Abbado, Pollini Prohaska - 2011 video

Courtesy of The Berliner Philharmoniker, a recent interview with Claudio Abbado and two friends, old and new - Maurizio Pollini and Anna Prohaska

Pollini Project, South Bank

Maurizio Pollini returns to the South Bank this year for a  concert series, "The Pollini Project". What they mean by "project" I don't know, as an artist of that stature is hardly a "project". Perhaps it's a tag to describe five disparate recitals that span most of Pollini's repertoire.

On 28th January, Bach The Well-tempered Klavier book 1. 15th February, Beethoven  Piano Sonatas  op 109, 110, 111. Nicely balanced with Schubert Piano Sonatas D 958. 959. 960 on 26th February.An opportunity to compare both composers as well as three works from the same period of each. You probably "need" both concerts. Oddly, Beethoven is nearly sold out but some good "piano side" tickets left, while swathes of Schubert seats left but not the coveted piano sides, all of which are sold. What does that say?

Then the one I booked a whole year ago, not knowing that Prince William would finally twig that you can't date someone for 10 years and not commit. They lose face and the Brand suffers. Chopin 24 Preludes, Debussy Etudes Book 2 and Pierre Boulez Piano Sonata no 2,. Lots of tickets left but all on the piano side are completely booked. This is a sign that those going know what they are doing. (discounts if you but all 5 concerts) The kind of audience who don't care as long as it's someone famous are scared off by anything remotely new (Debussy for goodness sake!)  But audiences who know the music know why they want to see Pollini's hands. (Please see my post Pumpkins pop Pollini)

On 25th May, Pollini wickedly mixes Chopin Berceuses and Barcarolles with Stockhausen Klavierstuck VII and IX. Again, the smart money has booked the Blue Side solid. If someone of Pollini's musical intelligence picks Boulez and Stockhausen, he's making a statement.This is a pianist who can do anything he wants so when he choses what he loves, pay attention. The Boulez Piano Sonata is a fantastically beautiful work, and Pollini is arguably even more charismatic than Aimard.
 photo credit : Mathias Bothor and DG

Royal pumpkin pops Pollini

Kate and Mate are riding in a glass carriage after their Royal wedding. In the fairy tale the coach turns back into a pumpkin at midnight. It's not the trappings that make a marriage but the pair involved, so good luck to them as individuals. And also to Zara and her man who both glow with so much genuine  happiness that glitter would be irrelevant.

London will be impassable and impossible. So the pumpkin falls on me!  I've had tickets to Maurizio Pollini at RFH since they went on sale months ago, because he's playing Boulez Piano Sonata no 2. It's brilliant, he's brilliant. But imagine the traffic thru Hyde Park, the Mall and Westminster Abbey. And the security, and the crowds! So any brave heart, please let me know if you'd like to go.(expensive)

Nono...sofferte onde serene - Lortie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anne Ozorio

Nono ...sofferte onde serene...Pollini

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anne Ozorio

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

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

And here is a link to Mark Berry's review

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