Elgar The Apostles - Martyn Brabbins, Royal Festival Hall.

At the Royal Festival Hall, Sir Edward Elgar's The Apostles, Martyn Brabbins conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Chorus, the BBC Symphony Chorus and a good array of soloists. The Apostles is hardly unknown : it's been done numerous times, so its place in the canon is beyond dispute.  So why doesn't it get the respect it's due ?  It occupies a very special place in our understanding of Elgar and his music, and of the times he lived in. The Apostles is part of a trilogy of oratorios examining the nature of Christianity as Jesus taught his followers. This context should be well known, too, since both The Apostles and The Kingdom have been done in recent years, establishing the context. Though Elgar used the grand gestures popular in Edwardian times, it is significant that his approach to Christian belief was much more a personal statement of faith, humble and humane rather than triumphalist.  This might be the "real" Elgar, the "man behind the mask", Elgar the eternal outsider, despite his public acclaim. This makes a difference in reception and interpretation, which is why The Apostles deserves greater appreciation. 

In The Apostles, Elgar shows how Jesus sets out his beliefs in simple, human terms. Judas has doubts about him but is confounded. In The Kingdom, the focus is more open ended.  As the apostles go out on their mission, their story unfolds through a series of tableaux, impressive set pieces, but with less obvious human drama. The final, part would hase been titled The Last Judgement, when World and Time are destroyed and the faithful of all ages are raised from the dead, joining Jesus in Eternity. The sheer audacity of that vision may have stymied Elgar, much in the way that Sibelius's dreams for his eighth symphony inhibited realization. Fragments of The Last Judgement made their way into drafts for what was to be Elgar's final symphony, which we now know in Anthony Payne's performing version of what was to have been Elgar’s Third Symphony. Just as The Dream of Gerontius tells of one man's journey from physical life to the life everlasting. (read more here). The Apostles deals with the relation between  God made man and mortal men. Hence the inherent contradiction that sometimes confuses The Apostles with overblown Edwardian public declarations of Christianity.

The Apostles unfolds in a series of seven tableaux, held together by male and female narrators. This structure allows a surprising degree of intimacy, concentrating on the interaction between  Jesus and the people around him. Judas, Peter and John are gearing up for their mission to spread the gospels to the world. The chorus exults and the brass plays the glorious fanfare, which seems to stretch over vast distances. The huge kettledrums beat out a ceremonial march. Splendid! Yet it is the quiet voice of Jesus which rises above the tumult. "He who receiveth you, receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him who sent Me".When Jesus  reveals the Beatitudes in By the Wayside, the baritone should sing with sincerity and conviction.  "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth". Meekness isn't weakness, though, for Jesus hints at persecutions to come.

The tension between grand forces and simplicity gives The Apostles much of its  appeal. Elgar describes the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and Davis whips the orchestra into a turmoil. "It is I, Be not afraid!" : the very words  seems to shine like a lighthouse. Elgar's Jesus favours sinners, like Mary Magdalene. Peter the Doubter, and Judas Iscariot. Indeed, Elgar gives Judas more space than the others, suggesting his sympathy with those who question.This dialogue between Judas and Jesus is importnat because together they bring out a more unconventional element in the drama.  Judas isn't a monster. He expresses genuine concern where the other Apostles obey blindly. When Judas recognizes his mistake, his anguish is so intense that the part can take on a strange, noble dignity. The long passage that starts "Our life is short and tedious" evokes compassion. This is a Judas with whom modern people can identify. We cannot judge, but remember the Beatitude "Blessed are the merciful!".

Elgar goes swiftly from Golgotha to the Ascencion, as if drawn forwards by the musical vision of Angels singing "Alleluia!". The string writing is pastoral, yet luminous,  another insight, connecting Jesus's "rebirth" with his Nativity. The Mystic Chorus can ring with beautiful clarity. In The Apostles, Elgar writes for voice as if he were writing for different elements in an orchestra. He weaves together lines for the orchestra, choir and soloists to form an immaculate, shining wall of sound. "And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world".

The Royal Festival Hall is not the most ideal setting for a piece like The Apostles, which, when heard in a cathedral or the Royal Albert Hall, breathes its full majesty. Cathedrals and the RAH have better organs, too, which make a difference.  Still, if the message of The Apostles is human scale, concert hall acoustic isn't necessarily a factor.  Mark Elder was originally scheduled to conduct. Since Elder's done the piece many times (and recorded it) his Apostles is a known quantity.  Though Elder did it with the Hallé at the Proms and on the recording, and the lineup of soloists is slightly different, (Alice Coote and Brindley Sherratt reprising their roles), the difference would not have been extreme. Jacques Imbrailo was divine, but Roderick Williams is a great communicator, too. I did want to hear Elizabeth Watts, Allan Clayton and David Stout but they're good enough that they can be heard everywhere. Brabbins, on ther other hand, is one of the most original and distinctive conductors around, specializing in British and modern repertoire. His The Apostles should have been worth hearing ! Pity that I couldn't make it to the RFH, since I would have appreciated the experience.  Still, conductors rarely do something only once, so here's hoping !

Andrew Davis : British Prom - Hugh Wood, Elgar, RVW

An all-British Prom with Sir Andrew Davis, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. All three pieces are classics and also classic Andrew Davis territory, which he's conducted many times and has made memorable recordings of in the past - Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, Hugh Wood Scenes from Comus and Edward Elgar The Music Makers.

Hugh Wood's Scenes from Comus Op.6, (1965), brought the young composer to fame. Inspired by John Milton's Comus : a Masque presented at Ludlow Castle 1634,  it's a large scale dramatic piece, for orchestra, soprano and tenor (here Stacey Tappan and Anthony Gregory). Andrew Davis made the first recording, also with the BBCSO for NMC way back in 2001.  A magical introduction - horns leading strings in an evocation of a dense forest. This might be the primordial forest, where subconcious desires are released : the source of so many legends from the Hexe Loreley to Pelléas et Mélisande and beyond.  Though the strings shimmer, the horns, with connotations of hunting, suggest violence.  The Lady is lost and calls for her brothers, but who are they, and who is she ?  The sounds of the forest overwhelm her, and Comus appears.  Savage dissonances, piercing brass, and rumbling undertones : what has he unleashed ?  "Venus awakes, unwakend love!" . His herioc declarations are met by an interlude of relative stillness, as if the forest, or nature were observing.  Flurrying notes, jerky rhythms, like the frightened heartbeat of cornered prey.  The pace picked up again, angular "running" staccato underlined by percussion, woodwinds flying forwards, then a return to mysterious, brooding strings.  This dynamic contrast suggest the opposition of two forces : strident fanfares interrupted by heavy ostinato.  A dark conclusion , lit by delicate winds. The soloists duet, their voices entwined, but the ominous timbre of bassoons, oboe and trombone suggest that something's awry. The winds sang again, the flute in very high tessitura, the piece concluding with a single note.

Hugh Wood (b 1932) is two years older than Harrison Birtwistle. Both share a fascination with English history and myth, and music as theatrical drama.  Though their work is very different,  there are connections.  Please see my piece on Hugh Wood's Epithalamion which Andrew Davis conducted in 2015. And of course, lots more on Birtwistle and modern British music.

 Elgar's The Music Makers op 69 premiered in July 1912, but had been long in gestation. Elgar knew of Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode when he was in his twenties, when he was isolated, scraping a living as teacher, organist and conductor of the very limited orchestra at Powick Asylum, not far from his home, with no obvious prospects. Thirty years later, his status solidly established, might he portray himself in this piece, just as he had portrayed his friends in the Enigma Variations, incorporating references to his own music, not so much for their own sake but because, as he wrote, they expressed "my sense of the loneliness of the artist".  Though this piece is not in the same league as the Enigma Variations, largely due to the turgid doggerel of the text, it captures levels of Elgar's personality which put the image of Elgar as Edwardian fuddy duddy to rest.  No-one believes that, anymore.

