The social phenomenom that is the BBC Proms

The BBC Proms are the biggest music festival in the world, and the most ambitious project anywhere in classical music, live or broadcast. There's no other single event - bar the Olympics, maybe - with such huge coverage. No wonder the Murdochs hate the BBC. It's serious competition.

Yet that's perhaps why the BBC Proms are so important. They provide a unique service which goes a lot further than music. The Proms promote an image of Britain as civilized and benevolent, bringing the world together and sharing good music. This pays off in the long term, despite the realities of "real" politics, Britain hasn't done as much for music as, say, Austria-Germany but it can make music reach the world. Cultural re-exports count, too.

And so what if the BBC is state subsidized? It is a public service, giving value in many ways that aren't easily itemized. Most businesses operate on what sells quick and fast, so are dependent on short-term goals. Why invest in anything whose benefits can't be measured on a year-to-year balance sheet ? Yet the BBC offers an alternative business model, where the market is carefully seeded, to yield long-term returns. That old slogan "Entertain, educate and inform" is sound business wisdom. Entertain an audience but with good things to aim for, so they learn: and when they learn, they seek more. Plus, an interest in serious music leads to other areas like literature, art, history, so the market expands exponentially. But give dumbed-down pap and the market never grows beyond it.

Public spending on education is going down the tubes, but in any case people aren't learning from school so much anymore but from the media. So the media has a responsibility to provide what schools no longer give. Plus music provides huge non-material benefits which can never be measured. The fulfilment classical music gives is an antidote to the spiritual anomie of our times.

One of the big things about the Proms is the way they're geared towards bringing in new audiences. Hence things like the Messiah Prom – hundreds of kid from all over the country got together and had so much fun they rejuvenated Handel's old warhorse. Read HERE about the Sing Hallelujah project which keeps the enterprise alive long after the Proms are over, and will bring in lots more listeners and participants.

Everyone niggles about the Proms being white and middle class, but that's what the classical music market is, largely, in this country. But outside the UK, the classical music audience is changing. That's why the BBC Proms broadcasts are so important - they reach new audiences which don't fit the mould. East Asia, for example. In the West, people don't even begin to understand how big that market can be, and why it's so important to "grow" it wisely. I'd like to see a lot more joint ventures between the BBC, China, Japan, South Korea, India. Indeed, it would be a good thing for this country to engage with world markets anyway. And even within this country the very fact that the Proms exist, and create attention, helps classical music penetrate further.

Of course there are dangers in becoming "too" popular and populist. What the Royal Albert Hall is wonderful for is big, noisy and brash, so large orchestral pieces, played with wild abandon always sound more "exciting". But is that kind of excitement necessarily good music? At least two new works this year were ideally created for that kind of instant impact, too. So what does this bode for other kinds of music, or for performances and for music that needs more sophisticated involvement? "

These days people form opinions from things like Facebook and Youtube, geared towards short attention spans. It would be fine if they progress towards the "real thing" but do they? Will classical music be repackaged to appeal to the majority, like fast food? Fast food serves a purpose but just because it sells doesn't make it worthwhile. This applies to musicianship, too. During one Prom this seaon, one of the hosts said a violinist was "dull" hardly before he finished. This was unfair because the violinist was good - no one really bad gets on the Proms unless they're connected to the BBC - but the damage was done, not just to the poor violinist but to the whole way music is presented.

The fact is that the BBC Proms are so omnipotent that they shape public taste and they shape music. That's why they have to be done with a sense of social responsibility. Now that so much of the audience is new to classical music, there's all the more reason for professional high standards, genuinely well in formed and enthusiastic presentation that matches the level of the music. The Proms should not be run along the lines of a commuter chat show. Maybe Dudamel conducting Augusta Read Thomas may sell, popularity isn't any indicator of quality. That is where commercial interests and the BBC remit diverge. There is more to music than instant kicks. The Proms aren't usually afraid to introduce new and thought provoking stuff that doesn't wow the balance sheet, but in a healthy society, minorities count too.

Fortunately this year the choice of repertoire was well balanced and sound. Some of the themes are daft (like 1934) but generally this was a very good year, not flashy but solid. Thank goodness too for off the wall stuff like the Ukulele Prom !

Maybe the world is heading towards things like snap judgements, twitter opera, Youtube orchestras, two minutte downloads and opinionation instead of opinion. These are all very different to the values that classical music used to be about. It is good that new audiences are coming in greater numbers, but this isn't necessarily the sort of audience that will nurture music that involves a bit more engagement, sophistication, perseverance. It's a paradox that that the Proms will have to think about.

The trouble with success is that it breeds its own demons. And success attracts jealousy. But what makes the BBC unique is that it doesn't follow any obvious corporate model. Its ambit was never simply to broadcast but to provide a wider service to society, not just the mass majority but minority interests too, and to further knowledge, not lag behind it. There's no way any commercial enterprise could function in the same way. It's idealism, perhaps, but it's still a good thing that in this world of self interest that idealism survives and is appreciated.

As for the Last Night and Britishness, please read what I wrote about Jerusalem (song not city), "What makes the British British" At least according to William Blake idealism is part of the British psyche. So the social remit of the BBC is rooted in the national soul. In this case, I'll back "repel all boarders" to keep anti idealism away !

PS Fond memories of Malcolm Arnold A Grand, Grand Overture which must have been written for the Proms with its roaring vacuum cleaners and rifle shots ! A friend recorded it in the perfect acoustic of the Reading Town Hall (a polished mahogany coccoon) in 1974 for what was to become Nimbus Records, so they used "ambisonics" the last word in sound reproduction. Only a demo disc was ever made but it was sought after by audiophiles for testing hi fi. I lent my copy to someone and it never came back. Whoever has it, please give it back !

More on Chailly's Mahler 10 Prom

Interesting performances grow in your mind. I thought I knew Mahler’s 10th pretty well, but Chailly’s performance at the Proms keeps generating new ideas. Another good reason to steer clear of “instant” opinions.

The Tenth feels like a departure, for of course every new work is a new venture. But it’s not a departure into death as commonly assumed, but something quite unusual even in Mahler terms.

The lyricism in the Adagio harks back to the Adagietto of the 5th Symphony, which was also a tribute to Alma. It also evokes the wide, open landscapes Mahler loved so much. These symbolize the limitless panoramas so many of the symphonies open out towards – “eternal light”.

When the Adagio is performed as a stand alone, it doesn’t matter so much what a conductor puts into it. But when it’s performed as part of the wider symphony, it needs to be shaped by wider considerations. Since the Tenth is a sketch, not a completion, it’s not going to be fully orchestrated, so the Adagio needs a lighter, more elusive touch than if it were a straightforward love song.

Right from the start it’s apparent that there are two voices here, the dark rich one and the light, beautiful string theme. Obviously, it may be a reference to Mahler’s marriage but what’s significant is that the “scream” chords” could refer to different things. Are they cries of pain, or sudden flashes of knowledge? Either possibility works even though the actual notes remain the same.

So this is a departure for Mahler on another level. All along what stands out in his music is the idea of an individual, usually pitted against vast forces. Of course dual themes occur everywhere in nearly all music but what’s interesting fort me in Mahler 10th is how duality is embedded into the symphony’s structure. The Purgatorio bridges two Scherzi. Is this an echo of the two Nachtmusiks in Mahler 7 ? Conventional middle movements can be heard as a climax but in the Seventh, the middle movement separates two different stages in the journey towards the glowing Finale. Incidentally the most wonderful performance of the Seventh I have ever heard was Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. He placed the mandolin in the centre of the orchestra, not tucked away in a corner, so the “lone voices” were absolutely at the heart of the music, not some peripheral detail. There’s a reason!

