Recommended New Classical CD Reviews - October 2008: MusicWeb-International

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RECORDING OF THE MONTH Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5

Mikhail Pletnev (piano); Russian National Orchestra/Christian Gansch rec. 2006

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4777475 [3 CDs: 67:52 + 63:42 + 37:45][JFL]

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Victoria BORISOVA–OLLAS (b.1969) Wings of the Wind; Symphony No.1; Roosters in Love; Im Klosterhofe; Silent Island Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/Mats Rondin rec. 1999-2008 PHONO SUECIA PSCD171 [62:19][BBr]

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Billy Budd (1951) Ian Bostridge - Nathan Gunn

London Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding rec. 2007. DDD

VIRGIN CLASSICS 5 190392 [3 CDs: 23:00 + 63:01 + 79:41]

[AOz]

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Philippe GAUBERT (1879-1941) Symphonie; Les Chants de la mer; Concert en fa Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg/Marc Soustrot rec. 2008 TIMPANI 1C1135 [70:16][RB]

RECORDING OF THE MONTH William LAWES (1602-1645) The Harp Consorts Maxine Eilander (harp); Les Voix Humaines rec. 2002-6 ATMA ACD22372 [76:26][KS]

Elegant music-making … A delight for music-lovers of all stripes ... see Full Review

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Pavel LUKASZEWSKI (b. 1968) Choral Music The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge/Stephen Layton rec. 2007 HYPERION CDA67639 [66:22][JQ]

An outstanding introduction to a significant voice in contemporary choral music ... see Full Review

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Jean-Baptiste LULLY (1632-1687) Psyché Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and Chorus/Paul O'Dette rec. 2007 CPO 7773672 [3 CDs: 50:06 + 57:28 + 66:08][MS]

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Giacomo PUCCINI (1858 – 1924) La bohème (1896) Mirella Freni (soprano) – Mimi; Luciano Pavarotti (tenor) – Rodolfo); Elizabeth Harwood (soprano) – Musetta; Rolando Panerai (baritone) – Marcello; Gianni Maffeo (baritone) – Schaunard; Nicolai Ghiaurov (bass) – Colline; Michel Sénéchal (tenor) – Benoit; Alcindoro; Gernot Pietsch (tenor) – Parpignol; Hans-Dietrich Pohl (bass) – Customs official; Hans-Dieter Appelt (bass) – Customs sergeant Schöneberger Sängerknaben; Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin

Berliner Philharmoniker/Herbert von Karajan rec. Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, October 1972 Italian libretto and English, German and French translations enclosed Includes bonus CD: Mirella Freni in conversation with Catherine Bott

DECCA 478 0254 [54:37 + 55:46]

[GF]

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Piano music of Roger Sessions and Ralph Shapey Roger SESSIONS (1896-1985) Sonatas Nos 1 & 3 Ralph SHAPEY (1921-2002) Mutations; Mutations II; 21 Variations David Holzman (piano) rec. 2007 BRIDGE 9243 [79:31][MS]

Something rather special. Expert, perceptive and technically brilliant ... see Full Revie

RECORDING OF THE MONTH Un Frisson Français - A Century of French Song

Susan Graham (mezzo) Malcolm Martineau (piano) rec. 2008, DDD French texts and English translations included ONYX 4030 [77:34] Trial it: Sale or Return

[JQ]

This disc provides unalloyed pleasure and is not to be missed. ... see Full Review

RECORDING OF THE MONTH New Music for Brass Band by Richard Rodney BENNETT (b. 1935), Kenneth HESKETH (b. 1968), George BENJAMIN (b. 1960), Judith BINGHAM (b. 1952) and Philip WILBY (b. 1949) Foden’s Richardson Band/Bramwell Tovey rec. 2008 NMC D142 [72:54][CT]

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990) Fanfare for the Common Man, Clarinet Concerto, Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, Appalachian Spring

David Shifrin (clarinet) Saint Louis SO/Leonard Slatkin CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE 2282762 [79:13] [GP-J]

A truly outstanding issue packed with great things ... see Full Review

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH Cristóbal de Morales (c.1500–1553) Missa Queramus cum pastoribus etc. Jean Mouton (before 1459–1522) Queramus cum pastoribus The Choir of Westminster Cathedral/James O’Donnell rec. 1992 HYPERION HELIOS CDH55276 [65:25][BW]

