Orpheus Complex

Stodgy Bach but stunning Vivaldi from Ibragimova and AAM, Wigmore Hall 29 February 2012

2012-02-29T16:30:00.002-08:00

Biber, Bach, Vivaldi: Academy of Ancient Music, Alina Ibragimova (violin and director), Wigmore Hall, London 29.2.1

Biber: Passacaglia in G Minor from the Rosary Sonatas

Bach: Sonata in E Major BWV1016

Bach: Concerto in A Minor BWV1041

Vivaldi: Concerto in D Major RV234

Vivaldi: Concerto in D Minor RV565

Biber: Battalia

Bach: Concerto in E Major BWV1042

Alina Ibragimova is often described as a violinist who is equally at home in both modern and period instrument worlds, but it isn't often we get to hear her in Baroque mode. When playing the violin in its modern configuration, she is one of the instrument's finest living exponents. Her tone is slight, but always incisive. Her intonation and phrasing are beyond reproach. And, most significantly, her bowing is agile and light, breathing life and energy into every note she plays.

So how do gut strings and a baroque bow affect these exceptional qualities. Well, that probably comes down to your personal preferences, but to my ear the magic of her playing survives, but is not enhanced by baroque conventions. The baroque bow is a little more cumbersome, and the gradations in her dynamics aren't quite as fine, nor is her forte sound as sweet. But in piano passages her playing is as attractive as ever, and the roundness of the gut string sound adds something of value. The way that she ends long notes is a particular pleasure, when she uses a modern bow, and she makes a real virtue out of long and gradual diminuendos, always precisely controlled and always transfixing. Again, those qualities survive the move to a baroque bow, and as such she offers something genuinely new and interesting to period performance. The question is, does period performance offer anything new or interesting to Alina Ibragimova?

The first piece on the programme, the unaccompanied Passacaglia from Biber's Rosary Sonatas, offered plenty of material for reflection on the subject. Although the movement was written as the conclusion to Biber's great cycle, it is a great way to open a concert, at least it is when played with the verve, passion and musicality that Ibragimova injects. The whole scordatura issue tends to mean that violinists treat Biber as primarily a composer to show off with. Not Ibragimova though. She knows that we know that every note of this music is safely under her fingers. So instead of a bravura show-piece, we are offered a solo movement filled with a wide-ranging colours and textures. And of course, they are the colours and textures of a baroque violin. But all those Ibragimova trademarks are there: the light breezy tone, the sculpted but carefree phrasing, the dynamic shifts that range from the sudden to the very gradual. And that last note was absolute magic; Ibragimova had the capacity audience hanging on the end of her bow as she gradually diminuendoed to a perfectly controlled ending.

The title of the concert was 'Rise of the Concerto', and the programme was apparently curated to demonstrate how the Classical violin concerto evolved out of a diverse array of baroque roots. Or was this just an excuse to programme the best bits of Biber, Vivaldi and Bach's violin music? The three composers, all of whom were violinists themselves, certainly got a good airing, although the performances did more to highlight their differences than their similarities. In the cast of Biber this is little surprise, his music doesn't sound like anybody else's. But Vivaldi and Bach were treated very differently to each other, especially by the Academy of Ancient Music, and there was never any doubt as to which we were hearing at any given time.

Bach was introduced with a sonata for violin and harpsichord, the E major BWV1016. Although not credited as such, harpsichordist Alistair Ross was the real soloist here. His playing never suggested any sense of accompanist's restraint, and his instrument was more than sufficient to fill the Wigmore Hall. The lightness of Ibragimova's tone also allowed the harpsichord to shine through, although she was not shy about adding dynamics into her own part. The limited vibrato in her violin playing, another period performance trait, became clearly apparent here. It is such a shame to hear her playing under to such extreme aesthetic proscriptions, especially when her vibrato is so subtle anyway. But in its (almost) absence, her intonation and articulation showed themselves to be absolutely spot on.

Both halves of the concert ended with Bach concertos, but neither shone in the same way as the Biber or the Vivaldi that they followed. The Academy of Ancient Music fielded a large string section of some 13 players. That's a lot to get on the Wigmore stage, especially with a soloist (admittedly slight), a harpsichord and a theorbo. In the Bach, the sheer quantity of players overwhelmed. There were no problems with the intonation or ensemble, but what should have been sprightly contrapuntal textures sounded heavy and chordal, simply for the number of players. Ibragimova and Ross attempted to compensate with fast tempos and clipped phrases, but to no avail.

More impressive were the Vivaldi concertos, RV234 and 565, which is ironic as they are clearly inferior works. But the lightness of Vivaldi's orchestration, which is all isolated runs and filigree decorations, allowed the ensemble to take flight, despite their numbers. Ibragimova's 'baroque' tone also came into its own in Vivaldi's music, and her famously fluid bowing proved the ideal medium for these Italian solo lines.

Biber made a return in the second half with a comedy number. His Battalia is a depiction of a fight, complete with sound effects and some perambulation around the hall from the violin and cello soloists. This composer is nothing if not unpredictable, and his raucous contribution to the second half was about as far removed from the civility of his earlier Passacaglia as you could imagine.

But fine as the orchestral playing was this evening from the AAM, the best of this concert had already passed by the time they first took the stage. That solo with which Ibragimova opened the concert was a stunner, elevating Biber's fine Passacaglia almost to the status of Bach's famous work in the same genre, of which she is surely one of the greatest exponents. The Academy of Ancient Music achieved an impressive coup getting Ibragimova to tour with them. The trouble is she completely upstaged the lot of them.

Osvaldo Golijov treads a fine line between collaboration and plagiarism

2012-02-28T05:49:00.001-08:00

Critic Tom Manoff and musicologist Brian McWhorter got a surprise earlier this month when they attended a performance of Osvaldo Golijov's Sidereus given by the Eugene Symphony in Oregon. The two men had recently been editing a recording of Barbeich, a work by composer and accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman, and the two pieces sounded suspiciously similar. Golijov had acknowledged the use of a theme from Ward-Bergeman's score, but to Manoff and McWhorter's ears he had taken more than that. Manoff later wrote that the plagiarism accounted for over 50% of the score and included 'melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, and notable musical structures.'

Osvaldo Golijov is well known for his collaborative approach to composition, and the popularity of his music stems in no small part from his close interactions with musicians working in popular styles. Ward-Bergeman has been one of his collaborators, and it turns out that both composers are happy with the amount of Barbeich that appears in Sidereus.

So where's the harm? Well, Golijov is a best-selling composer, and his work is of considerable financial benefit to his publishers, Boosey & Hawkes, his agents, Opus3 Artists, and his record label, Nonesuch. None of these organisations are likely to reap the same dividends from a score jointly credited to the lesser-known Ward-Bergeman. And music by, or at least credited to, Golijov doesn't come cheap. The commission for Siderius came from a consortium of 35 American orchestras, each contributing between $1,500 and $4,000, none of whom had any idea about the connections between this and the earlier work. A number of these orchestras are now in the unenviable position of having to defend the composer and the work, but whether they will be returning to him for further commissions remains to be seen.

Any claims to originality for Siderius are also undermined by the fact that Golijov has used the same music before but under a different title. Ward-Bergeman's Barbeich was originally composed as part of a film music project, in which Golijov was also involved. There is no suggestion that Golijov played any part in the creation of Barbeich, but he did make an orchestration of it called Patagonia, which was performed in concert by members of the Chicago Symphony in March 2010.

Since the story began making headlines in the States last week, another instance of questionable attribution on Golijov's part has come to light. After posting his comments, Manoff was contacted by Lúcia Guimarães, a Brazilian journalist based in New York, to tell of a similar experience. She had attended a performance of Kohelet, written by Golijov for the St. Lawrence String Quartet. But one of the movements sounded very familiar, as a popular song by a Brazilian composer. Guimarães knows the Brazilian composer personally, and has been discrete in not naming the allegedly copied work. But she contacted Golijov himself, who apologised and withdrew the movement.

Some commentators, including Alex Ross, have suggested comparisons with Baroque composers as a defence for Golijov's actions. After all, both Bach and Handel routinely passed off other composers' works as their own. But, as Ross himself points out, Golijov's increasing reliance on the work of others parallels a significant decline in both the quality and quantity of his output. Sidereus, for example, is significantly shorter than its commission stipulated. He has also been having trouble meeting deadlines, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic had to cancel the high-profile première of his Violin Concerto last May as the score was not ready.

All of which stands in stark contrast to Golijov's works of a decade ago, when music like La Pasión según San Marcos and Ainadamar established him as a major new voice in classical music. As a result of those imaginative and popular scores, the credit 'by Osvaldo Golijov' still carries a significant financial premium. If it is to continue to do so, the composer himself needs to define precisely what those words mean.

Newspapers Inciting Performance Disruptions

2012-02-19T04:19:00.000-08:00

The Death of Klinghoffer is a controversial opera. Protests of one sort or another accompany every production. But just to make sure that any potential protesters are aware of the upcoming staging at English National Opera, the Telegraph's Roya Nikkhah has contacted a range of interested parties to let them know.

The resulting article opens with the line 'the English National Opera (ENO) is to risk public protests with a new production of The Death of Klinghoffer.' Such protests are all the more likely as a result of the article that follows. It's not inflammatory as such, but it does detail all the reasons why anybody who did want to protest at the Coliseum might do so.

The Telegraph clearly isn't going to be too distressed if, or rather when, such protests do happen. However, if the protests go as far as disrupting the performances, then audience members, whatever their personal politics, are unlikely to be so impressed. The classical music community tends towards the view that protests outside or inside a venue are acceptable, so long as the performance itself is not disrupted. And while this could be read as a narrow-minded defence of their cherished medium, a more important issue is the fact that if audiences are denied the chance of hearing the music in question, the debate surrounding it becomes limited to the competing ideologies, and the music itself is denied its voice in the debate.

None of which is apparently of any concern to the Telegraph, for whom protests and disruptions will always make for news stories (at least while they are still rare enough to be news). But it's not just the Telegraph, the Guardian attempted a similar stunt, on behalf of the other side of the Israel/Palestine debate, last September. Charlotte Higgins wrote a piece about the suspension of four players by the LPO over their signing a letter opposing the invitation of the Israel Philharmonic to the Proms. The timing for the LPO was dreadful, as the furore erupted in the week leading up to the opening concert of their winter season. Higgins was clearly expecting disruption at the event, and, like Nikkhah, went some way towards fomenting it with the line 'The LPO plays its season opener at London's Southbank Centre tonight: if it is disrupted by protests, the orchestra will have only itself to blame.' Notice how clearly the venue for the event is stated, presumably for the benefit of any potential protesters who don't usually go to LPO concerts.

I was at the concert myself, and was surprised to see Charlotte Higgins there. It was the first (and so far last) time I'd ever seen her at a concert, and I could only deduce she was there to see what sort of disruption her article had caused.

Fortunately the event went without a hitch. But had there been disruption, the Guardian would have been at least partly to blame. Given that protests are almost inevitable at the ENO Klinghoffer, questions should be raised about the Telegraph's role in any performance disruptions that do occur. Perhaps Lord Leveson would favour us with his views on the subject?

New York Philharmonic Alan Gilbert Barbican 16 February 2012

2012-02-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

Mahler: Symphony No.9 New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert (conductor), Barbican, London, 16.2.12

The New York Philharmonic began their short London residency with their signature symphony. The orchestra has probably played Mahler 9 more often than any other ensemble, but they are able to keep it fresh, and Alan Gilbert, stepping into the shoes of some of the most famous Mahlerians of all time (including Mahler himself), delivers a lively, uncluttered and always satisfying interpretation.

Gilbert works in complete symbiosis with the orchestra. He is clearly one of their own, and there is never any feeling of alien ideas being imposed from the podium. The orchestra excels because it is able to marry clarity with subtlety, and Gilbert's reading emphasises both qualities. He cuts a curious figure at the podium; large, ungainly and usually conducting with small nervous gestures. He gives off plenty of energy though, in fact he is quite tiring to watch. And his communication with the orchestra is exemplary. The agogic structure of the inside movements was one of the most impressive aspects of this reading, and the way that each attack was demonstrated from the podium left no doubt as to the level of punch he was looking for.

There was so much to relish in the orchestral playing that it is difficult to know where to start. The unity of the string sound is extraordinary, and something that no London orchestra can match. The seconds sat on the right, which helped to clarify the contrapuntal textures in the first movement. But it also meant that the cellos were slightly swallowed up, an artefact perhaps of the Barbican acoustic. The rock-solid bass section supported them though, although this did lead to some exceptionally bottom-heavy textures. The brass deserve a special mention. The trombone section of this orchestra is rightly famous and they were on top form this evening. Loud and brash is their standard approach, but they are also capable of a wide range of colours. The slow, shallow vibrato from the first trumpet came as a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. The horns had a good evening too. The timbral distinction between the horn and trumpet sections is something we don't hear enough from London orchestras, but it is absolutely essential in this music. And like the trombones, the sheer range of tone colours and moods from the horn section made their every contribution musically interesting.

Neither Alan Gilbert nor, I suspect, the orchestra, are very interested in creating intrigue or mystery in this music. That's fair enough, and what they offer instead more than compensates. But it does mean that many passages, especially at the very beginning and the very end, are considerably different from what a European orchestra might offer. Those isolated notes from various soloists around the orchestra at the start were played with absolute clarity and control, each as definite and assertive as the last.

The whole symphony played out in these clearly-defined terms, with a sense of rationality and order underpinning every texture, however complex. That's not to say that there was no subtly or tenderness, nor that the playing or conducting were ever rigid. In fact, Gilbert's fluid tempos were a crucial factor in the life and energy of the performance. One or two transitions were a little awkward. Gilbert has a habit of closely shaping individual melodic lines, but when an new overlapping figure draws his attention away, the player is left on their own to finish the phrase, and sometimes the results can be ragged.

The inside movements were a real tour de force. The landler of the second movement was anything but rustic, but it was certainly lively, and Gilbert very quickly whipped it up into a storm. The third movement worked because of those surprisingly heavy accents. Gilbert opted for a moderate tempo, the better perhaps to show off the detail of the orchestral textures in the climaxes, and the rhythms and accents gave the music all the energy and momentum it could need.

The brass and timpani were the heroes of this third movement, but in the fourth attention passed to equally impressive contributions from the strings and woodwind. Throughout much of this concluding movement (it's not really a finale is it?), the strings provide a substantial and continuous bed of sound onto which other ideas are projected. Gilbert was happy for this to sound quite undifferentiated, which risked monotony but was redeemed by the sheer quality of the string sound. There were some excellent solos from the woodwind here, and the throaty sound of the cor anglais was a particular treat.

A story was going round the internet a few weeks ago about a mobile phone going off in a NYPO performance of Mahler 9 in New York. Apparently they had reached the last page of the score, and Gilbert, insensed that the ending had been ruined, stopped, gave the hapless audience member a dressing down and resumed from the previous climax. Well, listening to the way he handles this conclusion, it is understandable why he was angry it had been disrupted. Like the opening, the quiet textures here were absolutely clear and defined, with no trace of mystery or ambiguity of any sort. But Mahler puts all the subtleties that are needed for this conclusion in the score, so by just following the instructions, and by making sure every note, however quiet, is presented unambiguously, Gilbert was able to produce exactly the right effect.

There was nothing daring about this interpretation, and it is unlikely to raise controversy. But everything in it worked, and it was clear from every note that the orchestra, the conductor, and the symphony itself are close acquaintances, old friends who know exactly how to bring out the best in each other.

(photo: Chris Lee)

John Cage Photographer

2012-02-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

(Photo: Rex Rystedt)

I was interested to hear this week that John Cage had a keen interest in photography. Rex Rystedt got in touch with me about a copyright infringement on my part. I had used, without permission, his photograph (above) to illustrate a review of an all-Cage concert. Rystedt was very nice about it, no legal threats or anything like that, just a request for a credit. He then went on to tell me about the session.

The photograph was shot in Seattle for Cornish TBA Magazine in the mid-1980s. Rystedt had not heard of Cage, but says he was a joy to work with. Cage said that he was a photographer too, and that he and shot what he called "chance photography", which he described as "a monkey throwing a camera up in the air".

A cursory look round the internet yields very little, in fact nothing at all, about Cage's photography. His photographs may be included in the Cage Archive at Bard College, but again I've found no mention. If anybody out there has any information about Cage's photography, or even better some images, I'd be very interested to see them, and so would my very forgiving photographer contact.

BBCSO, Widmann, Bringuier play Dvorak, Saunders, Tchaikovsky

2012-02-11T01:34:00.000-08:00

Dvorak, Saunders, Tchaikovsky: Carolin Widmann (violin), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Lionel Bringuier (conductor), Barbican, London, 10.2.12

Dvorak: Carnival Overture

Rebecca Saunders: Still (UK premiere)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5 in E minor

The odds were stacked against Rebecca Saunders' Violin Concerto. She is a radical avantgardist, and traditional genres like the concerto are not her thing. Her music rarely has a sense of linear progression, let alone melody, she doesn't write virtuoso solo parts, and she has little experience of writing for symphony orchestra. The BBC and the Beethovenfest Bonn therefore took a brave step in commissioning the work.

Unsurprisingly, the word 'concerto' does not appear in the name of the finished piece, which instead goes by 'Still' a convoluted reference of Samuel Beckett. And despite the inauspicious nature of the commission, Saunders has played to her strengths, particularly her preoccupation with tone colour. The work was written for violinist Carolin Widmann, who has a complex and strident tone, not pretty as such, but focussed, incisive and always interesting. These qualities in Widmann's playing were clearly the seeds for the inspiration that led to this concerto. Saunders' solo part is ideal for Widmann. It has lots of abrasive, punchy sonorities, but also exploits the wide range of colours that Widmann is able to produce.

The orchestra's role is essentially reactive, in that all the musical ideas begin on the violin before being expanded by the ensemble. Klangfarbenmelodie is the basis of this approach, with individual pitches transferred from violin to orchestra, and then around the individual sections. But that's only the start, and Saunders extends the idea into timbral motifs which are developed and expanded as they move around the players. Her brass writing owes much to Varèse, although unlike him, she often begins dense chords quietly, especially when they have just come from the violin, before crescendoing to brutal climaxes. The percussion section has a very important part to play, and is similar in size and prominence to the woodwinds or the brass. Antiphonal truck suspension springs was one of the many sounds I heard for the first time from them this evening. And one other inspired piece of orchestration to mention – the button accordion. This appears in many of Saunders' works, but its role in these orchestral textures is particularly striking. When the accordion holds a high pianissimo cluster after the end of an orchestral tutti, it is as if live electronic sound manipulation is being used. A surprisingly innovative effect from a thoroughly traditional instrument.

The Concerto was framed by two 19^th century audience pleasers, which was a curious and unhelpful context for it, but nevermind. Lionel Bringuier is one of the many young conductors on the international circuit, and at 25 he's younger than most. Like many conductors in his age bracket, Bringuier's strength is the excitement and energy he brings to familiar works. Dvorak's Carnival Overture benefited more than Tchaikovsky's 5^th Symphony from this youthful exuberance. It was an excellent concert opener, and the energy in the outer sections was close to ideal. The string sound was a little brittle, and the transitions to and from the quiet central section were awkward, but otherwise this was an excellent performance.

The Tchaikovsky though need more subtly, and it didn't get it. Bringuier seemed to by trying to channel the spirit of Evgeny Mravinsky, to recreate those searing textures and continual surprises that made the great man's performances of the 5^th so special. But Bringuier is not Mravinsky and the BBC SO, fine as they are, are not the Leningrad Philharmonic. The louder music (all of which was very loud) fared better than the quieter sections. The reflective clarinet solo at the opening, for example, was just drab, as was most of the second movement.

The orchestra, to its credit, maintained both its tone quality and its balance in the superloud tuttis that Bringuier drew from them. It is great to hear the trombones playing as loud as they are capable of for a change, and the rest of the orchestra playing up to their dynamic rather than the other way round.

Bringuier's approach finally bore fruit in the last movement. Here he did approach the splendour and vigour of Mravinsky's high-octane performances. Tempos throughout the symphony had been on the fast side, and often excessively rigid too, but at the end of the last movement, that finally seemed like a virtue. The passage that leads up to the false ending about five minutes before the end really worked. Bringuier's interpretation up to here had seemed brash and unfeeling, but in these last few minutes, where the composer is battling the dark forces of fate, nothing else would have fitted the bill.

This concert was broadcast live of BBC Radio 3 and is available until Thursday 16 February at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bmp5z

Andreas Scholl sings Bach, Barbican 3 February 2012

2012-02-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Bach: Kammerorchesterbasel, Andreas Scholl (countertenor), Barbican, London, 3.2.12 (GDn)

Sinfonia from Cantata 'Ich steh met einem Fuss im Grab' BWV156

Cantata 'Ich habe genug' BWV83

Keyboard Concerto no.5 in F minor BWV1056

Cantata 'Gott soll allein mein Herze haben' BWV169

Most countertenors have their detractors. Singing falsetto really brings out the idiosyncrasies in a voice, and singers are routinely accused of sounding too girly, too aggressive, too nasal, or just too damn weird. Andreas Scholl is the exception. The purity of his voice and the sophistication of his interpretations seem to result in admiration from all quarters. He's not one to rest on his laurels though, and the programme he is currently touring with the Kammerorchesterbasel (in period instrument mode) is as a tough sing. It includes two Bach cantatas, a well known favourite, Ich habe genug, which pits him against fine recorded versions from almost every voice type, and the lesser-known Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, a long and emotionally involved work that would test the stamina of any singer.

The two halves of the programme each highlighted an instrumental soloist, initially in a solo work and then as obbligatist in a cantata. In the first half, the oboist Kerstin Kamp performed the Sinfonia from cantata BWV156 before accompanying Scholl in the glorious outer movements of Ich habe genug. Her performance was proficient but rarely excelled. The three-keyed Baroque oboe is a tricky instrument to tame. Intonation is a problem on many notes, sounding the upper register takes real effort, and it is very difficult to keep the tone even. Kamp clearly struggled, and nothing ever looked or sounded easy. The phrasing was elegant though, and the results were certainly musical, but tuning was a perpetual problem, and there was very little grace in her passage work.

Her duets with Scholl in Ich habe genug worked OK, but by this point the singer was clearly the centre of attention. The cantata, which I'm assuming he sang in Bach's alto arrangement, isn't ideal for his range and often goes lower than he is comfortable with (at least when in countertenor mode, a understand he has a fine baritone when required). The oboe, by contrast, struggled at the top, every time the music went into the upper register, so it was really only the mid-range music that showed the soloists at their best.

Up until the last cantata, the orchestra took the role of a backing band. The balance was generally good, but only because the strings were able to take the dynamics right down to virtually nothing when accompanying. As a result, when tutti codas ended movements, the orchestra seemed to appear out of nowhere to take the centre stage.

The instrumental soloist for the second half was Giorgio Paronuzzi, chamber organist in the continuo group (which also included lute, two cellos, double bass and bassoon) for three numbers and harpsichord soloist for the F minor concerto. Of all Bach's concertante harpsichord works, this concerto must be the one that is most often played on the piano, so it was refreshing to hear it on its original instrument for a change. Again, the balance was impressive, and although the strings often played almost impossibly quietly, they always seemed at the ideal level to support the solo instrument.

Paronuzzi sat more comfortably behind the organ than he did the harpsichord, and he played the concerto more as a continuo accompanist than a soloist. Runs and florid passages seemed to take him by surprise, as if he was processingfigured bass as he went on. On the plus side, this gave his performance an impressive sense of spontaneity, especially the ornaments. The reading was brisk, surprisingly so in the Largo. The pizzicato in the strings and staccato bass line from the soloist highlighted some ensemble problems in the orchestra, but nothing too serious.

The last piece on the programme was by far the best. Parnouzzi left the stage as a soloist at the end of the concerto and then immediately returned as part of the continuo group to play the chamber organ. In fact, as soon as he sat down the spotlight returned to him, as the first movement of Gott soll allein mein Herze haben is a Sinfonia with a prominent organ solo. He made a much more impressive job of this movement, much freer and more lyrical. Similarly, the rest of the orchestra suddenly found their stride in this cantata. In all the preceding works, the strings had given reserved and dispassionate readings of their accompanying textures. But now everybody on the stage suddenly seemed to find their enthusiasm. Andreas Scholl can always be relied upon to give emotional and involving interpretations, but for this last cantata, everybody on the stage seemed equally committed.

Almost all of the cantata's seven movements involve the soloist, and it is a long cantata too, making this a real test of stamina. But Scholl was unfazed. His control he exercises over his tone is extraordinary, and despite the evident technical challenges, the overriding impression was always of sheer beauty and elegance. The tessatura of this cantata regularly allowed him to show off that crystal clear top register of his, and the the poetry of the libretto sounded all the more elegant for his precise articulation.

The cantata ends with a chorale, which was a bit tricky given that the orchestra hadn't brought a choir with them from Switzerland. The solution? The players sang it instead. The results were 'congregational' at best, and this would have been a poor way to end the show, had it not been for a spirited encore, Schlage doch BWV53, complete with glockenspiel, and a last few minutes to enjoy Andreas Scholl singing at his very best.

Wolfgang Rihm at 60, London Sinfonietta, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 24 January 2012

2012-01-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

Rihm: Ricercare – music in memoriam Luigi Nono

Rebecca Saunders: Quartet

Jorg Widmann: Dubairische Tanze

Rihm: Nach-Schrift

Rihm: Will Sound More Again

Wolfgang Rihm has packed a lot into his first 60 years. Both the quantity and the consistent quality of his music mark him out as one of today's greatest living composers. He certainly deserves the international tributes that will be marking his birthday year. He's not much of a traveller though, and it is rare for him to leave his native Karlseruhe, which may explain why he didn't join us this evening.

The concert was a bit of a mixed bag. The sheer scale of Rihm's output makes it difficult to frame any single concert as a survey. But the London Sinfonietta have done a good job over the years to introduce British audiences to his latest works. This evening's programme was in the same spirit, with four UK premieres from the man himself and two pieces from his most distinguished pupils, Rebecca Saunders and Jorg Widmann.

The Ricercare with which the concert opened is one of four pieces Rihm wrote in the wake of the death of Luigi Nono. At first appearances, the two composers would seem to share very little, but Rihm obviously thinks otherwise. This piece, for a bass-heavy ensemble including bass clarinet, contrabassoon and contrabass trombone, inhabits an aesthetic somewhere between those of the two composers. It takes the abrupt, impulsive gestures that Nono used to punctuate his serial textures, but tones them done to the more civilised level at which Rihm works. It progresses by fits and starts, often with silences between the gestures, more a Nono trait that one we might associate with Rihm. It's not his greatest work by any means, but it was certainly interesting to hear the composer in a more reflective mood than pervades his more famous scores.

