Last Night of the Proms 2012

Some of my friends were at the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. Others like me were at the Wigmore Hall, and others at the Proms in the Park where they had a completely different programme (photo by Neil Rickards). We all had fun in different ways.

One of the advantages of watching the Last Night of the Proms on TV is that the cameras see more than anyone else. Close-ups of friends in the Arena! The sillier the costume, the more likely the cameras will focus on you, but a lot of the"real" Prommers just don evening dress (which for them is fancy dress). I' won't forget Nick in a suit, or Sam's top hat (this year in a straw boater). Ruth always looks good but at the Last Night she's a diva, even when she's drinking a bottle of water. This year the traditional bobbing up and down was marred by a toy horn which threw everyone off beat but when it stopped, the bouncing was better. Thankfully, this year's audience cared about music. No vuvuzelas !

The first part of the Last Night usually delivers real music,  which we had in ther form of arias from Puccini and Massenet sung by Joseph Calleja, Delius Songs of Farewell, and Bruch's Violin Concert no 1. Calleja is a natural showman, joining in the Last Night spirit with his red white and blue hoodie and Malta T-shirt !  Gosh, does he know how to work an audience. This is a true artist, no dumbing down.  He sings well - of course - but he does the common touch with natural ease. He shone with sincerity. It must have been as good an experience for him as it was for us. As a violinist, Nicola Benedetti is fine, but can't quite let rip as Our Nige (Nigel Kennedy) might. but she played nicely. Danielle De Niese was a delight. She's intelligent, another natural communicator, not a bimbette.

 Jiří Bělohlávek conducted the BBC SO and BBC Symphony Chorus. A particularly beautiful Josef Suk Towards a New Life. Unidiomatic singing but genuine feeling. Bělohlávek  is much loved. In his years with the BBCSO, he has made Czech a feature of his work. We've had groundbreaking performances of  Janáček, Dvořák. Josef Suk and Martinů in London. We've been greatly enriched.  Last year after the First Night of the Proms, Bělohlávek was attacked for reasons unknown. Surely anyone in a position to judge would know that Janáček comes in different forms? I don't speculate why, but Bělohlávek decided to spend more time in Prague, where he's much respected. Our loss, for Bělohlávek is in a unique position to teach us repertoire we can't claim to know better than he.

So the warmth with which he was greeted at the 2012 Last Night was valedictory. He's looking much thinner, (has he been unwell?) but his command of the English language is greatly improved. In the past, he's struggled to read from a script. This year, he ad libbed comfortably, joked and led audience and performers like a seasoned Master of Ceremonies. LNOP conductors always make a speech, but this year Bělohlávek "was" part of the experience in every way. Olympic athletes paraded their gold medals. Bělohlávek put on his honorary CBE medal with reverence. Affectionate applause. Maestro, know that you're appreciated. This was the best Last Night of the Proms I've ever experienced. Less antics, more genuine heartfelt sincerity, emotional  and musical truth.

Divine Haitink, Vienna Philharmonic Strauss Haydn Prom 75

They left the best for last at this year's BBC Proms. Bernard Haitink conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Prom 75, Haydn Symphony no 104 (London) and Richard Strauss Ein Alpensinfonie. The previous evening, they'd played Bruckner Symphony no 9 so wonderfully that I was transfixed. And I don't normally get Bruckner.  With Strauss and Haydn, Haitink and the Viennese ended the 2012 Proms season in a kind of apotheosis.

Haitink as conductor is philosophical, sometimes to the extent that you can't follow where he's goiing. For Haydn, he needed only a small ensemble, but from these he brought forth great richness and warmth. Benevolence, even, if such things can be expressed in music. Haydn was one of the last composers to endure servitude status, yet his Symphony no 104 exudes equanimity. To the Vienna Philharmonic elegance is second nature.  Their Andante moved with grave dignity, a reminder that the state of grace of grace to come in the final movement was built on firm foundations. The melodic themes sounded truly "spiritoso", dancing with energy. Yet in the quieter passages,a  moment of clean, pure joy. Someone once raged that  Mahler never had a light-hearted moment in his life, which is nonsense. No normal, sane human being is an automaton. Haitink and the Viennese proved that happiness is a perfectly valid, even essential state of the soul. I heard echoes of The Messiah, and its exuberant, positive  faith.

Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie op 64 was written in 1915 when Germany and Austria were at war. Yet it's no escapist fantasie. Anyone who knows mountains knows that they can be dangerous, and that nature doesn't smile on mortals. It is fashionable these days to knock programmatic music, but only a fool would be trapped by literal readings of abstract sound. Eine Alpensinfonie operates on a metaphysical level. The Wanderer of the Romantic ideal is recreated in 20th century terms. The 22 "scenes" in this tone poem could represent a Hero's journey, as might the scenes in an opera. Yet the protagonist here isn't the literal embodiment of a personality but a much more sophisticated way of expressing theorteical concepts through music.

In the "Meadows" sequence, we hear quiet, metallic cowbells, but they aren't merely decorative. In harsh alpine conditions, communities depend on cows, not farmland, Strauss writes long, flowing lines that suggest calm timelessness. But don't be lulled by the flute and horn melodies. Summer in alpine pastures is short. Significantly Strauss follows the "Meadows" with "Thickets". Darker, tenser sounds, suggesting anxiety. Fall from defined paths and you could be lost forever, down a ravine.

 The Glacier looms up. Low rumbling brass suggest something impenetrable; staccato, sibilant strings suggest tumbling, sliding surfaces. The section rises to an imposing crescendo. We are Auf dem Gipfel, on the peak, with nothing above but infinite sky.  A glorious panorama in sound that suggest infinite possibilities. Then Strauss pulls a quiet oboe solo that emerges playing a poignant melody, a counterpoint to the massive walls of sound that came before. Expansive, majestic harmonies seem to reach into infinity. I thought of a time I stood surrounded by the great circle of peaks in the Hoher Dachstein. (photo shows the Hallstättergletscher, surrounded by the peaks of the Dachstein). Haitink and the Vienna Philharmonic give these magnificent moments a hymn-like quality, emphasized by sonorous organ, Trumpet and trombone figures like celestial fanfare, reminding us that we are mortal. Is this the "Vision" Strauss is referring to? Not in a literal sense, but a moment in which we comprehend our place in nature and the scheme of whoever created it.

Glorious "peaks" in the music, then a sudden cutting off, which Haitink emphaises with great dramatic effect, for it is part of the meaning. We are plunged back into uncertainity. "Mist" rises from the deep valleys. In the eastern Alps the weather is treacherous, being caught on the slopes in a thuderstorm can kill. A brief moment of unnatural calm. In this wonderful playing, I could almost visualize the strange colour of light that precedes a storm. Electrifying rashes, hurrying passages. the huge Royal Albert Hall organ blasts menace. A percussionist winds the Wind Machine, other beat metal plates to suggest thunder and driving rain. Absolutely atmospheric.

Yet there's more to this than weather. In the rapid descent from the peak, we hear te music of the "waterfall", driving, fast-paced figures (xylophone, harps, strings) sparkle, Beautiful, yet sinister. Haitink and his orchestra conjure up a kind of psychic madness in these scurrying decelerandos, whipped by the organ and metallic non-wind "wind" instruments.  Then "rays", shafts of warm, glowing sound, evoking something gentler. The plucking of harps, delicious string textures. Led by the organ, another hymn-like theme arises, and the horns play a kind of counter reveille. Woodwind melodies remind us of the serene Alpine pastures of noon. Haitink makes the nocturnal mood sound just as serene, for Night is as important as Day in the life of the mountains.

Incredibly beautiful playing, yet with emotional depth and humanity. The encore was a Johann Strauss II Waltz, designed to please the public for whom Vienna is a symbol of sugar-coated frivolity. After that amazing Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie, it sounded pretty but trite. I wanted to stay forever with Haitink and the orchestra in the Alps.

BBC Proms 2012- Looking Back

"It's not a timpani orchestra, dear" said a lady at a Prom some years ago. "It's a symphony orchestra". A line to cherish!  I loved that couple. Whenever I come across pseuds and snobs, I think of "timpani orchestras" and it restores my faith in the value of music.

Tonight is effectively the real Last Night of the Proms. Tomorrow night is party time! But tonight, Bernard Haitink and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra wind up the musical side of things with Hadyn and Strauss.

