A week in the life of a classical-music critic

BIRDSONG woke me at dawn, just before an aeroplane sounded the first of the daily thousand or so gradual swells of noise that fill the skies of South West London. We have a railway nearby too, though not a busy one. Every morning at around 4am a goods train grinds to a slow halt before, after what feels an age, the mischievous, unaccountable intelligence controlling the signal allows the locomotive to continue across the Thames. It is a long train, with hundreds of wheels that sound as though they have never seen an oil. The first time I heard it drawing to its reluctant, painful halt, it put me in mind of chorus of tone-deaf ghosts rehearsing for Thomas Tallis great 40-part motet, “Spem in Alium”.

This morning, though, it is the birds that wake me. I know what time it is, because although the aeroplanes have yet to join in I can feel it’s only a matter of a few minutes until the familiar rumble announces the start of Heathrow’s day at 5am. I’m put in mind of the text of a song by Claudia Molitor called “My Favourite Sound”. It consists of a half-humorous meditation on the words “my favourite sound is the one that lives in this city”. With its partly medieval sonorities punctuated by gentle electronic clicks and ticks that draw the ear in and out of contact with the voices, Ms Molitor’s song is ambient but active. ...