Tempo 60 (235) 63–82 © 2006 Cambridge University Press 63 DOI: 10.1017/S0040298206000064 Printed in the United Kingdom

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Brussels, Opera Royal de la Monnaie: ‘Thyeste’ sinewy music van Vlijmen – originally a forthright serialist of the Birtwistle generation – elected to Thyeste (Thyestes), the new opera by Belgian com- embrace later in his career. But it took a moment poser Jan van Vlijmen based on a 1966 stage drama or two to adjust to Rien Bekkers’s individual cho- by his compatriot, the playwright Hugo Claus, rus costume designs, which left the initially inert, clearly bears the imprint of the ancients. Its grisly supine choir looking slightly comic – like an adver- tale could easily be by Aeschylus: think of the tisement for flowery pyjamas – amid a potentially bloody dispatch of Agamemnon in his bath, or the forceful opening tableau featuring a vengeful, horrific slaughter of their 50 husbands by the blood-red Fury (fearsomely intoned by contralto dauntless daughters of Danaus. Helena Rasker) and the father of this doomed Yet for sheer brutality, the Thyestes myth (gen- race, Tantalus (Harry Peeters), emerging from the erally accepted as a prime source for rear like a ghoulish Caliban. Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus) is hard to beat. Neither Daszak nor Duesing seemed very help- Claus based his play on Seneca, who was only too fully directed: this endangered the impact of happy to let blood flow freely onstage. Happily in earlier scenes. But the cavern of dripping sound – the opera, for which Claus has reworked his play bells, bowed percussion and harp – that evolved as a libretto, we were spared the spectacle of John during one early brothers’ encounter; the touch- Daszak’s leering Atreus slitting the throats of his ing exchange between Thyestes and his young son brother’s small sons – whom we had just a Tantalus (clear echoes of Debussy’s Yniold); and, moment earlier watched innocently disporting in particular, the impressive Messenger scene, themselves with a bright pink kite and blue and ominously hammered home by the magnificent yellow balloons. As in Greek drama, that’s left for Syrian bass Nabil Suliman, picked out in shadow a Messenger to describe. and supported by bowed percussion and overtly But we do witness the famous banquet, in which grieving brass, came across especially strongly. Atreus, the father of Agamemnon, in revenge for Paul Gallis’s simple but effective décor deliber- his younger brother’s cuckolding him and conceiv- ately restricted the stage action to an oval area, ing designs on the throne, serves up to Thyestes (the aptly recalling the curved ‘orchestra’ space of American baritone Dale Duesing) the boiled Epidaurus or Athens’s Theatre of Dionysus. Solos human flesh of his sons right there on stage. For were well taken: a striking passage for double bass sheer ghastliness, child slaying is about as vile as it as Atreus cynically deceives Thyestes into accept- gets. But this – ‘a penalty beyond the bounds of ing a share of the crown; another for cor anglais, human hate’ – beats even that. When the boys’ sev- emerging as a desolate prelude to the final revela- ered heads are kicked around the stage in a rouged tions. In yet another sequence Daszak’s Atreus, sack, this is not one for the squeamish. pitched high in the tenor register, is subtly under- The slightly too static staging by Gerardjan scored by dark low strings and bassoon; as Rijnders for Brussels’s Opera Royal de la Monnaie, Thyestes’ misplaced optimism grows, several bars premièred on 2 October, improved dramatically as scored for viola and bassoon seem poignantly to the four main acts (or scenes) progressed. question his doomed false hopes. Musically, the opera could not have had a better Best was the final encounter – a long drawn out advocate than conductor Stefan Asbury, whose exchange between the two brothers during which intelligent quick grasp of complex modern scores Claus cleverly permits the full horror (of the boys’ has rendered him a valuable and enabling figure in slaughtering, the true nature of the supposed ban- the European contemporary music world. Van quet, and the fact that Thyestes, just when Vlijmen opted to dispense with the full-sized supposedly celebrating the two brothers’ reconcil- orchestra of La Monnaie, restricting himself to an iation, is consuming his dead sons’ flesh and expressive ensemble with solo strings. Here, quaffing their blood) – to emerge only casually, bit Asbury conducted the capable Asko Ensemble by bit. Slyly, sneeringly, scowlingly, Daszak’s and Cappella Amsterdam. Atreus gradually tightened the screw. But it was Nervy brass, eerie percussion and slithering Duesing’s harrowing depiction of Thyestes as an strings soon gave a sense of the atmospheric, increasingly crumpled, scarred and ultimately sui- 64 

cidal victim that finally gave this grim opera its fierce, blazing quality to this, the scherzo of the bite. Van Vlijmen saw this last sequence as – para- design. Phrases flicker, spit and flare up, burning doxically – a virtual ‘love scene’ between the two through climaxes of white heat, which extinguish brothers. Rijnders’s direction was unexpectedly themselves in a remarkable, desiccated fragment good here: the effect of this final scene was unde- of crackling wooden slapsticks. Aurora, a tenderly niably searing. sketched depiction of the Aurora Borealis, offers Roderic Dunnett crucial respite after the fierce energy of the first two movements. Interlacing solos shape the fabric of this serene, contemplative slow movement, weaving a fragile, kaleidoscopic skein of gos- Cheltenham Festival 2005: John Pickard’s samer beauty. ‘Gaia’ Symphony for brass The Finale, Men of Stone, is cast in four distinct sections, each picturing an ancient site housing The world première of John Pickard’s Gaia various Neolithic stone circles around the British Symphony for brass band is arguably the most Isles, captured at specific times of day. ‘Avebury’ is exciting and distinctive piece of programming by depicted on an autumnal morning, ‘Castlerigg’ in Martyn Brabbins in the first Cheltenham Festival Cumbria in a snowstorm on a winter’s afternoon, under his Artistic Directorship. Both Brabbins and ‘Barclodiad-y-Gawres’, on the coast of Angelsey, Pickard grew up in the brass band tradition, which during a spring sunset and ‘Stonehenge’ during the symphony both respects and transcends. The Midsummer’s Eve, as dawn emerges through the Gaia Symphony has had a long gestation period. stones. Whilst Earth remains the dominating ele- The title of this colossal, hour-long work refers ment behind the whole of Men of Stone, its four to the Greek goddess of the Earth, and reflects the sections also contain the classical elements repre- symbolic connexion of each movement to natural sented by the four movements of the symphony as phenomena, based on the four elements of Water, a whole: earth for ‘Avebury’, air for the blizzard Fire, Air and Earth. The symphony consists of scene of ‘Castlerigg’, water for the seascape of four separate tone poems or movements linked ‘Barclodiad y Gawres’ and fire for the climactic together by ‘Windows’ written for six percussion- midsummer scene of ‘Stonehenge’. The four-in- ists. These pivotal interludes refine the score’s one nature of ‘Men of Stone’ serves as a rigorous palette and give the brass players a well-earned review of the entire large-scale structure, in true rest, as well as adding a fresh perspective on the symphonic fashion. The massively optimistic final preceding music and anticipating the ensuing major chord, with which this work ends, not only material. Each of the movements was in fact writ- represents harmony between a natural and man- ten and performed separately (the earliest, made phenomenon, but also signifies journey’s Wildfire, as long ago as 1991) and it was only after a end for this spectacular aural voyage. span of 13 years composing the four tone poems Special mention must be made of the three that the composer decided to unite them into a transitional ‘Windows’, which use a variety of single entity. drums, bells and cymbals. They link the four main From the introductory bars, it is evident that movements and go a long way towards securing this is going to be a large-scale, truly symphonic the success of the whole symphony. As well as work. Momentous pedal points and ominous osti- offering a welcome contrast in timbre from the nati tell the audience they are about to embark on brass band sonorities, these interludes gather in a vast journey. There is a genuine sense of expecta- rhythmic complexity, from the regular pulse of tion as the odyssey is begun. The opening the first via the elaborate counterpoint of the sec- movement, Tsunami, was completed in 2002 and ond to the more flexible and irregular aspect of the hence has no reference to the tragic events of third. They contribute vital musical and narrative Boxing Day 2004. It is, rather, a purely musical cohesion. response to the concept of the momentum built The Buy As You View Band (formerly the Cory up and ultimately discharged by a large tidal wave. Band), under the direction of Robert Childs, gave The movement is launched and driven by nervous a virtuoso world première performance, with fine energy, grippingly held in check during a tense brass sonorities allied to a keen rhythmic sense central section that features solos of eerie fore- and peerless technical execution. It is good that boding. they have recorded the work, so their masterly Wildfire was inspired by a newspaper report of interpretation of this monolithic tour de force can two forest fires that started separately before con- be widely heard (Doyen CD 188). verging on each other. Again, this movement is Pickard’s Gaia Symphony is a remarkable not a literal depiction of the fire, but there is a achievement, challenging received opinion about   65 the brass band concert repertoire – habitually a movement begins with gossamer string figures diet of trite marches, prosaic arrangements and dappled with light from tuned percussion, bells, mortifyingly stodgy versions of pop tunes. He has piano, before the trumpet intones its elegiac line, succeeded in creating an epic work of genuine lyrical but immensely sad and essentially alone; a symphonic weight as well as dimension, with sub- light crash from the percussion silences it, and the tle thematic and structural links between all four strings continue the tissue of mourning before the movements. A lesser composer might have pro- trumpet elegy resumes over an ominous com- duced the longest test piece in the history of the mentary from bass drum and timpani. The finale brass band movement, but Pickard is a natural erupts Con fuoco with an antiphonal crash of cym- symphonist, thinking in long-breathed, sweeping bals, unleashing melodic shapes that now bustle paragraphs of sound and, as in Nicholas Maw’s upwards – the long shadow of Tippett still audible Odyssey, the very choice of material determines in the strings. Angry gestures from brass and per- and sustains an expansive structure. I hope John cussion, and a repeated brass chord unleashes a Pickard will go on to write more symphonies monumental chordal underpinning from the (Gaia is his Fourth): on the strength of this exam- organ; after a sudden silence, the last emphatic ple and his bravely compelling Second and Third rhythms are punched out tutti. That unexpected contributions to the genre, he has the technique organ irruption underlined my principal misgiv- and the temperament to emerge as one of the ing about the work as a whole. Even in a concerto great symphonists of the 21st century. for orchestra, when showing off the myriad vari- Paul Conway eties of texture available from the modern symphony orchestra, you need to stay your hand: constant variety is no variety at all. That last- minute organ blast shoots the work in the foot: a Proms 2005 (1): Berkeley, Musgrave, big gesture to underline the fact that it was the first MacMillan, Glanert, Corigliano, Abrahamsen one we had heard – and that Berkeley achieves his climax through the simple expedient of unleash- Michael Berkeley’s 24-minute Concerto for ing violent power rather than generating genuine Orchestra is the second work to emerge from his intensity. appointment as Associate Composer of the BBC As with Berkeley’s Concerto, Thea Musgrave’s National Orchestra of Wales which, under its Turbulent Landscapes (2003), given its London pre- chief conductor, Richard Hickox, gave it the world mière on 20 July by the BBC Scottish SO under its premiere on 19 July (the first fruit of the union was much-missed former chief conductor Osmo Tristessa (2003), a concerto for viola and cor Vänskä, showed some remarkably inventive anglais). It opens, Energico, with a tone of fierce orchestral writing, but it likewise suffered from exultation, the material acknowledging the genre the lack of a big idea. Turbulent Landscapes is a suite as it is passed around the orchestra in urgent premised on six Turner paintings (thoughtfully discussion, the string-writing animated by reproduced in the programme on the evening) but Tippett-like rhythms, the textures somehow man- it, too, is a concerto for orchestra: Musgrave paints aging to be both bright and dark at the same time – with sounds as Turner with oils and calls on the not least because Berkeley is remembering his constituent instrumental colours even more bass lines. An oasis of calm in the centre of all this explicitly. The opening ‘Sunrise with Sea- activity is inhabited by pizzicato violins and tuned Monsters’ gave a fair indication of what was to percussion, who play with a descending motif that follow: it’s an obvious seascape, with a broad sense runs through the whole work; here it drifts down- of primal movement beneath the subtleties of its wards like a fleck of dust on the eye. The brass and surface chiaroscuro. Thus, too, in ‘The Shipwreck’ heavier percussion, sustained by long string lines, – the horns (deliberately?) evoking Peter Grimes – return the temperature to the intensity of the the tension mounts to a violent climax as the opening, and the movement closes with a decisive- storm claims its victim. In ‘Snow Storm: Hannibal ness reminiscent, oddly enough, of Roy Harris. and his Army Crossing the Alps’ flutter-tongued The title of the slow movement, ‘Threnody for flutes hover over the heavy tread of muffled low a Sad Trumpet’, might suggest a Morton Gould percussion and pizzicato basses; a solo horn, miniature; in fact, Berkeley was sitting down to standing (Musgrave likes these theatrical touch- the music when he heard news of the death of es), represents Hannibal urging on his men, and Jane Attenborough (daughter of Richard, who hesitant fanfares indicate distant Italy. The solo was present for what must have been one of the trumpet in ‘War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet’ most poignant first performances of his long life) is Napoleon, unsettled, brittle, bitter, the first and his grief worked its way into the music. The notes of the Marseillaise recalling his triumphs and 66 