Rebecca Saunders deserves far more exposure in her native country than she has so far received. She may have brought this relative neglect on herself though by adopting a thoroughly German aesthetic, one which fits very comfortably into a portrait concert for her former teacher. The title Quartet doesn't tell us much, apart perhaps to imply that relationships between four instruments are to be explored. She picks the unlikely combination of piano, double bass, accordion and bass clarinet. So, as in the first piece, the textures are decidedly bass-heavy. But Saunders has a trick up her sleeve – she understands the range of extended techniques that are available on the accordion (in this case a button bayan-type instrument), and she is able to continuously vary the textures through her imaginative writing for it. The combination of clarinet and accordion turns out to be productive, as does the combination of plucked bass and plucked piano strings. As the piece progresses, the piano becomes more civilised, settling into a repeated chord sequence, while the bass becomes more wayward, repeatedly detuning the strings to move closer and closer to unpitched noise. The piece went on five minutes longer than its material justified, but that's hardly unusual in new music.

A considerably less satisfying offering was made by Jorg Widmann, whose Dubairische Tanze was designed as a send up of the oom-pah music of his native Bavaria. So there was plenty of woodwind and brass melodies with over-the-top percussion, all made dissonant to make sure the audience was aware of the composer's self parody. It was awful, just awful. Embarrassingly unfunny and, unlike Saunders' score, which only overstayed its welcome by five minutes, this one seemed to go on for ever. Are the London Sinfonietta trying to sabotage Widmann's stratospheric international career? Or maybe they just want to demonstrate that all those stereotypes about the Germans and their sense of humour are actually true.

Looking round the hall at the interval, the audience was pretty meagre, especially considering the stature of the composer it was celebrating. One problem may have been overkill – the BBC SO put on a very good Rihm day a year or two ago at the Barbican, which may have satisfied the curiosity of most. And speaking of the Barbican, I hear that the Kronos Quartet were playing Black Angels there tonight, presumably swallowing up a considerable proportion of the new music audience. After 20 minutes of that Widmann score, I wished I'd gone to the Barbican myself.

Fortunately, the concert turned a corner in the second half. The last two works on the programme were both classic Rihm: pieces for chamber orchestra sized ensemble, each a part of one of his ongoing cycles, and each fabulously constructed. This is what the composer does best, works for medium sized ensemble, structured as a single movement, but otherwise inscrutable in terms of their internal form. Nach-Schrift was the best work on the programme by a wide margin. The piece is for ensemble and a pianist, who is described as a soloist although he really provides more of an obbligato over the top of the orchestral textures. And what fascinating textures they are! Ideas and harmonies constantly appear, some clearly new, some adapted from earlier music. But the sheer sense of life in this music, and its continuous invention, set it apart from the work of most composers writing today.

The performances this evening were all good, and the players managed to convey that sense of life and energy which is the composer's currency. Andrew Zolinsky was a proficient soloist/obbligatist in Nach-Schrift. Conductor Thierry Fischer is little known in the capital for his work with new music, but his clear, incisive baton technique is exactly what these scores need. There were a few small ensemble problems here and there, the two percussionists set at opposite sides of the stage in the first piece didn't always quite synch with the ensemble for instance, but in general the many technical challenges of these scores were well handled.

The last piece, Will Sound More Again, came as a surprise, as it showed us Rihm's rarely encountered lighter side. This too is a piece of small orchestra, which runs at a fairly continuous tempo for about 20 minutes. But there are all sorts of flourishes and light touches, from the bizarre saxophone duet at the beginning to the accordion being parodied by the percussion near the end. All of which goes to show, despite evidence to the contrary earlier on, that perhaps the Germans do have a sense of humour after all.

Endymion play Brahms at Kings Place 20 January 2012

2012-01-21T02:44:00.000-08:00

Brahms: String Quintets 1&2, Clarinet Quintet

The clear, analytic acoustic at Kings Place ought to be ideal for unpicking the tightly-voiced counterpoint in Brahms' String Quintets. Sadly, this performance didn't have the precision or the detail to make the most of it. The First Quintet is in most need of help in this respect. All five instruments are playing virtually throughout, and Brahms often chooses textures where everything meets in the middle, with the violins in their lowest register and the cello playing high. Admittedly, it is difficult to know what to do with this music, but clarity of texture is clearly a virtue worth striving for, be it through varying the dynamics in the ensemble or exaggerating the phrasing.

But the biggest problem in this evening's performance was tuning. Every player was guilty of poor intonation moments at one point or another, but the main offender was the first violin. Perhaps she was just having a bad day and the tuning in the rest of the ensemble was suffering accordingly. Many of the first violin solos ran into trouble as they entered the upper register, and the first and second violins were often seriously out of tune with each other.

Balance was another issue, albeit a lesser one. The composer must share some blame for this, especially in his writing for the cello. Why does he only use one cello in this music when he has already learned from his Sextets that two cellos offer the ideal balance? Whatever the reason, he is clearly expecting the single cellist to do more work than any of her colleagues. That didn't happen, so the results were seriously viola-heavy.

The Second Quintet fared better. Compositionally, the work is more accomplished and thematically more interesting. More significantly though, it is also scored more imaginatively, with groups of players often dropping out to leave smaller ensembles. This led to marked improvements in both the intonation and the balance, and some of those crucial details at last started to shine through.

The Clarinet Quintet was better still, although problems still remained. Anthony Pay gave a surprisingly modest rendition of the clarinet part, often hiding the bell of his instrument between his knees, presumably to reduce the volume and brilliance of his tone. Most ensembles treat the work as a concertante setup, with the clarinet as soloist. But this evening the first violin remained the centre of attention, and the clarinet often blended frustratingly into the string textures. He too had tuning problems and spent much of the first movement fiddling with his mouthpiece to stop the instrument blowing sharp.

About half way through the second movement he finally achieved his aim, and the conclusion of the Clarinet Quintet was ultimately the most satisfying part of the concert. But the whole experience goes to show that the fine acoustic at Kings Place can be a mixed blessing. If the performance had taken place at, say the Purcell Room, the players would have gotten away with a lot more. But here every intonation problem was painfully obvious, and even with the best will in the world became very difficult to ignore.

Prokofiev LPO Jurowski Osborne Festival Hall 18 Jan 12

2012-01-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

Prokofiev: Steven Osborne (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski (conductor), Royal Festival Hall, London, 18.1.12 (Gdn)

Prokofiev: Symphonic Song Op.57

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No.5

Prokofiev: Symphony No.6 in E flat minor

Some are of the opinion that the neglected works of famous composers remain so for good reason. Vladimir Jurowski has other ideas. The programme he has drawn up for this short Prokofiev festival is astonishing for the fact that almost every work in the eight or so concerts dedicated to the composer is real rarity. But his logic is impeccable. Prokofiev lived an interesting life in interesting times, and the works of his that are famous often owe their prestige to the events that inspired them. But that leaves some big gaps in the biography, gaps that these lesser-known works help to address.

If Prokofiev's later works tend to be neglected, the main reason must surely be their air of Soviet propaganda. But then, many earlier works are unfairly neglected too, and the overt Modernism of Prokofiev's 1920s Paris period can be just as off-putting as his more politically suspect later offerings. The programme this evening demonstrated just how complicated the situation in fact is. The two works in the first half, the Symphonic Song Op.57 and the Fifth Piano Concerto, are both transitional. Both were written in the early 30s, before Prokofiev had returned to the Soviet Union for good. But he was already preparing to do so and was writing music that would hopefully ingratiate him with the Russian people and the Soviet authorities alike.

Symphonic Song is musically flawed but is well worth hearing for the stylistic transition that the composer is attempting to affect. He is moving away from the fashionable Parisian Modernism that had occupied him for the previous decade and trying to align himself instead with the recent 'developments' further East. But the Modernism, particularly in the form of harsh, brass-led dissonance, refuses to go away. That may be why the structure of the work is so confused – it is never quite sure what sort of narrative and what level of resolution it is aiming for.

Jurowski presented the piece warts and all, and made no concessions to its problematic orchestration and form. That was a shame; with a little more patience and understanding from the podium it could have worked much better. The orchestral tuttis tend to be quite muddy, but there is obviously some interesting chord voicing going on here. Some small adjustments to the balance might have made Prokofiev's intentions clearer. Similarly, the transitions between disparate sections cried out for a more theatrical approach, for the new tempos and textures to be announced rather than just begun. But a better piece of music, even a better piece from Prokofiev, would have done all this without interpretive help, so blame should be laid squarely at the door of the composer.

The Fifth Piano Concerto is another curiosity. It works better, perhaps because of Prokofiev's ability always to write interesting music when it is for the piano. Steven Osborne is a game soloist, and a brave one to take on this rarity. He has real flair for Prokofiev's fireworks, for the glissandos and the fast staccato passages where every chord is huge but momentary. Osborne, like Jurowski, presents the music clearly and energetically, and never imposes excessive sentiment. Balance between the piano and orchestra was a slight problem, with Prokofiev often writing heavier orchestral accompaniments than the solo line can justify. But Jurowski had obviously put a lot of thought into addressing the problem. The string section was reduced, and woodwind soloists disappeared into the texture as soon as they were finished. A louder pianist would have helped, but would a louder pianist have given us the poised, insightful interpretation we got from Steven Osborne?

The excellent programme note (by Simon Morrison) mentions that Prokofiev often structured his music around the narrative 'darkness-conflict-achievement', raising the intriguing possibility that Jurowski had organised the concert's programme around a similar sequence. Certainly, of the three works, the symphony in the second half constituted the 'achievement'. For those, like me, who struggle to see any value in the music of Prokofiev's later years, the Sixth Symphony is a wakeup call. The composer's mastery, both of orchestration and of large-scale symphonic form, is evident throughout. And the orchestra were on top form, with the brass and percussion putting in particularly visceral performances. Jurowski articulated the shape and drama of the work with efficiency and passion. It might have been nice if he had done something to make the final chords sound less melodramatic, but as he had already demonstrated in the first half, he isn't in the business of making excuses for Prokofiev's music.

OAE: The Glory of Venice, QEH 13 Jan 2012

2012-01-13T15:35:00.000-08:00

The Glory of Venice: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Julia Doyle (soprano), Daniel Auchincloss (tenor), Robert Howarth (director), Queen Elizabeth Hall

Music by Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovani B. Fontana, Claudio Monteverdi and Marini.

These are exciting times for fans of Renaissance music. As the OAE players demonstrated this evening, many of the eras more recalcitrant instruments have finally been tamed. It is now possible, provided you are in the company of a world-class ensemble like this one, to hear instruments like the tenor cornett and the dulcian played in tune, in time, and perfectly balanced with the rest of the ensemble. A few decades ago this would have seemed an impossible aspiration, and these kinds of instruments would have been excluded if at all possible, simply for the mess they would otherwise make of the performance.

But just because they are being played well, that doesn't mean they have lost their exotic air. The tone of the cornett is course but penetrating. In this evening’s concert, it was often used to double the soprano voice (of Julia Doyle). They're like chalk and cheese really, but the timbres complement each. The dulcian on the other hand may be beyond redemption. The instrument is an ancestor of the bassoon and is, if anything, even more uncouth than its successor. But again, having the chance to hear it played accurately gave a rare opportunity to asses its musical merits, slim as they turned out to be.

The concert was a celebration of the work of Giovanni Gabrieli, the Venetian master of the generation preceding Monteverdi. Gabrieli's date of birth is not known, so marking the anniversaries of his date of death, which is certain, seems all the more appropriate. This year is the 400^th anniversary, and the OAE got in quick with their celebration, the year not yet two weeks old.

The programme contextualised Gabrieli's music by presenting it alongside that of his contemporaries. Curiously, none of his contemporaries, at least not the ones heard here, wrote the sort of music he did. Almost all of the Gabrieli works were large, predominantly instrumental Canzonas, while the intervening works, from composers like Fontana, Grandi and Marini, were more modest, chamber sized affairs. Gabrieli was clearly at the end of a line in Venetian music, with the following generation moving decisively from Renaissance polyphony to a more declamatory Baroque style. This was demonstrated with a later work from Monteverdi, which sounded like it was centuries younger. A sonata for three violins by Gabrieli was included to show that he was aware of this trend, but I wasn't convinced that he had any plans to change his ways.

The ensemble was made up of two singers, two cornetts, one tenor cornett, six sackbutts (astonishingly five of whom were female) and dulcian, with theorbo and chamber organ continuo. It would be inaccurate to describe the singers as soloists; they seemed rather to have an equal status to the instrumentalists. I don't know what the conventions at St Mark's were at the time, but the result tonight was a very instrument-heavy mix. There were one or two solos for the singers, and both acquitted themselves well. Tenor Daniel Auchincloss is a name to look out for. His voice has an agility and sweetness you would associate with a good countertenor, but there is richness there too, and plenty of power at the bottom. Soprano Julia Doyle has the right voice for this early repertoire, and she is able to maintain musical interest even in the absence of vibrato or extreme dynamics. She struggles a little with the top notes though, and having the cornetts double her does little to help because they struggle up there as well.

The continuo group of theorbo and chamber organ was modest but audible. Some excellent theorbo playing here actually, and it is great to get a chance to appreciate an instrument that is all too often seen but not heard. Directing from the organ, Robert Howarth was a jack of all trades. He spent most of the concert playing the bass with his left hand while conducting with his right. But he also doubled as the theorbo player's page turner when required.

Of all the performers this evening, it was the sackbutt players that impressed me most. I had been sceptical of the idea of hearing Gabrieli in the QEH, where the acoustic is dead even by concert hall standards, let alone in comparison to St Mark's Basilica. But it turned out to be a blessing, especially from the point of view of the sackbutts. None of the players had to overblow to make themselves heard, and at moderate dynamics, the instrument has a very pleasing tone indeed. If I've one criticism, it would be that the ensemble was a little top heavy, and there would have been scope to hear more bass sackbutt. The penultimate piece, La Zorzi, was written for, or at least played by, two cornetts and one bass sackbutt, but even here the bass line was virtually inaudible. Better balance though in the final number, Gabrieli's Exultet iam angelica turba, a celebratory motet for which all the musicians were enlisted. The balance here was ideal, as was the instrumentation, which I'm sure was interpretive to a certain extent. Here again the two vocalists took ensemble roles, balancing the vocal timbres with the more exotic instrumental sounds. The result was euphonious and satisfyingly complex, a timely reminder of why Gabrieli's music continues to be celebrated and performed, even 400 years after his death.

Florestan Trio Wigmore Hall 11 Jan 2012

2012-01-11T15:31:00.000-08:00

Beethoven: Florestan Trio, Wigmore Hall, London 11.1.12 (GDn)

Beethoven: Piano Trio Op.11

Beethoven: Piano Trio Op.1 no.2

Beethoven: Piano Trio Op.70 no.2

Like all the great chamber ensembles, the Florestan Trio have achieved their spectacular results through many years of close collaboration. These three farewell concerts mark the end of 16 years together, and every minute of that stretch has informed and enriched the playing we heard this evening.

The group are as well known for their recordings as their live performances, and hearing them live it is easy to tell why the microphones like their sound. Anthony Marwood's violin defines the ensemble's textures and timbres. His sound is quite brash, a metallic and penetrating timbre. It was clear from every phrase he played this evening why he is now prioritising his solo work over chamber music commitments. His is a sound than can project over any ensemble and which easily fills the Wigmore Hall. But that's not to say he lacks subtlety, or that there is ever any balance problem within the ensemble.

Cellist Richard Lester matches Marwood both in sound quality and projection. They both have a penetrating metal string tone, but that never sounds grating or inappropriate. Rather, they both use it to make their lines all the more emphatic and clearly articulated. In terms of the ensemble within the group, the relationship between the violin and the cello is the most remarkable. The two early works in the programme, Opp.11 and 1 no.2, often call for the violin and cello in octaves. That can be tricky to pull off, but the ensemble and intonation between them was beyond reproach.

Susan Tomes also has an assertive approach. The balance between the three players is ideal, and Tomes, for her part, keeps up with the violin and cello by putting in more attack than you might expect. The Wigmore Hall acoustic does all the rest. It transforms those heavy accents into big, round piano textures and blends it with the other instruments, without blurring any of the details.

The early period works in the first half showed off the group's skills more than the Op.70 no.2 after the interval. I love the way that the players take the young composer's straightforward textures and find all the beauty they are capable of expressing, yet without adding anything or over-interpreting. Although the string sound is often metallic, and rubato is kept to a minimum, the performance here never risked austerity. The reading was Classical rather than Romantic, especially in the four-square phrasing and the focus on the music's structure. But there was plenty of vibrato here too, and the players never skimp on the incremental tempo changes when they are written in the score.

The Op.70 no.2 Trio is a very different work. The three players are much more independent of each other and the variety of textures is all the greater. While the Florestans are clearly capable of handling any technical challenge Beethoven might throw at them, they seemed more comfortable with the homophonic textures of the earlier works than the polyphonic ones here. And if there was one failing of the performances this evening, it was a lack of mystery. True, Classical era music, even middle or late period Beethoven, shouldn't need too much psychological intrigue. But most of the quieter passages were excessively literal and emphatic. The quiet opening of the Op.70 no.2 Trio was perfunctory at best, simply fulfilling its structural function rather than introducing the psychological complexities of what is to follow. The end of the first movement is meant to sign off with a whimsical flourish, but again the reading was too literal for Beethoven's humour to come through.

Fortunately, the last two movements redeemed all. In the Trio section of the third movement the players finally found the sense of mystery that the opening of the work had lacked. And the performance of the finale was ideal. Again, there are quiet and atmospheric episodes here, but by splicing them into lively and more assertive music, Beethoven gives the players the platform they need to perform both with panache.

This was the second of three farewell concerts from the Florestan Trio at the Wigmore Hall. Programme-wise it was perhaps the least exciting, or rather the least saleable. It is testament then to the reputation that the ensemble has established over its 16 years together that their wasn't an empty seat. And whatever reservations I may have had, the usually reserved Wigmore audience gave the players a thundering ovation.

LPO4 case goes to Employment Tribunal

2012-01-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

The first legal challenge to the suspension of four players by the London Philharmonic has apparently been instigated by violinist Sarah Streatfeild.

Streatfeild, along with three of her colleagues, Tom Eisner, Nancy Elan and Sue Sutherley, were all signatories to a published letter protesting the invitation of the Israel Philharmonic to the 2011 Proms. All four players named the LPO as their employer in the letter. The orchestra suspended the players for nine months, initially on the spurious grounds that for the LPO 'music and politics do not mix.' But chief executive Timothy Walker later admitted that the decision had been made as a direct result of pressure from individual donors, whose continuing favour presumably over-ruled any thoughts of loyalty to the orchestra's players at board level.

Sensing hostility to the decision from a significant proportion of its audience, the orchestra reduced the suspensions from nine months to six. Then, with gagging orders placed on the four players, and the orchestra's management hoping the incident would be forgotten, everything went quiet.

But an email I received this week suggests that at least one of the players plans to challenge the suspension in court. The message was from an anonymous source who claims to have connections with the legal world. He or she had heard that Sarah Streatfeild has hired the Bindmans law firm to represent her in an employment tribunal against the orchestra. The email also suggested that demands would include a full public apology and compensation for loss of earnings.

No doubt the orchestra took legal advice at the time of the suspensions, and Timothy Walker appeared confident in the legality of the move. Nevertheless, they will find Geoffrey Bindman a formidable opponent. He and his firm have an impressive track record, with clients ranging from Amnesty International to Private Eye. Geoffrey Bindman has already expressed his personal support for the players. A letter in their defence appeared in the Telegraph on 22 September 2011, and he was among its 117 signatories.

LPO, Jurowski, Vogt play Pintscher, Beethoven and Bruckner RFH 30 November 2011

2011-11-30T15:42:00.000-08:00

Loud complaints from the audience are becoming a regular feature of London Philharmonic concerts. A few weeks ago, their performance of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony was disrupted by an unsatisfied patron leaving during the Adagio and complaining as he went. He seems to have set a dangerous precedent, for no sooner had Matthias Pintscher's opening piece finished when a loud voice from the back of the hall shouted "What a load of rubbish."

As it happens, he was completely wrong. Towards Osiris is an excellent work, showing one of today's finest compositional talents at the very height of his powers. The work was commissioned as part of a series of new pieces designed to accompany Holst's Planet Suite. Pintscher and Holst both excel in orchestral colour, and while their respective aesthetics are otherwise quite distinct, it is a fascinating exercise listening for echoes of Holst's great work in Pintscher's textures.

The work in structured around short punchy tuttis in an otherwise gentle orchestral texture. Pintscher creates some wonderfully complex sounds without having to rely on too much harmonic or textural density. He is great at gravelly or grating noises, usually led by the percussion, but never limited to them. At one point the texture reduces to an extrovert, bordering on comical, trumpet solo. There is a levity about it you don't usually associate with German composers. But the skilled construction, and the innovation in every phrase, is certainly in line with the best of what that country can produce.

In terms of pianists, Lars Vogt is the best Germany can produce. His performance of the Emperor was filled with quintessentially German values. This was an efficient and directly communicative reading. Vogt is able to generate some real power at the keyboard, enough both to fill the Festival Hall and to compete with the LPO, who played the concerto with a full string section. That's unusual, Beethoven usually gets quasi-chamber orchestra treatment with just three or four desks to a part. But Jurowski was obviously confident that Vogt could hold his own. Jurowski and Vogt were clearly on the same wavelength here, both intent on producing a big boned and passionate, but always clean and carefully articulated performance. The whole thing seemed very modern. So why then the period trumpets and timps? They seemed an inconvenience at best, and added little to this otherwise thoroughly symphonic reading.

The LPO has been spotlighting Bruckner throughout the season. Full credit to them for that. He is a composer who we hear too little of in the UK, partly I think because every review of the Bruckner symphony performance in the British press goes on about how the music is long and boring. But the LPO are developing an impressive track record in Bruckner, and have recently performed his symphonies with some of today's leading Brucknerians including Eschenbach, Vanska, and of course Jurowski himself.

The First Symphony is a tall order for any conductor, and any performance is going to work better in some places than in others. Jurowski knows how far he can push this music. In the first movement, he rarely tries to build the climaxes up to what he could manage in the later symphonies. On the other hand, the finale does offer a few opportunities to really push the boat out, and he never lets any of those pass him by. One aspect of Jurowski's Bruckner that really distinguishes his readings is his ability to make every movement ending work. Bruckner often ends a movement by building up to a climax and then just breaking off. Its usually sudden, requiring the conductor to decide how to pace those final bars to give them the right feeling of conclusion. Somehow, Jurowski manages it every time, and in this symphony the first, third and fourth movements all pose his this problem, but he manages to make each of those codas work.

Jurowksi finds the most interesting music in the central movements, and these are what really made elevated the performance. The Adagio was lyrical and elegant, thanks in no small part to the LPO's fine string section. Their precise ensemble and sophisticated tone allowed the music to sound far more mature than it actually is. And then in the Scherzo, Jurowski really went to town with the punchy rhythms and drama from every corner of the orchestra. Special mention should go to the trombone section, whose throaty tones and incisive accents brilliantly underpinned the tuttis here.

The First Symphony is never going to win a regular place in the repertoire, but as this evening's performance demonstrated, it is far more than just a curiosity. And given that its performances are so few and far between, we should be thankful that this one was to such a high standard.

Mahler: The New Beethoven?

2011-11-11T02:34:00.000-08:00

There seems to have been a glut of Beethoven symphonies in London over this last couple of weeks, what with the Gewandhaus cycle and then the John Eliot Gardiner concert on Wednesday. But didn't there used to be Beethoven concerts at level of regularity all the time?

I've a theory: Mahler is the new Beethoven. So period instrument orchestras come along in the 1980s, challenging the symphony orchestras' hegemony over Beethoven. By the late 90s, it has become deeply unfashionable, in London at least, to perform Beethoven on anything apart from supposedly 'authentic' instruments. So what do the big orchestras do? They find another Beethoven, but one who lived a hundred years later, giving them a head start of a couple of years before the period bands catch up.

If you've got an orchestra of 80-90, in makes sense to base your repertoire around a composer who actually wrote for those sorts of forces. One who will keep the percussion section busy and show off the volume the brass section are capable of.

It started with Mahler 2, which is definitely the Beethoven 9 of today. Since the 80s it has been the piece to open concert halls and to celebrate orchestras' anniversaries. It has therefore taken over many, although perhaps not all, of the Ninth's many functions. And Mahler 4 is the new Beethoven 6 – the cheery one. Mahler 5 the Eroica, the one that gets played for its slow movement. Mahler 6 the new Beethoven 5, fate and tragedy two sides of the same coin. And Mahler 7 is the new Beethoven 8, the strange one between two uncontested masterpieces that gets wheeled out now and then for curiosity’s sake.

In a way, it's bad luck for Shostakovich. He too wrote effective large-scale substitutes for the Beethoven symphonies. He was fulfilling that role very well until everything became Mahler about five years ago. None of these composers is seriously under-represented in the schedules these days, but lets hope that when the double Mahler anniversary is over we can get a bit more balance among these symphonic masters.

Gardiner conducts Beethoven QEH

2011-11-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

Beethoven: Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner (conductor), Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 9.11.11 (Gdn)

Beethoven: Egmont Overture

Beethoven: Symphony No.4

Beethoven: Symphony No.7

The glorious, frenetic sounds of Chailly's Beethoven last week still rang in our ears as we entered the Queen Elizabeth Hall, anticipating a very different take on the same music. Gardiner was well aware of the coincidence, and in his usual freindly chat with the audience, assured us that the two of them aren't as different as we might have thought. His argument was that the lively, dancing textures that Chailly now draws from the Gewandhaus are only possible because of the influence of the period performance movement on mainstream orchestras. The 'two spheres' of orchestral playing, he concluded had converged, with all aesthetic dogmas overcome.

Had that speech preceded a performance of business-as-usual period Beethoven it would have seemed staggeringly arrogant, with Gardiner taking personal credit for a wholesale revision of Beethoven performance. But it was clear from these two symphonies that he also draws influence from modern instrument performance practice for his period instrument readings.

He's not the first to try to bridge the gap from the period instrument side, but he might just be the most successful. The OAE have tried it, but their approach is to hire conductors from mainstream orchestras, Zinman from Zurich and Jurowski from the LPO, in the hope that they can make the excitement and drama rub off on the period ensemble. That rarely works, because these instruments need specialist leadership. They need a conductor who knows about the particular tuning and balance problems they face.

