Prom 28 BCMG Knussen Bedford Abrahamsen Benjamin

The BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) came to late night Prom 28, with a programme of Hans Abrahamsen, Luke Bedford, Oliver Knussen and George Benjamin. (photo credit Pepe Araneda)

Hans Abrahamsen's Wald (2008-9) is a joint commission between the BBC and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble, The title hadn't really registered on me before listening, but my first impressions were of dense textures, multiple layers of strange, half-heard sounds, which keep moving forward, into "clearings" of greater lightness. Like exploring a mysterious woodland, where sights are half-glimpsed in shadows, and invisible creatures teem in the undergrowth. Percussion on the right, distanced from the rest of orchestra, clustered around piano and marimba. Layers on layers. A primeval past is evoked by natural horns, and the creatures of the forest by scuttling, scattering techniques on strings and low winds. Read the programme notes by Julian Anderson for more.

"Music is pictures of music", says Abrahamsen. "That is a strong underlying element in my world of ideas when I compose - as is the fictional aspect that one moves around in an imaginary space of music. What one hears is pictures - basically, music is already there." Wald is a beautiful work, which goes far beyond literal representation. It works when you enter the mood, experiencing it on its own terms.

I've written about Abrahamsen's Schnee, which is also very organic, the layers building up like falling snow, muffling and changing what is heard. A good friend thinks it's the most boring piece ever, "like watching snow fall". So the atmosphere doesn't work for everyone, but for me it's like Buddhist prayer, very purifying. It's out on CD now.

Luke Bedford's another exceptionally interesting composer/ LOTS about him on this site, follow the labels and search! Or voit tout en aventure bowled me over when I first heard it in 2006, for it is a truly remarkable piece, one of the most voice-friendly works in the repertoire. Claire Booth looks about 8 months pregnant now, and I worried about the strain on her, but Bedford's lines move like speech, rising and falling  naturally. Crescendi build up gently, so Booth can breathe effortlessly  into the words. Or voit tout en aventure is already something of a perennial, and Booth's been singing it with BCMG from its premiere. This, too, is on CD, an essential, I think. Bedford's written an opera, scheduled for 2011.

More layers with Oliver Knussen's Two Organa (1994). Only six minutes in total, but densely constructeed. The first part uses only white notes, dizzying polyphonic fireworks over a deeper pulse of plainchant. The second adds a secret puzzle: Schoenberg's name is spelt in pitches, concealed in joyous cross-harmonies.

George Benjamin was due to conduct this Prom with his Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra. Although he wasn't there, this was ironically a fitting tribute to Benjamin's bereavement, for one of these inventions was written in memoriam of Olivier Messaien, Benjamin's creative father figure. It quickly segues into the longer, elegaic Lento titled Alexander Goehr, who is most certainly still alive, but the overall thrust feels dignified, respect warmed by love.

I was very impressed by Ilan Volkov, called in at short notice. When he conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, it often felt like something was being held back.  I wonder now that it was the orchestra itself, who may be happier with one of their own. Volkov is young, eclectic and an outsider. He deserves an orchestra that appreciates him. He's still principal guest conductor at BBCSSO, but hopefully, he'll find a niche in London or in mainland Europe.

Niccolò Castiglioni Knussen London Sinfonietta Julian Anderson

Bombarded with the cliché that modern music isn't "emotional", people have learned to think in easy boxes, instead of really listening. (There's even humour in Schoenberg, whose favourite composer was Brahms.) Castiglioni is yet more proof that a capacity for wit lies in the mind!

Niccolò Castiglioni is uncompromisingly avant garde, but his music is so vivacious, it sparkles. It's a pity Alfred Brendel wasn't at last night's concert when Oliver Knussen conducted Castiglioni Revisted with the London Sinfonietta at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Castiglioni (1932-1996) was a virtuoso pianist, incorporating the piano into most of his music. Brendel's known for his dry humour.. He's giving a talk at Aldeburgh in June about humour in classical music.

