Music from Japan Barbican Takemitsu

The latest Total Immersion weekend at the Barbican Centre features Music from Japan. Or more specifically, the music of Toruy Takemitsu, Toshio Hosakawa, Jo Kondo, Dai Fujikura and other contemporary composers. This isn't "Japanese" music in a generic sense, but music created by composers who write modern music, enriched by influences from a tradition that's even older than the western.

In the film being shown on Saturday, Takemitsu is shown sitting in a garden, explaining how gardens are a metaphor for music. A garden is like an orchestra, he says, consisting of lots of different elements which a musician can arrange in whatever order seems best. You can increase the impact of some elements by massing them, or extend their colours by planting with others that complement the palette. Sometimes some elements capture the eye, such as autumn leaves, while others remain a backbone, like pines. Textures vary: sometimes the delicacy of spring blossom, sometimes the tough character of tree bark. Then, too, there are extras, maybe the sound of water trickling from a bamboo pipe, or the chirping of crickets, or wind blowing through leaves. Or even the pattern of shade thrown by a cloud in the sky. A gardener works with nature, not against it. Thus a composer works with an orchestra, extending it and encouraging it to grow, but finding his ideas organically and in balance.

Takemitsu's music exemplifies an aesthetic which combines music, philosophy and a general regard for high artistic standards in all aspects of life.

 
What's more, these composers, though modern, reach huge audiences even though their work is "new". Everyone who's seen films by Kurosawa, Mizugoshi and others has heard Takemitsu, Ifukube or Riuchi Sakamoto, so new music is absorbed naturally into audience consciousness. Indeed, movies are built around music, like Shohei Imamura's Black Rain  which is a tribute to Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings. (more about that piece and the film here)   In the west, people make a fuss about the image of classical music as "elitist". They should look to Asia, if they want insights into the future of classical music.

HERE's a link to the Barbican day. Before that, on Friday 1st there's an all-day conference co-hosted by the Institute of Musical Research and the GSMD. It includes a performance of Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II with pianist Noriko Ogawa. Here's a lovely clip :

Soile Isokoski Wigmore Hall Sallinen Dream Songs

Soile Isokoski and Maria Viitasalo made a welcome return to theWigmore Hall, London. Their recital was a masterclass in what singing really should be about: not simply sound production, but the expression of meaning. 

Isokoski has been singing Hugo Wolf since very early in her career.Her style is well suited to Wolf's songs.  No arch artifice here, no flashy exaggeration. Isokoski's natural, unforced simplicity portrays the young women in these songs as fundamentally nice people, even when they're flirting coquettishly. Auch kleine Dinge could be interpreted with sarcasm, since the lover 's main attrribute is that he's tiny. Isokoski's gentleness breathes sincerity. "Bedenkt, wie klein ist der Olivenfrucht", she declares, then delivers the punchline "und wird ihm ihre Güte doch Gesucht".

Isokoski has performed  Berlioz Nuits d'été (op 7)  many times. This was not quite as incandescent as I've heard her sing it in the past, but as compensation it was an opportunity to concentrate on listening to her technique.  Her foundations are so solid that you can admire her phrasing and carefully controlled modulation. If the lustre of her top was less than perfect, she made up for that with rich, almost mezzo warmth in the lower ranges. A voice might not be perfect at every time, but a really good singer knows when to use her strengths to communicate. No listener should expect recording-type results every time. Far better, I think, to hear someone like Isokoski manage her resources so wisely.

When Isokoski sang Richard Strauss Drei Lieder der Ophelia op 67 1918, she showed why she's such a good Strauss singer. Her Vier letzte Lieder from 2003, conducted by Marek Janowski, is  outstanding, even in a market full of good performances. Since Ophelia is a character from Hamlet, Strauss's settings lend themselves to dramatization. "Wie erkenn' ich mein Treulieb?" asks Isokoski sweetly, so the horror of the answer cuts sharply. "Er ist tot und lange hin".  When she sings about the naked corpse in Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloss, her voice transforms as if she's witnessing a miracle. "Kein Trauen bringt Gewinn". This connects to the Christian prayer in Karl Simrock's German translation.

Isokoski also makes a speciality of the songs of Charles Ives. Many Americans in Ives's time were recent migrants, so Isokoski's heavily accented English works rather well, creating an image of America as a vibrant melting pot.  In On the Counter (1920) Ives satirizes "the same old sentimental sound" of popular songs by writing rolling circular figures for the piano. Isokoski sings the words "I love you"in such a humourous way that you can hear why Ives couldn't stand trite tunes. Not all divas can let their hair down emotionally but Isokoski hums and whistles with such gusto that she evokes the merry crowd in the opera house in Memories A) Very pleasant . This isn't the Met, full of reverence, but an "opera house" in the old fashioned sense of the word, where people went to have fun and didn't care what anyone else thought.

Aulis Sallinen's Nelja laulua unesta (Four Dream Songs) (1972) are connected to his opera Ratsumies (The Horseman). There are probably more operas written in Finland than anywhere else, and Sallinen is a major composer. Soile Isokoski has made them a speciality, taking them into her repertoire at a very early stage in her career. .Anyone who has heard her sing Sibelius Luonnotar will understand why, for Sallinen's songs are powerful, unleashing supernatural, superhuman forces.