Gardiner, of course, is just that man, and he has come up with a variety of strategies to make his Beethoven as muscular and as dramatic as (almost) anybody's. A small string section playing without vibrato is never going to manage the same quantity of sound as a symphony orchestra. But by getting them to use every millimetre of the bow, they can certainly compete. The accuracy of their intonation also helps beef up the sound. And by taking the quiet dynamics down almost to silence, the contrasts can be emphasised in just the same way as in Chailly's readings. The Italian maestro has been taking things very fast with his Beethoven symphonies recently, and Gardiner doesn't go any faster. So they are closely matched in tempo and in the precision of their orchestras.

The main difference comes in the phrasing and the note lengths. Gardiner is much stricter about both. He won't let any notes linger beyond their notated length, even at the ends of movements. And his phrases are always tightly structured, and sometimes feel clipped. That makes the fast tempos seem all the faster. It doesn't make the performance any more pedantic, but it certainly locates the symphonies squarely in the Classical rather than the Romantic era.

The concert got off to a shaky start with the Egmont Overture. It had all the darkness and drama you could want, but the orchestra struggled with a number of balance problems. The bottom end of the strings were almost inaudible when they took up the melody, and there were some very strange sounds coming from the trumpets and the front row of woodwinds.

Thankfully, all these problems (with the possible exception of the trumpets) were resolved by the time the Fourth Symphony began. Gardiner's gentlemanly demeanour was no obstacle to some real passion here. And the orchestra have obviously rehearsed the two symphonies hard, perhaps to the detriment of the overture.

Special mention should go to the horns, who are kept busy in both symphonies, and who make sure you could not mistake this for a modern instrument orchestra. There were some lovely fruity notes from them, and from the bassoons too. The fragile, plaintive sound of the clarinets was also a delight. And the early 19^th century oboes, clearly distinct in their sound even from the baroque instruments we now associate with Bach, also served to specify the era of this music.

The ensemble of the string section was excellent. It meant that Gardiner could ramp up both the tempo and the volume to bring a real sense of drama to the two finales. The last movement of the Seventh was particularly energised. He set out (attacca from the scherzo) at quite a lick, and didn't let the pace drop once until the final chord. It was quite a ride, and I couldn't help thinking that he'd had beaten Chailly at his own game.

Eschenbach conducts LPO in Brahms and Bruckner RFH 2 November 2011

2011-11-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Brahms, Bruckner: Nicola Benedetti (violin), Leonard Elschenbroich (cello), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach (conductor), Royal Festival Hall, London, 2.11.11 (Gdn)

Brahms: Double Concerto

Bruckner: Symphony No.7

Nicola Benedetti isn't usually associated with the weighty German repertoire, but it suits her style. Her tone, this evening at least, was quite woody and at times nasal too. But it projected well and had all the gravitas that Brahms requires. Her passage work isn't flawless, but those tiny slips and inaccuracies have the effect of humanising the performance rather than detracting from Brahms' plan.

And precision did come into play in the interactions between the two soloists. They are well matched, and Leonard Elschenbroich has a similar woody tone and the same approach to vibrato – expansive in the fortissimos, mostly reserved elsewhere. The skilful interplay of the two soloists demonstrates just how intricate and accomplished Brahms' writing is here. It isn't easy balancing two solo instruments of such differing size and projection (few others have tried). And when you add in the huge orchestra it seems like a recipe for poor balance and stodgy, impenetrable textures. Respect to Brahms then, and respect to Benedetti, Elschenbroich and Eschenbach too, for keeping the work clear and buoyant throughout. It is a dark piece of course, and the sombre tone was duly acknowledged in every aspect of this performance. But the elegance and grace of the playing, particularly from the soloists, prevented it from ever collapsing under its own pretentions.

Given his patchy track record with Mahler, sceptical audience members could be forgiven for fearing the worst from his Bruckner 7 in the second half. I would have been in that camp myself if it hadn't been for his recording of Bruckner's 6^th with the LPO that was released last year. That is a truly revelatory recording, and probably the best Bruckner I've every heard from a British orchestra. The 7^th this evening was in the same league. With both performances, Eschenbach has shown himself to be a conductor who really understands where Bruckner is coming from. The architecture always comes first, and when a tutti climax, or even just a punch chord from the brass, is structurally significant, he always makes sure it is properly anticipated and presented with appropriate gravity.

Much of this 7^th was taken very slowly, especially the first movement. That is a dangerous strategy, as there is always the risk that the long phrases will lose their coherency or that the often fragile tonal relationships will lose their sense of logic. Eschenbach's approach appears to be to walk the tightrope and trust the orchestra to stay with him to keep the whole thing together. It works magnificently, especially as the tempos, slow as they are, are always elastic, Eschenbach always allowing the phrases to breath. The slow tempi have the unexpected advantage of clarifying many of Bruckner's usually obscured contrapuntal textures. He needs the strings to be able to sustain the purity of their sound and to concentrate on the logic of those long phrases, and in every case they do him proud. Elsewhere in the orchestra, the timpanist Simon Carrington was on good form. He's somebody else who has to thing on the broadest possible scale with the long buildups and tempo changes. Excellent trumpets and trombones, who Eschenbach clearly instructed to play outside of their comfort zone at the climaxes. The only disappointment was the Wagner tuba section, who struggled to maintain their balance and tuning. That was a surprise, as London orchestras, including the LPO. usually seem to be able to field an impeccable Wagner tuba section.

It is good to hear that Eschenbach's Bruckner 6 recording with the LPO was not a fluke. He is clearly a Brucknerian to be reckoned with. This is one of a series of Bruckner symphonies that the LPO are performing under different conductors in the coming months. If the rest are up to this standard we are in for a real treat.

Chailly Gewandhaus Beethoven Barbican 1 November 2011

2011-11-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

Matthews, Beethoven: Gewandhaus Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 1.11.11 (Gdn)

Colin Matthews: Grand Barcarolle

Beethoven: Symphony no.8

Beethoven: Symphony no.3

Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra are one of the great musical collaborations of our time. That's hardly a contentious view, but working out exactly why their chemistry works is surprisingly tricky. There is definitely an element of contrast in the relationship between his passionate Italian approach and the orchestra's Germanic discipline. Chailly clearly exploits the virtuosity of the instrumentalists for his own interpretive ends. But there is obviously a deep mutual respect here, and a shared passion for the core Austro-German repertoire.

Chailly's interpretations are always radical, or at least unconventional. Perhaps the collaboration with the orchestra seems so close because the audience are continually being surprised by the interpretive decisions, while the players are always in on his ideas. And while Chailly likes to do things differently, he rarely takes the music to extremes. These performances were characterised by continuous intensity, and there were surprisingly few pianissimos or moments of respite of any sort. Sometimes that can feel excessive, especially when each movement is presented as a self-sufficient dramatic entity. But we hadn't come for background music, and Chailly ensured that every phrase was taken seriously, clearly articulated and allowed to sink in.

The orchestra's playing really is something special. There is a deep beauty to their every note, but it's not a ravishing beauty, rather an angular Teutonic beauty. The strings have astonishing unity of ensemble. They are able to play with that rich, chocolatey sound you only get in Berlin, Leipzig and Vienna. But they are also able to turn that off, switching instead to a big, strident tone or a more focussed, nasal sound. Among the woodwinds, the bassoons excelled in the 8^th symphony, while the oboe soloist was star of the 3^rd. All the players bar the strings are playing instruments that you hardly ever meet on this side of Europe, so their distinctive timbre is at least partly a product of their technology.

Grand Barcarolle by Colin Matthews is one of a series of works commissioned by Chailly to accompany the orchestra's Beethoven cycle. On one level, the commissioning project seems hopelessly outdated: composers expected to justify their presence on orchestral programmes by presenting creative responses to the core repertoire in the second half. That sort of postmodernism has been going on at least since Berio and Schnittke in the 1970s, and there really isn't much more to say. Colin Matthews' response to Beethoven is, by his own admission, closer to Mahler. And it doesn't even sound like a postmodern response to Mahler, it just sounds like Mahler. But it fitted well into this programme, because Chailly's Beethoven is, in many ways, deeply Mahlerian. Had Matthews' work preceded anybody else's Beethoven it wouldn't have worked at all. But here it fit beautifully. And given the ability of this orchestra to imbue late Romantic textures with depths of colour and emotion, it would seem a waste to write anything else for them.

In London, long the capital of period performance orchestral playing, Chailly's Beethoven seems almost reactionary. It is as if he is reclaiming Beethoven's scores from the period instrument brigade. It probably doesn't seem that way in Leipzig, but even mainstream London orchestras tend to pay some kind of lip service to the period performance conventions: reducing the string sections, using natural trumpets, minimal vibrato etc. Chailly makes a big thing of his loyalty to the what he finds in the score, particularly the dynamics, articulations and metronome marks. But the result seems more loyal to the spirit of the music than to the letter.

In the 8^th Symphony it works a treat. He makes no excuses for the curious structure of the work and whips up a storm in every movement. When the first two movements each stop abruptly without warning or explanation, Chailly is happy to place the blame squarely at the composer's feet. And for the rest of the time he enjoys the moment. The first movement is a propulsive and dance-like as that of the 7^th, while the finale has the gravitas and power of the 5^th's conclusion. The 8^th worked better than the 3^rd, and the many interpretive problems that the 8th presents seem to inspire Chailly's interpretive ideas, with more exciting and more convincing results.

But the 3^rd was great too. Those punch chords at the very opening were clean and decisive, and there were plenty of other places in the first movement when ideas like that could appear out of the texture, a surprise each time, even when you know they are coming. Chailly doesn't let the music just play itself, and his tempo interventions can be sudden and counter-intuitive. But they always fit into the logic of his interpretation, and needless to say they never take the orchestra by surprise. The funeral march was astonishingly intense, this is where the solo oboe came into his own. The scherzo suffered slightly from the intensity of the two movements that preceded it: a higher level of energy and intensity were required of it, and it only just managed. And the finale was great. It occasionally approached a Brucknerian intensity towards the end. That's the real advantage of this sort of modern instrument approach, that intensity at the climaxes. But you need an orchestra who can maintain the ensemble and tonal control, even at the end of an intense concert. Not a problem, of course, for the Gewandhaus.

The great thing about the Chailly/Gewandhaus partnership is that the standard of their musicmaking transcends any problems you might have about interpretive issues. Chailly does take liberties sometimes. Using the two sticks of the timpani together in the second movement of the Eroica for example. Is that in the score? I'm sure it's not. And the many abrupt tempo changes that, on the face of it, work against the logic of the music. But these musicians create their own logic. It's emotional and intense and its just as good as Beethoven's.

Gavin Dixon

Markus Stenz, London Philharmonic, Lawrence Power: Mozart, Turnage, Strauss, RFH, 19 October 2011

2011-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Mozart: Symphony No.41

Mark-Anthony Turnage: Viola Concerto "On Opened Ground"

Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra

Lawrence Power (viola), Markus Stenz (conductor), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall, 19 October 2011

Markus Stenz must be one of the most versatile conductors on the international circuit. His visits to London are all too rare, but concert-goers in the capital are most likely to remember him for his stint as Principal Conductor of the London Sinfonietta in the mid 90s. He then left for foreign shores, making a name for himself in Australia at the helm of the Melbourne Symphony. Then came a few years of opera, at the top European houses. And now he conducts the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, perhaps the ideal job for him, as it encompasses music from all periods, and also makes him the de facto conductor of the Cologne Opera, where the Gürzenich Orchestra are the house band.

All of which is great news for the Rhinelanders, but less so for London audiences, who have heard little from Stenz in the last decade, the period in which he has clearly come to an impressive artistic maturity. The programme for this evening's concert demonstrates that versatility remains the hallmark of his work, and the sheer quality of the results left us in no doubt that he has become a major talent in the years since he last made regular appearances here. The three pieces: Mozart, Turnage and Strauss, were all presented at the sort of standard you would expect of specialists in the Classical, Modern and Romantic repertoires respectively. But Stenz can do it all, and in each piece brings out the very best of this orchestra.

It is a joy to watch Stenz conduct Mozart. He doesn't use a baton here and only rarely gives a beat. Instead, he dances round the podium, energising the music and enthusing to the players his sense of the lightness and grace of the music. The results were magic. This Jupiter was wholly devoid of pedantry or Classical mannerism. It was nimble and elegant, always on the move, and with the weight of each chord and texture ideally balanced. Concentrating on the grace rather than the drama meant that the second movement became the heart of the work, and this is where it all came together. But the finale was good too – none of the excessive drama or histrionics that modern instrument performances can produce. Stenz made this last movement float along, but with a precise rhythmic structure that acknowledged the symphonic status of this, Mozart's final symphonic conclusion.

I'm a late convert to Mark-Anthony Turnage. All my previous experiences of his music had been of accomplished orchestral writing being frustratingly drowned out by a drum kit or over-amplified electric guitar. But Anna Nichole changed my mind, demonstrating (to me at least) that the diverse popular styles that he references can work in a classical context and not just get in the way. So it was welcome this evening to have a chance to re-visit one of his early scores, the viola concerto "On Opened Ground" from 2000/1. This is a more refined work than most of the pieces for which Turnage is famous. The popular idioms take a back seat, and instead he writes a work that sits comfortably into the English tradition. It owes a lot to Walton's Viola Concerto, but there is more to it than that. Walton on acid perhaps. A large orchestra is used, but sensitively and imaginatively. I was particularly impressed that Turnage's orchestration could stand up to comparison with the Mozart that preceded it. Lawrence Power is the ideal interpreter for this work. It was actually written for Yuri Bashmet, who I suspect would gave it a more guttural reading. But Turnage expects the viola to sing, and that is just what Power is good at. There is plenty of energy in his sound, and enough bass in the lower strings that you know he is not playing a violin. But he revels in the bluesy melodic lines that Turnage spins for the soloist, and sails above the orchestra, large as it is, without a problem. And the crass jazz interjections? Well, at one point the snare drum starts playing off-beats with brushes. Then, just as my heart was sinking, the piece ended. What a tease!

Also sprach Zarathustra is an excellent orchestral show-piece, but only if you have an excellent orchestra. Fortunately then, the LPO were on fine form, and delivered a performance that was as good as any in recent memory. Markus Stenz re-appeared after the interval a different man. Now conducting with a baton, giving a clear beat and driving the music. All of which is, of course, exactly what this score requires. The results were passionate and turbulent. The orchestra here was just magnificent; every section has a moment in the spotlight and each made the most of it. Special mentions should go to the flute and bassoon soloists, and the horn, trumpet and trombone sections. To take just one of many examples, those pianissimo chords from the trombones at the end. They need to be exactly in time and very carefully tuned, but they rarely are. In this performance they were exactly right, and with ideal tone colour and balance too. A perfect end to an excellent concert.

This concert was broadcast live and can be heard online until 26 October at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015ypb9

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Leif Ove Andsnes, Jiří Bělohlávek, Barbican, 12 October 11

2011-10-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

Rachmaninov, Bruckner: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Leif Ove Andsnes (piano), Jiří Bělohlávek (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 12.10.11 (Gdn)

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto no.3

Bruckner: Symphony no.4

An inauspicious start, I'm afraid, to the BBC SO's winter season. The two works on the programme make an interesting coupling, similar in scale and both relying on their memorable opening phrases for their identity and continuing popularity. But neither was ideal for this evening's performers, and given the top quality performances of both that are regularly offered to London audiences, the deficiencies were glaring.

Leif Ove Andsnes has apparently just recorded Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto for the second time. He certainly has all the notes in is grasp, and the sheer control that he exerts on this virtuoso work marks him out as one of the great piano technicians of our time. But this evening the piece just didn't add up. The piano was regularly subsumed by the orchestra. It was difficult to tell exactly why this was. Among concert soloists, pianists are usually the first to complain about the dead acoustic of the Barbican Hall. But earlier this year I was here was for a Mozart concerto played by Mitsuko Uchida, one of the gentlest pianists on the circuit, and she managed to project her solo lines with no problems at all. Andsnes has not played the Barbican as often as she has, so perhaps he needs a little more time to accustom himself to the hall's acoustical deficiencies.

A more serious problem though, at least for me, was his dry, matter-of-fact approach to this, perhaps the most ebullient of Romantic piano concertos. His pedalling was on the stingy side, and while there was rubato in his phrasing, it felt unnatural and forced, as if he was only moving from his chosen tempos under duress.

The audience loved it though, and I shared their admiration for the sheer technical accomplishment of the performance. Perhaps this is a modern way of playing Rachmaninov, shorn of the excesses of previous generations. Andsnes certainly looked up-to-the-minute, with his sharp suit and slick haircut. But if this is what today's Rachmaninov sounds like, then I'm for the old-fashioned kind, and I suspect many others are too.

I had hoped that coming to Bělohlávek's Bruckner 4 this evening would compensate for having missed Abbado's Bruckner 5 last night, which by all accounts was as good as his VPO recording of the work: easily one of the finest Bruckner interpretations on disc. Sadly, it was not to be. Neither Bělohlávek nor the BBC SO are known for their Bruckner interpretations. There is no reason why Bruckner should be a specialist area, but his music does need to fit into an established, or at least long-standing tradition of performance. Tonight's performance of the 4^th Symphony failed on many levels, although I'm bound to distinguish my subjective opinions on Bělohlávek's reading, which others may disagree with, from my more objective observations on the orchestral playing, which was shaky by anybody's standards.

Bělohlávek did at least present a coherent and thought-out reading of the work. He emphasises the flow of the music over atmosphere in the quiet passages or grandeur in the louder ones. That allows him to demonstrate the classical order of the music, the legacy of Haydn and Schubert that other conductors often miss. But atmosphere and grandeur are important too, and the solemnity of the music, especially in the first movement, is all to easily trivialised through fast tempos, cursory rubato and unsympathetic phrasing.

All this may have worked out if it wasn't for the ensemble problems in the orchestra. To their credit, every section played with an elegant tone (mostly), and met the stylistic demands the conductor made of them. But the ensemble in every section was problematic. The strings had numerous tuning issues. The woodwind struggled to play together and never reached any agreement on dynamics. Worst of all was the brass. A split in the second phrase of the horn solo at the opening was an omen of things to come. The horns and trumpets are regularly required to play in unison or hockets, and there wasn't a single instance where that actually worked. Bělohlávek obviously wanted them to turn it up to 11 for the development and coda climaxes of the first movement, but every time they overblew and the sound deteriorated.

Under-rehearsal may have been the problem. The difference between the opening of the scherzo and the Da Capo reprise was astonishing. It was as if the orchestra was sight reading the first time round, but performing it for real the second. In fact, this reprise in the Scherzo marked a change of fortunes for the performance as a whole, and the finale that followed was easily the best part of the concert. Given his understanding of Czech folk music, at least as it appears in orchestral music, it was surprising that Bělohlávek couldn't get the rustic feel of the Andante movement to work out. But similar passages in the finale were much better. The louder passages also benefited from better brass playing, although it still wasn't perfect.

On balance, it is probably just as well that I wasn't at the Festival Hall last night for Abbado's Bruckner 5; the comparison between that and this would probably have been too galling even to contemplate. However, I was at the Barbican in June for Haitink's Bruckner 4 with the LSO. That performance set the bar about as high as it will go. This one wasn't even close.

Gavin Dixon

Manson Ensemble play Boulez

2011-10-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Boulez: Manson Ensemble, Rozenn Le Trionnaire and Elaine Ruby (clarinets), Susanna Malkki (conductor), QEH, London, 30.09.11 (Gdn)

Domaines (version for solo clarinet)

Domaines (version for clarinet and orchestra)

Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna

Does Pierre Boulez still matter? Can his avant-garde ideas be sustained without taking on the canonic status that would surely doom them? The Southbank Centre clearly thinks so, and they have very sensibly let the music speak for itself. The weekend dedicated to Boulez' music, of which this concert was the opening event, offers a retrospective of the great man's work. And while the pieces performed this evening are certainly old (everything was at least 30 years old) every note of it sounded as fresh and relevant as the day it was written.

But the progress of time does have a tangible role on Boulez' music, not least through his tendency (obsession?) for revising his works and presenting them in ever-new forms. The first half of the concert demonstrated this aspect of his artistic persona through two different versions of the same work – Domaines.

In fact, the differences outweighed the similarities, which if nothing else showed that, for Boulez, revision is just as much a creative act as composition. Domaines was originally written for solo clarinet, but later expanded into a version for clarinet and orchestra. There is some leeway in both versions for performers to chose the order in which sections are played, but even so, there was little sense here that like was being compared with like.

Two different student clarinettists, Rozenn Le Trionnaire and Elaine Ruby, performed the two versions of the works. Given the differences between the two versions, it would be uncharitable to compare their performances. Nevertheless, here goes: Elaine Ruby, who performed the orchestral version has the greater tone control, in fact a more elegant sound all round. But Rozenn Le Trionnaire gave the solo version more drama and more immediacy. Unlike her successor, she didn't quite hit every note with the ideal focus, but the combination of rawness and control that she brought to the work meant that she was able to transfix the audience, and without any need for orchestral backup.

Susanne Malkki has plenty of experience leading performances of Boulez' music. She is the principal conductor of Boulez' own orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain (who are playing over the weekend) and has presumably worked closely with the composer over the years. Her conducting technique certainly bears witness to a close association. Like Boulez, she conducts without a baton, giving small but clear gestures to the players without any theatrics. That's just what this music needs, and the young players from the Royal Academy of Music responded well.

This is demanding music for any ensemble, so to present it with student performers is a risky strategy to say the least. But on the whole it paid off. The Manson Ensemble clearly isn't in the same league as the ensembles who will follow them over the weekend, but they are close enough. Synchronisation can occasionally be a problem. Both of the orchestral works have moves from unsynchronised ensemble to rhythmic unisons. Once or twice the results were ragged, but on whole the performances were very impressive.

The second half was devoted to one of Boulez' greatest works, Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna. Like the orchestral version of Domaines, Ritual calls for a large ensemble physically divided into groups. Each of these groups is led by a percussionist, who maintains their speed while the separate groups move out of synchronisation. On paper, it sounds like an absolute nightmare for the players, but again the sheer concentration and professionalism of the young ensemble saw the performance through. Special mention should go to the percussionists for keeping the work together, usually while having to play a range of unusual instruments: tabla, slit drums and the like.

I hope the players enjoyed performing Boulez' music. For all the lip-service paid to it, we don't hear it often enough in London. This concert was very enjoyable, and a great way to start what promises to be a landmark festival. If it wins the music some advocates among younger generations of performers too, that can only be a good thing.

LPO, Jurowski, RFH 21 September 2011

2011-09-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky: A Night on the Bare Mountain (vers. orig.)
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky: In the village (Quasi fantasia) orch. Zimmermann
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky: On the southern shore of the Crimea orch. Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Stille und Umkehr (sketches for orchestra)
Alexander Raskatov: A white night's dream (Homage to Mussorgsky) for orchestra (World premiere)
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky: Songs and dances of death orch. Raskatov (UK premiere)

A cloud hangs over the London Philharmonic as they open their winter season. On 30 August, four players from the orchestra signed a letter to The Independent calling for a boycott of a Prom by the Israel Philharmonic, citing Israel’s use of the ensemble as a propaganda tool to divert attention from human rights abuses. Each indicated after their name that they were members of the LPO. That was enough to get them suspended for nine months. The orchestra's argument, a tenuous one to say the least, was that they had implied that their views were the views of the orchestra, simply by stating that they played for it. A nine month suspension is an unprecedented sanction in modern British orchestral history, and an over-reaction by any reasonable standards.

Protests against the LPO's decision have since erupted all over the classical music community and beyond. The management's reaction to the protests, sadly, has been silence. Many, myself included, had hoped that the start of the winter season would be a chance for the management to draw a line under the issue. Had they made an announcement today that they were going to reinstate the players with immediate effect, and with a full apology, then the season of concerts that they are about to embark on would not have been affected. Instead they have chosen to do nothing and to offer no further explanations beyond Tim Walker's (Chief Exec of the LPO) infamous and now much derided statement that 'music and politics don't mix'. In fact, given that the organisation is now widely seen as opposed to freedom of expression as a result of the affair, it is ironic that their only public action in the past week has been to close down the LPO facebook page, where a vigorous debate had been taking place about the suspensions. The policy appears to be to ignore the whole business and hope it goes away. It's not going to – both the Times and the Guardian recently ran articles supporting the musicians, and the public anger at the orchestra's intransigent position is growing by the day.

I wonder what the players think of the affair? In theory, they own the orchestra, and the managers run it on their behalf. So (in theory) the suspensions could only have happened with their consent, and they have the power to reverse the decision. They've all been told not to talk to the press, so the intricacies of this remain speculation. What I can say is that there wasn't a smile from anybody on the stage this evening. In fact this was the most miserable looking orchestra I have ever seen in my life. It wasn't the cheeriest of programmes of course, but even so.

And I wonder what Alexander Raskatov, this evening’s featured composer, makes of the management's stance. Given their obvious contempt for freedom of expression, it was disingenuous of the orchestra to include these lines about him in the programme: "Born and trained in Moscow during the years when the state was anxious to keep its composers in a straitjacket of orthodoxy, Raskatov has fully exploited the freedom that came with the fall of the USSR." That's the kind of dark irony you need to be Russian to fully appreciate. No statements as yet from him though about the situation, nor from Jurowski, another Russian who spent just about enough time in the Soviet Union to appreciate the value of freedom of speech.

The sheer normality of this evening's concert was its most galling feature. But then normal for the LPO is most other orchestra's idea of a step into the unknown. A concert dedicated to the morbid side of Mussorgsky's personality, while it seems to have chimed with the musicians' mood, is a very strange way to open a concert season.

The first work, A Night on Bare Mountain, was presented in its original version. It is good to hear that once in a while, but again, as the first work in a concert season? The logic, I think, is that it better prepares Raskatov's new work in the second half. Raskatov has clearly learnt much from Mussorgsky, and one common trait (or is it a bad habit) is their shared disinterest in logical structure. In a sense, Jurowski seemed to be justifying Raskatov's formal indulgences by demonstrating that Mussorgsky had done it before.

The rest of the programme was made up of a Zimmerman work and a Zimmerman Mussorgsky orchestration, followed by a Raskatov work and a Raskatov Mussorgsky orchestration. Zimmerman too seemed like canon-fodder, providing us with some conservative Mussorgsky orchestrations and a modest composition (not his best) in order to show off how much better Raskatov is at both these activities.

Anybody who heard Raskatov's opera "A Dog's Heart" at ENO last year will be wondering which direction his reputation in the UK will take. The opera was interesting, but the music was completely upstaged by the puppetry and theatrical design. The work presented tonight "A White Night's Dream" shares many of the virtues and many of the faults of the opera. Raskatov shows himself to be a master of orchestration in both. He also has a fabulously fluid sense of pace, one minute giving us long, flowing phrases, the next stopping everything short with a percussion crash every few seconds. The main problem with Raskatov's music, at least on the basis of these two works, is the suspicion that it lacks any substance, that it is all just sound effects. "A White Night's Dream" allayed those concerns a little, but it is clearly of apiece with the opera.

