Vladimir Jurowski : Britten (Julia Fischer), Tchaikovsky, Knussen LPO

Vladimir Jurowki and Julia Fischer with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing, March 2019

We'll miss Vladimir Jurowski when he moves on from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, after 18 years, 11 of these as Principal Conductor. Jurowski is a man who thinks deeply, creating programmes that are more than the sum of their parts, often venturing into repertoire off the beaten track.  This concert at the Royal Festival Hall brought together Oliver Knussen (Scriabin Settings), Benjamin Britten (Violin Concerto) and Tchaikovsky (Symphony no 6, the "Pathétique") 

Knussen's Scriabin Settings (from 1978) have recieved many performances over the years, most recently at the Knussen Memorial at Aldeburgh in June. Based on Scriabin's late miniatures for piano for small ensemble, Knussen's arrangement extends the colours without sacrificing transparency. Despite the chamber-like forces, "Désir" hints at what massed strings might sound like : an intriguing whisper, stirring the imagination.  High, bright winds weave filigree patterns in "Nuances", leading seamlessly into "Caresse dansée" where the tones are darker and more sensual, leading to the livelier  "Feuillet d'Album".  In "Enigne" the flute danced brightly before the elusive conclusion. Though Scriabin is the muse, Knussen's Scriabin Settings are true Knussen territory : whimsical, open-hearted and aphoristic.

Julia Fischer was the soloist in Britten's Violin Concerto op 15, 1938-9.  The introductory lines here were elegant, a brief moment of serenity before the agitato, where angular figures were underlined by percusion, suggesting gunfire.  Spain had fallen to Franco, supported by the Nazis. To an anti-fascist like Britten, and many others,  exile must have seemed the only hope for civilization.  The Violin Concerto is a scream of anguish, so intense that  it has affected reception.. It takes courage to write a deeply uncomforting statement like this.  Perhaps only now can we appreciate its place in the canon of major works by a composer for whom cruelty and the loss of innocence were moral crimes. While the second movement begins vivace, the mood is bittersweet, Fischer recognizing the importance of the tight, tense pizzicato contradicting the sweep of the strings. Fischer platyed the long, meandering lines with melancholy, intensifying the contrast with the turbulent animando, where brass and timpani dominate.  Nonetheless, the violin breaks free, true to itself,  fast paced passages flying at high tessitura, above the darkness around it :  hollow wood, the violin beaten like percussion, as if it were a folk instrument in a far away homeland, before a cadenza that soared above murmuring brass, the orchestra muted so it felt deliberately distant.  Jurowski delineated the passacaglia so it felt like an anthem, undaunted and austere, rising (like the violin) ever upward.  Thus fortified, the violin could reprise something of the confidence with which the piece began, Fischer playing with steady assurance, the orchestral strings like a chorale behind her.  From the orchestral strings, a suggestion of guitars : the ghosts of the dead in Spain, rising again, led by the violin, marching quietly onward. Listening to the Violin Concerto, perhaps we can already hear Britten confronting the fundamental bleakness of the human condition, from which there is little escape.

By pairing Britten's Violin Concerto with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Jurowski highlighted the more disturbing aspects of the symphony.  Because it's heard so often and sometimes receives performances that don't do it justice, the depth of its pathos aren't always done with the commitment that Jurowski brings to its interpretation.  Wonderful colours, too, in the orchestral playing, enhancing the complex, shifting moods.  The pulse in the third movement flowed with purpose, the march aspects defiant, like a march to the scaffold, undertaken without fear or regret.  In the final movement a surging undertow grew in power, long string lines stretching as though the composer wanted to savour them for as long as possible before silence descended. 

