Wolfgang Rihm, Barbican Total Immersion (1)

In an era when surface counts more than substance, it was refreshing to attend this BBC Wolfgang Rihm Total Immersion day at the Barbican, London. For one thing, the composer has no time for superficial clichés. "New Simplicity?" he said. "That was just a group of us friends getting together over a few beers, but someone had to go give it a title". Perhaps people need to fit things into rigid categories : it's easier than actually listening. But that's not how real composers work. "Kein Schublade", as Rihm said, "No pigeonholes".

Even as a child, he was arty, dictating stories to his mother before he learned to write. Debussy introduced him to the possibilities of music. "The process comes through the process", he said, helpfully, which means something like creativity comes from being open to things.

Rihm comes over as a fascinating person, completely without artifice and cant. All the theories in the world can't explain what makes a composer tick, and probably most of them can't explain themselves. But I hope someone at the BBC has kept a tape of Rihm's discussion with Ivan Hewett as it's a gem, better than many formal interviews.

The London Sinfonietta played the 1pm concert, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann. First, Bild (eine Chiffre) (1984), a piece so dramatic that it "is" theatre, no need for narrative. Film music this is not, even though Rihm had in mind the images of Buñuel's Un chien Andalou. Rihm's even said you could cut the music up and scramble it with the film: both are separate works of art expressing connected ideas. Conceptually this is radical because it puts the onus on the listener to make of it what he or she can. From this I got terse, skittering turbulence against moments of tense listening.

Hewett's programme notes (unusually prescient) put it much better, "this sharp little shocker.....is at once murky and sharp-edged like a knife hidden in mud...insistent hammering on metal plates provokes a furious reaction, but then things freeze into immobilty. Stammers and whispers can get no purchase on this silence.......the final outburst has the air of a suicide note".

Bear in mind the idea of music as all-inclusive theatre, for Concerto 'Séraphin' (2006-8) which evolved from ideas that have also found expression in connected chamber pieces and a piece of music-drama, as seen in the video above. The version the Sinfonietta performed is scored for fairly large orchestra. It's huge. lasting almost an hour, developing over more than 20 segments. It's not easy to take in on one listening, so listen to the BBC rebroadcast, which is on now.

Séraphin' refers to an article by Antonin Arnaud, famous for the "Theatre of Cruelty" which sounds gruesome but it's the idea that struggle is needed if the spirit is to be freed. Facing extreme challenge stretches limitations until they burst and are obliterated. That allows a new kind of consciousness to emerge, transcending all that has gone before. It's a metaphor for modern times, and hence a metaphor for modern music. You can't passively wallow, you have to engage. Brian Ferneyhough responds to Artaud, too , as have other composers. The New Simplicity meets the New Complexity! So much for silly labels. Indeed if you think about it Jesus went through much the same when he was on the cross. Rihm makes light of his compositional methods, but his music has probably gone through deep layers before it reaches the score.

Much in Concerto Séraphin is deliberately deceptive : you have to be alert. Fortunately the segmental nature of the piece allows you to concentrate on different parts, so you don't have to get it all at once. That, too, is like life, fleeting images that fly past, only to bear fruit later, when they germinate in your subconscious. The ground keeps shifting. You can fix on signposts, but as soon as you follow them, they change. The flute leads most of the early segments, high and clear, Then the flautist switches to a big, mean bass flute. What sounds at first like a bassoon or unnaturally huigh contrabassoon turns out to be contrabass clarinet. Two harps are beaten, vibrating instruments treated like percussion. Sometimes the first violin starts to lead, then goes into a strange frenzy, the others can't pursue. Snippets of almost-melody appear like Irrlicht.

Get to that rebroadcast soon! More to come on the evening Rihm concert, and if I have time, on Rihm Lieder and Killmayer

photo credit : Hans Peter Schaefer

Wolfgang Rihm, Barbican and Wilhelm Killmayer

Fabulous Total Immersion Day on Wolfgang Rihm at the Barbican London, on his birthday, too. What's more the concerts are being broadcast on www.bbc.co.uk/radio 3 over the next few weeks so anyone can listen, online, on demand, internationally for 7 days after broadcast. This means "real" total immersion because the best way to really get to know new works is to listen, again and again. And with Rihm, that's rewarding. One of the big, unfamiliar works is an hour long Concerto Séraphin which you need time to absorb. More on the day's concerts later and also about Rihm himself - wonderful man. (Scroll down or search for the Arditti Quartet Rihm concert.)

And Wilhelm Killmayer? One of Rihm's heroes, which makes him important. Checking Amazon, there are only a few recordings listed, but go to Schott Music, his publishers, for scores. And to JPC for many more recordings, and at much better prices than Amazon.

Why Killmayer? If Rihm thinks he's his mentor, so should others. Killmayer (b 1927) is an exact contemporary of Boulez and Henze but hardly known outside western Germany. He once quipped that he started writing more in his 60's because he got married and promptly had 3 more kids and needed the money! But seriously, his music is very good indeed. Over the next few weeks, I'll write more about him because there's next to nothing in English. (There's even a biography in German.)

Killmayer's Hölderlin-Lieder is exceptional. In fact I'd say that it's one of the best art song cycles written in the last 60 years. Since song is my big thing this is no minor praise. This is a very important cycle because it's so beautiful. Moreover, it's Hölderlin. Hölderlin's late poetry really came into its own in the 20th century, when people could appreciate the "madman ravings" as something more esoteric. Many exist only in broken fragments, so setting them to music is an exercise in writing for silence, for dislocated, disjointed expression. There are many 20th century Hölderlin settings, but Killmayer's make a virtue of their fragmentary, visionary spirit.

Killmayer even revisited Heine, and the Schumann settings in particular. His Heine-Lieder are wonderful, an extremely useful adjunct to Schumann. No CD available at the moment, but Schott should have the score. It's essential reading, because it shows how a modern composer relates to Schumann and the Lieder tradition, but reinvents it anew.

Wolfgang Rihm Arditti String Quartet

Last night Wolfgang Rihm was present at LSO St Luke's in London when the Arditti Quartet played his String Quartet No 5 "Ohne Titel". This is the one where the violin plays so fast you'd think the strings would ignite and burst into flames. The Paganini observation's apt because every now and then there are fragments of past music, a Zigeuner, for example glimpsed at, and particles of waltz. And the first violin's demonic, pushing the other instruments to greater heights. It's so inventive, exhilarating.

