Author Archives: Arcana

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About Arcana

My name is Ben Hogwood, editor of the Arcana music site (arcana.fm)

In concert – Alexandra Lowe, Benson Wilson, City of Birmingham Choir, CBSO / Adrian Lucas: Vaughan Williams at 150: A Sea Symphony

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Vaughan Williams
Benedicite (1929); Fantasia on Greensleeves (arr. Ralph Greeves) (1934); A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1) (1903-09)

Alexandra Lowe (soprano), Benson Wilson (baritone), City of Birmingham Choir, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Adrian Lucas

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Sunday 6 November 2022 [3pm]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

It may have been celebrated a year late, but this concert marking the centenary of the City of Birmingham Choir tied in with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vaughan Williams and saw this choir joining forces with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in appropriate fashion.

Even when it had all but fallen out of the concert repertoire, A Sea Symphony yet remained a favourite of choral societies around the country such that the CBC has given its fair share of performances over the decades. On this occasion Adrian Lucas (musical director of the choir these past two decades) presided over an account whose shortcomings (notably an occasional misbalance between choir and orchestra in those more densely scored passages) were more than outweighed by the conviction with which the composer’s essential vision was realized.

Certainly, the surging choral paragraph which launches A Song for all Seas, all Ships was powerfully conveyed with its subsequent sections introducing the soloists – Benson Wilson’s baritone ardent and mellifluous while just a little strained in its upper register, and Alexandra Lowe’s soprano such as rang out imperiously towards the centre of this opening movement. Momentum can easily falter in the latter stages, but Lucas (below) ensured its apotheosis provided an emotional counterweight to the beginning and never risked outweighing its rapt conclusion. Wilson came into his own with On the Beach at Night, Alone, its ruminative if often uneasy calm notably in evidence and with the more animated central section paced unerringly up to its fervent choral climax – after which, those brooding final pages yielded an evocative poise.

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As the symphony’s scherzo The Waves can feel overly contrived in context, but Lucas duly made the most of its rousing outer sections – the CBC in command of its textural intricacies – and convincingly integrated the Parry-like nobility of its ‘big tune’ into its evolving structure. Everything then came together in The Explorers, a finale which is also this work’s longest movement and features its finest music. By turns serene and speculative, the initial sections built assuredly to a rousing peroration from where the soloists’ impulsive re-emergence was the more telling. Lucas again ensured the culmination had the requisite grandeur without pre-empting the epilogue; at one with some of Walt Whitman’s most affecting lines in conveying that all-encompassing vastness as was a hallmark of Vaughan Williams’s endings henceforth.

The relatively short first half brought a welcome revival for Benedicite – its origins as a test-piece for competition likely telling against the qualities of a piece that, while it may break no new ground in its composer’s output, denotes his maturity in its vigorously wrought opening section, before a limpid setting of the 17th-century poet John Austin that brought an eloquent response from Lowe that itself preceded an energetic close. The once ubiquitous Fantasia on Greensleeves made for an appealing and by no means cloying interlude prior to the interval. All in all, this was a worthy commemoration of the respective anniversaries. The CBC can be heard in Handel’s Messiah early next month, and the CBSO continues its Vaughan Williams at 150 series next week with programmes conducted by Michael Seal and Martyn Brabbins.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. For more information on the artists, click on the names of Adrian Lucas, Alexandra Lowe, Benson Wilson and the City of Birmingham Choir

Switched On – Dorian Concept: What We Do For Others (Brainfeeder)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Vienna-based artist Dorian Concept – aka Oliver Johnson – releases his third album through the Ninja Tune family. This one celebrates a less calculated way of working – which is not to mean it is careless, but that Johnson has decided to apply less of an editing process to the results.

What’s the music like?

Colourful and often invigorating. Tracks such as the cheery You’re Untouchable and Friends show Johnson’s prowess as a beat maker, and his instinctive way of working that comes from jazz.

