Benjamin Britten – String Quartets No 1 in D Op 25, No 2 in C Op 36 and No 3 Op 94
All three Britten string quartets in one evening. Courtesy of the Doric String Quartet. Who have been working hard on this very repertoire, visible in their recent acclaimed recording. The Quartet has a long association with Britten’s music, having formed at Pro Corda in 1998, the school near Aldeburgh, and with Helene Grimaud playing on Britten’s very own viola.
Britten’s music can, I imagine, sound either too austere or too cautious for many listeners, depending on their musical taste. Too flashy, relying on surface effect, in thrall to musical form, and not generating real emotion. A bit too obvious, even too “perfect” maybe, though not immediately appealing. For me though this is his genius. The musical ideas are clear, but still present a challenge to those of us who don’t really understand music, even though they are not actually that challenging. In 1970s football parlance, one of those technical European midfielders, “good on the ball” but somehow suspect, lacking passion or “an engine”. But with performers who love and understand the music, and locate its centre and line, then there is feeling and passion aplenty. Easiest to find in the vocal and choral works and the operas but also abundant, for me at least, in the chamber music and, specifically, the three string quartets.
Which is where the Dorics step in. For there is no holding back here. They have a big, muscular sound which, whilst never obscuring the clarity of thought which is BB’s trademark, especially in the super sparse Third gives the quartets a punch and a drama that I haven’t encountered before. Less ascetic, more buoyant. Though never too extroverted, true I believe to BB’s intentions. Though with plenty of volume when required.
The First was completed in 1941, to a commission from Elizabeth Coolidge during Britten and Pears’s US sojourn, (though it is not actually the first quartet, BB having revived an early composition in the key of D, when just 17, late in life). It starts with a yearning sostenuto, missing Blighty perhaps, is followed by a swanky runaround Allegretto, a nocturnal Andante led by Alex Redington’s violin and ending with the sparkling harmonies of a rondo finale. Easy to place in the flash harry early years for BB.
Which is why the Second Quartet composed just 4 years later, when BB was deep in Peter Grimes, is still so surprising to me. Commissioned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Purcell’s death, BB’s beloved forebear, it kicks off with a full throated Allegro, owing much to Schubert in feel and Haydn in form. The terse Vivace which follows links this movement to the final, stunning Chacony. BB just loved this form, variously chaconne or passacaglia, but his one is a belter. Near 20 minutes long, it shifts its shape continuously and, in places, gets a bit weird. The Doric’s really got hold of it and gave it a good shake. Loved it.
Which in turn set up the Third. BB waiting 30 years before coming back to the form and was near the end by the time he started. Not quite as death suffused as DSCH’s final fifteenth quartet, but still pretty bleak. At least until the final Passacaglia movement. In a work that quotes liberally from the final opera Death in Venice, this movement, like its equivalent in the opera, suggests a peaceful farewell for the protagonist, whether Aschenbach or BB. Prior to that, in the oppositional two part Duets, the jarring Ostinato scherzo, the central poignant Solo cantilena for first violin and the scorching Burlesque which precedes the descriptive Recitative which introduces that Passacaglia, we hear some of BB’s best ever beats.
As good a performance of BB’s quartets as you are likely to hear and, a reminder of why they are up there with late Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Bartok and Shostakovich as the best of the form.
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Katherine Watson (soprano), Rowan Pierce (soprano), Zoe Brookshaw (soprano), Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor), Katharina Spreckelsen (oboe), Choir of the Age of Enlightenment
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 11th November 2019
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) – Stabat Mater
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (1671-1751) – Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op.9 No.2
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) – Gloria RV 589
Last year a Pergolesi Stabat Mater with BUD from the AAM. This year the OAE take with MSBD and Katherine Watson (braving a cold) and Iestyn Davies in the soloist chairs. I’ve already banged on about Pergolesi before. This is his most famous work. Written just before his early death from TB. More than a hint of the comic opera about its style, which are, largely, his other, authenticated contributions to Baroque musical history, (I have a recording of some of his instrumental offerings). Though certainly not its serious religious subject, a C13 poem depicting Mary’s vigil at the foot of the Cross. Took the European musical world by storm and, on and off, has been a favourite ever since. Immediate, direct and very effective, it is impossible not to be carried along by the lean, melodic strings offset with deliberately nostalgic stile antico effects, (from the time before Monteverdi revolutionised Western music). These include prolonged cadences and delayed resolutions. Feel the pain. Lovely but a couple of times a year is enough for me.