an echo of ‘God Save the King’ his defeat. More not expect much fleetness of thought. The title of solo lines – bass clarinet, cor anglais and, especial- the fourth episode, though – ‘The red-handed, no- ly, viola – decorate ‘God Save the King’ in the surrender howler monkey’ – fingers Scottish horns, but the next player on his feet is the piccolo, anti-Catholic prejudice clearly enough for its joined by the flutes: these flickering improvisatory manic militarism, expressed in a mad Ivesian lines depict the first of the flames that consumed scherzo, to turn its target orange with indigna- the Houses of Parliament in 1834. Pregnant with tion. MacMillan is now on a roll, and the sixth latent power, the orchestra at last unleashes wood- episode aims a slug at the Scottish political estab- wind and percussion as the conflagration bursts lishment when a ‘discarded fanfare for the out, and the heavy brass pitch in to bring the roof opening of the new Scottish Parliament’ is down, almost literally – but horns softly intone the mocked with wow-wow trombone, ‘accompa- national anthem: all will be well again. Finally, in nied by bagpipe-like drones and snuffling on the ‘Sunrise, with a Boat between Headlands’, string organ’; a powerful organ statement sweeps it all clusters paint the fog and muted brass chords sug- away disdainfully, perhaps discarding the gest ‘the huge looming cliffs’ (Musgrave’s Parliament itself. When the organ bookends ‘The programme note). A solo clarinet calls up three Reverend Cuckoo and his Parroting Chorus’ (sev- trumpets to evoke the sun; mutes off, the brass enth episode, clarinet stirring the other powers Turner’s boat out towards the open sea woodwinds into excitement) with a hymn and the and the music sinks into tranquillity. Musgrave’s orchestra sings ‘Amen’, the Prom audience, enjoy- use of orchestral soloists and her deliberate sym- ing the scrap like kids around a playground fight, bolism might seem crude in the necessary laughed out loud. The eighth and last episode, summary of a review; experienced as music, ‘Jackass Hackass’, is a swirling moto perpetuo, Turbulent Landscapes is delicate, refined, imagina- where MacMillan gets even with us hapless tive – not plumbing the emotional reserves of the scriveners – two orchestral typewriters make it last orchestral work of hers presented at the clear whose eye he is jabbing. Proms (the soprano song-cycle Songs for a Winter’s But if that first section, 20 minutes in length, is Evening in 1998), but with its own poetic logic. an essay in epic whimsy, MacMillan reveals a more Strauss used Ein Heldenleben to get even with his serious purpose in the white-knuckle chase of the critics; James MacMillan’s organ concerto A Scotch fantasy which follows, where material from the Bestiary – given its first London performance on first is joined by new ‘animals’; the humour and 21 July, with the soloist Wayne Marshall and the violence coalesce in a riot of colour and energy composer conducting the BBC Philharmonic – is than is far more than simple snook-cocking. an elaborate and energetic settling of scores with MacMillan occasionally relaxes the throttle, but his own naysayers. Since the work was initially when the music gathers speed for the frenzied commissioned for the Walt Disney Concert Hall skelter and fierce organ cadenza of the closing in Los Angeles, MacMillan explains, ‘I was moti- pages, the thrill is physical as much as musical. As vated by the great American cartoon makers who Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, represented human characters in animal form. A MacMillan was as obviously at home with his Scotch Bestiary is inspired by human archetypes musicians as he was with his music; and, secure in and personalities encountered in Scottish life over the knowledge that Wayne Marshall would under- the years’. The subtitle – ‘Enigmatic variations on take the first performances, threw a demonic solo a zoological carnival at a Caledonian exhibition’ – part a him; Marshall despatched it with assured gives the musical game away: MacMillan takes confidence. leaves from Elgar’s, Saint-Saëns’ and Mussorgsky’s More animal energy was unleashed on 26 July, books. The work falls into two sections, the first a in the world première of Detlev Glanert’s set of character variations, intermittently linked Theatrum bestiarum, a BBC commission conduct- by various treatments of the ‘Promenade’ from ed by John Storgårds, replacing the indisposed Mussorgsky’s Pictures, the second a wild and Oliver Knussen in front of the BBC Symphony freewheeling fantasy on the material generated in Orchestra. Glanert sees the 20-minute work as ‘a the first. dark and wild series of songs and dances for It’s plain MacMillan’s gloves are off from the orchestra, […] an exploration of dangerous ferocious chordal opening, organ, brass and per- dreams and wishes’; its ‘uncomfortable undertow’ cussion all piling in like vultures on a kill. His makes it ‘a glimpse into the inner soul of a mon- victims aren’t always obvious: quite who are the ster – as human beings can become’. Here, too, ‘Reptiles and Big Fish (in a small pond)’ of the sec- the organ joins the orchestra in the opening ond episode isn’t revealed explicitly, though the mêlée, but the sound evaporates instantly, leaving lumbering waltz that emerges suggests we should a lone bass line to splutter out on tuba and organ.   67

Dancing figures in the strings try to re-animate the music; the woodwinds join in and the orchestra whirls into life, and a dance rhapsody burls for- ward, whooping winds whipping the strings along. The frenetic repeated rhythms point to the Friday 20 January @ 7.30pm heritage of Karl Amadeus Hartmann as the music Tallis Scholars grows increasingly manic, until three huge organ Peter Phillips director chords put a brake on the momentum. The strings Sarah Connolly soprano answer, pianissimo, introducing a restless Vanessa Redgrave narrator * nightscape illuminated with a myriad points of Gombert Missa Tempore Paschali Tavener Tribute to Cavafy* © Catherine Ashmore light; occasional commentary from the organ is Symphony Hall Commission - World première met by woozy glissandi from solo violins and a half-hearted response from the orchestra, and a FREE Pre-Concert Talk @ 6.15pm fanfare, gently dying, sings this section to sleep, the cellos dropping off in a sinking melodic line. A GIGS4U gentle dissonance in the winds stirs the dawn cho- rus, the growing energy again suggesting Tuesday 7 February @ 7.30pm Hartmann as a distant inspiration. Organ, percus- Fiddlesticks sion and strings, cleverly scored, egg on the Ensemblebash director momentum but are silenced by sudden stasis. Madeleine Mitchell violin

Timpani tattoos, jubilant horns and Rite-like GIGS4U Music for percussion and violin by: Lou • Harrison, Peter Maxwell Davies, Joby stomping try to jab the orchestra into ever more Talbot, Nigel Osborne, Tarik O’Regan, violent life, but the response is a string-quartet Rachel Leach, Simon Limbrick elegy which spreads into a slow, shimmering FREE Pre-Concert Talk @ 6.15pm chord across the orchestra – and the work stops

dead in its tracks. GIGS4U

With its origins in the score for François • Thursday 30 March @ 7.30pm Girard’s film The Red Violin, John Corigliano’s vio- Steve Reich lin concerto of that name, given its UK première Rhythm and Movement on 28 July by Joshua Bell and the Bournemouth London Sinfonietta Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, must Akram Khan Company* Brad Lubman conductor have been the most widely-heard new music in GIGS4U

• Akram Khan choreographer this year’s Proms season. Corigliano first (in 1997) Sound Intermedia sound design wrote an expansive, romantic chaconne which Steve Reich Sextet - Different Trains - Variations was needed ahead of time so that the actors could for Vibes, Pianos and Strings* (UK Première) synchronize their hand-movements with the film; FREE Pre-Concert Talk @ 6.15pm *commissioned by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) having thus laid his soul bare, he decided it could GIGS4U function as the opening movement of a full-scale • concerto, and the piece – dedicated to the memo- ry of Corigliano’s father, erstwhile concertmaster Wednesday 19 April @ 7.30pm of the New York Philharmonic – was completed in Bach Meets Moondog 2003. The chaconne (at 16 minutes the longest sin- Britten Sinfonia