Over the last 30 years, the Arditti Quartet has been the motor of new music for string quartet: Rihm's great passion. No wonder heartfelt embraces at the end, between composer and players.

Also on the programme was the more recent (1999-2004) Fetzen I-VIII. It's scored for string quartet and accordion, here played by Teodoro Anzellotti. The accordion stretches - literally - the range of sounds strings can make. An accordion pushes air and pulls it forth, like a giant bellows. So swoops of sound that add sonority to the higher strings. The strings swoop and slide in relation to the accordion: the cello almost matches, it's even quite humorous. For many composers, the accordion's useful because of its humble connotations. For Rihm, its valid for its own sake, its possibilities still unplumbed. How thrilled I was today when Rihm himself said of one of the Fetzen segments, that it was meant to be funny, the violin madly bowing as quickly as he could, and the others saying "slow down! slow down!"

More on Rihm in the next few days and also on Wilhelm Killmayer), Rihm's hero and mine too. (Scroll up or use search facilty on right.)

HERE for a picture of my favourite accordionist. I don't know who he is, I found him in an antiques shop, he's so adorable, he should be preserved forever as he was in 1935.

Kingdom of Ife : African sculpture at the British Museum

Kingdom of Ife: African Sculpture is currently on at the British Museum. Go - some of these figures have been brought over specially from Nigeria, where they're usually kept in pride of place as part of African heritage.

These sculptures easily compete artistically with anything in the west. They represent kings and gods, but, unlike Greek and Roman pieces, they present them in a strikingly intimate, human and individual way. Even Michelangelo marbles pale against them, for these are real people, not allegories. In comparison, even Renaissance marbles look prettified and indirect. Western artists focus on the beauty of the body : The Ife depict the beauty of the spirit. Perhaps that says something about the nature of kingship in Africa, perhaps not, but theses cultures are unique.

Ife figures are so realistic, that being with them is an eerie experience. You know they are inanimate objects, but you feel they could breathe, speak or move at any moment. How can we be sure that as we're watching them that they're not watching us?

No wonder they're reputed to have supernatural powers, like the seated man from Tada who was ceremonially taken and washed in the Niger. He's extremely famous, from photos. Live he seems surprisingly small, given his iconic reputation, but he's so intense, he seems superhuman.

The Kingdom of Ife started around 800, and still remains today. These sculptures date from 1100-1500. This was a sophisticated and prosperous nation. Technically these bronzes are so well made that there is nothing quite like them elsewhere. There are sculptures in bronze, copper, stone and terracotta, and smaller objects like votives, spear heads etc, showing that the bronze heads weren't a fluke, but came from a long tradition.

As design icons, they're amazing. For some unknown reason, many of the faces are striated vertically - nothing like scarification, but more elegant and stylized. These lines create a distance between the object and viewer but also accentuate the muscles and curves so they're even more tactile. The holes drilled in some heads may have been made so headresses and fake hair could be attached.


Look at the detail on the King in the photo. He's wearing elaborate symbols of royalty and wealth. Look at that neckplate, festooned with carnelian beads. Another kingly figure holds a horn which may have held medicinal potions. One of the women wears an elaborately woven headress, complete with jewels. These figures are meant to awe you with their regal presence. Yet the most moving are the simplest, depicting the ruler as an ordinary person, emanating serenity, calm, goodness.

Besides the amazing heads, there are other objects. Beautiful stools, for example, carved in a surprisingly modern free form. There's a flatfish of old granite, hardly carved at all. Yet in its simplicity and abstraction, it "feels" like a huge, lugubrious flatfish, lying in the river bed.

There is a lot to see in this exhibition, so take your time and make more than one visit. You'll come away with a completely different perspective on world art. Please read more HERE. Please reads Waldemar Januszak HERE

Saariaho operas - why?

Rupert Christiansen reports on Kaija Saariaho's fourth opera, Emilie, in Paris. It's a tour de force for Karita Mattila, who sings for 80 minutes. But all that effort, for what? "Saariaho's mushy modernist idiom – try imagining Pierre Boulez slumming it on a film score – is peppered with pseudo-baroque flourishes from the harpsichord, as well as spooky marimba and electronic effects. Textures are dense and rich, but the flavour is generic: the score never seems specific to Emilie or expressive of her. There's no muscle, no clarity: it all swirls around in a haze. "

L'Amour de loin was interesting because it was different, a sort of mutable mood piece you could drift in and out of. Some nice passages for the baritone, which gave it backbone. When it was staged at the ENO, it was visually gorgeous, the set providing a narrative the opera lacked.

Le Passion de Simone was different. Simone Weil, a middle class intellectual, was desperate to identify with socialist workers. She had such extreme self conviction, that it hardly mattered that the workers weren't moved. During the Holocaust, when people starved in concentration camps, Weil voluntarily starved herself to death. Anorexia elevated to political act. Self regard so intense it swept away realiyty.

Weil is emotive, so you can't really knock an opera based on her. On the other hand, psychologically, Weil's such a character that the dramatic possibilities are infinite. This is perhaps Saariaho's best opera. The music redeems its fundamental inconsistencies of the plot. Blank out the words, (though you shouldn’t) and you have an intoxicating feast of chromatic colour. It’s so vivid and beautiful that, consciously or not, it undermines Weil’s ideas that life is polluting, unworthy "bestiality". Saariaho even manages to incorporate into her music some of Weil’s other ideas, such as the dichotomy between gravity and grace: gravity comes in the dark undercurrents of the brass and winds, for example, and grace in the diaphanous, glistening textures of her writing for strings and percussion. There’s lots of her distinctive exoticism in the gamelan-like passages for marimba, bells and harp. There are some pretentious moments, such as over-long silences between the sections, and passages pushing the same point too long, but on balance, it’s the music that makes this opera.

Then, Adriana Mater. In theory this is an explosive plot: woman raises son born of wartime rape. Decades later, son kills father. This is the stuff of Greek tragedy, but this libretto manages to make the story banal and inconsequential. Saariaho is one of the few composers who has personally experienced pregnancy and childbirth, so you'd hope she has a handle on it male composers don't.

Saariaho’s long lines evolve slowly, their beauty in the gradual process of gestation. Again, there’s a lot of potential in using this style to present a narrative like this, a story that covers a period over 20 years. A friend of mine commented that Saariaho sounds like “Messiaen crossed with Philip Glass” in the sense that her music unfolds organically, like breathing, which is measured and even. But it's been done before, better and since.

