Arditti Quartet Xenakis Edinburgh International Festival

By Juliet Williams

Tuesday, like Monday, saw the performance in Edinburgh of work created by a polymath, this time the Greek architect and composer Yannis Xenakis, whose mathematically derived boundary-pushing work  started to be created under the tuition of Messiaen. One of the interesting aspect's of the very enjoyable Messiaen anniversary year was the chance to see the very considerable diversity of subsequent-generation composers who benefited from his tutelage in developing their divergent styles.

The work of Xenakis is extraordinary, challenging to listen to but from which I emerged strangely energized. For me it was the highlight of the  performance. Two of his works were presented. Ikhoor, named after the life-giving fluid flowing through the Greek Gods used in place of blood (blood cells and their behaviour being a subject which had fascinated the composer), is a string trio with an urgent insistent drive, full of buzzing sounds which create the impression of a swarm of bees. The cleverly contrasting ending involves the previously intense sound fading to a whisper, then creating the effect of echo. Tetras ('Four') was inspired by the composer's experience of working with this ensemble. As Messiaen describes it, 'The sound is a delicately poetic or violently brutal agitation.'

Like the previous day's performance, the Arditti Quartet recital at the Queens Hall  featured both high-quality performance of established repertoire (here Janáček's pleasing “Kreutzer Sonata”  string quartet number one) and innovative contemporary works. Perhaps more than any other ensemble, the Ardittis emphasis working with and alongside composers as they develop the works they commission.

This performance featured the fruits of not one but two such collaborations; not only the work with Xenakis, but also two string quartets from  the American Conlon Nancarrow, best know for composing a large number of works for player piano. Two of these were arranged here for live musicians, and these were presented  after the performance of two string quartets from him, the second of which was created for the Ardittis after hearing their own performance of the first. These two quartets were separated in the composer's output by another, never finished but referred to as his 'second' string quartet, so that the two performed here are known as the first and third.

The Third Nancarrow Quartet, which formed the second item in the second half of the Edinburgh concert, was a real revelation, being much of the time very delicate and almost melodic in its sound world, referencing at times the melancholic longing of the opening Janacek. Its first movement closed with an extended cello solo, excellently performed here by Lucas Fels – who was consistently good. The baton is then passed to the first violin, which has another extended, this time largely pizzicato, solo, with occasional accompaniment from the second violin, which occupies most of the second movement. The technically demanding and rhythmically unusual closing movement uses all four voices to come to a surprising ending.

The Ardittis performed excellently in a very varied and challenging mixture of repertoire. Broadcast live on BBC Radio Three, the performance remain listenable via the BBC website for another six days.

Lachenmann Mahler Arditti Nott Bamberg Prom 5

Lachenmann and Mahler at BBC Prom 5, with The Arditti Quartet,and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaonathan Nott.

"A musical negativa", Hans Werner Henze called Helmut Lachenmann. Henze, though not a Darmstadt devotee or theory hardliner, was innovative in his own way, so his views carry weight. In any case, Lachenmann thrived in the attention Henze generated, rather like Birtwistle thrived on the "Bad Boy" image created by the unsubstantiated story about Britten walking out of Birtwistle. Britten could read scores, and wouldn't have invited Birtwistle to Aldeburgh in the first place if he hadn't thought him worthwhile. You don't have to "like" music to appreciate its worth.

Lachenmann's Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied (1980) was an excellent choice for BBC Prom 5, whose audiences range from new music devotees to generalists who just go the Proms for a rousing night out. Even audiences with no idea who Lachenmann is will recognize the snatches of Bach, Handel, Haydn and the wacky waltzes and jazz riffs. These serve as landmarks, giving direction to a long work. Indeed, I think they're one of Lachenmann's jokes, since there is a lot more to the piece than a merry dance through German music history.

The Arditti Quartet can play even the most difficult works,with myriad virtuoso techniques. Modern music just wouldn't be possible without them. They made possible the modern revival of string quartet repertoire. I remember Irvine Arditti demonstrating the difference bretween pppp and pppppp.

