South Bank 2015/2016 season – why it matters

The South Bank 2015/2016 season was quietly announced this week - here's the press release. Since I avoid doing copy/paste, I've spent a bit of time thinking.  The South Bank is, or was, at the heart of the arts in the whole nation. What happens there impacts on everywhere else. This year, the focus is on the Royal Festival Hall, since the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room are being closed down for refurbishment (details here) at a cost of £25 million, a bit less crazy than the original £120 million project. I wish they'd refurbish the South Bank website which caters mainly for the short term. Serious music listeners plan a year in advance, so the website chases business away instead of bringing it in.

You'll need to book early for Opera North's Wagner Ring, from 28/6/16.  Current Arts Council policy has an animus against London.  But if we want a national arts policy, surely it makes more business sense not to starve London of funding but to bring regional companies to town. Opera North should get a good income from coming to the South Bank, much morre than when it toured to Sadler's Wells, and it increases their profile. Economics and demographics favour London, no political gravy train is going to change that.

Zurich Opera has been coming to the South Bank for years, even if Arts Council England hasn't noticed. Zurich is a major house, so if London's good enough for them, so be it.  This year, they're doing Alban Berg Wozzeck on 2/10/16 with Christian Gerhaher, conducted by Fabio Luisi.  Even more significantly, Jirí Bélohlávek brings the Czech Philharmonic and good singers from the Czech National Opera to London on 18/4/16 in Leos Janácek Jenufa. This is a big deal since the RFH is bigger than the Barbican Hall where Bélohlávek conducted when he was with the BBCSO.  More space will let the music breathe, and more people can enjoy.

These three ventures represent a much more effective means of using existing London resources than the hare-brained idea of sponsoring micro-mini companies in the boonies.  I'd really like to hear the Hallé., for example, enticed to London, under some reciprocal deal. It's cheaper to move players around than to fund more "British Music Experiences" which serve little purpose except to siphon funding.  Real artistic innovation is made by people, not by capital projects.

Resident Orchestras :

At the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski continues for a few more years, which is  good news, because he's a man of integrity and sensitivity who likes exploring, especially Russian repertoire. This year, he's conducting Taneyev, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Sibelius, Knussen, Strauss, Mahler and the world premiere od Alexander Raskatov's Green Mass ( 30/1/16). Raskatov wrote the ENO  A Dog's Heart which was brilliant theatre, so let's find out about his music.   

Also unmissable, the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg's Violin Concerto no 2 (Frank Peter Zimmermann). Jaap van Zweden conducting. Lindberg was a regular at the South Bank under the aegis of Marshall Marcus, a man of such vision that he could reinvigorate  a genuine understanding of the arts in this country, much more so than some of the ruling clique. I'm also booking for Christoph von Eschernbach on 9/4/16  Matthias Goerne sings the UK premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie's new work for baritone and orchestra , and also Brahms German Requiem. Dalbavie's orchestral and chamber music is good : more recently, he's been writing opera, eg Gesualdo in Zurich.

Emeritus conductor of the London Philharmonia, Christoph von Dohnányi returns  on 27/9/15 with Beethoven's Ninth - a gala to mark his 85th birthday. His second concert, on 1/10/15 (Berg, Ives and Schubert) would be fulfilling, too. Chief Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen focuses this year on Stravinsky, but you'll have a job finding out what he's conducting since the South Bank website is musically illiterate and hard to navigate.  Look at this for example, which pours out generalities about something that's not even on the programme! Nothing wrong with mistakes, everyone makes them, but that's hilarious. It brightened nmy day. Fortunately, Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Nobody knows the trouble I see (6/12) gets mentioned, along with Bruckner 8th.  Andris Nelsons, however, is known only here  for his work at Boston!  Salonen also does three concerts with Lang Lang.  The Salonen Stravinsky concerts, which sound good, tre in May 2015  and September 2016.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has a natural home in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, but with that out of commission it's moving. At the Royal Festival Hall on 10/11/15, András Schiff conducts Mendelssohn and Schumann. On 14th, the OAE moves to St John's Smith Square, where Ian Bostridge sings Handel (in a Handel period building). More unusually, the OAE takes on Mahler on 12/4/16 with Vladimir Jurowski, and Simon Rattle conducts Hans Rott, Brahms and Bruckner on 22/4/16. The big gala comes on 7/6/16 when Mark Elder conducts Weber  Der Freischütz. This is core OAE rep and they do it livelier than most. No cast details, yet, but who cares, book as soon as possible.

As for the London Sinfonietta, once stalwarts of the South Bank, attracting an edgy and devoted following, there's no news at all.  I looked up the Sinfonietta's own website, with little more luck. How times have changed, sadly. This year they're doing more schools programmes than "new" new music.Al orchestras do outreach, but their primary goal is to create good art, not to substitute for the disappearance of basic musical education in this countrey.

London's South Bank - cutting thru the coterie

Priority case for Sajid Javid.  The South Bank should be the nation's cultural flagship, if only because it's gobbled millions. Since the South Bank management, The Arts Council England and the Guardian, formerly a newspaper, are far too cosy together, it will take a strong-minded Culture Minister to cut through the coterie.

From Douglas Cooksey :

"Dr Johnson is famously remembered for his quote that when a man is tired of London he is tired of Life. Having now lived in London for almost 50 years, I can say with some confidence that I am emphatically not yet tired of Life. However, in common with - one suspects - a great many genuine music lovers, there is a sense of total frustration at what has been happening at what we must now apparently call 'London’s Southbank Centre'.

"Of course all things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.  It would be completely unreasonable and stultifying to expect them to remain the same. However, despite a renovation costing in the region of £100 million, the Royal Festival Hall has declined from its original status as one of the World’s great concert halls, spoken of in the same breath as Vienna’s Musikverein, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall or Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and has sunk into a sort of pervasive self-inflicted squalor.

"What other major concert hall in the World permits unfettered access to all levels to members of the public, even during concerts? Previously at RFH one had to show a ticket for an event before proceeding to an upper level. Now, however these uppe- level areas are used as free Central London meeting space for all sorts of unrelated groups, even amazingly on occasion for groups of people dossing down to sleep.

"During one of Lorin Maazel’s recent Philharmonia concerts there was actually a children’s party in progress with children screaming and running riot at every level. Prior to this concert my partner and I were amazed to find couples with buggies picnicking on the upper levels, even directly outside the main entrance to the Stalls. A new low came when the public address system announced the start of the concert in 3 minutes time and the voraciously picnicking couple next to us swore loudly because the announcement had woken their child in his buggy.

"The opening up of the Royal Festival Hall to all-comers has also had discriminatory and Health & Safety consequences. In the first place, totally free access at all times has meant that older concertgoers now have little or no chance of a seat before, during the interval or after a performance because every seat in the public areas tends to be already occupied by people working on their laptops or by ad hoc group seminars, frequently being addressed by a speaker. When an older person may have made a long journey from, say, Bristol to attend a particular concert, only to be denied a seat by freeloaders, it clearly discriminates against the elderly and infirm, and is a strong disincentive for them to attend.

"More fundamentally, with several times as many people as originally planned now using the building at all times of day, there are genuine Health and Safety concerns; for instance, earlier this week I took two Czech and German friends to a concert, one of them a former member of a professional all-girl punk band (and therefore probably well used to touring insalubrious venues), and they were appalled to be confronted with three out of five toilets completely blocked. (Incidentally Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, which holds around 60,000 people, is an object lesson in the matter of hygiene and I was going to say that RFH would do well to take a leaf out of its book!) With the hall now in constant use throughout the day, mountains of garbage regularly accumulate in its waste bins and - leaving aside the stench - this should surely be investigated by Health & Safety as a matter of urgency.

"What is so depressing is that this is no slide into genteel poverty caused by lack of investment or by an ageing infrastructure – after all we’ve just spent more than £100 million renovating the hall - but largely the result of a series of conscious decisions by a perverse and unpleasant management operating to its own agenda which appears to seek to turn the hall into a “People’s Palace”, available to all people all the time. Regular concertgoers clearly now come a poor second. One has only to look at the Southbank’s monthly programme, where classical music is now relegated to the last 4 pages of a 28 page A4 booklet, to realise where the present regime (for that is what it is) sees its priorities. When just before Christmas the Philharmonia Orchestra wanted to announce its forthcoming season at roughly the same time as the LSO’s at the Barbican, I am given to understand that the orchestra was ‘instructed’ by the Southbank’s Management that it could not do this until some 5 weeks later, thus putting the Philharmonia at an unfair competitive disadvantage with their main rivals.

