DANGER ! Xenakis at Aldeburgh

“Dulce periculum est” (danger is sweet), ends the ode from Horace set by Wolfgang Rihm, Quo me rapis. The poet is going where “nothing is slight, mundane or mortal”, yet relishes the unknown. It’s a metaphor for art.

Xenakis, a political radical, dedicated Nuits to “unknown political prisoners……the thousands of forgotten whose very names are lost”. Hence the fragmentation of sound. He uses broken syllables from Sumerian and ancient Persian texts. Phonemes express the idea of half-heard “voices”, and of ruthless suppression. Polyphony creates tumult more powerfully than straightforward word setting. In its own way, Nuits is as concisely aphoristic as a Kurtàg miniature, for the voices here symbolise vast forces, thousand of people silenced over many centuries. Exaudi employs a range of techniques like growls, whistles, the chattering of teeth to expand in sound the idea of fragmented words, each fragments building up a powerful wall of sound. Some of the wailing vowel sounds are held so long it’s as if Exaudi members were practising circular breathing. This makes the sudden, last syllable sound even more distressing, as it cuts off, strangled, in mid air.

.... Xenakis’ Kottos, for solo cello. Rohan de Saram is probably its finest exponent ever. I’ve heard him play this several times, but this was truly stunning. In his quiet, unassuming way he said a few words before starting to explain that Kottos was the son of Gaia, the primordial earth goddess. The full story is gruesome, pitting father against son in titanic struggle. As de Saram says “it’s like Quranos is pushing Kottos back into the womb”. De Saram does amazing things : long, protracted growls of sound scraping at the lowest possible range of the instrument, manically fast microtonal flourishes executed with great precision. Towards the end, de Saram plays conflicting rhythms with such energy that the music seems to levitate on its own dynamism. Look again at the photograph above, where five images of de Saram are superimposed on one another. Kottos is polyphony for a single instrument

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/aldeburgh20062.htm

Harding Mahler 10 new !

Really interesting recording, this :

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/June08/Mahler10_Harding_4777347.htm

“Mahler goes in such an extreme direction. The music is in a way so modern and unexpected, that if you listen to it a first time it’s very possible to be confused by the modernity and the extreme nature of the musical language”.

Promstime !

It's Proms time again and we can all listen together ! This gives links to the schedule and details of how to listen from all over the world.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/proms2008.html

Lieder Gloom and Doom

On a summer Sunday afternoon, out in the countryside around Aldeburgh, do you really want doom and gloom ? But if you like Lieder, doom and gloom are must haves ! So it was nice to sit in Blythburgh church where the walls, floors and ceilings contain tombs and listen, to a nice programme of deathridden Schubert. Like Totengrabers Heimweh where the gravedigger has just finished yet another grave for someone and thinks,"Gee, that's cool and peaceful ! Wish I were dead" He looks at a cross nearby, and BINGO ! He gets his wish and drops dead, into the welcoming hole.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2008/Jan-Jun08/aldeburgh1506.htm

But Goerne, that's the Man.....His concert at the Wigmore Hall was in another league altogether even tho' something was wrong with P-L Aimard, who is usually pale but on this occasion was as white as expensive "High Bright" printer paper. The interaction between the two really was something. After decades of listening to Lieder (yes) , concerts like this show that there is always something to learn from.

See review

Ives's Unanswered Question, Aldeburgh

Saturday night I was at a concert with an interesting programme :

Haydn : Symphony no 22 "The Philosopher"
Schoenberg : Three Pieces for Chamber Orchestra
Kurtág : Doodles for András Mihály´s Birthday, Ligatura - message to Frances-Marie (also known as The Answered Unanswered Question)
Webern : Fünf Sätze, (Five Movements for String Quartet)
Ives : The Unanswered Question
Mozart: Piano Concerto No 26 "The Coronation"

Haha ! Try this one at home and see why it is so interesting. It operates on many levels - celebration music, the idea of play, experiment, aphorism, questions, dialogue etc. Lots to get from it that might not catch the ear on a single hearing.

The "obvious" cliche there is that it's mixing Mozart and Haydn with Kurtag, Ives etc. But it's not nearly as simple as that. Note the Mozart and Haydn pieces, not big, famous blockbusters but pieces which are fairly open ended. The Mozart for example allows for extended improvisation and isn't "complete" in the formal sense. And the Haydn is a kind of exploration of the possibilites of symphonic form. So, "old" as they may be they are "new" in spirit, (and were new music in their time).

