Mourning Mariss Jansons

Mariss Jansons has died, aged only 76.  "An era draws to a close" as BR Klassik has announced.  "Es war diese glühende Intensität, die das Musizieren von Mariss Jansons so unverwechselbar machte. Sein Leben war von rigorosem Arbeitsethos geprägt, von unermüdlichem Partiturstudium und schonungsloser Selbstdisziplin." (He had a glowing intensity that made his musicianship distinctive. His life was marked by a rigorous work ethic, tireless score study and relentless self-discipline".
Jansons wasn't flashy, he wasn't vulgar and he didn't pander to popularity.  He was motivated above all by music and his love for his art.  His mother was an opera singer, but, because she was Jewish, she bore him under harsh conditions in hiding in Riga in 1943. Her family didn't survive.  His father Arvid Jansons (1914-1984) conducted the Riga Opera. Latvia was soviet bloc, so in Cold War times, he also worked in Leningrad, with Mravinsky and Sanderling.  As a small child, Mariss grew up immersed in opera and ballet . He’d pull his shirt up as if he was wearing a frock coat and play at being a conductor. "Bücher waren meine Partituren,ein Stück Holz mein Taktstock. Ich war total begeistert von diesem Beruf", he said. (Books were my scores, and a little wooden stick my baton). Later in life, he'd mentor many others, including Andris Nelsons. I cannot comprehend the hostility that has surfaced in some circles after the news of Jansons' death.  So what if he's not known in all corners of the earth ? Better that his passing gives those who missed out during his lifetime a chance to find out more.
Jansons was such a familiar figure that it seemed as though he was part of the fabric of our listening experience.  We seemed to hear him all the time, in many places. So many concerts, so many recordings !  Currently, I'm listening to his Mahler Symphony no 3 with Oslo Philharmonic, released just weeks ago.  Most attention goes to Jansons's mainstream work, but he was also a champion of more unusual repertoire.  Here is my review of Jansons conducting the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm, probably Germany's greatest living composer.  Sadly appropriate in the circumstances.
 

"....Is there an afterlife in Rihm's meditation on life and death ? His Requiem-Strophen concludes with an Epilog, using the text of Hans Sahl's poem Strophen, published in 2009. The poem itself is elliptical, phrases repeated with slight variation, so it lends itself perfectly to Rihm's approach. “Ich gehe langsam aus der Welt heraus in eine Landschaft jenseits aller Ferne”…..and what I was and am and will stay forever, “zeht mit mir ohne Ungeduld und Eile, als war ich nie gewesen oder kaum”.(Go with me without impatience as if I had never been or hardly was). The soloists are in repose, but the choir sings on, serenely, and the orchestra rises to new heights. The ebb and flow and stop start pulse remains, its significance revealed. The pulse of an individual human body might cease, but others continue to beat and will do so in bodies as yet unborn. Rihm, like Schoenberg before him, has always acknowledged his appreciation of Johannes Brahms, whose German Requiem is an obvious model, though Rihm's idiom is uniquely his own. Rihm's Requiem-Strophen is therefore much more than a generalized Requiem but also a tribute to artists, poets and composers who have gone on before, and an inspiration for creative minds in the future."

Feminist radical : Schubert and Wolfgang Rihm - Prégardien, Andrés Orozco-Estrada

Very interesting programme from Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Hr-sinfonieorchester Frankfurt - Schubert and Wolfgang Rihm.  Schubert Symphony no 2 and the Unvollende, with Rihm's Das Rot song cyle and six songs from Schwanengesang.  Listen HERE.  Perhaps not so unusual, though if you consider that Rihm was setting the poems of  Karoline von Günderrode 1780-1806). Von Günderrode was one of the earliest Romantic poets who adapted the revolutionary ethic of the period to develop what we'd now recognize as radical feminist ideas.  Her poems and letters were written a whole generation before the Brontë sisters : indeed she was long dead before they were even born.  

Though poor, background was aristoctratic and intellectual. Learning was her escape from the mundane restraints of women in society at that time.  Like so many thinkers of her time she was fascinated by the  margins of Europe - the "East" and the far north west, Nordic lands and Scotland representing uncivilized freedom where the unconscious could operate without convention. She also made the most of the passion of the time for writing literary letters which dealt with intellectual concepts.   These sorts of letters weren't just personal, but were discusssed in salons and sometimes published in book form. A useful outlet for women, whose chances of being taken seriously were limited. Uncowed, she wrote “Masculinity and femininity, as they are usually understood, are obstacles to humanity.”  In a letter to Gunda von Brentano she writes: “I’ve often had the unfeminine desire to throw myself into the wild chaos of battle and die. Why didn’t I turn out to be a man! I have no feeling for feminine virtues, for a woman’s happiness. Only that which is wild, great, shining appeals to me. There is an unfortunate but unalterable imbalance in my soul; and it will and must remain so, since I am a woman and have desires like a man without a man’s strength. That’s why I’m so vacillating and so out of harmony with myself….” (read more here and here) 

In Das Rot : Sechs Gedichte der Karoline von Günderrode, from 1990, Wolfgang Rihm addresses the epigrammatic nature of the texts, letting the poet speak for herself.   The first song "Hochrot" comprises just eight lines:

Du innig Roth,

Bis an den Tod 

Soll meine Lieb 

Dir gleichen,

Soll nimmer bleichen, 

Bis an den Tod,

Du glühende Roth, 

Soll sie Dir gleichen. 

(You, inward red dawn, until death should my life be like you, never fading,you glowing Redness , ever true.)

Thus the minimal piano line (Ulrich Eisenlohr) and restrained declamation in the voice part. A short pause before the last line, which rises high up the scale. Clear traces of the influence of Rihm's teacher, Wilhelm Rihm, and specifically of Killmayer's Hölderlin-Zyklusen. Making the connection between Hölderlin and Von Günderrode is valid. Both were way ahead of their time, more in tune with ours, in many ways. The text for the  second song "Ist alles stumm und leer" is strophic, Günderrode employing images like scents, distant sounds, fragile flowers.  But in the last verse, something wilder emegeges.Prégardien's voices lowers, grows richer.  "Phönix der Lieblichkeit,
Dich trägt dein Fittig weit
Hin zu der Sonne Strahl,
Ach was ist dir zumal
Mein einsam Leid!" (Phoenix of loveliness, your wings carry you far up towards the sun)  Thoughnthe phoenix might ignore the observer, it is an inspiration, for the phoenix flies into flames and is reborn.

