Parvo Järvi, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall

Parvo Järvi, NHKSO - photo Belinda Lawley

   
By Marc Bridle : Takemitsu, Schumann, Rachmaninoff: Sol Gabetta (cello), NHK Symphony Orchestra, Parvo Järvi (conductor) – 24th February 2020 

Does an orchestra have to be centuries old for its sound to be unique and definable? In many cases the answer is yes, but there are rare instances of twentieth century orchestras which have become recognisable for their sound – the Philharmonia for their woodwind, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks for that extraordinary blend of mellowness – and the NHKSO for the monumental richness of their strings. There is a particular quality to Japanese string playing, and no orchestra represents it better than this one.

Of the two symphonies the NHKSO are playing on their current European tour it is probably the Bruckner Seventh, which they played at their first concert in Estonia, which would have better impressed on us the sheer range of their strings. But it was evident in Schumann’s Cello Concerto, and ample enough in Rachmaninoff’s sweepingly romantic E minor symphony. Indeed, there was absolutely nothing understated about that performance: It may not have been overly lush, but it was heavy on dramatic impact and it seared in a way which is unusual in performances of this work. Robert Simpson’s 1967 assessment of this symphony as a work which “lapses into facile sentiment… collapses under its own weight… and drifts towards inflation” couldn’t have seemed more inappropriate, harsh or outdated as viewed through the prism of Parvo Järvi and his players.

Järvi is not a conductor who tends to hang fire in much of what he conducts; indeed, his tendency for dynamic tempos can benefit certain composers (Bartók and Shostakovich) but it can sometimes work against others (Richard Strauss and Mahler). In Rachmaninoff he is at the extreme end of the spectrum, especially when compared to two other live recordings the NHKSO made with other conductors, Yevgeny Svetlanov and André Previn. Svetlanov’s performance from September 2000 is the slowest, with an Adagio which stretches beyond 17 minutes; Previn’s, from September 2007, is typically mainstream for this conductor. There is a consensus that this Previn is his finest interpretation of the work; there is also a consensus the clarinet solo in the Adagio is particularly weak, an indication of some of this orchestra’s weaknesses. Järvi’s soloist, the hugely expressive Kei Ito, gave a performance as fine as any I have heard, an indication this orchestra can be a chameleon when it wants to.

You never quite know with a performance of this symphony where a conductor is quite going with it during its opening 20 bars – will it be Rachmaninoff, or will it be more like Tchaikovsky’s Fifth? The opening motto on cellos and basses suggested the former, while the echo of the theme on first violins followed in quick succession on the second violins – an echo that was achieved here by antiphonal strings – confirmed this impression. It was only Järvi’s treatment of this movement’s climaxes which somewhat muddied the waters – the first suggestion of the Dies Irae on clarinets and violas, the rampant timpani, the stripping away of romanticism in the violins, woodwind and horns slipping into brutality. This wasn’t a notably balanced view of the first movement by the end of it.

 The Allegro molto – perhaps not taken at that tempo – was riotous. If the virtuosity and precision of this orchestra is a given, in the past it has sometimes leant towards being mechanical and perfunctory. That is not the case today; this is a body of players who tends to exhibit an involvement with the music, and it was notable during this performance how often they swayed gently and moved with their conductor’s beat. But this was playing which often sounded robust and muscular – those massively powerful trumpets and trombones, the chasmic basses, the yawning clarinet, and yet how sudden the orchestra could plummet into the one bar of complete silence which is unique to this movement. If the Allegro molto sometimes veers towards moments of dialogue between its instruments this was not entirely convincingly done here. But there were sections – the fugue, the coda – which pressed the lyrical side of the music.

The Adagio – very slightly more measured than it had been in the broadcast of their performance at Suntory Hall on the 5th of February – was potent and vigorous rather than inclined towards romanticism. Järvi’s willingness to strip down the intensity of slow movements in some symphonies – a notable feature of his Mahler Sixth – can sometimes make them seem indelicate; indeed, one often wonders if Järvi isn’t looking backwards to a stricter view of romanticism but forwards to a leaner kind you find in works, for example, by Bartók. The clarinet solo here was undeniably beautiful, but it was a moment of lone expression, a voice sealed inside a chorus of strings which were stripped of all sentimentality. Clarinet and oboe solos, and the duet with the cor anglais, mirrored that long first solo, but how Järvi drove the climax, the pause at its close almost toppling into the beginning of the development. If there had been a particular vision here it was in striking a contrast between this movement’s ecstasy and its crests. Some conductors certainly make this music sound excessively rich; Järvi is not one of those, and this performance of the Adagio had a freshness of expression.