Pretty close to perfection ... and at a budget price ... see Full Review

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH The Tallis Scholars Sing Tudor Music: Volume 1 CD 1 John BROWNE (d.1505) Salve regina I [13:23] Stabat iuxta [12:25] Stabat mater [15:56] O regina mundi clara [13:55] O Maria salvatoris [15:39] William CORNYSH (d.1523) Gaude virgo mater Christi [5:30] CD 2 John TAVERNER (c.1490-1545) Western Wind Mass [32:23] William CORNYSH Salve regina [13:53] Ave Maria, mater Dei [3:13] Christopher TYE (c.1505-c.1573) Western Wind Mass [27:19] The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips rec. Salle Church, Norfolk, 1988 (Cornysh), 1993 (Taverner, Tye), 2005 (Browne). DDD. Booklet with notes, texts and translations. GIMELL CDGIM209 [76:42 + 76:50]
BARGAIN OF THE MONTH The Tallis Scholars Sing Tudor Music: Volume 2 CD 1 John SHEPPARD (c.1515-1558) Media vita [21:45] Christe redemptor omnium [4:46] Reges Tharsis [5:04] Sacris solemniis [7:32] In manus tuas I [3:28] In manus tuas II [2:56] In manus tuas III [2:54] Verbum caro [6:57] Western Wind Mass [20:33] CD 2 Thomas TALLIS (c.1505-1585) In ieiunio et fletu [4:44] O salutaris hostia [3:02] O nata lux [2:06] Robert WHITE (c.1538-1574) Magnificat [14:48] Portio mea [7:15] Regina cæli [3:57] Christe, qui lux es III [4:55] Christe, qui lux es IV [5:08] Exaudiat te Dominus [9:46] Lamentations (5vv.) [22:05] The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips rec. Salle Church, Norfolk, 1989 (Sheppard, except Mass), 1992 (Tallis), 1993 (Sheppard Mass), 1995 (White). DDD. Booklet with notes, texts and translations GIMELL CDGIM 210 [75:58 + 77:48] [BW]

Excellent performances and unbelievable value ... see Full Review

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH Alexander ZEMLINSKY (1871-1942) Three Pieces for Cello and Piano; Sonata in A minor for Cello and Piano; Trio in D Minor for Clarinet, Cello and Piano Othmar Muller (cello); Ernst Ottensamer (clarinet); Christopher Hinterhuber (piano) rec. 2007 NAXOS 8.570540 [64:21][JWi]

Exceptional rather than merely pleasant ... see Full Review

Over a period of three years from December 2003, I have spent a lot of time in the company of Harry Partch – not literally, of course, as he died in 1974, but working my way though an article and some eight reviews that can all be found on MusicWeb. Then, at the MusicWeb annual lunch (January 2007), the name of John Cage caught my ear. For reasons that my subconscious was not prepared to divulge, my curiosity was tickled. Partch and Cage have on occasion been paired off, as a sort of American "Debussy and Ravel" – was there any real connection between them?

This may come as a bit of an anticlimax but, other than them both being American originals with "far-out" ideas, I can’t really think of one. In fact, they are more on the lines of diametric opposites: with my tongue ever-so-slightly in my cheek, I could say that Partch was a seminal genius who got branded as a crackpot, and Cage was a crackpot who got branded as a seminal genius.

John Cage (1912-92) was nothing if not controversial. With his rise to prominence, an obliging World split into two opposing camps. His supporters saw him as a prime mover in the fields of experimental and electronic music, with abiding interests in "chance music", new ways of using traditional instruments, and practical application of his Zen Buddhist beliefs.

His detractors, the more radical of whom would have preferred the "nothing" option, complained that he just made a lot of silly noise, did unspeakable things to the private parts of otherwise perfectly respectable musical instruments, and came up with a load of airy-fairy claptrap to justify his bizarre buffoonery.

Partch, who was renowned for his considered and candid conclusions, didn’t have too high an opinion of Cage: "When he was younger, I found him rather charming, albeit shallow. Then later, when he was famed for the opening of doors to musical insight, I found myself obliged to use the word ‘charlatan’ . . . Pretty sounds do not necessarily make significant music, and serious words frequently cloak hokum . . . I’m all for common sounds as valid materials [but] one has to have control, so that his common sounds will mean something. . . I feel that anyone who brackets me with Cage is bracketing actual music with metaphysical theories, and what I think is a serious effort with exhibitionism." [Letter to Ben Johnston, 1952, reproduced in Innova Enclosure 3]

Who is right – the "pro" camp or the "anti"? You tell me. The only opinions I can voice with any certainty are that Cage was not really a crackpot – even if he did give that impression to his detractors – and in all probability he caused the expenditure of as much hot air as all the other Twentieth Century composers put together.