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla - wit and subversion in Weinberg, Knussen and Elgar

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla - photo : Isabelle Casez

Ever welcome, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra  Prom 46, - Mieczysław Weinberg's Symphony no 3  (op 45, 949-50, rev 1959),, Elgar's Cello Concerto(with soloist Sheku Kanneh-Mason), Oliver Knussen's The Way to Castle Yonder and Dorothy Howell's Lamia.
Dorothy Howell (1898-1982) was born in Birmingham, so a fitting choice for the CBSO. Her Lamia  was premiered at the Proms by Sir Henry Wood in 1919, and repeated several timnes, as recently as 2010.  Quite an achievemnt for such a young composer - again proof that female composers weren't always "neglected" until the recording industry re-aligned repertoire to suit the mass market.  Even if you didn't know the mythological references, you can hear the "maritime" character of Lamia in the  swelling lines, surging and retreating like the tides. It's not La Mer or A Sea Symphony but a tone poem which many a better known composer of the time would have been proud of. 

 The dream combination in this Prom would have to have been Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor op 85 (1919) - evergreen music and a fresh new talent. Kanneh-Mason shot to fame when he played at the Royal Wedding, but he's good enough to merit the attention he's getting.  Though he's young, but then, so was Jacqueline du Pré! Intuitively, she responded to the bittersweet pathois in the piece, bringing out its emotional depth and dignity. Those who think Elgar was bombast and jingoism don't know their Elgar at all.  In the Cello Concerto, we can ponder why Richard Strauss thought so highly of Elgar. Both were men who revealed their innermost sensitivity to those who understand.  The richness of the CBSO enhanced the poise of Kanneh-Mason's playing: a fine performance, enlivened in the final movement and its assertive panache. 

There was purposeful insight behind that wit and whimsy. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra seem to have constructed this Proms programme around Mieczysław Weinberg's Symphony no 3  (op 45, 1949-50, rev 1959).  Not surprisng at all, since  Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO have made a speciality of Weinberg's music.  Their ground breaking recording of Weinberg's Symphony no 21 ("Kaddish") was recorded during an in-depth Weinberg weekend in Birmingham  with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica, who have done so much to promote the composer in recent years. That recording is an absolute must even to those for whom Weinberg is new. Please read more about that here because it is outstanding.

Nonetheless, Weinbrerg is hardly unknown. He was championed by Shostakovich, Rostropovich, Oistrakh and Soviet era conductors like Mvravinsky, Kondrashin and Barshai.  Seek and ye shall find! Chandos has made a whole series of good Weinberg recordings, including Symphony no 3 with Thord Svendlund, currently the market leader, though Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO might set new standards.  Originally drafted in 1949-50 the symphony came in conflict with the policies of the Stalinist cultural tsar, Andrei Zhadanov. "formalism" ie art music, was denounced in favour of music that suited the state - safe, conservative, "folkloric". By 1959, when he revised the piece, Stalin and Zhadanov were both dead, but Weinberg still had to tread carefully.  

The symphony is in four movements, beginning with an expansive, pastoral Allegro, a Belarussian folk melody creating a cheerful mood. which suddenly descends into a more ambiguous coda, perhaps a hint that not all here is sunshine and joy. A merry flute theme introduces the second movement, answered by pizzicato strings and wild, exuberant strings. The orchestra dances - circular flourishes, based on Polish folk dance, but yet again the flute broke free, leaping over the lower winds and percussion, the coda more restrained : the first movement in wilder form. The Adagio was quieter, long, searching lines, darker timbres giving the final section gravitas.  In the allegro vivace, the pattern of darker, more mysterious endings came to the fore.  No ambiguity here - peace is broken by a strident fanfare -"Soviet heroes on the march ? Horns and trumpets rang out, punctuated by percussion, but the whimsical wind theme would not be suppressed.  The symphony ends on an ostensibly upbeat note, but is Weinberg, as so often, disguisng individualism behind a happy smile? 