"Des Knaben Morgengruß" and "Des Knaben Abendsgruß" are mirror images. Both employ similar images but for different purposes, which Righm reflects by settingbthe first with plangent spareness, the second more forcefully. Again, clear Killmayer influences in the ardent near-staccato rhythms.  Thus we're prepared for the wild intensity of "An Creuzer". The redness of dawn becomes the glowing redness of sunset, before it's annihilated in darkness.  Rihm's setting is jagged, reflecting the dissonant image in the text : the piano 's last notes dark and foreboding.  And so to the strange last song.

Liebst du das Dunkel 

auigter Nächte
Graut dir der Morgen 

Starrst du ins Spätrot
Seufzest beim Mahle 

Stößest den Becher
Weg von den Lippen 

Liebst du nicht Jagdlust 

Reizet dich Ruhm  nicht
Schlachtengetümmel 

Welken dir Blumen
Schneller am Busen 

Als sie sonst welkten
Drängt sich das Blut dir
Pochend zum Herzen. 

(Do you love darkness (ambiguity). Longing for a feast but pushing  the wineglass away, passion so strong it wilts flowers and ends in death.).  

Günderrode's life seemed full of contradiction : breaking away from conventional role models, yet not finding resolution.  She fell in love with a man she could not marry, and killed herself, aged only 26. One wonders if she would have been happy even if she had married? Perhaps for a Romantic, turbulence and tragedy make better art.  The Schubert Heine songs with which this interesting concert ended continued the mood of irony.  Günderrode would have been (just) old enough to be Schubert's mother but she is in some ways the predecessor of some of his poets like Schulze and Mayrhofer.  So it was good hearing Rihm's settings of her work with Schubert's orchestral work.

Wolfgang Rihm Requiem-Strophen, world premiere recording Mariss Jansons

The world premiere recording of Wolfgang Rihm's Requiem-Strophen (2015/2016) with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks with Mojca Erdmann, Anna Prohaska and Hanno Müller-Brachmann, from BR Klassik NEOS. Rihm is perhaps the most prominent living German composer, so his engagement with the Requiem form is significant, particularly as
he deals thoughtfully with the issues of life and death which any true requiem should address. This Requiem is secular but very spiritual and sincere, more so than many that just borrow the form. It is austere, yet lucidly beautiful, and deeply felt. It is strongly structured, fourteen sections in four parts with an epilogue, like an interlocking puzzle, with interconnecting themes and internal patterns. The orchestration is concise, nothing frivolous, nothing wasted.  The word “Strophen”means verses, but it's used here not just because the piece uses verse, but because this provides yet another level of meaning, reflecting the formal internal procession of the piece through different stages : a true Mass in the deepest sense.

Rihm's Requiem-Strophen begins, not with the blaze like the Angel of Death at the end of Time but with the cry of an oboe, a more “human” voice. Significantly, it is cradled by the two female soloists, singing not in unison, but in harmony. “The oboe never starts a sentence”, writes Brachmann, “it always answers, just as every Requiem is a reaction to that which is unalterable – a person, with whom we shared our life, is no more”. The oboe is also a reed instrument, wordlessly reflecting the parable from Isiah which serves as text in the Initial. “Omnis caro faenum” (All flesh is grass, and all, its loveliness is like the flowers of the field), which must die, but may set seed. This carries through to the rest of the First Part, where the oboe's low timbre is extended by the slow beats of muffled percussion – a funeral march - the chorus and later the soloists singing long chromatic lines, lit by calls from muted brass and a string instrument, being plucked in a deliberately unsettling discord. The Kyrie offers a note of hope, though it is brief and operates like a reiteration of the first section.

Three Sonnets from Michelangelo form the framework of the Second Part, In the first sonnet, bright sounding brass announce the entry of the bass soloist (Hanno Müller-Brachmann) singing of the inevitability of death. The text is Michelangelo, transcribed by Rainer Maria Rilke. This is a pointed reference to Shostakovich (Please see my piece on Shostakovich Sonnets of Michelangelo here). This requiem is ameditation, too, on artists and the role of art in a nihilist civilization that seems hell-bent on self-destruction. Thus the ominous murmurings in the orchestra as the Psalm (De profundis clamavi ad te Domine) begins, and the elliptical lines of the chorus,which stretch forth then break off suddenly yet keep returning, wave after wave. As the lines become firmer, individual instruments in the orchestra awaken and join in. This structure reiterates the words of the sonnet “Des Todes sicher, nicht der Stude wann, das leben kurz und wenig komm ich weiter”. The second Sonnett (“VonSünden voll, mit Jahren überladen”) begins with a sudden crash,soon retreating to a smooth string line behind the bass, intoning with intense depth, his voice rising very high on the words “….hin, Wo sich die Seele formt” as if trying to reach upwards. The last line “und mach ihr sicherer die Wiederkehr” repeats the ellipse employed before, which is further replicated by a reprise of the Psalm, this time again subtly varied, though the stop start rhythm is retained. Typical Rihm patterns within patterns ! Just as the Kyrie provided a bridge between the First and Second Parts of Rihm's Requiem, Sonnett II (“Schon angelangt ist meines Lebens Fahrt”) draws the Second Part together as a coherent whole, as well as leading into the Third Part.

The chorus sing Rilke's Der Tod ist groß wir sind die Seinen in what is effectively a Libera me. This first section of the Third Part contains a strophe within a strophe, the choral part interrupted by a dramatic interlude executed with spartan simplicity – sinle notes of hollow, beaten percussion, repeated in succession before the chorus returns, not singing but chanting the word “Libera me”, and then, after a silence interrupted briefly by percussion, the blunt words “de morte”. Nothing else – no “aeterna”. Where does the liberation in this Requiem come from ? The female soloists (Erdmann and Prohaska) who were largely silent during the Second Part return in the Lacrimosa, their lines intricately intertwined. The Missa pro defunctis surges through Rihm's Requiem-Strophen like an underground river, resurfaces as a reminder that, however new the music, what it represents is beyond time. Thus the Sanctus, the holiest point in any Mass, where Rihm weaves the text in elaborate patterns, single words and parts of words repeated creating depth of texture. “Hosanna in excelsis” emerges in a blaze of chromatic radiance, even though it follows the pattern of stop and start that is the pulse of this requiem. “Der Tod ist groß“ returns too,accompanied by percussion, alternately full throated and quietly hollow. Rihm's Requiem-Strophen reaches its conclusion in the present, so to speak, with a Fourth Part that begins with a Lacrimosa based not on liturgy but on Der Tod, a poem by Johannes Bobrowski published in 1998. This poem, like the Rilke poem, was quoted briefly in the First Part of the piece. This Lacrimosa is scored for the two female soloists,yet again singing complex cross-harmonies, this time with an extended interlude for orchestra and choir, where turbulent chords replace the hollow percussion in the First Lacrimosa, This interlude surges forwards, wiping away what has gone past, preparing the way for the Lacrimosa of the Missa pro defunctis intoned, in Latin, by Müller-Brachmann. His final “Libera me” rings out before he falls silent and the voices of the choir ring out around him, like an angelic chorus. At last, in this Agnus Dei, the protagonist has found peace, of a sort. The words “Dona nobis Pacem” are divided into fragmented patterns, but warmed by the refined writing for voice, the words have radiance.