Albinoni was a prolific composer, around 80 operas, 40 chamber cantatas, 60 concertos and 80 sonatas, and was, in his day, as popular as Corelli and Vivaldi. Though not quite as good IMHO. Then again he only really considered himself a violinist and, being a rich toff, didn’t have to work. SO we should applaud his industry. And, in the oboe concertos, he did come up with some of the finest music ever written for the instrument. His Op 9 set contains 4 for solo oboe and 4 for two oboes and this one, No 2 is considered the best of them. It kicks off with an elegant medium paced Allegro, follows with a sublime and generous slow movement, with an aching, bel canto solo line against a rocking string ripieno, (which MSBD was much taken with), and a bouncy, scurrying finale, which again gives the soloist plenty of opportunity to show off. And, when it comes to Baroque oboe, very few can match the OAE’s Katharina Spreckelsen.
Last live listen to Gloria was with MS and MSC at the Cadogan Hall with the ECO, so it has become something of a family affair, (even the SO and BD have grinned, and, to be fair, more than bore it, in the past. Famously AV wrote the Gloria for a full SATB choir. despite their being, at least officially, no blokes in the Ospedale della Pieta, bar carrot top himself. Which means they were drafted in, or perhaps, in the array of talents in the convent, there were females basses or at least voices low enough to take the parts, maybe with the whole pitched an octave higher. The contemporary audience would never have known, the young women being concealed behind a grills at the balconies where they performed. We had the OAE’s dedicated chamber choir, thankfully in full view, a scratch outfit of professionals perfectly matched to the OAE’s beefy sound. This I can listen to more than a couple of times a year.
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Le rappel des oiseaux
François Couperin (1668-1733) – Les fauvétes plaintives
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) – Le merle noir
Jean-Philippe Rameau – La poule
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) – On an Overgrown Path X. The barn owl has not flown away
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (b. 1934) – Oockooing Bird
Hossein Alizâdeh (b. 1951) – Call of the Birds
Henry Purcell (c.1659-1695) – Ground in C minor ZD221
Philip Glass (b. 1937) – Koyaanisqatsi Prophecies
William Byrd (c.1540-1623) – My Ladye Nevells Booke First Pavane
Philip Glass – Trilogy Sonata Knee Play No. 4 from Einstein on the Beach
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) – Ciacona in F minor
I am guessing Johanna McGregor started out interrogating her extensive repertoire for an hour of solo piano pieces connected with birds, then thought, sod it, why doubt I chuck some Purcell, Byrd and Glass into the mix and end with Pachelbel. Good call. This genuinely was a delight from start to finish. Not a single wasted note, even from the composer, Hossein Alizadeh, whose work I had never heard.
Whilst Ms MacGregor dips into the Romantic repertoire, notably Chopin, it is the C20 and Baroque (especially Bach) for which she is most well known. Suits me. If pushed I would say I preferred the Couperin to the Rameau when it came to the battle, though both are so elegant there was no hint of aggression, between the French Baroque masters. The Rameau comes from a suite and is comprised of two related halves. Same structure in the Couperin, which represents warblers, and the second Rameau, hens pecking away in a courtyard that Respighi went on to pinch.
It was the Messaien that enthralled me. This is the second piece from Le Petite esquisses d’oiseaux, and represents the humble blackbird. Bright chords offset its calls and movement in four changing sections. I need a recording. Let’s see what Santa brings.
The cry of the owl is a warning in Czech and other folklore and here its scary screech here precedes a fading chorale, all beefed up with Janacek’s arpeggios and ostinatos.
The Birtwistle was written when he was just 15 and shows he was already heading off into his own world, albeit here still framed in jolly Satie-ism, and maybe, though he had never heard him, Messaien himself.
Iranian musician Hossein Alizâdeh wrote his Call of the Birds for a lute-like instrument, the shurangiz, and a duduk, similar to an oboe. Ms MacGregor has created her own arrangement of its rhythmic drive. I liked it, like a Middle Eastern jig.
Purcell’s C minor ground is an exemplar of the form, the rising arpeggio of the bass line, seven bars long, in the left hand with a “catch” tune suject to variation in the right, before the bass dies. All over in three minutes like a perfect pop song. The Byrd, a Pavane from the divine Lady Nevell’s Book, one of the first written keyboard collections, is a similar structure, a ground with harmony on top, but way more ornamented. He really was a clever fellow and with a surname to match the theme of the first half.
The first Glass is the typical cycle with in a cycle oscillation of PG’s piano work but was originally scored for chamber ensemble and chorus, coming at the end of the art film by Godfrey Reggio that was a big mainstream hit. The five knee plays connect sections of Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach, at five hours long, it needs some breaks, and originally was performed by violin and voices, (where it works better).
The gentle Pachelbel chaconne, a stepwise structure subject to 21 variations, was followed with a more upbeat encore, a Handel Passacaglia, that fitted the bill.