Thus the logic of Gražinytė-Tyla's pairing Weinberg Symphony no 3 and Oliver Knussen's The Way to Castle Yonder, connected to his opera Higgelty Pigglety Pop!  The opera starts with a Pig-in-Sandwich Boards offering ham sandwiches to those in the audience too young to appreciate the irony. The sandwiches also serve to keep the kids occupied when Jenny the Sealyham Terrier sings a long, sophisticated aria,wondering if there's "More to Life". Jenny cannot get a job in the Mother Goose World Theatre until she gets “experience” whatever that might be. Logic is the enemy of imagination!  Knussen fills the music with loony cross-references, like bits from Tchaikovsky and Mozart, barbershop quartets, brass bands evoking circuses. all woven into his distinctively intricate multi-layers. (please read more here about the production at Aldeburgh and at the Barbican)  Though Sendak wriote the book for children, the sensibility in it is anything but childish. Knussen, with his instinct for the surreal, and for dark humour, turns the book into an opera that adults can get lots from, if they try. Gražinytė-Tyla understands - Knussen, Weinberg and even Elgar have a lot more in common than meets the eye. 

Light and illusion - First Night of the Proms 2018

The Proms at the Royal Albert Hall - brilliant photo by Daniel Curtis

An astonishing First Night of the Proms 2018 with 59 Productions, indubitably the stars of the second half of the evening, transforming the Royal Albert Hall into a pulsating blaze of coloured lights.  Fantastic theatre! As a community event,  it would be hard to beat, and it was great fun. The  young singers behind the orchestra will never forget the experience, and good for them, and neither will most of the audience. This is the sort of audacious flair that used to mark the BBC Proms in the Roger Wright era. This was a welcome change from the formulaic mindlessness that BBC Radio 3 increasingly descends to, where music is pushed aside in favour of everything else.  Has someone finally twigged that music is the goose that lays the golden egg ?  Starve it and you might as well succumb to Murdoch and Classic FM.
Anna Meredith's Five Telegrams was full of incident, the lights round the hall pulsating to big flashing chords and loud noises.  Sakari Oramo, with his customary good nature, gave the piece a good show, and the BBC SO seemed to be in party mode, so the performance was hugely enjoyable though I'm not convinced that it would have the same impact without the special effects it was created for.   Read more about it here.  Nonetheless, maybe at last there's someone behind the Proms who cares about music, as opposed to the tickboxes and targets management drones connect to.  The premise behind Meredith's Five Telegrams was the First World War which formulaic bots need to reference, willy nilly.  But the mind behind the programme was also musical.  
Before Five Telegrams, Ralph Vaughan Williams Towards the Unknown Region and Gustav Holst's  The Planets.  They're not connected just because they're part of the First World War theme show.  It's pure coincidence that they were written at that time. What they do represent is a change in musical thinking. "Darest thou, O Soul, Walk out with me towards the Unknown Region ?".  Quiet pizzicato footsteps  suggest tentative awakenings. Very quickly, though, the piece enters new territory. The boundaries of tonality start to stretch : Ravel and even Debussy seem to beckon Vaughan Williams forward. Though Charles Villiers Stanford is inevitably mentioned , RVW's true mentor would appear to be Hubert Parry, whose horizons were wider and more sophisticated.  Thus the music wells up with heartfelt new energy. "We float in Time and Space"   In the words of Walt Whitman, RVW seems to have found inspiration to head forth towards the future.
Holst's The Planets is good First Night material but, since it's ubiquitous, we might forget just how experimental it may have seemed when new.  Although the programmatic titles are so embedded in our reception, Holst initially planned to use non-descriptive titles. As has been said many times, Holst knew Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, which Sir Henry Wood conducted at the Proms in 1912.  The Planets, while conceived on an opulent scale, isn't symphonic but composite, each section with distinctive character.  It's "modern" on its own terms.  Everyone loves Jupiter, but in many ways, Neptune is the most eclectic, gradually dissolving and disintegrating.  Oramo paced Neptune carefully, drawing out its exquisite textures so it seemed to hover in the air . "We float in Time and Space" all over again, without words.  A very refined, intelligent performance.  Familiar as the suite may be, Oramo wasn't doing routine  but seemed inspired.
Pulling this whole First Night together, Oliver Knussen's Flourish with Fireworks, in tribute to Knussen, whose death this week is a loss to British  and modern music on many levels. Ollie was a monumental figure in every way. As Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who knew him well, said, he  "was driven by the same need for artistic authenticity and never conceded to the easier world of ego and glitter. His astounding ear and acute understanding of works allowed him a control ranging from the smallest details to the main structure; his gesture was of exemplary thrift; his interpretations were models of clarity, deeply dramatic with warm concentration. His colossal erudition led him to make programming choices dependent on an original and very personal musical vision, nourished by an insatiable curiosity and never based on personal career goals, which he overlooked. A great servant of the music of his time, he influenced generations of young talents through his teaching, whether as composer or conductor. His humility and self-effacement in favour of others were a manifestation of his selflessness and generosity."  Knussen didn't write down all the music in his head, but he gave so much to others that his legacy will live on. He packed more into 66 years than some people would in several lifetimes.  Flourish with Fireworks is typical Knussen - lively and concise. It opens up possibilities. Therefore, a very appropriate complement to Vaughan Williams and Holst .