 Despite his success and acclaim, Elgar identified creativity with alienation. Artists are "dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams". The slow orchestral introduction gave way to a more forceful section, where the chorus burst forth "One man with a dream, at pleasure. Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample a kingdom down." The orchestra surged in full flow, but animato fades to più lento. Only halfway through did the contralto (Sarah Connolly) emerge, heralded by harps. "They had no vision amazing.....no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going" The music makers proceed towards uncharted territory with calm assurance. Yet again, tranquility gives way to con fuoco and back to lento. Ironically, it is the chorus, not the soloist, who sing of "dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye." as if isolation is still too uncomfortable to sing about without ensemble, despite the confident crashing chords in the orchestra and raised voices. A quiet transition to the finale, when the mood rose again, Connolly singing forcefully. "Great hail! " The artist shall "teach us your song's new numbers; And things that we dreamed not before: Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, And a singer who sings no more." Though the soloist faded to stillness, the chorus continued to hold the line.

Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis was an excellent overture to a very good programme, masterfully executed. 

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla - wit and subversion in Weinberg, Knussen and Elgar

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla - photo : Isabelle Casez

Ever welcome, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra  Prom 46, - Mieczysław Weinberg's Symphony no 3  (op 45, 949-50, rev 1959),, Elgar's Cello Concerto(with soloist Sheku Kanneh-Mason), Oliver Knussen's The Way to Castle Yonder and Dorothy Howell's Lamia.
Dorothy Howell (1898-1982) was born in Birmingham, so a fitting choice for the CBSO. Her Lamia  was premiered at the Proms by Sir Henry Wood in 1919, and repeated several timnes, as recently as 2010.  Quite an achievemnt for such a young composer - again proof that female composers weren't always "neglected" until the recording industry re-aligned repertoire to suit the mass market.  Even if you didn't know the mythological references, you can hear the "maritime" character of Lamia in the  swelling lines, surging and retreating like the tides. It's not La Mer or A Sea Symphony but a tone poem which many a better known composer of the time would have been proud of. 

 The dream combination in this Prom would have to have been Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor op 85 (1919) - evergreen music and a fresh new talent. Kanneh-Mason shot to fame when he played at the Royal Wedding, but he's good enough to merit the attention he's getting.  Though he's young, but then, so was Jacqueline du Pré! Intuitively, she responded to the bittersweet pathois in the piece, bringing out its emotional depth and dignity. Those who think Elgar was bombast and jingoism don't know their Elgar at all.  In the Cello Concerto, we can ponder why Richard Strauss thought so highly of Elgar. Both were men who revealed their innermost sensitivity to those who understand.  The richness of the CBSO enhanced the poise of Kanneh-Mason's playing: a fine performance, enlivened in the final movement and its assertive panache. 

There was purposeful insight behind that wit and whimsy. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra seem to have constructed this Proms programme around Mieczysław Weinberg's Symphony no 3  (op 45, 1949-50, rev 1959).  Not surprisng at all, since  Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO have made a speciality of Weinberg's music.  Their ground breaking recording of Weinberg's Symphony no 21 ("Kaddish") was recorded during an in-depth Weinberg weekend in Birmingham  with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica, who have done so much to promote the composer in recent years. That recording is an absolute must even to those for whom Weinberg is new. Please read more about that here because it is outstanding.

Nonetheless, Weinbrerg is hardly unknown. He was championed by Shostakovich, Rostropovich, Oistrakh and Soviet era conductors like Mvravinsky, Kondrashin and Barshai.  Seek and ye shall find! Chandos has made a whole series of good Weinberg recordings, including Symphony no 3 with Thord Svendlund, currently the market leader, though Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO might set new standards.  Originally drafted in 1949-50 the symphony came in conflict with the policies of the Stalinist cultural tsar, Andrei Zhadanov. "formalism" ie art music, was denounced in favour of music that suited the state - safe, conservative, "folkloric". By 1959, when he revised the piece, Stalin and Zhadanov were both dead, but Weinberg still had to tread carefully.  

The symphony is in four movements, beginning with an expansive, pastoral Allegro, a Belarussian folk melody creating a cheerful mood. which suddenly descends into a more ambiguous coda, perhaps a hint that not all here is sunshine and joy. A merry flute theme introduces the second movement, answered by pizzicato strings and wild, exuberant strings. The orchestra dances - circular flourishes, based on Polish folk dance, but yet again the flute broke free, leaping over the lower winds and percussion, the coda more restrained : the first movement in wilder form. The Adagio was quieter, long, searching lines, darker timbres giving the final section gravitas.  In the allegro vivace, the pattern of darker, more mysterious endings came to the fore.  No ambiguity here - peace is broken by a strident fanfare -"Soviet heroes on the march ? Horns and trumpets rang out, punctuated by percussion, but the whimsical wind theme would not be suppressed.  The symphony ends on an ostensibly upbeat note, but is Weinberg, as so often, disguisng individualism behind a happy smile? 

Thus the logic of Gražinytė-Tyla's pairing Weinberg Symphony no 3 and Oliver Knussen's The Way to Castle Yonder, connected to his opera Higgelty Pigglety Pop!  The opera starts with a Pig-in-Sandwich Boards offering ham sandwiches to those in the audience too young to appreciate the irony. The sandwiches also serve to keep the kids occupied when Jenny the Sealyham Terrier sings a long, sophisticated aria,wondering if there's "More to Life". Jenny cannot get a job in the Mother Goose World Theatre until she gets “experience” whatever that might be. Logic is the enemy of imagination!  Knussen fills the music with loony cross-references, like bits from Tchaikovsky and Mozart, barbershop quartets, brass bands evoking circuses. all woven into his distinctively intricate multi-layers. (please read more here about the production at Aldeburgh and at the Barbican)  Though Sendak wriote the book for children, the sensibility in it is anything but childish. Knussen, with his instinct for the surreal, and for dark humour, turns the book into an opera that adults can get lots from, if they try. Gražinytė-Tyla understands - Knussen, Weinberg and even Elgar have a lot more in common than meets the eye. 

Dramatic new Elgar Caractacus - Martyn Brabbins, Hyperion

Edward Elgar's Caractacus op 35 (1898), conducted by Martyn Brabbins, from Hyperion.  This is an important release. The recording by Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra, from 1993 on Chandos has dominated the market for decades. The Charles Groves recording on vinyl is long out of print, now only available in fragments in the Warner set. Hickox is the market leader, too, because he's good, but Brabbins could raise the bar again : a livelier, more animated performance, due perhaps to the fact that Brabbins is conducting the Orchestra of Opera North.  Caractacus gets a bad press because it is very much a product of its time, a grand oratorio for massed chorus, burdened down by the  libretto, by Henry Arbuthnot Acworth, an Indian Civil Service official, who had retired to Malvern, who had provided the text for Elgar's King Olaf two years before. Brabbins approaches Caractacus as music drama. The performances he gets from the orchestra, The Hudddersfield Choral Society and an excellent group of soloists, Elizabeth Llewellyn, Elgan Llŷr Thomas, Roland Wood, Christopher Purves and Alistair Miles, are so vivid that they express the adventurous spirit behind the clumsiness of the text.