"Serious music lovers are now forgoing the Royal Festival Hall in increasing numbers, put off by the unpleasant surroundings. Who wants to emerge from a concert as that sublime final paragraph of Mahler’s 4^th symphony 'Kein Musik is ja nicht auf Erden' ('No music like this is heard on Earth') fades into complete silence only to be confronted with pounding rock music from a party on the ground floor or by the raucous din of drink-fuelled hordes of revellers on the terrace.

"The Royal Festival Hall was erected as a temporary structure and has never been a wholly satisfactory venue for orchestral music but despite its faults we grew to love it, not least for the memories of all those great performances and great performers we heard there  – Klemperer, Karajan, Stokowski, Barbirolli, Boult, Celibidache, Giulini, Carlos Kleiber and even those two legendary Toscanini concerts – but perhaps it should now be turned over to GLC Parks & Leisure and a new ‘fit for purpose’ acoustically satisfactory concert hall like Birmingham’s built at a location with good transport connections such as Kings Cross. Above all it should be managed by a team in sympathy with its primary purpose as a place for music, not as a public space. In the wake of various Parliamentary scandals and an upcoming General Election we are almost certainly on the point of ridding ourselves of a swathe of career politicians who have existed wholly within the Westminster bubble, impervious, even contemptuous of public opinion. Perhaps now is also the moment to see the back of career arts administrators and to appoint some new blood."

See also :

Ellis Woodman in the Telegraph

Richard Morrison in the Times

Explosion or implosion ? South Bank Centre

This aerial photo of London's South Bank was taken only six years ago, but it's hard to recognize now. These days you can't walk for the debris,  permanent building works, trucks parked willy nilly and most of London out for the weekend. Is the South Bank consuming itself ? Read this article "Are developers destroying the South Bank?" by Ellis Woodman in the Telegraph. 

The first part of the article deals with the proliferation of office space and high rises around the area.  But scroll down to paragraph 10 which deals with the South Bank Centre. Unlike many other organizations, which object to the developments, the South Bank Centre Board has entered into a financial deal with them. Woodman concludes "Anyone who values the public life of London might also care to take issue with the proposals. The number of shops and restaurants on the South Bank was already much increased by the 2008 refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall and the prospect of another influx raises real fears about the site’s continued relevance as a space of civic inclusion."

This puts ther £120 million plan to redevelop the South Bank Centre into wider perspective. Attention has been cleverly shifted to the skateboarding community, supposedly a soft target, to deflect closer examination. But what will the extra (and expensive) space be used for?  Billy Bragg, who once had credibility on the left, thinks "local people" whatever that might mean, will benefit from new rehearsal rooms, but how so?  As Woodman says "This fully glazed space is billed as a rehearsal area but its extraordinarily prominent location is more obviously explained by its appeal to the corporate events market. A large volume of new retail and restaurant space has also been deemed necessary to balance the books. Some of this is to be housed in a new “liner building”: a narrow, three-storey slab that will extend down the side of Waterloo Bridge before cantilevering bombastically over the riverside walkway", .And how do poor working class locals benefit when the area becomes upmarket office and luxury apartment space ?

The problem with the proposals is that they're piecemeal : either not at all thought through in terms of cost benefit to the arts, or only too well thought through in terms of disguising the benefits to non arts and non local interests.Surely proposals as far reaching as these should be examined in the context of London- wide or nation-wide arts policy ?

It's not just a South Bank Centre thing. The area is unique,. Arguably it belongs to ordinary people, even arts lovers taking secondary place. As has been suggested, a proper solution might be to deconstruct the monolith of the South Bank Centre altogether. Why not decentralize, as other bodies like the Barbican are doing ? Why not shift South Bank management across town, like the London Sinfonietta and OAE ?  That would free up a whole building and packs of open space. The fact is, the South Bank area is a valuable resource. Why not turn the place into an all purpose public space and relocate the arts facilities elsewhere ? Let those who benefit, ie the rich, finance the move. This is far too big an issue to be left on this level. Isn't there any consistent arts/community policy in this country?

See also "Still fit for purpose?" The Royal Festival Hall.

Still fit for for purpose ? The Royal Festival Hall

At last someone dares to say what many of us have been feeling for some time. The South Bank is no longer fit for purpose. Of course the South Bank should serve the community other than music lovers. But has the balance flipped irredeemably? Douglas Cooksey writes about his recent experiences,  but his words resonate with many others who use the South Bank, even for non-arts functions, like parents and families. Maintenance standards are now extremely poor. Is this the world's biggest public urinal? The day to day staff are not to blame. They are good people but it's not up to them to run the place.  Lifts and toilets are often out of order. Simply getting there is an issue, since the nearest parking is now the National Theatre. What goes wrong at the South Bank Centre impacts on everything nearby.

"London used to boast one of the World's great concert halls, the Queens Hall, which was unfortunately destroyed during the Blitz. Most other major cities with world class orchestras have purpose-built concert halls, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Musikverein in Vienna or Orchestra Hall in Chicago.

The Royal Festival Hall was erected at the time of the Festival of Britain and was never intended as a permanent structure. For most of the subsequent half century, lacking a proper concert hall, it came to be the centre of London's musical life and then by a curious extension of that peculiarly wartime 'patch-and- mend' mentality, it was renovated and dubbed 'iconic'. 

 Since the hall's renovation we know it as "Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall", open on all levels to the public, even during concerts. One could reasonably argue that it is no longer a concert hall in any real sense of the word but a public facility, and as such its management transferred to Parks &; Leisure. 

Does any other concert hall - or for that matter the Royal Opera House or any major London theatre - allow the general public unrestricted access at all times. No, they do not. As with the Festival Hall, these locations are also generally recipients of public funding through the Arts Council. The Royal Festival Hall is now used by non concert goers as a convenient meeting place and as free office space with Wi-fi. 
 
At peak times it is simply impossible to find a seat prior to a concert, not a pleasant experience for older people arriving, say, half an hour before a concert. Nor is it acceptable emerging from the main hall during the Interval to be confronted with every seat in the areas immediately adjacent to the hall occupied by groups who are frequently being addressed by a speaker or by raucous groups of people playing cards or by individuals busy on their laptops. These people can be quite aggressive, even intimidating, and often seem to resent the presence of genuine concertgoers who, unlike these free-loaders, may have paid top dollar for their seats. 

 After that glorious final paragraph of Mahler's 4th Symphony (Kein Musik ist ja auf Erden/no Music like this is to be heard on Earth) faded into profound silence earlier this year one emerged to the raucous blare of rap on computers. During yesterday's Philharmonia concert with Ashkenazy, a concert which was actually being broadcast live on Radio 3, in the quieter sections of Manfred it was even possible to hear sounds of the meetings going on just beyond the entrance doors at the side of the stage. It seems that genuine concertgoers at the Royal Festival Hall have now been reduced to second class citizens and any magic of the concertgoing experience effectively destroyed. 

The solution. Either ban non concertgoers from the Royal Festival Hall's upper levels (as used to be the case) or create a new purpose-built concert hall, preferably in the vicinity of Kings Cross. With the arrival of Eurostar and now blessed with excellent underground and overground transport links, Kings Cross would surely be a far preferable location. Having attended more than 1,000 concerts at the Royal Festival Hall since I moved to London in 1970, one has increasingly come to view going to the Southbank with distaste and trepidation, poor value for money and an assault course to be endured rather than enjoyed. By contrast, either the beautifully renovated Usher Hall in Edinburgh or Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, both of which I visit regularly, offer a totally different quality of concertgoing experience and an environment where great music-making can be truly enjoyed. "

Compare the South Bank to the Barbican, also cursed by architecture that seems designed to destroy the human soul. The buildings may be brutal, but the management has done a lot to make the place functional and user-friendly. There have been huge improvements in recent years and the place is well looked after. Students use the facilities during the day, which is good, but they don't take precedence over everyone else. At the South Bank I was once attacked by a man who said I was "invading his personal space " by sitting down at the table (with four seats) which he was using as an office. These "sitters" are not the poor or indigent who need somewhere to keep warm. They have expensive laptops and phones and conduct businesses. Basically, the Barbican cares about those who use it. The balance between uses is reasonable, and new ventures like Milton Court,  St Lukes etc spread the arts into the wider community.