Is there an afterlife in Rihm's meditation on life and death ? His Requiem-Strophen concludes with an Epilog, using the text of Hans Sahl's poem Strophen, published in 2009. The poem itself is elliptical, phrases repeated with slight variation, so it lends itself perfectly to Rihm's approach. “Ich gehe langsam aus der Welt heraus in eine Landschaft jenseits aller Ferne”…..and what I was and am and will stay forever, “zeht mit mir ohne Ungeduld und Eile, als war ich nie gewesen oder kaum”.(Go with me without impatience as if I had never been or hardly was). The soloists are in repose, but the choir sings on, serenely, and the orchestra rises to new heights. The ebb and flow and stop start pulse remains, its significance revealed. The pulse of an individual human body might cease, but others continue to beat and will do so in bodies as yet unborn. Rihm, like Schoenberg before him, has always acknowledged his appreciation of Johannes Brahms, whose German Requiem is an obvious model, though Rihm's idiom is uniquely his own. Rihm's Requiem-Strophen is therefore much more than a generalized Requiem but also a tribute to artists, poets and composers who have gone on before, and an inspiration for creative minds in the future.

It's worth getting this recording on disc rather than online, because the CD includes an almost poetic essay CD by Jan Brachmann on the philosophy behind it,describing Rihm's discussions with George Steiner. “Intellectual” should not put anyone off, even in these days when critical thinking is treated as thought crime : all sentient human beings should have the capacity to listen and learn. Nonetheless, it is not at all difficult to approach Rihm's Requiem-Strophen on a musical and emotional level.

London Sinfonietta Landmarks Revisited !

Fifty years of the London Sinfonietta marked by a programme closely connected to the Sinfnietta's glory days - Xenakis, Birtwistle, Colin Matthews and Wolfgang Rihm.  I was at the live concert last November at St John’s Smith Square,  broadcast at last on BBC Radio 3 (available online, on demand for a month) . Here is what I wrote then. It's  still valid !

"A great London Sinfonietta experience with Martyn Brabbins conducting
Xenakis, Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm and Colin Matthews at St John's,
Smith Square.  As the London Sinfonietta nears its 50th anniversary,
it’s good to hear them presenting landmarks from their core repertoire. 
Good music is always "Unfinished Business", revealing  more with each
experience. Governments want to divest themselves of responsibility for
education, forcing orchestras to change their focus. But excellence "is"
education, and education doesn't just mean people who wouldn't normally
listen to music.  Hopefully the London Sinfonietta will return to its
pioneering roots and be proud of what they do.

Harrison Birtwistle's Silbury Air ( 1977/2003) is a case in point.  It's one of the great classics of the repertoire, inspired by Silbury Hill, a neolithic mound rising steeply above the flat plains of Wiltshire. In foggy conditions, it looms above the mist as if it were a strange alien entity.  It connects to other prehistoric land forms in the area, such as Avebury, Long Barrow and Stonehenge.  Building these  monuments may have taken millennia, constructed as they were without modern tools. Yet no-one knows who built them, or why.  "Unfinished Business", mysteries we may never solve.  Silbury Air is an evocation in musical form of many ideas Birtwistle has been developing over many years: layers of sound like geological strata, cells growing organically into denser blocks,  always moving.  Tiny percussive fragments (including harp and piano - Rolf Hind)  grew into a long seamless drone, with oboe, B flat clarinet and trombone.  Flurries of notes, building up patterns.  Temple blocks and metallic brass : lines swaying in characteristic Birtwistle waywardness.  Could we hear neolithic workmen hammering away ? And echoes of The Rite of Spring ? Textures thinned out : high strings and winds, surprisingly subdued, mysterious brass chords, percussion in various forms beating time.  Ticking sounds, too  - the passage of time - an elusive flute theme rising above.  Single harp chords. Hard to tell when sound merged into silence, but that, I think, is the point.

Organic growth, too, in Iannis Xenakis Thalleïn (1984)  The title means "sprouting"  Thus the sudden but sustained chord, exploding like a siren, high-pitched sounds rising upwards, rhythmic cells bubbling along. An exotic glissando that decelerated before rising up again - a tendril, unfurling and swaying. Further loops of sound (winds and brass), sparkling flurries and single notes plucked on piano and percussion.  The music moves through several distinct phases, ideas carried through and developed anew.  Dense textures alternated with stark staccato, evolving into florid glissando multitudes.  Percussion chords anchored wildly rhythmic figures.  Single chords along the
keyboard danced with drums and strings.   Long wailing brass and  single chord percussion. The "siren" opening returned, in new form, with a strong brass line. Xenakis creates shapes with sound, shapes so inventive that they could be depicted in visual form.

As I listened to Xenakis, I thought of Boulez's many Notations,  reconfiguring and growing like a Mandelbrot, the very essence of life.  So it was good to hear Colin Matthews’ Contraflow (1992)  after Xenakis Thalleïn. Again, the idea of shapes spiralling and unfolding, with joyous
proliferation.  It's "contraflow" in the sense of two forces meeting and merging. Colin Matthews is a major figure in British new music and very much a part of the London Sinfonietta heritage.

Since this concert was a sampler programme, we didn't get to hear the whole of Wolfgang Rihm's Chiffre-Zyklus (1982-6), which evolved from Chiffre I through a series of different instrumental groupings to form a traverse, though each section can be played individually.  Here, though, we heard Chiffres II (of X) subtitled "Silence to be Beaten" (1983). From near silence, a strident chord which breaks into zig zags, movement further propelled by rushing rhythms, capricious figures for winds and brass, alternating by piano beating time like a metronome.  Energetic blocks of sound which suddenly disappear into near-silence.  High-pitched sound, interrupted by thwacks of timpani. Further near silence, rumbling percussion, tense single keys crackling across the keyboard. The climax builds up in waves of varied detail.  A marching pace, led by brass calls. Gradually, the textures open out again: sighing winds, single notes on the piano, and silence returns. What a ride!     

