Prom 16 George Butterworth

Perhaps it's not so surprising few people really know who George Butterworth was. He died aged 31, but two years before that he burned all his unpublished music before joining the Army. When he died, courageously, in battle, his general wrote his father "We did not know he was a musician". Yet this was the man of whom it was said, by his tutor at Oxford, "There goes more red revolution than in the whole of Russia". In 1906, just after the December uprising in Russia, this was incendiary stuff indeed. Butterworth was also closely involved with the English folk music and dance movement under Cecil Sharp - there are wonderfully kitsch photos of him morris dancing in full regalia in the archives which I must use someday. And he was a powerful influence on Ralph Vaughan Williams.

This Prom featured Butterworth's exquisitely beautiful piece for orchestra, A Shropshire Lad. It was interspersed with the A E Housman poems that so inspired the composer. In theory, yes. But why not then Butterworth's song settings of the same ? Heard together the songs and the orchestral piece are enhanced by a sum of magnitude, because they reflect each other. The musical themes expand immeasurably when you know how Butterworth himself set them to music, and he would have assumed listeners would know them both. Instead, here we just had the poems read out minus the music, which might perhaps have worked, were it not for the extreme theatrical declamation. It might have been great for high camp Shakespeare but everything about Housman and Butterworth mitigates against ostentation. In any case these are poems of vernal purity. And there are orchestral versions of the songs as well.

One day perhaps the BBC will do a Butterworth Prom, with this rhapsody and Banks of Green Willow, which sadly exhausts the Butterworth oeuvre, but it could be supplemented with RVW's own A Shropshire Lad and RVW's Second Symphony, "London" in whose creation Butterworth was instrumental. No Butterworth, perhaps not the RVW we know.

It would also tie together the Prom's new ventures into literature with its core music content. Housman and Butterworth are intriguing figures. Both were intensely secretive personalities, who expressed in art what they couldn't express otherwise. Think about all Housman's reference to the lovely naked necks of young soldiers ! Housman didn't out himself to the world but neither did he hide in the closet - an act of courage and integrity in those times.

Butterworth is even more complex. Why did he burn his music ? Why did he cherish the camaraderie of the trenches ? Why did he die the way he did, throwing himself into the line of fire ? No one really has tackled these issues before, but they are significant in understanding what an interesting man Butterworth really was. Michael Barlow's biography is tantalising as it leaves so much out. In the course of my own work in the archives, I found something of the secret. Butterworth didn't enlist under the name "Butterworth" !!!!! No wonder Barlow couldn't track him down. But I managed to find material not, I think, looked at since 1916. Suddenly a lot more about the man falls into place, including the manner of his death. There's a lot more to Butterworth than this Prom produced.

Prom 15 Elliott Carter

Mark Berry on Carter's Oboe Concerto at the Tuesday Prom :

"Carter’s Oboe Concerto was written in 1986-7, shortly before he was eighty, so doubtless qualifies as relatively ‘early’, given the composer’s extraordinary late fecundity. It is written for solo oboe, a concertino group of four violas and percussionist, and orchestra, actually more of a chamber ensemble, comprising flute, clarinet, horn, trombone, two percussionists, and viola-less strings. Written in one continuous stretch, its twenty minutes or so nevertheless comprise something akin to the classical fast-slow-fast three-movement-structure of a concerto. The performers, all of them, did Carter proud. Indeed, it sounded as if this were a repertory piece, in which the players were as much at home as the composer with its modernity: just what a performance of new(-ish) music should be. Nicholas Daniel drew upon considerable twin reserves of musicality and virtuosity and blended them. He did not mask the sometimes extreme demands – the concerto was written for and inspired by Heinz Holliger, no less – but nor did he allow them to become his principal concern. Throughout, as with all of the players, there was sense to be made of the ever-changing and yet ever-present compositional line. Carter’s polyrhythms came across, as they should, although this is no mean feat, as the equivalent of melody in rhythm. Time played its tricks and kept its command, for which Robertson must be apportioned a great deal of credit. Carter’s skills as a colourist were not denied, the percussionist from the concertino group deserving especial mention in this respect. The sense of temporal progress and sonorous transformation as he switched from vibraphone to glockenspiel was an object lesson in rescuing his orchestral section from the charge of being mere purveyors of ‘effects’. But it was with the oboe alone that the concerto so memorably faded into nothingness."