Oliver Knussen gets Castiglioni. The man who wrote Higglety Pigglety Pop! and Where the Wild Things Are has conducted Castiglioni many times, most recently in 2008. This concert was even better, showcasing some of Castiglioni's more ambitious works for chamber orchestra and voice.

Capriccio (1991) started with manic frenzy, the pianist (Ian Brown) playing so presto that it seemed the notes were jammed in the keys at the extreme right, straining to go further than the poor machine could cope with. Then suddenly Castiglioni shifts into calmer waters, lyrically beautiful bassoon and bass, before returning to a con brio finale, where all instruments frolic together. The piano, however, has the last word, Brown's hands crossing each other, playing even more gleefully than before.

In 1957, The Diaries of Anne Frank were still relatively "new", so Castiglioni's Elegia (in memoria di Anne Frank) feels immediate, and first person. He seems to enter the mind of the girl forced to communicate in silence, acutely observing small things because the wider situation is witheld from her.  So the soloist, Anu Komsi, sings sotto voce, without vibrato, and in snatches, her voice blending into the background. The instruments  play snatches, too, lines retreating almost before they're stated. Castiglioni explicitly credited Anton Webern's influence.Again, Castiglioni shows that fragmentation and stillness, key themes in 20th century music, can be extremely moving, if you make the effort to listen.

The quiet. thoughtful mood continues in Eine kleine Weinachtsmusik,(1959/60). This isn't "Christmassy" in the sense of vulgar commercial celebration. Rather it's contemplative rapture, played so quietly it's barely audible.  Like Messiaen, Castiglioni understood what Christmas meant. Again deep feeling, but understated, working on the listener's soul.

Così parlò Baldassare, (1980/1) is equally atmospheric. Anu Komsi sings solo, completely unsuppported, but has to traverse snatches of numerous styles. It's music as collage. You think you hear Galli-Curci trilling like a mad canary, then suddenly you hear a growl bluntly squeezed out from the lower lungs, then bombastic  declamation, and high pitched squeaks, as if Komsi's suddenly been pinched from behind.

It's dramatic, in the sense that multi-image frames in film are dramatic. It would make a fascinating movie. The more you identify, the better the kaleidoscope colours. Why Baldassare Castiglioni, the Renaissance writer? Were the two men related? The family was influential in Italian culture, and still thrive today. Perhaps Niccolò is writing an opera in miniature, a panorama of 800 years of Italian history. Maybe that's why the "pinch" is there after the bombast: Castiglioni wit at work.

The text for Terzina (1992/3) comes from Gerhard Tersteegen, a 17th century mystic. Gott ist ein Herzens-Gott, to reach him you sink your head into your heart like a child : Kleinheit, Reinheit, Einfaltswesen. underlined by Castiglioni with cymbals so muffled you can barely hear them. The opposite of what cymbals are supposed to do. In the depths of the soul time, place and worldly concerns with reach depths in the soul no storm can penetrate. Castiglioni builds silence into the music, each word separated by silence, like the tolling of an unheard bell.

Quickly (1994) is strikingly original. It comprised 23 aphoristic Variations. It's a whirlwind..Each Variation is distinctive and witty: a manic woodwind quartet is at its heart, the theme taken up by other groups, which include celesta, harp, harpsichord, harp, glockenspiel and of course piano. Eleven violins enter as individuals, combining in a merry dance punctuated by tubular bells, an unusual combination of ultra high strings and low-resonance metal. The woodwind quartet disguises itself in different forms. At one stage the piccolo player (Frank Nolan) pipes a simple melody, like a child's toy pipe. Seriously well written music, but not serious in portent. It must be exhilarating to play. Knussen knows that the London Sinfonietta relish challenges like this, and keeps them moving so fast, it feels like the orchestra will suddenly levitate.

