At the kernel of all melodic music is irritation: from Schubert to the Sugababes, there is something in music that catches on our nerves and that, finally, we cannot get out of our system. In purely commercial music that irritation is scarcely sublimated: the first time I heard the Vengaboys’ “Up and Down” I almost wanted to scream, the hook was so downright annoying. (The song has since become a favourite, naturally).

But even music of the highest expression, if it depends on melody, is at some level playing on our irritability: Beethoven’s Fifth is an obvious example but the point is just as valid for solemn church music. Or arias, of course. Or Steve Reich.

Now for the other part of the equation: pain.

Anyone who has ever suffered (and I have suffered less than most) knows that pain, on top of being painful, is profoundly irritating. In fact, sometimes one wishes the irritation could be drained away so that we could just get to work on disarming the pain itself. What is that irritation? Probably our nervous system complaining of overload–but also, surely, there is an existential shiver at the intimation of mortality.

Pain warns us of bodily attack: lose that fight, ultimately, and we are dead. Does it get more irritating?

But music, in offering us the experience of irritation not only detached from suffering but inverted into pleasure, offers us a way to redeem our vulnerability:

Pass by! Oh, pass by!
Begone, fierce man of bone!
I am still young…go my dear
And do not touch me!

Flickr image by Gerard Van der Leun

Lyrics from “Death and the Maiden” by Franz Schubert

“Concentric Paths” is his latest: a Violin Concerto in three movements:

1. Rings
2. Paths
3. Rounds

I have posted some customized soundlinks below, preferable to their BBC Proms equivalents in that they isolate the music from the framing, spoken material:

• Thomas Adès – Violin Concerto ‘Concentric Paths’ (20:30)
  • Recorded at the Royal Albert Hall: Sept 6th, 2005
  • Anthony Marwood (Violin)
  • Chamber Orchestra of Europe
  • Thomas Adès, Conductor
• BBC Introduction
• ‘Concentric Paths’ with Intro and Outro

The Introduction link, which includes some insightful remarks from Marwood, is worth a click, as is the composer’s Programme Note.

Note: According to Radio 3, the official links shall expire on September 13th, 2005. I am hoping that mine outlive theirs–but my apologies if they have shuffled their mortal code.

But the stillness here is constant and resounding–echo of some inhumanely large, climactic chord.

• Lady Madonna ["Lady Madonna"]
• Across the Universe [Let It Be]
• Hey, Bulldog [Yellow Submarine]
• Blackbird [White Album]

Burn them on a disc together and they make for a substantial Lennon-McCartney EP.