Brilliant pairings : François-Xavier Roth Mahler Chamber Orchestra Aldeburgh

François-Xavier Roth's concert with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Aldeburgh Festival will probably be the highlight of this year's festival. That the print media ignored it speaks volumes about the London press. Roth is one of the most exciting conductors of his generation because nearly everything he does is musically astute and well informed. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra is a superlative ensemble, and with Roth they achieve great heights.  Absolutely this was the concert to go to. Fortunately the BBC recognized the significance and recorded it for broadcast, still available HERE.

Roth is a fascinating conductor because his background lies both in baroque and in new music,  He has conducted Lully, using a staff like Lully did, but without mishap, giving physical emphasis to the underlying rhythm and liveliness in the music. Roth's musical intelligence generates great energy and insight.  Read more here about some of the connections between French baroque and new music. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra  is part of the network of orchestras founded by Claudio Abbado,. Standards are exceptionally high.  It's an exclusive network that includes the Berlin Philharmonic and the Lucerne Festival. Musicians are chosen individually for the quality of their work. Because they work together a lot, they know each other well. But they're fresh and fluid because they work with different orchestras, within the network and beyond. No fossilizing here!

The programme was eclectic. This was Roth's debut at Aldeburgh. He loves it as the regulars do because it promotes new music in context with what's gone before, exactly as Britten himself  wished.  The Overture to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro exploded into life, reminding us how audacious Mozart must have sounded when he was writing "new music". Figaro the servant will outwit his master. Subversive stuff in a era when authority could not be challenged. Rarely can it have been performed with such vivacious energy. But that's the joy of hearing it in a mixed performance, with a chamber orchestra. They can put everything into the moment without having to save themselves for the rest of the opera, knowing that the audience can figure Figaro for themselves.

Hearing audacious Mozart prepared us for the inventiveness of Luke Bedford's Wonderful Two Headed Nightingale.  The connections are deep. Bedford uses the same instrumentation as Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. The purity of concept enhances the intricate interrelationship between the violin (Matthew Truscott) and viola (Joel Winter) and the orchestra. The title refers to the conjoined twins Millie and Christine McCoy, who became singers, escaping a lifetime of slavery or freak shows through their music. As a piece of "pure" abstract music Wonderful Two Headed Nightingale works well  because the dialogue between the soloists is reflected  sensitively in the orchestra, suggesting intricate patterns of harmony and non-harmony. Like conjoined twins, the soloists have to co-operate, yet their voices are - literally - very different. The violin line soars and moves with graceful ease, at times flying so high that it seems to dissipate into the stratosphere, like "a lark ascending". The viola supports it, but , more earthbound, discreetly demurs. playing chords that prod and provoke. Altered tuning adds to the sense of mystery. The "voices" are echoed by pairs of oboes and horns - more "conjoined twins" adding haunting, almost mournful texture, reminding us that the twins' situation would only end in death and silence.  It's an exquisite piece, utterly original and distinctive, fast becoming part of the canon. 

The connection between new music and the baroque was further emphasized with Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin. In 1919, this was new music too, even more radical than Ravel's original version for piano. In many ways, it's more "baroque" in spirit , for the delicacy of the orchestration mimics a harpsichord, Couperin's own instrument. Under the baton of a baroque specialist like  François-Xavier Roth, the dance elements seem liberating, the oboe part seductive, like a lithe dancer. The strings played with such grace that the notes seem to dissolve into sheer light: an approach very close to much contemporary music.


George Benjamin loves Le tombeau de Couperin., for it fits well with the pointillist refinement of his own style.  Benjamin's  Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra diverges from much of his earlier work, in that its last movement goes for maximum impact, with huge gongs placed antiphonally, encircling the rest of the orchestra in their embrace. Yet, tellingly, the percussion did not overwhelm: loudness for its own sake is for boors.  I was sitting barely three metres away, yet could hear musicality, not noise.  Sensitive playing!  The combinations of flugelhorn, euphonium and contrabassoon (good to see Gordon Laing again)  evoke a sense of strangeness, lightened by bright, bell-like percussion and pizzicato.  One could imagine the sounds of a forest, birds in the canopy, rustlings in the undergrowth below, through which one progresses with purposeful deliberation.

Schubert's Symphony no 5 reiterated some of the themes of what went before, the pairing of instruments, the values of purity, and even the audacity of Mozart, which so appealed to Schubert, who was only 19 when he wrote the piece. Far from being "minor" it's Lieder ohne Worte, where discipline of form enhances expression, ideal for a Liederabend of chamber musicians.  The Mahler Chamber Orchestra responded with grace, the playing so lyrical that one could dream of dancers. Roth gets such brightness and energy from this orchestra that it's hard to believe that it's the first time he's worked with them in public. They seem an ideal fit, in the Abbado and Daniel Harding spirit, though Roth is a quirkier character. Great hopes for the future!

Luke Bedford Through His Teeth Linbury ROH - best British opera in years

Can this be the best British opera in years? Luke Bedford's Through His Teeth at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre is exceptional. Drop everything and go. This packs more into less than an hour than many works which might last five times as long. It's so concentrated that further hearings will only intensify the respect that it's due. Bedford, now resident in Berlin, has found astonishing maturity and depth. Through His Teeth is sophisticated, and perhaps a bit above the heads of some, but that's exactly why Bedford is a true original.

Through His Teeth fires on every cylinder. A, (Anna Devin)  a dowdy 30-something looks at fancy cars in a showroom. R (Owen Gilhooly) spots her and chats her up. "I'm not really a car salesman", he says.  The tiny orchestra, CHROMA, conducted by Sian Edwards, screams alarm.  The small Trumpet in C wails like a warning klaxon. The harp's shortest strings are plucked to suggest tight, tense hollowness. An accordion gasps as if its lungs are too constricted to breathe. A doesn't take heed. R picked her out even before she entered the showroom,  sensing, perhaps, the vulnerability even she doesn't comprehend. What really draws a sensible girl like A into R's crazy world? It's not simply that he's good in bed. Almost from the start she knows something's wrong.  R's paranoid and thinks he's under surveillance. A assumes he's MI5. So it's  OK for her to accept flowers from him he's taken from someone he's just killed ? Morally, she too is compromised.

Distorted values, distorted reality. The designs (Becs Andrews) capture the psychological dislocation implicit in David Harrower's deceptively simple text.  Walls slide across the stage, dividing it into tightly framed compartments.  Sam Meech's videos fragment, offering mutiple different perspectives, even, perhaps that of the sinister surveillance person watching him. R controls A because she lets herself get cut off from the world around her. Yet. the walls of her "prison" are pierced weith holes which she could look through if she wanted to. This is the Faustian pact she's made with R. Like Mephistopheles he can offer her the wildest dreams imaginable but she must sell her soul.

The clarinet in B flat sings a poisoned melody, like a snake charmer's instrument. The cello is played so its strings reverberate their whole length, like a snake, flexing its muscles sensuously, like a and falling, willingly, into hypnosis. The percussionist beats brushes, quietly replicating a failing heartbeat. Bedford creates sounds that are so intriguing that the listener is drawn into an invisible trap, almost against one's will.  With abstract music, Bedford recreates extreme psychological complexity. Through His Teeth isn't just about sex. Manipulative people create cults around themselves.