The influences on the record are refreshingly far-reaching, and mean that pigeon holes for Dorian Concept’s music are more or less cast aside. The Other has an Eastern feel, while Let It All Go, Survival Instinct and Turn Away are musical workshops, clicking and whirring their way into life with a host of playful riffs. In these communal moments Johnson’s music recalls another, much earlier Ninja act, the collective Homelife.

On the other hand Johnson has a talent for setting a more reserved and evocative atmosphere, which he does in the nocturnal Fever.

Does it all work?

It does. Johnson’s music has a fresh, instinctive feel about it, as though the paint on his artworks has only just dried.

Is it recommended?

Yes. What We Do For Others is a celebration of creativity, and its many layers reveal something new with each listen.

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Musical Fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night

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With it being Guy Fawkes Night tonight, Arcana has decided to put on a quick fireworks display – in the form of two pieces from two of the 20th century’s standout composers.

The first is from Claude Debussy’s second book of Préludes for the piano, published in 1913. His firework display is set for the evening of 14 July, Bastille Day, but the depiction of the mini explosives is brilliantly done – as is the interpolation of snippets of the Marseillaise:

The second depiction of fireworks is through the orchestra, by Igor Stravinsky. His work predates Debussy’s by five years, and is for orchestra – described as ‘a short orchestral fantasy’. It was apparently a wedding present to his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov:

On Record – Gunnar Idenstam & Ola Stinnerbom: A Saami Requiem (Toccata Next)

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Ola Stinnerbom (yoik), Gunnar Idenstam (organ), Henrietta Wallberg (vocalist), Erik Weissglas (guitars), Rafael Sida Huizar (percussion)

Idenstam / Stinnerbom A Saami Requiem

Toccata Next TOCN0017 [63’35”]

Producer Jostein Andersen Engineer Anders Hannus

Live performance 21 September 2019, Studio Acusticum, Pileå, Sweden

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

The enterprising Next imprint of Toccata Classics continues with A Saami Requiem, which   is neither a field recording nor an ethnomusicological construct but more a concept album in which the religious practice of this people is endowed with a distinctly ‘crossover’ twist.

What’s the music like?

As is indicated above, this is not the realization of a burial mass such as those peoples of the Sápmi region (formerly Lapland) would recognize. Instead, Sámi artist and yoik-singer Ola Stinnerbom has collaborated with the Swedish organist Gunnar Idenstam for what results in a fusion of musical styles and cultures that, if hardly new as an underlying concept, conveys much of the ritualistic atmosphere and emotional fervency as might be associated with this practice. The outcome is rarely less than engaging in content and sometimes much more so.

As with a Requiem or comparable funeral service, the present work comprises a number of sections that here fall into three parts. After its sombre organ ‘Entrée’, The Journey continues with a ‘Requiem aeternam’ in which yoik and organ gradually merge towards a ‘Misterioso’ whose percussive backing imparts greater rhythmic freedom. The ensuing ‘Blues Yoik in C’ ventures further into fusion territory – its blues-vamp afforded a rockier twist in ‘Pols Yoik’, then this first part ends with the mesmeric groove of ‘Saajva’ as it heads into the next world.

The Kingdom of Death begins with the longest section, a ‘Mirrored Chorale – Shimmering Yoik’ of no mean expressive subtlety, followed by a ‘Percussion Meditation’ that gradually disrupts the prevailing inwardness. An ensuing ‘Adagio’ restores something of a meditative calm, before ‘Jaamie Ahkka’s Death Yoik’ brings something of an emotional culmination with its free-form interplay of voices against circling organ harmonies and the distant yet unremitting toll of bells – music this evocative certainly creating its own distinct imagery.

The Return duly commences with ‘The Return Voyage’ and another section whose intensive rhythmic profile builds in a dynamic crescendo towards the relative contentment of ‘Back in this World’ and what sounds the closest approximation to a strophic song in this context. The ‘Blues Yoik in E’ that follows admits of overtly rock-like elements through its trenchant beat or vamping interplay of organ and guitar, which the ‘Epilogue and Hymn’ transmutes into a celebration of life overcoming death in what becomes a truly Messiaenic ‘Transports de Joie’.

Does it all work?