The beginning of the Finale felt more like Tchaikovsky than perhaps any of the previous ones had done; and the rest of it never really deviated from that. The thrust of this movement – an Allegro vivace – often felt it was bulldozing towards inevitability. The timpani which sounded as if it were on a parade, ascending triplets shooting like gunfire, hammering trumpets and drumming horns, cellos descending into the grave, pizzicato octaves on violins and violas that were explosive – all were symptomatic of an orchestra that would eventually be sucked into a vortex. And it was never less than stunningly virtuosic.

I think Järvi ripped much of the richness and glow from this Rachmaninoff and what we were left with was a diametric view of a symphony which was leaner on its romanticism and more inclined towards drama. This wasn’t a view of the work which addressed the symphony’s conventional opulence; nor was it one which saw it dripping in pigments and tints. It was undeniably high on drama, and a view of it which was convincing only if one could open one’s ears to the strikingly different impact we got.

Sol Gabetta, Parvo Järvi. photo : Belinda Lawley

Schumann’s Cello Concerto is in some ways an enigmatic work. It eschews both a conventional structure – although its three movements are distinct, they are played without a break between them – and it lacks the virtuosity of many cello concertos written during the same period of its composition. In another sense, it might not necessarily be a piece one would wish to play with an orchestra quite as powerful as the NHKSO.

What the work has in common with some of Schumann’s symphonies is a lyricism which is suggestive of lieder. The development section of the first movement is a substantial dialogue between the orchestra and soloist; the slow movement can sometimes appear in its poetic inspiration like a series of disconnected phrases; and there is even the hint of a duet with the soloist and principal cellist. Sol Gabetta showed considerable skill in navigating much of the concerto’s challenges. There was a femininity to her playing, a vocalisation to her fingering which understood the work’s inner voices. In her duet with the NHKSO’s cellist, Ryoichi Fujimori, the difference in tonal colour worked well. But there is also a strength and force to Gabetta’s playing which comfortably rose above the orchestra’s brawnier strings; and her meditative, sometimes contemplative interpretation of the work was projected rather than understated. If not an epic performance that relied on power (but then this work hardly needs it), it was one which easily contextualised the concerto’s emotional curves.

The concert had opened with Takemitsu’s How Slow the Wind. Based on an Emily Dickinson poem from 1883, it is his only piece for chamber orchestra, and certainly different in style and meaning to another setting of this poem by the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov who had written the piece for soprano and string quartet.

It is probably wrong to interpret Takemitsu’s orchestration of the work as being more large scale than one expects it to sound in performance. Its strings (8-6-4-4-2), and the delicacy and restraint of the writing that Takemitsu gives to them, is never going to stretch the tone of the players – not even for a string section as rich as that of the NHKSO. If this often felt more like a Japanese version of Haydn it was because it largely was. The work is grounded on repetition – rather a lot of it – and it is a balancing act for the strings of any orchestra to make the length of the piece not outstay its welcome. The NHK strings had an elasticity of colour, a delicacy of sound, and an ability to shape-shift what came before and what came after. Some of the orchestration might feel a little odd, even perhaps cluttered – the cowbells, the variegation in percussion – a vibraphone and glockenspiel – a harp, a piano and celesta but this is an orchestra which is notable for its clarity and the way it can make textures distinctly separate. That is exactly what we got here under Järvi’s knife-like and precision conscious baton.

The only encore of the concert – unlike the luckier Estonians who had been given two, the other being Sibelius’s Valse Triste – was Heino Eller’s Kodumaine viis. A reminder of Järvi’s roots, that country’s Independence Day and the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s glorious string section it perhaps settled once and for all what makes this orchestra such a special instrument. 

