Unusual Partners? Jurowski LPO Zimmermann Brahms

For their second concert on the theme of human suffering, Vladimir and The London Philharmonic Orchestra presented Brahms German Requiem with Bernd Alois Zimmermann Ich wandte mich um und sah an alles Unrecht (Ecclesiastical Action). Unusual partners. But what they share is a deeply felt concern for the human condition.  So much of the Unrecht (injustice) of this world haopens because people deny others the right to exist. The least we can do can do is listen.

Zimmermann's  Ich wandte mich um und sah an alles Unrecht (Ecclesiastical Action) opens with baleful blasts of trumpets and trombones, suggesting the Biblical connection. Part of the text comes from Ecclesiates Ch 4 but the mood is apocalyptic. One can think of Messaien Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (read more here), The brass forms great arcs of sound reaching into space, a reference to the Final Trumpet of the Last Judgement?  Zimmermann uses a large orchestra but colours are used in stark black and white contrast, powerful blasts of sound against tiny barely audible detail. Zimmermann embeds meaning into his musical form. The two speakers  (Omar Ebrahim and Malcolm Sinclair) quote text from Ecclesiates, which the central figure transforms into strange, incantation. What he represents is not of this world.

Zimmermann then employs the tale of the Grand Inquisitor from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Christ has returned to Earth, and is imprisoned as a madman. The two speakers come at the central figure on all sides, but the Prisoner remains silent. When Jesus was tempted in the desert, Satan proposed that He use his powers to end evil. Why should mankind suffer if God can change things?  "But You would not deprive humanity of its freedom".

The Grand Inquisitor (Speaker 2) cannot comprehend.  "I swear mankind is weaker and more worthless than You could ever have imagined?" UN REST, CON FUSION, MIS FORTUNE this is the lot of mankind, " Sinclair spits out savagely (it's even more effective in German)  "oh for many centuries the chaos of man's free thinking". The emphases are in Zimmermann's score, for he uses the shape of sound to suggest the speaker's dilemma. For a man of temporal power, faith in the flawed "children" of  humanity is plain illogical. Can he understand why The Prisoner kisses him as he is released? The speakers shout staccato, disjointed phrases, which express their confusion.

A long, cataclysmic chord rises, to overwhelming crescendo. Each section of the orchestra explodes - tubular bells are struck, the strings whizzing and whirring, the woodwinds wailing. It'a as if the heavens are being ripped apart, yet Jurowski maintains tight control, focussing the energy into meaning, for there is method behind this supposed madness.  Up to this point, The Prisoner (Or Christ) hasn 't said much, so the metallic dryness in Dietrich Henschel's voice is appropriate. Now, though, the bass part launches into an extremely difficult vocalize, where pitch and rhythm oscillate. Because there are no words, we have to listen for the emotional inflections in the voice. There are two recordings of this piece - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Andreas Schmidt - which show how much the individuality of the performer fills out where words can't suffice. Henschel creates intensity, but relatively little coloration.

As the "normality" they represent collapses, their words gradually disintegrates, though phrases can be heard, "Man does not live by bread alone". They lapse into formal, mechanical gestures. Even the conductor has to stand down from the podium in symbolic renunciation. This isn't gesture for its own sake, but integral to the meaning of the piece. Jurowski has no problem assuming the lotus position with hands across his face. I''ve been told that he's a practising Buddhist, so maybe he knows why his face is covered, prayer-like, at this point. Muffled voices are heard, coming from members of the orchestra, indicating perhaps that Christ's message is understood by some of the common folk, at least. 

In the baritone's second solo, words like "Weh!" and "Allein"  and "Wer" are uttered in multiple variations. You need to listen carefully to piece the phrase together but that is the whole point : if we think, then we deserve the freedom Christ believed in.  (For ease of reference, it's "Woe to him that is alone when he falleth").  Then suddenly Jurowski leaps up and conducts the short but intense finale, a quotation from the Bach chorale Es ist genug. Trumpets and trombones blare but this feels different to the fanfare at the beginning. What does Zimmermann mean?  Hope or abandoned hope? Six days later, he committed suicide.

Johannes Brahms. German Requiem also takes its cue from the Bible, but not from conventional Christian piety. The choral part is glorious, but some of the impact was muted by less than perfect diction. The London Philharmonic Choir are reliable, and were pleasant enough, but on this occasion the honours went to the London Philharmonic Orchestra.  Jurowski's pace was contemplative and serene - a necessity, I think, after Zimmermann. This time we could hear the German Requiem as a resolution to the anguish that went before, though Brahms is too strong-minded to be soothing..

Jurowski emphasized details lovingly. In  Denn alles Flesich es ist wie Gras. the winds were particularly lush and verdant, which made Henschel's singing seem dry in comparison, though that worked well in Herr, lehre doch mich, but less so Denn wir haben keinen bliebende Statt, where his voice didn't glow in the critical word "Geheimnis". Still, it had been a long evening for him. Miah Persson sang Ich habe nun Traurigkeit sweetly, like an angel.


photo credit : Chris Christodoulou, IMG

Zimmermann Ich wandte mich um und sah RFH

"Ich wandte mich um und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne; und siehe, da waren die Tränen derer, so Unrecht litten und hatten keinen Tröster; und die ihnen Unrecht taten, waren zu mächtig, daß sie keinen Tröster haben konnten." 

Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall tomorrow (1st December) in a concert that will shatter and shake:  Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Ich wandte mich und sah an an alles Unrecht (Ecclesiatical Action)  here.  (CLICK HERE FOR MY REVIEW) This was Zimmermann's last completed work, written shortly before he committed suicide in despair at the state of the world.  Ich wandte mich um is ferocious, so dramatic that you feel your guts are being ripped out.Soothing and Christmassy it is not. Fortunately for us, Jurowski's planning Brahms German Requiem afterwards, or we would not be able to sleep.  Ich wandte mich is  more tightly constructed than Zimmermann's better known Requiem for a Young Poet, which I wrote about when it was on at the Berliner Philharmoniker (prob still searchable in their archives), and also more concise than Die Soldaten.. Link HERE to Dominy Clements' review of Zimmermann's Requiem for a Young Poet.

Mega Symphony of Human Dignity : Jurowski, LPO Beethoven Schoenberg Nono

Vladimir Jurowski's programme  at the Royal Festival Hall proved that intelligent musicality can reach people as well, if not better than, the celebrity gimmicks so popular these days. Jurowski simply stood in front of the audience, speaking in a quiet voice. "This programme is about the dignity of those oppressed and the triumph of the human spirit". (or words to that effect). The concert should be heard, he suggested, as a whole entity culminating in Beethoven's Fifth, rather than a series of disparate parts.

We all know Beethoven. This was a new challenge, to listen through colorations filtered through a new context, and to develop our own sensitivity to the issues involved. Conceptually, this was sophisticated. Conventional wisdom assumes that "ordinary" people are too stupid to respond to new ideas. Thus the obssession with celebrities, dumbing down and "explaining" things in over-simplistic terms.  It's counter-productive. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing", goes the saying, for it inoculates people with prejudices. Instead, Jurowski treats audiences like sensible people who can listen for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

Thanks to the generosity of Deutsche Bank, who sponsor tickets for those who don't normally go to concerts, there were a lot of people in the audience for whom this was a new experience. Would they be scared off by Schoenberg? Fortunately they hadn't swallowed the myth that Schoenberg is too "difficult" though he's been dead 60 years.  Many of them responded to what Jurowski said, and listened with fresh ears, experiencing the "mega-symphony" as a response to universal human conditions. That, all said and done is what music is.  All the fuss made about clapping between movements, appropriate dress, youth participation etc is sideshow. Concerts are not about behaviour or social function, but about music, above and beyond all. Everything else falls into place as long as you listen.

This audience was most definitely listening, and emotionally engaged from the start. It wasn't relevant whether they knew Fidelio as opera or not. It was sufficient that they realized that Fidelio is about political prisoners. Listening to the drama in the music, they could use their own imaginations. The performance didn't matter so much as the way it stimulated the audience to think about human suffering. Most of us, thankfully won't have to live through that first hand. Ultimately that is the purpose of art: to make us more sensitive, and make us think of lives othetr than our own. 

Wisely, Jurowski chose three items in the English language for the core of the programme, so the audience could understand without filter.  Lord Byron's poem, on which Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon is based, uses florid, impenetrable text.  References like "Corinth's pedagogue" and "Thou, Timur, in his captive's cage" are closed to those without a classical education. But then dictatorships are opaque, so it's psychologically true. Schoenberg sets the text unadorned, recited in quasi Sprechstimme, in this version with string orchestra and pianist (Catherine Edwards). Robert Hayward conveyed meaning through the intensity of his gestures.

Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw is much more visceral because it's so direct. "I cannot remember everything....." intones the narrator. "But I have no recollection how/ I got underground/ to live/ in the sewers of Warsaw/ for so long a time". Jurowski moderates his natural tendency for lyricism with stark angular rhythms, intensifying the psychic dislocation of this extreme situation. Hayward is an opera singer but the art requires the intensity of an actor. He obviously knows German, but the shouts of the Nazi guards are better delivered with more bite. Jurowski gets the LPO to create savage staccato. temi almost spinning out of control as the guards march the men off to the gas chamber. You could analyse this music in terms of serial rows, but it works just as well to listen emotionally, hearing the repetitions as manic  obsessive. Structural form serves musical feeling. The Gentlemen of the London Philharmonic Choir had been seated behind the orchestra all evening. Now they rose and the chorus "Sh'ma Yisroel" exploded like a miracle, transcending the grimness that had gone before. This is the "grandiose moment when they all started to sing as if prearranged, the old prayer that they had neglected for so many years".

Luigi Nono's Julius Fučík was semi staged (Annabel Arden) which is valid, for it connects to Nono's opera L'Intolleranza. This simple staging referenced the photographs we've seen of the 1961 production.  Above the orchestra, a projection of a cloister which seems curiously serene given the subject. Fučík was a Communist, arrested and murdered by the Nazis. Scraps of writings he made in prison were collected after his death and published as Notes from the Gallows. Ironically, Fučík's oposition to one form of totalitarianism was co-opted by another. The book received saturation coverage in Communist circles. Yet the reason the book is so powerful is perhaps its message of hope.

