Upbeats: Season 5, Episode 1 (Braving The Loss of Summer) Artwork

Braving the Stave

Hosted by Jonathan James and joined by Angharad Smith, a.k.a ‘JJ & Haz’ , this bubbly duo delve through all music and genres, sharing with you their personal favourite pieces, along with some musical jokes that add a playful and informal feel to the podcast. Working as part of Arts Active's Cardiff Classical programme, we run lots of exciting extras alongside it to support the concerts. Check out the Arts Active website for more - www.artsactive.org.uk
Got any comments for JJ and Haz? Email them to A2@artsactive.org.uk
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Yn cael eu cyflwyno gan Jonathan James, yng nghwmni Angharad Smith, neu ‘JJ a Haz’ fel y’u gelwir, mae’r ddeuawd fyrlymus hon yn pori drwy bob math o gerddoriaeth a genres, gan rannu gyda chi eu hoff ddarnau personol, ynghyd â rhai jôcs cerddorol sy’n ychwanegu teimlad chwareus ac anffurfiol i’r podlediad. Gan weithio fel rhan o'r rhaglen Gyfres Glasurol Actifyddion Artistig, rydym yn cynnal llawer o bethau ychwanegol cyffrous ochr yn ochr ag ef i gefnogi'r cyngherddau. Edrychwch ar wefan Arts Active i gael mwy - www.artsactive.org.uk
Oes gennych chi unrhyw sylwadau i JJ a Haz? Anfonwch ebost i A2@artsactive.org.uk

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Braving the Stave

Upbeats: Season 5, Episode 1 (Braving The Loss of Summer)

September 26, 2025 • Arts Active • Season 5 • Episode 1

To see in this new series, JJ and Haz say farewell to summer with the music of half-light, slumber and nocturnes. Along the way you'll find out why we should feel sorry for Janacek's postman, who the mysterious Silke Schäfer is, and why Swiss tea bags have a superior design.

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Transcript – Upbeats: Season 5, Episode 1 (Braving The Loss of Summer)

Hello and welcome to this new season of Braving the Stave. My name's Jonathan James.

And my name's Angharad Thomas. I don't know why I went full then.

Because we're otherwise known as JJ
Haz
And Haz.
JJ
There we go.
Haz
Yeah.
JJ
Our podcast names only, I feel.
Haz
Yeah. Amazing.
JJ
I was called JJ on the National Children's Orchestra residential, that I've just come back from.

Bit old for that aren’t you? Only just got into the main orchestra, but better late than never.

Better late than never! But it seemed to... I mean, these were kids that were… what were they, around about 13 years old, so yeah, JJ seemed to work for them.

It's cooler, isn't it? They're just at that age with the like ‘Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of cool as well.’

So that's what I was doing over the summer. What have you been doing?

Hmm. Right, well, OK, it sounds like I'm going to make this up, but I have been playing in this, like, basically cult of astrology in Switzerland.

Of course you have!

I course I have! In Switzerland, in Basel, or Bal, as they call it, with a load of amazing people, great friends, and it was just absolutely bonkers. And I don't know how to start to describe it, but I'm just... I'm going to try.

Please do, because at the moment there are a lot of conflicting images for me between Switzerland,
Haz

Yeah
JJ
which seems very neat and together
Haz
Yeah
JJ
stereotypically, and this vast, as you say, astrological vibe.

Yeah. So, we were booked. So, we were booked out and we thought it was astronomy, right, which is like stars, logic, science, everything. Howmever, we got there and it was like a whole orchestra in this most beautiful setting in Stadtcasino, which has amazing…
JJ
Sehr schön!
Haz
Danke! And it has amazing, like, chandeliers that come down and they light and it's incredible, you can fit loads people in there. We had two sold out shows and basically, we were playing different movements of Planets with and alongside the recordings that NASA have made of the atmosphere on those planets.

I know those ones. They’re deep, rumbling and disturbing.
[NASA recording]

Yes. Yes, they are disturbing but each of them has a unique frequency, so when you're playing them, you can almost, sort of, hear a chord. It's like when you go into a room and you can hear the air con and it's… but you can…

Right.
Haz
Yeah, it's very cool. The most disturbing sounding of them all is the earth one.
JJ
That says a lot, doesn't it?