A sinks so deeply into R's psychosis that her sister (Victoria Simmonds, playing multiple roles)  who lives in the real world, finds a way to trap him. R is put into prison. Gilhooly  walks as if he';s in chains we cannot see. Brilliantly economic direction by Bijan Sheibani. Watch this director - he's very good. Chains we cannot see: perhaps that sums up the horrifying nature of these mind games. A meets another of R's women (also Simmonds), a bag lady who blames herself for not being good enough to join the MI5 of R's imagination.  Modern Mephistopheles prey on their victim's hidden weaknesses, sucking them into a web of their own making.

At the end, the TV interviewer (Simmonds again) asks A, who is now technically "free", what she would do if if she were to meet R again. The question is put gently.. A's response seems non-committal, but Bedford's music suggests that A knows, deep in her heart, that she'd do it all over again.  The ending is powerful , all the more because it's so chillingly understated.  Bedford's Through His Teeth is a major work, which needs to be carefully contemplated.

photos : Stephen Cummiskey, Courtesy Royal Opera House

Renewal Luke Bedford in Portrait

Luke Bedford made a welcome visit to London for the UK premiere of his recent Renewal (2012/13) at the Purcell Room with the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Sian Edwards.

Renewal it was! The piece has all the inventiveness that makes Bedford's work so distinctive, but now with a tougher, more sophisticated edge. Moving to Berlin may welll be part of the new approach. As Bedford said, prices there aren't  low anymore, now that British composers have moved in. Every composer is influenced by life changes: music doesn't grow out of nothing. Renewal marks a a new, more mature period of growth in Bedford's output.

Renewal feels liberating. An exquisite violin melody rises to a high, almost ethereal pitch : does it evoke flight, freedom  or even a quiet, confident ecstasy? Glimpses of this melody appear throughout the piece, a firm foundation for the four sections which explode in bursts of energy, propelled forward by sheer creative momentum.  "Background radiation", Bedford calls it, more prosaically. Angular, but organic cross-rhythms that suggest a kind of primal life-force, The Rite of Spring, but with wit. All the instruments explode on a single chord at the end of the second section. Thwack! then the direction changes, and the merry dance veers off again. Dizzying changes of tempo, sometimes accelerating to breaking point. Sounds seem to inflate and deflate like breathing organisms, adding a nicely sour suggestion of wry humour   A quietly-beaten small drum introduces the gracefully elegiac final section. It's almost Romantic but definitely of our time.

Bedford's Renewal was preceded by Wonderful No-headed Nightingale,  a reworking of his Wonderful Two-headed Nightingale. The " nightingales" were conjoined twins, Millie and Christine McCoy, born as slaves, who made a living as singers in travelling shows. You don't need to know the story except insofar as the music turns the basic concepts into abstract form.  In this version,  the violin and viola (Joan Atherton and Paul Silverthorne) dialogue weaves in and out of the surrounding orchestra. It feels like a study for Renewal which explores the same concepts of unison and free-ranging invention.

Before the repeat of Bedford's Renewal, the London Sinfonietta treated us to Périodes, the second movement from Gerald Grisey's Les espaces acoustiques .  It was a good choice. Les espaces acoustiques grows outwards from extreme simplicity. A basic melodic cell repeats like in spiral, back and forth, each time with tiny gradations of pitch. The viola part is its heartbeat : the 15 minutes of seamless bowing are like a cry from the soul.  In Périodes, though, Grisey expands the breathing motif with an extra level of “rest” as natural rhythmic as walking. It’s never mechanical but blurred, allowing variations of tempo, stillness and pitch. The logic of the final movement in Renewal clicks into place.

LOTS more on Bedford and Grisey elsewhere on this site - please explore

ROH 2013-2014 Linbury Studio Theatre

The Royal Opera House main hall season 2013-2014 is good. The more you delve the more intriguing it gets. Same, too, for the 2013-2014 season in the Linbury Studio Theatre. Real cutting edge stuff coming up, but tried and trusted too. What a pity that the Linbury is too small to accomodate the audience it could attract. Plus, the seating is so cramped that anyone over 40 or 5 foot 6 cannot sit in comfort. Perhaps ROH should be thinking like Nicholas Kenyon at the Barbican, who is outsourcing medium sized events outside the main building.  The Linbury is fine for bijou miniatures, but some of the performances here are important enough, and popular enough, to merit the performance spaces they deserve.

First off : The Wasp Factory, based on Iain Banks's cult novel, with a libretto by David Pountney.  It describes "the disturbing acts of a psychopathic teenager ..... as part of a self-invented warrior cult, he uses a home made apparatus called the Wasp Factory to determine whom he will kill next and how.". Composer and director is Ben Frost.  This is a co-production with Bregenz, Hebbel-am-Ufer, The Holland Festival and the Cork Midsummer Festival, which sounds promising.

Then a really big double bill: Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek and Salvatorre Sciarrino's The Killing Flower (Luci mie traditrici) which tells the story of  Carlo Gesualdo, artist and murderer.  Sciarrino is one off the biggest names in contemporary music, His music is beautifully poised and magical. Don't let the subject matter deter you any more than the subject matter of George Benjamin's Written on Skin. (reviewed HERE).  Sciarrino is a sensitive and very well informed composer, so it's quite possible the work will be filled with references to Gesualdo's music, interpreted through a modern perspective. Read more about Sciarrino HERE. That's him in the photo above. Cool dude!

Another reason Sciarrino's The Killing Flower should not be missed is that it's being produced by Music Theatre Wales, the innovative company that specializes in interesting new music, like Philip Glass's Into the Penal Colony (reviewed HERE) which Glass liked so much that he's written a new opera specially for them, also based on Kafka. The Trial is in the pipeline for 2015. We're truly lucky that they have an arrangement with ROH. The only other place they're doing this double bill is at the Buxton Festival. The Killing Flower is being paired with Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek, not in the original production but a relatively new Music Theatre Wales exclusive from 2011.  This is the opera that made Turnage's name when he was an angry young man. Read more about it HERE. Music Theatre Wales is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a good touring programme. More about that HERE. 

For the Christmas/New Year season, a family opera from Julian Philips, whose The Yellow Sofa is a big hit at Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Philips used to be a fixture at the Wigmore Hall, a genuinely erudite and perceptive man, of whom there are far too few. His music is good, too, accessible and stimulating. When he writes for kids he doesn't write "down" at all. This is how you capture the imagination of future audiences : give them good work and all else follows  How the Whale Became, to a libretto by Edward Kemp, is based on Ted Hughes's  The Dreamfighter and Other Creation Tales.

In February, a curiosity, Tippett's King Priam paired with Britten's Paul Bunyan. Tippett and Britten aren't natural bedfellows, and one might say this combines the best of Tippett and worst of Britten.  Anyone familiar with both operas will gasp at the logistics, particularly in a place like the Linbury. There's something so strange about this that a friend suggested that each might be done on different nights, which makes sense, but why do both?  I won't speculate as uninformed guesswork is the enemy of good sense. The English Touring Opera toured with King Priam (on its own) last year.

Luke Bedford's F4u5T sounds like a big departure from his usual style.  It was devised as a companion piece to Gounod's Faust which will be on at the Main House in April 2014, so it might be a humorous experiment rather than a through-composed new opera. Working with electronic sound artist Matthew Herbert, F4u5t is about a composer frustrated by convention, who is seduced by Mefistofeles in the form of a super computer. "Soon he is using his music to manipulate and physically control the world with thrilling but deadly consequences". Probably witty and this time not above the heads of the London press.