For instance, during the late 1960s, when I was a university student, Cage was a hot topic for many an informal debate over a pint or six of a Saturday night in the pub. It’s true, I swear! Granted, we also debated rather coarser matters, interspersed with lots of "rugby songs", but there was no two ways about it – in those heady days, Cage was about as "right on" and as "far out, man" as you could get.

It was even possible – but only just – for intense arguments over Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds to distract our juvenile minds from contemplating the aesthetics of passing bits of mini-skirt! Yet, no matter how much the said work of art – if that’s how you choose to define it – resonated with the mood of the Sixties, it’s as well to remember that it was written quite a while earlier, in 1952, while the hippy generation was just learning to manage without nappies!

4’33", as much as anything, fuelled the long-running furore over the definition of "music", a lot of the argument being similar to a much earlier debate amongst mathematicians, over whether "0", being "nothing", could be counted as a number. For those odd few who don’t already know, 4’33" is the work where the pianist lifts the keyboard lid, sits perfectly still for a while, then shuts the lid – the cue, I presume, for a storm of applause.

Apparently, the idea for the piece resulted from a visit to an anechoic chamber. Cage, never particularly conventional in his approach to music, explained that he wanted to hear what silence "sounded" like. Really? And here am I, expecting that he was at the very least hoping to establish conclusively, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Mind you, that’s always struck me a daft question – shouldn’t you first ask, "Is it possible for one hand to clap?"

Anyway, Cage was surprised to find that he didn’t hear "nothing". Instead he heard the real sound of his blood pumping and the virtual sounds generated by his own auditory system. Thus, having realised the impossibility of complete silence, at least in the ears of the perceiver, he fashioned 4’33" supposedly to demonstrate that fact to the rest of us. Presumably, he wasn’t aware that Smetana, to the ultimate cost of his sanity, had already answered that one.

What surprises me is that he found this surprising. What doesn’t surprise me, not one bit, is that in 2002 Cage’s publishers sued composer Mike Batt – he of "Wombles of Wimbledon Common" fame – for plagiarism! Batt, you see, had included in his album Classical Graffiti a silent track. It wasn’t, as you might expect, Batt’s "One Minute Silence" that got their danders up, but the fact that he’d credited the track to "Cage/Batt". Unbelievable? Well, it was reported by the BBC, so it must be true, mustn’t it?

Another surprise, to me anyway, is that 4’33" exists in at least two versions. The one most commonly played – and I use that term reservedly – is the "Tacet" version. This had three movements, which are usually played attacca, so as to save time messing about with the keyboard lid, and each is marked simply tacet but is of course otherwise blank.

However, Cage insisted that he originally composed a much more complex piece in "small units of silent rhythmic durations which, when summed, equal the duration of the title". He also thought that he might have made a mistake in the summation. I harbour doubts about this, because originally the work had no specified duration – the first performance happened to take 4’33", and that stuck. I also doubt whether it matters – would all this "complexity" have had any significant effect on the work as perceived by its audience?

There is also a somewhat apocryphal theory that the title refers to the "absolute zero" of temperature, -273° C, on the grounds that 4’33’’ = 273 seconds. This is, at best, a specious connection, particularly as it conveniently sweeps under the carpet both the minus sign, a small matter of 0.15 C°, and the fact that the duration of 4’33" was completely accidental.

Nevertheless, it persists in attracting certain people – presumably those who, for reasons best known to themselves, not only insist on ignoring the fact but also perceive a relationship between 1 second of time and -1 degree of the Celsius temperature scale. I have a feeling that these same folk would look at you daft – and completely miss your point – if you asked them how many furlongs equal one apple pi plus 3.1418 nutty fruitcakes.

Nonsensical as this "theory" is, ironically it does suggest a connection between 4’33" and another piano work of Cage’s, ASLSP (1985). The title stands for "As SLow aS Possible" – I’ll leave you to ponder on why ASLSP was preferred over the straightforward acronym ASAP, and why it camouflages an otherwise obvious grammatical error. I gather that a typical performance takes about 20 minutes and, because it’s very slow, the piano notes have plenty of time to die away completely.