Well, I know. And yes, we were playing alongside with that. But when I tell you it was like a cult, people were like... they were like arms around each other, hugging, crying. It was such an amazing, like, group of musicians because we had to start off at the back of the auditorium for two live shows in the complete darkness. Having memorised the first page of music. [Aurora?] what?! ‘Oh my gosh, hire me!’ And we had to walk in playing as different spotlights came onto the stage and then… and then we all… yeah, finished on this bit. And the first piece was called Big Bang. And then the audience all started clapping and people were, like, crying. And this woman in the most sparkles ever came on. And her name was Silky [Silke] Schäfer.

You couldn’t make it up.
Haz
I know. Yeah.
JJ
And now here we are, you've, sort of, come back down to Earth in Bristol where we're recording this.

Yeah. And we have no astrology. We just have cups of tea and just stiff upper lips, and we're just getting on with stuff.

I don't know how stiff your upper lip is, but I'm trying to keep mine very flexible these days.
Haz
Of course.
JJ
Anyway, so match that listeners - match that summer experience. I say summer because I know you'll be listening to this probably closer to October, but given that we're so organised, we realised that our Septembers just wouldn't match up in terms of our schedule. So we're recording this at the end of August and we thought we'd have a little look at themes that are about late summer, seeing ourselves into early autumn, that nocturnal half-light.

Changing in colours, changing in moods, changing in atmospheres. So, plug - what have you been doing then tell me.

Well, apart from NCO I've launched a sub stack. Which is slightly less exciting than, you know, astrological musical orgies.

Nodding politely because a sub stack is… what?

It is a newsletter on creativity and that's what I'm… I'm not plugging it here obviously.

Plug it to me, you're allowed to plug to your friends. We're allowed to be like, ‘yes, do you.’

The thing is, I'm loving writing and I'm loving the discipline of engaging with my subject; creativity, on a daily basis and thinking about it more deeply. So...

So that's what I've been doing. Slightly more insular activity than, yeah, a Swiss tour. However, let's look at what we're training here
Haz
OK.
JJ
with this particular October podcast. We're looking at the first concert of the season in the Cardiff [Classical] Lunchtime series, that happens in Eglwys Dewi Sant,
Haz
Perfect.
JJ
in Cardiff City centre, and it will be on October the 7th. That's a Tuesday.

That’s just a couple of days away. Isn't it?

I believe it is Haz! And doors open at 12:30 as usual.
Haz
Mmhm.
JJ
Perfect thing to do in your lunch hour. This time it's by the Fibonacci Quartet. That’s a good name.

They've done well.
Haz
So cool.
JJ
[in faux Italian accent] Fibonacci, eh!
Haz
I mean, it's usually someone's, like, last name in the quartet, but I don't think that's anyone's last name, I think that's just…

Well, if it is, that's very serendipitous and very classy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JJ
Fibonacci Quartet. It's quite a young quartet.
Haz
Mmhm.
JJ
I believe you know their violist.
Haz
I actually do. Obviously I know the violist because all viola players know other viola players and also Welsh people know Welsh people and not always, but I happen to know this one and Elliot Kempton went to Royal Welsh. He's of the wonderful school of training that all the best viola players come out of.

In my humble opinion. And just a great guy. I think he comes from a musical family, musical parents and just happens to play the viola magnificently.

The boy’s done good.

Yeah, boy’s done great.

And so, they will be playing… I could say, by the way, they're very exciting, just looking at their quartet biog here, they've got residencies in Madrid and Paris.

Mmhm. That's cool.
JJ
That’s pretty special.
Haz
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they'll be playing, well, a specially commissioned piece alongside some familiar Haydn.
Haz
Nice.
JJ
His Opus 33 No. 4 and then Janáček, String Quartet No. 2 called Intimate Letters.
Haz
Oh yes!
JJ
Have you come across this?

What intimate letters? Several times! No, this particular piece I've heard but have not played.