One of the criticisms of Lachenmann is that he has a thing for gymnastic technical displays , sometimes for their own sake, which is why I've always preferred his more condensed chamber music to his larger scale works. Hearing Xenakis's  Pithoprakta, (1955-6) together with Lachernmann's Schreiben (2003) didn't do Lachenmann any favours. Tanzsuite for Deutschandlied works beautifully for me because at its core is a string quartet, the orchestra adding commentary and special effects, like the imaginative piano passages, magnificent percussion rolls, and sudden interjections from the brass.The long, barely audible introduction, the silences, the flurries of different pizzicato and percussive techniques  sudden swoons across the keyboard, a single chord on piano : immensely satisfying as a meditative zen sort of experience.

The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra is very good and enjoys a considerable reputation. The town is gorgeous though small, but the musicians are well served by the local community and university. The orchestra was playing Mahler in the 1960's under Joseph Keilberth. About ten years ago, Jonathan Nott recorded a series of Mahler symphonies with them where each symphony was paired with a modern work, including Henze. I liked Nott's Mahler 5 at the time, but less so on repeat hearings. This Proms performance was good enough and the Bambergers are always worth hearing.  Today I listened to the pre concert talk. Is that the level the BBC expect from their audiences? .

Arditti Quartet Wigmore Hall Rihm Saunders Abrahamsen Clarke

Wild weather outside the Wigmore Hall on Halloween Night, but the Arditti Quartet sparkled, revitalizing what has been a relatively bland five months in London music (with a few notable exceptions).

Brisk start to proceedings with James Clarke's String Quartet (2002-3) in place of the scheduled premiere of Clarke's 2012-5 for two string quartets. The JACK Quartet were due to join the Ardittis for this, but Hurricane Sandy intervened. No worries, since Clarke's String Quartet was commissioned for the Ardittis in the first place.They played with brio, relishing its zany, almost-but-not-quite anarchic delights. Ecstatic audience reaction.

Hans Abrahamsen's serene String Quartet no 4 (2012, UK premiere) was somthing of an odd man out in an evening of musical bourrasque, but I loved it. It's beautifully constructed in four movements, starting in a pitch so high it seems ethereal. Abrahamsen calls this movement "hoch im Himmel gesungen".  Arditti's bow scarcely seems to move, but amazing sounds emerge. Ashot Sarkissjan shadows the first violin, ghost-like, adding depth. The earthiness of folk melody, translated in graceful refinement.  A jam session for samisen and koto? Cello and viola (Lucas Fels and Ralf Ehlers) reinterpret the first movement in rumbling low pitch. Pizzicato reinforcing the idea of samisen and ancient instruments.  "Big black raindrops" says Abrahamsen in his notes. Joyous purity, good-natured poise.

"Fletch" refers to the feather placed on the end of an arrow to stabilize it in flight. You don't need to know this to follow Rebecca Saunders's Fletch for String Quartet (2012, UK premiere) since so much of her music moves like physical form. Great forward thrust and balance, purposeful.  Even her programme notes sound musical  "....this elemental sonic gesture is an up-bow sul point double-harmonic trill, often with fast glissando, crescendo-ing rapidly out of nothing to fortissimo....surface, weight and feel are part of the reality of performance. The weight of the bow on the string the differentiation of touch of the left-hand finger on the string...feeling the weight of sounds is an integral part of the composing process.... being aware of the grit and noise of an instrument, tracing the essence of the fragments of colour within a confined and reduced palette of timbres and exploring the physical gesture which creates a fragment of sound"  Anyone who still thinks modern music isn't emotional needs to hear Rebecca Saunders. Her music moves sensually, as if it were a living being, alert, sensitive, eclectic.

Before Hurricane Sandy, the Arditti and JACK Quartets were planning to play Mauro Lanza's Der Kampf zischen Karneval und Fasten for octet ( 2012, UK premiere).  One can imagine what that might sound like! Instead, the Arditti Quartet played Wolfgang Rihm's String Quartet no 13. Explosive attack at times, vigorous.  A deliberately deceptive ending to further throw you off balance, in a nice way. Listen to the August 2012 performance at the IMR HERE.


photo :  Zé Carlos Barretta from São Paulo, Brasil

Dead Firebird, Living Arditti - Stravinsky Dusapin Prom 16

While waiting in the car for Prom 16, a young parking inspector came up for a chat. "Are you going to classical music?", he asked brightly. "Someone in the line (for arena seats) said it cost only £5!" Now there's a man who's going to do his first Prom soon. "I'll bring a newspaper", he said, "to sit on" (which is probably a good use for what the print media has become, thanks in part to NI).

