.the chamber music. I came to it a lot later in life, to me that is a
:27:11. > :27:15.profoundly queer artist. Pre-gay, definitely. I think the tension
:27:15. > :27:19.between, some people say the music is a little bit polished and
:27:19. > :27:25.perfect and organised. But I think that's to ignore the tension
:27:25. > :27:29.between the real darkness and corruption of innocence, supression
:27:29. > :27:36.of sexuality that is always underlying that slightly perfect
:27:36. > :27:40.music in places. And his rage. is a queer sensibility. If Benjamin
:27:40. > :27:44.Britten invented modern British music, he was riding on a wave
:27:44. > :27:47.generated by European and American proposers, The Sound and the Fury:
:27:47. > :27:50.A Century of Music began this week on BBC Four. Based on the book The
:27:50. > :27:55.Rest is Noise, by Alex Ross, it charts the rise of modernism and
:27:55. > :28:00.the way the 20th century changed the sound of music. What drove
:28:00. > :28:04.composers to tear up the classical rulebook and embrace the avant-
:28:05. > :28:11.garde. Modernism ruled over the first half of the 20th century, and
:28:11. > :28:16.didn't stop at painting or literature. Composers of the period
:28:16. > :28:20.were inspired by the ideology. was like music was in black and
:28:20. > :28:25.white, music like culture and civilisation in the west cannot
:28:25. > :28:31.stand still. The music was torn up, let's make a noise that nobody
:28:31. > :28:41.likes. If if the awence applaud your work, you had failed as a
:28:41. > :28:49.composer. The series takes as its starting point, Richard straws's
:28:49. > :28:56.brave opera Salome. It is the start of a music revolution. Debussi it
:28:56. > :29:01.the start of modern music S he's very ambitious, he said I must
:29:01. > :29:07.invent music worthy of the motorcar and planes and the Eiffel Tower.
:29:07. > :29:15.George Benjamin is one of many contemporary composers, including
:29:15. > :29:22.Philip Glass and John Adams. The Wrecking Ball, the subtitle of
:29:22. > :29:29.the first episode was shone shone. After his string -- Schoenberg.
:29:29. > :29:34.After his performance in 1908, one critic shouted "stop it, enough".
:29:34. > :29:42.have never found a way into loving it. I find it centrally very
:29:42. > :29:46.punishing to my ear. But account narrative format of the series
:29:46. > :29:54.shatter the mystique that surrounds 20th century music and the avant-
:29:54. > :29:57.garde. Toby, is this the way to put modern
:29:57. > :30:02.music in front of everybody, to a television audience? It is
:30:02. > :30:06.certainly a way. It worked for me. The footage, the archive material
:30:07. > :30:14.is just great. And the people that they have gone to, to interview, to
:30:14. > :30:19.bring the music to life, it is just an A-list cast. It is fantastic.
:30:19. > :30:22.loved hearing John Adams saying this did not work for me, it was
:30:22. > :30:27.unemotional, you think of John Adams as being this supreme mix of
:30:27. > :30:31.the modern and tonal as well? love the irreverence and the
:30:32. > :30:37.honesty that comes out of people. What due make of it? I wish it had
:30:37. > :30:44.been 12 programme, there was so many contributers that only managed
:30:44. > :30:49.12 seconds and what a cast list, the archive material is excellent.
:30:49. > :30:53.The narration simplified a very complicated history of music in the
:30:53. > :30:59.20th century. Alex Ross was very much a central part of this as well.
:30:59. > :31:05.There is quite a lot of Alex Ross in it? He's one of the experts, as
:31:05. > :31:08.it were. I felt there was so many, how marvellous to have Schoenberg's
:31:08. > :31:12.daughter sitting there and saying the problem with music is people
:31:13. > :31:19.always want it to be old, they don't like the new in music,
:31:19. > :31:23.against all other art forms people hate the new, or are resistant to
:31:23. > :31:29.it. Did it do it for you? somebody gave me Alex Ross's book
:31:29. > :31:33.as a birthday present I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was a
:31:33. > :31:37.real bastardisation of the book. don't think it was the book. It
:31:37. > :31:40.didn't seem like that at all. book can take anybody who is keen
:31:40. > :31:46.reader through the 20th century and excite us about the music. This
:31:46. > :31:49.didn't know where to start. First of all it told us Salome started
:31:49. > :31:54.everything, and then it flicked back and it is then no, we have it
:31:54. > :31:57.wrong, Schoenberg. Where are we starting, you are telling us there
:31:57. > :32:02.is a massive rupture and everything changes and three different places
:32:02. > :32:06.dotted about. Where it was best was at the micro. One phrase of
:32:06. > :32:09.Schoenberg, a word setting, and the use of dissonance, and focusing
:32:09. > :32:13.closely on things like that. I thought the more it tried to be big,
:32:13. > :32:18.the more it was embarrassing. There was one moment we were told, the
:32:18. > :32:26.20th century was so momentous, we had some communist, we had lit
:32:26. > :32:29.letter hall lueting and -- saluting and the atom bomb. It had a central
:32:29. > :32:33.problem that said everything changed one day, that is clearly
:32:33. > :32:41.nonsense. It is like buses, you wait for one and two come along.