Full review at http://boulezian.blogspot.com and S&H

Carter wrote this for and with Heinz Hollinger. Carter apparently suggested ideas and asked Hollinger could they be done at all ? Hollinger tried them out and the result is this amazingly beautiful but technically very difficult piece, which requires circular breathing and various other tours de force. When i first heard Daniel play this in January 2006, he made a few minor fluffs but again so what ? Part of the magic of this piece is how a player works "with" it, thanks to its genesis. After that performance, Carter, then a mere 97, bounded onto the platform and hugged Daniel with affection. He is just one amazing person ! Mark makes a good point about this being "mid period" Carter because as a composer he found his voice relatively late. But he's spent 60 years perfecting it !

Dr Who Prom - view from an expert

DrWho started as a TV show in Britain about 40 years ago but how it's become "part of the fabric of British society". Everyone knows and loves it. So it was a real stroke of genius for the BBC to make a Dr Who themed Prom. The market is huge - not just kids (of all ages) but their parents, grandparents and anyone bemused by the phenomenom. And no compromise on quality either ! Seriously good music, seriously well played and even a daring new work by Mark Anthony Turnage. (who has little kids but doesn't write "down" to them). It may be cutting edge but people like kids have open minds and don't come with prejudices set in concrete. After all what Dr Who is "about" is facing new challenges.

This was the biggest seller so far this season, tickets selling on the black market for the amount you can pay on your mortgage. So it's proof that imaginative music works ! Congratulations to the BBC ! This is the way to reach people left cold by the (false) elitist image of classical music.

And as proof of concept, here is a review by a genuine member of the target audience, Phoebe Thomas. She's young but no fool ! This is a real expert. Congratulations to her, too. Great stuff ! See:
http://www.musicomh.com/classical/proms/2008-13_0708.htm

Boulezian - Strauss operas in Munich

Please click on the link at right to boulezian in the blogs list, Mark Berry's blog. He's been in Munich at the opera, having a Strauss fest. Since Mark is one of the best writers on Strauss this is good. Scroll down to Jonas Kaufmann, too. I wonder why Eva Marie Westbroek is singing Chrysothermis while Schnaut is singing Elektra ? But Schnaut seems to be the star of this series.

Who is Dr Who ? Prom 13

Who is Dr Who, readers outside UK might ask. Read this beautiful piece ! It's by Nick Breckenfield, so you can count on intelligence and wit !

http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_prom_review.php?id=6114

Elgar on steroids ? Prom 14 Messiaen

Messiaen's La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ is a blockbuster - 200+ singers, huge orchestra, 7 soloists, three banks of marimbas and a drum 2 metres tall. It could have transfigured the Royal Albert Hall, blasting us into the divine. But it didn't.

Excellent playing from the massed forces, held together courageously by Thierry Fischer. But gargantuan proportions in Messiaen do not operate in nearly the same way as in, say, Bruckner or Berlioz. This music is profoundly spiritual, so the key, I think, is understanding what type of spirituality Messiaen seeks to invoke. Messiaen isn't "churchy". On the contrary his vision takes in vast panoramas, stretching into infinity. His spirituality isn't polite, socially sanctioned propriety, but connects more to the heterodoxy of the Middle Ages. :Look at those paintings of the saints Messiaen loved - they glow ! They are "high" on their beliefs. This isn't "established church" propriety. A good performance can capture the supernatural frenzy such intense spiritual abandon can produce. Messiaen was steeped in early music and knew all about religious intensity. At once, he's pre modern and a modernist.

