Saved by good musicianship - Last Night of the Proms 2019

Last Night of the Proms 2019 - a wild night out, as usual, where music isn't really the point.  But we still care, and with Sakari Oramo conducting the flagship BBC Symphony Orchestra, we could count on good playing  and some musical excellence. Oramo's good nature makes him a natural communicator, so he's a good compere too (better than most BBC presenters). "In an age of social media attention spans", he said "it's good that audiences can enjoy live concerts". Thank goodness for that. But one wonders if these days, LNOP is not about music at all.

A few years back, Arron Banks, the millionaire with "interesting" non-British connections and no known musical background, tried to swamp the LNOP with free Union Jacks.  Which the Prommers largely rejected,  making their sympathies clear. After all, music is international, and without freedom of movement British musicians couldn't work abroad, nor international musicians enter.  If Parliament can be prorogued to curb the normal process of democracy, can the BBC stand up to political pressure?  Its promotion of Farage did him no harm, whatseover. Rupert Murdoch must be very pleased. This year the stage and balconies of the Royal Albert Hall were festooned with Union Jacks - not placed by prommers but by those who want control.  Patriotism is a good thing but political manipulation is not.  Isn't the Union Jack supposed to stand for Union ?  Don't Scotland, London and indeed millions of others who don't support extremism matter anymore ? A fait accompli, like a coup.

There were some compensations, though. Daniel Kidane's Woke, was actually good as music.  Many LNOP commissions, even by top composers, are somewhat perfunctory, but this had substance.  An inventive sound palette, with exotic sounds, building up to a panorama which felt full of incident and imaginative detail.  Dominant chords gave the piece a firm framework, and distinctive character.  Nice depth of texture, too.  At the top, high timbres flew freely, supported by elusive wind figures, lower winds, brass and strings providing bedrock.  Lots of development too - in the quiet section mysterious background sounds enhance the main theme. The finale was gorgeous, building up to a full throated, affirmative tutti.  Kidane has written about the concepts behind the piece which are perhaps even more important in a Britain that's become increasingly intolerant of diversity.  Woke is good enough that it stand on its own terms.  The real problem with society is that it's based on a system that promotes inequality.  The lack of musical education in school doesn't help either,. Indeed a good school system would help a lot in combatting ignorance.  Instead we now live in times when racism is mainstream. Years ago, I watched Gordon Laing, a great basssoonist, walk towards the Royal Albert Hall, carrying his bassoon case, an object non-musicians might mistake for something sinister. Plus, he was wearing a  hoodie and slouch pants. A white guy might not have worried, but let's face it,  statistically not being white gets you into trouble even when you're doing nothing wrong.  Let us never be complacent.

Oramo conducted an exuberant suite from Manuel de Falla The Three Cornerd Hat, again establishing musical credentials.  Laura Mvula's Sing to the Moon has been heard three times at the Proms, here in an a capella arrangement for the BBC Singers and Chorus. Then, Elisabeth Maconchy's Proud Thames, commisioned for the Coronation: a well crafted piece, horns and winds over swirling strings, and blows of timpani.  A strong current - like the Thames - flowing through the countryside to a London then full of hope and optimism.  It worked well with Elgar's Sospiri op 70 completed on the verge oif the beginning of the 1914-1918 war.  The strings ma y seem peaceful, but as so often with Elgar, there's an underlying mood of tension,which Oramo and the BBC SO picked up on. Though the strings and harps and organ might suggest serenity, the piece isn't subtitled "Sighs" for nothing.

But the "new" Proms priorities came to. the fore with Jamie Barton, for whom the BBC Publicity department seems to have pulled out all the stops. The Habanera from Carmen is so popular that it will always thrill a crowd, as did the hit numbers from Samson et Delilah and Verdi Don Carlos. But one wonders what the reception would be from opera house audiences used to full operas and more demanding standards. Big voices always appeal, but phrasing, controlled vibrato, intonation, and subtlety are important too. When she sang Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, the RAH crowd went wild, but I kept thinking of Joyce DiDonato, who sang it with such fervour and finesse that her performance felt like a truly historic moment, elevating the piece from song to anthem.  The Triumphal March from Aida restored the balance, extremely well done, especially considering that Oramo and the BBCSO, the BBC Singers and Chorus don't do a whole lot of opera. 

More good music after the interval, too, with the Overture from Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld (wonderful violin !)  and Percy Grainger's Marching Song of Democracy for wordless chorus which is a novelty for good reasons, I suspect.  At last, Sakari Oramo introduced the party part of the Last Night of the Proms. "Let's go !". The perennial Fantasia on British Sea Songs (arranged by Henry Wood), played at gloriously manic pace, Thomas Arne's Rule, Britannia! arranged by Malcolm Sargent, 

Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance March (Land of Hope and Glory)  and Jerusalem in Elgar's arrangement of Hubert Parry, with the National Anthem arranged by Benjamin Britten. .No matter how many times we've heard these same pieces, they come alive again when performed as well as this. 

 

Andrew Davis : Tippett Szymanowski Debussy Barbican

Andrew Davis photo: Chris Christodoulou, bBC

Andrew Davis conducted the BBC SO at the Barbican Hall in London. Top billing to Michael Tippett's The Rose Lake, almost exactly a year after Simon Rattle conducted it with the London Symphony Orchestra, with whom it has been associated since its premiere with Colin Davis in 1995. The Rose Lake is a video in music, inspired by Le lac rose in Sénégal, which Tippett visited in 1990.  As the angle of the sun changed, the colours in the landscape changed, a concept that translates well into a study of orchestral colour.  It was "a continuous five part composition, in essence a set of variations .....a song without words for orchestra", as Tippett wrote at the time.  The sections with programmatic titles mix with sections where only tempo gives clue to meaning, the twelve short segments moving forward in sequence, suggesting the passage of time. Dense but lucid layers of sound as beautifully structured as mosaic.  Andrew Davis, though, brings out its descriptive nature. The panoply of marimbas, vibraphone, and xylophone rustled, suggesting breezes, grasses, rushing water. The massed percsussion even suggested "African" sounds, woodwinds and brass calling like wild creatures against a savannah of strings.  In the organic "earth forms" and especially in the bird and bell sounds, The Rose Lake resembles the music of Olivier Messiaen. Thus the logic of programming it with masters of colour and transparency like Symanowski and Debussy.  A pity that Rattle paired it with Mahler Symphony no 10, with which it has almost nothing in common, since Rattle's feel for Szymanowski and Debussy runs very deep indeed, Rattle being one of Szymanowski's modern pioneers.  Rattle would have made the connections more strongly, but Davis presents it on its own  terms, less Messiaen and divine inspiration than tone poem but perfectly valid. 

Szymanowski's Violin Concerto no 1 dates from around 1916, when he was making a creative breakthrough. To quote Jim Samson, the foremost Szymanowski scholar, writing as long ago as 1981, "the orchestra is conceived rather as a reservoir from which may be drawn an infinite variety of timbral combinations....the string body...sub divided into many parts, further characterized by the most delicate combinations of arco and pizzicato, harmonics, sul tasto, sul ponticello and tremolando effects".As Jim Samson said in his book, The Music of Karol Szymanowski (1981), in the Violin Concert no 1 "the formal scheme is totally unique and represents an ingenious solution to the problem of building extended structures without resorting to sonata form". The almost chaotic proliferation of sub groups and themes within the orchestra, contrasted with extended violin cantilenas, soaring high above the orchestra, are so refined and so rarified that they seem to propel the music into new stratospheres, beyond earthly possibilities. Mandelbrot patterns, in music, mathematically precise, yet full of the vigour of natural, organic growth.  Though a contemporary of Debussy, Stravinsky and Bartók, Szymanowski's music defies category and is astonishingly prophetic. No surprise then that Boulez adored him, and made the keynote recording with Christian Tetzlaff and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.  I enjoyed Lisa Batiashvili's more romantic approach with Andrew Davis and the BBCSO but to really get the full wonder of the piece you need Tetzlaff and Boulez.  