Then the Kurtag, Webern and Schoenberg miniatures, each concise explorations....played without a break, then Ives The Unanswered Question. It's was wonderful to hear Ives framed in this way, a kind of "coronation". This was a very high profile concert indeed, the first real music concert of the current Aldeburgh Festival.

Aldeburgh is unique. It was founded by Benjamin Britten but is definitely not a Britten exclusive. On the contrary. Look it up on google for an idea of what they do. All kinds of people come tho' it's way out in the country and hard to reach without a car. (In England lots of people don't drive). Lots of serious music folks from Europe and also lots of ordinary local people for whom it's the main event of the year. It's an excellent mix for exactly that reason. For me it was wonderful to hear what the locals thought of Ives. In this context they seemed to immediately "get" where Ives was coming from, it was a joy to hear how thrilled they were. These days, there's a lot of nonsense about atonality "having" to be difficult and impossible. People swallow the myth and switch off. Instead here they were just presented with Ives on his own terms, and no prejudices at all !

Before the concert someone asked Aimard who conducted, "Will Schoenberg ever be popular". If the guy was expecting Aimard to sneer at Schoenberg, he was wrong. Aimard said "Why should anyone HAVE to be popular?" It's more important that composers have integrity and ask the questions than pander to "popular" values. And this audience proved that ordinary people can respond, given a chance.

Messiaen St Francis in Amsterdam

Here's a hilarious review of Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi in Amsterdam.

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2008/06/st_francis_in_a.php

A lot of it I think is getting into Messiaen's mind set. Once you slow down, the repeats repeats repeats are actually quite fun.

Peony Pavilion DVD

Here's where you can buy the reissue of the DVD set of this Chinese opera. Have a look ! GREAT pictures ! This is also one of the good sites for Chinese music and DVDs in general. It's the production first heard in 1998, but without the beautiful pink silk presentation box it was originally released in. Please see 6he detailed review by clicking on the link "Chinese opera" at the right edge of the screen. There is quite a lon on kunqu and Chinese music on this blog.
http://www.cgcmall.com/Kun_Opera_Peony_Pavilion_p/dv00kppy.htm

The Peony Pavilion, Chinese kunqu opera

Last week I attended the Peony Pavilion, a 16th century Chinese opera. It was fun ! Anyone can enjoy Chinese opera if they have a mind to - it's universal

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/kunqu06.htm

John Adam's A Flowering Tree

Jim Zychowicz at the Chicago production of John Adams A Flowering Tree :

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/
Jan-Jun08/adams2505.htm

Messiaen and Chinese opera ?

Messiaen and Chinese opera ? But yes ! These last few weeks I've been listening to Messiaen's St Francis of Assisi and to the Chinese Kunqu Opera The Peony Pavilion. Maybe that colours my impressions. But think about it.

Messiaen writes humongously long pieces comprising of many episodes. So does Mu Dan Ting (Chinese for Peony Pavilion). Both can be appreciated in smaller doses. Traditionally in Chinese opera you can walk in and out, go eat (we're Chinese !!!!), whatever because you "know" the wider picture and can pick up. Similarly, most people "know" the gist of Messiaen's religious beliefs. Like the Stations of the Cross, you can focus on any one aspect at a time because you know the context.

Yesterday i was in Amsterdam t0 see the new Audi production of Messiaen's opera Francis of Assisi. All 6 and 1/2 hours !!! The first act's about philosphy. No action, plot etc just guys talking until the leper appears, like light relief. Maybe that's designed to drive away those who can't cope with ideas and want action at all costs. The next two acts are livelier so if you've past the test of the first, you're part way there. I dozed off in the first act as there was no air conditioning in the crowded auditorium and I'd drunk a bit of wine. But that, too, tells something about the frame of mind you need to elate to St Francis. You've got to get out of "normal" mode.

To a monk, 6 1/2 hours of contemplation is no big deal at all. So to get St Francis you have to get away from the frantic stressed out crazy world outside and enter monk mode. It's not that difficult. People lived less hectic lives in the past, and took their time. Same with Chinese opera. You don't need to grab it all at once. Dim sum, so to speak, small doses that build up.... Messiaen restructures the idea of time. Slow down, he says, and savour my dim sum, don't wolf it down and rush out. Useful lesson in life.

