Author Archives: Arcana

Unknown's avatar

About Arcana

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

BBC Proms 2016 – Pekka Suusisto, Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Posted on by
Reply

Pekka Kuusisto High Res 6 - credit Maija Tammi

Pekka Kuusisto (c) Maija Tammi

Prom 27; Royal Albert Hall, 5 August 2016

You can watch this Prom from its BBC broadcast – the Grime and Tchaikovsky here and the Stravinsky here

For sheer musical enjoyment this Prom took some beating.

Right from the start it was clear the players of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra were at the Royal Albert Hall to enjoy their Friday night, and in Pekka Kuusisto they had a more than willing accomplice.

It was Kuusisto’s first appearance at the festival, and as he arrived onstage he gazed in wonder at the full hall, taking in its scope and bidding a cheery ‘hello’ to the front ranks of the Prommers. At that moment you sensed his performance, even before he played a note, had gone up a gear.

Sure enough, his performance of Tchaikovksy’s Violin Concerto was dazzling, but he was careful not to let technical feats overshadow the core of the music’s emotion. As the longer first movement unfolded so did the ardent, lyrical phrases, until we reached the solo cadenza, where just a flick of the eyes and arms were enough to get the audience laughing. Kuusisto plays a lot of his music as though for the first time, the childlike innocence (not to mention his boyish face!) a combination of pure enjoyment. The audience, wrapped up in the occasion, applauded as though he had finished, fully aware there were two more movements to come.

These were the doleful Canzonetta, reminding us of the serious circumstances in which the piece was composed (Tchaikovsky’s disastrous and shortlived marriage, made in spite of his convictions around his homosexual orientation) and a finale that brushed all that aside, its main tune from the violin scampering all over the orchestra as they tried to keep up.

Both violinist and orchestra rightly received a rapturous ovation, but Kuusisto was not done, returning for a traditional Finnish song. Following Sol Gabetta’s lead from the First Night he did the singing, while BBC SSO leader Laura Samuel gamely added a rustic accompaniment. Even the audience were involved, singing one of the phrases as Kuusisto brought the house down.

Even after that the enjoyment was yet to peak, for Thomas Dausgaard – who had shaped Tchaikovksy’s phrases rather beautifully – led them in a vibrant account of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. The composer’s second ballet is perhaps his most tuneful, full of Russian folk song references as it tells the tale of the ultimately doomed puppet. The colours of this performance were given by the BBC SSO at their very best, with superb contributions from Mark O’Keeffe and Eric Dunlea (trumpets), a beautiful, child-like solo from flautist Charlotte Ashton, and wonderful contributions from solo woodwind, brass and percussion alike – not to mention the brilliant efforts of pianist Lynda Cochrane and Julia Lynch on celesta.

Dausgaard was enjoying himself, and although on occasion the music was a little fast it was never less than energetic, the players relishing the shades of colour in The Shrovetide Fair, and the irresistible hooks and dance rhythms Stravinsky threads through the music.

Dausgaard is due to take over full time as chief conductor of the orchestra in the autumn, and on this evidence the two look set for a fruitful musical relationship.

eardleyCatterline in Winter (c) The estate of Joan Eardley.

Beginning the concert was the first part of Helen Grime’s Two Eardley Pictures, a new piece commissioned by the BBC and with its second part today. This one, Catterline in Winter, portrayed the fishing village of the North of Scotland, capturing it in steely, metallic colours – reflecting the dark grey sky and the icy blasts of a seemingly ever present wind. It is always difficult to appraise a new piece on first hearing, but this was an impressive and brightly lit score that is well worth hearing for a second time – preferably in the company of the second, Snow.

Ben Hogwood

Ask the Audience at the BBC Proms – Dean Francis on Bartok and Dvořák

Posted on by
Reply

Ask The Audience Arcana at the Proms
dean-francisThis is the first in a new series where Arcana invites a friend to a Prom who does not normally listen to classical music. In an interview after the concert each will share their musical upbringing and their thoughts on the concert – whether good or bad! Here, Dean Francis (above) gives his thoughts on Prom 25.