The cycle begins with a chilling piano introduction, suggesting snowfall and driving winds. A Man Made of Sleep appears, but what does he signify? The songs require extreme control of range." Hän ei nuku nukuttamalla", sings Isokoski, leaping suddenly up the scale from low, rumbling incantation.  In Finnish each vowel is pronounced clearly, and there are many vowels in each word, often with umlauts. The language itself shapes this music, and Sallinen repeats phrases to maximize the impact. "Nukkuu unta näkemättä, ei sitä uni herätä" (he is sleeping without dreaming, no dreaming will awake him). The pace cannot be rushed, syllables must resonate.

The third song, On kolme unta susäkkäin (Three dreams each within each) is perhaps the most disturbing and unsettling piece in the group. The piano tolls a staccato sequence, while the voice intones mysteriously. A woman is dreaming and within her womb, an unborn child is dreaming, too.  The mood is desolate, and Isokoski sings as if she's chanting a rune. "Minun täytyy syntyä ja koul" (I must be born and must die). Yet the line rises sharply upward, Isokoski's voice reaching crescendi before the sudden mood change in the last phrase. From thence, it's as if something powerful has been released. The final song is Ei mikään virta, (There is no stream that journeys so swiftly as life itself).  The final song hurtles forward. Words are repeated urgently,turbulently, Isokoski's voice crisp and agile.  "Kulkeva, kulkeva" (moving, moving) was enunciated high and clear despite the choppy pace. A tour de force, greatly appreciated.

Antique Shanghai Pop Music 1930-49

In the 1920's -40's Shanghai was the biggest city in the world, eclipsing New York. Before the 1840's, Shanghai was a small fishing village but its strategic position in the Yangtze delta meant that it was a gateway to the Chinese interior. Everyone in Shanghai was a migrant from somewhere else. Everyone's a newcomer, everything's new. This was a city that invented itself, a symbol of New China. Shanghai was so big, and its hinterland so vast, that it generated its own cultural momentum. HERE is a link to a programme which contrasts Chinese, western and Japanese music from the 1930's. Listen especially to the commentary, which is very well informed. Chinese popular music thrived in its own right, with its own self-generating market. It wasn't grafted on western roots, but sometimes adapted ideas from the west to Chinese expectations. These songs were by no means "covers" in the modern sense, but unique in their own right. Shanghai was sophisticated enough that anyone who really wanted western music could easily get it in nightclubs or on 78's. As long as attitudes to world culture are dominated by west-centric exclusiveness, we won't understand how audiences in China relate to classical music. And since China, Korea and Japan are possibly the future of classical music, we really need to know. Enjoy this download, it's free. More programmes available, just scroll down. Thank you Ling Tai Kor ! If you're interested, there's a lot more on this site about Chinese music, Shanghai, cross-cultural interactions, Chinese film and culture.

Weimar Lesbian exposé ? Mädchen in Uniform

Mädchen in Uniform (1931) is one of the great classics of Weimar film. Beautifully framed and shot, it's a work of art in sheer visual terms. But even more importantly, it was the first major film to depict lesbian love. Whatever your orientation, though, this film is so good it needs to be seen by everyone: it's a key moment in film and social history.

The script was written by Christa Winsloe, who also wrote the original play the film is based on. Winsloe was also openly gay, and circulated in avant garde circles in Munich and Berlin in the liberal days before 1933. It's partly autobiographical, since Winsloe was herself a motherless child incarcerated in a disciplinarian Prussian school. Boys were sent to military schools like this from an early age, so the story could apply just as well to men as to women.  One thinks of Frederck the Great, brutalized by his father, his artistic soul turned to steel.

The school is run by a tough old headmistress. Perhaps she was traumatized herself by the kind of society that placed duty, honour and self-sacrifice above all else. The girls wear strange uniforms and are subject to constant rules and inspections. Nonetheless, their natural vivacity wins out. They play, intrigue and concoct plans to beat the system. Into this milieu comes Manuela von Meinhardis (played by Herta Thiele), who is sensitive and dreamy. Desperate for any kind of affection, she falls hopelessly in love with a teacher, Fräulein von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck) who shows her a little basic kindness. This story could apply to any unhappy, neglected child, even without the lesbian context.  When I first saw the film in its post-war release, I didn't pick up the gay connotations at all. Even the notorious kiss scene came over as perfectly natural, which is as it should be.

Christa Winsloe's original play ends with Manuela's suicide. In the film, Manuela is rescued by her classmates as she hangs over the precipice over the staircase, which resembles a "well of loneliness", though Winsloe's play long predated Radclyffe Hall's novel of that name. While Fräulein von Bernburg in the play dares not stand up to the system, in the film she defies the headmistress and makes the keynote statement "What you call sin, I call the great spirit of love, which takes a thousand forms".

