The Festival of Voice is now and here in Cardiff. Looking at the schedule for the week ahead, I’d be lying if I didn’t feel that there was too much on. We are spoilt for choice in this overwhelming amount of classical, opera, pop, folk, jazz and other genres of music.
In this Welsh celebration, who better than Mr. John Cale to officially open the proceedings. Starting life in rural Wales, he had originally began a career in classical music. The heights of this would be reached in his participation in the premier of Erik Satie’s Vexations, the infamous marathon concert lasting almost 19 hours (Cale of was of many pianists). [http://youtu.be/0mqO-xsRyTM] Yet, with the discovery of Radio Luxembourg, he would meet with Lou Reed and later join The Velvet Underground.
On his own terms, his music is rich in keyboard and fine electronica, with the wonderful additions of the FoV string players and an immaculate choir. Not every song is a classic by Cale, as was proven by select songs instantly receiving applause from the first few bars. What can be said is that most of his song selections are extremely vibrant.
The imagery of the video work behind him was hypnotic, in one song near nauseating. The concert was too loud to truly appreciate his poetry and a festival programme is certainly in order to know which songs were performed (I hate it when a concert doesn’t have a playbill). It should also be said that the concert ended far too late, with some leaving a few songs towards the end. I just about made my last train back.
I perhaps found the techno stylings of the warm up act Gwenno more to my taste. A cosmic band who sing in Welsh (I thrilled at recognising one of their songs) who have a charm all of their own and I would consider seeing again. Their touching Cornish song comes at a time when their own neighbour language is fading away yet again. One puts aside any issues about Welsh, to consider a family language is disappearing once more…
Exciting projects for a week of vocal delights!
John Cale Rating: 4 stars
Gwenno Rating: 5 stars