If you stretch your fancy a bit, you could imagine a decaying note being akin to the decline of thermal activity as absolute zero is approached. So, when the note reaches its "absolute zero", what do you hear? Simple – an "excerpt" from 4’33"! Neat, eh? Personally, I find myself torn between smug satisfaction at the plausibility of what I’ve just said, and embarrassment at how easy it was to pull philosophical wool over my own eyes, never mind yours.

To get back to the tale: in 1987, Cage adapted ASLSP for the organ, to bestow upon the World his Organ²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible). Whilst this improved the continuity of what must have seemed a fairly disjointed piece, it substantially undermined the entire "absolute zero" argument (boo!). Life is full of surprises, for I have so far found no mention of any subsequent storms in academic teacups over whether an indefinitely-sustained, constant sound is really a sound at all, or merely a recalibration of "zero".

As inevitably as day follows night, these works – or rather their tempo marking – provoked profound musicological cerebration. At rock bottom, it boiled down to this: no matter how long the performer takes, he cannot help but fail to observe the most important marking in the entire score – that of the basic tempo. With time stretching from Now to Plus Infinity, 20 minutes has got to be way too fast. I wonder, why do people always have to rush everything these days? Well, it turns out that they don’t, not always. Read on.

Unbelievably, five years after Cage’s death, it got really "heavy, man". In 1997 a conference of musicologists and philosophers was convened, almost exclusively to indulge in an orgy of in-depth discussion of the implications of this tempo marking, particularly in view of the fact that an organ theoretically imposes no time limits.

Broadly speaking, the conference concluded that ASLSP could actually be quite a lot slower than that 20 minutes. Having cracked this singularly knotty philosophical nut, the wielders of the weighty sledgehammer moved on – to address, with commensurate delicacy, a burden of proof lying beaten and bruised amongst the shattered shards.

I’ll bet that Cage – by all accounts a genial, charming and fun-loving chap who regarded his life’s work as "purposeful play" – would have been laughing his socks off in his grave when the conference solemnly decided to establish a "practical" project. To prove how much more slowly the piece could be played, they planned a performance of Organ²/ASLSP that would last for, not an hour, not a day, not even a week, but 639 years. No, that is not a typographical error. Roll it around your brain: six hundred and thirty-nine years. [Health and Safety warning: if you feel your brain starting to melt, stop thinking immediately, flush the inside of your head with plenty of cold water, and seek immediate medical advice]

At this juncture, I start to wish that Cage had scored the work for a phial containing a radioactive isotope, which could then have been buried in a time-capsule to mark the commencement of the performance. This would have had the added advantage that nobody would have had to listen to any of it. Sadly, he didn’t, because if he had it would have saved an awful lot of bother.

The choice of playing time is easily explained, as it is intended to reflect the age of the instrument on which it is performed. Hence, subtract the year in which the first church organ seems to have been built, 1361, from the year that the "performance" was scheduled to start, 2000. From this simple bit of arithmetic the planners extrapolated a mystical arch, stretching from the time that the organ was invented, and symmetrically straddling what – you may recall – we used to call "the Millennium".

Obviously, planning a performance of such gargantuan span required a fair bit of time and effort. For starters, someone had to calculate a timetable, detailing the dates on which the notes are started and stopped. This isn’t as simple as it sounds because, for example, leap years and double-leap years have to be taken into account. Then, they needed somewhere to play it. The location chosen was St. Burchardi’s Church in Halberstadt, Germany. This was a nice, even sentimental touch, because St. Burchardi’s is where the very first proper church organ was installed.

Here we get another connection, albeit tenuous, to Harry Partch. One of the reasons that this organ was "proper" was that its keyboard was the first with twelve keys to the octave. Partch famously called the inauguration of this organ "the fatal day of Halberstadt" because – as far as he was concerned – it marked the start of Man’s slide down the slippery slope into the Desolation of Twelve-tone Equal Temperament.

The sentimental touch was also an expensive touch because, over the last 190 years, the said church had been variously used as "a barn, a hovel, a distillery and a sty". Disused and dilapidated, it first needed extensive restoration – and a new organ! However, because it would be fully booked for the first 639 years of its life, this new organ was designed and built specifically for this performance. Actually, that’s not quite correct: rather, it is being built. Taking advantage of the very broad basic tempo, the planners have gained a certain "efficiency" by phasing the building work to proceed in parallel with the performance.

