Oramo Prom : Judith Weir, Sibelius, Mussorgsky, Andriessen

Judith Weir

Two modern works bookended by two standards in Sakari Oramo's Prom 67 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra - Louis Andriessen's The Only One (2018, UK premiere) and Judith Weir's The Forest (from 1995, recieving its Proms premiere) with Mussorgsky A Night on the Bare Mountain and Sibelius Symphony no 5.  The "Henry Wood Novelties" tag imposed by BBC Proms management is increasingly threadbare, but the connections between the pieces were deep enough to make this a coherent programme on other terms.  Nature, and the human response to Nature, and to powers beyond the conscious ? While there's no programme in Sibelius 5, there is one in A Night on Bald Mountain, not that it matters all that much since the music's so compelling. There's no actual programme in Judith Weir's The Forest either,  but so much of her music expresses deep connections to landscape and "earth magic".

At a push, Andriessen's The Only One, based on poems by Delphine Lecompte, might suggest animal instincts in a "forest" of sound, but it's not one of Andriessen's most distinctive works. It's music theatre  - De Staat for non-demanding club performance. In that sense it connects to the ideals of the 60's and 70's  when "art for the people" was a watchword. But "art for people" can mean many things - from De Staat to Luigi Nono to Henze and much more.  The Only One perhaps speaks to a world where "the people" whoever they are, want validation, not radical change. A sad commentary on present times, not on the composer.  As music theatre, The Only One is a far cry from, say, The Seven Deadly Sins : the protagonist starts out young and playful, but gradualy gets absorbed into corporate anonymity.  Though there's plenty of vocal tricks, I suspect part of the impact lies in the costume changes and cutesiness. Nora Fischer (daughter of Ivan) was the soloist and quite pleasant, but I can't think Hannigan, the Komsis or Claron McFadden would have gone near this.

Judith Weir's The Forest ,on the other hand, feels natural, evolving from very deep sources, growing organically, endlessly renewing iutself. In the broadcast Weir speaks of the "wooden" instrumentation. That's so true - string instruments resonate when air vibrates against wood : and  string techniques use the very resonance of wood when they make sound without strings.  Murmuring and mystery - swathes of strings against woodwinds, again wood resonating with breath control.  Textures at once dense and tantalizing, drawing the listener in further and further.  Flashes of brightness - shining brass - and dark murmurs, timpani suggesting danger. And suddenly, silence.  If this was "music theatre" perhaps we've been absorbed into the forest by the earth spirits that might lurk within.  Judith Weir is one of the great British composers of our time, and very individual.   Talent has nothingb to do with gender. Weir is good because she's good.  Why doesn't  BBC R3 policy give her the prominence she is due ?  There has been some shamefully bad music this season, seemingly picked to fulfill artificial quotas. But Weir is the genuine article.

A rousing Sibelius Fifth. Oramo and the BBCSO have this imprinted in their genes, so to speak. A satisying and intelligently put together Prom all round.

ENO Sunken Garden Michel van der Aa

Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden had its world premiere at the Barbican Theatre, under the auspices of the ENO.  Van der Aa is a well-respected artist, closely associated with the Nederlandse Opera.  His Up Close, presented together with Pierre Audi's Liebestod in 2011, won a Gravemeyer award. Sunken Garden is a huge leap ahead from Up Close, and also from the earlier After Life (reviewed here), also presented at the Barbican and in Amsterdam. Sunken Garden is altogether more ambitious, and successfully achieves van der Aa's dreams of linking different art forms to create a Gesammstkunstwerk for the age of technology.  It will divide opinion, however, as anything truly experimental usually does.

Much will be made of its technological inventiveness, but don't be distracted. At heart, Sunken Garden is a true opera in the deepest sense.  It's about people and how they communicate, or don't communicate. As human beings we don't communicate in any one way, but on multiple levels, consciously or unconsciously. We absorb data from all sources.  What matters is how we process that information.  Thus van der Aa, his librettist David Mitchell and his visual effects team create a multi-level, multi-dimensional whole from which we take as much as we can. 

We could remain on the surface, like Portia Jacquemain (what a name!). She runs an art gallery but is not an artist. She spouts babble because she can't cope with real communication. We can stop there and snigger. But van der Aa is making a wry joke. Jacquemain ( played by Caroline Jay) is shallow. She's estranged from her daughter Amber who seems to make a mess of her life but engages with the world around her, and with the artist Toby Kramer, admirably played by Roderick Williams. Kramer composes with video, in much the way that a composer assembles notes to make music. Like Amber, he cares about people, and wants to find out what's happened to his subject Simon Vines (Jonathan McGovern).  Significantly, Zenna Briggs (Katherine Manley) morphs from persona to persona. She starts off as a wealthy patron of the arts, but drops Kramer when he starts getting too close to the truth. It turns out that she's not a patron of the arts at all but a sinister figure who, vampire-like, lives off the psyches of people who think and feel for themselves.