BREAKING NEWS? Oliver Knussen has died ?

Unconfirmed news just in, without corroboration, that Oliver Knussen is no longer with us. A shock, as he was awarded another honorary doctorate from the Royal Academy of Music on Friday.  So I hope and pray it isn't true. Ollie is a phenomenom - more than a composer, conductor, teacher - an all-round inspirational figure who makes things happen. A monumental figure, in every way.

So, to quote his Songs for Sue "Is it true, dear Sue....."  The question is followed by silence, as if
an answer were expected, but we know it will never come. It’s poignant without being maudlin. With shrill   staccato, the piece opens, xpressing tension, but the orchestration flows tenderly, in circular figures towards a kind of calm stasis. The rounded figures felt like abstract depictions of an embrace. This image reflects too in the intimate instrument doublings. This isn't so much a group of separate songs as a curving arc of sound and feeling. Silences, here too, are part of the structure, like white spaces in a watercolour, extending the music into the imagination. As a meditation on someone loved who has passed beyond the physical, these voids are not empty, but charged with memory.Indeed, there is an almost Ligeti-like stillness in the orchestration,the unadorned vocal line subtly enhanced by hollow, metallic and otherworldly sounds which express a sense of desolation. The poem, by Emily Dickinson, is full of corny lines like “as quiet as the Dew – she dropt as softly as a star”, but Knussen shapes the line with dignity.

I cannot believe, I do not want to believe. So if it isn't true, at least Ollie will know how much he is loved. There is more on this site about Ollie and the music he loved than in most places, so please follow the labels below for more

Unfinished Business: London Sinfonietta 50 years

"Thank goodness for the London Sinfonietta!" (as the London Sinfonietta quotes me on the front page of their website. True, indeed ! without the London Sinfonietta, music in this country would have been dull indeed. The London Sinfonietta were pioneers, much more than "just" an ensemble. They were a powerhouse of creative, innovative thinking, generating a sea change in musical thinking which continues to flourish today.  Thus Unfinished Business, marking the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the London Sinfonietta, which starts Wednesday 11th October at St John’s Smith Square, starts with Hans Werner Henze's iconic Voices. Henze  himself conducted it with the Sinfonietta on their 1978 recording, re-released a few years ago. Please read my summary here.
 
Henze was closely associated with the London Sinfonietta who played a lot of his music, composer and orchestra both defined by the events of 1968.  They hosted a major retrospective to mark his 75th birthday, which is when I  met him.  He was a lion, but kind hearted enough to be nice to a nobody like me.  Henze is dead, but not forgotten. Currently I'm enjoying a new recording of his Neue Volkslieder und Hirtengesänge  and Kammermusik 1958 with Andrew Staples and the Sharoun Ensemble Berlin, conducted by Daniel Harding - it's wonderful, read more here.  This time round, David Atherton conducts Voices.  He's a Sinfonietta veteran too : the concert should be an almost historic occasion. 

Later in the season, Iannis Xenakis, Luciano Berio, Harrison Bitwistle, Gyorgy Ligeti, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others, just a few of the numerous composers who have been associated with the ensemble from way back. The London Sinfonietta has a lot to be proud of !   A welcome return to its Glory Days, when it presented excellence with style and commitment.  For a while, it seemed that the ethos had changed. Governments promote the idea that orchestras should make education a priority but that's a political argument, not artistic logic.  If governments really cared about education they';d fund it in the first place, and let orchestras do what they do best., which is make music that inspires listeners to learn.   Excellence itself "is" education.  Please see a few of the numerous concerts and recordings I've covered over the years, including:
Beat Furrer FAMA 2016

Hans Abraham Schnee Simon Holt

George Benjamin Into the Little Hill

Stockhausen Trans und Harmonien

  and loads more ........click on composer names

Aldeburgh Music Festival 2017

The roof at the Britten Studio, Snape

The 2017 Aldeburgh Music Festival marks 70 years of the festival, and 50 years at the Maltings. How time flies. Roger Wright has been Executive Director since September 2015, and management has gone from strength to strength.  This year, there's no Artistic Director as such, though there's a team for Artistic Planning. Snape is now a thriving centre with grand plans.

This year's keynote opera is Britten's A Midsummers Night's Dream, keynote of the first season at Snape, which premiered at Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall in 1960.  The staging will be directed and designed by Netia Jones, so look forward to an imaginative presentation.  Her staging of Oliver Knussen's Sendak operas, Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Piggelty Pop! were brilliant - read more about them HERE.  A Midsummer Night's Dream is magical, ideally suited to  transformation by lighting effects and video  illusion. This could well be the best Aldeburgh opera staging in years.    Soloists include Iestyn Davies, Sophie Bevan, and Matthew Rose.  Ryan Wigglesworth conducts. Tickets will disappear fast - Friends booking starts today, public booking on 7th February.  Don't wait.  On 22 June, there's a screening of the Hollywood film version with music by Erich Korngold, on which please read more HERE. 

La Voix Humaine (15th to 17th June), Poulenc's setting of Cocteau's monodrama, a tour de force for solo soprano, here performed by Claire Booth. Intriguingly, this will take place "in a private house near Snape", a suitably atmospheric setting, in a semi-staging by David Pountney. Another must! Again, please read more HERE.  Britten's "Vaudeville" The Golden Vanity, a morality tale about an outsider at sea, gets a rare outing on 17/6, heard with Britten's The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard  and other new shorts, performed by Camblata, young adult male voices of the National Youth Choir.

Countertenors and Benjamin Britten, who brought the voice type back into prominence. Andrew Watts features at this year's Festival, with Olga Neuwirth's Maudite soit la guerre, A Film Music War Requiem (UK premiere) with other Neuwirth pieces with the London Sinfonietta  on 10/6 followed by Hommage à Klaus Nommi, a "song cycle like no other – an anarchic, neon-lit encounter between Purcell, Weimar cabaret, bubblegum pop and The Wizard of Oz" and "A Countertenor Song Book" on 12/6 featuring works by Bach, Handel, Olga Neuwirth, Colin Matthews, Tippett, Torsten Rauch and Raymond Yiu.  More Neuwirth throughout this year's Festival, enjoy.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra visits Aldeburgh again, this time with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla in two conerts on 17th and 18th June - Beethoven 3, Stravinsky Petroushka, Tchaikovsky, Britten and Jorg Widmann. The man himself is playing clarinet (Mozart) with the Belcea Quartet on 10/6. Oliver Knussen's O Hotortogisu receives its world premiere on 23/6 with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, hopefully with Knussen himself at the baton, together with another new work by Harrison Birtwistle, Chorales from a Toy Shop, and pieces by Stravinsky and Jo Kondo.

Plenty of choral music this year, with Vox Luminis,  EXAUDI and others, including a programme with music by Nishrat Khan. The highlight could well be Vox Luminis Purcell King Arthur on 22/6.  As always, lots of baroque and early music, Lieder and piano music - Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piotr Andrewski, Huw Watkins and others. The closing concert will be Britten Billy Budd, from Opera North, with Roderick Williams, Alan Oke and Brindley Sherratt.

Quicklink to the programme booklet HERE.

Barbican Spring programme picks

At last, green shoots of Spring emerging from the gloom. The Barbican Spring schedule offers plenty of hope

First off from 13-15 January, Simon Rattle conducts György Ligeti Le Grand Macabre, with the LSO and a strong cast headed by Peter Hoare as Piet the Pot. I love Ligeti's quirky music and enjoyed the ENO production by Alex Ollé and Las furas del Baus back in 2009  Read more here   That was the one with the giant woman whose body "was" the stage.  Le Grand Macabre is as frustrating as it is inventive, so staging it takes some doing  But I'm not sure what Peter Sellars will do to it  No doubt it attracts the mega-trendy crowd as it's selling fast though very expensive. (ROH balcony prices)  On 19/1, however, and just as high profile, Rattle is conducting  Mahler Symphony no 6 together with the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Remembering 'in memoriam Evan Scofield'.  This is a keynote concert, which will also be streamed on the LSO website, a wonderful development, since it brings the orchestra to the world

Another British music world premiere the next day, 20/1, Philip Cashian's  The Book of Ingenious Devices, conducted by Oliver Knussen, together with Strauss Macbeth and Elgar Falstaff  An intriguing programme in true Ollie style – will Cashian's piece have Shakespearean connections?  Huw Watkins is the soloist so presumably it's a piano concerto of some sort. A big theme this season is "Russian Revolutionaries",  so plenty of Shostakovich, but more unusually, Galina Ustvolskaya's Symphony no 2 with the Melos Ensemble at LSO St Luke's on 21/1  That weekend, a Philip Glass Total Immersion with better choices than some recent Total Immersions.

All ears and eyes alert for Jonas Kaufmann's four-day residency at the Barbican at the beginning of February That's been sold out for months, so let's hope he will be well enough   Wagner, Strauss (Vier letzte Lieder, nach!)  he's also doing an "in conversation".  Sakari Oramo with the BBCSO and Antonio Pappano with the LSO, both interesting non standard programmes, and Daniel Harding with the LSO on 15/1 with Rachmaninov Symphony no 2 and another Mark-Anthony Turnage premiere,  Håkan with dedicatee Håkan Hardenberger as soloist.

Yet another British composer premiere, Nicola LeFanu's The Crimson Bird for soprano (Rachel Nicholls) and the LSO, conducted by Ilan Volkov on 17/2 and  a Detlev Glanert premiere on 3/3 with Oramo and the BBC SO.  An extended Nash Ensemble residency at LSO St Lukes (lots of RVW chamber music)  and Andreas Scholl on 14/3  Then two concerts with Fabio Luisi on 16th and 19th March I'm opting for the second, with Brahms's German Requiem

François-Xavier Roth starts another After Romanticism series on 30/3 with the LSO - Debussy Jeux, Bartok Piano Concerto no 3 and Mahler Symphony no 1. Then a three-concert series with the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert - John Adams, Mahler, and the European premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Cello Concerto.  Janine Jansen, Murray Perahia and Mariss Jansens with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and a keynote Dvořák Requiem on 13/4 with Jiří Bělohlávek, the BBC SO, the BBC Symphony Chorus, Brindley Sherratt, Richard Samek, Jennifer Johnston and Katerina Kněžíková   Then Easter is upon us!

Nightscape with Dog : Knussen, Reinbert de Leeuw

In Prom 26, Oliver Knussen conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Reinbert de Leeuw and Brahms. Knussen was a teenager when he first met de Leeuw. They have much in common, both specialists in contemporary music, extraordinarily good interpreters of other composers' work, to the extent that they themselves have had to put writing on the backburner. Both have also headed the Aldeburgh Festival. But as we know, when Knussen writes, he writes so well that he creates remarkable work. So news of Reinbert de Leeuw's biggest work in many years was eagerly anticipated.