And that's about it. There's no sense of narrative, no emotional depth, no sense of turbulent complexity. At the time I heard it I couldn't figure out why it upset me so much, but with the perspective of distance I now understand. The subject is horrible, but the music doesn't engage with it. It's L'Amour de Loin rehashed. At least the world of L'Amour was nice to look at.

Emilie sounds like more of the same all over again. Pregnant woman knowing she's going to die and her life has been wasted. There's great potential in this as drama, but what will Saariaho do with it?

Applause is irrelevant

Thumbs up to both Operachic and Intermezzo for flagging this up. Hooray for common sense. Alex Ross is in town speaking about "Inventing and re-inventing the Classical concert". I read the entire transcript through. Long and wordy it is but it boils down to one idea: that the "No applause rule" in concerts isn't a good thing. At the end he mentions breaking down perceived barriers between classical and other genres.

N0 doubt he'll get wild applause from those who think that classical music must somehow be wrong if it doesn't attract football stadium crowds. But classical music has never been aimed at the masses. These days people have more forms of entertainment than ever, so if they don't choose classical music, it's not the "fault" of the genre.

Besides, audiences are made up of thousands of people with different motivations. People don't act the way they do because they've read Adorno. They are what they are because of the way they've been taught, what they want to prove to the world, how they feel about their place in the scheme of things. No different, though, basically, from audiences at any other form of activity. As the Roman crowd bayed for blood at the Gladiators, modern audience get het up about reality and talent shows on TV. Or the news.... That's media for the masses.

The problem with artistic performance is that it doesn't "depend" on an audience's approval or otherwise. Artists do what they're compelled to do, regardless. A receptive, supportive audience is wonderful but good art just "is". A composer, a performer, and artist does what they do with integrity. At the end of the day what Row T seat 66 thinks doesn't matter.

Nowadays, everyone feels compelled to have an opinion and make sure the world knows. That's why TV shows make so much money, people need to "vote" even if it costs a lot. Paradoxically, instant opinions aren't usually the most considered. Sometimes not rushing to judgement is wiser and more artistically valid. So how can anyone judge a performance before it's over ?

Sometimes people clap spontaneously because they're genuinely pleased about something. But often it can be because they feel they should be doing something, or they're bored or confused. Think of all that clapping in Tamerlano last week, as if the evening wasn't long enough. And once one person starts, it spreads and then becomes a pattern and then happens again and again.

The paradox, though, is that anyone "really" listening is often concentrating so hard they don't need to clap, even when something's wonderful. They focus on the flow, and express themselves at the end. Mindless clapping (as opposed to mindful) clapping can be a distraction. For everyone who lets off steam clapping, there are others for whom it's an interruption. So there's no way applause can be considered right or wrong. Or that "more" clapping makes people more at ease - if they were serious about music in the first place it wouldn't be an issue.

There are snobs who know nothing about music who insist on "form" for the sake of form. Wearing white tie won't fool any genuine music person if you can't play or sing. These are the type who make others feel inferior, but that doesn't mean the genre itself is offputting. Classical music attracts snobs because they associate it with money and status, but that's not what classical music is about. This type infests churches, golf clubs etc, not just classical music. Whenever connotations of money, convention, social aspiration come into the equation (right or wrongly) such folk crawl out of the woodwork. But it isn't the fault of the wood.

Of course there are reverse snobs, too, the type who think it's smart to put down what you don't know. Applause and booing aren't really so different.

Unless someone claps disruptively, (and they don't usually), it's not going to shake the earth, if you're genuinely listening. So applause or non-applause just is not an issue. There are lots of ways of growing audiences but changing these non-rules is meaningless. Too bad what people "think" about classical music. It is what it is, whatever non-classical people might assume it to be. Meaningless assumptions don't help anybody.

Forty years of concert going on four continents have shown me how audiences don't think en bloc. In Europe, and even more so in Asia, people go to things because they like music or want to find out. Much, much less social expectations loaded on them than in the US. What happens in the US doesn't necessarily apply outside. I've noticed, too, that the more insecure people are the more fixed they are in their ways and need to prove something by upholding conformity. Often the smaller the city, the more easily threatened. "It won't play in Peoria" went the old saying. Substitute any other town in the world, it applies all over.

Incidentally it is a fallacy to assume that applause used to be acceprable prior to Adorno, as Alex Ross suggests.  Western music developed from two main threads : church music and entertainment.  "Seroius" music like Bach, Schutz and Monteverdi long predated popular music theatre  Try mindless applause there? . No way.
PLEASE SEE MY SECOND POST on this subject

Philip Langridge on Harrison Birtwistle

In memory of Philip Langridge, here's a description of The Minotaur, Sir Harrison Birtwistle's opera at The Royal Opera House, of which a DVD is available.

“This clew is your clue” intones the Snake Priestess of the Oracle. A clew is a string, the means by which Theseus can find his way through the Labyrinth. It’s a surprisingly direct pun in an opera where meaning is occluded, as in a maze. The clue to The Minotaur is, perhaps, to follow the thread as it develops. The labyrinth is a “place with more dead ends, more flaws and fault-lines than the human heart”.

"If anything", Philip Langridge told me in 2008,"Birtwistle’s music has become more impressive with time. John Tomlinson, for whom he wrote Gawain, asked about the two different tempi in the Minotaur’s death scene. Birtwistle explained that they represented the body and the brain, which doesn’t stop until death is finally reached. Birtwistle isn’t, Langridge says "very ‘subconscious’ but he writes straight, without a method or plan", he adds. "When Harry says he’ll write a piece for you, you think you’ll have to take a deep breath and sing loudly. But that’s not the case". Four years ago, Birtwistle wrote Today, Too, for Langridge, accompanied only by flute and guitar. "It was so quiet, so gorgeous…....he’s always written well for the voice."

Philip Langridge created the role of Orpheus, in The Mask of Orpheus and later King Kong in The Second Mrs Kong so the relationship goes back many years. How does the Minotaur fit in with Birtwistle’s earlier work ? "I’ve noticed a huge difference. I was talking to John Tomlinson about this, who has also known Harry for a long time, and we felt that this was perhaps the first time we’d heard real melancholy, except perhaps in the Io Passion" (written for smaller forces, and also directed by Stephen Langridge). “It is very beautiful. The great thing is that he is able to write the Minotaur for a great stentorian bass and yet it’s terribly melancholic. The feeling is in the orchestration and in the vocal line, too. The Minotaur has an ‘inner voice’ which speaks for him in the opera, and it’s terribly sad."