I'm glad to hear that because it sounds really hard to play.
[Janáček, String Quartet No. 2; Intimate Letters]
Haz
Yes.
JJ
Not untypical of Janáček. Just the level, particularly for the first violin, I think, of skill you need to play [scrubbing?] for dear life at the top of your instrument on these, kind of, repeated ideas. I think If you're a professional, you can make it sound radiant, and if you're not then it can sound like the underscore for a horror movie, really. You know, as if you're gonna murder someone very close to you.

It can sound like an early rehearsal of ‘everybody play anything all at once’ by a group of gifted amateurs who are just having a go.
JJ
Yes! So yeah, forget that image. Intimate Letters. It's based on the roughly 700 letters that Janáček sent his muse; a much younger woman called Kamila Stösslová. She was actually 40 years younger than him.

Right. Let's stop there for just a moment. For issues of consent and stalking, because that's weird, right?

She was of consent, but I think begrudgingly, and one has to wonder what was quite in it for her.

Her poor postman was like ‘ugh, you'll never guess’ and she'd be like ‘Another 10 letters.’ ‘Yeah. Another 10.’ ‘Are they intimate?’ ‘Boy, are they?!’.

Look, let me quote from one in, well, reference to actually this piece. He says that ‘Those notes of mine kiss all of you. They call for you passionately.’
Haz
Good Lord.
JJ
I know. Quite racy.

And she's like, ‘Please, I have school. Go back to work.’

Well, indeed. And it's remarkable how passionate all four movements of this quartet are. I'm going to play you just the second movement, which features a prominent role for the viola.

Because apparently the viola’s voice represents Kamilla. She must have had quite a low voice. It's not the instrument that you’d…

[Laughs]. She’s was young with the very deep, rich baritone voice of a woman.
JJ
Yes.
Haz
Like mine. Really low.

It's not the sound you’d naturally connect with a young woman necessarily.

Maybe… I think what he was getting at maybe was, like, sultry

rather than like [imitates child-like voice] ‘Janáček! Come here. Janáček!’. That would be annoying.

Yeah. OK, let's go with that.
Haz
OK.
JJ
And you'll hear a very brief viola solo that opens this movement.
[Janáček; String Quartet No. 2; Intimate Letters, 2nd Movt.]
So that was the Alkyona Quartet playing the second movement of Janáček’s Intimate Letters, his String Quartet No. 2, that you can hear on the 7th of October.
Haz
Nice.
JJ
So what did you think?

Lovely. It is rich, isn't it? But it is more sonorous and rich rather than like a base, gravelly tone.

It's a beautiful romantic sound, that, with a shimmer that is typical of Janáček. He's so good at interesting, kaleidoscopic string textures I think.

I truly don't know much of his work. I think I know, like, from hearing them, a bit of the quartets, but I wouldn't be able to pinpoint it being that composer. Like, I don't know if his work’s played that much in, like, commercially do you think? Or…

There are certain pieces like his Sinfonietta or Taras Bulba, or various orchestral works that do get, you know, quite frequent outings, and I think his two string quartets; the first one was the Kreutzer, and this one; Intimate Letters. Again, they're up there with, I suppose, Benjamin Britain and Bartók as being, you know, the most played modern ones post-Debussy.

Yes, but it's a nice gateway to go and just listen to it and get used to that sound. And it's lovely.

It is lovely and I have to just confess to being slightly distracted by an orange sticker on the side of Haz’ mug here.

The Swiss, they just know how to do things, don't they?

So, this was a lovely gift that you brought back from Switzerland, which is… we're looking at a tea bag with the usual string and cardboard label except it being Swiss,
Haz
It's got a sticker that you just peel off the side of the tag on the tea and you can just affix it to the side of your mug so that it doesn't fall into the tea.

So genius.
Haz
Just amazing.
JJ
So you don't get nasty cardboard in, sort of, soggy…

No. Isn't that incredible? Flipping Swiss. Wow. Wow! Chocolate clocks and stickers.
JJ
Back to Janáček.
Haz
Sorry, yeah. So that's a wonderful concert. I mean, maybe they'll give out some free tea. Maybe they won't. I dunno.

I think they probably do, actually. Knowing the hospitality of Eglwys Dewi Sant and Arts Active.