Reinbert De Leeuw Der nächtliche Wanderer  is based on a poem by Friedrich Holderlin  It's very different to the poet's earlier, elegaic visions of idealized Classical Antiquity, but heroic nonetheless in its intensity and depth. It's worth quoting in its entirety since like most of his poetry the meaning and syntax are so intense that they are almost impossible to translate.

Hu! der Kauz! wie er heult,
Wie sein Furchtgeschrei krächt.
Erwürgen - ha! du hungerst nach erwürgtem Aas,
Du naher Würger, komme, komme.

Sieh! er lauscht, schnaubend Tod -
Ringsum schnarchet der Hauf,
Des Mordes Hauf, er hörts, er hörts, im Traume hört' ers,
Ich irre, Würger, schlafe, schlafe.

( Huuu, howls an owl, whose terrifying screams, strangle and squeeze the life from Ajax, the the hero in Greek mythology.  And nearby circles the Shrike, another nocturnal bird of prey.  Notice the syntax, umlaut u's one after another, as if the speaker is choking.  Yet "Komme, Komme" Maybe the poet sunconsciously wills it? See! He (Death) laughs, sneering, encircling the snorting heap (ie the body). As the heap is murdered it hears, it hears, in a dream hears. I go mad. Shrike, sleep, sleep.   It's not, I think a poem about insomnia or a grimmer Der Wanderer an den Mond,  but a gruesome mix of death and insanity. Again, notice the syntax and relentless repetitions. )

De Leeuw Der nächtliche Wanderer begins with the sound of a dog, barking in the distance : a warning.  From a background of low, rumbling sounds, a viola emerges, tentatively probing its way. As the chords stretch, they're illuminated by flashes of sparkling light.  A sense of circular movement yet also of stillness. Muffled drums beat and the large string section creates an elliptical swirl of sound.  Small quiet sounds, deliberately elusive, contrasting with the broad sweep in the strings and rising, angular figures in the brass, themselves interrupted by clicking sounds. In this dream, how the sounds are made is less material than what we might think they are.   Tension mounts. Bells call out, tolling with hollow hardness. 

Whirling, rushing figures, then silence broken by dull thuds.  This quiet interlude is surprisingly beautiful, suggesting not just the moon but the infinite darkness beyond. This time, the viola emerges  playing a kind of melody which I found poetic and very moving.  This time the melody continues, its tessitura rising higher and higher til it suddenly breaks over, hovering in a sense beyond our ears.  Then, from the quietness, flashes emerge and oscillating figures. Do we hear distant trumpets playing in cacophony?  The BBC SO play with deftly defined detail so the different directions in the score aren't muffled into mush. Frantic tumult: a panic attack in music, yet deftly, carefully orchestrated and performed.  

Cymbals crash: are we in the the throes of a death struggle ? Distorted moans from the strings.  More thoughtful contemplation, from which a disembodied man's voice emerges, whispering the text of the poem  The orchestra surges to life, sprightly dancing figures and animated swirls of sound, woodblocks and searching chords. This time, though, the mood is more confident. When the bells ring this time they sound present and bright, and the woodwinds play a passage that reminded me of the viola melody., especially when joined by the strings evoking the passage with rising tessitura.  Perhaps De Leeuw's wanderer has woken, wiser? 

De Leeuw's  Der nächtliche Wanderer reminds me of Der Leiermann in Winterreise,which heralds change, but one which is elusively equivocal. Der nächtliche Wanderer is intruguing because it's so evocative and repays thoughtful listening. . 

Preceding De Leeuw, Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat, Op.83 with Peter Serkin, another Knussen buddy. Another big beast, and nicely done. When Knussen first met de Leeuw, Knussen looked like the young Debussy. Now he resembles Brahms. But this Prom will remain in the memory for De Leeuw and his Der nächtliche Wanderer.