Caractacus is an epic oratorio about an ancient Briton King called
Caractacus — his tribe were a segment of a Britain populated from time immemorial by Celts, Picts, Angles, Saxons and other migrants to come.  Legend has it that he was defeated by the Romans, making his last stand on a hill now known as the Herefordshire Beacon. It’s a spectacular spot, commanding a panoramic view over the Malvern Hills. Ancient fortifications can still be seen on its summit.  In 1898, the British Empire was at its peak, so Caractacus could be remodelled as a symbol of pride.  Basking in the certainties of their manifest destiny, Victorian Imperialists didn’t register the irony that they were themselves doing to others what the Roman Imperialists did to their ancestors. In the last big chorus, Elgar’s text specifically mentions “the flag of Britain (and) its triple crosses entwined”, ie the Union Flag which didn’t exist until Stuart times, and British dominion “O’er peoples undiscover’d, inlands we cannot know”. In Elgar's Caractacus, history co-exists with the present of Elgar’s own time. “Watchmen alert!” sing the massed choir. 

Nonetheless, Elgar’s music is much more than bellicose jingoism, overcoming the often lugubrious text. He was a Worcester man at heart, who hiked and cycled in the woods around him. Caractacus is very much inspired by the spirit of the landscape around him in the Malverns. The text may be violent, but the music is gloriously pastoral for the most part. The “Woodland Interlude” that begins Scene III is short, but its verdant loveliness pervades the entire work. The Druids worshipped the forces of nature. Dense woodlands were sacred to them just as Worcester Cathedral is to the modern faithful. For Elgar, nature and landscape were almost sacred too. He wrote to a friend (who appears encoded in the Enigma Variations), “the trees are singing my music- or have I sung theirs?” “The air is sweet, the sky is calm” sings Caractacus, “all nature round is breathing balm…O spirits of the hill surround, with waving wings this holy ground”. Elgar’s forte is the orchestral extension of text, so performance stands or falls on orchestra and conductor.

Caractacus works well on purely musical terms, the surging sweep in the orchestral line taken up by the chorus and soloists. Brabbins delineates the various leitmotifs, so evocatively that the music seems to come alive, whispering invisible meaning much in the way that the Druids believed trees whispered meaning to them.  Tight dynamics build drama into what might otherwise be fairly stolid  melodrama, the recurring themes clearly defined so they give coherence. The theme behind the phrase "Go forth, O King, to conquer" suggests the confidence of the late Victorian era which Elgar could capture so well.  In the section The Spirit of the Hill  ("Rest, weary monarch.... the night is falling fast away,") the hush of the chorus suggests trees in a forest, from which the Arch Druid  (Christopher Purves) will lead the chorus,  discreet orchestral colours illuminating the dark, before the vigorous rhythms of "Leap, leap to light, my brand of light!" (Caractacus, Roland Wood.).  As Caractacus sets forth, the music surges with grandeur, creating contrast with the Woodland Interlude.Eigen (Elizabeth Llewellyn) and Orbin (Elgan Llŷr Thomas) represent youth and renewal, hence the pastoral delicacy in the orchestration around them. Yet the expansive theme invades Orbin's lines "A warrior, now, for Britain's weal".  He, too, is off to battle.  In brief respite, Eigen and her maidens contemplate the Malverh Hills before the return of Caractacus. "O my warriors ". Now the depth in Wood's deep baritone suggest resolution, despite defeat.

As the captives embark on the Severn, figures in the orchestra suggest at once the flow of the river and a slow funeral march, which morphs into the Processional Music as the captives enter Rome, its might suggested by vaguely "oriental" percussion and relentlessly pounding figures, so powerfully delineated by Brabbins that the chorius seems whipped into frenzy (for they are Romans, after all). The lines of Claudius (Alastair Miles) are more measured, low woodwinds underlining the authority in the voice.  The depth in Roland Wood's baritone approaches Miles's bass : an interesting detail which emphasizes the idea that both men are equals.  Quixotically, defeat becomes triumph.  "All the nations shall stand and hymn the praise of Britain, like brothers, hand in hand !"  Elgar's Caractacus is neither historic truth, nor logic, but it is rousing music.

Fun New Years Eve concert - Lang Lang, Mariss Jansons

New Years Eve, enjoying the Silversterkonzert from Munich, with Mariss Jansons and Lang Lang and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.   I should've been listening to Daniel Barenboim's all-Ravel concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker , like my pals did,  but it's New Year's Eve ! Not the time to be safe and sober.  What is wrong about having fun ? Some of us put enough into music year-round, that we can afford to party !  Like most New Year concerts, the programme was wide ranging and light hearted, a buffet with popular treats asnd more exotic fare.
The kick-off started, appropriately, with Leonard Bernstein Candide overture,  but Jansons and the BRSO showed their true mettle in Debussy's Clair de Lune, in the arrangement by Leopold Stokowski. Big, full bodied yet classy and stylish. Aha, a piano piece for large orchestra on a programme with a megastar pianist ! Witty good humour. Then a bit of Elgar, gentler, more personal  Elgar, closer to the composer's soul than public blockbusters.  Elgar's Wand of Youth Suite no 2 is marked op. 1b though it was completed for publication long after Enigma, Gerontius and Pomp and Circunstance.  The suites are compilations of some of Elgar's earliest works, some written to entertain children, but anyone, including adults can respond to the magic that is "the wand of youth".  Here we heard "The Wild Bears", a jolly piece which dances with vivacious freedom.  A joyous performance ! Sibelius, too, in the form of Kuolema from Valse Triste op 44, and Antonín Dvořák Slavonic Dance op 72/15. 

Xian Xing Hai, (middle) in Paris with Nie Er and other compsoers

Lang Lang joined Jansons and the orchestra for the andante to Mozart Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 21  KV 467.  The Herkulessaal in Munich is a tiny hall and Lang Lang usually plays very big halls indeed.  It might be fashionable in some circles to sneer at him because he's successful, but he learned his music the hard way, working his way up. So here we heard the "real" Lang Lang to some extent, playing for pleasure, adapting for the small hall and the more intimate vibe.  Without a pause, Jansons segued into Xian Xing Hai's Yellow River Concerto, the section "Ode to the Yellow River".  In the west, people just don't understand the role of Western classical music in China.  Interest was established fairly early on in China, enough so that it could support conservatories in Shangahi and Beijing from the early years of the 20th century.   Even now, it's normal for middle class kids to play piano and know the basics of classical  music, both western and Chinese.  Xian Xing Hai (冼星海, 905 -1945) was a virtuoso pianist but also studied composition and Chinese classsical music. Like so many Chinese intellectuals and modernizers he gravitated to Paris when it was the place to be in creative terms.  Japan invaded China in 1931, occupying much of North China. By the time Xian returned to Shanghai, the country was in turmoil.  Xian wrote the soundtrack for Ma-Xu Weibang's film A Song at Midnight (夜半歌聲) which is marketed as "The first Chinese horror movie" but much more sophisticated than a horror movie, with pointed references to the social and political situation and also to western classical music, to Beethoven and to Freedom.  Please read more about it HERE. When civil war broke out Xian headed to Yenan, following the Communists. There he wrote the original Yellow River Cantata,  (黄河大合唱) for orchestra, chorus and soloists.  Please read more about it here - it is a very good piece "more" than just music, it's a kind of expression of the soul of Chinese history, symbolized by the Huangho River, the cradle of Chinese civilization.   The Yellow River Concerto suite was created decades after Xian's death.  It's not nearly as good as the full cantata, but it is a vehicle for piano and orchestra, which is why Lang Lang played it here.  It's new to Jansons and the BRSO, so they didn't do it justice. 
 More mainstream was the Chopin Grande valse brillante op. 18, closer to what Jansons, the orchestra and Lang Lang usually do. It's not fair to sneer at Lang Lang because he's so famous. Pianists (and violinists) have always been "pop stars". Think Chopin and Liszt or Paganini.  Or Bernstein and Gergiev.  Lang Lang has inspired millions of ordinary Chinese to take up western classical music : imagine the same happening in other countries where people seem to take pride in despising "elitist" art forms.  Jansons has recorded Yūzō Toyama
(b 1931) Yugen, a suite for ballet, and here we heard the Men's Dance . Its use of percussion provides a strong foundation for the keening string legato  and flashes of brass : you can almost visualize these ideas translated for dance.
Back to more standard New Year's Eve party fare with Pietro Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana. Intermezzo, Johannes Brahms,  Hungarian Dance No 5 and the Prelude to  La Revoltosa by Ruperto Chapi (1851-1909) a bit of "Spanish" colour  to continue the "international" theme.  To conclude, the Finale to György Ligeti's Romanian Concerto, sneaking in a dose of modern for audiences who assume they might be averse to the avant garde. 

Elgar The Music Makers Spirit of England Andrew Davis, Chandos

Andrew Davis conducts Elgar The Music Makers and Spirit of England Op 80 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples for Chandos, juxtaposing Elgar's private and public faces.

Elgar's The Music Makers op 69  premiered in July 1912, but had been long in gestation. Elgar knew of Arthur O'Shaughanessy's Ode when he was in his twenties, when he was isolated, scraping a living as teacher, organist and conductor of the very limited orchestra at Powick Asylum, not far from his home, with no obvious prospects. Thirty years later, his status solidly established,  might he portray himself in this piece, just as he had portrayed his friends in the Enigma Variations, incorporating references to his own music, not so much for their own sake but because, as he wrote, they expressed "my sense of the loneliness of the artist". Despite his success and acclaim, Elgar identified creativity with alienation. Artists are "dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams".  The slow orchestral introduction gives way to a more forceful section, where the chorus bursts forth  "One man with a dream, at pleasure. Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample a kingdom down."   The orchestra surges in full flow, but animato fades to più lento.  Only halfway through does the contralto (Sarah Connolly) emerge, heralded by harps. "They had no vision amazing.....no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going:" The music makers proceed towards uncharted territory with calm assurance.  Yet again, tranquility gives way to con fuoco and back to lento.  Ironically, it is the chorus, not the soloist who sing of "dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye." as if isolation is still too uncomfortable to sing about without ensemble, despite the confident crashing chords in the orchestra and raised voices.  A quiet transition to the finale, when the mood rises again, Connolly singing forcefully. "Great hail! "  The artist shall "teach us your song's new numbers; And things that we dreamed not before: Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, And a singer who sings no more."  Though the soloist fades to stillness, the chorus continues to hold the line.
Elgar's Spirit of England  op. 80 (1915-17) is so powerful that it draws you into its glorious self confidence  even though we now know where jingoistic bluster can lead.  But for a moment we are spellbound by the sheer extravagance of the piece.  Drums roll, strings surge and the BBC Symphony Chorus explode.  Andrew Staples's voice rises heroically above the wall of sound. "Spirit of England, go before us !" The orchestral writing sets a pulse which supports the chorus, where male and female voices sing alternating lines. This creates an interflow suggesting vast, turbulent forces. Staples shaped the magnificent line "We step from days/ of sour divison/ into the grandeur of our Fate", each key word meticulously articulated, the last word "Fate" ringing out like a clarion.  Staples’s enunciation was sharp, consonants crisp, much more idiomatic than the other three tenors I've heard in this piece in recent years. The English tenor style, at its best, brings out the edge in the language hinting at hidden undercurrents : what really is the unshakeable soul of "divinely suffering man"?   This does matter, since Elgar may well have seen the circumstances more acutely than did the populist poet. A male voice captures an edge of anguish and pain, while female voices express the more conventional Boadicea approach.
In contrast to the first section "The Fourth of August", the second section "To Women" is more restrained.  While the tenor line was integrated with chorus and orchestra, it now stands almost alone. Phrases like "like a flame" and "boundless night" fly upward from the line, Staples emphasizing them with flourish.  A melancholy violin passage introduces a much darker mood.   "For the Fallen" is a funeral procession but proceeds forward with relentless surge, Davis marking the throbbing undertow in the orchestra. The choral line with its clipped, almost staccato tension, evoked, perhaps gunfire.  The woodwind figure, followed by low-timbred strings, was particularly moving. "We shall remember them", sang Staples, his voice carrying above the chorus and orchestra.  "To the end, to the end, they remain".

Elgar The Hills of Dreamland - orchestral songs

The Hills of Dreamland - Edward Elgar orchestral songs, new from Somm Recordings, sponsored by the Elgar Society.  Elgar's genius for oratorio, and large scale works for orchestra and voice somewhat eclipse his ventures in art song, apart from the masterpiece Sea Pictures, and the more recently acclaimed Fringes of the Fleet. Those who have treasured  SOMM's first collection of Elgar songs for voice  (with Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Christopher Maltmann, Neal Mackie and Malcolm Martineau) will seek this out, for they make good companion pieces. In any case, there are some real treasures here, such as  Elgar's Song Cycle op 59 which deserves greater appreciation. Heartfelt thanks to SOMM Recordings for bringing this back into the repertoire.

The first disc in this 2 CD set (offered at the price of one) features Elgar's Song Cycle op 59 and his Two Songs op 60 plus Pleading, The King's Way, Follow the Colours and incidental music to Grania and Dairmid.  The soloists are Kathryn Rudge and Henk Neven, with Barry Wordsworth conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra.  Elgar's Song Cycle op 59 was initially planned as a set of songs to texts by Gilbert Parker, a Canadian born novelist who was later to be knighted for services to Britain during the 1914-18 war.  "O soft was the song",  "Was it some golden star ?" and "Twilight"  are tender, and almost elegaic. They were written for a concert in memorial of A J Jaeger, Elgar's friend, whom he immortalized in the Enigma Variations.  Henk Neven's burnished timbre gives them personal, intimate warmth.  The cycle develops to a high point with "The Wind of Dawn", initally written in 1888 to a poem by Alice, before she and Elgar were married. In its original form it was a song for voice and piano.  In the bolder orchestration the strings surge, suggesting heaving passion, since the text is daringly erotic, for the era. The full orchestra rises to expansive crescendo, the mezzo (Kathryn Rudge) soaring above. It is a song worthy of Sea Pictures, and indeed, the imagery includes references to "the sea stream'd red from the kiss of his brow". A pity it was created after Sea Pictures had made its mark.  It would be interesting to speculate why Elgar concluded this cycle - for it is a cycle - with "The Pipes of Pan". the words are by Adrian Ross who wrote hits for musical theatre, though this text refers to Greek mythology.  But Pan is the god of fertlity and robust disorder,  a shepherd whom polite society cannot contain. Pan is a musician, too,who plays his pipes and enchants those who pay attention.  This song therefore connects to "The Wind at Dawn",  with its fulsome sense of adventure. Ever enigmatic,  Elgar could be making cryptic links between himself and his muse Alice, thus affirming the joy of life even at a time of sorrow.

More secret humour in the Two Songs op 60, poems purportedly by Pietro D'Alba, who was in fact young Carice's pet rabbit.  The words are Elgar's own, and whimsical, the compsoer claiming that they were folk tunes from "Leyrisch-Turasp, 1909", a place which doesn't exist.  Nonetheless, the fantasy gave Elgar a chance to write florid mock-Slavic drama, crashing climaxes blending with delicate expressiveness.