So, I thought we could maybe continue with another bit of Janáček, just to keep this theme, because I think that felt reasonably autumnal, didn't it? In its darker hues, quite melancholic.
Haz
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
JJ
Well, this is a piano piece from his selection of 15 pieces for piano called On An Overgrown Path.

Oh, that's nice.

Clearly, a man after my own, sort of, gardening abilities.

Just loads of shrubs

Never look at my patio.
Haz
Weeds everywhere, brambles everywhere. It's just loads of people playing at once all again.
JJ
Luckily, imagined for solo piano and this one's called In Tears and again, it struck me as being particularly autumnal and... and yet, glowing, it's in a major key to start off with, with these yearning phrases, beautifully played by Stephen Hough.
[Janáček; On An Overgrown Path; In Tears. JW VIII/17, Book 1:IX.]

Lovely. So is that ‘in tears’ - sobbing or ‘in tiers’ - levels?

I see you're following through the overgrown path metaphor,

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JJ
and seeing, what? Staggered gardens or something. Yeah. Or are we crying about the state of the garden?
JJ
We’re crying.
Haz
Ohh, OK, yeah.

Which I think comes across, but it's, er… it's grateful tears, perhaps.

Yeah, that's what I think. I mean, stretching is a metaphor, but going from summer to autumn, it's like a gradual slow… it's like a melancholy feel rather than sobbing your heart out, ‘cause it's the middle of winter and there's no sunlight.

It's a letting go, isn't it?

Yes, yeah, yeah,
JJ
Letting go.
Haz
Little abandon.

And I remember you talking in an earlier podcast about how tricky it can be actually – summer - because you remember very nostalgically, the summers of your youth.

Yes. The halcyon days, Yeah.

JJ
Exactly. And it can be painful if it's not quite like that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Which it rarely is, I suppose.

I spend most my life being melancholy, but by choice, even if I'm happy, I'm like, ‘No, no, let's tone this down. Let's go for a stroll in a dark wood.’
JJ
That's very artistic of you.
Haz
I want to look mysterious. Please allow me that at least. See I like that.

OK, over to you. What is your treasure swap?

OK, so I've chosen a piece played by Alis Huws, who was on this tour with me, and she's just… she is a ray of sunlight in a person. She's sparkly and joyous and just radiates goodness. And I just love that about her. She's just a beam of light.

Let me guess, royal harpist.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Every harpist you know seems to have played for His Majesty.

Yes. I know. Yeah. But I think she's just absolutely beautiful inside and out. She plays beautifully and she's got a new album coming out, which I would like to plug and not ‘cause she's a mate, but ‘cause it's brilliant. So, her new album is called, wait for it… here it comes... It's called…
JJ
Drum roll.

Drum roll. Ah, I got it. Quiet Sunlit Mornings.

Perfect and that must be another reason that you chose it for this nocturnal podcast.

Exactly, [cue SM?] absolutely. But I've chosen a piece called Fracture, which is a piece I believe, but I'm not going to say it correctly probably, but Stephan Moccio, so Stephan, then, M.O.C.C.I.O.

Yeah. And I think it's Fracture. So I was thinking of light and the way the light falls through the trees and little things like that and reflections and glass and things like that. So, I've chosen this piece. I think she plays it really, really beautifully. And also it's just at a slower pace but still has the feeling of ticking on and time going on. So I just thought this was a nice one to share.

It's a beautiful notion, fracture. I'm just wondering if I can again extend our autumnal metaphor. Just saying, is autumn a fracturing of some…
Haz
Ohh.
JJ
You know, is it the time at which… or our sense of time, our sense of certainties begin to fracture and we…

I'm I think I'm over poeticising this.

No, you're not.

Because generally it's just when we all go back to work.

But daylight-saving time, like, all these things, and the kids are going to school in the dark and coming back in the dark like they're in the mines again. It's awful. So I think a little bit of quiet sunlight mornings might be something that we need in our life.

What childhood did you have?

Listen, I'm from the valleys.

OK.
Haz
Listen. So we're gonna play fracture.
[Stephan Moccio; Fracture.]
JJ
I think I feel like a siesta now, is that alright with you?

