With another Royal Wedding being feverishly speculated about, it might be a time to visit Westminster Abbey to check out the acoustics.

The nuptials currently in the news are between Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas. The odds on it happening are estimated at roughly 50/50. That may be a little optimistic, but there’s definitely a spark between them.

Here then, is a taster for the big event — if it ever takes place:

Whet’s your appetite, doesn’t it?

The world renowned crooner and popular songster, Tony Bennett died today after a long and productive life.

As a tribute, here is an article we published in our website, Golden Agers.

Antonio Benedetto is a true American legend both as a singer and as an example of the American Dream. The son of a grocer and a seamstress who grew up in Astoria, Queens, he first started singing in the Army military band under the name Joe Bari. After his army stint he continued honing his vocal style even while waiting tables. Pearl Bailey spotted him and asked him to open for her. It was at this show that Bob Hope first heard Joe Bari and advised him to use a simplified version of his real name. It was 1949 and Antonio Benedetto became Tony Bennett.

Tony’s style and phrasing resembled musicians more than other vocalists, he sang as if his voice were an insrument he was playing.

Tony had a string of successes in the 50s and even early 60s but when rock arrived with the British Invasion, Tony found young people didn’t want to listen to his kind of music.

In the 80s it was Tony’s son who resurrected his career and Tony reached a new audience and generation. He didn’t compromise on the style or the music, yet his popularity soared amongst young listeners. He’s been going strong ever since.

Although he left art school as a teen to help support his family, Tony never lost his love of art. Today his paintings hang in such prestigious places as the Butler Institute of American Art and The National Arts Club.

Now in his 80th year, Tony Bennett is embarking on a 20 city tour to promote his new album Duets: An American Classic. Tony is teaming up with AARP on this road show and details on cities and dates can be found at their site as well as some interviews with guest stars who appear on the album with Tony.

Also at the AARP site is a gallery of paintings by Tony Bennett, which he signs with his real name “Benedetto”. Included is an amazing and warmly personal portrait of bandleader Duke Ellington.

When Sir Paul’s tone poem Standing Stone was first premiered, and then released as a CD in 1997, it attracted a very mixed reception.

Sir Paul McCartney

In fact I rather like to see the musical purists get their underwear in a bit of a twist when they try to tell us how bad something is, how derivative, how shallow, how it sounds as if it has been written by a committee, and, how dare you step over the musical boundaries and try your hand at “serious” music. In other words elitism at its worst. And believe me if there was a decree from No 10 and the White House tomorrow that all music be left in the hands of the purists, then music, all music, would die very quickly, and good riddance because none of it would be worth listening to.

And McCartney’s Standing Stone is worth listening to, and more than once.

Sir Paul’s first recorded effort at ‘serious’ composing (as if composing hundreds of popular songs was not serious for goodness sake) was his 1991 Liverpool Oratorio which I remember as a tremendously moving piece of work that quite naturally showed the influence of Elgar (who made the oratorio his own in the early 20th century), but to my ears much more that of Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, plus a good helping of John Tavener and Malcolm Arnold, who were, and are, masters of assimilation, as is McCartney — you only have to listen to Sgt Pepper, the early Wings recordings, and some recent solo McCartney, to understand what I’m getting at; and without assimilation art, any art, cannot move ahead, cannot be creative.

And it’s the same with Standing Stone, McCartney’s first real stab at a symphonic piece. It worked in October 1997 when it was premiered and released, and it worked last night when, with Hilary, I listened to it again.

This is what McCartney has to say about Standing Stone in the liner notes to the CD:

“I’ve spent much of the last four years composing what has now become my second large-scale classical work, the symphonic poem Standing Stone. Unlike the Liverpool Oratorio which features prominent roles for four solo singers, Standing Stone relies entirely on colours and effects drawn from the orchestral and choral forces. With no soloists to propel the “story” and to help keep me on track throughout the writing of about 75 minutes of music I wrote a poem in which I try to describe the way Celtic man might have wondered about the origins of life and the mystery of human existence.”

And it is there that we have the secret of this piece of wonderful music – that of man wondering what life is all about. It’s the same secret we discover when we look at Anthony Gormley’s 100 iron men looking out to sea from Crosby beach – their solitariness, their stillness and their fortitude. It is what we hear in this music, especially in Part 9, where McCartney introduces a melody of such simplicity and beauty that it almost breaks your heart (which has come from a good deal of contemplation and experience), and what we hear too in the music of Sir Malcolm Arnold who, like McCartney, was criticised by those damned purists for being popular. And the more I listen to Standing Stone the more I realise that Arnold has undoubtedly been a greater influence (consciously or subconsciously) than any other composer on McCartney’s symphonic music, but not in a negative sense. The underlying echoes of Arnold (Sir Paul might disagree) come through to me as a kind of homage to a man who shared many of Sir Paul’s ideals and beliefs, and, like Paul, wrote music from the heart.

Then it occurred to Hilary — who has recently started a campaign to save Gormley’s “Another Place” at Crosby — that McCartney’s Standing Stone is effectively the soundtrack to Gormley’s magnificent work on that haunted, industrial, almost derelict beach, and that McCartney’s wonderfully evocative, emotional music must, somehow, be performed there.

Standing Stone, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, and conducted by Lawrence Foster, is available on EMI Classics.

Steve Newman

David Lanz is a Seattle-born composer of what is sometimes called “Neoclassical” music. Here, Aldelle Tilton discusses his work.

When I first heard David Lanz, it was because of a cable television radio station. I was walking through a room and heard this beautiful music. I had to stop. There was nothing else to do but listen. I couldn’t have left without hearing the entire composition… it just was too magical and too good to leave. The name of the piece of music that caught my ear was, “Cristofori’s Dream,” from the album of the same name.

“Cristofori’s Dream,” is one of Seattle-born Lanz’s best known compositions. It was in the number one slot on Billboard’s first adult alternative/new age chart for 27 weeks. And although Lanz was nominated for a Grammy in 2000, he is unsure of the New Age label for his music, as are many musicians in the neoclassical or instrumental genre.

Calling himself a “SNAG,” Lanz says, “My acronym for a Sensitive New Age Guy. It was a comfortable and funny way of breaking through misconceptions of the ‘New Age’ label in a way similar to Victor Borge’s unique talent for making classical music more accessible by including his own witty personality as part of his concerts.”

As an interesting trivia note, even though Yanni outsells Lanz in actual albums, Lanz far outsells Yanni in sheet music. His piano playing encompasses a tremendous range and he smiles about children learning piano to his music.

Although all of Lanz’s music is worth owning, my favorite remains, “Cristofori’s Dream.” Perhaps it is the memory of music unexpected, or perhaps it is the magic of the first encounter of something really special. The title piece is my favorite and “Green Into Gold,” and “Wings to Altair,” are close seconds.

I don’t care what label we call David Lanz’s music. It should be filed under “The Best,” because you simply won’t find anything better. I’ll be listening to it for the rest of my evening!

David Lanz Official Web Site

Adelle Tilton