Don't be distracted by the complex plot. Think of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Nothing seems to make sense, yet there's a crazy sense of momentum, such as one finds in dreams. Like Alice, Kramer descends into a sunken garden hidden below the flyover. Suddenly everything glows in surreal, unnatural colour. The 3D effects aren't a gimmick but an intelligent theatrical commentary. We're in a psychedelic dream where everything is more real and more false. You can escape by taking off the 3D glasses, but how flat things seem in comparison. Even if you can't follow the narrative, seeing the water from the "vertical pond" implode and explode is great theatre. Some of the most effective scenes are fairly straightforward, such as the shots of Roderick Williams against a flat background with diagonal beams.

The technological special effects are themselves a comment on the way we communicate. Kramer films. Amber texts. Jaquemain chatters. In After Life, van der Aa used clips of real people talking and spliced them with scripted film.  In Sunken Garden, he uses actors whose speech is peppered with inconsequentials. But that's exactly how "real" people speak. The ums and ahs of conversation are part of the process of communication, and of formulating ideas. If we look more closely to these "people" we begin to notice that they, too, are as unnatural as the 3D scenery in the garden. Toby Kramer clearly isn't American, despite his talk of Omaha. Sadaqat Dastani (Stephen Henry) is also a caricature. Mental hospitals aren't that luxurious.  And since when did landladies like Rita Wales (Alwyne Taylor) dress in cashmere and pearls and live in National Trust gardens? Sadaqat is supposed to be insane but he identifies Amber's drawings of the sunken garden and points Kramer to Iris Marinus, the "doctor". It's a gorgeous role for Claron McFadden, who, like Roderick Williams, helped create After Life. She's good at being over the top. He's good at being matter of fact.

Zenna Briggs morphs from persona to persona, til her true malevolent nature is exposed. Katherine Manley sings the difficult part well. Amber (Kate Miller-Heidke) is in real life an indie star who can sing though not with Manley's range. She's not what she seems either. Her hair, make-up and clothes are so unnatural that they're playing roles as well.

Van  der Aa's music is very expressive, much more direct and visceral than, say, George Benjamin's Written on Skin (reviewed here). He worked with Louis Andriessen, for whom communication was paramount. Andriessen, for example, was involved with political music theatre where he tried to challenge the normal hierarchy of performance. The sung and spoken text is often unclear. There are no subtitles. You have to struggle to -ollow what's happening in Sunken Garden, but  that's the whole point. As in real life, nothing is clear cut. You have to listen to the music, and assemble all the information in this opera in your own mind. It helps a lot that the conductor  was André de Ridder, one of the best new music specialists in Europe, who understands the multi dimensional levels in this tightly constructed score.  

Van der Aa's Sunken Garden is so different that it would be a miracle if everyone could respond to it in the same way. But perhaps the secret is to enter its strange world on its own terms.In the real world, we communicate in many different ways other than through words alone. We listen to all kinds of verbal and non-verbal signals, and we use visual and subconscious images. Sunken Garden is good opera because it transports us into an artist's vision and makes us engage with our feelings. Or not, if we prefer. 

Full review in Opera Today.

Games with Time : London Sinfonietta Prom 44

Delightful Londoin Sinfonietta experience at BBC Prom 44. Ligeti, Xenakis, Berio, Jonarthan Harvey, Louis Andriessen and John Cage. Mentally challenging but also intensely good fun. "Fun?" sneered someone not so long ago "That's not an acceptable term in music" But anyone who can't appreciate fun can't really appreciate creativity.To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "when a man is tired of fun, he's tired of life".

This Prom was also a challenge to creative thinking. No orchestra for Ligeti's Poème Symphonique, . Instead 100 metronomes furiously ticking away until their mechanisms run out of steam. Metronomes count time and tempo is a basic building block of music. Like Poème Electronique, it's an installation piece that breaks down rigid assumptions about how we process sound into music.

I've loved Luciano Berio's Sequenza V for years without knowing its background as it works fine as pure music. It's a study of breath control. The trombone emits tentative blips, then creates long, low lines that seem to probe into space. Trombones call to communicate. Byron Fulcher shows how his trombone can peak, sometimes like a moan, sometimes a long exhalation, probing space and reaching outwards. He's dressed as a clown, mocking the Victorian propriety of the Royal Albert Hall. But it's also a reference to a famous clown who lived near Luciano Berio when Berio was a boy. Berio liked humour because it was anti-authoritarian and broke down barriers.

Xenakis Phlegra  refers to the clash between the Gods of Greece and their predecessors, the Titans. Obviously it's not "pictorial" but a confrontation between jagged,  angular pulses and more complex emanations. Woodwinds, brass and percussion weave zigzags  around each other.. Gutsy, "wooden" sounds from the strings. A huge, elliptical emanation from the brass, then a strange blast that suddenly deflates. There's even a snatch of melody, a brief reprise before the piece speeds up maniacally, and ends with pulsating short signals, like transmissions from distant planets.