Proms audiences are fascinating. Genuine music lovers and anoraks and people who have no idea at all, except that the Proms are An Event. A few years ago I sat with a couple who were totally overwhelmed.  "Is that a timpani orchestra?" said one. "No, dear, it's a SYMPHONY orchestra". "What is this place?" "The Royal Albert Hall". "Who is Royal Albert?". Much consternation. "I had an uncle called Albert." And more. As my friend said "No one could make that up".

But I loved that pair, they were so genuine and so direct. Much, much nicer than some of the self promoting pseuds around. And guess what they were listening to? Birtwistle, which they approached completely without prejudice. And quite enjoyed..

The audience at this Prom seemed mostly new to music, too. "I heard of Firebird" said a woman near me."It was on the radio once." Which proves that the BBC is fulfilling its remit. Hearing it live must have been more fun than she could have imagined. Complete with trumpets in the upper gallery! So I did feel churlish, being so bored witless by this performance by Thierry Fischer conducting BBC NOW (National Orchestra of Wales, not as in "now", up-to-the minute). It's a good orchestra but what are they doing polishing the life out of this music? Stravinsky was writing for ballet, and ballet is physical. Fischer stretches the tempi, killing the dynamic pulse. A dancer would have to hold position so long that they'd lose their natural rhythm. You can only pose en pointe for a moment, or you collapse. The bassoonist entered twice with brio because she knows what her part symbolizes. Fischer pats her down to cool it. Later he tries to rouse the violins with vigorous hand movements, but too little, too late. Maybe Fischer wanted to bring out the range of colour in the music, which might work Haitink-style in a symphony. But ballet is different.

Last time we heard Firebird at the BBC Proms, it was part of the year they did all the Stravinsky ballets. That was an education, because it showed how writing for dance is as much a specialism as writing for voice. Gergiev, being a Mariinsky man, conducted with lethal fire. Dancers would be on their toes, literally, but if they were any good (as they probably are in Russia) they'd rise to the challenge. In 2008, Jurowski and LPO  did the Firebird more orchestrally but with similar verve. You can take the music out of the ballet theatre but you can't take the ballet out of the music.

Nonetheless, the audience loved Fischer's Firebird, which is what matters. Maybe the lady who heard  it on the radio will go on to listen again and hear more. But she'll never forget the thrill of hearing it live for the first time, and in the surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall. Berlioz's Overture Le Corsaire and Fauré's Pavane can be ravishing, but in the Proms ambiance, even Fischer's foursquare approach had an impact.

Much more interesting was Pascal Dusapin's String Quartet No. 6, 'Hinterland' ('Hapax' for string quartet and orchestra (2008-9)  commissioned by the Arditti Quartet who have championed so much of Dusapin's work. It's not quite a concerto for string quartet and orchestra because the primary focus is the quartet, the orchestra extending and expanding what they do. The four main protagonists converse, the orchestra behind them murmuring, clucking, chattering in response. Lots of wood in the orchestral strings, rhythmic affirmations and interjections. No percussion needed, the strings do the work. Two horns, two harps. The action here flows between soloists, quartet and orchestra, the whole a dizzying pattern of ever-changing interconnections.

Dusapin has often spoken about his interest in Samuel Beckett, so one way into this piece is to think of the individual members of the Arditti Quartet as voices, conferring. In real conversation, we express a lot through gesture and monosylllabic responses that express more than they seem on the surface. Dusapin's String Quartet no 6 was fascinating for me as a study in communication. In real life people interact through non-verbal clues, ums, ahs and nods, which all are part of the process of meaning. Real people don't declaim in flowery stylization. Thus the intricate maze of fragmentary sound and counter-sound, operating on several different levels at once. Nothing random in this dense web, every note purposefully placed.  I have no idea what Dusapin means by "hinterland" but for me, the idea emerges of the "hinterland" behind the foreground of conversation, the subconcious interactions that really make communication, much more than simply speech. 