ROH is collaborating with the Aldeburgh Music Festival and Opera North for another double bill, featuring as yet un-named operas by Elspeth Brooker and Francisco Coll.  This will be Brooke's biggest ever break. Coll is a protégé of Thomas Adès who calls him "strikingly individual". But the libretto is by Meredith Oakes, so the Adès connection may weigh heavily.

Luca Francesconi's Quartett  will have its UK premiere at the Linbury in June 2014. This is a major work, premiered at the Salzburg Festival  in 2011 and then at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. It was produced by La Fura dels Baus no less.  This will, however, be a completely new production co-produced with the London Sinfonietta  and Opéra de Rouen, directed by ROH Associate Director John Fulljames. That alone guarantees it will be good.  Quartett is loosely based on a play itself based on Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses, which isn't a novel so much as a series of letters through which the tightly plotted strategems are revealed. I think it would suit Francesconi, whose chamber music is exqusitely detailed and tightly constructed, The Arditti Quartet champion his work: he's very good indeed. Surprisingly, Tony Pappano is another fan, which ups his street cred no end. Although the opera is as compact as the story, this will be one of the most important new music events in years: the Linbury just doesn't have the capacity to give this opera the space its audience needs.  Why this isn't at Snape or QEH or even Spitalfields, I don't know. It needs only two singers but "a vast symphony orchestra and chorus" plus recorded samples over live music.

Linbury 2013-2014 ends on a fun note with HK Gruber's Gloria - a pigtail. Anyone who knows HK Gruber will know how eclectic his inventions can be, mixing genres with wit and dark humour.  Gloria is the story of "a pig princess looking for love who is dazzled and wooed by a prince who turns out to be a butcher but at the last moment is saved from the chop by Rudi The Wild Boar".   Shades of Gesualdo thru Austrian comic book?  The director will be Frederic Wake-Walker, the production by The Opera Group, Fulljames' original company. Again, their work is so good that this will be a season highlight.  

Anna is back! Royal Opera House 2013-2020

Announced 20 minutes ago,  plans for the Royal Opera House for 2013-2020. Run-in times for any production at a house like Covent Garden are long, so it's hardly surprisinmg that they have a good idea of what they're planning to do years in advance. Kaspar Holten is adamant. "New work is not and should not be at the periphery of our programme, but right at the core of what and who we are." as ever the case in opera  in the past.  Even classic staples were once "new". Those who want endless revivals of old productions will still get their fill, but ROH is doing its bit to keep the art alive with new work and new commissions.  Please see also my latests piece analysin g the situation more broadly HERE.

For really new work, the run-in time is even longer. For 2020, ROH plans to "challenge leading European composers Kaija Saariaho (Finland), Mark-Anthony Turnage (UK), Luca Francesconi (Italy) and Jörg Widmann (Germany) to create large scale new operas. The vision is for four distinct operas, each one in part inspired by the composer’s response to a set of questions developed in collaboration with the philosopher Slavoj Žižek: “What preoccupies us today? How do we represent ourselves on stage? What are the collective myths of our present and future?”

Scandal is nothing new to opera. Think of the extremely hostile reception of Carmen.  After the initial shock of Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole wore off, the opera and production grew on me. I think I'll get a lot more out of next time round in 2014/15. (read what I wrote of the premiere and aftermath).

Music Theatre Wales is back with a new commission for Philip Glass based on Franz Kafka's The Trial, also 2014/15. This should be a major event if it's anywhere near asd good as Glass's In the Penal Colony (reviews here and here), whose success inspired Glass to work again with Music Theatre Wales, one of Britain's most innovative smaller companies. What a pity the Linbury Studio Theatre is so small and cramped. Hopefully, they'll do a longer run to compensate. If only there were a mid-size theatre at ROH! Could they not do a deal with somewhere else?

The Royal Operas House doesn't go out on a limb alone but works with other houses like Bregenz, Opera North., Houston and the wonderful Holland Festival. So we can look forward to Ben Frost’s adaptation of Iain Banks’s cult novel The Wasp Factory, and Luca Francesconi’s Quartett, (a new version directed by John Fulljames and co-produced with The London Sinfonietta and Opéra de Rouen after the piece's 2010 premiere at La Scala Milan).  A new opera from Luke Bedford, too, who is one of the most interesting of all youngerr British composers.  Read what I wroite about his Seven Angels here and here - another opera completely misunderstood by some, which also deserves to be heard again. Really good things need time to percolate past first impressions. Bedford's new opera is on the theme of Faust which shouldn't be too hard to take on board. A new Christmas opera from Julian Philips, whose The Yellow Sofa was a huge hit for Glyndebourne Touring. And we''ll get Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland hot on the heels of the WNO.

Lots more to read - HERE is the press release. .

More George Benjamin Written on Skin (Aix)

HERE is my review of the London premiere of George Benjamin's Written on Skin. Last week I wrote about George Benjamin's Written on Skin at the Aix Festival and gave links to two reviews, one quite detailed, from Michael Milenski in Opera Today (with photos). It's now a great pleasure to present another well written review from Liam Cagney in the Telegraph.  It's good that there are writers around who think analytically. I like reading reviews to learn how a performance fulfils the music, so appreciate writers who care. Benjamin's Written on the Skin is an extremely important piece, innovative in many ways. Although I've listened to it several times, I still can't do it justice in a few brief lines. Today I've been listening to Into The Little Hill and reading the score of Luke Bedford's  Seven Angels which was way above the heads of most London critics, who couldn't get past the idea of role-playing angels acting out scenarios. Now perhaps they can. All three operas, Into the Little Hill, Seven Angels and Written on Skin predicate on the concept of multi level, stylized narrative. Benjamin's Written on Skin is amazing, and the more you put into it the more you get.

Wonderful Two Headed Nightingale - Luke Bedford

Sunday night saw an energetic and energising performance by the Scottish Ensemble, directed from the violin by Jonathan Morton. The programme was heavily centred on the viola – 3 out of the 4 works featured the instrument in a solo role. Guest soloist was the charming Lawrence Power. Classic works from Haydn and Mozart enclosed modern British repertoire. The concert opened with an enjoyable and uplifting performance of the 44^th ('Trauer') Symphony by Haydn, a composer whose symphonies are getting a lot of airing here in the 2011/12 concert season. The grief of the title was less in evidence than energy and positivity which filled the hall creating a charged atmosphere.

This was followed by a new work by Luke Bedford, Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale, which used the same instrumentation as Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, which was later performed to close the concert. Bedford's piece was inspired by a story of two conjoined twins in the19^th century who became singers, saving themselves from a lifetime of slavery or freak shows through their musical talent. The soloists seem at times to be 'joined at the hip' but at other times to be locked in a power struggle. The harmony/struggle between 2 string soloists is a little remniscent of George Benjamin's Viola, Viola. However this is neither a duet like Benjamin's work, nor is it a double concerto like Mozart's. The soloists open without accompaniment and orchestral colour is added gradually and stepwise, to give an increasing depth of sound as the work builds up. In this (though otherwise having a different sound world) it has something in common with Gerard Grisey's Vortex Temporum, (More here) where the viola opens alone and is joined by gradually increasing forces. It's a really interesting work, and I shall look forward to the opportunity to hear it again on Thursday, when the performance is broadcast on BBC Radio Three.

