Jon Lord in St. Petersburg, October 2009. Photo: Elena Blednykh

In this part of JonLord.org’s new year interview, Jon Lord takes stock on 2009.

Last year took Jon Lord out on the road around the world and into the recording studio. He composed and recorded an album of new music (read previous articles – links below), performed 20 solo concerts and appeared at a handful of special guest appearances.

From Edinburgh and Dublin to more remote stages in South Korea, Brazil and Russia (to name but a few) – Jon Lord performed in countries he’s never before visited as a solo artist.

- Yes, this has been an incredibly busy year. We did all those shows, and especially getting the Lichfield show ready, finishing To Notice Such Things, recording it, then arranging all the stuff for the show with the college up in Edinburgh; the 40^th anniversary Concerto show in Dublin, and then Russia and Bucharest and so on. So it’s been quite a busy time.

Rehearsing in Yekaterinburg, Russia, October 2009. Photo: Ilya Galkov

Edinburgh master class
One extraordinary show was in Edinburgh where Scottish music students performed Concerto of Group and Orchestra and Child in Time with Jon Lord.

- Edinburgh was an amazing thing, and very much the sort of thing that absolutely fills up your soul. To work with young musicians who are right at the beginning of their careers and their ideas about what life as a musician might be and what they’re going to do with their lives as musicians; to actually get to work with them at that age – 18, 19, 20 – is a pure joy. An astonishingly fulfilling experience.

- I was just bowled over by the quality of the musicians from both sides of the coin; the young musicians from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama were in their first term and this was the first time over 90% of them had played together in an orchestra. They were all obviously highly talented and brilliant on their instruments. That’s why they were accepted into the college of course.

- And this is what was lovely. This old war horse of a piece that created such a fuss in the orchestral world 40 years ago, was now being used as the first piece that most of these young people would play as an orchestra.

Onstage with music students in Edinburgh, Scotland, October 2009.

In a sense, Concerto for Group and Orchestra was as much an initiation piece for the Scottish music students in 2009 as it had been for Jon back in 1969.

- That’s the rather lovely synchronicity of it all: that this piece – the first I had written for orchestra, so really like learning to swim whilst drowning – well, to hear it used as an initiation piece for young musicians 40 years later was not only massively enjoyable but somewhat of a feather in my cap, I feel. It was a huge pleasure to do.

- As for the young guys from Stevenson College in Edinburgh who played the rock instruments, they were marvelous. Great young guys with lots of thoughts about what they want to do and how they want to do it. And they weren’t afraid to make suggestions as to how they might play a certain part. Well, at first they were very nervous I think, but as we became friends… I went up to Edinburgh four or five times to work with them all, and occasionally just to sit and talk with them and have a pint of beer with them.

- The reviews spoke for themselves as far as the public were concerned. It was a big success – two five-star reviews from the big Scottish papers. I was pleased and thrilled with that. The kind of thing I would love to try again.

- It also made me feel very humble as well, just to realize how far things have moved on, and if I’ve had anything to do with that in the tiniest, slightest way then I shall smile for the next twenty years or more.

More on Jon Lord in Edinburgh:
‘Proggers only’ – behind the scenes in Edinburgh
Outstanding: 10 stars for Edinburgh
Breathtaking freshness in Edinburgh
- This is gonna be fun!
Concerto veteran to oversee Scottish premiere
Concerto for students and ‘rock giant’

The Russian shows
In October, Jon Lord did three Russian shows in Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg and Moscow. This meant huge amounts of preparations between the shows.

- Because of the distances involved I had to use separate orchestras and conductors. It’s not been as challenging as that before. Three concerts in nine days; on arrival day the orchestra rehearsed with the conductor. The next day it was orchestra and band together. The third day, the concert. And then I did this three times with three different orchestras and three different conductors.

- It’s also why I used a band that I knew – Cry Free from Hungary. I’d previously done well with them in Budapest and in Bratislava. I enjoyed working with them. They’re good lads and they make a good sound.

