Music For Airports… Immersive, Architectural & Contemplative.

The Music:

The Words:

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ Podcast… five hundred years of incredible music. My name is Peter Cudlipp and… If you enjoy any music at all then I’m convinced you can enjoy classical music. All you need are ears. No expertise is necessary.  If you’ve ever been curious about classical music… or explored it for a while once upon a time… or just quietly wondered what all the fuss was about… then this is the podcast is for you.

And because there’s a lot of music out there each episode has something of a theme. And for today it is… ‘Music For Airports’. Let me explain… in 1979 the English musician Brian Eno, perhaps best known as a founding member of the group Roxy Music and then a Producer for David Bowie and the band U2 amongst others, released an LP called ‘Music For Airports’. It was essentially the first album of what would come to be known as ‘ambient music’.

Eno described it this way… Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

The title of the album ‘Music For Airports’ was apparently inspired by being stranded in Cologne Airport for several hours and, as a nervous flyer, finding the ‘musak’ and over-stimulating acoustic environment of the airport a quite difficult experience. Brain Eno’s album was in a way a sort of manifesto of an alternative music for large public spaces.

So, what does this have to do with ‘Classical For Everyone’? Well, there is some classical music out there that perhaps unintentionally has what I would describe as a similar intent to Eno’s… music that has a contemplative, slightly distant… in a way unemotional, but not cold, quality to it. It is music that does not seem to demand total attention… though of course it will reward that.

To be fair with most of the music I am going to play, I am certain that the composers did not anticipate that anyone would ever imagine that their music could be lumped into a category that possibly sails a little close to the terrifyingly awful genre of ‘new age’ music. But for me there is a certain commonality to the music. At the most basic level I think you can call most of what I am going to play… just simply peaceful and calming. And as an aside to the listeners who have confessed to me that they enjoy falling asleep to episodes of ‘Classical For Everyone’… this one might strike a real chord. I will be playing music by Gavin Bryars, Erik Satie, Phillip Glass, Tomas Luis de Victoria, John Adams, Richard Wagner, Arvo Pärt and Gabriel Fauré.

Ok, some music. The contemporary English composer Gavin Bryars has a habit of revisiting some of his pieces and he did that in 1990 with his work ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’. The central conceit expands on the story that the ship’s string quartet kept playing until the last possible moment as the vessel slid into the icy north Atlantic. Bryars then imagines that the music somehow had a sort of afterlife and the work explores how this imagined sound changed as it sank into the depths. Here is the first section called ‘Titanic Hymn’ which establishes the music before it is transformed by its journey to the ocean floor though you will hear strange echoes that might be portents of the unfolding tragedy. It is about 5 minutes long and is performed by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble.

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That was the first section called ‘Titanic Hymn’ from ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ by Gavin Bryars… performed by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble. Incidentally Brian Eno, whose idea of ‘ambient music’ is the theme of this episode started his own record label to record the music of emerging English classical and experimental musicians amongst whom was Gavin Bryars. Next up is a deceptively simple piece of solo piano music by the French composer Erik Satie written in 1888. It goes by the name Gymnopedie No. 1 as there were eventually three of them. And it is thought that Satie took the title Gymnopedie from the French translation of an ancient Greek term used to describe ritual nude dancing in the city state of Sparta. There is a chance that some of you might know this music, but if that’s the case, it is possible that the version I am going to play is new to you. In most recordings the piece is pretty slow but the Dutch performer, conductor and composer Reinbert de Leeuw made a recording in the 1970s where the pace is so wonderfully slow that I think it gives the music a sort of expanded physical and mental space. Here is Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 played by Reinbert de Leeuw. (Rine Bert De Lay Oow)  It is about 6 minutes long.

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That was Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 played by Reinbert de Leeuw.

In the final decades of last century a group of classical composers mainly in the USA were lumped together by critics using the term ‘minimalism’. The composers were associated with a style of composition characterized by repetitive structures, slow harmonic rhythm, and a focus on subtle changes within a limited musical vocabulary. And I think it is fair to say that the ambient music field was quite strongly influenced by minimalism. So if someone is looking for classical music that has an overlap with Brian Eno’s ideas behind ‘Music For Airports’ then looking to the American composer Phillip Glass is not the worst idea. In fact it’s a very good idea.  So I have chosen for this episode the slow section of his 1^st violin concerto. In Wikipedia there is a quote I really like from Glass…

"I wrote the piece in 1987 thinking, let me write a piece that my father would have liked [...] A very smart nice man who had no education in music whatsoever, but the kind of person who fills up concert halls. [...] It's popular, it's supposed to be — it's for my Dad."

And it has proved popular. There are quite a few recordings available and I am sure it is still performed with some frequency close to 40 years after it was written. Here is Gidon Kremer playing the violin, and Christoph Von Dohnányi conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The 9 minute slow section of the 1^st Violin Concerto by Phillip Glass.

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That was Gidon Kremer playing the violin, and Christoph Von Dohnányi conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with the slow section of the 1^st Violin Concerto by Phillip Glass. Alright, where to next in this collection of music that is calming but still engaging, that in a way has an acoustic architecture that sometimes reveals a sort of grandeur… and that still delivers simple listening pleasure. Well, my suggestion is the late Renaissance… specifically the year 1576 which was the year that Tomás Luis de Victoria published his choral work ‘Missa Ave Maris Stella’.  The Latin can be loosely translated as ‘a mass based on ‘Hail, Star of the Sea’’. Now ‘Hail Star of the Sea was a ninth century hymn praising the virgin Mary that had been put to music by many composers but de Victoria’s Mass is especially beautiful and has aged pretty well.

