Home listening: Wait Till the Clouds Roll By

Wait Till the Clouds Roll By: Works by Franz Joseph Haydn and Caroline Shaw

Butter Quartet

(Brilliant Classics)

Labelling classical albums in a way that gives no clue as to their content, except in a subtitle, is a newish habit. It’s a way of attracting attention to much recorded repertoire, but also a risk. (Would you guess that a recent release called You Made Me Laugh is a collection of Telemann recorder concertos?) Butter Quartet, a young Dutch ensemble, have named their second album of two Haydn quartets and an established piece by Caroline Shaw (b1982): Wait Till the Clouds Roll By.

Any connection with the popular Victorian broadside ballad of that title remains nicely oblique. Alice in Wonderland is also a touchstone and there’s a through-the-looking-glass element to their musical choices. They play on period instruments in set-ups relating to 18th and early 19th-century practice (bow shape, string type, limited use of vibrato). This historically informed approach works vividly for Haydn’s Op 77 Nos 1 and 2, played with fleet tempi and high spirits. The surprise is that the musicians retain these early techniques for a modern piece, Shaw’s Entr’acte (2011). As Shaw took inspiration from the harmonic adventures of Haydn’s Op 77 No 2, the threads are perfectly drawn across time.

On air and online

BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week expands its already broad horizons still further with an exploration of the roots of Nigerian art music, through the life and career of its first notable exponent Fela Sowande (1905-87). Born near Lagos, he sang in the cathedral choir and encountered European church musicians while at the same time immersing himself in Yoruba rhythms and styles. Later he studied in London and became a fellow of the Royal College of Organists, also playing jazz with Fats Waller. Throughout the week Donald Macleod, with his expert guest Alexander Douglas from  King’s College London, will examine the influence of European missionary education on Indigenous traditions, from the last century to the present.

Composer of the Week: Fela Sowande and the Art Music of Nigeria is on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

Photograph by Bettmann/Getty Images