- In St. Petersburg I worked with a wonderful conductor – Fabio Mastrangelo -  and a lovely orchestra. We had a marvelous concert. And likewise in Moscow, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra were terrific – down to the last man they came to play. And the conductor also was wonderful, Vladimir Ziva. He was quite a traditional, one might say slightly old-fashioned but none the worst for that, but a real task master. A lot of shouting at his orchestra during rehearsals. Quite old school.

- I made a couple of good friends. Certainly with Fabio in St. Petersburg; I genuinely expect to be playing with him again. Much enjoyable music was made there I think. I was having a blast, and I must say the concerts themselves were terrific – even in Yekaterinburg, which was the most challenging. The audience was on their feet and it was standing ovation city. In fact, we’re getting standing o’s all over the place, mate, and it’s lovely. Generally speaking, I don’t think I can honestly put my finger on any one concert this year and say that it wasn’t enjoyable in at least 95% of it.

More on Jon Lord in Russia:
Live from Russia – videos.
Pictured in Yekaterinburg. NEW
Yekaterin: images from the road.
Russian TV embraces Jon Lord.
Skt. Petersburg: images from the road.
Pictured in St. Petersburg. NEW

Roman amphitheatre in Bulgaria
In September Jon Lord performed a show at the antique Roman amphitheatre in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

- The Roman amphitheater was a marvelous concert – under the stars and with amazing acoustics. 2.000 or 3.000 years ago it seems the Romans knew more about acoustics than we do now. Absolutely amazing acoustics, we hardly had to amplify anything. The amplification was there just to level the playing field between the band and the orchestra.

- And a fabulous crowd, singing along, applauding in the middle, whenever they heard something they liked they just applauded. Yeah, it was marvelous, very, very exciting. – The conductor was Nayden Todorov. A marvelous young man. I also worked with him in Bucharest, which was also absolutely wonderful.

- Again, that’s what’s been wonderful. Every night I played this year, each of the 20 concerts, it’s been something different – different feelings and a different way. One of the great joys of orchestral music is that difference every time -  you’ve got 70 or 80 people playing together and all trying to give a performance. So there’s this wonderful feeling of electricity in the air during these concerts.

- I’m sitting there listening to the good old Concerto again and again and hearing it played differently – slower, softer, Iouder, quieter in various places. It’s fascinating. It’s marvelous. It doesn’t get any better. I’m incredibly blessed to be doing this. It’s a marvelous experience, absolutely fabulous.

More on Jon Lord in Plovdiv:
Doogie White confirmed for Jon Lord concert.
‘Legendary Jon Lord rocks Bulgaria’s Plovdiv’.
Pictured in Plovdiv.
Join Jon Lord on Facebook.
Charismatic modesty in Bucharest.

Purple ballad?
- I’m having a ball, and I really know now that I made the right choice seven years ago when I left Deep Purple. It’s become more and more apparent as the time has gone on.

- It was probably also the right thing for the band. I hope it wasn’t apparent to too many people but I was not all there in the last few months or year. I always had a level below which I tried not to ever drop, but my body was still in Deep Purple while my mind had already left – it was moving onwards – and that was not fair to the band or to the public.

- But the knowledge that I have now makes it easier for me to see why I left, and I’m thrilled to bits.

- And there they are, still enjoying themselves. Long may they continue. I’m very interested to see what they’re doing with the set lists lately. That’s interesting and cool, and it’s what they should keep doing.

Watch Jon Lord onstage with Deep Purple in Tokyo, April 15, 2009:

- I think most people out there are either old fans who are going back for a fix of something they haven’t had for 20 years – or they’re new fans who think “Oh yeah, I’d like to hear the band that wrote Smoke on the Water play it,” and Highway Star and Woman From Tokyo and yadda, yadda, yadda. (more below)

- It’s quite difficult for the band to make those choices as to who’s playing for who, so I think they’re doing a terrific job. I also hope Ian looks after his voice because he’s the only one who can’t buy a new instrument. Ian Paice once said about his drum set “I bought it so I’ll boot it.” Unfortunately, Ian Gillan can’t say that. So I hope he can sing for as long as he wants to sing, and I wish them huge success.

