Back to the Future - Aldeburgh Festival 2020

Exciting news about the 2020 Aldeburgh Music Festival.   Back to the future, in the sense that  the festival is returning to its roots, and to the musical ideals that Britten and Pears sought to achieve.  Aldeburgh is absolutely unique.  British music is like a grand river, into which flow many differnt streams and tributaries, which go on to fertilize creative fertility.  There are many different threads and traditions. Diversity, in all aspects of life does matter. That's why there are so many different music festivals. The Three Choirs Festival focuses on cathedral based, communal performing traditions.  Oxbridge College traditions, epitomised by King's College, are different, too, even different from other colleges. There are other regional and specialist festivals all round the country which encourage greater focus on whatever theme they dedicate themselves too.

The last thing Britain needs is a bland, all-purpose quango run by suits with non-musical agendas, catering for theme-park values rather than for musical quality. Aldeburgh's identity is unique. Right from the start, Britten and Pears believed in the concept that music doesn't have to be populist to be popular.  much of Britten's music was indeed written for the specifics of Aldeburgh and the region around it.  Had the Aldeburgh Festival existed in 1945, chances are that it woud have been heard there, too.  That emphasis on smaller, community based music making which brought forth Albert Herring represents anothrer Britten-Pears ideal that ordinary people are capable of responding to excellence without  compromise. The Aldeburgh Festival is just the high profile face of what the Britten-Pears Foundation stands for all year round.  Nearly every leading British composer has benefitted form the creative fertility that was Briten and Pears' dream.   So thank goodness after a few fallow years when Aldeburgh seemed to be turning into an outlet for BBC Radio 3, the 2020 Festival promises new hope.

Tom Coult's opera Violet, an Aldeburgh Commission,  has its world premiere starting 12th June. Coult is an extremely interesting younger composer, highly regarded by many.  Coult's  St John's Dance kicked off the 2017 First Night of the Proms . An exercise in perpetual motion and tempi, it was engrossing enough to hold attention, while being concise. Certainly better than some of the mindless pap the Proms assumes new music must be.  But beware! St John's Dance was a form of mass hysteria, where people kept dancing on, unheeding to their deaths.  With a libretto by Alice Birch, Violet promises to pack an even more subversive punch. "With the townspeople in crisis, can Violet finally escape?" Maybe this Violet's not shrinking anymore. Andrew Gourlay conducts the London Sinfonietta. Coult's Violin Concerto features in the 19th June concert, Ilan Volkov conducting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

Allan Clayton and Mark-Anthony Turnage are featured artists this year. Turnage's Silenced is a song cycle receiving its wold premiere on 17th June,  to be heard with Steven Osborne in Britten's Piano Concerto. and Percy Grainger.   This concert is paired with another on 20th June, also Britten, Grainger, Janáček and a new work by Cassandra Miller. Clayton's seciond recital on 27th June features Britten, Michael Berkeley and Priaulx Rainier.  Other good concerts with Imogen Cooper (Mozart)  and lots of the early and baroque music which shaped Britten's outlook so strongly that they've always been a major theme in the Festival.

The really big moment everyone will book for will be Britten's War Requiem, on Sunday 21st June, with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Allan Clayton, Florian Boesch and Tatiana Pavlovskaya. In the Maltings, Snape, the impact should be overwhelming. Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the Knussen Chamber Orchestra on 25th June is a classic Aldeburgh programme - Mozart, Elliott Carter and Messiaen.  Gala final concert on 28th June with Martyn Brabbins conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with Britten Les Illuminations (Julia Bullock), Pictures at an Exhibition and another Turnage work, Frieze from 2012.

Aldeburgh tribute to Oliver Knussen - Britten Nocturne

Oliver Knussen : photo Clive Barda

Oliver Knussen and Aldeburgh : indelibly connected.  Knussen's presence hovers forever over Aldeburgh.. Like Britten, Knussen started young,. At the age of ten, he was introduced to Britten who was impressed by the lad's interest in adventurous music. Knussen was instrumental in carrying on the mission of Britten and Pears,  under the mantle of the Britten Pears Foundation which provides support for composers and performers.  This is Britten's true legacy : bringing together creative minds in a supportive environment, stimulating the development of generations of musicians.  The Aldeburgh Music Festival is just a two-week celebration of work that goes on all year round.  Knussen dedicated so much to helping others that his own career as composer was sidelined, but his legacy lives on, too, in the way the Britten Pears Foundation has shaped modern music.  This is the heritage that's being honoured by the creation of the Knussen Chamber Orchestra (professionals working together with students ), who gave the first of two concerts at this year’s festival in Knussen's memory., conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth (one of many Britten Pears Foundation beneficiaries).

No single concert could ever do justice to Knussen and the depoth of his interests, but this was a good introduction.  From Knussen's Four Late Poems and an Epigram of Rainer Maria Rilke, (1988) the song Gong, where the unaccompanied voice flows like a solo instrument, at once exotic and elusive.  The word "gong" rings each letter resonating, the way the sound of a gong continues to reesonate after the initial stroke has ended.  A perfect memorial to Knussen and his altruistic ideals. Claire Booth sang. Like Jane Manning, who commissioned the piece, Booth worked closely with Knussen and understands his idiom. It flowed seamlessly into Stravinsky's Septet (1953) for seven instruments - three blown instruments (clarinet, bassoon and horn)and three plucked (violin,  viola and cello), a piano moderating and supporting the groups. This connected to Knussen's Scriabin Settings (1978) which adapt Scriabin's late miniatures for piano for small ensemble, extending the colours without sacrificing transparency : very "Knussen" too,  one composer listening to another with respect.  Then  Toru Takemitsu's How Slow the Wind (1991). Knussen and Takemitsu were very close, both sharing an appreciation for precisely formed miniatures - almost haiku - where light shines through delicate washes of colour.  This is music based on nuance : selflessness achieved through sensitivity.  Takemitsu's influence in Knussen inspired Knussen's O Hototogisu (2017) which employs a fairly large ensemble (23 players plus two soloists) yet has the feel of something intimately observed. In this case, the sound of the hototogisu, a Japanese cuckoo, symbol of spring but also of the next world.  Poignant, given it was Knussen's last complete work before his sudden death last summer.  The flute (Karen Jones) sings alone, unaccompanied except for restrained percussive effects, as if it were being heard, unseen, in natural surroundings. Other atmospheric sounds create an ambiance from which the soprano (Claire Booth, the dedicatee) sings, her voice chirping and trilling,  like a bird.  More "atmospheric" percussion - single notes, low rumbling lines - entice the flute - hitherto facing away from the ensemble - to interact with the voice, which develops long, keening lines in imitation of the flute.  Profoundly beautiful.