Was Esa-Pekka Salonen in the audience? He was one of Castiglioni's relatively few students. His own style, as conductor and composer, reflects Castiglioni's ideas of light and brightness, concealing great depth.  Quickly would be fun to hear with the Philharmonia, but it would be a good idea: it might stun the usual Festival Hall audience, and make them realize that very modern can mean very good.

Julian Anderson's latest The Comedy of Change (2009) received its premiere.  I've left it for last, not because it is last in any way, but to do it justice.  I liked this and want to hear it again, soon: Anderson's music is very organic, using sounds that feel like nature's being incoporated into its very heart. Part of the inspiration behind The Comedy of Change is the idea of evolution, and the way living creatures adapt and change. Hence, perhaps, seven movements, some played without a break. Change becomes part of the music. It starts with harp and flute, but sounds timeless, as mysterious as a digeridoo. From this emerges low, languid violin. The percussionist uses something that sounds like crumpling paper : being a visual person, I think "unwrapping", but it's very beautiful : that violin sounds primeval, like the stirring of life.

More organic sound, three violins playing rippling figures, the rivulets deeping with violas.  The percussion (xylophone and marimba) clatter along: Messiaen bird feet scuttling, discovering flight at the beginning of Time.  Towards the end the low voice of a bass clarinet deepens the mood, but the overall feeling, for me, was movement up the scale, plants emerging towards the light, maybe. Anderson's music is visual, but none the worse for that because it feels rooted in real life. Comedy of Change reminds me of his much earlier Symphony, where a thread emerges from great depth, like a stream turning into a river. It's on the excellent Book of Hours CD from NMC.  Read more about it HERE.

Luke Bedford - Good Dream She Has

The London premiere of Luke Bedford's Good Dream She Has by BCMG (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) felt like a historic occasion. Bedford's music is highly individual and distinctive. It felt right that the Wigmore Hall, where he is now Composer in Residence, was filled with many notable British composers and musicians.

Good Dream She Has was premiered in 2008, but this was the first time it's been heard live in London. It lives up to its formidable reputation. From the first bars, you sense you're entering new, uncharted territory. It's scored for only three voices and small ensemble, but feels like a chorale, opening out into infinite space. The voices intersect and expand upon each other, a kind of intricate tracery that made me think of the vaulted ceilings of ancient cathedrals , where stone arches span open space, forming myriad patterns. Rising and falling cadences add to the effect of complex harmonies. They move, swelling and growing as naturally as breathing. It must be wonderful to sing these lines. Bedford's instinct for the way voice works is uncanny.

High voices are paired with sonorous ensemble. There are two Bb clarinets, one of them a bass, the subtle difference extending the oscillating effect, that's so marked in the voices. The text, by Glyn Maxwell. is taken from John Milton and refers to Adam and Eve, one created from the other's rib, so the idea of pairings, between voices and instruments, is deeply embedded. Yet this text and music are neither religious nor conventional. The mysterious wavering cadences feel primordial, like the tides. I thought of Sibelius's Luonnotar, where the universe is created from primeval ocean. "We know, we know no time, we know no time when we were not". The reverberating "o" sounds ebb and flow wonderfully, the balance between voices and their round-like overlap is exquisite. Later the resonant "o" sounds sharpen to "w" and "ee". "What there, what there thous seest, ...with thee it came, with thee..."

These magical cadences are held together by a recurrent pulse, a single chord that acts as a baseline. Percussion would be too obvious. Instead the chord is created several ways, sometimes through harp, guitar, bass and cello, so it varies in texture. Nor does it function as metronome. If you try to beat time, you realize the intervals aren't even and the chord doesn't always fall in line with the cadences. It's wonderfully subtle and elusive, opening out spatially, rather than restrictive. Only at the end are the large tubular bells struck, revealing the chord as a kind of tolling, marking a passage of time (and not any regular passage, at that).

In Bedford's own words : "...the music is dominated by the sound of a repeated G. It acts as a continuous linking device, whilst around it ideas develop, decay or return. With the repeated G acting as pivot point, I could move almost instantaneously ...from a moment of sombre refllection to more active material, but without the change being too abrupt. The repeated G is never....is almost never on the conductor's beat, so there is a constant tension between the ensemble's downbeat and the pulsed G."