You couldn't mistake Raskatov's orchestration of "The Songs and Dances of Death" for Shostakovich's if you tried. Shostakovich, to my knowledge, doesn't use a drum kit, or electric guitars, or a gong suspended in a bucket of water...Some of these effects get in the way, but on the whole Raskatov makes reserved use of his huge orchestra. Baritone Sergei Leiferkus intones the songs in a way that only a Russian could. His lower register is fabulous, although his upper register and some of his quieter passages lack tonal control. And while Raskatov usually holds back for him, there are a good few places where the sheer quantity of the orchestration defeats him.

There have been many calls over the past week to boycott LPO events, and the calls are likely to increase over the coming days. For myself, I decided a better move this evening was to come to the concert and then make my views on the players' suspensions known in this review.

Was the concert itself worth scabbing for? Only just.

Gavin Dixon

In Defence of the LPO Four

2011-09-14T03:42:00.000-07:00

The visit by the Israel Philharmonic to the Proms has raised passions, and sadly not just through the emotional power of their performance. The event itself was disrupted by protesters (were they the same protesters as at the Wigmore for the Jerusalem Quartet? Could a blacklist keep them out?) but was also preceded by a letter to The Independent newspaper calling for the cancellation of the concert as a form of "Cultural Boycott". Now four members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who were signatories to the letter, have been suspended from duties for nine months as a direct result.

Once again the world of classical music comes up against the political repercussions of its activities. As ever, those in charge appear to be in complete denial about the fact that what they do has any political dimension at all. Roger Wright, director of the Proms, refused to cancel the event on the grounds that the invitation was "purely musical", while Timothy Walker, chief executive of the LPO, concluded his statement on the suspensions by saying "music and politics do not mix".

The tragedy is that the actions of both men are defensible, but a meaningful defence would involve the acknowledgement that there is a political dimension to their activities. Nobody denies that when the West East Divan Orchestra comes to the Proms, or even the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, a strong and well-received political statement is being made.

But to get to the specifics of this case, the call for a boycott of the Israel Philharmonic is part of a wider Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Considering the anti-Zionist feeling in many parts of the world, the aims of this project seem dangerously vague. When specific arguments are expressed, they tend to concentrate on the links between cultural institutions and the Israeli military, and those links tend to be either tenuous or subtly concealed, depending on your point of view. Otherwise, the whole campaign seems aimed at the destruction of Israel. One undoubted political connotation to a tour by a national orchestra is that it supports that nation's right to existence and international recognition. And only Israel's most implacable enemies are going to complain about that.

Even so, the call for a boycott is well within the bounds of acceptable political debate in this country, so the fact that it has supporters in the classical music community should not come as too much of a shock. The LPO's complaint is that the four players, cellist Sue Sutherley and violinists Tom Eisner, Nancy Elan and Sarah Streatfeild, each stated their membership of the orchestra next to their signature on the letter. This, it was felt, gave the impression that their views were those of the orchestra. It is fair to say that the orchestra does have a case here, but not a watertight one. It is a commonly accepted convention that when a signatory to a published letter states an affiliation, they are speaking for their institution. But it is by no means universally held to be the case, and I suspect that legal responsibilities of libel would not transfer to the institution in question if that were the problem.

The issue of broader representation goes both ways. The implicit suggestion by the four players that they represent the views of their orchestra is no stronger than the implication by the BBC that they endorse Israel's policies through the invitation to the Proms of the country’s leading orchestra. The efforts by the LPO management to distance themselves from the views of these players has clearly been an over-reaction. They are obviously trying to appease somebody. It would be indiscreet to speculate as to who and why.

John Cage Night QEH 13 September 2011

2011-09-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

4'33"

Radio Music for Eight Performers

Child of a Tree for solo percussion

Concert for Piano and Orchestra/Fontana Mix

String Quartet in Four Parts

Music for Eight 0'00"

(Photo: Rex Rystedt)

Six months in a Buddhist monastery is the kind of preparation you really need for an all-Cage concert. You must move beyond your desires, the desire for order, for structure, for logic...As you listen, the music infuses these Zen values in your mind, but if you've just come from work it really is in at the deep end.

That's where 4'33" comes in. It is a much-abused work, and I can't say I was looking forward to experiencing it again, that protracted, embarrassed silence were everybody tries to act grown up and not laugh. But this performance wasn't like that at all. The audience, who filled the QEH to capacity (how did Southbank Centre manage that?) were obviously in exactly the right mood for a John Cage experience. The piano version was performed, by Philip Thomas, who articulated the movement divisions but didn't go as far as to close the lid at the start of each. Instead he held his hands to the keyboard and concentrated intensely on them for the duration of each movement. It was the ideal start to the show, and the buzz in the audience afterwards was electric.

John Cage would probably hate me for writing this, but his music can be divided into two broad groups. There are the conceptual works, where some new idea really makes the piece stand out. And then there are those pieces, which are usually written for an indeterminate but large number of performers, and go on for about 20 minutes. You know from the start that there is going to be no development or progression here, and that the way it starts is pretty much the way it is going to continue until it stops. Cage wrote a lot of these, so it is fair that they make regular appearances in all-Cage programmes. This evening we got two, Concert for Piano and Orchestra (over the Fontana Mix) in the first half, and Music for Eight in the second. Perhaps I just wasn't in the zone, but neither did anything much for me.

But the rest of the programme made up for it. Radio Music for Eight Performers is a classic music theatre/happening conception. The performers each have a radio, which they move around through various MW frequencies, determined of course by the I Ching. The concrete structure of the QEH meant that they didn't actually find many stations, despite our being in the centre of London, but the interaction of interference noises made for excellent 'sound music'. A group of visual artists were invited to perform the work, and the fact that few of them seemed comfortable performing on the stage or taking applause added a valuable layer of surrealism to the proceedings.

Child of a Tree involves a table covered in plants, some living, some dead, and a percussionist charged with making sounds from them. I'd heard it before, played by Richard Benjafield, who did his best to create a musical performance, moving swiftly from one plant to the next and linking together, at least with his body language, each of the activities. This evening's performance, by Simon Limbrick was much more laid back and, it seemed to me, more in keeping with the exploratory nature of the piece. Each sound was heard in isolation, inviting the audience to savour it without worrying too much about the context or relevance.

String Quartet in Four Parts is a wonderful work. It is written in the kind of non-repetitive minimalism that would later find its fullest expression in the music of Morton Feldman. And as in Feldman, everything here is quiet, the notes are often presented in isolation, and everything has a sense of being very, very important. The performance had plenty of atmosphere, but there were problems with the details. This was the only work of the evening where synchronisation mattered, and it wasn't always quite right. Also, the restricted number of pitches means that intonation must be absolutely spot on, and when it's not it really stands out. In fairness, the problems were minimal, but obvious nonetheless.

In all though, the concert was a success, and the huge audience were certainly stimulated by the various musical and philosophical ideas they were presented. The event was the first in Southbank Centre's International Chamber Music Season 11/12, and if nothing else that demonstrates an admirable open-mindedness about what constitutes chamber music. It also ties in with an exhibition of Cage's paintings at the Hayward Gallery. That finishes at the end of the week (18^th), so do go and see it if you get the 'chance'.

Tobacco Advertising and Classical Music

2011-07-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'm always surprised when I find a full page advertisement for a tobacco company in a programme for a classical concert. It's just not the sort of thing that you find in popular culture any more. Legal restrictions these days mean that tobacco companies are denied visibility in most public forums. Plenty of people still smoke though, so presumably the companies have significant advertising budgets, which gets funnelled into the few remaining media outlets left open to them.

It should be said the sponsorship of classical music tends to be in promotion of the corporate identity of the tobacco company rather than its products. Also, there is only one tobacco company, to my knowledge at least, who sponsor classical music in the UK – British American Tobacco. They always take out a full page in the Glyndebourne programme though, and I'd imagine that doesn’t come cheap.

So what are we to make of this state of affairs? Should audiences protest on the grounds that these companies are evil? To be honest, I'd be more inclined to protest on those grounds against the Daily Mail ad that also makes an annual appearance in the Glyndebourne programme. And it could be worse, the Australian Chamber Orchestra accepts sponsorship from the BNP, although on closer investigation this turns out to be the name of an Australian investment bank, with no obvious connections to the British far right.

It seems churlish to deny classical music organisations this presumably lucrative funding source on admittedly tenuous ethical grounds. That's especially true of Glyndebourne, whose continued ability to balance the books in the absence of state subsidy is a minor miracle. What concerns me more is the fact that classical audiences are considered mature enough not to need Government protection from the evils of tobacco advertising. The implication is that there isn't a single person in the audience under the age of 16, or whatever the legal age for buying tobacco is these days. No doubt the BAT money is welcome in an orchestra's finance section, but it must feel like an admission of failure in the education department.

Alina Ibragimova, Quay Brothers, Wilton's Music Hall, 26 July 2011

2011-07-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Berio: Sequenza VIII

Bach: Ciaccona from Partita No.2

Bartok: Sonata for Solo Violin

There aren't many venues like Wilton's Music Hall. It claims to be the oldest music hall in the world, and it is certainly showing its age. The place has been under slow, slow renovation for decades, but has managed to make a virtue out of its continuing dilapidated state. Fashionably deteriorated Victoriana is big in some East End circles, so it is unsurprising that it has a cult following. You don't see many classical concerts on the events listings though, and there are a couple of good reasons for that. The acoustic itself isn't bad. It is a small auditorium, too small to make most chamber music commercially viable. The high barrelled ceiling gives a warm but clean resonance. The biggest problem with the venue though is the Docklands Light Railway, which passes just a few meters from the hall, making the place rumble every few minutes as a train goes past.

But the moment Alina Ibragimova began playing all these concerns melted away. She really is an astonishing player. If you have heard any of her recordings, you won't need to take my word for that. She doesn't have a particularly round or powerful tone, but that's not what her playing is all about. Instead, she plays every phrase with immediacy and direct expression. She achieves an intimacy with the audience, as much in the loud passages as in the quiet ones, and as much in the Bartok and Berio as in the Bach. In this sense, the ambience of Wilton's is ideal for her art, and the chance to hear her playing from up close was very welcome indeed.

In his day, Berio was known as the friendly face of the avant garde. His music made no aesthetic compromises, yet somehow he always managed to get the audience on his side. That is a quality that he and Ibragimova share, and this rendition of Sequenza VIII was about the most welcoming and audience friendly of any Berio performance I've heard. It is clearly difficult music, and much of it rattles past at a terrifyingly fast pace. But Ibragimova was unfazed by its many technical demands, presenting the music in her trademark focussed tone, and with genuine feeling in every phrase.

The pivotal work in the programme was the Ciaccona from Bach's 2^nd Partita. In fact, given the influence of this one movement on almost every solo violin work that was to follow it, you could argue that any solo violin recital revolves around the Ciaccona, whether it is on the programme or not. Its influence on Berio's work was clear, and Ibragimova played the two in a very similar spirit. The way she can evenly grade long crescendos, and then maintain the intensity of the climax, really sets her apart. It also means that she can easily structure the emotion and intensity of these long movements without losing any of her concentration on the details.

The collaboration with the Quay Brothers was restricted to the Bartok Sonata in the second half. Their film is relatively abstract, but revolves around the events of the Sonata's composition. Bartok, in exile in America and slowly dying of leukaemia, struggles to concentrate on the composition, while memories from his earlier life come flooding back. It is actually quite a modest offering, and the brothers are careful not to upstage the soloist. In truth, they couldn't upstage her if they tried. The video they produce is serviceable, but as in the first half it was the violin playing that really made this multimedia performance excel. Again, Ibragimova was able to find the humanity in the score, and to communicate directly through every phrase. The film worked on similar lines, although was perhaps a little less direct, providing visual support from a small pallete of ideas to complement the more varied and more complex musical offering.

The synchronisation of music and film was very impressive, and try as I might, I couldn't work out how they did it. Each of the four movements had an associated film, which began and ended at exactly the same time, and which often cut between shots in synch with the phrases. Ibragimova watched the screen throughout (she only needed the dots for the Berio), so presumably she played an active role in the synchronisation.

A quirky gig in a quirky venue then, but one that worked mainly because of the traditional musical virtues of the performer. Wilton's got a helping hand from its big brother up the road, the Barbican, in terms of organising and publicising this event. It is on for three consecutive nights, and it looks like it will get a full house each time. If you are reading this on Wednesday 27^th, you've still got a chance to catch the last night this evening. If not, don't worry – Ibragimova is a regular guest at the Wigmore, and she sounds just as good without the gimmicks.

Chaushian and Sudbin: Wigmore Hall 21-7-2011

2011-07-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

Borodin: Sonata for cello and piano in B minor

Prokofiev: Cello Sonata in C Op.119

Schnittke: Cello Sonata No.1

Rachmaninov: Vocalise

Alexander Chaushian - cello

Evgeny Sudbin - piano

Alexander Chaushian and Evgeny Sudbin work well together on the recital stage, but it is difficult to work out exactly why. There is often a tension between them that suggests two soloists trying to hog the limelight. But there are certain musical qualities they share. A focus on melody and line links there styles, and they are both able to maximise the expressive potential of the music while always keeping a close eye on the detail of the music.

An all Russian programme would seem to be ideal for them, but strangely, neither performer puts in a particularly Russian performance. Sudbin in particular moves beyond the stereotypes of Russian pianism by going easy on the keys and performing with a light cantabile legato whenever the music permits. Even so, he spends more time in front of orchestras than he does accompanying string soloists, and there were many occasions when he threatened to overpower the cello just through the sheer volume of his accompaniment. His thick legato is part of the problem; it means that the piano is always sounding, a continuous bed of harmony that the cello must overcome simply to be heard at all. Lifting the lid of the piano to its highest position did help matters either.

Nor indeed did Chaushian's narrow, introverted sound. He actually has a very appealing tone, and if it wasn't for the volume of his companion, he would have no trouble filling the generous acoustic of the Wigmore Hall. He can do the weighty, round sounds when he needs to, especially on the lower strings, but in general he prefers a more modest and more nasal tone. That constricted timbre makes his playing all the more melodic, focussing attention on the individual notes of the solo line.

Borodin's Cello Sonata is an early work, written when the composer was in his 20s. It is distinctively Borodin though, and wholly undeserving of its neglect. There are passages and phrases throughout the work that you'll recognise from his mature compositions. For example, many phrases build up to a climax, then ebb back with long descending sequences. And there is a theme in the first movement that sounds almost exactly like the second subject of his Second Symphony's first movement. Borodin never completed the sonata, and the third movement was left as sketches, which were pulled together into a performing version by musicologist Michel Goldstein in 1982. He did a good job, and the finale in is the most tightly structured movement of the work. The performance was about the best of the recital too. It was focussed and precise but elegant and characterful. If it wasn't for the work's obscurity it would be a great way to conclude the concert.

I've never quite understood the attraction of the Prokofiev Op.119 Cello Sonata. It is a long and rambling piece, and even the young Borodin could write a cello sonata with more formal logic. Many performers, I suspect, go out of there way to paper over the cracks. But not Chaushian and Sudbin, their approach is to present the work warts and all. perhaps devotees will thank them for it, but for me they ended up confirming my dim view of the piece.

I didn't think much of the Schnittke either. Now this is a piece that I am fond of, but I've heard far better performances than this one. Again, Chaushian and Sudbin went for a precise and controlled approach, with far more attention on the detail than the architecture. Chaushian didn't take up the composer's offer of liberation in the senza tempo sections at the beginning, playing everything to a precise beat. The second movement had more gymnastics, but didn't build up as it should. True enough, the movement looks episodic on paper, with the piano and cello alternating phrases. But it is a cumulative process, with each phrase building on the last, right up to the devastating climax, which this evening passed almost without notice.

The last movement was better. Here the composer writes a long post-climactic epilogue, which fits well with the precise and occasionally melancholic approach of these performers. The last page was a mess though. Like the climax to the second movement, this is one of the many passages in Schnittke's work were he relies on the sheer theatricality of the performers. If you just play the notes, as they did this evening, the ending just sounds arbitrary.

Fortunately then, the recital concluded with Rachmaninov's Vocalise, a work that really does play to the strengths of these performers. By avoiding the excesses of rubato (not to mention vibrato) that many players and singers indulge themselves, they bring out the inner beauty of this simple melody. And Rachmaninov's knows what he is doing with his piano accompaniment, giving Sudbin plenty of notes, but voicing the chords in such a way that there is no chance of him overpowering.

The Rachmaninov was almost like an encore, but it was followed by an actual encore, another short but melodically elegant work. The audience left debating about what it might have been. Something from the late 19^th century probably, and probably from Russia too. My money is on Rimsky-Korsakov. Any advances?

The Proms and their Discontents

2011-07-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Proms got off to a typically noisy start at the weekend, with both the Glagolitic Mass and the Gothic Symphony making appearances over the course of the first few days. Opinions, from critics and web-savvy punters alike, have been copious, and discussion of the various merits of these performances and works, especially the Brian, have been dominating the classical music corners of the social media.

To my mind, that is just as it should be. The relationship between the BBC and the Proms has pluses and minuses for the festival, but the one thing that the Corporation is really good at is publicity. Staging large and rare works is part of this of course, it means there is something substantial, unusual, and hopefully worthwhile to tweet and facebook about. But what sort of responses should the Beeb be eliciting? Bob Shingleton makes an interesting point on his blog today, that twitter responses to live performances are always broadly positive and usually quite facile. Or, in his own words: "as Tweets Law states, if you give one hundred chimpanzees instruments, put them on a concert platform and broadcast the result, 95% of Twitter users will give the performance a rave review. Which means classical music must beware of programming for the Twitter audience."

Of course, the programming we are talking about, and the online responses to it, are only those of the opening weekend. There can be little doubt that the best point in a festival to put on the attention-grabbing concerts is at the beginning. If the result is that a large army of tweeps continues its commentary to cover the less sensationalist programmes further down the line, that can only be a good thing.

Another discontented voice heralding the start of the Proms-bashing season is that of Damien Thompson in the Telegraph. He has been charged by the paper to put across their traditional anti-Beeb and anti-subsidy views in the form of an article questioning the amount of licence fee money that goes into the festival. The views expressed are not new, and in the face of the extravagance of the Proms' opening weekend, it is likely that Thompson's article is going to find some sympathy, at least with Telegraph readers.

Just one last discontent to mention, Jessica Duchen, who writes on her blog today about the tendency for the Proms to programme "white elephants", as is amply demonstrated by the choice of the Gothic Symphony. Her point, and it is a fair one, is that the Proms has a tradition of unearthing neglected large-scale works, which tend to have the effect of demonstrating exactly why nobody else had been performing them in the first place. It's good the Proms can take these risks, she concludes, but "You need to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince."

My own biggest gripe with the Proms is the fact that they take place in the acoustical catastrophe that is the Albert Hall. Last year, there were a number of calls in the weeks leading up to the start of the Proms for the BBC to consider moving the event to a hall were the audience can actually hear what is going on. The Festival Hall seems to be the main contender here, although that acoustic isn't ideal either. There have been no such calls this year, which is a shame, because something needs to be done, and fast.

On the other hand, the Proms has a distinctive identity because of a range of factors, which on their own would each seem to hinder rather than help the festival. The BBC will never move the Proms to the RFH, because the Albert Hall has a capacity for immense audiences, and part of the justification for spending so much on, say, the Gothic Symphony, or appearances by the world's greatest orchestras towards the end of the season, is the sheer number of people who can experience these events live. (I say "experience" rather than "hear" – there is no point in pretending that an audience member in the gods of the Albert Hall is going to hear the Vienna Phil, for example, in the same way as they would at the Musikverein.)

Putting on works like the Gothic Symphony, Mahler 8, the Glagolitic Mass etc. has to be a central plank of the Proms offering, because large-scale choral performances is the one thing that the Albert Hall is good for. These are works that you are definitely going to hear from the back of the hall, the tuttis anyway. Bob Shingleton is right that there is a risk of appealing to the lowest critical denominator by appealing to the twitter response. But large-scale works, performed in huge halls to huge audiences is all about collective appreciation. Even when programming a work as obscure as the Gothic Symphony, the goal is mass appeal. And even if, as Jessica Duchen notes, the result is a series of white elephants, even the discussion and responses that these performances elicit justifies them to some extent.

Which is where the BBC and their deep pockets come into the equation. Clearly, you can't put on a performance of anything on this kind of scale without significant subsidy. The two obvious alternatives are to only perform small-scale works or to scrap the whole thing. Given what the Albert Hall acoustic does to chamber ensembles, I'd be inclined to the latter option. That in itself doesn't justify the BBC's profligacy, nor provide a meaningful defence against Damian Thompson's criticisms. However, the abysmal acoustic of the Albert Hall may offer one good reason why the BBC is the ideal organiser for an event like the Proms. The Corporation's sound engineers do wonders to make the broadcast sound from the Proms sound good. I understand that digital reverb is used, and under the circumstances that seems a sensible option. In previous years, I have on many occasions been to the Proms, sat at the back and heard nothing, then gone home to listen to the broadcast on Radio 3 to find out what I missed.

For all the pomp and circumstance of the Proms as live events, they only really do the performers and the music justice when heard at home. From that point of view, those in the hall are basically a studio audience. They are missing out on the full musical experience, but they are giving each of the events the atmosphere it needs with their famous enthusiasm. But the biggest winners, from a musical point of view, are the radio listeners and TV viewers. So why shouldn't they contribute to the costs via the licence fee?

See a concert or hear a concert?

2011-07-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I read an interesting piece by the trombone scholar Trevor Herbert about the influence of recordings on an audience's experience of live music. Looking back, he pinpoints a date, sometime in the mid-1980s I think, when his students stopped talking about "Going to hear a concert" and started referring instead to "Going to see a concert". Herbert infers from this change that his students are taking less in, musically speaking, from the live event, and that the ubiquity of recorded sound had had the effect of diminishing the live experience.

I'll happily confess to using the construction "Going to see a concert", but reading Professor Herbert's views, I'm starting to wonder exactly what I mean by it. Certainly, I avoid saying that I am going to "hear" a concert simply because it sounds pedantic. And perhaps I'm making a subconscious distinction between the event, the performers and the works. I wouldn't say that I am going to see a symphony, nor would I say that I'm going to hear an opera, although in the case of Wagner that could well describe the experience I often have in mind.

Of course the technology has changed since the 1980s, and if anything, the influence of recorded sound on the experience of live music has become even more profound and complex. I think that Herbert's students had some justification in saying that they saw a concert, because the visual dimension was the main thing that recorded sound did not reproduce. And seeing a concert does not imply you are listening less intently. On the contrary, the relationship between the visual and aural dimensions of a live performance are closely linked and mutually beneficial.

This is exactly where the technology is catching up fastest. Today, you can "see" a concert on DVD, in a cinema, even presented in 3D. If you go to a cinema for a presentation of a concert, what verb describes your reception of it? The notion of "seeing" in this context seems so predominant because of the novelty. If and when cinema streaming of concerts becomes a norm of concert life, will the grammar revert? I doubt it.

London Sinfonietta: Woolrich, Feshareki, Davies, Ades, Messiaen. Kings Place 1.7.11

2011-07-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

John Woolrich: The Night will not draw on

Shiva Feshareki: departing in peace, arriving with love world premiere

Tansy Davies: Tymbal Organ world premiere

John Woolrich :A Presence of Departed Acts

Thomas Adès: Court Studies from The Tempest

Olivier Messiaen: Quartor pour la fin du temps

Most new music concerts seem obsessed with ideas of beginnings and of new directions. How refreshing, then, to meet a programme dedicated to the exact opposite, to ideas of departure and conclusion. And despite the Quartet for the End of Time dominating the evening, the whole programme was impressively balanced and coherent.

The evening was curated by John Woolrich, and the concert opened with his The Night will not draw on. This piano trio is filled with everything that is best about Woolrich's music. The ideas are strong and clearly presented, force is used, but never for its own sake, and the form is direct but never to the point of pedantry. The work was commissioned to commemorate the bicentenary of Haydn's death, but beyond the instrumentation it is difficult to think of any connections with Haydn's work. But no matter, it is a fine piece in its own right, and an impressive example of how a traditional instrumental grouping can be reinvigorated without worrying unduly about the weight of history behind it.

arriving in peace, departing in love was a late addition to the programme from Shiva Feshareki, a young composer who has been participating on a London Sinfonietta education programme. On the evidence of this short but accomplished work for solo clarinet, no further education is necessary. Her knowledge of the clarinet is impressive in itself, and while none of the extended techniques are new, the way that they are integrated into the substance of the music is impressive. So for example, she will include Gershwin-esque glissandos, but then she will write whole phrases with the player sliding around the individual registers. Growls from the throat play a big part in the music, and again, the way that they seem so integrated into the ideas really focusses the work. The form is either obscure or non-existent, but that hardly matters when the relationships between the various timbres can hold the work together.

The other première in the programme was Tymbal Organ by Tansy Davies. I was less impressed with this one, although it essentially did the same things as Feshareki's work. Davies writes for violin and cello, and there are some interesting effects in there, like a cello glissando involving all four fingers on the same string to create microtonal shifts as the fingers go up and down within the broader context of the glissando. Considering how difficult it is to describe this effect, I dread to think how it is notated. There is a lot of tapping on the body of the instruments, which becomes interesting when it happens in rhythmic unison with bowed notes on the other. In general, the textures are heterophonic, occasionally based on fragile unisons, but more often with one player leading the other through the sequences of notes and textures.

Thomas Ades really showed his compatriots how it is done with his Court Studies for 'The Tempest'. These short vignettes, conveniently scored for the same ensemble as the Messiaen, are apparently freely adapted from the opera, and they certainly feel like they have been drawn from a broader soundscape. Like Messiaen, Ades is able to not only transcend, but completely ignore the apparent restrictions of musical scope imposed by the use of just four instruments. There are shades of Britten here, more in the mood than in the actual rhythmic of harmonic language. Or perhaps Britten is simply invoked by the sheer mastery of instrumentation and colour that Ades, despite his youth, is able to draw on.

Quartet for the End of Time is one of the few 'Modern' works to be regularly performed by core-repertoire ensembles. With that in mind, it was very interesting to hear it played by new music specialists. These players know their Andriessen and they know Gorecki, so they know how to turn things up to 11. The dogged intensity that persists through many of the movements was impressively conveyed, and it really filled the resonant space of the Kings Place hall. There was emotion here too, but not a hint of sentimentality. It was a crisp and precise performance, but never cold or calculated. In fact, the whole concert was impressively played. Only four players where involved, and virtuoso feats were expected of all at one point or another. But nothing fazed them, and we were treated to an evening of close to ideal performances.