After the interval an English work of a very different character, this time from the first half of the twentieth century, was featured, Alwyn's Pastoral. At a moment when English pastoralists are getting a lot of airtime, this is an undervalued work which was delightful to hear. It is a pastoral idyll with a virtuostic solo for viola at its centre. Power excelled in this and his playing was very enjoyable.

This concert programme is being toured by the Scottish Ensemble, with performances in Perth, in Glasgow (also broadcast on Radio Three) and Friday at London's Wigmore Hall. Catch it if you possibly can, the standard of playing is excellent and the broad repertoire showcases this instrument well.

The Scottish Ensemble are following this with a spring tour again focusing on string repertoire but programmed to go back in time from Ligeti's 1969 Ramifications to Bach's Violin Concerto, via Webern, Debussy, Bruckner and Mendelssohn. They also have a new CD out on EMI, featuring the trumpeter Alison Balsom – with whom they toured n September 2011 – playing Seraph, a new concerto for her instrument by fellow Scot James Macmillan. Review here to follow. Macmillan's work can also be heard here in Edinburgh not long hence on Monday 5^th March when his Horn Quintet is performed by the Nash Ensemble, also at the Queen's Hall. 
By Juliet Williams 

Luke Bedord Seven Angels full review Linbury BCMG

As promised here is a link to my full, formal review of Luke Bedford's Seven Angels which premiered in Birmingham and reached London on 12th July. I hope this opera will be heard again, in concert form and revived, because it is a lot deeper than most reports might suggest. It's not an "easy" work as it's deliberately ambiguous. Because the climactic scene is the Conference, where authority figures shout platitudes, it's easy to think that that's what the opera is about. But since when did politicians shouting slogans mean what they say ? So beware ! As in life, you can follow slogans or you can think.
photo credit : Alastair Muir

Luke Bedford Seven Angels BCMG London - first thoughts

FULL formal review HERE.   These are/were my first thoughts. What you put into any experience affects what you get out. That's the message of Luke Bedford's Seven Angels and one which audiences should remember too. Don't come expecting Mamma Mia. Seven Angels isn't the musical equivalent of fast food. Instead, it works its way outwards from an inner core of musical depth. A tone poem with voices.Seven Angels is a work by a musician that reveals itself as music taking opera form, just as the angels come to earth to act out characters in a role play. 

Seven Angels is allegory, and like allegory,  it works obliquely through images.  The starting point is John Milton's Paradise Lost but don't make the mistake of expecting a literal, or even literary traverse. There are huge hints in the staging (John Fulljames, The Opera Group). Books everywhere, hundreds of them, and projections behind of pages. Millions of words, some legible, some not. A veritable cacophony of written text.

But what are words, when you think about it? They're just expressive markings for communication, not communication itself. The Prince consumes books, stuffing pages torn straight from their covers, until he looks like he's going to burst. Consume is the operative word. It's only when his plate is empty that he sees himself reflected in the shining metal. Later, members if the Conference gather to discuss the evils of overconsumption at a table made from piles of books. Like the Tower of Babel, it collapses. Words alone are delusion. So listen to Bedford's Seven Angels  as a musical evolution whose secrets are encoded in the orchestration, vocal and instrumental.

Seven Angels starts with a mysteriously opaque murmur that gradually takes shape: a metaphor for the chemical forces that existed before the creation of the universe. Just as the Bible describes Seven Days of Creation, the music moves in plateaux, ideas developing in groups, then moving onwards to new planes. The dark brooding primordial sweep gives way to brightness and sharp, rhythmic ostinato. The pulse is quickening. Very subtle and imaginative musical writing. In fact, I think Seven Angels should be heard in concert performance, to focus on the musical logic. The visuals are extremely important but this is a work that needs to unfold on different levels.  Like George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill, Bedford's Seven Angels needs to be absorbed slowly : it's not at all superficial, and can't be gobbled up in one sitting!

The angels are trying to figure out how the world became the way it is. Instinctively, they recreate the earth's imagined history by acting out the narrative we see on stage. Significantly, they don't know the answers. They're doing role play to stimulate ideas which they don't get from reading books. So, too, the way into Bedford's Seven Angels is intuitive.  Don't get distracted by the earnest allusions to eco-politics and G20 banquets where politicians talk, stuffing themselves while the poor starve. The ranting here comes from the angels pretending to be "politicians". Politcian-speak, words without meaning. You can choose whethervto take it at face value. Seven Angels is a reminder that the real riches of existence aren't to be taken for granted.  The Garden of Eden isn't about apple trees but about deeper values. That's why the tree in this production is paper, a cardboard cut-out that pops out of a book. The real fruit of Seven Angels is the sensitivity you can get from letting it work on your soul.

Musically, Seven Angels is very strong indeed. Small ensemble, but extremely unusual and used in inventivce, creative ways. The piano creates a sort of framework like an inner mertronome over which undulations of low winds and strings palpitate. It feels like the breathing of a living organism. Then, angular agitation, sharp rhythmic ostinato: the organism jerking into action, perhaps. The orchestration is subtle. What is that strange wailing you hear in the second half ? Contrabassoon as solo voice, horribly unsettling, but beautiful in a strange, ethereal way. Very strong integration between vocal and non-vocal forces. The four low violas rumble, a singer snores. The angels stand in line, snapping the pages of books, so the sound becomes another form of percussion. It's remarkably effective, and might be an element of staging that survives into future productions. When the angels return where they came ftrom, the orchestra creates howling concentric patterns of sound, whirring like a clock being wound backwards. Extraordinarily vivid.

This libretto, by Glyn Maxwell, "sings" even on the page, for text that is sung is music, not mere shapes on a page. Bedford translates it extremely sensitively. Each angel is distinctive, and lines can be heard clearly when needed, retreating into the orchestration  as instruments do, when a more diffuse effect is neeeded. No heroic feats of gymnastic singing needed. These angels are feeling their way into human situations.  The lines are semi-conversational, with occasional flights of wild fantasy (the queen in particular - a telling psychological touch). This gives it surprising freedom and must make it a pleasure to sing.  I can imagine what Seven Angels might be like with truly top rank singers, but these communiucate well. It's almost an anachronism to refer to these singers as "cast" because they function as part of the whole orchestration, like the individual musicians of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Ensemble. Nicholas Collon conducts.

For an opera where musical values mean so much, The Opera Group's staging is integral to the production. I specially loved the images of the cosmos, white specks of light flickering in darkness, replicated in filmed projections and in the costumes the singers wear. Star People, yes! Grey jackets, like the ash on the barren desert they visit. Books are lined up in rainbow colours : another image of the Paradise that's been lost. Luke Bedford's Seven Angels is how opera should be done, libretto and staging growing with the music from an early stage. It's an extremely rewarding experience, much more emotionally satisfying than a lot of recent new opera. So what if it's not quick-fix. The finest meals are the ones that nourish, not the ones that come in fancy plastic packaging.(and I don't mean Mark Antony Turnage who's OK)

And exactly as I've said, I've ruminated and read the work over, and have written a much more interesting piece than this ! HERE it is in Opera Today.
Photos copyright Alastair Muir. Christopher Lemmings as The Prince, Rhona McKail as The Waitress, Owen Gilhooly as the General, Keel Watson as The King, Emma Selway as the Queen, Joseph Shovelton as the Industrialist.