London Sinfonietta, Richard Baker (conductor), Tansy Davies (electronics), Elaine Mitchener (mezzo soprano), Elizabeth Burley (piano), Sound Intermedia
Kings Place, 9th November 2019
Tansy Davies – Salt box (2005)
Tansy Davies – Loophole and Lynchpins (2002-3)
Naomi Pinnock – everything does change (2012)
Tansy Davies – The rule is love (2019)
Tansy Davies – grind show (electric) (2007)
Tansy Davies – Undertow (1999, revised 2018)
Clara Iannotta – Al di làdel bianco (2009)
Tansy Davies – Neon (2004)
The Tourist has become very taken with the music of Tansy Davies. I have really enjoyed performances of her two operas, the mythic eco-fable, Cave and the tribute to the victims of 9/11, Between Worlds, and her Concerto for Four Horns, Forest, commissioned by the Philharmonia, and I have added a couple of CD’s of her music, Troubairitz and Spine to my, admittedly still small, contemporary classical collection. This concert was subtitled Jolts and Pulses, which is a pretty accurate and pithy description of the character of her chamber works, showcased here alongside works by two other women composers whose work, in TD’s eyes who curated this concert and performed on electronics, resembles her own.
TD started making music in a rock band before studying classical composition (and horn) at Colchester, the Guildhall and Royal Holloway. She won the BBC Composers Competition in 1996, commissions following hot on its heels, and now teaches at the Royal Academy. It is pretty easy to see why she is so popular amongst performers, (she has spent the early part of this year in residence in the hallowed halls of the Concertgebouw), and audiences. When I say popular I mean in the context of the admittedly non-mainstream fans of contemporary classical music. Most of which is still shoehorned into more accessible fare, or confined to chamber works such as here, and rarely performed on a large scale. Her music reaches into the rock, funk and jazz worlds, her unorthodox score directions reflect thi,s and she is unafraid of rhythm and repetition (which is why it floats my boat), or of explicit references and inspirations, natural and human. And electronics are often present to augment and support the acoustic instruments.
I think I can hear the influence of Sir Harrison Birtwhistle in her music: the wide dynamics, the layering, the solo lines, the percussive, er, jolts and pulses, the shimmers, the binary contrasts. It is no where near as thick, with much sparser textures, but it is raw, “organic”, alive, poetic. I’ll stop there.
The members of the London Sinfonietta on duty tonight are, obviously, perfect promulgators of her music and all were on top form. Salt boxes were used on battleships to keep ammunition dry and the work was inspired by the seascapes of the North Kent coast. The two part piano inventions of Loopholes and Lynchpins pulls apart the rhythms of Scarlatti sonatas. The rule is love, a new work co-commissioned by the LS, takes two 1995 texts, from John Berger and Sylvia Wynter, and sets Elaine Mitchener’s extraordinary vocal pyrotechnics (she also collaborated with TD in Cave) against a percussive drop. Kylie Minogue was in there somewhere I swear. Grind Show, a particular favourite, and inspired by a Goya painting, sets a twisted tango against a sinister, dank night. Undertow again contrasts the sleek and the dirty and neon is a funky workout, though more jazz/post-punk than James Brown. I defy anyone not to like this.
London Concert Choir, Counterpoint, Mark Forkgen (conductor), Rachel Elliott (soprano), Rebecca Outram (soprano), Bethany Partridge (soprano), William Towers (countertenor), James Way (tenor), Peter Willcock (baritone)
Cadogan Hall, 7th November 2019
Henry Purcell – King Arthur
Early afternoon spent in the company of Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Phillips’s Joker before an evening listening to a semi-staged (is there any other) performance of Purcell’s semi-opera. I can categorically state that no-one else in the world will have thus spent their day.
You don’t need to hear from me as to Joker. Suffice to say that I am on the side of those who consider this bleak, referential, origin story to be a stone-cold classic.
As is, in it’s own way King Arthur. A classic I mean. Not bleak. Old HP didn’t have that in him. Though, famously, stone cold, per the famous chattering strings in the Frost Scene in Scene 2 of Act 3. HP just couldn’t help himself when it came to programmatic music, word painting as we arty farty types call it, and, when it comes to combination of music and voice he has rarely been surpassed, ever, though he always stayed in his comfortable, and successful, groove during his all too short 36 years.
Now King Arthur, like must of his theatrical oeuvre isn’t really an opera. The main characters don’t sing, to hat is left to the gods, fairies and peasants, of which there are a fair few here. The Britons and the Saxons, of which there are also a fair few, are spoken roles for actors. The libretto is by none other than John Dryden, superstar Restoration poet, imagine him and Purcell as a compositional supergroup, and the first performance was at the Queen’s Theatre on the river in London in 1691. Of course by then the royal patronage that both basked in under Charlie and Jimmy Twos was over, (Dryden had even converted to Catholicism to keep the commissions rolling in), and we had a Dutchman on the throne. After his success of Purcell’s Diocletian, promoter Thomas Betterton, who had written its libretto, took a punt on King Arthur, which also went down very well.