Pollini plays Chopin, Debussy and Boulez. Royal Festival Hall 28.6.11

2011-06-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

Chopin: Preludes Op.28

Debussy: Preludes, Book 1, Nos. 2,3,4,6,7,10

Boulez: Piano Sonata No.2

Maurizio Pollini piano

The Southbank's "Pollini Project" culminated on Tuesday in classic style, with the venerable pianist giving a recital that perfectly balanced the core repertoire for which he is celebrated with a good dose of the acerbic Modernism for which he is equally well known.

The first half was devoted to Chopin's Op.28 Preludes, and it would be hard to imagine a better performance. Physically, Pollini looks frail these days, and his first entrance onto the Festival Hall stage seemed cautious and unsteady. But as soon as he sat down at the piano all that changed. Chopin is the ideal repertoire for Pollini, it shows off both the conviction of his interpretive approach and the intimacy that he is able to imbue in any performance space, even one as large (and packed) as the Festival Hall. He takes liberties with the music, although any pianist who doesn't pull Chopin around is missing a trick. His rubato and his dynamics go right to the extremes. Considering how famous most of these Preludes are, it is impressive how unpredictable Pollini makes them. Rubato is never employed simply to articulate the phrasing, and everything about the interpretations seems designed to say something new with the music. But Pollini maintains a lightness of touch that prevents anything from sounding pedantic or forced. He brings out the Romantic heart of this music, but without ever resorting to sentimentality or cliché.

Debussy's Preludes also benefited from Pollini's disciplined yet emotive approach, but they didn't shine in quite the same way as the Chopin. Things occasionally seemed a little too deliberate here, and Pollini's determination to make a statement with every phrase prevented some of the movements from taking off.

But Pollini's playing is all about the bigger picture, and like the Chopin, the Debussy was impressively distinctive and coherent. Both composers benefit from the attentions of a pianist who can place all the notes in a meaningful context. Unlike many younger pianists, Pollini doesn't attempt to play every note with precision and clarity. Instead, they are all subsumed into his presentation of the work as a whole. His playing is precise at the structural level, yet often variable in its detail.

That's not how we expect to hear the music of the post-war avant garde, so the Boulez Sonata that closed the programme was given a very interesting reading. In the opening pages, it seemed that Pollini lacked the rhythmic surety to project the music's precise proportions. But it soon became clear this interpretation was going to share all the qualities of the Chopin and Debussy that preceded it. Boulez claims to have been attempting to break down the structural certainties of the sonata format with this work, but Pollini seemed intent on reinstating them. The first movement, for example, builds up to a huge climax, which is followed by a wistful, or at least quiet, coda. Pollini made these contrasting final sections the focus of the movement, and ensured that everything up to this point moved towards it. And despite initial appearances, this was a precise reading. Perhaps it seemed wayward because Pollini was putting his own mark on the music. All too often, when this music is played at all, performers feel obliged to simply recreate what they find on the page, the myriad performance instructions giving apparent license to hand over all artistic authority to the composer. Not so Pollini; whatever music he sits down to, you know you are always going to get a real interpretation.

Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies, London Sinfonietta 16 June 2011

2011-06-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

Leigh Melrose (baritone), London Sinfonietta, Baldur Brönnimann (conductor), Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 16.6.11

Birtwistle: Virelai

Birtwistle: Secret Threatre

Maxwell Davies: Eight Songs for a Mad King

On first appearances, the Southbank's annual Meltdown Festival would seem to revel in the randomness of its programming. What other festival would include a concert of Birtwistle and Maxwell Davies for which the programme is filled almost exclusively with essays about Ray Davies? But there is logic here, and the London Sinfonietta's contribution to this year's event sits squarely at the centre of its theme. Davies oversees a the festival in the year of the 60^th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, so Britishness, eccentricity and innovation are the guiding principles of the programming. And what better contribution could the London Sinfonietta make than a concert featuring seminal works from two of this county's greatest and most eccentric composers?

Performances of Birtwistle's Secret Theatre are frustratingly rare, so it is just as well that the piece is just as good on record. What you miss from the CD are the movements around the stage. An empty platform is set up to the left of the ensemble, and as players join the main melodic line, they move over to it, forming a sort of variable concertante group. But the musical distinction between what happens on and off the platform is clear enough, so this isn't really necessary. The performance from the London Sinfonietta was passionate and dramatic....I say the London Sinfonietta, but the ensemble seems to have turned into a scratch band, with different players on the stage every time they perform. I think there were a total of three performers this evening that I had heard perform as part of the Sinfonietta before. The changes don't seem to be affecting the standards too much, although the ensemble of the woodwinds wasn't as tight as in the past, and the control of the brass sound in the climaxes could have been better.

The concert opened with a more recent Birtwistle score, Virelai. Nothing of any particular interest to report here I'm afraid. Some renaissance tunes are given the Birtwistle treatment, played out of synch with their accompaniments and subjected to some exotic orchestration. Technically, it all works, and composer is still able to give everything he writes that amazing sense of inner purpose that makes every compositional decision seem providential. But programming it with one of his greatest scores does this new work little justice.

The Eight Songs for a Mad King also have a tendency to overshadow, and they were certainly the main attraction this evening. The performance could perhaps be described as semi-staged, without props or costumes, and certainly without cages. But what really matters in a performance of this work is the soloist, and Leigh Melrose put in a formidable performance. He has a great voice, but his acting ability is what makes him ideal for the role. He is a tall man, with long gangly limbs. He was lit from above by a single spotlight, and that was about all the staging support he got, yet he was utterly convincing. The work calls for a soloist who is a singer, a speaker, an actor, a performer in the broadest sense, and Melrose ticks all the boxes. The vocal requirements are beyond the realms of possibility, so it seems churlish to list the few failings of his musical performance. For instance, the first octave of his falsetto is clear and penetrating, but the octave above that lacks power. Of course it does, it is hardly worth noting. The instrumentalists gave him excellent support, sometimes competing with him at the climaxes, but that is in the spirit of the piece too. I thought it was a shame that the London Sinfonietta gave away the twist in the violin part (which I'm not going to reveal here) implicitly in the programme note and explicitly on Twitter a few hours before the performance. Perhaps everyone in the audience had heard it before, but I doubt it.

Certainly, nobody in the audience will have seen the part of the mad king acted as well as this before. The evening was a fair one for the London Sinfonietta (whoever they are), a worthy contribution to Ray Davies' Meltdown Festival, and a triumph for Leigh Melrose.

LSO, Haitink, Pires: Mozart and Bruckner. Barbican 14 June 2011

2011-06-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Mozart, Bruckner: Maria JoãoPires (piano), London Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 14.6.11

Mozart: Piano Concerto No.27 K595

Bruckner: Symphony No.4 'Romantic'

A last minute soloist substitution is rarely a good omen. This evening's LSO concert looked like a sure-fire hit, with Murray Perahia's Schumann Concerto in the first half and Haitink’s Bruckner Four in the second. But Maria João Pires performing Mozart's 27^th Concerto seemed like a potentially disappointing second best, and so it proved.

Perhaps the circumstances worked against this performance, or at least my enjoyment of it. As the four-square and indistinct opening phrases of the Mozart began, my mind was still filled with thoughts of those sublime modulations of the Schumann and the what Perahia might have made of all those delicious piano figurations.

Even so, the performance of the Mozart that followed was uninspired by any standards. Pires gave us all the notes, but without life or passion. The orchestra followed suit, and perhaps Haitink is to blame for keeping the woodwind soloists under too much control. Form and formality have their place in Mozart performance, but in this one that is all we got. The absolute precision of the playing is worthy of mention, Pires' passage work in particular, and the tight ensemble of the strings. Technically speaking, it was a perfect performance – but in the worst possible sense.

The second half was a different story. Haitink is well known for his Bruckner, and this performance of the Fourth Symphony was up there with his best work. There is a fine line in this music between individuality and affectation. In my opinion, that is a line Rattle crossed when he conducted the Ninth with the LSO earlier this year, but Haitink has an uncanny ability to stay right on the edge without ever taking anything to undue excess.

He is known for his slow tempos, but the outer movements here were surprisingly fast. Again, not so fast as to take the reading to extremes, but brisker than average. The inner movements showed more of his trademark breadth, and the whole of the Andante and the Trio of the Scherzo were both characterised by slower tempos, filled out with opulent orchestral textures.

But whatever speeds Haitink chooses, his subtle and fluid sense of rubato always keeps the music alive. The opening of the finale offers a brief glimpse into the inner workings of Haitink's Bruckner. The cellos and basses play detached crotchets for about 40 bars, making the subtle increase in tempo and volume explicit. But even here the effect is so gradual that you have to listen hard for it. Less subtle, but just as effective, are the points at which a thundering climax comes to an abrupt halt. Then Haitink holds the pregnant pause for just exactly the right duration, and then a wind or horn soloist, or sometimes pizzicato strings enter, their new tempo pre-formed in Haitink's mind and providing the ideal refreshment for the musical palette, genius!

The orchestral playing was again superb, but in this half inspired as well. The control of the brass sound in the climaxes was particularly impressive. More impressive, in fact, than the brass in the Chicago Symphony performance of the Seventh Symphony that Haitink conducted at the Festival Hall a few years ago. All the woodwind solos were vibrant and free, even when they were also articulaing one of Haitink's gradual tempo changes. The ensemble of the strings was again of the highest possible order, as was the beauty of the string tone. In short, the Bruckner received a perfect performance – in the best possible sense.

Gavin Dixon

The concert will be repeated on Thursday 16 June, when it will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

L'amico Fritz Opera Holland Park

2011-06-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Fritz Eric Margiore
Suzel Anna Leese
David David Stephenson
Beppe Patricia Orr
Caterina Susan Young
Hanezo Simon Wilding
Frederico Robert Burt

Conductor Stuart Stratford
Director Annilese Miskimmon
Designer Nicky Shaw
Lighting Designer Mark Jonathan

Holland Park's second new production of the season looks to be another success for them. L'amico Fritz, while it is obscure, is a classic verismo confection, just the sort of thing that this company does well. And the production excels in many ways: musically it is energetic and precise, the staging is inventive, and everything fits well into the summer festival ambiance – especially that famous Cherry Duet in the second act that seems perfectly timed for the first weeks of June.

But first a word about the opera itself: the libretto is dreadful. Really, really dreadful. It was Mascagni's first opera after Cavalleria rusticana, and apparently he was annoyed that the success of the earlier work had been attributed to its libretto. So, second time round, he wanted a libretto that would not overshadow his score. There is little chance of that happening with this feeble effort. The plot, if you can call it that, is that Fritz, a wealthy bachelor, has vowed never to marry and enters into a bet with a friendly Rabbi to this effect. But then he meets the girl of his dreams, Suzel, and so does marry after all. That's it, there's no back story, no character development, nothing.

The music is better, but not good enough to save the work from its libretto. Mascagni pulls out all the stops in terms of expressive and romantic music. As Robert Thicknesse notes in his programme essay, the composer knows how to keep the music modulating at just the right rate to maintain the interest. I would add that he knows what he is doing with the orchestration as well. He knows when he is going overboard, especially with the brass, but does it anyway when an act finale needs it. Some of the Mickey Mouse effects can get annoying. Somebody drinks and we get an ascending staccato chromatic scale. Somebody mentions a storm and we get legato chromatic scales, that sort of thing. But on the whole the music is competently written, and the composer really knows how to get the best from his singers.

Director Annilese Miskimmon and designer Nicky Shaw sensibly treat this paper-thin scenario as a tabula rasa to do with as they like. What they come up with is a 1950s business environment, with Fritz as a property tycoon and the outer acts taking place in his state-of-the-art offices. We are in Mad Men territory here, with many of the characters smoking continuously and a vague threat of violence hanging over some of the scenes: at one point in Act II it even turns out the rabbi is handy.

The whole premise works well enough. There is no tension between the libretto and the updated setting because the libretto is not up to the fight. The sets are elegant and find inventive things to do with the huge expanse of space on the Holland Park stage. The scene change at the start of Act II is impressive. Without giving too much away, they basically construct a house on the stage as we wait. (No music from Mascagni here, that's a mark against the score.)

The cast are all on the young side, but the standard was impressively high. Eric Magiore has a characterful voice that keeps his portrayal of the title character interesting throughout. He can also really act, which is especially impressive given how little dramatic material he is provided by the libretto. His crucial weakness is a lack of power in the loudest sections. He is required to crank up the volume for the finales to both the second and the third acts, but in both cases he disappears beneath the orchestra at the crucial moment.

If Anna Leese has a weakness, it is her acting, although again, the two dimensional role she is given can't be much help. But she more than makes up for this with her singing, which is very impressive indeed. To look at her, I'd guess she is in her mid-20s, yet her voice has an astonishing maturity. She brings a range of colours to the role, she has power when needed, and she can do that heavy but controlled vibrato that these verismo parts require. She has been all over the publicity for this production, and listening to her it is easy to understand why the company is so proud of her. Just one reservation about her singing, she too struggles with those finales at the ends of the acts, and has a tendency to go very sharp when pressed into loud, high phrase endings.

David Stephenson puts in a characterful performance as the rabbi. His baritone voice is a little on the light side, but there is a valuable intimacy about his sound. Again, the libretto gives the singer very little to go on in terms of fleshing out the character, but Stephenson's voice makes up for the lack. He might be better suited to the recital hall though, and I'd love to hear him sing some Schubert.

The singers in the supporting roles all supported well, and I've no real qualms about any of them. I had heard before the performance that Patricia Orr, in the trouser role of Beppe, was suffering from a sore throat, but she sounded fine to me. Perhaps when in better health she can add a little more projection, but it's not really necessary.

A great performance from the orchestra, better I thought than they played for Don Pasquale on Tuesday. There were no significant problems with balance, ensemble or tuning. A special mention should definitely go to conductor Stuart Stratford. One advantage of the unusually pit at Holland Park is that everybody in the audience can see the conductor work, and boy does this conductor work! He knows exactly what the orchestra and singers are doing at any given time, and makes sure they put everything into it. Holland Park is clearly a house, or rather a tent, that takes the innovation and professionalism of its staging seriously. But whatever you do with L'amico Fritz, the scenario and dramaturgy are always going to be fatally flawed. Just as well, then that they take the musical side of things just as seriously, and kudos to all the musicians, and especially to Stuart Stratford, for making this production a spectacular musical success.

Don Pasquale, Opera Holland Park 7.6.11

2011-06-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Don Pasquale Donald Maxwell
Dr Malatesta Richard Burkhard
Ernesto Colin Lee
Norina Majella Cullagh
A Notary Simon Wilding

Conductor Richard Bonynge
Director Stephen Barlow
Designer Colin Richmond
Lighting Designer Mark Jonathan

City of London Sinfonia

Donald Maxwell as Don Pasquale.

Photo Fritz Curzon

This new production of Don Pasquale is described in the programme as the "first ever at Opera Holland Park". Why use the word "ever"? Is it that much of a surprise that the opera has never before been given here. Well, considering what an ideal work it is for this setting, the implied surprise might just be justified. It is classic buffa and the audience went wild for it. It's not too long, which is just as well considering we are all effectively sitting outside long past ten at night. And most importantly of all, it plays to the strengths of the impressive ensemble that the company has gathered.

Surely the biggest name, and probably the single most important factor in the musical success of this production, is veteran conductor Richard Bonynge. He lives for opera buffa and was really in his element this evening. The whole thing was light as a feather, and the sparkle and life that he infused into the performance, both vocal and orchestral, brought freshness to every phrase.

On the stage, director and fellow Australian Stephen Barlow, sets the action at a fish and chip kiosk on an unnamed, but thoroughly British, seafront. The conceit works well, with the kiosk standing in for the Don's "casa", and every other site-specific reference in the libretto cunningly relocated to the seafront setting (and with many of the updates incorporated into the irreverent surtitle translations). The long stretch of promenade and good chunk of beach give the stage designers something to do with all the space on the huge stage. That still leaves the director a few problems though, given the incongruity between the size of the stage and the cast of only five. His solution is to have little vignettes going on in other corners, runners, an old couple, some patrolling police, that sort of thing. In fact, many of these fit so well into the London park setting that when they come on to the stage they cause a brief moment of concern that they haven't just wondered in from the park. The premise works best in the first two acts, but is stretched in the third. Here, Norina's profligacy is demonstrated by a redesign of the kiosk as some sort of space-age ice cream bar. True enough, I think I once saw something like it on the seafront at Littlehampton, but that is not the point. They also need to relocate the denouement scene from the garden, as is explicitly stated in the libretto, to the beach. By the end, it doesn't quite feel as snug a fit as it did at the start, but it is worth it for the apt reinvention it brings to the first two acts.

Donald Maxwell is excellent in the title role. He plays the part for all it is worth, by turns lecherous, rude, and downright embarrassing for everyone else involved. His fist entrance is wonderful, careering about on a mobility scooter. What a great prop! I was hoping he was going to stay in it for the whole opera, although perhaps that might have taken the idea a bit far. His voice doesn't quite have the power it used to, but then he is playing a character in his 70s. The clarity of his diction is fine, and he is able to keep up with the patter.

The cast work well as an ensemble. Each of the singers has a voice suited to their role, and (with the possible exception of Maxwell) there are no real standout performances. Richard Burkhard is as sly as he is smooth as Dr Malatesta. Precision is the chief quality of his singing, and he he has a slight upper hand on Maxwell when it comes to the patter. Majella Cullagh is great fun as Norina. She has all the notes for the part, even the astronomical ones, but the quality of her sound isn't as pretty in the upper register as some sopranos and she doesn't quite have the rhythmic precision in the florid run passages. I was surprised to read that the name of the tenor singing Ernesto was Colin Lee, so impressive is his Italian I though it must be his native language. In fact, everything about him says Italian tenor, his tone, his languid phrasing, even his posture. He is one to watch, and surely an asset for any company working in the buffa repertoire.

The choir and orchestra where generally on good form. The start of the third act was slightly messy, musically speaking, with some ragged entries and suspect tuning, much of which was down to the choir. The City of London Sinfonia played with character and charm, their stylistic sensitivity to the music no doubt partly thanks to their conductor. The wide pit is a mixed blessing, it gives all the players elbow room, but can lead to coordination problems between the brass at one side and the woodwind at the other. (Incidentally, an excellent cornet solo in the second act, that's not the sort of thing you usually come to an opera for but it was a real musical highlight.)

The singing is amplified, but subtly so, and results in a good balance between stage and pit. [CORRECTION: No amplification, just good vocal projection, see comments.] Such are the practicalities of performing opera in what is essentially a huge tent. It is a sophisticated tent though, this is Kensington after all, and the seats are wonderfully comfortable. Just one word of advice if you are thinking of coming, and I'd recommend you do: bring a coat.

Gavin Dixon

LSO Uchida Davis Barbican 26 May 2011

2011-05-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Haydn, Beethoven, Nielsen: Mitsuko Uchida (piano), London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 26.5.11

Haydn: Symphony No.99

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2

Nielsen: Symphony No.6

Colin Davis has been conducting Haydn symphonies since long before anybody was taking the idea the idea of period performance seriously. Those (paradoxically) new ideas about how to perform the music stand in opposition to a long and vibrant tradition, which retains all its vitality under Davis' baton. He doesn't intervene too much in the flow of the music, his role is more to energise and inspire. And even though the string section is relatively large, the results are impressively nimble. Ensemble and tuning were occasional problems, especially in the strings. When Davis spurs them on to loud dynamics that are out of their comfort zone, both the tone and the coordination can suffer.

When it comes to working with soloists, there are distinct advantages to working with the very best. The ensemble problems in the strings continued into the opening tutti of the Beethoven concerto, but when Mitsuko Uchida entered everything changed. From then on the orchestra was note perfect, and the perfection continued after her departure to elevate the Nielsen performance considerably above the Haydn. Do we have Uchida to thank? Who knows, but her performance was certainly inspiring. I hadn't heard her perform much Beethoven before, and I had wondered if she would have the necessary weight for his strident textures. But Uchida has a knack of setting the agenda on her own terms. As soon as she began, it became clear that I had been asking all the wrong questions. Instead, the issue became whether Beethoven has the required subtly and sophistication for an Uchida performance. He does, of course, and her performance was as convincing as any. She makes impressive musical capital out of questioning Beethoven's certainties. In the first movement in particular, many of the piano phrases seem to be written as dogmatic statements. But Uchida presents them more as suggestions, as if to say "Is this what the piano should be doing here?" And of course it is, but as a listener you feel that your views have been taken on board, or at least your presence has been acknowledged. Her performance wasn't note-perfect by any means, there were a good deal of wrong notes, and she got seriously lost a few bars into the first movement cadenza. But none of that detracted from this incredible performance.

Even by Nielsen's own standards, his Sixth Symphony is an eccentric work. There is nothing you can take for granted here, with the form, the orchestration and the harmony continually taking unpredictable turns into the unknown. There is enough great writing, especially in the first movement to compensate for its many wanton eccentricities. Most of those eccentricities come in the inner movements, and the second in particular gives the uneasy impression that it is all a big joke at the listener's expense. Full credit though to Colin Davis for tackling this and Nielsen's other symphonies so late in his career. They all require clear and focussed musical direction, and they certainly get it. This Sixth in particular is a work that presents huge challenges to everybody on the podium and particularly the conductor. The players had obviously done their homework too, because the orchestral playing here was ideal – precise, coordinated and focussed, and without any trace of pedantry, nor, I should add, of resentment at the bizarre challenges to which they were being put, often for only obscure musical gains.

No doubt a recording of this performance of the Sixth Symphony will find its way onto the LSO Live label, and given the quality of the playing it could well turn out to be as good as any on the market. The concert is being repeated on 2 June (with Uchida playing Beethoven's First Concerto). That concert will be broadcast live on Radio 3. Do tune in, but don't worry if you're not in time to catch the Haydn.

Gavin Dixon

RPO Beethoven Night Zukerman 11 May 2011

2011-05-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

Beethoven: Pinchas Zukerman (violin and conductor), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, RFH, London, 11.5.11

Beethoven: Egmont Overture

Beethoven: Violin Concerto

Beethoven: Symphony No.5

In all my years of concert going in London, this was the first time I had heard the RPO live. Bizarrely, I hadn't heard Beethoven 5 live either, although of course, I have enjoyed a long (and occasionally passionate) relationship with both the orchestra and the symphony on record.

RPO concerts, at least on the strength of this one experience, aren't like concerts by other London orchestras. The audience is older but more enthusiastic. Of course, with an all-Beethoven programme, what's not to like? They seemed to be equally passionate about Pinchas Zukerman, and both his conducting and his playing occasioned almost apoplectic applause.

So much for the audience, what was the performance like? To be honest, I didn't think much of it. Beethoven sits at the fault line of the standard repertoire; every earlier composer has been more or less appropriated by the period performance movement, while later composers are still firmly in the symphony orchestra repertoire. But both make equal claims to Beethoven. Mutual influence can make that advantageous for both parties, with the period instrument ensembles moving towards more dramatic performances and the symphony orchestras refining what they do with Beethoven's scores.

Not the RPO though, they are still performing Beethoven as if it where Mahler, with a huge string section, and everything played out in grand sweeping gestures. There are one or two advantages to this approach, Beethoven's orchestrations really benefit from the contributions of a double bass section of twelve players. But the playing of the whole orchestra lacked precision, and Beethoven's nimble rhythms were often bogged down just by the sheer weight of the ensemble.

The opening of Egmont was an indicator of what was ahead. The sinister chords of the opening passage were presented with all the corners rounded off. The rest of the overture was certainly weighty, but hardly incisive. The orchestra played with passion but lacked precision, not in their tuning, that was generally OK, but in their ensemble was approximate at best.

After the overture, the podium was quickly moved from the stage, and Zukerman returned with his violin to both play and conduct the Beethoven concerto. The concert was clearly all about Zukerman, his bio in the programme ran to three pages, about six times as much as most soloists or conductors usually get. While he is a relative newcomer to conducting, it is the violin he is best known for. Again, I wasn't particularly impressed with the results. Many concertos can be played fine with the soloist directing the ensemble, and I'm sure there is precedent with this one, but much is lost in the process. The orchestra really needs somebody to shape the phrases, especially in the slow movement, and without one they are reduced to mere backing. Zukerman performs the piece with a gritty, strident tone, which certainly competes with the volume of the orchestra but isn't very pretty. He delivers the phrases in an assertive and deliberate manner, his brow furrowed in concentration and his gaze fixed on the floor. True enough, Beethoven's concerto is one of the heavier in the violin's repertoire, but it needs some lightness and grace as well.

The finale fared better than the first two movements. Zukerman's muscular bowing worked to the benefit of the strong downbeats of the main theme, allowing him to clearly articulate its shape. And the orchestra responded well to his playing here, balancing the weight of these refrains with some real delicacy (at last!) in the quieter interludes.

Zukerman conducted Beethoven's Fifth from a score, which surprised me, especially as he seemed to know it well enough not to need the text. The performance was a mixed bag. To his credit, he didn't exaggerate any of the gestures in the outside movements, keeping the tempos steady and giving just enough dynamic contrast to articulate their structure. But both the opening movement and the finale suffered from some fatal longueurs, with the energy dropping to such and extent in the quieter passages that it often proved almost impossible to revive.

The inner movements worked better. There was an endearing gentleness about the second movement, with both the conductor and orchestra apparently content to allow the variations to gradually play out, one after the other. The third movement too was presented without undue histrionics. In fact, it went too far the other way, and could have done with more drama and punch.

But despite my own reservations, the audience again went wild at the end of the symphony. There are different Beethovens for different audiences I suppose, and Pinchas Zukerman delivers the kind of Beethoven that these listeners respond to. Even so, a little more precision, clarity and interpretive focus would go a long way, and I suspect make this a more satisfying experience for everybody involved.

Gavin Dixon

Not All String Quartets Are The Same: An Interview With The Ligeti Quartet

2011-05-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

The Ligeti Quartet are very rare breed, a young quartet who specialise in contemporary music. Gavin Dixon meets up with them to hear about getting to grips with the toughest music in the repertoire, performing at some unusual venues, and what to pick from the menu when you're eating Japanese.

Photo: Gianluca de Girolamo

When young professional musicians are difficult to track down, that's usually a good sign. The players of the Ligeti Quartet seem to be as busy as any, and it took a good few weeks before we found a time that we could all meet up for an interview. In the end, we decided on late-night meal at a Japanese restaurant after what sounded like a strenuous three-hour rehearsal.

They had been working on a new piece with the Columbian composer Camilo Andrés Méndez San Juan. It sounded like he had been working them hard, but by the end minds were starting to wander.