And now the South Bank wants another £120 million.As Richard Morrison said in The Times, the present South Bank buildings are "dysfunctional disasters as well as architectural eyesores. It would surely be simpler, and certainly far more honest, to knock them down instead of trying to dress them up. And it would be a far better use of £120 million to commission a completely new array of arts pavilions next to the Festival Hall, including the world-class, 1,400-seat concert hall that London desperately needs — buildings that could be far more beautiful and fit for purpose than the clapped-out Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery ever were, or will be." 

More Band Aid or Surgery ? National Theatre slams South Bank redevelopment

The National Theatre has lodged a long, detailed and strongly worded objection to the South Bank's proposed redevelopment. Since the National Theatre is an integral part of the South Bank, this objection carries much more weight than most. Read the full objection HERE. The piece is a model of professional, informed analysis, backed by proper architectural and legal input. The project has such huge significance, not only for London, but for the whole country. It needs to be approached in a serious way. The South Bank site gives only a limited, biased account, which is fair enough - they want it to go through without too much scrutiny. Most of us don't have the professional expertise to comment in the way the National Theatre does, which is all the more reason we should pay heed.

"There is a common fallacy reflected in the above paragraphs: that Southbank, the brand, is synonymous with South Bank, the area. Over emphatic boundary-marking is inappropriate to the audience that comes to the arts buildings and moves easily between them, and those who simply come to the Queen's Walk to enjoy the river views and the overspills of animation".  

"In summary, we consider that the proposed development, in particular the Liner building, by virtue of its siting and scale contravenes relevant national, regional and local planning policies relating to the setting of the National Theatre, a grade II* structure; that the proposed building will abrogate the public perception of a unified cultural quarter; and that the wall effect it creates will undermine the amenity value of the National's largest public open spaces."

Under the the terms of consultation process, the National Theatre can only comment as far as the proposals pertain to itself, but the rest of us should be thinking in terms of how the proposals might work out in wider terms. The South Bank will be closed for another three years, only six years after the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall. This time, the disruption will be even greater, possibly long term. The area has grown piecemeal, without any long term strategy or vision.

"Band Aid or Surgery?"  Cosmetic patches won't solve the problems of the South Bank. The basic problem is that it is a huge, nationally important enterprise squashed into an area hardly big enough to fit a local arts centre. 

Architects design buildings, they don't design cultural policy. The responsibility for that lies not only with South Bank management but with the Arts Council. Where is the vision ? Where is the leadership?  How do piecemeal patches fit in with a wider overall strategy for the arts ?

A much more comprehensive solution to the South Bank's problems might be to diversify and decentralize. Even the Barbican is expanding to new premises and areas.  Notice that the Barbican retains core facilities like the Barbican Hall while outsourcing services that can be housed elsewhere.. The beauty of the Barbican approach is that they go into the community, rather than expecting the community to come to them.  There is no sacred rule that different facilities have to be housed in the same place.

Big scale facilities like the Royal Festival Hall can't be relocated, because they cost so much and are so specialized. But things like poetry workshops can happen anywhere. If the South Bank were decentralized, other parts of South London would benefit it things were spread around a bit. Think of LSO St Lukes rejuvenating Old Street.  It's infinitely better to do a few things extremely well than cram too much together.  There's no reason why the South Bank should become a bazaar. An arts centre should aim at excellence, rather than watering down its main purpose to look trendy. Because the riverfront space is so limited - and so unique - it should be used for prime, high-profile activities that have maximum impact. Rehearsal rooms and offices, and similar activities can be housed elsewhere and at less expense. As the National Theatre says "over emphatic boundary marking is inappropriate".

photo : Matt Brown, London

Band Aid or Surgery - rethinking the South Bank Centre

"The Festival Wing". That's the name for a project to revamp the South Bank by building a glass dome in the space connecting the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery.  More details HERE from Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios, the architects. The South Bank Centre also has an online exhibition HERE.  There are also plans to redevelop the area behind the RFH and Belvedere Street. There's also an article by Rowan Moore in the Observer HERE.

The South Bank Centre long ago outgrew the space on which it was built sixty years ago. Filling the gaps between the buildings make sense up to a point,. Yet those concrete wastelands between the buildings were part of the original design concept. Just as the original designers intended, the empty spaces have been colonized by "ordinary" people, though they probably didn't think in terms of skateboarders, graffiti and urine. Concrete aesthetic leads to such things.  There's nothing wrong with them in principle because it livens things up. 

But the primary purpose of the South Bank is culture. Culture does, I think, include graffiti, but a skateboard park isn't the most cost effective way of delivering culture on land as valuable and unique with magnificent views over historic London and the Thames. The proposals seem reasonable for what they are but do they really solve the long-term problems facing the South Bank? Are they band aid quickfix where major surgery is needed?
 
The problem with the South Bank is that it tries to do too much for too many  Music events of all types from orchestral concerts to pop concerts, visual arts and literature, theatre and multi-cultural events, chidren's activities, funfairs and foodfairs. Can any single venue cater to all? I'm not the only person to notice the watering-down of the South Bank's classical music services.  Once the South Bank did innovation, like the Messaien and Nono festivals. Now it does pre digested, over simplified commercialism like The Rest is Noise. Anyone could have programmed that. In an age of cutbacks why should the public purse pay for Alex Ross ?

Moreover, the South Bank is one of the few public open spaces in the area; it also serves as an important social service. Where else can Londoners take their kids, chill out and have fun in this area? It's also an escape from the office blocks and social housing in the vicinity. Restaurants and shops are an essential part of the mix, and they bring in much-needed income. Trouble is, the South Bank these days hardly resembles a cultural centre anymore, which defeats its whole raison d'etre. Parking is almost impossible, and disabled facilities poor.  Even the RFH needs a rethink, rather than cosmetic updates.

Another inescapable fact is that the South Bank can be, and should be, a national and international arts centre. That means offering top quality which isn 't available anywhere else. Then it would attract visitors from all over the country, and from abroad. It's politically trendy to be local-friendly but the Unique Selling Point of the South Bank is that it has the potential to be the flagship of British culture,  Just as the Royal Opera House puts London on the international map, so could the South Bank. Already, the Barbican is fulfilling this role with its alliances with other venues and far sighted vision. If the South Bank is to bea glorified community centre, couldn't it be a centre for a much more focussed community ?

Architects design buildings, they don't design cultural policy. The responsibility for that lies not only with South Bank management but with the Arts Council. Where is the vision ? Where is the leadership ?  How do piecemeal patches fit in with a wider overall strategy for the arts ?

A much more comprehensive solution to the South Bank's problems might be to diversify and decentralize. Even the Barbican is expanding to new premises and areas.  Notice that the Barbican retains core facilities like the Barbican Hall while outsou4rcing services that can be housed elsewhere.. The beauty of the Barbican approach is that they go into the community, rather than expecting the community to come to them.  There is no sacred rule that different facilities have to be housed in the same place. Of course there are people who turn up on the day and take whatever is on offer, but that kind of market is inherently limited,

Big scale facilities like the Royal Festival Hall can't be relocated, because they cost so much and are so specialized. But things like poetry workshops can happen anywhere. If the South Bank were decentralized, other parts of South London would benefit it things were spread around a bit. Think of LSO St Lukes rejuvenating Old Street north of the river.  It's infinitely better to do a few things extremely well than cram too much together.  There's no reason why the South Bank should become a bazaar. An arts centre should aim at excellence, rather than watering down its main purpose to look trendy. 