It is very silly. It tells the tale of the battles between King Arthur and the Saxons, specifically Arthur’s mission to rescue his betrothed, the blind Cornish princess Emmeline, stolen away by the dastardly King Oswald of Kent. Merlin, his Saxon equivalent, Osmond, and various right hand men and women also get a look in, as do Cupid, Venus, Grimbald, various other fairy types and a chorus of shepherds and shepherdesses. I think you can get the picture. The entertainment was intended to look as good as it sounded, with a masque in Act 3 and and variously, a sacrifice, an off stage battle, peasants dancing in a pavilion, an enchanted wood, a castle and the seas around our very own sceptred isle. Dryden used all manner of sources for his text and it shows. And, at its heart, it is shameless jingoism.
As you can see, written more for spectacle than sense, and to allow the stage-makers of the time to show off their skills. Even with a rudimentary synopsis and the explanations of our two narrators for this performance, Aisling Turner and Joe Pike. Best just to sit back and relax and let the tunes roll over. Which they did, though I have to say this didn’t really catch fire in the way I had expected. Purcell and Dryden crammed a lot in in terms of mood and message, as well as genre, so bringing it all together is tricky and maybe a bit beyond conductor Mark Forkgen. Moving choir and soloists on and off stage and to different parts of the hall, added drama but the logistics proved a little distracting. If I am honest I lost track a bit somewhere in Act 2 and never really caught up.
Which meant the focus was music and singers. IMHO the pick of the soloists was bass baritone Peter Willcock with some of the others occasionally getting lost against the muscly sound of fine scratch HIP ensemble Counterpoint. Which suited me since it is that, “oh isn’t that clever”, or “isn’t that lovely” reaction to so many of Purcell’s musical ideas, that makes it such a pleasure to listen to. Whether elaborate counterpoint, or direct homophony, invariably against the chugging ground bass continuo, with frequent arpeggios, dotted rhythms, wide spread chords, with minimal dissonance, always different, always the same, with simple structures subjected to continual reinvention.
London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda (conductor), Denis Matsuev (piano)
Barbican Hall, 31st October 2019
Britten – Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from ‘Peter Grimes’
Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No 2,
Shostakovich – Symphony No 6
Right if I am ever to catch up I am going tp have to be ruthless. So this is just for me and just for the sake of completeness.
Britten’s Sea Interludes showed off the colour and virtuosity of the LSO sections and included the Passacaglia where the Borough Brexiteers go after Peter, but wasn’t quite as atmospheric or as unified as some interpretations I have heard (and trust me, much like the Shostakovich here, I have heard a few). More Southwold than Aldeburgh. Still in getting to the darker recesses of the opera itself this was a success.
Prokofiev’s PC No 2 is, by reputation, an absolute bastard to play. Denis Matsuev showed me why in what is, apparently, his party piece. For a big fella he can move his hands, which he needs to, from one end to the other, extravagant crossing in the opening two movements. It was a manly reading, I could imagine Martha Argerich say covering the immense and inventive ground that SP, a mean tinkler of the ivories himself, demands, in a much more graceful way, but this was still a tremendous introduction to a piece, along with the other 4 SP created, that I need to do more work on. These abrupt shifts of mood and idea, the relegation of the orchestra to support act or even lower on the bill, the fact that after a massive opening movement and a ludicrously quick moto perpetuo second, there is no let up in the third, a mechanistic march. And then the forth kicks off again with the piano as percussion thing. Until, of course this being Prokofiev it turns, into, of all things, a folksy Russian jig.
SP originally wrote it in 1913. He left Russia in 1918, though famously, and bullishly, returned, and the original score was destroyed in a fire. So he reconstructed and revised it in 1924. Which maybe. in part, explains why it still sounds so, well, special and unique.
I have heard 4 and 8 of Gianandrea Noseda’s survey of the DSCH symphonies prior to this. This was equally as accomplished if occasionally lacking a little in astringency. No 6 is nuts. After the crowd pleasing, match winner of No 5, which got him back, temporarily in Stalin’s good books, he set out to “communicate feelings of spring happiness and youth”. Usual DSCH deadpan irony. After a sub 20 minute Largo, which feels longer, there is an Allegro galop and finally a rowdy Presto finale. Three movements. All over in half an hour.