Richard Jones, the group's viola player tells me "Val [Welbanks the cellist] decided what she was going to have over the course of our rehearsal just now, she kept leaning across and saying "I'm definitely going to have soup". Then ten minutes later it was ginger chicken. Is it still ginger chicken?" And indeed it is. That sounds like a good recommendation so I order the same, udon noodles with ginger chicken. Delicious!

After some detailed discussion of the menu, the conversation turns to music. They are an unusual group; it is rare enough to find a string quartet that specialises in new music, but a young quartet who have their sights set on the most difficult of modern repertoire is all but unheard of. I ask how the group got together, and it turns out to be more complicated than expected. There were a few random meetings and shared gigs here and there, where the players got to know each other. The world of contemporary chamber music is, it seems, a small one, so like minded players are inevitably going to meet.

"Something that brought us together" Richard tells me "was the First String Quartet by Gabriel Prokofiev. He asked us to play it in Oxford. That was the first time we had worked solidly together towards something. That was about a year ago."

Gabriel Prokofiev (Sergei's grandson) is himself a bright young thing on the contemporary classical music circuit, and his music draws on all sorts of influences. His "NONCLASSICAL" club nights are the antithesis of the traditional chamber recital format. Playing in new and interesting settings is an integral part of what the Ligeti Quartet is all about, but his composition is at the more accessible end of the contemporary music spectrum. I ask if the style of his music has dictated the later course of the quartet's activities, and I'm certainly expecting the answer to be "No", given the name they have chosen for themselves.

"We don't want to be pigeon-holed" says Mandhira de Saram, who plays first violin. Val agrees "We don't want to be limited to playing one kind of music." But there is one kind of music that is definitely at the centre of what the do, the modernist repertoire that poses the most difficult technical challenges a chamber performer can face. And those challenges are clearly what get these players going.

"When we do something like the Gubaidulina Third quartet, we feel a real sense of achievement when we play that to an audience and they get something out of it." True enough, Gubaidulina's Third Quartet is a pretty full-on modernist work, but it's not the toughest piece they played, and it becomes clear listening to the discussion of the new piece they have been practising this evening that it is harder still.

However, all four players are keen to stress that their concerts are more than just a contest with the notes, and prospective audience members should be reassured to hear that difficult modernist works only make up one part of their stylistically diverse programmes.

Patrick Dawkins, the second violin player tells me "We want to involve audiences as much as possible and be accessible in everything we do. We don't want to play, for example, a concert of incredibly complex music just for the sake of it." So their repertoire stretches from the gritty modernists, via one or two more established 20^th century names like Kodaly and Ravel, all the way to the minimalism of Reich and Glass.

That brings me round to the group's promising name. How, I ask, did they come to be known as the Ligeti Quartet?

None of the players is quite sure which of them came up with the idea, but the reason for it is clear. Richard says "We were unanimously enthusiastic about learning the Ligeti Quartets, so it seemed like a good name." They have already performed his early Andante and Allegretto (classic Ligeti, I'm told, as conservative as Communist Hungary required, but with premonitions of the distinctive style of his later years), and the First String Quartet is scheduled for the end of June.

So what about the Second Quartet? If ever there was a piece with a fearsome reputation it is this. The première of the work in the early 60s had to be repeatedly postponed because it took the players over a year to learn all the passages with artificial harmonics. This, I suspect, is the reason it hasn't yet made an appearance on this group's programmes. But no, I'm quite wrong, and questions about the Second Quartet don't phase them at all. They are learning the Ligeti quartets in chronological order, and will turn their attentions to the Second towards the end of the year.

That's not to say that they need the help of any composer to do what they do. Improvisation is becoming an increasingly important part of the Ligeti Quartet's activities. At one recent event, at the October Gallery near Russell Square, players from the quartet performed a series of free improvisations inspired by the paintings of Kenji Yoshida. Improvising in this sort of context is, I suggest, a very different activity from performing the works of contemporary composers.

"Not necessarily" says Val "it is about confidence and knowing that, even though one of us might start doing something different, the others can take up the new idea and then go with it."

"Improvising is not that different from normal quartet playing" according to Richard "When you are playing from music, there is a huge amount you do with it that is spontaneous, or that should be. You can't plan a lot of the things that end up happening, so I don't think it is a huge step to go towards improvising."

It turns out that improvisations based on paintings are just one of the ways in which the quartet work with other art forms. They have a concert coming up in September where the ceramicist Marisol Jacquemot will be presenting work inspired by their programme. Collaborations with singers and dancers are also planned, including the première of a new chamber opera at this year's Brighton Festival.

The relationship between visual arts and music brings us round to the question of performance venues. It is clear from the quartet's programme of upcoming events that they do not limit their activities to concert hall and traditional chamber concert settings.

Patrick tells me "The venue is really important, because that is something that can put people off contemporary music. You hear a lot of discussion about why contemporary art is so popular at the moment compared to contemporary music, and I'm sure it is to do with the setting. The concert hall can be an intimidating environment for many people."

Val takes up the theme "Contemporary music is like contemporary art in that how the audience takes it in depends a lot on the setting. You can have a fantastic piece of contemporary art outside and it will be really effective, but you put it in the sterile environment of a museum and it loses its effect. And the traditional concert setting can be much the same."

Audiences seeking a relaxed and friendly atmosphere to hear some new music are likely to find exactly that at the Red Hedgehog in Highgate where the quartet are about to take up a residency. The venue takes its name from Brahms' favourite coffee house, and the idea is to recreate the conviviality and artistic milieu of 19^th century Vienna.

"It's a great little chamber music venue" Mandhira enthuses "very intimate. Works like Gubaidulina's Third Quartet and Camilo's piece are really intimate pieces, and it is nice to be able to play really pianissimo."

"And when everyone is so close" continues Richard "they can see the action and the interaction. With much contemporary music, like the Gubaidulina, it is all about the interaction between the players, so it is great when the audience can see that going on."

Clearly, the Reg Hedgehog is the ideal venue to hear the Ligeti Quaret. Their next concerts at the venue are scheduled for 15 May, 17 July and 25 September. Each event takes place on a Sunday afternoon, and lasts around an hour. To find out about these, and about the quartet's many other upcoming appearances, check out their website: http://www.ligetiquartet.com

Unsuk Chin Total Immersion Day

2011-04-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

Total Immersion: Unsuk Chin
BBC SO, Barbican, London 9.4.11

My first thought when I heard about this day dedicated to the music of Unsuk Chin was that it is about time British audiences got a chance to hear the music of a composer that the Germans have been raving about for years. But on consulting the programme, it seems I am out of the loop; every piece bar one had been played in the UK before. There was one London première and one 'London public première' suggesting that I have just been mixing in the wrong circles and if you know the right people, Chin's music is easily accessible.

For those less privileged, Unsuk Chin is a name that only really relates to Proms programmes, but from those it is clear that she is a major talent with impressive contacts with top class players. The other fact about Chin that rarely goes unstated is that she studied with Ligeti. Apparently their personal relationship was stormy, but all relationships with Ligeti were stormy so that's not necessarily significant. It is tempting to define her music purely through comparison with the great Hungarian master. That would do her a disservice, but his unique soundworld clearly haunts her musical psyche. Like Ligeti, she is drawn to nonsense lyrics and (not coincidentally) also to Lewis Carroll. Her piano etudes (of which we heard two) are a direct continuation of her teacher's. More significantly, textures and effects that are clearly Ligeti trademarks keep turning up in her scores. So, for example, the conclusion of Kala is made up of unsynchronised descending scales in the choir over a sustained pedal in the woodwind – just like the Kyrie from Ligeti's Requiem, Acrostic Wordplay combines phonetic sounds from the vocal soloist with erratic ensemble textures (Aventures), in the Violin Concerto, the harpsichord suddenly bursts in with what sounds like a quotation from Continuum, and in Su (the sheng concerto) there is a point where all the percussionists put down their sticks and start playing harmonicas, just like in Sippal, Dobbel...

But with the exception of these alarming calls from beyond the grave, Chin has a distinctive voice. She is not as regimented as Ligeti, and prefers messy textures – more clouds than clocks. Like Ligeti she writes acoustic music that is informed by prior experiences in the electronic studio, but unlike Ligeti, those experiences also produced electronic works worth listening to. It is difficult to categorise Chin's work in terms of ethnicity or gender, except to say that there is an intrinsic sense of outsideness that prevents her from taking anything in Western Classical culture too seriously.

The day began at the Guildhall School, with a talk from Jonathan Cross and performances by pianist Claire Hammond and violinist Jenna Sherry. Hammond had planned to perform all six of the Etudes, but illness last week prevented here from preparing more than two. So we got a double performance of Double Bind? for violin and electronics instead. It is a fascinating work, which in this interpretation involves the guts from the remote control of a Wii strapped to the bottom of the violin so that the electronic devices can track its movement. Listening to it twice demonstrated how every performance is different in terms of the dynamic and synchronisation of the live electronics. Sadly, it turned out in the talk later on that the composer gets very distressed by that variability and it is one of the reasons she does not work with live electronics on a regular basis.

The London Sinfonietta gave a lunchtime concert that consisted of Gougalon, Acrostic Wordplay and the Double Concerto (only the name borrowed from Ligeti in this case). Gougalon relates to Chin's first and recent visit to China and is almost narrative in its structure and tone painting. Acrostic Wordplay is the piece that made her famous, a song cycle for soprano and ensemble. I think the comparison with Ligeti's Aventures is fair, but this is much gentler music, and perhaps the composer's oriental background shows through in her reluctance to push contrasts or extremes. The Double Concerto for piano and percussion shows this even more clearly. Chin said in the talk later on that she is not very interested in the standard orchestra (when she was asked what standard orchestration was she replied 'Brahms') which was why she always adds so much percussion. Yet she is commissioned to write orchestral music so that is what happens. Similarly, I think, with her many concertos, written at the behest of willing and able collaborators, and not out of any loyalty to the genre. So the relationship between the soloists and the ensemble is not her starting point when it comes to concertos, basically they are all in it together. In the Double Concerto, there is a percussion soloist and a percussionist in the ensemble, but both seem to do about the same amount. All excellently played under Unsuk Chin specialist Stefan Asbury, and with competent soloists. I couldn’t help wondering, though, what is in it for them, all of whom are expected to play exceptionally difficult solo parts, but without any bravura or show.

The screening of the Alice in Wonderland was one of the most insightful aspects of the day, and while it is (as yet) the composer's only opera, it is clearly a statement of intent. The score is powerful and seems energised by the sheer absurdity of the text. Chin sets the story in a surprisingly literal way. The surrealism of the staging is at odds with the basically narrative structure of the music, a disparity explained by the fact that this first production was designed and directed by the Brecht protégé Achim Freyer. Unsuk Chin said that she had initially been shocked by the liberties taken by the director, but now that she has seen a second, more literal, production, she has realised how good the original is. Perhaps the most radical aspect of the show was the filming for video by Ellen Fellman. Freyer positions Alice at the centre of a large square tableau and leaves her there for the entire opera. Obviously, just locking off a camera at the back of the stalls would make for uninteresting viewing, so instead Fellman introduces a range of camera techniques – handheld, moving in and out of focus, splitscreen...It's all very effective and fully in keeping with the spirit of the production. The film is available on DVD (Unitel A0501647) and is well worth a look.

Like the lunchtime concert, the evening event by the BBC SO succeeded largely because of the excellent choice of conductor, the incomparable Ilan Volkov. I had despaired of every seeing him on the London stage again after the news broke of his move to Iceland. But he to is a Chin specialist and is a conductor who really cares about new music, ensuring that any performance under his command is well rehearsed and coordinated.

The event must have been a logistical nightmare for the BBC. Chin's scores require so much percussion that the stage had to be extended forward about six metres. This blocked the fire escapes in the stalls and meant that a large proportion of the audience had to sit upstairs. And two twenty minute intervals were needed to move the percussion instruments around between works. Each time it was worth the wait, but it meant the concert went on until almost 11.

The first piece, Kala is essentially a cantata. The music is interesting and never overly complicated. As much as anything else, the score shows the composer's facility not only with writing for large orchestra, but also choir and soloists. It was a good performance, although neither of the solo singers excelled, probably because the bass was a last minute stand in (sorry, didn't catch the name) and the soprano, Sarah Tynan, is pregnant.

The next piece was Chin's Violin Concerto, for which she won the Grawemeyer Prize. To be honest, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. It is slightly closer to the traditional concerto model than most of her other works in the genre, it is in movements for example. But it is yet another example of a concertante work where the soloist sweats buckets but to no appreciable effect. There are some interesting orchestral effects, but that's not what a violin concerto should be about.

Rocana is Chin's first work for orchestra without soloist, giving a much better excuse for her to explore the potential of the large orchestra. She gave herself (or perhaps her commission gave her) a good twenty minutes to explore all her various ideas around, in this case, the idea of light. The expansive format really works for Chin's music, and it also avoids the frustration of watching a soloist who you can't really hear.

By rights, the final work, Su, a sheng concerto, ought to have been the worst culprit for inaudible solo playing. But no, the orchestration is done very sensitively, and as Chin explained, she wanted the orchestra to act like another sheng. (A sheng, by the way, is a kind of Chinese mouth organ with bamboo pipes arranged vertically.) The soloist was Wu Wei, who played an instrument of his own design, with complex keywork around the pipes to make it fully chromatic. The piece is a triumph, and was the ideal conclusion to the day, genuinely new and interesting, and suggesting all sorts of allegories of East-meets-West by which to neatly summarise the work of this unique composer.

Angela Hewitt, Festival Hall, 29.3.11

2011-03-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

Bach: Partita No.1 in Bb BWV825

Beethoven: Fifteen Variations and a Fugue on an Original Theme in E flat Op.35 (Eroica)

Handel: Suite No.8 in F minor for keyboard HWV433

Brahms: 25 Variations and Fuge on a theme by G F Handel Op.24

Angela Hewitt's demeanour seems at odds with the scale of a Festival Hall solo recital. She modestly takes the stage but is greeted with a rock star welcome, and her graceful relationship with the piano keyboard seems more appropriate to the drawing room than the concert hall. She is a professional, of course, so she is more than capable of living up to the star billing. She is also able to project right tot the back of the hall, while giving everybody present the feeling she is playing just for them.

The programme was well chosen to play to her strengths, particularly that combination she achieves of simplicity of style combined with depth of emotion. That comes across best in the fast contrapuntal music that looks mechanical on paper but which she can mould through infinitely subtle dynamic gradation. The Gigue from the Bach 1^st Partita is a case in point, as is the finale of the Eroica Variations and just about everything in the Handel 8^th Suite. The programme does two of the composers – Beethoven and Brahms – fewer favours, and they both have far better works to their names, although something tells me their reputations are unlikely to suffer.

For listeners like myself who automatically associate the Bach Partitas with the almost neurotic interpretations of Glenn Gould, Angela Hewitt is a breath of fresh air. For Hewitt, the elegance of the music's surface is just as important as what lies beneath. That's not to say that there is no depth here, but rather that she doesn't need to introduce any angst into this music to give it its full emotional impact. Given the clarity of line that typifies her Bach, her playing style is often surprisingly legato. She often gives the impression that her brain is half a beat or so ahead of her hands by making it seem like she is rushing scale or sequence passages. It's all an illusion though; everything is exactly on the beat.

The artistic integrity of Hewitt's approach is demonstrated by the fact that nobody every questions her ambivalence to historical performance practice issues. Her Bach and Handel interpretations rely heavily on long hairpins, which in music written for the harpsichord is absurd. There is plenty of pedalling here too. And then in the Beethoven and Brahms, we are presented with dainty and elegant performances of music by composer/pianists who were anything but. None of this matters, of course, in fact, it only goes to strengthen her Bach. It is an unwritten rule that as a pianist you have to mould Bach's music into your own image, so the more liberties Hewitt takes the stronger her readings become.

Even so, her style is all about subtlety. In the Brahms and the Beethoven, you often get the feeling that the composers are relying on simple oppositions of dynamic or tempo between successive variations to articulate the form. But Hewitt won't let then off that lightly, and insists on continuity across longer spans. This allows her to build up to fairly dramatic climaxes, or wind down to wonderfully tranquil interludes, yet without resorting to extreme dynamics at either end of the spectrum.

She and her Fazioli piano make a great pairing. Where did the RFH get that piano ? I'm sure they usually have a Steinway. Perhaps she brought it with her. It's not as strident as the Steinway though, and it responds beautifully to her touch. Up till tonight, I'd only been familiar with Hewitt's work through recordings, but it is a real delight to watch her fingers literally dancing across the keys. And that playful touch, combined with the roundness of the piano's tone, adds up to a sound that both Beethoven and Brahms would probably have related to, a sound reminiscent of the more intimate voicings of Viennese pianos of the mid 19^th century.

Great as Hewitt's Bach undoubtedly is, the real revelation of this recital for me was the Handel 8^th Suite. Handel's Italian counterpoint is even more closely matched to Hewitt's style than Bach's more Gothic constructions. In the Handel, each of the melodic lines always has a light, melodic feel, and Hewitt is able to make each of them sing, even with three or four voices going on at once. This too is music that a pianist must mould in their own style, and as with the Bach, Hewitt uses every trick in the book: pedalling, gradual dynamic shifts, lingering cadential cadences. But it is done with such subtlety and taste that it is difficult to find fault.

A wonderful concert and a life affirming experience. Angela Hewitt is justly famous for her impressive catalogue of recordings, but live she is even better still.

Gavin Dixon

BRSO Uchida Jansons Beethoven Strauss

2011-03-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Beethoven, Strauss: Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons (conductor), Royal Festival Hall, London, 25.3.11 (Gdn)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor Op.37

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben Op.40

With the possible exception of their colleagues in Cologne, the BRSO are the only radio orchestra in the world who can guarantee to fill a concert hall when they tour. Being a radio orchestra, every step of their history is available for public scrutiny through their copious recordings. But even by their high standards, their recent track record is extraordinary. Mariss Jansons is a conductor who now only works with the world's finest orchestras, but he is somehow able to raise even the highest standards. He is at home in the German orchestral system; the Bavarians give him plenty of rehearsal time but expect world class results. And they get them, time and time again.

But all this is a matter of public record, and UK audiences can find it out for themselves by purchasing any of the BRSO recordings that have recently been released on their own BR Klassik. label. Does hearing them in the flesh live up to the expectations those exceptional recordings create? The answer is a resounding yes. This is a seriously good orchestra, and Jansons is a conductor who will only tackle a work if he has a real vision for how he can make something special with it.

The high standard of the performance was helped by the choice of soloist, Mitsuko Uchida is a rare commodity on the London concert stage, so every appearance is to be savoured. On the face of it, Beethoven's Third Concerto would seem like an unusual choice for her. It's music associated with heavy-handed masculine performers, heroically battling against the forces of the orchestra. But Uchida demonstrates that it needn't be like that. She brings subtly and refinement to every phrase. Her playing has a wonderful coherence, with the melodic line creating a stream of consciousness, with the audience hanging on her every note. That allows her to bring out salient details without them interrupting the flow of the music, curious offbeat accents for example, or exchanges between the hands, where brief motifs at the top of the keyboard are mirrored at the bottom. She also has an amazing ability to take everything down to the quietest imaginable dynamics while still retaining the music's symphonic breadth. It wasn't a perfect performance by any means, there was a glaring wrong note towards the end of the slow movement, and she has a tendency to loose the last half octave or so of runs on the way up to thematic statements. But these are trivial details, and the performance as a whole was a revelation, achieving that mythical status in with the Classical repertoire or a performance that allows you to feel that you've never heard the music before.

By contrast, however well you play Ein Heldenleben it is always going to feel like it has baggage. It is a shame that Jansons chose this work for the orchestra's London visit, as its flabby structure is hardly the vehicle to demonstrate his mastery of large-scale form. Still, at least he didn't bring a Mahler symphony. But for all my reservations about the work, the performance itself was exemplary. The orchestra had already shown what they could do in the Beethoven, with some seriously tight ensemble and a sensitivity to stylistic concerns that brought them about as close as you can get to period performance on modern instruments. The Strauss benefited from all sorts of wonderful attributes that these players could bring. The string section doesn't quite have that chocolaty lushness of the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonics, but their unity of ensemble is almost as good. The woodwind have some really distinctive colours, and the communication between Jansons and his woodwind soloists is something that conductors of London orchestras can only dream of. The low brass are powerful yet controlled, some nice calf-skin sounds from the timpani, and the quality of the horn section is out of this world.

Jansons took a fairly measured approach to the gargantuan score. He treated each of its six sections as if they were individual symphonic movements, each with its own character, tempo and internal logic. He had plenty of fireworks up his sleeve for the battle scene and the other tutti sections. But it was the quieter passages that made this performance really special, the places were he could show off the colours of his woodwinds, or where the communication within the orchestra could be demonstrated though, for example, the interplay of violins and tenor and bass tuba.

Those recent recordings don't lie, this is a world-class orchestra at the very top of their game. London audiences can't really complain about the quantity and standard of what they are presented on a regular basis, but even so, it would be nice to hear this ensemble more often than we do.

Messiaen Bruckner LSO Rattle 7 March 2011

2011-03-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

Messiaen, Bruckner: London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 7.3.1

Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum

Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor

London audiences got a Brucey bonus this evening from Sir Simon Rattle. Having spent the last two weeks here on a residency with the Berlin Philharmonic, he stayed on for a one-off appearance with the LSO. And much as Rattle has moulded the Berlin ensemble to his own artistic aims over the last eleven years, so the Philharmonic has left its mark on him. His efforts to drag the ensemble into the 20^th century (let alone the 21^st) usually involve programming something fairly modern with one of the three Bs. So it was this evening with a first half of acerbic Messiaen tempered by some more digestible Bruckner after the interval.

Rattle is a big fan of Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum; I've heard him conduct it at least once before in London, and possibly even twice. I can't say I share his taste, but the logic behind programming it for this concert is reasonable enough. It is a work that shows off the skills of the LSO's famous woodwind, brass and percussion sections. It is also a good primer for Bruckner 9, sharing as they do a great deal of spiritual and theological (although not aesthetic) common ground. It was given an impressive reading this evening. Despite first appearances, the work is not devoid of sentiment and grace, and in the quieter passages, the woodwind solos in particular, Rattle sculpts the music and creates moments of real beauty. He is also conscious of the work's ritualistic dimension, and in many of the more dour movements he stood before the players, solemnly articulating the beat as if he were officiating at some divine observance.

If I've one complaint, and it is quite a prosaic one, it is that it was just too damned loud. The huge percussion section includes three tam tams, and while Messiaen no doubt encourages the maximum possible volume here, in the small space of the Barbican Hall, it's just too much.

I was hoping for a revelation with Rattle's Bruckner, as I've never been to a performance of a Bruckner symphony with a British conductor that was any good. Perhaps Rattle found himself up against similar prejudices when he first went to Berlin, and listening to this, I could well imagine him standing there all those years ago in front of the Philharmonic and realising that he would have to make his mark. I have my reservations about the interpretation he gave us this evening, but it was certainly distinctive, and there were a number of details where he was clearly making sure his presence was felt. In the first two movements, for example, he added accelerandos to the gradual crescendos in the build ups to climaxes. The result was that the climaxes where often very fast; exciting but hardly monumental. In the first movement, Rattle prioritises melodic continuity over architectural structuring. So there are no pauses between the phrases, but the phrases themselves, especially in the strings, are all elegantly shaped.

The orchestra played well, but not as well as they do for Gergiev. There were some surprising technical problems in the first few minutes. In the build up to the first climax, the wind got ahead of the strings by about half a beat, not something you'd expect from this orchestra. The brass playing was a mixed bag, and the trumpets in particular struggled to maintain the elegance of their tone at the louder dynamics. This could have been something to do with the fact that Philip Cobb, their young star player, was relegated to bumper. It was easy to share his frustration (which he did well to hide) as he sat there in silence listening to the less than impressive sounds coming from his more senior colleagues.

But as with the Messiaen, there were some surprising moments of intimacy in the Bruckner. Some of the quieter passages in the development of the first movement were brought down to a whisper, and the elegance of the string sound served Rattle's purposes well. That was also the saving grace of the Adagio, that feeling in the quieter passages that all the ritual and bombast had been left behind and the that the simple string or woodwind melodies could simply sing out without having to express the weight of their structural significance.

For all his communication with the orchestra, which was obviously intense and immediate, Rattle made sure that he remained the focus of this Bruckner. His interventions in the tempos deprived the work of some of its monumentality, but the pay-off, such as it was, was in the freshness and vitality he brought to some of the individual quieter passages.

Or perhaps I'm being too harsh. I think it is fair to say that, as a general rule, any live performance of Bruckner, like any live performance of Wagner, is destined to fall short of the ideal model you have of the work in your head – unless of course it is conducted by Bernard Haitink. Fortunately, then, the LSO has had the good sense to book Haitink for a performance of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony next month, and the Seventh in June. This evening wasn't bad, but those concerts promise Bruckner interpretation of a completely different order.

Dialogues des Carmelites GSMD

2011-03-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

Dialogues des Carmélites: Students of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Clive Timms (conductor), Silk Street Theatre, GSMD, London, 3.3.11

Marquis de la Force: Koji Terada

Le Chevalier: Charlie Mellor

Blanche: Anna Patalong

Thierry and Deuxième Commissaire: Matthew Wright

Madame de Croissy: Cátia Moreso

Mère Marie de l'Incarnation: Sylvie Bedouelle

Monsieur Javelinot and Le geôlier: Matthew Staff

Madame Lidoine: Sky Ingram

L'Aumônier: Alberto Sousa

Soeur Mathilde: Roisín Walsh

Premier Commissaire: Alexandros Tsilogiannis

Mère Jeanne: Sioned Gwen Davis

Conductor: Clive Timms

Director: Stephen Barlow

Designer: David Farley

Lighting Designer: Declan Randall

Video Designer: Chris Jackson

The final scene of this production of the Carmélites is astonishing. I'll confess that I've only just come out of the performance, but the effect is overwhelming. It is very easy to mess up the execution scene, especially in a low budget production like this, and to assume that the music will do all the work. Well, there is none of that here, they gauge it just right. Without giving too much of the ending away, the guillotine is actually on the stage, which to my mind brings valuable immediacy to the conclusion (I'm in favour of the plastic baby in Jenůfa too) and the sisters are picked off one by one with spotlight beams.

That final scene is the saving grace of this production, and the other staging decisions add up to about an equal number of hits and misses. The work lends itself to student performance; dramatically it punches above its weight, and Poulenc prided himself on the singability of all the roles. Most of the scenes are set in a convent, and there is no point in trying to sex that up too much when you're on a tight budget.

The stage design here centres on a small, square piece of raked staging that can rotate to change the audience's perspective on the action. That works well enough, but it is framed by large baffles in the shape of shards of glass around a broken window (broken, of course by the revolutionaries). These move in an out as the action demands. Perhaps the idea is to create a sense of claustrophobia as they encroach. But they wobble and are quite noisy when they move. Worst of all, they make the convent look like the batcave, an impression the nuns' habits do little to dispel.

