Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wing to Wing, Karawane

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

Magnus Lindberg Accused Anu Komsi Hannu Lintu

Finnish Independence Day last week was commemorated in a concert by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu, with Anu Komsi as soloist in Magnus Lindberg's Accused, which premiered in London in 2015. The broadcast, now available on arte.tv, is an opportunity to reassess Lindberg's unusual work.  Accused (2014) is a series of scena based on factual documents, with extracts from an interrogation of people accused of political crimes. Mademoiselle Théroigne de Méricourt an aristocrat at the time of the French revolution, someone with a West German magazine in the Stasi controlled DDR,  and transcripts of the trial of Bradley (Chelsea) Manning  Factual documents (more or less) whose purpose is to prosecute. The voices of the accused are submerged.  By the very nature of these documents, personal human drama is subsumed in cold bureaucracy.  In Accused, we hear the process of justice or non-justice roll relentlessly. Happy endings and "stories" might be more entertaining, but there is a lot more to art than entertainment.

Magnus Lindberg (b 1958) has a formidable body of work, almost entirely orchestral, chamber or instrumental, so Accused, for large orchestra and soprano, is something of a departure. It doesn't follow vocal writing conventions, but works, for me, anyway, more like a concerto, where impersonal forces are pitted against a single voice, always in opposition.  Lindberg writes in blocks of sound - it's not every day we hear a phalanx of piccolos and flutes, small, individual voices acting en masse.  No chance of concertante. That's not the nature of political suppression.  The vocal line isn't easy, it twists and contorts, trying to resist. Anu Komsi isn't an ordinary soprano, even by the standards of contemporary music. Her defiant coloratura scales extremes. Her lines are written to torment and torture.  Yet, if you listen carefully, the outbursts are underpinned by underlying technical control. There are staccato passages so tightly focused, that, for a moment, the orchestra pulls back, then attempts staccato of its own without the commitment of the singer.  After another vocal crescendo, the orchestra makes a strategic retreat into dark rumbling basses.  The innate beauty of Komsi's voice asserts itself in longer lines, reminding us that the person accused is far more complex than her accusers.  These little glimpses of the personality within shine out, despite the swirling tutti around her.  Komsi's voice drops to quiet, low keening, then into fragile, broken fragments, before surging fiercely yet again. Sotto voce mumbles suddenly switch to clear, bright cries. Perhaps because we're familiar with Bradley/Chelsea Manning, we can pick up on the contradictions in the character of Komsi's portrayal. For example the soaring lines that turn back on themselves even if the words being sung suggest the dominance of the orchestra (the military).  Komsi's fermininity matters, as it matters to Manning.  This final scena ends with an oddly beautiful fragility, Komsi's voice  defying physical limitations. A celeste, strings and harp suggest that Manning might draw a measure of  solace, knowing  that the world is looking on.

Accused isn't easy listening, but it's a warning that political suppression should never be normalized In his austere way, Lindberg makes the point that somethings cannot, and should not, be romanticized.  Were it not for those who fought for Finland's freedom, who knows what might have happened to the nation under Stalin.  Large parts of  Karelia were occupied by the Soviets, the native population ethnically cleansed. Think about that when you listen to En Saga and Finlandia, which framed this programme.  If the performances were rather routine, the pieces have been done so often that Lintu and his orchestra may have spent rehearsal time on Lindberg and on Helvi Leiviskä  Symphony no 3.  Leiviskä (1902-82)'s symphony dates from 1971. Pleasant enough, but not much to distinguish it from many other works apart from the composer's gender, which doesn't of course reflect in her music. Fair enough. But given that there are so many Finnish composers and musicians with much more to say, the piece was interesting rather than edifying. 

Péter Eötvös The Sirens Cycle Piia Komsi Wigmore Hall

Péter Eötvös The Sirens Cycle received its world premiere at the Wigmore Hall, London, on Saturday night with Piia Komsi and the Calder Quartet.   An exceptionally interesting new work, which even on first hearing intrigues: imagine studying the score! For The Sirens Cycle is elegantly structured, so intricate and so complex that it will no doubt reveal even greater riches the more familiar it becomes.  It works so well because it combines the breadth of vision of an opera, yet is as concise as a chamber miniature.  It's exquisite, and could take its place as one of  Eötvös's finest works.


The basic architecture of Eötvös's The Sirens Cycle is simple, yet classic: three parts each devoted to different responses to the legend of the Sirens, whose singing is so lovely that those who listen are lured to their deaths. Seduction and destruction: opposite poles eternally pulling together and apart.  The first part is based on James Joyce's Ulysses, in which the legend is retold in Joyce's highly unusual syntax, where words fragment and language is subsumed by sounds that aren't necessarily coherent but generate fleeting images. Tosh, perhaps, but oddly compelling. Indeed, abstract sounds amplify meaning.  What to make of lines like "Chips.....Horrid and gold flushed more" ? Eötvös replicates Joyce's choppy phrasing with flurries of syllabic sound. The word "Chips"  is projected as a high-pitched gasp which claws at the ear, so the rounded "o" sounds in "horrid" and "gold" and "more" seem to churn around on themselves.  Or lines like "A jumping  rose on a satiny breast of satin, Rose of Castille, trilling idolores" ?  Eötvös breaks the words into tense, choppy figures, deconstructing the idea of satin and roses.