This concert concluded with Alain Altinoglu's suite on Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.  Please read more about the background HERE. Nothing whatseover wrong with suites. These days there's ill-informed prejudice against them butn they serve a good purpose. In the case of Pelléas et Mélisande a suite arrangement is perfectly valid, since  it focuses on the orchestral aspects of the opera - Debussy's only opera - presenting it almost as tone poem like La Mer. Thus it can be programmed more readily in the concert hall, bringing it to non-opera audiences. The opera itself  is by no means a typical narrative opera, so this orchestral approach has its merits. 

Internal Landscapes : Bax, Vaughan Williams - Brabbins, BBCSO

Martyn Brabbins conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. at the Barbican in Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphony no 4 and Arnold Bax November Woods   A good combination which had the potential to yield  interesting insights in musical terms. So why does BBC Radio 3 management need to market this as "Remembering World War I" ? Neither piece has  anything to do with war.  Alas, BBC R3 seems hell bent on prioritizing non-musical agendas over music, to meet non-musical targets. Long term, this policy of dumbing down destroys real musical understanding. Better to treat audiences as adults who aren't afraid to think or listen.

Both Vaughan Williams's Fourth Symphony and Bax's November Woods are explorations of ideas that aren't so easy to put in prose : "internal landscapes" so to speak, that find expression in sounds and musical form.  November Woods (1917) isn't about forests per se but forests as metaphors for emotion    It's worth quoting Bax's (non-symphonic) poem Amersham, as the programme book does :

Storm, a mad painter's brush, swept sky and land
with burning signs of beauty and despair
And once rain scourged through shrivelling wood and brake,
And in our hearts tears stung, and the old ache
Was more than any God would have us bear. 

Here the musical forces were in the fore, the orchestra voicing whatever inner storm Bax might have sought to address. The introduction seems to surge and strain, driven by fast-flowing strings, lit by flashes of woodwinds and harp, darkened by violas, celli, oboe and bassoons.  A theme energes, first from cor anglais, then more boldly by horn and then oboe and cello : a duality which could suggest many things, but is part of the very conception. Themes cool and warm, creating flux, but there's no easy resolution. The coda was hushed, mysterious, open-ended.  November Woods is much more "modern" than you'd expect, connecting in this sense to other works of the period.

photo : Jules Barbieri

Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony no 4 in F minor (1931-4) received an astonishing performance from Brabbins and the BBCSO. In the Barbican Hall, the impact was spectacular. Though BBC broadcasts are usually good, on air this one was lifeless, giving no sense of occasion.  "I don't like the work itself much",  RVW told Sir Henry Wood, but it is undoubtedly a very fine piece. Good music "exists" by its own creative volition : it's not manufactured to preconceived specifications like a consumer product.  As the composer was later to write "I do think it beautiful...because we know that beauty can come from unbeautiful things".  The introduction on this occasion exploded with extreme but controlled force. Although this fanfare is shocking, it does connect to other aspects of the composer’s work.  At times I was reminded of the figure in the Antiphon in Five Mystical Songs which is relevant, since "The Church with psalms must shout....My God and King ". Vaughan Williams, who knew the Bible and Messianic traditions, understood the concept of forces so powerful that they cannot be constrained.  Pounding ostinato, trumpets (with Biblical signifigance) ablaze, trombones and tuba adding depth.  The theme isn't meant to be soothing. It could reflect the "terrible beauty" from the Book of Job Ch 37, 17-22, though there is nothing religious about this symphony. The references merely serve to indicate that a cataclysm of some sort is being unleashed : no other connotations.

More brass in the second movement, marked andante moderato, but this time more restrained, the strings of the BBCSO murmuring en masse, from which the woodwind line rose, moving ever upwards.  A sense of unease : tense pizzicato creating a fragile though regular beat. The flute melody, exquisitely played, had a poignant quality: painfully alone but unbowed.  Wildness returned with the third movement, brass pounding, trombones creating long zig-zag lines. For a moment the tuba leads a trio with grunting bassoons. The term "scherzo" means "joke" but the humour here is darkly ironic. This colours the sprightly theme which follows : it's not escapist.  With the figure I called "My God and King" the overwhelming thrust of the first movement returns, angular dissonances flying in all directions, clod-hopping ostinato suggesting grotesque horror. Again, no resolution, no easy answers. Perhaps we can guess why RVW dedicated it to Bax.

The contrast with the intensity and sheer musical quality of Vaughan Williams's symphony put Cheryl Frances-Hoad's Last Man Standing into place.  This is a big work, running as long as the symphony, and was served up with lighting effects, props and a shower of objects which might be poppies, and co-ordinated dresses for composer and text writer.  The piece was specially commissioned to mark the 1914-1918 war.  But there is a lot more to war than pretty images.  Much of the problem lies in the text, 15 verses on aspects of life in the trenches, by Tamsin Collison.  Frances-Coad's setting illustrates well but is more sound effects than music.  Entertaining enough, and certainly not mentally or emotionally challenging. But war is not entertainment. and never should be trivialized.  We know, or should by now know, what it was like in the trenches, but no sign here of any reflection or personal insight.  The baritone soloist, Marcus Farnsworth, did his best, as did the orchestra, but this piece bore all the signs of music-made-to-order.  Millions died and suffered in the Great War, which re-shaped the whole world.  To what avail ? 

Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony - Martyn Brabbins BBCSO

From Hyperion, an excellent new Ralph Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony with Martyn Brabbins conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Chorus,  Elizabeth Llewellyn and Marcus Farnsworth soloists. This follows on from Brabbins’s highly acclaimed Vaughan Williams Symphony no 2 "London" in the rarely heard 1920 version. Although Brabbins has not hitherto recorded much Vaughan Williams, he is a superlative conductor of British music and of 20th century British music in particular, so the prospect of a new Hyperion series with Brabbins is intriguing.

The brass fanfare sparkles, strong and bright, rather than brassy,  introducing the first line "Behold, the Sea! ". In many ways,  this symphony is a secular hymn to the sea and what it might represent, so the voice parts are integral to meaning. For a moment the orchestra sings on its own but the voices rise upon the crest, chorus and orchestra surging forwards together. A roll of timpani, and again the anthem "Behold the Sea!" repeated wave after wave.  The tide fades, introducing a new theme highlighted by rhythms that suggest shanty song. Hence the interplay between the first soloist and the chorus, "a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, like a surge".  This call and response relationship also suggests sacred song.  The flags flying here include a special one "for the soul of man"......a spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates". Though the influence of Debussy and Ravel is significant, the Sea Symphony is very much part of the English choral tradition, albeit in very sophisticated form.  After a brief lull, the music surges forth again, underlined by organ. The baritone returns, singing of the "pennant universal", the chorus and soprano repeating the words in concurrence.  Then, as so often in chorale,  the first verse returns, the soprano at first on her own, the theme elaborated by the baritone, chorus and orchestra together.

The second movement is introduced by mysterious low harmonies, setting the mood "On the beach at night alone".  Here, the organ is particularly resonant, the brass and low timbred winds calling out as if in hymnal.  At first the baritone is alone, but gradually joined by small than full chorus.  "All nations, all identities......This vast similitude spans them".  The voices and orchestra repeat the themes, like waves, rising and falling in volume and force.  Beautifully judged orchestral playing, the solo instruments heard clearly, before blending back into the whole, rather like stars in a night sky.   The fanfare in the scherzo movement was more tumultuous than the fanfare at the very start, for it describes the churning of waves "in the wake of the sea-ship after she passes" - wild but not "motley" given the precise definition in the music, which Brabbins kept sharply focused.

If A Sea Symphony is a journey. it is one which proceeds, like many journeys, looking backwards at turns, but ever forward.  Hence the final movement, titled The Explorers, where the ship appears to be taking off into unknown territory.  The scherzo movement operated like a Dies Irae, a monent of judgement clearing the way for a more esoteric future. "After the seas are all cross'd, ........The true son of God shall come singing his songs."  The mood is now altogether more esoteric, the first verse serene yet expansive with long lines that seem to stretch  and search. Shimmering strings echo the voices of the chorus, then joined by brass and winds, and later organ, repeat the harmonies.  After this long choral section, the symphony reaches a new stage. Farnsworth and Llewellyn lead the way ahead "fearlessfor unknown   shores on waves of ecstasy to sail". The solo violin defines yet another stage, with an element of peaceful bliss. Thus we are prepared for the section "O thou transcendent". Farnsworth's voice glows, the relative lightness of his baritone well suited to the luminous imagery in the text. In the finale, the energy and exuberance of the first movemen returns, invigorated "Away ! Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!"  Llewelyn rallies the chorus and the orchestra surges yet again. Sea shanty rhythms are heard again as the "ship" sets forth. The motif "Behold the Sea" is reprised before the very last section, but as the "ship" sails out of sight, silence gradually descends, as if some form of transcendence is achieved.  Brabbins's instinct for structure, honed from years of experience in modern music, pays off handsomely in this last movement, which unfolds with great coherence.  This A Sea Symphony feels like the herald of a new age, as indeed it was, connecting also to other 20th century music of spiritual yearning. 

As a bonus, this recording includes Darest thou now, O soul, a three minute miniature for unison voices and string orchestra, (a hymn with orchestra !) using the same Walt Whitman text which Vaughan Williams used in Towards the Unknown Region.  It is an excellent choice, complementing A Sea Symphony not only in terms of poetic ideas but also taking up the violin line near the end of the symphony.

Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem - Prom 41 Gardner, Elgar, Boulanger

Prom 41 at the Royal Albert Hall, London, with Edward Gardner conducting the BBCSO in Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem, Elgar's Cello Concerto (Jean-Guihen Queyras) and Lili Boulanger .   Extremely perceptive performances that revealed deep insight, far more profound than the ostensible  "1918" theme   Neither Boulanger nor Elgar had direct experience of war, but, like all decent people with any conscience, they cared about what was happening around them, and could address the human impact of war.

Boulanger's Pour les funerailles d'un soldat is a grave processional, a far more mature piece than the miniatures she is usually represented by on programmes that stress her gender and youth, as opposed to her music.  A steady pace, drum rolls, the tolling of bells and rising frisson in the orchestra enhance the solemn choral backdrop. The strength of  Alexandre Duhamel's delivery added even more gravitas.  At the end, wordless sighs vocalized by the voices of the BBC Symphony Chorus.  This provided context for Elgar's Cello Concerto in G minor op 85 (1918-9) which, in some ways,  is am abstract funeral of sorts.  Jean-Guihen Queyras defined the first theme drawing out the richness, as if to savour it.  Gardner and the BBCSO reiterated the theme with sweeping expansiveness.  Theme and response repeat,  replicating the rising and falling figures which move like processional.  Queyras's tone was beautiful, suggesting the warmth of Elgar's vision, yet also pointedly poignant.  As so often in Elgar, confidence is undercut by an awareness that things do not remain the same forever.  Although Gardner's approach was not as full blooded as, say, Barbirolli, he conducted with refined sensitivity, which worked well with Queyras's sophisticated elegance.  The sudden changes of direction were nicely defined, enhancing the interaction between soloist and orchestra.  Though we've heard Elgar's Cello Concerto so many times, this approach was perfectly valid, and rewarding because it was slightly unusual.  For an encore, Queyras chose Dutilleux, one of the Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher, a brave choice in a place like the Royal Albert Hall where sensitive playing is usually drowned out.  But Queyras's mastery held the audience spellbound.

But the highlight of Prom 41 was, undoubtedly, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem, which Gardner approached with astonishing originality, bringing out the power in the message. Perhaps in modern times, we can better appreciate the visceral intensity.  Gardner also drew out the structural cohesion of the piece, and even brought out its cyclic qualities, which are themselves part of meaning.  Beware of over-emphasizing the use of different texts. (Think Elgar Sea Pictures, for example)  What matters is how Vaughan Williams draws together different strands of human experience into an integrated whole.  Sophie Bevan stood in the organ loft, distant but not too distant, a reminder that the organ and its restrained undertones pulse at the heart of this piece.  Bevan floated her lines so they penetrated the vastness of the hall, the exqusite purity of her tone reflected in the winds. Within moments serenity was shattered by savage chords, the pounding of timpani and the call of trumpets.  "Beat! Beat ! Drums" is a Dies Irae in all but name, the lines swirling and whipping like flames, swept by violent forces, the BBC SO and Chorus unleashing fury.

Neal Davies sang the Reconciliation, where the word “beautiful" is repeated, not only by the soloist but by the chorus. Beautiful, because "mine Enemy is dead, a man as divine as myself is dead".  This is the core "anti war" sentiment, refuting the idea that war resolves things: in death, all men are equal. Thus the deliberate phrasing, where Davies parsed the sentence with pauses. "I draw near", he continued, approaching the intimate moment of the kiss, with reverence.  A violin melody singing alone, garlanded, like the soprano was earlier, by hushed chorus.  Thus a brief repeat of the Dona Nobis Pacem, plaintive and austere with a rumble of muffled drums as the Dirge began, its quiet , relentless pace suggesting the cortege described in Walt Whitman's text.  With the four strophes, the chorus burst out defiantly. "I hear the great drums pounding...and every blow of the great convulsive drums strikes me through and through".  This is vintage Vaughan Williams in every way, with its echoes of Symphony no 3,  the tag "pastoral" more ironic than literal.  The text, also Whitman, refers to "two veterans, son and father" who die together, buried in a double grave, statistically an unlikely image in modern warfare, but one which works in metaphysical terms, underlining relentless futility, where one war engenders the next.  No words needed in the orchestral postlude, from which Davies re-emerges as the voice of the Angel of Death; the words "Dona nobis pacem" now appear almost as screams of protest.  The swirling furies of the Dies Irae return, to a text from the Book of Jeremiah."There is no balm in Gilead".

Most dramatic of all was the final section. "O Man, greatly beloved" sang Davies with fulsome affirmation, followed by orchestra and chorus in a series of quotations from the Old Testament. Gardner defined the ebb and flow, intensifying the trajectory: If all things must change, there may be resolutions beyond the grave, and from war.  Thus Dona nobis pacem rang again, clean, pure and bright, Bevan holding the last words so they seemed to vibrate into eternity.
Photos: Roger Thomas
 

Andrew Davis - Elgar Spirit of England, Raymond Yiu The World Was Once All Miracle.

When Sir Andrew Davis conducts Elgar, it's always an occasion, but this concert  at the Barbican, London, was much more special than most.  Davis conducted the BBCSO in Elgar's Spirit of England, op 80  (1916), which captures the exuberant spirit of England at the start of the First World War.  This was the highlight of a well-conceived programme where the multiple connections between the pieces enhanced the whole. Spirit of England was preceded by Lilian Elkington's Out of the Mist (1921), a bleak reminder of what war really means.  The programme began with Elgar's Starlight Express (1916) a jolly jaunt for children, which may parallel the high spirits of adults who didn't realize where the war would lead, but also worked well with Raymond Yiu's The World Was Once all Miracle, bringing out its inventive personality, while anchoring it in tradition.   A hundred years separate Elgar and Raymond Yiu, but the spirit of creativity shines bright and true.

Elgar's Spirit of England is so powerful that it draws you into its glorious self confidence  even though we now know where jingoistic bluster can lead.  But for a moment we're spellbound by the sheer extravagance of the piece.  Drums roll, strings surge and the BBC Symphony Chorus explode.  Andrew Staples's voice rose heroically above the wall of sound. "Spirit of England, go before us !"    The orchestral writing sets a pulse which supports the chorus, where male and female voices sing alternating lines. This creates an interflow suggesting vast, turbulent forces. Staples shaped the magnificent line "We step from days/ of sour divison/ into the grandeur of our Fate", each key word meticulously articulated, the last word "Fate" ringing out like a clarion.  Staples’s enunciation was sharp, consonants crisp, much more idiomatic than the other three tenors I've heard in this piece in recent years. The English tenor style, at its best, brings out the edge in the language hinting at hidden undercurrents : what really is the unshakeable soul of "divinely suffering man"?   This does matter, since Elgar may well have seen the circumstances more acutely than did the populist poet.

In contrast to the first section "The Fourth of August", the second section "ToWomen" is more restrained.  While the tenor line was integrated with chorus and orchestra, it now stands almost alone.  Phrases like "like a flame" and "boundless night" fly upward from the line, Staples emphasizing them with flourish.  A melancholy violin passage introduces a much darker mood.   "For the Fallen" is funeral ,procession but proceeds forward with relentless surge, Davis marking the throbbing undertow in the orchestra. The choral line with its clipped, almost staccato tension, evoked, perhaps gunfire.  The woodwind figure, followed by low-timbred strings, was particularly moving.  "We shall remember them", sang Staples, his voice carrying above the chorus and orchestra.  "To the end, to the end, they remain".  Hearing Lilian Elkington's Out of the Mist before Spirit of England  intensified the sombre mood with which "For the Fallen" ends.

The title Out of the Mist refers to the heavy fog that hung over the Channel when the ship carrying the body of the Unknown Soldier arrived back in England.  Lilian Elkington's response in music, was dignified and elegaic.  The piece runs just under 8 minutes, but is ambitiously scored for large ensemble . It begins mysteriously : one can imagine the ship materializing in port, out of the mists, docking and unloading the coffin,which was then taken to Westminster Abbey, where it remains today. The Unknown Soldier is "home" at last, carrying with him , symbolically, the memory of millions of others who would never return.  Thus, Out of the Mist ends with transcendent brightness, as if the Unknown Soldier and the men and women he stands for are bathed in glory.  The BBC SO recorded this piece some years ago, but this performance with Andrew Davis was far more,powerful. (For more about Lilian Elkington, please read HERE)

Elgar's Starlight Express was written in the midst of war, but is cheerfully escapist. Life goes on and morale needs boosting.  The extracts chosen for this performance displays the liveliness of Elgar's writing. The music is genuinely free spirited, with no trace of condescension towards a youthful audience.  Elgar even quotes the Christmas carol, The First Noel, decorating it with bells and cymbalds. The soloists were Roderick Williams and Emma Tring.  Incidentally, I have never seen so many kids in an evening performance before, several as young as 7 or 8.  I counted more than 20, and that was just around me.

Elgar is the biggest gun in British music. That Raymond Yiu's The World Was Once all Miracle was able to stand up to such competition says something.  Perhaps that's because Yiu's musical personality is highly individual.  The World Was Once all Miracle unfolds in six sections like a puzzle book, each piece reflecting a different aspect of the life and work of Anthony Burgess.  Yiu's settings are delightfully perverse. "Sick ! Sick ! Sick !" sang Roderick Williams "sick of sycophantic singing".   Jerky, quirky staccato in the orchestra, percussion like exclamation points, almost lyrical flights of fancy, tiny sparkling figures and exceptionally witty writing for voice.  Williams has an unequalled gift for singing with a naturalness thatn communicates like conversation, yet can also shape phrases and colour words bringing out their intrinsic musical character.  Spooky chords in the strings set the mood for the song "For we were all caught in the shame of sleep".  Williams curled his tongue round words, relishing their flavour as sound.  "Forgive us untempered for the day", a play on prayer, against a backdrop of hollow metallic bells.  

Burgess's texts, with their oddball wordgames and images, lend themselves well to Yiu's style. The vocal line curves and meanders in "You were there, and nothing was said" where wooden percussion suddenly gives way to deep booming sound. The next song "I have raised and poised a fiddle" writhes, jokily mocking  the phrase "the music of the spheres". The orchestra then sounds at once exotic (like gamelan) and sleazy, like jazz.  "One looks for Eden in history, best left unvisited", sang Williams, "While the delicate filthy hand dabbles and dabbles, but leaves the river clean, heartbreakingly clean". The last song "Useless to hope to hold off" mimics nonchalant nightclub patter - echoes of bongo drums - then suddenly breaks off into tantalizing silence.  Raymond Yiu's music defies stereotypes, always playful, always elusive.  The World Was Once all Miracle has the advantage of being as concise as haiku, tightly constructed but hinting at greater mysteries.  Please read my piece Why I couldn't write up Raymond Yiu's Symphony til now here).

Photo: Roger Thomas

Anna Clyne, Benjamin Britten Violin Concerto : Oramo BBCSO

Britten and Menuhin, 1955

 Sakari Oramo conducted the BBC SO at the Barbican last night : Anna Clyne and Benjamin Britten   Two British composers, one a distinctive new voice, the other represented by a work which  in recent years has found its true place in the canon.  Heard together with a particularly fresh, vernal Beethoven Symphony no 6, this made a satisfying evening.

This was the UK premiere of Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour, first heard in Paris in 2015.  Quality, in Anna Clyne’s case, gets her ahead, not her gender.  She’s so original that the patronizing tag “female composer” is an insult. What is “female” music anyway. This Midnight Hour is ambitious work on a grand scale, though compact and precise.  Rushing figures fly forwards, quite ferociously, leading to a passage of surprising clarity.  Very rich sounds - especially the low strings - suggest dense textures, carefully defined.  From moments of near-silence,  pounding figures push forward, aletrnating with sudden lyrical passages. Winds and brass blow ellipses that seem to probe space.  Two staccato thunderclaps, and the music swirls into fast paced turbulence, whipped by ellipses of high-pitched woodwinds. More combinations of quietness and explosive staccato, then a long passage of almost Romantic lushness, evoking the sounds of Spain. A long-held single note (bass trombone), evolves into nocturnal fanfare.  A sudden crash on timpani, an abrupt end, like an exclamation point.  Later I realized that this is a reference to a poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez which Clyne was responding to.  “La musica; mujer desnuda,corriendo loca por la noche pura!” (The music: a naked woman, running madly in the pure night) . Apparently there are also references to Baudelaire’s Harmonie du soir (“Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu’on afflige,”), but This Midnight Hour was impressive even if I didn’t get that other level. There's no rule, whatsoever that poems have to be set word for word !

Although Britten didn't join the International Brigades in Spain, he believed passionately in their cause and was traumatized by Franco's victory.  Heartsick, Britten feared that Europe would become engulfed in fascism, and needed to get away. His Violin Concerto is a product of that period of intense despair.  Britten and Pears left Britain in April, 1939, when war seemed far away, and returned at some danger during hostilities to help the war effort as non-combatants. Those who have never heard his Violin Concerto may have thought him a coward but do not realize that it takes moral courage to write a deeply uncomforting statement like this.  Perhaps only now can we appreciate its place in the canon of major works by a composer who thought more deeply about society than most.

From a hushed string introduction, the violin (soloist Vilde Frang) rose, against an understated but ominous background of percussion and brass. Despite the lyricism of the violin line, the idea of war lurked, with menace.  Hollow pizzicato suggested agitation.  The second movement has the character of nightmare scherzo, a battery of strings, brass and percussion battling with the violin, which remains detached. Oramo shaped the tumult carefully bringing out the huge, angular blocks of sound, booming bassoons,  spikey details in the strings, rumbling drums, creating contrast with the violin. In the cadenza, Frang's pristine style lit up the dizzying diminuendo : not a defeat so much as "tactical withdrawal".  In the passacaglia, descending notes from the brass moved in careful procession. Now the violin line was haunted by other strings, mumuring as if heard from afar. Eventually an anthem builds up, the brass no longer against the soloist, but leading forwards.  Tense, brittle figures suggested gunfire, but the violin remained uncowed.  A particularly full-throated tutti section,  almost a chorale, violin and orchestra united in common cause.  From the strings, a good suggestion of guitars : the ghosts of the dead in Spain, rising again, led by the violin, marching quietly onward.