Otaka BBC NOW Huw Watkins and Rachmaninov

Tadaaki Otaka, photo: Masuhide Sato, courtesy Askonas Holt

Huw Watkins The Moon at the Proms, Tadaaki Otaka conducting BBC National Orchestra of Wales, tyhe BBC National Chorus of Wales and the Philhamonia Voices.  It's real music, thank goodness, not made-to-order to fit BBC obsessions with non-musical targets. To prepare, Tōru Takemitsu's Twill by Twilight, a very good choice since it worked  with Watkins’s The Moon.  The programme, however, didn't at first seem to cohere. The Polovtsian Dances from Borodin's Prince Igor and Rachmaninov's The Bells on the surface bear little relation to the refined sensibility of Takemitsu and Watkins, but Otaka's performance showed why the two parts combined : bell-like sounds, obviously, but also more, of which, please read below.
Watkins is so well known that he hardly needs an introduction. And neither does Takemitsu, revered by many, including Oliver Knussen. Watkins has established a strong track record, as performer as well as composer.  Read his bio here from Schott,  his publishers. The Moon is a new venture in the sense that he's done lots of work for orchestra and chamber ensemble, but relatively little large scale work for chorus and orchestra. "Inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing this year, my
new work for chorus and orchestra uses favourite poems by Percy B.
Shelley, Philip Larkin and Walt Whitman to explore the sense of wonder we identify with the moon and space. The piece tries to capture our experience of viewing the moon from Earth, and is also somehow about looking back at us here on Earth from above."  Bright, face-moving rivulets of sound - winds used to good effect - , introduce and illuminate the first choral section, where text is set so the words are occluded, in darkness, so to speak, suggesting mysteries. If the setting also evokes ancient hymnal, that, too, is reasonable : man has always revered, and feared, the unknown. I liked the way the highest voices in the choir "took off", so to speak, ascending over the mass. In the central orchestral interlude, bell-like percussion  and clear-toned winds created atmosphere, but there's more to this piece than impressionism. Forceful, dominant chords suggest the power of invisible forces - the moon may be distant and small but it controls the tides of the oceans on Earth. The music waxes and wanes, pulsating with a steady flow.  Zig zag figures (strings) dart : liveliness against a darker background. The instrumentation includes celeste, glockenspiel, and organ, for deeper resonance.  An attractive part for piccolo!  The chorus returned, in full force, before subsiding, slowly to hushed silence. As the voices faded, shimmering, magical bell-like sounds animate the orchestra. An affirmative coda - voices and full throated orchestra, in union.
In Rachmaninov's The Bells op 35, it's not just bells that ring out.  Oleg Dolgov's tenor rang out, magnificently, immediately establishing that the piece is about human beings, at different phases of life, the bells ringing out changes.  Natalya Romaniw (not Romanov, as the BBC had her down) is actually Welsh. She's regal, though not royal, and  a good choice for Otaka and the BBC NOW.  I have no idea how fluent her Russian is, but she sang with great clarity : a strong, operatic performance, bringing out the undercurrents of heroism that infuse the piece, which possibly meant more to Rachmaninov and his appreciation of Russian history than it might have to the poet Edgar Allen Poe. The third movement, The Loud Alarm Bells with its rousing choruses and high drama belong to a distinctly Russian sensibility.  In the last movement, the bells tolled with funereal gloom, for now the bells are iron, mournful and full of portent. Iurii Samoilov's baritone had the near-bass timbre this section needs to come over well.  The BBC NOW didn't need to have a "Russian" sound, Otaka drawing from his players brighter and more magical, even fairy tale lightness, which does, in fact, connect to Russian genres much better than heavy handed noise for its own sake. hence the connection between Rachmaninov, Takemitsu and Huw Watkins!  And so to the fantasy world of Polovtsian Dances from Borodin's Prince Igor.

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Aldeburgh tribute to Oliver Knussen - Britten Nocturne

Oliver Knussen : photo Clive Barda

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music from Japan Barbican Takemitsu

The latest Total Immersion weekend at the Barbican Centre features Music from Japan. Or more specifically, the music of Toruy Takemitsu, Toshio Hosakawa, Jo Kondo, Dai Fujikura and other contemporary composers. This isn't "Japanese" music in a generic sense, but music created by composers who write modern music, enriched by influences from a tradition that's even older than the western.

In the film being shown on Saturday, Takemitsu is shown sitting in a garden, explaining how gardens are a metaphor for music. A garden is like an orchestra, he says, consisting of lots of different elements which a musician can arrange in whatever order seems best. You can increase the impact of some elements by massing them, or extend their colours by planting with others that complement the palette. Sometimes some elements capture the eye, such as autumn leaves, while others remain a backbone, like pines. Textures vary: sometimes the delicacy of spring blossom, sometimes the tough character of tree bark. Then, too, there are extras, maybe the sound of water trickling from a bamboo pipe, or the chirping of crickets, or wind blowing through leaves. Or even the pattern of shade thrown by a cloud in the sky. A gardener works with nature, not against it. Thus a composer works with an orchestra, extending it and encouraging it to grow, but finding his ideas organically and in balance.

Takemitsu's music exemplifies an aesthetic which combines music, philosophy and a general regard for high artistic standards in all aspects of life.

 
What's more, these composers, though modern, reach huge audiences even though their work is "new". Everyone who's seen films by Kurosawa, Mizugoshi and others has heard Takemitsu, Ifukube or Riuchi Sakamoto, so new music is absorbed naturally into audience consciousness. Indeed, movies are built around music, like Shohei Imamura's Black Rain  which is a tribute to Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings. (more about that piece and the film here)   In the west, people make a fuss about the image of classical music as "elitist". They should look to Asia, if they want insights into the future of classical music.