This concert ended with Schubert Symphony no 5, Schubert being one of Britten's favourite composers -  but for me the highlight was Britten's Nocturne ( Op 60, 1958) with soloist Mark Padmore, which inspired Knussen as a child.  What would a child know of  the mysteries of the night, especially of the subconcious and metaphysical ? But Knussen must have been an unusually perceptive child, responding instinctively to musical undercurrents which many adults still can't comprehend.  This is a  difficult piece and highly unorthodox. The scope is ambitious - eight very varied settings by Shelley, Tennyson, Coleridge, Middleton, Wordsworth, Owen, Keats and Shakespeare - put together with structural cohesion that's panoramic in scale though scored for only seven instruments and soloist. The ensemble is unobtrusive, commenting on and extending the vocal line. The voice part itself seems to reflect the sounds of an instrument, twisting and shape shifting, like an exotic oboe or clarinet, weaving and curling. The effect is like a seamless dialogue between human and non-human sounds, absolutely of the essence in  texts that address strange, otherworldy concepts where things might not be what they seem to be.

"On a poet's lips I slept/Dreaming like a love-adept"  is just the starting point as we enter this phantasmographic journey "Nor heed nor see, what things they be;But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurseling of immortality!" - the word "nurseling" twisting and turning, very different froim the cadence of normal speech. In the second song, we encounter the Kraken,  a monster that sleeps in the ocean depths in "ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep" until summoned by the bassoon, which lumbers and coils like the mythical beast, aroused. As he rises to the surface, wind instruments evoke "bubbles". But the kraken dissolves as he reaches light,. the last word "Die" is clipped, strangled mid-note.  The third song describes a young boy, alone beguiled by the night. The lines of the text curve, round and round : almost circular breathing for voice. The effect is claustrophobic.

"Midnight's bell goes ting, ting, ting, ting"  a pause betweeen each"ting" so the ensemble murmurs around it. Dogs howl, but the nightingale sings "twit, twit, twit" and the nibbling mouse goes "peep, peep, peep, peep". Britten plays with this text to enhance the individuality of each creature's expressiveness. The “mew, mew, mew” of the cats is plausibly feline, yet also surreal. Indeed, it  reflects the bizarre setting of the word "be-au-u-teous boy" in the previous song, suggesting that the doomed boy may be prey, to be hunted down.  Here this had me thinking of the young Knussen, and of the composer grown up, but still fascinated by "Where the Wild Things Are".

The fifth, sixth and seventh songs form an internal group. Ominous drumrolls introduce "But that night, when on my bed I lay", where the voice projects, like a trumpet, as if the protagonist were trying to be brave. The ensemble rises around him,with hard staccato chords. The final cry "Weep no more!" may be cried in vain. In the setting of Wilfred Owen, "She sleeps on soft last breaths" the drumstrokes are muffled like a heartbeat, a clarinet calling in the background.  The pace is steady,like breathing, but the voice and its wind counterpart curve long lines.  Peace is an illusion.  When the voice falls silent,  the ensemble continues, murmuring without words, "The Kind Ghosts" of Britten's title.   The Shakespeare sonnet "What is more gentle than a wind in summer" dances gaily, but what is Britten's intent? When the sleeper wakes, will the nightmare end ?  The ensemble surges, menacingly, the voice ending on a very high note, held as silence falls.  Britten's Nocturne is such a strange beast that interpretation is tricky.  Peter Pears's instrument wasn't beautiful but he intuited Britten's possible meaning.  The English tenor voice, which Britten understood so well, is unique in that it can express otherwise inexpressible undercurrents that lie hidden beneath the words and sounds.  When Ian Bostridge had this in his regular repertoire, he could bring out the depths that make an idiomatic performance so rewarding.  Padmore has done it many times, too, but he's sometimes too genteel. 

Aldeburgh Festival - Britten A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Mechanicals : photo credit Hugo Glendinning

The 2017 season of the Aldeburgh Festival began with Britten A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Here's a review in Opera Today by Claire Seymour, author of The Operas of Benjamin Britten : Expression and Evasion.   

Please read the article in full HERE. 

Aldeburgh why I woke before dawn for Messiaen

In the reedbeds around Snape, Aldeburgh, Pierre-Laurent Aimard played Olivier Messiaen Catalogue d'Oiseaux to greet the dawn chorus. RSPB Minsmere, whose photo this is,  is one of the finest nature reserves in the UK, home to nearly 6,000 species.  The Alde River estuary is virtually untouched in many places, it's an area of outstanding beauty, and a haven for year-round residents as well as migrating species.  Aimard's Catalogue d'Oiseaux is  a metaphor for what the Aldeburgh Music Festival stands for.  Long may it be protected from exploitation and vested interests. Long may it stand for pristine excellence.

Messiaen was a deeply spiritual person, so for him birds were part of God's creation. Not for nothing that his great opera was Saint François d'Assise, the humble saint who embraced simplicity and talked to the birds.  (Read more about the opera here)  And so I am up with the birds, too, with darkness outside, listening quietly. An incredible haven of peace in a world that's become insane with extremist delusion.  This morning Aimard played Le Traquet stapazin (black-eared wheatear), La Bouscarle (Cetti's warbler) and Le Traquet rieur (black wheatear)  Never mind that these aren't the exact same birds at Aldeburgh. Messiaen's music is music, transcribing and adapting the spirit of the  birds.   It's 5 am now, and the music is over, but I'm going outside to sit in the garden for a bit. The sun's not quite out yet. It will be cold. But it's so beautiful.

BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting all four of Aimard's Catalogue d'Oiseaux concerts live (and on demand) plus other features on connected themes. Next concert 1pm, then 730pm and 11pm. Link HERE.

Aldeburgh Knussen Berg Butterworth Bray

Aldeburgh and Oliver Knussen, so closely connected that it's always an occasion when Ollie conducts the BBC SO at Snape. Ostensibly, the theme of this programme commemorated the First World War, but frankly it didn't need an artificial angle. In true Britten, Aldeburgh and Knussen tradition, this concert was forward looking and adventurous, working very well on its own musical terms.

Britten and Aldeburgh have always been outside the mainstream of British tradition, so Elgar isn't heard much here, and the oratorios and major works don't suit the Maltings.  Bach, however, is an Aldeburgh staple, since Britten passionately believed in links between the baroque and the modern.  So for a change, Elgar's transcriptions of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in C minor.  Bach often gets tellingly transcribed in every era,  so transcriptions offer a glimpse into the transcriber's style.  Elgar's Bach is stately,  an ocean liner rather than a doughty skiff. Not top-notch Elgar but pleasant enough. It served, however, to magnify the originality of George Butterworth to whom Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated his Second Symphony, an acknowledgement that, without Butterworth's vision, RVW might not have achieved so much so soon. Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad is based on the same Housman sources that inspired both Butterworth and RVW's wonderful song cycles. RVW orchestrated his songs, but Butterworth created something entirely new for his orchestral Shropshire Lad.   You can recognize echoes of the songs, but the whole is a quasi-symphonic work in its own terms, sophisticated ideas expressed with clarity and originality.  Because Knussen doesn't do mainstream "English" music, he approached Butterworth without baggage. This Shropshire Lad sounded remarkably fresh. Definitely not "cowpat school", but a contender for inclusion in the new age of music that was fast developing all over Europe at the time the piece was written.  What might British music have been had Butterworth survived the war?