What was he up to? Well listen more closely and you hear that, far from wandering off piste again, DSCH was actually very much toe-ing the Classical line. Almost all the material in the opening movement is derived Bach-like from the opening few bars, with clear signposts, from cor anglais, trumpet and harps amongst others, and a second half sonata form set up. The second movement is contrapuntal, more like the fast movements in the later string quartets than anything in other DSCH’s other symphonic manic dances, with a groovy clarinet solo. And the Finale, if you squint your eyes, (or whatever the aural equivalent is), could be Beethoven or even Mozart, an upbeat Rondo to get the feet tapping. Well maybe not quite. Certainly Rossini with another of those gnomic William Tell quotations. My guess is that, even if the thought police had got to work on his fingernails, Dmitri himself wouldn’t have know if he was taking the piss or playing it straight here.
The LSO seemed more on the ball in the symphony than the concerto, perhaps unsurprising given they have been round the block a few times now with GN but, if I am honest, it was the Prokofiev that had most impact. I am getting closer to cracking him I think and Mr Matsuev’s literally banging way as a soloist floated my boat.
Leningrad (No 7) next up though the Tourist won’t be there, (sold out I see which is a good thing) then No 9 (which never gets an airing and it a close cousin of No 6).
P.S. The photo above shows SP and DS in 1940. The fella with the Eraserhead cut is Aram Khachaturian, who, amazingly given the relative safety of his grooves managed to be denounced as a “formalist” along with his two mates, though not for long.
Of course it was a disappointment that PG himself wasn’t up to appearing but the old boy is coming up to 83 years old and was poorly. Hopefully he is better now. Anyway this was still a proper occasion, involving many of his long term collaborators, in a performance of this pivotal work from 1970. PG didn’t hand over performance of his large scale compositions until the 1970s. Prior to that he wasn’t sure other outfits were up to the task. So it was his own eponymous band that premiered this, Music in Fifths, Music in Similar Motion and Music in Contrary Motion, (all from 1969) and Music in Twelve Parts, composed through 1971 to 1974, and the only work comparable to this.
MWCP has had a few outings since then, though not here, but had fallen out of the PGE’s regular repertoire. However, after hearing other recent performances PG decided to revisit the score and enlarge it with brass and a vocal ensemble. The new version premiered in NYC and SF in 2018 and this was its first airing in Europe.
The “new” MWCP is near 90 minutes long, unbroken, and is built on shifting keyboard and woodwind melodies, which are, towards the end, semi-improvisatory, though don’t panic, the PGE knew exactly where they were going, The addition of the brass, courtesy of the London Contemporary Orchestra, and the choir, here drawn from the boys and girls of the Tiffin Chorus, (which extends beyond the eponymous schools into Kingston and surrounding areas), doesn’t detract from the hypnotic vibe, but it does provide far more texture than the original which is proper psychedelic, hippy-dippy. Harmonies emerge, expand, enlarge and retreat and there are contrapuntal contrasts but not to the extent of the breakthrough Music in Twelve Parts, last heard in these parts in 2017. But MWCP has the distinct advantage of not going on for 5 hours plus.
It isn’t possible to hear all of these PG classic pieces. You will drift off, to the mundane, (I composed my admittedly short Xmas list), as well as the memorable, that is part of the experience. But there will also be times when the sound just takes over. The keyboards of Mick Rossi and Nelson Padgett basically churn out repeated semi-quavers throughout leaving the woodwind to generate the shifting ostinati and the voices, delivered with military precision under choral conductor, Valerie Saint-Agathe, the complexity. This is hard work for such young voices, rapidly repeating same note patterns, sometimes in unison and sometimes divided, which vary in length and intensity, The brass, when it got going, did rather drown out the rest, and the Barbican’s acoustic, even with the tinkering from Dan Bora and Ryan Kelly, PGE’s sound designer and audio engineer, wasn’t helpful. Though maybe the reverberation was the effect they were aiming for.
The absence of PG wasn’t too much of a handicap musically as PGE’s director Michael Riesman stepped in to conduct from the piano. He, and Lisa Bielowa on keyboards (though she normally sings), have been in the PGE for ages, and helped create the new orchestration of MWCP with PG. There is no doubt that all these extra layers have created a work much closer to PG’s recent work than the “classical” minimalism of his youth. Whether this is a good or bad thing, not having heard the original version, I couldn’t tell you. Though as a fan of the more ascetic I guess not. Still, like I say, you have to grab these opportunities when they arise and I, and the whole audience based on the genuine ovation, am pleased I did.
Apparently the last time MWCP played in London, 48 years ago, there were a couple of groovy cats in the audience by the name of Bowie and Eno. They went on to highlight PG’s influence on the Berlin trilogy and, as all you PG fans will now, he went on to compose, eventually with Lodger earlier this year, symphonies based on those three classic albums. That alone justifies the existence of MWCP.