I’ve written about the Purgatorio below and how it may represent the frailty of a needy child who dies before he can be fed. Song is so central to any understanding of Mahler that it’s not a coincidence. What was Mahler thinking about, returning to an early song at this time in his life, when he was, like the starving child, put aside by a woman who had other things on her mind ?

So like the Nachtmusiks, the Scherzi represent different stages. The first mocks the Adagio, but the second is altogether more complex: this was the part Mahler left most incomplete. See what I’ve written below about his markings and the prepositional nature of the section. It can never be completed because Mahler himself may not have known. In this performance, Chailly creates the sketch-like nature of the section so it really does feel incomplete, which may seem a bit shocking, like entering a room to find the floor opens onto the sky.

That’s why I think it is so important that an orchestra as good as the Leipzig Gewandhaus is central to performance. A really good orchestra can suggest sounds out of silence, creating reverberating echoes than span voids. The Leipzig strings are famous for their luminous, rich sheen : so the beauty of their playing registers on the mind even when they aren’t actually playing. Since the strings create so much of the “Alma” theme such playing warms the music even if it’s loosely orchestrated. Like perfume, an invisible presence.

So here we have two voices in the symphony, not one. What did Mahler mean when he wrote on the pages of the “Fireman’s funeral”, that only Alma knew what it meant? For once Alma wasn’t telling. It must have been something quite deep, not simply a reaction to a stranger’s funeral. But the point is that the composer is no longer a lone figure, like the hero in the First Symphony. GM and Alma now stand together looking out of their hotel room, down at the city below them.

Daniel Harding’s recording is by far more attuned to the “Devil “ theme and the spiky, edgy anxiety in the Scherzi. His “fireman’s funeral” is truly horrific, the drumstrokes devastate. Chailly’s version isn’t nearly so dark, though both lead to the same transformational, transcending resolution. I’ve been listening to them both side by side, and it’s amazing what that reveals. It’s like hearing the same story from both sides. Harding expresses a Mahler perspective but Chailly emphasizes the role of Alma.

Hence Mahler’s references all over the manuscript. “To live for you, to die for you” and the poignant “Almschi”. He may not have finished the symphony but he had no illusions that it had no meaning.

There are several different performing versions of this symphony and they keep evolving, which is a good thing, because the very process involved understanding and informed choice. There are elaborate versions and bland : on balance Cooke 3 perhaps works best because it's sensitive to the idiom without attaching too much. I have a weakness for the Joe Wheeler version which is the most spartan of all, particularly as both performances I've heard are awful. But what would the Tenth be without Alma?
PLEASE see the other posts on Mahler 10 here (two on Chailly, two on Harding)) ! and also on other Mahler works/I'm "downloading" a lifdetime of listening.

Mahler 10 Chailly Leipzig Gewandhaus Prom 69 Mendelssohn

The performing version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony is intriguing precisely because it's unfinished. Since no-one will ever know for sure what the composer intended, an air of open-endedness hovers over it, opening possibilties in the imagination. So performances need to be created with insight into Mahler's musical processes. It means informed guesswork, so it's not a symphony for beginners. But Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra gave an astounding account at this Prom, which revealed how great the symphony's potential might have been.

Like so much of Mahler's work, the symphony involves memory, echoes of symphonies past and what they might symbolize. Two main themes circle round each other in the Adagio, one delicate, the other warmer, probing each other tentatively. Chailly doesn't dwell on nostalgia, because that can throw the rest of the piece off balance. Stand alone Adagios don't have such considerations. Sharp string figures emerge like sudden chills. The first violin persists in playing a melody, overtaken by the sudden bursts of brass, the "scream" chords. Again, Chailly stresses how they may mean more than one thing : here they came over as sudden flashes of shocking illumination. Evidently he knows the biography.

The first Scherzo mocks the delicacy of the Adagio. Swaggering grotesques, flattened horns, shrill trumpets, echoing the marches of death and disorder in earlier symphonies. The Leipzigers are far too good an orchestra to simply do crude. This orchestra's famous warm tones are put to good effect making the brutality almost hypnotically seductive. The jagged angular rhythms at last expend their energy in the crisp, unambiguous ending.

For me, the Purgatorio echoes the Wunderhorn song Das irdisches Leben : a small, plaintive cry amid larger, more dominant forces, hemmed in as it is by the two dominant Scherzi. Whatever it means, it's a bridge towards the Allegro Pesante, a stage in the passage of ideas. On the first page of this movement, Mahler pencilled the words "The Devil is dancing it with me! Madness, seize me … destroy me! Let me forget that I exist, so that I cease to be.” But a careful observer will note that Mahler then adds “dass ich ver ….” (so that I ….) and trails off without completing the idea. It’s a proposition, but this whole work is a kind of proposition.

Although this movement still feels incomplete despite years of careful adjustment by Coooke, Goldschmidt and the Matthews brothers, it's not a fault, as Chailly and the Leipzigers demonstrate. Individual instruments have their moment, without undue ornamentation. For me it felt like the spirit of the Purgatorio popping up uncowed. Playing as beautiful and as confident as this makes you appreciate how pure and clean Mahler's idiom can be, a departure from the overripe excess of so much music in his time. Chailly and his musicians make this second Scherzo feel shockingly spare and elevated.

Again, this is perceptive because at this point, Mahler was on the verge of new phases in his life. The fourth volume of Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange's monumental biography is titled "A New Life Cut Short" and is essential. Read about it HERE. What do Mahler's enigmatic markings on the score refer to? The Tenth is a guessing game, but fascinating for that very reason.

Alma described the image of the fireman's funeral in the Finale, but what did it mean to the composer on a deeper, non-literal level? Mahler didn't know the dead man personally, so there is an air of detachment, not overt emotionalism. This burial is symbolic not specific. The drumbeats are emphatic. Whatever Mahler is burying, he's moving away from it. Out of the numbness rises a new theme, led by woodwinds, rising elusively upwards. Again, the idea of fragility in the Purgatorio returns, but this time the theme grows stronger and fuller, as it's taken up by bassoons and darker brass. Even the drumstrokes become sharp rather than muffled. The new theme becomes more lyrical. Then long strident brass chords herald another new stage. Yet again, diaphanously transparent textures. The Leipzig string players are a wonder, their bowing so carefully sustained that sounds seem to glow with warmth and light.

Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra are a marriage made in heaven, so it's specially good to hear them in this symphony. Chailly's gift for Mahler didn't reach fulfilment in his years in Amsterdam, perhaps because they had the Haitink tradition firmly instilled in them. But even then Chailly impressed.

Ten years ago I heard him conduct Mahler 10 with the Royal Concertgebouw, as part of a series of Mahler performances. Earlier, Matthias Goerne had sung the Ruckert Lieder. Usually singers got home after their stint. Instead, just before the beginning of the symphony, when the lights went down, a figure slipped unobtrusively into an empty seat in a corner: Matthias Goerne in street clothes. He sat completely engrossed in the music, listening intently, his body crunched forward. Not many singers immerse themselves in a composer's non-song output, but he does, which is why his performances are so musically informed. Performing Mahler isn't a matter of learning the notes. It's a vocation.

I loved the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto too : Saleem Abboud Ashkar is wonderful, and of course no orchestra plays Mendelssohn like the Leipzig Gewandhaus. But enough from me now.
Later I'll be writing more about Chailly's Mahler and why his approach to this performance works for me. Read HERE The photo above is GM and Alma walking in the mountains above Toblach.

Hallelujah! Handel Messiah Prom 68

Hallelujah indeed for this magnificent Messiah at the Proms. Everyone has heard the piece before, but this was different. This Prom was the place to be, for the broadcast can't quite capture the atmosphere, or the sense of festive expectation that built up even before the show started.