HERE's a link to the Barbican day. Before that, on Friday 1st there's an all-day conference co-hosted by the Institute of Musical Research and the GSMD. It includes a performance of Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II with pianist Noriko Ogawa. Here's a lovely clip :

Takemitsu Requiem Black Rain (Kuroi Ame)

Toru Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings (1957) was performed twice this month. On 4th March, Kazuki Yamada conducted it in his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. On 11th March, the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima disaster struck. Then a week later, the New York Philharmonic. Perhaps now Takemitsu's Requiem will get to take its place as core repertoire. It was written after the death of Fumio Hayasaka, the composer whose music is heard in the films of Mizoguchi and Kurosawa. In Japan, movies were seen as an art form almost from the beginning. Takemitsu himself was a keen film fan and wrote numerous movie scores. In the west, there's more division between genres, and more snobbery, but for men like Takemitsu, if a movie had artistic merit, it was an appropriate use of serious music. So it's fitting that Takemitsu's Requiem underpins Shohei Imamura's Black Rain (Kuroi Ame, 1989), made two years after Takemitsu's death. Full symmetry.

The film Black Rain is based on a 1955 novel by Masuji Ibuse (1898-1993), who grew up in the countryside around Hiroshima. Ibuse was with the Japanese Army in South East Asia. When the Bomb fell on Hiroshima, he was in a neighbouring village and witnessed the after effects at first hand.

It's 6th August 1945, Yasuko Shizuma is at her uncle's house near Hiroshima, where she's been evacuated to escape the fire bombing of Tokyo. Uncle Shigematsu's at work in the city. Suddenly a blinding flash, then darkness. Horrific scenes in the city. A short grotesque creature goes up to a man and cried "Brother! It's me" but the man can't recognize who it is under the burns. Only when he sees the child's school belt buckle burned into his skin does he realize the monstrosity is his little brother, covered in scars. There are real life photos of wounds like that. Be glad this is only a movie.

As Yasuko and her aunt escape in a boat, black rain falls on them. No-one knows what's happening.  Yasuko and her aunt don't seem injured.  Five year later, Yasuko has grown up in the idyllic farming village by the coast, where they still grow rice in the fields and catch carp in the river. But something's wrong. People are dying gruesome deaths, from cancer and from radiation poisoning. Because Yasuko's so pretty, she gets many marriage proposals but they fall through when people discover where she was when the Black Rain fell.

Jilted time after time, Yasuko makes friends with Yuichi, an ex-soldier with PTSD who attacks cars and bikes because he think's they're enemy tanks. He spends his time carving stone jizu (Buddhas) which Yasuko loves. One day Yuichi's mother comes and asks if Yuichi can marry Yasuko. Uncle Shigematsu's shocked as there's a huge social gulf between them and Yuichi's clearly insane. But Yasuko walks in and says that it's what she wants because with Yuichi she doesn't feel alien.

Uncle and aunt are falling ill. Somene's been eating aloe leaves in the garden (reputed to cure radiation sickness). Uncle thinks it's his wife. She, however, worries about Yasuko who seems perfectly healthy. One day she spots Yasuko undressing. There are weals on her skin and her hair is falling out. Shigematsu takes Yasuko to the river to catch carp. They spot the "King of the Carp" more than a metre long, leaping out of the water, strong and healthy. "I've never seen him before, in all these years!" gasps Shigematsu, hoping it's an omen. Soon Yasuko's so sick, she's taken away to hospital. Shigematsu says "If there is a mutli coloured rainbow, she'll come back." But you can see from his eyes he knows it won't happen.

There isn't a real soundtrack in Black Rain. Mostly it's just conversation, sound effects and silence, without distraction. This ma the movie feel intimate, enclosed, enhancing the sense of tense secrecy. Takemitsu's Requiem pops up in small snatches at key moments, such as when the aunt realizes Yasuko isn't well. At the end, when Uncle Shigematsu's eyes follow the ambulance down the valley and survey the hills and fields around him, the Requiem wells up, austere and moving, yet at one with the scene around him.The movie itself is beautifully shot - long, loving panoramas of rice fields, traditional farm houses and close-ups of leaves seen through sunlight. Excellent, sensitive acting and direction. I think I read the book when I was an undergraduate, because I remember how poetic the author's descriptions were.