An anonymous Voice (Malcolm Sinclair) dominates at first, the orchestra oppressively brooding. Surprisngly idiomatic playing from the LPO. I'd never thought of Jurowski as a Nono conductor, but he approaches this music with instinctive passion. Then, quietly, Omar Ebrahim as Fučík takes control. No matter how he was humiliated, Fučík was not destroyed. "Winter prepares man for its rigours as it does a tree". If a man loves life, he cannot be diminished even if he's beheaded. "Remember me, not with sorrow, but with precisely that joy with which I always lived".  Ebrahim barely has to raise his voice, so powerful is his characterization. Now the image of the cloister makes sense. Read more here about what I've written about Julius Fučík, including a baby picture)

From out of Nono's Julius Fučík the famous first bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony arise. The power of this symphony can be dimmed by over-familairity, but how it shone here in the context of Jurowski's programme! The driving tempi, the scurrying whips of string and brass, absolute confidence in certain triumph. The symphony can bear many different interpretations, but here Jurowski brought out its energy and vigour - the spirit of human dignity that triumphs over all odds.


photo credit Roman Gontcharov, IMG

Fučík Alex Ross : tonight at the South Bank

Tonight at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a remarkable programme. (My review is HERE). It starts with the Overture to Beethoven's Fidelio. Then, Schoenberg Ode to Napoleon op 41 and A Survivor from Warsaw op 46 and Luigi Nono's Julius Fučík, which will segue straight into Beethoven's Symphony no 5 without a break. Beethoven 9 might be more obvious, but there are good reasons for this choice.

This should be an extremely stirring recital because all these pieces are intense - and political.  Composers write about human situations they care passionately about. Why shouldn't they write about human rights and the suppression thereof? Beethoven shows us  that there never was a time when music had to be soothingly retro. The Sarah Palin School of Music will have to wipe Beethoven off the map! Much respect due to Jurowski for programming this. It's an act of courage and principle.

The photo above shows Julius Fučík (1872-1916) uncle of Julius Fučík (1903-43) the composer who wrote spectacular military marches, including Entrance of the Gladiators, which is often heard at the start of circuses and sporting events. That's relevant because Fučík the younger sacrificed his life to oppose the Nazis.  Here he is a an infant dressed up in the sort of costume that went nicely with the pomp and circumstance that his uncle's music inhabited (though not only for belligerent reasons). He's inspired. He's even got a hat, like a miniature Napoleon. This little lad grew up to be Communist leader and was arrested by the Nazis. He was tried by by Judge Freisler who would  murder thousands of opponents to the regime, and hanged in the Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. In 1947, his widow gathered together his writings and messages from prison and published Notes From the Gallows. Further irony: the Communist Party used Fučík's words to legitimize their regime. Luigi Nono, also  a Communist, chose Fučík as a subject because he cared about what Fučík stood for.

Nono was also son-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg. It's important to remember Schoenberg, Nono and their peers especially now that the South Bank has finally launched its Alex Ross The Rest is Noise year. That's been so heavily promoted for so long that it's hard to believe it still hasn't started. The year will mean programming based around Ross's idea of what 20th century music should be, which is not the same thing as what 20th century music actually was. For a much more incisive approach,  read Paul Griffiths. There is no comparison. It's not the dumbing down that's a problem but the idea that  musical experience should be governed by commercial promotion of one source, not necessarily the best, and so heavily marketed that this one source obliterates all else.  Totalitarian revision of music history? The South Bank gets state funding, but it uses its status to serve commercial purposes? No-one will dare query the ethics because there's too much money at stake.  All the more reason we need programmes like the one Jurowski has planned for us tonight.

Cunning Vixen and Scheherazade, Sisters: Hrůša BBCSO Barbican

Many performers get attention because their youth excites some sections of the press. But Jakub Hrůša has solid experience without attracting the media circus. He's Music Director of the Prague  Philharmonia and has conducted all over the world. He's recorded extensively for Supraphon. He's Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera, which is a significant force on its own. I first heard Hrůša conduct Mozart Don Giovanni at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2010 and was even more impressed by his Britten Turn of the Screw in 2011   No chance would I miss hearing him conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, London.

Surprisingly, publicity for this concert was very low profile, especially given that Hrůša, a Czech music specialist,  was conducting the British premiere of František Jílek's arrangement of the suite of Leoš Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen. Jílek (1913-93) was one of the important Czech conductors of his time, closely associated with Brno, Janáček's home turf. Jílek and Charles Mackerras were men of the same generation, but Mackerras dominated Janáček performance in the west, and Jílek remained behind the Iron Curtain. Although Talich's orchestral suite on The Cunning Little Vixen is better known, and in the Mackerras revision, Jílek's suite deserves more attention.

Jílek based his suite on the whole opera, whereas  Talich concentrated on the first act. Jílek used Janáček's original orchestrations and concentrated on the non-vocal aspects of the work. Jílek chose carefully, including passages from the scene where the Vixen comes to sexual maturity. If The Cunning Little Vixen was informed by Janáček's relationsips with women, this passage is crucial to meaning. Please read my article Janáček's Dangerous Women and many other articles I've written about this opera, (use labels below). Jílek also emphasizes the transformation music in the finale, where the Forester dies, and is reunited in spirit with the Vixen. This section is in many ways, the whole point of the opera, for it links themes of rebirth, regeneration and the cycle of Nature. The Cunning Little Vixen marks the beginning of the most fertile phase of Janáček's creative career, so Jílek's Suite works as a study of the opera and of the composer himself.

Like most Czech musicians, Jakub Hrůša probably imbibed Janáček from birth, but he's able to assert an individual stamp on his performance. He thrusts the music forward, yet marks the breaks with sharp definition.  This creates a combination of attack and tension, an angular energy that expresses the spirit of the Vixen, an animal who lives by her wits, surrounded by danger.  Conductor body language can often be "read": Hrůša points both hands downwards, fingers angled like a toreador, marking his point so it's unmistakeable. Later, he cups both palms in a rounded gesture, releasing the elegant lyricism in the finale, so it's illuminated like a halo. 