In this mysterious, magical piece, syntax and logic are irrelevant. Words pop up as if from the subconcious. "Eve" and "Empress". Sometimes Adam and Eve sing identifiable lines, sometimes they become parts in the ensemble of "Creatures", whose very nature is undefined. Somewhere along the way a "shape within the water" is glimpsed. It fades, but reacts to the viewer and returns, elusively, like the music itself. There's a lovely wavering passage where the instruments "sing" tracery like the voices and then Adam is suddenly heard, saying quite clearly "She disappeared". Conventional notions of word setting are irrelevant, too, for what's being created here is a whole new world of impressionist sound, whose meaning grows from creative intuition.

Superb performance by Claire Booth, Hilary Summers, Christopher Gillett and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Oliver Knussen.

Perhaps much will be made of the fact that the other items on this programme were "early" pieces, but that's misleading, for the relationships are much deeper and musically astute. Birtwistle's The World Is Discovered (1960-1) suggests the creation myth in Bedford's "new world", but also uses - entirely coincidentally - similarly complex cadences. They even share the unusual combination of guitar and harp.

Peter Maxwell Davies's Leopardi Fragments (also 1961) and Alexander Goehr's The Deluge (1957-8) demonstrated why the "Manchester" group were the dynamos of their time. They're both dramatic pieces, contrasting density and spareness for vivid impact. The Deluge also takes up the theme of new worlds being created from primordial chaos, in this case, the Flood. The text is by Sergei Eisenstein, so it evolves like a collage of images in film. Disparate images rush past, borne on the swirling deluge of sound. The phrases in the text and vocal line don't connect grammatically, but the effect is perfectly apposite. Again, the notion that meaning doesn't have to be spelled out, but can be created by combining voice with orchestral sound for impressionistic effect.

Henze - Elogium musicum Barbican Immersion

Barbican Henze Phaedra reviewed above. Oddly enough, the most radical thing about the Barbican's Hans Werner Henze Total Immersion Day came in the talk by Paul Griffiths. Henze himself promotes the idea that he's an outsider, in conflict with Darmstadt, Lachenmann, Germany and so on. True, any decent artist has to be an outsider to become an original,, so there always will be differences. Luckily, there's little danger that Henze will be turned into the poster boy of redneck regression, because his music is modern (not that regressionists actually listen). Griffiths states, quite simply, that there are many kinds of modernity, which interact and influence each other. Perhaps one day, we'll be able to escape the simplistic either/or school of music history, and appreciate modern music without preconceptions. Then, perhaps, Henze will really come into his own and be appreciated, not for who he isn't, but what he's really achieved.

I wish i had time to find a good painting by a German master of an Italian villa, glowing in the sunset, for that would express so much about Henze, and Elogium musicum (2008), which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Monday 18th and available for repeat listening for a week. Make time to listen to this because it's a fascinating work, which I think will grow with repeat listening. (Beware though of some of the commentary, which is ludicrously daft). Its full title is "Musical Elegy for a Most Beloved Friend now Departed" for it's a tribute to Henze's beloved Fausto Moroni. They'd been together 40 years. Bernie Gavin's film "Memoirs of an Outsider", shown earlier in the day, was pretty much hagiography, but it included footage of Moroni smiling and content, an aspect of him captured forever on film, more enduring than the other honeyed "talking heads", respected as they are.

Elogium musicum isn't gloomy, but sunlit. Just as Italian sunsets last a long time, and the walls of old buildings emit warmth long after the day has gone, Moroni's memory lives in Henze's creative soul. Even the structure is beautifully self-contained, built in four parts, equally balanced. Within each part and between them, there's a flow which swells and subsides creating a sense of onward movement. In The Falcon the words recall "two falcons shining birds of fleetest force", sudeenly forced apart. But time moves inexorably forward. The Adagio predicts a future, of "Sweet tenderness, the sight of young men, beautiful as sacred images, eyes of opal, black she-panthers, a secret tranquil retreat".