Everyone's got highs and lows. For me the best Prom was the last, the superlative Bernard Haitink/ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Haydn Richard Strauss Eine Alpensinfonie (more HERE)  Also outstanding, Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Mendelssohn and Messaien/Mahler and Rattle/Berliner Philharmoniker Ligeti/Wagner/ Sibelius. Also loved Andris Nelson's CBSO Shostakovich (didn't review)  and Martyn Brabbins Howells Hymnus Paradisi. Some seriously awful Proms. It's wrong, I think, to dislike a Prom because you don't like the composer. I hadn't heard Bernstein's Mass in 10 years but listened anyway. I'd forgotten how mesmerizingly awful it is. Perhaps it will serve as an inoculation.

This year there's been much less "serious" music and much more feel-good filler. Top seller was the Wallace and Gromit Prom. Politically it's correct that the Proms should be all inclusive, but artistically that kills the very spirit of the Proms, which is classical music. Are the BBC that desperate?  Hopefully, they'll find ways to limit the percentage of money spinning filler and increase serious classical music. A few years ago there was a Michael Ball Prom (popular crooner).  His fans loved and sneereed at the rest of the Proms. If you run a business, you lose it if you change the product.  If the BBC wants to grab a share of the West End market, the West End will fight back. Then what, if classical music lovers have been driven away?

BBC Proms organizers have plans for years in advance but like any good business they probably have the next 5 years sorted. But there's still time to change trends.

On a more domestic front, a Big Thank You to whoever told the door staff to let people in much earlier than usual. It makes complete sense, raises bar sales, shortens the queues for the toilets and makes things altogether more civilized. This year they even clamped down on latecomers, because latecomers disrupt things for other people. Hooray !

The BBC got flak during the Jubilee for bad presenting, but there's really very little anyone can talk about while small boats float slowly up a river for hours on end. The Proms however, are intrinsically more highbrow. Presenting is more difficult to do than it seems, because your mouth has to function independently of your brain. But it helps a lot if the brain is basically in the right place. This year we've been spared the worst excesses, and the female presenters are generally reliable. But then one of them starts to praise the idiot who disrupted the magical Mendelssohn Prom, and cheer the guy with flag-painted giant hands? Such things are fine for the Last Night of the Proms, but not otherwise. If the BBC is serious about serious music, they shouldn't be encouraging that sort of thing.

John Adams Nixon in China Prom 72

Because John Adams was conducting his own opera Nixon in China at BBC Prom72, it was one of the season "musts". Any opportunity to hear a composer conduct his own work shouldn't be passed up for the obvious reason that he's the ur-source. On the other hand, composers don't necessarily have objectivity. At the culmination of  the BBC's week-long focus on Adams, objectivity wasn't an issue. Besides, this music works when you give yourself up to the whole experience uncritically.

Nixon in China isn't history. It's curiously distorted even as an outsider's view on events. Kissinger, for example was the prime mover, not Nixon, and certainly not the venal molester Adams depicts him as. Why does Adams mount this vicious, irrational libel?  The very fact that Kissinger didn't get an injunction against this opera speaks volumes. This should be  a clear warning to anyone who thinks this is an opera about modern events. It's not. Nixon in China is a work of such political shallowness that it's pointless to consider it as normal dramatic narrative.

Rather, it's a musing on events  from the perspective of those who have no idea what's going on. "Who are our, our, our..... enemies? Who, who, who are ......our friends?"  Nixon and his entourage might as well be visitors to the Moon, for all they understand about China, or indeed about themselves. "The old, cold, Cold Warriors piloting towards the unknown". It's fashionable to knock Alice Goodman's libretto, but it's a great deal more subtle than you'd assume. Mao Tse Tung mumbles about cranes and cod philosophy. But as Goodman shows, he's weaving mumbo jumbo, while remarks about China's "Manifest Destiny" surface, a sharp dig at US political theory towards Native Americans.

The opera evolves in a series of tableaux - Mao on the sofa, the banquet, the visit to a commune, the ballet. The Chinese are putting on a show that the Americans can't penetrate. The original staging, by Peter Sellars, was so literal that it replicated photographic images of the events, down to minutiae like Mao's spittoon. It reinforced a fixation on irrelevant superficialities. It was  maddening because there is more to this opera than even Adams realizes, I suspect. If Nixon in China is about non-comprehension, the music fits the mood perfectly. Clues, clues, clues, repetition, repetition, repetition.  It's the way the mind turns data over and over, in the hope of somehow making sense oif things.

Perhaps the Proms semi-staging helped because it freed the opera from Sellars' simplistic barriers. In the abstraction, our minds can process for ourselves. This performance showed why there's such a lack of differentiation between the setting of the male parts. You can  recognize Gerald Finley and Alan Oke because they're so familiar but you don't recognize them as Chou and Mao respectively. Robert Orth (Nixon) and James Rutherford (Kissinger) you recognize by voice type rather than personality. Mao is surrounded by a trio of secretaries, and a larger chorus represents the identikit Red Guards, soldiers, dancers. Perhaps Adams is suggesting that the regimentation of the Cultural Revolution applies to Americans too? The machine-like cadences of his music portray conformity to a mind numbing degree, but work perfectly for this concept.

There's more variety in the writing for female voice. Jessica Rivera's Pat Nixon veers dangerously shrill, but that is entirely in character for Pat Nixon. "I come from a poor family" she sings, identifying with the Chinese masses. All her life she's been forced into playing an artificial, decorative role. So when she sees the ballet The Red Detachment of Women, she responds to the dancer who plays the oppressed woman and tries to intervene. To her, the boundaries of art and reality are falling apart. Good for Pat! I thought, though strictly speaking, it's good for Alice Goodman who wrote these words. We don't know what the real Pat Nixon felt. Kathleen Kim sings a sharp Madame Mao, Pat's feistier, nastier counterpart. Kim also sang the role in the superlative Paris (Chatelet) production this year. Read more about that HERE.

The Paris production, the MET revival of 2011 and this BBC Proms concert contrast strongly.  By far the best was Paris, conducted, directed and performed by people outside the Adams/Sellars circle.  This is telling, because the French production approached the opera from a very different perspective.  Less emphasis on unquestioning incomprehension, more emphasis on personality. Through strong casting, the roles emerged as believable characters. Alexander Briger conducted with firm focus, bringing out the psychological dysfunction beneath the OCD-like repetitions. John Adams at the Proms is celebrating 25 years of success. He wrote the opera, so he can afford to indulge. This Prom was a good experience but I ended up listening afterwards to the original Red Detachment of Women (full download here)  It is worrying when you find more depth and colour in a blatantly stylized ballet written for propaganda purposes.  Maybe I'm just in nostalgic mode. But try it yourself. Listen to the rebroadcast of the Proms Nixon in China and then to the anonymous music in the film.  Madame Mao (who was behind the ballet) has the last laugh after all! 

Mahler 6th Chailly Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Prom 69

Have Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra become one of those legendary pairings, like Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic? Certainly in their Mendelssohn (read more here)  but Chailly's account of Mahler's Symphony no 6 in A minor at BBC Prom 69 gave much to consider. After two years of indifferent and often downright disgraceful Mahler performances, at last Chailly and the Leipzigers give us one that sets us thinking.  So much so that I haven't been able to sleep all night, (too much coffee) and am feeling shattered. So this review won't do them justice!

When Chailly conducted Mahler in Amsterdam, it wasn't the easiest fit, since the Concertgebouw Orchestra has such a formidable Mahler tradition, and some of the players needed time to adjust. There are some fine recordings from that period (an exceptional Des Knaben Wunderhorn) but when Chailly moved to Leipzig, something special happened.  Chailly's Mahler is different, so devotees of the Bernstein style for example will be aghast. But so what? Mahler is such a great composer that there's always room for thoughtful interpretation, and thoughtful listening for that matter. No less an authority than Donald Mitchell has such a high regard for Chailly that there's a big section on Chailly in his Discovering Mahler (2007)

Chailly works with the strengths of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, not against it. The ostinato march that runs throughout the symphony enters unobtrusively. No stomping, but a fleet-footed sense of forward movement true to the "energico" marking. Mahler 6 connects to Mahler 3. In both, the suggestion of peaks and open vistas, "mountains" as metaphysical metaphor. (read more here).  The cowbells are somtimes interpreted as souvenirs of Alpine meadows, but Mahler preferred that they be heard as sounds heard from a distance (which alpine cowbells are). Chailly keeps them so muted they are only just audible, creating spatial depth.

The Leipziger's characteristic grace makes the cursive figures particularly seductive. You might hear them as Ruckblick (backward glances), but Chailly makes me think of round shapes as oppsed to angular, feminine ideas as opposed to masculine. Through so much of Mahler we can find this dichotomy. Interpret them as you will. Is Mahler referiing to his muse Alma, or to the "Eternal Feminine", to creative empathy as opposed to negative regression? Warmth comes naturally to this orchestra, offering opportunities to explore this side of Mahler's music more prosaic readings can miss.

In this performance I was struck by the prominence Mahler gives to the harps. They feature before the solo violin passage in the Allegro. Listen to the broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and follow how the harp passages are sharply defined and continue to resurface throughout. The flute solo in the Andante was exquisite, also garlanded by harps. Usually, everyone's listening for the hammer blows and crashing cymbals, but Mahler is making a much more subtle point, and the Leipzigers bring it out more clearly than usual.

Chailly chose Andante-Scherzo. He gives weight to the strings in the Andante, using the "golden" Leipzig glow so the movement feels like a languorous looking back, the repeating patterns nicely burnished. It also gives balance to the symphony, where dichotomy is of the essence. And balance is in the DNA of a Mendelssohn orchestra. Much has been written about the Andante-Scherzo, Scherzo-Andante war, but dogmatism is the enemy of art.  Much moree interesting is why a conductor makes his choices, not what the choice may be. Whatever we might personally think is irrelevant: it's the conductor's decision as artist.

Chailly's Scherzo begins optimistically, but staccato figures return, and the circular figures develop  bizarre turbulence, which then gives way to stillness, so you hear the staccato up close, precisely defined. This performance wasn't particularly demonic, but the irregular rhythmic shifts suggest dangerous imbalance, If the quietness evokes a heartbeat, do these patterns suggest arrthymia?  That may not have been in Mahler's mind but this symphony comes from the same time period when He wrote Um Mitternacht, which refers to a man listening to the beat of his heart in the stillness of the night. "Ein einz'ger Puls war angefacht um Mitternacht". All that separates us from life or death is a single, fragile pulse. Try this one yourself at midnight. It's scary.

Volume increases but the brass are mute. Xylophone, glockenspeil, tam-tam and of course the harps. Chailly makes the orchestra sound like an array of ticking mechanisms. Do these ostinato patterns mark the passage of time? For the symphony draws to its inevitable close. Mahler specifies that the hammer blows should sound hollow, not bright and brassy. No-one has figured the perfect hammerblow but the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra uses a large wooden box and a massive wooden hammer (see photo). Mahler's hero isn't blown away by theatrical furies, but felled by dull thuds. After the first hammerblow, we hear those harps again, plucking that fine, clear melody that suggests open vistas or memory or whatever. The solo violin makes one last entry and suddenly tempi whizz past,  and the opening march returns in tiny rustling fragments, hurtling forward, decelerating.. Then the final hammerblow and the strings play a high, sustained chord. The hero has flatlined, can't be  resuscitated. Or find redemption. That's why Mahler 6 is really "tragic" because unique among Mahler's symphonies, there's no transcendence.

Please read  my review of Prom 69  Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Messaien  Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum HERE. 

Photos: Roger Thomas

Messiaen Et exspecto Prom 69 Chailly Leipzig Gewandhaus

Superb Mahler Sixth Riccardo Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at the BBC Proms, Prom 69. Such a stunning performance that it would be wrong to do something superficial. Plenty of places to go if you want shallow, but it would pain me. After a year and a half of indifferent to horrible Mahler performances, at last something really worth listening to!  So please come back to this site tomorrow. UPDATE ! Chailly's Leipzig Mahler 6 HERE. In the meantime, I'll comment on Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

This Prom (BBC Prom 69) was unusual because it wasn't loud. No strings attached in more ways than one! The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra have one of the most gorgeous string sections in the world, Without string sections, orchestras are "dead". So Chailly and the Leipzigers understand what Et exspecto means. It was commissioned by the French Government to commemorate those who died in the 1939-45 war, who would never return.

Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum is a companion piece to The Quartet for the End of Time. (read more here).  The quartet was first performed in a prisoner of war camp on broken instruments in freezing conditions.  Hence the spartan economy with which Et exspecto is orchestrated. You don't hear the strings, but you listen "because" they are not there. Chailly and the Leipzigers also respect the long silences Messiaen specified between movements. At first, the Proms audience didn't know what to expect and coughed and fidgetted but then twigged Chailly had his head bowed for a reason. These silences were meant for contemplation. Messiaen, being devout, understood the Stations of the Cross in Catholic practice, each Station a kind of scena to be meditated on before going onto the next. Respecting this silence between movements is part of the progress of the work as a whole.

Contemplation in a work as shockingly dramatic as this? It's perfectly in order for any conductor to go for the overwhelming power of the piece, but the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra isn't brassy and showy like some orchestras are. Volume isn't what they are about. Their Et exspecto was gentle, but from an orchestra like this, violence would not be sincere.  What's more, Et exspecto isn't really about Death but about resurrection. The earth is torn apart by cataclysm, but the end result is eternal life and union with God, or whatever higher force you might conceptualize. Et exspecto is extreme: hence the crashing cymbals and wailing brass. But gloomy it's not.

There is no such thing as "non-interpretation" in any form of music. You can't even look at a score without interpreting how the notes might sound in relation to each other. Chailly's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum may be different, but he's arrived at it by interpreting why it might be the way it's written. "Music is not in the notes" said Mahler. It's why the notes are put together.
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Here is what I wrote about Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum last year at the time of the Tsunami in Japan.  Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.


Because Olivier Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrection mortuorum is about the End of the World, it's scary to listen to at this time (Japanese Tsunami). But maybe this is, after all, the time to listen to what it really means. There is a deliberate Japanese connection, since Messiaen visited and loved Japan.  He is emphasizing universal spiritual values which apply to all, Christian or not.

Note the orchestration. No strings! The Quartet for the End of Time can be heard as a prototype. Twenty years later, and after nuclear war became a reality, Messiaen goes for maximium power. Massed percussion forms the bedrock of Et exspecto, for it represents the earth itself, ripped asunder by the Apocalypse. Specifically Messiaen uses six giant Asian gongs, more powerful than tam tams. Gongs call the faithful to order. Ritual progression is very much part of this music's structure, so gongs mark stages in its raga-like plateaux. Metallic percussion, too, rather than timpani, for dissonance. Pitched cowbells, and a gigantic set of tubular bells which ring out like an organ, the composer's personal instrument. Against the percussion,woodwinds create birdsong or the sound of wings in flight. Brasses range from small D trumpet to Wagnerian tuba. What would the Final Judgement be without trumpets?  Messiaen wants strident, not resonant.This work is, after all, about waking the dead.

The ritual character of Et exspecto is underlined by quotations from different parts of the Bible. It's a Via Crucis which unfolds in stages. First: "From the deepest abyss I cry, Lord hear me!", which is what Jesus is supposed to have called out in his time of agony. Massive dark chords like tectonic plates, shifting inexorably. The brass like the rumbling of some deep fissure, which explodes into wild, screaming chords and ends in a single, piercing shriek. Hearing this after Sendai is painful. Then silence, extremely important as it marks an invisible, inaudible transit.

In the second section, a moment of calm reassurance, for Christ has risen from the dead. Diaphanous textures, which grow into quirky, jerky angles. The movement of birds, intuitively darting in crazy angles so they can't be caught. As Messiaen the ornithologist would have understood. Birds are fragile, but they evolved from dinosaurs, and survived. Even greater stillness marks the beginning of the third section, but now the tubular bells toll, calling like the bells in a church. The woodwinds describe an even more powerful bird theme - a bird from the Amazon jungle, apparently, which has existed outside civilization. Messiaen is referring to creation itself, connecting the Beginning and End of Time. In Christian belief, an Angel blows a trumpet and graves open. Hence the darkening "earthquake fissure" theme.

Wild,  jerky figures associated with the "birds" start the fourth section, which soon  the percussion explodes. When these gongs crash,  it feels like blinding light, a shocking, flashing thunderbolt in sound. At this moment, I can't help but think of the cataclysmic light of a nuclear explosion. Ironically, it's the Resurrection, start of a new era.

The final movement almost defies description. Powerful ostinato, gongs and blocked percussion, repeated over and over, driving the point in so there's no mistaking its force. Gradually the music turns, like a juggernaut. The image of an eternal wheel, perhaps propelling the music ever forward. Messiaen uses the quotation "And I heard the voice of an immense crowd". It's an immense crowd becauase all who have died in the past have been raised from death and suffering. (That's assuming God doesn't discriminate between faiths). That's why the whole orchestra marches forth in unison. Gradually the pace builds up to an overwhelming climax. It's not a march in conventional symphonic terms but owes its structure, perhaps, to Japanese gagaku, which inspired Messiaen's ground-breaking Sept Haïkaï, written in 1962, soon after Messiaen returned from Japan, and two years before Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

In Sept Haïkaï,  the image is a “floating gate”, the torii at the Miyajima shrine in Japan. The red arches stand alone in the sea, as if suspended between earth and sky. It is a gate, but to what? The arches stand amid a panoramic open  landscape. As the weather changes, as time changes, the surroundings change dramatically. Photo by H Orihashi. Read more about Sept Haïkaï HERE.


For Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum means "In expectation of the resurrection of the dead". It's not meant to be oppressive or gloomy. It was commissioned as a memorial to the French war dead, but Messiaen was  having no truck with militarism or even national glory. Instead he comes up with something so unique and so universal he wanted it performed in the Alps. So if the Christian form of this piece bothers you, remember that for Messiaen, God resided in Nature, and mountains were Nature's cathedrals.

Mendelssohn Leipzig Gewandhaus Chailly Prom 67

Mendelssohn loved the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and they revere him in return. Impossible then to miss the Leipzigers all-Mendelssohn Prom 67 at the Royal Albert Hall. When Riccardo Chailly opened their new season in 2005 as Director, they programmed Mendelssohn over and over. It was a statement of intent. Since then the orchestra has surpassed itself,  the legendary "golden"sound regenerated anew. Chailly and the Leipzig Gewanndhaus Orchestra are a match made in heaven, from which Mendelssohn is smiling down.

Starting the Prom with the Overture from Ruy Blas (op 95, 1839) overturns stereotypes of Mendelssohn as "effete".  The Overture was written for a brand new play by Victor Hugo, which Mendelssohn hated. So Mendelssohn writes an overture so punchy it's even more dramatic than the play itself!  Those sharp "footsteps" in the strings, sometimes mimicking guitars, the wild  turbulent longer lines, the extreme fanfares. Mendelssohn creating savage satire, mocking vulgar taste and excess. Chailly and the Leipzigers play with fire and finesse.  This stylish elegance is significant, because the Overture to Ruy Blas can be read as a riposte to Berlioz, to popular fashion, and indeed, to Wagner and Liszt, had he known how they would maul him after his death for reasons of their own. 

Having blown away the cobwebs, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor emerged with even greater purity. Although the piece is so famous, Nicolaj Znaider, Chailly and the Leipzigers made it feel fresh. Exquisite, the distillation of everything beautiful and poignant. When I die, I want the last sounds I hear to be that elusive melody.... so sad and yet so life affirming.  Each time the theme returns, Znaider enriches it, haloed by sensitive woodwinds.  On the BBC broadcast, you can hear Znaider taking breaths, which weren't audible live. This music is sublime, but Znaider's extra personal touch reminds us that Mendelssohn wrote for human beings. This was s a breathtaking performance, truly committed and beautifully judged. An experience never to be forgotten. It was a privilege to be there.

There's more to music drama than Wagner: had Mendelssohn lived, would we be thinking of opera in a different way? Mendelssohn's Overture to The Fair Melusine (op 32. 1833) expresse big ideas, but without words. We don't need to be told, we respond intuitively to the surging climaxes and delicate "water" imagery even if we don't know who Melusine was.   Chailly and the Leipzigers bring out the inherent drama in the piece yet never sacrifice poise to flash. This is drama for refined minds, thinking in abstract terms, yet it's so emotionally potent. The "crashing waves" give way to a single clarinet, which is then supported by winds. The music ends, but our imaginations continue to react.

Mendelssohn's Symphony no 5 "The Reformation", was last heard at the Proms in 2009 (Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra) but Chailly and the Leipzigers are in an altogether more exalted league. No comparison. The Leipzig Mendelssohn tradition is unique. Players may change, but know what Mendelssohn meant to Leipzig, and to the huuman spirit. It is no coincidence that the orchestra was involved right at the start oif the protests which would lead to the collapse of the GDR, and thus to dismemberment of the whole Soviet bloc. The Nazis could smash the statue of Mendelssohn outside the Gewandhaus, but they could not destroy what Mendelssohn symbolizes.

Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony "The Reformation"  is more uncompromising than the glorious Lobgesang (Symphony no 2) or the delicious Italian (Symphony no 4) but it's spartan for very profound reasons. It was written to commemorate the Augsburg Confession of 1530, where the Holy Roman Emporer recognized that Protestants and Catholics could coexist.  This was a critcial moment in German history, from which in many ways the Protestant German identity arose. Without Augsburg, no J S Bach, or even Meistersinger, for that matter.  Mendelssohn revered Bach at a time when the earlier composer was almost forgotten, so this symphony is Mendelssohn's musical statement of faith. Chailly and the Leipzigers firmly carve out the quotations from  Ein' feste Burg is unser Gott, for this is the foundation stone of the symphony (and indeed of the German musical tradition).  Absolutely rock solid, so the counterpoint  melody seems even freer and more joyous. Note that "dancing" march, another reminder that Wagner owed much to Mendelsohn. 

This performance had undfamilair bits because the edition used was an early version, not heard before in this country. Yet Chailly and the Leipzigers performed it with such committment that the characteristic warmth of their style won over. Beautiful brass - listen for the trombones, trumpets and the contrabass ophicleide pictured above, (not as strident as a tuba). Magnificent flute! With Mendelssohn, always the importance of individual voice, and here this voice was intensely assertive, though graceful. 

Alas, some in the audience saw fit to impose their voices over the music. It's unfair on everyone else. When the idiot shouted Bravo! between movements, it  broke the mood. Chailly took a while to readjust, visibly annoyed. This kind of interruption is barbaric. No one needs to be told that Mendelssohn and these performers are good. All it shows is that the shouter is not really listening, but trying to dominate. Save that for Brown Shirt rallies, please let the rest of us listen to the music.

Please someone at the BBC tell the presenter not to praise this sort of vulgarity (and the silly flag waving hands) because it only encourages buffoons who think they are more important than the music or anyone else.

Mendelssohn's Wedding March for an encore - only two extra instruments needed, and extra horn and cymbals. Although it's wedding music, it's not easy to march down the aisle because the rhythms aren't regular enough. The piece comes from A Midsummers Night's Dream. Fairies and Grecian nobles don't stomp.  Wagner's Wedding music from Lohengrin works better because it gives better cues for bride and groom to troop in procession. Which rather summarizes a few more differences  between Mendelssohn and Wagner.

Mustard and Beefsteak - Rattle Lutosławski Brahms Prom 64

Berlin comes to London! The Berliner Philharmoniker 2012-13 season began on 24th August with a gala concert featuring Witold Lutosławski.and Johannes Brahms. (Read more HERE). The exact same programme at the BBC Proms, London on 31st August. Compare the two performances - the Berlin one on the Berliner Philharmoniker site and the London one on BBC Radio 3. The difference is striking!

In Berlin, the Berliners play in the Philharmonie, noted for its good acoustic, to a reverent audience for whom music and the Berliner music year are serious things indeed. In London, they're playing at the Royal Albert Hall with its dodgy acoustic but unmistakable party atmosphere. So in Berlin, exqusite, dedicated performances. And in London, cheerful good fun. Both approaches perfectly compatible, neither necessarily "better" than the other. You need to hear both performances. Orchestras tour these days and festivals feature the same items, but no two performances are ever really alike.

First a nice safe standard : Brahms Piano Concerto no 2 in B flat major, with Yefim Bronfman. No surprises, with a soloist this good and an orchestra who have the piece in their genes.  But was the Royal Albert Hall playing tricks? I kept hearing stamping noises behind, then realized that it wasn't someone in the audience but Bronfman himself, merrily stamping his feet as he played. The quirks of the RAH acoustic bounced the sound off the platform into the stalls. Since Bronfman's a musician in every way the extra percussion he contributed worked quite well in its own strange way. Perfection we can hear anytime, but sound effects like this are rare. Evidently, Bronfman was happy and conveyed his joie de vivre to the orchestra and to the audience (most of whom wouldn't have heard the secret extras) (it's almost certainly not audible on the BBC broadcast).

Fairly routine playing otherwise, but the Berliners are so good that even when they let their hair down (so to speak) they are still more interesting than anyone else. Besides, the compensation is seeing them all looking relaxed and laid back. This concerto is a big beast, the sort of thing that appeals to those who like their music as red meat, with gravy and a strong cigar. On the other hand, its finest moments are quieter and more piquant.

I use this metaphor deliberately, becuase in an interview Simon Rattle gave recently, he referred to a conversation he had with Lutosławski. "Usually I'm the mustard" said the composer, "in concerts full of beefsteak".  For a change, said Lutosławski, he wanted to be the beefsteak. And so Rattle and the Berliners delivered. While the Brahms performance was straightforward, for Lutosławski. the orchestra pulled out all the stops. Very detailed, precise playing. Multiple layers of sound yet never muddied or confused. Major focus on the twelve brass players, each with interesting parts, solo and together: they're ranged in a line for visual as well as aural impact. So much is going on in this 35-minute piece that conducting it must be like juggling. Each element seems to function with its own dynamic, manic but carefully marshalled. Dark meat but palateable and enough mustard to spice things up. Overall the effect is freewheeling though purposeful  energy. The Proms audience loved it, stomping their feet for more.

Between the revolution in Poland in 1989 and the composer's death in 1994, he conducted his own music in Britain, including  a performance of the Third Symphony at the then cuting edge Newbury Festival. To my regret I didn't go, thinking it might be "too difficult"for me.(though I had no trouble with Nono and Szymanowski). Yet Lutosławski is perfectly accessible, and even Cage influenced fun, (more here) as this Proms audience discovered. So even if you missed the Prom live, catch it on broadcast (the Berliner Philharmoniker version in perpetual archive).

Atmosphèric Lohengrin Berliner Phil Prom Ligeti Wagner Sibelius

At BBC Prom 63, Simon Rattle brought the Berliner Philharmoniker and did more than just play. They illuminated their music. Ligeti's Atmosphères, Wagner's Act 1 Prelude to Lohengrin, Sibelius Symphony no 4, combined in a flowing seam where each highlighted the other.

The long, reverberating opening chord of Ligeti's Atmosphères gives way to layer after layer of extended sounds. This really is "music from another planet", emanations so pure, high and unnaturally sustained that it must be hell to play. No "melody" as such, but changes of direction and density. Long hollow chords which seem to move from some extraterrestial plane, heralding a rumble from which other chords arise. Low brass pulsate, and the strings shimmer, like rays of light stretching outwards, accelerating in intensity. When I was a kid I used to look up at the sky and think think that shafts of sunlight bursting from clouds were "God", for that's how an abstract idea like God is depicted in religious imagery.

Above all, Ligeti's Atmosphères suggests a soaring sense of infinite expansiveness. Hearing the first strains of Wagner emerge from Ligeti  rings absolutely true in a deeper spiritual sense. Lohengrin isn't historical. Christianity had long since been established by the time Heinrich der Vogler came to Brabant. or he wouldn't be fighting the Huns. In any case, what's authentic about  Lohengrin or the whole Grail community for that matter? From a theological perspecvtive it's hogwash, if not outright blasphemy.  What the Grail represents, however, is something much more primeval than Christianity. It's an ideal that transcends time and context. Hearing this Prelude after Ligeti suggests that Grail values transcend human history, and derive from the cosmos. It goes without saying that the Berliner Philharmonikers are good. Here, they were exceptional. It wasn't just the beauty of their playing, it was the emotional committment .

Theodor Adorno hated Sibelius, in part because performance practice in those days emphasized the  picturesque aspects of his music rather than the innate structural qualities. Sibelius Fourth Symphony was a breakthrough, so shocking in its time that many thought it incomprehensible. In this performance, Rattle and the Berliners show how visionary Sibelius really was. Dark, primordial undercurrents, rent through by blasts of sharply defined chords. The imagery of light in Wagner, the  idea of abstract eternity in Ligeti.  The winds of change so familiar in Sibelius seem to blow from a higher level of consciousness. Sibelius's interest in the Kalevala and nature wasn't regressive but forward thinking. This performance emphasized the "wide open spaces" in the symphony, and the thrill of discovery that makes Sibelius so exciting from a modern perspective. How radical that ending sounds, considering when it was written.

Rattle and the Berliners changed focus in the second part of Prom 63. Ostensibly the connection between Debussy's Jeux and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe is ballet, but that's simplistic. Ballet music is constrained by the limits of the human body, but abstract music isn't. By choosing the Suite on Daphnis et Chloe rather than the full piece, Rattle could focus on the brisk liveliness in both works. In Debussy, the pace was tempered by a good sense of structure. Games, after all, depend on strategy not impulse. In the Suite from Daphnis et Chloe, Rattle and the Berliners could let loose with greater exuberance, capturing its innate spirit of freedom. Not, after all, so very different from the light-filled, open horizons of Ligeti, Wagner and Sibelius.

Hymnus Paradisi Howells Elgar Brabbins Prom 61

Herbert Howells Hymnus Paradisi is not a rarity. Indeed, it's considered by some to be his masterpiece, extremely well known to those interested in British choral tradition. Sowhat if it's new to the Proms?  Several recordings exist, Vernon Handley, David Hill, David Willcox and my personal favourite, Richard Hickox. So it's fitting that it was included in this Proms season with its sucession of spectacular choral extravangazas. Martyn Brabbins is a great champion of British music, but with huge experience of more contemporary music.  Brabbins conducted Howells and Elgar's Symphony No 1 with a fresh new perspective.

Hymnus Paradisi is an amalgam of private grief, public celebration and art for its own sake. Howell's only son Michael died suddenly, aged only 9. Any parent would be devastated: no one ever "gets over" such events. Howells worked through his grief with music. Hymnus Paradisi is no less than a rumination on the meaning of life and loss. As a young man, Howells was so sickly that he nearly died, and couldn't serve in the First World War, while so many of his healthy friends were killed or damaged.  The irony was not lost on him. When Howells wrote Hymnus Paradisi, he wasn't to know he'd live til 1983, but he knew his friend Ivor Gurney was incarcerated in a mental hospital, far from his beloved Gloucestershire hills.

Unlike so many Requiems and memorial pieces, Hymnus Paradisi is deeply felt and deeply personal. Although Howells is writing for big orchestra and choir, the last thing you want in performance is insincerity. Brabbins's approach emphasizes the luminous qualities in this music: high, bright textures, always ascending, refusing to wallow in self indulgence. How quietly this Preludio began, suggesting, perhaps, lost innocence. Yet already, sudden, shining chords break through. The choirs enter in hushed tones, without breaking the reverie. Only when the soloist, Miah Persson, sings, do the choirs begin to reach greater volume. The organ enters, reminding us of the force of suffering. It's interesting how Howells works the different phrases in The Lord is my Shepherd, so they aren't full blast unison, maximizing instead the poignancy of the solo soprano line "I will lift up miine eyes". Quietly, the tenor (Andrew Kennedy) repeats "The Lord is my Shepherd". Parallel songs, parallel prayers, parallel lives. This interweaving is crucial, I think, to the meaning of the work, for it emphasizes the idea that those gone are neither alone nor lost. Only then do the choirs (BBC Chorus, London Philharmonic Choir) and the BBC SO reach full crescendo.

"I heard a voice from Heaven" sings Kennedy, alone. Again the interplay of voices is critical, for in a burial service, one person takes leave from those around him and  goes out on their own. But as Howells shows it's a journey into glorious eternal light. "Wonderful, wonderful" is the holy light which receives those who die, and offers comfort to those who believe. "Alleluja!". Hymnus Paradisi ends in a glowing halo. Eternal rest, eternal bliss.

I used to do an annual pilgrimage to Chosen Hill, where Ivor Gurney would stride ahead, Howells behind him, and then visit nearby Twigworth where Howells, Gurney and Michael are buried together. Photo by Jeffrey Carter (link here)  Arguably, Gurney was  by far the greater and more original composer (and poet), and I suspect Howells knew so too, which  makes Hymnus Paradisi so moving.  I loved Brabbins's Elgar First Symphony, tightly structured and lucid, but was so wiped out emotionally by his Howells that I had to listen again to the broadcast to appreciate how well Brabbins conducts Elgar.

Strange Twins Knussen Debussy Goehr Prom 56

Oliver Knussen is an institution. He lights up every Prom season but this year was special, as he was conducting his own Symphony No 3. This piece was the true breakthrough of his career. Hearing Knussen revisit the piece, more than thirty years after he completed it, was a revelation. This performance sounded so fresh and bright, it was like hearing the piece anew. The dreamy lyricism of Michael Tilson Thomas's recording of 1981 gives way to a tighter, more incisive reading where details are pinpointed in sharp relief.

In Shakespeare, Ophelia loses her mind, singing "mad songs" and dancing wild dances. She is a paradigm of a creative artist, who uses art to articulate emotion. Knussen's Third Symphony is abstract, but its sinuous figures suggest curving, swaying movement, like a dancer turning in circles. Knussen has referred to its "cinematic" nature and "the potential relationship in film between a tough and fluid narrative form and detail which can be frozen or 'blown up' at any point." Without words, Knussen creates drama, in the shifting layers and tempi. Each permutation unfolds like a frenzied dance, or perhaps processional, given the size of these orchestral forces. The orchestra is huge - especially for a piece that lasts 15 minutes, but at its heart lie just three players, a sub unit oif celeste, harp and guitar (alternating mandolin). Does that suggest Mahler's Seventh Symphony, and its strange Nachtmusik? Knussen and Mahler don't sound the least bit similar, and Knussen is not a Mahler conductor (and the celeste appears elswhere) but the comparison is fruitful, because both symphonies evoke contradictory responses. Knussen's symphony "dances" with grave dignity, strong tutti chords suggesting fractured intensity. Darkness and blinding bright light. Yet at the heart, quiet, simple sounds suggesting the fragile human soul within.

Alexander Goehr's Metamorphosis Dance  dates from 1974, whch links it to the period when Knussen began working on the Third Symphony. For Goehr, the archetypical dancer is Circe, who in the Odyssey, turns men into animals and back. Goehr's variations twist and turn gracefully: this Circe's art lies in transformation, without malice. With Knussen, the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave  a luminously beautiful reading, which must have warmed the composer's heart. Performances as sympathetic as this justify Goehr's reputation, and Knussen's admiration for him.

Knussen is also a great believer in Helen Grime, premiering many of her works, at Aldeburgh and at the Proms.  Her Night Songs fitted this Proms programme nicely, though might not have been quite so effective in another setting. Huge orchestra, but lopsided, all the weight on the right side of the platform,  the strings on the left struggling. Or perhaps that was the intention? The piece lasts just five minutes. One wonders if Grime might plan a second piece for symmetric balance? In typical Knussen practice, the piece was repeated. "I hope it was all right" said Knussen "My glasses fell off, so I'll conduct it again to make sure". (NB Knussen often repeats short pieces, it's his thing You can tell who goes to Ollie concerts and who doesn't, by seeing who got the joke and who didn't).

Oliver Knussen's programmes are always deviously well chosen. If nothing else, Knussen and Debussy look like brothers! Debussy's Le martyre de Sainte Sébastien (The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastien) (1911) was originally written with a major part for the dancer Ida Rubenstein, and poetic narration (text by Gabriele d'Annunzio no less!). It's a strange exotic work, a non-religious mystery play. Sebastien is a court favourite who's condemned to be shot through with arrows but is redeemed by divine intervention and becomes one of the stranger saints in the liturgy. Yukio Mishima's veneration of St Sebastien in Confessions of a Mask definitely won't appeal to the pious!

The music is striking, so you can hear why it appeals to Knussen's sense of theatre and lurid colours. Knussen's approach is very Knussen, which is fair enough. Claire Booth, a Knussen regular, and a favourite of mine, too, sang the soprano solos, though she wasn't idiomatic. It was also hard to follow the two choirs (New London Chamber Choir and BBC National Chorus of Wales). Many in the audience were French, but needed their programme booklets for the text.  By far the finest singing came from  Polly May and Clare McCaldin  as Mark and Marcellin, commenting on events from up high above the orchestra.
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You might also like Proms Pelléas et Mélisande,  and the review of Knussen's Third Symphony on NMC in Opera Today.
And also, a review of Knussen's double bill, Higgelty Piggelty Pop! and Where the Wild Things Are from Aldeburgh, which is coming soon to the Barbican.
(Goehr photo: Etan Tal. Top picture of Knussen: Roger Thomas)

Goebbels stages John Cage Prom 47

Probably the biggest event this whole John Cage Centenary year!  Heiner Goebbels stages John Cage's Europeras 1 and 2 at the Ruhr Biennial. Read Shirley Apthorp in the Financial Times. 
Cage's Europeras 1 and 2  take fragments of numerous different operas and reprocesses them, much in the way that a kaliedoscope turns fragments of coloured glass into new patterns with new movement. "The paradox", says Apthorp, is that "Chaos only works if fastiduously structured".

Cage is important not so much for what he writes but why he writes. He challenges the very basis of creativity. Kaput to the idea of composer as auteur. Instead the idea of random chance, multiple stimuli which the listener must process in realtime, parameters like duration within which nothing is defined.  The onus is always on the moment and on the listener. In the I ching, you throw a coin and look up the runes in the Book of Changes. These suggest images, but it's up to the person interpreting them to use his other own intuition. Every person, every time a consultation is done, everything depends on how the interpreter can reach into his or her own psyche. It's not divination so much as spiritual and mental discipline.

Paradox again! Despite Cage's reticence, much of his music is exquisitely beautiful, when done well. Listen online to Exaudi doing ear for Ear Antiphonies and then Four (2). Though the sounds they make are so abstract, they feel primeval. Perhaps the echoes of medieval plainchant, projected into the cosmos?  Or even the feeling of sound moving around the perfomance space, creating "music" that isn't even made by the performers? It doesn't matter, as long as you're responding and listening on a deep level. I much prefered these ensemble pieces to Experience II (Joan La Barbara) precisely because they're wordless, and liberate your imagination.

Publicity about the cactuses is misleading because Cage's music isn't about gimmick or novelty. More than ever, this is music that challenges you to think, and gives back what you put in : the creative process turned on its head.  Personally I find Cage surprisingly relaxing, like zen meditation, but it's perfectly OK to be bored witless. But tomorrow it might be the other way round. Like the I Ching, the runes tell you about yourself at a specific time.

Cage is so utterly an original, there's almost no precedent. Learning the technique of composition doesn't make you a composer anymore than reading a wiki makes you Einstein. And Cage was a philosopher as much as a musican.  Listen to the broadcast (link above) because the commentary is very good indeed.  Read Ivan Hewett's review of Cage Day Prom 47 (Ilan Volkov) and my review of The London Sinfonietta Prom 44. 

Mad dances - BCMG Prom Knussen Bainbridge

When the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group visits the BBC Proms it's a big occasion. While the London Sinfonietta holds a hallowed place, the BCMG advantage is that it works closely with the best British composers. (photo left c Chris Nash)

Beneath Oliver Knussen's quirky playfulness lies an extremely original mind. Knussen's creativity takes on so many forms that's it's meant he doesn't compose as much as he should. On Saturday 25/8 (Prom 56), Knussen conducts his Third Symphony. It's a seminal work, from which many other pieces evolve. Read more HERE.  Ophelia's Last Dance is a 2010 outgrowth from the ideas in the symphony. In Shakepeare, Ophelia dances and sings mad songs in her distress. This time Ophelia is alone, no orchestra around her. Huw Watkins (himself a major composer) plays the twists and angles with elegance. Even in her madness, Ophelia is graceful. Aphoristic as it is. Ophelia's Last Dance creates a strong emotional impact, particularly after the 1974 Ophelia Dances. Knusssen has come a long way, but the core of his sensibility remains undimmed.

Just as Knussen links past to present, Alexander Goehr's .... a musical offering (JSB) 1985....  ruminates on J S Bach, presenting a musical offering from a 1985 perspective. Goehr's filigree tracery charms though it's not a major contribution to the canon. And why should it be? There's plenty of room for creative whimsy in music, as Knussen so often demonstrates. 

More problematic was Simon Bainbridge's The Garden of Earthly Delights, a BBC Commission receiving its world premiere. One of Bainbridge's great strengths is that he writes music which feels rooted in space and visual stimuli (read more about him by following the label below). The Garden of Earthly Delights takes its inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch's triptych of the same name.  Bainbridge has a thing for triptychs and their formal structure, and his sensitivity to multiple layers generates very interesting musical writing indeed, deftly conducted by Nicholas Collon.

Unfortunately, Bainbridge's music is saddled with spoken text. What is this prolix babble, ostentatiously delivered? Maybe it purports to show Bosch's fractured psyche,  but its false bucolic pretentiousness doesn't reflect the fundamental dignity of Bosch's vision.  It also bears little relation to Bainbridge's music. Hopefully the piece will be revised drastically because there's enough interest to satisfy in the music and sung parts (well defined by Andrew Watts,  Lucy Schaufer and the Sinfonietta Voices). Like Ophelia, Bosch may have been mad by some standards, but his madness generated art, not stupidity.

Delius Prom 43, Paris and beyond

From Juliet Williams, on BBC Prom 43 and more: "As this anniversary year unfolds, Delius' contribution to music has been marked with his works featuring in opening concerts both at the BBC Proms (Sea Drift) – where his Songs of Farewell will appropriately feature in the Last Night too – and at the Edinburgh Festival (Mass of Life). (Review HERE) An important exhibition related to the composer's life is being shown in the ground floor corridor of the Albert Hall throughout the Proms season this year.

"This week also saw the Proms performance of the rarely heard nocturne, 'Paris: the Song of a Great City', given by the Royal Philharmonic under its chief conductor Charles Dutoit (Prom 43). This is another important work in understanding this composer and his work: firstly, it is a pivotal transition from his early to his mature oeuvre, and secondly it is a musical portrait of a city where the composer spent twelve years - a significant part of this life, significant also to him as it was where he met his wife. The work aims to capture the different sides of this city's personality and life. It opens with a sly, suggestive, jazz-referenced entry by woodwind, hinting at nightlife in the French capital, then broadening to offer a whistling wander in the Parisian streets. The composer's characteristic colouring becomes more apparent. Around seven minutes' into the work, it perhaps loses its way a little, before rallying forces to pick up tempo and suggest the grander, formal aspect of the city, the capital and seat of the establishment. Around twenty minutes in, this grandeur and pomp fades suddenly, to be replaced with quiet strings until building again, coda-like to a climax.

"If this performance sounded a little 'thin', this reflects the difficulty which the Albert Hall acoustic can have for delicately-textured works. The work itself, although enjoyable is at times intrinsically lacking in cohesiveness, a recurrent issue for Delius which results in the shorter, more compact works perhaps being his most successful. Devotees of Delius' music and those following the anniversary celebrations closely should also note that there is a significant new production of his A Village Romeo and Juliet at this year's Wexford Festival. A Walk to the Paradise Garden, an extracted piece of incidental music from this opera, was delightfully performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the BBC Proms on 31st July(Prom 23), for me the highlight of an evening of English 20th century music, notwithstanding the brief duration of that piece. However, Summer Night on the River, probably my ultimate favourite of this composer's works, has been conspicuous by its unseasonal absence from the considerable prominence given to him generally. It is, though, to receive a performance alongside the also very enjoyable On First Hearing the Cuckoo In Spring by the Northern Sinfonietta in the excellent acoustic of the Sage Gateshead on Sat 10th November."
photo : Alejandro Diaz-Caro 
Coming up next L Alberto Cavalcanti's Rien que les heures (Nothing but time) - a day in the life of Paris, an important film from 1926. If you like Berlin : Symphony of a Great City (1929) (follow link to full downlaod) you'll like this. Cavalcanti worked with Ruttmann. 

Games with Time : London Sinfonietta Prom 44

Delightful Londoin Sinfonietta experience at BBC Prom 44. Ligeti, Xenakis, Berio, Jonarthan Harvey, Louis Andriessen and John Cage. Mentally challenging but also intensely good fun. "Fun?" sneered someone not so long ago "That's not an acceptable term in music" But anyone who can't appreciate fun can't really appreciate creativity.To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "when a man is tired of fun, he's tired of life".

This Prom was also a challenge to creative thinking. No orchestra for Ligeti's Poème Symphonique, . Instead 100 metronomes furiously ticking away until their mechanisms run out of steam. Metronomes count time and tempo is a basic building block of music. Like Poème Electronique, it's an installation piece that breaks down rigid assumptions about how we process sound into music.

I've loved Luciano Berio's Sequenza V for years without knowing its background as it works fine as pure music. It's a study of breath control. The trombone emits tentative blips, then creates long, low lines that seem to probe into space. Trombones call to communicate. Byron Fulcher shows how his trombone can peak, sometimes like a moan, sometimes a long exhalation, probing space and reaching outwards. He's dressed as a clown, mocking the Victorian propriety of the Royal Albert Hall. But it's also a reference to a famous clown who lived near Luciano Berio when Berio was a boy. Berio liked humour because it was anti-authoritarian and broke down barriers.

Xenakis Phlegra  refers to the clash between the Gods of Greece and their predecessors, the Titans. Obviously it's not "pictorial" but a confrontation between jagged,  angular pulses and more complex emanations. Woodwinds, brass and percussion weave zigzags  around each other.. Gutsy, "wooden" sounds from the strings. A huge, elliptical emanation from the brass, then a strange blast that suddenly deflates. There's even a snatch of melody, a brief reprise before the piece speeds up maniacally, and ends with pulsating short signals, like transmissions from distant planets.

In Jonathan Harvey's  Mortuos plango, vivos voco, technology is the instrument. A boy's voice sings agains ta recording of  tolling cathedral bells. But the boy himself is now an adult. while his voice rermains that of a child, recorded when the piece was first created. Harvey is playing with time, for what we hear is both something frozen in the past and reconstituted  anew in performance.

Many of the themes in Prom 44 pulled together in Louis Andriessen's  De Snelheid (Velocity) (1984). Two identical groups (saxophone, brass, piano at the sides, flutes, harps, keyboards in the front and centre back what Andriessen calls "Buddha", woodblock percussion that operates as a giant metronome. Regular, unvarying pulse, but one which speeds up quicker and quicker until you can't count the beats. Any faster and the player might disintegrate. It's gloriously punchy and exuberant, but must be hell to play and keep together. The London Sinfonietta have Andriessen's idiom under their skins, so to speak, and have been playing him for years. André Ridder conducted, stylishly.

And then silence. Or not.  After 60 years, John Cage's notorious 4'33 still draws howls of rage from fundamentalists who don't think about what they listen to.  Cage makes us think about the art of listening, why and how we process what we hear around us. 4'33 is like a Cage Musicircus, where we're presented with layers of multiple stimuli. Every "performance" is unique, created by chance and happenstance. Unfortunately at the Proms everyone keeps reverently silent which defeats the purpose. But 4'33 is "music you can perform at home" at any time.  Indeed, in our 24/7 world of mass instant communication, ruled by technology, we need to heed Cage more than ever.

This Prom ended as performance art, volunteers texting randomly, like in an installation space. A cheeky concept!  But fun.

photo : Peter Forster

Mälkki Philharmonia Bartók Neuwirth Prom 42

Susanna Mälkki and the Philharmonia together at the BBC Proms.  A match mde in heaven. The Philharmonia is - I'll stick my neck out - the finest orchestra in London, players of great skill, eager to stretch themselves as artists. Remember their Schoenberg Gurrelieder with Esa-Pekka Salonen at the South Bank some years ago?  Much more idiomatic than Saraste  and the BBC SO at the Proms this week. Susanna Mälkki challenges them and they respond. She is Music Director of Ensemble Intercontemporain and has conducted many of the major orchestras in Europe. At BBC Prom 42, Mälkki and the Philharmonia showed what they can achieve together.

This programme was extremely well chosen on many levels. Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Suite no 1 set the tone. The programme would end with Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra which incorporates elements of dance and makes a wry dig at Shostakovich. Between them, Olga Neuwirth's Remnants of Songs - an Amphigory (a message that purports to convey no meaning)  All three pieces  incorporate references to other works and genres, enhanced when heard togther. Very subtle, but very brainy. Mälkki's Prokofiev is elegant and precise, as dance should be. No need for slushy fake Romaticism. In dance, poise is of the essence. You don't "approximate". Mälkki made Prokofiev move with grace.


Olga Neuwirth's music is purposeful, and with Remnants of Songs - an Amphigory she shows how delicately she can write. Some objected to her Lost Highway when it came to the ENO Young Vic in 2008 because it didn't resemble the David Lynch movie that inspired it. But that was precisely her point: she was writing music, not illustrating film (review here).  Remnants of Songs evolves from fragments of song. Conceptually it's strong: we process what we hear until it sinks into our subconscious, emerges in snatches, often disassembled. The soloist, Lawrence Power, giving the UK premiere, plays delicate wisps that dissolve as soon as you begin to pin them down. Sometimes almost bare chords against silence, then circular figures that turn upon themselves. I thought of a squirrel scurrying about, storing things away for future retreival. Powers bows angular shapes, and the orchestra concludes the second "song" with a splendid, golden semi-fanfare. Power changes tack, plucking  rather than bowing, and the song spirals up and down the scale, gaining in momentum, til it suddenly ceases. Smooth transits. The orchestra responds with loud, dramatic chords, evoking the film noir. The viola dances exuberantly, and the piece ends with a mood of cheeky brightness. Are we hearing faint traces of Schubert in the ending, as we heard in the beginning? It hardly matters, for Neuwirth is blending whimsy with inventive energy. 

The ethereal high theme that begins Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra develops subtly until it emeges with expansive confidence. Mälkki observes detail carefully, so the music seems to oscillate with light and clarity. This highlights the more disturbing undercurrents in the work. Bartók's music keeps churning and changing, tempi spirited along as if propelled by winds of change. As with Mälkki's Prokofiev and Neuwirth, you hear the spirit of dance. Particularly vibrant flutes and piccolo. Then the tam tams reintroduce memories of Magyar traditions. Bartók knew full well what was happening in his native Hungary in 1943. The eerie "night music"gives way to trumpet calls. Firm staccato, disconcerting tempi changes. Yet, Mälkki and the Philharmonia make this concerto feel affirmative. Bartók isn't going to give in to despair.

photo : Simon Fowler

Schoenberg Gurrelieder BBC Prom 41

Arnold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder
is conceived as cosmic panorama. King Waldemar curses God and is himself cursed, doomed to ride the skies forever, inspiring awe and horror. This is an audacious work of theatre for orchestra and voices. No costumes needed, nor staging, though seeing it in a performance space as inherently dramatic as the Royal Albert Hall intensifies its impact. No live Gurrelieder will ever be dull.

Gurrelieder has featured in seven BBC Proms. Pierre Boulez conducted it in 1973, in an astounding performance that is still one of the best recordings available. Andrew Davis opened the 1994 Proms with a Gurrelieder where Hans Hotter gave an outstanding performance as speaker, so remarkable that it's lived in my memory ever since. Jukka-Pekka Saraste and his musicians have a lot to live up to, but their 2012 Proms Gurrelieder did not disappont. Every performance has its merits, and from each we learn.

Wagner's influence was so pervasive that Schoenberg, like Mahler and Hugo Wolf before him, needed to find forms other than opera through which to develop his musical persona.  Saraste emphasizes the "Wagnerisms" in Gurrelieder so forcefully that you keep hearing echoes from Tristan und Isolde in the interaction between Waldemar and Tove. here's even an echo of the Shepherd's  tune in the woodwind passages. King Waldemar's men sound like Gunther's Gibichungs, and the Waldtraube plays as pivotal a role as the Waldvogel. It's relevant that Simon O'Neill, who sang Waldemar, specializes in lower-range Wagnerian roles like Siegmund.  Angela Denoke was a reasonable Tove, and Katarina Karnéus sang a beautifully rounded Wood Dove.

Saraste's emphasis so dominates that the differences betwen Parts 1 and 3 in Gurrelieder are minimized, particularly as Part 1 was conducted more loosely than Part 3. It's a valid approach, and certainly makes the piece approachable. Yet it's not an interpretation that brings out the Schoenberg in Gurrelieder, which is far more original and challenging.

Between the time Schoenberg began Gurrelieder and the time he completed it, he went through trauma in his personal life. The picture above shows Schoenberg and his wife Mathilde Zemlinsky, with their two children. It's a summer afternoon, they're in the Austrian countryside. But the faces are pools of blood. Mathilde and the artist Richard Gerstl had an affair but when it ended, Gerstl killed himself. The following year, Schoenberg (himself a painter) wrote Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten and Ewartung (op 17, 1909). He was now able to resolve the impasse with Gurrelieder.

In Part 2 of Gurrelieder, Waldemar responds to the loss of Tove with "Herrgott, Herrgott, wiesst du was du tatest" . The notes that are later sung as "Herrgott" appear right at the beginning of the whole piece, but are now tranformed. Simon O'Neill doesn't have the most lyrically beautiful voice, but it's right for Waldemar, consumed as he is with cosmic rage. O'Neill uses the idiosyncrasies of his voice intelligently. This Waldemar is maddened by suffering and turns on God. "Lasst mich, Herr, die Kappe deines Hofnarr'n tragen!", he snaps. (Let me wear your jester's cap). As Klaus Narr tells us, Waldemar isn't a nice man, which is perhaps why he's so overwhelmed when Tove loves him. O'Neill seems to have understood the part in context of the whole work, rather than just singing his own part regardless as some of the smaller parts are often done. This I respect more than a "lovely" voice,  Roman Trekel had an even more metallic burr, but sang parts that worked for him. Philip Langridge  (a good Klaus Narr) had an even more awkward voice, but used it to create character better than most.
 
As the ghost of Waldemar rides through the skies, the terrified Peasant (Neal Davies) hides and puts his faith in formulaic prayers. So it's significant that Schoenberg makes so much of  Klaus Narr. He's a jester and plays the fool, but it's his job ito say things to kings (and Gods) that they don't want to hear. Like Waldemar and his hunters, the jester is dead, too, a haunted spirit forced to walk in endless circles, going nowhere. It's not a good thing and he knows it. His music is unsettling, as it should be, despite the mock bucolic text. The joke is on the jester, who must ride with his master in death. Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts sang correctly but could have expressed more savage irony. From this point, a change is coming, overturning the "Wagnerian" forces that prevailed before. In the orchestra, Saraste lets small instruments like piccolo and xylophone be heard over the big brass and overwhelming strings.

Superlative choruses sang the demonic huntsmen, extremely well-parted so their song moved with the wildness you'd expect from ghosts riding on the wind. As they fade into  "Versinkt! Versinkt", an eerie chill seems to sink in, even in the overheated Royal Albert Hall.
 
The "Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind" sweeps away all that's gone before. But Waldemar's curse is not resolved. Instead, Schoenberg uses his music and Sprechstimme to herald something completely new. Haunted as I am by Hans Hotter's Speaker I probably expect miracles. This is a part for baritones who retain their musical instincts even when their voices bloom no more, which adds to the meaning of this strange part. As dawn breaks, the ghosts fade, and nature, in its glory, awakes. Wolfgang Schöne still has a voice, and intones the tricky rhythms nicely. But we're definitely not in Wagner territory now. The Speaker addresses "Herr Gänsefuß, Frau Gänsekraut" (Lord Goosefoot, Lady Amaranth), a reference to the "Herrgott" heard earlier. It's also a reference to Waldemar and Tove and their status in the scheme of worldly things. But Goosefoot and Amaranth are tall weeds cut down by wind. This Wind blows the past away, to welcome new growth.

 "Seht die Sonne!" the chorus sang with tumultous vigor, the orchestra resurgent in glorious splendour. "Läßt von lichter Stirne fliegen Strahlenlockenpracht" (and from the sun's glowing brow flies "the spendour of his locks oif light" as the translation by Donna Hewitt puts that last, lovely and very Germanic noun).

Full review and cast list in Opera Today