- I hope they go back into the studio quite soon and just give themselves another boost with some more material. I’m really interested to hear what a new album would sound like. Maybe they’ll even ask me to write them a song. It’s time they had a ballad. A good ballad.

Read previous parts of this new year interview with Jon Lord:
Jon Lord: New album in memory of Sir John Mortimer.
Interview: To Notice Such Music.
To Notice Such Things, track-by-track.

Come back to JonLord.org to read the next part of this interview – about Jon Lord’s future plans, project and loose ideas.

Jon Lord in St. Petersburg, Russia, October 2009. Photos: Elena Blednykh.

Jon Lord photographed during rehearsals in Yekaterinburg, Russia, October 2009.

All photos by Ilya Galkov, clarinetist with the local orchestra. He writes about the experience:

- It was great, one of my best stage experiences ever. From the very first moment Jon entered our rehearsal hall there was a continuous drive from his energy. I couldn’t understand how some of the orchestra musicians could sit still – my body just moved to the beat by itself. I liked very much how open Jon and band and singers are, says Ilya Galkov.

A selection of fan filmed footage from Jon Lord’s rehearsal and concert in Potsdam, Germany on January 23.

Concerto pt 1 (rehearsal)

Concerto pt 2 (rehearsal)

Gigue Hammond solo (rehearsal)

Evening Song with Kasia Laska (concert)

Child in Time with Steve Balsamo (concert)

Thanks to Nigel Young.

German RBB Fernsehen reports from Jon Lord’s open rehearsal in Potsdam on January 23. Click the photo to watch.

In their review of the concert (and the rehearsal), Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten notes how ‘the “Concerto for Group and Orchestra” is a milestone in pop history.

The paper reports that Jon Lord only interrupted the dress rehearsal twice to offer determined but friendly musical advice. It also observes how the Concerto in 1969 was ‘more a test of strength between serious and popular music. Today, the generation gap does not matter anymore.’

Read the full review (German language) or read our English translation (pdf).

Read the story behind Jon Lord’s upcoming new album, To Notice Such Things, out on March 29, 2010.

The album is dedicated to the memory of his late friend Sir John Mortimer and contains a six piece suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra as well as three other compositions for the same forces.

This is part 1 of a brand new interview for JonLord.org where Jon Lord discusses the music on the new album, takes stock of a busy 2009 and looks at plans for the future.

We catch Jon Lord as he is checking the final mixes of the new album.

- I’ve now received the final mixes and edits which I’m just listening to at the moment to see if there’s anything else I can complain about, he laughs.

Getting serious he explains the origins of To Notice Such Things.

- The inspiration for the suite is my friend John Mortimer, who died earlier this year.

- He was a great friend and a great inspiration to me and I hope my love and respect for him comes out in the music, says Jon.

- A few weeks after he passed away, I was offered a commission to write a piece for solo flute and strings – a flute concerto in essence. At first I turned it down because I thought there wasn’t enough time, but after a couple of days of thought, I realized that I had these three little pieces for flute and piano that I had written for the theater shows that I used to do with Sir John, and I thought that they might provide the basis for this ‘flute concerto’ and that I could write in his memory.

- John and I became friends about 12 years ago. A couple of years later he asked if I would be interested in playing the piano and writing a bit of music for him, for his theater shows – “Mortimer’s Miscellany” – during which he sat on the stage and, accompanied by two actresses, a pianist and a flute player, he read poetry and prose, told stories and jokes and related hilarious legal anecdotes, giving his wonderfully wise and witty take on life, love and the law.

Cathedral memorial
To Notice Such Things was premiered in its entirety at 2009’s Shipley Festival on July 5 (our reporter said it was ‘a real treat’). On November 17, Jon Lord performed three of the pieces at Sir John Mortimer’s memorial service in Southwark Cathedral, London. The service also included an address from Lord Kinnock,  and readings from Sir John Mortimer’s own works.