The performance itself is a bit of a cheat, because at any given time the notes currently sounding are held down mechanically by the "autonomous" organ. So, unless a key is scheduled for depression or release, there’s nobody actually playing the music. Alright, maybe I’m being a bit unrealistic but I’m no more picky here, about the definition of "performance", than many members of the Cage camp are about the definition of "music" or "composition".

I’ll leave you to wonder about "routine" matters such as arrangements for the "heredity" of performing personnel, or securing the "performance" against mechanical or electrical failures, acts of God, war or insurrection, or any of the other myriad contingencies under which your house insurer refuses to shell out. Instead, let’s look briefly at the progress of the music.

Kick-off was on 5 September 2001, Cage’s 90^th. birthday. This was a year late, but in the long run I don’t suppose it’ll make much difference, except to astrologers and sundry other mystics. In the 17 months required to "play" the first bar’s opening rest, the organ of course emitted no sound. In other words, we started with 163,938 consecutive complete performances of 4’33", give or take the odd one or two.

The first sound, which emerged on 5 February 2003, continued unchanged – apart from the addition of the octave doubling of one note on 5 July 2004 – for fully two years and five months. And so it dragged on. Currently (April 2007), the chord A3-C4-F sharp4 is sounding, and will continue so to do until it completes its six-and-a-half year run on 5 July 2012. Thereafter, though, things start to get really exciting, so watch this space.

Lest the anti-Cage camp be inspired to seize their quill pens and write letters of complaint to the Times, or even the Radio Times, we must get one thing absolutely clear. John Cage had no part whatsoever in this project. For one thing, the planning and management of the project, which must meticulously detail every last jot and tittle, would have run contrary to his aleatoric principles. For another, I doubt that this lovable and fun-loving man would have found much fun in the wall-to-wall deadly seriousness of it all. The discussions of his tempo marking, and the project spawned by them, all arose only after his death – so please don’t go blaming Cage for any of it.

Even so, it almost goes without saying that Cage would have hugely enjoyed all the controversy. More than anything in the history of music this – what Cage would have called a "happening" if it had been played for laughs – has polarised opinion, if not quite to the extent of "pistols at dawn", then not far short of that. It is either an awe-inspiring enterprise or a preposterous waste of time and effort. There is no middle ground, so if you’re still sitting on the fence, get off it at once.

I’ve weighed many of the arguments pro and con. However, the reason that I’ve come down on the "anti" side of the fence has nothing to do with any of these. In my opinion, and to the best of my current knowledge, the entire exercise is based on a seriously flawed premise.

I suspect that the deliberations of that learned conference were blinkered by the mechanics of going "as slowly as possible". Yet, Cage wrote a piece of music. It is pretty well axiomatic that the entire raison d’être of music is to be performed. Regardless of whether the performers are people or machines, the sole purpose of performance is to create an object of human perception. Indeed, Cage’s Zen beliefs might well have prompted him to ask, "Does music really exist if there’s no-one there to hear it?" Certainly, unless you’re a follower of Descartes, sound exists independently of any observer, but for music to exist there must be an observer – a listener – who implicitly understands that it is music.

In the science of mechanics, the motion of an object can be arbitrarily slow. However, because music is an object of human perception, it can be said to be "moving" only if its observers can perceive its motion. Even the mandarins of the BBC in the 1950s understood this – it was the principle underlying Music and Movement, a sort of primer of ballet and mime which in those days was broadcast to schools, thereby inflicting eternal, squirming embarrassment on hapless real "small boys" such as myself.

Although there can be an accidental "logic" in mechanical sounds, logic is one of the defining characteristics of music. You could even say that perception of this logic is the key to the door on all the wonderful things music does to our minds and hearts. In particular, the speed of music is not "the number of notes per unit time", but the rate of progression of the logic – a distinction that Ligeti, for one, explored to stunning effect.

We’ve one more step to take. If we progressively slow down a piece of music, the events that define the music’s logic get further apart. Is there a point beyond which we can no longer sense the logical flow? This depends on memory. As long as we can remember "the story so far" – or at the very least the previous logical step – then we stand a chance of making sense of the current one. This limiting interval between logical events is, I suspect, shorter than we might imagine – taking an educated guess, I’d say it lies somewhere in the region of the listener’s attention span. Go much beyond that with nothing new coming in, and the average mind, bored out of its skull, will conclude that nothing is happening and turn its attention elsewhere.