This Messiah was fun! Because its theme is religious and it's often performed on occasions of civic worthiness, it can be performed in ponderous sobriety. But this performance was electric. Seldom have I heard a choir of this size so lively. It's no mean feat to bring together seven youth choirs and combine them so well that they sounded like they'd been singing together for years. Such precision, such perfect unison - even the entries were perfectly timed. Seeing three hundred singers rise together in an instant, not one lagging, is quite amazing.

What animated these singers ? They sang with such vivacity that they made the piece afresh, as if the story was exciting news, and the music a thing of wonder. Whoever worked out the balances deserves special praise. Every voice is unique, so putting them together to create such fine balance took some doing. The spread across the higher voices was particularly well-judged, creating a nice spectrum, grading smoothly into darker tones. With choirs this size, clarity is more important than usual, because any muddiness can soon end in mush. Not so here, for the singing was so bright and clean. It didn't matter a jot that "All we like Sheep?" comes over as "We like Sheep!" because the real meaning of this oratorio is the miracle of life. Rnthusiasm is quite in order.

Indeed, it was the choirs who made this Messiah such a thrill. Singing is fun, and singing in a group is electrifying. Whatever these kids with shining faces go on to do, they won't forget this moment. Nicholas McGegan and the Northern Sinfonia, and the soloists - big names like John Mark Ainsley, Matthew Rose, Patricia Bardon and Dominique Labelle - were good, but for once took second place to the combined choirs.

This is why it means so much to support the Sing Hallelujah! project. Follow the link and read about it, because it's a wonderful venture. Anyone can participate - sign in on the site. The idea is to get ordinary people all over the country to sing, and moreover to come together. Handel may be the official tag but what's really being celebrated is the joy of being alive. Singing is an energizing physical activity, and communal singing charges emotional batteries. The BBC and the ENO may be behind this, but frankly, it's something the NHS should be supporting too, for its long term benefits.

Programmes like Songs of Praise aim at a special interest market, but singing can reach out to many more people. That's why I'm going to listen to The Choir when it starts again on BBC Radio 3 on 20th September. With Aled Jones as presenter it extends the concept of choral singing further so it reaches and benefits a much wider community. There is a great deal of interesting choral music beyond the niche. In Europe, choral music has enjoyed a renaissance for some time, withh exciting new choirs like Accentus, and composers like Carl Orff and Clytus Gottwald. Last year The Choir featured the work of Zoltan Kodaly, both as composer and as teacher. Programmes like this are needed more than ever because they bring communal singing into the mainstream for all, where it deserves to be.

Naturally the Hallelujah Chorus will be the centrepiece of the communal singing projects all over the country, for it's a song everyone knows and there aren't many words to memorize! But that's why it's a good starting point : it raises the spirits for more. There's advice online for organizing local groups. In Glasgow and London on the weekend 5/6 December there will be special "learning events". The ENO is presenting The Messiah from November in a staging by Deborah Warner. The cultural Taleban may sneer, but quite frankly, music is born again on performance, so I'm perfectly happy to give it a chance. From all we know, Handel wasn't a po-faced autodictat. Chances are he would have been thrilled to hear how his music has adapted to serve communities more diverse and wider than he could ever have imagined.

Lots more on Handel and the Messiah and singing on this blog - use search widget on right or labels.Updated Prom 65 review Mahler and Ligeti Strauss Nott HERE

Zarathustra Mahler and Ligeti Prom 65 Kindertotenlieder

For review of Ligeti Le Grand Macabre at ENO please see HERE.

On one level, Prom 65 could have been Sci Fi at the movies.
Millions discovered Nietzsche through Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey, via the big theme tune Also sprach Zarathustra. So Richard Strauss reincarnated as ' New Age Sage'. Similarly, Kubrick borrowed an obscure piece of new music and rocketed Ligeti's Atmosphères into world prominence. The lawsuit took years to settle, but Atmosphères is probably the best known avant garde piece of all time. Everyone has heard Ligeti, even if they don't know it. So new music isn't the bogeyman its detractors would have.

Wonderful potential then for a great Proms experience. particularly as the two Kubrick Hits were separated by Schoenberg's dramatic Five Orchestral Pieces which received a clear and animated reading from the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. Youth Orchestra is a bit of a misnomer. Members of this orchestra are hand picked from all over Europe for their talent. The GMJO incubates some of the finest players of the future. Its members may be young but they're better than many more conventional orchestras. What they get from Claudio Abbado's loosely connected network of orchestras is unique. Read more about them HERE and HERE.

Youth orchestras get away with crude playing because they're young. It's perfectly natural to overlook bad musicianship to support a worthy cause. But the GMJO are good, and this was accomplished playing. It's just that no one plays at 18 the way they play at, say, 45. Their Schoenberg was lively, and they got the big dramatic moments in Zarathustra with wonderful effect. But more impressive was they way they handled the more subtle passages. Particularly good were the colours in Farben, each player carefully paying attention, gauging the refinements of tone. This is the stuff that shows real musicianship, not big flashy moments like The Big Blast in the beginning, which everyone knows from TV ads even if they don't know Kubrick. There's a lot more to Strauss's response to the basic ideas than meets the eye. He doesn't buy the Übermensch thing any more than Nietzsche did. Many in the orchestra hadn't played the piece before the Proms, so this wasn't an occasion for seeking much depth of interpretation.

Ligeti's Atmosphères showcased the accomplished playing to good effect. Here, meaning as such doesn't matter. Ligeti's doing a visionary soundscape. What seems like huge washes of white noise are created by extremes of detail, "microtonal polyphony". The music moves in swathes of sound, the strings giving way to a surge of brass, each part played with slight variation. It's the blend that creates the "atmosphere". Hence the otherworldy sound of percussion brushes played against the strings of the piano : it's music going boldly where no man has gone before. No wonder Kubrick heard it as "music from another planet". Jonathan Nott's soft focus sometimes underwhelms in other repertoire, but it's perfect for Atmosphères which is one of his specialities.

So where did Mahler's Kindertotenlieder fit in on this programme ? It carried on the quiet mysticism of Atmosphères which was good. The poems are shocking for they're about the deaths of children. Yet that doesn't mean that the songs should be performed with hyperfervid operatic flourish. On the contrary, the father in the poem is so numbed he can hardly think straight. Histrionics would be quite out of order. So Matthias Goerne's dignified, sensitive approach is psychologically astute. The anguish in In diesem Wetter, where the music portrays a storm, clears to tenderness so pure and loving that you can visualize the children sleeping peacefully in Heaven.

It's musically astute. Kindertotenlieder is like a symphony in miniature and, like most Mahler symphonies, the resolution involves transcendance, transparent light. "Going to another place". Miss this and you miss most of Mahler. So maybe that's why it's paired with Ligeti ? Read my commentary on Kindertotenlieder HERE.

But emotionally this song cycle is so intense that it's hard to listen to in the context of many programmes. Often I feel I need to listen to these songs completely on my own, late at night, in darkness, without distractions. Luckily, thanks to the BBC it is possible to hear the repeat broadcast online and on demand. Click HERE. It's available for a week from now.

Watching is definitely a good thing, because you get the close-ups of Goerne's face, and see how he's singing with his whole soul. It intensifies the performance because it brings much more intimacy than you'd get on stage, and intimacy is what Lieder is about. It's certainly not acting but the kind of intuitive expression that comes from complete immersion in the spirit of the music.

Goerne first became famous in the aftermath of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's retirement. Fans can sometimes be fanatics, so anyone who wasn't a clone of the master came in for flak. DFD had a fairly stiff stage manner but anyone who actually goes to a lot of song recitals knows that singers move. All people move unconsciously when they communicate, it's a normal extension of expressing things you care about. Nowadays, we also have films to prove that singers of the past moved, as did DFD himself. It's time to bury the myth. But it sticks because it's easier to look from outside than to engage and really connect to the music.