"When the Minotaur appears in the fifth section of the opera, John Tomlinson, who plays the role, has to roar unintelligibly while he’s goaded by the crowd, who call him “man-freak” and other cruelties. Only when he is asleep can he express himself. As the libretto puts it, "In dreams I seem to speak like any man….I howl the words, I cry the words" Indeed, Birtwistle says that the Minotaur is the only “true” innocent in the drama. Theseus and Ariadne both have mixed motives, but the Minotaur had no choice, born into a situation over which he had no control. "There are people like that in this world", Langridge added quietly.

The Minotaur is a work of depth and maturity. During the Toccatas, an image of an ocean swell is projected onto a screen on the stage. Like the waves, the music pulsates, surging with power that comes from deep forces within. Similarly, Theseus has to go "below" to achieve his mission. Ancient myths have psychological resonance, which is perhaps why they fascinate.

The Minotaur is half man, half beast, who kills and must be killed in return. Yet who really are the monsters in the myth and in this opera? The Minotaur's mother conceived him in sin, for which he, blameless, is punished. His sister Ariadne lets him be killed so she can escape the island. Theseus, the "hero", misleads Ariadne so he can use her help. Later he kills the Minotaur by stabbing him, treacherously, in the back. Bloody as the Minotaur is, he's not as scary as the faceless mob, sitting in judgement, who urge him on to kill, then rejoice when he is killed himself.

No-one knows how to break the pattern until Ariadne goes to consult the Oracle at Omplalos, the centre of the world. The Oracle is implicit throughout the opera. The Minotaur himself is aware of it, for it was the Oracle that decreed his incarceration in the maze when he was a child. Although the action takes place in the Labyrinth, the Oracle is the pivot on which everything turns. The Oracle scene is barely ten minutes long, but it's the most important of all.

It's spectacular. The Snake Priestess (Andrew Watts, countertenor) bursts forth, towering 5 metres above the ground, intoning a bizarre, undulating wail. The Snake Priestess is a conduit to the Gods. The scene is illuminated in harsh, unrelenting glare, even more distressing as the rest of the opera unfolds in shadow.

Only Heirus (Philip Langridge), half man, half priest, can interpret what the Snake Priestess intends. He's the channel, the gatekeeper. He knows Ariadne's first question wasn't straight, but then the Snake Priestess stops mid flow and allows Ariadne another question. Perhaps it's because Ariadne's faced the truth: she's scared. Langridge looks perplexed because this is utterly unprecedented, but he hands her the clew, the red thread that will lead Theseus to safety.

"We worried that lines like 'The question is : what is the question ?' might seem strange or comic, but suddenly realized how direct they really were", said Langridge. But the Oracle gets to straight to the point, "like the Mafia". Hierus is only the spokesman, he can only channel and repeat the rules about "only one question". Ariadne faces up to her fear and answers correctly and there’s a pause. "What happens?" asks Langridge, "obviously something was not understood by the translator and suddenly the Snake Priestess tells Ariadne she will set sail with Theseus to go to Athens, even though she’s not supposed to get the extra answer. " So what’s the significance? Perhaps it’s because Ariadne admits to fear. Langridge adds, "I work with young artists and most of their problems arise from fear of failure. However nervous they are, the one thing they won’t admit is fear".

The Minotaur sings without words, as do the innocents and the crowd. Singing without words seems a feature of this opera but one can gauge, from the enthusiasm of those involved, that there’s lot more to this opera than conventional narrative singing. The indications are that voice is used as an instrument might be used, to create evocative sound which can be interpreted on several levels. The orchestra plays a huge role in Birtwistle’s music, so in a sense, voices too are used orchestrally. Singing without words can become extremely moving used in this way, especially when a composer is expressing things too complex for language.

"Singing without words", said Langridge, "taught me things about myself, I think. You can’t ‘act’, you have to really ‘be’ that person, gradually becoming the person." He adds "The Mask of Orpheus was a baptism of fire. It started off with a sunrise, it was the birth of Orpheus. The music started very quietly, half an hour before, when people were still coming in. They saw this summer aura on the stage, and gradually the volume of the music increased and slowly the lights went down. People were saying, ‘Have we started ?’ I was all the time in complete darkness, under a huge tarpaulin which covered the stage, and they had ropes at the side of the tarpaulin which pulled it up very, very slowly. It was a fifteen minute sequence from when the ropes started to lift and I appeared, singing ‘I am Orpheus’. "

After the Oracle scene in the Minotaur, it's a foregone conclusion that Theseus's mission will succeed and that Theseus and Ariadne will depart. What the Oracle isn't saying is that Theseus will dump Ariadne as soon as he gets away, but that is another story.

There are so many levels in The Minotaur which reveal themselves obliquely, like corners in a maze. The Minotaur is child-like, John Tomlinson's round belly and short legs looking meek beneath that magnificent bull mask.In the film, too much light shines through the mesh it's made of, showing too much of Tomlinson's face, which is a pity. The mask is more mysteriously, the big, bleak bovine eyes pleading. Tomlinson's singing is magnificent. He roars balefully as the beast, but as the man he's painfully vulnerable. His last song dissolves into pitiful diminuendo as he reverts to infancy. "Between most and least, between man and beast. Next to nothing". The film isn't shot too well, lots of flat planes and angles, old style "point and shoot". But this DVD is the only record we have of its first performance.

MEASHA!!!!!

Measha Brueggergosman is MEASHA!!!!, capital letters and exclamation points, every time. She's irrepressible, her personality larger than life. She was probably a DIVA!!!! in kindergarten, but a level-headed diva in touch with reality. I first saw her years ago at the Wigmore Hall Song Competition. She won second prize but that was the year they controversially didn't award a first prize at all (Erik Nelson Werner won the Audience prize). Even then she had stage presence. Since then she's gone on to many things and sang the opening song at the Winter Olympics. Not that that means you star at La Scala and wipe La Renée out of the Met, but Measha is rivetting.