Pleading op 48 is a reverie which might suggest Richard Strauss in autumnal mood, but we're back to exuberance with Follow the Colours: a Marching Song for Soldiers  written for the Royal Albert Hall's Empire Day in 1908. The text, by a military officer,  is jingoistic,  but Elgar seems to relish the opportunity for high spirits. The deliberately four square rhythm evokes images of "Thousands, thousands of marching feet" stomping mindlessly in strict formation.  Thus The King'sWay isn't as banal as it might seem on the surface.  It surges forth with almost parodic expansiveness. "Let every voice in England say - God keep the way by night and day - The King of England's Way!"  But the poem - again by Alice, who must have had a sharper mind than she gets credit for, refers explicitly to the "newest street in London town - the Kingsway" which had recently been constructed. destroying much older parts of London in the process.

William Butler Yeats and George Moore collaborated on the play Grania and Diamid, a Celtic Revival tale of ancient Ireland. Elgar sets the Introduction with dark, brooding chords which suggest forests and mysterious forces. Hunting horns are complemented by harps, for this is an Irish, not a Teutonic Wagner saga.  "There are seven that pull the thread" is a keening song of mourning, with lush harps and strings, written for low female voice. It's Elgar, but he doesn't seem to have been much taken by it.

The second disc in this set features eleven songs for voice and piano (Nathalie de Montmollin, Barry Collett)  which have not previously been recorded.  They are enjoyable, but the first disc, with the orchestral songs, is the one to focus on.
Please also see my reviews of Hubert Parry Complete English Lyrics, also from SOMM HERE

Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem - Prom 41 Gardner, Elgar, Boulanger

Prom 41 at the Royal Albert Hall, London, with Edward Gardner conducting the BBCSO in Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem, Elgar's Cello Concerto (Jean-Guihen Queyras) and Lili Boulanger .   Extremely perceptive performances that revealed deep insight, far more profound than the ostensible  "1918" theme   Neither Boulanger nor Elgar had direct experience of war, but, like all decent people with any conscience, they cared about what was happening around them, and could address the human impact of war.

Boulanger's Pour les funerailles d'un soldat is a grave processional, a far more mature piece than the miniatures she is usually represented by on programmes that stress her gender and youth, as opposed to her music.  A steady pace, drum rolls, the tolling of bells and rising frisson in the orchestra enhance the solemn choral backdrop. The strength of  Alexandre Duhamel's delivery added even more gravitas.  At the end, wordless sighs vocalized by the voices of the BBC Symphony Chorus.  This provided context for Elgar's Cello Concerto in G minor op 85 (1918-9) which, in some ways,  is am abstract funeral of sorts.  Jean-Guihen Queyras defined the first theme drawing out the richness, as if to savour it.  Gardner and the BBCSO reiterated the theme with sweeping expansiveness.  Theme and response repeat,  replicating the rising and falling figures which move like processional.  Queyras's tone was beautiful, suggesting the warmth of Elgar's vision, yet also pointedly poignant.  As so often in Elgar, confidence is undercut by an awareness that things do not remain the same forever.  Although Gardner's approach was not as full blooded as, say, Barbirolli, he conducted with refined sensitivity, which worked well with Queyras's sophisticated elegance.  The sudden changes of direction were nicely defined, enhancing the interaction between soloist and orchestra.  Though we've heard Elgar's Cello Concerto so many times, this approach was perfectly valid, and rewarding because it was slightly unusual.  For an encore, Queyras chose Dutilleux, one of the Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher, a brave choice in a place like the Royal Albert Hall where sensitive playing is usually drowned out.  But Queyras's mastery held the audience spellbound.

But the highlight of Prom 41 was, undoubtedly, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem, which Gardner approached with astonishing originality, bringing out the power in the message. Perhaps in modern times, we can better appreciate the visceral intensity.  Gardner also drew out the structural cohesion of the piece, and even brought out its cyclic qualities, which are themselves part of meaning.  Beware of over-emphasizing the use of different texts. (Think Elgar Sea Pictures, for example)  What matters is how Vaughan Williams draws together different strands of human experience into an integrated whole.  Sophie Bevan stood in the organ loft, distant but not too distant, a reminder that the organ and its restrained undertones pulse at the heart of this piece.  Bevan floated her lines so they penetrated the vastness of the hall, the exqusite purity of her tone reflected in the winds. Within moments serenity was shattered by savage chords, the pounding of timpani and the call of trumpets.  "Beat! Beat ! Drums" is a Dies Irae in all but name, the lines swirling and whipping like flames, swept by violent forces, the BBC SO and Chorus unleashing fury.

Neal Davies sang the Reconciliation, where the word “beautiful" is repeated, not only by the soloist but by the chorus. Beautiful, because "mine Enemy is dead, a man as divine as myself is dead".  This is the core "anti war" sentiment, refuting the idea that war resolves things: in death, all men are equal. Thus the deliberate phrasing, where Davies parsed the sentence with pauses. "I draw near", he continued, approaching the intimate moment of the kiss, with reverence.  A violin melody singing alone, garlanded, like the soprano was earlier, by hushed chorus.  Thus a brief repeat of the Dona Nobis Pacem, plaintive and austere with a rumble of muffled drums as the Dirge began, its quiet , relentless pace suggesting the cortege described in Walt Whitman's text.  With the four strophes, the chorus burst out defiantly. "I hear the great drums pounding...and every blow of the great convulsive drums strikes me through and through".  This is vintage Vaughan Williams in every way, with its echoes of Symphony no 3,  the tag "pastoral" more ironic than literal.  The text, also Whitman, refers to "two veterans, son and father" who die together, buried in a double grave, statistically an unlikely image in modern warfare, but one which works in metaphysical terms, underlining relentless futility, where one war engenders the next.  No words needed in the orchestral postlude, from which Davies re-emerges as the voice of the Angel of Death; the words "Dona nobis pacem" now appear almost as screams of protest.  The swirling furies of the Dies Irae return, to a text from the Book of Jeremiah."There is no balm in Gilead".

Most dramatic of all was the final section. "O Man, greatly beloved" sang Davies with fulsome affirmation, followed by orchestra and chorus in a series of quotations from the Old Testament. Gardner defined the ebb and flow, intensifying the trajectory: If all things must change, there may be resolutions beyond the grave, and from war.  Thus Dona nobis pacem rang again, clean, pure and bright, Bevan holding the last words so they seemed to vibrate into eternity.
Photos: Roger Thomas
 

Andrew Davis - Elgar Spirit of England, Raymond Yiu The World Was Once All Miracle.

When Sir Andrew Davis conducts Elgar, it's always an occasion, but this concert  at the Barbican, London, was much more special than most.  Davis conducted the BBCSO in Elgar's Spirit of England, op 80  (1916), which captures the exuberant spirit of England at the start of the First World War.  This was the highlight of a well-conceived programme where the multiple connections between the pieces enhanced the whole. Spirit of England was preceded by Lilian Elkington's Out of the Mist (1921), a bleak reminder of what war really means.  The programme began with Elgar's Starlight Express (1916) a jolly jaunt for children, which may parallel the high spirits of adults who didn't realize where the war would lead, but also worked well with Raymond Yiu's The World Was Once all Miracle, bringing out its inventive personality, while anchoring it in tradition.   A hundred years separate Elgar and Raymond Yiu, but the spirit of creativity shines bright and true.