Read a shorter, snappier and punchier version of this on Opera Today HERE
As always with reviews check who knows the repertoire !

Xenakis Rachmaninov sculptors in sound Prom 63 2009

Rachmaninov and Xenakis on the same Prom? The "arch-modernist" and the arch-Romantic? Strange pairing, but whoever made the connection really understands how music works other than on an obvious superficial level.

Everyone knows that Xenakis worked with Le Corbusier, though as an architect he didn't design ordinary buildings, but conceptual structures like the Philips Pavilion. See HERE. (There is a lot on this site about Xenakis, architecture and Le Corbusier, so use the links at right or the search widget). It's important to remember this as Xenakis didn't design with bricks and mortar but with ideas. So there isn't any real transition in Xenakis from creating structures in space and creating structures in sound.

Nomo Gamma takes performance space as starting point, and fills it with sound. Xenakis creates spans of sound which cross over each other from different points in the vast void, forming an intricate network of effects that hold together even though they don't have physical form. Think how bridges are built, spanning emptiness til they create a strong structure. Like the Philips Pavilion, Nomo gamma is a free floating series of small cells which coalesce to form content out of void.

It's an ideal piece for the Royal Albert Hall, for it maximises the vast open spaces. Ninety-eight musicians positioned all over the building, even in the upper galleries. Musicians move, in and among the audience, further breaking down the idea of fixed positions. It's amazingly dramatic, because the audience is drawn into the experience. So much nonsense has been written this year about the Hall's acoustic. In fact there's no such thing as a single acoustic: everything depends on what's being played, and in what position it's being heard. It's a flexible concept. Too often it's used as an excuse for lazy listening. Last year Stockhausen's Gruppen and Cosmic Pulses were heard to magnificent effect: what a tragedy that the composer didn't live to experience them at that Prom!

Xenakis wasn't the first or last composer to experiment with sound as structure but his background makes it easier for people to grasp the concept. It was an astute move to use Nomo gamma as a wedge, opening the door towards greater understanding of ideas in new music. So much nonsense is currently being written about new music as "intellectual" – repeated so often it becomes shibboleth. Judging by the huge applause at this Prom, even extremely cereberal, conceptual theory like this can work if only people actually listen and open themselves to experience.

So the audience lapped up Aïs which followed, where Xenakis deconstructs the idea of singing, giving Leigh Melrose a part that ranged from extremes of the register, disintegrates into clucks made at the back of the throat, then suddenly swooping off into screams that break off as if strangled in mid-flight. It's impressive in performance even though it wrecks a singer's voice. Berio, Nono and others deconstructed voice more effectively than this, but Xenakis is good to hear at the Proms because he was such a fascinating personality, who can make new music approachable even by audiences who might otherwise be scared off theoretical music.

Aïs is also accessible because it connects to concrete images, like the paintings on Greek vases which depict the exaggerated expression of ancient actors - eyes round, mouths frozen in horror and and so on. Indeed, though there's only one soloist, the vocal part is created so it functions like a chorus. Poor Melrose switches from one type of sound to another so quickly that it seems as if there were several roles trapped within one body. Quite a tour de force, but this isn't repertoire designed for human habitation. Rather like some of le Corbusier's architecture (or rather that of his followers). Rebuild the Barbican for human access!

The real surprise of this Prom was for me Rachmaninov's From the Isle of the Dead. David Robertson, an "arch-modernist" to use that infantile term of abuse, turns the old dreamer into a cutting edge master. It's hard to believe that this piece was written in 1909, before the Rite of Spring, before Sibelius 7th. Above is one of Arnold Bocklin's paintings of a dream he had about an Island where death reigns. It springs like a volcano out of a smooth sea, impossibly steep cliffs surrounding a dense grove of trees. It's completely unnatural. There's only one way onto the island, through a narrow crack. A narrow boat approaches, with an upright figure. Any Freudian will note : images of death, sex and birth together. Perhaps why the image is so powerful, it's an archetype.

So Rachmaninov, who was spellbound by the picture, paints music which describes a place which cannot possibly exist in reality. Often this piece is played like a misty impressionist landscape, which it arguably is. But Robertson and the BBC Symphony Orchestra get so much more out of it Suddenly, the craggy cliffs become savage blocks of upright sound, contrasting with the flowing passages whih represent movement, perhaps through light or water. The concept of structures, density and texture, of movement and fixed masses. It's music as architecture, long before Xenakis, even before Sibelius's powerful sculptures of Nature. So now the clichés that parcel composers into niches like tonal/atonal are shown up for the myths they are. Thank goodness for original thinkers like David Robertson who don't stereotype. Not long ago I heard the Berliner Philharmoniker play the same piece. When one of the best orchestras in the world plays on auto pilot, you realize just how important a good conductor is and why the best deserve the money.

An excellent Shostakovich 9, but the shock of Rachmaninov was still too great for me to overcome.

Tonight's Prom feature Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Dialogues for two pianos. The Berliner Philharmoniker have been doing a seaon of Zimmermann all year, so go to their site whee you can still watch and listen. Zimmermann's big masterpiece is Requiem for a Young Poet, which the B Phil has a wonderful download of. Read about it HERE

Claude Vivier Orion Kopernikus Prom 60 Rêves d’un Marco Polo

Claude Vivier's Orion is at last receiving its UK premiere at the Proms, conducted by Charles Dutoit. From the commentary, it's being presented as a kind of upmarket Star Wars to fit the theme of astronomy. Which is a real pity, as Orion stems from a much larger, much more radical work, Vivier's opera Kopernickus.

It's poignant that Vivier is still so unknown in the UK. He was an extremely influential figure, but most famous in the popular imagination for writing a piece which was found on his desk, possibly incomplete, after he was murdered in exactly the way described in the song. But Glaubst du an der Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?) is a masterpiece whatever the circumstances around it. Obviously there's no connection between the song and Vivier's death, but since when was fate logical?

That's an idea to bear in mind when listening to Vivier's music. Rêves d’un Marco Polo is an Opus Arte DVD, so it's more widely available than a lot of recordings of Vivier's music. It's an "Opéra fleuve in deux parties" . Part one is the opera Kopernickus, while part two is a programme of various Viver works, including Glaubst du, performed as a group in a staging directed by Pierre Audi, filmed at the Holland Festival in 2004. This was a hugely important concert for it put Vivier on the map. The notes say the two parts fit together "like shadow and light, forming a dreamlike ritualistic experience". Whatever, but it's certainly interesting, and the performances are extremely good - the Asko and Schönberg Ensembles, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw and including excellent singers. Also included is a documentary about Vivier's life, and how it pertains to his music. Vivier was a loner, something of a Marco Polo, who ventured into territories still unexplored.

In Kopernickus a woman named Agni (Susan Narucki) enters a mysterious landscape. A strange man speaks about a melody, more tender than a mother's caress, which will reveal a new dawn , where the sadness - and evil - of this world will be forgotten in "the dreams of the night that is over". Like Alice in Wonderland, Agni is on a journey where she meets strange and wondrous ideas, expressed in musical references. "Visionaries of all times, gather together !" These encounters are not at all literal, as they're introduced by figures dressed in similar costumes. But that's the point, I think, you don't know who's really significant til they're gone.

Orchestral players walk around the stage, painted, masked and costumed like the singers and actors, further integrating the music into the whole. They weave their way through the action – each soloist a "player" in every sense. It's odd, but once you get used to the strangeness it starts to feel real. It's surreal, and faintly ludicrous, but it's meant to confound, to make you lose your bearings. The strange man whom Agni thought was Lewis Carroll starts to expound crackpot theories of the universe. Logic has no more meaning here than the physics of time and space. Sometimes invented words replace language altogether.