It was good to hear her again at the Wigmore Hall on Sunday, with Justus Zeyen, who turned up in jeans because his luggage was lost at the airport No problem: good singing is communication, not packaging, and Measha communicates, big time. She sang Berg, surprisingly well. People have hang-ups about Berg, not realizing how laidback he can be. Measha singing Der Wein would be great, as she'd get the slightly boozy sensuality better than most. Jessye Norman, for example, whose Der Wein is my favourite, isn't louche enough.

At the WH Song Competition, I think she sang Le Spectre de la Rose. She was born to sing Berlioz, but managed nicely with Duparc and Fauré. She's capable of greater refinement and delicacy, but that would have been lost at a matinee with an audience largely made up of people who don't usually go to art song recitals. Still, she managed to get them to listen even though the words were "in foreign". Had she ventured into Susan Graham territory with some of the funnier, wilder French repertoire she would have had them astounded even if they didn't understand a word. Imagine her singing Banalités or Rapsodie nègre, where language is no barrier. She's proof that you don't need to dumb down to reach non-classical audiences. Just do what you do with enthusiasm and verve.

As an encore she sang a spiritual. She doesn't do soul. She's Canadian. On the other hand it demonstrated her vocal range and flexibility. This is a voice that could do a lot, and venture into parts unknown - music could be written for this voice. Much as Measha clowns about, I think she has reserves of steel, and is capable of disciplined practice and development. She's only 32, after all, which is still very young for a singer.

There are thousands of young singers about. Even very good singers face a horrific uphill struggle to succeed. She has what it takes, I think, and certainly the dramatic ability to do well in opera. But it's a long, difficult battle, you can't drop the ball for a minute. Yet she's so charismatic that she could succeed in many ways. I can even imagine her hosting serious music shows, singing or presenting. (though not together). She doesn't need to dumb down, she's got enough genuine charm to enthuse people.

Her pianist here, Justus Zeyen, regularly plays for Thomas Quasthoff, who's rumoured to please some kinds of audience by knocking the "serious stuff" though I haven't heard that myself. Which is fine, it's his choice. But Measha is s such a natural communicator that she won't need to differentiate between serious and non-serious. (If her Motherless child is anything to go by, she should steer clear of jazz.) She's interesting enough to stick to what she's good at, and do it with warmth and vivacity. She's got so much of that, she doesn't need to compromise. Classical music needs people like that. No dumbing down!

Philip Langridge has passed away

The news was announced this afternoon of the death of Philip Langridge. He was 70, but didn't look it because he was so vivacious and energetic. He was a charmer, but behind that suave smile there was a sharp mind, quick and alert. He was an interesting singer because he had a brain as well as a voice. Had he not been a singer, he'd have made a great actor, for he understood how to get into a role and express it. In later years he taught extensively, passing his knowledge on, and supported ventures like Oxford Lieder.

The public obits will cite his many famous opera appearances, recordings, awards and honours. And so they should, for he was a Grand Old Man of British song, a national institution like Gielgud. His achievements are many, and they meant a lot to him. Others will be able to list them in detail. But for me, he'll be remembered too for the kind of person he was, and for his influence on others.

He was singing until as recently as last November, and gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall. "Farewell? what farewell!" he would have snapped. He was frustrated that his voice couldn't serve him as it used to, but he needn't have worried. The audience were there because they knew and cared about him. He didn't need to prove himself with his voice. He did it with his artistry.

He even premiered a new work, Vanitas, written for him by his old friend Sir Harrison Birtwistle. It's a moving, elegaic work about the transcience of life. Still-life paintings remain beautiful long after the objects depicted have turned to dust: life is short, but art is eternal. The piece is a measure of Birtwistle's sensitivity. It doesn't demand extremes of register but ebbed and flowed, like conversation. It illuminated the best in Langridge's voice and let him show how well he could create a mood with changes of pace and volume.

After that, Langridge really revealed what made him such a star. His encore was the satirical aria from Utopia Limited where a tenor explains away his vocal difficulties. So what if Langridge's tones weren't as high and pure as they had been? He still had wit, and the ability to sing a long and funny monologue. He was hurting inside, but defiantly, he could laugh at the vagaries of life. That deserves respect. Most people can hold a tune. Only the best understand how much more goes into good singing than voice. Please read about what was to prove - despite himself - Philip Langridge's "farewell" concert at the Wigmore Hall HERE. (text of the monologue is given too. (several other posts on Langridge including his amazing role in Birtwistle's Minotaur) In the next day or so I will do an update about the Monotaur DVD in greater depth

A link to the most useful obituary and please see an interview I did with him about Birtwistle in 2008

Handel Tamerlano Royal Opera House - first thoughts

Because I'd planned my schedule around seeing Tamerlano at the Royal Opera House, London later in the month, it's come at a busy time for me, dashing about so much my eyes are spinning. So here are rough first thoughts that will be polished later. PLEASE SEE the review that's now up on Opera Today.

When Placido Domingo pulled out of Tamerlano, it was sad for him, but not an issue for me, as he's a known quantity (as is the whole production by Graham Vick). But the role is new for Kurt Streit, and indeed, for nearly all of the cast. This makes it rather unusual.

The magic word "Placido" sells tickets and fans will come to hear him, rather than hear what he's singing. Yet ironically he isn't a Handel specialist, while Kurt Streit is. Two completely different approaches to the role. Of course they won't be the same. Can't judge apples by pears, but of course people will try. Better to think entirely of what Streit's trying to achieve, on his own terms. This is Handel, after all, not Puccini.

Bajazet is not a sympathetic character. He's an old snob who cannot countenance being defeated by a "herdsman". He can't cope with change, so suicide is a warped act of autonomy, a kind of self preservation, keeping his identity intact. Those who can't learn have no other choice. Streit's dignified understatement makes it feel like a noble act - no whining, no poor needy me. That's for plebs, not aristos. That's why he's non-empathic. It's not his style.

Streit's Bajazet is regally dignified. Men like Bazajet don't do empathy, they rule. This makes the tenderness between father and daughter all the more poignant. Streit's Bajazet is perceptive, for Bajazet is fundamentally isolated by his inability to relate to others. After swallowing the poison, Bajazet has nothing to lose, so gives in to feelings. Streit's calm, magisterial singing at this point conveys the sense that the Ottoman has found sublimation. Being an absolute monarch can be a burden, and perhaps Bajazet at last senses release.