Elgar's Spirit of England is so powerful that it draws you into its glorious self confidence  even though we now know where jingoistic bluster can lead.  But for a moment we're spellbound by the sheer extravagance of the piece.  Drums roll, strings surge and the BBC Symphony Chorus explode.  Andrew Staples's voice rose heroically above the wall of sound. "Spirit of England, go before us !"    The orchestral writing sets a pulse which supports the chorus, where male and female voices sing alternating lines. This creates an interflow suggesting vast, turbulent forces. Staples shaped the magnificent line "We step from days/ of sour divison/ into the grandeur of our Fate", each key word meticulously articulated, the last word "Fate" ringing out like a clarion.  Staples’s enunciation was sharp, consonants crisp, much more idiomatic than the other three tenors I've heard in this piece in recent years. The English tenor style, at its best, brings out the edge in the language hinting at hidden undercurrents : what really is the unshakeable soul of "divinely suffering man"?   This does matter, since Elgar may well have seen the circumstances more acutely than did the populist poet.

In contrast to the first section "The Fourth of August", the second section "ToWomen" is more restrained.  While the tenor line was integrated with chorus and orchestra, it now stands almost alone.  Phrases like "like a flame" and "boundless night" fly upward from the line, Staples emphasizing them with flourish.  A melancholy violin passage introduces a much darker mood.   "For the Fallen" is funeral ,procession but proceeds forward with relentless surge, Davis marking the throbbing undertow in the orchestra. The choral line with its clipped, almost staccato tension, evoked, perhaps gunfire.  The woodwind figure, followed by low-timbred strings, was particularly moving.  "We shall remember them", sang Staples, his voice carrying above the chorus and orchestra.  "To the end, to the end, they remain".  Hearing Lilian Elkington's Out of the Mist before Spirit of England  intensified the sombre mood with which "For the Fallen" ends.

The title Out of the Mist refers to the heavy fog that hung over the Channel when the ship carrying the body of the Unknown Soldier arrived back in England.  Lilian Elkington's response in music, was dignified and elegaic.  The piece runs just under 8 minutes, but is ambitiously scored for large ensemble . It begins mysteriously : one can imagine the ship materializing in port, out of the mists, docking and unloading the coffin,which was then taken to Westminster Abbey, where it remains today. The Unknown Soldier is "home" at last, carrying with him , symbolically, the memory of millions of others who would never return.  Thus, Out of the Mist ends with transcendent brightness, as if the Unknown Soldier and the men and women he stands for are bathed in glory.  The BBC SO recorded this piece some years ago, but this performance with Andrew Davis was far more,powerful. (For more about Lilian Elkington, please read HERE)

Elgar's Starlight Express was written in the midst of war, but is cheerfully escapist. Life goes on and morale needs boosting.  The extracts chosen for this performance displays the liveliness of Elgar's writing. The music is genuinely free spirited, with no trace of condescension towards a youthful audience.  Elgar even quotes the Christmas carol, The First Noel, decorating it with bells and cymbalds. The soloists were Roderick Williams and Emma Tring.  Incidentally, I have never seen so many kids in an evening performance before, several as young as 7 or 8.  I counted more than 20, and that was just around me.

Elgar is the biggest gun in British music. That Raymond Yiu's The World Was Once all Miracle was able to stand up to such competition says something.  Perhaps that's because Yiu's musical personality is highly individual.  The World Was Once all Miracle unfolds in six sections like a puzzle book, each piece reflecting a different aspect of the life and work of Anthony Burgess.  Yiu's settings are delightfully perverse. "Sick ! Sick ! Sick !" sang Roderick Williams "sick of sycophantic singing".   Jerky, quirky staccato in the orchestra, percussion like exclamation points, almost lyrical flights of fancy, tiny sparkling figures and exceptionally witty writing for voice.  Williams has an unequalled gift for singing with a naturalness thatn communicates like conversation, yet can also shape phrases and colour words bringing out their intrinsic musical character.  Spooky chords in the strings set the mood for the song "For we were all caught in the shame of sleep".  Williams curled his tongue round words, relishing their flavour as sound.  "Forgive us untempered for the day", a play on prayer, against a backdrop of hollow metallic bells.  

Burgess's texts, with their oddball wordgames and images, lend themselves well to Yiu's style. The vocal line curves and meanders in "You were there, and nothing was said" where wooden percussion suddenly gives way to deep booming sound. The next song "I have raised and poised a fiddle" writhes, jokily mocking  the phrase "the music of the spheres". The orchestra then sounds at once exotic (like gamelan) and sleazy, like jazz.  "One looks for Eden in history, best left unvisited", sang Williams, "While the delicate filthy hand dabbles and dabbles, but leaves the river clean, heartbreakingly clean". The last song "Useless to hope to hold off" mimics nonchalant nightclub patter - echoes of bongo drums - then suddenly breaks off into tantalizing silence.  Raymond Yiu's music defies stereotypes, always playful, always elusive.  The World Was Once all Miracle has the advantage of being as concise as haiku, tightly constructed but hinting at greater mysteries.  Please read my piece Why I couldn't write up Raymond Yiu's Symphony til now here).

Photo: Roger Thomas

Ecce sacerdos magnus - Elgar, SOMM

New from SOMM Recordings, Ecce sacerdos magnus, Edward Elgar music for chorus and orchestra, Barry Wordsworth conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Brighton Festival Chorus.  And so Ecce sacerdos magnus "we behold the great priest who, in his days pleased God" : a short piece for chorus and organ, from 1888, written for St George's, the church in which Elgar had been baptized, and where he followed his father as organist.  Elgar's Te Deum op 34/1  and Benedictus op 34/2 were first heard at Hereford Cathedral at the opening concert of the Three Choirs Festival in 1897.  The energetic introduction to the Te Deum brims with the expansiveness we now associate with the mature Elgar.  Searching chords herald the Benedictus, the voices of the choir building up texture, the higher voices particularly lucid. A stunning finale : "Glory be! Glory Be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost!", and a sudden, emphatic conclusion. Perhaps this confident spirit caused the then Hereford organist G R Sinclair to remark "It is very very modern, but I think it will do".

A more contemplative mood for O Hearken Thou op 64 (1911) a short Offertory anthem written for the Coronation of King George V at Westminster Abbey in 1911. Two Psalms, Great is the Lord (Psalm 48) op 74 (1912) and Give unto the Lord (Psalm 29) op 74 (1914), demonstrate Elgar's ability to give an individual touch to conventional form.  Great is the Lord is set with particular vividness.  The Brighton Festival Chorus define the swaying cross-currents in the choral line suggesting the "trembling" excitement that takes hold of the crowds in the vast City of God. No matter that the texts are less clearly articulated, since the chorus provides background for the solo voice that rises above it. "We have thought on thy loving kindness, O God".   Give unto the Lord ends with an almost theatrical climax.

Secular adventures, starting with  Spanish Serenade op 23 (1892)  based on a play by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, The Spanish Student.  Cue for cheerful music, evoking guitars, student songs and gypsy dancing. A nice entree to the ever popular Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands op 27 (1895).  Richard Strauss's home turf, but here heard through the filter of a Victorian Englishman and his wife.  These are Edward and Alice's "holiday snapshots": vignettes of cheerful peasant song and dance with a background of colourful mountain scenery.

As a bonus, a short clip from Haydn's Harmoniemesse Hob XXII :14 from an early  radio broadcast by the Munich Cathedral Choir where the Benedictus is taken at a slow pace, illustrating possible connections with Elgar's Ecce sacerdos magnus. 