"We shall see God!" the voices sing and Agni looks transfixed by something we can't see, the strange man waving his hands behind her head like wings, or an aura. It's an image that keeps recurring, sometimes as subtle as blinking. Once you divest yourself of the usual signposts of literal meaning, Kopernikus comes together in a magical way. Musically this is a marvel, long swaying arcs of sound, trumpets, flutes, profound clarinet, mad violins. Audi's staging and choreography - the best way to describe the complex interactions between people and objects in stage - is wonderfully inventive and expands detail in the music. In the film we see important close-ups, like a man listening to a long tube into which a clarinet is played. It's a powerful image conveying the idea of sound travelling distances through different dimensions, which in many ways is what the whole opera is about.

Gradually it dawns on Agni that she's not dreaming at all, but in another plane of reality, vaguely sinister. A trumpet calls out and Claron McFadden appears on high, a rope around her neck. An indication perhaps of what has brought Agni to this strange place. Not for nothing Vivier subtitled this work Opéra rituel de mort. It's not a fantasy game, but a solemn and purposeful progression, despite the hallucinatory quality of the images. Suddenly the bird-like masks of the players falls into place. In Egyptian ritual, bird spirits accompany the soul on its transition to death. As Pierre Audi says in his notes, this is "the closest music theatre has come to the medieval mystère, a form that is able to stretch from deep meditation to the extreme grotesque". Brian Ferneyhough goes on to do something similar in his astounding opera Shadowtime.

Hence the figures who chant about "monks who abandon themselves to mystic rituals in secret". Agni proceeds roward the "purifying waters" of a river that marks some kind of major divide, a clear reference to the River Styx. As she approaches, she "sees" "Herr Mozart" and asks him if it's true that on the other side there is music so beautiful that even gods and angels swoon. Do people communicate by music, the "songs of all of the people of all dimensions are in harmony with cosmic rhythms". It's enticing: Agni imagines she'll be able to dance from "galaxy to galaxy".

Now individual concerns don't matter. The strange man sings "Truth is not to be found in short term things but in ideas. Uppermost is the idea of good". He gathers up the Christmas lights that amused Agni for a while: brightly coloured bulbs, not the idea Christmas commemorates.

"You shall hear Orion's music", the voices sing as Agni, transfixed, listens to trumpets heard from a distance, and sees the heavens revealed as the gates of Paradise are thrown open. The strange man tells of philosophers and astronomers of the past, and their contribution to knowledge and the mysteries of the universe. It's a procession from the ancient past towards greater wisdom, and a procession Agni is about to join. She heads offstage. leading the singers and musicians behind her in solemn single file. They head into the auditorium, into the darkness and beyond. You hear echoes of the music from afar. Then Agni runs back, to check on the strange man, but he slams the book he was reading from at the beginning. No more answers. The last image is Agni's face, deep in shock.

Of course as a stand alone, Orion works as beautifully vivid music, conducted with authority by Charles Dutoit who premiered it years ago and knows why Vivier is such an important composer. It's published as a completely independent orchestral work, but both Orion and Kopernickus were written at the same time (1979) and there's a great deal of quite explicit overlap, the same material being used in both, even the faint chorus "Die-u, Die-u". the Middle Ages, astronomy was a dark art, only slightly more respectable than alchemy, so Copernicus was lucky he wasn't born earlier, wen his ideas might have been thought heresy. So it's useful to think of Orion in the context of Kopernickus, as it gives it greater resonance and opens up windows on Vivier's work. "Opening the curtain", as the strange man said at the beginning. Vivier is very profound, deeply interesting: and he died aged only 34.

I wonder whether Stockhausen heard Orion ? He knew who Vivier was, for sure. Vivier went to Europe, hoping to study with him, but Stockhausen could not stand the guy and took him on in sufferance. Yet Vivier had his head in the stars just as Stockhausen did, except Vivier didn't believe for a moment he came from them, and had much more literary and cultural underpinnings. Listen to Stockhausen's Michaels-Abschied from his LICHT cycle. Trumpeters sound out from way on high, the sounds they make arching into the heavens. Orion got there first.

When i get time I'll write about the second disc on the Opus Arte DVD which has other Vivier treasures like Wo bist du, Licht, the Lonely Child, Zipangu and the masterpiece Glaubst du an der Unsterblckheit der Seele. There is a lot that could be said and needs saying but another time. Please come back to this site, subscribe and bookmark for more ! (Lots here too on Gerard Grisey and others influenced by Claude Vivier)

Andriessen De Staat Prom 58 2009

De Staat is a seminally important work. So much modern music stems from it, not only "serious" classical music but progressive popular music too. No De Staat no Different Trains and many other things.

De Staat is so radical that it still sounds fresh after almost 40 years. Essentially, it's a wild, almost savage piece that breaks all the rules of form and development that constitute formal music. But such manic, kinetic energy! Driving, compelling rhythmic patterns drive the piece forward. The patterns are circular, revolving on themselves relentlessly without beginning or end. Structurally, blocks of density are intersected by planes of sharp brightness.

De Staat is also interesting because it transcends text. It's based on Plato's The Republic where music is denounced as a form of subversion. The words matter. At early performances, audiences were given the text to read carefully. Yet De Staat transcends text. The singing is deliberately embedded into the music, almost abstract, like a cryptic code whose meaning goes deeper than surface words. Modern music doesn't do simple word-painting. Meaning is absorbed, translated into abstract sound. Much modern writing approaches this state too. Just yesterday we heard Rebecca Saunders's Traces, which springs from Samuel Beckett's exploratory syntax. (Another Beckett-inspired composer is Pascal Dusapin)

The texts are in ancient Greek, which most people don't understand nowadays, which is all the more reason to focus on how the music itself expresses meaning, not just the words. The final chorus is illuminating for it quotes authoritarian dogma against innovation. "Change always invokes far-reaching danger. Any alteration in the modes of music is always followed by alteration in the most fundamental laws of the State". Nothing has changed since Plato. Modern music is hated for much the same reasons, as if easy music makes life safe.

So Andriessen's unremitting, hard driving planes of sound express something about society and its pressures. This Proms performance, conducted by Lucas Vis, leading the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, celebrated the composer's birthday, so wasn't quite as intense as some performances, where the relentless, pounding rhythms create severe anxiety and tension. This is an ensemble for whom the work is basic repertoire – listen to the live recording, also by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, from the 1978 Holland Festival, included as a CD in the book by Robert Adlington, Louis Andriessen : De Staat (2004).

This sense of fear and danger is important, for the driving repetitions represent the idea of conformity. Hence the need for tight, disciplined performance. Repetition is conformity, strictly imposed. From which freedom, non-conformity and creative innovation can break loose. Perhaps that's why I admire Ravel's Bolero and liked Salonen's perceptive performance).

The very structure of De Staat is meaning. As Andriessen has said, "there is no hierarchy in the parts". The chorus is only one of the several units in the piece that function in parallel, rather like society itself. Hence the phalanx of brass positioned on both sides of the orchestra, and the "chorus" of violas and lower strings. Voices may be suppressed in authoritarian states, but abstract music can still speak.

This programme was extremely well chosen, placing De Staat between Steve Martland's Beat the Retreat and Cornelis de Bondt's Closed Doors. Martland's piece is a protest against government laws on outdoors entertainment, a cheerful act of irreverent anarchy. De Bondt's piece, from 1985, starts and ends with a deep sonic boom that reverbrated nicely in the Royal Albert Hall. It's part of a much larger work that pivots different threads of music history upon each other. That's why there were two conductors, not in itself any big deal (Charles Ives did it decades ago). Like De Staat, the material circulates, disparate parts that can't meld.

Another recommended recording of De Staat is by the Schoenberg Ensemble, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, a superb performance, with a stellar group of singers, but with one big caveat, that's all there is on the disc and it's expensive. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble recording includes Il Principe, part of a series of works associated with De Staat as a kind of mega-cycle (and you get the book, too).