London Sinfonietta Landmarks - Birtwistle Xenakis Matthews Rihm

Silbury Hill collage, from London Sinfonietta

 A great London Sinfonietta experience with Martyn Brabbins conducting Xenakis, Birtwistle, Wolfgang Rihm and Colin Matthews at St John's, Smith Square.  As the London Sinfonietta nears its 50th anniversary, it’s good to hear them presenting landmarks from their core repertoire.  Good music is always "Unfinished Business", revealing  more with each experience. Governments want to divest themselves of responsibility for education, forcing orchestras to change their focus. But excellence "is" education, and education doesn't just mean people who wouldn't normally listen to music.  Hopefully the London Sinfonietta will return to its pioneering roots and be proud of what they do.
Harrison Birtwistle's Silbury Air ( 1977/2003) is a case in point.  It's one of the great classics of the repertoire, inspired by Silbury Hill, a neolithic mound rising steeply above the flat plains of Wiltshire. In foggy conditions, it looms above the mist as if it were a strange alien entity.  It connects to other prehistoric land forms in the area, such as Avebury, Long Barrow and Stonehenge.  Building these  monuments may have taken millennia, constructed as they were without modern tools. Yet no-one knows who built them, or why.  "Unfinished Business", mysteries we may never solve.  Silbury Air is an evocation in musical form of many ideas Birtwistle has been developing over many years: layers of sound like geological strata, cells growing organically into denser blocks,  always moving.  Tiny percussive fragments (including harp and piano - Rolf Hind)  grew into a long seamless drone, with oboe, B flat clarinet and trombone.  Flurries of notes, building up patterns.  Temple blocks and metallic brass : lines swaying in characteristic Birtwistle waywardness.  Could we hear neolithic workmen hammering away ? And echoes of The Rite of Spring ? Textures thinned out : high strings and winds, surprisingly subdued, mysterious brass chords, percussion in various forms beating time.  Ticking sounds, too  - the passage of time - an elusive flute theme rising above.  Single harp chords. Hard to tell when sound merged into silence, but that, I think, is the point.

Organic growth, too, in Iannis Xenakis Thalleïn (1984)  The title means "sprouting"  Thus the sudden but sustained chord, exploding like a siren, high-pitched sounds rising upwards, rhythmic cells bubbling along. An exotic glissando that decelerated before rising up again - a tendril, unfurling and swaying. Further loops of sound (winds and brass), sparkling flurries and single notes plucked on piano and percussion.  The music moves through several distinct phases, ideas carried through and developed anew.  Dense textures alternated with stark staccato, evolving into florid glissando multitudes.  Percussion chords anchored wildly rhythmic figures.  Single chords along the keyboard danced with drums and strings.   Long wailing brass and  single chord percussion. The "siren" opening returned, in new form, with a strong brass line. Xenakis creates shapes with sound, shapes so inventive that they could be depicted in visual form.

As I listened to Xenakis, I thought of Boulez's many Notations,  reconfiguring and growing like a Mandelbrot, the very essence of life.  So it was good to hear Colin Matthews’ Contraflow (1992)  after Xenakis Thalleïn. Again, the idea of shapes spiralling and unfolding, with joyous proliferation.  It's "contraflow" in the sense of two forces meeting and merging. Colin Matthews is a major figure in British new music and very much a part of the London Sinfonietta heritage.

Since this concert was a sampler programme, we didn't get to hear the whole of Wolfgang Rihm's Chiffre-Zyklus (1982-6), which evolved from Chiffre I through a series of different instrumental groupings to form a traverse, though each section can be played individually.  Here, though, we heard Chiffres II (of X) subtitled "Silence to be Beaten" (1983). From near silence, a strident chord which breaks into zig zags, movement further propelled by rushing rhythms, capricious figures for winds and brass, alternating by piano beating time like a metronome.  Energetic blocks of sound which suddenly disappear into near-silence.  High-pitched sound, interrupted by thwacks of timpani. Further near silence, rumbling percussion, tense single keys crackling across the keyboard. The climax builds up in waves of varied detail.  A marching pace, led by brass calls. Gradually, the textures open out again: sighing winds, single notes on the piano, and silence returns.  What a ride!      

Wilhelm Killmayer, visionary, in memoriam

Wilhelm Killmayer died this week, just one day short of his 90th birthday.  Killmayer was utterly unique, even among the many inventive minds in music over the last 60 years.  Killmayer was deeply immersed in European culture, re-examining its soul and creating anew. Listening to Killmayer is like visiting a sanctuary, where the ur-sources of creativity flow pure and clean, endlessly refreshing the artistic imagination.  Think on that idea of an eternally clear fountain, springing from great depths, sparkling in the sunlight.  It captures the spirit of Killmayer's music.  "All that white!" a pianist once exclaimed, looking at a score. 

But as Killmayer said, "Silence liberates us.  It helps us to listen to
ourselves. Music can make us forget ourselves. It can also make us
become aware of ourselves."  

That's a very zen concept. In Chinese painting, blank spaces are an essential part of composition because they balance literal with imponderable, letting the viewers exercise their minds.  Killmayer's music is luminous,  transparent. and incredibly

beautiful.  It's radical because it's both challenging and intuitive, activating mind and soul.  Killmayer connects to the idealism of Ancient Greece, or rather the German Romantic  reinvention thereof. One of his heroes was Friedrich Hölderlin,  the poet and thinker who crossed boundaries to the extent that he ended up incarcerated at Tübingen in a tower that had been part of the medieval city wall,. He'd sit singing to the moon and writing poems so odd and so spartan that many thought him mad.  Yet Hölderlin's late period has perhaps been even more influential in the 20th century. Perhaps, in his isolation, that 19th century mystic speaks for the modern soul.  

Killmayer's two cycles, the Hölderlin-Lieder, (1986 and 1988) are an extraordinary achievement.  Like Hölderlin's fragments, the songs begin and end as if materializing out of the ether.  Some are little more than disconncted phrases or passages of prose which don't make logical sense though their poetic import feels profound.   Strange harmonies, extremely high, taxing tessitura, delicate matching of voice, solo instruments (flutes and piano) and string lines that stretch into space.  Lots of silence, when the music seems to hover unheard except in the mind of the poet. As he listens, we listen too, blanking out the detritus of mindless noise that is normal life.    