Henze also creates movement through textures: dense chromatic chords giving way to moments of lucid purity, and then back. It feels like wandering through a forest, entering glades, the journeying. Even when the orchestra is in full flow, you feel aware of individual instruments in the mass. The large choir sings at first in unison, then parts to low male and high female, so the idea of density and open glades follows through to the vocal part. Again, a sense of movement, a kind of pulse that comes from within the form, that leads towards the apotheosis of the finale.

Goethe found himself when he escaped to Italy: he returned to Weimar a changed man. Turner discovered new ways of painting light and colour. Even pathologically repressed John Ruskin learned something from the stones of Venice. This dichotomy between Northern and Southern Europe has inspired art for centuries. It's a beneficial flow. One day, perhaps, Henze's place in music history will be appreciated as part of this ongoing process. And 20th century music understood as a movement towards plurality, not a banal either/or polarity.

Don't forget - listen to the broadcast! The premiere of Elogium musicum took place in October 2008, with Riccardo Chailly, an Italian acculturated to the north, for what's that's worth: national stereotypes mean little. It's not Italy or the North per se that makes a person but how they assimilate different things. Most creative people grow because they're open to new experiences.

This Henze Total Immersion Day concert also included Henze's Fourth Symphony, a good pairing with Elogium musicum , because that, too, develops the idea of movement through changes of texture and chromatic density. Oliver Knussen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra have Henze in their blood, so this was a free-flowing reading, livelier than Henze's own recording with the Berliner Philharmoniker, more than 40 years ago. Huw Watkins played four Henze piano works with sparkle and grace. He's a composer too, of some note. Indeed, the Barbican on this evening was packed with other composers, conductors, performers. Big names in the audience, and good ones, too, if any further evidence was needed to show how significant this concert was. Henze himself was there, looking frail but chipper. How gratified he must have been to see such a well-filled house. He turned and applauded the audience, even looking upwards, to the balconies.

Please see 14 other posts on Henze and several more to come, including Phaedra both Barbican and Berlin

Elliott Carter, 100 1/2, at Aldeburgh

"You can't keep a composer away from his music," quipped Elliott Carter, explaining why he'd travelled all the way from New York to Aldeburgh in rural Suffolk, where many of his works – and several premieres – are being played.

Bright and early on Saturday morning 20th June, he spoke with Pierre-Laurent Aimard in the new Britten Studio. Carter has known Aimard since Aimard was a boy, and has written many pieces for him, so this wasn't the usual run of the mill talk, but something much more personal and intimate.

Carter walked into the room dressed in a natty suit, with bright red polo shirt and crimson socks, and changed to sapphire for the evening concert. "Old age is liberating", he said in an interview last December. "You don't have peer pressure". And so it is with his music, too, as individualistic as his personality.

Carter has now become as famous for being old as for being a composer, and why not? He is inspiring to everyone, musical or not. All Aldeburgh seemed to be buzzing about the "Hundred Year Old composer" and rightly so, he's wonderful. At the age of 100 1/2, he's lively, brighter than many a third his age.

And the publicity is good for music, too, because people may be drawn in to listen. Carter's music is more accessible than people realize. He told Aimard about a man who'd written to him after hearing one of his string quartets on the radio in the early 1950's. The man was a coal miner, nothing fancy (coal was still mined in the US in those days). "I love your music", said the man, "It's just like digging coal."

So there are many ways into Carter's music. Perhaps what keeps Carter so lively is that he's still inventive and creative. His "late, late style" as he calls it, is very different from the multiple layers of complexity he used to write. Now it's as if he's concentrating on fundamentals, getting straight to the essence of things, a sort of zen-like purity.