This Prom was woefully under-attended, perhaps because it was the start of the last holiday weekend of the summer, when everyone's out of town, or perhaps because the early evening concert was Tchaikovsky, whose fans don't overlap with Andriessen's. But that's why broadcast and online repeat listening is so valuable. Not everyone can have the luxury of getting into London for a concert that ends after much public transport closes for the night. But many, many more get to hear the music at home, or on the radio, wherever they may be, in London or anywhere else. Why should music be the privilege of a closed elite? Thank goodness for technological innovation!

Rebecca Saunders is the Real Thing Prom 56

Rebecca Saunders is The Real Thing as modern composers go. This isn't at all "musical fast food" which gives an instant kick but rebounds on your system. You have to savour it thoughtfully, to engage with the wonderful range of timbres and colours that emerge: a bit like not rushing a vintage wine, so it breathes and develops on the palate. Look at her photo, where she stares out fearlessly, absorbed in thought. No artifice, no compromise, but a kind of inner purity that promises great depth. Livelier photos HERE

Prom 56 showcased Saunders's Traces, premiered the previous night in Dresden with the Staatskapelle and Fabio Luisi. Listen to this on repeat broadcast and on TV, and read the programme notes which are very informative.

Saunders describes her method as being like looking at a sculpture from different angles, in different light, against different backgrounds. Yet Traces operates on a much deeper level: hence the double basses, sounds as darkly sonorous as it's possible to get with string instruments, legato that curves and stretches and lifts off suddenly, to slide along from a different angle. It's like touching a work of art, "feeling" it intuitively. As a blind person might see, visualizing by instinct and emotion, surprisingly sensual. Such subtle music means players of great sensitivity, but its challenges are met by musicians of the calibre of the Staatskapelle Dresden, one of the great orchestras of the world.

Then the music changes tack in the second part (about 7 minutes into the 15 minute work). Sharper, brighter textures now, very high strings, though the same sense of sweeping curves, sculpting shapes in swathes of sound. It's like glissandi but created by a group of different individuals playing in such connection they move as a unit, stretching the palette beyond what a single instrument could do. Brass and woodwinds form similar blocks, so there's a sense of great forces rotating, revealing different aspects of sound as they move, leaving in their wake ripples of unpitched percussion. Towards the end te keening sounds stretch out, becoming so pure and clean the music seems to float into infinity.

I first encountered Rebecca Saunders's Miniata from the Donaueschingen MusikTage in 2004. For recordings and scores see Editions Peters HERE. Writing about Miniata, Saunders quoted Wassily Kandinsky’s theories on colour, of “feeling the weight of sound…..being aware of the grit and noise of an instrument, or a voice reminds us of the presence of a fallible physical body behind the sound”. Hence the vibrating resonances that follow loud outbursts on timpani, and the echo of percussion sticks as they clatter across the soundscape, imitated in turn by piano. It's about sensations, huge masses of sound, up and turning on a pivot. About half way through, there is a massive crescendo splintering in fragments of fractured sound, transmuted into the vocal equivalent of “white noise”, almost imperceptible variations on a long drawn out sigh. Traces is a more sophisticated and mature version of these ideas, for she's no longer dealing with a spectrum of light infused colour but something much deeper and more emotionally resonant.
REPEAT BROADCAST OF THIS PROM online ondemand for 7 days from 30/12 on the BBC Radio 3 website - see "performance on 3" on 30/12 . And please also read other pices about Rebecca Saunders music on this site, like this : http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2009/11/simon-bainbridge-rebecca-saunders-music.html"

What makes the British British? Jerusalem

What makes Britishness? There's no such thing as British ethnicity, for the country was settled by Picts, Celts, Saxons, Vikings, all of whom are found in significant numbers all over Europe. There were Jews, too, but they were ethnically cleansed in the 12th century. London always was an international city. So what is so British about the British?

This Proms season has been fascinating because it has raised lots of ideas that pertain to what makes national identity. The Proms are often seen as a bastion of British but what does that mean.?  The commentary on the Cambridge Prom was revealing as the implication was that Cambridge is what British music "is". Sure, lots of composers and musicians went there, but the really key ones didn't or developed after they got away. Then there's the idea that Cambridge choirs are unique - well, yes they are, because King's College Choir is wonderful and has the most spectacular building to work in. But choirs have been a part of college life since universities were monks-only. Which is all universities throughout Europe before the Renaissance. What is "new" about King's is that they do it bigger, better and more dramatically. But that ignores the fact that there have been Schola cantorums all over the place and still are.

And of Charles Villiers Stanford the less said the better!

This week the Proms posed the question of national identity even more potently with Handel's Samson. So the key figure in non-early British music was German? Most of the musicians at court always were: so were the kings. And of course most of the clergy. So there is no shame attached, whatsoever, to his not being native born.

Handel came to London because that's where progressive things were happening in his time. Which is why his music sounds confident. So his music was hijacked to serve a new sense of national identity? But that's the way history has always worked. People need a sense of community as a raft for diffuse ideas. All over Europe identity created the nation-state, the idea of language-based countries rather than conglomerates like the Hapsburg empire. The Middle East situation has many roots in the European past. Similarly in 20th century Asia where nationalism was part of the process of modernization. The idea of a nation (as opposed to a clearly defined tribe) is relatively recent. What happens in future when technology creates a monolingual community without physical boundaries?

And when does healthy, normal pride cross the line into destructiveness? The BNP (far right political party) could well turn Samson into a weapon. "Sweep the land of this race" after all. Unfortunately or fortunately, the BNP are Philistines, so they won't.

Then there's Jerusalem. Not Jerusalem the place, but the song, highlight of the Last Night of the Proms, when flags are waved and silly hats worn. These days the flags are usually waved by drunken Aussies so they can get on TV where those at home can admire them. It's infantile, but it helps dissipate the bombastic overtones.

Jerusalem the song has become a badge of national pride, and rightly so as it's a powerfully moving piece that lends itself to the massed choir thing the British like so much. But does it really celebrate England's "green and pleasant land"?

Think who wrote it and why. It was William Blake. He starts part way into a question "And did those feet in ancient times walk on England's mountains green?" This refers to the legend that Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury, with Jesus in tow. Blake doesn't answer "No" though it's implied if you think about it. Blake's Jerusalem is a mental construct, a symbol of an ideal place where godly principles rule. Reality is "dark satanic mills", squalor, poverty, exploitation. Nineteenth-century mill owners may have been towers of respectability, funding churches and perhaps singing massed choir Handel. But the way they treated others was not in accord with the humane teachings of Jesus. This Jerusalem could not have been "builded" in Britain c 1800, but could exist anywhere, anytime as long as people believe in ideals.

So Blake's Jerusalem is anything but comfort music for the established order. "I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, til we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land". Maybe that expresses an alternative tradition of Britishness, doughty idealism. But again, no one nation has a monopoly on radical thought. And that silly idea that British music is Cambridge?  The song setting was written by Hubert Parry, an Oxford don put down by Stanford (the Cambridge don not the ege). And orchestrated by Elgar, who never went to university at all.

Please see HERE for Hanns Eisler's birthday song for Jesus "Du warst ein Revolutionar"

Fidelio the drama doesn't end Beethoven Prom 50 Barenboim

The real horror of Fidelio is that there are still thousands of Florestans, all over the world, who will never be free. This isn't opera for "entertainment". Ten years ago it didn't seem possible that a project like the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra could succeed, given the conflict it grew from. The situation hasn't changed, but the orchestra has thrived, against the odds. At the end, the standing ovation was a statement in itself, and that the ideals it embodies mean something to a lot of people.