Another reason this concert was interesting was the world premiere of Rolf Hind's most extensive work to date, The Tiniest House of Time, for accordion and orchestra, with James Crabbe as soloist. "The accordion is cast as shaman-magician, party-animal, healer, rabble rouser" says Hind. Hence, perhaps the lively but controlled cacophony, wacky, swaying rhythms. Hollow metal sounds, folk-like bells, deep booming basses and low brass.  Three of the four sections are inspired by Persian poets (Rumi and Kabir), so the suggestion of dervish dance is prescient.  For me, the relationship between accordion and orchestra was paramount.  An accordion functions when air is squeezed through its chambers, shaping and elongating sound. The keys are played like a form of piano. Hind uses wind instruments to extend the idea of breathing, and strings and harmonium to reflect the idea of tinkling keys. Later in the piece, the string players hit the air with their bows, using invisble air just as the accordion does. The sound is only just audible, but the connection is clear. Hind's instrumentation also calls for wind whips, which create whirring noises when they're waved by the percussionists. The concept works fine as sound, but distracts visually.

More vaguely Persian exoticism in Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade op35 (1888) which followed, rather eclipsing Rolf Hind, whose work would have fared better in a more contemporary programme.  Scheherazade is so ubiquitous that everyone knows it, even if only through movies and TV ads.  In the concert hall, this poses a challenge. How to make it sound fresh and original? Hrůša's approach was to conduct it as if it were entirely new, its ideas undimmed by familiarity. Colours are kept scrupulously clean, so they dazzle. Hrůša and the BBCSO bring out the vivacious sparkle in the music. Scheherzade's tales are beautiful, but if she doesn't outwit the Sultan he will kill her, like he's killed so many women before. So the sour note in the woodwinds is perceptive, reminding us that beneath this glamour lies danger.

The solo violin (Stephen Bryant) and harp (Sionead Williams) mingle flirtatiously, but is this a duet or a duel?  Hrůša doesn't stint on the hyper-romantic luxury in the score, but does not muddy it in indulgent swoon. Details are carefully observed, like the military rat-a tat-tat of the small drum, supported by tambourine. These lovely tales unfold against a backdrop of fear.  Hrůša shows that Scheherazade and the Cunning Little Vixen are sisters, both using their charms to survive in dangerous environments.

Listen to this concert on 2nd December at 2 pm and for 7 days after on BBC Radio 3

Braunfels Berlin Jeanne d'Arc

Currently on at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin,  Walter Braunfels Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna.  (Scenes from the life of St Joan).  (more HERE with production shots). Braunfels is a fascinating composer because he doesn't fit easy categories. He's been posthumously castrated as soft-centred ultra-romantic. But listen to his music without an agenda, and think about the man behind the music, and a much deeper Braunfels emerges.

Braunfel's Joan of Arc is not a comic book retelling of the historic Joan of Arc. To suggest that it's religious is beside the point,  except in a sense that any contemplation on the nature of evil involves ethical thought.  Absolutely not a drama to be staged as comic book piety!

Braunfels places much more emphasis on the male authority figures, and how they deal with violence, faith and evil. Braunfels was a front-line soldier in the First World War. The experience traumatized him. He became passionately anti-militarist.  Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna was written between 1938 and 1943, when Europe once again descended into war. The madness was happening all over again. "We are like castaways on a desert island, around which the hurricane continues to rage", he wrote.

By connecting to medieval Christian Europe, Braunfels eschews both totalitarian anti-religion and the kind of nationalism that causes war. Braunfels's libretto, which he wrote himself after reading about Joan's trial, places the context firmly in  a time of crisis. A chorus of villagers cry in panic, Hilfe, Hilfe! As Joan's father later says "An Himmel lohnt drer Brand von tausend Höfen". Johanna, however, is sitting by a tree from which a strange light is shining. Voices tell her that she has a mission. She';s so child-like that she sings a ditty, complete with tra la las. "Denn ein Kreiger, ein Kreiger, soll ich werden".

Braunfels's music is pointedly pure and simple. Single instrumental groups, often solo instruments, swathes of strings and winds suggest flowing movement not decoration for its own sake. Even in the scenes in the royal court, textures are clean, texts conversational. King and knights, portrayed as ordinary men. When Saint Michael appears, he's almost one of their own. For the faithful like Johanna, (and Braunfels), saints are as natural as normal people.

For a more detailed analysis of Braunfel's  Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der heiligen Johanna. and its music,please read what I wrote about it last year HERE.  Lots more on other portrayals of Joan of Arc in music (use labels)

If you can't get to Berlin, there is an excellent recording.  It's conducted by Manfred Honeck, with Juliane Banse as Jeanne. Terje Stensvold sings Gilles des Rais, Günter Missenhardt the Herzog de la Trémouille.

Silly Skeleton Symphony

Earlier this week I was writing about Benjamin Britten's A Simple Symphony and Walt Disney's early Silly Symphonies.  So here's The Skeleton Dance from 1929 which is so good that it should be part of everyone's heritage. We should be brushing up on cartoon history with the Philip Glass opera The Perfect American coming up at the ENO next year.