With this imaginative Butterwoth still resonating in the mind, Gary Carpenter's Willie Stock didn't have much chance. Even on relistening to the broadcast, it's a work that is wonderful in concept, though less so in execution. Willie Stock was an ordinary soldier, killed in the trenches, so Carpenter adapts popular song of the time, deconstructing and fragmenting the tunes, just as the men in the trenches were blown to bits.   It's  thoughtful, and one feels close to poor Willie Stock but it might be best heard as part of a documentary, rather than a concert piece.

Elliott Carter's Sound Fields replaced at short notice a Carter work for baritone and orchestra. Sound Fields was born when Knussen and Carter were having lunch together at Tanglewood in 2007.  Since Carter wrote so well for string quartet, it’s surprising that this is his first work for string orchestra. Yet, despite the larger numbers involved, it’s diaphanous, a gently wavering sequence of chords. A single chord is played by twelve sub-groups in the orchestra, achieving  startling density by simple, elegant means. 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.

Charlotte Bray is an Aldeburgh regular, and good, so her Stone Dancer was eagerly anticipated. It was inspired by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's Red Stone Dancer  (1913-14)  when western art was learning from non-western "primitive" art. Picasso, Braque, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and more. Thus the figure of a dancer, whose métier is fluid movement, depicted as solid, inanimate object. What comes over, though, is physical presence and strength.  Thus Charlotte Bray's Stone Dancer moves in a series of smaller movements, each held long enough that we feel the force behind the ideas before moving on.  This reminded me a lot of Rebecca Saunders's  monumental sculptures in sound, which come vividly to life in performance.  British music is most certainly alive and well, without a whisper of twee.

And so to Alban Berg's Three Piece for Orchestra Op 6 from the same period as Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture.  Again, the idea of dance and physical forces expressed through music.   In the first "piece", the Praeludium, the orchestra growls, as if invoking primitive powers. The central piece is even called Reigen referring to dance.  Ländler and waltzes appear fleetingly, caught up in the swirl of the larger flow, as if the orchestra was like time itself, pulling things along in its wake.  Thus the wild finale, where dance figures coarsen into march: the idea of movement made brutal   Knussen and the BBCSO defined the sparkling touches in the piece so well that the contrasts with low winds, wailing brass and timpani felt savagely disconcerting.

Time travel Aldeburgh : François-Xavier Roth Rameau Ravel

François-Xavier Roth brought Aldeburgh "through the centuries" when  Les Siècles played Rameau and Ravel on Saturday, the first in a series by this most fascinating of ensembles. Roth and Les Siècles are innovative, dispensing with the whole idea of boxing music into stereotypes of period and genre.  For them, music is a life force so vital that it transcends boundaries.  Period performance isn't just about instruments or even style. It's a whole new way of thinking, which respects the music itself, as opposed to received tradition.  In his own time, Jean-Philippe Rameau was avant garde, so shockingly different that he was lucky to have patrons in high places.  Rameau changed music.  Thus Roth and Les Siècles paired Rameau and Ravel, innovators across the centuries, both working on themes from classical antiquity.  Time travel on every level !

Significantly, both Rameau and Ravel were writing for dance.  Dancing is a physical activity, which requires co-operation. Dancers co-ordinate with music, and with each other. Rameau's music takes its very structure from the discipline of dance, with its intricate formal patterns and abstract expressiveness. In 1722,  Rameau wrote the Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels, building firm theoretical foundations for musical creativity.  The baroque aesthetic "contained the world" to borrow a phrase from Mahler, encompassing worlds beyond time and place.

Rameau's Daphnis et Eglé (1753) illustrates the composer's basic ideas.  It was created for Louis XV at Fontainebleau, as entertainment after days spent in the forests hunting animals for sport.  This context matters.  The dancers, singers and musicians act out a fantasy which has little bearing on real life. Yet it's so beautiful that it takes on a logic of its own.  Think about baroque gardens, where the abundance of nature is channeled into formal parterres, though woodlands flourish beyond, and birds fly freely.This tension between nature and artifice livens the spirit: gods mix with mortals, improbable plots seem perfectly plausible.  We enjoy the music as abstract art.  The whole  Daphnis et Eglé unfolds over 16 separate tableaux each of which illustrates a type of dance, the whole piece thus forming an intricate unity of patterns and sub-patterns.   I've seen the piece choreographed which reveals the way the music reflects physical form: a wonderful experience !   At Aldeburgh, Roth and  Les Siècles don't have the resources of Les Arts Florissants to hand, and also dispensed with the sections for voice, but this hardly mattered.   By focusing on the purely musical aspects of the piece, they brought out its innate energy, its liveliness deriving from its origins in dance. This performance was even more muscular than when Christie and Les Arts Flo did it in 2014,  bringing out the forceful, physical quality in the music to great effect.   Baroque dancing, particularly before Louis XIV, was more athletics than ballet as we know it now.  Like fencing, it was physical fitness for aristocrats, training the mind as well as the body.  In this superb performance,  Roth and Les Siècles proved, if any further  proof were needed, that period performance is not for wimps !

This performance of Daphnis et Chloé was even more revealing.  So often the piece is heard as dreamy colorwash, for it is so beautiful,  but its foundations are much firmer. Ravel was writing for the Ballets Russe, for larger and more opulent orchestras than Rameau.   Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé is a descendant of Debussy La Mer, an impressionistic fantasy, yet it is very much a work created for dance.  Ravel gave more room to characterize the narrative, but the spirit of the work is deliberately alien. Thus Ravel's wind instruments and strings evoke otherworldly atmospheres. The solo parts are exquisite, suggesting pan pipes and delphic voices.  . There's even a suggestion of a wind machine (though it's done by more conventional means).  The offstage horns, trumpets and voices evoke mystery, suggesting states beyond mortal comprehension (that's why the singing is wordless).  Yet the aesthetic of Ravel's period embraced modernity, the stylization of art nouveau, where plants, flowers and people were depicted in twirling, twining contrast, influenced heavily by art from beyond central and western Europe. As in the baroque, nature cannot really be tamed even in an era when people lived in cities lit by electricity and rode in tramcars.  Fokine's angular choreography horrified audiences used to mid-19th century ballet, where ballerinas fluttered in tulle.  Bakst's designs for this ballet were decidedly "modern" in comparison, evoking the formality of ancient Greek art.  This superb performance seemed informed by insight into the context of the piece.  Roth and Les Siècles  brought out the innate energy in the piece, reminding us of the angular, "primitive" style of the Ballets Russe, inspired by prehistory and ancient myth.  A vivid performance, bristling with verve and physicality.  Listen again here on BBC Radio 3.