No need to delay too long on the JSB. Last seen and heard a few months ago from the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment. These are superb pieces of music but put them all together and, well, concentration can lapse. 4 and 3 (here taken first and last) are in the same key D major, where they stay for most of the first, Ouverture, movements and for a few of the dance movements which follow. this is to accommodate the natural trumpet sound of the Baroque, (here splendidly handled by Paul Sharp, Simon Munday and Brendan Musk though I think on “baroque” trumpets with venting). Overall whilst there was a rhythmic jauntiness throughout the DC’s performances, and John Butt certainly knows his Bachian onions, the suites rarely caught fire, though this may be my problem, beset, as I was by some overly vigorous head-bopping and finger tapping from the seat next to mine. Nothing wrong with that but in the RAH Circle, where the seats are a byword for cozy and where your neighbours are often in the sightline, it can be distracting. Moreover the RAH’s cavernous acoustic is not particularly sympathetic to HIP Baroque bands.
Now the whole idea of this concert was to re-create one of the Bach nights that characterised the early years of Sir Henry Wood’s programming (Wagner and Beethoven were the other composers awarded such and honour). Here though the twist was to offer up 4 new compositions, to punctuate the suites, written in response to them. Now I am generally a big fan of Nico Muhly but here Tambourin, his response to the 4th suite, and picking up on the trumpet semiquaver runs of the Rejouissance finale felt like it had been dialled in. I enjoyed Ailie Roberston’s Chaconne which filters Scottish folk dance through that Baroque form though not too much goes on. Stevie Wishart’s The Last Dance? had a little more to say by taking a tango with figured bass to allow for a short harpsichord cadenza and overlaying some recorded hoots from the critically endangered Argentine hooded grebe, which caused no little consternation initially in the hall. Stuart MacRae’s Courante was probably the most sympathetic to the Bach it preceded (No 3) taking the slow triple metre of that form, varying its speed, contrasting with typical JSB “running” fast notes and squeezing in some discordant rising fourths, all in the allotted couple of minutes.
Prom 70 – BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Proms Youth Ensemble, Hugh Brunt (conductor), Daniel Pioro violin), Katherine Tinker (piano), Jonny Greenwood (bass guitar, tanpura), Nicolas Magriel (tanpura)
Royal Albert Hall, 10th September 2019
Biber – Mystery Sonata no 16, Passacaglia in G minor
Penderecki – Sinfonietta for strings, Vivace
Jonny Greenwood – Three Miniatures from Water No 3
Jonny Greenwood – 88 (No 1)
Steve Reich – Pulse
Jonny Greenwood – Horror vacui for solo violin and 68 strings
Bit misleading to only put Jonny Greenwood’s name in the title since as you can see there were a whole host of collaborators on this fascinating evening, but then again it was the floppy haired, mercurial JG who put the thing together and was the main draw for the just-about full house.
And a smart programme he conjured up too. I will be brief. Daniel Pioro kicked off with a fine, sharp, rendition of the Passacaglia from Biber’s Mystery Sonatas. I have banged on about this exquisite piece of music before, a Baroque bestseller. Hopefully a few more punters were turned on by it.
It is not difficult to see what Krzysztof Penderecki should be one of JG’s favourite composers and a major influence on his classical, and I would contend, film-score, work. The more Penderecki I hear, and I have heavily invested in recent months, the more I like. It might be modernism for muppets but it works. The Vivace from the Sinfonietta is a kind of moto perpetuo fugal thing. with a clear link back to Bach and Vivaldi, based on a simple note pair. Again hopefully a gateway for some of the audience into KP’s stronger stuff.
JG’s Three Miniatures for piano come from material originally intended for a more substantial string piece, inspired by a Larkin poem. He added a violin line and the drone of a couple of Indian tanpuras, here played by himself and the master of the instrument, Nicolas Magriel. They use a simple octatonic scale much enamoured of Messaien, chaconne like, and are impossible not to like.
Better still though was 88 (No 1) from 2015 which JG aptly instructs on the score as “like Thelonius Monk copying Glen Gould playing Bach”. Clever Jonny. Pick three of the greatest keyboard sound makers of all time, take another Messaien symmetrical scale structure, create a Bachian fugue and then add Monkian dissonant improvs. Then switch to glissandos and scales so violent that Katherine Tinker, for whom I think this was written, had to wear fingerless gloves. Subtle it ain’t but the audience, rightly, was very impressed. As was I. With music as well as performance.
Given that I am a disciple of all things Reich I never thought I would say this. but Pulse was, on this evening, (well late night actually since the whole thing kicked off at 10.15pm – all right for you student-y, creative types but a stretch for us oldies, even those who are economically inactive), the least interesting thing on show. Pulse dates from 2015, and is, despite the title, a long way from the minimalism of the 1970s. Melodic canons, with a whiff of bebop, shift through changing chords which then start to unravel, all anchored with JG’s throbbing bass “line”.