GIGS4U Joanna MacGregor gle movement of this 37-minute work) opens with • piano/director the solo violin twice drawing a swish of colours Andy Sheppard saxophones from percussion, harp and woodwinds before Shri Sriram tabla/flute/bass gruff bassoons announce the ground bass, which Mike Mondesir bass then recedes from view: during the long, lyrical Mark Mondesir drums and very lovely exposition you would hardly know GIGS4U Moondog (Louis Hardin)

• Single Foot; Bumbo; Sextet; Up Broadway; All is Loneliness; it is a chaconne, the steady tread asserting itself Voices of Spring; Invocation; Reedroy; Organ Rounds; only slowly. And the acquired dignity is soon dis- Symphonique No 6,Good for Goodie;Frankanon; Heath on the Heather (arr. MacGregor) carded as the music sets off on a wild chase. The Bach (arr. MacGregor) The Art of Fugue writing for violin is fearsomely virtuosic, with an FREE Pre-Concert Talk @ 6.15pm improvisatory feel – in this, of all forms. The cli- max, which has a whiff of Prokofiev, doesn’t make GIGS4U the most of the emotion that has been generated, Box office 0121 780 3333 and after a ruminative cadenza the brass and per- www.symphonyhall.co.uk/boxoffice cussion bring back the opening material. 68 

The second-movement ‘Pianissimo Scherzo’ is ‘Arabesque’, brighter than any of the preceding all scurry and whisper, the trio bringing the con- textures, twinkle and flicker in textures of trast of rhythmic irregularity. Harmonics in the Debussyan lightness. And ‘Ende’, incorporating violin are answered with a hint of orientalism in silence into the deeper recesses of the orchestra percussion and woodwind. The violin resumes its and juxtaposing it with occasional surges of catch-me-if-you-can with the orchestra, and the chordal colour, proved a deeply subtle psychologi- music rushes upwards and disappears. The follow- cal essay. Of all the new music on my watch this ing Andante flautando opens with a broad cello year, this was by far the most impressive piece. melody, to which the soloist appends his own The world première of Huw Watkins’s Double extended, plangent thoughts. The troubled lyri- Concerto for the unusual combination of viola and cism brings clear echoes of the Samuel Barber cello occupied the centre-spot of the Prom on 4 Concerto; unlike that work, and despite the beauty August; the violist Philip Dukes and cellist of the string-writing, the ideas are not adequately Josephine Knight, both of them first-rate musi- sustained. The rhythmically dislocated finale is cians, were joined by the BBC National Orchestra another wild hunt, soloist and orchestra barrelling of Wales under the alert baton of Jac van Steen. onwards at different tempi, the brass whooping The concerto begins with a brief fusillade of and percussion banging defiance, soloist and demisemiquavers from the violins, underpinned orchestral strings pressing crunches out of the by the bass drum and capped by flourishes from instruments. The tension falls and oboe and flute the soloists. A viola solo (sola?), high in the register, unfold a sad nocturne, encouraging one of the brings a hint of Celtic dance; the cello responds soloist’s loveliest melodies so far. The opening cha- less assertively, before the duo and string-dominat- conne balefully returns, sparking excited ed orchestra exchange material in a wild allegro. commentary from the violin. A percussion-accom- Indeed, the repeated bursts of toccata-like writ- panied cadenza stirs up more crunching and, ing, occasionally animated by a brittle humour, prefaced by percussion thuds, a final whoop from suggest that the entire movement functions as a the violin closes the concerto – which is not quite preludial toccata of sorts, with a calm and sadly the sum, I fear, of its estimable parts. lyrical postlude for the duo. The elegiac tone thus Hans Abrahamsen’s Four Pieces for Orchestra set up continues into the central Adagio, the (UK première on 1 August) began life as the first soloists rhapsodizing contrapuntally, braving four of his 10 Studies for Piano in 1983: ‘Träumlied’, brisker interjections from trumpets and trom- ‘Sturm’, ‘Arabesque’ and ‘Ende’; even then they bones to suggest a loss felt jointly, the sense of pain were intended to ‘recall the German Romantic era maintained into the closing bars, where the phras- full of expression, night, timelessness, dream and es run out, unfinished. Bass drum and double the irrational’ and he already foresaw them bassoon support the beginnings of a dance, which expanded for full orchestra. In the long run (that the duo seems to be trying to recover from the expansion took place in 2000–3) he requires 107 depths of memory. Tempo and power gradually players, among them two harps, guitar, mandolin, increase, establishing a stomping rhythm. But the two contrabassoons, bass trumpet, four Wagner onward drive drops back for a wistful reverie until tubas, two normal ones and a forest of percussion; the bell-crested orchestra insists again, growing between Sibelius’s Third Symphony and Brahms’s ever more excited under the tumbling, intertwin- Second Piano Concerto, this was indeed a pro- ing lines of the soloists. Finally, they too get the gramming indulgence – especially since, in this idea and wrong-foot it enthusiastically to the concert of Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish, the sudden conclusion. players would have to have been transported Martin Anderson down from Glasgow. But Abrahamsen uses his huge resources as sparingly as Mahler – and to tremendous effect: the range of colours was daz- zling. The magister in absentia is clearly Berg, the Proms 2005 (2): Unsuk Chin, Sorensen, Hayes, figure where once before the heritage of the Salonen Romantic ethos fused with atonality. The shifting chords of ‘Träumlied’, built on a phrase of On 10 August Kent Nagano and The Deutsches Webernian brevity and allowed to echo into the Symphonie-Orchestra Berlin with Christiane distance, are charged with gently suggestive Oelze gave the European première of Unsuk strength. ‘Sturm’ boils from the start, spluttering Chin’s snagS and Snarls, settings of texts by Lewis angrily and soon whirling into a modernist re- Carroll with additions by the composer. There are, writing of the Storm from Peter Grimes: the of course, no moral imperatives about these sorts parallels are striking. The twisting lines of of things, but it seems that anybody setting Carroll   69 should tread very carefully, especially if not a native Sorensen’s piece, one of the three strands of the speaker. The word setting in the last movement, music is the choruses (placed in different parts of ‘Speak softly to your little boy,’ was supposed to be the room), presenting the narrative (or at least unnatural and distorted for (presumably comic) suggesting it); another is the soprano as the mer- effect, but in fact it was no more so than that of the maid, telling the story in first person and present first, a setting of ‘A boat beneath a sunny sky,’ the tense; and the third is the tenor who sings excerpts dedicatory poem which has Alice Liddell’s name from Andersen’s diaries, initially only obliquely embedded in it as the first letter of every line, related to the story. At the climax of the work, the where the intention was clearly to set the words in tenor and the soprano sing the same words, join- an absolutely straightforward manner. The music ing the mermaid’s story with Andersen’s. The of ‘The Alice acrostic,’ as that movement was enti- music is extremely quiet practically all the time, tled, was evocative, sweetly ‘old-fashioned’ and the pitch language fairly simple. The writing for gentle, but the voice-part was likely to sprout the choruses is intricate, mellifluous, and delicate, melismas at any moment, however inopportune it accompanied with shimmering music in the might be in relationship to the text, to no particu- orchestra. Around the climactic part the orches- larly good end. ‘The long and sad tale’ of the tral music gets lower and much more agitated, but mouse after the caucus race was set to music which hardly louder. The delicacy and quietness of the was supposed to mimic the graphic character of work as a whole suggests a sort of siren’s song. the text as Carroll printed it, with phrases that start- The vocal writing is always extremely effective, ed loud and got softer and also got progressively both for soloists and choruses. The whole work higher and shorter, but this attribute was not par- was understatedly beautiful and moving, and the ticularly clear aurally. Contractions in Carroll’s text playing and singing was about as good as anybody were changed back into separate words, which could ever imagine or wish. blithe disregard for its scansion. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, On the BBC Symphony concert on 25 August, little bat,’ the fourth movement, had lots of addi- which contained the first performance of the tional text by Chin, starting from the well-known BBC-commissioned Strip by Morgan Hayes, nursery rhyme which was Carroll’s reference and Joseph Swensen filled in on very short notice for elaborating on it. It was a frenetically crazy patter an indisposed Sir Andrew Davis. The title of song with a refrain of nonsense words supplied by Hayes’s work is intended to have a number of dif- the composer. ferent implications, including that its material is All of the music throughout the piece was layered, in strips, and that its music is stripped- appealing, but it wasn’t ever really funny. A singer down, reduced to its simplest means. The work is who made contact with the audience and really in a modernistic, non-tonal style, bristling with presented the piece might have been able to make complicated rhythms and quarter-tone inflected it charming and amusing, but Ms. Oelze, as if giv- melody, and is scored for a large orchestra replete ing an impression of a singer filling in at the last with an extensive percussion section plus cim- moment, had to work very hard to keep her head balom, harmonium, and piano four hands. above water, singing directly to her music stand Strip began with a repeating grid of non-tuned and conducting herself practically the whole time, percussion music, over which is soon suspended and didn’t help anything. Even though the orches- dissonant longish chords. The percussion tration was attractive and skilful, particularly in rhythms migrate into cellos and basses, acquiring respect to the balance between the voice and the pitches. Eventually intense and active melodic orchestra, it would probably have been more suc- lines flower, most memorably in a more extended cessful had it been for saxophone or flute or section for two solo violins early on in the piece. clarinet and orchestra. Following the unfolding of its initial progress each The concert by the Danish National Orchestra of the disparate elements of the work expands fur- and Thomas Dausgaard on 12 August included ther in range and instrumentation as the texture is the first performance of The Little Mermaid by increasingly stratified and simplified. The prep- Bent Sorensen. The work is for three girl’s chorus- aration of the performance had been impeded by es (the Danish National Girls Choir), high soprano Davis’s illness, and it was clearly inadequate. (Inger Dam-Jensen), and tenor (Gert Henning- Exactly how much it undermined the clarity and Jensen), with orchestra. Hans Christian Andersen strength of the work’s arc is a question that the wrote his story The Little Mermaid soon after the next performance will have to answer. In a better wedding of a friend with whom he had an unrecip- performance, though, Strip might have a clearer rocated passionate attachment, and the story’s and more convincing progress to it and might theme of unrequited love and renunciation is seem less static and inconclusive. thought to reflect his own feelings at the time. In The World Orchestra for Peace can only be 70 