And of course the plot line. In Mudan Ting the heroine dreams about a lover and gets her portrait painted so when she dies someone might see her picture and think of her. Teenage death obssession long before emo and goths. So she promptly dies. But amazingly, the guy in her dream turns up and falls in love and takes her out of her grave. Where have we come across death and resurrection before ? Or the idea that love overcomes all ? St Francis doesn't get resurrected like Christ or like Du Liniang (the heroine) but his soul pops up off the deathbed and sings because he's found eternal life on another plane.....

Then the orchestration ! All that percussion, yet also the idea of silence, of small, expressive details that build up to a whole. And the sense of fluidity. When i was a kid, we used to play Chinese opera. As long as you had an idea of the plot and mannerisms, like hand movements amnd singing conventions, there was a fantastic amount of freedom and improvisation. We kids used to sing "Ai, yah yah...." and flutter about, our arms held in expressive angles while other kids beat time on their lunch boxes. Kunqu opera may be 700 years old, but it's a living art, with lots of freedom within form. Similarly, Messiaen writes formal notational scores, but gives a lot of interpretative freedom. Very idiomatic, Metzmacher's conducting. Even the ondes martenot and wind machine sounded beautifully integrated - no horror movie connotations here.

PERE UBU, Roi de l' Avant-garage

Pere Ubu, Roi de l' avant-garage, Cleveland's gift to the world... There is NOTHING like Pere Ubu in the incarnation of David Thomas. Everything about him defies pigeonholes. This spring in London he appeared with a new work, if work is what he does. One writer looked up Pere Ubu on the net and discovered the name comes from a play by Jarry in 1895. So the critic, in his infinitely superior snob wisdom declared "It's not as good as the original !" How could he know ? It wasn't the kind of thing you do authentic performances of. But maybe that writer is more surreal than he knows since he could review something he neither saw nor knew beans about. The things about absurdist dada avant garde is that fakers cannot understand !

http://ubuprojex.net/caveatemptor.html
http://users.rcn.com/obo/ubu/ubu_story.html
http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2008/Jan-Jun08/ubu2504.htm

Nono - No hay caminos, hay que caminar

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2007/Jul-Dec07/nono0110.htm

Luigi Nono: Fragments of Venice: (Opening concert) London Sinfonietta / Diego Masson (conductor) Queen Elizabeth Hall, 1. 10.2007 MARK BERRY

Nono - Incontri

Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony no.1, Op.9

Nono - Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell' op.41 di Arnold Schoenberg

Nono - 'No hay caminos hay que caminar ... Andrej Tarkowskij'


How wonderful for the South Bank Centre to be celebrating Luigi Nono! It is about time someone did, the only other major retrospective of his work in this country of which I am aware having been at Huddersfield in 1995. This series will reach its climax next May with the British premiere of Prometeo, his 'tragedy of listening'. For this concert, we were treated to three varied works, plus a masterpiece from his posthumous father-in-law, Arnold Schoenberg. Proceedings had commenced even before the concert, with a conversation between Christopher Cook and Nuria Schoenberg-Nono, the composer's widow (and Schoenberg's daughter). She provided an informative and at time moving insight into her late husband's beliefs and methods, not least his instruction from Bruno Maderna, who had encouraged him to compare responses compositional problems in composers old and new, for instance Gabrieli and Webern, Ockeghem and Schoenberg. Hermann Scherchen also emerged as a hero of the tale. We also heard a most sympathetic account of the heady days of 1950s Darmstadt, not as some quasi-totalitarian Ministry of Serialist Truth but as a place of openness, experimentation, and - perhaps most interestingly - as a meeting-place for those who had survived the horrors of fascism with the post-war avant garde. Tradition and its development played a much greater role than myths of a 'year zero' have allowed.

The concert began with a few words from the pianist John Constable concerning the recently deceased London Sinfonietta flautist, Sebastian Bell, to whom the concert was dedicated. Berio's brief Autre fois, composed for flute, harp, and clarinet, in memory of Stravinsky, was performed - most beautifully - in Bell's honour.

We then proceeded to the 'encounters' of Nono's 1955 Incontri, for twenty-four instruments. The two independent structures of which Nono wrote, emerged independently of one another, through differentiation of rhythm, melody, harmony, and timbre. And yet they came together too, unable to escape each other, and producing something more through their encounters. Post-Webernian lines and combinations, and extreme dynamic contrasts were well judged by Diego Masson and his expert players, both in terms of individual clarity and a whole that was more than the sum of its parts. This is partly a matter of mathematics - what music is not? - in terms of the ratios between the two structures, but also of development, of sympathy, of a refusal to repeat oneself which Nono shared with Schoenberg. One felt a true sense of musical and political unity, of the hope in social solidarity which Nuria Schoenberg-Nono had already spoken as a hallmark of Nono's oeuvre.

Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony has long been a Sinfonietta speciality. This was a performance which evinced long familiarity with a work that is for these players 'standard repertoire'. The confidence with which the string soloists projected their lines meant that there was no chance of one of this work's greatest pitfalls presenting itself, namely the strings being overshadowed by the piquant wind. (The opposite pitfall tends to occur in the later, inferior version for full orchestra.) In its contrapuntal clarity and the propulsion of its harmonic progression, this was a model performance, expertly guided by Masson. My taste often tends to veer towards Schoenberg performances that emphasise a little more his Romantic inheritance, but the bracing, relentless modernism of this reading afforded an equally valid perspective and, given the circumstances, was perhaps more apt. My sole cavil was that the 'slow movement' did not really emerge as distinctly as it might. If one thinks of the Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor, whose form Schoenberg's work so closely resembles, one realises what is gained by a stronger sense of four distinct movements within the one-movement sonata form of the whole. The conclusion, however, was duly thrilling, without ever degenerating into a headlong rush, as can often be its fate.

The interval afforded an opportunity to observe the progress of work from Kingston University students on a wall of protest in the foyer, inspired by the final work on the programme. We too were encouraged to offer reactions to the music in the guise of postcards for colouring, which would then be displayed. This certainly contributed to the buzz of the occasion, to a genuine rather than manufactures sense of the excitement of an event - which the beginning of this festival certainly should have been - so different from the often dreary conventionality of more 'mainstream' concerts.

Nono's greatest homage to Schoenberg, his Canonical Variations on a note row from the Ode to Napoleon, received an extremely fine reading. All the virtues of the Incontri performance were once again present, as was a definite sense of narrative progression, of moving towards and then beyond the final variation's statement of the row. Where 'Darmstadt', as we somewhat misleadingly and monolithically have come to call it, has tended to be portrayed as tolerating Schoenberg mostly for having prepared the way for Webern, here we heard an avowedly post-Webernian serialist employing the Webern inheritance - the sighs of instrumental fragments, the constructivist tension between certain intervallic relations - of earlier variations to build up to a more or less explicit tribute to one of Schoenberg's most unambiguously 'political' works. The almost Romantic beauty of the orchestra, albeit never without a necessary astringency - reminded us of Nuria Schoenberg-Nono's conception of Darmstadt as a continuation of European tradition. (Failure of many of the participants thus to root themselves, rather than outright antipathy towards Cage, was why Nono had eventually left, she explained.)

'No hay caminos, hay que caminar ... Andrej Tarkovskij' represented late Nono (1987). Inspired by a mediaeval wall inscription from a Toledo monastery - 'Traveller, there is no pathway, only travelling itself' - this work triumphantly refuted claims that Nono's later work lost its political edge. There was still here the humanist emphasis upon creation and the utopian hope of a better society, no matter what difficulties life and this world might present, which had marked Nono's earliest works. What was new was the spatial experimentation, a product of practices old (consider Gabrieli) and new (think Stockhausen), with additional instrumentalists positioned around and in between the audience, responding to and furthering the 'main' orchestra on the stage. The slow, still Webern-like beauty of so much of this work received the fullest contrasts with the sudden eruptions from beyond. This was an unpredictable procession, for there are no paths, only travelling. The audience was compelled by the extremes of expression to listen more closely, and thus the smallest variations in timbre and pitch registered with the utmost forcefulness: violent and beguiling, the two attributes gaining in intensity through collision with one another (rather like the two structures of Incontri). This was tribute indeed to a truly committed performance from Masson and the London Sinfonietta. Their belief in Nono was truly infectious, in the best sense, and bodes well for the festivities to come.

Mark Berry

Nono...sofferte onde serene - Lortie

Louis Lortie (piano), The Maltings, Snape, Aldeburgh, England. 18.06.2007 (AO)

This year’s Aldeburgh Festival is programmed around the theme of Italy and its place in western music. The keynote was Britten’s Death in Venice. Also prominently featured were Monteverdi, Respighi, Scarlatti, Gesualdo and their English baroque counterparts. This being forward-thinking Aldeburgh, modern composers were also featured. Works by Scelsi, Sciarrino, Dallipiccola, and above all, Luigi Nono, were included. Indeed, this Venice, and Italian theme continues elsewhere in this country all year. In February, Simon Bainbridge’s Diptych http://musicweb.uk.net/SandH/2007/Jan-Jun07/bainbridge0902.htm was premiered and in the autumn, there’ll be a long Italian festival at the South Bank.