All this variety, lit by an immaculate but unworldy, unnatural glow,  The word "Greichenland",  for example, suddenly bursting forth, sung with exquisite rapture.  For as Hölderlin glimpses an unattainable, ideal vision beyond reality, we too can ponder a world beyond.  Killmayer's Hölderlin-Lieder are, to me, one of the truly great masterpieces of the 20th century, which is saying something, given that there was so much music then that it's still hard to process.  I turn to the Hölderlin-Lieder whenever I need to clear my head of muzak and refocus.  "Sonnenschien !" "Wahrheit".  And gosh, it's beautiful, once you get into its magical vibe.  Kind of like being in Ancient Greece with a solitary shepherd and his lute.  Or flute). So what if Killmayer isn't populist mass market ? Like  Hölderlin, Heine and Goethe, significant artists and intellectuals are often way ahead of their time.  

"A single note is very precious for me - like a crystal or a flower" . (Wilhelm Killmayer)

Wilhelm Killmayer was born in Munich and trained with Carl Orff.  His ideas on magical realism may or may not have come from Orff , though probably they were in Killmayer all along. Killmayer was also a man of the theatre, working with the Munich and Frankfurt opera and ballet houses.  Hence Yolimba, one of his greatest hits. Most of his work, however, is orchestral and chamber music, and for me, his art song to German poets.  So much to choose from ! A long and rewarding journey.  Killmayer's influence is substantial.  Wolfgang Rihm is his highest profile admirer, but there are many. But perhaps what I love most about Killmayer is his humanity. His work is informed by warmth and gentle humour, values not sufficiently respected in this age where might means right.   Orphaned at the age of six, at 66 Killmayer became the father of twins.  A lifestyle change if ever there was!  Killmayer took to the experience with characteristic goodwill. "I need to write more, now", he apparently joked.  Fortunately, he left us with a solid body of work to cherish and explore, though more of it should be recorded.  

Die Sonne glänzt, es blühen die Gefilde,
Die Tage kommen blütenreich und milde, 

Der Abend blüht hinzu, und helle Tage gehen
Vom Himmel abwärts, wo die Tag entstehen. 
 Das Jahr erscheint mit Zeiten
Wie eine Pracht, wo Feste sich verbreiten,

Der Menschen Tätigkeit beginnt
mit neuem Ziele,
So sind die Zeichen in der Welt,
der Wunder viele.
 
Friedrich Hölderlin , first song in Killmayer's Hölderlin-Lieder

Musikfest Berlin 2016 Wolfgang Rihm Tutuguri

As the BBC Proms at last flicker into life, in Germany the Musikfest Berlin gets under way.. Over 19 days, 27 events featuring 70 works of around 35 composers, performed by 20 orchestras, instrumental and vocal ensembles and soloists. Full programme here, reflecting the concept that audiences are mature enough to handle real music, as Sir Henry Wood believed a hundred years ago, instead of the Potato Fudge the Proms have descended into this year (bar a few outstanding performances). But those of us who can't get to Berlin (largely sold out, in any case), some concerts will be broadcast via the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall (List here) 

Listen live, because the broadcasts may be available for only 24 hours. On Saturday I caught Wolfgang Rihm's  Tutuguri with Daniel Harding and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.  This piece is legend, but not easy to pull off because it requires a huge orchestra, a whole row of percussion desks and elaborate off-stage effects   Rihm's  model for Tutuguri was a piece by  by Antonin Artaud, the actor and theatre theorist whose ideas have great influence on modern theatre, film, dance and music. Artaud believed that communication could exist on multiple levels.  Texts don't have to be spoken, nor even rational.  In Tutuguri, the soloist and invisible choir (on tape)  utter sounds in single syllable bursts of staccato, which don't have meaning in themselves: it's up to the audience to intuit the connections themselves.  If, of course, there "is" any meaning we can deduce. Artaud was fascinated by primal states of experience that cannot be articulated - hence the animalistic grunts and piercing screams. Orchestra and singers all on the same communal level.  Rihm's use of percussion is absolutely deliberate. because percussion reflects the rhythms of the human body, heartbeats, breathing, movement. This performance was exceptionally  muscular and physical, yet mesmerizing just as the rite it (sort of) describes would have been.  Savage as the subject may be, performance needs to be accurate and extremely tightly focussed or the whole point is missed.  This performance was so powerful that it far eclipsed Kent Nagano and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at  the Barbican last year (read my piece here).  The narrator,  Graham Forbes Valentine, who bore a disconcerting resemblance to Artaud, was so forceful that he seemed possessed, the tightness of his articulation like an elemental force oif nature. Luckily I was able to watch it through before Digital Concert Hall pulled it.  Explains why I'm too tired to write about Rossini Semiramide at the Proms, which I loved. 

So don't miss the next livestream on Tuesday 6/9 when Valery Gergiev conducts the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in Shostakovich Symphony no 4 and Galina Ustvolskaya's Symphony no 3  "Jesus Messiah, save us", which I wrote about  in July HERE.  A striking piece I can't wait to hear again. 

Ivan Fischer and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin on 8/9 with Hans Werner Henze I vitalino raddoppiato for violin (Julia Fischer) and chamber orchestra. A beautifully expressive piece which could easily stand up to Bruckner 7, which I heard last week with Haitink and RCOA livestreamed from Amsterdam.

Andris Nelsons conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker on  Saturday 10th in Debussy Prélude à lʼaprès-midi dʼun faune,  Edgard Varèse Arcana and Berlioz Symphonie fantastique. An intelligent programme presented, no doubt, with flair and extremely high musical standards.

More Varèse (Déserts) and Ligeti (Violin Concerto, Pekka Kuuisto) the next day with Jonathan Nott and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie , followed by Beethoven 3 Eroica. 

Then Dudamel Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie.  I heard this a few months back, but it's really for fans of the conductor rather than fans of the music.

Kirill Petrenko conducts the Bayerisches Staatsorchester on 14/9 in Ligeti Lontano, Bartók Violin Concero no 1 (Frank Peter Zimmermann)  and Richard Strauss Sinfonia domestica.  Good combination, should be good.  

Then John Adams conducts an all John Adams concert on 17/9.

Christian Gerhaher Wolfgang Rihm Wigmore Hall

For their first of two recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber devised an interesting programme - popular Schubert mixed with songs by Wolfgang Rihm and by Huber himself. 

Fortunately regulars at the Wigmore Hall get to hear superb Schubert all the time, so Rihm was an intriguing prospect. Rihm (born 1952)  is one of the greatest living German composers. His chamber music  has featured regularly at the Wigmore Hall and his orchestral music and operas have been performed in London and elsewhere in the UK.  In Germany, his songs are fairly well known, and there are several recordings, notably by Christoph Prégardien The score for Rihm's Six Songs from Goethe Lieder is available from his publishers Universal Editions. 