I wonder if there is maybe something exploitative about using this music as an object of pleasure without embracing its sincerely intended spiritual purpose. And it needs to be acknowledged that for some listeners, severing this music from its religious context could be an offense. But if another of the composer’s intentions was to celebrate the place of beauty in our world…  then maybe the continued engagement with this art from over four centuries ago is perhaps a slightly spiritual act as well.

Leaving those bigger issues and getting back to this episode’s idea of music that might work in big public spaces, there is perhaps not much of a surprise that some music written for churches and cathedrals ends up on the playlist. And that does touch on the idea of the architectural in music. I’ve used the language of architecture a little in this episode and I want to explain it. One way to think of the act of composing music as something akin to the work of an architect. A musical score is not a million miles away from a set of architectural plans. Both the scores and the plans create a sort of world. And I think architectural terms can be useful metaphors when trying find words to describe music.  And then sometimes there is just a quite literal connection between the space a piece of music was intended for and what it conjures up in the listener’s mind… like music written for public worship. Here is the final six minute section of Tomas Luis de Victoria’s ‘Missa Ave Maris Stella’ and it is performed here by the Westminster Cathedral Choir conducted by David Hill.

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That was the final section of Tomas Luis de Victoria’s ‘Missa Ave Maris Stella’ and it was performed by the Westminster Cathedral Choir conducted by David Hill.

Ok. Going from the late Renaissance to the boundary and genre challenging musical melting-pot of Northern California in the early 1970s is a massive leap but… there is still something of a religious theme connecting the next piece of music to what I just played for you.

The American composer John Adams though based in San Francisco at the time had been brought up in the north-east of the US where the influence of late renaissance church music, albeit of the protestant variety, had remained strong. For the 1973 work Adams called ‘Christian Zeal and Activity’, he took an old hymn tune and turned it into a sequence of slowly building chords that never quite seem to find a way to resolve. And in the spirit of the times he added one of what everyone was calling ‘found sonic objects’… in this instance a tape recording of the hypnotic voice of a southern late night Christian radio preacher which was then edited into more of an abstract collage. In another quirky connection with this episode’s inspiration… for want of a better word… the first recording of this work was for Brian Eno’s record label. But this recording was made in 1986 with Edo de Waart conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. I really hope you enjoy John Adams’ ‘Christian Zeal and Activity’.

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That was John Adams’ ‘Christian Zeal and Activity’ and Edo de Waart was conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Now in the same way that it is hard to imagine the composer de Victoria being altogether pleased with being included in this episode I’d suggest that Richard Wagner would be even more irritated. Furious probably. He was incredibly prescriptive in how, when and where he wanted his music dramas performed. But the overture to his final opera ‘Parsifal’ the story of which is loosely drawn from Arthurian tales of Knights protecting sacred Christian relics… is I think a very fine candidate for contemplative music that has a sort of grand architecture that can be somewhat immersive.

Incidentally it has taken me a long while to start to find a way into Wagner’s music… but when you let it seep in a little… you can begin to hear… what am I going to call… music on the scale of an undiscovered country. And this overture to ‘Parsifal’ is I think like the lifting of a veil… inviting you to enter Wagner’s story of suffering and redemption. It is about 13 minutes long and the orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic and the conductor is Daniel Barenboim.

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That was the overture to Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Parsifal’ completed in 1882 and the Berlin Philharmonic was conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

My name is Peter Cudlipp and you have been listening to the ‘Classical for Everyone’ Podcast. I have another couple of pieces coming up but before I get to them I want to give you a little information that I hope you find useful… If you would like to listen to past episodes, or get details of the music I’ve played please head to the website classicalforeveryone.net. That address again is classicalforeveryone.net. And on the individual episode pages of the website there are links to Spotify playlists with the full versions of most of the music played in each of the episodes.

I hope you have enjoyed this episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’. If you want to make sure you don’t miss the shows as they are released then please Subscribe or Follow wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to get in touch then you can email…info@classicalforeveryone.net.

Alright, to finish this episode I have a beautiful piece by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Like Phillip Glass who I played a bit earlier, Pärt sort of got lumped into the ‘minimalist’ category but with a veneer of Eastern European mysticism added on for good measure. Which is all about branding and journalism and should not in any way detract from his remarkable gifts as a composer. Here is his piece ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ which translates as ‘mirror in mirror’ meaning the idea of two mirrors reflecting each other infinitely. And that in a way informs what Pärt does with the simplest of musical elements. It is about nine minutes long and is performed in this recording by the violinist Daniel Hope and the pianist Simon Mulligan.

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That was ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ which translates as ‘mirror in mirror’ by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and it was performed by the violinist Daniel Hope and the pianist Simon Mulligan.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to playing you some more incredible music on the next ‘Classical For Everyone’.

This podcast is made with Audacity Software for editing, Wikipedia for Research, Claude for Artificial Intelligence and Apple, Sennheiser, Sony, Rode and Logitech for hardware… The music played is licensed through AMCOS / APRA. Classical For Everyone is a production of Mending Wall Studios and began life on Radio 2BBB in Bellingen NSW, Australia thanks to the late, great Mr Jeffrey Sanders. The producers do not receive any gifts or support of any kind from any organisation or individual mentioned in the show. But, never say never. And if you have listened to the credits… here is a little bonus for you…

Not that any of this sensational music is going to be played in any airports any time soon… But the merits of playing music that celebrates the afterlife when people are about to board their flights would be a hard thing to argue. But that for me does not disqualify this final work. It is the conclusion of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem Mass for choir and orchestra. It is the section called ‘In Paradise’ and here is Phillipe Herreweghe conducting the Ensemble Musique Oblique and the Signers of Saint Louis of the Chappelle Royale.

Thanks again for listening.

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