- It was kind of a happy sad occasion. The Cathedral was absolutely packed. There were hundreds of people there, and the list of the guests that they published in The Times the next day was amazing… Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen as well as us common folk! Lots of famous actors and actresses; politicians, lawyers most of whom had been friends of John and so on. It was quite an occasion.

- At the beginning of the service I played the opening piece, As I Walked Out One Evening. Towards the end of the service Jeremy Irons read the poem Afterwards and we played the last movement after that. Then after the service before people left we played Turville Heath.

- The reaction I got afterwards from everybody was really delightfully positive. Everybody was asking me ‘Where can we get it?’ So I said ‘Well, keep your eye on JonLord.org and you’ll find out.’

- What pleased me most was that the music that I’d written for John seemed to touch everybody and it seemed to carry his character across to them as well. I was very pleased with that, very pleased indeed. But now we’ll see what the rest of the world think of it.

- I’m very pleased for this album to be the next thing that’s coming out. It’s called To Notice Such Things because that’s the last line of the poem Afterwards; ‘He was a man who used to notice such things.’

Read also: Jon Lord explains To Notice Such Things, track-by-track.

Come back to JonLord.org to read the next parts of this interview – about Jon Lord’s busy schedule in 2009  and future plans.

Jon Lord takes us through To Notice Such Things, track by track.

- The first movement is based on the opening music of the show that we used to do, and the first piece he used to read was a poem by W.H. Auden. I suppose it’s about the triumph of time. It starts out really brave and quite happy and it’s called As I Walked Out One Evening.

It ends in a more bleak manner by warning that ‘…you cannot conquer time.’

- The next piece is called At Court, and this is where I try to imagine John when he was in his glory in the late ‘60s, ‘70s, and the early ‘80s, when he was one of the great barristers of London. He was known for his hugely quick wit and devastating humour, and his love of debate. He also loved women, and so I use the word court not only about the law courts but in courting, as it were. The big tune in the middle is Sir John in love. It’s really about him in those years when he was in his glory. This hugely witty and marvelous man.

- The third movement is called Turville Heath. This is where John lived; its in the Chiltern Hills, not too far from where I live, about three miles. He lived his whole life there in the house that his father built. That’s where he was born and it was where he died. It is about Sir John just waltzing gently around his garden there, which his father also loved.

- The Stick Dance describes events much later in John’s life. He eventually lost the use of his legs, and in the few years before that he had to walk with a stick. He had loved dancing, but of course by then he couldn’t. So he would stand there with his stick in one hand, and in the other would be the hand of a young woman who was doing all the jiving. He was standing there enjoying the view. The piece tries to conjure up that vision. At the end of it of course he gets a little out of breath even just from standing there, and he has to sit down. The music gets slower and eventually subsides into the next movement.

- The Winter of a Dormouse is a picture of John’s last winter, which was a hard time for everyone who knew him – but one can only imagine how it must have been for him.

- It ends with a movement called Afterwards, which is the last poem that John used to read in his show. It’s a poem by Thomas Hardy in which the poet tries to imagine what people might say about him after he’s gone. John used to end the show by saying that he would read the poem in memory of his father, and then he would say “Or perhaps as an epitaph for me.” This piece is based on the music that I used to play while that poem was being read.

- It ends sadly but I hope that it’s also uplifting, and that it shows that although he is gone, the memory of him is bright and clear and good, and we still smile about him. That’s the feeling of the piece for me. It’s another one of my autumnal pieces.

But even with the sad ending, the overriding emotion from the whole album is a very uplifting feeling.

- That was Sir John. His character pervades the whole album – even though the last three pieces are not written about him. The whole album really has come together as a result of writing about him, and I think that’s a good thing. I’m very happy about it.

Additional pieces
The new album contains three additional pieces; Evening Song, For Example and Air On the Blue String.

- The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s executive director Andrew Cornall, suggested doing Evening Song. I asked who was going to sing it, but he suggested doing it as an instrumental. So I replaced the vocal line with alto flute and French horn, and off we went.