It would be pointless to draw comparisons between Schubert and Rihm because any decent composer is an individual addressing his own time. Rihm is far more creative. His  Six Songs from Goethe Lieder were an hommage to Wilhelm Killmayer (born 1927), another giant of modern German music. Prégardien is one of the great Killmayer interpreters. His recording of Killmayer's Hölderlin Lieder is outstanding,  a milestone in modern art song. Rihm sets lesser poems from Goethe, whose output was massive This serves to distance the songs from Killmayer's highly poetical mystical settings of Hölderlin, temperamentally very different to Goethe. Some of these poems aren't even very good. "Was wir haben  was wir hatten ...und was ist's denm was wir haben." Goethe was not losing his marbles in his old age.

The translation pretties the poem up, missing  earthy wit. There are Killmayer trademarks in these songs such as the dense clusters that give way to  semi-silence, and lines suddenly rise upwards forming the text "Nicht ein Bild !" after "Worte sind der Seele". It's like a private joke between Rihm and Killmayer who have done so much to make us think of the abstract music which words alone can't always express. Six Songs from Goethe Lieder is geniai,warm hearted fun and deserves to be heard more often.

And thus the last song of this set,  Aus Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre
a poem from the 1807-21 version of Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre."Ein Wunder ist ein arme Mensch geboren" , which though dramatic doesn't attract many song settings. Again it's a very pointed private joke, it refers to a crazed man, wonderstruck by the moon, who wallows in morbid thoughts.  Hölderlin all over! Hearing Schubert's famous setting from Wilhelm Meister felt strangely routine.  

It probably didn't help that Gerhaher had contracted an infection,constricting his voice, as was mentioned several times during the evening. True fans would, I think. have preferred that he'd saved himself for Monday's higher-profile audience-friendly Schumann programme. In Rihm's setting of Goethe's long Harzeisse in Winter (2012), Gerhaher showed what he can do when he's more rehearsed.
 

Wolfgang Rihm Tutuguri Barbican Percussion Day

Wolfgang Rihm's Tutuguri is legend. Everyone's heard of it but not many have heard it first hand, live, because it's just too massive. Organizing a  performance must be a logistical nightmare. We've waited nearly 35 years to hear its London premiere, hosted by the Barbican Centre, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as part of the Total Immersion Day on Percussion. The wait was worth it! Recordings don't do Tutuguri justice. You have to be present to feel the sheer physical power of the experience. Even in Rihm's vast body of extravagant, expressive work there's nothing quite like it.

Tutuguri (1980-83) is every bit as much a work of theatre as music. Even before the players entered, half the audience was taking photos of the stage. You can see  some of them in the photo above – it was quite a Light Show. The stage was laid out for a massive and very unusual orchestra.  It was crammed with desks and instruments, the front half strings, winds,  brass, a harp and piano. Invisible sounds are beamed around the auditorium by mixing desk. Four massive tam tams are placed in  upper balconies. So many different types of percussion were being used that it would take a sharp-eared specialist to identify them all. Somehow, a singer (in this case Leigh Melrose) struggles to keep on top of things, spitting out percussive single syllables, like cries of pain, until his voice cracks in exhaustion. Melrose's throat and lungs must take ages to recover. But Tutuguri is a ritual of endurance.

Rihm's  model for Tutuguri was a piece by  by Artonin Artaud (pictured) , the actor and theatre theorist whose ideas have great influence on modern theatre, film, dance and music. (Tutuguri was originally choreographed). Very briefly, he believed that communication could exist on multiple levels.  Texts don't have to be spoken, nor even rational.  In Tutuguri, the soloist and invisble choir (on tape)  utter sounds in single syllable bursts of staccato, which don't have meaning in themselves: it's up to the audience to intuit the connections themselves.  If, of course, there "is" any meaning we can deduce. Artaud was fascinated by primal states of experience that cannot be articulated - hence the animalistic grunts and piercing screams. Orchestra and singers all on the same communal level.  Rihm's use of percussion is absolutely deliberate. because percussion reflects the rhythms of the human body, heartbeats, breathing, movement.

Ritual is a means of throwing off the restrictions of normal behaviour and entering alternative realms of consciousness. When Artaud travelled to Mexico in 1936 and encountered the  Tarahumara people, he understood why they used peyote as part of ritual magic.  He'd spent most of his life in institutions where he'd been subject to ECT and chemically induced altered states. In the supposedly civilized west, shamans come in other forms.

In Tutuguri,  Rihm uses the tight formality of ritual to create a framework. Steady pulsations build up synchronicity with the involuntary rhythms of the body. At each barely imperceptible plateau, tension is released by high, piercing sounds of flutes and horns. While the emotions released by this music may be primal and inarticulate, Rihm's musical self-discipline is highly sophisticated. Interactions between different instruments are complex - at times you can almost feel the back and forth flow between  the players, as if they were engaging in a dance using sound instead of their bodies. The structure is intricate, almost maze-like, creating patterns and counter-patterns on many simultaneous levels. Thus  Tutuguri is very "sculptural", almost tactile. We can hear how the 30-year-old Rihm has absorbed the spatial awareness of Nono and Stockhausen and adapted it to large symphonic form. We can also hear how Rihm influenced a whole new generation of composers, even indirectly, like Rebecca Saunders. In Tutuguri, the music moves, like a living creature, magicked up from sound.

Eighty minutes of pulsating energy gave way to a thirty-minute interval necessitated by the vast changes on stage, which killed the intensity which had gone before.  Rihm has since learned that extravagance has its price. The final, fourth part of the piece seemed harder to comprehend. The percussionists now stood alone, doing their thing in different forms and combinations, interspersed with the crashes of the giant tam tams – very J Arthur Rank, and worryingly predictable. With Kent Nagano as conductor, the BBC SO  was led by a master who understands the form and its idiosyncrasies, and drilled the orchestra into a performance so tight and bouncy that a friend who knows Ghanaian drumming said the players of the BBC SO would have been respected there.

Tutuguri showed the BBC doing what it does best, presenting good music, done well.  It';s good that the BBC SO  does outreach educational ventures, which those who took part must have enjoyed, but a section of Steve Reich happy clapping before Tutuguri proves only that the new BBC era of non-musical targets and box ticking is intruding on core musical values.

Berlin at the Barbican, London

Berlin comes to the Barbican and Royal Festival Hall, London, this season  For my review of Simon Rattle Schumann LSO Barbican Das Paradies und die Peri see HERE. The Berliner Philharmoniker give concerts at the Barbican on 10th , 11th, 12th February , traversing the complete Sibelius symphonies, with Mahler Symphony no 2 as an encore at the RFH on 14th and 15th February. The series has been sold out for ages, but returns do pop up. Keep checking, as Sibelius has long been a speciality with both the orchestra (remember Karajan) and conductor. Rattle's approach is very different to Karajan's but still very idiomatic.