Aldeburgh Reedbeds Aimard Messiaen

The Aldeburgh Music Festival epitomizes Britten's belief that life, art and landscape connect, and this year's festival is particularly innovative.  Pierre-Laurent Aimard will take his music outdoors, into the reedbeds that surround Snape and start playing in darkness at 430 am.  In the darkness, the landscape may seem still, but the reedbeds come alive with birds, for this is Minsmere, one of the finest nature reserves in this country.  Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue des Oiseaux is a magnum opus of 13 substantial movements, spread over 7 books, and takes nearly three hours to play. It isn't something you'd hear often in recital.  Messiaen himself woke before sunrise, waiting in the darkness for the dawn chorus  when birds call out to mark sunrise. This Catalogue des Oiseaux will unfold in stages throughout the day of 19th June, ending around midnight when the birds go to rest.  The music will be heard, literally, in context, even if the birds at Minsmere aren't the same as those in the Camargue, where Messiaen heard them, but the event will be "music theatre", music heard with added value.  Aimard is, without doubt, the greatest exponent of Messiaen's works for piano, so this will be the experience of a lifetime.

Please also read my piece on Aldeburgh's Les Illuminations - Britten illuminated. Benjamin Britten goes to the circus !  And why not ? Rimbaud's original is much longer but Britten's setting emphasizes its theatrical aspects.  Les Illuminations is a watershed in Britten's creative growth because he was finding his own, individual voice through what Auden was to call "mediterraneanising" - breaking away from the conventional world of a mainstream British composer. Britten's horizons looked outward to the North Sea and beyond.  He adored Alban Berg and would have been well aware of Lulu, where characters flit from persona to persona, and where proceedings are overseen by a Ringmaster.  Perhaps it's no accident that he responded to ever-changing circus in Les illuminations and it's keynote cri de coeur "J'ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage!" It's not a cry of triumph but the realization that the key - the illumination -  to creativity lies in being genuinely original.

Les Illuminations illuminated - Aldeburgh Festival 2016

 Britten's Les Illuminations - illuminated! This year's Aldeburgh Festival starts with typically provocative panache. Les illuminations, staged as theatre, with circus performers, sets, costumes and lighting effects. And why not?  Rimbaud's poems are highly dramatic, teeming with images, screaming out for expression.  Britten responded by creating vivid settings which bring out their manic exuberance. Was Les Illuminations Op 18 (1939-40)  Britten's first true opera?  It's infinitely more accomplished than Paul Bunyan, written around the same period.  Opera doesn't have to be grand in the Wagner/Verdi mode. Not for nothing that Britten would create smaller-scale opera, more suited perhaps to his personality.  Understand Les Illuminations. and comprehend  why Britten is the antithesis of Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

Les Illuminations is also a watershed in Britten's creative growth because he was finding his own, individual voice through what Auden was to call "mediterraneanising" - breaking away from the conventional world of a mainstream British composer. Britten's horizons looked outward to the North Sea and beyond.  He adored Alban Berg and would have been well aware of Lulu, where characters flit from persona to persona, and where proceedings are overseen by a Ringmaster.  Perhaps it's no accident that he responded to ever-changing circus in Les illuminations and it's keynote cri de coeur "J'ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage!" It's not a cry of triumph but the realization that the key - the illumination -  to creativity lies in being genuinely original.

Rimbaud completed Les Illuminations in Britain, amending the  drafts in a garret above what is now the A4, near the M4 junction.  London, for Rimbaud, was a liberation. After the confines of Charleville, he felt propelled into the future, a world where possibilities were infinite. It wasn't British tradition that aroused him, but the thrill of modernity: trains, technology, urban life and social change. Les Illuminations is a young man's vision of new frontiers.  Britten's Les Illuminations sounds nothing like an opera but it's an inherently theatrical work, surprisingly close to later, one-person monologues like Poulenc's La voix humaine., which, incidentally stages extremely well. Musically, Britten responded to the variety in the texts with endlessly inventive movement, bristling with energy, lending itself well to physical movement. There's an edgy restlessness, too,  in this music which may reflect the fact that it was written in the hiatus between one war and another.

At Aldeburgh, from 10th June, Les illuminations will be sung by Sarah Tynan, with Nicholas Collon conducting the Aurora Orchestra, with an ensemble of "international circus performers" devised and directed by Shaun Leslie. In principle, absolutely nothing wrong with seeing it staged : no no faux purist sneering. Adventure is an Aldeburgh Festival thing. They've been doing open air installations for years, so enhancing a concert at the Maltings, Snape, shouldn't prove too difficult. Proper fireworks (illuminations)  might upset Health and Safety, but there might be ways around that. The secret - to enjoy and get into the spirit of things

Rimbaud's dense images seem to scream out for visual expression. The illustrations I'm using come from Ferdinard Léger's illustrations for  the 1947 edition of Rimbaud's Les Illuminations. . The first is the title page, the second a portrait of Rimbaud and the third an illustration of Parade.

Knussen Aldeburgh - Carter, Webern - and Mendelssohn ?

Mendelssohn Symphony No 1, with Elliott Carter's Instances for chamber orchestra (2012), written shortly before his death aged 103. Trust Oliver Knussen to come up with a programme that blends Mendelssohn, Dallapiccola, Carter, Webern and Ligeti, conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Maltings, Snape, Aldeburgh, part of this year's Aldeburgh Music Festival. Knussen's programmes are intriguing, always planned with musical nous and intelligence.

At first, I was shocked. Mendelssohn played with exuberance that veered close to wildness? Definitely not the kind of over-processed, over-manicured performance that puts too many  people off Mendelssohn. Instead Knussen made us think of Mendelssohn as audacious and free-spirited. Our perceptions are shaped by received wisdom, tainted by Wagnerian prejudice asnd boring, safe performasnce practice. Knussen might shock, but boring he never is.

Mendelssohn and Elliott Carter have a lot more in common than one might expect. Geniality and good humoured wit, for example, and an appreciation for stylish bon mot. Carter's Instances for chamber orchestra is an eight-minute piece for a medium-sized orchestra. In the first six minutes "a seemingly random sequence of sonorities and figures are are playfully flung at the listener", to quote Bayan Northcott, who writes serious programme notes, the kind that deserve to be quoted and remembered, infinitely more rewarding than the superficial pap that programme notes have beome (other than at Aldeburgh),  ".... culminating in a surging tutti, suddenly broken off. At this point a slower chorale-like texture previously adumbrated by  the brass, is taken up mainly by the strings in a more sustained and touchingly valedictory coda".  Then a deliberate pause, and a two minute "second movement" asserts itself, reiterating the ideas in the first movement with joyous, epigramatic concision.  As so often with Carter's later work, the piece seems intimate, as if the players were conversing, delighting in exchange.