Finally the world premiere of Horror vacui, a substantial, near half hour, for pretty much all of the BBCNOW and BBC Youth Ensemble’s string sections and Daniel Pioro as soloist, or maybe, “leader”. Penderecki, like so many modernist peers started off studying electronic music. JG wanted to take live acoustic orchestral string sounds and replicate the soundworlds of early electronica. Horror vacui is the fear of open space. Good title as the sound never lets up. DP creates a line and the string orchestra then “manipulates” it with reverbs, echoes, resonances and stretches, each of the 7 movements mimicking a classic electronic sound technique. As experimental music brilliant. As an exercise in concept, idea and technique brilliant. As an entertaining sound world brilliant. OK so maybe some of the ideas were over extended, and maybe this is written with as much commercial as artistic purpose but it still did it for me. JG, unlike just about every other rock and roller who has a stab at it, can compose for an orchestra, (he trained as a violinist before Colin invited little bro into the band), that much is obvious from the film scores. But increasingly it is clear from his super serious works. Yet this is still easy enough to grasp and enjoy.
And remember as I think I may have remarked previously on these pages I don’t like Radiohead. Even though literally everything about me should say otherwise.
Terrific evening. More of the same next years please BBC Proms people.
Just one more thing. Jonny. If you are reading this get yourself a nice, crisp white shirt for next time eh, son. If the BBCNOW and Youth Ensemble members can go to all that trouble it wouldn’t hurt you to dump the T shirt.
Prom 15 – Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)
Royal Albert Hall, 30th July 2019
Beethoven – Symphony No 2
Shostakovich – Symphony No 5
It always surprises just how few Proms concerts tick all the boxes for the Tourist. I can usually only manage 4 or 5 in the season. Partly this reflects holiday and other clashes, and this year I was a few hours late out of the block when booking opened, (so missing the Voces8 and English Concert gigs at Cadogan Hall and the first Vienna Phil Beethoven/Bruckner with Haitink conducting), but mostly it stems from the preponderance of Romantic repertoire and the relative absence of Early/Baroque/Classical in the programming. If you like the likes of Berlioz, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Bruckner, Dvorak, Strauss and Sibelius you were, as usual, in your element this year. If this is not your cup of tea a more judicious approach is called for. Mind you. This suits me in a way as, (whisper it), the dear old Albert Hall isn’t my favourite gaff even if the sound is never quite as bad as you might fear up in the Raising Circle where the Tourist perches.
So for me this concert was the one stand-out in the season. Beethoven 2, Shostakovich’s 10th, with the BRSO, under the baton of Mariss Jansons, which runs close to being the best orchestra in the world right now. Hold up chum I hear you say. Mariss Jansons? Shos 10? That’s not what it says above. Well no. Mr Jansons was ordered to take time off over the summer by his docs though it looks like he will be back in the saddle in Munich for the new season, (and maybe he will keep his mouth shut about female representation in music in future). Fortunately for Prommers and those at the Salzburg festival Yannick Nezet-Seguin was able to step in at short notice and his facility with Shostakovich was sufficient to see the 5th replaced the 10th. Which was no great disappointment.
Especially in an interpretation as powerful as this. Now the Tourist has had to wait a few years to witness the conducting, (or indeed pianistic), prowess of French-Canadian YN-S. Never heard the Rotterdam Phil when he was head honcho and am not about to jet over to the Met in NYC or Philadelphia to hear his current troupes. Also never heard the Chamber Orchestra of Europe where he guest conducts and always missed him a few years ago when he still did the same for the LPO. And judging by his discography there aren’t too many orchestral works where our paths might cross. But Shostakovich is clearly one, and, based on this Beethoven 2, it is also clear to me that I need to find a way to hear him lead a Mozart opera.
I am not smart enough to understand why certain conductors and orchestras lift music to another level. But I think I know when I hear it. The BRSO under MJ massively persuaded me with a Prokofiev 5 at the Barbican a couple of years ago. Their playing is powerful, accurate and precise. This was clear in the leisurely reading of the Beethoven Second. Easy on the vibrato, HIP style, but still with a foot firmly planted in the Romantic, focussed on the individual building blocks of the symphony though not utterly convincing on the whole. No 2 can be, shall we say, forgettable compared to what can after, but, in the right hands, is still a work of genius, especially the opening and closing movements.