Two more Simon Rattle concerts at the Barbican, with the London Symphony Orchestra: Schumann Des Paradies und die Peri on 11th January, and for contrast Webern, Berg, Ligeti and Stravinsky The Rite of Spring on 15th January.  Barbara Hannigan is singing the excerpts from Wozzeck, which she's done with Rattle in Berlin.  The Schumann concert's significant too because it's one of Rattle's favourites. When I first heard it, in a new edition,  premiered by John Eliot Gardiner live as the Royal Festival Hall in 1999,  I didn't get it at all. Now, however, I think it's an underrated milestone in music theatre. If I have time, I'll write more before the concert. There have been  lots of recordings since JEG's landmark,  but Rattle is very good, and idiomatic. He last conducted it in London in 2007.You can also hear his Berlin performance with the Berliner Philharmoniker HERE, with a similar cast to what we'll hear next week. Highly recommnded. The Barbican concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

Also worth going to: Ian Bostrdge, Schubert Winterreise with Thomas Adès at the Barbican Hall on 12th January and the UK premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Tutuguri on 31st January. Kent Nagano's conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.  "Scatological and anti-religious words are used in a musical texture that ranges from hypnotic haze, to raw blasts of noise, to slow-motion Stravinsky. In the second half of the piece, ten percussionists pummel out an intense, shimmering and at times deafening rhythmic ritual."

Arditti Quartet Wigmore Hall Rihm Saunders Abrahamsen Clarke

Wild weather outside the Wigmore Hall on Halloween Night, but the Arditti Quartet sparkled, revitalizing what has been a relatively bland five months in London music (with a few notable exceptions).

Brisk start to proceedings with James Clarke's String Quartet (2002-3) in place of the scheduled premiere of Clarke's 2012-5 for two string quartets. The JACK Quartet were due to join the Ardittis for this, but Hurricane Sandy intervened. No worries, since Clarke's String Quartet was commissioned for the Ardittis in the first place.They played with brio, relishing its zany, almost-but-not-quite anarchic delights. Ecstatic audience reaction.

Hans Abrahamsen's serene String Quartet no 4 (2012, UK premiere) was somthing of an odd man out in an evening of musical bourrasque, but I loved it. It's beautifully constructed in four movements, starting in a pitch so high it seems ethereal. Abrahamsen calls this movement "hoch im Himmel gesungen".  Arditti's bow scarcely seems to move, but amazing sounds emerge. Ashot Sarkissjan shadows the first violin, ghost-like, adding depth. The earthiness of folk melody, translated in graceful refinement.  A jam session for samisen and koto? Cello and viola (Lucas Fels and Ralf Ehlers) reinterpret the first movement in rumbling low pitch. Pizzicato reinforcing the idea of samisen and ancient instruments.  "Big black raindrops" says Abrahamsen in his notes. Joyous purity, good-natured poise.

"Fletch" refers to the feather placed on the end of an arrow to stabilize it in flight. You don't need to know this to follow Rebecca Saunders's Fletch for String Quartet (2012, UK premiere) since so much of her music moves like physical form. Great forward thrust and balance, purposeful.  Even her programme notes sound musical  "....this elemental sonic gesture is an up-bow sul point double-harmonic trill, often with fast glissando, crescendo-ing rapidly out of nothing to fortissimo....surface, weight and feel are part of the reality of performance. The weight of the bow on the string the differentiation of touch of the left-hand finger on the string...feeling the weight of sounds is an integral part of the composing process.... being aware of the grit and noise of an instrument, tracing the essence of the fragments of colour within a confined and reduced palette of timbres and exploring the physical gesture which creates a fragment of sound"  Anyone who still thinks modern music isn't emotional needs to hear Rebecca Saunders. Her music moves sensually, as if it were a living being, alert, sensitive, eclectic.

Before Hurricane Sandy, the Arditti and JACK Quartets were planning to play Mauro Lanza's Der Kampf zischen Karneval und Fasten for octet ( 2012, UK premiere).  One can imagine what that might sound like! Instead, the Arditti Quartet played Wolfgang Rihm's String Quartet no 13. Explosive attack at times, vigorous.  A deliberately deceptive ending to further throw you off balance, in a nice way. Listen to the August 2012 performance at the IMR HERE.


photo :  Zé Carlos Barretta from São Paulo, Brasil

Wolfgang Rihm Jakob Lenz, ENO

When the ENO does really innovative work, it does so with style. Wolfgang Rihm's Jakob Lenz may have taken 34 years to reach London fully staged, but this ENO production made such a strong impression that it might be years before it will be forgotten. The Hampstead Theatre is a more claustrophobic performance space than the Young Vic or the Coliseum, which suits this opera well. Jakob Lenz was the Romantic poet who became insane. The stage is shrouded, as if in a mist, surrounded by realistic looking reeds. A reference to Wozzeck working in the reed beds, hallucinating mushrooms. The play on which Rihm's Jakob Lenz is based was written by Georg Büchner who wrote Woyzeck, the source of Alban Berg's opera.

Crazy, tangled images of reeds and water permeate this production  Jakob Lenz is trapped in his madness : most of the action takes place on a narrow island on a stage within the stage. Lenz (Andrew Shore) keeps falling off the edge into real water, sometimes completely submerged. Pastor Johan Oberlin (Jonathan Best) doesn't seem to notice,  but Lenz's friend Christoph Kaufmann (Richard Roberts) glances warily round the edges, careful not to lose his footing. It feels dangerous.

Lenz's psychosis connects to these waters.  He drags a young girl into the pond and drowns her. Or so he thinks. Reason blurs into unreality, just as land blurs into water in these reed beds. Lenz thinks the girl, whatever she may be, is raised from the dead because he prays. "Lenz", incidentally, means "spring"  which would not have been lost on poet, playwright or composer.  The girl (Lillie Forrester) isn't a real girl, but may be Lenz's idealized projection of himself. "Logical, Logical!" he repeats later, as if mantras will restore order. In that sense, he's not really so different to the pastor and to the church around which this village clings. An outline of the church looms over the proceedings, and its mirror image forms the platform on which Lenz moves.

Hyper-realistic staging for an opera where reality is so distorted that the narrative disintegrates. Lenz is obssessed by Friederike Brion (Suzy Cooper) who was interested in Goethe, not in Lenz, though in Lenz's mind she is a kind of muse. She's seen in powdered wig and face, like a ghostly wraith. An apparition as much as a character, and not a woman, as such. This very busy setting was wise, for Wolfgang Rihm's music is too intense to be easy listening. British audiences aren't used to Rihm yet and need picture postcard images from Caspar David Friedrich to distance themselves from the extreme emotion in this music.