Yeah! Sun-dappled mornings and then a nap.

Utterly beautiful. Thank you so much for that.

Beautiful, I wish I'd played it.

I think we need something a little bit more disturbing.

Yes, please, always.

So I'm going to turn to Benjamin Britten.

Right, fine. With a vengeance.

Why not? Why not his Nocturne? Because we are, you know. We're looking at the broader artistic sense of Nocturne when we're thinking of something that describes that liminal space between, you know, dusk and night, and something that glows, right, but still has shadow.

Mm-hmm. Could be scary, could be delightful. We don't know.

We don't know.
Haz
But it's in the dark, so it's like, ‘ooh’, yeah.
JJ
His Nocturne is the third in a series of pieces that he did for tenor and orchestra and for Peter Pears, his partner. And the first two were Les Illuminations, and then you have Serenade and then Nocturne completes the trilogy.

JJ
And in this piece it's more intimate than the others and less, I suppose, less showy, in a way, which won't surprise you given it's called Nocturne.
Haz

No. Well, the first one's illumination. Like, so light and then Serenade so we've got a nice little sing along bit in the middle and then dark.

Yes, and here the tenor is being accompanied by solo instruments and colours, and it’s beautifully evocative. It's based on poetry from Shelley through to Shakespeare.

And, in fact, the first poem, and I'll share this one with you, is by Shelley, and it talks of listening to the breath of sleep on the poet and feeding on aerial kisses, the lake-reflected sun, illumined by the yellow bees in the ivy-blooms.

Isn't that beautiful?
Haz
That's nice.
JJ
So if you can imagine the music that goes with that. Let's see if you can get close to what Britten created. This is Peter Pears in the tenor role.
[Britten; Nocturne for Tenor, 7 obligato instruments & Strings, Op. 60: I. On a Poet’s Lips I Slept.]

So dipping gradually deeper and deeper into the world of dream and half slumber.

Mm-hmm. And then breathing in, out, in, like that? Yeah, it's quite lulling, isn't it? It's definitely darker.

You called it a sort of almost squeeze box effect, yes.

Squeeze box. Yeah, that's what I think it sounds like. Like, yeah, it's very cool.

Almost asthmatic.

That childhood asthma is coming back.

Forget that image. It was On a Poet’s Lips by Shelley. Beautiful and very evocative setting by Benjamin Britten. Now I I thought we could have some comic relief here.

Because as you're saying you… that was quite telling, you were saying as we listened that you're not used to hearing tenors sing art songs in English necessarily.

Yeah, I'm not. I hear that voice and I hear a tenor and I think Italian or lieder in German and all these different things. But I don't... When I heard it in English, I was like ‘Oh, that's strange, he’s speaking English.’

It's a very particular style, the English art song, and particularly what Britten did with the genre. He's very idiomatic. The way he writes for voice and for piano, and I thought... I don't know if you've ever heard this send up by Dudley Moore of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook fame, right? But it's his take on how Benjamin Britten would have sung or composed Little Miss Muffet. So here we go.

And now, Dudley Moore continues to accompany himself upon the pianoforte, first in a setting of an English song, a setting by Benjamin Britten of the Old English air, Little Miss Muffet. The Miss Muffet referred to in this song, is believed to have been related to the English entomologist of the same name.

[Dudley Moore; Little Miss Muffet]

Oh, I love that. You have to watch it On YouTube.

It's funny. I love the facial expressions and how clever he is and… that's really cool.

He's the perfect parody of the Pears voice as well. Slightly mean, but that's part of the comedy.
Haz
Yes, that's it.
JJ
And so able at the keyboard, he was a great improviser, both in classical and jazz styles, as a former Cambridge organ scholar I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were just smiling, looking at that. It's just great.

Yeah. So that was our bit of light relief.
Haz
Hmm.
JJ
What have you got next?

Right, OK, now I've brought this to you as a friend, but be nice because I've brought Claire de Lune. Yes, I have. Or to give it the string quartet name when we play it. Claire de f’ing Lune. Because it's really difficult to keep together. It's really difficult to get in tune and… yeah, it's just like really well known, isn't it? It's Eine Kleine.