Carter and Aimard discussed the two new pieces, commissioned by James Levine, not yet officially premiered. They extend Carter's Matribute, premiered in Lucerne in 2007 and heard in London last December. Vaguely they relate to Levine's brother and sister, so they're called Fratribute and Sistribute! This joyful, impish wit has always been present in Carter's work, which throws those who think serious music should be deadly dour.

Fratribute is simple but steady, with sequences up and down the scale. Sistribute is altogether more sparkling, one hand playing triplets while the other plays four fingers. It's in a very high register, a kind of squeaky cantabile. Whether it reflects Levine's sister or not, it's expressive, happy and spirited. "Typical Carter," said Aimard, ""like sparkling drizzle."

It's so new that Carter hadn't heard it played before in this way. "Not as bad as I thought," he said when Aimard played it through. Previously he'd spoken to Aimard about changing the dynamics so Aimard tried the amendments out then and there. "I think I like the original better after all," said Carter. So we were witnessing Sistribute at its very moment of inception. At one point, Carter got up and played the piano himself. "Not as good as you," he grinned at Aimard,

More typical Carter puzzles in Retrouvailles, written for Pierre Boulez in 2000. It takes up the ideas in Esprit rude/esprit doux 1 and 2, written for Boulez's 60th and 70th birthdays. Embedded cryptically into it are the letters of Boulez's name. "Two personnages", said Aimard, describing the way the two voices dialogue, "like Bach". Which is a good point, since Carter and Boulez have been close friends for decades and Carter's love for baroque polyphony goes back to his days at college.

Then 90 Plus, Carter's tribute to Goffredo Petrassi, written for Petrassi's 90th birthday in 1994. Ninety little staccato notes that tail off rather than end, wishing Petrassi long life to come. (He made 98.)

In the evening, Carter's On Conversing with Paradise was premiered. It's a special commission for Aldeburgh and was conducted by Oliver Knussen, another intimate of the Carter circle. The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group know the Carter idiom well, so orchestrally this was top notch from the mysterious horn opening, punctuated by profound thwacks of timpani, to the full, dramatic crescendo towards the end.

The text comes from a poem by Ezra Pound, whom Carter actually met many years ago. "People called him mad, but I didn't think so." The soloist was the baritone Leigh Melrose. It's not easy to judge a piece the first time it's heard, but the texts are so amazing that I felt it might be even better with a voice with more authority, to stand up to the powerful orchestral writing.

This is a compelling work, whose title comes from Blake and includes parts of the Pisan Canto 91 and the unfinished Canto 121 where Pound states "I have tried to write Paradise". Most of the page is left blank. Then, simply, Pound says "Do not move let the wind speak that is paradise".

Carter's settings of poetry have often recognized the importance of blank space on texts, and the way lines fragment and roll over round the printed page. This is perceptive, because these devices are essential parts of the poem. Pound despairs of being able to write paradise in a perfect poem, so he breaks off elusively and suggests listening, instead, to the wind.

As Carter said, earlier in the day: "Maybe silence is the answer, and also the biggest question, too".

photo credit Meredith Hauer
Read the article in classicalsource HERE

Elliott Carter Centenary Knussen, Barbican London

It’s unusual that any conductor can premiere three works written this year and two more, up to eight years old. But when the composer in question has reached his 100^th birthday, it’s phenomenal. But then, that’s what Elliott Carter is like. There’s more life in him than many a third his age. “If I didn’t compose, I don’t know what I’d do”, he says, laconically.

As the late Edward Said wrote in his volume On Late Style, getting old can be liberating. What Carter is doing now is entering a distinctive new phase of development. His “late late style” as he puts it, shines with calm, confident lucidity. “I can doodle more easily than I used to”, says Carter but these “doodles” simple as they are, are quite profound.