A lot of new music is more approachable than you'd expect coming from conventional expectations oif what music "should" be. The development in Dusapin's Quartet no 6 is in the ebb and flow, rather than structural. There's no obvious resolution because in real life, communication never ends.  No doubt a lot of this audience froze at the very thought of "new" music but I was surprised how warmly some seemed to respond, whether or not they were thinking analytically.  Listen again online, for 7 days and get more from the experience. (There's also a programme where Dusapin talks about his work. Like most composers, he expresses himself better in music)

Brian Ferneyhough Full Focus

Brian Ferneyhough is one of the most innovative of living British composers. But because he's spent most of his life in continental Europe and the US he doesn't get the recognition he deserves in the UK.  Coming  up are several different major events which could redress the balance.  Ferneyhough's been labelled "New Complexity" but labels like that shouldn't put anyone off.  In 2005 I took my son to Shadowtime. The kid could not believe his ears. Then I noticed my Fernyhough CDs had been "borrowed", which proves open minds, open ears.

First, Ferneyhough's String Quartet no 6 with the Arditti Quartet from Huddersfield on BBC Radio 3 on Saturday 12th repeated online for a week. Read about the Wigmore Hall performance  last week.  This programme will also include Rebecca Saunders's Murmurs and Wounds 1, 2 and 3 from Richard Barrett. .

On 23 February, Brian Ferneyhough- a Symposium at the Institute of Musical Research. Click link for more details. Heavy duty but should be stimulating . Look at the speakers, who include Ferneyhough himself. A film of the Arditti Quartet playing String Quartet No 6 at Donaueschingen, and a concert in the evening.

Then Ferneyhough Total immersion  at the Barbican on 26th February, Saturday. It won't be as deep as the IMR symposium, but worth attending. It starts with Colin Still's film about Time and Motion Study !!, which is very well made and sensitive. Quatuor Diotoma do the lunchtime concert, but the evening concert is extremely important. Larger works for orchestra (conductor Martyn Brabbins) Book now if you haven't already - follow this link.

Up north, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, there'll be a Brian Ferneyhough Day on 28th February. Two concerts, open forum and Ferneyhough in attendance.

Then another concert on 7th March at Kings Place - the Elison Ensemble do Time and Motion Study I and II.. Circle this, too! A few years ago someone asked me who should feature in a Total Immersion. "Ferneyhough" says me. "Too difficult" says they. But it's come around at last, and we'll all celebrate.

4 premieres - Arditti Quartet Wigmore Hall

Four premieres in one concert! The Arditti Quartet are pioneers. Over the last 30 years, they've led the resurgance of new works for string quartet. Because they're technically superlative, composers can write  knowing they're capable of almost anything. Performers spark off composers and vice versa. Every Arditti Quartet recital I've been to over the years has something challenging, and many include major new works in the canon.

Any new work by Brian Ferneyhough is a milestone. The Arditti Quartet, who have worked with the composer for nealy 30 years, introduced his String Quartet no 6 at Donaueschingen late last year, so this Wigmore Hall recital was much welcomed. Seventeen years elapsed between Ferneyhough's Fourth String Quartet and his Fifth, premiered by the Ardittis at Aldeburgh in 2006. Only four years later, Ferneyhough's again breaking new ground. The energetic sense of adventure is still there but textures are more transparent. A whirlpool of tiny fragments, scattering skittishly in multiple directions. Brief clearing, and brief moments when the four players are playing in confluence. There's a wonderful slow passage which Irvine Arditti plays so expressively that you hold your breath in wonder.

Ferneyhough (always worth quoting) says that the idea of this multiplicity was to "create an unpredictable tangle of conflicting materials and time frames....leading to a sort of mirrored or negative hierarchy of material". Listen for yourself,. It's hard to take in all at once, but it's so intriguing it pulls you in.


Dai Fujikura's Flame (2010) is a Wigmore Hall commission. It employs similar ideas of small fragments, flying, combining and separating. Big, percussive pizzicato beginning, dying down for a moment when the players strum  their instruments for resonance. Almost romantic and very visual. Fujikawa remembers watching a campfire as a child, seeing flames rise and embers fall. "The composition" he says "evolves into a slow motion arco rendering of the pizzicato and its reverse. The audience loved this - new music isn't frightening when approached with this sense of adventure.