It took a little time for LvB to bring it to together, interrupted by commissions and by encroaching deafness, and was largely written at Heiligenstadt, but, as is often remarked, you wouldn’t know about LvB’s personal travails from listening to this. The first movement Adagio-Allegro can’t match the Eroica in scale but it does signpost LvB’s future direction of travel. The Allegro wanders off to B flat before wending its way back to the D major home key and the rising scale of the allegro couldn’t be simpler but sets the tone for the surprisingly jolly vibe which pervades the work. The Larghetto, also in sonata form similarly doesn’t spend too long in the darkness, though its woodwind burbling does slightly overstay its welcome, and the following Scherzo and Trio movement marks the first use of the “joke” in a major symphony. The Allegro finale starts off like a classic LvB rondo but then develops into something far more musically complex and is dominated by rapid string passages. Immediately appealing, but satisfyingly clever, like all the symphonies which were to follow.
So a solid start. But it was the Shostakovich which really showed what this band and conductor can do. Given his opera jobs I suspect it may have been a little while since YN-S last tackled the Fifth but it is a work he knows well. And the BRSO certainly does. The complete Shostakovich cycle recording on EMI conducted by MJ may not, individually be best in class, but the 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 14 versions on this set made with BRSO come close, and, at 20 quid, the cycle is a steal. I confess I prefer Haitink overall when it comes to DSCH, but also have versions of some of the symphonies from Rozhdestvensky and the USSR Ministry of Culture SO and Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool PO (whose complete set is also a bargain). And I would snap up a set of Kondrashin recordings should this ever return based on what the experts say.
The point is that whilst super smooth Shostakovich should be avoided, the extreme of the hardcore Russian approach does take a bit of getting used to. Extremes of anger, aggression, pain and pathos, are what these works are all about, and it is right that interpretations test the patience of the listener, whether it be in the bleak never ending slow movements, the sardonic scherzos or the melodramatic, ambiguous, opening and closing movements.. Whatever you think about what DSCH was actually trying to say in his music it definitely needs an edge, even if you end up concluding that it is sub-Mahlerian, film-music bombast as many have done. I love it but it is undeniably music of edge, effect, emotion and image, mixing high and low brow, light years away from the musical maths of a Bach or Stravinsky.
What it does need to convince however is perfect playing. Forgive the thoughts of this musical dummy but f you have a lot of instruments playing the same thing, or single instruments soloing over a sparse backdrop, then you need the players to be exact. DSCH does not forgive imprecision. The BRSO, perhaps more than any other outfit, move as one. Which means that all the “effects”, the fear, brutality, solace, the bright lights, the shadows, were perfectly executed. DSCH symphonies all, at least from 5 to 13 (1,2,3 are the avant garde formal experiments, 14 and 15 defiantly personal), conjure up images of war and terror and the capacity of humankind to overcome even if, like the Fifth, they came before WWII. But to pull together the passages in the movements to simulate the march of history, and then to lay on top the ironic detachment that, I think, DSCH sought, the last movement of No 5 being archetypical, requires conducting and playing of real skill. That’s what we got here. The sheen was there, no doubt, as were the debts to Mahler and Stravinsky in the phrasing, but this was also properly aggressive and emotional when it needed to be.
The Fifth is, I would assume, the most oft-performed of DSCH’s symphonies meaning the dangers of over-familiarity loom even larger. How to capture the thrill and surprise of the music without getting lazy? How to balance the ostensible formal conservatism of the four movements in DSCH’s “Soviet artist’s response to justified criticism” with the probing, questioning and cynicism which seems, even if this is wishful thinking on our part, to lie beneath? YN-S and the BRSO did not avoid echoing the folk tunes, festive dances and grandiose anthems that punctuate the work to meet Soviet requirements nor did they try too hard to subvert the “uplifting” coda to the finale as it turns from D minor to major. Nor did they over-reach in the still, hovering episodes of the opening movement which punctuate the aggressive tutti climaxes, nor in the heart-rending third movement Largo chant, (with some ear-strainingly quiet pianissimos), nor in the perverted waltz of the Allegretto. They just let it speak for itself. Whether as classic symphonic journey, as testament to the struggle of the Soviet people to escape oppression or as satirical indictment of the dread inflicted by Stalin and his regime. Or just as music which, whilst maybe too obvious and precipitate, immediately connects. As was very clear from the eruption of applause when finally the timpani and bass drum sounded out their last, immense, booms.
A bit of Mussorgsky for an encore. Dawn on the Moscow River from Kovanshchina. Arranged by guess who. Shostakovich.
Like I said. There are surprisingly few Proms that do it for me. But, just like last year and the BPO’s Beethoven 7 under Kirill Petrenko, I reckon I heard the pick of the season. (BTW sounds like Mr Petrenko means business kicking off the BPO season with what sounded like a belting Choral Symphony and serving up a diet of, unsurprisingly, Beethoven and Mahler in the first half of next year. I get the BPO will be glad to see the back of Rattle’s excursions into Rameau and Bernstein. Anyway the Tourist feels a trip to Berlin coming on).
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 