In Jonathan Harvey's  Mortuos plango, vivos voco, technology is the instrument. A boy's voice sings agains ta recording of  tolling cathedral bells. But the boy himself is now an adult. while his voice rermains that of a child, recorded when the piece was first created. Harvey is playing with time, for what we hear is both something frozen in the past and reconstituted  anew in performance.

Many of the themes in Prom 44 pulled together in Louis Andriessen's  De Snelheid (Velocity) (1984). Two identical groups (saxophone, brass, piano at the sides, flutes, harps, keyboards in the front and centre back what Andriessen calls "Buddha", woodblock percussion that operates as a giant metronome. Regular, unvarying pulse, but one which speeds up quicker and quicker until you can't count the beats. Any faster and the player might disintegrate. It's gloriously punchy and exuberant, but must be hell to play and keep together. The London Sinfonietta have Andriessen's idiom under their skins, so to speak, and have been playing him for years. André Ridder conducted, stylishly.

And then silence. Or not.  After 60 years, John Cage's notorious 4'33 still draws howls of rage from fundamentalists who don't think about what they listen to.  Cage makes us think about the art of listening, why and how we process what we hear around us. 4'33 is like a Cage Musicircus, where we're presented with layers of multiple stimuli. Every "performance" is unique, created by chance and happenstance. Unfortunately at the Proms everyone keeps reverently silent which defeats the purpose. But 4'33 is "music you can perform at home" at any time.  Indeed, in our 24/7 world of mass instant communication, ruled by technology, we need to heed Cage more than ever.

This Prom ended as performance art, volunteers texting randomly, like in an installation space. A cheeky concept!  But fun.

photo : Peter Forster

After Life at the Barbican : Michel van der Aa

"If you could take any one memory with you to eternity, which one would you choose?" In Michel van der Aa's After Life several people meet in a waiting room. They've just died, but they must examine their lives, and pick one memory to take with them before they can journey on. One memory to summarize a whole lifetime ? It's not easy. Effectively, they're pondering what their lives might have meant. It's a powerful psychological concept, strikingly adapted as theatre.

At the premiere in 2006, Shirley Apthorp in the Financial Times described the opera as "The Gesammstkunstwerk of the Future". Michel van der Aa mixes live orchestra with electronica, live performers with ordinary people, film with live action. That's not specially innovative in itself, but van der Aa takes the concept further, blending art and reality. Singers and musicians perform a score, while ordinary people speak spontaneously. Van der Aa abandoned the idea of script altogether : people simply turned up at his studio, and talked spontaneously. Ordinary people, but extraordinary lives.

Perhaps that's part of After Life's message too. Emotionally articulate people are more able to intuit what makes them what they are, but even the most mundane life has meaning. What of those who are blocked in some way ? Mr Walter( Richard Suart) looks back on a "so-so job, a so-so marriage", where nothing seems to have mattered either way. Ilana (Margreit van Reisen) has had such a horrible life she doesn't want to remember anything. But in the Afterlife, you can't move on unless you can deal with your past.

That's why the staff in the "waiting room" help people reconstruct their lives and memories. Sometimes it isn't the grand gestures that create the best memories, but simple things. like hugging a loved pet, or sitting on a park bench and feeling you belong. Aiden (Roderick Williams) reveals that the staff themselves are people who are blocked and can't proceed until they, too, learn the meaning of their lives. Aiden helps Walter, but by helping Walter, he finds his own release. In this strange Limbo, the authority figure, The Chief (Claron McFadden) may in fact be the person most trapped. Maybe the secret to passage isn't what memory you carry with you, but how much excess baggage you're prepared to leave behind.

Michel van der Aa's music may be avant garde, and extended by electronic effects, but it communicates well. Van der Aa wrote one of the study pieces for After Life for the famous Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, hence the harpsichord-led purity of line. As he says, the music "has two layers, a direct, physically dramatic layer and another with more depth, that is more conceptual". The opera deals with very unusual ideas, so this interplay between clarity and mystery, humble and heroic, is fundamental.

The vocal lines sweep up and down the scale, even within phrases, but don't sound unnatural. McFadden, who has few equals in modern music, and has created the wildest Harpies, sounds soft and lyrical, actually quite sweet. Williams proves why he's one of the most sought after character baritones in his generation. He's a wonderful, expressive actor who moves as well as he sings. Yvette Bonner as Sarah, the other member of staff, has good potential.

Michel van der Aa worked with Louis Andriessen (Writing to Vermeer) who promoted the idea of anti-orchestra back in the 1960's. The idea of multi-media, conceptual theatre is fairly well established in Europe. The Queen of the Netherlands attended After Life at the highly prestigious Holland Festival. Holland's famous for its liberal, open-minded attitudes, but After Life is so good that it can export, even to more buttoned down.British pysche. After all, every one of us will one day make that journey, whatever may be on the other side.