Luke Bedford Seven Angels - first glimpse!

Luke Bedford's Seven Angels premieres in Birmingham on 18th June,then tours, and comes to the Linbury, London on 12 July. Anything Bedford writes is an event, because he's one of the best British composers around. He's especially good at writing for voice. Get to it if you can. It sounds intriguing. (My first review is just up HERE)
Opera Today carries a big interview with Bedford about Seven Angels. A scoop - nothing as detailed as this so far. Bedford talks about the opera and its music, and also about its genesis from concept to production. Writing for the stage is different to writing for the concert hall, so read how Bedford goes about doing it. Glyn Maxwell's libretto is so poetic it seems to sing off the page. Director is John Fulljames of The Opera Group. "He has a deep and sensitive understanding of what I'm trying to do", says Bedford.

Since no-one but those involved has yet heard Seven Angels, the Opera Today article is good background. Amazing story..Click on the link, which leads to other links about the production, The Opera Group, BCMG and the Royal Opera House. Below is a a clip courtesy of The Opera group. (Luke Bedford's photo copyright Ben Ealovega)

John Fulljames - why he's Good News for ROH

Exciting  news that John Fulljames has been appointed Associate Director for Opera at the Royal Opera House. He'll be working with Kaspar Holten who becomes Director from September 2011.  Fulljames is a daring, but inspired choice. This is significant news because it might mean a shift towards a more creative approach to opera.

As Anthony Pappano says in the press release, "we're constantly striving to present the very best on our stages". What that may translate to, who knows? But it's better than endless revivals of safe repertoire aimed at the West End market rather than at opera aficionados. I've wriiten about Holten before. Read here about his Copenhagen Ring which is interesting enough to stimulate Wagnerites and accessible enough to engage new audiences. A friernd has also written me about his movie Juan, based on Don Giovanni - more about that soon ! (there's a video clip on this site already, from March).  Fulljames is a daring, brilliant choice because he's close to cutting edge but isn't self indulgent. Look at the photo (Courtesy Johan Persson, BCMG).  Fulljames is looking at the singers while following a score !  

Think on that. In theory, everyone's supposed to work from the score. In practice we get abominations like Monty Python Faust. Fulljames got a First in Physics at Cambridge but all along has also been a musician. He even sang, for a while, so he understands voice. Each production he's made grows from understanding what's unique in whatever opera he's staging. This makes his work so stimulating because he seems to hear things with fresh ears. I adored his George Benjamin Into the Little Hill  last year. Read in detail about it at Aldeburgh and at the Linbury, ROH. Quite detailed description but read it to see why Fulljames's work is such a unique fusion of musical and visual expression. Berlow is a photo of Fulljames and Claire Booth preparing Into the Little Hill.(Courtesy BCMG, Katie Leedale) Again, the score is the star!

Fulljames is currently working on Luke Bedford's new opera Seven Angels with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the Opera Group.  It's Bedford's first opera, eagerly anticiapted because he's perhaps the brightest young hope in British music, and one with a natural gift for writing for voice. Writing for stage is different to writing for the concert hall, so Bedford worked right from the start with Glyn Maxwell the poet. The text is ravishing, and so is what I've heard of the music. BE THERE. Bedford also worked with Fulljames and artist Takamine Tadasu almost from the onset, so the production grows organically from the music. "He has a deep and sensitive understanding of what I'm trying to do", says Bedford.

Fulljames's recent productions for The Opera Group include George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, Jonathan Dove’s The Enchanted Pig and Galt MacDermot's Human Comedy (all three with the Young Vic), Elena Langer's The Lion's Face, Varjak Paw, The Shops, Blond Eckbert and Shostakovich The Nose. Street Scene recently won the “Best Musical” award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Recent productions elsewhere include The Excursions of Mr Broucek, Romeo et Juliette and Hansel and Gretel (Opera North), Gianni Schicchi, Zemlinsky Florentine Tragedy and Mavra (Greek National Opera), Von Heute auf Morgen (Lyon) Tobias and the Angel (Young Vic), Nabucco (Opera Holland Park). In 2008, John directed Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snegurochka for Wexford Festival which opened the new opera house in Wexford, Ireland. John’s previous productions in Ireland were Susannah (Wexford) and The Emperor of Atlantis (OTC) both of which won the Best Opera Production Award at the Irish Theatre Awards. He's worked with many of the great directors in Europe and even directed The Ring in Bilbao and Seville.

More detail to follow in an article in Opera Today.

Concerts - best of 2010

Hans Werner Henze started the 2010 concert year off well. The Barbican Total Immersion weekend was well planned, several good concerts incl Elogium Musicum and a non-staged performance of Phaedra which I saw first staged in Berlin. I also enjoyed his ballet Ondine but utterly loathed Elegy for Young Lovers at the Young Vic, the most misguided and self pandering production I have ever seen or heard, anywhere, barring the same director's abortion of Sibelius's Luonnotar. Elegy isn't known in its original form in the UK: now Londoners think it's a TV sitcom. Henze's one of my herores. Check out this site - no fewer than 18 main posts about him.

The Barbican delivered yet again in March with a Wolfgang Rihm Total Immersion. Wonderful music, wonderful man. Henze doesn't really qualify as The Greatest Living German Composer since he lives in and identifies with Italy. So the honours go to Wolfgang Rihm. Much that's written in the US about modern music would be changed if there was greater awareness of what modern music in Europe really is like. Fortunately in the UK, we get plenty of Harrison Birtwistle, and many younger composers like Brian Ferneyhough,  Luke Bedford. and Simon Holt, all of whom merit several concerts and broadcasts this year - use search label for more. Up and coming, I loved Lloyd Moore's Diabolus in musica.

And then, Aldeburgh, the hippest and liveliest creative festival in the UK. With Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the helm, it attracts the best and brightest from Europe and the US but it's completely muisunderstood by the UK mainstream media, who don't even know enough about Benjamin Britten to know what Aldeburgh meant to him and what it stands for. No other site covers Aldeburgh as much as I do, so take time to explore this site. ABSOLUTE highlight this year was Pierre Boulez. Concert with Ensemble Intercontemporain, who played their hearts out, relishing the buzzy but relaxed  Aldeburgh atmosphere. Aimard and Boulez chatted informally, winning over an audience many of whom had come to hear Bach. 

This year's Proms started with a huge celebratory bang, but there were many other solid highlights, such as the Rattle/Berliner Philharmoniker's mega symphony of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, Metzmacher's DSO Berlin Mahler 7. Well balanced and good value. Although this is Mahler year, all but a very few Mahler concerts (Rattle, Berlin, Abbado Lucerne, Salonen South Bank) have been extremely disappointing. The "new" chocolate coated Mahler may have mass appeal but it make take another 50 years to reverse. Tchaikovsky still hasn't recovered.

Schumann, on the other hand, has benefited from the publicity. All his symphonies were played at the Proms, and in a stimulating way. Recitals, too, have been uniformly good. But if there's one single concert that will live in  my memory it will be Matthias Goerne's second Wigmore Hall recital. This is what Lieder singing really should be like - emotionally intense, intellectual sharp, absolute reverence for the music and poetry. Lieder isn't "easy listening", smooth or superficial, much as the celebrity market would like.