Tamerlano represents the new order wiping away the old. His costumes constantly change, a dash of colour against the stark black and white design of the set. Eventuallly, Tamerlano appears in full wig and train, like a monarch of the Ancien Regime. It's not in the libretto, but a telling observation, for Tamerlano became a tyrant. Handel didn't need to spell this out explicitly but the implications would not have been lost on him. Full credit to Graham Vick and his team (Richard Hudson, designs).

This production looks uncompromisingly modern, because Handel's ideas are relevant to modern times. Integrity, courage, individuals standing up to tyrants. The lighting (Mathew Richardson) is oppressively bright, but throws the moral issues in the opera into full focus. Because there's no unnecessary detail, such details as they are become significant - rows of anonymous servants, moving in stylized obeisance, like machines. Great Empires function through rituals like these. Power is symbolized by a huge foot, bearing down on a sphere which represents the world. When Bajazet and Asteria crawl under, it feels dangerous, as it should be. They're not crushed by the set but by what it means.

Princess Irene appears astride a hige blue elephant. It's marvellous theatre But power "is" theatre. The elephant looks comic, like an illustration in a children's book. But again, there is something faintly ludicrous about these monarchs handing out kingdoms as if they were candy.

Christine Schäfer is a superb Asteria. It's her debut in this role, too, though like Streit, has extensive experience in Handel and the Baroque. Indeed, they've appeared together, including [Partenope](http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/02/no_home_for_her.php) at the Theatre an der Wien. The dynamic between them is good.

Schäfer's Asteria is so strong that she really comes over as her father's daughter. Such ferocity and strength of purpose. From Schäfer's diminutive frame emits a voice so coolly resolute, it's frightening. The famous "whiteness" of her timbre is ideal. Virginal as Asteria is, she has integrity. To honour her father, she'd kill and die. Ostensibly Tamerlano is attracted by her beauty, but her personality is more than a match for his. Perhaps he's wise not to marry her. He's safer with Irene.

Asteria's purity is indicated in her simple white dress and pigtails. She's a princess from a long line of bluebloods, but rates moral integrity far higher than worldly power. Irene, in contrast, loves power and status, which is why she won't settle for second best. Renata Pokupić's Irene makes a grand entrance on the blue elephant, but spends most of the opera huddled under a black vieil. She's biding her time. She sang the role in Madrid in 2008, so she sings it with assurance.

As Tamerlano, Christianne Stotjin makes a debut both in the role and at the Royal Opera House. Although she's well known as a singer, Tamerlano is a tricky role. Few women can portray a tyrant as butch and as uncouth as Tamerlano must have been. Possibly more steel in the voice would have helped. Even though Tamerlano is prepared to spare Asteria, he isn't a nice fellow. Acting this part is difficult, as it doesn't remotely resemble Stotjin herself. Maybe she'll distance herself as the run continues and play it with greater abandon.

Sara Mingardo is new to the Royal Opera House, too, though she sang Andronico in Madrid. She's accomplished, but the part is very long and wordy. Handel wrote the whole opera in 24 days. Perhaps with more stringent revision he might have reshaped the part so it's less wordy and the singer doesn't have to stretch herself so far for relatively little purpose. Even Leone, a relatively minor but critical part is sung by a newcomer to the Royal Opera House, Vito Priante.

I'm not going to judge Mingardo's Andronico. The part has lots of words but not really all that much to say. The First Act would flow a lot better I think with much savagely removed. Not Mingardo's fault - she has to spread herself a long way for little dramatic purpose. Similarly, Renata Pokupić's making her Covent Garden debut as Irene. She has one brilliant star turn, when she arrives from Trebizond astride a blue elephant. It stops the show! it's funny, magical, like a children's book come alive. Humour does happen in Handel, more often that some would have it. There is something faintly ridiculous in all these folk rushing about handing kingdomwes out like candy.

Significantly, while Princess Irene loves status and power, Asteria doesn't give a stuff for worldly things. Here Christine Schäfer wears a simple white dress and pigtail, even though she's a princess too, albeit a prisoner. It's her beauty that makes Tamerlano lose his cool and fall madly in love, upsetting the power structure. Christine Schäfer is wonderful. If Handel had seen her, he might have called this opera Asteria. And she's debuting in the role, too! But with such ferocity and strength of commitment. Remember her Gilda in the ROH Rigoletto a few years ago? There's lots on this site about her, and her Handel (Partenope, Theodora etc).

Schäfer looks small and unprepossessing, then out comes this powerful voice. She's worked a lot with Kurt Streit before: last year they did a wonderful Partenope in Vienna which was broadcast - superb ! The dynamic between them is good.

So many debuts on one night and in a big production. It would be unfair to expect too much on a first night as singers need time to develop, and grow into their roles. They are human after all, and this was the biggest moment of their professional lives. I'd be under pressure too. Apart from Streit and Schäfer, these singers are relatively inexperienced in the genre. Instead of expecting perfection, what I liked was the freshness and enthusiasm, far more important in the long term.

MORE TO COME I'm so tired now
In the next few days :

Florian Boesch sings Lieder in Westminster
Kaija Saariaho does something-or-another in Paris and
Measha Brueggergosman comes out of her chrysalis.

Schubert Die Rose Schlegel

Es lockte schöne Wärme,
Mich an das Licht zu wagen,
Da brannten wilde Gluten;
Das muß ich ewig klagen.
Ich konnte lange blühen
In milden heitern Tagen;
Nun muß ich frühe welken,
Dem Leben schon entsagen.

Es kam die Morgenröte,
Da ließ ich alles Zagen
Und öffnete die Knospe,
Wo alle Reize lagen.
Ich konnte freundlich duften
Und meine Krone tragen,
Da ward zu heiß die Sonne,
Die muß ich drum verklagen.

Was soll der milde Abend?
Muß ich nun traurig fragen.
Er kann mich nicht mehr retten,
Die Schmerzen nicht verjagen.
Die Röte ist verblichen,
Bald wird mich Kälte nagen.
Mein kurzes junges Leben
Wollt' ich noch sterbend sagen.

Hong Kong Arts Festival Kun Opera Chinese music

The 38th Hong Kong Arts Festival is underway again. It's a good festival and of course takes place in one of the most exciting cities in the world ! The Festival is unique, because it brings together western classical traditions with Chinese.