Takemitsu's Requiem wasn't written about Hiroshima or the Bomb, but the war experience scarred the Japanese people as well as the countries they occupied.
Sometimes art helps people to cope with trauma - Yukio and his bizarre granite Buddhas, for example. It's also important to remember that Japan was itself occupied by the Americans until 1952 and hard news about the Bomb was suppressed. Please read about Masako Ohki's Hiroshima Symphony, written at a time just like that pictured in the film. There's a whole raft of creative responses to the period, which will be worth studying. For western people, it's almsot a blank page, but perrhaps Japanese musicians and writers can fill us in.

French and Japanese Prom 10 2009 Debussy Takemitsu

“If we listen without European prejudice to the charm of their percussion”, said Claude Debussy of his first exposure to gamelan in 1889, “We must confess that our percussion is like primitive noises at a country fair”

Without Japan, we wouldn't have much of what we now take for granted as "western culture". When Japan burst into Europe in the 19^th century, it opened up a new world of exotic possibilities, parallel to the influence of the New World and Asia on the baroque era. No wonder Monet and the Impressionists were so fascinated. Japan primed the west for “other worlds” like Asia, the Middle East, Africa. Orientalism remains a powerful thread in French literature, art and music, which the insular Anglophile world doesn’t appreciate. The significance of this Prom was lost on the small audience. Perhaps people were scared off by “foreign” music, not realizing that Bizet, Ravel and Debussy were inspired by strange new sounds in the first place.

In turn, Debussy inspired Tōru Takemitsu. Takemitsu was fascinated by the way Debussy used washes of orchestral sound, “impressionism” as music. He recognized that Japanese instruments could extend the palette of western orchestras, providing extra colours and richness.

Takemitsu builds his music around the shō. The shō is a bundle of 17 pipes, each with a copper reed. Because a performer can inhale and exhale while playing, the instrument can produce extremely long, seamless legato, far beyond the range of conventional mouth blown instruments. Moreover, each pipe is a different length and each reed vibrates freely within the pipe, allowing subtle gradations of nuance within the line.

Mayumi Miyata demonstrated just how powerful the shō can be. She created sounds that rose out of stillness, rising in keening arcs of sound that seemed to vibrate across the massive space that is the Royal Albert Hall. The shō’s call is met by three pairs of flautists (soprano and bass), positioned round the perimeter. Takemitsu shows that this tiny instrument can match the massive multiple pipes of the Royal Albert Hall organ in dramatic use of sound and space.

Hearing Debussy’s Estampes – Pagodes right after Takemitsu made me appreciate how well Debussy understood non-western idioms. He used pentatonic chords, but also intuited that Asian music develops, not by thematic progression but by changes of tempo and direction.

Maurice Ravel didn’t use Asian motifs in Rapsodie espagnole, but his concept was similar: to borrow from traditions outside conventional orchestral forms to create new music. Instead of five note tones, he uses a scale of four, adding jerky, angular rhythms of Spanish dance. This piece is so familiar now that we forget how startling it must have seemed in 1907. Similarly, Tzigane, with its “barbaric” wildness of Spanish gypsy, so alien to mainstream, middle class western Europe. This is the sound world of modernism, much in the way that Picasso and Braque embraced angular shapes and blocks of bold colour. Similarly, the Tzigane explores the sounds of gypsy music, more savage and “primitive!" than was the norm in mainstream, middle-class Europe at the time.

The Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL) is extremely good indeed, on a par with Orchestre de Paris and Ensemble Intercontemporain. Under Jun Märkl, they’ve built upon their reputation for energy, so these performances were executed with whip cracking precision and clarity. The strings move as a disciplined unit, so when the leader, Jennifer Gilbert, takes her solos, she sounds all the more thrilling and free.

Nonetheless, Akiko Suwanai, the violin soloist, was outstanding. She has such technical command that she can unleash dizzying displays of bravura, but deeply felt and natural. In Sarasate’s Concert Fantasy on Themes from Carmen, it’s as if Carmen’s personality comes alive, without the need for words. Glissandi “speak”. Imploringly, sharp bursts of staccato crack like boots are stamping in some defiant dance. The “Lilas Pastia” section evokes a gentler mood, Suwanai’s deeper timbre supported by double-bass murmuring.

Suwanai is amazing, very individual. Last year, she played RVW's Lark Ascending at the Proms. It sounded ethereallly beautiful, as if played on a Chinese erhu. See HERE Confirms my theory that British music takes on new life with non-British performers who don't carry years of baggage.