Alban Gerhardt (cello); Ildikó Komlósi (mezzo-soprano), John Relyea (bass), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Charles Dutoit

Dvořák Cello Concerto in B minor (1895)
Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (1911)

You can listen on the BBC iPlayer here

Arcana: Dean, what was your musical upbringing?

It was really wide and varied. I grew up with my great grandparents, and they came over from Jamaica in the 1960s. I was heavily influenced by that, and was listening to blue beat and ska. In Jamaica the musical influences are really wide, so they’ll listen to a lot of country like Kenny Rogers or church-influenced stuff, Jamaican gospel and American gospel. I used to hear tapes with church services and things.

My grandparents listened to more reggae – Bob Marley, John Holt, Gregory Isaacs – but my mum was born here and went to school in West London, and she listened to stuff like Boy George and punk, Prince, The Cure, literally everything! My auntie was only a couple of years older than me and she would be listening to Bros and Mariah Carey!

My own personal influences were hip hop early on. I think my first concert was either Cypress Hill or The Beastie Boys, and the first record I bought was a Barrington Levy record, so I was all over the place really! Nowadays I think kids have a watered down view of music, it’s made specially for them. We used to listen to what our parents listened to, in my house at least – not the latest kiddie sound. There was no jumping about to stuff like Miley Cyrus, the stuff I’d listen to would be at family parties, dancing with adults.

Could you name three musical acts you love, and why you love them?

Ice Cube. His music was descriptive of what was going on at the time in America, and it’s almost the polar opposite of the lyrical content of mainstream hip hop now. I guess his life is quite inspiring, starting in NWA and going on film. I grew up with the Predator and Lethal Injection albums at the time.

Going back to reggae I would say someone like Buju Banton, I listened to him a lot, and met him, before he went to prison. Another reason for liking him is his music is good, but if you listen to him talk about what was going on in the world, the politics of the time – living in the West you get a very different view of the politics because of the media.

Even in Jamaica, although it’s The West, you realise that people have got a lot more common sense than you might expect in relation to places perceived as ‘more learned’. They are closer to nature, doing more practical jobs and living off the land, so they have a different view of the world. You don’t get people getting bullshitted, people are smart and on the ball – and so he was telling me stuff about life and wisdom, and he was inspiring in his mindset and how driven and aware he was of whats going on politically.

More recently I would say Loco Dice, because I’ve had some good moments out with him DJing with good friends. His music has energy that brings people together, and that transmits itself in the music he plays. So that’s my three – but you could ask another time and I’d give you a different answer!

I think I tend to like music that has an energy and makes a connection with people. I get bogged down by dirge! I would always listen to something like the Arctic Monkeys over Katie Melua, say!

What has been your experience of classical music so far?

The school I went to had a lot of classical music. It was quite funny and we had a teacher who drank whisky at the primary school I went to! He would play the piano, and I think he used to like Holst. It was quite good, even though we didn’t appreciate it at the time. I think everybody at some point should be exposed to the music of the world, it helps, you know?

With real electronic music and some of the music they play now, it can dumb you down because you’re not exposed to real instruments.

Really I’ve taken it upon myself to go to things, I’m not really averse to any kind of music. If people have invested their time and craft, it will be worth seeing. It’s like sport, you know, you watch it at the Olympics because you know it’s the best of its kind. There is so much classical music in films you don’t realise it’s happening as well!

How did you rate your first Proms experience?

I thought it would be more stuffy, but because it’s classical I would say you get an older demographic. That’s good in one way but it would be good for younger people to think it’s accessible. I think it’s a perception thing, and a shame really – it’s just music at the end of the day! There shouldn’t be that perceived snootiness. It was a really good experience though.

What did you like about it?

I like the emotion of the music. Some of the descriptive parts of moods and nature, like water and fire in the Bartók, that’s really good if a good composer can capture those moments.

What might you improve about the experience?

Not much really, but more how they can engage younger people so that it doesn’t become too stuffy.

What did you think of the Dvořák?

I liked that, especially the first movement. The second movement, it felt less interesting to my ear, but it was all really good. It reminded me a bit of a 1930s or 1940s Western, I can’t remember what. It wasn’t quite as good as the second piece!

What did you think of that, the Bartók?