The reason for the change isn't because the film was produced by a man, as is sometimes suggested, but because the film was part of the socio-political aesthetic of Weimar cinema. Winsloe sanctioned the change to emphasize the difference between the values of the past and the "new" German spirit.  The producer, Carl Froelich, later became a Nazi, but the star Herta Thiele, associated with Berholt Brecht and Ernst Busch. She's the star of the socialist flagship movie Kuhle Wampe (1933)  (full download here) with music by Hanns Eisler. Thus, in line with socalist idealism,  Manuela is saved by her comrades and justice prevails. If only real life was as straightforward.

Hanns Eisler's music for Kuhle Wampe is so brilliant that it almost eclipses the film. I'll write more about it later, but there's quite a bit about Eisler on this site. The music for Mädchen in Uniform was written by Hansom Milde-Meißner, a name that rings bells but I can't track on Google (which is NOT a substitute for real learning). The music is atmospheric, evoking the bells of Potsdam, military trumpets and mysterious undercurrents. Listen to the final scene, where the headmistress walks away from Fräulein von Bernburg and her defiant outburst. The old lady is dignified, walking stiffly and slowly down a corridor. But the music goes berserk, wavering madly. Will the headmistress crack up, or will she further suppress her instincts and those whom she controls?

There is a remake of  Mädchen in Uniform from 1958, starring Romy Schneider. It's pretty good, but softer focus. The girls in the 1931 version stage Schiller's Don Carlos, while the girls in 1958 stage Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps this says something about the decline of modern popular culture. Good, well-educated Prussians would have realized what Don Carlos meant. Tyranny and the theme of thwarted love, absolutely the theme of Mädchen in Uniform.

If you like this read Franziska zu Reventlow, Queen of the Munich Secession,  Gay Salomé 1923,
Das blaue Licht -Leni Riefenstahl . Kuhle Wampe - full download and lots more on early Weimar film.

Faking the crisis in classical music ?

While the economy heads for triple-dip recession, and millions starve around the world, in the cosy bubble of classical music rings the perennial cry "Classical music is doomed". The latest wail comes from Max Hole, Head of Universal Music, who thinks that classical music will die unless its traditions change. As usual, the Chicken Little chorus sings "The sky is falling!".  Of course classical  music faces a difficult future. But it's easier to blame audiences and performers than for Big Industry to face up to the challenges of social and technological change.

Hole's business is the delivery of hardcopy in an era when the way we hear no longer depends on physical ownership. Owning a recording is not at all the same as listening. It's wonderful that we have recordings, so we can hear a wider variety of music than we could ever possibly hope to hear live. But is there a correlation between the spread of recordings and the supposed decline of interest in classical music? Will new methods of delivery, eg films, internet channels etc change the way music is heard? Until only very recently there wasn't quite such a divide between "classical" and "popular" taste. Richard Tauber could get away with making dreadful "exploitation" movies with Jimmy Durante (read more here) but Katherine Jenkins gets vicious abuse for singing arias for the plebs. Good for her! Personally, I'm secure enough in my taste not to worry what anyone else thinks. That, I think, is the crux of the problem. It's not music that's at fault but social perceptions.

Status signifiers are constantly changing. Once, you wore Burberry if you were rich and stodgy. Logically, the new rich covered themselves from top to toe. Once peasants slaved in kitchens. Now having an Aga implies domestic virtue. Every day, 4x4 drivers act out their Inner White Van Man. So snobbery about classical music has nothing to do with reality. The whole idea that classical music is somehow elitist is nonsense. The less people know about reality, the more they project their own false assumptions. It doesn't matter what orchestras or audience wear. Dressing down Days misfire because they reinforce the idea that clothes maketh the man. Social as they are, performances are really about music. Anyone who cares more about how they look (either way) than what they listen to is a fool.

A few years ago, the Royal Philharmonic Society paid for Alex Ross to come to London to make a keynote speech about the future of classical music.  All he actually said was that audiences should clap whenever they want to. The idea was picked up by the Guardian (as usual) and for a while some audiences dutifully applauded any chance they got.  But common sense prevailed, and thankfully the fad stopped. REAL audiences go for the music. There's nothing wrong with genuine, spontaneous applause, but very rarely are performances that exceptional that concentration should be broken so people can clap. It shouldn't be routine. There's nothing wrong with applause per se, but anyone who is really listening pays attention. Indeed, there seems to be a correlation between applause and boredom, especially in opera. Clapping gives people something to do with their hands when their minds aren't engaged. 

Another hole in the Hole argument is the idea of physical and architectural boundaries. "The very buildings in which you play are often seen as forbidding and not places many people think they’d be comfortable entering."  So we should pull down the Royal Opera House and torch the RFH?  Of course you can downsize the Ring, but it's not the same as a Ring in full glory. In any case it depends on the repertoire. Stockhausen and many in his wake wrote music that addressed the way music adapts to different performance spaces. You can put a string quartet in helicopters but they'll be doing something different to what they'd be doing at the Wigmore Hall. But they'd still be paying attention to the music and to each other, which is what performance is really about. Putting operas in pubs, and orchestras on the streeet might be smart marketing, but ultimately they're cheap gimmicks.

