More than Pictures at an Exhibition - Volkov Julian Anderson Liszt

Ilan Volkov photo: Alastair Miles, courtesy Maestro Arts

The Imaginary Museum - Julian Anderson's Piano Concerto at Ilan Volkov's Prom 16 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the most innovative Prom programme so far, and possibly the best performance, too.  Music doesn't exist in a vacuum, but in a continuum. Volkov's eclectic programme showed how visual images and music connect: a cross-fertilization that reflects the panorama of human experience.  Though the Prom was billed "Pictures at an Exhibition" because Mussorgsky sells, the heart of the programme was Franz Liszt';s tone poem From the Cradle to the Grave (Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe).  In April 1881,  Liszt received a drawing from the Hungarian artist Mihály Zichy. Zichy was preparing a book of illustrations tracing the role of music in life, from birth to death and the afterlife, and wished to portray Liszt as the Muse of Music on its title page.  Liszt was delighted. "Celebrated Artist!", he wrote "Your drawing about the Genius of Music is a miraculous symphony! I am trying to set it to music and shall offer it to you".

Though composed as a symphonic poem in one movement, Liszt's From the Cradle to the Grave unfolds in a series of vignettes, like the illustrations in Zichy's volume. The gentle first phase suggests, perhaps, innocence, though there's no obvious lullaby melody.  Gradually  textures develop, the tessitura growing higher until, ornamented by rich, shimmering strings and a trumpet, one might imagine the fullness of time. Then, silence and rarified calm. Although this piece isn't nearly as flamboyant as Liszt's Hamlet S104 from  1858, it's interesting because it's more inward, almost impressionistc in its abstraction. Hamlet, though, is a jolly showpiece full of colour and drama. An excellent opening piece, setting the stage, so to speak, and a counterbalance to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, (orchestrated by Ravel), where each "picture" tells a story.  An ebullient performance, though, nicely detailed. The BBC SSO are an excellent band, and have worked so long with Volkov that orchestra and conductor understand each other well.   

Julian Anderson is a composer whose visual imagination has stimulated and inspired his music for the last 25 years. Think Poetry Nearing Silence,  Imagin'd Corners, The Book of Hours, the Alhambra Fantasy, Eden (sparked off by Brancusi's The Kiss) and even Symphony, which, despite its non-committal title, is vividly graphic, like a fast-flowing mountain stream such as in paintings by Sibelius's friend Axel Gallen-Kallela.  Or, more recently, Incantesimi (at the Proms last year, with its multi-level layers in perpetual orbit, reflecting early machines used to explain the universe.  Indeed, I think Anderson's best work springs from ideas sparked by visual stimuli, as opposed to literary sources. Thebans, for example, though I liked it (review here) isn't at all typical of his work.

The Imagined Museum isn't typical Anderson, either, but it's a successful new departure for a composer who writes more for orchestra than for single instrument, and this is very much a piece where the soloist (Steven Osborne) is alone, in the foreground.

On the Radio 3 broadcast, Anderson explained how moved he was by a B flat which Steven Osborne played at the end of his encore at the Proms last year, the note echoing into the vastness of the Royal Albert Hall.   That note is thus the "found object" that starts this imaginary voyage.  Thus the title of the first of the six sections is "The World is a Window"  tiny single notes, stretch outwards in space, awakening the flute, then other instruments.  Suddenly, the piano strikes off in a new direction, Osborne playing long fast-moving lines, darker sounds in the orchestra suggesting vertiginous depth. Anderson says the idea came from Janáček's study of wells in Hukvaldy.  Thus time the "echo" is the sound of an object hurtling down a well, into inner space. Another transformation and we are once again in the open, the orchestra surguing as if on the high seas, the piano flying over the waves.  The strings introduce a sea change, and the piano once more defines single note patterns against a backdrop of silence. Where are we? Although there's a programme - of sorts - you listen with your mind. In the fluttering figures in the piano line do we hear a bird, or clear water, or winds in an empty desert?   Poetry is often more evocative than prose.  You could listen to Anderson in purely functional ways,  but I think it's rewarding to listen with an inner ear and wonder how the sounds act in relation to each other, processed through the effect that they have on your imagination. 

BBC Scottish SO Volkov : Grisey Mahler Mozart

Proms 46 and 48 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra making their welcome annual visit to the Royal Albert Hall, London. Since the BBC SSO is second only to the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the BBC stable of orchestras, these Proms were special occasions.  This year, they played  not with their usual Chief but with Ilan Volkov, Principal Guest Conductor, and Matthias Pintscher, Artist-in-Association.  Those familiar with these conductors would be on alert, since Volkov and Pintscher are both leading specialists in contemporary music. Hence the unusual programmes:  Grisey with Mahler and Mozart; Pintscher and Mendelssohn.

