Kaija Saariaho - Total Immersion day at The Barbican/Royal Opera House, London, 7 May 2023

In memoriam: Kaija Saariaho, 14 October 1952 - 2 June 2023, RIP

 

A wonderful deep dive into the soundworlds of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which in the days since these three broadcasts has turned into a career-summing memorial.  After a lifetime investigating the confluence of spectralist music and electronics, Saariaho leaves behind a stunning catalogue of innovative music in lots of different forms.  So here's the three broadcasts of music from the Total Immersion day that took place in London last month, plus a little bonus at the end from an earlier concert in Glasgow.

In the first broadcast, Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Du Cristal, Notes On Light, Saarikoski Songs and Circle Map.  Also included here are excerpts from the day's chamber music concert, performed by students of the Guildhall School, with Changing Light, Spins And Spells and Calices zooming in on the engrossing granularity of these smaller-scale works.

Kaija Saariaho's most recent opera Innocence is a multi-lingual narrative tying together a wedding and a school shooting, and this UK premiere took place over in Covent Garden and was tied in with the Total Immersion concert broadcasts.  Lasting nearly two hours, I'm afraid this one is all in one track as I had no recording timings to refer to for even attempting to break it up into sections.  But even without being able to follow the libretto, it's a weighty, moving work that's well worth a listen.

Lastly, we return to The Barbican to hear the BBC Singers perform another UK premiere, the ecological song cycle Reconnaissance (Rusty Mirror Madrigal).  This is paired with two of Saariaho's most famous vocal works, Nuits Adieux and Tag Des Jahrs, and the broadcast is completed with more chamber music.  The bonus I've added on at the end comes from a recent concert in Glasgow that was broadcast around the same time, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Saariaho's Laterna Magica.

Enjoy these recordings of a composer who leaves behind some truly spellbinding music.

Broadcast 1 link

Broadcast 2 link

Broadcast 3 link

pw for all: sgtg

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

Vista

London Sinfonietta/Sound Intermedia - Reich/Richter (Royal Festival Hall, London, 6 April 2023)

Concert from earlier in the month, broadcast last week.  The mouthwatering programme is themed around New York composers, or those with connections to the area, its second half given over to 40 minutes of Steve Reich.

First, we get the transformed Insect sounds of Mira Calix's Nunu; the world premiere of Anna Clyne's Fractured Time, and the joyous cacophony of Julia Wolfe's Tell Me Everything, inspired by a tape of Mexican brass music.  Bookending these in the concert's first half are two arrangements of an uncharacteristically brief Julius Eastman piece, Joy Boy from 1974.  Opening the programme in a wind-centred iteration, then leading into the interval in a strings-based version, it's a great pocket-sized example of the subtle constant transformation in Eastman's music.  

Reich/Richter, composed in 2019 and given album release last year, was composed by Steve Reich to accompany an abstract film by Gerhard Richter.  The patterned, textured film was shown to the audience for this performance, but with this obviously unavailable to broadcast listeners the music has to stand by itself.  And it most certainly does, in instantly recognisable Reich form across its four sections, but still managing to sound fresh in this late period of the New York legend's career.

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Concert Orchestra - Seeing The Light (recorded 26 Feb 2023)

Recent broadcast of a February concert from London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, themed around 'light'.  Starting off with Philip Glass' piece for the centenary of the Michelson-Morley experiment, the first half is rounded out with Peteris Vasks' Lonely Angel, introducing violinist Mari Samuelsen as the concert's featured soloist.  A great run of pieces after the interval, by Meredi, Guðnadóttir and Pärt further showcase Samuelsen, before the grand finale of Rautavaara's Angel Of Light symphony.  Great programme, brilliantly played.

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Singers - Concert For International Women's Day 2023 (orig. rec. on 19 Jan, broadcast 8 March)

: 

Couple of concert broadcasts this week, starting with acapella choral music performed by the BBC Singers and aired to conincide with International Women's Day earlier this month.  The programme highlights seven female contemporary composers from around the world, the vocal texts moving from just onomatopoeic sounds to poetry to liturgical settings.  Everything sounds fantastic in the capable hands of the BBC Singers.  I really hope this isn't the last post of them performing - latest news is that they're due to be axed by the BBC, which would be a great loss.  For now, please enjoy this post of an incredible choral ensemble and the previous posts below.