National Treasures : Simon Rattle LSO Elgar Birtwistle Knussen Adès

Sir Simon Rattle conducting the LSO. photo Tristram Kenton, courtesy LSO

"This is Rattle" the title of a ten-day Barbican festival inaugurating Sir Simon Rattle as new Music Director at the London Symphony Orchestra.  There's a lot more to being Music Director than conducting.  Rattle is a brilliant communicator whose enthusiasm fires up those around him.  He's the best possible ambassador for the LSO, the Barbican and for British music all round. This concert could mark an historic occasion.  Will Rattle revitalize the LSO and London, as  he transformed the City of Birmingham and its Symphony Orchestra ?  Will Rattle succeed single handedly in reversing the insular philistinism that's plaguing this nation?   In our celebrity-obsessed age, you need a celebrity to reach the masses.  If the new concert hall for London is ever built - and it should be  - somehow Rattle's role should be recognized. This inaugural concert of the new LSO and Barbican season might, in time, prove an historic occasion.  For my review of Rattle's Berlioz Damnation of Faust, click here.

And now, to the music! An all-British programme proving that British music is alive and thriving.  When Sir Edward Elgar was "Britain's Greatest Living Composer", his music was often associated with Birmingham.  Rattle's Elgar credentials go way back  Thus the Enigma Variations, its cheerful geniality matching the occasion.  Once Elgar was "new music". But good music keeps evolving. Britain's "Greatest Living Composer" is now Sir Harrison Birtwistle, so original that his contemporaries, alive or not, don't come close.

Birtwistle's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2010-11) is classic Birtwistle. It operates on several simultaneous layers, moving in well defined patterns, proceeding with the deliberation of ritual magic. It also connects to Birtwistle's operas and music theatre. The soloist, Christian Tetzlaff, for whom it was commissioned, always hold centre stage, the orchestra acting like a  chorus.  A rumbling introduction, suggesting portent.  Almost immediately the violin spins into life - quirky, angular figures - characteristic Birtwistle zig-zags, lit by sudden explosions in the orchestra - high strings, then low winds, and an underlying pulse which emerges in bursts of ostinato.  Five "dialogues" in which the violin discourses with individual instruments.  Unlike Greek drama where the chorus comments on proceedings, the orchestra follows the soloist, interacting with the inventiveness in the violin part. Frequent exclamation points - a gong,  bell-like marimba like a laugh of recognition,  exotic sounds whose meaning may be unclear but significant, nonetheless.  Wild outbursts and delicate, wayward passages.  The violin sings at the top of its register, tantalizingly beyond and above the orchestra, which responds with groaning blasts. Inventive, richly rewarding and enlivened by Birtwistle's whimsical wit.  An excellent companion piece to Elgar's Enigma Variations: the pair should be heard together more often.

Simon Rattle's associations with Oliver Knussen and Thomas Adès are even closer.  Rattle premiered Adès's Asyla in 1995 in Birmingham and recorded it with the CBSO and later with the  Berliner Philharmoniker.  Indeed, he included it in his inaugural concert in Berlin in 2002.  The title "Asyla" refers to asylums, places of refuge as well as incarceration.  It's pertinent, since it's a piece of incessant variations. Inspired by techno music and the idea of repeated mechanical patterns, it channels obsession into energy. Though the famous third movement allegedly depicts swarming hordes bobbing up and down in a crowded nightclub, probably high on drugs, the same could apply to shamanistic dance, where shamans, often high on peyote, dance themselves into oblivion, thereby releasing their subconscious.  Asylum as escape and refuge, yet also dangerous.  Thus the grand Hollywoodesque climax, an ejaculation in many ways.  Asyla can be read as a series of variations, though, unlike Birtwistle and Elgar, these variations are tinged with insanity and desperation.   Adès's finest work feeds off this primal energy. Perhaps it needs challenge to keep the sparkplugs firing.  Some of his later work isn't as good as Asyla, or The Tempest, or America: a Prophecy, but he's still an important composer. 


Pointedly, Rattle included Oliver Knussen in his pantheon. Knussen has been a regular at the Barbican, so Rattle could hardly fail to acknowledge his role in promoting new music, in London, in Birmingham and at Aldeburgh.   But their relationship is closer than that : Rattle conducted Knussen when Knussen was barely out of his teens.  Knussen's Symphony no 3 (1973-79) takes its cue from Shakespeare's Ophelia, distraught with grief, singing "mad songs" in Hamlet.  For more background, please read the description  on Faber, who are Knussen's publishers.  The piece has been in Rattle's repertoire since CBSO days. It's a pity that the only recording of this work was not by Rattle, who reveals Knussen's Symphony in its full glory:  (Knussen's conducted it lots, too). It's an amazing work, at turns quirky, magical, demented and inspired. 

Knussen's Third Symphony is wordless, 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 of 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, but the comparison is fruitful, because both symphonies evoke contradictory responses. That's part of their enigmatic power.  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.

A wonderful performance - let's hope Rattle and the LSO do it again, in tribute, for Knussen is very much "more" than a composer, just as Rattle is "more" than a conductor. Knussen's a towering figure in every way, who has done more than most for music in this country.  Because his energies have found so many outlets, he hasn't written as much as he might have, but almost everything he does write is top notch, top rank.

Among the many composers Knussen has nurtured is Helen Grime.  Appropriately, Rattle chose her for the the piece with which the concert began - Fanfare - from a much larger work still in progress.  Another excellent choice, linking the past to the future, proof that music in Britain is alive and well and deserves to thrive. 

Prom Oramo Elgar Symphony no 3 BBC SO

Sakari Oramo,BBC SO.  photo :BBC

Sakari Oramo conducted Elgar Symphony no 3 in the performing edition by Anthony Payne, at Prom 51, with the BBC SO.  Big event, because Oramo is one of the great Elgar conductors,. Oramo was Chief Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra during the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth. Since Elgar was so closely associated with Birmingham, this was no concert series, but a kind of pilgrimage, attracting the most intense of Elgar devotees. Oramo's performances were outstanding, so much so that he was awarded the first ever Elgar Society Award, despite strong competition. True Elgar fans, whose primary concern is excellence, not the nationality of the conductor.  So please, let us have no more from those who keep harping on about the novelty of a Finn conducting Elgar.  Elgar was championed in Germany before the First World War. A political, not musical eclipse.  Sibelius was championed in Britain very early on in his career, as were Janáček, and Dvořák  We need to get over thinking in insular terms.

Ten years on from those Birmingham concerts, Oramo is even more impressive, his intuitive grasp of Elgar's idiom enriched by maturity, enhanced by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, playing extremely well,  "as if to the manner born", not "manor", for Elgar was someone whom all can relate to.  Oramo brings out the warmth and humanity in Elgar, wonderfully life affirming and fresh.

Elgar did not write a "cycle" of symphonies, completing only two.  The Third is a realization of the sketches he left, elaborated by Anthony Payne, who lived and breathed Elgar so intuitively that this completion is as close as we're ever likely to get to what might have been.   A friend messaged me last night after the Prom. "When are they going to "Sir" Anthony Payne?" And so they should. Payne and his wife  Jane Manning are venerable presences in British music and deserve recognition.

How fortunate we are to have this realization.  It flows freely as if Elgar had become rejuvenated again after a long fallow period.  The introductory passage surged, full of expansive confidence, strong chords giving way to lighter, brighter passages before a typically "Elgarian" flourish.  Oramo brought out the contrasts between turbulence and serenity, suggesting ebullience in the face of despair. The warm-hearted scherzo, an allegretto particularly suited to Oramo's personal style,was well shaped, with an edge of disquiet creeping in, developed further in the third movement. This moved like a waltz, elegantly poised, but veiled,as if being remembered from the past.  Particularly lovely,sad strings. with just enough rubato to suggest the palpitations of the heart.  From this rose the woodwind theme, soaring upwards to a new,more expansive plane. But the mood darkened, underpinned by ominous timpani. Soulful surges,strings, brass and woodwinds together, leading into a section so refined that it seemed to shimmer in haze.  In the Finale, the mood of confidence returns in a march of sorts, with a firm tread, lit by cymbals..Though a sense of unease remains (single chords and a wavering melody) the movement ends affirmatively. Brass figures rise,joined by winds, and "Elgarian" richness in the strings,culminating not in fanfare,but in lingering glow.,with quietly tapping tam tam.   This is important, since Elgar didn't live to complete the piece. It should not end in certainity, but in ambiguity, as a mark of respect.