:32:41. > :32:46.This is on BBC Four, on BBC Two on Saturday night is Howard Goodall's?
:32:46. > :32:50.That is the one to watch. No. like The Good Father good because
:32:50. > :32:56.it is authored, it is honest. It doesn't say it is "it" story, he
:32:56. > :33:03.says it is "my" story, he starts and you it is like the embarrassing
:33:03. > :33:07.teacher saying music is fun. And then with great intelligence and
:33:08. > :33:12.parallels he takes us through the history of music. The story of
:33:12. > :33:19.music, successive waves of discoveries, breakthroughs and
:33:19. > :33:23.invention is an on going process. The next great leap forward may
:33:23. > :33:33.take place in a back street in Beijing or in a pub in South
:33:33. > :33:34.
:33:34. > :33:39.Shields. # Can't read my
:33:39. > :33:47.# no he can't read my # Poker face
:33:47. > :33:54.Why have you got a problem with that? I just don't like the
:33:54. > :33:58.impolicity of it. It just feels wrong to me. I think that what --
:33:58. > :34:03.simplicity of it, it just feels wrong to me. It is trying to boil
:34:03. > :34:08.it down to component parts, and what he misses is the mystery, the
:34:08. > :34:11.composures like Bach, Mozart and Britten, they wrote bad pieces and
:34:12. > :34:15.didn't know why. How Goodall is saying this is the mechanics of
:34:15. > :34:22.music, it is too simple. I don't think that is what he's doing at
:34:22. > :34:28.all. For one thing, he's such a versatile musician that he can show
:34:28. > :34:32.you really difficult concepts that I think aren't easy to talk about
:34:32. > :34:35.on television, but things like the circle of fifths, which is really
:34:35. > :34:39.hard Baroque music, while we recognise what is going on. He can
:34:39. > :34:44.sit there and demonstrate, and also, really, if there is somebody on the
:34:44. > :34:49.television playing something in four different keys, I'm
:34:49. > :34:54.entertained. He has more time and more episodes. He is showing the
:34:54. > :34:58.keyboards and explaining how things work in a musical way. He's able to
:34:58. > :35:02.present a bit of history. He just engaging me as a person. I couldn't
:35:02. > :35:06.quite, although the book is so clearly written by Alex Ross, I
:35:06. > :35:10.couldn't work out who this TV series was authored by. There was
:35:10. > :35:13.the interviews and that. I just felt a bit floaty as though I
:35:13. > :35:23.didn't know who was telling me the story. You preferred Howard Goodall
:35:23. > :35:24.
:35:24. > :35:27.taking you through it. No. He gets it. No. He does get it from me.
:35:27. > :35:30.second episode of The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Music is on BBC
:35:30. > :35:38.Four on Tuesday. The next installment of Howard Goodall's
:35:38. > :35:44.Story of Music is on BBC Two tomorrow night. Britten is not the
:35:44. > :35:48.only composer being celebrated, it is the bicentinary of Richard
:35:48. > :35:55.Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi in the opera world. Despite being born
:35:55. > :36:00.just a few months apart in 1813, Wagner and Verdi found themselves
:36:00. > :36:05.polar opposites on their outlook of art and life, and left us two very
:36:05. > :36:11.different catalogues of work. Verdi's been seen as an operatic
:36:11. > :36:14.therapist, who wanted to provide comfort for the human spirit. A
:36:14. > :36:24.tolerant man, he had a grudging admiration for his German
:36:24. > :36:29.contemporary. Wagner, on the other hand, did not grant the Italian the
:36:29. > :36:35.same level of respect. He presented his Titanic works to the world,
:36:35. > :36:45.with a messianic zeal, and believed his music might even drive men mad.
:36:45. > :36:52.
:36:52. > :37:01.But Wagner could do sublime love And Verdi, in turn, didn't shy away
:37:01. > :37:04.from marshall bomb bast. Both men had an undeniably huge
:37:04. > :37:12.impact on the history of music. Does either of them deserve the
:37:12. > :37:16.title of the Greatest Opera Composer of All Time.