This weekend the Suzhou Kun Opera Theatre of Jiangsu Province presents The Story of Jade Hairpin, one of the best loved Chiunese operas of all time. This is major. Kun opera is the most refined and literary form of Chinese opera, developed 600 years ago. Incredibly beautiful and powerful. Suzhou is famous for its scholars, beauties and gardens, it's the heartland of Chinese artistic culture. The Jade Hairpin ("a timeless tale of forbidden love and youthful passion") is one of the great classics of Chinese tradition, but the Suzhou Kun Theatre is way in the uppermost strata. This is a REALLY significant production, and people have been arriving in Hong Kong from all over not to miss it.

Any art form with such a pedigree is significant, particularly as the Suzhou tradition is the best, and part of world heritage. Traditionally, Kunqu operas were treasure chests of literary and historical reference, delighting the scholar classes that loved them. But they are also highly artistic, combining music, poetry, drama, dance and song. Think Wagner without bombast, 16 hours of Gesammstkunstwerk with a similar scale to the Ring, more delicate but the same universal psychological resonance.

This production has been devised by Professor Pai Hsien-yung, who has done more than anyone to revitalize Kun so it's accessible to the modern world. (his father was also a famous reformer). Peony Pavilion was a major blockbuster, from the same company. This link here is the most descriptive source about Prof Pai's Peony Pavilion in English, and there's also a link to where you get the DVD) Prof Pai's right to concentrate on the essential drama and universal appeal. Chinese opera isn't a niche, it's older and richer than anything in the west, and Kun is its greatest glory.

Last week there was a series of rarely performed vignettes from Cantonese Opera, which is closely related to Kun. Cantonese opera is lively and inventive, racier than Kun. It's very much a Hong Kong thing, (though many of the great stars of the past hailed from the area around Macau). This was "a phenomenal lineup.... the biggest gathering of Cantonese stars in over a decade".

Just as the growth of orchetras in the west 200 years ago sparked huge creative advances in western music, the rise of Chinese orchestras has galvanized Chinese music. Lots of new work, new composers. The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra is the Vienna Phil of Chinese Music and there'; a Hong Kong Sinfonietta, too, with the same clout of the London version. Chinese music's completely misunderstood in the west, so it's a huge challenge to make it better known.

I would, however, have made tracks for the Naamyam concert. Naamyam, which means "southern music". Again, Naamyam is significant beyond South China, even though it's a regional speciality. It's a traditional Cantonese narrative song, a singer and a few musicians at most, singing and telling stories to music. Traditional forms are used, but performers adapt and improvise, so the narratives are often topical. Before TV, this was a way ideas could be transmitted : during the Japanese coccupation, naamyam singers were arrested as spies.

Naamyam is siocial history as well as an art form. Once naamyam programmes were big hits on the radio and you could hear them in every tea house. Later, people switched to TV and pop, and naamyam singers ended up as beggars singing on the streets. The iong Kong Arts Festival is doing very important work in bringing together several singers, and showing how there are regional variants between Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong styles.

Our own London Plhilharmonia reurns to Hong Kong after 15 years, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi. Rene Jacobs and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra will be playing Hadyn and Mozart. Valery Gergiev brings the Mariinsky Ballet and Operas to Hong Kong. They'll be doing Don Quixote and Britten's Turn of the Screw, the production we saw at the ENO last year.

Hong Kong audiences are different. Lots of children and young people, and certainly not just for dumbed down "children's" events. In China every family that can afford it sends their child to music school. Most kids do piano grades like they'd do GCSEs. In the west, strange ideas about the sociology of music have developed which have nothing to do with music. In Hong Kong and in most of Asia, there's no baggage of social expectation, so there isn't a "problem".

Schubert Goerne Deutsch Wigmore Hall (2)

This second of two recitals of Schubert songs by Matthias Goerne and Helmut Deutsch at the Wigmore Hall showed the range of Schubert's interest in the poets of his time. This programme was brilliantly put together by someone who really knows the inner dynamic of Schubert's music.

Starting a recital with An die untergehende Sonne was daring. Immediately we're thrown into darkness. "Immer tiefer, immer leiser, immer ernster". The text may be peaceful, but the dizzying descent in the piano part hints at something more unsettling. Without a break, Goerne launched into Der Tod und das Mädchen. The tolling prelude makes it clear this "sleep" is death. The poet is Matthias Claudius, pictured here, but the concept goes right back to the Middle Ages, It permeates Schubert's aesthetic.

The theme recurs in Die Rose and Viola. Note the contrast between the two poems and Schubert's settings. Die Rose is a poem by Freidrich von Schlegel. It's beautifully, concisely written. The first stanza in particular scans so tightly, it's like music: no wonder Schubert was drawn to it. It's such a good poem, it's a joy to read and savour word by word. Schlegel covers a wide range of images in a few brief lines. Goerne respects each word, colouring and shading with nuance, so the rose comes alive in sound, before it slowly fades away.

In contrast Viola, to a poem by Schubert's rakish friend Franz von Schober. "Schneeglöcklein" runs the refrain. Six verses down the violet awakes. Seven stanzas later she flees "von der tiefsten Angst verfleischt". The violet's come out too soon and is frozen. Silver bells, bridegrooms, flowers anthromorphized so cornily that even Disney might cringe. Even Schubert struggles to make sense of the endless verses. Both Schubert and von Schober would have known Goethe's poem Das Vielchen, and Mozart's setting. Strophic ballads don't have to be maudlin. Goerne makes the song believable by singing without excess ornament. After Die Rose, it's hard to take Viola. It's a measure of Goerne's skill that he can pull it off.

Another very intelligent pairing : Auf dem Wasser zu Singen and Der Zwerg. Both songs describe death on the water, but in sharp contrast. In the former, Schubert's melody dances delicately, so you can almost see the schimmernden Wellen as the boat gently glides on the lake. Don't be lulled. The little boat is a metaphor for the passing of time. The poem, by Friedrich Graf zu Stollberg-Stolberg ( double barrelled prince) is altogether more sophisticated than the shock horror gothic in Der Zwerg. which ends in suicide-murder.

Matthäus von Collin's poem isn't bad, though. Rather than being a subtle mood piece it's a saga in miniature. The dwarf and the queen have a long, complex history. She willingly accepts being murdered, even absolving the killer. It's pretty kinky. Schubert doesn't exaggerate the lurid colours, though his setting is dramatic. This song is always a show stopper, it's so good. Again, Goerne doesn't give in to pathos, his singing giving the dwarf dignity and respect. That last line, An keiner Küste is so chillingly sung that Goerne hints that the real horror is yet to come. The dwarf might not escape in death, but be cursed to sail forever on the lake, trapped in time.