And the birds...Messiaen studied them as they really were, movements, habitats, etc. His birdsong is nothing like birdsong in, say, Schubert or Mahler. The cacophony in La Transfiguration has nothing to do with bigness for its own sake. It's there to celebrate the vast diversity of creation. It's like a dawn or evening chorus made by every bird in the universe. The cacophony comes straight from nature, it's free, liberating and totally uncivilised. After all, men don't transfigure into God every day. When they do, shouldn't there be wild, unrestrained ecstacy ?

On birdsong in Messiaen: another aspect of Messiaen that shouldn't be taken too literally. Ornithologists probably get a lot out of Messiaen because they can identify specific birds and know why Messiaen used which bird when. But good ornithologists also know that birds don't just sing - they observe their movements, habits, habitats. Birdsong in Messiaen is nothing like birdsong in, say, Schubert or Mahler. Messiaen studied birds from life. So he knew they don't sing nice little melodies, they sing to mark territory, to alert others, and also because they enjoy it. Even the most eloquent sing in snatches, breaking off in different directions, following quirky rhythms and intervals. It operates simultaneously on many levels, so what may seem like cacophony is in fact clearly defined. So Messiaen's birdsong is radically different. Only Janacek, who notated the chickens in his yard, comes near.

Messiaen's birdsong defies form, and even conventional line and pitch. It's organic, evolving of itself, rather than from a preconceived harmonic idea. It moves, changes direction, follows odd little riffs and cells. Listening to Messiaen this year has enriched my feel for Boulez tremendously. Nadia Boulanger's intense dislike of Messiaen and his circle extended to Boulez and even to Yvonne Loriod, who was instantly dropped when she took up with Messiaen. Her influence on many English language writers and musicians still prevails. Perhaps Boulanger, who did have a good ear, but was fixated on Stravinsky, realised where Messiaen might be heading.

So this Proms didn't ignite into the mind-blowing experience it might have been. Listen out for Nagano this autumn at the South Bank, and listen to the recordings (Cambreling, Myung whun Chung and recently de Leeuw). But so what ? We listen to music (or at least I do) for what it gives us, not because we're searching for "definitive" perfection. I got lots out of this Prom even though it dragged in places, even for me, a long term fan. I can't at all blame those who walked out or fell asleep. But a friend told me he'd seen a little girl with thick glasses, listen rapt with attention through all 14 sections. Now that must surely justify this Prom and indeed the whole Prom tradition. If the joy of performance can touch even a small girl way up in the galleries, the Proms serve their purpose. Does our government even begin to understand what a an asset the BBC Proms are to the cultural life of this country ? (and others. too)

Listen to this Prom online on http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/. It was also televised so you can watch the film, too ! The live performance was spoiled because the music had to stop for regular radio commentary. Of course people benefit from knowing "about" the music but interrupting a performance kills whatever atmosphere there might be, so it's self defeating.

Read the full formal review here :
http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jul-Dec08/prom14_2707.htm

Christopher Nupen films on DVD

Why do people become what they come to be ? what makes a person interesting ? Jacqueline du Pre bounded into Christopher Nupen's life when she was just 15. One day he started filming her, almost by chance, capturing her singing a folk song while playing pizzicato on a train. Music on film has never been the same. Nupen's films explore the way people come into themselves. His film about Sibelius is not a simple biography by any means, but a sensitive, musically astute look at the nature of Sibelius's creative gifts - it's one of the best ever films "about" music, a symphony on its own way. Then there's his wonderful documentary about Nathan Milstein. That won numerous awards on release last year -it's wonderful. His film about Vladimir Ashkenazy is soon to be released on Allegro DVD. Watch this space ! Google these below for more

Nathan Milstein Nupen
Karim's Journey Nupen (this is a sleeper but will come into its own one day)

and here's the Sibelius film link in full :
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Sept06/Sibelius_Nupen_05CN.htm

Prom 11 Simon Holt

Goethe's Colour Wheel in music ? that's one of the premises of Simon Holt's Troubled Light premiered tonight at the Proms. Holt is one of the big names in current British music so no surprise he's been named composer in residence for BBCNOW (National Orchestra of Wales) But "newly written" isn't the same as "new". Holt's five-part piece is way better than some previous Proms commissions (not Holt's) but the point is that The BBC and the Proms actively encourage living composers which is extremely important. In the long term better to hear lots of possibles than dismiss the new unheard.