Luke Bedford opera - BCMG 2010/11 season

2010-2011 with the BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) looks exciting. Luke Bedford's first opera, Seven Angels, eagerly awaited by all who know how well Bedford writes for voice.

"Seven angels fall through space and time. When they come to rest in a desert landscape they imagine the creation of a legendary garden that once flourished there, and its destruction from greed and neglect". The text, by Glyn Maxwell, is nspired by Paradise Lost. The opera interprets the themes of John Milton’s great epic poem for a modern audience facing the potentially apocalyptic consequences of a changing climate and diminishing resources.

If it is anything like Bedford's Good Dream She has, also inspired by Milton, and adapted by Maxwell, it should be wonderful. Please read more about that by clicking the link. Lots on Bedford on this site!

Featuring seven singers and BCMG players, conducted by Nicholas Collon, Luke Bedford’s music for the opera is "both dark and seductive, tense and lyrical by turns, and integrates solo voices and choral textures", say those who've heard it. If it's anything like Good Dream She Has, wo!

The opera’s post-apocalyptic landscape is realised by Japanese visual artist Tadasu Takamine. Seven Angels is the first collaboration between BCMG and The Opera Group.  They were the team that briought the wonderful George Benjamin Into The Little Hill , so again the prospect looks good. Follow the link and see why.

Seven interesting concerts !. See the BCMG site for more details. Looks like I'm heading for Birmingham on 10th October for Simon Holt, Rolf Hind and Helmut Lachenmann. Lots more coming up - Rebecca Saunders (Visible Traces, read more about her here),  Mark Anthony Turnage, Birtwistle, Morton Feldman, (The viola in my life, a favourite) etc. And Ollie Knussen, too, of course.

Prom 28 BCMG Knussen Bedford Abrahamsen Benjamin

The BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) came to late night Prom 28, with a programme of Hans Abrahamsen, Luke Bedford, Oliver Knussen and George Benjamin. (photo credit Pepe Araneda)

Hans Abrahamsen's Wald (2008-9) is a joint commission between the BBC and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble, The title hadn't really registered on me before listening, but my first impressions were of dense textures, multiple layers of strange, half-heard sounds, which keep moving forward, into "clearings" of greater lightness. Like exploring a mysterious woodland, where sights are half-glimpsed in shadows, and invisible creatures teem in the undergrowth. Percussion on the right, distanced from the rest of orchestra, clustered around piano and marimba. Layers on layers. A primeval past is evoked by natural horns, and the creatures of the forest by scuttling, scattering techniques on strings and low winds. Read the programme notes by Julian Anderson for more.

"Music is pictures of music", says Abrahamsen. "That is a strong underlying element in my world of ideas when I compose - as is the fictional aspect that one moves around in an imaginary space of music. What one hears is pictures - basically, music is already there." Wald is a beautiful work, which goes far beyond literal representation. It works when you enter the mood, experiencing it on its own terms.

I've written about Abrahamsen's Schnee, which is also very organic, the layers building up like falling snow, muffling and changing what is heard. A good friend thinks it's the most boring piece ever, "like watching snow fall". So the atmosphere doesn't work for everyone, but for me it's like Buddhist prayer, very purifying. It's out on CD now.

Luke Bedford's another exceptionally interesting composer/ LOTS about him on this site, follow the labels and search! Or voit tout en aventure bowled me over when I first heard it in 2006, for it is a truly remarkable piece, one of the most voice-friendly works in the repertoire. Claire Booth looks about 8 months pregnant now, and I worried about the strain on her, but Bedford's lines move like speech, rising and falling  naturally. Crescendi build up gently, so Booth can breathe effortlessly  into the words. Or voit tout en aventure is already something of a perennial, and Booth's been singing it with BCMG from its premiere. This, too, is on CD, an essential, I think. Bedford's written an opera, scheduled for 2011.

More layers with Oliver Knussen's Two Organa (1994). Only six minutes in total, but densely constructeed. The first part uses only white notes, dizzying polyphonic fireworks over a deeper pulse of plainchant. The second adds a secret puzzle: Schoenberg's name is spelt in pitches, concealed in joyous cross-harmonies.

George Benjamin was due to conduct this Prom with his Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra. Although he wasn't there, this was ironically a fitting tribute to Benjamin's bereavement, for one of these inventions was written in memoriam of Olivier Messaien, Benjamin's creative father figure. It quickly segues into the longer, elegaic Lento titled Alexander Goehr, who is most certainly still alive, but the overall thrust feels dignified, respect warmed by love.

I was very impressed by Ilan Volkov, called in at short notice. When he conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, it often felt like something was being held back.  I wonder now that it was the orchestra itself, who may be happier with one of their own. Volkov is young, eclectic and an outsider. He deserves an orchestra that appreciates him. He's still principal guest conductor at BBCSSO, but hopefully, he'll find a niche in London or in mainland Europe.

Knussen's Surprising Puzzles Prom 15

You can just bet that media reaction to Oliver Knussen's Prom 15 will be rabid. Why did he programme pieces that take 3 minutes to play and need 20 minutes to set up? But that's Ollie all over, having fun and confounding expectations. Quite possibly the same Pretty Plastic Pundits who think random applauding is clever will howl when Ollie gives them exactly the kind of concert where "rules" for clapping don't apply.

Much horror too, because Knussen programmed Stockhausen with Schumann. Again, this is no big deal - Simon Holt's a table of noises was the surprise hit of Prom 13,  where it unexpectedly won over an audience who'd come for Schumann and Strauss. Mixed programming is nothing new, unless you've spent the last 100 years under a rock. Henry Wood did it too.

So what's Ollie's point? Confounding assumptions = shaking up preconceptions.  First, no-one died  because they had to hear Stockhausen's Jubilee. It's joyous, celebratory, fill of "starburst" cadences, twinkling tracery and trumpets heard off stage like angels in the heavens. Dramatic and even benevolent, not "difficult" at all.  Jubilee is Stockhausen's tribute to the folk music of his native homeland, the star Sirius.

Then Harrison Birtwistle's Sonance Severance 2000 (1999), only three minutes long, but requires massed celli, basses and brass. Again, that's the point. Massed brass herald the first theme,winds and strings develop it and suddenly it snaps shut with a humorous bleat from single trumpet. A symphony compressed to its essence which lies hanging, hinting that more is yet to come. It was written for the reopening of Severance Hall in Cleveland, so the idea is perfectly cogent.

Sonance Severance connected Stockhausen's Jubilee with Colin Matthews's Violin Concerto (2009). I wasn't knocked sideways, though my companion was impressed, but so what? First reactions are first reactions. On rebroadcast I've grown to appreciate why I liked Leila Josefowicz's high, flowing legato so much. It's elusive, floating dream like, sognando, about the constant flux in the orchestra.  My partner was much taken by the alternations in the sections of the second movement.

Then, the culmination of the first part of this programme, with its sparkling stars, fairy violins and magic trumpets.  Luke Bedford's Outblaze the Sky (2006). Another tiny, six minute work that packs a punch many larger pieces cannot equal.  Exquisite  passages, shimmering on densely resonant background. Immediately I thought of Britten's Sea Interludes, though  it's certainly not like them, and they weren't on Bedford's mind when he wrote the piece. He was thinking in terms of poetic dream. He says "I imagined the piece to have a warmth and certain haziness, ....virtually every pitch is scored with glissandos, harmonics, flutter-tonguing, tremolandos and molto vibrato".