"When we play we are making music" said Daniel Barenboim. But the very fact that these young people get together each summer is a act of faith, that people from all parts of the divide can be "side by side, not back to back".

The Prom started with by the Leonora 3 Overture which is often heard towards the end. The heroine, after all, is Leonore not Florestan. This reflects the subtle change of balance in this performance, which incorporated spoken narration written by the late, great Edward Said. Fundamentalists won't approve, but fundamentalists rarely like things that promote understanding. Leonore is sometimes considered "unstageable". The extra words help to clarify the plot, especially for those new to the opera, or to opera of any kind. This matters, because Beethoven's message is important, and should reach people who might not otherwise relate to opera. It also expands the character of Leonore, who doesn't sit passively but takes direct action. Leonore isn't the first forceful woman in opera, but she's a prototype of what women, and all those who love enough, can achieve.

At first, Waltraud Meier spoke the words directly: stunning drama, later dissipated because the rest was recorded. There are good practical reasons for this, since her singing is infinitely more important, and it would not do to use another woman's voice, so it isn't really much to quibble about. She's much smaller in person that the stunning presence her amazing singing would imply. Yet this too underlines how much Leonore achieves. She's an ordinary woman who stands up to tyranny. Meier naturally dominated proceedings. She sang with great feeling. No need for stylistic effects: her purpose here was to get the story across in a direct, personal way.

Said also makes thoughtful comments on Beethoven's first scene, drawing parallels with the plot and its relevance. "The four of us at cross-purposes, each scarcely able to comprehend one another, each bent on a different course. The wonder of it is that we were together in the same place and still I could see how painfully apart we were".

The other singing was more uneven. John Tomlinson's voice is showing its age, but in a way this, too, worked well for his characterization of Rocco, who has his rough edges. He's a priosn warden after all, not a subtle personality. Gerd Grochowski's Don Pizarro, on the other hand, was finely nuanced and convincing. He was a late replacement for Peter Mattei, but he's sung the role many times, and is good, so high-profile Proms coverage should give Grochowski the credit he deserves.

Adriana Kučerová was somewhat underpowered, but Marzelline is a slight, girlish personality, particularly in contrast to Meier's powerful Leonore. The role of Florestan on the other hand is far more important. There have been many good Florestans in the past, who make you realise why a Leonore would love him enough to try to save him. Simon O'Neill is good enough, but not particularly convincing. By the end of his big aria, he's shouting "Freiheit, Freiheit", rather than singing. It's the critical word in the whole piece and should be shaped so its beauty shines forth. Instead it comes over harsh and parched. True he's spent a long time chained up in a cell. Viktor Rud's Don Fernando was interesting enough that it should be interesting to hear how this young singer develops.

It's ludicrous to expect an orchestral performance of the standard of Barenboim's "other" orchestras, like Staatskapelle Berlin.These musicians meet once a year, in summer, and often don't have the resources youth orchestra players in wealthier countries take for granted. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra may not have fine polish but Fidelio isn't about surface gloss. Many of these players have personal knowledge of danger. Throughout the opera, the orchestral playing was characterized by a sense of immediacy. Much better to hear fervour well expressed than finesse without feeling. In any case, many of these players are very good. One went on to become Leader of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Each summer, Barenboim's "graduates" return to work with the younger members of the orchestra. This support is vital, not just in musical terms but because it passes on proof that effort produces results.

But ultimately, Fidelio is fantasy. In the real world, time and time again, Florestans die and Leonores are destroyed. That's another reason why Edward Said's words make a difference. His Leonore is looking back, wistfully, at a time long past. People who've know oppression at first hand often find representation in art unsatisfying. For example, many people are moved by the novel and film Empire of the Sun. Yet I know some who weep tears of rage."That kid had it too easy!" say those who lived through the events in real life. That's why I was dubious when someone staged Fidelio at Auschwitz a few years ago. Said's narration provides a sense of distance, which does make a difference.

"Could we remain free, and for how long ? The question still torments me" reads Meier at the very point Florestan is liberated in the opera. The point may be lost on audiences for whom Fidelio is no more than any other opera. But all over the world, freedom is a luxury few can take for granted. Opera goers can go home, feeling safe. Millions of others know all too well that a knock on the door can come at any time, and that those who are freed remain traumatized for the rest of their lives. Said's Leonore knows more than she's letting on. Of course this will be too pointed for the average audience, so the narration will never become standard. But on this anniversary of the founding of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, it was supremely important to hear Said's words ring out into the Royal Albert Hall and into the wider world. He may no longer be with us, but his presence endures.

"There was never a day like it before, or again......we were all united ...we were transported by nameless joy....And yet......Who were the other prisoners ? And what happened to them after Don Fernando had them released along with Florestan?"

Maybe most people won't get it, but for me it was a trenchant reminder that the drama doesn't stop when the music ends.

For full casting and details please see HERE

photo credit

Karim Said West-Eastern Divan Orchestra Prom 49

What must it be like to walk on stage at the Royal Albert Hall knowing that 6000 people are waiting for you, and thousands more tuned in all round the world? Debuts do not come any more high profile than this. The pressure must have been terrifying: with all the world listening, your whole future might depend on this moment.

What could have been in Karim Said's mind? He's just 21, relatively unknown, completely the opposite of the usual young prodigy packaged and sold as Instant Wunderkind. Read about his background in articles HERE.

If anything, those around Said deliberately sheltered him from the media circus. so he could develop at his own pace. It was important to his family and those who cared for him that he develop as a whole person, not a music machine. Shocking as it may be to many, there's more to life than music. Or rather, life "is" music. Art enhances life and a life well lived is a work of art. As Daniel Barenboim's career has proved.

Barenboim is a brilliant pianist and conductor. But perhaps what he'll be remembered for is that he cared about people. Please read the article HERE in which Barenboim talks to Ivan Hewett about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and what the whole project signifies. It's a Goethe ideal, which is why the orchestra met in Weimar. This is no ordinary youth orchestra, and certainly not a social experiment to get kids off the street. All its members are talented, and so dedicated to music that they're prepared to take massive risks. Playing together is an act of courage. For music, they're putting a lot on the line.

So when Karim Said and his colleagues stood on that stage tonight, it was a historic moment. It was amazing to see the Royal Albert Hall almost full to capacity for a late night Prom. Karim has lots of friends, since he studied in this country and is a gregarious fellow, but this was something more. After all the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has played at the Proms regularly for years. Said is an unsually mature player, extremely intuitive and perceptive. As Barenboim, who was a child prodigy himself, said: "He already knows what cannot be taught".

The whole ensemble playing together were very good, of a much higher standard than many their age, particularly considering they don't have the same advantages. Berg's Chamber Concerto is a test of musicianship because it contains so many intricate interactions. The piano and the violin (played by Michael Barenboim), have demanding roles, but part of the beauty of the piece is that they stay silent for long periods - listening. Said is impressive technically, but even more so in that he makes what he plays flow naturally, as if it just "is". Hard to explain. I was close enough to watch his fingers, unexpectedly delicate, fly across the keys. No flamboyant bravura, rather an effortless elegance and grace.

Obviously it's far too early to start making wild claims but neither would it be fair to put down someone with such genuine potential. Talented people always draw jealous fire. And Said has decades ahead of him. He's good enough that you know he's going somewhere. I certainly won't forget this first Proms performance. Karim Said has charisma, make no mistake. He stood up, still somewhat gauche in his body language (which is quite endearing). He turned to smile at his friends and then up into that vast audience, lights dazzling. What must he have been thinking? It must have been awesome. To my surprise, I started to cry, as if I were his mum.

photo credit

Handel's Radical Terrorist Samson Prom 47 2009

This Prom could smash down the pillars of Handel-hate. This Samson made Handel seem completely modern. Why modern? He's been dead 250 years. This performance was so good that it brought out the sharp edge to Handel, so the drama felt totally up to the minute and vivid.