Yes, within those stylistic parameters which this piece embraces. Certainly, the combination of Stinnerbom and Idenstam is made the more formidable through the dextrous guitar playing of Erik Weissglas and inventive percussion of Rafael Sida Huizar; to say nothing of Henrietta Wallberg’s starkly otherworldly vocals. Quite who – if, indeed, anyone specific – this project is aimed at remains unclear, though those with a passing interest in more left-field rock bands (not necessarily limited to the 1970s) should find it an absorbing as well as rewarding listen.

Is it recommended?

It is, and not least on account of its amalgamation of traditional with composed music such as leaves a tangible emotional resonance. Idenstam and Stinnerbom’s succinct annotations cover the background to this project and take the listener deftly yet surely through its various stages.

For further information on this release, and to purchase, visit the Toccata Classics website. Click on the names to read more about Ola Stinnerbom, Gunnar Idenstam, Henrietta Wallberg, Erik Weissglas and Rafael Sida Huizar

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In concert – Oliver Janes, CBSO / Ryan Bancroft: Adams, Mozart & Rachmaninoff

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Adams The Chairman Dances (1985)
Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major K622 (1791)
Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances Op.45 (1940)

Oliver Janes (clarinet), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Ryan Bancroft

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 2 November 2022 [2.15pm]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Back from its successful US tour (the first such in almost a quarter of a century), the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra this afternoon returned to Symphony Hall for what was a programme of contrasts in which an element of dance seldom lurked far beneath the surface.

Although it is often considered emblematic of his opera Nixon in China, John Adams wrote The Chairman Dances well before completing the larger work – this ‘Foxtrot for Orchestra’ encapsulating much of its atmosphere without being intrinsic to its content. Capricious while shot through with a tellingly distanced nostalgia, this remains among Adams’s most effective concert pieces and Ryan Bancroft secured a fine account whose meticulous attention to detail was not without corresponding panache – down to its percussive ‘winding down’ at the close.

It is (nearly) always welcome when an orchestra’s section leader takes the platform as soloist, as was proven with Oliver Janes in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto – easily the most popular such piece in its repertoire yet one that can easily seem bland or even characterless in performance. There was little chance of that here – not least with a swift and purposeful take on the opening Allegro that left relatively little room for lingering over incidental detail, even if something of its underlying elegance was sacrificed with Janes’s powers of articulation pressed to the limit.

This approach paid dividends in the remaining movements, not least an Adagio whose limpid eloquence was conveyed without trace of indulgence or wanton sentiment. The final Allegro, too, had a winning buoyancy – Janes evincing a deftness and spontaneity to which the CBSO responded in kind, and with a surge of energy towards the closing chords. It set the seal on an appealing rendition which, perhaps surprisingly, Janes will not repeat at tomorrow evening’s concert from Warwick Arts Centre – when that by Gerald Finzi will be the concerto on offer.

Soon to take the reins at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Bancroft is evidently a conductor on a roll as was confirmed by his take on Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. A triptych that abounds in felicitous detail (as is often belied, if not actually concealed, by the score’s lack of expression markings), it needs flexible direction for each movement to cohere, and Bancroft had their measure. The first exuded a suspenseful energy that, in its central section, took on a winsome pathos embodied by its alto saxophone melody (affectingly played by Kyle Horch).

Even more persuasive was the sardonic central dance, its waltz motion underpinning some of the composer’s most astringent harmonies as were pointedly emphasized here. If the charged outer sections of the final dance lacked the ultimate in exhilaration, the quality of the CBSO’s response was never in doubt. In the slower middle episode, moreover, Bancroft’s deliberation ideally clarified those frequently dense textures whose expressive poise is achieved, uniquely for Rachmaninoff, without recourse to an actual melody. A sign of things to come, perhaps?

Bancroft will hopefully be returning next season, but the present one continues with events to mark the 150th anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s birth – including two of his symphonies and the film Scott of the Antarctic, for which the CBSO is contributing live accompaniment.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. For more information on the artists, click on the names of Ryan Bancroft and Oliver Janes