A truly "pastoral" Beethoven Symphony no 6, unusually fresh and vernal, which worked well in connection with Britten's Violin Concerto. Perhaps the storm wasn't as overwhelming as usual, but the sense of revitalization Oramo found after it more than compensated.  After the storm, the peasants are revitalized.  Like the fallen in Spain, they will not be defeated. 

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wing to Wing, Karawane

Esa-Pekka Salonen, composer, the subject of  the Total Immersion Day at the Barbican, London, in December,which came at a busy time before Christmas, and coincided with Suomi 100 celebrations. Too muchn to take in all at once. Fortunately the Salonen concerts are now on BBC Radio 3 (link here). A great opportunity to hear Salonen's Wing to Wing (2004) again with Anu and Piia Komsi, for whom the work was conceived.  The Komsi sisters are almost mirror images of each other: both are coloraturas of unusually wide range and vocal agility. They have an instinctive closeness to each other which other pairs of singers can't quite equal. Symmetry is part of the concept of Wing to Wing, so the Komsis can probably do it better than anyone else.  I heard the UK premiere of the work at the Barbican in May 2006. Over the years, the Komsi sisters  have done it so many times that they've grown into it as naturally as if they were part of the organism.
"Wing to wing" is a sailing term  which describes the way sails can  be aligned to maximize wind flow. As the wind changes, the sails move. The interaction between the free flowing breeze and the flat surfaces of the sails controls the movement of the boat. The vessel is sailed by this interplay between nature and machine. Wing to Wing is an "architectural" piece because Salonen employs sound to create a structure within which natural forces can flow. Thus the flurrying lines which suggest the movement of wind, water and light, circulating through the structure, modifying, varying and constantly changing  The architect Frank Gehry's disguised voice is embedded into the music, adapted so that it becomes part of the "building". The Komsi sisters' voices soar and fly, suggesting the sound of seabirds flying in the open air, the percussion below them perhaps representing the urban landscape, often twining as if in spirals. Sometimes their lines are long and searching, as if probing the dimensions of space around them.  And sometimes, the turbulence clears and stillness reigns, sparkling repeated notes against clean, clear woodwinds, before we descend into sonorous depths.  Music as sculpture, almost as tactile as it is aural.  I've heard Salonen conduct Wing to Wing and also Jukka-Pekka Saraste.  Sakari Oramo is different to Salonen, but very good because he has an intuitive feeling for the inherent richness of the piece, and the BBCSO now seem to have it in their blood.
More symmetry and spatial awareness in Salonen's Karawane (2013-14) where the BBC Symphony Chorus joined the BBC SO. Here the symmetry is processional : vaguely exotic timbres, suggesting a caravan weaving its way through some strange landscape.  Steady rhythms give way to swirling chromatic textures. The voices sing rareified cadences that rise and fall, like the movement of caravans pulled by animals.  Tempi pick up, and playful staccato patterns emerge - choppy vocal fragments against pounding brass.  A violin materializes, playing a strange melody, like the song of a sad siren, lost in the desert.  Textures thin out and the pure sound of a flute calls as if into the distance of the night. Rustling sounds, timpani thud ominously and the voices are strange low murmurs which lead to more frenzied passages where the voices shout "Way !".  Ostinato exclamations in the orchestra, which build up in speed, like an engine jerking into action. Through these changes of pace and rhythm, Salonen progresses the piece so its component parts move as if in formation.    A glorious ending, swaying and waving in wacky waywardness. Conceptually strong and a good piece, yet sparkling with wit and good humour. 
Nicholas Daniel was the soloist in Salonen's Mimo II (1992) where the oboe "sings" with the winds and brass in the orchestra while the strings swirl round them. Slightly reminiscent of a Stravinsky ballet though the whimsy in the oboe part is quite distinctively Salonen. 

Finland Awakes ! Sibelius and Oramo : Finnish Centenary Celebrations

Finland Awakes ! Sakari Oramo celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Finnish Independence with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall, London . What a sense of occasion !  A remarkable performance even by their usual high standards, so powerful and passionate that it will long be remembered.   Sibelius symbolizes Finland to the west. The popularity of his music, especially in Britain, ensured public support for Finland in its long struggle for freedom from Russia.  When the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe after 1945, that legacy kept Finland safe. Music as cultural, identity, shaping politics and history.

Sibelius's Press Celebrations Music was veiled protest. Ostensibly written as a fundraiser for press pensions, it struck a raw nerve at a point when the Russians were attempting to tighten control over Finland and its press. The painting at right, by Edvard (Eetu) Isto, is Hyökkäys (The Attack). (1899)  The girl represents Finlandia.  She's holding a book which contains the laws of Finland, The book wields off an attack by a two-headed eagle - the symbol of Russia.  Isto, born the same year as Sibelius,  was an artist who made paintings of nature and folkoric allegory, as did Sibelius's brother-in-law, Eero Järnefelt, and their friend, Akseli Gallen-Kallela. From paintings to music : Sibelius created the music as a series of "tableaux" depicting key events in Finnish history.  
The first tableau is Väinämöinen's Song, its mysteries evoking the primeval world of the Kalevala.  In the second tableau, the Finnish people are converted to Christianity, significantly western Christianity, not the Russian Orthodox Church. This is further affirmed by the third tableau, Duke John in the Castle at Turku. Horns and pipes connect medieval Finland to Sweden and a time of prosperity, which would be shattered in the Thirty Years War, the first true "world war" when Finland was occupied by Russia in the"Years of Hate" (1714-21). The painting below is Burnt Village (1879) by Albert Edelfeldt. The woman is trying to protect what's left of her family- their village is burning in the background.   The Great Hate tableau is disturbingly dramatic, and connects well with Finlandia, though Finlandia with its heartfelt optimism will always be more popular. 

Sibelius himself conducted the premiere in Helsinki on 4th November 1899. Over the years the work underwent numerous changes, the seventh movement "Finlandia Awakes!" becoming the now famous stand alone Finlandia op 26, which also exists in several versions.  The full score was restored, edited and recorded only in 1999, so this UK premiere wasn't as long overdue as might be supposed. This new performance with Oramo and the BBC SO was so vivid that it completely eclipsed the first recording : Oramo/BBCSO is the new benchmark.
Two Pieces op 77, (1914))  Cantique and Devotion in the version for cello and orchestra followed, featuring soloist Guy Johnston, The cello is more mournful, deeper than a violin.  In the context of Oramo's programme this was appropriate because these are fairly private works, as opposed to the public persona of the Music for Press Celebrations.  But the spirit of 1899 prevailed once again, with Sibelius's Symphony no 1 op 39 (1899-1900). Hearing the symphony after the tableaux highlights the stylistic breakthrough. It's as if Sibelius's soul was being liberated. The violin part - Sibelius's own instrument - flies free, then invigorates the orchestra with its exuberance. Here, the andante sounded particularly moving, reminding me of the "hands on heart" theme in Finlandia. . Individual figures  in the wind and strings were particularly beautiful, lighting the way for the grand surges  in larger ensemble.  Tempi speed up into whirlwind, then retreat, and the heartfelt motif returned, warm and confident.  The scherzo moved briskly, opening out to a clearing where individual instruments again took centre place.  A romp, wild but purposeful: An exhilarating way to celebrate a hundred years of nationhood and artistic progress.

Prom Oramo Elgar Symphony no 3 BBC SO

Sakari Oramo,BBC SO.  photo :BBC

Sakari Oramo conducted Elgar Symphony no 3 in the performing edition by Anthony Payne, at Prom 51, with the BBC SO.  Big event, because Oramo is one of the great Elgar conductors,. Oramo was Chief Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra during the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth. Since Elgar was so closely associated with Birmingham, this was no concert series, but a kind of pilgrimage, attracting the most intense of Elgar devotees. Oramo's performances were outstanding, so much so that he was awarded the first ever Elgar Society Award, despite strong competition. True Elgar fans, whose primary concern is excellence, not the nationality of the conductor.  So please, let us have no more from those who keep harping on about the novelty of a Finn conducting Elgar.  Elgar was championed in Germany before the First World War. A political, not musical eclipse.  Sibelius was championed in Britain very early on in his career, as were Janáček, and Dvořák  We need to get over thinking in insular terms.