Volkov is passionate about Gérard Grisey, one of the most iconic figures in  modern music, who left work of strikingly original quality.  For more, read Liam Cagney's informative piece on Grisey here and lots more on this blog, if you click the label "Grisey" below.  Grisey himself described  Dérives (1974/5) as the movement of a boat, adapting to waves and currents, its trajectory identifiable by points of juncture between the small ensembles . "Ces différentes dérives reflètent une même intention : composer non plus l’objet, mais le passage d’un objet à un autre et son évolution. Ceci n’empêche nullement de contrôler la nature de l’objet sonore que l’on manipule, mais il ne prend son sens que dans le temps, inséré dans un contexte qui le définit. Le chemin parcouru est plus important que le véhicule." 

Dérives began with long, searching planes, tiny incidents in the background gradually coming into prominence. This sense of inner stillness operates on your mind much in the way that deep meditation releases you from the detritus of noise that passes for much of life. Gradually a rocking rhythm emerges, intercepted by a crashing sound, not sufficient to disrupt the calm equilibrium.  More  extended chords, so rarified they seem to flow into each other like liquids,  interjecting chords adding spiky definition.  The pace picks up suddenly, whips of angular sound,  then darker longer chords but the crystalline serenity continues, as if the orchestra were creating an invisible being levitating itself above the stage.  It is less complex than Les espaces acoustiques, written soon after, but the germ of the idea is already present. Wonderfully restrained, glistening playing The BBCSSO are second only to the BBC SO, but they're unique in smaller-scale, intense and esoteric works like this. I wish they'd do more.  Pity the Proms don't do justice to really fine music like this, but at least they bring Grisey to the attention of a mass audience.

While this performance of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder was more routine than rewarding, it concluded with Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, linking to Grisey's luminous Dérives.  Haunted still by thoughts of Grisey, I could not help feeling a frisson. Grisey's final masterpiece,  Quatre chants for fraîchir la seule  deals with a similar kind of ethereal transcendance.  The soloist was Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, whom I've heard only once before, she's quite young. 

Volkov and the BBC SSO concluded with Mozart's Mass in C minor, or rather a new completion thereof.  It's Mass-lite, breezy and youthful.  Baumgartner was joined by Louise Alder, Carolyn Sampson, Benjamin Hulett, Matthew Rose and the BBC Symphony Chorus.

Ilan Volkov Iceland Symphony Orchestra Tectonic Classics Prom

"Classical tectonics" - strange name for Ilan Volkov's Prom 48, but pretty good for a Prom featuring the music of Iceland.  A friend of mine loved Iceland because he said it was like no other place on earth. Most of the country is uninhabitable and closed off completely in winter. The people are fiercely independent, yet close knit. They formed one of the world's first consultative democracies.  The landscape seems bleak until you realize it's constantly changing. Lava and magma and emission of gas and water, volcanoes and earth movements, steam in the air that freezes. Time seems ambiguous, too, he said. Sagas and tales of ancient heroes haunt the land, my friend says, even though no-one talks about it.

Landscape as metaphor for music. Haukur Tómasson's Magma operates on multiple levels at once, distinct ideas operating separately and together, moving forwards with unstoppable force. This is  new music anyone can access if they use their imaginations. It borrows the majesty of the earth itself and transforms the emotions generated in us into abstract form.

Jón Leifs' Geysir added to the magic.  Needless to say, you could listen and imagine geysers bursting from the bowels of the earth, and so on. Liefs has a cult following because his music is strikingly modern and yet emotionally vivid. Around 10 years ago BIS issued most of his published music, including the wonderful Hekla. It's extraordinarily atmospheric, but also works as abstract music because it's very well crafted and sophisticated. Think of  Harrison Birtwistle's Earth Dances and his shifting tectonic plates of sound. Click here for a link to Hekla and to my 2011 post on Harpa Hall, home of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. .

When Ilan Volkov became Chief Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in January 2011, i wrote "Iceland punches bigger than its size". Iceland might be small but it has vision. The world banking crisis began in part in Iceland, but the country sorted out much of the mess in a way Britain and the US probably wouldn't dare. When Volkov went to Iceland, he did himself, and the country, a world of good.

Volkov seems an ideal choice too since he's adventurous and innovative,  sympathetic to ideals, yet also the kind of conductor who works well with musicians who might not have the polish of, say, the Berliners and Viennese. More power to the Icelanders for that. Their Beethoven 5th might have been pretty ordinary but they sounded like they were enjoying themselves. The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra at the Proms was decidedly rough technically, but they played with verve and obvious engagement and carried much of the audience with them for that very reason. The same cannot be said of some of the other international orchestras this season, some of which were so dull that even world famous conductors couldn't resuscitate them. .As the OAE slogan goes "Not all orchestras are the same".

Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor was played by Jonathan Biss. This was infinitely more rewarding than the Bernard Rands Concerto for piano and Orchestra last week, which might well take the prize as the least new piece of new music this year against formidable competition, from composers living and dead.  Thinking of Leifs and formidable landscapes, Sibelius's Symphony no 7 is so original and so tightly crafted that it says so much in 17 minutes that even Sibelius might have been daunted to top that. 

Goebbels stages John Cage Prom 47

Probably the biggest event this whole John Cage Centenary year!  Heiner Goebbels stages John Cage's Europeras 1 and 2 at the Ruhr Biennial. Read Shirley Apthorp in the Financial Times. 
Cage's Europeras 1 and 2  take fragments of numerous different operas and reprocesses them, much in the way that a kaliedoscope turns fragments of coloured glass into new patterns with new movement. "The paradox", says Apthorp, is that "Chaos only works if fastiduously structured".

Cage is important not so much for what he writes but why he writes. He challenges the very basis of creativity. Kaput to the idea of composer as auteur. Instead the idea of random chance, multiple stimuli which the listener must process in realtime, parameters like duration within which nothing is defined.  The onus is always on the moment and on the listener. In the I ching, you throw a coin and look up the runes in the Book of Changes. These suggest images, but it's up to the person interpreting them to use his other own intuition. Every person, every time a consultation is done, everything depends on how the interpreter can reach into his or her own psyche. It's not divination so much as spiritual and mental discipline.

Paradox again! Despite Cage's reticence, much of his music is exquisitely beautiful, when done well. Listen online to Exaudi doing ear for Ear Antiphonies and then Four (2). Though the sounds they make are so abstract, they feel primeval. Perhaps the echoes of medieval plainchant, projected into the cosmos?  Or even the feeling of sound moving around the perfomance space, creating "music" that isn't even made by the performers? It doesn't matter, as long as you're responding and listening on a deep level. I much prefered these ensemble pieces to Experience II (Joan La Barbara) precisely because they're wordless, and liberate your imagination.

Publicity about the cactuses is misleading because Cage's music isn't about gimmick or novelty. More than ever, this is music that challenges you to think, and gives back what you put in : the creative process turned on its head.  Personally I find Cage surprisingly relaxing, like zen meditation, but it's perfectly OK to be bored witless. But tomorrow it might be the other way round. Like the I Ching, the runes tell you about yourself at a specific time.

Cage is so utterly an original, there's almost no precedent. Learning the technique of composition doesn't make you a composer anymore than reading a wiki makes you Einstein. And Cage was a philosopher as much as a musican.  Listen to the broadcast (link above) because the commentary is very good indeed.  Read Ivan Hewett's review of Cage Day Prom 47 (Ilan Volkov) and my review of The London Sinfonietta Prom 44. 

Harpa Hall, Iceland - decentralizing music venues

Quick post, as I have three fairly major posts in the pipeline. Watch this space !

New photos in of Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavík, Iceland, which offically opens on 8th September. Please see HERE. The hall was planned when Iceland's economy seemed to be blooming.  Lots of countries do glamour projects like that - think Mandelsohn's vanity Dome which has fortunately been rescued, though it was a near thing. And think of the Olympics in London, on top of a war and the worst economic collapse the modern world has ever seen. So don't knock Iceland.  Consider its situation on the furthest edge of Europe. The Harpa Concert Hall is an act of faith in the counrty's ability to revive. Harpa Hall is more than "just" a concert hall, for it provides the kind of civic facilities capital cities need. Many cities don't have the luxury of numerous specialist venues like we're blessed with in mainland Europe. In a country as northerly as Iceland, it's probably good for the community to have an all-weather focus place. Photo by Bára Kristinsdóttir

Harpa Hall might also put Iceland on the international music map and do for the country what the Canary Islands Music Festival does for the islands. And Iceland does have music - Vladimir Ashkenazy is a local resident and of course Jon Leifs the composer, who should be heard more often. Ilan Volkov is the Chief Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (see HERE ) so maybe he'll develop a specialist profile. Ultimately, it's up to Icelanders, not outsiders,  to decide what they want to do with the hall. So good luck to them ! Please also see my piece on Guangzhou's new Opera House, designed by Zaha Hadid.  The future of classical music depends on places outside established centres of western music. Local customs, tastes and priorities must be respected. Places like Guangzhou (Canton) already have thriving regional cultures, so imposing from outside is a form of neo-colonialism. Guangzhou's opera house will be dwarfed by the even newer West Kowloon development in Hong Kong, of which I'll write more soon. Since the whole region between Guangzhou and Hong Kong is gradually becoming one huge conurbation of 50 million people, these venues serve a massive audience. In straitened times, thank goodness there are cities that invest in culture.