Above all, why assume people don't listen unless conditions are exactly right?  Lots of people come to classical music by accident, so to speak, listening randomly on the radio.  One of the reasons western classical music is popular in Asia is because it was often used as background music in movies, and often very well chosen. Youth ticket schemes are good because they show young audiences that they don't need to be intimidated by social expectation. With good sponsors, like Deutsche Bank, these schemes help venues pay the bills. But they also mean that regular patrons can't buy the seats they want, even though there are swathes of empty seats when you get there. But if there are no wealthy sponsors, venues lose out.

Similarly, it's short sighted to rely on celebrity gimmicks and presenters. What is the South Bank paying Alex Ross for the use of his name when the same concerts could have been put together by anyone?  He should be paying them for the publicity, not the other way around.  At a time when governmments are hostile to the arts, this suggests that venues have money to throw away. Public money shouldn't go to private profit. Anyone could have devised these concerts. Indeed, they reinforce a standardized, bland approach to repertoire that emphasizes conformity. Sure, audiences will flock to these concerts because they're safe and predigested.  Short term that makes accountants happy. But what are the long-term effects ? 

Passionately, I feel that music should be an adventure, with endless possibilities. Individualism, personality, pushing boundaries: these are the things I value in  music, and which I think audiences are mature enough to value as well.  All art thrives on creativity and freedom of spirit. That diversity that will save the arts, not quick-fix mantras.
 
 (Photo : Kevin Bowman)

Italo Montemezzi - L'amore dei tre re

Intrigue and adultery in 10th century Italy!  Italo Montemezzi's opera L'amore dei tre re (1913) is being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from Thursday 24th January, online and internationally for seven days. There are quite a lot of recordings of this opera, including one conducted by the composer himself in 1941 with Enzo Pinza, Charles Kullmann and Grace Moore. There's also a version with Anna Moffo, Placido Domingo, Cesare Scvipi and the London Symphony Orchestra, in the days when it did lots more opera than it does now. The BBC is broadcasting a performance from Polish Radio Symphony conducted by Lukasz Borowicz, which is available on CD, though not readily available outside Poland.

 L'amore dei tre re isn't exactly obscure, though it's not quite mainstream. It's interesting because it reflects Italian opera in a post Verdi, post Wagner flux, with elements of Puccini and Debussy. It's a symbol of early 20th century Italy, on the eve of the First World War..That war transformed Europe to the extent that any account of music history is worthless unless the trauma is taken into account. Things changed, not simply because fashion changed, but because the world could never be quite the same again.  So it's interesting to listen to Montemezzi's L'amore dei tre re and think of its underlying subtexts, particularly the trans-Alpine influences. Perhaps it's not entirely coincidental that librettist Sem Bennelli's melodrama focuses on the relationship between Avito, the rightful King of Altura, and the German Achibaldo, who conquered the land by force. Archibaldo's son Manfredo marries Fiora, who is faithful to Avito. In the murderous power struggle that follows, all are killed except Archibaldo, who is left alone and blind.

There's a new book Essays on the Montemezzi-D'Annunzio Nave by David Chandler who wrote and edited the two key works on Alfredo Catalani, composer of La Wally, both reviewed HERE in Opera Today. Chandler's book on Montemezzi is extremely important because it brings Montemezzi scholarship up to date. La Nave is a swashbuckling saga, with a libretto by no less than Gabriele d'Annunzio. Read more about it HERE. There are no commercial recordings of La Nave, so you'll have to study the score. Or listen to L'amore dei tre re, free on the BBC.

Nash Ensemble Wigmore Hall, Warlock Britten Bax RVW

Now this is the kind of music writing I love to read! Claire Seymour, the Britten specialist, on the recent Nash Ensemble concert at the Wigmore Hal.  Read the full review here in Opera Today. 

"..............The desolate tones of Peter Warlock’s darkly prophetic The Curlew, for tenor, flute, cor anglais and string quartet, dominated the first half of the concert. Setting four poems by W.B. Yeats, Warlock evokes an almost unalleviated mood of despair; much of the vitality of the music derives from the composer’s uncannily apposite setting of the text, and tenor Mark Padmore’s eloquent, unmannered delivery of the rhythmically elaborate text did much to communicate the vividness and immediacy of the work. The opening instrumental mood-painting was moving and atmospheric: the plangent cor anglais (Gareth Hulse) announcing the eponymous bird’s plaintive lament, answered by the gentle repetitive murmuring of the flute’s peewit (Philippa Davies). The players adroitly established the bleak vista before the first, delayed entry of the voice, “O curlew, cry no more in the air”. Throughout the instrumental fabric was clearly articulated, both solos and ensemble presenting thematic wisps with delicacy and dolefulness - a perfect illustrative backdrop for the melancholic texts. The string players wove an intricate web of tremolo and sul ponticello traceries, complementing the woodwind’s mournful diminuendos and echoes. "

"Padmore shaped the vocal lines intelligently, although perhaps he did not fully reveal the emotional disturbance at the heart of the work, for the text and score demand that we be truly discomforted and perturbed. But there was affecting contrast and drama. With the opening of final stanza of ‘The Withering of the Boughs’, the tenor evoked tentative intimations of hope and new life, warmed by a string rocking motif, which was then immediately and unequivocally destroyed by the voice’s exposed quasi parlando repetition: “The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.” The composer instructs the singer to use a “low tone - almost a whisper” and Padmore executed this challenging line with consummate control.................."