Of course the proposals may all be pie in the sky, since they've only secured £20 million of the £120 million they need. And let's face it, while culture may be essential to the life of a nation, so are health services, education and welfare. These proposals are all very well, but it might be more cost effective in the long term to rethink the whole concept of the South Bank in a much more radical way. Throwing money at problems doesn't make things better. Vision is what vreally counts.

Fučík Alex Ross : tonight at the South Bank

Tonight at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a remarkable programme. (My review is HERE). It starts with the Overture to Beethoven's Fidelio. Then, Schoenberg Ode to Napoleon op 41 and A Survivor from Warsaw op 46 and Luigi Nono's Julius Fučík, which will segue straight into Beethoven's Symphony no 5 without a break. Beethoven 9 might be more obvious, but there are good reasons for this choice.

This should be an extremely stirring recital because all these pieces are intense - and political.  Composers write about human situations they care passionately about. Why shouldn't they write about human rights and the suppression thereof? Beethoven shows us  that there never was a time when music had to be soothingly retro. The Sarah Palin School of Music will have to wipe Beethoven off the map! Much respect due to Jurowski for programming this. It's an act of courage and principle.

The photo above shows Julius Fučík (1872-1916) uncle of Julius Fučík (1903-43) the composer who wrote spectacular military marches, including Entrance of the Gladiators, which is often heard at the start of circuses and sporting events. That's relevant because Fučík the younger sacrificed his life to oppose the Nazis.  Here he is a an infant dressed up in the sort of costume that went nicely with the pomp and circumstance that his uncle's music inhabited (though not only for belligerent reasons). He's inspired. He's even got a hat, like a miniature Napoleon. This little lad grew up to be Communist leader and was arrested by the Nazis. He was tried by by Judge Freisler who would  murder thousands of opponents to the regime, and hanged in the Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. In 1947, his widow gathered together his writings and messages from prison and published Notes From the Gallows. Further irony: the Communist Party used Fučík's words to legitimize their regime. Luigi Nono, also  a Communist, chose Fučík as a subject because he cared about what Fučík stood for.

Nono was also son-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg. It's important to remember Schoenberg, Nono and their peers especially now that the South Bank has finally launched its Alex Ross The Rest is Noise year. That's been so heavily promoted for so long that it's hard to believe it still hasn't started. The year will mean programming based around Ross's idea of what 20th century music should be, which is not the same thing as what 20th century music actually was. For a much more incisive approach,  read Paul Griffiths. There is no comparison. It's not the dumbing down that's a problem but the idea that  musical experience should be governed by commercial promotion of one source, not necessarily the best, and so heavily marketed that this one source obliterates all else.  Totalitarian revision of music history? The South Bank gets state funding, but it uses its status to serve commercial purposes? No-one will dare query the ethics because there's too much money at stake.  All the more reason we need programmes like the one Jurowski has planned for us tonight.

Coming up, busy January

Lots to look forward to in January in London! The new season starts today (2/1) with another cast of La Traviata at the Royal Opera House. This time, Ermonela Jaho sings Violetta. Jaho stole the show last time she sang the part in this production, and has continued to impress - remember her Suor Angelica?  Violetta is a courtesan and hasn't reached the top of her profession by being a moribund victim.  In any case, could someone dying of TB sing like that? Paolo Cavanelli's dark Germont will be a good foil to Jaho's passion. Alfredos are Stephen Costello and Vittorio Grigolo.

The Royal Opera House also offers a mini-Mozart festival : Don Giovanni, Le nozze de Figaro and Così fan tutte, all revivals but worth catching for the casts (best prob. Le nozze). See Gerald Finley naked, or hear Erwin Schrott.  In February, a controversial new Rusalka!

At the ENO, Der Rosenkavalier revived with big English stars. Or should one say "The Rose Knight"? Strictly Gershwin, an interesting Gershwin themed ballet from English National Ballet starts 4th Jan to extend the party season. Gershwin's a good composer, who should be taken more seriously.

At the South Bank, an important series curated by Vladimir Jurowski, Sergei Prokofiev : a man of the people? Notice the question mark. Why did Prokofiev turn his back on the west and success to return to the Soviet Union? What were his artistic, as well as personal motivations?  Hopefully this won't be yet another bland retrospecrive of greatest hits but more stimulating. Jurowski's choice of repertoire is intriguing and indicates a strong line of thought. I've spent time watching Eisenstein's saga of Ivan the Terrible, for which Prokofiev wrote the score, and will be writing about that here soon.  Simon Callow is doing readings from Prokofiev's diaries. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the final night on 1st Feb

Extremely important London Sinfonietta gig Wolfgang Rihm at 60, QEH 24/1. Rihm is one of the seminal modern German composers, though sadlu underrated in Britain. Four UK premieres, no less. It will be a great chance to hear the London Sinfonietta in meaty repertoire again, and to prepare for the ENO production of Rihm's very early opera Jakob Lenz in the summer. Indeed, the opera may seem pale compared with what Rihm is doing now, 35 years later.

Much stronger opera-wise will be Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero at RFH on 26th January. Dallapiccola was writing when Mussolini's alliance with Hitler reached its peak in the last years of the war. Il prigioniero is  Fidelio without false optimism and contrived happy end. Perhaps that's why Esa Pekka Salonen is conducting Beethoven's Fifth as a kind of extended overture.  

Lots on at the Wigmore Hall, too, leading up to Schubert's Birthday on 31/1 which is always a highlight of the WH year. This year, Werner Güra does the honours. William Lyne discovered him 15 years ago, on the recommedation of Peter Schreier. Some pedigree! Güra was so young then that he froze, but since then he's blossomed. Güra shows what Lieder singing is really about. Starting on 10th January is another Wigmore Hall speciality, a three day intensive workshop which really gets to grip with a subject. Focus this time is on is Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale.  Nine hours study, one hour concert (2/2) But if something's worth doing, do it well. Also highly recommended: Christoph Prégardien singing Hugo Wolf on 10/1 and a concert with, among others, Stuart Jackson, a very original and distinctive young singer who won 2nd prize at the Wigmore Hall Song Competition. (read more HERE) 

The English Oratorio Celebration continues at the Barbican (read more HERE) with Haydn The Seasons with Paul McCreesh. There's a big Total Immersion on Jonathan Harvey, culminating in his Wagner Dream which had extreme notices when it premiered in Amsterdam two years ago. It's not Wagner per se but Harvey, re-examining Wagner through Harvey's Buddhist beliefs. Oliver Knussen doesn't conduct as often as he used to or should, so make a point of going to his Barbican date on 13/1. Excellent programme - Castiglioni, Schoenberg Kammersymphonie, Sandy Goehr premiere and  Miakovsky's Symphony no 10. Typical Knussen passions, should be fun.

And if that's not enough, Pau Badura-Skoda makes a rare appearance at Kings Place on 18/1!

How to get a bigger, better organ

How to get a bigger, better organ? Pull out all the stops and sponsor a Pipe. The South Bank needs £1 million to restore the organ at the Royal Festival Hall to its former 7866-pipe glory. Contribute if you can. here's a link with a video.

Boulez Pli selon Pli Ensemble Intercontemporain London

Pierre Boulez conducted Pli selon Pli at the Royal Festival Hall with Barbara Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble. It was the apogee of the South Bank Exquisite Labyrinth weekend. Pli selon Pli contradicts assumptions. It's modern, but delicately beautiful, structurally intricate, yet profoundly emotional. Instruments like celesta, harps, guitar, mandolin and bell-like percussion. How lyrical percussion can be! Strange, limpid semi-harmonies, not simplistic dissonance. Understand Pli selon Pli, and hear how far off the mark myths about modern music (and Boulez) really are.

As vocal music, Pli selon Pli is even more remarkable.  It's based on five poems by Stéphane Mallarmé but Mallarmé isn't a conventional poet, so straight word setting would be pointless. Even translations are futile, because so much depends on the sound and shape of words, images and patterns of expression, and above all, the creative response of the reader. Boulez's Pli selon Pli is thus a highly intuitive "Portrait" of Mallarmé, built round "Improvisations" (all his words)  inspired by three poems, encased by two equally visionary movements.  Unlike conventional song the vocal part is so integrated into the whole that it seems to flow, silently, as an undercurrent beneath the orchestra, only emerging at critical moments. Boulez's approach to voice is so unique that he's unlikely to do opera in any recognizable sense of the term.