UB Iwerks was the artist. He was an early friend of Disney's and co-created Mickey Mouse. Iwerks split from Disney for a while, and later returned, but did many other things besides animation. The music was by Carl W Stalling who later went on to write Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner Brothers. The animation is innovative, and the music matches it perfectly.  Listen to the mad mazurka at 4 minutes, where a skeleton uses femurs to  play xylophone on a spine. Anyone who thinks music can't be fun is nuts.

RARE clip Britten and Pears in Japan, 1956

Today Benjamin Britten would have been 99. Here is a very rare clip made by Japanese television in 1956, when Britten toured East Asia with the true love of his life, Peter Pears.

Tony Hall to head BBC, quits ROH

Breaking news ! Tony Hall has been named Director General of the BBC, in the major upheaval that's taking place. He's always been a hands-on leader, so his departure from the Royal Opera House might mean big changes there too. Here's the statement :

Following today's announcement by the BBC Trust regarding the appointment
of Tony Hall as the next Director-General of the BBC, Simon Robey,
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Royal Opera House, has made the
following statement:

"I was not surprised when the BBC turned to Tony to lead them through
their current difficulties. They see, as we do, his qualities of
leadership and his depth of relevant experience. I can think of nobody
better able to bring stability back to the BBC.

"Tony has been a truly distinguished Chief Executive of the Royal Opera
House. He has been a tremendous and inspiring force for good. The ROH he
will leave in March is very different to the one he took over in 2001. We
have a world-class senior team, both artistic and non-artistic, led by
Antonio Pappano, Kasper Holten and Kevin O'Hare. Our artistic standards
and reputation have never been higher and are unsurpassed around the
world. Many, many more people see the extraordinary work of both companies
through audience development programmes, ticket pricing initiatives and
digital and cinema distribution. We have a very large and impactful
education and community engagement programme and we are now a beacon of
best practice in the arts sector. We are financially stable and we have
changed the mix of our funding so that our ACE grant (now down from 40% to
about 25% of our income) and our philanthropic revenue is broadly in
balance. Tony deserves credit for all of this and we now face the future,
with its inevitable challenges and opportunities, with strong foundations
and very broad and loyal support.

"Speaking personally, I will miss him tremendously. He has been an
outstanding colleague and friend, as I know he has been to many others at
the Royal Opera House. "We will turn immediately to finding a worthy successor. I am confident
that this exceptional place will continue to be led by an exceptional
person. "There will be good occasions to celebrate Tony's extraordinary
contribution to the Opera House over the coming weeks and, of course, we
all look forward to welcoming him back to the opera and ballet house he
loves so much as a treasured member of our audience for years to enable us to get opera way
beyond the Opera House auditorium into homes and cinemas around the world.

"He's been a great friend and colleague and whilst this is a fantastic
opportunity for him to return to the BBC - and I can think of no better
person for the BBC - we will miss him hugely here."

Kasper Holten, Director of Opera said "Congratulations to the BBC. They
are very lucky. Tony is the most inspirational leader I have ever worked
for. He will be sorely missed at the ROH and by me personally, but I am
excited for him about this, and I am sure he will do a fantastic job.

"Tony's importance for Royal Opera House cannot be underestimated and he
has managed to create an incredible platform for us to do our artistic
work and take opera forward."

Kevin O'Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet said "Tony's genuine love for
ballet and dance has been a huge advantage for The Royal Ballet.  He's
done so much, not only for this Company, but for dance in general through
the Dance Review and support for the sector. I feel privileged to have
worked with him, both in my previous roles and now as Director of The
Royal Ballet.  He's been an inspiration and a great support to me over the
years, and has been fundamental to our programme of new initiatives to
bring ballet to a wider audience.  He's also been a great friend to me and
to many people in the building. We will all miss him."

"He's been a great friend and colleague and whilst this is a fantastic
opportunity for him to return to the BBC - and I can think of no better
person for the BBC - we will miss him hugely here."

Calixto Bieito Carmen, ENO

Everyone knows Carmen, or thinks that they do, which is not always the same thing.  Carmen smokes and sleeps with whom she wants, and cannot be constrained unless she wants to be. The Carmen archetype is so powerful that she's inspired countless reworkings, bringing out different aspects of the meme. Calixto Bieito's celebrated production of Bizet's Carmen, now at the ENO, is an excellent oportunity to reconnect with the fundamental human drama

Bieito is Spanish, and his Barcelona production was geared towards Spanish sensibilities. Catalunians think of themselves as distinct from Spain. The first flag we see is t la Rojigualda with the royal crest. Later we see the same colours with the image of a bull emblazoned. Obviously, Escamillo is a toreador. But the image goes far deeper. The silhouette bull we see is  the ubiquitous Osborne Bull that dots the Spanish landscape. To many it's a symbol of foreign economic domination: to Catalunians, it's a reminder that their region is controlled by Spain. Although Carmen the opera is associated with Spain, Carmen isn't Spanish but a gypsy. Her people obey no state, and observe no borders. 

The first scene is set in a military camp. The soldiers look strong and virile, but they're brutalized into conformity. Recalcitrants are punished, even by death. Duncan Rock looks god-like as Morales, but we know he's just a corporal who could be sacrificed as fodder. He's like the bull who must kill or be killed.  The crowd secenes are well choreographed. In their uniforms, men and women move like parts of  a machine. Only the children remain wild and free. When Carmen becomes Escamillo's consort, she seems poised to join polite society, but then she's killed.