I really liked the bits of impending doom, but it was also contrasted with light moments. When you’ve got a night where you’re reading the words it makes it very obvious what the composer is trying to do. It’s a like a piece of art with the audio describing the tour.

Would you go again?

Yeah, definitely. It would be a great place to take a date!

Verdict: SUCCESS

You can read Arcana’s review of the whole Prom here – and you can listen to it on the BBC iPlayer

BBC Proms 2016 – Bluebeard’s Castle & Dvořák Cello Concerto with Alban Gerhardt

Posted on by
1

gerhardt

Alban Gerhardt pictured during his performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit (c) Chris Christodoulou

Prom 25; Royal Albert Hall, 3 August 2016

You can listen to the Prom on the BBC iPlayer

The course of this Prom ran true to the plot of the psychological drama that unfolded in the second half. Bluebeard’s Castle was a darkly lit tour de force, but before that we had the small matter of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto to attend to.

The best-loved of all cello concertos, this is a piece where the cello really sings, but has to come from within the orchestral sound to do so. Alban Gerhardt was the ideal vehicle, with probing insights and a wonderful, song-like delivery that brought out the best of Dvořák’s bittersweet lyricism. His duet with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra woodwind and brass, subtly but expertly managed by the seemingly ageless Charles Dutoit (now 80!) was sublime.

bluebeardThings took a much darker tone after the interval as Bartók’s first stage work exerted a chilling grip on the Royal Albert Hall. There was little to no coughing here, all eyes focused on the sonorous John Ralyea (Duke Bluebeard) and his latest ill-fated lover Judit (Ildikó Komlósi). Their exploration of the seven doors of Bluebeard’s Castle were vividly brought to life by Dutoit, using all his expertise with French orchestral music to bring out the parallels in the Hungarian Bartók’s own writing, but also finding the darkness beneath that really drives the work.

Komlósi was superb, every sleight of her eyes telling a thousand words, while harps, strings, horns, woodwind and brass all told the silvery tale in turn. Ralyea, meanwhile, brought his incredibly sonorous tones to the spoken introduction, setting the scene perfectly. Unsettling through the drama was – perhaps unwittingly anticipating The Shining, and the use of Bartók’s music in one of its crucial scenes – this was a performance holding the audience captive from the first dark note to the last.

Ben Hogwood

BBC Proms – Nielsen Fifth Symphony; Schumann Violin Concerto & Jörg Widmann’s Armonica – BBC Philharmonic / Storgårds

Posted on by
Reply

prom-23-1

John Storgårds conducts the BBC Philharmonic at the BBC Proms on Monday 1 August. (c) Chris Christodolou

Prom 23; Royal Albert Hall, Monday 1 August 2016

Widmann Armonica (2006) [UK premiere] [Christa Schönfeldinger (glass harmonica), Teodoro Anzellotti, (accordion)]

Schumann Violin Concerto in D minor (1853) (Thomas Zehetmair, violin)

Sibelius The Tempest – Prelude (1925)

Nielsen Symphony No.5 (1922)

Listen on the BBC iPlayer here

Tonight’s Prom brought a first visit this season from the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by its principal guest conductor John Storgårds in a wide-ranging programme which began in ethereal near-silence and ended in a blaze of affirmation rarely equalled this past century.

The relative silence was to be found in Armonica, among the most distinctive pieces by Jörg Widmann in that it features a solo role for glass harmonica – partnered here by the more abrasive sound of accordion in music which emerges into then evanesces out of focus; heard against a backdrop where indebtedness to Ligeti’s earlier orchestral works does not preclude a wealth of imaginative textures, particularly in the opening minutes. Christa Schönfeldinger and Teodoro Anzellotti interacted seamlessly, not least in those overly gestural closing pages.

prom-23-2

Christa Schönfeldinger performs Widmann’s Armonica with and Teodoro Anzellotti, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic at the BBC Proms. (c) Chris Christodolou

Perhaps it was such ethereal sounds that the ailing Schumann heard over the troubled weeks prior to his final breakdown. If so, little of this otherworldliness found its way into the Violin Concerto which was his last major work. Its having been kept under wraps for eight decades, then miraculously relocated near the outset of the Nazi era, has passed into legend. Musically the piece can verge on the routine, not least a first movement whose progress is more than a little dogged due to insufficiently contrasted ideas, then a finale whose underlying polonaise rhythm abets the repetitiveness. Best is a slow movement that revisits Schumann’s ‘romanza’ idiom a last time; its enervated aura exquisitely judged by Thomas Zehetmair and Storgårds – musicians who have (uniquely?) encountered this unsettling work both as soloist and conductor.