described as an all-star group. Its players are drawn bals that bring the coda of the piece to a close’, the from major orchestras from all over the world; as customary religious atmosphere of her works is an example, of the 15 members of the first violin never far away. Immediately after the opening the section, 12 are concertmasters of their regular string surgings, now joined by woodwind, are stat- orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, ically contrasted with a serious, almost the Israel Philharmonic, the Helsinki Phil- chorale-like series of passages in the lower strings. harmonic, and the orchestra of the Royal Opera, When the divisi string sounds stop abruptly after Covent Garden. The group was founded by Sir an fff chord and trumpet-led brass come in with George Solti, and after his death in 1997, Valery mighty fanfares, the piece takes on a mystical Gergiev became the conductor. atmosphere that it never really abandons. The orchestra’s Prom concert on 27 August The composer’s stated desire to ‘mine the dark included the first performance of Helix, a work side’ involves, or so it seems, the juxtaposition of written for them on a BBC commission by Esa- heaven (in a rather Messiaen-like halo of trum- Pekka Salonen. Salonen described Helix, which is pets), earth (all the endless, aimless surgings) and of about nine minutes duration, as being like a spi- the deep (those solid, heavy string passages). ral or a cone. The tempo of the piece is always Fanciful though this reading of Gubaidulina’s the- increasing, but the note values of the main parts ology might be, one can’t help noticing how the become correspondingly longer, so that the pervasive atmosphere of the piece – particularly in impression is of an acceleration of speed of figu- its early sections – is a ruminative setting of con- ration, but not of tempo. The mood of the work trasting sounds and textures against one another. changes progressively from the hazy, languorous Under Masur, the LPO was complicit in this: play- quality of the beginning to the busy, manic, and ing with precision and care, but not, even in the very loud character of the end. The work was work’s more dramatic later sections, giving clearly written with the virtuosic abilities of the enough pace to achieve the strength and flow that amazing players of the orchestra in mind. Salonen we get in Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto or has worked with many of them for years and Symphony. knows their playing very well, and he had written It is the middle sections of the piece’s 23- that he felt that the project was a more personal minute span that are most successful. In the first undertaking that usual. Gubaidulina brings her richly-coloured orchestral Rodney Lister forces together for the first time, so that a lively dancing string melody is counterpointed by a swirling figure dominated by bar chimes. Brass take up the strings’ ever-more urgent rhythm Proms 2005 (3): Gubaidulina, Adès, Turnage before a sensuous, thrilling full orchestral climax. If some of Gubaidulina’s writing for snarling The Light of the End, Sofia Gubaidulina’s 2003 piece trombones, stratospheric horns and the colours of for large orchestra, which received its UK pre- a large percussion section is occasionally over- mière on 20 August from the LPO under the indulged, the work’s heart – a duet for solo direction of Kurt Masur, is a work that looks like (tempered) cello and (natural) solo horn is effec- something of a departure for its 73 year-old com- tive because of the simplicity of the material given poser. Denying any religious influences in its to them. The stripped-down music brings out the origin, Gubaidulina spoke at her pre-Prom inter- horn’s free, raw, primitive quality against the view instead of the ‘conflict’ between natural and cello’s passionate but vibrato-heavy and rather tempered tunings as the source of the piece. sophisticated tones. Not so much darkness against Interestingly it is the familiar tempered tuning light, more the raw and the cooked. that the composer, at least here, seems to regard as However the drama of this contrast is lost the dark force. ‘Nature is neutralized’ through this amidst the sheer welter of colours in man-made compromise, as she somewhat eccen- Gubaidulina’s complex and busy orchestral writ- trically sees it. ing; and so her central argument is dissipated. It is Although the piece begins in familiar only later, after a few longeurs, that we hear such Gubaidulina ‘colourist’ territory, with slow solo effective dramatic conflict again. The great coup flutes and alto flute supported by harp harmonics; of the final section is when the brass break out in violent upsurges from the strings quickly lead the all directions across the landscape in an way for the horns, playing loudly and raucously in unchecked, ‘natural’ moment, bells pealing their natural pitch, to stand in aggressive contrast. behind. So has the ‘natural’ won? Yes, if we listen Despite Gubaidulina’s claim that the title came to the sweeping glissandos of an ecstatic solo cello ‘only from the bright sound of the antique cym- and strings disappearing into the ether, harps and   71 glockenspiels accompanying them to a familiar Adès seems content to let the violin once more heaven. Beautiful, visionary and light-filled cer- hold high notes while the orchestra provides the tainly, yet where is the battle from which this main interest. But no – the soloist has other triumph has come? devices: a syncopated line, an angular double- and There is a winning simplicity about Thomas triple-stopped one and finally a race towards and Adès’s recently completed first Violin Concerto, sudden thump of a surprise ending. The compos- given its UK première with the composer himself er describes the atmosphere of this last movement conducting on 6 September, only two days after its as being ‘playful, at ease’. While it is neither (and is world première in Berlin with the Chamber the least successful movement), its brevity and the Orchestra of Europe and Anthony Marwood as old-fashioned excitement of seeing the soloist soloist. Adès supplied an unrevealing 76-word pro- negotiate some tricky running passages make the gramme-note (unlike Gubaidulina, he eschews appeal of the work as whole more straightforward explanatory words about the motives behind his than Asyla (1997) which has thus far established works) and subtitled the work Concentric Paths. itself as Adès’s most admired orchestral score. Likewise, each of the three movements has a sim- Whereas one sometimes wonders what logic gov- ple if not especially enlightening title (‘Rings’, erns the sequences in Asyla’s madhouse, the ‘Paths’ and ‘Rounds’), but the directness of Adès’s soloist’s prominence and the focus that gives to style means that any more explanation of the this new 20-minute piece, the absence of mere music’s designs would be superfluous. show and the work’s sheer slickness make it a real In ‘Rings’, the opening quick movement, the ‘Concerto Conciso’ which will, I am sure, contin- soloist plays almost without a pause, mostly in a ue to bear aloft the multi-hued torch of Adès’s high register, often in rapid similar semiquaver reputation. patterns alternating higher and lower notes to cre- Håkan Hardenberger, the pre-eminent trum- ate a ‘circling’ effect. The orchestra joins in this peter of our time, has been responsible for hard-driven near-perpetuum mobile movement, inspiring a number of commissions for his instru- continuing the soloist’s own patterns and then just ment (not least from HK Gruber, Harrison as quickly returning to an accompanying role to Birtwistle and Sally Beamish). On 9 September he let the violin’s repeated figures come to the fore. appeared as soloist in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The metal percussion, sparingly used trumpets, new trumpet concerto, another work that had flutes and piccolos add to the movement’s gos- come to the Proms just a few days after its world samer texture and motoric energy, while metal première by its co-commissioners the Helsinki PO guiro and small cans drive it breathtakingly to its under Esa-Pekka Salonen. end. Hardenberger has collaborated with Turnage After the almost Baroque technique of ‘Rings’, before. Dispelling the Fears, Turnage’s 1995 double the slow movement ‘Paths’ shows – appropriately trumpet concerto, in fact began the process of col- – soloist and orchestra on different tracks. The laboration that prompted the Swede to request a orchestra opens with stark jumpy chords. The vio- single-trumpet concerto; this new piece, entitled lin, on edge, is forced for the first time into From the Wreckage, is the result. Turnage’s style has subterranean depths and rhythmically complex moved on somewhat in the last 20 years, as he is figures, leaps and runs as the trombone and tuba the first to acknowledge. Although the double pursue it over sullen ground. At figure 18, as if concerto is only ten years old, it has less of a range hurt and defiant, the soloist has a passage in its than the new piece. Where the earlier concerto lowest register, marcato as the orchestra play ppp; was more aggressive and brass-dominated in tex- the orchestra rejoins, still quieted, the trumpets ture, with the solo instruments heard mostly in and horns making a woeful buzzing sound their more vociferous and extravert mode, here through their Harman mutes. The long rhapsodic the composer attempts to exploit both a wider solo passage at the centre of this movement and register and breadth of tone; so much so that the which continues to the double-bass and timpani- solo part calls additionally or the soloist to play the accompanied end is distinguished not only by its flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet alongside the tenderness but also by how Adès succeeds in writ- usual instrument. ing such compelling music out of repeated Unlike Adès, Turnage makes no secret of his ‘cyclical’ patterns by slowly varying mood and work’s source or references – from a particularly shape, without ever being tempted into becoming dark time in the composer’s life – while the snare- tricksy or gratuitous. drums (which surround the orchestra at all four The last movement takes us back, with its compass points) play their cross-stick ‘ticking’ pat- drums and flautando strings, to the Mayan drum- terns in all too evident symbolism of time passing. ming of America: A Prophecy (2000) and for a while Indeed the 16-minute piece ‘darkness to light’ pro- 72 

gression can readily be read off the composer’s When, towards the end of the piece, in the sec- own markings in the score, so that we begin tions marked ‘aggressive’ and then ‘rowdy’, the ‘veiled and spiky’ – with a nervy flugelhorn – but piccolo trumpet is counterpointed by a strong quickly progress to a ‘more subdued and desolate’ brass and string rhythm in a manner reminiscent section where Turnage’s blues influences – his of Dispelling the Fears, one concludes that trumpeter heroes are Miles Davis and other jazz Turnage’s broader latter-day scope hasn’t all been greats – cast a distinctively cool light. Mixing gen- for the best. Yet the ending does leave one satis- res, however, has never been easy for any fied: over soft sustained string chords the piccolo composer: and in drawing on the type of jazz trumpet repeats its plaintive cry while the clock- trumpet playing that represents a subdued or like percussion cut remorselessly in. We are at uncertain mood, Turnage has written a solo part least pointing out from the wreckage. that often feels rambling and lacking purpose – Robert Stein even when, after only a few minutes, the soloist switches from the mellow flugelhorn to the C trumpet and continues on it until near the end. Indeed, in the switch of tempo to the crotch- London, St. Andrew’s Church, Holborn: et=96 central section, marked ‘constant Ed Hughes’s The Birds, Wed 29 June. movement’, the interest and vigour is largely achieved by Turnage’s characteristic energetic Had Ed Hughes’s ‘choral’ opera The Birds not writing for timpani and brake drums; the trum- received as wonderfully involving a production as pet’s high-tessitura quick figurations sound it did on 29 June from The Opera Group and I simply shrill in their persistence, and for all Fagiolini (as part of the City of London Festival), Hardenberger’s brilliance to make his instrument maybe the music might have appeared less appe- sound ‘flute-like’ (at Fig. 17), this is simply impos- tizing. Apart from some striking use of a prepared sible. The most impressive and liberating writing tape, Hughes’s intriguing score relies heavily on a occurs in the semi-improvised 19-bar section, and solo cello and a chuntering array of bird-like per- it seems a shame that Turnage’s plan for a cadenza cussion. Yet quite the opposite was true. Directed was dropped from the earlier version of the score. with energy and imagination by John Fulljames,

theatre film 020 7638 8891 Box office art education Reduced booking fee online dance music www.barbican.org.uk