Ten years on from those Birmingham concerts, Oramo is even more impressive, his intuitive grasp of Elgar's idiom enriched by maturity, enhanced by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, playing extremely well,  "as if to the manner born", not "manor", for Elgar was someone whom all can relate to.  Oramo brings out the warmth and humanity in Elgar, wonderfully life affirming and fresh.

Elgar did not write a "cycle" of symphonies, completing only two.  The Third is a realization of the sketches he left, elaborated by Anthony Payne, who lived and breathed Elgar so intuitively that this completion is as close as we're ever likely to get to what might have been.   A friend messaged me last night after the Prom. "When are they going to "Sir" Anthony Payne?" And so they should. Payne and his wife  Jane Manning are venerable presences in British music and deserve recognition.

How fortunate we are to have this realization.  It flows freely as if Elgar had become rejuvenated again after a long fallow period.  The introductory passage surged, full of expansive confidence, strong chords giving way to lighter, brighter passages before a typically "Elgarian" flourish.  Oramo brought out the contrasts between turbulence and serenity, suggesting ebullience in the face of despair. The warm-hearted scherzo, an allegretto particularly suited to Oramo's personal style,was well shaped, with an edge of disquiet creeping in, developed further in the third movement. This moved like a waltz, elegantly poised, but veiled,as if being remembered from the past.  Particularly lovely,sad strings. with just enough rubato to suggest the palpitations of the heart.  From this rose the woodwind theme, soaring upwards to a new,more expansive plane. But the mood darkened, underpinned by ominous timpani. Soulful surges,strings, brass and woodwinds together, leading into a section so refined that it seemed to shimmer in haze.  In the Finale, the mood of confidence returns in a march of sorts, with a firm tread, lit by cymbals..Though a sense of unease remains (single chords and a wavering melody) the movement ends affirmatively. Brass figures rise,joined by winds, and "Elgarian" richness in the strings,culminating not in fanfare,but in lingering glow.,with quietly tapping tam tam.   This is important, since Elgar didn't live to complete the piece. It should not end in certainity, but in ambiguity, as a mark of respect.

Before Elgar, Sibelius: Scènes historiques, Suite No. 1 and Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, with Javier Perianes.

Khovanshchina Bychkov Mussorgsky Prom

Outstanding Modest Mussorgsky Khovanshchina with Semyon Bychkov at the Proms . Outstanding because Bychkov is brilliant, translating the music itself into drama.  For my review of Prom 63 Bychkov Taneyev Tchaikovsky Manfred please click here).  Khovanshchina isn't really opera. The libretto is confusing : you need to know what's "not" there to understand what it might be about.  It I s anti-historical, anti-narrative, adapting the past to comment on the present.  The singers sing parts which aren't characters so much as symbols.  Bychkov reveals Khovanshchina as a panorama exploring the Russian soul through music.  That glorious orchestration expresses the glory of the idea of Russia, an entity far greater than Tsars, streltskys and whoever might be competing for control.
Significantly, Khovanshchina is very much a work where grand choruses dominate: the people as enduring community, rather than individuals, who come and go.  Thus the expansive orchestral prelude with which the opera begins: lush strings, lyrical woodwinds. Though the first scene is set in Red Square in the seventeenth century, the countryside isn't far away. Without those fields and rivers, the people wouldn't prosper, there'd be no point in rebellions or suppressions. The crowd in Red Square boast and threaten. The music here moves back and forth in rhythmic patterns, impressive and dramatic, but leading nowhere.  The drama really starts when Emma (Anush Hovhannisyan)  enters, pursued by Andrei Khovansky (Christopher Ventris).  She's German, part of a large community who'd settled the Baltic for a thousand years. When boors beat up on women all the time, why use a German, not a Slav ?  Emma's not a historical figure, but she symbolizes something. Andrei Khovansky and his father Ivan (Ante Jerkunica) fight over Emma, who wants neither of them.  Luckily, she is saved by Marfa (Elena Maximova).. Marfa was once Andrei's fiancée.but is now an outsider, having joined the Old Believers. Think on that. Thus the First Act ends with religion, not war, with the tolling of huge, ominous bells, hushed, reverential choruses and the resounding calls of Dosifey (Ain Anger), leader of the Old Believers, whom the Tsar and powers that be would like to destroy.
In the Second and Third Acts, the soloists take the foreground.   The constant to and fro in the score evokes the turbulence of the plot.  The text fills in some of the background, but essentially the singers are acting out a wider drama of which  their roles are only a small part.  Intrigues and paranoia: everyone at cross-purposes, grabbing for power. Though heroic trumpets ring out round them, the Strelsky are grubby opportunists, and Golitsin (Vsevolod Grivnov ) princely by title, not by nature.   The choral lines swirl, whipped to frenzy by wildly rhythmic, yet angular orchestration.   Part folk dance, part military march.  Even among the Old Believers, there is dissent : Marfa is denounced by Susanna (Jennifer Rhys-Davies).  Thus Dosifey and Marfa represent the moral heart of the drama, the writing for their parts the strongest of all.  Among a good cast, Ain Anger and  Elena Maximova stand out out. Breathtaking singing, with fervour and committment.  Marfa's part is even better developed, with a greater emotional range.  Though the Old Believers are paternalistic regressives, Marfa symbolizes Mother Russia, their true soul.
For a while, though, Ivan Khovansky feels secure. In Act Four Mussorgsky writes exotic "Oriental" dances, but a mournful solo woodwind melody suggest the luxuries might come to an end.   Although Mussorgsky set out to write "Russian" opera in resistance to Wagner, the mournful melody could suggest (to Wagnerians, at least) the shepherd's flute in Tristan und Isolde.  The chorus sings of Khovansky as a "white swan". Perhaps the melody is his swan song.
Intrigues are crushed.  We're back with the crowds in Red Square, but now the mood is foreboding, the choirs singing in fearful hush. Golitisin is marched into exile, his followers marched to their deaths.  Yet again, Dosifey is the spokesman who describes the action, in tones so sombre that you can imagine what's happening though you see nothing literal.  Trumpet  fanfares, thundering timpani: marches lead the rebels and to the scaffold. Or rather to immolation.  The choral lines stretch, as if fanned by flames and swirling smoke.  The brass and percussion explode.  The Tsar has triumphed.
So, too, must the Old Believers be annihilated.   The Final Act begins in gloom, long string lines suggesting desolation.  Dosifey's last sermon seeks solace in God : the orchestral colours around him shrouded, the choruses singing a solemn hymn.  The childrens' voices rise upwards, suggesting angels.  Though the percussion beats violent staccato, the choral line ascends, as if the Old believers were being lifted upwards by prayer.  Beautifully modulated singing, which seems to shimmer brightly against the darkness around it.  Although Mafra has saved Andrei, he still loves Emma, and she him. Mafra's love isn't tied to earthly things She and Andrei will die like "two candles in flames" for the glory of God, not alone, but with the community of Old Believers.  In the finale, the orchestra erupts, brasses blazing. The choruses sing, Mafra's voice soaring above. But heavy percussion pounds a funeral march, and suddenly - silence. 


Bychkov drew from the BBC Symphony Orchestra playing of ferocious richness: you';d think this was a Russian opera orchestra rather than our much-loved familiar London band.   Perhaps they were inspired, too, by the exceptionally vivid singing of the choruses, the BBC Singers supplemented by the Slovak Philharmonic Choir, and later the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School Schola Cantorum and the Tiffin Boys Choir.  Mussorgsky creates drama through the intensity of writing . By bringing this music so passionately alive, Bychov created drama from sound.