Troubled Light certainly fulfils the purpose of its commission, in that it gives each member of the orchestra plenty to do and it's easy on the ear. It's ambitious and certainly busy. Perhaps, though it was not a good idea to sandwich it between two great masterpieces of "colour" in music Debussy's Nocturnes and Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. In the second, the fanfare held the "pictures" together, putting the "pictures" in structured context. Nowadays composers don't have it quite so easy ! Nocturnes was ground breaking in its time, and it still gives me goosebumps ! Those wordless songs ! Sadly, nearly 100 years after Nocturnes, there are still nutters who think singing must be in plain text, or we "can't understand". So what hope is there ? Yet, only listen....

Messiaen this year in London 2008

More Messiaen ? Surely not ! But if you want to learn a language, one of the best ways is to immerse yourself completely. The South Bank this year has been running the biggest-ever Messiaen retrospective, in which every single piece is being performed bar St Francis which is coming later at The Proms, straight from the production at Amsterdam. Play a bit with google and see what I've done. There is the "main" introduction to the Festival, titled "From the Canyons to the Stars" which kind of sums it all up ! This is a wonderful series - Susanna Malkki the sensational new Director of Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted Des Canyons aux Etoiles, Salonen made complete sense of Turangalila (a miracle !), Aimard played Vingt Regards. Jennifer Bate Le livre du Ste Sacrament. So if you have spare time look them up on google on these searches and for a change it's not all amazon links. (There are lots of others but track them down yourself)

messiaen aimard vingt regards london
messiaen livre bate london
messiaen salonen turangalila london
messiaen malkki canyons london
messiaen canyons stars south bank

Song of Pain and Beauty, Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott

Pamela Blevins' dual biography Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott, Song of Pain and Beauty will be published by the Boydell Press in November. Based on original research and newly discovered material, Song of Pain and Beauty is the first biography of Gurney since 1978 and the only biography of Scott. It tells the dramatic story of two geniuses who met at the Royal College of Music in 1911 and formed an unlikely partnership that illuminated and enriched the literary and musical worlds in which they moved. Gurney's poetry and songs have taken their place as "part of the inheritance of England". Marion Scott, Gurney's strongest advocate, emerges from his shadow for the first time. Her own remarkable achievements as a pioneering music critic, musicologist, advocate of contemporary music and women musicians place her among the most influential and respected women of her generation.

Song of Pain and Beauty explores Gurney's relationships with his parents and siblings, with Herbert Howells, Arthur Benjman, F. W. Harvey, the Hunt sisters, Sir Charles Stanford, Alfred Cheesman, Annie NelsonDrummond, Marion Scott and others against a backdrop of their times. It provides details into Marion Scott's remarkable background -- her American and Russian heritage -- and career along with insights into her unconditional devotion to Gurney, her gift for friendship, her vision, courage, strength of character and inner spiritual depth. Song of Pain and Beauty explores Gurney's attempts to create music and poetry while struggling to overcome the bipolar illness that eventually derailed his genius, and it restores Marion Scott's rightful place in music history. The title is taken from a poem that Gurney wrote and dedicated to Scott during World War I. Song of Pain and Beauty is now available via pre-order from the publisher

http://www.boydell.co.uk/43834219.HTM

and from Amazon US

http://www.amazon.com/Ivor-Gurney-Marion-Scott-Beauty/dp/1843834219/ref=sr
_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213217554&sr=1-1

or from Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ivor-Gurney-Marion-Scott-Beauty/dp/1843834219/ref=
sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216308985&sr=8-1

Signature - new magazine - women in music

News of a new online music magazine that features women in music. Of course women musicians don't exist in limbo so there's plenty on music in general, but from a perspective that doesn't denigrate women to footnotes. This ought to be good as it's editted by Pam Blevins and Karen Schaffer who know their stuff !

