Something I know nothing about. Yeah, I realise this will surprise you.

Something new has popped into my inbox, so let's give this a go, shall we?  

A violin concerto by one of the best-known English composers - well, best-known by me anyway since he happened to be my best man.  He's a fairly musical kinda guy, with grade 8 in the kazoo and triangle (I think) to his name, who likes to knock the odd symphony or concerto when he's not otherwise occupied in the kitchen, garden or elsewhere being creative.  The critical reviews for his latest work include such high praise as "nice", "beautiful" and "English music isn't dead" (whatever that means) - let's see if I can outdo such wordsmithery from my position of relative (ok, complete) ignorance.

What we have here is a Violin Concerto in G Minor here (one of favourite keys, definitely) and there are three bits to it (they might be called movements, but what do I know, so let's stick with "bits").  They are marked up as Largo, Allegro and Andante, which I used to know meant slow, lively and moderately slow (but I had to check on Google these days just to make sure).  And, of course, I had to take a break after I'd checked this out in order to get this out of my head.  And after that I had to take another break in order to get this out of my head.  Wow, this classical music reviewing business is much harder than I was expecting...

...but, finally, I got on to listening to the violinny stuff - and it is indeed (in the words of someone wiser than me) some nice, beautiful stuff.  The three bits are pretty much as advertised - personally I preferred the slower two sections, but I'm a sucker for such things and maybe you'll prefer the lively section if you're more of a live wire than me.  The lead part (as performed by Louise Orton, apparently) is probably done very well (because Steve wouldn't have put it out there otherwise) but I'm not really the person to comment on such things since I was amazed when my eldest managed to get any sound of a violin at all, because I was more than I could manage.  However, what amazes me most of all about all things like this is all the other stringy noises going on in the background - I (possibly somewhat ambitiously) always believe I could write a tune, but even in my wildest dreams I realise that writing some other notes to complement and enhance the (obviously fantastic) tune I've created is JUST NOT GONNA HAPPEN.  And the other notes here seem to do the job nicely, particularly over headphones where the stereo effects work well and seem to broaden the musical landscape.

So, I realise it's hardly a comprehensive musical review but it's always nice to listen to something a bit different from my usual fare and whilst I'm sure it's challenging enough to play, it's pleasingly pleasant on the ear, flows nicely along and doesn't last for too long (this last bit is important).  And whilst this sounds a bit like damning it with faint praise, this isn't meant in the slightest - whilst there are some musical genres in which I can handle and even enjoy a challenge, classical is most definitely not one of them and it takes very little for me to come out with "what is this NONSENSE?!?".  Maybe with time and experience that will change, but I think we all know that's not going to happen now, don't we?  My experience of classical music is going to remain "Alexa, play classical strings for work" at bedtime and whatever Steve sends me, so I can only thank him for that and hope he doesn't aim to become one of the best-known English avant-garde classical composers - because if that's the case he's not going to like any future reviews in the slightest.

So, why not give it a listen on Soundcloud or Spotify and see what you think?  Maybe you can even come up with a better critical review than "the other notes here seem to do the job nicely" (but I should warn you it's harder than it looks to make this shit up).  There's also a load of other stuff on there, some of it going back to medieval times (or when we were at uni, anyway) and for some of you it might jog some hazy memories of nights a long, long time ago.

(I reckon my reviewer job with Classical Musical Tunes is in the bag now, definitely)