Siren Call - Oramo, Sibelius Nielsen Glanert

Sinister mysteries of the sea and malevolence! Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a superlative programme: Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite, Op.22, with Carl Nielsen An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands and Detlev Glanert's Megaris. inspired by ancient legend.  An atmospheric concert so rewarding that it deserves repeat listening - catch it HERE on BBC Radio 3.

This was the UK premiere of Glanert's Megaris: Seestück mit Klage der toten Sirene (2014-15)  It's a fascinating piece that takes as a starting point the legend that Partenope, the siren, washed up dead on the rocks at Megaris, once an island off the coast of Sicily, now part of the conurbation.  Sirens don't exist, except in myth, but are powerful symbols. They're also pagan. Yet Partenope's relics are supposedly buried in a church on the fortress of Castel dell'Ovo on rocks which jut onto the sea.  Contradictions! Thus layers of myth and meaning, which Glanert incorporates into the complex, shifting textures of his music. Megaris is elusive, but seductive, like the sirens whose songs drove mortals to their deaths. Partenope died because she failed in her mission:  Odysseus escaped by blocking his ears. Partenope's death is romantic and a lure for tourists. But bodies still wash up on shores all over the Mediterranean. Do we listen to their voices?   Far too often, audiences block out new music on principle, lest they be seduced and change, but Glanert's Megaris is compelling.  

From offstage, hidden singers  (the BBC Singers) intone strange harmonies. the lines long, keening, stretching out into space. The orchestra responds. Timpani are beaten in solemn progression, high winds cry plaintively, flying over massed strings and massed choral voices, singing a wordless chorus of vowel sounds.  The pace quickens and the orchestra breaks into a flurry of dissonances, the percussion adding menace, the strings whipped into frenzy. Yet the voices won't be silenced, singing short, sharp sounds, as if imitating the orchestral passage that went before. A strange stillness descends. the voices hum as do the strings: haunting, seamless abstract sound from which the voices materialize. led by the sopranos.  A subtle interplay of tonal colour. The voices then rise, singing short, urgent phrases and the orchestra flies back to life with complex cross-currents. O-A-O-E,, the voices sing, urgently. Another violent tutti, ending with a crash of cymbals before a mysterious stillness descends : silvery, circulating sounds lit by brass, the voices now whispering surreal chant.  The crash of a gong: then a solo soprano, calling wordlessly into the void.  Atmospheric, magical, beautiful, yet also unsettling.  Lots more on Glanert on this site, please explore. 

The four legends in Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite describe the adventures of Lemminkäinen in the epic saga of the Kalevala. Oramo's approach was fresh and lively, suggesting the young hero's erotic vigour. The Kalevala isn't prissy!  This highlighted the contrast between the hero and the Swan of  Tuonela, the mysterious symbol of the Island of the Dead.  Unlike other birds, a swan does not sing until it dies, so killing the swan implies some mystical rite. Lemminkäinen, like Parsifal, thinks he can kill a swan, but in the process is killed himself and brought back to life. The Lemminkäinen Suite is much more than programme music.  The swan's "voice" is the cor anglais, solemn, mournful and seductive, perhaps not so different from a siren.  Beautiful playing from the BBC SO's soloist.  In the final section, Lemminkäinen's Return, Oramo brought out depth of meaning. The hero is restored, but he's strong because he's learned along the way. 

Oramo is emerging as a major interpreter of Carl Nielsen, having conducted a lot of Nielsen with the BBC SO in recent years. This performance of Nielsen's  An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands (1927) was authoritative, and very individual.  The five sections in this piece form an arc, tone poem as miniature symphony, in a way. Oramo accentuated the contrast between movements which gives the piece such élan. The lugubrious undercurrents in the first section speed up as land approaches, quirky little flourishes from the winds suggesting sea birds on the coast.  This music has the feel of the seas, the orchestra surging as if propelled by powerful waves. Can we hear in the dances echoes of hardy Lutheran chorale? Nielsen had a wry sense of humour, as does Oramo. Perhaps that's why they suit each other so well.  Bracing stuff !

Semyon Bychkov Tchaikovsky Project Beloved Friend Barbican

Semyon Bychkov's Tchaikovsky Project "Beloved Friend" continues this week at the Barbican Centre, London. It's an ambitious series connected to a series of recordings with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, with concerts taking place in London with the BBC SO and in New York with the New York Philharmonic, next year. The concerts (at least in London) were augmented with a play by Ronald Harwood on the relationship between Tchaikovsky and Madame von Meck, the "beloved friend" in question. Major publicity, too: flyers were distributed at the Royal Albert Hall during the Proms, almost guaranteed to get attention.  So, why are so many tickets still unsold, even for Monday's concert at the Barbican? Tchaikovsky should sell out, particularly with upmarket stars like Bychkov and Kirill Gerstein, and interesting programmes which feature lesser known but important choices like the original 1879 version of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no 2.  Although the London music scene is unusually quiet at the moment there doesn't seem to have been much public reaction.   Even Friday's concert with the Symphony Pathétique and Rachmaninov The Bells hasn't sold out.  It doesn't make much sense, since the first concert, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 was pretty good.

Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony op 58 is a huge beast, nearly an hour long, and full of dynamic extremes. Inspired by Byron's poem Manfred it tells of a hero confronting supernatural demonic forces in a cosmic struggle that takes place in the Alps. In Byron's time, the Alps symbolized danger, the vastness of nature dwarfing humankind. Schumann's Manfred is Romantic in the true, wild Germanic sense. Tchaikovsky, however. was Russian and a man of the theatre, so Bychkov's approach emphasized the expansiveness that gives the piece context.  Bychkov's a great opera conductor, he knows how music can "speak"on its own terms.  He created the panoramic backdrop to the drama vividly: generous, sweeping lines suggesting limitless horizons.   As the tempo quickened, the orchestra soared upward: searching lines contrasting well with the sudden crashing climax with which the first movement ends.  Perhaps this is the moment when Manfred meets his mysterious half sister Astarte. What is the nature of their relationship (bearing in mind Byron's unnatural relationship with his own half sister) ? And, why the mountains?  The second movement, marked vivace con spirito, describes a mountain spirit, one of the elementals who haunt Alpine lore. They are fairies, but also signify danger, their elusiveness defying human control.  Thus the high violin melody that flies above, and away, from the main orchestral foundation.

The third movement describes the mountain folk, who carve out marginal lives in harsh conditions, yet seem happy as they dance, presumably in pure, open air festivals. They're tough folk and down to earth, while Manfred, though a hero, is rather more quixotic. Like Byron himself, maybe, a towering figure but one with dark complexes. Tolling bells suggest danger. The music descends into a stranger mood, sounds crashing against each other as if the earth itself was imploding,"fire" pouring forth from the rapid rivulets of sound.  Manfred fights off the evil spirits who tempt him, but chooses to die on his own terms. What might Tchaikovsky have made of this? The finale was grand, the pace brisk, craggy peaks and descents sharply defined, dizzying figures suggesting turbulence. Not mountain breezes, but perhaps something more demonic.  The organ underlined the cosmological nature of Manfred's predicament.  Bychkov recently conducted a magnificent Strauss Alpine Symphony. Read my review here - Mordwand !   Bychkov's Manfred Symphony, like his Alpine Symphony  were definitely not "tourist trail".  Although the drama dissipates at the end of the symphony, textures are more refined, more esoteric, one feels that perhaps Manfred is entering a new frontier, beyond the ken of mankind. Hence details, like the horn calling the hero on, and the dizzying upwards rush towards a serene conclusion that might suggest spiritual sublimation.