Hearing Anton Webern's Symphony Op 21 (1928) after Elliott Carter made me realize how much Carter and Webern have in common, too. Two distinct movements within ten minutes, and an orchestra pared down to basics. The first movement "Ruhig, schreitend" employs an "Exposition comprising an intricate double canon, But the lines are so fragmented and criss-crossed " that they seem processional.  The double canon repeats  "but with the note values so altered, and the dynamics intensified, it sounds quite different", adds Northcott. The second movement "Variationen" develops the theme yet again, in even more distilled purity, ending elusively, as if the symphony, such as it is, will play out in the imagination.

A listener request, phoned in by another composer! Knussen has a thing for repeating shorter works in a concert. This time, he repeated the second movement of Webern's Symphony, so we could further savour its elusive, tantalizing promise.

Ligeti's Melodien for orchestra (1971) concluded the programme. Spastic pizzicato suggesting kinetic, oddly organic flickerings, glimpses of half-hidden images barely grasped in the undergrowth.  Carter, Webern and Ligeti forming a trinity  in which the idea of a symphony take new fiorm.  Earlier in the programme, Knussen followed Mendelssohn  with Luigi Dallapiccola's An Mathilde, a cantata based on three Heine poems, Den Strauss, den mir Mathilde band,  Gedächtnisfeier, and An die Engel. The soloist was Katrien Baerts. An interesting piece, which should be heard more, but this concert favoured the orchestra rather than voice and orchestra.

Tonight, Klangforum Wien presents two equally fascinating concerts under Ilan Volkov, the late night concert featuring Tristan Murail's Winter Fragments (2000) and Gérard Grisey's Vortex Temporum I, II and iii (1994-6) Alas, I can't be there but you can read about the pieces HERE and HERE. Klangforum Wien is one of the finest new music ensembles of its kind, so I hope the concert is recorded.

Blair, Britten and Owen Wingrave

In the Red House, Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten lived while Owen Wingrave was being written. Read my review of Britten Owen Wingrave at the Aldeburgh Music Festival here This is part of the library which Britten and Peter Pears used. The décor is totally of its time, preserved much as it was when they chose it. Who sat in the red chair?  Who sat in the white?

Off to Aldeburgh now, for Owen Wingrave at Snape. It's the fourth production I've seen. What period is Owen Wingrave really set in? Can a militaristic family who worship sacrifice really survive from Agincourt to Kandahar? Statistically they'd have been wiped out long ago. Soldiers who die young reproduce less frequently than most men. Rather, I think Paramore is a state of mind. The house is a metaphor for closed minds and conformity. Henry James, a psychologist, might have intuited it as a kind of mental prison, with the haunted room at its core. Maybe that's why the family is so afraid of the legend. It's significant that the women in Owen Wingrave are just as psychotic as the men, perhaps even more so. Mental rigidity is the antithesis of the creative spirit. Perhaps the men in this family run away to war to escape something even more horrible than physical death?
 
When Owen confronts it, he's confronting the source of the psychosis in his family. That's why they are so terrified of the room. They'd rather get torn apart by sabres on the barttlefield than confront the darkness in their psyches. Owen is not a hero in the usual sense of the word.  His whole persona seems to go against flag waving and bombast. For me a key to his character is that he is one of Britten's innocents. Purity of spirit is the most elusive form of bravery, ever. Although Owen Wingrave connects to The Turn of the Screw, in many ways another connection is with Billy Budd, who doesn't conform to any simplistic idea of "hero". Captain Vere spends the rest of   his life trying to figure out why Billy went willingly to death. When Owen is kicked out of Paramore by his grandfather, he finds peace. Perhaps he could have walked away and started a new life from scratch. But Kate, his childhood buddy, confronts him. She might be little more than a child but already she's been poisoned by the family mass hysteria. So he goes into the room. What happens next, I've often wondered ? Is Kate saved ? Does the family collapse?

Britten adds an extra layer of pacifism to Henry James's original, expanding the psychological with the political. It's absolutely valid that this aspect of the opera should be developed in this year when we remember 1914-1918. Pacifism isn't easy.   Defying the forces that push nations to war requires great strength and committment. It is by no means the easy option. Today, when Tony Blair refuses to connect his WMD lies with the present destabilzation,  we need more than ever to recognize responsibility for our actions.  In 1914 men marched to serve "the war to end all wars". But war did not stop war.

Please see my other pieces on Owen Wingrave, Britten and Aldeburgh by clicking on the labels below. Review to follow.

Roger Wright moves to head Aldeburgh Music

Simon Robey, Chairman of the Council of Aldeburgh Music, today announced the appointment of Roger Wright to the position of Chief Executive, starting September 2014. The news isn't - yet - on the BBC website, but basic details are HERE. What a high-profile catch for Aldeburgh! The announcement doesn't say much, understandably, but raises many questions.

When the much respected Jonathan Reekie stepped down in December after sixteen years at the helm,  it was obvious that he would be a hard act to follow. So this could be interesting. Aldeburgh is unique: will it continue to champion Benjamin Britten's eclectic vision or will it be remodelled as a mainstream music theme park?  And what does that mean for BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Proms? Roger Wright's been Controller of BBC Radio 3 for 15 years, BBC Proms for seven years, which isn't far off the usual life span. Leaving the BBC is a major career change, especially as Wright has been touted as a future head of the corporation. But Tony Hall made a similar switch himself.  "Conductor Chess" applies equally to heads of organizations. Each move leads to other possibilities. I won't speculate, but "watch this space".

Britten Beer Blythburgh Bacon

Aldeburgh at the weekend, celebrating Britten. If anything, Aldeburgh is even more atmospheric at this time of the year than in summer. The sea is wilder, and lonelier, and grey mists crowd in. Infinitely closer to the spirit of Peter Grimes than among crowds partying on the beach. The recent storm knocked out power lines and internet for two days, bringing Aldeburgh (almost) to what it once was. The storm was a reminder how fragile "civilization" really is, an observation that's fundamental to understanding Britten and his music.

Aldeburgh is also a foodie paradise. Every visit I stock up at Salter's the Family Butchers. They do mail order, too: I'm ordering my Xmas dinner from then online. Exceptional quality and service, everything free range  Support humane farming and small, local business enterprise. Beautifully hand cut joints, and sausages with proper flavour. And the best back bacon outside Canada. They also stock baked goods, fresh apple juice products and locally produced jams and condiments. This year I had bacon from the farms up near Blythburgh looking out towards the sea.