"This magazine is an indispensable resource for teachers, students, parents,musicians, historians and music lovers of all ages throughout the world.Designed in a traditional printable magazine format, Signature offers over 90 pages of articles about women who have made significant contributions to the world of music. No other magazine offers so rich a resource on the achievements of women in classical music."

http://www.maudpowell.org/signature/

Prom 6 Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum

".....You might have been mistaken that you were hearing the organ again in the massive, long chords that start Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. They cleave through space like a powerful force of nature, yet they are created only by brass and winds, principally trombone and tuba. Then suddenly the percussion explodes, the organ this time replicated by gongs and cymbals. It’s incredibly compelling, yet requires small though unorthodox orchestral forces. No wonder it’s the piece being played most frequently all over the world this year of Messiaen’s centenary. For my longer more detailed analysis of the piece please see HERE. 

It was originally commissioned by the French government as a showpiece to commemorate the dead of two world wars. But Messiaen wasn’t one for public platitudes. For him, death was only an interlude before an eternal afterlife. The government couldn’t very well object since he had been a prisoner of war and might very well have ended up with the war dead himself. Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum is a counterpart to the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time. Both pieces see beyond earthly suffering, focussing on the prophecy that, at the End of Time, all who have died through millennia shall be resurrected.

The massive walls of sound in this piece represent the earth itself, a primeval sound like the moving of continents, earthquakes that break open the earth’s crust. It’s mightily organic writing : Birtwistle’s Earth Dances, magnificent as it is, is but an echo. Those familiar with other Messiaen work might also recognise the “walls” in L’Ascension, Des Canyons aux Étoiles and so on. Indeed, Messiaen dreamed that Et exspecto might ideally be performed in mountains, sound bouncing from peak to peak, reverberating deep into valleys. Truly, The Royal Albert Hall must be the closest alternative. That overwhelming rush of sound, percussion waves ripping across the orchestra, was cataclysmic. The very earth is torn asunder. Of course this music is loud, propelled by relentlessly solid blasts of brass and percussion. The End of Time is a cataclysm. For Messiaen, the world doesn’t “end with a whimper, not a bang”.

Like the movement of tectonic plates, generally unfolds slowly, without obvious progression. Instead it’s like a slow procession punctuated by minute long moments of complete silence which are as much part of the piece as the music itself. Myung-Whun Chung observed these faithfully, because what Messiaen is doing is turning the music inwards, “into” the listener, a cue to contemplate the mystery “beyond” mere sound. This is another of Messiaen’s great challenges. He combines different concepts of space and time. So they operate simultaneously, processed by the listener’s mind. Loud as parts of this piece may be, it’s not volume for its own sake. Again, as in all Messiaen, details are essential. The clarinet, oboe and flute parts were gloriously clear and poignant, and the gamelan’s quirky rhythms wonderfully evoke the way birds move and sing : nature and orchestration in perfect correspondence.

Particularly impressive in this performance was its uncompromising, rough hewn quality that really brought out its primordial, antediluvian depths. In some ways, the savagery of this performance outclassed Boulez in recording (though I suspect that Boulez live and in the Royal Albert Hall would lift us out of our skins). The banks of brass and percussion were magnificent, the crashing cymbals and gongs relentless, the gamelan creating a wild frisson, the tubular bells sounding out like the Final Trumpet. Chung’s hands bristled tension, and tension is what his players produced. This was perceptive, as the End of Time isn’t a wimpy cop-out anticlimax. Those who listen to the rebroadcast on BBC Radio 3 might listen out for the “circular” effects in the percussion, where there’s marked rhythmic progression. At he very end, one of the small gongs flew off the stand and the percussionist had to improvise. It’s not very noticeable, but there is a difference, so carefully nuanced is Messiaen’s writing."