The music of Osvaldo Golijov Tue 31 Jan 7.30pm Fri 24 Feb 8pm Golijov Last Round (UK premiere) Golijov La Pasión Según San Marcos Golijov Tekyah (UK premiere) (UK premiere) Golijov Ainadamar Arias and Ensembles Orquesta La Pasión (world premiere) Maria Guinand conductor Golijov Ayre (European premiere) Reynaldo Gonzáles Fernández Jesus Dawn Upshaw soprano Luciana Souza Jazz Singer Jessica Rivera soprano Deraldo Ferreira Capoeira Mestre Kelley O’Connor mezzo soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird soprano BBC Symphony Orchestra Schola Cantorum of Carácas Roberto Minczuk conductor The Dogs of Andalucia ‘A work of genius. The Pasión will stand as the first indisputably ‘The music is full of passion, humour, tragedy great work of the 21st Century’ and all the complexity of modern life’ Boston Globe Boston Globe on Ayre Sann/DG Photo:John Tickets £7-£30 ‘Energy runs like an underground stream beneath this piece’ Listen online The New Yorker on Ainadamar www.barbican.org.uk   73 performed with evident aplomb by this superbly trast; likewise (in contrast to the dramatic out- tuned vocal ensemble, and prefaced by ‘avian’ burst as war bulletins fly in from ever corner) the music by Jannequin, Ravenscroft and Per unexpectedly stilled Scene 10, ‘Holy war’, sung Norgard, The Birds proved a gripping piece of the- virtually as an Adagio. atre. The magic worked. Maxwell’s almost pointillistic text – a cheerfully Aristophanes’ play centres on the pithy social cheeky filleting of Aristophanes’ longest play – banter of two Athenians, Euelpides and somehow skirts pretentiousness. When Pitcher Peithetairus, who bid to escape the petty tribula- demands ‘What hides behind a star? Can we trust tions of urban life and imperial Athenian the galaxies?’ or the choir intones ‘Ship that can arrogance. Glyn Maxwell’s atmospheric text com- only sail, sun that can only rise, year that can only pressed these into a single human figure, dubbed turn’, lured into this extraordinary, fussing aviary Pitcher (‘a vessel stuck on the earth … a man toss- by a staging as compelling as this, you accepted its ing out ideas.’) irony on its own terms. Fulljames’s staging was The evening’s tour-de-force – besides some mesmerizing, the cast utterly committed, I thrilling lighting by Charles Balfour and intricate Fagiolini’s singing and intoning first rate, and the designs by Soutra Gilmour – was the magnificent music with its myriad swirling patterns beautiful- central performance by Glenville Hargreaves. ly underlined each move. A joyously bizarre piece This declaimed role requires an heroic feat of of theatre – as Aristophanes should be. The audi- memory and rhythmic ingenuity. Hargreaves tow- ence was besotted. An enchanted evening. ered throughout, gripping the audience from the Roderic Dunnett outset: tetchy, moody, nervous, wheedling, sym- pathetic, insistent and bossy; but always engaging. Taped sounds of city traffic and passing sirens are gradually stilled as soft, alluring chords well up Manchester, Bridgewater Hall: John Casken’s in the chorus (‘Restless man, awhile be still’). Rest-Ringing (and CD releases) Possibly this is what the piece is about: not just a wheeze of social engineering, but a deeper yearn- Rest-ringing, John Casken’s new work for string ing for a spiritual escape, much as Walter Braunfels quartet and orchestra, was written for, dedicated conceived it in his sumptuous neo-Romantic to, and premièred on 19 May 2005 by the Lindsay German opera The Birds a century earlier. Quartet, accompanied by the Hallé orchestra Hughes’s (often nine-part) choral writing is by under Mark Elder’s baton. The title apparently turns blistering and soothing, just as the instru- came to Casken after he mis-read an advert adver- mental underlay is both lulling and frenetic. tising piano restringing; the addition of the Pitcher emerges to a patter of twittering cow hyphen alludes to the legacy of the Lindsay’s ‘ring- bells, temple blocks and tom-toms; the wide-inter- ing on’ after their retirement. Some of this valled cello line for the Hoopoe (Giles word-play seems to have infused the music too, by Underwood as the birds’ affable leader) supplied virtue of the bell-sounds and similar metallic an attractive contrast, as did Robert Rice’s long- sounds that occur at key moments. suffering Vulture and a high-tessitura assault by A case in point is the opening of the work, which the hostile Crow (the splendid Carys Lane), the Casken describes as ‘exotic’. Twittering woodwind ensuing a cappella chorus and beguiling pattern- and delicate orchestral strings are coloured by ings for cello and marimba as Pitcher starts metallic percussion, providing a background for wooing the birds. delicate arabesques from the solo string quartet. Maxwell’s fourth scene echoes the point in This serves as something of a curtain-raiser for an Aristophanes where interlopers from Earth animated section in which the quartet provide invade the birds’ new castle in the sky. Here dance-like material in rhythmic unison. The Hughes’s rhythms grow ever more syncopated: in orchestra’s role is largely one of accompaniment: place of jumped-up Athenian officials, the unwel- the light but often intricate textures and intertwin- come intruders are a rock star (mezzo), a PR man, ing melodic fragments allude to the chamber a guru (countertenor) and a clutch of other ‘para- music tradition to which the string quartet sites’. This yields to an effective pow-wow for belongs. Thus although the orchestra provides Crow and Owl (Simon Wall), a cello solo, a nifty shifting colours and textures against which to fore- ‘council’ scene and a striking slow invocation by ground the quartet’s material, it never asserts itself the now acquiescent Crow. A rainbow heralds the as an equal partner in the unfolding dialogue. This descent of Iris, heaven’s messenger (Julie does not preclude it being used to provide formal Cooper), bearing the Gods’ order to rip down the articulation, such as when a short outburst causes wall: her arrival provides another scintillating con- the string quartet to divide into canonic pairs. 74 

The idea of a concertante instrument (or group ing, most of the works on the release draw on of instruments) progressing through a changing extramusical stimuli. Thus Distant Variations com- musical terrain is common to a number of bines an underlying formal archetype (the Casken’s works. Ghosts of formal archetypes variations of the title) with a shifting musical ter- often haunt these soundscapes, although their rain inspired by sunrise at Grand Canyon to precise identification are often elusive. In the case provide the background for the concertante of Rest-ringing, there are hints of an ‘all-in-one’ group. Just as the string quartet in Rest-ringing symphonic structure, for the dance-like material is evokes the intimacy of chamber music, the use of followed by a slower section characterized by saxophones in Distant Variations gives rise to an rhapsodic lines given to the quartet, and a devel- urban sound-world in which jazzy elements pro- opmental scherzo section. In lieu of a liferate. A sharper distinction between musical finale/recapitulation, there is a ‘still centre’, con- landscapes can be heard in the wonderful Infanta taining one of the most memorable moments of Marina, in which a solo cor anglais is situated the work: slowly descending and bell-like chords, musically and physically between a Debussy-like moving at different speeds in the orchestra and trio of flute, viola and harp on one side, and a quartet. From here, there is a brief review to the more strident trio of clarinet, horn and double character of the scherzo, and a short coda featur- bass on the other. The sense of drama – almost ing a cadenza for the leader of the quartet, theatrical – that pervades Casken’s concertante accompanied by a sustained chord from the back music is heightened here, for the soloist’s role is desks of the orchestral strings. A reversal of for- forever changing. At times independent, at others tune, representing the continually surprising and influenced by one group or other, and sometimes affirmative qualities of the Lindsays, results in a mediating between the two trios, the cor anglais sudden re-energizing of the quartet and orchestra represents Marina from Shakespeare’s Pericles, fil- for half a minute or so: the music appears, at the tered through a poem by Wallace Stevens. But end, to be cut-off mid flow. Infanta Marina is not (just) a character study: However, the formal plan outlined above only Casken’s fine ear for texture and colour, combined hints at what happens, for the ‘exotic’ introduc- with a compelling musical logic ensures that this is tion emerges at two important junctures in the one of the highlights of the disc. work: just before the first scherzo, and after the The translation of the extramusical into the ‘still centre’. Considered as a ritornello, it musical is no less impressive in Amarantos, strengthens the identification of Rest-ringing as a Firewhirl and Salamandra, the three oldest pieces concerto grosso, and indeed, Casken envisages represented in the Metier release. Although the work being performed by the leaders of the Casken’s musical voice is less distinctive in these string sections. It is difficult, though, to imagine early works, and perhaps occasionally over-reliant that the piece could be effectively performed by ad on textural affects, the intensity of the latter two hoc quartets of this nature. The Lindsays’ per- pieces – perhaps a reflection of the fire imagery formance, aided by the unfailingly sensitive central to their conception – is gripping, particu- support from the Hallé, carried the conviction of larly in the case of Firewhirl. decades of mutual music-making. Indeed, the One can detect a different approach in Après un piece as a whole is chamber music on the grandest silence, the most recent work on the disc, written scale: one hopes that this does not ultimately deter after ‘almost a year of not composing’. other ensembles and orchestras taking the music Questioning the experience of silence, and how on in future. one deals with expression after that silence, gave Before writing the work, Casken studied a Casken the framework for the piece: the musical number of pieces for quartet and orchestra, which logic is just as concerned with how one develops heightened his awareness of the rarity of the com- the opening idea. The craftsman-like working-out bination, and the problems of balance. The reflects the cooler classicism of Casken’s more delicacy with which the orchestra was deployed recent music; nevertheless, the alternations of agi- was one way in which Casken addressed this issue; tated recitative-like sections with calm lyrical the frequent use of the quartet in unison another. sections show that this is not at the expense of A similar solution can be heard in Distant immediacy of affect. Both versions of the piece – Variations for saxophone quartet and wind orches- the original for violin and piano, and the arrange- tra (1996), a recording of which has recently been ment for violin and chamber orchestra – are released as part of ‘Night Fire Sun Silence’, contained in the release. Not only does this pro- Metier’s 2-CD set of Casken’s music (MSV vide a fascinating contrast in terms of colour and CD92076). texture, but the readings of the solo violinists In contrast to the relatively ‘abstract’ Rest-ring- offers different interpretative perspectives.   75

Also included on the disc is Casken’s virtuosic are always magical. Special mention must be and highly-charged Piano Quartet, which in part made of an evening concert by the excellent relates to his first opera Golem. The Virgin Classics Presteigne Festival Orchestra and Canterbury recording of the latter has recently been re- Cathedral Choir under Vass featuring impressive- released on the NMC Ancora label (NMC D113), ly cogent performances of Tippett’s Little Music and a welcome return it is too. The elemental for strings, Alan Rawsthorne’s alluringly Arcadian power of the Golem, fashioned from earth, and Concertante Pastorale and culminating in a per- the relationship between the creator and created, formance of Cecilia McDowall’s graceful is an intensification of the themes apparent in the Magnificat. This reflective work, adorned with works on ‘Night Fire Sun Silence’ as well. The deft, Baroque flourishes, has already been record- music is as intricately crafted as one might expect ed by the choir, soloists and conductor (Dutton from Casken, who demonstrates unfailing capaci- CDLX7146)1 and their assured singing radiated ty to draw fascinating and arresting colours and with the confidence of a team with this elegant textures from an 11-strong ensemble. A restrained choral piece in their blood. use of an electronic tape part further enriches the Another treat featured John McCabe with the soundworld. As with the other works considered Dante Quartet in Elgar’s Piano Quintet and Krysia above, an underlying formal scheme (a prelude Osostowicz in Rawsthorne’s expertly crafted and followed by a fugue) is used to structure the musi- bafflingly overlooked Violin Sonata. The other cal events. The immediate model for this is Billy items in the programme, David Matthews’s deli- Budd, rather than Wozzeck, although the theme of cately scored Little Serenade, op.16 and Robin an outcast ultimately driven to murder, along with Holloway’s ripely Romantic Lento for string quar- the general Expressionistic manner of presenta- tet, were classic examples of the refreshingly tion, is obviously similar to Berg’s opera. The approachable, but skilfully fashioned works this intensity of the performance, by the original cast festival features so strongly. and conductor, is compelling, leaving me to reflect The highlight was a song recital presenting two that Golem must count as one of the most vital world premières with a local resonance commis- British operas of the 1980s. sioned by the Presteigne Festival. Both pieces Edward Venn germinated from ‘A Garland for Presteigne’ (2003), where ten composers associated with the festival each wrote one short song celebrating the Welsh border country. John McCabe and Cecilia Presteigne Festival 2005: Cecilia McDowall McDowall have developed their contributions and John McCabe into substantial song-cycles, with words by cele- brated local poets Jo Shapcott and Simon Mundy. The Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts con- John McCabe’s settings of Gladestry Quatrains tinues to enchant and enrich. Events in August were as pithy and epigrammatic as Jo Shapcott’s 2005 embraced a broad survey of English music, 12 short poems, which charted local and human including centenary tributes to Tippett and landscapes with great wit and poignancy. These Rawsthorne, as well as world premières by John wryly observed verses were pointed up by occa- McCabe, Cecilia McDowall, David Matthews and sionally soaring vocal lines, whilst the piano composer-in residence Ian Wilson. Informal talks accompaniments, sensitively moulded by Paul were particularly compelling, including a sympo- Plummer, were sharply-etched. Ethereal, sus- sium consisting of Sally Groves, David Matthews tained chords conjured up distant tolling church and Geraint Lewis offering affectionate and bells in ‘Dolyhir’, whilst thunderous, dark chords insightful reminiscences of Michael Tippett and a etched ‘serious black clouds’ surrounding Burl detailed and uniquely authoritative appraisal of Hill and Newchurch. Elsewhere, the style ranged the music of Alan Rawsthorne by his biographer, from crisp, toccata-like figurations introducing John McCabe. ‘Hergest’, to a delightful chant-like mini-proces- Among the many admirable qualities of this sional in ‘Song in the Shed’ where ‘every day is annual feast is its fearlessness in programming Sunday’. non-mainstream late 20th- and early 21st-century The resulting 20-minute work offered strongly works, none of them world premières, thus tak- characterized and fastidiously fashioned settings, ing audiences into unfamiliar territory without matching the range and depth of the poems, from the critic-luring prestige of a first performance. the intimacy of a shared joke to the touching Thanks to the unfailingly acute ear of Artistic Director George Vass for pieces uniting impecca- ble quality with engaging accessibility, the results 1 Reviewed in Tempo Vol.59 No.232 (April 2005), p.85 – Ed. 76 

acceptance of the transience of all things. McCabe In the meantime we have Jane Eyre, composed enhanced his texts with a limpet-like fidelity to the some years ago, largely in the 1990s, although not tone of the words whilst capturing and sketching to commission. Hence it has had to wait for a pre- the moods they provoked with a painterly mière, and one can only be grateful that Opera sensibility. Mint, a company mixing professionals and ama- Cecilia McDowall’s Radnor Songs set six poems teurs, had the nerve to take the bull by the horns by Simon Mundy. The composer’s genuine gift for and volunteer a staging at the CBSO Centre in illuminating and embellishing texts was instantly Birmingham (23 and 25 September). in evidence. ‘The Buzzard’, which opened the Some caveats are necessary. This was a modest, cycle, used liberating, outspread intervals to illus- even embryonic staging, although not without trate the awesome, swooping bird. The brooklet ideas, including some effective use of back-projec- in ‘Summergil’, which ‘ingratiates the birds’, was tions by designer Saranjit Birdi and a striking use laced with filigree ornithological ornamentation, of dance and coloured light effects, notably for the whilst the final, spacious setting of ‘Radnor (Old), fire which, at the close of Act I, serves as a warning Church and Harp’ created a movingly nostalgic, of worse to come. Moves were clearish; otherwise but valiantly unsentimental evocation of the stage direction seemed slightly sporadic. Most area’s lost glories. Unostentatious and refined, importantly, the orchestra – Joubert stipulates sin- McDowall’s vocal lines and accompaniments gle wind and brass – effectively disappeared. This were alert to the meaning and nuance of the was done in a version for string quartet and piano. poems, so that musical ideas grew naturally from In the circumstances, it was remarkable how them. ‘Radnor Songs’ was a model of how to give well the opera fared. The skill of librettist insight into words through music, as opposed to Kenneth Birkin in paring down Charlotte Brontë’s paraphrasing or merely adorning them. novel (which has also been turned into an opera by In a very welcome touch, the poems were read Michael Berkeley, staged by Music Theatre Wales) by their respective authors as an introduction to emerged clearly. Act II encompasses perhaps the the settings; soprano Rachel Nicholls, despite a two most important scenes – the burgeoning of virus affliction, gave persuasive, authentic and love between Jane and Mr.Rochester and the disas- commanding performances of both song-cycles. trous wedding – while Act I (the departure from These two new Presteigne Festival commissions Lowood and arrival at Thornfield Hall) serves as a complemented each other well, making a signifi- tension-filled prelude and the final Act (including cant addition to the repertoire. Though they have Jane’s welcoming into the home of the would-be much to offer anyone who has yet to set foot in the missionary St. John Rivers and her flight from him Welsh border country, for those who know the back to the blinded Rochester) functions as an area, its mysteriously melancholic atmosphere effective epilogue. and blood-soaked history are triumphantly cap- Joubert fills his first Act with nervy, jagged tured. More courageously, the settings do not rhythms and stabbing patterns which evoke, and shirk from laying bare the challenges of present- with varying success maintain, a laden atmos- day life in a scene ‘ravaged by tranquillity’ as phere not unlike that of The Turn of the Screw – Simon Mundy so memorably puts it in the final, Britten, from Peter Grimes onwards, remains one of fading moments of Radnor Songs. Joubert’s most recurrent influences; indeed, he Paul Conway was perhaps one of the earliest composers to soak in and capitalize upon Britten’s example. More than once one sensed Miles, the Governess and even Quint (notably the eerie passage when Mrs. Birmingham: John Joubert’s ‘Jane Eyre’ Grose describes his icy demise) hovering in the wings. Jane Eyre is by no means John Joubert’s first foray The four young string players made a magnifi- into opera. Both Silas Marner (1961) and Under cent job of the score, with Dane Preece’s piano Western Eyes (1968) are forceful, impressive three- filling in quite graphic independent parts and the act stage works which underline Joubert’s gift for pace – essential here – ably maintained by conduc- working on a large canvas; the prelude to those tor Emyr Roberts. Most of the vocal lines, even was In the Drought, a substantial one-acter dating the duets, are written in a form of arioso. The from the mid-1950s, which reveals a comparable voices did not all beguile: had Jane (Zoë power. One regrets that Joubert, being South Challenor) delivered her words as spiritedly as she African-born, has not been able to turn his hand to negotiated the not always easy intervals, we the opera based on Alan Paton which remains a would have been spared a few longueurs. Rochester project close to his heart. (John Lofthouse) was capably sung – if a bit feck-   77 less; three children were feebly employed. The something exciting as an organ solo and this was best singing came during the later Acts, when so “different”’, said Simon when I asked him about Nick Drew’s Mason and Andrew Matthews’s this intriguing piece after the concert. In the pro- Rivers stood out. Sara Clethero (Mrs. Fairfax) gramme notes he described this very unusual coordinated, and we owe it to her enterprise that score, where usual metre is abandoned in favour this – to a degree – worthwhile venture was of strict timings in seconds, as a piece ‘driven by mounted at all. perpetual motion in both organ and tape parts’. It Roderic Dunnett dates from early 1980s, which Johnson describes as a very productive time for Harvey, when he was invited by Pierre Boulez to work at IRCAM.in Paris. (He also produced his well-known tape piece Mortuos plango vivos voco, influenced by the St Albans: International Organ Festival 2005 sounds of ‘Musique concrete’, in the same year.) As rendered by Johnson at IOF, Harvey’s Toccata The St Albans International Organ Festival was for organ and tape came across as a stunningly founded in 1963 by Dr Peter Hurford to celebrate intrepid perpetual motion piece, strictly metro- the traditional pipe organ in general and specifi- nomic, with the organist performing the cally the installation of the new ‘Harrison and marathon task of fitting in his intricate organ part Harrison’ organ in St Albans Cathedral, co- against the unforgiving relentless ‘plopping’ of designed by himself as Master of Music there. In the electronic tape that he has to respond to and recent years this biennial July festival has show- synchronize with. The ongoing tape, relayed cased major contemporary composers, for through a PA system in the organ loft, ‘takes no instance commissioning in 1997 Giles Swayne’s prisoners’ in its wake. Johnson rose to the chal- Chinese Whispers which the composer himself lenge with amazing skill and energy, amidst the described in his pre-concert talk as an argument final build-up with its accelerando, full organ out- between organ and orchestra driven to a climax bursts, shuddering sound effects, and glissandi. where the organist (Kevin Bowyer) was required Jill Barlow ‘to run amok’ – which he duly did, being required at one point, I seem to remember, to almost throw himself bodily onto the keyboard in a dramatic gesture. As I described in my review for the St Shrewsbury, Maidment Hall: Hugh Wood’s Albans Observer ‘we got a first movement which Overture op. 48. sounded like measured spurts of mathematically structured chaos’. On the final festive concert of Although the Lindsay Quartet retired in July 2005, IOF 2001, we were treated to the UK première of their former leader Peter Cropper shows little sign Piet Kee’s The World with the BBC Singers under of slowing down. To his many ongoing activities, Nicholas Cleobury. we must now add the piano trio he has formed The 2005 Festival had no new specifically IOF with long-time associates Martin Roscoe and commission, but the traditional Three Choirs Moray Welsh. To mark the first performance of Concert on 11 July saw Winchester Cathedral this ensemble, Cropper commissioned a short Choristers give a most invigorating performance overture from Hugh Wood, which was premièred of their new commission from James MacMillan, on 29 September alongside trios by Beethoven and Laudi alla beata vergine, which they had premiered Schubert. to mark Advent 2004, at Winchester Cathedral. As its no-nonsense title suggests, Wood’s Based on the poem by Dante Alighieri, this is a response to the commission was to provide a powerful piece. Its rousing opening is followed by straightforward concert opener: its cheerful verve alternating strong outbursts and quiet interludes, reminiscent of Classical overtures. It opens with a and one can discern possible shades of Eastern series of fanfare-like gestures in the strings, punc- influence in the harmonies later on, with use of tuated by sonorous chords and driving background hummimg, ‘slides’ and delicate glis- semiquaver figuration from the piano. This swift- sandi to atmospheric effect. ly gives way to a lyrical duet between violin and However most innovative of all at this year’s cello, the piano now supplying the accompani- Three Choirs Concert was the performance by St ment. An extended middle section begins with Albans Cathedral’s Assistant Master of Music, just violin and cello, and ends with piano alone. Simon Johnson, of Jonathan Harvey’s Toccata for The fanfares return twice more, at first spectrally, Organ and Tape (1980) – apparently the compos- to announce the start of an altered recapitulation, er’s only work for organ. ‘I wanted to play and then again at the outset of a vigorous coda. 78 

The juxtaposition of fanfares and lyricism rather heavy against the soaring strings; indeed, in forms a characteristic means of generating con- the resonant Maidment Hall, the piano too often trast in Wood’s music, and is handled in the obscured the other instruments. However, the overture with typical regard for dramatic pacing. nine further scheduled performances of the work, Familiar, too, is the use of three tetrachords that, as part of the Music in the Round ‘Around the in various combinations, permutations and verti- Country’ tour’, should see such problems of bal- cal arrangements, underpin much of the musical ance ironed out. Given the distinguished development. Two of these tetrachords are performances of the Beethoven and Schubert that formed from segments of the whole-tone scales followed Wood’s overture, one cannot imagine starting respectively on G and B; the third is their that it would be otherwise. complement. The emphasis on whole tones Edward Venn colours the harmonic and melodic content of the overture, even in the more overtly chromatic pas- sages. This in turn contributes to the general atmosphere of the work, which must count London, Royal Albert Hall – Wynton amongst Wood’s most light-hearted pieces. Marsalis’s ‘All Rise’ Both Peter Cropper and Moray Welsh are expe- rienced interpreters of Wood’s music: the Lindsay The idea of a synthesis of classical music and jazz is Quartet premièred Wood’s Third and Fifth quar- nearly as old as jazz itself – from the era of tets, and Welsh’s wonderful 1978 recording of Gershwin and Stravinsky through Bernstein, Wood’s Cello Concerto has been re-issued recent- Brubeck or Jacques Loussier. But Wynton ly by NMC. The resulting familiarity with Wood’s Marsalis, the outstanding New York-based trum- style undoubtedly informed the excellent per- peter and bandleader, educator and composer formance of the overture, which began with a from New Orleans, has a special approach. For the riskily fast but exhilarating tempo, and rarely let perennial problem of how to allow the improvisa- up after that. The only drawback was that the tional freedom of jazz within a classical frame is piano accompaniment to the lyrical passages was resolved by a coolly-crafted combination of jazz not given enough time to resonate, sounding band – his own Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra –

Get Carter! The Music of Elliott Carter 13–15 January 2006 The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Get Carter! Weekend explores the gamut of Elliott Carter’s work, plus music by composers who were his friends or heroes. Great performers, conversations with Carter, and films about his life and work promise to make this an unforgettable Barbican weekend.

Friday 13 January, Saturday 14 January Sunday 15 January 7.30pm, Barbican Hall 1.00pm, Barbican Hall 2.00pm, St Giles Cripplegate Three Occasions, Connotations (Copland), Two Tributes (C. Matthews), Clarinet Night Fantasies, Some Southpaw Pitching Piano Concerto. BBC Symphony Concerto, Double Concerto for harpsichord, (Ives), Klavierstücke Op. 33a and 33b Orchestra, Oliver Knussen conductor piano and two chamber orchestras. London (Schoenberg), Études pour les sonorités Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen conductor opposées (Debussy), Piano Sonata. 10.00pm, St Giles Cripplegate Rolf Hind piano Musicians Wrestle Everywhere, Harvest 4.00pm, St Giles Cripplegate Home, Heart Not So Heavy, Emblems,To String Quartet No. 5, String Quartet 4.30pm, GSMD Music Hall Music. Plus madrigals by Byrd, Morley No. 4 (Bartók), String Quartet No. 1. Five Pieces for Orchestra (Schoenberg), and Weelkes. BBC Singers, Arditti Quartet The Minotaur, Symphony No. 1. Stephen Cleobury conductor Guildhall School Symphony Orchestra 8.00pm, Barbican Hall Holiday Overture, Decoration Day (Ives), Of 8.00pm, Barbican Hall Rewaking, Rhapsody (Sessions),Variations for Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Orchestra. BBC Symphony Orchestra, (Bartók), Oboe Concerto,A Symphony David Robertson conductor of Three Orchestras. David Robertson conductor

0845 120 7549 Tickets Individual concert tickets: £8–£20.Weekend or Day pass from £19. Barbican Box Office: 0845 120 7549 or book online at www.barbican.org.uk (reduced booking fee online). bbc.co.uk/symphonyorchestra   79 with symphony orchestra and Gospel choir in a bands of the 1940s and 50s; the orchestra often true spirit of partnership. The eclectic mix of dif- comments on and dovetails into the jazz soloists ferent styles and genres is centred on the Blues. who then go off on their own; at one point the Originally commissioned by the New York orchestra is also a brilliant big band in itself. Philharmonic in 1999 and recorded by the Los There were many highlights to this exuberant Angeles Philharmonic in 2002, the work was per- performance, in which the always lucid Masur formed here on 2 October by the Lincoln Centre seemed to be gradually skipping more and more Jazz Orchestra with the London Philharmonic and to the LCJO’s beat and riff, and the audience’s the London Adventis Chorale under the command response to each new jazz solo sandwiched of Kurt Masur, at a capacity-filled Albert Hall, the between orchestral textures increased in warmth. third leg in a five-concert UK premiere tour (fol- Most impressive was Marsalis’s own solo, in ‘Save lowing performances in Birmingham and Cardiff). Us’, sharing his inimitable trumpet playing. He The piece, according to the composer, ‘cele- makes the instrument sound almost vocal, high in brates togetherness and ascendence in the context its register, swoops and glissandos and pure-toned of the blues’ and twelve movements (based on the high notes, shaped into a dreamy world of its own; idea of a 12-bar Blues) show how the freedom of and his always audible interjections into the lively jazz can be combined with the traditions of con- tutti-choral movements added vital spice. There cert music, sectioned into three contrasting were several other notable solos, one for trom- groups in a traditional fast-slow-fast arrangement. bone ending on an incredibly pure high note, The final choral movement, entitled ‘All Rise’, various sax solos and a witty duet for principal sums up the theme of the entire piece, which orchestral violin and principal cellist, accompa- addresses the ‘global community’ through the nied by piano and bass. The piano solo was a Blues which Marsalis sees as containing elements fantastic display of musicianship, sophisticated of folk music from all over the world and express- and subtle in its blues harmony and extended ing the philosophy of ‘acceptance of life’. This is phrases, while final limelight was reserved for the perhaps questionable, since one might want to superb drummer: throughout, he was a fine part- consider the Blues as an expression of a state of ner to the team of percussionists of the London affairs inviting one to rise up against injustice and Philharmonic who visibly enjoyed their syncopat- oppression. Yet the simple three-part form ed colours on various instruments including allowed us to focus on the really innovative aspect guiro, slapsticks and cymbals. of the work, the inspired mixture of popular The singing of the London Adventist Chorale idioms, eastern scales and classical elements, was rivetting, gradually increasing in presence embodying the idea of ‘togetherness’, a combina- from a short introductory movement to the tion of disparate styles and peoples, not, as solemn movements of the second main group. In Marsalis says ‘in a world-music type of melange’ ‘Save us’, a Sprechgesang alto soloist shouts but keeping them distinct, and yet emphasizing, ‘Comfort me’ against a wall of groaning, slither- through a myriad variations of Blues, traces of ing chromatically in dizzy curves, creating their commonality. haunting colours enhanced by Marsalis’s solo; it is At a formal level the work displays some of the followed by the fiercer ‘Cried Shouted Then features of the Baroque era, combining elements Sung’, with screaming trumpet solos. Here of the oratorio, orchestral suite and, most strik- Marsalis’s use of the ‘New Orleans Funeral ingly, the concerto grosso, in which the virtuoso Cadence’ (an almost prophetic choice in the wake concertino – the LCJO – is pitted in dialogue and of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina) added to combination with the larger symphony orchestra, the ‘affect’ of the music, which was also punctuat- with ingenious dovetailings of brass or wood- ed by unusual tuba solos, while the choir shone in wind. It is a very American work, one in which the the final brilliant pair of movements to close this joyful brilliance of the LCJO’s many jazz idioms section: ‘Look Beyond’, with its upbeat Hosannas interacts with the orchestra, both as a classical and and a spiritual, ‘Come back home’, in which five jazz medium. For example in the initial four- soloists of the choir displayed wonderful zest and movement section, the thrusting, driving patterns style, the last an unbelievably high soprano solo of the music were infused with great energy and (Jennifer Phillips). The inner intensity of this rich harmony, as in the overture ‘Jubal Step’. One movement drew to a conclusion with spiritual pas- movement begins with Mahlerian waltz, while sion and eloquence that affirmed the work’s ‘Wild Strumming of Fiddle’ is a Coplandesque underlying seriousness of purpose. Indeed the ‘hoe-down’ leading to a fizzing fugato reminiscent whole work, with its unpredictable phrase-lengths of Ned Rorem. Many of the textures recall and effects, rich and unusual harmonies, nuances Leonard Bernstein’s swinging syntheses and big of orchestration and dynamics, seemed to channel 80 