Ruxandra Donose is superlative as Carmen. Concepción in Ravel's L'heure espagnole is one of  her  signature roles, which she's done at the Royal Opera House and at the Barbican.  Her voice is rich, with a lustrous smoky quality, which adds depth and mystery.  This is especially important in Carmen who carries the whole opera. In Barcelona, Erwin Schrott, Roberto Alagna and Marina Poplavskaya were superlative, comensating for a relatively weak Carmen.  In London, most of the cast comes from the usual ENO milieu. Without Donose, the performance would have been much less satisfying.

Donose creates an intelligent Carmen who negotiates her way through difficult situations. The Habanera is her calling card, advertising her image as seductress, but sexuality is a means to an end.  Perhaps Carmen wants love, but she's too realistic to expect miracles. When the smugglers bring out flamenco dresses from their loot, all three women think it's degrading. These are just cheap  costumes. What they really want is to move ahead, but they haven't the means. Donose's Carmen has a natural elegance which suggests that higher aspirations may be within her reach. Her singing is sensual but never vulgar. She's blonde, but her voice creates the "dark eyes" in the text, coloured by emotional depth.

Don José scatters the contents of Carmen's nice new handbag to demean her. Donose crawls on the ground, desperately trying to pick up the fragments. Her voice becomes almost fragile, yet she doesn't capitulate. This subtle portrayal develops Carmen as a sympathetic human being, far deeper than the slattern society assumes she must be. Donose's Carmen is genuinely truly tragic because she is no caricature, but a good woman crushed just when she might be reaching her dreams.

Bieito's staging suggests the open countryside where a "child of liberty" might roam free. Lilas Pastia (Dean Street) and the smugglers meet in the open air, just as people do in hot countries like Spain.  When Escamillo (Leigh Melrose) and Don José (Adam Diegel) fight they jump on old cars as if they were mountain rocks. In the Barcelona original, Bieito drew parallels with the way tourism despoiled the Spanish countryside and national culture. For London, that had to be moderated for obvious reasons, so all we got this time was a woman in a bikini and other tourists singing about Butlins (not Benidorm as far as I recall). The perils of opera in English!

More effectively, Bieito builds his staging on an acute understanding of Bizet's music. We see Escamillo as toreador only briefly. It's his job, not his normal world. The toreador songs are heard from a distance for the same reason: they are colourful illusion, not reality. Carmen is completely alone when she confronts José. They face each other in a circle on what looks like clay. In this corrida, they are the real Bull and Bullfighter.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducted the ENO Orchestra. He is an elegant conductor whose clarity works well in modern music. In Bizet, he could do with a bit more low down and dirty, for the story is horrible, and the charms of the music need context to give them bite. Elizabeth Llewellyn has a big following who greeted her long aria with deserved applause. Beautiful singing, but not the grittiness of Poplavskaya's Micaëla. But then she doesn't get paid as much. Madeleine Shaw (Mercédès) and Rhian Lois (Frasquita) were vividly defined, though the part of the young daughter, so well developed in Barcelona, had less impact. Graeme Danby sang Zuniga. José lies rather too high for Adam Diegel though he lasted the long role well. While Donose's Romanian accent gave her Carmen an exotic edge, Diegel's American accent was disconcerting. Leigh Melrose's Escamillo didn't cut quite as much of a dash as some Escamillos do, even when their singing isn't as steady. Very few could  manage the sheer animal magnetism of Erwin Schrott in the role in Barcelona. But while the ENO sticks to its policy of English language productions, few singers will take the trouble to relearn their parts in the vernacular. 
photo : Ruxandra Donose, credit Nikolaus Karlinksy

Britten, RVW, Finzi - Nash Ensemble, Wigmore Hall

"Will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness?"
(Thomas Traherne c. 1636-1674).

The Nash Ensemble's series at the Wigmore Hall, "Dreamer of Dreams" continued its survey of British music in the first half of the 20th century with an intriguing programme. Many underlying themes, and thoughtful juxtapositions.
 (photo of the Nash Emsemble credit  Hanya Chlala/Arenapal)

 Britten's Simple Symphony op 4 for strings (1933-34) shows the composer in exuberant high spirits. The "Boisterous Bourrée" romped cheerfully. The "stomping" melody mimics heavy feet dancing, but needs to sound humorous. In the "Playful Pizzicato", the Nash Ensemble strings plucked crazily but in complete technical control. Britten is having fun, sending up "serious" music while being perfectly serious. In the early 1930's Walt Disney was making Silly Symphonies, an extremely inventive series of cartoons. While nursery characters frolicked, the audience was listening to orchestral music in the classical tradition. Britten enjoyed movies. Quite possibly, he saw Disney's work. A Silly Symphony based on a Simple Symphony would have been delightful. The themes in this symphony derive from the compositions Britten wrote as a child; he re-invents them (Read my article"Benjamin Britten Boy Wonder" HERE). "Simple" is a cheekly misnomer. While this short, sharp symphony bubbles with child-like glee, there's nothing childish in the technique. This is Britten, bursting into the public sphere, inspired by the wonder of creative growth.

The recital would end with Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis which describes the miracle of creation through the eyes of a new born.  Between these two pillars, the Nash Ensemble placed early works by Frank Bridge and Ralph Vaughan Williams, extending the theme of youth and artistic birth.  