Congratulations to the Barbican for bringing it to London, just months after the recent revival (with revisions) . I was impressed by the way the Barbican marketed this opera, which might have been a hard sell, given that it's so modern. They set up a [mini website inviting readers to send in their own ideas of what memory they'd take into the unknown. After Life is about ordinary people, so it's a good idea that "ordinary people" participate. While it emphasizes "ordinary" life, this opera poses questions about life, identity and emotional dexterity that make it a challenge..What you get from it reflects what you put in. A bit like life itself.
Please see the full review with production photos in Opera Today.

Michel van der Aa - Barbican

Big, big buzz about Michel van der Aa After Life at the Barbican on Saturday 15th May. For the full review  of this and also the new Up-Close please follow label "Van der Aa" on right. This is cutting edge, a major critical success when it opened in the Netherlands in June 2006.  The Holland Festival produces seriously interesting things. Van der Aa is multimedia king, combining music, electronics, film, drama etc to create Total Theatre. He's been closely involved with Louis Andriessen, about whom there's a lot on this site (follow the labels) Andriessen in his youth pioneered the idea of anti-orchestra, and of music theatre beyond conventional bounds.

"Six characters are about to trade their earthly existence for a place in heaven. They are allowed to choose one moment from their lives to relive in the form of a film to take them to eternity."  Intriguing concept, based (no surprise) on a Japanese art film.

Congratulations to the Barbican for having the courage to bring this to London, but even more congratulations for marketing it in an intelligent, down-to-earth way.  New music isn't necessarily scary. The opera may be state of the art, but that doesn't mean ordinary people can't relate to it.  Indeed, for Van der Aa, what counts is communication, with as many people as possible, not just trendies. . The Barbican's created a special mini-website for After Life where people can speculate on the ideas for themselves. It's a great idea because it makes people think about the basic premise of the opera, and relate it to their lives. The drama isn't just what's on stage, but what happens in the minds and souls of those taking part.  Definitely an experience on many different levels.

I tracked down the Financial Times article from 2006 HERE. "After Life succeeds not so much because of its plot but because of the ingenious way its component parts are assembled."...."This is the Gesammstkunstwerk of the future". Well, I dunno, since many composers and directors aim for the same extension of theatrical experience, but this should be well worth participating in. The Queen of the Netherlands was at the premiere, showing what an open-minded person she may be. I can't imagine Prince Charles letting down his inhibitions in the same way, for the sake of art.

Musically this will be top notch, as most of the team were involved in the Dutch productions. Michel van der Aa brings together The ASKO/Schoenberg Ensemble (wonderful), Claron McFadden, Roderick Williams and others.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2009

The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival starts Friday 20th November. This is Britain's biggest new music festival, and has been going for decades, though some years have been a lot better than others. This is where to go for the hip in new European music. Huddersfield is an industrial city up north, expensive to get to if you live in the south, but BBC Radio3 will be broadcasting some highlights. Lots of composers, few know outside specialist circles, plus some of the greats - this year features Louis Andriessen.

Read this year's programme HERE. The hot item on 20/11 will be Wolfgang Rihm's -ET LUX- UK premiere, performed by the Arditti Quartet, so closely associated with the composer, and the Hilliard Quartet.

Pity the BBC won't be doing this , but they're devoting 90 minutes on 28 November to the festival and to Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, which is being done as a full installation tomorrow. Normally Harvey is not my thing, but this piece is fabulous, and made Harvey's reputation way back. It's about different levels of time, expressed by mixing bells, a boy's voice and electronic sound: it' would be moving to hear as live installation in a church. Lots more Harvey during the festival as he's "featured composer". Piano works on 21/11, followed by the Ardittis playing string quartets, including works by James Dillon and James Clarke.

Another not miss if possible is David Sawer's Rumpelstiltskin with the BCMG. This received rave reviews when it was premiered in Birmingham recently. Conducted by Martyn Brabbins and directed by Richard Jones, it's evidently a major event, which won't be quite the same audio-only. Pity it's coming nowhere near London.

Bas Wiegers brings the Nieuw Ensemble from the Netherlands for several concerts : look at the one which has Luca Francesconi, Gérard Pesson and Stefano Bellon (24/11). But the big draw will be Louis Andriessen Day on Nov 25th at which the composer himself will be present. The afternoon concert brings smaller scale works (Cristina Zavalloni sings) and in the evening a two piano feast - including De Staat transcribed for pianos, and the Hague Hacking (which grew on me after repeat listening) and the companion pair, A very sharp trumpet sonata and A very sad trumpet sonata. These are whimsical miniatures but extremely inventive, full of witty ideas.