In Toshio Hosokawa’s Cloud and Light (2008) Mayumi Miyata’s shō also functioned as a voice. Where Takemitsu orchestrated around the unornamented shō, Hosokawa integrates it more closely with the ensemble. The title refers to Buddhist paintings where Buddha floats on clouds, light streaming from his halo. The clouds form dense circles, wisps stretching outwards like flames. Hence the dignified traverse of the piece, the shō emerging from a mist of muffled strings, which echo its serene lines.

Miyata holds one legato for what seems like 25 bars. It’s so quiet, so elusive that the sound seems to emanate from vibrations rather than register in the ears. The programme notes (Paul Griffiths) mention Messiaen’s Sept Haïkaï, which was inspired by Gagaku. While listening, though, I thought of the rapturous progressions of Vingt Régards sur L’Enfant-Jésus. In Messiaen as in Hosokawa, it is the sense of timeless movement that comes across most strongly. Towards the end, sounds seem to disintegrate in tiny, fragmented bell tones, wafting into infinity. please see HERE It's one of the most revolutionary pieces because it operates on three levels, each unit functioning separately and at different intervals. The picture on that posts shows a torii, an arch which seems to float suspended between sea and sky, changing with light and time.

In any ordinary Prom, Debussy’s La Mer would have had pride of place. Quite likely, the Orchestre National de Lyon would have produced a stunning performance. But the rest of the concert was so unusual, and so eclectic, that for once, it didn’t matter quite so much that Debussy’s masterpiece didn’t take centre stage. See full review HERE Read about Haitink conducting La Mer a few weeks ago HERE

Please also see what I've written about baroque in Europe, Japanese and Chinese baroque and cultural fusion. Labels on right, under "Macau" and "baroque". And of course, I can’t resist having fun. Here’s Ge Lan (Grace Chang) singing Carmen in Mandarin. She also does Rigoletto, Puccini, lots more. The film is wonderful, she has such panache and wit.

Toru Takemitsu Green London Sinfonietta CD

There is an old photograph where a boyish Oliver Knussen towers head and shoulders over Toru Takemitsu. It captures the rapport between them. This is only the third release on the Sinfonietta’s own label, but it’s fitting that it should feature Takemitsu. Ozawa and Boulez may have premiered the works on this recording, but the relationship between the composer, Knussen and the Sinfonietta was special. This recording contains excerpts from an important Takemitsu retrospective, sponsored by the Sinfonietta in 1998.

Takemitsu said that Green was written "from a wish to enter into the secrets of Debussy’s music". Swathes of string sound revolve, changing coloration as starker, more dominant brass and woodwinds enter. Then, in the last few moments there’s a breakthrough into more vernal openness, the emerging stillness accentuated with the sound of a muted bell.

Arc was written specifically around the idea of a garden, which in Japanese culture is a metaphor for nature itself. Japanese gardens evoke in miniature much wider elements of landscape. At their most abstract, they may seem no more than rocks and sand. Monks who sweep the lines in the sand of these gardens do so as a spiritual exercise: they are recreating symbolic waves, oceans, and limitless horizons for the soul. Businessmen sometimes have a tray garden, to escape without leaving the office.

Not all Japanese gardens are quite so ascetic, though. The vast majority are filled with living plants, rocks, water. This is the type of garden I imagine Takemitsu was most at home in, full of colour, light and movement. At some periods of western garden history, gardens were formally structured to keep nature at bay. A Japanese garden is quite the opposite. It exists to bring the freedom of nature back into human life. Hence the rocks and water, bridges and hidden vistas that only reveal themselves when you are in the garden, involving yourself in its life. Even fallen leaves are part of the concept: the sight of maple leaves floating down a stream has inspired many a poet. Nothing could be further from this approach to nature than the serried rows of bug-free rosebushes in a western winter.

There is a film in which Takemitsu is shown sitting in a garden, explaining how it is a metaphor for music. A garden is like an orchestra, he says, consisting of lots of different elements which a musician can arrange in whatever order seems best. You can increase the impact of some elements by massing them, or extend their colours by planting with others that complement the palette. Sometimes some elements capture the eye, such as autumn leaves, while others remain a backbone, like pines. Textures vary: sometimes the delicacy of spring blossom, sometimes the tough character of tree bark. Then, too, there are extras, maybe the sound of water trickling from a bamboo pipe, or the chirping of crickets, or wind blowing through leaves. Or even the pattern of shade thrown by a cloud in the sky. A gardener works with nature, not against it. Thus a composer works with an orchestra, extending it and encouraging it to grow, but finding his ideas organically and in balance.