Bridge was later to become a formative influence on Britten, who opened horizons for Britten beyond the confines of British music at the time. Bridge's Three Songs for voice, viola and piano (1906) aren't specially innovative, and rely heavily on good performance. Roderick Williams animates the songs with committment. He's beautiful to listen to but the texts and text settings aren't up to his standards. "Blow...ye..winds" doesn't flow even if the poet is Matthew Arnold. "Where is that our soul doth go?" is a translation of a poem by Heine, so stodgy that it would defy most composers. Fortunately, Bridge's ear for viola was much more acute. The viola part dominates, voice and piano taking secondary place. Laurence Power's sensual playing made these pieces effective. Perhaps they are really songs for viola?

In 1908, Ralph Vaughan Williams went to France to study with Ravel. This was his artistic breakthrough.  His Five Mystical Songs (1906-11) are well known in the orchestral version, so hearing them as piano song shows how they bridge religious music and art song. Herbert wrote hyms for the godly: Vaughan Williams wrote hymns though he wasn't devout. Easter is fervent.  Roderick Williams emphasizes the key words and phrases, like "Thy Lord is Risen", but the sensuous beauty of his voice tempered their ferocity. The text suggest militant Christianity : Williams's warmth imbues it with humanity. The middle verse "Awake my lute" shines with characteristic RVW cadences, well defined by Ian Brown the pianist.  Roderick Williams's voice is naturally beautiful and colours the words with sensitivity.  In I got me flowers, the imagery is delicate, but the subdued chromatic middle section culminates in a forceful finale. "There is but one, and that one forever" sang Williams forcefully, supported by Brown's playing which resonated like a church organ.

 Antiphon is known to Anglicans as the hymn My Lord is King!. "Let all the world in ev'ry corner sings" erupts with a flurry of bell sounds, as if bells were ringing all over the world. Ralph Vaughan Williams admirers connect immediately with the pealing bells of In Summertime on Bredon (from On Wenlock Edge)  Text is foursquare. "The Church with palms must shout". But Vaughan Williams makes it clear that, for him, this is not anthem but art song.

William Alwyn's Pastoral fantasia for solo viola and strings  (1939) may have been included as a vehicle for Laurence Power. His playing made the piece worthwhile and enjoyable even though the work itself isn't memorable. Alwyn's pastoralism is pretty, but we know from Vaughan Williams that landscape painting in music is much more than surface charm. It was good to hear Alwyn in the company of Britten, Finzi and Vaugham Williams so we appreciate their originality all the more.

Gerald Finzi's masterpiece Dies Natalis op 8 (1939) was premiered at the Wigmore Hall in January 1940, by Elsie Suddaby. The Finzis and their sons used precious petrol rations to drive up to London for the occasion. For many in this 2012 Wigmore Hall audience, with many Finzi specialists, it was the much anticipated highlight of the evening. Unfortunately, Susan Gritton was indisposed, which is a pity as she's very good. She didn't seem well the previous week at the Mendelssohn concert (reviewed here) but  her replacement was left so late that the announcement had to be made on stage. Ailish Tynan was aparently cooking lamb for dinner when she was called to sing. Dies Natalis is difficult to sing but several sopranos and tenors have it in their repertoire. Since Tynan's best work has been in oratorio, her performance was interesting because it showed, like RVW's Five Mystical Songs, that oratorio and art song are fundamentally different genres.

Dies Natalis begins with an Intrada where themes to come emerge briefly. It suggests, to me, the swirling gases of the cosmos, before the Universe was formed. Dies Natalis deals with no less than the miracle of Life and Creation, so this interpretation is valid, since it suggests primordial growth and vast cosmic forces. I was a little surprised that the themes weren't as clearly defined as they could be, but that hardly matters, since the concept is so overwhelming. This sense of infinite space and time is important because the poet, Thomas Traherne, though Christian, was a mystic. Transcendentalism "transcends" traditional dogma.  "Will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness?" the poet asks. Traherne's Rhapsody is prose, but with strange syntax, which Finzi respects by setting it with unsual rhythms  "I was a stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys: my knowledge was Divine!", the word "divine" jumping forth from the score, as if illuminated by unearthly glow.

Although there are references to Adam and to God, Traherne'surreal imagery bears little resemblence to conventional religious text. "The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never shall be reap'd nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting". Finzi's dynamic extremes emphasize the psychic extreme of the poet's imagination. They aren't there to display vocal gymnastics. Tynan's notes were pitched to extremes, at the expense of diction.  We should be hearing meaning, not voice as such, but meaning in Dies Natalis is not easy to grasp. Calm stillness underpins the ecstasy, for the cycle repeatedly refers to sublimation over ego and the sense of self. "I saw all in the peace of Eden. Everything was at rest, immortal and divine".

From Rhapsody to Rapture. This cycle often works best when sung by a tenor, emphasizing the strange, unconventional spirituality. "Sweet Infancy!" does not refer to babies, but to the idea of birth.. Perhaps for Finzi with his beliefs in organic farming and living in harmony with nature,  it's a statement of faith in something more primeval, the very force of life itself.  Finzi was way ahead of his time.

"When silent I, so many thousand, thousand Years beneath the Dust did in a Chaos lie, How could I Smiles, or Tears, or Lips or Hands or Eyes perceive " (Traherne's upper case).  Most definitely this isn't a human baby, nor even baby Jesus. Long before science developed theories about the Big Bang and primordial soup Traherne intuited the idea of the birth of the cosmos. Dies Natalis explores new territory, completely alien to the certainities of the established Church. Indeed, the very idea of faith is challenged. Fundamental to this cycle is the sense of wonder, of seeing the world anew through absolutely pure, unbiased eyes. Even Jesus had an agenda when he became Man. Finzi creates a  Being without any consciouness other than the sheer miracle of existence.  "A Stranger here, strange things doth meet, strange Glory see......Strange all and new to me, but that they MINE should be ...who Nothing was, That strangest is, of all, yet brought to pass". 