Suffolk is famous for beer, too. My usual is St Peter's Brewery from Bungay, further north, because it's extremely good, and stocked  by my local Waitrose.  Also available online and at their own pub in Clerkenwell, London.  My friends (and I)  love Adnam's Brewery and have made pilgrimages to Southwold and dined at The Anchor at Walberswick with  a garden that slopes down to the reedbeds. This year Adnams is doing "Native Britten" beers. The bottles come in 3 colours but the beer is the same basic house variety. St Peter's and Adnam's both sell online. Ideal Christmas presents. St Peter's probably has the edge on classy, since they use traditional, small scale brewing practices.

Easter Weekend Highlights, London, Aldeburgh

Fancy something for the Easter weekend? A friend greeted me "Happy Easter", then corrected himself. "It's not about chocolate eggs and bunnies, it's a time for reflection". 

Good Friday is the only day in the Christian calendar when Mass is not celebrated. The devout pray and contemplate. Not everyone else needs to do so, though. This Friday, there are no less than three performances of Bach St John's Passion BVW 245 . Richard Egarr conducts the Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican with James Gilchrist, Sarah Connolly, Christopher Purves, Andrew Kennedy, Elizabeth Watts and Matthew Rose. Stephen Layton conducts the Orchestra of the Enlightenment and Polyphony at St John's Smith Square. More unusually, at the Union Chapel, Islington, is Benjamin Britten's English language version of St John's Passion. David Soar sings, so that's reason enough to go. He's good.

 The London Handel Festival is on, too, which is a big event. Laurence Cummings conducts the London Handel Orchestra in Bach's St Matthew's Passion BVW 244 on Friday at St George's, Hanover Square. With Lukas Jablonski, Tim Mead and Anna Starushkevych singing, this will be worth going to. Historic setting, too - this was Handel's local parish.  On Monday, go for Handel La Resurrezione HWV 47 with the same singers. Adrian Butterfield conducts at the Wigmore Hall..

On Sabbath day in the Passover, Verdi's Nabucco at the Royal Opera House, to remind us of context.  Whether the timing was planned or not, I don't know, but it's good.

You could also steer well clear of the city and go to Aldeburgh, where there's a mini Festival this weekend. Christian Curnyn conducts Purcell Dido and Aeneas at Orford Church (not Snape). "The subject matter and the dominance of fate and faith may be rooted in antiquity, but Purcell’s genius assembles compelling dramatic tableaux round an axis of an intense human tragedy, love, leave-taking and lament, sorrow and solace. Removed from theatre or concert hall to a church that resonates to Britten’s own music dramas, these concert performances promise to envelop an audience in the work’s intimacy, power and lyrical beauty – what Britten referred to as ‘those very Purcellian qualities of clarity, strangeness and tenderness’.  Two performances, starting at 9 pm. Before that, Exaudi sings an eclectic programme built around Britten's Sacred and Profane.  It includes Harrison Birtwistle's  Carmen Paschale, where a "medieval text sees the natural dovetail with the divine. His celebratory motet – with birdsong organ solo – premiered ten years before Sacred and Profane at the 1965 Aldeburgh Festival."

Britten Year, Aldeburgh 2013

"My music has its roots, in where I live and where I work," said Benjamin Britten. Aldeburgh Music marks Benjamin Britten's centenary with a year-long celebration. Aldeburgh is "Britten territory" Britten was shaped by Suffolk and its coast, not by London or the Cotswolds. The North Sea and its changing moods, the endless, opaque horizons, ruined churches and anciernt hamlets, all evoke aspects of Britten's music. While there will be Britten celebrations everywhere (Gloriana at ROH), the Suffolk coast is where you really channel Britten, in winter  as well as summer.

To mark Britten's birth in November, Death of Venice is directed by Yoshi Oida. This is part of Opera North's four-opera Britten season next year, so it's not clear where it will take place. But I hope it's at Snape, because Oida  connects to the deepest levels of the opera, and incorporates into the very fabric of the theatre at the Maltings. It's as if Britten's spirit inhabits the very walls, and the water imagery that meant so much to him enters the building itself. Not comfortable or pretty. But then, neither was Britten. I wrote about the 2007 Aldeburgh premiere and will do more later. Recommendation : hear Curlew River on DVD, directed by Oida. .

BBC Radio 3 dedicates the weekend of 22-24th November to Britten. This will be good. Keynote concert conducted by Oliver Knussen, the string quartets (The Belcea Quartet), Noyes Fludde (performed live in Lowestoft - rare experience), a recreation of the first-ever Aldeburgh Music Festival, a special series of choral works, and many other favourites. No-one could top the BBC Schubert week (Britten's not "that" prolific) but if they stick to high-quality commentary, this will be good.

This year's Aldeburgh Music Festival has just started but some details of next year are out already. TWO Peter Grimes, one a concert performance at the Maltings with Alan Oke (who's also singing Eschenbach) and one actually on the beach directed by Tim Albery, and a separate Grimes Journey through the town, by Punchdrunk. This isn't as odd as it sounds because nearly every year they do open-air music and theatre at Aldeburgh, and they tend to know what they're doing. How are they going to "kill" the kid? How will Peter G sink his boat? Since it's Peter Grimes no-one can complain if they get wet or cold. Indeed, it might be better if the weather's inclement. Ice creams and colourful buckets somehow won't seem right.

Speaking of Ellen Orford, if you nip down to Orford Church in June next year you can hear a special staging of all three Britten short works for music theatre - Curlew River, The Burning Fiey Furnace and The Prodigal Son, all staged by Mahogany Opera. Since the church is tiny, and parking is almost non-existent,  it's good to know it will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Britten  never intended that the Aldeburgh Festival should be about his own music. He actively supported new work, so next year's Aldeburgh Festival will pair Britten works with newly commissioned works by Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm, Magnus Lindberg and others. Top-rank professionals, superb performances. Yet that other aspect of Britten's legacy won't be forgotten. Throughout the year local community celebrations, including A Ceremony of Carols at Christmas, children's choirs, semi-amateur Albert Herrings (and of course the Lowestoft Noyes Fludde mentioned above).For Britten, music was meant to be experienced as a living art.

Definitely a year to become a Friend of Aldeburgh Music!

Cream Teas I have known

 Cream Teas are Great British Tradition, the sign of an English Summer (rain and cold notwithstanding). These scones look particularly nice, and the jam has fruits in it.  You can imagine that they're fresh baked, and still warm. Prerhaps this jam smelled like strawberries. It must have been a memorable treat. Many thanks to Ibán Yarza for this wonderful photo, much appreciated.