Jonas Kaufmann Weber Oberon

Jonas Kaufmann sings Huon de Bordeaux, Duc de Guienne, who has killed Charlemagne's son and is sent on a mission to kill Haroun el-Rashid, Caliph of Bagdad. He escapes with supernatural help from Oberon, King of the Elves. If that's not enough, Huon is marooned on an island with Reiza, the Caliph's daughter, who's captured by Brigands and sold into slavery. Wild tempests, stirring storms, exotic orientalism and more than a touch of forbidden sex with infidels. Also, magic hunting horns and Oberon, rushing to the rescue astride a swan. The story is based on an English translation of a German text based on a medieval French chanson de geste, Huon de Bordeaux. In the 8th century Charlemagne really did exchange emissaries with the Turks, but the love drama and fairy elements are sheer fantasy. What a heady mix! Carl Maria von Weber's Oberon shows how zany the early Romantic Imagination could be, still coloured by the wild, exotic excesses of the baroque.

Long before Jonas Kaufmann became a megastar, he sang a lot of this kind of repertoire. In the earliest recording I have of his, he's singing in the chorus, unnamed, in Robert Schumann's Der Rose Pilgerfahrt. Also from1998,  Kaufmann sings Hassan in Carl Loewe's Die Drei Wünsche. The part isn't big and he's placed last but if you want to hear Kaufmann in his Stuttgart period, this is the one to go for. Die Drei Wünsche. is a lot of fun and should be better known. It's worth hearing Kaufmann at this stage in his career, because his voice was so bright and pure. He seemed destined for stardom in early Romantic German and Italian repertoire. He succeeded, and more. This recording was made in 2003 and has now been reisuued.

So enjoy Carl Maria von Weber's Oberon in the vigorous recording conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. There are other major recordings notably Keilberth, 1953 available on Opera Today which is not commercially available, and the 1971 version which Kubelik conducts with big-name cast (Prey, Domingo, Nilsson, Auger, Grobe). These have been reissued in different forms, some without dialogue, but for me, spoken dialogue is an essential part of the experience. Maybe modern audiences don't have the patience or empathy for opera other than on their own terms: witness the incomprehension meted out to Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable in the London press. But we need to appreciate repertoire as it might have been for its contemporaries. In this year when we'll be inundated with indifferent Verdi and Wagner, we need more than ever to remember they didn't define the form.

So John Eliot Gardiner's version is a good compromise. Naturally, it's authentic, as the work was originally created in English for Covent Garden in 1826.  A narrator (Roger Allam) speaks the narrative around which the singing hangs. And we get Jonas Kaufmann singing Huon the Hero, exqusitely well. This is Lohengrin in embryo. In the lovely aria "From Boyhood", Kaufmann sings an extremely high note which fades into low strings, before developing an elaboration of the words "For life without honour, I live not to see". Kaufmann sings with a heavy German accent which is a positive accent for the text is so un-English  it would sound daft otherwise. Huon after all is Frankish, consorting with fictional Turks, Arabs and Fairies.

The last thing we need in Oberon is heavy-handed literalism. Because Gardiner conducts the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique on authentic instruments, the dynamic is fleet, elegant and spirited. Oberon is magical fantasy and needs to fly free to be truly effective. The singing in Kubelik is more accomplished, but refinement isn't really idiomatic. Kaufmann and the cast around him shine because Gardiner's orchestra brings out the period clarity that is in the music. The hunting horn which plays such a role in this opera really sounds like a hunting horn, whether played quietly as if from a distance or loudly sounding alarm.  The "oriental" sequences aren't authentic, but all the more fun becuase they're invention. The storm music is magnificent, played with gusto, the intruments pushed to the limits. Period performance isn't precious. It connects better to the lively spirit of early Romantic music theatre where everyone knew they were experiencing fantasy, not cinematic realism.

Baroque Rocks Barbican

Baroque rocks the Barbican! Plenty of good things coming up this year. The Barbican is on to a good thing with baroque and chamber operas because the hall is neither too small nor too cavernous. Concert performances also let us focus on voice and the unique purity of period instruments. See Robert Hugill's article  in Opera Today for more details of the next three concerts coming up in the next month - Joyce DiDonato, Handel Radamisto and Lully's Phaeton. Read the full article here, it's a detailed and informative summary of the treasures to come. Joyce DiDonato's programme is very interesting, so this should be a treat.
 
Handel Radamisto on 10/2 promises to be a treasure, too. David Daniels singing the title role in a concert performance with Harry Bicket conducting the English Concert with Patricia Bardon as Zenobia, Luca Pisaroni as Tiridate, Elizabeth Watts as Tigrane, Brenda Rae as Polisenna and Robert Rice as Farasmene. The ENO Handel Radamisto (here) was good, but the Barbican cast is grande luxe.