Hilda Paredes' Canciones Lunáticas (2009) are based on three poems about the moon by Pedro Serrano. The piece begins with low, windlike emanations from the strings, for the first song depicts the moon suffering, unprotected in "the slaughterhouse of the heavens" as it crosses over "a landscape laid waste". The second song describes los lunáticas , "the moonstruck" who have to be locked away so they don't wander off beguiled. The last song is a tantalising miniature, where the moon, having "broken free", dances "sola en el prado".

Surreal and otherworldy : ideal for countertenor, though I think it might be transposed for soprano. The piece was written for Jake Arditti, so perhaps the family tradition will continue. Just as the string players use many techniques, so does the singer. At one stage he puts his finger in his mouth to make round, whirring sounds, immediately replicated by strings. The effect is quite amazing. A voice, after all, is a wind instrument! Many sibilants in the vocal line, stretched and sharpened so they cut. Voice as percussion?  Small tight vocal  outbursts like pizzicato, a big, arching "O" like the sound of a cello.

The recital began with James Clarke's String Quartet no 2 (2009). It was a good choice, as the piece introduces some of the ideas that appear in later works, but is readily accesssible. In most other programmes it would  have impressed but Ferneyhough is simply in another vstratosphere bfrom anyone else.

Please note, there's A Ferneyhough Total; I,m,mersion at the Barbican in March.  Also an important Kurtag Focus at the Wigmore Hall in February. I've been to the first part and will write more on Sunday.

Wigmore Hall Festive Sale

Some VERY important concerts are included in the Wigmore Hall 10% discount offer on some concerts during January and February 2011

The Arditti Quartet are giving the London premiere of Brian Ferneyhough's String Quartet No 6. This is  MAJOR news and you can get in for £10.80. Ferneyhough is I think the greatest of living British composers (and a darn sight better than some dead ones) and the Arditti Quartet are his finest interpreters. If the Ferneyhough were not enough to make headlines, there are also three other new works by well established composers: Hilda Paredes, Dai Fujikura and James Clarke.

The other big news in February is the Wigmore Hall Kurtág series. There's a full price 3 day study workshop at the beginning of the month which includes a ticket to Marino Fomenti's concert on 9/2 which "combines Kurtág’s pieces with works from Beethoven, Bach and Schumann to Messiaen and Bartók." If you can't make the daytime workshops, tickets to this concert are discounted, which is a good idea. To understand a composer, understand his context.

The highlight of the Kurtág series will be Juliane Banse singing Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragmente with violinist András Keller. If you hated Dawn Upshaw and Peter Sellars' version of this work at the Barbican a while back, think again and hear Banse and Keller. Keller is to Kurtág what Arditti is to Ferneyhough. There just isn't anyone who knows the composer's idiom so intimately. Although there are at least 4 recordings of this seminally-important work, the one by Banse and Keller (1996) is the benchmark. It was made with Kurtág himself, advising in rehearsals and in the studio. Hear Banse and Keller and realize just how powerful this piece really can be, shorn of Sellars' silliness. Anyone remotely interested in 20th century music needs to hear Banse and Keller do this live.

Other recommendations in the WH's Festive Offer : Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace on 16th January, playing Korngold, Prokofiev and Frank Auberbach Preludes op 48. Unusual programme - worth catching. Piers Lane plays Schubert, Beethoven and Chopin on 24th.

February is even better. Boris Giltburg - Chopin, Prokofiev on 8/2. the Borodin Quartet play Myaskovsky's String Quartet no 3 op 86 which is getting cult status in some circles. Stéphane Degout sings an ambitious French recital on 10/2 which I'll go to - may be worth keeping an ear on him. And Midori, for whom I have a soft spot even though she's playing Brett Dean, for whom I don't.
This snow is nothing by Siberian standards  but I feel "snowed in". So over the next vfew days, I'll write about DVDs , CDs and books. Wagner Rienzi for example, fantastic !

Dum Transissets Ferneyhough

A feast of Dum Transissets at Saturday's Prom Matinee, built around Brian Ferneyhough's Dum Transisset I-IV. A whole Prom built around a short string quartet? But Ferneyhough's one of the most interesting European composers around, anything he does is seriously significant. (Book now for the Ferneyhough Total Immersion.) It's been heard at Salzburg, Huddersfield and Berlin, but this was the London premiere.  Listen to the The Arditti Quartet on the repeat broadcast  (starts at 43.0 minutes).

