Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant - New Water Music [Soundtrack]

I am very glad I bought this cd. The music was specially composed for performance on a barge that took part in the Diamond Jubilee `flotilla' on 3rd June 2012. It is not an album of sentimentally patriotic music; nor is it an attempt to re-compose Handel's original piece. But it is an album that should make you feel proud of British composers and musicians today.
All eleven composers have, to a greater or lesser degree, written music for film and television. They were each given the title of a movement from the original Water Music, and asked to take it as a starting point for inspiration. Each composer conducts their own piece, recorded here by the marvellous `H20' ensemble in a studio one month before the flotilla. There is a certain continuity to the album, perhaps because the composers knew they were writing specifically for this group. The overall sound reminds me of modern orchestras like `Icebreaker' (strings, brass, woodwind, percussion, electric keyboards, electric and acoustic guitars) but maybe not so `modernist'.
Of course with 11 different composers you are bound to have some pieces that you prefer to others. Project co-ordinator Gavin Greenaway's piece is easily the least impressive, sounding a bit like a bland tv theme for a sports programme. Howard Goodall (of Blackadder/QI fame)'s contribution was also a bit insipid, although improving in the middle. Even these two pieces sound fairly good played by H20.
OK grumbles over. Anne Dudley is deservedly first on this cd; she kicks off with a wonderfully brave and bold fanfare-like theme, full of tension and expectation. She seems to make a point of accentuating the `fast-slow-fast' form found in baroque music; the central section features a sumptuous trumpet melody fit for a royal occasion. The first time I heard Debbie Wiseman's `Gigue', I thought it was a bit ugly, but on repeated listens it's irresistibly infectious (you can see a video on Youtube of Debbie rehearsing the piece with H20). John Lunn used to be in the band `Man Jumping', and his `Bourrée' reminds me a lot of their music, at its best. Stephen Warbeck's `Air on the River' begins like a soundtrack for a happy street party, but then seems unable to resist developing into something more sublime (in that respect reminds me of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra). Julian Nott's `Overture & Allegro' sounds like Handel but at the speed of Usain Bolt. That might not seem like a good mix, but I didn't want it to stop. Christopher Gunning's `Jubilee Gavotte-Rock' could be a tv detective theme. It's a bit corny, but somehow I'd really like to see that show! And the way it breaks off into a string quartet is very enjoyable. Graham Fitkin is perhaps the most `modernist' composer here, but his movement `Slowish' is compulsive listening; with its driving, jazzy rhythms its `complexity' is addictive and fun rather than off-putting. I love Adrian Johnston's `Alla Hornpipe', which starts with a gentle sea-shanty like tune, before exploding into a galloping dance (you can almost feel the sea-spray). Finally there are voices; Jocelyn Pook's `London Bells' sets a Kipling poem, sung by mezzo Lore Lixenberg and the Tamil vocalist Manickam Yogeswaren.
It's a crying shame that the BBC did not devote a bit of time in its coverage of the pageant to this project (or to another barge which featured Orlando Gough's music with words by the Poet Laureate) - but perhaps the next best thing would be to buy this cd (10% of proceeds go to the Diamond Jubilee Foundation).
PS - sound quality on this recording is excellent.

For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant, inspired by Handel, came an imaginative commission for a modern equivalent of the Water Music, to be played during the royal progress along the Thames. In the event, at least for those watching the abysmal BBC television coverage, nothing of it (and most of the other musical contributions) was heard, thanks to ill-informed commentary and pointless celebrity chit-chat. Not only were we deprived of this much-hyped element of the celebrations, but the distinguished composers might have felt comprehensively snubbed by such treatment.

Fortunately, the new music was recorded in the studio, with the composers each conducting their own pieces, in advance of the day, resulting in this CD - very interesting and very well-played.

Within a variety of moods, all the music is celebratory as well as characteristic of each composer and deserves to be heard and circulated widely. The boost that hearing it on the day would have given it will I fear have greatly reduced interest and impact, so I hope that by some means it can continue to be promoted. Perhaps this review will help in a modest way. This is a very enjoyable recording!

The recent BBC2 series presented by Howard Goodall was his Story Of Music as it seemed a rather ambitious undertaking as it began with the earliest known as Gregorian Chants before anyone thought of adding instruments but by the time it reached modern times you began to notice what was missing.
Such as Jocelyn Pook who is on this CD.
BBC1 on the other hand seemed to lose it long ago and their coverage of the Diamond Jubilee was basically rubbish.You could write a book about the fall of BBC1.
I never saw it but heard it named on the News as the independent channels said as much