- I’m pleased with it. It’s emerged as a very warm piece, and it still says much the same thing as the words say. It wasn’t something I was particularly expecting to do, just one of those unusual requests and when I did it, and I heard it almost for the first time as we were recording it, it was an uplifting experience as well. It was also a completely new experience. I have never arranged one of my songs as an instrumental before. It was a different discipline and an enjoyable one. It’s given me an idea for another couple of instrumental things based on songs.

- The next track is For Example, which started life as a little piano piece dedicated to my friends, The Trondheim Soloists and to their musical director Øyvind Gimse. This has now become something very, very different and a much bigger piece. It’s firstly an homage to Edward Grieg, a composer, who very much inspired me when I was young. But it’s become more than that. It’s become an elegy for my piano teacher, Frederick Alt, who was a very troubled man and didn’t have an easy life. He introduced me to Grieg and it’s something to do with those forgotten, long ago years in my early teens.

- So it’s grown into a much bigger piece than it started out as two or three years ago, and I’m about as pleased with it as with anything else I’ve ever written. It came very quickly when I started working on it for the album with this new way of looking at it. It just grew.

- I sort of realized it as I was writing it that it was obviously about more than just Edward Grieg and my debt to him. It was much wider and deeper than that, and I became aware that I was paying my respects to someone who gave me so much, and that I didn’t obviously realize at the time.

- When I stopped taking piano lessons and left Leicester and moved on in my life, I didn’t think too much about Frederick. I became aware a few years later that he had died in difficult circumstances and I suppose I was just trying to touch that.

The time in Jon Lord’s life that inspired For Example actually isn’t too far removed from what inspired Boom of the Tingling Strings.

- The first movement of Boom is about me being a very young boy and just remembering those early musical influences, like aunties playing the piano and that kind of thing. In a way For Example comes in between movements one and two of Boom of the Tingling Strings – or somewhere in there because the second movement of Boom is me down in London having managed to escape and finding my way.

- It’s awfully difficult to say exactly what a piece of music is about because in the end it doesn’t have to be about anything. Music only has to be about itself, and if it touches you, you can paint the pictures yourself. It doesn’t really need the composer to pre-paint the pictures for you, but sometimes it’s useful to know what the composer has in his mind. And a listener may say ‘No, it doesn’t do any of that.’ Of course you as a listener, for example, you didn’t know my piano teacher, you didn’t know Edward Grieg, but you’ve heard Grieg’s music so that might be a point of contact. But it doesn’t matter what it’s about. What matters is whether it touches you. And you paint your own pictures.

- The listener should be encouraged to just let the music take him or her however it will. The thing is, with For Example, I’m not exactly sure what the images in my mind were because the music arrived almost as what you might call absolute music. I wasn’t actually painting pictures as I was writing it; it was just flowing out. That’s why I’m so pleased with it because it was only when I first heard it played and recorded that I  realized more fully what it might be about. And so I was fascinated by that process – it’s not a process that has necessarily happened that easily before. So I was thrilled to bits with that.

- Air on the Blue String is anotherl piano piece that grew. It’s dedicated to cellist Matthew Barley who, through a remark he made about asking a young cello player to consider listening to the blues or perhaps even trying to improvise – or call it playing off the page – and that this might help him with his interpretation of Bach.

- Now, whether anybody else would agree with that remark of Matthew’s I don’t know, but the thought behind it set my creative juices flowing.

- So all in all, considering that at the beginning of this year – well, February or March – I wasn’t aware that I was going to make this album. Suddenly there it is. I like it when that happens – when things spring out unexpectedly, out of nowhere almost.

Afterwards is the album’s final track. It features Jeremy Irons reading Thomas Hardy’s poem of the same title with Jon Lord on piano.

Read also: Interview part 1 – To notice such music

Come back to JonLord.org to read the next parts of this interview – about Jon Lord’s busy schedule in 2009  and future plans.