"Christoph Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques perform Lully’s Phaeton with Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Ingrid Perruche, Isabelle Druet, Sophie Bevan, Andrew Foster-Williams, Matthew Brook, Benoît Arnould, Cyril Auvity, Virginie Thomas", writes Hugill, "Lully wrote the opera to a libretto by his regular collaborator Philippe Quinault and the work premiered at Versailles in 1683. Its plot, dealing with the hubris of Phaeton, son of the Sun god, can be seen as an allegory of the punishment awaiting those mortals who dare to raise themselves as high as the sun (i.e. the Sun King, Louis XIV). The opera is the 10th of Lully’s 14 tragedies lyriques. As with all operas in the form, it mixes aria with choruses and extensive dance episodes which are integrated into the plot."  Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques are among the best in the business. Even if you're not a baroque specialist, this will be a good experience.
 
On May 29th Christopher Hogwood conducts Handel Imeneo with the Academy of Ancient Music. David Daniels, Rebecca Bottone, Lucy Crowe, Vittorio Prato and Stephan Loges. On 15th June, Paul Agnew and Les Arts florissants bring us Monteverdi Madrigals. The really hot ticket, though, will be John Eliot Gardiner's 70th Birthday celebration on 25th April. He's conducting the LSO. Not baroque, not period instruments but Stravinsky Appollon musagete and Oedipus Rex.  Appollon s a ballet,  and Oedipus Rex is stylized, almost ritualistic. They are 20th century pieces but could be invigorated by JEG's energetic, period-informed liveliness.
photo of Joyce DiDonato credit Sheila Rock

When icicles hang by the wall

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
Tu-who! Tu-whit! Tu-who! --

A merry note! While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
 And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Then nightly sings the staring owl: Tu-who! Tu-whit! Tu-who! -- A merry note!

Shakespeare's Winter Song from Love's Labour's Lost.  Listen out for the owl's cry, accompanied by flute. Atmospheric and humorous. Who thinks early music can't be fun?

This version from Passacaglia, soprano Julia Gooding. "A track from Passacaglia's 2010 album 'A Cheerful Collection - Songs and Sonatas from London's Pleasure Gardens' (BCR003). Performed by Passacaglia with Julia Gooding (soprano). CD available worldwide from http://www.barncottagerecords.co.uk and as a download from iTunes, Amazon and most other online music stores. For more information about Passacaglia visit http://www.passacaglia.com"

John Tomlinson The Minotaur Birtwistle Royal Opera House 2013

 John Tomlinson stole the show - deservedly - in the revival of Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House. Thunderous applause and then a surprise. A table was wheeled onto the stage with a giant cake. "We're celebrating Sir John Tomlinson's 35 years at the Royal Opera House" said Antonio Pappano, beaming with joy.  "I wasn't expecting this", said John Tom, visibly moved. We can see curtain calls anytime, but this one we will never forget. The house roared approval.

Harrison Birtwistle wrote the The Minotaur  as a gift to John Tomlinson because it's a role he could be singing well into old age, long after he ceases to sing other parts.  Tomlinson's acting skills are so strong that he can dtraw on inner reserves few others can tap. Any gruffness in the voice becomes a positive asset because it expresses the ravages the Minotaur has experienced. When Tomlinson sounds vulnerable, he's showing how the Minotaur, for all his ferocity, is himself vulnerable. He shows us the man Asterios, behind the mask. Half naked, and with a tail, Tomlinson manages to look both strong and fragile at the same time. He shows just how young the creature really is, younger than Ariadne, closer perhaps to the Innocents whom he is forced to kill.

Although the cadences sway upwards and downwards, like the paradoxes in the plot, the middle register is warm and natural, the lines ending in diminuendo. At the very end, Birtwistle clothes the Minotaur’s dying moments with remarkably subtle counter-tempi. The Minotaur is at last liberated from the prison that is his body, and for a few moments his soul is expressed in music of great purity. This is a role that needs sensitive, thoughtful interpretation, and John Tomlinson has its full measure. "Between most and least, between man and beast, ...next to nothing". As the Minotaur dies, the small boy within the monstrous frame is released. The mighty John Tomlinson becomes a frightened lad with stumpy, childlike legs, singing a broken lullaby. It is almost impossible to imagine another singer bringing to the role  Tomlinson's depth of characterization. We were indeed priviledged to have had another chance to hear him as The Minotaur. I, for one, shall never forget.

Because I've written about The Minotaur and about Harrison Birtwistle so many times over the years, I don't need to write another "review" as such, even though my ideas continue to develop that I could write volumes.  Birtwistle has written another intricate maze. a "place with more dead ends, more flaws and fault-lines than the human heart”. But you could read more HERE and HERE 

and HERE (Ruth Elleson's review of the premiere).