The reference is Dum transisset Sabbatum, "When the Sabbath hath past", meaning the Sabbath after Jesus's Crucifixion. Jesus has died and been buried. But when his friends go to anoint his body, he appears, alive again. The key mystery in the whole New Testament. As is said in the commentary, the idea is that the Ardittis find their way "like Houdinis" through Ferneyhough's intricate maze. 

Four sections which move from statis to horror through rapture to wild freedom: Reliquary, Totentanz, Shadows and Contrafracta. Barely audible tappings, bowings that shape huge twisting contortions, exquisite pppp that makes you listen intently.  Maybe the excellent blog 5 against 4 will write about it?  He writes about new music in an  informed but communicative way, which is good.  Part of the reason new music doesn't get through to "ordinary" people is because some of the fraternity likes excluding outsiders. It's not technicality that intimidates (anyone can master that)  but the spirit of cliqueyness. That's not fair on the music, much of which is very good indeed. There's no reason mere mortals shouldn't enjoy new music, given encouragement to enjoy and feel.   

Perhaps that's why this Prom encased Ferneyhough with other works on the same Risen from the Dead theme. Those accustomed to contemplating the miracle in the New Testament have already acquired contemplative skills and should be able to adapt them to new means of expression.  That said, I'd rather have listened to the original Dum Transisset by Christopher Tye (1505?-1572?) which inspired Ferneyhough in the first place. It's much more unearthly and primeval than the latter-day versions included in this Prom.

Luckily, we did get Taverner (the original). I did hear the whole concert through, so maybe I did a Houdini too, since only Ferneyhough (and Taverner) were worth more than one listen. Sorry but I'm definitely no fan of Jonathan Harvey or Thea Musgrave. I could hear where Bayan Northcott was going with his Hymn to Cybele but it was a bit too Birtwistle for me.

Wolfgang Rihm Arditti String Quartet

Last night Wolfgang Rihm was present at LSO St Luke's in London when the Arditti Quartet played his String Quartet No 5 "Ohne Titel". This is the one where the violin plays so fast you'd think the strings would ignite and burst into flames. The Paganini observation's apt because every now and then there are fragments of past music, a Zigeuner, for example glimpsed at, and particles of waltz. And the first violin's demonic, pushing the other instruments to greater heights. It's so inventive, exhilarating.

Over the last 30 years, the Arditti Quartet has been the motor of new music for string quartet: Rihm's great passion. No wonder heartfelt embraces at the end, between composer and players.

Also on the programme was the more recent (1999-2004) Fetzen I-VIII. It's scored for string quartet and accordion, here played by Teodoro Anzellotti. The accordion stretches - literally - the range of sounds strings can make. An accordion pushes air and pulls it forth, like a giant bellows. So swoops of sound that add sonority to the higher strings. The strings swoop and slide in relation to the accordion: the cello almost matches, it's even quite humorous. For many composers, the accordion's useful because of its humble connotations. For Rihm, its valid for its own sake, its possibilities still unplumbed. How thrilled I was today when Rihm himself said of one of the Fetzen segments, that it was meant to be funny, the violin madly bowing as quickly as he could, and the others saying "slow down! slow down!"

More on Rihm in the next few days and also on Wilhelm Killmayer), Rihm's hero and mine too. (Scroll up or use search facilty on right.)

HERE for a picture of my favourite accordionist. I don't know who he is, I found him in an antiques shop, he's so adorable, he should be preserved forever as he was in 1935.

Wolfgang Rihm - et lux et al

Wolfgang Rihm's Et Lux had its UK premiere last weekend at Huddersfield ( for more on the Huddersfield Festival which continues this week please see HERE) It's different because it brings together the Arditti Quartet, who do ultra modern, and the Hilliard Ensemble, who sing early music. Rihm has experimented with odd combinations before, like his refiguring of Bach, but this is quite new.

Ivan Hewett was there. Here's what he said "After a wispy single-line introduction from the quartet came a pure euphonious vocal chord. It was light but shadowy, a stunning moment of "darkness visible".......Often, the music tipped towards harsh dissonance, though always in a soft voice.....someimes, the quartet seemed to fight the voices with plucked and scrubbed sounds, sometimes it was like a second four-part choir." Read the full review HERE.