Pli selon Pli begins with a single explosive burst. It's significant for the work is built on single chords and cells, every colour kept as pure as possible. As in impressionist painting where brushstrokes shine, as in Debussy, whose influence hovers implicitly. At the core of the orchestra is the celesta, behind the conductor, five harps behind it, supplemented by xylophones, marimba, beaten bells and piano used as a percussion instrument. To the conductor's right, guitar and mandolin. Theya ren't noisy, flashy instruments but central to the whole piece. The celesta is often used because it has a "celestial", other worldly sound, much less dominant than piano. The guitar and mandolin may represent something more humble than, say, violins, evoking the image of poet or troubador. Vocal instruments, in their own way.

With textures as diaphanous as these, every note counts: careful listening mandatory. This is chamber music on a large scale, where listening and silences are part of the process. It feels as if the music is beiung turned over and examined from different angles. Mallarmé's first poem, Don (Gift), has images, but no grammar. Words are separated by spaces filled by dots, which are as essential to meaning as the words themselves. . Boulez expresses this with sequences of single chords, rippling around the voice. You're listening to the spaces and thinking, while the voice stretches forwards, searching and exploring. In this first poem, meaning is suggested by images of rock-like harshness - basalt. lava, winter - contrasted with images of ephemera - foam on waves, memory, loss. When Hannigan sings the word "hiver" (winter) the single notes around her prickle like penetrating frost, the sea itself frozen hard. Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre le transparent glacier".

The Improvisation on Une dentelle s'ablouit combines Mallarmé's puzzles with Boulez's intricate structures, this time in reverse. Like lace, Hannigan's lines trill and twist - horrendously difficult to sing - but behind her the music unravels. Whispering sibilants of cymbals being brushed, a fairly long passage for maracas. Then, as if brought to life by the line flotte plus qu'il ensevelit, the flutes emerge floating the vocal line that's subsumed behind the orchestra. Deftly placed silences again - a long gap between "au creux néant" and musicien" to emphasize dormant creation. Similarly, emphasis on the word "le sein", the key word in "Selon nul ventre que le sein filial on aurait pu naître". Few composers are quite this sensitive to meaning.

Mallarmé throws a wild card with multiple puns on vowels in A la Nue Accablante Tu but Boulez parries with sound that extend the vowels and cut across them with sharp sibilants.  Again, the hard images from the beginning of the cycle, "basse de basalte et des laves", Hannigan's voice intoning darkly, her legato rising and falling like the waves of the sea implicit in the symbols of foam and shipwrecks. The orchestral cells break into patterns that might suggest water, light, churning like the motions of waves. Languid but purposeful.  Gradually a new perspective emerges. Trumpets, tuba, tubular bells, so reminiscent of Messiaen that it feels like a deliberate reference, especially given the meaning of this work as a whole. If Boulez is referring the penultimate section of Et exapecto resurrectionem mortuorum, it gives Pli selon Pli even greater resonance.

Lovely passages for solo celesta, for the double basses, lower strings, and violins, but guitar and mandolin return to the forefront again. The last movement, almost wholly orchestral but for one line, feels like song, with endless choruses from different parts of the orchestra. Arpeggiatos and individual cells but unstoppable forward thrust : the image of waves and the sea. The single vocal line is ironic. "Un peu profound ruisseau" sings Hannigan, "calomnié la mort", stressing gaps betyween words, and shrieking wildly up the scale, as if the line is being drowned by what the orchestra is singing. Towards the end, she no longer sings but exhales, as she did at the beginning of thee whole piece, the word "la mort" barely gasped, as if it's too much to contemplate. As Pierre-Laurent Aimard said during the afternoon piano sessions, one of Boulez's signatures is reverberance that continues long after a performer stops playing. The "music" continues to resound, and should be listened to, as it's part of the whole. Alas, someone started clapping too soon. 

I'm sorry I haven't done an instant review on this as I haven''t been well, but Pli selon Pli is music that repays reflection "fold by fold".  I don't know if I have time to write up the other concerts in thsi excellent series - especially the Aimard/Stefanovich masterclasses and the Eötvös/London Sinfonietta concert with fantastic Clio Gould Anthèmes II. But read Mark Berry in Boulezian instead HERE and HERE. 

Email from a friend :

Seems Boulez did Pli selon Pli from 21 September onwards in Amsterdam, Milan AND Turin, Munich and Paris before London. It had been performed in Lucerne, with just the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra (ie bigger than the LFA Ensemble) on 8 September. No wonder he looked a bit worn out.

You might also like these posts : Full video of Boulez conducting Pli selon Pli in Paris, and an interview with Barbara Hannigan by Ivan Hewett.

South Bank Centre 2011/12

Interesting things happening at the South Bank 2011 and 2012, once you get past the "Festival of Britain" and Olympics hype that's infected everyone. Maybe they have to sell crass populism to get funding, but there's some serious musicianship behind the dross.

One theme is "Music that defines an Era", defined by a quote from T S Eliot, "the still point of turning world". ie moments when a piece of music distils the Zeitgeist of an era.  "Every one of the main works in this series has a context that in some way summarizes the human condition", says Esa Pekka Salonen. His choices are surprising, but extremely well considered.  Luigi Dallapiccola's opera Il Prigioniero, (The Prisoner) where Dallapiccola protests the rise of Mussolini.  Italian Fascism s oddly different to Nazism or the rise of the redneck Right, because modernism rejected Pope and King. "It is very rarely played" says Salonen, "because of the tremendous technical challenges but I'm confident that bretween the Philharmonic Voices, the Orchestra and the soloists we can do justice to this very strong piece." You bet. Since Salonen has taken over the Philharmonia they've developed from a good orchestra to arguably the best in Britain. Artistically he's stretched them and they've responded - Bartok, Messiaen, Schoenberg Gurrelieder.

Gosh, did London hit the jackpot with Salonen! He proves why orchestras need conductors with knowledge and vision who aren't prepared to dumb down and play safe. The Philharmonia seems energized, and audiences, too. Even Ormandy might think the Philadelphia model does not work. Salonen doesn't conduct all these concerts, though. Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts Shostakovich 13 Babi Yar. Ashkenazy knows about the Soviet system. Clear all for 26/1 and 24/5 in 2012. Probably also 16/2 for Christoph Dohnanyi conducting Brahms German Requiem and Beethoven 4. Brilliant programme. Britten's War Requiem and Mahler's Second Symphony also seem to define their eras. Salonen's good in Mahler, but I can't cope with Maazel especially not in Britten.

Mega Blockbusters too. Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in October. severely tempting even though they're doing Bruckner. Lots of Bruckner this year (three Sevenths) conducted by Barenboim  (Staatskapelle Berlin), Eschenbach, Jurowski and Masur. Though I keep trying, I've never really been able to get my head round Bruckner.

Boulez, on the other hand,  I booked early March ! Intensive weekend of Aimard, Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain. In the US there's lots of hype aginst Boulez, generated by Nadia Boulanger's acolytes and Bernstein whom Boulez might have competed with.  As some masterclass students said recently: "He's not a monster at all". Listen and learn.  There'll also be Conlon Nancarrow and John Cage weekends with good performers and choices. Since the Barbican Total Immersions have gone disgracefully downmarket, the South Bank has clearly grabbed back the Crown for serious musical explorations. 

Vladimir Jurowski is heading another major series with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, titled Prokofiev: a man of the people?"  I don't know why the question mark, as Prokofiev chose to go back and stay in the Soviet Union. But Jurowski is planning to mix famous pieces with lesser known. There's also a Study Day.

Lots more, too - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Renée Fleming, Simon and Mrs Rattle, Padmore, Kaufmann etc.

Bartók Stravinsky Salonen Infernal Dance 2

Second concert in Infernal Dance, the major Bartók' series at the South Bank with the Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Bartók's Cantata Profana (1930) made a spectacular start to this intelliigently planned programme. What a masterstroke to bring in the Coro Gulbenkian under their Chorus Master Jorge Matta! This choir is almost legendary, as its many fine recordings prove, and travels extensively, but its appearances in this country are all too infrequent. With their roots in baroque polyphony, they are technically flawless, yet they bring individual character to what they sing. The voices are extremely well balanced, so instead of a wash of sound, they sound distinctive, like a good orchestra. Combined with the Philharmonia Voices, also among the best in their field, they demonstrated why the choral parts in this cantata are central to its success.