This evening’s programme started with Salvatorre Sciarrino’s Perduto in una città d’aqua (lost in a city of water). It is extremely atmospheric, quite minimalist in the way the composer uses single notes, struck forcefully, so the sound resonates over stillness, so the boundaries of “played” music blend with “heard”, just as in Venice, city blends with sea. The music came while he sat with Luigi Nono as he lay, slowly dying, in his house on the edge of the lagoon. They communed in semi-silence. “The words in a sentence were often punctuated by strands of sleep, and the meaning wandered, towards dreams, towards that nucleus of warmth”. Structurally, it is based on a series of two note chords, but it is the reverberations between the notes that is fascinating. The sounds linger across the silence, the vibrations continuing after a note is struck. One set of chords is deliberately flat and hollow, like the mechanical ticking of a metronome, the passing of time, water drops, a frail heartbeat. I heard this in May 2006, played by Nicholas Hodges with rather more intensity, but Lortie’s understatement brought out other aspects.

For Nono, Venice was home physically, spiritually and artistically. Earler, in Aldeburgh, his widow Nuria Schoenberg, came and spoke of his life and work. David Alberman and Irvine Arditti played his final work, Hay que caminar’ soñando. There was also a screening of the film Vive a Venezia though not, surprisingly, of the film, Trail on the Water by Bettina Ehrhardt. (embed link http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Jan06/Nono_trail_DVWWDOCNONO.htm It’s a pity because that film sums up why Venice, “ambiguous Venice”, is such a powerful metaphor for Nono, and for new music in general. The film also includes a breathtakingly beautiful performance of ….sofferte onde serene….. played by its dedicatee, Nono’s close friend Mauricio Pollini which for many would alone be a reason for wanting the DVD.

Any opportunity to hear ….sofferte onde serene…..live is to be cherished, because it’s written for piano augmented by recorded sounds of the same piano being played by the same player, but at a different time. The effect is extremely subtle, so delicate that it can confuse the ear if you’re not expecting it. In live performance there’s the added bonus of hearing the sound from a different part of the concert hall, and from seeing the pianist’s hand rest, silently, as he listens to the recording and blends his own playing in with it. This interaction was particularly vivid in this performance by Louis Lortie. He really did seem to listen and observe, respecting the recorded sound almost as if he were playing with another soloist. I was surprised by how much this enhanced the overall effect, as it created a palpable sense of aural and spatial depth. It added an unsettling musical perspective too, enhancing the shifting figures being played, as if they had a ghostly companion. The piano seemed to have been fine-tuned in the interval, because in the second part of the programme, which began with this Nono piece, the pitch seemed sharper and more acute, more accurately shadowing the recorded sound. It was a tiny, but telling detail, which showed the care that went into this performance. Lortie’s approach, too, was meticulous, each note deftly defined with confidence and attack. In this impressionistic piece, every note counts, its position carefully gauged in relation to others, even in the broody, dark climaxes where notes rush together like rolling thunder. Lortie shows how the piece evolves, moving from the rumbles in the beginning, swiftly changing texture in clearer, more delicate patches, even achieving a metallic sharpness at times which enlivens the flow. There’s an interesting inner rhythm driving this piece, giving it direction, rather like a tide pulling the movement of waves. ….sofferte onde serene… means waves restored to calm. Nono also builds in subtle detail, such as tolling bells, affirming what Venice meant to him. This is a wonderful mood piece, here well judged and paced by sensitive playing.

There were other “Venetian” touches in the programme, such as Bacarolles by Fauré and Chopin and Liszt’s three pieces about the city. It was good to hear these together, despite the similar time signatures, because cumulatively they wove together well, enhancing the distinctiveness of each composer’s style. The three Fauré Bacarolles (no.s 5, 6 and 7) were particularly lucid. Lortie didn’t exaggerate the flourishes in Chopin, and shaped the Liszt with restraint, capturing the measured pace in La lugubre gondola. This dignity made his tribute to Wagner, who had just died in Venice, RW –Venezia, feel all the more sincere, turning the “rowing” figures into a slow march. Even the choice of Bach’s Concerto no. 3 had “Venetian” connotations as this transcription was by Alessandro Marcello, an almost exact contemporary of Bach, demonstrating how the composer’s music influenced the cosmopolitan musicians of 18^th century Venice.