When cream teas are good, they're very, very good, but when they're bad they are horrible. So the eternal quest for a perfect cream tea. Perhaps closest to ideal are the cream teas at Glyndebourne (Leiths). They're firm on the outside, but the texture inside is moist and not too crumbly. Almost as creamy as the cream!  In theory, you should be able to taste the flour and butter used in the mix. Good scones should not be sweet, so they don't mask the flavour of the cream or jam. Needless to say, the cream should be clotted, and  the jam more fruit than sugar, ideally made in small batches by someone who cares.The one in the photo looks like it's made with less solidifiers than commercial products would be. That's the sign of a good jam, where you can taste natural freshness instead of assitives (and sugar).

Today I found another good cream tea at the Cragg Sisters' Tea Room, 110 High Street Aldeburgh. (opposite Salters Family Butchers, of whom more here). It's a few metres from Crag House,where Benjamin Britten lived from 1947. In fact, you can exit the shop through the garden straight onto Crabbe Street. This tiny nook of Aldeburgh is true Britten territory. Peter Grimes was written in the upstairs seafront room in Crag House, which faces the open seas. The first Aldeburgh Music Festivals centred around Jubilee Hall, where some events still happen (like last summer's retro Albert Herring). Cragg Sisters Tea Shop was founded in 1949, though the current management is new, so chances are Britten knew the original shop.

Cragg Sisters bake their own scones and cakes, which is why they're so nice. The shop is very pretty, floral tablecloths, crochet doileys, antiques and crockery that doesn't match, which is much more stylish than fake retro. Parts of Aldeburgh are becoming Sloane Square-by-Sea, or Essex North, but this area is still original and unique. Make this part of any Britten pilgrimage. See The Cragg Sisters' website, which is as pretty and individual as the shop. They're doing good savouries too, and special events like a local produce feast on 30 June. Dining out in Aldeburgh can be disappointing unless you eat only seafood and like to spend ostentatiously, so I.m going back to Cragg Sisters for lunches, too.
TOMORROW : Oliver Knussen's operas Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Pigglety Pop.. and his excellent concert with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Feed Felicity Lott !

Felicity Lott is singing Lady Billows in Albert Herring at Aldeburgh, part of the Britten Weekend from 19th October, and she needs food ! Urgent notice from Aldeburgh Music :

"Set in an east Suffolk village in 1955, one of the most memorable scenes takes place during the village fete and we're looking for volunteers to bake food appropriate to the period. "Cakes, different flavoured jellies, custard, chocolate dates, fruit salad, trifles, and they gave us pastries freshly made with cream in, followed by almond favours!... sings Albert; we need them all! The food is not just for show; it needs to be fresh as it will be eaten by cast members, including Dame Felicity Lott, during the four performances and we need food for the dress rehearsal as well."

Since Aldeburgh is foodie paradise with lots of good cooks,  (see my report HERE) food and good qualitry food won't be a problem. In fact, if they have extras, they should put them on sale!

Prom 70 - what makes British music British ?

For a change, don't run off for coffee in the interval between the first and second parts of Prom 70 (Bridge, Birtwistle, Holst). Listen, instead to Anthony Payne, talking about British music. Payne is a fascinating person, an intellectual with emotional depth and a practical musician too. He's an authority on English music and made it possible for us to listen to what might have been Elgar's Third Symphony. Listen also to the programme that follows the Prom, where Tom Adès is interviewed by Tom Service. If Birtwistle were a talking man, he'd probably chime in too on the theme of What makes British Music British.

As Payne says, it's only in retrospect that we come to think of any piece as "British" because certain thing acquire a non-music identity from being used in ads, social music, movies etc. The music itself is intrinsically neutral. No composer worth anything doesn't write something original to himself or herself, based on what he absorbs from around him. Parry, Elgar, Bridge, Britten, RVW, all influenced by continental European music. So the idea of pushing composers into a ghetto of "Britishness" is a bit of a con.

Britten, especially, didn't relate to the "ghetto" though he was fascinated by Tudor and Stuart forms. Aldeburgh never was insular.  Long before the Festival began, there was Britten, taking his Mum to Vienna, forcing his pals to listen to Mahler in the 1920's, hanging out with the Prince of Hesse and Hermann Scherchen (or rather his son), Scherchen, significantly, was closely associated with the avant garde of his time. Britten wasn't a little Englander. It was he who championed Shostakovich long before Shostakovich was famous in the west. Britten's support of Shostakovich, Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya was critical, for it protected them from the Soviet Regime. Similarly, Henze wouldn't be Henze without Aldeburgh, tnouugh he was  too naive to realize that connecting to W H Auden in the 50's would mean exclusion from the Britten inner circle.

Harrison Birtwistle is as cow-pat free as it's possible to be. He's his own idiosyncratic self, and more power to him!  I couldn't figure out his new Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, but that's why it's interesting. It's a new direction for the composer, still inventive post 75. It seems to lead to new paths, though I'm not sure where they head. But that's part of the challenge. So what makes British music British? We don't even know what makes Britain British, either.

Aldeburgh - food and shopping

Only in Aldeburgh will you find a clothes shop called Butchers, a butcher called Salters and a chemist called Shooter. But each of these local landmarks make visits to Aldeburgh a pleasure.

Salters The Family Butchers is a must for craftsman quality cuts of locally sourced meat. Know exactly what you're eating, and where it comes from - and delicious, too. Even if you don't do meat, go to Salters because they have excellent picnic supplies - quiches and cakes baked by farmer's families, regional cheeses, Suffolk apple juices etc. at reasonable prices. The Salters really are a traditional family butchers, incredibly friendly service. They greet me each year - they remember! It's wonderful. They've now got a website where you can order all kinds of meat, though how far they deliver I don't know. In theory you could fill a freezer box.

Butcher the clothes shop is like stepping back into another world. Top brands like Barbour, Betty Barclay, Fitflops etc but displayed in a shop fittings straight out of the 1950's. Was this where Britten and Pears bought their socks?

Barry Shooter the Chemist is another place of pilgrimage. I wait all year to stock up.  Again, traditional shop with unusual and really useful stocks. L'occitane, Dr Hauschka, treats and the best range of Dr Scholl's outside a specialist shop. Big chains don't do nearly so much variety or such good quality. At Shooters, shopping is fun, unlike the impersonal deserts you get in the city. Shooters also carries a good range of holday items, like tan creams and toys for the kids. I used to have a photo of the shop in high summer, festooned with nets, floats, buckets and spades.

Also make a point of visiting Lawson's the Delicatessen. (stylish website) Exceptionally good salads, pies, breads. This is the place that convinced me Coronation Chicken could be real food. Lawson's won Deli of the Year last year and you can see why. Esoteric and superlative quality. This is where you go if you're self catering and want easy meals that wouldn't shame Mayfair. They cater and do hampers, too. You pay for what you get but it's exqusite and you can feast in style.