Before Elgar, Sibelius: Scènes historiques, Suite No. 1 and Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, with Javier Perianes.

Elgar, Britten, Brian Elias Prom Wigglesworth BBC NOW

Toby Spence, Prom 32 photo : Chris Christoduolou, B|BC

For more about Britten Ballad for Heroes please see here.

Four British composers, four different worlds : Britten, Brian Elias, Purcell and Elgar, Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Choir, Prom 32 Royal Albert Hall.   Wigglesworth and BBC NOW delivered a very fine Elgar's Enigma Variations . The Variations are so interesting  that it would only be "news" if it were exceptionally stellar or not done well, so if I don't write much about this performance, it's because it was thoroughly satisfying though not "news". What was unusual about this Prom were the pieces around it.

Benjamin Britten's Ballad Of Heroes, Op 14, 1939  for example.  It' runs 15 minutes and is scored for (by Britten standards) a fairly large orchestra and choir, so doesn't get programmed other than in large-scale concerts where such forces are available.  Please read Paul Spicer's notes on Ballad of Heroes for Boosey &aHawkes HERE because they're comprehensive and by far the best, anywhere.   When I first heard the piece six years ago (Ilan Volkov BBCSO, Barbican) I didn't understand the piece but this time round it made much more sense.  The disparity between the poetry of W H Auden and the doggerel of Randall Swingler is a problem, but Britten uses it with a certain degree of irony.  Though the Spanish Civil War wasn't quite on the scale of 1914-1918, it was a modern political war, as opposed to a war between nations.  The International Brigades represented the idealism of the left versus the repression of Fascism.  Thus the contradictions in the piece provoke, just as the situation did. The piece is about a lot more than a conflict between pro and anti war.  It should be noted that the Spanish Civil War  ended in April 1939, with the triumph of the fascists and their Nazi allies.   The war is over ! This makes all the difference to interpretation.

 The Ballad of Heroes isn't a call to war, by any means, but a scream of frustrarion.  It's also contemporary with Britten's Violin Concerto op 15 (1938/9) expressing the composer's anguish about the fate of Europe. He needed to get away, in order to believe in his ideals. As it happened, his experiences in America made him realize that things there weren't actually that good. Some still sneer at Britten for going abroad. They don't realize what strength it took for him to come back to Britain and face what needed to be done.  Through his music, Britten showed that there are other ways to stand up to violence.  Six years ago, Toby Spence sang the tenor solo, as he did for this Prom : in the years between he personally has been through a few struggles, and has come out the stronger for it. Excellent performance ! (Please read my other pieces on Britten, on music about war and Ernst Busch)

Brian Elias's Cello Concerto, (2015) a BBC commission, received its world premiere with soloist Leonard Elschenbroich, replacing the dedicatee Natalie Clein at short notice.  It's a brooding piece making the most of the cello's dark timbre. Frantic bowing suggests movement and speed, through which rip whips of high-pitched winds and lively percussion.  Part way, the orchestra takes over, the cello biding its time with a growl, then returning to the fray.  Pounding brassy flourishes in the orchestra, not just from the brass.   I've written about Elias's Electra Mourns, Geranos and Meet Me in the Green Glen, released on CD through NMC Recordings in April. Read my review HERE.  Ryan Wigglesworth is himself a composer  and has always had a good feel for new music.
And from one of the earliest known British composers, Henry Purcell Jehova, quam multi suntm in an arrangement by Edward Elgar for choir, tenor (Toby Spence again) and bass (Henry Waddington) conducted by one of the best conductors of British choral music (and a stalwart of the Three Choirs Festival), Adrian Partington.

Barenboim nails the Proms: Elgar, Citizen of the World

Two giants of British music - Edward Elgar and Harrison Birtwistle with Daniel Barenboim and Staatskapelle Berlin, Prom 4 Royal Albert Hall.  Barenboim's Elgar credentials go back decades to the early years of his marriage to Jacqueline du Pré, when they made exciting music together with the trendiest young crowd in the business at the time. Over the years Barenboim's approach to Elgar has matured, becoming more magisterial and more elegant.  Though Elgar was thoroughly English, he was not a "Little Englander". Though celebrated by the Establishment., he wasn't born to the Establishment but made his own way. In his day, there was  integration between British and European music. Elgar was a citizen of the world well aware of what was happening around him.  

Thus Barenboim's sophisticated, cosmopolitan Elgar Symphony no 2 in E flat major, where the "Spirit of Delight" flowed with graceful confidence, truly "nobilimente".  each theme suggesting open vistas and expansive horizons.  There are hints of the kind of music one might associate with celebration - holidays at spas, gala occasions, even the Proms of Sir Henry Wood. But the mood changes. Celli and basses introduce a darker mood.  The themes return, but more urgent, descending into haunted quietude. When the expansive tutti return, they seem defiant, rushing towards frantic climax. Speaking like a poet, Elgar said that this was "a sort of malign influence wandering through a summer night in a garden".   The themes in the Larghetto were stretched,just enough to emphasize the idea of fragility, of holding onto something elusive.  "Rarely. rarely comest Thou, O Spirit of Delight" ...... "Wherefore hast thou left me now/ Many a day and night?  Far less funeral march than personal and deeply felt nostalgia for something inevitably slipping away.  

Thus the wildness of the Rondo, swirling cross-currents, cut off mid flow in a short,  sharp climax. .   Elgar wrote, enigmatically, "Venice and Tintagel" , referring possibly to pleasant times he'd enjoyed in the past, both places being popular with turn of the century travellers. There are even hints of tea dance music and jazz.  Think Thomas Mann Death in Venice, though Elgar got there first., completing the symphony before the novella was published. In the circulating themes and sense of constant movement, perhaps we can imagine the idea of throngs of tourists, each on individual voyages, which will inevitably come to an end. The bustle and wild, whipping lines with which the movement ends certainly suggest hurried departure.   Elgar and his peers weren't to know that the era of European expansion was soon to end, but we cannot blank out our awareness of the war and what followed. Nor should we : music isn't just ink on paper.  Art engages the soul.  Thus the final movement, the  Moderato e Maestoso,  seemed to glow, the last chords fading slowly, like dying embers.  Dignified and very moving.  

At Prom 2 the previous evening, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin had performed Elgar Symphony no. 1 in A flat major (1908) together with Sibelius Violin Concerto (1904) with soloist Lisa Bathiashvili. Two works by almost contemporary composers, written within a similar period.  Interesting combination, but not nearly so intriguing as Prom 4 pairing Elgar Symphony no 2 (1910) with Harrison Birtwistle's Deep Time (2017).  Since that's an important new work, it deserves a piece all on its own, which I've written about here.  

But one more observation on Elgar the European.  For their encore on Saturday, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin launched into the famous Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March no 1.  Brilliant wit !  That piece has become hackneyed in the popular mind, having been associated with jingoism, flag waving and Last Night of the Proms silliness.  Which is ironic since pomposity is not a good thing.  "Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"  Othello is in agony, having been tricked by Iago into doubting Desdemona.  His past victories and the status he won through war have come to naught. He'll end up losing everything. Because he's listened to a fraudster!   It was wonderful to hear the piece played as serious music and as a proper concert work. Refined and stylish, yet also beaming with good humour. How many in the audience "got it" I wonder ?