The Debussy pieces also complemented the concept of Venice. Canope, from Préludes Book I, was followed by La cathedrale englouti. This showed Lortie in his element. He shaped the phrases elegantly, glorying in the “oriental” exoticism in the tonal colours. You could almost imagine the cathedral, mysteriously glimpsed through the mist. After an evening of somber contemplation, he concluded with L’isle joyeux, at once reminiscent of the Chopin Bacarolle he loved and of La Mer which he was working on and would complete the following year.

Anne Ozorio

Nono - Fragmente-stille an diotima

Luigi Nono: Fragments of Venice – Arditti Quartet, 23 October 2007

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Webern – Six Bagatelles, op.9
Nono – Fragmente-Stille, an diotima
Schoenberg – String Quartet no.2, op.10

Arditti String Quartet (Irvine Arditti, Ashot Sarkissjan, Ralf Ehlers, Lucas Fels)
Claron McFadden (soprano)

The South Bank Centre’s Nono festival continued with a concert from the Arditti Quartet, long the acknowledged standard-bearers for serious contemporary string quartet music. Each of the three works performed during this concert may justly be considered to have changed the face of twentieth-century string quartet writing, and indeed to have proved influential beyond the realm of the quartet or even of chamber music. Much, then, was promised, and the promise was fulfilled.

Schoenberg’s preface to Webern's Six Bagatelles has often been quoted, but I think it is worth quoting from once again, since it so perfectly – ironically, given the final sentence quoted – encapsulates the essence of this enduringly extraordinary work:

Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. Each glance can be extended into a poem, each sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a single indrawn breath, such concentration is only found where self-pity is absent. These pieces (as, indeed, Webern’s music in general) will only be understood by those who believe that through sound something that can only be expressed in sound can be said.

The Arditti’s performance seemed to me to have everything: pin-point precision was married to great depth of expression. Every note counted, as it must, both in itself and in terms of its relationship to every note around it, both horizontally and vertically. The mood swings of each of the ‘bagatelles’ – these are no more ‘trifles’ than those of Beethoven’s late sets – were registered, sometimes quite shockingly so, yet nevertheless without exaggeration. Perhaps most importantly of all, the underlying unified pulse was present throughout, irrespective of the subdivisions within the varied beat. This is as crucial to Webern as to Beethoven and Wagner, or indeed as to Nono and Schoenberg.

Since the Webern piece is close to unique in having in some sense prefigured Nono’s sole essay in quartet form, it provided a perfect introduction to Fragmente–Stille, an diotima. It should have come as no surprise that Nono’s preferred interpreters of the work – favoured over its dedicatees, the LaSalle Quartet – gave so fine, well-nigh definitive, a performance, but equally this should not detract from the Arditti’s achievement. Although the time-scale is utterly different from that of Webern, the concentration allied to a greater architectural span is not so very different. Once again, every note registered, but this is not straightforwardly pointillistic music; to register truly, there must be a sense of conflict between fragmentation and combination, and this was unerringly present. This was a performance that gave the lie to claims of political disengagement in late Nono, of which Fragmente–Stille may be said to be the harbinger. For the construction necessary from the Hölderlin-inspired fragments – Hölderlin’s letters to Diotima are quoted in the score, to be ‘sung’ inwardly but never outwardly by the players – is a perfectly political act, an act of hope, of forging a whole from the almost impossible fragments, from silence as well as from notes. Nono appears to be saying that, for there to be hope, which there must be, the string quartet, along with the symphony surely the most venerable of all Classical forms, must be rethought, rebuilt, and ultimately rejoiced in. All four players, individually and collectively, must engage in this enterprise – and so must the audience. For this to be possible requires a great technical and communicative achievement on the quartet’s part. The Arditti Quartet’s success was palpable, not least in the audience’s rapt attention. Throughout the thirty-five minute span of the work, I do not think I noticed a single cough or shuffle, let alone whispered conversation. Nothing was quite inaudible, but there is much to stretch our ears. Nono’s attempt to rescue the difficult art of listening was not in vain, for the work and performance that resulted were of rare beauty indeed.

Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet is, of course, one of the most celebrated works in the history of music, the work in which Schoenberg, feeling ‘the air of another planet’, bade farewell to tonality. A great achievement – perhaps too great an achievement? – of this performance was the sense of liberation imparted by the break with tonality. I ask whether this was too great, since Schoenberg, like Berg, though unlike Webern, did experience regrets, and there was something of a sense here of the first two movements at least being preliminaries to the undoubted triumph of the final Entrückung. There was nothing especially wrong with the performance of the first movement, but it seemed just a little generalised in its post-Brahmsian development. The second movement, marked Sehr rasch, exhibited a mixture of similarly slight greyness with more richly-coloured and daringly-shaped performance, ’cellist Lucas Fels shining especially in these respects. I have nothing but praise for the final two movements, in which the participation of the excellent soprano, Claron McFadden, really seemed to engage the players. Her pointing of the words and vocal lines, poised midway between Lieder-singing and a more operatic approach, seemed to me perfectly judged. The import, both literally and more metaphorically, of Stefan George’s words could not have been more strongly projected, without ever sacrificing musical concerns for ‘effect’. Likewise, the quartet sounded inspired both by her participation and by Schoenberg’s gradual move towards suspension of tonal processes during the Litanei and then the new world so unforgettably announced by the words, ‘Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten’. This was not, of course, a world that rejected the past, but one which incorporated it. The same could be said of the Arditti’s performance of the two vocal movements, so precariously and yet rewardingly poised between late Romanticism, Expressionism, and already hinting at something yet newer to come.

Posted by Mark Berry at 10:04

Nono ...sofferte onde serene...Pollini

Luigi Nono : Fragments of Venice (3): Schoenberg, Berg, Nono Maurizio Pollini (piano), André Richard, Reinhold Braig (sound projection), Beat Furrer (conductor), Alain Damiens (clarinet), Barbara Hannigan (soprano), Cologne Percussion Quartet, Experimental Studio for Acoustic Arts, Freiburg, Sara Ercoli, Terence Roe and Margaret Nies (voci recitante). Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 31.10.2007 (AO)

The South Bank series Luigi Nono : Fragments of Venice is an audacious act of artistic commitment and it takes real vision to promote innovative, non-mainstream music. This series raises the bar to a tantalisingly high standard, but the South Bank’s faith in their audiences is fully justified. The series is very intelligently put together, placing Nono’s music in the context of a great tradition and by expanding the virtuoso performances with workshops and student performance, its benefits will be very long term indeed: the better informed the audience, the deeper the appreciation. That’s how the Wigmore Hall built up its reputation and the South Bank is building up a core of good listeners (and performers) which will serve everyone well in years to come.

Much of this evening’s audience had come to hear Maurizio Pollini and for good reason, as he’s brilliant. Indeed, there were some very well known pianists present. Pollini's account of the Schoenberg Three Pieces for Piano op 11 was masterful, all the more powerful for being so understated. The Six Little Pieces op 19 came over like Webern miniatures, such was the haiku-like subtlety, the silences between notes intensifying the impact of what was being “actively” played. Berg’s Four Pieces for clarinet and piano op 5 seemed expansive in contrast. Alain Damiens executed the long lnes effectively, not a simple task as they’re jagged and angular at some turns. The passage where he has to tap the keys of the clarinet as if it were percussion, reflected in the piano where single notes tolled in succession. After an outburst from the clarinet and some dark, somnolent pedalling by Pollini, the crescendo rose and then suddenly deflated, the deceleration keenly judged.

I’d come to hear Nono’s …..sofferte onde serene…. written for Pollini as a token of the composer’s regard for him. This piece “is” Nono, in distilled essence, and the highlight of the entire series. It’s inspired by Venice, where waters lap against the land, and the horizon over the lagoon blends seamlessly into the skyline. It’s ambiguous and mysterious, the wave-like rhythms morphing into slow, tolling figures which perhaps evoke a distant bell half-heard across the water, its sound dampened by the mist. The dialogue here is between the pianist live and playing in real time and the sound of him playing, recorded in the past. It’s amazingly conceptual, expanding the whole idea of what music can express. If only time had stood still, so the music would not end ! But that too is part of the poignancy of this piece, for time changes, and everything we know is ephemeral, as the music’s tantalising half completed phrases and shifting balances seem to express. Please read Nono’s words about the piece in the footnote below.

Pollini must have known how important this South Bank tribute was to the enduring memory of Nono, his friend and mentor, for this was a superlative performance, even by his standards. André Richard played the sound projection as if it were an instrument, sensitively responding to what Pollini was doing and showing that there’s much more to this than simply playing a tape. This performance meant a lot to me, because I spent ages coming to terms with this elusive piece. I’ve heard it live with Hodges and Lortie, but this magnificent performance by Pollini, its greatest exponent, will remain shining in my memory for years to come.