This programme began with Kirill Gerstein and the Piano Concerto no 2, in the much longer original  version, like Manfred,  monumental in its traverse.  Maybe audiences take Tchaikovsky - and Bychkov and the BBC SO - for granted and don't realize how much goes into performance at this level of excellence; things like this don't just "happen".  So get to Monday's concert if you can, which features "Three faces of Tchaikovsky: the graceful, elegant Serenade with its stunning melodies; the single finished movement of the unfinished Third Piano Concerto, the composer’s last work; and the Dante-inspired tone-poem Francesca de Rimini with its portrayal of a forbidden love" to quote the Barbican ad, and Taneyev's Overture to Oresteia.  Perhaps the most intriguing of all three concerts in Bychkov's Beloved Friends Tchaikovsky Project.  

Antony and Cleopatra, Schmitt : Oramo BBCSO

Florent Schmitt's Antony and Cleopatra (Suites no 1 and 2, Op 69, 1920)  with Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with movements re-ordered and interspersed with excerpts from Shakespeare, adapted by Bill Barclay of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, at the Barbican Hall, London.

Lurid colours lit the stage, saturated washes of red and gold. Aquamarine lights shone on the platform floor, spotlights glowed on the sheets the musicians were playing from. The music was equally lurid, beginning with a wildly exuberant fanfare  Not a military display so much as statecraft as theatre. Perhaps Cleopatra, like many rulers since, knew you can dazzle others even if you don't have much in the way of firepower.  So spoke Enobarbus, describing Cleopatra to his fellow Romans : 

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
 Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold "

No wonder Ida Rubinstein - another  extravagant diva - wanted to portray her and asked André Gide to create a spectacular showcase. Stravinsky was asked to provide the incidental music since he, Diaghilev and Rubinstein had worked together since the early days of the Ballets Russe, For various reasons he demurred.  Florent Schmitt's Antony and Cleopatra quotes so explicitly from The Rite of Spring that one wonders what Stravinsky might have thought, particularly as the angular "primitivism" of the Rite is overlaid with elaborate decorative ornamentation.  Barely seven years before, the Rite of Spring had scandalized Paris, causing a near riot. In Schmitt's Antony and Cleopatra, the fierce chords depict the Battle of Actium so graphically that you can almost visualize ships battling on the open ocean.  Swashbuckling stuff!  Consider Erich Korngold's infinitely more original Die  tote Stadt which also premiered in 1920, with great success, pretty much inventing a new musical genre.   In the 1920's movies were silent, but spectacular. Consider Jacques Feyder's L'Atlantide (1921) where the Queen of Atlantis lives in North Africa. But what we now call film music had its roots in popular music for the stage. Exoticism is a theme that has such deep roots in the French aesthetic that its influences are felt far beyond specifically exotic subjects.
Japonisme shaped Debussy : Africa shaped Picasso.

Orientalism in France has a long pedigree, dating back to Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt , bearing fruit in an enduring fascination with different exotic locales, which manifested itself in painting, literature and music.  Berlioz La mort de Cléopatre, and Les Troyens, Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, Délibes Lakmé. Massenet Le roi de Lahore, and the songs of Maurce Delage and Jaubert.  Ida Rubinstein's Cleopatra was part of a huge surge of public interest in things Egyptian which influenced fashion, decorative arts and popular culture, which still prevails today. The French Shakespeare tradition goes back to Charles Kemble, and carried no cultural baggage. Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, for example, is very much an original work, not a setting of the play Thus Rubinstein's Cleopatra, via Gide, is part of a much wider cultural theme.


This Antony and Cleopatra was part of a year-long celebration of Shakespeare all over Britain. Hence the high-profile production, with the BBC SO, the flagship of the BBC stable of orchestras.  Schmitt probably doesn't get luxury performances like this too often. Sakari Oramo conducted with panache, he and his orchestra clearly enjoying the big brass effects and theatricality. At one point, the actors "spoke" to Oramo, who is noted for his good-natured geniality. He beamed and acknowledged them without missing a beat. 

"Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that The winds were lovesick with them. The oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes"

The actors were Janie Dee (Cleopatra), Simon Paisley Day (Antony), Brendan O'Hea , Cassie Layton and Tom Kanji. The Director was Iqbal Khan.  Shakepeare's Globe isn't Stratford but earthier.  there's not much you can do about staging at the Barbican,  but then Shakespeare's own productions seem to have been closer to Greek ideas than to Hollywood.  The concert was recorded for broadcast at a later date, but I'm glad I saw it live.

Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony Prom 62 Northcott Mozart

Zemlinksy Lyric Symphony Prom 62, with Simone Young and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. But first, BBC researchers should wake up and realize that this symphony is NOT rare! There are numerous recordings, and many performances, including Salonen and Jurowski in London in recent years, and many others which I haven't written about.  Even three previous Proms performances.  Perpetuating the myth that the Lyric Symphony is a rarity is counter-productive because it fools audiences into accepting mediocrity when there are so many excellent performances to explore. This symphony is such a masterpiece that it's shameful how clichés have got in the way of insight.

Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony was written in 1926-7, at a time of groundbreaking creative change.  That the texts come from  Tagore is no accident. Tagore was a literary superstar, at a time when western culture was more open to change and alien influences than ever before.  The Exotic East represented new, unknown frontiers . Zemlinsky was doing what Debussy, Stravinsky and Ravel had done before him, and also drawing on a long-standing German fascination with Asia.  Tagore was popular in progressive circles because his rejection of materialism ran counter to the values of a a western world that had been shaken to its foundations by war and revolution.  Embracing Tagore's spirituality was a kind of liberation. By using Tagore as the basis of this symphony, Zemlinsky is doing more than adopting pseudo-oriental exoticism. Zemlinsky used a large orchestra, rich with colour and texture, not to look backwards.  The ending does not represent resignation. "Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten". I hold my lamp up high to light you on your way.  Zemlinsky, like the Prince, is looking forwards, toward directions unknown. 

The Lyric Symphony deals with love, but it is by no means a romantic symphony: the protagonist move on, and apart. The Alma Mahler connection is also very much over-rated.  So beware of heavy-handed "romantic" interpretations, more suited to Hollywood than to a key work of the 20th century.  Just as Zemlinsky recognized the clear-sighted non-sentimentality in Tagore's texts, so too should performance be based on clarity and intellectual precision. Anthony Beaumont, the paramount Zemlinsky authority, without whose work Zemlinsky studies would be nowhere, wrote in his analysis of this symphony that “often the singers are engulfed in a dark forest of orchestral filigree work. In performance, the score requires Mozartian grace and precision. For all its abandon, this music reveals its true beauty and power only if performed with discipline and cool headed restraint”. 

Simone Young's approach to Zemlinsky will no doubt be praised because it meets audience expectations, some shaped by unidiomatic performances and by the kind of clichés the BBC regurgitates.  But audience expectations are fatal to art.  A good conductor should work from the score, to find new insight, even though these days some audiences don't want change so much as processed consumer product. Young's Zemlinsky is straightforward, earthbound, without much connection to the originality of the piece. The BBC SO is far too good an orchestra to "engulf" the soloists as Beaumont warned, though at this Prom the soloists, Siobhan Stagg and Christopher Maltman, could have done with more cover from the "forest".  Maltman was not on best form, his voice not quite lithe enough to finesse the trickier passages in the part.   While the female voice in this symphony portrays a very young girl,  youth itself is not enough.  Siobhan Stagg is very young, her voice pretty enough but rather shrill at times. The Girl she's singing is made of such strong stuff that the Prince knows he's met someone who will surpass him.  Nonetheless, Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony is such a wonder that those who liked this Prom would do well to  listen further, to Chailly and to Eschenbach, and pray that Salonen does it again with good soloists. 

Baiba Skride was the soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No 5 in A major, K219, Turkish. Her  playing has personality, well suited to the quirky nature of the piece. Here the BBC SO shone, rising to Skride's agile enticements.

Throughout this Proms season, there have been odd mismatches between performers and repertoire,. Though Bayan Northcott's Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned for the BBC SO, is well within their natural territory, I felt it might need time to settle  It's a good piece with lots of interest, perhaps too much to absorb without many hearings, which hopefully it will receive.