But what music it is! Intensely atmospheric, almost pictorial. Oboes, bass clarinets, bassoon and cellos, moaning ominously like wind in the reeds, echoing the otherworldy choruses. A harpsichord screams in shrill desperation. Hollow wooden tapping, muted percussion like frantic  heartbeats. Sudden cries from small trumpet. Atrinmgs tapped and plucked, sounds half heard from beyond the auditorium. (Conductor : Alex Ingram). Hearing Rihm's Jakob Lenz audio only can drive you crazy, but that's the point. Lenz is an artist. Oberlin isn't, though he's nice. Must artists be driven like Lenz is? Imagination is powerful because it hints at more than it tells.

Performance of a lifetime from Andrew Shore as Jakob Lenz, with strong support from Jonathan Best, Richard Roberts and Suzy Cooper, plus good chorus and actors.  This isn't an opera or a production for those who think Rusalka should be a pretty fairy tale, but it's like a fairy tale in that it deals with situations that can't be easily explained. Georg Büchner's original play (1836) treats psychosis in a modern, non-judgemental way. Generations before, Jakob Lenz might have been burned as a male witch. Büchner tries instead to understand, and Rihm gets us inside Jakob Lenz's head and makes us feel what it might be like. Not comfortable, but most definitely important. Sam Brown is the director, Annemarie Woods the designer. For bringing Rihm's Jakob Lenz to London, the ENO deserves every accolade.

Please see my other posts on Wolfgang Rihm (and of course on Rusalka)  A more formal version of this, with full cast list, will appear soon in Opera Today.

 Photos copyright Stephen Cummiskey, courtesy ENO (details embedded)

Wolfgang Rihm at 60 - London Sinfonietta

Eager anticipation for the London Sinfonietta's Wolfgang Rihm at 60 concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Part of the disappointment was that it wasn't really "Rihm at 60" but a revisting of earlier works. That's not necessarily a minus since Rihm himself loves revisiting familiar work from a wildly new perspective.

Rihm's Nach-Schrift (Eine Chiffre für Ensemble (2004) is an outgrowth from the extensive Chiffre-Zyklus (recording here) written during the course of the 1980's. Chiffre means "cipher", so part of the fun is trying to discern how ideas disguise themselves. Score-studier's paradise. But Rihm himself is a natural anarchist, not a pedant. What's striking about his music is its joyous energy and vigour. In Nach-Schrift, (postscript),  do we hear the sound of rushing footsteps in that merry ostinato? It's as if the music were playing hide and seek, teasing us with patterns that seem to repeat but suddenly whisk themselves away when we grasp them. The xylophone keeps things light hearted, despite dense textures. Bright, strident trumpets and giant contrabass trombone. Low murmuring contrabassoon and clarinet, like mysterious voices of darkness.

Will Sound More Again (2011) (an outgrowth of Will Sound, 2005), comes seven years on from Nach-Schrift, and is much more densely orchestrated. Very firm structure, weighted down with tuba, contrabassoon, the winds extended by two cheeky saxophones. This time there's a sense of churning and turning, ideas reverberating  in concentric waves. This time there's a new figure in the landscape, struggling against the orchestra. Andrew Zolinsky let the piano taunt and trick, bright, lyrical lines bursting forth with joyous freedom. The orchestra's trying to encircle him but he won't be bound. The title? "Something will sound because it wants to", says Rihm in the notes. "The composer obeys the will  and the development and notates the spaces in between". Sometimes it flows undergound, but its trajectory and life-force are not submerged.

Rihm's Ricercare in memoriam Luigi Nono (1990) references Nono's ideas on spatial relationships. The small orchestra is arranged in a semi circle,  the usual instrument groups separated, with gaps between, and two percussion desks at each end. Elegant directional flow, high pitched sounds stretching upwards and outwards. Not vintage Rihm, but useful as a reminder of what he - and we - owe Luigi Nono for his concept  of music as invisible architecture.

This puts Rebecca Saunders Quartet (1997-8) into context, for Saunders is a master of music as sculptural  form.  She was one of Rihm's early students but early on developed a totally distinctive, unique style. Her music is almost tactile, as if the notes are tracing curves like fingers exploring their way around an invisble shape by instinct. Quartet is scored for an unusual combination of accordion, bass clarinet, piano and double bass so there's much more than the usual communal listening that makes chamber music so rewarding. The accordion is an ideal instrument for Saunders, as it's like the human body, breathing in and out through "lungs". Saunders's music has a deeply organic pulse, as if she's describing a body at sleep, anchored with a steady  heartbeat, but drifting in subconscious dreams. At times the accordion made sounds so ethereal they seemed to come from inside the psyche. Quartet rotates and turns, not like Rihm's churnings, but more intimate and meditative. Indeed, Saunders's music is more spiritually gratifying. once you understand where she's at. She's highly respected in her own right apart from the Rihm connection and has been a regular at the Proms and at Huddersfield.

Jörg Widmann, a much later Rihm pupil, has a high profile because he and his sister, the immensely talented violinist Caroline Widmann, have spent a lot of time in London and are well connected. The South Bank and Wigmore Hall have done a lot for Widmann, whose music fills a niche for audiences not yet ready for Rihm and Saunders. Dubairische Tänze (2009) is a series of 8 unconnected pieces over 18 minutes. A parody of Viennese waltz, of polka, of Bavarian oompah band, then novelty items like two basins of water being splashed about. A new kind of percussion but one that outstays its welcome within seconds. Perhaps there's a Rihm influence in the madcap mayhem of the later segments but they came over more as soundtracks for cartoons.  Unusual audience.There were well known composers and musicians  present, but also some who probably don't go out much. One woman read a newspaper throughout the concert, while another spent the whole evening playing games on an iPad.  Perhaps that accounted for the response - wildly enthusiastic applause and muttered murmurings.

Although I love the London Sinfonietta and once had an unbroken run of every single concert for five years, they didn't sound much like themselves this evening. Even though I wasn't listening from score (often the sign of a Beckmesser) some entries felt wrong and the overall dynamics somewhat muffled. Thierry Fischer, longtime conductor of the BBCNOW in Wales, has a strong interest in modern music but his approach seemed more suited to large ensemble than tight, small scale detail.

Lots about Rihm and Saunders on this site, please search. Rihm was the subject of a Barbican Total Immersion two years ago, which I wrote about here. .