Much credit to the Royal Opera House for commissioning and reviving The Minotaur which looks set to become a classic. Good performances from Christine Rice, Johan Reuter, Alan Oke, Andrew Watts, the choruses and Elisabeth Meister, a striking leader of the Keres.

photo credit : John Tomlinson as the Minotaur, Bill Cooper, Royal Opera House

Moses und Aron - WNO joins ROH

Great news! The Royal Opera House is teaming up with the Welsh National Opera. Starting summer 2014, the WNO will have a residency in London at the ROH. First production will be Schoenberg Moses und Aron which in  itself will be a big event. Then, Richard Ayres’s Peter Pan in 2015 and a new main stage commission in 2016 to mark WNO’s 70th anniversary.

As I've said before, this is a sensible rationalization of opera resources throughout the country. Co-operation rather than fragmentation means companies get greater coverage. Diversifying also preserves the individuality of different houses. Everyone benefits, especially audiences who get better choice. Kaspar Holten and Antonio Pappano are on to a good thing, building upon links with Music Theatre Wales, Scottish Opera, etc etc. The arrangements the ROH had with the Bolshoi and Russian comapnies in the past weren't well received, but WNO is a different prospect.  See my post on WNO's British Firsts series here which mentions Richard Ayres Peter Pan (Cardiff for 2015  as well as ROH) and Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland (Cardiff  2017, and ROH same year, soon after)

WNO’s Chief Executive and Artistic Director David Poutney said:
‘We are thrilled to have the chance to present over the next three years some of our most ambitious programming within the prestigious surroundings of the Royal Opera House – a superb platform for WNO’s work and an enrichment of the ROH repertory. This three-year programme creates artistic gains for both organizations, which are keen to affirm the importance of artistic collaboration and ambition in a time of financial stress’
Director of The Royal Opera Kasper Holten commented:
‘In this era, collaboration is key, and I believe that the more opera companies can collaborate and work together, the stronger case we will all be able to make for opera – and the wider choice of repertory we will be able to offer. I am thrilled about David’s exciting plans for WNO over the next few years, and we are very happy to be able to showcase some of the company’s most exciting projects in three consecutive years.’

Artur Schnabel, Eichendorff and Football

What connects Josef Freiherr von Eichendorff, the Prussian poet and administrator, with Artur Schnabel, the pianist, and Manchester City Football Club? Bert Trautmann, the football player who broke his neck during the 1956 FA Cup Final and continued to play on. Trautmann escaped death because one of the vertebrae in his neck wedged at an angle so that his spine and throat weren't severed. All his life, Trautmann seems to have defied the odds. Joining the Luftwaffe aged 17, he served in a parachute regiment in Russia, where only 90 of his 1,000-man divison survived. He's still alive, aged 90, having lived in England, Wales, Germany, Spain and Burma. A kind reader lent me the book Trautmann's Journey (Catrine Clay 2010).

So how does Artur Schnabel fit in?  One of Trautmann's comrades was Heinz Schnabel, nephew of the pianist. Heinz Schnabel was called "Der Alte" because he was in his late 30's while most of the unit were teenagers. Schnabel  was a dapper gent but tough as nails, having parachuted into Crete before serving on the Eastern Front. Trautmann and Schnabel were posted to defend the bridges at Arnhem in 1945. In the tension, Schnabel began to recite a poem. It was Eichendorff's Sensucht. Trautmann hadn't experienced anything but the Nazis. Schnabel, however, was old enough to remember another more cultivated world, where what his uncle stood for was respected.  So Trautmann, who'd been a Hitler Youth because he didn't know anything else, was huddled with Artur Schnabel's nephew, part Jewish war hero.

To Trautmann the poem was lovely and reminded him of childhood. Schnabel chose well, for the poem refers to "zwei junge Gesellen" far from home, in a rugged landscape, singing as they head forth.

Es schienen so golden die Sterne,  Am Fenster ich einsam stand
Und hörte aus weiter Ferne Ein Posthorn im stillen Land.
Das Herz mir im Leib entbrennte, Da hab' ich mir heimlich gedacht:
Ach wer da mitreisen könnte In der prächtigen Sommernacht!

Zwei junge Gesellen gingen Vorüber am Bergeshang,
Ich hörte im Wandern sie singen Die stille Gegend entlang:
Von schwindelnden Felsenschlüften, Wo die Wälder rauschen so sacht,
Von Quellen, die von den Klüften Sich stürzen in die Waldesnacht.

Sie sangen von Marmorbildern, Von Gärten, die über'm Gestein
In dämmernden Lauben verwildern, Palästen im Mondenschein,
Wo die Mädchen am Fenster lauschen, Wann der Lauten Klang erwacht,
Und die Brunnen verschlafen rauschen In der prächtigen Sommernacht.

photo : Old El Paso

Birtwistle The Minotaur - remembering Philip Langridge

Sirt Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur starts Thursday at the Royal Opera House.  It's a landmark in modern British opera.  "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".

Nash Ensemble Wigmore Hall Warlock The Curlew

The Nash Ensemble are a treasure, one of the finest chamber ensembles in this country. Their flexibility allows them to explore repertoire in many forms. With their unusually sensitive, intelligent choice of programmes, they revitalize the way we hear things.  Perhaps the Irish connections in this Wigmore Hall recital inspired the strange mysticism  that made this programme so very special.