Restaurants in the Aldeburgh area aren't too good apart from Fish and Chips places - some have queues of 30 or more at opening time.  Otherwise, stick to farm pubs like the Crown at Snape where you can watch the pigs and eat the pork inside. Also Anglo-Nubian goats whose cheese you can enjoy. I also have a thing for The Ship at Dunwich but you may need to book. Excellent beach and so quiet at night it's spooky. Also hugely recommended is Aldeburgh Market in the High Street. It was started by an ex-City couple who've now moved on but still very hgh standards. Mostly fish menu, though supplies come from Billingsgate. It's the seaside! But you often see vegetables delivered so fresh the mud is still on them. Great for lazy breakfasts. And don't forget, tucked away near the Jubilee Hall, a tiny tea shop with home made cakes, run by a group of sisters, lovely rose filled patio.

Concerts - best of 2010

Hans Werner Henze started the 2010 concert year off well. The Barbican Total Immersion weekend was well planned, several good concerts incl Elogium Musicum and a non-staged performance of Phaedra which I saw first staged in Berlin. I also enjoyed his ballet Ondine but utterly loathed Elegy for Young Lovers at the Young Vic, the most misguided and self pandering production I have ever seen or heard, anywhere, barring the same director's abortion of Sibelius's Luonnotar. Elegy isn't known in its original form in the UK: now Londoners think it's a TV sitcom. Henze's one of my herores. Check out this site - no fewer than 18 main posts about him.

The Barbican delivered yet again in March with a Wolfgang Rihm Total Immersion. Wonderful music, wonderful man. Henze doesn't really qualify as The Greatest Living German Composer since he lives in and identifies with Italy. So the honours go to Wolfgang Rihm. Much that's written in the US about modern music would be changed if there was greater awareness of what modern music in Europe really is like. Fortunately in the UK, we get plenty of Harrison Birtwistle, and many younger composers like Brian Ferneyhough,  Luke Bedford. and Simon Holt, all of whom merit several concerts and broadcasts this year - use search label for more. Up and coming, I loved Lloyd Moore's Diabolus in musica.

And then, Aldeburgh, the hippest and liveliest creative festival in the UK. With Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the helm, it attracts the best and brightest from Europe and the US but it's completely muisunderstood by the UK mainstream media, who don't even know enough about Benjamin Britten to know what Aldeburgh meant to him and what it stands for. No other site covers Aldeburgh as much as I do, so take time to explore this site. ABSOLUTE highlight this year was Pierre Boulez. Concert with Ensemble Intercontemporain, who played their hearts out, relishing the buzzy but relaxed  Aldeburgh atmosphere. Aimard and Boulez chatted informally, winning over an audience many of whom had come to hear Bach. 

This year's Proms started with a huge celebratory bang, but there were many other solid highlights, such as the Rattle/Berliner Philharmoniker's mega symphony of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, Metzmacher's DSO Berlin Mahler 7. Well balanced and good value. Although this is Mahler year, all but a very few Mahler concerts (Rattle, Berlin, Abbado Lucerne, Salonen South Bank) have been extremely disappointing. The "new" chocolate coated Mahler may have mass appeal but it make take another 50 years to reverse. Tchaikovsky still hasn't recovered.

Schumann, on the other hand, has benefited from the publicity. All his symphonies were played at the Proms, and in a stimulating way. Recitals, too, have been uniformly good. But if there's one single concert that will live in  my memory it will be Matthias Goerne's second Wigmore Hall recital. This is what Lieder singing really should be like - emotionally intense, intellectual sharp, absolute reverence for the music and poetry. Lieder isn't "easy listening", smooth or superficial, much as the celebrity market would like.

Hugues Cuénod, 108 - Happy Birthday!

Aged 10, Hugues Cuénod attended a concert celebrating Camille Saint-Säens's 78th birthday. Saint-Saëns played  piano with Ignace Paderewski,while Felia Litvine sang. That was 1913. This weekend, Hugues Cuénod reaches his 108th birthday. He still lives in Vevey, in Switzerland, where he was born. He's frail now, sleeps a lot, but still has his wits about him.

Cuénod's famous in the Anglophone world because he made his debut at the Met in his 80's. But the Met isn't the world. Cuénod trained in Vienna and Paris in the 1920's, singing whatever amused him - operetta,  Mozart, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf in 1928, and "Negro spirituals" which he learned from a black American tenor, and recorded in the 1930's.

He didn't hear Pelléas et Mélisande til 1922, but knew many of the people involved with it, including both Mary Garden, Debussy's choice for Mélisande, and Georgette Leblanc, Maurice Maeterlinck's mistress, for whom he'd written the libretto. LeBlanc told him a story about how she and Maeterlinck were canoodling in a park when her husband appeared. Maeterlinck shot up a tree to hide. The scene went into the opera!

Cuénod sang Bach with Vincent D'Indy (in French) and knew the severe, "Protestant" Bach tradition in Geneva. He met Nadia Boulanger in 1934, just when she needed a singer to illustrate her teaching of Monteverdi, thus making him the first "modern" Monteverdi specialist. Boulanger was no purist, playing piano rather than harpsichord or fortepiano, and with heavy-handed gusto, but they made Monteverdi exciting and fun.  He also sang Cavalli and other early operas.. Without Hugues Cuénod, the baroque revival of the 20th century might not have happened so quickly..

Yet, as Cuénod cheerfully says, he's never taken life too seriously. Boulanger was notoriously demanding. Igor Markevitch, also a Vevey boy, and friend of both, called her "Herr Doktor" behind her back. Cuénod could defuse situations with his easy, laconic humour.  He, after all was the man who could croon like Jean Sablon so well that he formed a duo with a soprano, called Bob et Babette, to sing French language pop songs. There's a great photo of them in 1937, looking so wholesome and sweet it's almost a joke!

Cuénod also knew  Noel Coward, whom he described to an  interviewer as "an English Sacha Guitry". They did a thing called The Green Carnations which was so openly gay, even Coward was worried how it might go down. Maybe the public didn't twig. When Switzerland allowed gay marriage, Cuénod was one of the first to take advantage, marrying in his late 80's. They're still together, after 40 years.

 Of course, Cuénod knew Stravinsky, their circles connected in many ways. Stravinsky wrote Sellem the auctioneer in The Rake's Progress for him, a short but characterful role, making the most of Cuénod's dramatic strengths. (one of his favourite roles was the Stammerer in Smetana's The Bartered Bride). Everyone in the business went to the premiere, and Cuénod's opera career blossomed better than any agent could have dreamed. That's how he was asked to sing The Captain in Wozzeck at La Scala with Tito Gobbi.

Cuénod also became an enduring fixture at Glyndebourne.. He was also a regular at Aldeburgh, for many years. Britten wanted him to sing duets with Peter Pears, but it didn't work out because their voices and styles were too different. "Harnessing a horse with a steer", said Cuénod, discreetly.
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So Happy Birthday Hugues Cuénod, and many more to come!
Photo credit : Charles Sigel