Benjamin Britten : Ballad of Heroes

T Please see here for my more detailed review of Brittens Ballad For Heroes, Ivor Gurney's Glouycestershire Rhapsody and Arthur Bliss Morning Heroes (David temple, BBC CO, Watford)

For my review of Britten Ballad of Heroes with Toby Spence at BBC Prom 32 2017 please read here.

So Tony Blair didn't get invited to the Royal wedding? His sycophants whine. But Prince William has been to Afghanistan, he's a serviceman and he knows the real effects of war. So look who does get invited? People whose names aren't headlines, but disabled soldiers, widows, and charities who care for those maimed by Blair's wars brought upon this nation by shameless deceit. William's chosen guests are the real heroes whom we should honour. Blair's presence would be an insult but his followers are too blind to see. William's mother campaigned against landmines. Chances are she'd not have invited Blair either.

So it was an amazing coincidence that last night's Barbican concert, where Ilan Volkov conducted the BBCSO, should include Benjamin Britten's Ballad of Heroes. It commemorates the International Brigades who served in the Spanish Civil War. Men and women joined the International Brigades because they were idealists who were prepared to die if that's what it took to stop fascism. How different things are now when so-called socialists grovel for places at the Royal W! The real conscience of left idealism has effectively been disenfranchised for many years. The big political parties fear change because it threatens their stranglehold.

Britten's Ballad of Heroes was written three years after his seminal Our Hunting Fathers. a much underrated piece whose radicalism still isn't appreciated. This time the tenor is surrounded by a choir, representing the massed voices of the dead and suffering.  Offstage trumpet : a reference to distant conflicts as well as to the Christian idea of the last trumpet, for which you don't need to be a believer to acess. Alarums and whips of clarinet, marching ostinato in the orchestra and turbulence in the choral writing. "A world of horror!" Then suddenly the tenor emerges, uncovered.

"....and the guns can be heard across the hills like wa-a-aves at night". A distinctively Britten flourish.  Later there are huge leaps within phrases in the vocal line, which Toby Spence negotiates well. The orchestra comments, like a response in the sermon referred to in the text. This time the trumpet call is sour and distorted - a precursor of the horn in the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. Though it's not a masterpiece, Ballad of Heroes is dramatic and would work well in public spaces. Like Westminster Abbey.

The text is from W H Auden and Randall Swingler, a communist poet of the 1930's  HERE is a link to another poem, much better and possibly all Auden, (though it's not, as the site suggests, the text used in this setting).  In Ballad for Heroes, Britten used lines from both poets. Since Auden's great poet and Swingler isn't, the joins are clear. 


The Spanish Civil War inspired so many artists and writers, from Picasso, to Hemingway and myriad others less famous. Where are the artists now, in our even more polarized times?  Have they all been lulled into complicity?  Britten's Ballad of Heroes is a million miles from Hanns Eisler and Ernst Busch (who actually took part) but Britten cared enough to make a statement.


Please also read my piece  Spaniens Himmel - Chinese volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. 

Ilan goes to Iceland

Ilan Volkov has landed the post of Chief Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.  Iceland punches bigger than its size as there's a lively new music scene. Over the next three years Volkov's conducting a total of 25 weeks, but even better, he gets to start a new festival of new music.

Says the Director of the Iceland Symphony, "Ilan is among the most exciting conductors of his generation and we are thrilled that he has accepted the position...under his artistic leadership, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra will continue to secure its place among the finest and most progressive orchestras in Northern Europe ... The stunning façade of Harpa - Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Center - is designed by visual artist Olafur Eliasson and is sure to become an iconic image for the region".

The new concert hall, which opens in May, would have been planned in the heady days when there was money aplenty in Iceland. Yet in times of austerity, sometimes intregrity survives when glitz fades away. Volkov's got integrity and maybe the energetic Iceland scene will be bracing. Volkov's still conducting the Israeli Opera and BBC Scottish and guesting all over Europe. In the past I was lukewarm about his work, though he's respected by many, such as Susanna Mälkki. But two concerts he conducted at the 2010 Proms were extremely good. He was so much invigorated I wondered what's he on? I think it was the orchestras, the London Sinfonietta and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, who are specialists in their field.  Read more here : Volkov conducts Cage and Feldman (contender for best Prom) and conducting Bedford, Benjamin etc. I hope Iceland gives him good service. (Photo : Simon Butterworth from ICA)