Cantata Profana is based on a legend about nine young huntsmen who go into a forest pursuing stags but are themselves bewitched and turned into their prey. Bartók writes dense textures into the choruses, so the music evokes the mystery of a primeval forest. The father, baritone Michele Kalmandi, begs his sons to return to safety, but the sons have chosen a more dangerous path. The nine sons are depicted as a unit by one tenor, Attila Fekete, but it is the chorus as forest which dominates the whole work. The choral voices murmur menacingly, full of incident, like shadows in the forest. This is where the personality of the chorus pays dividends. Bartók is using the voices like an orchestra. Towards the end, the sons blend back into the forest, as the tenor sings with the choir. Fekete declaims one last glorious phrase, Czak tista forrásból (but from cool mountain springs) which the choir has been quietly intoning and will continue singing after the tenor goes quiet. Fekete floats this exotic last phrase like a muezzin calling across vast distances. It's meant to sound alien because it's coming from another dimension, far from the rules of the father's household. That's why it's "profane" - it uses a Bachian frame on which to hang ideas that subvert conventional piety.

Please see the rest of this review on Bachtrack, the Very Useful listings database.  Also in the programme was Stravinsky, Le Sacre du Printemps. Salonen interprets this so you can hear the relevance to Bartók,, and images of earth. So Cantata profana can be heard in context. Please also read about the FIRST concert in this series HERE.

Bartók Salonen Philharmonia Infernal dance, Important series

Infernal Dance - Inside the World of Béla Bartók is is this year's South Bank Special, a series of concerts over 11 months spanning Bartók's career. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra.  It's quite an endeavour - and a Celebration Goulash is being served at the EAT café in his honour (good quality and only £4.85)

It's an important series, since Bartók's place in 20th century music cannot be overestimated. In many ways, it's Bartók who carries Stravinsky's legacy in new directions, influencing composers as diverse as Szymanowski and Elliott Carter. 

Significantly, the first concert in the series started with Bartók's Kossuth (1903). It's an explicit statement of intent, for Lajos Kossuth was a nationalist leader who tried to break Austrian hegemony in 1848, the year of Revolutions. Also significantly, Bartók had been studying Richard Strauss, whose popularity has overshadowed his influence on music history. Kossuth was regarded  by Bartók's contempoaraies as "very, very modern" with its clear references to Ein Heldenleben, which Bartók had transcribed for piano. Today it's fairly straightforward and programmatic, but Bartók was only 22. Salonen and the Philharmonia captured the sense of optimism well, so the climax was particularly poignant. As Kossuth is defeated, the Austrian Imperial anthem appears, distorted, and echoes of Magyar themes surface. Vienna, city of dreams, didn't wash with Bartók.

Yefim Bronfman was soloist for Bartók Concerto for Piano no 1 (1926), perrhaps accounting for the huge, enthusiastic audience. This was serious pianism, Bronfman's sure sense of direction assertively negotiation the constant variations of theme. It's an intricate piece, so the balance Salonen got from the Philharmonia was well judged.

But it was in the Miraculous Mandarin that the Philharmonia truly came alive. This was the piece that so ahocked Konrad Adenauer that he banned further performances in Köln. In music history terms, the Miraculous Mandarin stands part way between  Le Sacre du Printemps and Alban Berg's Lulu. Indeed, I was reminded of Lulu Act Three, even without the "Jack the Ripper" references. Could Berg have been thinking of Bartók?

Sound is treated in huge blocks - reminiscent of Stravinsky, polarizing the protagonists by polarizing elements of the orchestra. "Infernal Dance" is an apt metaphor. The movement in the music creates its own dramatic choreography. At times, Mark van der Weil (chief clarinet) throws himself physically into the music, increasing its intensity. Yet Bartók was adamant that the piece was not ballet but pantomime. The action comes direct from the orchestra. Sharp, angular attack, too, from brass and percussion - the "metallic" elements shine, dangerously lethal.  Bassoons and oboes growl, creating tension and mystery. The chorus wails. No need for explicit text setting, for this "Greek chorus" communicates beyond words. And above all, the clarinet rises above all like an elemental force of nature, threatening and alien, yet also savagely liberating. Bartók's exploring strange worlds outside the western mainstream, seduced by the challenges he hears.

This Infernal Dance Bartók series with Salonen and the Philharmonia will get even more interesting as it ventures into later Bartók. Read more about it here on the Philharmonia website. There's a video where Bronfman, Salonen and a Hungarian folk group Musikas get together, and performances of the folk music that inspired the composer so intensely. Later in the series there'll be a complete, 6 hour performance of Bartók's 153 Mikrokosmos. Kurtág and Ligeti fans will be queueing, and fans of Cage.  The series culminates in Noveber with a semi-staged performance of Duke Bluebeard's Castle (John Tomlinson and Measha Brueggergosman). Surprisingly, there's been little media interest in this important series. One newspaper dismissed the whole thing as "ill-advised", without giving any reasons whatsoever. Yet that sort of triteness is what passes for journalism these days. The Philharmonia is one of Britain's finest orchestras and Salonen's done a lot of Bartók, who's hardly unknown. Anyone seriously interested in music will appreciate what the South Bank, the Philharmonia and Salonen are doing.

The whole series is being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 live and online. This one goes on air 3rd February. For a review of the second concert (Cantata profana, Music for strings, perc and celeste and the Rite please see HERE)     
For my review of Duke Bluebeard's Casstle, read HERE.

Pollini Project, South Bank

Maurizio Pollini returns to the South Bank this year for a  concert series, "The Pollini Project". What they mean by "project" I don't know, as an artist of that stature is hardly a "project". Perhaps it's a tag to describe five disparate recitals that span most of Pollini's repertoire.

On 28th January, Bach The Well-tempered Klavier book 1. 15th February, Beethoven  Piano Sonatas  op 109, 110, 111. Nicely balanced with Schubert Piano Sonatas D 958. 959. 960 on 26th February.An opportunity to compare both composers as well as three works from the same period of each. You probably "need" both concerts. Oddly, Beethoven is nearly sold out but some good "piano side" tickets left, while swathes of Schubert seats left but not the coveted piano sides, all of which are sold. What does that say?

Then the one I booked a whole year ago, not knowing that Prince William would finally twig that you can't date someone for 10 years and not commit. They lose face and the Brand suffers. Chopin 24 Preludes, Debussy Etudes Book 2 and Pierre Boulez Piano Sonata no 2,. Lots of tickets left but all on the piano side are completely booked. This is a sign that those going know what they are doing. (discounts if you but all 5 concerts) The kind of audience who don't care as long as it's someone famous are scared off by anything remotely new (Debussy for goodness sake!)  But audiences who know the music know why they want to see Pollini's hands. (Please see my post Pumpkins pop Pollini)

On 25th May, Pollini wickedly mixes Chopin Berceuses and Barcarolles with Stockhausen Klavierstuck VII and IX. Again, the smart money has booked the Blue Side solid. If someone of Pollini's musical intelligence picks Boulez and Stockhausen, he's making a statement.This is a pianist who can do anything he wants so when he choses what he loves, pay attention. The Boulez Piano Sonata is a fantastically beautiful work, and Pollini is arguably even more charismatic than Aimard.
 photo credit : Mathias Bothor and DG

Harmonics is me - Salvatore Sciarrino

The identity of the violin soloist for this performance of Salvatore Sciarrino's Caprices was a secret until the very last moment when she walked in. Carolin Widmann! This was a bonus as she knows Sciarrino and had polished her interpretations with the man himself. "Why do you only do harmonics?" she asked him once. "Because I am harmonics," was the whimsical reply. Enigma, and gentle humour, that's Sciarrino all over. "The man", says Widmann, "seems to walk just above the ground,"

That should be no surprise to those who love his music, (see the earleir post below or via label) which seems to hover in a rarified atmosphere, pitched so high it's almost beyond human hearing. Nowadays we have so much aural overload that it's easy to forget how to listen to simple purity. It's a bit like watching ants : we don't notice them but they communicate and have busy lives. Sciarrino's high registers are there because the music is always on the threshold of floating away, elusively, if we don't listen carefully enough. This sensibility involves the listener rewarding him or her with a different perspective. It's the complete opposite of the new fashion for music as consumer product, imbibed mass rally style. To think that Dudamel was on this same platform last week.