 

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Singers at SGTG:

Boulez, Varèse & Stravinsky

On Christmas Night

Joby Talbot & Joanna Marsh

A Christmas Carol

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Plays Scriabin, Glière & Korsun (at the Lighthouse, Poole, 17th Jan 2023)

Incredible concert recording from January, given a recent broadcast.  Chief conductor Kirill Karabits, as part of a 'Voices From The East' series, put together this programme of Ukrainian and Russian music and started it off with the stunning sonic power of Anna Korsun's Terricone, receiving its world premiere.  Karabits and Korsun, who both have roots in the Donbas region, introduce the work as having its title inspired by large mining heaps there, and it sounds phenomenal - very much appealed to the Xenakis fan in me.

The BSO's artist in residence is featured next, letting the rest of the concert's first half showcase the talent of horn player Felix Klieser (whose adapted-by-necessity technique is quite amazing).  Reinhold Glière's Horn Concerto, composed in 1951 and with strong influence from the Romantic era, contrasts well with the rest of the programme.  As an encore, Klieser offers a Rossini fanfare.  The concert's second half is given over to Alexander Scriabin's 2nd Symphony in all its grandeur and subtlety, with the gorgeous Andante being a highlight for me.  The announcer signing off with a typically bonkers quote from Scriabin is just the cherry on top.

link

pw: sgtg

Scriabin at SGTG: Universe

Sándor Lakatos And His Gypsy Band - Budapest At Night (undated recordings, this compilation first released 1987)

This is the other recent find that I've been enjoying loads.  This collection's from the 80s, but the recordings (no specific years given) might be much older, as Sándor Lakatos (1924-1994) and his Gypsy Band had been releasing albums from the late 50s onwards.  All sounds fantastic though, with so much verve, energy and sheer jawdropping virtuosity brought to these Hungarian folk tunes.  Not much else to say about this one really, other than it's tons of fun.

link

pw: sgtg

Satie - Orchestral Works (Toulouse Capitole Orchestra, 1988)

Couple of recent charity shop finds this week.  First up, here's a really enjoyable hour of the orchestral side of Erik Satie, which I could certainly do with exploring further.  Plasson and the Toulouse Capitole give this music all the subtlety, wit and charm it requires in a beautifully detailed recording from 1988.

A definite highlight of this collection is Satie's music for Parade, a surreal one-act ballet devised by Jean Cocteau, choreographed by Leonide Massine and with bizarre cubist costumes by Picasso.  Lasting only 15 minutes, the score includes the sounds of typewriters and foghorns - allegedly at Cocteau's insistence over Satie's distaste, but in hindsight sounding like an influence on Varèse, who was acquainted with Satie around this time.  Moving from surrealism to Dada, Francis Picabia's ballet Relâche ("Cancelled") sparkles with Satie's lush, expressive and witty score.

Elsewhere, Satie's sense of playfulness and influences from Fin De Siècle cabaret make the dance suite La Belle Excentrique an uproarious joy, and the Varèse-commissioned Cinq Grimaces occupies a similar space.  There's also opportunity on this album to just luxuriate in the sublime compositional genius of Satie in arrangements of works originally for piano (or written in both piano and orchestral forms).  Gymnnopodies No. 1 & 3 are here in orchestrations by Debussy, Gnossienne No. 3 by Poulenc, and Satie's own settings of La Piccadilly and En Habit De Cheval.  A hugely recommended collection.

 

link

pw: sgtg 

Erik Satie at SGTG:

Piano Works

Gnossiennes/Ogives

Messe Des Pauvres

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Plays Xenakis, Debussy, Ligeti & Bartók (15 December 2022)

Concert broadcast from Glasgow last month, with the announcer opening on a Xenakis quote: "savageness is part of everyday life".  With such a weighty introduction, you'd be expecting some fireworks, and the musicians of the BBC SSO certainly deliver in the opening blast of Xenakis' computer-composed Atrées.  But there's subtlety too, in the sumptuous rendering of Debussy's Jeux that fills out the concert's first half.