Emmanuel Nunes day on 25th. Nunes is well known in Europe, unknown in UK, He spent his working years teaching in Paris, but now he's retired and back in Lisbon, his own work should get higher profile. At Huddersfield Noriko Kawai (excellent) will be playing his masterpiece, Litanies de feu et de la mer 1 and 11. Read THIS description of his work from IRCAM. Listen HERE for sound clips of Litanies, and HERE for a description of the Guild CD. Quatuor Diotima premieres his Improvisation IV - l'électricité de la pensée humaine the next evening.

Everyone knows and loves Rolf Hind as a pianist, so there'll be interest in his own work, A jasmine petal, a single hair, seven mattresses, a pea I've only heard one of Hind's pieces, the title I can't remember but it was interesting enough that I'd like to hear this. He'll be playing the UK premiere of a work by Lisa Lim, whom I've also heard but less memorably. Frederic Rzewski is also a big name pianist, and here will be playing his own Nanosonatas Books III to VI. Also featured will be a Danish composer, Jexper Holmen, completely new to me and Rebecca Saunders' premiere Disclosure. Read more about her on this blog, her music intrigues me, its so tactile.

As always, the last Saturday night in any festival is the big night and this one has the London Sinfonietta, Jonathan Harvey and Richard Barrett. Barrett's Mesopotamia has its world premiere, and will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 on 28 November, available online worldwide and on demand for a week on the BBC website. "Inspired by artefacts found on ancient archeological sites, Richard Barrett's Mesopotamia has a "dense, multi-layered structure that imitates the successive destruction and re-building of communities throughout history. Scored for 17 instruments and electronics, the piece forms the fifth part of a series of compositions collectively entitled resistance & vision", says the blurb. Barrett and his partner Paul Obermayer will be doing the electro acoustics, and there'll be two vocalists. More electro-acoustics next night, too, with Enno Poppe and Wolfgang Heiniger, Tiere sitzen nicht. "Animals don't sit". Poppe's work is very conceptual, and with such a concept, anything's possible.
Read about Rihm's Et lux and the forthcoming Rihm immersion day at the Barb HERE

Andriessen De Staat Prom 58 2009

De Staat is a seminally important work. So much modern music stems from it, not only "serious" classical music but progressive popular music too. No De Staat no Different Trains and many other things.

De Staat is so radical that it still sounds fresh after almost 40 years. Essentially, it's a wild, almost savage piece that breaks all the rules of form and development that constitute formal music. But such manic, kinetic energy! Driving, compelling rhythmic patterns drive the piece forward. The patterns are circular, revolving on themselves relentlessly without beginning or end. Structurally, blocks of density are intersected by planes of sharp brightness.

De Staat is also interesting because it transcends text. It's based on Plato's The Republic where music is denounced as a form of subversion. The words matter. At early performances, audiences were given the text to read carefully. Yet De Staat transcends text. The singing is deliberately embedded into the music, almost abstract, like a cryptic code whose meaning goes deeper than surface words. Modern music doesn't do simple word-painting. Meaning is absorbed, translated into abstract sound. Much modern writing approaches this state too. Just yesterday we heard Rebecca Saunders's Traces, which springs from Samuel Beckett's exploratory syntax. (Another Beckett-inspired composer is Pascal Dusapin)

The texts are in ancient Greek, which most people don't understand nowadays, which is all the more reason to focus on how the music itself expresses meaning, not just the words. The final chorus is illuminating for it quotes authoritarian dogma against innovation. "Change always invokes far-reaching danger. Any alteration in the modes of music is always followed by alteration in the most fundamental laws of the State". Nothing has changed since Plato. Modern music is hated for much the same reasons, as if easy music makes life safe.

So Andriessen's unremitting, hard driving planes of sound express something about society and its pressures. This Proms performance, conducted by Lucas Vis, leading the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, celebrated the composer's birthday, so wasn't quite as intense as some performances, where the relentless, pounding rhythms create severe anxiety and tension. This is an ensemble for whom the work is basic repertoire – listen to the live recording, also by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, from the 1978 Holland Festival, included as a CD in the book by Robert Adlington, Louis Andriessen : De Staat (2004).

This sense of fear and danger is important, for the driving repetitions represent the idea of conformity. Hence the need for tight, disciplined performance. Repetition is conformity, strictly imposed. From which freedom, non-conformity and creative innovation can break loose. Perhaps that's why I admire Ravel's Bolero and liked Salonen's perceptive performance).

The very structure of De Staat is meaning. As Andriessen has said, "there is no hierarchy in the parts". The chorus is only one of the several units in the piece that function in parallel, rather like society itself. Hence the phalanx of brass positioned on both sides of the orchestra, and the "chorus" of violas and lower strings. Voices may be suppressed in authoritarian states, but abstract music can still speak.