Looking ahead, there's a Wolfgang Rihm Total Immersion at the Barbican in London in March. See HERE for details. Wow ! Lots of previously unheard work and Rihm will be there himself to talk to.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2009

The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival starts Friday 20th November. This is Britain's biggest new music festival, and has been going for decades, though some years have been a lot better than others. This is where to go for the hip in new European music. Huddersfield is an industrial city up north, expensive to get to if you live in the south, but BBC Radio3 will be broadcasting some highlights. Lots of composers, few know outside specialist circles, plus some of the greats - this year features Louis Andriessen.

Read this year's programme HERE. The hot item on 20/11 will be Wolfgang Rihm's -ET LUX- UK premiere, performed by the Arditti Quartet, so closely associated with the composer, and the Hilliard Quartet.

Pity the BBC won't be doing this , but they're devoting 90 minutes on 28 November to the festival and to Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, which is being done as a full installation tomorrow. Normally Harvey is not my thing, but this piece is fabulous, and made Harvey's reputation way back. It's about different levels of time, expressed by mixing bells, a boy's voice and electronic sound: it' would be moving to hear as live installation in a church. Lots more Harvey during the festival as he's "featured composer". Piano works on 21/11, followed by the Ardittis playing string quartets, including works by James Dillon and James Clarke.

Another not miss if possible is David Sawer's Rumpelstiltskin with the BCMG. This received rave reviews when it was premiered in Birmingham recently. Conducted by Martyn Brabbins and directed by Richard Jones, it's evidently a major event, which won't be quite the same audio-only. Pity it's coming nowhere near London.

Bas Wiegers brings the Nieuw Ensemble from the Netherlands for several concerts : look at the one which has Luca Francesconi, Gérard Pesson and Stefano Bellon (24/11). But the big draw will be Louis Andriessen Day on Nov 25th at which the composer himself will be present. The afternoon concert brings smaller scale works (Cristina Zavalloni sings) and in the evening a two piano feast - including De Staat transcribed for pianos, and the Hague Hacking (which grew on me after repeat listening) and the companion pair, A very sharp trumpet sonata and A very sad trumpet sonata. These are whimsical miniatures but extremely inventive, full of witty ideas.

Emmanuel Nunes day on 25th. Nunes is well known in Europe, unknown in UK, He spent his working years teaching in Paris, but now he's retired and back in Lisbon, his own work should get higher profile. At Huddersfield Noriko Kawai (excellent) will be playing his masterpiece, Litanies de feu et de la mer 1 and 11. Read THIS description of his work from IRCAM. Listen HERE for sound clips of Litanies, and HERE for a description of the Guild CD. Quatuor Diotima premieres his Improvisation IV - l'électricité de la pensée humaine the next evening.

Everyone knows and loves Rolf Hind as a pianist, so there'll be interest in his own work, A jasmine petal, a single hair, seven mattresses, a pea I've only heard one of Hind's pieces, the title I can't remember but it was interesting enough that I'd like to hear this. He'll be playing the UK premiere of a work by Lisa Lim, whom I've also heard but less memorably. Frederic Rzewski is also a big name pianist, and here will be playing his own Nanosonatas Books III to VI. Also featured will be a Danish composer, Jexper Holmen, completely new to me and Rebecca Saunders' premiere Disclosure. Read more about her on this blog, her music intrigues me, its so tactile.

As always, the last Saturday night in any festival is the big night and this one has the London Sinfonietta, Jonathan Harvey and Richard Barrett. Barrett's Mesopotamia has its world premiere, and will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 on 28 November, available online worldwide and on demand for a week on the BBC website. "Inspired by artefacts found on ancient archeological sites, Richard Barrett's Mesopotamia has a "dense, multi-layered structure that imitates the successive destruction and re-building of communities throughout history. Scored for 17 instruments and electronics, the piece forms the fifth part of a series of compositions collectively entitled resistance & vision", says the blurb. Barrett and his partner Paul Obermayer will be doing the electro acoustics, and there'll be two vocalists. More electro-acoustics next night, too, with Enno Poppe and Wolfgang Heiniger, Tiere sitzen nicht. "Animals don't sit". Poppe's work is very conceptual, and with such a concept, anything's possible.
Read about Rihm's Et lux and the forthcoming Rihm immersion day at the Barb HERE