:37:17. > :37:22.So, Fiona, maybe it is impossible for me to ask you this,ly ask any
:37:22. > :37:29.way. If you had to plump -- I will ask it any way, if you had to plump,
:37:30. > :37:36.Verdi or Wagner? Wagner, because he's a monster who wants to do
:37:36. > :37:42.something big and a makes you struggle. Is it because it has an
:37:42. > :37:45.emotional punch? Yes, but you don't get it immediately Verdi is a
:37:45. > :37:49.genius, without question. We know the tunes? It appeals to you.
:37:49. > :37:53.have to have a lot of hours for Wagner? I don't have a lot of hours,
:37:53. > :37:57.but I have sat in a lot of Opera Houses and listened to a lot of
:37:57. > :38:07.Wagner. I never want to be anywhere else, at the end of a Ring Cycle
:38:07. > :38:07.
:38:07. > :38:11.I'm ready to start again. Mad, I know. Wagner or Verdi I'm waiting
:38:11. > :38:15.for the Wagner conversion moment, I have worked on a couple of Verdi
:38:15. > :38:21.operas, at first you hear the ice- cream advert, the more you dig into
:38:21. > :38:25.it, the more I realised the depth of psychology and emotion and
:38:25. > :38:29.complexity about this stuff. I think he's the greatest musical
:38:29. > :38:38.dramatist, he's up there with Shakespeare as a creator of theatre,
:38:38. > :38:41.so I find Wagner still boring. this is a difficult one for you?
:38:41. > :38:46.Not so difficult. Luckily we don't really have to make the choice. We
:38:46. > :38:51.do have both. So they are both magnificent, I'm so glad we have
:38:51. > :38:54.both. Your favourite roles within them? I can't do Verdi and I can do
:38:54. > :39:00.Wagner. It would have to be Wagner for me. Why would you feel you
:39:00. > :39:06.couldn't do Verdi? Because I sound like a tourist when I'm singing in
:39:06. > :39:12.Italian, I sound like "can I have a pizza please". Verdi would find
:39:12. > :39:16.that OK, he was hum moreous? Other people don't -- Humourous? Other
:39:16. > :39:24.people don't, it is not authentic. If I was to ask who is your
:39:24. > :39:30.favourite, who would you choose in the world? I would choose
:39:30. > :39:40.Montiverdi, or Albanberg, they wrote fewer operas than Wagner and
:39:40. > :39:43.
:39:43. > :39:49.Verdi, but they are the ones. Chiekofs ski. I would I --
:39:49. > :39:55.ycovski. Wagner. That is to my chests, Fiona Maddocks, Gianluca
:39:55. > :40:00.Grava and Toby Spence, more details about tonight's items are on the
:40:00. > :40:04.website. Next year I'm here with an Oscar special discussing
:40:04. > :40:08.nominations of the glam mouse award ceremonies. Now we have Jamie
:40:08. > :40:16.McDermott of the Irrepressible, accompanied by Connor Mitchell with
:40:16. > :40:22.one of Benjamin Britten's cabaret songs.
:40:22. > :40:26.A day late for Valentine's. # Some say love is a little boy
:40:26. > :40:29.# Some say it is a bird # Some say it makes the world go
:40:29. > :40:36.round # Some say that's absurd
:40:36. > :40:46.# But when I ask the man next door # Who looked as if he knew
:40:46. > :40:49.
:40:49. > :40:56.# His wife was very cross indeed # And said that wouldn't do
:40:56. > :41:00.# Does it look like a pair of pyjamas
:41:00. > :41:10.# Or the ham in the temperance hotel
:41:10. > :41:11.
:41:11. > :41:21.# Tell me the truth about love # Does its oder remind one of Lamas
:41:21. > :41:22.
:41:22. > :41:27.# Or has it a comforting smile # Tell me the truth about love
:41:27. > :41:34.# Is it prickley to touch # As the hedges
:41:34. > :41:37.# And soft as an eiderdown fluff # Is it soft and smooth at the
:41:37. > :41:47.edges # Tell me the truth about love
:41:47. > :41:48.
:41:48. > :41:54.# You are feel -- your feelings when you meet it
:41:54. > :42:03.# I'm told you can forget # I sought it since I was a child
:42:03. > :42:12.# But I haven't found it yet # I'm getting on for 35
:42:13. > :42:22.# But still I do not know # What kind of creature it can be
:42:23. > :42:23.
:42:23. > :42:29.# That bothers people so # When it comes
:42:29. > :42:36.# Will it come without warning # Just as I'm picking my nose
:42:37. > :42:41.# Oh tell me the truth about love # Will it knock
:42:41. > :42:50.# On my door # In the morning
:42:50. > :42:55.# Oh step on the bus on my toes # Or tell me the truth about love
:42:55. > :43:00.# Will it come like a change in the weather
:43:00. > :43:02.# Will its greeting be courteous # Or bluff