Sciarrino's music isn't difficult though. It's intuitive and life affirming, so you can just chill. In any case Sciarrino's music springs from tradition, so even those who know nothing of new music can find points of entry. Widmann demonstrated. She played a passage from Paganini's Caprices and then the same from Sciarrino's: a direct quote but reinvigorated in a different way – sheer, pure light, as if from another plane of existence. "This music is like learning a new language", she added, with its unusual aesthetics and quirky technical challenges. At one stage, Widmann's fingers were poised at the extreme upper end of the neck of her instrument, while sweeping her bow in dizzying diagonals. The notes refers to the "brushing" of strings with the bow rapidly alternating between tasto and ponticello. This is music to be watched for maximum impact, because the sounds are so elusive you can't grasp them on recording alone.

Of the six Sei Capricci (1976) tonight we heard only I, II, III and the all important VI, the biggest section, which pulls together what's goe before and ends with a short pause and joyful flourish. Like a smile ! Then ten members of the Philharmonia materialised for ...da un divertimento. This is an early piece, from 1970. more "concrete" in the sense that the forms are easier to grasp. The larger ensemble also means more space to let ideas grow, so can hear subjects and reiterations etc. What's already there is Sciarrino's way of making things sound quite unlike what you'd expect. The bassoon, for example, sounds remarkably lithe for an instrument normally so resonant. Then the bassoonist, clarinettist and oboist pull out the reeds from their instruments and blow them through their cupped hands. This may sound silly on the written page, but in performance it's very effective. It's the essence of a mouth blown instrument, pared down to basics, the sound so quiet you could miss it if you weren't paying attention.

This was the second to last in the "Music of Today" series, created by Julian Anderson at the South Bank. It's been wonderful, hearing good new music presented intelligently and by someone who knows what he's talking about. Let's hope the series repeats next season. Or gets picked up by the BBC, whose "Hear and Now" slot could use major refurbishment.

Salvatore Sciarrino - cool dude

This smooth dude is Italian – of course, look at the natty shirt and watch! You bet he has nice pointy shoes. Salvatore Sciarrino (b 1947) is one of the biggest names in new music. On Sunday 10^th May there’ll be a free concert of his music at the South Bank London. We’ll hear one of his Caprices for solo violin, and …da un divertimento for 10 esecutori (performers).

The photo is specially apt as it shows the composer enjoying an espresso in the ancient town of Città di Castello in the Umbrian foothills, where he lives. The ambience of the town inspired his Quaderno di strada (2003), 12 canti e un proverba per baritone e strumenti. The CD notes are poetry. “Umbrian light…that spawns gentle, ephemeral shadows and is engulfed by the intangibly secret web of voices filling the mysterious night”. Sciarrino’s music is magic, elusive as if it adopts “the mobility of air, captured its nocturnal buzzing sounds with a net veil and transformed them into fluctuating sonorities, roaring and murmuring”.

There are texts to these songs, aphoristic snatches from Roman classics to Rilke. They are fragments that suggest moods the music elaborates. The voice plays with the words of a strange phrase seen on a wall in Perugia. Se non ora, quando? se non qui, dove? se non tu, chi?(if not now, when? if not here, where? if not you, who?” Long sweeping phrases are taken up by trumpet and oboe, later by violin, scratching along like something tossed in the wind. Simple, yet very expressive. 

Sciarrino doesn’t use easy signposts but wavers in ambiguities. Everything floats, shimmers, turns sudden corners. It’s not, though, like impressionist painting made up of dots, pretty on the surface but devoid of depth. On the contrary, meaning is central to Sciarrino’s music, though its precise content depends on how the listener puts together the clues in sound. This is profoundly emotional music, though it doesn’t crudely pull the heartstrings. It’s enigmatic, tantalizingly elusive, best approached perhaps through listening inwardly.

It’s also technically astute. Sciarrino knows baroque technique, adapting sillabazione scivolata (slipping syllables) for extra vocal flexibility. “A supporting note is held”, he explains, “crescendo decrescendo – and then breaks off suddenly in a very rapid sequence of small intervals whose pitches are almost indeterminable, often falling, - stepwise glissandi, so to speak”. 

Structurally, the cycle is elegant. Each miniature is distint yet leads into the next while the last part stands apart like pithy summation. Here the instruments (hard to distinguish for they’re used in unusual ways) do a syllabic cakewalk, short jerky rhythms, yet expanded by miniature glissandi within notes. The words deconstruct, too, into jaunty particles, like a merry dance. Put together they say Du cose al mondo non si ponno avere d’essere belli e di saper cantare. Someone please translate ? 

There is a recording, on Kairos, Otto Katzameier and Klangforum Wien, conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. Sciarrino is published by Ricordi, and there are many other recordings. His work for solo piano is particularly beautiful – the Nocturnes are a good introduction. 

A few years ago I heard Nicolas Hodges play Perduto in una città d’acque.(Lost in a city of water). This came to Sciarrino as he sat with Luigi Nono as Nono lay slowly dying. They hardly spoke, but communication doesn’t depend on words. “The words in a sentence were often punctuated by strands of sleep”, said Sciarrino, “and the meaning wandered, towards dreams, towards that nucleus of warmth”. What may seem to be long moments of silence in this piece seem more like moments of intense, intuitive listening. Structurally, it is based on a series of two note chords, but it is the reverberations between the notes that is fascinating. The sounds linger across the silence, the vibrations continuing after a note is struck. The occasional flurries of harmony highlight the profound dignity of the stillness. One set of chords is deliberately flat and hollow, like the mechanical ticking of a metronome – the passing of time, dripping water drops, a frail heartbeat.

Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony Salonen London

http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2011/01/zemlinsky-lyric-symphony-1.htmlFor more on Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, pleas read my most recent analyses HERE and HERE. It's one of my favourites, which I've lived with many years.  

Esa Pekka Salonen conducted Zemlinsky;'s Lyric Symphony with the Philharmonia in 2008. Very good, though the soloists didn't come over clearly. Next morning after the concert I was off to Frankfurt and who should be sitting in the same coffee shop at Heathrow ? Members of the Philharmonia, off to their next gig in Köln! It was great to see them and congratulate them on their good work. It wasn't quite in the league of their recent Gurrelieder, but that was so exceptional, it would be hard to top. (see my review below and Mark's too).

Zemlinsky isn't everyone's cup of tea as his music isn't often performed as well as it might be. Last year I listened again to the massive James Conlon Zemlinsky series on EMI, which was reissued as a cheap box set. It was strange how disappointing it sounded, for these were the recordings I learned Zemlinsky from in the first place. Perhaps my tastes have changed after learning more and hearing more. The recordings I've turned to most in recent years have been those by Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. I'd avoided these at first because they were expensive. But cost doesn't equate with value. Budget recordings may be cheap, but in the long term, a good performance lasts longer, whatever the initial cost.

Salonen's Zemlinsky, from this hearing, is promising. He could bear comparison with Chailly, though I suspect Salonen doesn't favour the more "picturesque" aspects of Zemlinsky's work: The Lyric Symphony is the composer's most sophisticated moment. Choosing the right voices is tricky.The soprano part is particularly demanding, though the baritone can get away with straightforward singing (though really good singing transforms the part). The real challenge is interpretation : what is the music about, how do its pieces fit together ? I think Salonen has what it takes to conduct a really interesting Lyric Symphony . Unlike something massive like Gurrelieder, this symphony is not difficult to programme, so perhaps Salonen can develop it in his repertoire.