One day in 2007, Carter and Oliver Knussen were having lunch, when the idea of an exercise in pure texture cropped up. Thus was born Sound Fields. Since Carter’s written so well for string quartet, it’s surprising that this is his first work for string orchestra. Yet, despite the larger numbers, it’s diaphanous, a gently wavering sequence of chords. There’s a single chord played by twelve sub-groups in the orchestra, startling density yet achieved by simple, elegant means. Although Carter’s still writing explosive pieces like Caténaires, where notes race in tumult, Sound Fields is slow and smooth, the chords gradually enfolding out of each other. It starts with slow timbred cello, evolving towards a simpler, barely audible final chord, also cello, that seems to evaporate into nothingness. All in barely four minutes.

Wind Rose, completed on 8^th August this year, grows from Sound Fields, adapting the concept for wind ensemble. Here the chords evolve even more slowly, the almost static effect created by long planes of sound. Wind instruments breathe. The title refers to weather charts showing invisible currents of wind blowing at different velocities and direction. Thus, each instrument is chosen carefully. There’s a whole line of different clarinets. Even when they play together, their different pitches shade the sonority, extending depth. There’s also a group of six flutes, piccolo at the top, bass flute for lower register. The steady, unhurried pulse creates a sense of timelessness, as if each sound remains suspended in space, the chords turning serenely. Knussen said “We won’t get this many clarinets together again soon”, so he conducted the piece a second time, enhancing the idea of eternal, uninterrupted growth. It’s exquisite.

Between Sound Fields and Wind Rose, Knussen placed an “old” piece - from 2000. It was perceptive. Carter has written a lot for cello over the years, so it’s a way of expressing different levels of time simultaneously. The Cello Concerto also has references to Japanese moss gardens, where plants seem motionless but are growing, imperceptibly. The passage of time is marked by the steady drip from bamboo taps. The cello plays a long quasi melody, which over seven episodes reveals different aspects of the instruments' character.The transits are marked by sharp staccato from the orchestra, developed three times into protracted Interludes. Within each section there are interesting vistas – the dramatic, edgy Giocoso where the cello plays with angular, untuned percussion, and the Tranquillo, where the cello sings in ethereally high register. Yet there’s a strong sense of direction. The soloist is walking through the garden, engaging with it but has a separate identity. In this London premiere, Anssi Karttunen played with a firm sense of purpose, his journey uninterrupted by the wonderful sounds of the orchestra.

Knussen introduced another “level of time” with Mad Regales. It was written in 2007 but harks back to the vocal music Carter wrote seventy years ago. Some years back, the BBC Singers gave a concert of Carter’s early songs and the madrigals that inspired him, so one could hear where he learned the polyphony that was to influence the characteristic intricate tracery of his later style. Mad Regales, however, is different conceptually. its three songs have sparer textures, where voices operate on different levels, and where single words pop out of the main vocal line to be savoured on their own accord. It’s an interesting non linear approach, and the six singers here operated like a chamber ensemble.

Like the Cello Concerto, the Horn Concerto, premiered in 2007, unfolds through a series of seven episodes with one orchestral interlude. It’s just over half the length of the Cello Concerto, but soloists need a break. The horn player, Martin Owen, is encased by the orchestra, interacting with different sub groups of instruments. Towards the end, horn and tuba (named Sam Elliott, oddly enough), join in conversation.

The Boston Concerto is a feat - almost a "pizzicato symphony" where string instruments are plucked, beaten, strummed, as well as bowed. They are reinforced by harp, piano and vibraphone, creating sparkling, fast paced rivulets of sound, contrasted with smoothly floating woodwind legato. Carter dedicated this concerto to his wife Helen. It's based on a poem by William Carlos Williams where love is described like rain, bringing life to the earth.Paul Griffiths, who wrote the excellent notes speaks of sequences of "musical raindrops.....rain seen in rainbow light". Like rain, textures vary. When the ensemble plays staccato on different levels, it's like a storm. Later, a single double bass takes up the theme, like a trickle after the storm has passed. “It’s fun”, says Carter. Perhaps that’s the secret of his longevity and irrepressible creative renewal. Why shouldn’t classical music be fun, and cutting edge ?

Stockhausen's Alien Xmas ! Asko Ensemble

Day 2 of the Stockhausen week at the South Bank. Forget your inhibitions, this is fun !