Images of bronze, gold and roses recur, linking the passages together with a kind of inner logic, highlighted by Eötvös's setting, as idiosyncratic as Joyce's poetry, for that is what it is, ideas evoked not by figurative meaning but by allusion.  Thus the third section in the first part "O Rose ! /Castille the morn is breaking/ jingle jaunten jingling coin rang /Clock clacked."  Crazy, zany rhythms, almost joyous, yet brought down to earth by a sudden drop in the timbral temperature: a hard ending to flights of fancy.  Similarly the "Clap-clap, Clip-clap, Clappy-clap" of the sixth section where energy is abruptly cut short.  "I feel", the line drawn out, going silent, then snapping back. "So sad".  Joyce mentions "Liszt's Rhapsodies" and Eötvös creates a spooky nocturnal waltz.  Wittily, he captures Joyce's bizarre wordplay, "my epp ripff taph/ Be pfrwritt"

Although Barbara Hannigan was scheduled to sing, I was thrilled to hear that Piia Komsi was stepping in at very short notice indeed, for Komsi's voice is phenomenal, capable of extremes of pitch  and textures beyond the range of most, combined with extraordinarily crisp articulation.  Her voice is almost superhumanly elastic, her diction precise even in phrases as convoluted as those thrown at her by Joyce and Eötvös. She embodied the Sirens, supernatural beings who defy the boundaries of Nature.  Komsi's death-defying flights up and down the scale could drive one mad with rapture.  Komsi is a vocal gymnast, but so poised that she can make the ethereal sound perfectly natural.

And thus the Interlude, by which Eötvös separates the Parts of the Siren Cycle. In this first interlude, the Calder Quartet created whooshing sounds, suggesting movement within a compressed range, like wind channeled through a tunnel. An image of time travel ?  We fly into the ancient world, with Homer's verses in Greek, intoned with gravitas.  Again, Eötvös captures the metre of the poet's individual language. The lines seem to curve upon themselves like sonorous echoes.  The Sirens (or rather Komsi and the Calder Quartet) seduce in honeyed tones: Komsi's voice warms sensuously, the violins, viola and cello singing along with her, in luscious chorus.  Significantly, Eötvös breaks off from the Siren's song with  a short  interlude where the strings sing troubled foreboding.  Tough old Odysseus, despite his resolve, longs to listen.

Franz Kafka's story from 1917,  Das Schweigen der Sirenen "Um sich vor dem Sirenen bewahren"  supplies the text for the Third Part of Eötvös's Siren Cycle. Another change of literary syntax: Kafka's lines are more prose than poem. His handling of the subject is at once more brusquely down to earth, and yet more horrifying.   Odysseus escapes the Sirens by stopping his ears up with wax. He's tied to the mast so he cannot break free and join them.  But the Sirens have eine noch schreckliche Waffe als den Gesang, nämlich ihr Schweigen, (an even more terrifying weapon than song, namely their silence). Odysseus thinks he's outsmarted the Sirens but perhaps it is they who have outsmarted him by withholding their song, leaving him with his illusions. For a musician, that's a an astonishingly ironic solution.   It thus casts the whole Siren Cycle as a meditation on the nature of song and art, and the absence thereof.  This also connects with the references to song in Joyce's text, the Rose of Castille being Balfe's operetta, the cry "Martha" in Part 1 section 5  being Flotow's Martha and, of course the snatch of Liszt rhapsody.  What, then, is the mood in this final part of the cycle? Its rhythms are sturdier than the skittish First Part, yet also oddly nostalgic. Are we to think of popular music wafting all around us, even if we'd like to remain aloof?  Komsi's voice takes on a soubrettist tinge. Is she coquette, destroyer or Muse? No easy answers. But that is the beauty of Eötvös The Sirens Cycle : there's a lot more to it than meets the eye, or ear.

Purposefully, this recital began with Eötvös's Korrespondenz (String Quartet no 1, (1992) which the composer describes as "a mini opera for string quartet", since it's based on the correspondence between Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The son was lonely, in Paris. The father withheld news of the death of his wife, whom the son loved dearly.  Deception, even though well meant: the ingredients of psychodrama.  The first violin (Benjamin Jacobsen) and the viola (Jonathan Moerschel) talk at each other rather than to each other. Their music seems to connect but there's a palpable gulf.  One of them is singing, but the other refuses to hear. It's The Siren's Cycle, in microcosm.  Separating the two, defusing the dynamite, so to speak, the Calder Quartet played Debussy String Quartet in G minor  op 10.

This review also appears in Opera Today
(Photo of Eötvös copyright Istvan Huszti)