Gurrelieder Salonen London Part 2

When Schoenberg returns to Gurrelieder in 1910, he has new energy and purpose. What a transformation! Of course the Wagner elements are still there, like the rhythms straight out of Der fliegende Hollander, lurching upwards and down like waves. Because King Waldemar cursed God, he and his men are cursed in return, forced to ride the clouds each night. But this is also the surreal, mad world of Ewartung. Anti-atonalists don't understand that atonality isn't anti-music but a way of extending the possibilities of music. Schoenberg and his contemporaries were responding to new frontiers opened by Freud and others. Ideas could no longer be contained in cosy boxes of certainty. How could music remain unchanged ?

What Schoenberg did was more than invent the 12 tone system. So what if composers don't write in serial rows or whatever any more? The real revolution Schoenberg rode the crest of was the idea that there are more possibilities to music than we realize.

So in Part 3 of Gurrelieder, there's a wildness breaking through that will one day find expression in many different ways. How Schoenberg must have smiled when he set the Bauer's terrified words. No more hiding under blankets, no more formula prayers.

Klaus-Narr isn't talking nonsense. He isn't a sophisticated person but he's talking about complex things, so he uses odd images. When Waldemar cursed God, he shouted, "Lasst mich, Herr, die Kappe deines Hofnarr'n tragen!". "Let me wear your jester's cap", all you stand for is a joke. Klaus Narr is the jester, whose job it is to say things to kings they don't want to hear, cloaking them as jest. Like Waldemar and his hunters, the jester is dead, too, a haunted spirit forced to walk in endless circles, going nowhere. It's not a good thing and he knows it. His music is unsettling, as it should be, leading into the demonic haunted chorus that fades Versinkt! Versinkt! before the truly amazing Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind. This is remarkable music : perhaps someone should analyze technically how it works. It sweeps away all that's gone before. Waldemar's curse is not resolved. Instead, this music and the Sprecher herald something completely beyond the level of straightforward story.

For many years I couldn't understand why the Sprecher is absolutely, pivotally important. Then I heard Hans Hotter. It was 1994, he was 85 years old, but so powerful that he transformed the entire performance. Hotter looked frail but he had such presence and authority that at last I realized what the Sprecher means. Gurrelieder is much more than narrative, it is more than a dramatic story. The Sprecher represents something so bizarre that even now it's hard to understand.

He's an elemental force, the very spirit of life, which overcomes death and darkness. Like Kluas-Narr he seems t0o speak in riddles, but the real "fools" are those who think the riddles are a joke. Are the gnats the knights, is Waldemar "Sankt Johanisswurm" ? What is real, what's illusion ? The words are simple but the portents far more profound. The whole locus of parts 1 and 2 are overturned, we are in an altogether more bizarre realm where nothing is what it seems. The Sprecher is the Waldtaube revisited, on an altogether more complex plane. Expressionism expresses things straight narrative can't hope to reach.

Hence the way the part is written, not song, not speech. It doesn't strain the voice, so it's usually taken by retired singers, even actors. But even if it's not physically a strain it requires exceptional musical sensibility to get those wavering pitches right and establish the significance of the part. In capsule, the Sprecher is atonality, modernism, a whole new way of approaching musical expression. No one uses Sprechstimme as such anymore, but its spirit lives on in, in different forms.

And to make the new beginnings clear, Schoenberg writes the magnificent coda at the end. Chorus and orchestra explode. "Seht die Sonne!" Behold the sun ! The night is driven away and the new dawn glows in a blaze of light. Fantastic playing from the orchestra here : Salonen doesn't lose sight of the purpose behind the enthralling glory.

Gurrelieder is dramatic, but staging would trivialize its whole meaning. It's distinctly not an opera, Wagnerisms notwithstanding. In this performance, light effects were skilfully used to intensify the mood. This isn't a new idea, as the music cries out contrasts of light and dark and shades between. Whoever did the lighting here was an artist, so sensitively was the music enhanced.

As Schoenberg himself said, Gurrelieder is a cantata, even if ends in a completely bizarre new way. The cantata form goes back at least to Bach. Mendelssohn and Schumann showed how it could serve secular drama. It's not a good idea to connect Gurrelieder to Mahler's Das klagende Lied. Mahler decisively and unequivocally turned away from cantata and from writing opera at a very early stage in his career. Instead, he went on to create something very different indeed. Often, people think Mahler is an opera man at heart. That's nonsense, and shows no understanding whatsoever of Mahler, demeaning what he really achieved. Similarly, Gurrelieder needs to be appreciated for what it is, cantata with a wonderful twist.

So much money has gone into this project, Vienna, City of Dreams, that it's a shame it's let down by the programme notes. Obviously, there are advantages to describing things in terms of Mahler, particularly with his anniversary year coming up and the lucrative marketing boom that will create. But oversimplification can become misleading and inaccurate. The world of Des Knaben Wunderhorn long predated Mahler. The Gothic in central European culture goes back a long way, and was a major impetus behind the whole Romantic movement. Indeed, the Romantic fascination with folk tale and horror created the whole mindset that enabled Freud and Jung to find terminology to describe. The Romantic interest in the individual also led to changes in politics, society, and aesthetics. Vienna 1900-35 wouldn't have happened at all if it hadn't been for the early 19th century Romantics.

Gurrelieder Salonen Philharmonia London 1

Gurrelieder was written in two stages, over 11 years. In the intervening years Schoenberg had developed so much that its successful premiere left him feeling almost angry. Couldn’t the audience hear where he was heading? Nearly a hundred years have passed since that first performance, so we’re in a better position to understand Gurrelieder’s place in the repertoire. On Saturday 28/2/09, Esa-Pekka Salonen led the Philharmonia in a superb performance that made it clear why Schoenberg was to have such an influence on modern music.

Wagner’s impact on music was so revolutionary that even in 1900, a young man like Schoenberg had to engage with it before he could find himself. Hitherto Schoenberg had only written Lieder and chamber music. Suddenly, Gurrelieder bursts into his imagination, epic in scope and realization. Wagner’s influence is unmistakable. Yet Schoenberg is doing something quite distinctively his own.

The music in the first part is like Verklärte Nacht writ infinitely larger. How delicately the strings, harps and horns introduce the dream-like mood, and how the textures gradually build up in sweeping arcs. Salonen listens past the Wagnerian wrappings and hears Schoenberg, already distinctive and original. The orchestra may be huge, but he doesn’t let sheer volume overwhelm the innate refinement in the music, even in the explosive climaxes. It’s an interesting approach, cognizant of Schoenberg’s other music, rarely overburdened by excess. Salonen knows what he’s doing, and doesn’t mistake the riches in Gurrelieder as sub-Wagnerian, despite the obvious connection.

Indeed, like my friend Mark Berry writes in his blog boulezian, (link at right), it would be fascinating to hear Salonen conduct Wagner. Last year I heard Salonen conduct Sibelius at the Barbican. That was a shock as many are used to Sibelius being conducted like Tchaikovsky manqué, romantic and dreamy, which Sibelius himself couldn’t stand. Salonen came to Sibelius late, so he wasn’t constrained by preconceived tradition. He’ll be coming to Wagner late, too, perhaps with the same fresh approach.

Soile Isokoski sang Tove, with the assurance of experience. This is a role she’s made her own, developing it beyond the merely decorative. “Wunderliche Tove” is as gentle as a dove, but like doves, she’s strong. Her attraction to Waldemar is that she makes his mind “so klar, ein wacher Frieden über meine Seele”. They sing of death, but don’t get off on it. In any case, Tove thinks it’s only an interlude “wie ruhiger Schlummer” before awakening once more to life. So, no screaming histrionics need.

The Waldtaube‘s music is Erda-like, for she sees all, and represents a kind of earth conscience. Schoenberg clothes the part with music that evokes the Waldtaube’s panoramic vision : she sees the monk tolling the Angelus, we heard the orchestra solemnly creating it in sound. Monica Groop’s voice has mellowed nicely as she’s matured. Stig Andersen has sung a lot of Wagner, and it shows in the way he shapes the mighty “Herrgott, weisst du” sequence.

This is just part one, so please see part two HERE In many ways this is the more important part because it's where Schoenberg breaks new ground artistically : Magnificent music whoich proves that new and atonal can be passionately moving. The CD ius now out : The original programme notres underplayed Part 2 soit maybe useful to read about part 2 here if you get the CD,