Thus with Arc, Takemitsu’s first explicitly "garden" work, we enter on a six part journey of exploration. Its foundation is a hum on strings that drones like a flatline. It is a low, steady murmur, from which sudden sparks of sound shoot out, gradually getting denser and more animated. The piano enters, at first tentatively, then joyously skittish as sounds around it grow. Horns, clarinet, woodblocks, trombone and other instruments can clearly be heard in short, impressionistic flashes. The steady murmuring strings return, but this time their individual voices are more defined. Sharp, sudden dissonances break the pace, and a clarinet soars up the scale. In the third movement, cellos and basses pick up the murmur and gradually it turns into a wild dance, tantalising sounds coming from all sides in quick succession. This movement wasn’t scored conventionally, and there’s no mistaking its vitality. The lower notes of the piano resonate with depth and darkness. Then with a swooping crescendo, the music transforms again. With scuttling, scraping figures the music subsides again. The piano’s sonorities now become dry, toneless taps, and even the rumbling murmur fades. The piano gets a bit of time on its own, so to speak, but the orchestra returns full force, led by a fast-paced brass fanfare. In the coda, the susurration of the strings asserts the primacy of their theme.

The video clip is pretty rough, plenty of background noise. But in a way that's good because you listen on two levels, to the orchestra and the world sound. On the disc the thunder's clearer. It's a very Takemitsu concept for he definitely lived in the world, and believed that music was part of the joy of existence.

The recording to get is Rolf Hind, London Sinfonietta, conducted by Oliver Knussen, on the London Sinfonietta's own label - support the orchestra, buy the disc.

Other Englishmen Finzi Elgar Moeran Proms 9 2009

Gorgeous as the Cambridge choral tradition is, there's more to British music. Thus Prom 9 balances Prom 8 with the music of other British composers. Moeran, Finzi and even Elgar were outsiders, who didn't belong to the Establishment but created their own, distinctive identities.

Gerald Finzi has fascinated me for years. Ostensibly, he's the most "English" of composers - look at him with a pipe and tweeds in the Cotswolds in 1925. He looks like he's rooted, yet he's only 24, a Londoner on holiday, discovering yoghurt and Bohemian living for the first time.

Finzi eptomized the "English Gentleman" with his self-effacing diffidence which belied an encyclopaedic knowledge of 17th century poetry and passionate dedication to causes, like Ivor Gurney, apple growing and music in performance. He founded the once great Newbury festival, and used to drive an ancient car to the Three Choirs Festival and to the Royal Albert Hall. Read Stephen Banfield's biography and Diane McVeagh's. Look at the label "Finzi" on the list at right for more, like a description of Intimations of Immortality, another Finzi masterpiece.

Finzi's sometimes disparaged as a miniaturist, though his "miniatures" like Dies natalis are more powerful than many composer's symphonies. So it's good that his Grand fantasia and Toccata is given a high profile Proms appearance. Tonight's performance, with Leon McCauley and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vassily Sinaisky was very spirited, full of vigour. I enjoyed Moeran, but then I usually do, but was blown away by hearing Finzi in the Royal Albert Hall. So much so that I'm itching to hear it on repeat broadcast. In the meantime I'll dig out a recording. There are several, all OK but not outstanding. This is a work that begs for excellence: it deserves to be heard more frequently and performed with the suppressed passion that's so Finzi.

Charles Villiers Stanford was too careful to knock Elgar in public but kicked up a storm when Elgar's Symphony no 2 got more rehearsal time at an important concert than one of his own works. It figures, Elgar's work was  the better work! This symphony is so familiar that there are lots of favourite performances. Sakari Oramo conducted it with the City of Birmingham Symphony as part of the Elgar celebrations. They take their Elgar seriously in those circles, so I was worried if Oramo's dynamic approach would upset traditionalists ("It wasn't done like that when I was a lad"). But it was inspiring, the darker aspects in sharp focus, no toning down and very well received. Not so Sinaisky. Maybe it was just me, still reeling from Finzi, but Sinaisky's Elgar was a bit too restrained, pleasant enough but without the fire and fangs buried deep within.

Tomorrow: Takemitsu, Ravel and Debussy. This will be one of my "must hear" concerts so I'll be writing at length. Later I'll post a review of the London Sinfonietta recording of Arc and Green. Google "takemitsu green arc". This is the essential recording because it's good, and was made with Takemitsu in attendance. Oliver Knussen conducts. This is a historic moment in the Sinfonietta's history, a "must" for their admirers. Takemitsu isn't nearly as well known as he should be, so it's worth having a listen and reading up.

Goerne - Larcher Die Nacht der Verlorenen

Thomas Larcher's Die Nacht der Velorenen really is an interesting work, which we'll probably hear more of. His publishers are Schott, though this piece isn't available yet. However, his 2002 song cycle for soprano, violin, cello and piano, My illness is the Medicine I need is available. In fact it's being performed at the Wigmore Hall on 24 November with Claire Booth, who's very good indeed – another must-go concert. Böse Zellen, also premiered by the London Sinfonietta this week, will be on at Zankel Hall in May (piano and orchestra).