But as usual, Goethe gets the last word. Pairing An die Entfernte with Ganymed brings out another dynamic in this extremely well planned programme. The first ends with the plaintive call O komm, Geliebete, mir zurück, and the second contains the soaring phrase Ich komme, ich komme ! Wohin? Ach, wohin? Schubert emphasizes the significance of this phrase by setting it "in high relief", pauses on either side to accentuate the arc in the line. And then, hinab strebt's 's hinauf!, Goerne's voice lifting upwards, impressively. He catches the impatience in the song - Mir! Mir! and Aufwärts!. The stillness that prevailed before is now blown away by urgency. Just as the concert began with the downward spiral of An die untergehende Sonne, it ended with energetic animation, thrusting upwards.

Goerne Deutsch Schubert Wigmore Hall (1)

This was the first of two Schubert recitals by Matthias Goerne and Helmut Deutsch at the Wigmore Hall, London. Although the concerts don't duplicate the songs on their recent two CD set An Mein Herz on Harmonia Mundi, it's worth getting the recording as these are exceptionally fine performances.

I wish I could say the same of the start of the concert, because something seemed not right. Goerne and Deutsch both seemed distracted. Quite probably, few would have noticed the very small flaws - not mistakes, but very slight moments where the full force of what we've come to expect of Goerne didn't fully engage. In which case it probably helped not to know the CDs or how good he can usually be.

But Goerne and Deutsch are far too professional to let anything slip for long. Im Grünen, usually the forte of high sopranos, was dodgy. Since Goerne sings it flawlessly on the recording, he clearly doesn't have a problem with the tessitura. With the von Salis-Seewis settings, he settled : Ins stille Land was well shaped, legato seamless. But what makes Goerne the master he is, is his ability to inhabit a song and make it feel like real, lived experience, and this was a rare occasion when he was singing in "normal" mode. None of these songs are unfamiliar, so Goerne could sing them in his sleep, if he had to. Luckily, he's far too much of a perfectionist.

The Schulze settings, An mein Herz and Über Wildmann were more characteristically inward, Goerne warming to Schulze's frenzied idiom, which Schubert seemed to have understood only too well. Schulze's beloved existed in his fevered mind. These are not pretty, superficial songs.

After the interval, both Goerne and Deutsch were much more themselves. Deutsch's playing in An die Laute lilted insouciantly like a lute, contrasting with the hushed voice. Romantic as it is, this is a humorous song. The singer's trying not to wake the neighbours! After the excellent Schulze songs, I'd have liked more Mayrhofer but Goerne's sung them so often and so well, it would have been asking too much. He sang them last September so Augenlied and Liebesend had to suffice. Not Schubert's finest settings but thoughtfully performed.

An die Quelle is a test of a baritone's ability to sing lightly, skipping along at a brisk pace. Such crispness isn't a challenge for Goerne, whose voice is so flexible he switched easily from dark weight to sprightliness.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but even Wigmore Hall audiences these days aren't quite what they were, so concerts have to include popular works like Du Bist der Ruh and An die Musik. Which is fair enough, they're works of genius. Once I heard Goerne sing An die Musik so perfectly that the audience was stunned numb. Tonight, Goerne was "merely" excellent, Du bist der Ruh particularly well nuanced. But even when he's not on top form, Goerne is miles ahead of anyone else's best.

Get the CD set An Mein Herz. Harmonia Mundi, Obviously, recorded and live performance are different, but until you've heard that, you won't know what Goerne can do when he's really fired up. The pic shows Schubert with his friends. A glamourous bunch - Vogl, von Schober, von Spaun, even Grillparzer. Socially, Schubert was way out of his league, dependent on his wealthy friends for patronage. Much as they liked him, he was accepted because he could play and write the kind of music they could sing. Which is why they weren't that keen on Winterreise. Quite possibly it was because he looked like a geek and was poor, they didn't find his status threatening. Had he put the make on their sisters, that would have been another story altogether. These weren't friendships on equal terms. Schubert got holidays and housing, but he had to produce what pleased his patrons. No matter how brilliant he was, basically, he was a glorified servant, not really so different from Haydn, and even Goethe before him.

Sholto Kynoch : Messiaen Fantaisie

Please see this review by Fiona Maddocks of the new CD Fantasy. It "stands out for high-quality playing but also for the inclusion of three fascinating early works by Messiaen".

Combined on this disc are Schubert's Fantasie D 934 (op 159), Schoenberg's Phantasy op 47 and Messiaen's Fantaisie. This latter was only published in 2007, after it was found among Messiaen's papers. It's an important piece because it shares many ideas with Messiaen's L'Ascension, his creative breakthrough. This is the chamber version, connected to the more elaborate works for full orchestra and organ.

This is a very vivacious performance. Sholto Kynoch's playing is lively. He recognizes how the bold, emphatic chords frame the piece. and will become Messiaen trademarks. Yet he also recognizes Messiaen's fundamental clarity and warmth. It opens. as Kynoch states, " with a dramatic piano solo in quadruple octaves.....clearly demonstrating Messiaen's use of "additive rhythms whereby he slightly extends certain notes giving a unique dance feel and rhythmic drive".

Adamant as these rhythms may be, they're played with a bright, lightness of touch, so the violin part shines, too. Again, this is insight, for Fantaisie was a very personal piece. Messiaen wrote it as something he could play with his first wife, the violinst Claire Delbos. She was an established player in her own right, so this version is very much a partnership of two equals, much more so than the larger extended versions. Kynoch and Kaoru Yamada, the violinist, truly catch the affectionate, intimate spirit of the piece.

There are two other early pieces with a Messaien-Delbos connection, Thème and Variations and La Mort du Nombre. The first is interesting because it shows characteristics of the composer's later style. The second blends piano and violin with tenor and soprano, (Nicky Spence and Rhona McKail)

I've listened to Sholto Kynoch and Kaoru Yamada for many years, hearing them develop. Kynoch is an exceptionally good partner, possibly the best in his generation. It's a very rare skill, because it requires intuitive feel for text and the way it's expressed by voice as well as by piano. There are lots of good pianists, but very few with the ability to work with singers and bring out the best in partnership. For a debut recording, this is very good indeed, and a must for anyone interested in Messiaen and his music.

The disc comes from the small but enterprising independent Stone Records, and was recorded in the beautiful acoustic of the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford in December 2009 .