Djamila Boupacha : Songs of life and love starts “May the fog of the past lift from my eyes. I want to see things as a child does”. This again is emblematic of Nono’s values, for he passionately believed in thinking beyond preconceptions and received ideas about what art “should” and “shouldn’t” be. Like Henze, Berio and most of the liberal thinkers of his time, Nono was a social idealist, who had faith that ordinary people could create and appreciate art outside the Establishment. Whether their engagements with socialist artistic experiments worked or not, that grain of faith is pretty fundamental. My first experience of Nono was in the 1960’s when, as if in a bizarre dream, his early La Fabbrica Illuminata emerged, disembodied, from a BBC broadcast. It changed my life. In those days I listened to everything, like a blackbird, absorbing everything from Amelita Galli-Curci to Cathy Berberian, without prejudgment. Hearing Nono was like a revelation, opening up infinite new horizons about what music can express.

Nono’s setting for unaccompanied voice to Boupacha’s text is pure and unadorned. The strange cadences reflect Arabic chant, but there’s a much darker side to the piece, which is brought out in performances like Barbara Hannigan’s where the intensity of her timbre showed just how disturbing the piece really is. Boupacha was horrifically tortured for standing up to the brutal colonial regime in Algeria. At once, Hannigan captured the child-like innocence of Boupacha’s words of hope and faith, yet activated the undercurrents of intense, but otherwise suppressed pain. It’s a haunting piece, all the more disturbing because it seems so simple on the surface.

Pieces like A foresta è jovem e cheja de vida grew out of the political turbulence of the 1960’s, but they remain universal. Indeed, I deliberately avoided reading the texts before listening, because the overall impact is what matters, not the specifics. Nono structures the piece quite skillfully so it moves between four-groups, the percussion quartet, the three voices, the clarinet/soprano combination and the recorded sound projection. The ensemble creates a huge panorama. One moment the voices are chanting texts from Frantz Fanon, the next an American voice floats from magnetic tape. The percussionists rattle chains around metal plates to create “anti music” sounds which express distressing images whose very hollowness reflects the mood of despair. Then the metal sheets are beaten, literally with the sort of hammers you find in DIY stores and in torturers' armouries, in itself a distressing comment on society. Nono never knew about Abu Ghraib, but he wouldn’t have been surprised.

Much of the time the voices are buried in a fog of withering noise, but this is as it should be, for the voices are those of the disempowered and oppressed : they rise out of the mass to sink back in again. Bel canto this most definitely is not: it is music expressing anguish and war. The words themselves are only snippets, elusively fleeting across and against the mechanical percussion and recorded sound. Nonetheless, this isn’t easy music to sing. It’s more like using voice as one of the many layers in the densely woven textures in the piece. It isn’t easy music to play or conduct either, so Beat Furrer, a very good composer himself, does an excellent job in combining and separating the divergent elements. The piece works because the interactions are so carefully judged. It’s a struggle between different sections, the voices often snatching half-finished phrases before being subsumed in the metallic fog of percussion and recorded sound - like guerilla warfare in aural terms.

Nono wants listeners to feel trapped and tense, so that we are receptive to ideas. One of the more distinct phrases, carefully and clearly modulated, says “Is ….this….all…we….can…do ?”. And the clarinet and soprano’s livelier moments seem to indicate resistance to the machinery. Yet, towards the end, we hear sounds vaguely like the hum of aircraft engines taking off. Is this the sound of a bombing raid - the piece refers constantly to the Vietnam War? Or is the circular drone yet another sound image of frustration and defeat ?

It doesn’t matter as long as we notice and think about what we hear. This may be music inspired by events of Nono’s time, but in this day and age, when composers don’t seem to want to challenge the wars and oppression in modern life, Nono’s music is even more important.

Anne Ozorio

Footnote: Nono on ….sofferte onde serene…..

“Sounds of different bells reach my home in the Guidecca in Venice, Venice, variously repeating, with various meanings, during the day and the night, through the fog and the sun. They are signals of life on the Laguna, on the sea. ….and life continues in the suffered and serene necessity of the ‘equilibrium of the profound interior’ as Kafka said.”……. “The formation of sound was explored including the use of the vibrations of pedal strokes, perhaps particular resonances in the ‘profound interior’. Not episodes that distinguish themselves in their succession, but memories and presences superimposing on each other ….merging with the ‘serene waves’ (onde serene)”

And here is a link to Mark Berry's review

http://boulezian.blogspot.com/2007/11/luigi-nono-fragments-of-venice-maurizio.html