Sir Arnold Bax identified passionately with a magical vision of Ireland. The opening chords of the oboe in Bax's Oboe Quintet (1922)  suggest a more primeval version of the Shepherd's flute in Tristan und Isolde. Is Bax referring to the irisch Kind, and to Isolde's tragic past? Gareth Hulse played with assertive, though melancholy grace. This is an inherently dramatic piece,the oboe operating as a voice, calling out into the distance, answering itself with sensual reverie, the high passages tearing at one's emotions.  The plaintive central movement, the lento progressivo, might suggest half-remembered folk music, but it's too sophisticated to be a mere quote.The Nash Ensemble, who make this piece something of a speciality, created the jig finale with wild, jaz- like energy. Bax knew Ireland too well to over-sentimentalize, particularly in the wake of the Easter Rising.  His archaic Irish dream lives in the period in which it was written.

In contrast, Elgar's early encores for violin, Salut d'amour (1889), Chanson de matin and Chanson de nuit sounded genteel though played with poise (Marianne Thorsen) . If Bax suggests open seas and open skies,  Elgar here suggests Victorian propriety. We appreciate both when heard together. Both composers set the context from which Peter Warlock's The Curlew was to arise.

Warlock's The Curlew deserves to be recognised as one of the masterpieces of British music., and indeed of modern European music as a whole. It's shockingly prophetic. Warlock started writing it in 1921, when Benjamin Britten was 8 years old, still at home with his mother, a detail which is poignantly relevant to Britten's situation. Although I don't know if Warlock's score is in Britten's library, it would seem that he almost certainly knew the piece, as it's startling how much it presages Britten's later work. The Curlew contains the long, keening lines, the tonal ambiguity, the hovering between old forms and new, and above all the sense of uncompromising fatality we hear so often in Britten. The utter desolation in Britten's Curlew River might have its roots in The Curlew. Even Peter Grimes might be distant kin  to the doomed soul in Warlock.

The Curlew begins with plaintive cor anglais  reminiscent of the oboe in Bax's Oboe Quintet. Gareth Hulse was kept busy. The mood deepens with viola and cello (Lawrence Poweer, Paul Watkins), evoking the idea of endless sky and sullen earth, Warlock responds perceptively to W B Yeats by establishing the oppressive atmosphere long before the entry of the voice (Mark Padmore). "Oh, Curlew, Cry no more," Padmore sings "....there is enough evil in the crying of the wind". The Curlew isn't song in the conventional sense but a tone poem with voice. Notice too the drooping diminuendoes, dragging down the creature of flight, and the back and forth chords the cello defines.  These are significant for they suggest a bleak panorama.

Yet the landscape here is nternal, not external. Three times Warlock repeats Yeats's line "No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind: the boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams". In the third strophe of the third song, Warlock writes exotic lyricism: one can also hear the call of some distant bird. But it's an illusion. The phrase repeats for the last time in hollow monotone, declaimed in half whisper, rather than song. The voice is silenced while the instruments speak in hushed murmurs. Guided by the cor anglais, the voice returns once more for the final, minimally accompanied song before it breaks off into sudden silence.

Warlock's The Curlew is such a disorienting piece that it is not comfortable to listen to in the communal environment of a recital hall. Alone, in the darkness and in private, you can give yourself  wholly to the piece and experience its searing impact. The Nash Ensemble have had The Curlew in their repertoire for years and are  perhaps its finest interpreters.  Padmore sings clearly, but doesn't have the surreal, poisoned intensity that John Mark Ainsley and others bring. The Curlew is such a queer bird that I don't think its strangeness can be fully realized without a disturbing emotional edge to the singing.

After The Curlew, I'm usually too ravaged to listen to anything, but in the real world, concert-goers need something relaxing to send them home.  Since the Nash Emsemble can call on Craig Ogden, they can present Benjamin Britten's Songs from the Chinese op 58 (1957). for voice and guitar. Perhaps Britten chose guitar because it vaguely replicates Chinese plucked instruments like the pipa or zheng, but experienced performers are few and far between in the west. The guitar adds an oddly Spanish timbre which for me contradicts the "Chinese" nature of the poetry, even in the westernized translation by Arthur Waley.  Padmore was more in his element here. In The Old Lute, the voice part is written to suggest the sound of a lute, whose sound is "still cold and clear", Padmore stretching the o-o-o-o in the vowels so they perceptibly chill. Similarly, Britten writes a turbulent rolling rhythm into The Autumn Wind which Padmore sings with elan.

The concert ended with another Nash Ensemble speciality, Ralph Vaughan Williams String Quartet in C  minor (1898). This fell into such obscurity that it was not heard in public until the Nash performed it at the Wigmore Hall nearly 100 years later. It's pleasant if undemanding. I was reminded of the line in The Old Lute, "How did it come to be neglected so ? Because of the Ch'iang flute and the zither of Ch'in"


photo of full Nash Ensemble : Hanya Chlala ArenaPAL