the qualities of light musicality into a most engag- re-workings of themes from the opera. All four ing and profound artistic confluence of serious instruments are asked to play more or less contin- and popular idioms. uously; nevertheless, they frequently find The third and final section (which followed themselves contributing only a fragment of a line after an interval) featured dance movements, before leaping to complete another figure initiat- including a slinky slow ‘Saturday Night Slow ed in a different instrument. In particular, the Drag’ and faster dances like the bossa nova, before vocal lines are cleverly dissolved into the texture to the thrilling final tutti chorus ‘All Rise’. This move- the extent that their presence can be distantly felt, ment begins with a soloist repeating ‘all rise’; the ghost-like, only occasionally coming to the surface. ensuing lively choral textures lead to an uplifting As its title suggests, Court Studies consists of a gospel song, ‘Listen up and hear my song’, to series of character sketches of members of the which the jazz orchestra adds a final coda in Neapolitan court from the opera. These sketches Dixieland swing – a section that was repeated as are largely drawn from Act 2 Scene 1, in which the encore after enthusiastic applause from the audi- various characters are introduced in turn; there ence. As an additional treat Kurt Masur remained are also sections drawn from Act 2 Scene 2, and on stage for a beautiful jazz number by the LCJO, Act 3 Scene 4. I was unconvinced of the merits of led by a beguiling Marsalis solo. Evocatively sil- all the selected material: for example, against the houetted in profile, as artist and instrument captivating final section, ‘The King’s Grief’, the seemed for an extended moment to fuse into a sin- preceding ‘The Counsellor’ seemed merely prosa- gle entity, he coaxed some husky, blues-inflected ic. A persistent melodic motif notwithstanding, it tunings at pianissimo levels. was hard on one hearing to make sense of how the Malcolm Miller brief and contrasting character pieces combined to make a satisfactory whole; however, there was plenty in this performance to suggest that repeat- ed hearings would be worthwhile. London, Royal College of Music: Adès and The concert opened with world premières of Hesketh London premières works by two of the RCM’s current students. The first, Far Secco Qualcuno by Jonathan Herbert, To go by the relative public profiles of Thomas explored the increasing interaction between con- Adès’s Violin Concerto and Court Studies, given trasting ideas: one sustained, fluid, and delicate, their London premières within a fortnight of one and the other percussive, brittle, and loud. The another, then the latter must count as a minor sharply defined character of the material at the work within his output. If this is true, then what outset occasionally gave way to more neutral better sign of Adès’s international standing can material in the latter stages; nevertheless Herbert there be for a ‘minor’ work to receive three per- demonstrated a keen aural imagination and sensi- formances by different ensembles within the tive feel for pacing. Dominic Sewell’s Esoteria for space of just over three months? Following the string trio and clarinet was less ambitious in its first performance at the Aldeburgh Festival on 16 aims, and more focussed as a result. Conceived as a June by the Composers Ensemble, the US pre- ‘tonally based response to a 12-note row of pitch- mière was given at the Charlottesville Chamber es’, the work consists of an extended commentary Music Festival on 15 September. Four days later, on a theme first announced by the clarinet, inter- the Contemporary Consort became the third spersed with cadenzas for each instrument. To say group to take the work into their repertory, in the that the harmonic language and manner of the- piece’s first London performance. matic development was traditional is no bad Written for clarinet, violin, cello and piano thing; this was well-composed and sincere music. Court Studies is the first of two works to be based The technical wing of the Contemporary on Adès’s 2004 opera The Tempest;2 it also happens Consort is entrusted to Michael Oliva, who diffused to use the same forces as his Catch, op. 4 of 1991.3 the electronic part of his restrained Apparition and (The second work, Scenes from The Tempest, is to be Release for quarter tone alto flute and electronics. given its première by the Los Angeles PO in 2006.) The latter provided a generally understated back- The Court Studies belong to the tradition of Adès’s ground to the meditative lyricism of the flute, often earlier arrangements for the Composers taking the form of pulsed, hypnotic chords; only Ensemble, Les baricades Mistérieuses and Cardiac occasionally did it threaten to overwhelm the solo Arrest: they are not, therefore, commentaries or line in the more energetic climaxes. The final work of the concert was Kenneth 2 The Tempest was reviewed in Tempo 59 (229), pp. 72–3. 3 In its US première, Court Studies was programmed alongside Hesketh’s Threats and Declamations, another Catch. London première. The title refers to the novel for-   81 mal and narrative structures employed in the A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square: Sadie music, which are guided by the old English expres- Harrison’s ‘an angel reads my open book’ sions Commination and Patriment (or joc-partit). The first of these expressions means ‘threat’ (it is I am entitling this review ‘A nightingale sang in also a church service held during Lent); the second Berkeley Square’, to mark the première there on is a poetic form of the Provençal troubadours, in Thursday 30 June 2005, in Bluthner’s Piano Centre, which two verbal antagonists trade themes. This of Sadie Harrison’s an angel reads my open book … . exchange happens three times before an arbiter Exactly one week later, on Thursday 7 July, I could declares a winner. Within Threats and Declamations, not help but look back at our idyllic late June con- the structure of the joc-partit is most clearly audi- cert experience with enhanced nostalgia, as most ble in the second half of the work; two contrasting London concert halls were closed due to the 7/7 ideas (one improvisatory, one regular) alternate shutdown of the city’s public transport network three times, the first functioning rondo-like, the and London’s equally famous Tavistock Square second varied on each appearance. At the climax being so tragically rocked by a terrorist bomb. Life of the work, the two occur simultaneously, before hangs but by a thread, and indeed coincidentally a theme from the first section returns to close the Sadie Harrison’s première, well realized by the piece. Hesketh draws a wide variety of textures FinchTrio with soprano Alison Smart, Susan from the ensemble (clarinet, horn, viola, cello and Collier (violin) and Sarah Down (piano), is based piano); nevertheless, the overwhelming impres- on the composer’s ongoing exploration of the sor- sion is one of unbuttoned raucousness, generating rows and joys of Lithuania. It includes one section considerable momentum in the process of the work entitled ‘The collective request of the A somewhat nervous performance of Far Secco dead country children of the Pateru village’ which Qualcuno aside, the Contemporary Consort she encountered on one of her visits to the coun- played with conviction, sensitivity, and authority: try, reflecting its war-torn past. a considerable achievement, given the large num- I first came across Sadie Harrison’s extraordi- ber of premières in the programme. narily emotive and compelling approach to Edward Venn composition when reviewing her issu stellaire at the 82 

Purcell Room in July 2004 (see my review of ‘New about this she replied: ‘well, one can’t be a com- French Song’, published in Tempo January 2005). poser in isolation, one is influenced by other She stood out a mile as one of the most innovative composers, and Harrison Birtwistle consented to of the 20 UK composers of the project, and was be patron of our local Semle Festival which I once more well projected by stalwart soprano direct. I love his work, then there’s the affinity of Alison Smart for the 30 June in Berkeley Square. I the name as I’m also a “Harrison” though no rela- had caught up with Sadie just before she flew off to tion!’ Lithuania (winter 2004–5) to make some record- However in 30 June’s first live performance of ings. As Sadie Harrison says, she has ‘been an angel reads my open book … I felt distinctly that travelling to Lithuania since 2003, working with here we heard a far more ‘accessible’ Sadie the fabulous violinist Rusne Mataityte, the Harrison, with more of an impressionstic, Kaskados Trio, and the St Christopher Orchestra Debussyesque flavour, perhaps so as to better of Vilnius – the finest technicians and interpreters I engage a wider audience? Indeed I can’t help but have ever worked with’. The recordings include an feel perhaps critic Andy Hamilton (The Wire) best angel reads my open book … which is ‘after the poetry sums up her style when he puts her as a composer of Sigitis Geda and the bells of Vladimir in the ‘category of what could be described as Taraso’.which feature in the work. It is due to “domesticated modernism” – tonal composers appear on the Metier label during 2006,4 as will her who are aware of modernist gestures while (also) Lithuanian-based string quartet Geda’s Weavings, aware of the danger of audience alienation’. She all much influenced by the violinist Rusne has also aptly been described as particularly Mataityte. infused by Bartók’s ‘soundworld’. Personally I But what of Sadie Harrison’s compositional would say I find Sadie Harrison’s works abrasively approach stylistically? Strangely enough I found compelling, imbued with sheer emotional energy her ‘Taking Flight’(the Metier CD of that title, and impact. So if there is a ‘Birtwistle’ (and cer- MSV CD92053, released in 2000) particularly tainly a ‘Harrison’) trying to take full flight, by strong in impact, revealing distinct shades of a throwing caution to the wind, this composer ‘Birtwistle trying to get out’. When I asked Sadie could have a truly radical future ahead. Jill Barlow

4 see < www.metierrecords.co.uk>.