For similar reasons, there is a corresponding limitation on performers: if they go too slowly, they will lose track of the measure of the music. Hence, Cage’s title-cum-tempo-marking ought to read something like "As Slow(ly) as is Humanly Possible". We may argue over exactly how slow this might be, but I doubt that anyone could come up with a convincing argument that the tempo chosen for the ASLSP Project is anywhere near the right ball-park. I suspect that even Treebeard would fail to find it "hasty".

If I were to be blunt, I’d say that a piece of music that takes going on for ten standard lifetimes to perform is about as useful to us as a chocolate fireguard. The whole thing could have been achieved with much less hassle and a sight more cheaply, but with every bit as much "meaning", if 4’33" had been stretched to fill 639 years. All it needed was a large "egg-timer" stopwatch – powered, of course, by thoroughly "green" solar panels – and situated in (say) Tibet. As far as I’m concerned, this is all just a wee bit over the top, just to get an entry in the 2641 edition of The Guinness Book of Records.

Still, for better or for worse, the project’s up and running, at least until such time as the last person who is interested in keeping it going gets bored with it. To quench your thirst for excitement, you can go to the web-site and eavesdrop on the "current sound". If you doubt the validity of my arguments, I can almost guarantee that 20 seconds of this will change your mind. However, if you gamely persist for a further 10 seconds or so, you may get a bit of a surprise. I did.

Diligently pursuing my duty as a reviewer, I girded my loins, gritted my teeth, and soldiered on through the pain barrier. After a while I noticed some "noises off". My mind gratefully clutched at these straws, which would have seemed meagre had I not been so desperate. Could I make sense of them? Might I catch a snatch of conversation (such as, "Where’s the bloody ‘off’ switch?")? A little while later – though it seemed like an eternity – I heard a "catch" in the sound, rather like the glitches you get in streamed audio, quickly followed by what seemed to be the same "noises off".

My attention now riveted, my pain put on hold, I listened on. Guess what? That’s right; after about the same interval, it happened all over again. This wasn’t "the current sound", but a sample of the current sound played in a loop. I felt a bit cheated, not of the experience of a lifetime but mostly of five minutes in which I could have been doing something much more interesting, like watching paint drying, or grass growing, or a DVD of a teenager waking up on a Monday morning. Heck, even the sound quality isn’t up to much. Take a tip from me: if you want to experience a fair reflection of the "current sound", in decent-quality audio, induce some mains hum in your amplifier and listen to that.

There will, of course, be a major celebration to mark the conclusion of the project. However, as planning is still in the very early stages, as yet no details are available. Nevertheless, it is generally expected that the occasion will be marked by the release of a complete recording in a special, de-luxe commemorative edition.

For practical reasons, it is unlikely that this will take the form of a 4,201,107-CD boxed set. Even shoe-horning it into a low-grade MP3 "song" would require a file size of somewhere in the region of 200 terabytes. Obviously, this would make even the fanciest of today’s MP3 players gip, but there is every reason to be confident that technological advances during the project’s course will result in much more efficient and compact storage systems.

In the meantime, for those cats whose curiosity is already getting the better of them there is this CD, warmly recorded in 24-bit, high-definition sound. This compresses the entire work into a time-frame of around 72 minutes, which is some 4,667,895 times faster than the projected performance. Yet, even at this comparatively breakneck speed, it still manages to prove my point.

After a few minutes of my undivided attention, and in spite of my best efforts at due diligence, I found those images of wet paint, short grass and somnolescent teenager starting to beckon seductively. My mind slowly drifted into dreamy contemplation of the word "somnolescent", becoming lulled by its lazy liquidity . . . I awoke with a start, and re-joined the performance. It seemed very quiet. Shortly thereafter, I noticed the CD player, displaying an admonishing "stopped." But don’t let me put you off – if your attention span is more robust than mine, you may well find it a deeply affecting experience.

Performances of the original piano version gallop by in typically just over a quarter of the time. Regardless of any help from things like sophisticated – and silent – electronic metronomes, that says much for the intense concentration and immaculate control exhibited by the organists, Bossert and Ericsson. I wish I had their stamina.

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