The texts used are recently published fragments from Ingeborg Bachmann, the poet who fascinated Paul Celan and Hans Werner Henze. These aren't formal poems, but fragments, but it was this very brittleness that attracted the composer, "to transcend their rawness by compositional means". So, not conventional word painting but the opposite. It's as if the music expresses what's beyond the text. The singer listens a lot, the words singing like a commentary on the music. This was written for Matthias Goerne, and it sounds as if it was written "with" him, too, for there's a lot of "listening", dialogue between voice and orchestra, as if they are bouncing ideas off each other. Larcher uses an interesting sub group of piano, double bass and, of all things, an accordion, whose dark timbre reflects the baritone's voice.

The introduction is fairly long - fast, rustling figures shrill but clear, then gently deflating diminuendo that becomes softly pounding ostinato. I thought at the time of a clear stream, like a brook in Schubert churning along, entering a deep, still pool. The "pounding" of piano, accordion and double bass made me think of rocks on riverbeds. So what a surprise to read Larcher's note in the programme later: "Here I was encountering not polished surfaces but instead rough stones, on to which I could hold and claw my way forward." It's certainly not literal, descriptive music, so it's uncanny that such images jumped into my imagination.

The poems blend into the music, and sometimes elide into one another. "Ich habe die Wahrheit gesehen .......verschlungen von einer Riesenschlange die in ihren Bauch sie aufbläht..." the piano beats crazy staccato, the winds swirling, circular figures. The dark centre of the cycle is a simple 6 line poem "Im Lot" It's numb, beyond pain "Du sollst ja nicht weinen". Instead of crying, the sense of tight chested breathing, impassive yet unpeaceful, watching, listening, tense. Suddenly tubular bells from the percussion lifting out of the misery, yet distant, and the "riverbed" ostinato returns – this is literally "rock bottom ".

What';s also striking about this piece is the physicality, the sense of "breathing", up and down cadences like exhalation and inhalation. It gives an eerie sense of presence, like there's someone unseen hidden in the music. So all that listening has a very natural, organic feel, the idea of dialogue again. The final song "So stürben wir um getrennt zu sein" is tantalisingly inconclusive, opening outwards yet again. The clear Schubertian brook, but deceptively so. The poet is trying to sound confident but it's illusion, and she knows it.

An absolutely magnificent performance by Matthias Goerne. Of the three concerts he sang in six days, this was the finest, exceptional, perhaps closest to his heart. Audience ecstatic – a wonderful piece of music, so original and distinctive.

Prom 27 George Benjamin

In the photo, George Benjamin is sitting with Olivier Messiaen. To Benjamin's right, is, I think Myung Whun Chung ! Benjamin was just 16. This Prom showcased Benjamin's Ringed by the Flat Horizon written just four years later. It was a smash hit when it was premiered at the Proms in 1980 - not many students achieve that kind of fame ! It's vivid, swooping chords, that disintegrate into sparkling chromatic showers, étincelante as they say in French. The Messiaen influence is obvious,and good. Benjamin is writing with images of lightning, filling space. So it was apposite hearing it after L'Ascension. This is very early Messiaen, indeed, still not quite fully formed. The orchestration is unusual, winds and brass alone then arching towards a muted ensemble of strings. It's quite experimental in its own way, but hasn't quite the magnificence of the version for solo organ we heard in Prom 6 played by Olivier Latry. I wonder how many noticed they were the same piece (almost) ?

After listening to Ringed by the flat Horizon, I listened again to Toru Takemitsu's Corona from 1973. Listen to Roger Woodward's recording and then to the Prom repeat broadcast (or to the recording conducted by Mark Elder) and compare. Both Takemitsu and Benjamin are writing pieces that evoke movement across planes/plains, both have images like rolling thunder, flashes of sudden illumination against darkness, but of course are totally independent pieces.

This Prom gave us early Messiaen and early Benjamin, hinting at what was to come. So it followed up with Early Ravel and later, the Pavane pour une Infante défunte first written in 1899 then orchestrated in 1910. Benjamin segued it straight into Bolero without a break to emphasize the progression. Bolero is so often heard played like a raucuous party piece : Benjamin instead understands what Ravel was really up to, working with blocks of sound - movement again, like a procession. Overfamiliarity makes us forget just how unusual Bolero is in musical terms. It takes a composer like Benjamin to help us "hear" it afresh.