Ilan Volkov, a conductor I always like for his relish for the avant-garde, talks us through the tuning used for Ligeti's Ramifications before taking the two groups of strings into the piece's still-remarkable miasma of sound.  The grand finale is another landmark in 20th century music, Bartók's Music For Strings, Percussion & Celesta, sounding riveting all the way from the grand sweep at its outset through the eerie third movement and beyond.

link

pw: sgtg

Iannis Xenakis at SGTG:

Akea, Ittidra, À. R,, piano fragment  

Palimpsest, Épéi, Dikhtas, Akanthos

Pour La Paix/Voyage Absolu   

Nuits  

Rebonds B  

Akrata  

Atrées, Morsima-Amorsima etc  

Evryali/Herma   

Phlegra, Jalons etc
Oresteïa
Synaphaï
Persephassa
Ata, Jonchaies etc
Pléiades/Psappha
Bohor etc
Kraanerg
Terretektorh/Nomos Gamma
La Légende D'Eer
Persepolis

 

György Ligeti at SGTG:

Clear Or Cloudy: Complete Recordings On Deutsche Grammophon

Requiem, Aventures, Nouvelles Aventures 

Artikulation

Spending some "Time" with Dave Brubeck, to end the year (1959, 1961, 1966)

And yep, it's SGTG breaktime once again. Thanks for all your comments, and for enjoying all the music.  As to where this blog goes from here, I think it'll definitely just be occasional posts, when there's an interesting radio concert to share, or the results of a quirky charity shop haul.  The whole 'sharing a massive CD collection and writing about it just because I wanted to' thing that sparked this off is pretty much done & dusted now, and has been hugely satisfying.  Thanks everyone for being part of it.

To leave things for now, here's a triple header by an artist I took far too long to give some serious time to, starting in the annus mirabilis of album jazz: 1959.  The Dave Brubeck Quartet had made a name for themselves in West Coast cool jazz over the course of the decade, and were becoming influenced by folk forms experienced on a tour of Eurasia, as evidenced by a 1958 album.

Their smash hit album a year later took the 'quirky time signatures' USP and just ran with it, creating indelible instant classics like Blue Rondo A La Turk and Paul Desmond's Take Five.  Beyond these standouts, the Time Out album contains absolute loveliness like Strange Meadow Lark and Kathy's Waltz, and my personal favourite, the effortlessly cool elegance of Three To Get Ready.

link

pw: sgtg

The success of Time Out led to a handful of sequels, so here's a couple of them.  First up, from 1961, is Time Further Out - subtitled Miro Reflections as a nod to the cover art.  The album's running order is structured so as to progressively add more beats to the bar, starting off with a pair of waltzes and featuring another couple of pieces in 5/4, as well as the 7/4 of its best-known track Unsquare Dance.  Brubeck's dexterous pianism and the rhythm section's ability to play absolutely in-the-pocket regardless of the meter continue to be absolute joys, as is the breezy melodic sensibility of this coolest of quartets.

 

link

pw: sgtg

The 'time' albums then concluded five years later with Time In, credited to Brubeck only on the cover but still featuring the classic quartet within.  This gorgeous record makes more sparing use of quirky time signatures, and after the full-tilt Lost Waltz that opens the album tends towards breezier mid-tempo tunes that hone in on the quartet's effortless interplay.  Not sure if it's because Time In was the least familiar to me of these three albums (that were found together in a box set), but I've been returning to it the most for sheer enjoyment.  And that feels like as good a place as any to leave SGTG for the moment.  Happy new year when it comes, everyone!

 

link

pw: sgtg

Bruce Cockburn - Further Adventures Of (1978)

Always love a bit of late 70s Bruce Cockburn around the turn of the year, so after posting the masterpiece a few years back (link below), here's the one just before it.  More jazz-inflected arrangements, lyrics taking in the expected singer-songwriterly personal reflections with a heavy dose of Christian mysticism, and that incredible guitar playing.  A couple of more muscular tracks, Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth.... and Feast Of Fools, provide a good contrast to the lighter-hued material, and Red Ships Take Off In The Distance is one of his most dazzling instrumentals.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws