Semyon Bychkov : Detlev Glanert Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch

At the Barbican, London, Semyon Bychkov conducted Detlev Glanert's Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch, commissioned for the 500th anniversary of the painter's birth,  and premiered in Sint Janskathedraal, 's-Hertogenbosch, in April 2016.  It was a huge public occasion, celebrating the rich heritage of the region. Bosch lived most of his life in 's-Hertogenbosch, which was part of the Duchy of Brabant, with a thriving economy that supported artists as well as merchants. Over the centuries, the area was a target for larger empires - the Dukes of Burgundy, then the Hapsburgs.  Bychkov's programme acknowledges the Flemish background, featuring choral works by Johannes Ockeghem (1410-25? to 1494), Thomas Crecquillon (1505 -1557) and Pierre de la Rue (1452-1518) with Andrew Griffiths conducting the BBC Singers.

Detlev Glanert's Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch might be new to London but it was a huge hit, when the first recording was released in June 2017 with Markus Stenz conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which I reviewed at the time. Glanert's by no means unknown. He's been a Proms favourite for years. Please read my review of the Proms performance in 2019 HERE, with Bychkov conducting the BBC SO. Detlev Glanert was one of Hans Werner Henze's few students. Like Henze, Glanert's very prolific - 11 operas, including Caligula which has been staged at the ENO, but sadly misunderstood,  (see more here and my review of the Frankfurt production Frankfurt here). Glanert and Bychkov have known each other from the days when Bychkov conducted WDR Köln, so it would be interesting to hear how he approaches the piece. 

Glanert's Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch has all the elements for instant popular success.  It helps that the paintings are so much part of popular culture that everyone recognizes his images of extreme excess.  Bosch's people wear medieval dress, but their actions depict the subconscious, the Id and existential guilt in operation, centuries before the concepts of psychology found expression in formal language. Like Carl Orff's  Carmina Burana, Glanert's Requiem is highly dramatic music theatre, adapting the cataclysmic dreamscapes of Bosch's paintings into music of extremes as lurid as Bosch's images.  This Requiem unfolds in 18 episodes, rather like panels in a medieval triptych. This gives the piece structure, making it easy to follow. The teeming, sprawling  panoramas Bosch depicts could plausibly be depicted in sound, but that would probably be asking too much of most audiences. Like Bosch, though, Glanert's piece replicates extremes. Literally heaven and hell, for the premise is the judgement Bosch faces after death. 

Thus the standard elements of a Requiem Mass are interleaved with the Seven Deadly Sins. The acrid flames of hellfire whipping against the smoke of incense. A harsh Voice (David Wilson-Johnson, narrating) calls from above "Hieronymus Bosch!" Immediately we spring to attention.  Bells ring. Throbbing, rushing figures in the choral line, suggesting the doomed hordes we see in Bosch's paintings. The orchestral lines veer wildly, lit by screaming brass, the chorus screaming to crescendo.   Suddenly the forces fragment and, from the silence, a slow, low penitential intonation.  An abstract Requiem Aeternam, the choral line flowing ambiguously, in almost microtonal haze. like smoke.  In Gluttony the bass (the aptly named Christof Fischesser) sings of food, his lines circular and rotund. The text may be in Latin, but the meaning is clear.  The choir responds with the long, thin lines of an Absolve Domine. reinforced by Wrath with tenor (Gerhard Siegel)  and a Dies Irae which ends with a vivid orchestral flourish. Another demon, Envy, fights back. Soprano Aga Mikolaj's fluid, curving lines mimic the lines in the "heavenly" chorus - imitation is a sign of envy! But the serene  Juste judex prevails. 

But where are we? The organ solo (Leo van Doeselaar) lets rip with a frenzy that suggests a cathedral organ hijacked by Satan.  Despite the extremes of volume and tempi, the lines between heaven and hell are, tellingly, blurred. In Sloth, the soprano sings langorously, joined in sensuous duet by the mezzo (Ursula Hesse von den Steinen). Pride, Lust and Avarice appear, but the balance shifts towards the big guns : Full choir, offstage choir, and orchestra in increasingly full throttle : listen for the jazzy culmination of the Domine Jesu Christe. and the funky trumpet that heralds the Agnus Dei. With the Libera Me and Peccatum, we are in Carmina Burana territory, bursting forth in a blaze, the earthly chorus in raucuous flow, augmented by brass and percussion and the offstage chorus singing of lux perpetua.  Big forces. But is might right ? Glanert's Requiem ends In Paradisium, here the Voice from Above recites lines from the Book of Revelation. Apocalyptic visions, marking the end of the world and of time.  Now, when the Voice screams "Hieronymus!", he doesn't add a demonic epithet. With an unearthly low hum, the choir sings of the chorus angelorum that brings eternal rest.

Glanert's Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch is a public piece rather than a work of inward  contemplation. Nonetheless, as with so much that Glanert writes, subversive humour lurks within. In this Bosch Requiem, Glanert again and again mixes grotesque with irony. Just as the vastness of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana appealed to Nazi taste, the vastness of  this Requiem veers on parody.  Will it be loved for its vulgarity or its irony? Just as the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch reveal the viewer, Glanert's Requiem reveals the listener.  In this case, I think it's the wamth of Glanert's vision, and his compassion for the quirkier aspects of human life, which Hieronymus Bosch himself  had no qualms about depicting.  In the 2 1/2 years since I first heard the piece, it's grown on me, a lot.

Saved by good musicianship - Last Night of the Proms 2019

Last Night of the Proms 2019 - a wild night out, as usual, where music isn't really the point.  But we still care, and with Sakari Oramo conducting the flagship BBC Symphony Orchestra, we could count on good playing  and some musical excellence. Oramo's good nature makes him a natural communicator, so he's a good compere too (better than most BBC presenters). "In an age of social media attention spans", he said "it's good that audiences can enjoy live concerts". Thank goodness for that. But one wonders if these days, LNOP is not about music at all.

A few years back, Arron Banks, the millionaire with "interesting" non-British connections and no known musical background, tried to swamp the LNOP with free Union Jacks.  Which the Prommers largely rejected,  making their sympathies clear. After all, music is international, and without freedom of movement British musicians couldn't work abroad, nor international musicians enter.  If Parliament can be prorogued to curb the normal process of democracy, can the BBC stand up to political pressure?  Its promotion of Farage did him no harm, whatseover. Rupert Murdoch must be very pleased. This year the stage and balconies of the Royal Albert Hall were festooned with Union Jacks - not placed by prommers but by those who want control.  Patriotism is a good thing but political manipulation is not.  Isn't the Union Jack supposed to stand for Union ?  Don't Scotland, London and indeed millions of others who don't support extremism matter anymore ? A fait accompli, like a coup.

There were some compensations, though. Daniel Kidane's Woke, was actually good as music.  Many LNOP commissions, even by top composers, are somewhat perfunctory, but this had substance.  An inventive sound palette, with exotic sounds, building up to a panorama which felt full of incident and imaginative detail.  Dominant chords gave the piece a firm framework, and distinctive character.  Nice depth of texture, too.  At the top, high timbres flew freely, supported by elusive wind figures, lower winds, brass and strings providing bedrock.  Lots of development too - in the quiet section mysterious background sounds enhance the main theme. The finale was gorgeous, building up to a full throated, affirmative tutti.  Kidane has written about the concepts behind the piece which are perhaps even more important in a Britain that's become increasingly intolerant of diversity.  Woke is good enough that it stand on its own terms.  The real problem with society is that it's based on a system that promotes inequality.  The lack of musical education in school doesn't help either,. Indeed a good school system would help a lot in combatting ignorance.  Instead we now live in times when racism is mainstream. Years ago, I watched Gordon Laing, a great basssoonist, walk towards the Royal Albert Hall, carrying his bassoon case, an object non-musicians might mistake for something sinister. Plus, he was wearing a  hoodie and slouch pants. A white guy might not have worried, but let's face it,  statistically not being white gets you into trouble even when you're doing nothing wrong.  Let us never be complacent.

Oramo conducted an exuberant suite from Manuel de Falla The Three Cornerd Hat, again establishing musical credentials.  Laura Mvula's Sing to the Moon has been heard three times at the Proms, here in an a capella arrangement for the BBC Singers and Chorus. Then, Elisabeth Maconchy's Proud Thames, commisioned for the Coronation: a well crafted piece, horns and winds over swirling strings, and blows of timpani.  A strong current - like the Thames - flowing through the countryside to a London then full of hope and optimism.  It worked well with Elgar's Sospiri op 70 completed on the verge oif the beginning of the 1914-1918 war.  The strings ma y seem peaceful, but as so often with Elgar, there's an underlying mood of tension,which Oramo and the BBC SO picked up on. Though the strings and harps and organ might suggest serenity, the piece isn't subtitled "Sighs" for nothing.

But the "new" Proms priorities came to. the fore with Jamie Barton, for whom the BBC Publicity department seems to have pulled out all the stops. The Habanera from Carmen is so popular that it will always thrill a crowd, as did the hit numbers from Samson et Delilah and Verdi Don Carlos. But one wonders what the reception would be from opera house audiences used to full operas and more demanding standards. Big voices always appeal, but phrasing, controlled vibrato, intonation, and subtlety are important too. When she sang Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, the RAH crowd went wild, but I kept thinking of Joyce DiDonato, who sang it with such fervour and finesse that her performance felt like a truly historic moment, elevating the piece from song to anthem.  The Triumphal March from Aida restored the balance, extremely well done, especially considering that Oramo and the BBCSO, the BBC Singers and Chorus don't do a whole lot of opera. 

More good music after the interval, too, with the Overture from Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld (wonderful violin !)  and Percy Grainger's Marching Song of Democracy for wordless chorus which is a novelty for good reasons, I suspect.  At last, Sakari Oramo introduced the party part of the Last Night of the Proms. "Let's go !". The perennial Fantasia on British Sea Songs (arranged by Henry Wood), played at gloriously manic pace, Thomas Arne's Rule, Britannia! arranged by Malcolm Sargent, 

Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance March (Land of Hope and Glory)  and Jerusalem in Elgar's arrangement of Hubert Parry, with the National Anthem arranged by Benjamin Britten. .No matter how many times we've heard these same pieces, they come alive again when performed as well as this. 

 

Undemanding First Night of the Proms 2019

First Night of the BBC Proms 2019 ! The programme might have been a challenging start to the season - Antonín Dvořák The Golden Spinning Wheel and Leos Janáček Glagolitic Mass, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers and BBC Chorus plus soloists, conducted by Karina Canellakis.  To kick off, a premiere by Zosha di Castri Long is the journey - short is the memory.
Dvořák's The Golden Spinning Wheel is a tale of ghosts and gruesome murder. A king goes hunting in the woods and meets a peasant girl, Dornička and wants to marry her.  Her stepmother and stepsister chop the girl to pieces, but a magician finds her remains. He creates a golden spinning wheel, whose song alerts the king to what's happened.  Dvořák's symphonic poem is based on a collection of Bohemian folk ballads by Karol Jaromir Erben, but the tale itself is ancient, with many variants. Think Brentano and von Arnim Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Mahler's Das klagende Lied, or Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande or even Cinderella.  Dvořák's setting is remarkably graphic, almost cinematic. The king is represented by hunting horns and vigorous upbeat rhythms, Dornička by plaintive winds.  As the magician puts Dornička's bits together, her music comes to life again, high strings sparkling and lyrical. Lots of detail - "royal" trumpets, turbulent figures spinning (literally), stirring up alarm, the conclusion both serene and impudent.  There's a lot more to it than "dreamy" ! Because The Golden Spinning Wheel is so dramatic, it ought to be almost foolproof in performance.  The BBC Symphony Orchestra should know it, since they've done it before. When it's done well, it glows with warmth and vibrant vigour - Dornička, a force of Nature, cannot be extinguished.  Even in a fairly underpowered performance such as this one, its vivacity can't be dimmed.  Fortunately, it's new to the Proms, so something of its spirit might reach out to audiences who'd like to get to know it better. (well worth seeking out good performances)

Janáček's Glagolitic Mass has been done many times at the Proms, so whoever planned this programming might think it's OK to repeat the formula. At the Proms in recent years,  we've heard Boulez, Gergiev and Bělohlávek - all very different, each with something to say.  When Bělohlávek did it on the First Night of the Proms 2011, the performance was so intense that it seemed as if the roof might lift off the Royal Albert Hall. A pertinent observation, since "Glagolitic" masses were held in the open air, with trees instead of stone as buttresses, allowing large communities to come together. Janácek said: "My cathedral " was “the enormous grandeur of mountains beyond which stretched the open sky…...the scent of moist forests my incense”. Hence the idea of freedom and liberation, which is closer to Janácek's intentions than to a religious interpretation.  If anything, the Glagolitic Mass represents a tradition fiercely independent from the mainstream. The Glagolitic script dates from the 8th century, long before the Hapsburgs consolidated their grip on Bohemia, so it isn't about the Church so much as Janáček's faith in secular and national Resurrection.  Glagolitic Masses can be craggy, earthy, ferocious, almost anything but not lifeless.

With the forces on hand this should, in theory, have been a good performance. The BBC SO, the BBC Singers and BBC Chorus know the piece, and the soloists, Asmik Grigorian, Jennifer Johnston, Ladislav Elgr, and Jan Martiník - are all good, Martiník in particular for this repertoire.  Grigorian was another reason I was so keen to hear this - she was a sensational Salomé with Welser-Möst in Salzburg (read more HERE). But a performance needs to be more than a sum of its components.  The Úvod held together, though it's more impressive as a statement of intent, like the foundation stone of a great edifice.  The Kyrie can be overwhelming, the large chorus intoning the cries "Gospodi pomiluj!".  Elgr and Martiník's voices rang out, like prophets from the ancient past. Janáček referenced  the missionaries Cyril and Methodius, who brought Christianity to Slavic lands.  He also wrote : "I hear......in the soprano solo a maiden angel, in the chorus our people. The candles are high fir trees in the wood, lit up by stars; and somewhere in the ritual see a vision of the princely St Wenceslas" Grigorian did not disappoint ! Peter Holder, at the organ, captured the right sense of zany energy. His Varhany sólo (Postludium) was electrifying.  In the Slava (Gloria) the massed voices were suitably hushed, capturing  a sense of mystery, and the Věruju (Credo) and Agneče Božij (Agnus Dei), gave all the soloists a chance to show what they're made of.  But where was the grand design ? What was the underlying thrust? The Intrada, which can be an emphatic outburst, felt like an after-thought.

Zosha di Castri Long is the journey - short is the memory filled the slot assigned to "new music" at the start of every Proms season.  But a premiere doesn't always mean original.  This could have been commissioned to tick all the BBC boxes - big forces, lots happening to look at and admire, but rather studied and self conscious. Interestingb hat the press, cued by BBC PR, made much of the "historic" occasion", minimizing the rest of the performance.  Given that BBC Proms policy now seems driven by non-music values, and marketing hype (excruciating presentation), this whole First Night of the Proms 2019 probably went down well with the suits and their target audience, but doesn't bode well for music in the longer term. 

Boulez Bartok Carter Prom 65 Ensemble Intercontemporain

My companion attended some of Boulez's first Proms in 1965 and 1966 (including the UK premiere of Éclat on 2 September 1966), and still keeps the original programme booklets.  So Prom 65: Bartók, Carter and Boulez with Baldur Brönnimann, Ensemble Intercontemporain and the BBC Singers was a special occasion.  An atmospheric Prom, the lights in the Royal Albert Hall dimmed in darkness, spotlighting the music, and the musicians. As things should be! For music is what some of us care about above all else, however media opinion might differ.  Late night Proms have a unique atmosphere, drawing out audiences who care enough about what they listen to that they'd gladly stick around til after midnight and miss the last bus or train home to be there.  Besides, smaller-scale music like this needs to be heard in surroundings more conducive to thoughtful listening than in mass-rally conditions.

Baldur Brönnimann and Ensemble Intercontemporain are, fortunately, regular enough visitors to London that they feel like family.  They all knew Boulez, personally, too, a factor which added extra poignancy, but the high standards of these performances proved that his legacy lives on.

Bartók's Three Village Scenes (1926) at the beginning, for good reason. Modern music isn't an aberration that began with Boulez, as some think these days, evidently unaware of Schoenberg, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel and many others.  What all these "modernists" have in common is an affinity for approaches other than that of the late 19th century Austro-German tradition.  Bartók's immersion in Hungarian folk idiom  helped him find his unique voice.  His avant garde expressiveness stemmed from far deeper roots.  In Three Village Scenes, the BBC Singers sang with crisp articulation. I have no idea whether their diction was properly Hungarian or not, and don't care. What mattered was the sharpness of intonation, a  group of individual voices operating as a tight unit.  The orchestra came into focus in the second movement, Ukoliebavka, where a single voice intones a plaintive lullaby.  Here, Bartók's individuality - and modernity - palpably present in the shifting, tonally ambiguous forces swirling round her voice.  In Tanec mladencov, the sound of ancient instruments was invoked in new form.  Vigorous rhythms, jerky angular lines, vibrant energy.  

And so to Boulez Anthèmes 2 with Jeanne-Marie Conquer, the soloist par excellence in this piece which she has made her own, having performed it so many times, conducted by Boulez himself..   Although Boulez founded IRCAM  enabling whole new generations of composers to explore the possibilities of microtonality and more, Anthèmes 2 is one of the relatively few pieces he wrote that incorporates electronic sound.  I heard Boulez and Conquer do this piece live at Aldeburgh in 2010 at The Maltings, Snape, so was particularly keen to hear how the dynamic changed. Unsurprisngly it worked better, since the electronics bounced over the cavernous acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall, the  sound stretching for much greater distances than they ever could in the small, boxlike Maltings. Although the electronic effects are created by technology, the sound is "played" by human beings. The sound desk people are musicians responding to the violin, adapting and adjusting.   

Anthèmes 2 is a dialogue on many different levels.  Boulez said that, as a child, he was fascinated by the call and response of the Catholic Mass, by the use of archaic language and by the sense of ancient times co-existing with the present.  As Conquer played, the sound of her violin projected into the vast expanse of the RAH, enhanced so that it seemed to reach out to the upper galleries, and into the dome, deflecting back to the platform, the sound then taken up and transformed by the electronics. Since each of the six sections are so varied, getting this dynamic flow was quite some achievement. Magical, a haunting experience with profound emotional impact.

More "dialogue", with Elliott Carter's Penthode (1984-5) since Boulez and Carter were extremely close friends, bouncing symbiotically off one another.  Carter constructed Penthode like a mathematical theorem, employing five groups of four instruments, in unusual combinations, like  bassoon, piano, percussion and viola. The cells thus interact with each other to form the "orchestra".  The piece is thus both a deconstruction of the idea of an orchestra yet also a reworking of the fundamental idea of playing in harmony, without the actual  use of harmony.  Brönnimann and Ensemble Intercontemporain make Penthode sound easy, though it's not. Players have to listen acutely to one another, each a soloist in his and her own right. No going with the flow and hiding behind a large group, as can happen in lesser ensembles.  

In his poetry, E E Cummings defied conventional concepts of language: words deconstruct into fragments, and meaning comes from the visual impression of text across the page. Blank areas "speak", an idea that translates well into music.  Thus the very configuration of the forces Boulez employs in Cummings ist der Dichter : a small chorus, but one divided into 16 parts, the BBC Singers making the music flow across the line in the way that Cummings uses single characters of the alphabet sliding over the page.  Lines elide, the orchestral lines stretching in arching swathes  and oscillating flurries.  "Birds here, inventing air", Cummings writes in his bizarre,  inventive way, making you pay attention and observe.  "Pay attention and observe", a mantra which could also apply to Boulez.   Do we hear in this music the movement of birds, as we might in Messiaen ? I don't know, or care, because the experience of being alert and acutely sensitive to nuance is even more fundamental.

Listen to the re-broadcast here. The commentary is vacuous cliché, but the interviews, with members of the ensemble and singers, are enlightening.

Bottom two photos: Roger Thomas

Barbican 2014-15 (2) BBCSO plus

There's hope for classical music in London!  The Barbican 2014-2015 season is a lot stronger than it looks at first glance. It's a relief to get away from gimmicks and back to "own curated" series created by musicians rather than marketing men.

To prove the point, the Barbican is hosting a traverse of Carl Nielsen's symphonies, where Sakari Oramo will be conducting the BBCSO.  Starting on 11/10, (running til May)  the Nielsen series complements Rattle's Sibelius series with the Berliner Philharmoniker which runs from 10-12 February 2015. That's inspired programming ! It will be interesting to compare and contrast two of the greatest Scandinavian composers, performed by two of the best bands and conductors in the genre.

The BBCSO is perhaps the backbone of the Barbican because its resources are so big that it can draw on a wide range of conductors and specialities and forms. Plenty of mainstream concerts ahead, spiced up, in BBC tradition, with excursions into new-ish music.  They're doing a John Tavener Total Immersion on 8/10 supplemented with extra concerts by the Britten Sinfonia and the BBC Singers.

Even more important (and more my thing) is the Boulez at 90 on 21 March 2015. Hopefully Boulez will be present, but even if he's not, this will be not to be missed under any circumstances, since François-Xavier Roth is conducting Pli selon Pli, Notation I-IV and VII, Éclat/Multiples and Piano Sonata no 2. Roth is a quirky but very original conductor. I've not heard him do Boulez before but I think we can count on him. Read my account of  Pli selon Pli with Boulez, Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain when they did it in October 2011, which may have beeen Boulez's last concert before his illness. Then on 28/4/15 Ensemble Intercontemporain themselves come to the Barbican conducted by Matthias Pinscher, doing Sur incises, Mémoriale, a Pintscher piece and a Boulez favourite, Debussy Syrinx. Unmissable. Barbara Hannigan is singing two concerts with the Britten Sinfonia on 6 and 7 May.

Wolfgang Rihm was the subject of a Total Immersion a few years ago (read more on this site)  Now he gets a second Total Immersion, based around the UK premiere of his Tutuguri on 31/1. Kent Nagano makes a rare UK appearance conducting the BBCSO which alone will be a draw. Hopefully, Rihm himself will be at the talks, because he's a character.
 
The BBC Singers are another of the assets that come with the BBC's association with the Barbican. This year, they're giving even more concerts than usual and some very challenging programmes too, including a keynote James MacMillan concert on 12/2/15, part of the year-long MacMillan series which also features the Britten Sinfonia. Even  more adventurously, they'll be singing Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland on 8/3/15 in a Netia Jones video semi staging.I thought the original Munich straging (with the big eyeballs) was by far the best part of the opera, so who kmows? We might be lucky if the edition performed is the one by Lloyd Moore, first heard in Santa Fe; the thing with new music is that things take time to settle. For every Barry, Dean or Muhly who gets big money backing there must be many others writing good music that we don't get to hear. But the business has always been this way: it's nothing new.

Joyce DiDonato, Mathias Goerne and Ian Bostridge ensure that  vocal music will be well served this year. I'm also booking quicksmart for Smetana's Dalibor on 2nd May 2015. This was once a huge hit, conducted by Mahler, no less. Jirí Belohlávek returns to the BBCSO with his loyal Prague singers.  Belohlávek brought so much Czech repertoire to Britain that it was a dark day for true music lovers when he quit. Pretty boy pianists are a dime a dozen, but there are very few truly specialist conductors with such a passionate and idiomatic feel for unusual repertoire.

Tomorrow, I'll write about the Barbican's Early Music and Baroque plans for 2014-2015 and the Academy of Ancient Music. Please come back, because the Barbican is proving to be London's greatest centre for this repertoire.

Also see an overview of the Barbican 2014-15 season with an emphasis on the LSO and international orchestras

And a guide to the Barbican's Blockbuster Baroque season coming up