The emotional temperature rose appreciably in the second half – first with the Prelude from the extensive incidental music Sibelius wrote for a Copenhagen production of The Tempest. Guardedly admired at first, it has latterly been hailed as a precursor of tonal innovations half a century on. While his account was not lacking for physical immediacy, Storgårds chose to emphasize those modal contours that spread across woodwind and brass as the piece moves beyond its climax towards as tenuous a resolution as any during the first half of last century.

How to wrest resolution from apparent chaos was the goal for Nielsen in his Fifth Symphony, a work that has rightly moved towards the centre of the repertoire over the past two decades. Consistency was the watchword of Storgårds’s interpretation – finding an unarguable ‘tempo giusto’ for the initial half of the first movement, its unfolding across shifting tonal planes as finely articulated as the intensifying ambivalence that suddenly clears going into the Adagio rejoinder. The climax had suitably majestic import, and it was hardly Paul Patrick’s fault if his side-drum ‘cadenza’ was outshone by John Bradbury’s plangent clarinet solo in the coda. The second movement’s propulsive opening Allegro was well judged and if Storgårds risked momentum in the curious bitonal transition, the ensuing Presto had the right headlong energy.

Nor was there any lack of focus in the fugal Andante which gradually works its way to where the earlier resolve can be regained, albeit now with a formal and expressive closure as makes possible a thrilling peroration that was superbly gauged at the end of this impressive reading.

Richard Whitehouse

BBC Proms 2016 – A Satie Cabaret with Alistair McGowan

Posted on by
Reply

alistair-mcgowan

Alistair McGowan as Erik Satie, BBC Proms 2016 (c) Chris Christodoulou

A Satie Cabaret, Cadogan Hall, Monday 1 August 2016

Who was Erik Satie?

Or, come to think of it, who is Alistair McGowan?

Clues to the answers of both questions were on hand at this stimulating Proms Chamber Music concert, where the ‘bright, airy interior’ of Cadogan Hall, celebrated as such by Proms director David Pickard, became dark as night for an hour, the curtains drawn so we could enjoy A Satie Cabaret.

Listen to A Satie Cabaret on the BBC iPlayer

McGowan has already presented a concert in similar form this year, for Satie is one of his obsessions – and it is 150 years since the birth of the composer. Ever the arch impressionist (not in a French sense!) McGowan took on Satie’s character, dressed in a trademark suit and bowler hat, even managing to grow the composer’s facial hair – or at least don a very convincing disguise!

He chose a set of autobiographical readings that captured the French composer’s irreverence, his unique approach to making music and his oblique sense of humour, one that could often have you scratching your head in wonder after the laughs had died away.

Providing the musical entertainment – with some laughs, too – were pianist Alexandre Tharaud and tenor Jean Delescluse. Their mix of piano music and song was very well chosen. In the ambient balm of his piano writing we saw how Satie used simplicity in a very original way, and how he has gone on to influence generations of disciples, Ludovico Einaudi and Michael Nyman two obvious recent examples.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04388h5/player

The songs were much less inhibited, with the riotous Allons-y Chochotte (Let’s do it, Chochotte) bringing the house down near the end. We also had brief illustrations of ‘furniture music’ from Tharaud – music for solicitors to listen to, for instance! – which found Satie a century ahead of his time, predicting the environment where we would be treated to music on hold or in a dentists’ waiting room.

McGowan was funny but also completely respectful, and was the first to appreciate Tharaud’s control and beauty of tone, as well as Delescluse’s brilliant send-ups of songs like La diva de l’Empire (The Diva of the Empire) and La grenouille américaine (The American Frog).

delescluse-tharaud

In all this was a highly entertaining hour, given in a spirit the composer would surely have enjoyed. Would that he knew his influence has been so far reaching – and even now is not fully appreciated.

Ben Hogwood