I loved the way Outblaze the Sky draws you into these mysterious undercurrents, then suddenly erupts in upward chords of illlumination. Waking towards the dawn? A flash of insight into some mystery? It doesn't matter, it's a beautiful piece of music and uplifting. (lots more on Luke Bedford on this site)

At first, it seemed odd to switch from this luminous mode to music about the mighty Rhine. Bernd Alois Zimmermann Rheinische Kirmestänze (1950) was paired with Robert Schumann's Symphony no 3 also known as the Rhenish, because it was inspired by the Rhine. "Only connect" Knussen seems to say. Knussen's programmes are often like intricate puzzles, with myriad cross-references that illuminate the works in new ways.

Both Zimmermann and Schumann loved the Rhine. Rivers are a powerful metaphor for creativity. In the case of the Rhine, it springs from the Alps, right through the heart of Germany. After the demonic Prom 4, no-one attentive shouldn't recognize what the Alps mean in terms of the Romantic imagination. (another intelligent undercurrent in this year's BBC Proms).

For Schumann, and for Zimmermann, the Rhine isn't simply a tourist trip, decorated by Rhinemaidens.  Both Zimmermann and Schumann were deeply intellectual, both prone to depression. Schumann tried to commit suicide by junping into the Rhine, Zimmermann, who grew up on its banks, was more successful.

It is very significant that Zimmerman's Rheinische Kirmestänze was first written almost exactly 100 years after Schumann's suicide attempt, for Zimmermann knew Schumann's music very well. The Rheinische Kirmestänze are most definitely not quaint or folksy. The war had just ended, Germany was occupied, and the trauma of Nazism and the Holocaust hung heavily , especially on a left liberal like Zimmermann.  Zimmermann uses references to kitsch  like brass bands but completely undercuts any sense of gemütlich by smearing the certainties with strange cross-rhythmic distortion. Though they're lively, these Rheinische dances are haunted.. (lots more on Zimmermann on this site, use "search")

Then Knussen springs another surprise! So far in this Proms season,. all the Schumann so far (except for Manfred with Petrenko, Prom 4) has been indifferently performed at best, especially disappointing in this Schumann year. Then, Knussen, with his reputation made in new music, goes and conducts the finest Schumann performance of all! This worked for me because it accessed the wilder aspects of late Schumann, which I don't think we've really begun to appreciate.

Wonderfully alert, energetic playing from the  BBC Symphony Orchestra, the top BBC orchestra by far.  This was a joy to hear - listen to the repeat broadcast online, it beats many better known versions. Again, it's inspired by Knussen's feel for musical puzzles. Listen to the final part of the last movement, the Lebhaft (derived from Leben). A similar apotheosis to the final upthrust in Bedford's Outblaze the Sky and Birtwistle's Sonance Severance!  "New" and "old" are silly labels. The sooner people listen "as music", the more they'll get from it.  If only Schumann, who adored cryptic musical puzzles, could have heard Knussen's Prom.

BBC Proms 2010 - seriously hot - July

At last, the BBC Proms 2010 programme is announced. This is my summary for July, there's another on August0-September., and one on Proms Customs, too. Also, coming up, extensive coverage of whole season ! Year after year, the same format, hopelessly predictable. But it's a routine that works. Why change what isn't broken? Planning for an audience of millions, all over the world, isn't easy and it's horrendously difficult to pack so much into one comprehensive series. The really big surprise this year is the sheer quality of the programming.

Of course the season starts with spectacular, and you don't get more spectacular than Mahler 8th. Having heard it at the Royal Albert Hall before, I can assure you that it's the perfect venue. Not so sure with Bělohlávek, though. Much as I love his work, Mahler isn't really his thing. But who cares, this will be a blockbuster.The First Night of The Proms (July 16) is a huge social celebration, and Mahler these days is a fashion statement.

Opera always features in the Proms, even though the stage is small. This year's Wagner must is Meistersinger day - study day and performance together,, and Bryn Terfel, too! And if this isn't enough, next day, it's Verdi Simon Boccanegra with Placido Domingo, Joseph Calleja, Marina Poplavskaya and more. (read my review of the ROH performance HERE)

This first week  is SERIOUSLY HOT.  There will be bloodthirsty fights in the queues and the touts will be out in force flogging tickets at hyper-inflated prices. But wow, will it ever be a knockout first week. Thank goodness the opera houses of the world take summer breaks. Everyone, internationally, will be glued to the radio and internet.broadcasts.  You bet there'll be TV coverage, too.

This year's all day composer is Beethoven on 21st July -  no symphonies til later, piano works first. But again, who cares, when we get pianists of the calibre of Paul Lewis and Maria João Pires.?  On 27th, though, Beethoven symphonies 1 and 5 plus the Violin Concerto in D major, with Hilary Hahn, Paavo Jarvi and the Deutsch Kammer-philharmonie, Bremen.

Luckily, British composer day this year features living composers and some of the best, too. Simon Holt's A Table of Noises gets its London premiere on 26th July, and on 28th, Oliver Knussen conducts the BBCSO in Birtwistle, Colin Matthews and Luke Bedford's Outblaze the Sky. The BBC is supported by taxpayers, but in return, the Proms gives British music such exceptional coverage that the payback is huge. These are important composers, and the world needs to know. For those who need British to mean Victorian, there's Hubert Parry Symphony no 5 which is pretty good. And of course TWO Dr Who Proms days this year.

And that's just the first few weeks in July - two more months coming up next. Looks like £400 will be a minimum outlay. This is one of the best Proms seasons in recent memory for quality. The anti-BBC crowd will be gnashing their teeth in sour rage this year because the Proms are so good. Nothing drives those Alberichs crazier than when the BBC delivers well.

The bad news this year is the booking fee. 2%, of total cost plus extra fees. Many people spend £300-400 for the season which means a whopping £7 on top of an already significant expense. The arena is not an option for many, so it's certainly not a realistic alternative. Poor folks, the disabled, etc just got to realize power lies with money. But perhaps we should be grateful, though. If Rupert Murdoch and his cronies get their way, there'll be no BBC anyway.
PLEASE also see Proms in August and September.  Subscribe or bookmark this site if  you like reading about the Proms.  Each year, I write about 40 or more Proms and hopefully in an original, non-superficial way. So if you want to join the part , please listen -  live, online and on the radio and remember Classical-Iconoclast.

Luke Bedford - Good Dream She Has

The London premiere of Luke Bedford's Good Dream She Has by BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) felt like a historic occasion. Bedford's music is highly individual and distinctive. It felt right that the Wigmore Hall, where he is now Composer in Residence, was filled with many notable British composers and musicians.

Good Dream She Has was premiered in 2008, but this was the first time it's been heard live in London. It lives up to its formidable reputation. From the first bars, you sense you're entering new, uncharted territory. It's scored for only three voices and small ensemble, but feels like a chorale, opening out into infinite space. The voices intersect and expand upon each other, a kind of intricate tracery that made me think of the vaulted ceilings of ancient cathedrals , where stone arches span open space, forming myriad patterns. Rising and falling cadences add to the effect of complex harmonies. They move, swelling and growing as naturally as breathing. It must be wonderful to sing these lines. Bedford's instinct for the way voice works is uncanny.