Glanz (Brilliance) is KLANG’s 10^th hour. Yet it evolves from Harmonien, KLANG’s 5^th hour, two versions of which were played on Saturday, 1^st November. Effectively then we’ve heard a progression of Harmoniens in various incarnations, from trumpet, to bass clarinet to flute. This new form centres round a core of three players, clarinet, viola and bassoon, and an outer shell of four – oboe, trumpet, trombone and tuba. In the middle of the stage, there’s a “shining sculpture”. It’s a presence in the composition though it makes no sound, for it’s a pivotal force, which seems to invisibly exert centrifugal force on the players, who face it, move round it and circulate in orbits of their own. At one point the clarinet almost breaks away, heeding the call of the more distant instruments, but he’s drawn back, inexorably. It’s like the cellist in Trans, almost.

The external circle of players materialize from other parts of the auditorium, three of them resplendent in robes shining white, unearthly beings like angels, calling out from another plane. Then the central trio break into disjointed snatches of song. Gloria in excelcis Deo, et in terra pax in hominibus bonae voluntatis. It’s the old latin hymn most of us associate with Christmas – Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and goodwill to all. Is this Stockhausen’s nativity scene, a glowing green glass pyramid for a crib ? Even the animals around the stable (or cave, as in some translations) are referenced. The tuba player enters from backstage, playing slowly and gravely “like a bear emerging from hibernation”. No violence here. This bear is adorably benign.

Whatever one might or might not believe, the imagery of Christmas is so deeply etched into our cultural genes that it’s hard to avoid making the connection. But it’s not all that far fetched, because this is a piece full of warmth and goodwill, connecting the human and extra terrestrial. Perhaps the Son of Sirius has produced something that could become a staple for the season. The piece was commissioned by the distinguished Asko Ensemble for the Holland Festival in 2008, but could well become a classic. Why not an alien approach to festive fare, for the sentiments are valid ? This is seriously decent music.

More Stockhausen warmth and wit came with Orchester-Finalisten from 1995-6. This is the second scene from the opera Mittwoch aus LICHT and shows the finalists in a competition for jobs in an orchestra. After the Harmonien progressions, it should come as no surprise that Stockhausen wanted it played twice in succession with different instrumentalists. As it runs almost an hour, that’s probably not practical and might work better fully staged, as intended, with images of the air, the element Mittwoch symbolises in LICHT. No “aerial tour round the earth” here or visual projections, but the music itself was so vivid, anyone with a little imagination could fill in their own visuals, even if they don’t know the context. Courtesy of the sound projection, there are cries of seagulls, soaring over a windswept seascape, the sound of waves crashing on shingle and most intriguingly what sounds like the movement of sand, shifted by wind, amplified to a magnificent roar. Aurally, this creates a vast panorama against which the individual musicians stand out from a line to play their solos.

Each is distinctive, sensitive to the particularities of their instrument, but Stockhausen is playful, setting challenges that go beyond normal playing. The trombone player lies on his back, his instrument held aloft like a jazz saxophone, the flautist bends from her hips. A person dressed as a space alien, swathed in bandages, creeps up behind the double bass player and startles him with a gong. The music indicates it should be a sudden blast causing the bassist to fall over in shock. In practice, he’s more cautious – he knows what the instrument costs and what it would mean to replace it. Though it does detract from the music per se, what Stockhausen is trying to do, I think, is bring out the fun of making music, lively sensations of movement and freedom. It’s complete nonsense that modern music doesn’t allow for humour. Being funny is part of what it means to be human. We all know how Dr Spock and the Klingons in Star Trek can’t even begin to fathom the concept of humour. Humour is part of the emotional spectrum of creative expression. It’s the opposite of rigid classification, rules for the sake of rules, and obsessive conformity. That’s why totalitarian regimes always crack down on comedy and art ! Stockhausen may appeal to the OCD side in many of us, but he’s vindicated by his creative spirits and good humour.