'Nessun dorma' is always a little bit of a problem in the opera house because the cheeky devil Puccini didn't put an end on it - it just scampers hurriedly on to the next bit of the opera. As a result, if you don't know this, and you inadvertently jump to your feet shouting 'Oh I say, that man, bravo, what?', well, then you don't half look a right pillock. That is, if you are even heard, above the deafening | nillon of mobile phones that seem to go off more or less everywhere these days. In 1994, the World Cup came from America, and Bernstein's West Side Story was commandeered to act as the signature tune, but it didn't quite emulate the success of its Italian counterpart. Now onward.
Another interesting one came along a couple of years later, leaving a very significant marker in the sand, as it were. It was 1996. Let me help you place it - CJD is identified as the killer of ten people in a macabre link to so-called 'mad cow disease'; a Big Mac costs Ј2.70 and England lose on penalties to Germany. Perhaps that last bit won't help you place it. Anyway, to Karl Jenkins, a larger-than-life walking Welsh moustache with a musicality to kill for but, perhaps more importantly, a one-time member of the electronic rock group Soft Machine. He made a good living out of writing music for adverts. In 1996, though, he struck gold after the music for the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society became staggeringly popular. Eventually, it came out on CD as Adiemus, infectiously catchy and, again, it was Number One for longer than I care to remember. And a million miles away from what 1997 was going to produce.
If it's 'Now, that's NOT what I call the sound of 1997 VOLUME 26!' that you're looking for, then I think I've got the answer. As it were.
And indeed it most definitely isn't. The music of 1997, that is. It's the work of two people: the first was Sir Edward Elgar, a larger-than-life walking English moustache with a musicologist to die for; the second is the musicologist himself, composer and all-round clever clogs, Anthony Payne. In 1997, Mr Payne unveiled Elgar's completed Third Symphony. Completed by Mr Payne, that is, with the permission of the Elgar estate. So, some sixty-three years after he died, Eddie 'The Eagle' Elgar is back in the charts. It's very much like Elvis and 'A Little Less Conversation'. Only without the hips.
The same year, 1997, has a couple of belters up its sleeve. Not only does JK Rowling produce her first Harry Potter, but also composer, former left-handed arthropod and all-round nice guy, Sir Paul McCartney, comes up with his latest and by far (he best classic.il offering to date, 'Standing Stone'. Lovely stuff it is too. But, on to the sad hit of 1997, and it comes from John Tavener. At the I'UIKT.II «»l 1»i.uu, Princess of Wales, on September 5th, Lynne Dawson sings from the Verdi Requiem and Elton John sings his rewritten 'Candle in the Wind'. But it is an esoteric cantata by the spiritual minimalist John Tavener that soon becomes one of the country's most requested 'classical' works. His 'Song for Athene'.
It may have become popular, in a sense, for all the wrong reasons, but it is nevertheless a simple and beautiful piece of music. And quite typical, in many respects, of the way in which some modern composers have chosen to ignore the shock effects of the avant-garde in favour of a return to a sort of'new romanticism'. Sorry, labels all over the place, but it's sometimes very hard to put into words. Just like the neo-classi-cists could never be mistaken for pure 'classicists', so these 'new romantics' are certainly lush and tuneful, but, ditto - you would never mistake them for the original romantics. And sorry if all this talk of new romantics is making you think of Steve Strange -1 do apologize.
1998 and it's that man again. James Horner. As we saw in the filmy bit, he's pulled out another plum, called the Titanic soundtrack. It's in here again because, well, because it was just SO huge in the classical charts - aeons, it stayed. It's from the year that Sir Michael Tippett - the grand old man of serious English music - died, aged ninety-three. Five operas, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas and lots, lots more. Not to mention Dana International, who in 1998 won the Eurovision with the song 'Diva'. Also, this is the year a new talent became popular. His name is Ludovico Einaudi and his particular brand of naive minimalism was to win him many followers, not to mention, no doubt, gold discs. But the big classical hit of 1998 came from an inspired pairing of medieval choral works and modern jazz saxophone. Who would have thought it? Inspired! Absolutely inspired! The HilHard Ensemble sang the medieval choral stuff, and Jan Garbarek supplied the sax. The resulting music, Officium, is just sublime. Utterly beautiful. Medieval choral meets modern jazz. Who would have thought it would work? Indeed, their first idea, early sackbut and krummhorn meets raga, well, that didn't do quite so well. Now, where are we? Oh yes, a 'farewell' which is a million miles from Haydn. Again, it's another piece that came to prominence solely through people power. The 'Ashokan Farewell', written for the small town of Ashokan in America by Jay Ungar, became popular in the new millennium - 2000 (the year of the Dome, the London Eye and Venus Williams beating Lindsay Davenport in the Ladies' Singles at Wimbledon). It's a quaint little piece that may not have gained in popularity had it not been for the stunning arrangement by Captain John Perkins. But it was movie composer Hans Zimmer who found himself with the most popular score of the year, with his music to the film Gladiator. The man whose previous hits had included the theme tune to TV's Going for Gold wrote a score that didn't seem to put a foot wrong - every note of it fitted the film to perfection.
What of the last few years, though? Well, it's more artists than composers that dominate. Charlotte Church, Leslie Garrett, the million-selling Russell Watson. But classical music composition is still healthy. Glass, Tavener, Reich- they are all still composing. And 'good old classical music', as it were, has only recently been revived by advertising and sports events - this year looked to both Handel's Sarabande to sell its jeans, and the Opera Babes' version of Puccini's 'One Fine Day' to sell the World Cup. And why not? Does no harm. Merely puts good music in the path of more people, doesn't it?
And TV continues to give a helping hand too. As recendy as, what, the other day, more or less, a phone company gave John Tavener the call, to seek help selling its wares with his cantata The Lamb ringing out its Orange tones up and down the country. John Lewis used the services of Ludovico Einaudi to sell its wares, too, and artists such as Amici Forever and Mylene Klass continue to fight to break down the borders of where classical music stops and another music starts. Then there's Andrea Bocelli, the Italian tenor, who will sell out any huge venue wherever he goes, proving that, if you can just get it right, the audience for classical music is massive. And, of course, there's John Williams and his soundtrack to the latest movie about hirsuit golfers, Hairy Putter III, which manages to keep a real, living and breathing classical score at the top of the popular music charts. God bless JW!
A
nd that more or less gets us up to date. I can't quite believe I'm writing this but, well, that's sort of the last piece in the jigsaw that was Stephen Fry's Incomplete amp; Utter History of Classical Music. We started some 302 pages ago with a cave painting in France, and we end, here, with the bats and belfries of the boy spellmeister. Splendid. I'm the wonderful wizard of Fry. Au revoir.