This is just an extract from my full review which is here :

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jul-Dec08/prom6_2107.htm

Listen to this concert on BB Radio 3 broadcast - it is fantastic ! And they are also running a stream of the TV version. Don't miss ! Also read Evan Tucker's Preview which is on promsamerica on the blog list on the right. It's very informative.

Ivan Hewett on Messiaen

So much of what we think we know is often rehashed second hand opinion. It takes a brave man to reconsider. That's why Ivan Hewett's article in the Telegraph is so interesting :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/07/17/bmweir117.xml
if it doesnt work go to music then scroll to bottom of page

We're so accustomed to taking Messiaen's music on surface terms that it's not easy to hear past the obvious signposts, like birdsong, religion and exotica. But Messiaen wasn't revered by people like Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis etc. for nothing. What he does in his music is actually fundamentally radical. From birds, he rethinks the idea of melody and rhythm. Birds don't do "songs" they jerk, twitch and fly off in odd tangents. Nature is dissonant, many voices in cacophony. Thus the exotica. You don't "need" a single thread, things happen at different levels at the same time, you process them in your mind. The very idea of space is "sculpted", by the place we hear, by the open-ended horizons. Even his loopier dead ends are fun because they don't fit the idea that everything has to be neat and "right".

Then, the timelessness. Messiaen makes us slow down and reflect. His silences, turn you back into yourself. Hence the vignette form, small portions on which to contemplate, on their own and in context, breaking down the idea of music as one impenetrable, structured edifice. No symphonies ! In Catholic Churches there's something called the Stations of the Cross where people look upon an image but silently meditate. You don't "have" to think about the image, you are alone with your thoughts and no one knows but you and God (assuming you believe). What it does to you and to your soul is far more important than what's depicted. And Messiaen is happy ! Not in the idiot grin sense but Seligkeit, eternal bliss which allows that there are things we will never know : it's OK to acknowledge powers greater than the self. In our times, cynicism and meanness of spirit seem to be the rule. Yet Messiaen subverts that too, by sheer simple purity. No wonder he confounds. We need his gentle challenge more than ever !

Prom 2 Elgar Nigel Kennedy Finzi

Nige's triumphant return to the Proms ! Lovely performance, but poignant, for it shows how stupid the kerfuffle of 20 years ago really was. Artists have artistic personalities : they aren't the kind of people who conform. Many good ones would probably be nuts were it not for the discipline performance forces on them. Twenty years ago Nige did seem shocking, but he's been vindicated. The Proms started to veer downmarket (MUCH better this year), but Nige realised that as long as the music is high quality it doesn't matter if you dress like a punk and have attitude. In his own way, he's done as much to bring people to classical music as many others. It would probably have been a bit too much for the BBC to put Nige on the First Night, but Prom 2 made amends. Maybe now we can all get on with the music. It's the music, guys, not the packaging ! One day I suspect we'll have"Sir Nige" though I can't imagine him softening that much.

Gerald Finzi is one of my big things so I listened too for his Intimations of Immortality which doesn't get all that many live outings as it's a monster of a piece - large orchestra, large choir and tenors with the stamina to blast over them all for 45 minutes. As Finzi himself said it's a "hell of a noise, but rather a wonderful noise all told".

It has its weaknesses as it was written in a rush and it's way, way bigger than anything else the composer wrote. Stephen Banfield, Finzi's biographer, wrote that the chirpy little melody that illustrates the words "this sweet May morning" was "one of most sly pieces of mickey-mousing outside Hollywood". But for an innocent like Finzi, writing in the gloom of postwar British austerity, Hollywood represented the glowing vision Wordsworth's text describes. The vision is extravagant, so why not the music ?

In performance, it does need to be kept under reasonably tight rein, so excesses like the xylophone solo don't exaggerate and descend into The Donkey Serenade as they do on one recording. No worries here. Andrew Kennedy (no relation to Nige, they are worlds apart) was heroic. Catch the broadcast repeated on demand online, (Prom 2 Part 1 after 20 mins of Bax) and also listen to the recording by James Gilchrist with David Hill at Bournemouth (Naxos) which is the finest of all, I think.