Defeating COVID-19 by human decency - Rattle, Berliner Philharmoniker

Simon Rattle (Photo : Doug Peters)

Disastrous as COVID-19 is, can we learn from it ? At the Philharmonie, Berlin, Simon Rattle conducted Berio and Bartók to an empty hall, streamed internationally free of charge. Inevitably sneers from those who still don't know there's a pandemic around, and above all, cannot understand the role of music in difficult times.  It wasn't just any concert : of course there was no encore or applause.  An empty house brings home the message : millions might suffer and die. We can't take life or anything else for granted. And even those who survive will be scarred. (and lose their livelihoods in the economic downturn).  Concerts are live experiences, influenced by circumstances around them. To dismiss the human side of communication is to dismiss the whole point of music.

As Rattle said, there are connections between Berio Sinfonia and Bartók Concerto for Orchestra.  Both deal with memory, and the multiple threads that influence the way composers and listeners absorb their response to life and to music.  Berio's Sinfonia covers a sprawling range of human experience, questioning the way we process  that experience in music.  It is such a seminal work that it gets done very often indeed, and most people know it well, but it's not at all easy to pull off properly. (there are some lousy ones).  It's a Rattle speciality. Of the numerous performances I've heard,  this was a high point : sharper and tighter, extremely focussed.  Berio's  singers were English, establishing the tradition of British-sounding accents, which is relevant because it distances the voices from the German, Italian and other influences in the work. The soloists Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart are "English" enough but also "musical" enough to fit in with the music.  Even if this wasn't a special event concert, this performance would be up there near the top.

Rattle's introduction to Bartók Concerto for Orchestra was typically understated but that made it all the more powerful.  In this world it's not all me, me  me.  Good peoiple don't fight over toilet paper and abuse strangers.  Possibly even worse than the virus is the way it's revealed how deeply entrenched xenophonia is in this world, so endemic that even seemingly normal peopleshow their evil side.

The performance is superb, as to be expected since he's done this dozens of times, but make the time to listen to what Rattle says.  In these times of crisis, this is utterly relevant; humanity and  empathy for others is all the more important. That's why msuiciands are sacrificng their livelihoods and carrers, so the virus doesn't spread. No-one should have to die because some people want to go out.

In 1940, Bartók was a refugee in a new land, cut off from his creative roots. He was despondent, and broke. He was unknown and unwell. Smasll boys used to tease him in the street, as small boys do, alas.  He became ill,  and might have died in obscurity like so many others in his position. Fortunately, Serge Koussevitzky cared about him, aranging that he be treated with  a new experimental drug then only available to military personnel. One man helping another : passing on the flame as in Berio's Sinfonia. The Concerto for Orchestra  was another act of kindness, since it gave Bartók an income and new inspiration.  

Once he began writing, his mood lifted as if he were rejuvenated.  Although there are familiar "Hungarian" themes in the piece, it's not fundamentally nostalgic.  Bartók was looking back on his past, well aware of what was happening in the Europe he'd left behind, and of the right wing extremism in Hungary, whose government aligned itself with Hitler.  Rattle understands the granite-like inner strength in the piece and the firm lines beneath the nostalgia. Perhaps Bartók was drawing on sources in his psyche that went much deeper than folkloric colour. The ethereal opening theme developed until it emerged with expansive confidence. The music seems to oscillate, highlighting the more disturbing undercurrents in the work, alternating with moments of expansive feeling.  Rattle negotiated this constant flux, tempi spiriting along as if propelled by winds of change. This concert's being repeated on the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall regularly, in the absence of regular programming. 

Orchestre de Paris 50th Birthday Party - Berio Sinfonia flows free

The Orchestre de Paris, with Daniel Harding, click to enlarge -it's worth  it

Hugely ambitious concert marking the 50th anniversary of the Orchestre de Paris. The finest concert hall in the world,  and one of the finest orchestras too,  with new Chief Conductor Daniel Harding, and a programme showcasing the connections between sound and space.  Berio's Sinfonia, "a symphony that contains the world"  created so it constantly renews and adapts whenever it's performed anew.  A metaphor for the creative force that is music !  The concepts that make Berio's Sinfonia so innovative apply too to György Ligeti's Poème symphonique pour 100 métronomes, to Jörg Widmann's Fantasie, to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and to Debussy La Mer.   To assess this vast programme in conventional terms would be to miss its very purpose.  The Orchestre de Paris and the Philharmonie are astute, not stupid.  These works are hardly obscure.  Music doesn't have to be locked into straitjackets of form. Like the river that flows through Berio's Sinfonia, it flows onwards, absorbing many influences, fertilizing new areas, bringing renewal and rebirth.  As Berio explained, "One of my aims was to use the orchestration as a respectful and loving instrument of investigation and transformation". 