Jon Lord’s concert in Potsdam (near Berlin) on January 23 has been sold out for months. If you didn’t get a ticket to the concert, you can watch Jon Lord prepare with the orchestra in the afternoon of the concert – at the same venue in Potsdam.

The rehearsals start at 3pm on January 23. Ticket are 20 Euro and can be reserved at the venue on: +49 (0) 331-28 888 28. More info on the venue website.

Jon Lord in Potsdam on January 23:
3 pm: rehearsal at Nikolaisaal, Potsdam (near Berlin), Germany
8pm: concert at Nikolaisaal, Potsdam (near Berlin), Germany Sold out!
- Concerto for Group and Orchestra and more performed by Jon Lord with Demon’s Eye, Kasia Laska and Steve Balsamo (vocals), and Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg conducted by Scott Lawton.

Sir John Mortimer

Jon Lord will release his next album, To Notice Such Things, on March 29, 2010 through Avie Records.

Titled after the main work – a six movement suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra – the album was inspired by, and is dedicated to the memory of Jon’s dear friend Sir John Mortimer, the English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, author and creator of Rumpole of The Bailey, who died in January of 2009.

- He was a great friend and a great inspiration to me and I hope my love and respect for him comes out in the music, says Jon.

- A few weeks after he passed away, I was offered a commission to write a piece for solo flute and strings – a flute concerto in essence. At first I turned it down because I thought there wasn’t enough time, but after a couple of days of thought, I realized that I had these three little pieces for flute and piano that I had written for the theater shows that I used to do with Sir John, and I thought that they might provide the basis for this ‘flute concerto’ and that I could write in his memory.

- John and I became friends about 12 years ago. A couple of years later he asked if I would be interested in playing the piano and writing a bit of music for him, for his theater shows – Mortimer’s Miscellany – during which he sat on the stage and, accompanied by two actresses, a pianist and a flute player, he read poetry and prose, told stories and jokes and related hilarious legal anecdotes, giving his wonderfully wise and witty take on life, love and the law.

The music written for those shows has now evolved into Jon’s new album, To Notice Such Things.

- There was a total of about six minutes of music which has now grown into a 27 minute suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra. I wrote it during March, April and May, and it was an emotional yet fascinating experience to work on it when John’s presence was still so very strong. In fact it still is, but back then he had only just passed away.

- I think he’s pretty much in every note of the piece and I’m really pleased with it, because I think he would be happy with what my thoughts about him are.

The suite ends with a movement called Afterwards, named after the Thomas Hardy poem that John Mortimer used to read at the end of his show.

Both the Suite itself and the album are called To Notice Such Things because the last line of the Hardy poem is ‘He was a man who used to notice such things’.

The all-instrumental album was recorded at the end of last September with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell with Cormac Henry on flute, and also features three additional pieces.

1. To Notice Such Things

a. As I Walked Out One Evening
b. At Court
c. Turville Heath
d. The Stick Dance
e. The Winter of a Doormouse
f. Afterwards

2. Evening Song
3. For Example
4. Air on the Blue String
5. Afterwards (poem read by Jeremy Irons)

Come back to JonLord.org to listen to samples from To Notice Such Things.

Soon you can also read our new year’s interview with Jon Lord in which he looks back on a busy 2009, discusses the new album and his future plans in general.

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Classic FM is collecting votes for its Hall Of Fame 2010.

Last year, Jon Lord’s Durham Concerto was the highest new entry in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame. It jumped in at no. 75 with Boom of the Tingling Strings reaching no. 198.

Vote for Jon Lord now
You can help secure Jon Lord’s position in this year’s Classic FM Hall Of Fame by voting for him online. It’s free and takes only a few seconds.

Simply enter ‘Lord‘ in the voting form and you’ll be given the opportunity to vote for Durham Concerto, Boom of the Tingling String and Disguises. You are allowed three votes.

Cast your votes now.

Deadline for voting online is Sunday 31 January 2010 at 23:59.

Read more: Jon Lord enters Classic FM Hall of Fame 2009.