All of the major roles are taken by postgraduate students, and all are equal to the task, although only a few excel. The first act poses two casting problems for a young company; the Marquis (Blanche's father) and Madame de Croissy, the old prioress. Both Koji Terada and Cátia Moreso do their best to seem convincing in these senior roles, but both lack credibility. They both also struggle with some of the lower notes and with the occasional long phrases.

This isn't really an opera to stage if you have a strong male cast, so either the Guildhall is doing better for female singers these days or they've got a production of something like Billy Budd lined up for next season. Of the gentlemen, only Charlie Mellor as Le Chevalier (Blanche's brother) seemed underused. He has a fine tenor voice and a real stage presence. The character is quite wet really, but Mellor is able to create the necessary empathy make the part matter.

The nuns all have distinctive voices, which is just as well, as Poulenc does very little musically to distinguish them. Sylvie Bedouelle as Mère Marie has a decisive and focussed tone, not a pretty sound as such, but ideal for the part. Sophie Junker is destined for great things. She sings the role of Soeur Constance beautifully, with compassion and immediacy. I wonder, though, if she would be better off on the recital stage. Her musicality does not fit so easily with the dramatic pretence and I often wished she could just stand and sing to us.

But the star of the show is undoubtedly Anna Patalong as Blanche. She has an astonishingly mature and sophisticated voice. It has richness and timbral complexity that puts all of her colleagues in the shade. She was as close to note perfect as any opera house could require. And she can really act. Remember the name.

Clive Timms conducted with the firm hand that this sort of performance requires, but maintained a sense of chanson flexibility throughout. The playing from the orchestra was a mixed affair. There were some serious ensemble problems in the first act, but most of the orchestra settled into it by the second. The only exception was the brass, who had a very bad night. Surely a major London music college can field a brass section that's better than this. Poulenc keeps them busy, true enough, but that's no excuse for the many splits and the unrepentant sins against intonation that not even the mother superior herself could find it in her heart to absolve.

But on the whole this was a great evening of opera. For those who tire of going to the same old venues to hear the same old singers, I'd heartily recommend a visit to the odd music college production to find out what the stars of tomorrow are up to. Not everything you will meet will be up to the highest standards the London stage has to offer, but some of these singers are clearly destined for great things. And if ever you see an opera billing that includes the name Anna Patalong, make sure you get a ticket.

Gavin Dixon

LSO Brunello Gergiev Shostakovich Mahler

2011-03-03T03:29:00.000-08:00

Shostakovich, Mahler: Mario Brunello (cello), London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 2.3.11 (GDn)

Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No.2

Mahler: Symphony No.9

Whichever way you look at it, Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto is a tough work. It is a long and involved, and most of it is in that inscrutable and attenuated style that typifies his last symphonies. It is a product of the Brezhniev era, and many Russians will tell you that to that to make any sense of the art of those times you have to have been there. I wasn't (thank God), which may explain why listening to the work felt more like a spectator sport than an involving musical experience.

That said, everybody involved in this performance went out of their way to foster empathy between the audience and the music. It was written for Rostropovich, whose name is repeatedly checked in the programme and whose playing is continuously evoked by the playing of soloist Mario Brunello. Like Rostropovich, Brunello is the kind of cellist who can evoke every possible sort of mood and colour from his instrument, and who can instantly establish a rapport with his audience by making everything look easy. It turns out that Brunello consulted Rostropovich at length about this work, and one the most interesting results was the suggestion of a narrative programme based on Gogol's story The Overcoat. Brunello outlines this idea in an essay in the programme, and to be honest he pushes his luck with the level of detail in the analogy. It is a useful handle though, especially given the work's length and wayward form.

Brunello put in a fine performance. It wasn't note perfect, and the first movement in particular suffered from a number of intonation slips. But the spirit of Slava shone through in the combination of graceful lyricism and decisive intonation. For Shostakovich sceptics (myself included), the saving grace of many of the composer's scores are the moments of levity where his self-awareness transforms the dark mood into sardonic irony. There are precious few of those in this score, but when they come, Brunello is sure to make the most of them.

The LSO where on top form throughout the evening, especially the woodwind, who had few moments of respite in either work. Shostakovich often expects loud and decisive gestures from them, and despite the seemingly impossible high dynamics, they retained their composure throughout. Some excellent percussion playing too. This work uses what must be among the largest percussion sections for any concerto, with many passages scored for just the soloist with percussion accompaniment. Or is it rather the soloist under siege from percussion attack? Whichever way, the sounds from the back of the stage where always clear and decisive, yet always precisely controlled.

Listening to late Mahler in the proximity of late Shostakovich illuminates the work of both composers, especially with Gergiev at the helm. Other conductors may emphasise the continuity in Mahler's Ninth Symphony, but Gergiev instead emphasises the uniqueness of each gesture and the various structural oddities that make this work unlike anything else the composer ever wrote. And like Shostakovich in his later years, the ailing Mahler takes the musical vocabulary of his earlier work but rearranges it into a completely new syntax where nothing quite adds up the way it used to.

Gergiev again takes the woodwind section to their limits here, cranking up the dynamics in their various solos and ensembles so that many of their entries seem to come out of nowhere to change the course of the music. In these times of Mahler saturation, it is reassuring to know that Gergiev can always do something new with these well-known scores. You don't expect any pussy-footing around the issue from him, you expect clear, decisive interpretations and plenty of energy. That's exactly what we got here, and as ever, the clear focussed sound of the LSO served his purposes magnificently.

Predictably perhaps, the inner movements benefited most from Gergiev's approach. His incessant driving tempos and dynamic extremes really accentuated the scherzo character of both, and there were many moments of divine inspiration. The opening of the second movement, for example, exploded on the scene with that thundering yet controlled power that is the trademark of Gergiev and his LSO forces. And just as importantly, they managed to maintain the concentration throughout the movement. The coda of the third movement was another Gergiev classic. Where other conductors (and very possibly the score itself) aim for a gradual build-up to the earth shattering cadence, Gergiev reaches that maximum intensity about two minutes before then maintains it right up to the last chord. Excessive perhaps, but utterly convincing.

Microphones were placed around the orchestra for the concert, and in the absence of any Radio 3 or Classic FM logos in the programme, I'm assuming that the Mahler performance is scheduled for inclusion in the LSO Live cycle of Mahler recordings that has been on the go for the last few years. The sheer visceral energy of this performance is going to make it the ideal Ninth for that cycle, and the lightning bolt that they will no-doubt put on the cover has never been so appropriate. However, the outer movements may prove controversial in the long run, because Gergiev ramps up the power there too. That isn't necessarily a problem as most of the music can take it. To see the symphony as two scherzos surrounded by two slow movements diminishes the paradoxical complexity of those outer movements. There is plenty of energy and power in both, and Gergiev makes sure we get every volt of it. I wasn't convinced by the very opening, which lacked the mystery and ambiance that other conductors can find there, but otherwise the approach worked very well. Thankfully, Gergiev had the good sense to pull back for the coda of the last movement, demonstrating that he can do the quiet and the atmospheric just as well when he wants to. Up till then, the evening had been dominated by the woodwind and brass, but in these last few minutes, the strings came into their own with some beautifully controlled pianissimo playing. A magical conclusion, but also a reminder of the delicacy that this orchestra is capable of, but which Gergiev rarely gives them the chance to demonstrate.

Brett Dean Day Wigmore Hall

2011-02-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

Brett Dean Day, various performers, Wigmore Hall, 19.02.11 (GDn)

Brett Dean

Eclipse (for string quartet)

Demons (for solo flute)

Epitaphs (for string quintet)

The Homage Etudes (for solo piano)

Poems and Prayers (for mezzo-soprano and piano)

Voices of Angels (for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano)

Recollections (for mixed ensemble)

Intimate Decisions (for solo viola)

Clara Schumann

Drei Romanzen Op. 21

Romance in A minor Op. posth.

Brahms

String Quintet in G Op. 111

Doric String Quartet; Adam Walker flute; Brett Dean viola; Karen Cargill mezzo-soprano; Jack Liebeck violin; Christopher Murray cello; Enno Senft double bass; Piers Lane piano, Gary Pomeroy viola; Enno Senft double bass; Matthew Hunt clarinet; Richard Watkins horn; Piers Lane piano; Heath Quartet; Sam Walton percussion

The final work in the programme for this day dedicated to the music of Brett Dean was the Brahms Op.111 String Quintet. That was an interesting choice on a number of levels. It is fashionable these days for composers to claim they dislike Brahms. Steve Reich is quoted in this month's Gramophone Magazine as saying that he never wants to hear another note of it. Back in the 80s, Ligeti was commissioned to write a horn trio to commemorate Brahms' 150^th anniversary. He accepted the commission, but made it very clear to everybody involved that the instrumentation was all that he was going to share with his predecessor.

Brett Dean enjoys a healthier relationship with the last great master of chamber music. The most obvious connection is the propensity for lower strings; Brahms was possibly the first to demonstrate that you could add a viola, or a cello, or even both, to a string quartet and still write buoyant, energetic music. Brahms was also a great believer in large-scale chamber music, long works in multiple movements, and with plenty of drama along the way. Lastly, and most importantly, Brahms was a composer for whom the craft of composition really mattered, he had the skill to craft near-perfect chamber works, and he always strove for perfection, creating scores that clearly demonstrate the amount of time and labour that have gone into them.

Brett Dean has an enviable reputation in the UK, but up until now it has rested largely on his orchestral music (and latterly on his opera that London audiences are yearning for), so to hear a day of chamber music from him is a revelation. And like Brahms, he is a composer of real chamber music. Almost all of the works we heard today are long, dramatic and in multiple movements. They are also as beautifully crafted as anything from 19^th century chamber music. I don't want to suggest that Dean's music sounds old fashioned, it doesn't but its qualities are traditional musical qualities, and the scope and emotional engagement of his musical discourse are essentially Romantic.

That said, there is no tonality here, pitch centres sometimes appear as structurally significant starting points or goals. Linearity plays a crucial role in his textures, but he rarely produces anything you would call a melody. Aesthetically, the most traditional aspect of his music is its continuity. He builds up to climaxes, he writes long, usually pianissimo, codas – the structures are not necessarily traditional, but at any given point the music takes its structural responsibilities seriously. Most other contemporary composition sounds scatological by comparison.

The other important feature of Brett Dean's music, and his chamber music in particular, is that he has come to composition from the perspective of a performer (on the viola) and it really shows. The music's linearity speaks of an empathy with each of the performers, and his writing for string instruments is idiomatic in a way that few of his contemporaries can match. Just as the piano repertoire of the 19^th century benefited from the insights of generation after generation of virtuoso-composers, so Brett Dean's scores for sting ensembles bring a performer's insight into the physical and musical possibilities of the instruments.

The day began with a concert of two string ensemble works and a piece for solo flute. The latter, Demons, proved that Dean's genius for idiomatic writing is not limited to strings, but it was the string works that really made their mark. Eclipse for string quartet was written in response to the crisis surrounding refugees attempting to enter Australia by boat in 2001. The music expresses their desperation, and the frustration of the composer himself, watching helplessly the brutality of his own government. It is a moving piece, full of intense emotions, but there is a disparity that seems to be common to many of Dean's works between the abstraction of the music and the specificity of the title and subject matter. His programme notes lay out in some detail the political issues that inspired the work, which remain timely as Australia's immigration policy (let alone Britain’s) has changed little, and certainly not for the better, in the intervening years. But none of this tells you much about the music. Similarly with almost all the works performed today, they often have specific inspirations, but Dean is able to digest all those specifics – musically speaking I mean – and come out with works that almost seem hindered by the titles he attaches to them.

Epitaphs for string quintet was my favourite among the works played today. Each of the four movements is dedicated to a deceased friend of the composer, but celebration is as important as memorial here, and he ensures that the music is never maudlin. The originality of the textures in this piece is incredible. And the concise but never reductive form of each of the movements makes this the epitome of Dean's craft.

The second concert began with Piers Lane playing three piano etudes, each a stylistic homage to a composer, Bach, Kurtág and Janáček respectively. The Bach etude was the best of them, and its robust toccata style was well served by Lane's decisive, muscular touch. This was followed by Poems and Prayers for mezzo and piano, which for me was the one piece in the programme that didn't work. The songs are based on comical rhymes by Michael Leunig, none of which are particularly amusing. Dean makes heavy weather of the settings, and singer Karen Cargill performed them with far too much vibrato and not nearly enough humour. Voices of Angels for violin, viola, cello, bass and piano was a return to form, another large-scale chamber work with plenty of drama, some excellent string writing and a well integrated structure that more than justified the running time.

The highlight of the evening concert was Brett Dean himself performing his Intimate Decisions for solo viola. The generally quiet dynamics of this work belie its virtuosity, with much of the music made up of fast moving passages moving between a wide range of artificial harmonics.

With a few exceptions, most of the performers in each of the concerts were young, but all rose magnificently to the challenges of Dean's music. And he himself was on the stage whenever there was a viola part to play. The Brahms at the end was played with more enthusiasm than control, but better that than the other way round. On the whole I'd judge the event a success, and a good audience turned out for the final concert. His orchestral and operatic reputation precedes him, but it is clear from today's event that Brett Dean also has a major contribution to make to the world of chamber music. Lets hope he can come back in a few years and give us an update.

Gavin Dixon

BBC SO, Sinaisky, Tchaikovsky, Schnittke

2011-02-19T16:39:00.000-08:00

Tchaikovsky, Schnittke: Susan Bickley (mezzo), David Hansen (counter tenor), Robert Murray (tenor), Mark Stone (baritone), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Vassily Sinaisky (conductor), Barbican, London, 18.02.11 (Gdn)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.1

Schnittke: Seid nüchtern und wachet (Faust Cantata)

Tchaikovsky's First Symphony is a great piece and deserves to be heard more. But it is a work that is susceptible to misunderstanding. Its title and the descriptive headings to each of the movements suggest a more genteel and pastoral score than what Tchaikovsky actually writes. This, combined with the fact that the work avoids the doom-laden fate motifs of his later symphonies, can lead to performances that underplay the music's dramatic potential.

Vassily Sinaisky is the man to put this to rights. The performance he conducted this evening made no concession to the composer's youth, nor to the imbalance between the score's monumental ambitions and its slightly lesser achievements. Instead, he conducted it as if it were the Fourth or the Fifth Symphony, making the most of the score's considerable dramatic potential. His tempos were never extreme, but he stretched the dynamic range at both ends, made every build-up and anticipation a real event, and strove throughout for maximum contrast of timbre and mood between the often disparate consecutive passages.

True enough, this did have the effect of highlighting the work's deficiencies. Those long orchestral build-ups don't quite add up in the way they might, or indeed in the way they do in Tchaikovsky’s mature scores, but by aiming for the effects that Tchaikovsky had in mind, rather than making concessions to the score he produced, Sinaisky gave the work the helping hand it needs.

The BBC SO were on top form throughout the evening, and they really shone in the Tchaikovsky. The intense dynamics Sinaisky drew from the strings took them well out of their comfort zone. The string tone in these louder passages was rarely pretty, but that was more than compensated by the sheer visceral intensity they produced. In the inner movements, it was the woodwinds turn to shine, and their various solos and ensembles were all delivered with conviction and lyrical intensity. Even here Sinaisky insisted on driving the music and playing it for maximum dramatic power, and like the strings, the woodwind gave him everything he needed.

If Schnittke's Faust Cantata has suffered undue neglect, and I'd be tempted to suggest it has, that can only be a result of the demands it makes in terms the orchestral forces. Unlike Tchaikovsky's First, this is a mature work and a work that delivers on its considerable ambition. You can't really do it by halves, you need the largest string section you can assemble and the largest choir. It must be a tough work to perform, whilst the discourse is generally tonal, Schnittke has a tendency to veer off into wayward chromaticism mid-phrase, but the forces amassed for this performance really excelled.

Sinaisky again went for maximum dramatic intensity, but where that often put him at odds with the nature and scope of Tchaikovsky's score, it was exactly in accordance with Schnittke's. The BBC Symphony Chorus took a few minutes at the start of the work to get into their stride, but from then on coped magnificently with Schnittke's many and varied demands. The soloists were a diverse group, but that also worked to the music's favour. Mark Stone played Faustus as a dignified but ultimately weak man, perfectly expressed through his controlled and never overpowering baritone. Robert Murray was by turns prosaic and compassionate as the tenor narrator, an appropriately solemn reading and a valuable reminder of the influence of Bach's Passions on the music. The Mephistopheles part is shared between a counter tenor and a mezzo, who this evening were David Hansen and Susan Bickley. On the night, Hansen outshone Bickley, producing a fabulously fierce and intimidating tone. Bickley seemed underpowered by comparison, which was probably be due to her having sung in the (presumably very demanding) première of Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole the previous night.

But otherwise an excellent performance, particularly, from the BBC SO. Both works need good performances to achieve their full effect, and that is exactly what they got here. An evening to remember.

Gavin Dixon

Zinman conducts OAE

2011-02-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

Mendelssohn, Weber, Beethoven: Anthony Pay (clarinet), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, David Zinman (conductor), Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 8.02.11 (Gdn)

Mendelssohn: Overture, Intermezzo and the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Weber: Clarinet Concerto No.1 in F minor

Beethoven: Symphony no.7

Not all orchestras are the same. That's the current motto of the OAE, but nobody has mentioned it to David Zinman, who spent most of this evening trying to get them to sound like his Tonhalle Orchestra. Fortunately, the tension produced was musically productive, there were no compromises here, and every reconciliation between ancient and modern was provisional. There were difficult negotiations, no doubt, but on balance everyone came out a winner.

Zinman seemed surprised by the level of the woodwinds in the mix. He put a great deal of effort into bringing up the sting section to a more predominant position, although his failures in that respect were as interesting as his successes. The Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream set the tone. It is rare to hear such an opulent, Romantic sound from this or any period instrument orchestra. On the whole, it worked very well: the basses were slightly elevated on the platform and underpinned the sound with a real strength, while the other string sections gave Zinman the power he was looking for while retaining that distinctive gut string sound.

It took the orchestra a few minutes to warm to this approach, and the ensemble in the strings was shaky for the first few minutes. Zinman also had trouble conjuring the necessary magic from this music. The woodwind entries at the start were four-square and matter of fact, and the later pianissimo passages were not nearly as convincing as the tuttis. It was great to hear the ophicleide in those louder passages, one of the few brass instruments that is more often seen than heard, so to have it pumping out those bass lines was a real treat.

The Mendelssohn improved as it went on. The Intermezzo, Nocturne and Scherzo were inspired choices, simply for their showcasing of the woodwind and brass soloists, and if Zinman was responsible for this programming choice, then perhaps he understands this orchestra better than I was previously giving his credit for.

Anthony Pay is a fine clarinet soloist, but he doesn't look comfortable standing in front of an orchestra. He squints inquisitively at the audience, then begins shuffling the pages of his music – its not the sort of behaviour you'd expect from Lang Lang. He gave a fabulous performance though, of the Weber First Concerto. Listening to this work on a period instrument, you realise just what the challenges are that the composer sets. It isn't hard to make a pianissimo, round sound on a modern instrument, but here you really have to work at it. The louder notes are more secure on a modern instrument too, and that's a real shame, because Weber goes to great lengths to set up climaxes where the peak is very loud, very high note (C?) on the clarinet, and the timbre this instrument produces up there is clearly very fragile. You feel fortunate to have heard it at all, and after it is over the look on Pay's face is one relief. It makes for compelling listening. And what great orchestration in the Weber, at least as innovative as in the Mendelssohn. The second movement, for example, ends with the solo clarinet accompanied by just the horns, and the climaxes of the finale are garnished with trumpets. Fascinating stuff, and it provides plenty of scope for Zinman to put in an almost operatic reading of the orchestral accompaniment.

Given the obvious aesthetic tensions in the first half, it was almost inevitable that Beethoven 7 would be a hit and miss affair. So what worked and what didn't? Well, the second movement misfired. Zinman started it immediately after the last chord of the opening movement, a smart move in theory for keeping the momentum. The trouble was there was too much momentum, it too fast and too mechanical. He again had trouble with the subtlety of the quieter passages, and with the balance between the woodwind and the brass.

The other three movements worked much better. As with the Mendelssohn Overture, the first movement was carried by the sheer energy of the tuttis. The strings excelled in both the outer movements, giving Zinman the symphonic depth he was looking for, while always retaining that valuable period instrument detail of sound. The finale benefited most from this, it had all the energy of a full sized modern orchestra, but more detail in the string counterpoint than any modern instrument ensemble could ever hope for. Despite Zinman's efforts to suppress the woodwinds, he was surprisingly happy to give the trumpets and timpani their heads. Again, that didn't always help the balance, but in the finale of the Beethoven it was just what was needed – the icing on the cake.

A triumphal conclusion, then, to an otherwise mixed concert. The OAE's policy of hiring guest conductors with little experience of period instruments has come in for surprisingly little criticism. Of course, there is no reason why somebody like David Zinman should know anything less about the Romantic repertoire than the players of an orchestra founded on baroque and classical principles. And they are certainly broadening their horizons with guest conductors of this calibre. I wonder if the influence will work the other way? If the next time you hear a recording of the Tonhalle they are all using gut strings with no vibrato, you'll know whose responsible.

Gavin Dixon

SpongeBob SquarePants Clip-On Tuner

2011-02-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

A press release just reached me about this exciting new product. It assures me that this is "a fantastic little piece of equipment" on the grounds that "SpongeBob spins, ducks and dives, meaning you can view the blue backlit LCD display from any angle."

Even more bizarrely "SpongeBob's teeth light up as you tune each note, instantly letting you know if you're flat or sharp. His two front teeth will light up when you're in tune. The note you're playing is also displayed as a large letter where SpongeBob's tongue would be."

Words fail me, although it wouldn't surprise me if somebody is able to retire on the proceeds.

Eötvös, Liszt, Zemlinsky: LPO, Jurowski

2011-01-27T03:33:00.000-08:00

Eötvös, Liszt, Zemlinsky: Sue Thomas (flute), Nicholas Carpenter (clarinet), Alexander Markovich (piano), Melanie Diener (soprano), Thomas Hampson (baritone), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski, Festival Hall, London 26.01.1

Peter Eötvös: Shadows (UK premiere of orchestral version)

Liszt: Piano Concerto No.2

Zemlinsky: Lyric Symphony

How strange to spend an evening at the Festival Hall and not hear a Mahler symphony. He was there in spirit though, as the guiding voice behind Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, a work so intensely influenced by Das Lied von der Erde that it has no problems standing in as Mahler's 11^th when the man has run out of repertoire.

Programming Zemlinsky as ersatz Mahler suggests an innovative approach to programming Mahler-themed concerts. In fact, the whole programme was very imaginative, and all the works on it, even the Liszt, are rarities. The danger is that coherency is achieved by highlighting the common failures of the works. There are no masterpieces here, which is just as well because any of these pieces would be instantly forgotten if they were programmed with a symphony by Beethoven, or even Mahler.

Vladimir Jurowski tends to get a hard time in the press whenever he programmes any new music, especially if it is from Eastern Europe. He obviously is not letting that phase him, and the concert opened with the UK première of the orchestral version of Peter Eötvös' Shadows. It is a concertante work for flute and clarinet. The stage is divided into symmetrical halves. Each half consists of a string section at the back, the soloist and a row of wind players in front with their backs to the audience. In the middle sit a snare drummer, a celesta and a timpanist. This central continuo group and the soloists have mics, and their sounds are projected through speakers so that they are linked variously to the two groups.

Got all that? The fact that this piece was written by a conductor who specialises in opera is clear from the reliance on spacial effects and musical dramaturgy. The piece is in a series of short movements, only some of which actually use the stage layout for antiphonal effects. It is a fascinating piece, but it never quite achieves anything substantial, which is partly because the individual movements are too short to really make the most of their constituent ideas. There is also a generic problem here; like Ligeti's concertante works, it sets up a dynamic where you expect virtuosity from the soloist supported by ensemble playing from the orchestra. There is little of any of that, but the various alternatives that are proposed are not really explored in depth either.

By following the Eötvös, Liszt's 2^nd Piano Concerto also seemed like a very experimental work. And indeed it is. It is another piece that strains against generic conventions. And like the Eötvös, it always seems to be striving for some innovative alternative, but never quite reaches the solution it is looking for. Alexander Markovich gave a surprisingly analytical performance, as if he wanted to present the score warts and all, without making any excuses for its various anomalies. That’s not to say that there was no emotion, in fact the precision of the reading only served to highlight both the drama and the lyricism. But in general the pedalling was restrained and rubato was only applied in moderation. There were a few slips here and there, usually in the fast runs, but on the whole this was a convincing and engaging reading. For an encore, Markovish treated us to slapstick variations on, if I'm not mistaken, the Skater's Waltz. Bizarre.

Treating Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony as makeshift Mahler doesn't really do the score justice. There are many aspects of the work that Mahler would never think of. Both composers were also conductors, but it is interesting how much more leeway Zemlinsky gives the orchestral players. Perhaps the issue here is that unlike Mahler, Zemlinsky rarely conducted orchestras of the calibre of the Vienna or New York Philharmonics. But the way that Zemlinsky paces his unusual orchestral effects has an important bearing on their success in performance. The way that he layers the orchestral counterpoint in his tuttis is also unlike Mahler, not as sophisticated perhaps, but creating a different flavour of psychological angst.

The star of the symphony was Jurowski, who has this complex score down to a T. However, Thomas Hampson came a close second. One unfortunate legacy of Das Lied on the work is the tendency for the orchestra to drown out the soloists. Nobody really fought that in this performance, but it did mean that both soloists had often to sing at the very top of there dynamic ranges. And Hampson's velvety, luxurious tone is just as secure at that volume as it is in the mezzo forte. One or two of the songs are little low for him, but on the whole it was an excellent performance. Melanie Diener sang the solo part well, but was comprehensively outclassed by Hampson. She had all the notes though, and plenty of drama.

An evening of curiosities then, well performed, especially by the orchestra who, as usual, gave their best for Jurowski. A welcome break from Mahler too, although I see from the programme that the LPO's next meeting with him is only at the end of the week.

Gavin Dixon

(This concert was recorded by the BBC and will be broadcast on Radio 3 at 7pm on 1 February)

LPO Angelich Nézet-Séguin

2011-01-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Angelich piano

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor

Royal Festival Hall, London 19.01.11

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 (Emperor)

Mahler: Symphony No.5

I'm happy to report that there is little sign of Mahler fatigue at the London Philharmonic. It is only five days since they sat on the same stage and performed the Sixth Symphony, a work any compassionate orchestral management would follow with a three week break. But no, here they are with yet another of Mahler's monumental scores, the Fifth, and it's as if last Friday had never happened. Their audience clearly had an appetite for more as well, and like last Friday they again played to a full house.