It's no accident that Berio references Mahler's Symphony no 2, with its themes of death and resurrection, and specifically to the movement in which the song  Des Antonius von Paduas Fischpredikt  resurfaces wordlessly, in orchestral guise.  Numerous other references, too, such as to Don, the first movement of Boulez's Pli selon Pli ( which means fold upon fold, ie, endless layers and permutations). (Read more HERE)  "Don" means gift, so this is like a gift  from one composer to another. What has gone before shapes what is to come, but absolutely central is the idea that music never ends.  Numerous other references, some musical, some cultural, some explicit, some so cryptic that they only reveal themselves on careful listening.  "For the unexpected is always with us!" a phrase that acts like a signpost in the vocal parts. Berio also experiments with levels of time, blending references to the past to the present and future.  "Keep going, keep going" and later "Stop!" but the music propels ever forward.

Thunderbolt ostinato, screams of protest.  London Voices supplied the archly Anglo tones that appealed to Berio's quirky sense of humour. So what if some audiences don't get everything, all at once ?  St. Anthony kept preaching to the fish, though they didn't listen and kept scrapping. 

 Berio also wrote music that would grow to fit each performance space. In the Philharmonie, the Sinfonia swelled to fit the vast space, where the acoustic  is so fine that it doesn't dampen fine detail. This time the whispers in the voice parts could be heard, imperceptibly, and tiny figures in the orchestration weren't lost  Though Berio uses a large orchestra, big blast is not the way to do this piece.  Harding builds up the layers of colour and texture so they shine . Much in the way Impressionist painters kept their brush strokes clear.  Thus the elegant symmetry of the programme, balancing Berio's Sinfonia with Debussy La Mer. Both pieces are impressionistic in the way details are built up without being muddied, individual cells kept clean and vibrant. La Mer was revolutionary because it marked a sea change in style. It thrives best when conducted like this, where the energy flows freely.  For French orchestras La Mer is a signature piece : the symbol of modern French style.  

In Sinfonia, Berio also makes references to Ligeti and specifically to Atmosphères.  Perfectly logical then to follow Sinfonia with Ligeti's Poème symphonique where 100 metronomes tick, each in slightly different ways. Ligeti's playing with time, and measures of time : the principles of music, where his "players" are usually the means by which music is regulated. More quirky humour ! In a long concert like this, it gave the regular orchestra a rest while the audience worked. If they understood, which they probably did since it's quite a well known piece. Again, proof that music exists in many forms ! Thus Widmann's Fantasie for solo clarinet, heard in March this year at the opening concert at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. The Paris Philharmonie is a much bigger space, but the piece adapted well,  as if the sound of the clarinet were moving around the hall, reaching out into its distances. If anything, I much preferred this new spatial dimension. It makes the piece intriguing, as if the instrument were exploring and responding to its environment.  Like shepherds of Ancient Greece, playing flutes whose sound carries over vast spaces.  Another connection to the themes in Berio's Sinfonia.  

Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, another hybrid form, blending the form of ritual religious music to orchestral style, at once ancient and modern.  It also combines orchestra with choir (the Choir of the Orchestre de Paris, Choirmaster Lionel Sow).  The ideas in Berio's Sinfonia again, but with the unmistakable austerity that would mark Stravinsky's later style. Huge blocks of sound, hewn as if from a rockface, yet moving forward with slow but monumental pace.  Stravinsky, Berio and Debussy, three very different composers but each creating new form.   In contrast,  Jörg Widmann's  Au cœur de Paris written for the orchestra's 50th birthday. It's a party piece,  tumbling different clichés of Paris together in merry profusion.  Yet another nod to Berio and his sense of humour ! 

Listen to the concert here (available for the next six months)

 

Berio Sinfonia and Mahler Early Songs - Goerne.

A landmark new recording from Harmonia Mundi  of Luciano Berio's responses to Gustav Mahler, with Matthias Goerne, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Josep Pons, featuring  Berio's orchestrations of ten of Mahler's Early Songs with the Sinfonia, in which references to Mahler's Symphony no 2  provide, as Berio said "a generator of harmonic functions and the musical references they imply".

Berio describes the Sinfonia as an "internal monologue" which makes a "harmonic journey". It flows, like a river, sometimes in full flow, sometimes underground.  Mahler 2 is called the "Resurrection" because it's based on the idea that death isn't an end but a stage on a journey to eternal life.  In Sinfonia, there are quotes from at least 15 other composers, but specially significant  are references to Don, the first movement of Boulez's Pli selon Pli (which means fold upon fold, ie, endless layers and permutations).  Don means gift, so this is like a gift  from one composer to another. What has gone before shapes what is to come, but absolutely central is the idea that creativity never ends, but is reborn anew.  Stagnation is death. 

Berio's river in sound flows swiftly, bringing in its wake the streams and springs which have enriched it, adapting them and changing them, surging ever forwards towards the freedom of the ocean. It's filled with subtle references to many things: to Cythera, one of the cradles of Greek civilization and the home of the goddess of regeneration.  Sinfonia is truly a "symphony that contains the world" but it is by no means just collage.  Like a river it also symbolizes constant fertilization and renewal.

Every performance is unique.  This performance naturally names Pons as conductor, and Synergy Vocals by name, but is remarkably fresh and clean-sounding.  Nothing comes close to Boulez's recording, though Chailly and Eötvös are good challengers, but Pons sparkles. Over the years Synergy Vocals have done Sinfonia many times with different personnel, but present it with such a sense of wonder that it feels like new discovery. Which is what a good Sinfonia should be, bringing new detail to the surface, vibrantly dancing with energy like the fishes listening to the saint, but nonetheless going on in their individual ways. The BBCSO, for a band happy in the mainstream, sound like they're having a whale of a time being playful and contrary, for fun was very much part of the Berio mystique.  

"Down with Dogma!" another thread in Sinfonia is apt, since this recording places Sinfonia together with Berio's orchestrations of Mahler's songs for voice and piano.  Mahler himself worked from song to symphony, so, as Berio explained, "One of my aims was to use the orchestration as a respectful and loving instrument of investigation and transformation".  Berio's arrangements were premiered at the Mahler Musikwochen in Toblach where serious Mahler minds meet. The ten songs on this recording come from sets of  frühe Lieder Mahler wrote between 1880 and 1889, which Berio adapted in 1986/7. Thomas Hampson made the first recording in January 1992, with Berio himself conducting the Philharmonia, London.  Much as I love that recording, this new recording is even better. Although Goerne has not recorded much Mahler, Mahler has been central to his career. In 2000, he did a programme where the Early Songs and Des Knaben Wunderhorn were presented by theme, bringing out deeper ideas.  At other times, I've spotted him unobtrusively in concerts, listening with rapt attention.   Hampson's voice is elegant, even stately, but Goerne's more individualistic, which  suits the earthy irony in Wunderhorn.

All these texts come from Brentano and von Arnim's Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Though the songs themselves were written fairly early in Mahler's career, without Wunderhorn, Mahler would not have developed as he did.  The texts may be folksy but the sentiments are sophisticated.  They're not quaint for quaintness's sake, but, like fairy tales, operate like miniature morality fables in a pre-industrial oral tradition.  Thus the sense of non-judgemental wonder Goerne brings to songs like Ablösung im Sommer, Goerne sings the words "Kuckuck ist tod!" with genuine alarm. Although the nightingale will take over, the death of a humble cuckoo is something to be sad about.  Berio's version of Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz is magnificent.  Goerne sings the first words alone, for the protagonist is alone, awaiting execution. then we hear the Alphorn, calling across a vast chasm. This dialogue matters, for this song is about freedom. Die Gedanken sind Frei. Please read my analysis of the song here.  The depth of Goerne's voice suggests strength, not fear, yet also wistfulness. The soldier doesn't want to die but at least he'll be free.  Listen, too, to the tenderness Goerne brings to Nicht Wiedersehen. The poem might seem trite, but when Goerne sings "Meine Herzeallerliebste Schatz", his voice soars, emboldened by the sincerity of genuine grief. 

Berio's orchestration brings out the dance in Hans und Grete, Big sweeping arcs evoke "Ringel, ringel Reih'n"., the force of Nature that pulls together the two timid lovers. Peasants they may be but their love is such that it deserves the full force of a big orchestra.  Ich ging mit Lust is also greatly enhanced, connecting to the way the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesell'n connect to Mahler's Symphony no 1.  Dark-hued baritones don't do delicate easily, but Goerne's touch emphasizes the spring-like freshness in the song, and the warmth of summer to come.  This gentleness flows naturally into Frühlingsmorgen.the words "Steh' auf" charming yet assertive.  In Phantasie, Goerne alternates the top of his timbre with darker depths: the fisher girl cast nets into the sea, but her heart is cold.  On this recording the set ends with Scheiden und Meiden.  The orchestration is richly generous. "Ade "! Ade!" Goerne sings, expansively. "Ja, scheiden und meiden tut weh", but that's the way of the world.  Even babies grow up and change. Moving on isn't a bad thing. An utterly brilliant entree to the world of the Sinfonia.

Goerne is singing very well at the moment : Grab tickets to his Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with Joseph Pons at the Royal Festival Hall on 16th October. They've been touring with this a while,  so it should be good. 

François-Xavier Roth LSO Ligeti Berio Barbican

At the Barbican Hall, London, François-Xavier Roth conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. With Roth, always expect the unexpected.  Those who think he's like any other conductor don't understand him at all. Appropriately, he headed the LSO Futures project which involves much more than concerts but offers an in-depth immersion into the process through which orchestras and composers work together to bring performance to life. Roth's theme was the way the concept of symphony has adapted and transformed by contrasting two pillars of modern music, György Ligeti's Atmosphères with Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, 

It's hard to believe that Ligeti's Atmosphères was written 55 years ago, for it still sounds shockingly fresh. Schoenberg horrified audiences in 1908 when he included two movements for voice in his String Quartet no 2, the second of which, Entrückung, floats between keys, evoking the other-worldly, mystical rapture Stefan George described in his poem. The famous first line runs  "Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten." but its last strophe is perhaps even more significant : "In einem meer kristallnen glanzes schwimme-- Ich bin ein funke nur vom heiligen feuer -  Ich bin ein dröhnen nur der heiligen stimme." (In a sea of crystal clarity, I swim, I am only a spark of that Holy Fire, I am only a whisper of the Holy Voice).   I quote at length because this illustrates the eternal search which inspires good artists to seek new frontiers and original means of expression.

Roth may not have included Schoenberg in this concert (with a full orchestra, not chamber ensemble) but Schoenberg's innovative spirit hovers over Ligeti's  Atmosphères. like an invisible guiding spirit.  In  Atmosphères Ligeti dispenses with conventional pitch and form, creating instead ethereal "atmospheres", planes of sound where pitch seems to disintegrate,  The long, reverberating opening chord gives way to other planes.   What form there is, is created by subtle changes of direction and density. Long hollow chords which seem to move from some extraterrestial plane, heralding a rumble from which other planes of sound arise. Low brass pulsates, and the strings shimmer, like rays of light stretching outwards,sublimated into silence.  Ligeti's  Atmosphères. holds a special place in Roth's heart. It was premiered by Hans Rosbaud, who created the SW German Radio Symphony Orchestra of which  Roth is Chief Conductor, the orchestra now sadly doomed.  Read HERE about how Roth protested in mega high profile about the demise of the orchestra and its pioneering principles 

Berrio's Sinfonia with its concepts of confluence as form furthers George's mystical vision, that so inspired Schoenberg : Ich bin ein dröhnen nur der heiligen stimme.  The artist channels something greater than himself. Hence the idea of water, of a flowing river broadening until it reaches the ocean,. We are right back swimming in George's "Kristallen Meer"   And, to paraphrase a line from Sinfonia, "The spirit of Schoenberg hangs in the cool, clean air". .I've written many times  about the synthesis and innovation in Berio's Sinfonia - please READ MORE HERE and HERE

There is so much in Sinfonia,  so many directions and elusive cell-like fragments, it's fundamental to respect what Boulez called "trajectory", that is. direction and purpose. This performance was wonderfully taut and vigorous, rather like the fish leaping around while St Antonius preaches. They represent a powerful life force that can't be contained by sermons. Roth, the LSO and Synergy Vocals interact like chamber performers, responding to each other, while propelling the music forward. Words emerge like signposts : "Keep going, keep going" and later "Stop!" but the music propels ever forward.  Thunderbolt ostinato, screams of protest. Berio  also incorporates different levels of reality, such as the mock emcee naming the performers of the night: this part of the score always varies.  Sounds seem to clear, just as in passages of Ligeti's  Atmosphères which is specifically named and cited, but this is  by no means the end. Pitches hover and sounds rise upwards. In this performance Roth and his forces seem to create the aural image of an aircraft engine readying for takeoff, an absolutely appropriate metaphor for the way the sounds levitate. Yet here was joyous, dance-like back and forth liveliness. Quelques contradictions, as a voice called out.  Fragments of words are lobbed like tennis balls between singers : the vocal balance here so tight that it was easy to spot the different timbres. 

In between these two cornerstons of modern music any other music would inevitably pale.  Elizabeth Ogonek's Sleep and Unrememberance is based on a poem by a Polish poet, written as she confronted death,  Ogonek develops an idea thatb time and space can be compressed, and that perhaps, ultimately what we cling to as important might be only a dream. It's a big, ambitious piece, resplendent with glossy textures and broad sweeps of sound, highlighted by eddies and flurries for contrast.  I kept thinking how successful it would be in Los Angeles, probably because of its shiny polish, but also because it reminded me of Esa-Pekka Salonen or Thomas Adès. Ogonek was a member of the LSO's Panufnik scheme, through which young composers are nurtured in memory of Andrzej Panufnik, whose influence on British music thus lives on. 
 

FX Roth Luciano Berio Sinfonia

François-Xavier Roth conducted the LSO in Luciano Berio's Sinfonia at the Barbican Hall, London, the culmination of a two-concert series that also featured Ligeti Atmosphères, Thomas Adès  Chamber Symphony, Schoenberg Chamber Symphony (for contrast) and two world premieres, Darren Bloom's Dr Glaser's Experiment and Elizabeth Ogonek's Sleep and Remebrance. a weeping programme, and an audacious pairing of Adès  and Schoenberg. From Roth, we can always expect the extraordinary, As Luciano Berio said "The unexpected is always with us".

Berio's Sinfonia was written in 1968, one of those watershed years in history, like 1848, when the world seems to undergo a massive sea change even if the results aren't clear for a while. 1968 was also a pivotal year for music. I remember reading about The Raft of the Medusa, (read more |HERE) not yet realizing who Henze was - I was just a kid - but aware it was something I had to find out about.

Berio's Sinfonia symbolizes so much of what 1968 meant - openness and the will to explore,  a sense of endless possibilities, and an awareness that our perceptions of life are shaped by complex and multipole networks of human experience.

Berio describes the Sinfonia  as an "internal monologue" which makes a "harmonic journey". It flows, like a river, bringing in its wake the streams and springs which have enriched it, adapting them and changing them, surging ever forwards towards the freedom of the ocean. It's filled with subtle references to many things: to Cythera, one of the cradles of Greek civilization and the home of the goddess of regeneration.  Sinfonia is truly a "symphony that contains the world" but it is by no means just collage. It's so original that it rewards active, thoughtful listening. 

Quotes from Mahler's Symphony no 2 run through the Sinfonia, like a river, sometimes in full flow, sometimes underground.  Mahler 2 is called the "Resurrection" because it's based on the idea that death isn't an end but a stage on a journey to eternal life.  There are quotes from at least 15 other cpmposers, but specially significant  are references to Don, the first movement of Boulez's Pli selon Pli ( which means fold upon fold, ie, endless layers and permutations).  (Read more HERE)  Don means gift, so this is like a gift  from one composer to another. What has gone before shapes what is to come, but absolutely central is the idea that creativity never ends, but is reborn anew.  Stagnation is death.  Incidentally one of the best recordings of the Sinfonia was conducted by Boulez, who relished its audacity. 

"For the unexpected is always upon us"  illuminates the deliberately obscurantist miasma of the text, partly based on Samuel Beckett, though there are also phrases from Claude Lévi-Strauss, the anthropologist of myth. The style is often almost conversational.  so you're drawn into what's being spoken, only to be confronted by something elusively confusing. You navigate, as on the rapids of a river, by paying attention and being intuitive, Once I heard an apparently true anecdote about someone who built a machine that could write music.  Along came Berio, who twiddled a few knobs and buttons and created something genuinely original.  The machine's inventor was not pleased.  That's the difference between real art and fake.

Berio had a quiet sense of humour. When he quotes Mahler's Des Antonius von Paduas Fischpredikt (read more here) , he knows the fish don't understand and will keep fighting.  Perhaps Berio knew that some folk would never "get" Sinfonia, but he wasn't bothered as he didn't need to prove anything.  Traditionally -- if that's a word which can apply to someone as lively as Berio -- the texts have been semi-spoken at odd pitches, using tuning forks and impossibly clipped British accents, which adds to the sense of quixotic unreality. At the end, the performers name and thank each other -- reality playing tricks with art.