I think it is very luminous. I do see why you chose it and why you thought of it. And it does feel very autumnal in its pacing and its nostalgia.

I know, I hate myself for choosing it as well, but we, like, we have to include it, and not just because I've seen Ocean's 11, but because it's just a great piece as well. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's not great. It means it's just well-used.

Does it crop up in Ocean's 11?
Haz
Yeah.
JJ
Really?

When they’re doing the water fountains and… yeah.

Oh, what you don't know about film music, Haz.

Yeah, I do love it. I mean, yeah, but we're just gonna play it quickly, get it over and done with. But let's do a string quartet version in honour of the Fibonacci Quartet and the concert, so I am keeping it relevant.

OK. So this is Claire de f’ing Lune.

Claire de f’ing Lune but played beautifully by a string quartet.

Great.
[Debussy; Claire de Lune (String Quartet)]
That was String Space, I think they call themselves.

Mmhm, yeah. We get loads of forwarded videos by them, by brides and yeah.

Ohh so there's a little bit of rivalry going on here.

Listen how jaded I am about the string quartets in weddings. If one more person sends me Spring by Max Richter, I will put on a strike.

So how come they're sending you these videos? Why would they do that?

Because they're like, ‘Can you play this?’

Oh, I see.
Haz
And then I'm like, ‘Yes, we can.’ They're like, ‘Can you play this exactly?’ and I'm like, ‘Yes, we have a speaker, if you want this particular one.” Like, do you know what I mean? Or like, “Can you make it sound exactly like that?” And I'm like, “That's a brass quintet, but sure.” You know, like, that sort of thing.
JJ
So and String Space have obviously conquered the medium and are ubiquitous.

I mean, they are the string quartet that people send me things as well as Vitamin string quartet but I love them and Midnight String Quartet, which is actually just an MP3, it's like WAV on your computer.

Do you think the Fibonacci do wedding gigs?! I can't imagine that.

Ha ha! If they do, I would go to that wedding. I would crash the wedding. I would sit in the back and I would just listen to them play Canon in D all day. I love it.

Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed this. It seems too long since we last did this.

I know, way too long. It would have been way too long to wait ‘til October.

We can't do that.
Haz
No, no, no, no.
JJ
But listeners, thank you for joining us and I hope you've enjoyed our little dabble, our little foray into all things autumn.
Haz
Ooh, yeah.
JJ
And please go along to this gig on October the 7th. I'm sure it's going to be lovely.

Yeah, it’ll be great.

See ourselves out, I've got a Welsh folk song, which again is typically melancholic.

Good.
JJ
The Welsh are good at that, aren't they?
Haz
‘I'm sad.’ ‘Great. You're doing well.’

I mean, there must be statistically more minor-keyed, folksongs in Welsh...

I thought you gonna make a Welsh miner joke then. I thought you were so close to making a Welsh miner joke.

Thank goodness I didn't.
Haz
You didn't.

That would be awful.

But there must be… I think they have that, sort of, melancholic, like, I don't know, like dark, twisty.

Really?
Haz
I love all the dark, twisty ones, yeah.
JJ
But why are the Welsh, sort of, darker and twistier than the Irish, say, or the Scottish?

I don't know. I mean…
JJ
I can't see that.
Haz
Maybe we get less light. I don't... Look, I'm scrabbling for answers. I don't know. Maybe we just like a whiskey in the dark and we just like to sing David of the white Rock.

Well, this is particularly dark, this one. This is Beth yw’r Haf i mi? What is Summer to me?

And it's saying not just goodbye to someone, but goodbye to a relationship. “And since I lost you,” the lyrics go, “long summer days mean nothing to me.”

So, you know it's a page out of our own book I think! I don't know what your relationship is like listeners, to summer, but we've clearly got quite a jaded one.

Look, I've been hot and sweaty for about 55 months now, I'd like it to be slightly cooler, so let's put on this dark and twisty number, get our ponchos on and cagoule and hunker down for the colder nights.

Well, that is what summer is to Haz. What is summer to you? What is summer to me? Here we go.
[Beth yw’r Haf i mi? Trad. (Siân James)]