Of course it is always easy to get bums on seats when there is a Beethoven concerto in the first half, and the Emperor is the most bankable of the lot. Nicholas Angelich is a larger than life pianist, both physically and in the breadth of his interpretation. He is not one for filigree details, and his focus in the Emperor was clearly on the architecture. The piece was paced like a Bruckner symphony, the paragraphs all strung between the mighty climaxes. 'Romantic' would be a polite way to describe Angelich's technique. All the large chords were hammered home, and the runs were all treated with virtuosic flair. The quiet passages were evenly paced, but not relished in quite the same way. In short, it was Beethoven played as Rachmaninov. There is no point in considering issues of authenticity here, instead the passion and the drama was expected to carry the day. It was an effective reading up to a point, although the lack of subtly in the dynamics and phrasing had the effect of making the whole thing slightly monotonous, and the excessive pedal saw off any possibility of nuance. I'm sure there is a place for this sort of Beethoven, although when I expressed that view to my neighbour in the interval, her response was 'Perhaps, but it is not here'.

The Mahler was given a much more satisfying performance. This was my first encounter with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, although I had heard plenty of hype about him when he appeared on the London scene a few years back, and I have to confess I was sceptical that he could live up to the billing. Well, I'm a convert: everything you've read – ok almost everything you've read – about him is true. He manages to combine the old-fashioned conducting virtues of detailed score study and clear baton technique with the fiery passion that characterises the many 30-something conductors who are doing the rounds at the moment. Just watching him conduct is an amazing experience. He really lives the music, and in the case of a Mahler symphony that means putting in an athletic performance. He seems to conduct with every available extremity: arms, head, body, you name it. But, crucially, he also gives a clear beat and never forgets a cue.

If there is a downside to this hyperactive lead from the podium, it is a slight tendency to over-control. The first two movements were given with an electric reading, and there was never a moment to linger. But there are occasions when a bit of lingering is called for. Mahler carefully prepares each of his cataclysmic climaxes, and usually follows each with a passage of post-apocalyptic calm. But each time, Nézet-Séguin begins to look ahead as soon as the climax has past. The valuable momentum and coherency is maintained, but at a cost.

The grand exception was the scherzo. Nézet-Séguin began it in typically frenetic fashion, conducting in three at a tempo that most conductors would be happy to lead in a one. So far so dictatorial. But then came the pizzicato passage, and it opened up a whole new facet to Nézet-Séguin's Mahler. At last he was living for the moment, giving pregnant pauses between the phrases, gradually accelerating into phrases, and shaping everything with a real warmth.

The Adagietto was similarly well-judged. It started briskly but that was only a passing fad, and he kept the tempos satisfyingly elastic throughout. This was another case of intestine control from the podium, but the fact the movement is scored for strings meant that he could treat the whole section as if it were a single instrument.

A rousing finale to finish the programme off. It came close to finishing the brass players off as well. They were the only section who showed any fatigue from their two Mahler symphonies is a week schedule. There were one or two splits, but they also often had a course tone and poor balance. You really can't blame them though, considering the punishing schedule. So what's next for them? The Franck Symphony in D minor on Sunday! Somebody should call the union.

LPO, Kavakos, Wildner: Szymanowski, Mahler

2011-01-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

Szymanowski, Mahler: Leonidas Kavakos, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Johannes Wildner, Royal Festival Hall, London, 14.01.11

Szymanowski: Violin Concerto no.2

Mahler: Symphony No.6

Leonidas Kavakos violin

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Johannes Wildner conductor

According to the programme, Jaap van Zweden had intended to include the third hammer blow of fate in the finale of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. That may explain why he ended up 'indisposed' for the event (although flu was the official explanation), to be replaced by Johannes Wildner. And guess what, Wildner left it out! Well, there's no point in tempting the fates, especially when they've already struck once. To Wildner's credit, this was the only aspect of the concert that he played safe, and given that he was a last minute stand-in, he made an impressive job of putting his own stamp on the symphony.

But before that came Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto, and how Wildner could pick up the baton and conduct that at a moment's notice I'll never know. It is a virtuoso piece for everybody, soloist, orchestra and conductor alike. In many ways, it is the ideal piece for Leonidas Kavakos. He is a player with a lot of sound. Or rather, he is a player who can project across a large orchestra without reducing the sophistication or the timbral variety of his sound. Szymanowski asks a lot of the soloist, there are jumps all around the instrument's range, extended passages of double stopping, instant changes of tempo and mood, and above all an orchestral part that almost always seems to be fighting against the violin. Kavakos handled all these challenges expertly, and produced a performance that could win round even the most sceptical of Szymanowski sceptics. The music flirts constantly with playing styles that evoke folk fiddling, and in less disciplined hands that could sound trite in the extreme. But Kavakos knows where to find the real music in this score, and he has an uncanny ability to make almost every phrase sound as compositionally proficient as Bartok. It's not, of course, but that's easy to forget when you're immersed in that warm rich string sound. And on one final note of praise, the intonation was perfect throughout, which given the long, extended passages of double stopping in strange registers is an astonishing achievement.

Although Jaap van Zweden was not there in body, his presence was felt in the programme for the evening, and the coupling of the Szymanowski Concerto with Mahler's Sixth Symphony was an inspired move. Both are based on lush, saturated textures from a huge orchestra, but the concerto is more modest in scope, providing the ideal warm up for the main event.

Quite how much time Wildner had had in front of the orchestra before the concert was difficult to say. His last minute substitution showed only in a few moments of uncertainty. The last few bars of the Szymanowski, for example, didn't quite have the punch that the score clearly intended, and there were a few moments in the inner movements of the symphony where the wind soloists were clearly expecting a change of tempo that didn't happen. But apart from that, the conductor really made the concert, and the symphony in particular, his own. The greatest strength of his interpretation was the relentless drive of the outer movements. The first movement was slightly faster than usual, and with slightly less rubato, making the whole experience appropriately harrowing. The scherzo came second, and achieved some impressive aggression though its switching mercilessly between the driving rhythms and the calm interludes. If I've one criticism of Wildner's reading, it is his lack of a middle ground between the two. The loud, insistent music in the outer movements was great, as were the calm interludes, but Mahler does write transitions between them, they usually only last a few bars, but Wildner steam rollered most of them in order to present the following section as a surprise. They are shock tactics basically, and after a while it loses its impact.

All was forgiven though in the finale, which was presented with all the intensity you could want. The orchestra excelled themselves here, ensuring clarity in every tutti texture, no matter how dense or heavily scored. Special mention should go to the soloists on: tuba, horn, cor anglais (in the third movement), and violin, all of whom excelled. I wasn't too impressed with the sound of the hammer blows, and perhaps the LPO's piece of staging was designed with the old Festival Hall acoustic in mind. The livelier, more resonant sound in the hall now really needs something with more punch.

An impressive evening though, and with an unlikely star at the podium. Last minute stand-ins are an all too regular occurrence for every orchestra, but to find a man at a few hours notice willing and able to conduct a programme like this, and to make such an impressive job of it, that's a very rare achievement indeed.

Gavin Dixon

Annettes DaschSalon

2011-01-07T05:09:00.000-08:00

From this side of the channel, Germany seems like a country where musical culture is divided categorically between art and entertainment, the Ernst and the Unterhaltung. What then to make of 'Annettes DaschSalon'? Its a primetime chatshow, broadcast from Berlin, and hosted by one of the biggest names in German opera, the soprano Annette Dasch.

From the frustratingly short clips and trailers on the internet, the whole thing seems to be light as a feather. There are some crossover type slots, which usually involve Dasch singing with pop stars and often playing the guitar. But on the whole, the guest list is mainly classical: Thomas Quasthoff, the horn section of the Berlin Philharmonic, Juliane Banse, even Daniel Hope (whose German is more than sufficient for his appearance on the couch).

Judging by Dasch's opera commitments, this is strictly a part-time engagement. And anybody who heard her Elsa at Bayreuth last year (even just on the radio) will be keen that it stays that way – even by their standards she is phenomenal Wagnerian soprano.

Are their any lessons here for those trying to find a wider audience for opera in the UK? Sadly, I suspect not. There is a respect for classical music in Germany that just isn't matched in the UK, a sense of common ownership that stretches even to those who never listen to it. That's something the Berlin TV execs can always rely on, while the BBC continue to be forced to disguise their classical programming is something else.

Watch some highlights from the show here.

Alfred Schlee: music publisher as hero?

2011-01-04T05:06:00.000-08:00

We usually think of music publishers as functionaries at best. They are facilitators rather than creators, and they occupy the one role in the creation of new music that is seemingly motivated by finance rather than art. All that is grossly unfair, of course, and role of music publishers in distributing and disseminating new music is all too easily overlooked.

Even so, the wartime activities of Alfred Schlee are truly extraordinary and deserve to be better known. Schlee found himself at the head of Universal Edition, Austria's leading new music publisher at the Anshluss in 1938. Difficult times for all concerned, but UE found themselves in deeper trouble than most, as the Nazis were in the process of banning a large section of the UE roster. Taking Milhaud and Krenek out of circulation was one thing, but banning performances of Mahler was really going to have an impact on the company's bottom line. Worse still, the Nazis wanted UE in German hands, so Goering personally oversaw its takeover by Schott and later Peters.

So what did Schlee do while all this was going on? Well, he didn't panic. He was a personal friend of the mayor of Vienna, who, while a member of the Nazi party, was also an Austrian nationalist. The mayor made sure that the Gestapo was kept at arm's length while Schlee did what he had to do. He began salting away all the company's entarten scores – which included large chunks of the output of Schoenberg and Weill – pretty much anywhere he could think of. Apparently the organs of village churches around Austria were filled with the manuscripts, as was Schlee's own house.

Then there was Webern. The ascetic composer did himself no favours in terms of the financial viability of his lifestyle, but Schlee ensured him an income throughout the war by employing him as an arranger and reader.

After the war, UE was re-established as an Austrian company, and then began the second heroic phase of Schlee's career. From the late 40s onwards, the company, under Schlee's directorship became a heaven for Soviet bloc composers who were having a hard time at home. So names like Ligeti, Kurtag, Schnittke and Denisov appeared on the international scene thanks largely to his single-handed support.

Alfred Schlee's name is known today mainly through the many works that were written in 1991 to mark his 90^th birthday. The composers included Messiaen, Schnittke, Kurtag and Birtwistle – quite a line-up.

He was by all accounts a very private man. Pierre Boulez, another high-profile signing to UE, said "If you want to know something about him, you have to ask someone else." That privacy might explain why there is no photograph of him to be found on the internet. There is a good, if frustratingly brief, obituary here though:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituaries-alfred-schlee-1082281.html

There aren't many publishers in the history of music who would warrant the biography treatment, but Alfred Schlee is surely the exception.

Norrington conducts VW Elgar Holst

2010-12-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Holst: Gautier Capuçon, Philharmonia, Philharmonia Voices, Roger Norrington, Royal Festival Hall, London, 14.12.2010 (Gdn)

Vaughan Williams: Overture, The Wasps

Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85

Holst: The Planets Op.32

In these days of precocious 30-something conductors, Roger Norrington seems like a bastion of old school virtues. Where his younger Eastern European colleagues often seem willing to sacrifice almost any musical virtue in the cause of excitement and energy, Norrington takes a broader view. He's not averse to excitement – just listen to him getting carried away in the Mars movement of The Planets – but he is also a connoisseur of instrumental colour, of unusual balance (especially Holst's many bottom-heavy textures) and of smouldering, slow burning passion.

Then there is the vibrato issue. Norrington is famously of the opinion that any orchestral music before Gurrelieder should be played without string vibrato. All three of the British composers represented in this programme were active when Schoenberg was slowly crafting his early masterpiece, so they are all borderline cases. And while this was not a vibrato-free performance, there was much less of it from the strings than you'd usually expect. In my personal opinion, Norrington is quite right about the issue of vibrato, not that it should be banned at all costs, but rather that it has become a crutch for orchestral string sections, a means of projecting the sound while hiding any minor tuning issues. Norrington leads by example, and as this concert showed, you can find plenty of colour and excitement in an orchestral string sound without habitual vibrato. There was some vibrato in the solo lines, although even here it was usually kept to a minimum.

The concert opened with Vaughan Williams' The Wasps. Its not a very exciting overture, although the introduction is quite distinctive. Norrington started as he meant to go on, with tight control of the orchestra by means of a clearly stated beat throughout. The result was regimented but with plenty of poetry and great playing from the woodwind. The coda was a bit ragged but otherwise a fine opener.

Gautier Capuçon and Roger Norrington are very different musicians, and the tensions between them were evident throughout the Elgar. Capuçon plays with full-blooded Latin passion. His rubato is pronounced but usually tasteful, while his dynamics seem to be always exaggerated and not very tasteful at all. The notes are all there, apart from a few slips in the high runs in the first movement that seem to catch most cellists out, so any complaints I might have probably just come down to matters of taste.

Then there is his vibrato. There was hardly a single note that was spared this slow, pronounced wobble that seemed to stretch to about a quarter tone. My first thought was that he was doing it to annoy Norrington. Even if he wasn't, I can't imagine the conductor was pleased, especially considering the disciplined tone he was managing to draw from the orchestra. The string section of the orchestra had been cut right down for the Elgar, which given the sheer weight (vibrato-assisted of course) of the soloist's tone seemed extreme, and there were many occasions when the soloist completely drowned out the ensemble, a rare occurrence in any concerto. But it turned out that Capuçon's excesses were largely confined to the first movement. He played the semiquavers of the scherzo straight, put his cantabile style to good use in the largo and put some real drive into the finale. I got the impression that Norrington wanted to take the finale slower, so there was tension here as well between the soloist and the orchestra, but they seemed to have reached some kind of agreement by the end. Then Capuçon wholly redeemed himself with a stunning encore, Saint-Saëns' Swan with harp accompaniment – delicate, tasteful...perfect.

Along with his vibrato intervention, Norrington also gave a nod to early 20^th century British performance practise by placing the 2^nd violins on the right. He also put the basses along the back behind the horns, which is an American rather than British idea I understand. They certainly gave some punch from up there, especially with the help of what remains of the RFH organ. In The Planets, Mars and Jupiter were played at a volume I don't think I have ever heard from the Philharmonia before. But Norrington got the balance just right between energy and order. The Philharmonia strings proved throughout that they have no problems with tuning, even without the help of vibrato. But the real stars of the show were the woodwind. Karen Geoghegan made an unexpected appearance as guest principal bassoon, and while she didn't have many solos to speak of, she certainly led a tight section. It was great to hear the bass oboe too (I see Jane Evans is listed as guest principal bass oboe – how remiss of the Philharmonia not to have a regular bass oboist!).

Just once or twice I felt that Norrington's mature, balanced approach lacked passion, and it was usually in the quieter movements of the Holst. Venus was good (excellent horn solo) but was let down by some poor ensemble in the central section. Saturn was too fast, at least for my taste, although the finely judged relationships between the internal tempos helped it to stay together. And Neptune was, well it just wasn't mystical enough, just a bit too precise and calculated. A slight let down then, at the end of a concert that was otherwise a revelation in the renewing powers of performance styles of days gone by.

Gavin Dixon

Andris Nelsons conducts Beethoven, Haydn, Gruber and Strauss

2010-12-08T06:09:00.000-08:00

Beethoven, Haydn, Gruber, R. Strauss: Håken Hardenberger (trumpet), Philharmonia Orchestra, Andris Nelsons (conductor), Royal Festival Hall, London, 7.12.10 (GDn)

Beethoven: Overture, Leonore No.3, Op.72a

Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E flat, Hob. Vlle: 1

Gruber: Three Mob Pieces

R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben Op.40

An impressive reputation precedes Andris Nelsons. His two seasons in Birmingham have met with near universal acclaim, and he now seems to be in demand in almost every corner of Europe. On the strength of this evening's performance, he is clearly a conductor who can find excitement in almost any repertoire. His ability to tap into the dramatic potential of the music is uncanny, and is no doubt a result of his many years experience in the opera pit.

Beethoven's Leonore 3 is the ideal vehicle for Nelsons operatic powers. He whips the piece up into a whirlwind, with glistening strings and strident wind solos. But the reading lacked clarity, partly perhaps due to the sheer size of the orchestra, but also because of almost continuous problems of coordination. Ensemble was an issue in all three works in this concert, but nowhere more so than here. Nelsons seemed unable to synchronise the winds and the strings. His cues to the soloists may not have been clear enough, or perhaps he was so concerned to get drama out of the strings that the wind entries passed him by.

Håken Hardenberger and Nelsons are polar opposites in many respects. Nelsons is a relative newcomer to the concert platform and often looks awkward and out of place in the limelight. Hardenberger, by contrast, relishes the attention and swaggers around like he owns the stage. Curiously, though, he is musically much more grounded than Nelsons. And details really matter. Every note he plays is cleanly articulated. In fact, he plays every note of the Haydn with a very hard tongue, which makes for maximum clarity but isn't really necessary. Nelsons remained on form with the Haydn, finding impressive drama in a score that is hardly known for excitement in its orchestral parts.

The Haydn concerto isn't much of a vehicle for Hardenberger's diverse skills, so he appended it with an encore that was about the same length; 'Three Mob Pieces' by H.K. Gruber. They are three jazzy character pieces, conservative in style and not particularly exiting on their own merits. Still, it was good to hear another side to Hardenberger's art, and the nonchalant, throwaway character of the pieces accorded well with his stage presence.

Despite his tender age, Nelsons must have gotten through a large chunk of the standard orchestral repertoire with orchestras around Europe. Even so, he is clearly most at home with the late Romantic Germans, and the Heldenleben that concluded the concert showed just what he is capable of. As with the first half, drama outweighed detail, but in Strauss' tone poems that isn't necessarily a problem. The sheer breadth of the opulent opening section promised impressive things ahead. And while there were again some issues of ensemble, the orchestra generally rose to the challenges. The brass and percussion sections delivered everything Nelsons needed in terms of power and attack. The quieter music was less impressive, or rather less passionate. The lush string melodies didn't quite swell and swoon as they might, and there was certainly room for a bit more rubato. Mrs Strauss (ie the solo violin) was on feisty form, again not an overly passionate reading, and one that made more of the acerbic episodes than the tender ones.

Some excellent Strauss then, but in a programme that never quite found its focus. Accusations of poor ensemble must seem strange to anybody who has heard Nelsons perform with the CBSO, or indeed the recording of his Lohengrin at Bayreuth this year. And the orchestra has no track record of such problems with other conductors. Perhaps a lack of rehearsal time is to blame, or maybe orchestra and conductor need a little more time to get to know each other. He is clearly a distinctive voice on the today's orchestral scene, but a little more familiarity between himself and his players is obviously necessary if he is to produce great things.

Gavin Dixon

Philip Glass gets the South Park Treatment

2010-11-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

I'm annoyed I missed this episode of South Park – by 13 years as it turns out. It is about a non-denominational school Christmas play called "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo", which turns into an avant garde ballet when Glass is drafted in to write the music. Classic.

Kurtág Kafka-Fragments: Dawn Upshaw, Peter Sellars

2010-11-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

Kurtág: Dawn Upshaw, Geoff Nuttall, Barbican Hall, London 11.11.10 (Gdn)

György Kurtág: Kafka-Fragments

Dawn Upshaw soprano

Geoff Nuttall violin

Peter Sellars director

I wonder what György Kurtág makes of Peter Sellars' 'interpretation' of his music. His feelings are probably similar to those of his compatriot Ligeti, whose reaction to Sellars' production of Le Grand Macabre consisted of a desperate attempt to get the show pulled, followed by a long sulk in the sound truck lasting the full length of the opening night performance. But that's not Kurtág's style, he is much more mild mannered and tends to avoid confrontation. When he dislikes a performer's reading of his music, he always says so, but he is also noble enough to respect another artists' viewpoint of the work he has created. If Kurtág ever met Sellars to discuss this project I can't imaging he got a word in edgeways. The experience of watching this performance is very similar: the music is diminutive and introverted yet perfectly formed, while the staging is bombastic and egotistical, with hundreds of visual ideas thrown at the music in the hope that one or two might make an impression.

'Kafka-Fragments' is a seminal Kurtág score. Its structure is abstract but tight, consisting of 40 short movements, each setting a Kafka aphorism. The scoring, at least in Kurtág's conception, is for soprano and violin, each an equal partner in the exploration of Kafka's ideas. Both parts are technically complex, although the musical vocabulary is limited. There is no sprechgesang in the soprano part, for example, and the most radical aspect of the violin writing is the detuning of the strings as the music plays. Emotionally, the music follows the constrained expressionism of Kafka's texts. There is everything here from sensual ecstasy to utter despair and everything in between, but the expression is always constrained, and the claustrophobia of Kafka's world accords well with Kurtág's solitary artistic path.

Peter Sellers is on a very different path. His currency is big ideas, complex narrative structures and metaphor-rich theatrical settings. His context for the Kafka-Fragments is a woman doing household chores and (presumably) exploring notions of transcendence through the radical contrast between her situation and the attenuated mysticism of Kafka's disjointed thoughts. It is a brave approach in some ways, but it really doesn't work. The violence it does to Kurtág's delicate score is far in excess of any insights it might offer, and the imposition of the mundane into an artistic environment that is anything but is irrelevant at best. One of the great things about Kurtág's score is the way that the singer and the violinist perform as equals. Here though, the acting singer automatically subordinates the violinist to the role of accompaniment. And Sellers' response to Kafka's words is meagre in comparison to Kurtág's; concrete statements in the text are acted out pedantically, while abstract phrases are all but ignored.

Musically, the performance was good, but it really felt like an American reading of a central European score. Both Upshaw and Nuttall produce big, bold sounds, which are often loud but rarely intense. That isn't really a problem, Kurtág isn't above using the shock factor so a bit of volume can help hammer his message home. And he's hardly a Romantic, so a little emotional distancing on the part of the players is no bad thing. There is plenty of musical variety in their performances, and Nuttall in particular performs the score (which he reads from a digital display – the Americans seem to be ahead of us in this long-overdue technology) with all the variety of timbre and articulation it needs.

If this production has anything to tell us about the Kafka-Fragments, perhaps it lies in the fact that Sellers' tangential relationship with Kurtág mirrors Kurtág's tangential relationship with Kafka. All three are real individuals whose work seems to demand autonomy. Bringing them together is going to produce fireworks, and at least one of them is going to come off the worse for it. Peter Sellers is clearly a man who likes challenges, and he certainly finds one in the Kafka-Fragments, a score actively opposed to the possibility of dramatic staging. But just because it is a challenge, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is worth doing.

Gavin Dixon

Crumb and Cashian at Kings Place 1 November 2010

2010-11-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

Crumb, Cashian: CHROMA Ensemble, Hall Two, Kings Place, 1.11.10 (GDn)

George Crumb: Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale)

Philip Cashian: Aquila (World premiere)

George Crumb: Eleven Echoes of Autumn

Philip Cashian: Caprichos

Crumb and Cashian have little in common as composers, and programming their works together makes for pretty extreme contrasts. So extreme, in fact that the combination does little to elucidate either man's work. It does tell us a lot about the CHROMA Ensemble though. The two composers are clearly among their favourites, and both composers create music that plays to the ensemble's strengths. They are great at emphasising the drama in music that uses just a few gestures to create its effect. They are also good at finding all the subtle gradations between homogeneous textures and wildly divergent counterpoint. In general though, neither composer deals in subtleties, and the wild excesses of each – the amplified minutiae of Crumb and the extreme syncopations of Cashian's rhythms – were all presented here with confidence and precision.

George Crumb's 'Voice of the Whale' may be almost forty years old but it is still a radical work. When the performers walk on in masks, it is a startling gesture in itself. And all the gestures that follow, both musical and non-musical are in a similar vein. The instruments, flute, cello and piano, are amplified throughout, but there is no further electronic distortion. The work has a broad ecological theme and the composer's intention with both the masks and the microphones is to distance the performers from the audience, emphasising the inhuman dimensions of the natural phenomenon from which it takes inspiration.

'Eleven Echoes of Autumn' pre-dates 'Voice of the Whale' but uses many of the same ideas. The instruments are again amplified throughout, giving the concept of echoes a very literal dimension. There is plenty going on inside the lid of the piano in both the Crumb works, and the effect of these often very quiet effects, brushing or hitting the strings or the soundboard, more the justifies the amplification. The piece isn't quite in the same league as its successor, but it has plenty of merits of its own. The effect of the violinist playing a melody in artificial harmonics whilst simultaneously whistling it in unison is wonderful, as is the sound of the clarinet and alto flute playing loud glissandos into the case of the piano, then interacting with the reverberation from the strings.

Philip Cashian, in marked contrast to George Crumb, is a composer whose work is articulated primarily through rhythm. His writing for groups of instruments comes in two broad categories: textural diversity where each instrument is essentially playing a different kind of music, and rhythmic unison, where a single syncopated rhythm unites the group. And what syncopation! Offbeats are the rule rather than the exception. To keep the ensemble together one of the players (the clarinettist) is often required to beat time, revealing an unchanging 4/4 meter. But this is surely just for the convenience of the notation; there is nothing foursquare about the results.

Both Cashian works, 'Aquila' of which this was the première and 'Caprichos' were written for this ensemble, and no doubt with the strengths of the present players in mind. The fine bass clarinet playing of Stuart King is one resource of the group that the composer exploits to great effect. The agility of the bass clarinet in its lower register is a hallmark of both of these works, as is the ingenious combination of bass clarinet and cello. In 'Aquila' they play for a time in rhythmic unison but at the opposite ends of their ranges, the clarinet at the bottom and the cello up in the harmonics, an elegant and unusual combination.

Hall Two at Kings Place is essentially a multi-purpose studio space, and its acoustical properties are negligible compared to those of Hall One. That said, the amplified sounds of the Crumb works came over well in this environment, which was presumably designed with electrically amplified sounds in mind. The air conditioning makes a continuous, if very quiet, noise. That wouldn't be a problem in most music, but in 'Eleven Echoes', which often goes down to minuscule dynamics, it can be a distraction. The Cashian works survive in this environment simply by virtue of the proximity of the players to the audience, giving a sense of immediacy to his very direct musical gestures. 'Caprichos' is a great work to close a concert, a tour de force both in compositional and performance terms. The commission for 'Aquila' was no doubt a result of the success of this earlier composition, and Cashian has wisely chosen to combine his tried and tested syncopations with some new instrumental combinations. If it doesn't work quite as well, that says more about the musical proficiency of the former piece than of any deficiencies in the latter.

Gavin Dixon