This programme was extremely well chosen, placing De Staat between Steve Martland's Beat the Retreat and Cornelis de Bondt's Closed Doors. Martland's piece is a protest against government laws on outdoors entertainment, a cheerful act of irreverent anarchy. De Bondt's piece, from 1985, starts and ends with a deep sonic boom that reverbrated nicely in the Royal Albert Hall. It's part of a much larger work that pivots different threads of music history upon each other. That's why there were two conductors, not in itself any big deal (Charles Ives did it decades ago). Like De Staat, the material circulates, disparate parts that can't meld.

Another recommended recording of De Staat is by the Schoenberg Ensemble, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, a superb performance, with a stellar group of singers, but with one big caveat, that's all there is on the disc and it's expensive. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble recording includes Il Principe, part of a series of works associated with De Staat as a kind of mega-cycle (and you get the book, too).

This Prom was woefully under-attended, perhaps because it was the start of the last holiday weekend of the summer, when everyone's out of town, or perhaps because the early evening concert was Tchaikovsky, whose fans don't overlap with Andriessen's. But that's why broadcast and online repeat listening is so valuable. Not everyone can have the luxury of getting into London for a concert that ends after much public transport closes for the night. But many, many more get to hear the music at home, or on the radio, wherever they may be, in London or anywhere else. Why should music be the privilege of a closed elite? Thank goodness for technological innovation!

Andriessen Ravel Mother Goose Salonen Philharmonia Prom

So what if there are no US orchestras at this year's Proms? Listen to London's own Philharmonia Orchestra, They've long been one of the best in this country. Now under Esa-Pekka Salonen they're entering an even more glowing phase. Having heard their amazing Gurrelieder and astute Mahler I was prepared for excellence but this Prom 43 produced some of the finest playing all season, despite much strong competition.

It was misleading that the thread was "dance" because this wasn't raucous, crowd-pleasing noise. Dance, particularly ballet, isn't necessarily pound, pound, pound. Ravels Mother Goose Ma mère l’oye, often gets straightforward graphic treatment, as if all it needs is "making the pictures". Salonen and the Philharmonia caught the spirit of fantasy that transforms the nursery stories into something truly magical. Instead of crude cartoon colours, Salonen and the Philharmonia produced luminous, gossamer-like textures infused with light. Details were defined with real delicacy of touch, so it really did feel that the music was "flying".

This was Mother Goose for adults, or at least adults who haven't lost the wonder of youth. ir souls in cynical materialism. Sensuous violins, woodwinds, horns like calls from fairyland. The prelude soars into a plane beyond the mundane world. Each tableaux is exquisitely beautiful. Yet nursery tales also operate on deeper levels. The Sleeping Beauty has been put to sleep by sinister forces. In her dreams, though, she's not alone. She meets characters like The Beast and Hop o' my thumb. Sometimes you can "hear" birds fluttering in this . The two final sections are truly magical. Into Little Ugly, Empress of the Pagodas, Ravel works in "oriental" themes, which for people in his time was code for sensuality and exotic otherness. So when The Sleeping Beauty meets her Prince in the Enchanted Garden, with lustrous glissandi building up to a full throated "awakening", you know she's transfigured.

Bolero is stark primary colours, but Salonen and the Philharmonia go deeper, accessing the way the music builds up, layer by layer. It's a kind of procession, where new elements enter as the music progresses until it reaches its full-bodied climate. Each element adds new flavours, but fundamentally it's defined by the steady beat of the drum, reflected in the strumming pizzicato. In flamenco, rigid rhythmic discipline is part of the style creating a tension that makes the brief flourishes sound all the more dynamic. Salonen makes sure the orchestra doesn't lose this tight basic pulse, as the climax builds. The wildness is in the music - no need to throw colourful jackets into the crowd. Salonen knows just how shockingly modernist this music is in itself without having to play it for thrills. Eavel himself called Bolero "not music". It iis an experiment in structure. So this performance was far more musically-astute than the usual flamboyant versions have led us to believe.

The more I think about this Ravel, I realise how musically astute it was. Ravel is experimenting with ostinato and strict rhythm, the discipline of flamenco, where feet stamp in ritual progression, body helfd taught and unflinching. Everyone loves Bolero because now we hear it as flamboyant and colourful but Ravel's idea was more experimental and unusual. And this performance brings out the musical logic behind it.


Salonen premiered Louis Andriessen's The Hague Hacking in Los Angeles in January, with the sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque for whom it was written. Like Bolero, the piece moves in choppy progressions, inspired by popular song and dance. Another inspiration was Tom and Jerry who chase each other round malevolently.

Against an almost flat line of strings, the pianos circle, interacting back and forth like a complex machine. Long wind, string and brass lines that reach out over the pianos. The instrumentation includes electric guitars and cimbalom, so despite the relative simplicity of the piece, there's something otherworldly in it. The percussion creates sounds like giant bells heard over a long distance, though they're actually metal tubes struck by muffled hammer, sometimes augmented by brass, taking up the jaunty effect of piano as percussion. I don't know what the piece is "about" but I enjoyed its vivacious, cheerful liveliness, so much less pretentious than some new music around.