High voices are paired with sonorous ensemble. There are two Bb clarinets, one of them a bass, the subtle difference extending the oscillating effect, that's so marked in the voices. The text, by Glyn Maxwell. is taken from John Milton and refers to Adam and Eve, one created from the other's rib, so the idea of pairings, between voices and instruments, is deeply embedded. Yet this text and music are neither religious nor conventional. The mysterious wavering cadences feel primordial, like the tides. I thought of Sibelius's Luonnotar, where the universe is created from primeval ocean. "We know, we know no time, we know no time when we were not". The reverberating "o" sounds ebb and flow wonderfully, the balance between voices and their round-like overlap is exquisite. Later the resonant "o" sounds sharpen to "w" and "ee". "What there, what there thous seest, ...with thee it came, with thee..."

These magical cadences are held together by a recurrent pulse, a single chord that acts as a baseline. Percussion would be too obvious. Instead the chord is created several ways, sometimes through harp, guitar, bass and cello, so it varies in texture. Nor does it function as metronome. If you try to beat time, you realize the intervals aren't even and the chord doesn't always fall in line with the cadences. It's wonderfully subtle and elusive, opening out spatially, rather than restrictive. Only at the end are the large tubular bells struck, revealing the chord as a kind of tolling, marking a passage of time (and not any regular passage, at that).

In Bedford's own words : "...the music is dominated by the sound of a repeated G. It acts as a continuous linking device, whilst around it ideas develop, decay or return. With the repeated G acting as pivot point, I could move almost instantaneously ...from a moment of sombre refllection to more active material, but without the change being too abrupt. The repeated G is never....is almost never on the conductor's beat, so there is a constant tension between the ensemble's downbeat and the pulsed G."

In this mysterious, magical piece, syntax and logic are irrelevant. Words pop up as if from the subconcious. "Eve" and "Empress". Sometimes Adam and Eve sing identifiable lines, sometimes they become parts in the ensemble of "Creatures", whose very nature is undefined. Somewhere along the way a "shape within the water" is glimpsed. It fades, but reacts to the viewer and returns, elusively, like the music itself. There's a lovely wavering passage where the instruments "sing" tracery like the voices and then Adam is suddenly heard, saying quite clearly "She disappeared". Conventional notions of word setting are irrelevant, too, for what's being created here is a whole new world of impressionist sound, whose meaning grows from creative intuition.

Superb performance by Claire Booth, Hilary Summers, Christopher Gillett and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Oliver Knussen.

Perhaps much will be made of the fact that the other items on this programme were "early" pieces, but that's misleading, for the relationships are much deeper and musically astute. Birtwistle's The World Is Discovered (1960-1) suggests the creation myth in Bedford's "new world", but also uses - entirely coincidentally - similarly complex cadences. They even share the unusual combination of guitar and harp.

Peter Maxwell Davies's Leopardi Fragments (also 1961) and Alexander Goehr's The Deluge (1957-8) demonstrated why the "Manchester" group were the dynamos of their time. They're both dramatic pieces, contrasting density and spareness for vivid impact. The Deluge also takes up the theme of new worlds being created from primordial chaos, in this case, the Flood. The text is by Sergei Eisenstein, so it evolves like a collage of images in film. Disparate images rush past, borne on the swirling deluge of sound. The phrases in the text and vocal line don't connect grammatically, but the effect is perfectly apposite. Again, the notion that meaning doesn't have to be spelled out, but can be created by combining voice with orchestral sound for impressionistic effect.

Luke Bedford at the Wigmore Hall

The name Luke Bedford will be familiar to those who follow new music and this site, but his name should one day be familiar to all. There are hundreds of new music composers around, but even among the good ones he stands out. And I'm not the only one who's been thinking that for a while. He's been appointed composer in residence at the Wigmore Hall, one of theworld's top chamber music venues.

His Chiaroscuro (2002, rev 2005) was played last night by the Fidelio Trio. It's a surprisingly mature work for such a young man (he's still just 31). As another composer in the audience said, "not a note wasted". In painting, chiaroscuro is the black and white outlines over which colours are painted, to give them depth. The skeleton of the work. It's a good working method for composers too. In painting, artists without strong ideas muddy their colours with too many brushstrokes. Same with composers, who disguise weak ideas in a deluge of diversionary notes. Luke Bedford writes music with the passion of a Chinese brush painter. Every note counts, with maximum purpose. You don't need to fill in the background if your basic image is focused and powerful. (The picture is part of a large, dramatic scroll depicting the nine dragons of mythology, painted in 1244 by Chen Rong. Enlarge for detail.)

Bedford's Chiaroscuro is muscular, spare but not minimal: definitely a piece to hear again. The piano part works like a foundation, cello and violin diagonal and vertical against the throbbing piano horizontal, a sort of multi-dimensional energy. "There is a constant shift between stable and more mutable areas", writes Bedford, "much of the piece is in an uneven 11/16 time signature, creating the effect that the ground is not entirely stable beneath." The whole concert was recorded for later broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Hear & Now and will be available internationally, online and on demand.

Ed Bennett was a name new to me but I was impressed too, by his For Marcel Dzama (2007) where he himself played the electronics on a laptop (in the Wigmore Hall!). Again, the vitality was striking. The music grows in three plateaux, rising to a rhythmic finale, where the quirky voices dance wildly together. The electronics hovered elusively in the background like a veil of mist : more effective than being overtly dominant. Sometimes I found myself wondering "what's that" rather than thinking "sound desk showing off". A good thing. Only when I got home and read the programme notes did I discover the piece was inspired by a Winnipeg painter, Marcel Dzama, whose work apparently is filled with oddball characters.

Perhaps the performance was so lively because members of the Fidelio Trio are friends who work together in various combinations : their zest and committment made the music vivid.

Thomas Larcher's My illness is the Medicine I need (2002) was scheduled several months ago as part of a Larcher series, see earlier links) but postponed, so I was eagerly anticipating this performance. It's a strange, piece which seems to search probingly without conclusion. Perhaps because the ideas are taken from snippets from interviews in a magazine (Benetton!). They are fragements, soundbites from people's lives, evidently complicated lives filled with anomie. ""I don't like freedom. The world frightens me." Gradually a hint of terror creeps in "I think people are brought here to be killed....once they give you an injection, you instantly stop hearing voices". Conceptually it's fascinating that Larcher can string together discrete ideas to create a coherent mood, but the naturally meandering form such a process seems to take is less easy to grasp. Patricia Rozario sang, nicely, luxury casting as they say in the movies, but maybe not quite right for the idiom.

This concert was part of the Soundings project, organized by the Austrian Cultural Forum, who often do imaginative things for art in this country. Composers grow when they grow as human beings, so every experience becomes a factor in how they work, even if it's not overt "influence". So it was good to hear Für Bálint András Varga by Johannes Maria Staud (b 1974). It's a five minute miniature, which flits past so quickly you're taken by surprise.

More substantial was Eduard Steuermann's transcription for piano, cello and violin of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. This is such a wonderful work, that reduced forces bring out its essence. Steuermann (1892-1964) was a pianist who studied with Schoenberg himself, who passionately believed in the idea that transcriptions taught musicians to concentrate on fundamentals: why and how a piece works, not the fancy wrapping. A lesson in the art of composition which should be remembered today.