Berio's Sinfonia connects, too, to many other works of the period, such as Stockhausen's Hymnen  (read more HERE) and to Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Requiem for a Young Poet (Read more here).  All three pieces "open windows" in different ways onto other aspects of life, culture, history, literature and music. All attempt a creative and original synthesis of human existence. Not easy goals to achieve. Indeed, I'm not sure that music like that can be written today in times where so many prize insularity and fear diversity.  François-Xavier Roth strikes me as an ideal Sinfonia conductor because his background lies in the adventurousness of the baroque, which has animated his passion for the avant garde. (Read more HERE)   Feview of the second concert coming soon.

Games with Time : London Sinfonietta Prom 44

Delightful Londoin Sinfonietta experience at BBC Prom 44. Ligeti, Xenakis, Berio, Jonarthan Harvey, Louis Andriessen and John Cage. Mentally challenging but also intensely good fun. "Fun?" sneered someone not so long ago "That's not an acceptable term in music" But anyone who can't appreciate fun can't really appreciate creativity.To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "when a man is tired of fun, he's tired of life".

This Prom was also a challenge to creative thinking. No orchestra for Ligeti's Poème Symphonique, . Instead 100 metronomes furiously ticking away until their mechanisms run out of steam. Metronomes count time and tempo is a basic building block of music. Like Poème Electronique, it's an installation piece that breaks down rigid assumptions about how we process sound into music.

I've loved Luciano Berio's Sequenza V for years without knowing its background as it works fine as pure music. It's a study of breath control. The trombone emits tentative blips, then creates long, low lines that seem to probe into space. Trombones call to communicate. Byron Fulcher shows how his trombone can peak, sometimes like a moan, sometimes a long exhalation, probing space and reaching outwards. He's dressed as a clown, mocking the Victorian propriety of the Royal Albert Hall. But it's also a reference to a famous clown who lived near Luciano Berio when Berio was a boy. Berio liked humour because it was anti-authoritarian and broke down barriers.

Xenakis Phlegra  refers to the clash between the Gods of Greece and their predecessors, the Titans. Obviously it's not "pictorial" but a confrontation between jagged,  angular pulses and more complex emanations. Woodwinds, brass and percussion weave zigzags  around each other.. Gutsy, "wooden" sounds from the strings. A huge, elliptical emanation from the brass, then a strange blast that suddenly deflates. There's even a snatch of melody, a brief reprise before the piece speeds up maniacally, and ends with pulsating short signals, like transmissions from distant planets.

In Jonathan Harvey's  Mortuos plango, vivos voco, technology is the instrument. A boy's voice sings agains ta recording of  tolling cathedral bells. But the boy himself is now an adult. while his voice rermains that of a child, recorded when the piece was first created. Harvey is playing with time, for what we hear is both something frozen in the past and reconstituted  anew in performance.

Many of the themes in Prom 44 pulled together in Louis Andriessen's  De Snelheid (Velocity) (1984). Two identical groups (saxophone, brass, piano at the sides, flutes, harps, keyboards in the front and centre back what Andriessen calls "Buddha", woodblock percussion that operates as a giant metronome. Regular, unvarying pulse, but one which speeds up quicker and quicker until you can't count the beats. Any faster and the player might disintegrate. It's gloriously punchy and exuberant, but must be hell to play and keep together. The London Sinfonietta have Andriessen's idiom under their skins, so to speak, and have been playing him for years. André Ridder conducted, stylishly.

And then silence. Or not.  After 60 years, John Cage's notorious 4'33 still draws howls of rage from fundamentalists who don't think about what they listen to.  Cage makes us think about the art of listening, why and how we process what we hear around us. 4'33 is like a Cage Musicircus, where we're presented with layers of multiple stimuli. Every "performance" is unique, created by chance and happenstance. Unfortunately at the Proms everyone keeps reverently silent which defeats the purpose. But 4'33 is "music you can perform at home" at any time.  Indeed, in our 24/7 world of mass instant communication, ruled by technology, we need to heed Cage more than ever.

This Prom ended as performance art, volunteers texting randomly, like in an installation space. A cheeky concept!  But fun.

photo : Peter Forster