Recording recommendations - Wilfrid Brown, schoolteacher to Finzi's sons, (1955) and Ian Bostridge ( 1997)

New Dots SOLD OUT at the Forge, Camden

New Dots has SOLD OUT! News has spread by word of mouth. This a concert you won't get into unless you're in on the loop. Try anyway, because it's the launch of what promises to be a series featuring some of the more interesting composers and performers in London.

Lloyd Moore's Diabolus in musica was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Andre de Ridder conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Ivan Hewett presenting. It's an inventive piece, original and full of personality. Highly recommended. Read more HERE. At New Dots his Six Songs for soprano and piano will feature. Anna Patalong is singing, which in itself is a big plus as anyone who's heard her will know (Opera Holland Park, GSMD, etc). Elisabeth Rossiter accompanies. Lloyd Moore's music has been recorded by NMC Records, the pioneers in British new music. He also created a new performance re-orchestration of Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland which premiered in Santa Fe, and is planned for the Welsh National Opera.


Edward Nesbit studies with George Benjamin. At Aldeburgh in 2010, his Dance Portraits appealed greatly. It starts with a slow pas de deux between double bass and bass flute proceeding in the space of a few minutes into four sections. Dance as strategic game, figure shadowing one another. At New Dots, we'll hear his A Pretence of Wit, also with Anna Patalong.

I haven't heard Gonçalo Gato live -yet - but listen to his Vectorial modular HERE. It feels "physical" in the way that Rebecca Saunders' music inhabits spatial as well as aural concepts. He's not in her league, but listen out for his Shapes for string quartet at New Dots.

Stephen Hicks's Two Inventions for String Quartet will be performed by the Ligeti Quartet  He's a trumpeter and was a theoretcial physicist at Imperial, which endears him to me already, though I don't lknow his music. But he's studied with Robert Keeley, John Deathridge and Arnold Whittall, who have taste. Also on the programme, William Dougherty, The Aureole Effect for string quartet and Helgi Ingvarsson, Become for viola (Richard Jones) and piano.  Read more about New Dots HERE.

haha !!!

Joan at the Stake, broadcast live

French actress Marion Cotillard plays Joan of Arc in a new production of Arthur Honneger's Joan at the Stake (Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher) today on medici tv.This will be interesting as the piece requires a very strong personality indeed in the title role. Don't judge the piece by the Barbican performance last year  which was curiously inert despite the magnificence of the score. No wonder people who didn't know the piece didn't like it. A good performance requires a good actress to ignite.....oops. Watch what Ingrid Bergman brings to the part in the 1954 filmed version of Honneger's masterpiece. The brilliant orchestration gets upstaged by her amazing performance. Read more here

Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc is oratorio as psychodrama. In these final moments of Joan's life she thinks back on how she's arrived at the stake. The raging mob screams around her. She's shaven, in sack cloth but for the presence of her Confessor, who doesn't really understand.  But she's not alone for at the criical moment, her voices return, and she's taken up to heaven.  The orchestration is amazing - ondes martenot, saxophone, huge string section. The prelude, added in 1944 during the German Occupation, sets the piece in wider context. This magnificent orchestration frames the role of Joan, She's a simple peasant girl  who does extraordinary things. Significantly, Joan is not a singing part.

Read about Carl Th Dreyers silent movie The S Passion of Joan of Arc HERE, and about  Walter Braunfels Scenes from the life of Joan of Arc, a neglected wonder, HERE. .

Resurrected, Montemezzi's epic La nave

David Chandler braved Hurricane Sandy to fly to New York to catch the first performance in more than 70 years of Italo Montemezzi's  epic La Nave. The opera was written in 1918, with a libretto by Gabriele d'Annunzio (photo, left),  flamboyant poet, hero and creator in some ways of modern Italy. The opera was last performed in 1938, as the performance materials were destroyed  by bombs in World War 2. However, the full manuscrpit score survived, so La Nave can now be heard again.

Montemezzi's La nave "is a strange story concerned with the foundation, or rather the promise of the foundation, of Venice as a great maritime power; the plot is permeated with Italian nationalism, and contains a good deal of obscure motivation. But the music is magnificent from start to finish, and the opera certainly deserves to be staged, so the full grandeur of Montemezzi’s conception can be appreciated. Almost all the critics of the opera in the past agreed, whatever their other objections, that Montemezzi’s orchestration and treatment of the choir were extraordinarily impressive, and the New York performance showed they were right. The orchestration, clearly akin to that of L’Amore dei Tre Re, is Wagnerian, yet the Wagnerianism is refracted through an Italian sensibility, with a gripping nobility, sweeping, cinematic quality, lyrical voluptuousness, and restless play of instrumental textures. The sheer lushness of the score was beautifully brought out by Israel Gursky’s passionate conducting of the Teatro Grattacielo orchestra, and his timing seemed to me faultless — he let the music breathe, but also drove it along with irresistible momentum."

Read more here in Opera Today. David Chandler's latest book is a collection of essays about Italo Montemezzi, so he's the authority to listen to.  Chandler specializes in North Italian opera in the post-Wagner, post-Verdi period. He's also a specialist on Alfredo Catalani (La Wally) Read more by following the label below on Catalani.