In fact that's what I like about Andriessen. He's so down to earth, a natural subversive, yet with a sense of fun. After the Prom there was a very good "Composer Portrait" featuring more of his music. Especially striking is the one-minute trumpet piece which switches from sonata, rondo to ABA song. As Andriessen says, he likes to contrast "sharp" with "soft", precise with abstract. Thus his Images of Gustave Moreau whose paintings follow the same logic. Then, Bells of Haarlem. This refers to bells stolen by the Crusaders from Palestine, and rung each night in Haarlem. They sound tiny, metallic, vulnerable but the orchestral setting, complete with celesta gives it resonance.
PLEASE see my other posts on Andriessen by following the labels at the list on right. Lots of stuff and a special on De Staat, and the Proms performance. Se Staat is a seminal work. No De Staat, no Steve Reich ?

Unusual and loving tribute to Elly Ameling

Elly Ameling lights up everything she sings. It's not simply the purity of her voice, which is exceptionally sweet and beautiful. She communicates much more: warmth of personality, intelligence, charm and, above all, the sense that she loves singing and wants to share her enthusiasm. Although she's one of the greatest singers, she has never sold out to the commercial circus. Even though her voice is ideally suited to Mozart, Handel, Strauss, she chose not to do the big opera circuit and chase the spoilt diva market that sometimes follows. She's maintained her integrity and dignity, and that personal, intimate touch that's so much part of her charm.

That's why I treasure this CD set, Elly Ameling 75 Jaar : Live concertopnamen 1957-1991, Nederlandse Omroep, a 5 CD set available on application from amazon (though for some reason not amazon.uk) It's also available I think at the Concertgebouw and in shops in Holland. You might have to track it down, but I'm glad I did because it's a good alternative to the other box set on the market, "The Artistry of Elly Ameling" released by Philips. The Philips set has Bach, Handel, Haydn, Vivaldi, Hugo Wolf and for fun, Cole Porter. Some of these tracks Elly's fans will already know from the original issues.

This Live Concertoprnamen set is far more distinctive because it's a carefully chosen selection of live recordings from concert performances 1957-1991, most of which are not commercially available. It's rewarding to listen to, because it's more personal, more intimate. A beautiful portrait of a much loved singer and personality!

CD1 comprises opera performances – Bizet and Gounod from a 1966 performance conducted by Bernard Haitink, arias from Idomeneo, Cosi and Le Nozze di Figaro and a lesser known delight, a recitative and aria from Louis-Aimé Maillart's Les Dragons de Villars.

On CD 2 we hear a very fresh performance of Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder (conducted by Sawallisch, 1983), a selection of Strauss with Rudolf Jansen or Dalton Baldwin at the piano, and Alban Berg's Der Wein (cond Leinsdorf). This latter doesn't get the high profile it's due and some singers overdo it, but Ameling is fine and clear.

More Rudolf Jansen on the next CD, songs by Duparc, Debussy and Ravel. The highlight though is Fauré's La bonne chausson, flowing beautifully. Ed Spanjaard conducts a few songs too, which I liked since I mainly know his work in new music. Jansen and Ameling have been partners for years, so it's good to hear more of them together later in the set – arias from Tosti and Rossini, Mussorgsky songs and Stravinsky's Pastorale.

Still more surprises to come – Elly Ameling sings Luigi Dallapiccola! Sex Carmina Alcaei are well suited to Ameling's gentle spirit. She sings Carlos Guastavino, too, the Argentine composer (d 2000) enjoying a new vogue in recent years, thanks to singers like Carole Farley who has raised the profile of South American song in the US and Europe. Here's Ameling singing La rosa y el source in 1981, a little less "Spanish" but lovely. On this same disc, Ameling sings Constantin Huyghens (1596-1687) and a Victorian song in English – she certainly has range!

Louis Andriessen is Holland's greatest living composer, but his father, brother and sister were/are also important figures in Dutch music circles. This is an opportunity to hear Hendrik Andriessen's Magna res est amor and Fiat Domine (cond Haitink) and a devotional work for voice and organ, Miroir de Peine. Father and son write completely different music, but both have strong convictions. Albert de Klerk accompanies Ameling on Miroir de Peine. I don't know where the organ is but it's very low toned and resonant, so Ameling's voice floats lyrically above. She sounds very young and angelic. Then you see it's made in 1958. It's like being transported back in time to a simpler world.

Since we don't hear much of Dutch composers. it's interesting to hear a CD in this set devoted to Bertus van Lier (1906-72) and Robert Heppener (b 1925). The former is represented by an opera, The Song of Songs, where Ameling sings Shulamite. However, the real discovery here is Heppener's Cantico delle Creature di San Francisco d'Assisi (1952). This is very good indeed, in fact the highlight of the whole set. If you like Hans Werner Henze's Italian works, you'll love this. It was written in 1952, before Henze settled in Italy, so there's no connection, though it stands comparison, which is praise indeed. It's about ten minutes, the voice accompanied by string orchestra, particularly lustrous writing where the high strings shine and the low strings add richness. Ameling's in her prime on this 1977 recording, so beautiful that the set's worth getting for this alone.

This set is a labour of love, compiled by those who know Elly Ameling and understand what makes her so good. A lot of work must have gone into tracking down these pieces, many of them radio broadcasts, and getting permissions. There are also wonderful photos, like Ameling with her dogs, and one where she grins, holding a T shirt that says "Happiness is Singing". That sums up the spirit of this set, and why I enjoy it so much. It's sincere, personal and very warm hearted. This is a lovely tribute, so track it down if you can.

Holland and the BBC honour Louis Andriessen

Holland's greatest living composer, Louis Andriessen, celebrates his 70th birthday this year. He's being honoured by the Holland Festival which started this week. Pity I couldn't be there this year. But on BBC Radio 3 there's a programme (Hear and Now) for online on demand listening for the next few days. There's also a good interview by the standards of this series, as the interviewer, Zoe Martlew, did her homework well. Andriessen is an articulate guy, so the talk factor here is informative. Listen for his description of Indonesian women's choirs at the court in Jogjakarta. Eat your heart out, Steve Reich.

First piece is De Stijl, inspired by the paintings of Piet Mondrian.
Mondrian loved jazz and modernity and so does Andriessen. Mondrian "paints" the brightness of boogie woogie in cells of colour, Andriessen with lively riffs. De Stijl is vibrant, exuberant yet also quite nostalgic, for there's a long semi Sprechgesang passage describing Mondrian in his last years – an old man who loved to dance.

Then Reinbert de Leeuw conducts the Schoenberg and Asko Ensembles in De Staat. Round and round the sequential progressions go, barely changing til they reach a new plateau. It's so much like gamelan, which isn't notated in the western style. Instead it grows out of actual performance, the players lighting on developments simply by listening to subtle changes in each other's playing. The piece was written for Orkest Volharding, the innovative non-hierarchical orchestra which Andriessen was involved with. Volharding was an attempt to create a communal, co-operative ensemble so the gamelan idea is probably apt.

Andriessen wrote De Staat a full 12 years before Steve Reich's Different Trains: listen to them together and Andriessen's influence is clear. Indeed, even the idea of trains is suggested by Andriessen's driving, relentless movement. De Staat, though, concerns itself with ideas about the place of music in society. The text comes from Plato. It is a political work in the deepest sense and an important piece of music for many different reasons. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble (Louis Vis conductor) will be performing it at the Proms on 28th August. It's very visual, so worth hearing live. A full review of the Proms De Staat is posted on this blog, please see HERE
LOTS ON ANDRIESSEN on this blog ! Even something about his father.

Esa Pekka Salonen will conduct the UK premiere of Andriessen's Hague Hacking which Salonen conducted in LA in January. Review of that is on this blog, too, see HERE

photo credit : Meltdown Festival

Holland Festval 2009

The Holland Festival is lively - a great excuse to visit Amsterdam in early summer. This year the Festival celebrates Louis Andriessen's 70th birthday. The Andriessen family have long been significant figures in the Dutch music scene. In the 60's and 70's Louis symbolised the progressive spirit of the times, creating the Orkest de Vollharding and seminally important works like De Staat.

On June 6, there'll be an all day series featuring Andriessen's Haags Hakkuh (2008) and Vermeer Pictures (2005) plus works by Henrik Andriessen (father), Stravinsky (hero) and Diderik Wagenaar, another important Dutch composer. There'll also be another programme with vocal/theatre work, La Passione (2002) and the Folksongs of Luciano Berio, Andriessen's mentor.

Th big opera this year is Adam in Ballingschap by Rob Zuidam. Claron McFadden sings, which should be interesting. If I were going this year (alas not), I'd be heading for Pascal Dusapin's Passion, based on Monteverdi's Orfeo. This is also on in Paris in April. Dusapin writes exquisite chamber music and his operas are restrained but to the point. His Faustus, the Last Night is excellent. It's out on DVD. For a detailed description of Passion in Aix last year follow the link on the labels list at right. Dusapin was Iannis Xenakis's only student. More on Xenakis coming up soon, bookmark this blog.

Since writing this I've looked at the printed book programme and there's lots more - quite a bit of Dusapin chamber music and also the opera The Anatomy of Melancholie on 19th June. There is also a concert of Goeyvarts and his opera Aquarius on 21st June. There are several Varese events, a symposium, some concerts and installations. Holland Festival always delivers interesting things !

The Holland Festival is also good on world music, and this year's special is a performance of Buranku theatre. Bunraku puppets are stylised, as divorced from modern western concepts of theatre as can be, more austere than kabuki. Yet that's precisely why they're interesting. I'd go to this if I could.