Frighteningly so, too, for some of the material is uncomfortably close to modern wounds. Given that the next Prom will feature the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose members are drawn from all sides of the conflict in the Middle East, it's disturbing to hear lines like "Gaza yet stands though all her sons are fallen" and "Sweep this race from this Land". There's no escaping the political nature of this oratorio. As has often been pointed out, Samson is the ultimate suicide bomber, who kills himself in order to kill as many of his enemies as possible, without regard to whether they're innocent bystanders or not. They're Philistines after all, not righteous like "us". There are virgins for the martyr in the next life. Intolerance stays the same whatever the flavour of the current beliefs.

Obviously Handel was writing about another time and place. There was no chance that a man of his era would have gone against the certainties of the Bible, however much they don't fit in with the more humanitarian values now associated with Jesus. Handel and his friends supported Church and State as institutions, whatever Jesus may have taught about gathering the little children, the powerless and so on. Handel's "Middle East" wasn't about Jews and non-Jews so much as about British society in his time. Handel's London was cutting-edge progressive compared with the rest of Europe. It was a place where new money and power held sway. The British beheaded their king long before the French even dreamed of having a revolution. Milton was the Karl Marx of Cromwell's armies. Hence the militant ethic, the self-righteousness. Of course they were humble before God, but God is whatever you make him out to be.

Hence the violence of the metaphors "The tempest of thy wrath.... in whirlwinds they pursue". And the particularly vindictive language Milton used to put down women. "Out! Hyena!" Samson cries at Dalila, who comes "sailing like a stately ship". Milton's misogyny had personal roots, but putting down others to soothe oneself is part of the extremist spirit. Samson, for example, is incensed because Dagon's followers party "free from sorrow, free from thrall, all blithe and gay, with sports and play" and drink lots of wine. Evidently, this is threatening to him. Samson's mad because he let himself be seduced. "Effeminacy held me yok'd". What would a psychiatrist make of it? "How cunningly the sorceress displays her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine!". Think about it.

Fortunately Handel didn't carry the same baggage. His Dalila, especially characterized by the winsome Susan Gritton, is supported by a beautiful solo violin, strengthened by cello and a band of women's voices. He's even fairly fair and even when it comes to the warring tribes. In the double choruses, both Israelites and Philistines sing the same words : the name of their Gods interchangeable. It's very subtle, in contrast with the unblinking self satisfaction of the Third Act.

Mark Padmore's Samson is an apotheosis. He creates Samson as a full personality, which is quite a feat. His Samson is a troubled beast in every sense. This Samson's strength comes from within. He's no WWF clown (note WWF wrestlers often have long hair). There's so much in this part that a lesser singer could coast, but Padmore brings an unusally white-hot intensity to his performance. Padmore's Samson is fuelled by buried conflicts and repressions. He spits venom, when he accuses Dalila of being a snake. Wonderful clipped phrasing, crackling with tension. This is how I like to hear Padmore, taking risks and engaging emotionally. He makes you understand how Samson comes to feel "some inward motions". He sings that last aria, "Thus when the sun from's watr'y bed" with quiet dignity. It's interesting how Handel writes it in a very different way to the blood-curdling defiance that's gone before.

Exceptionally crisp, clear textures in the playing from the English Concert led by Harry Bicket. This is baroque as "new music". Such freshness and vivacity, such sharpness of attack - worlds away from the soft-grained piety of mediocre performances that have saddled Handel with a bad image. Bicket shows just how cutting edge Samson must have felt once, when memories of the English Civil War were still fresh, and Europe was on the verge of The Age of Reason.

The funeral march in the Third Act showed how period instruments can pack a punch, played with this level of commitment. Listen to the natural horns and trumpets, the latter as long as trombones, but without a slide, the length extending the sound. The continuo is brisk, forthright, propelling forward movement. "Bring the laurels, bring the bays" sing the chorus, at a crisp walking pace. How vividly visual Handel's music can be! When Lucy Crowe appears to sing the famous "Let the bright Seraphim", you can almost see the angels, "and the cherubic host in tuneful choirs. " Close-up on television, you can see her eyes widen as she listen to the trumpets in the orchestra before she takes off into golden coloratura. "Let their celestial concerts all unite" sing the choir, "ever to sound his praise in endless blaze of light". This performance really did shine, especially against the darkness, the Eclipse, that went before.

Excellent singing throughout - Susan Gritton seductive and sympathetic, Iestyn Davies clear, Neal Davies full of character. Christopher Purves a solid Harapha.

Detlev Glanert Shoreless River Prom 46 2009

Shoreless River (Fluss ohne Ufer), is an 18 minute excerpt from a new opera Detlev Glanert is working on, Das Holzschiff, The Wooden Ship. It's the first part of an opera based on the 1937 book by Baltic poet Hans Henny Jahnn, part of a trilogy. Glanert's music is inherently dramatic, and he's written lots of opera, so this Jahnn saga, the first part to be premiered in Munich in 2010, should be definitely be something to look forward to.

Listen to this wonderful piece on the BBC Listen again broadcast. It starts with near silence, long enough that tension builds. Just as at sea, if you're alert you can hear sounds over huge distances. A rolling pulse emerges, like the movement of waves, interspersed with bells, the means by which wooden ships communicated time. The ebb and flow continues with surging, swelling passages that build up and then retreat into quieter moments where tiny woodwind and string cells flicker. In these details, you can imagine seagulls, sea spray, gusts of wind. Imagination is what dramatic music is.

Read the excellent programme notes by Guy Rickards. "The shimmering textures, alternating solo and tutti sections, harp arabesques and wind lines intermingle with variants and extensions of the horn triplet motif. The orchestration thickens out gradually until the bells, supported by trumpets and timpani, ring out the opening figure for the third time. A solo viola leads off a sinuous variation on the main theme....." Towards the end the music builds up again in a swift fff passage for trumpets and percussion. "This acts as a catharsis, unleashing a cadenza-like passage in a broader tempo led by the percussion, at length transferring to the harps, supported by horns." If this is a prelude, the whole opera should be wonderful, whatever the libretto and development.

What might Glanert's The Wooden Ship saga be like? For clues, I looked up more on Hans Henny Jahnn and the book which inspired Glanert in the first place. There was an English translation, no longer in stock, and apparently there are some in French, but the work is readily available in German. Jahn seems like quite a character. He wrote novels, essays, poems, about philosophy, spirituality etc. and lived an unconventional life. Apart from all else he built organs with carved heads as keys.

Access the Jahnn site HERE for many photos and details of his work and places. Access a blog about his books HERE. which includes a quote about the style of writing he used in Das Holzschiff. Apparently he breaks down and rearranges the German language like James Joyce recreates English. The two companion volumes in the saga are huge, sprawling and inventive: no wonder no English translations of these exist. Glanert's music is sensitive to prose and speech patterns, so what he'll make of such dialogue in his opera should be interesting. A quote from the novel:

"A healthy body is run over by a truck, crushed. Blood, once secreted, once feeling its way blindly through the body, pulsating in a meshwork of thin streams, spreading the chemically charged hormones and their mysterious functions like a red tree inside man–this blood now runs out shapelesssly in great puddles. And still no one grasps that, in a network of veins, it has form. But even more horrible–the death struggle itself, in which the innumerable organs, which we believe we feel, take part. Terror is stronger in us than delight” Yow! Drama even in the syntax.

Read here what I wrote about Theatrum bestiarum and HERE what I've written about Glanert's Caligula, which I saw in Frankfurt this year. Although it was the third revival in three years, the house was packed, even on a week night. Admittedly this was Frankfurt's smaller house, not the Alte Oper, but still, it was interesting to watch the audience, some of whom were hearing it again.