Sarah Aristidou (soprano), Jérôme Comte (clarinet), Lucas Ounissi (trombone), Yann Brécy (IRCAM electronics), Sylvain Cadars (IRCAM sound diffusion), Ensemble Intercontemporain / Pierre Bleuse

Berio Sequenza V (1966)
Boulez Dialogue de l’ombre double (1982-5)
Berio Recital I (for Cathy) (1972)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Wednesday 23 July 2025 (10.15pm)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou

It is a salutary thought that events such as this evening’s later concert were once a ubiquitous feature at the Proms, and it required an anniversary such as the centenaries of both composers heard here to make it possible once again. Not that any of those present would have objected.

The jury might still be out on the precise nature of Luciano Berio’s achievement, but not on the intrinsic value of those works as Sequenza V. One of 14 such pieces that emerged across 44 years, it is arguably the most compact and communicative – not least for its pronounced degree of theatricality. His attire more readily evoked Harpo Marx than Grock the clown, but Lucas Ounissi (above) was fully alive to this music’s extended trombone technique serving a routine humorous though pathos-laden – his exclaimed ‘Why?’ defining the performance as a whole.

Although he eschewed such theatrics, Pierre Boulez was rarely averse to the extra-musical. Inspired by a scene in Paul Claudel’s play Le soulier de satin and the offshoot of work on his major 1980s project Répons, Dialogue de l’ombre double is typical of Boulez’s later thinking with its interplay of live and pre-recorded elements so that the musicians become engaged in a performance with themselves. Here the music proceeds as a continuum between Strophes and Transitions – clarinettist Jérôme Comte as tangible by his presence during the former as he was intangible by his absence during the latter, with all the contrast in perception that this implies. The presence of lighting proved as effective as it was immediate – not least in those framing sections of Sigle initial and Sigle final which act as processional then recessional.

Next to such expressive concreteness, Berio’s Recital I (for Cathy) could feel beholden to its era, but this music-theatre for the composer’s former wife and ongoing collaborator touches on salient aspects of existence as surely as those of performance. As with the more familiar Sinfonia (also revived this season), the plethora of quotations of and allusions to other music – ranging over three centuries from Monteverdi to Berio himself – is absorbed (if not always integrated) into an extended monologue during which the singer evolves from touchy prima-donna to solitary protagonist whose search for meaning in her artistic endeavour has become (and maybe always had been?) elusive. It has to be said that previous Proms hearings, at the Roundhouse then Kensington Town Hall, were better suited to this piece’s relative intimacy than the expanse of the Royal Albert Hall; moreover, for all the eloquence of her assumption, Sarah Aristidou (above) was not wholly suited to a role which requires a singer-actor in the lineage of Cathy Berberian to convey the intensifying emotional meltdown played out during its course.

What could hardly be denied was the alacrity of the instrumental response; the musicians of Ensemble Intercontemporain never less than committed under assured guidance from Pierre Bleuse, who has clearly galvanized this organization in the two seasons since he became its artistic director. Hopefully they will be invited back to the Proms at the earliest opportunity, and not just on the basis of commemorating those composers whose centenaries underscore their significance to a post-war musical culture whose passing has not made less relevant.

You can listen back to this Prom concert on BBC Sounds until Sunday 12 October.

Click on the artist names to read more about Sarah Aristidou, Jérôme Comte, Lucas Ounissi, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, their conductor Pierre Bleuse – and for more on the BBC Proms

Published post no.2,607 – Saturday 26 July 2025