Category Archives: In concert

Proms premieres – Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

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Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Proms premieres – Johannes Schöllhorn, Shiori Usui, Betsy Jolas and Joanna Lee
Ulrich Heinen (cello), Hilary Summers (contralto), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group / Franck Ollu (Proms Saturday Matinee 1)

BBC iPlayer link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e9h9rz#b063d52d

What’s the story behind the pieces?

Four Proms premieres in one concert here, given by the ever-enterprising Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. They begin with Johannes Schöllhorn’s arrangements of three Boulez Notations, plus a transcription for ensemble of a fragment from each of the thirteen originals – one bar from each, in fact! The arrangements are Notations 2, 11 & 10, while the collage is La treizième.

Shiori Usui’s piece has an extremely macabre background, and is not for the faint-hearted! Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l. is a nasty little fungus – as in an infectious fungus that completely eats up the ants that are unfortunate enough to capture it. Usui was struck by an image of one in a nature magazine, and this gave her the sounds she wanted to create.

Betsy Jolas, meanwhile, says of Wanderlied in an onstage interview that “I was trying to make the listeners imagine an old woman going from town to town as a storyteller”. The old woman in this case is a cello, accompanied by the instrumental ensemble – and we are warned of a ‘surprise’ at the end.

Finally Joanna Lee’s Hammer of Solitude, for singer and ensemble. This was written with Boulez in mind, and when she looked at individual movement titles of his she was taken to writing about the poet and novelist Sylvia Plath, and her life, using text by Rory Malarkey. This is a bleak piece indeed, for Lee chooses to devote the last of the three songs to Plath’s suicide.

Did you know?

The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group has premiered over 160 works in its 27-year existence. It was born from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1987.

Initial verdict

Johannes Schöllhorn – Notations 2, 11 & 10; La treizième

johannes-schollhorn

An energetic set of pieces, benefiting from incredibly well drilled performances. With sharp phrases, these brief thoughts are distilled into really short paragraphs, with only the briefest period of relaxation. There is a wonderful rumble on the bass drum to finish La treizième, which is a great concept if rather difficult to follow!

Shiori Usui – Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l.

shiori-usui

Drawing by Fumio Obata

Usui has certainly picked a grisly but rather captivating subject for a new composition, and given the scenario the music is very vivid – uncomfortably so in fact!

There is a striking, bluesy clarinet solo midway through, but, but by this time the ant appears to be giving up the ghost.

Then we hear some very ominous loud brass with a thumping bass drum, before macabre sounds signal the beginning of the end for the ant. Usui captures the forest and its clicks and murmurs with some imaginative scoring, while also conveying the really grotesque side of Mother Nature.

Betsy Jolas – Wanderlied (from 21:28)

betsy-jolas

The cello feels restless from the beginning of this piece, while the rest of the ensemble appear to be painting the picture of a wider expanse, through which the old woman is travelling.

Not surprisingly the old woman takes the lead in the conversation throughout, and is very expressive. Its tone of speech is very much in the human range

The ‘surprise’ appears to be a form of hidden track, where the audience think the music has stopped, and begin to applaud, and then find that it hasn’t.

Joanna Lee – Hammer of Solitude

joanna-lee

The first song, Hammer Alone In The House, features a very distinctive half spoken / half sung vocal from the alto, above some atmospheric orchestral colouring. The Love Song has a little more tenderness, but The Suicide is much less forgiving. It is surely very difficult to portray such a bleak and decisive moment in music, but Lee does so powerfully.

Second hearing

Tbc!

Where can I hear more?

Right here! Embedded are sound clips for each composer’s work:

Johannes Schöllhorn

Shiori Usui

Betsy Jolas

Joanna Lee

The 6Music Prom – Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen

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Prom 27: Late Night With … BBC 6 Music: Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen

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A Winged Victory For The Sullen at the 6Music Prom Picture (c) Chris Christodoulou

Watch here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/empxj5#b0640mhj

The story behind the second BBC 6 Music Prom was a gratifying one, built on a desire for classical music to make itself more available. Mary Anne Hobbs was the catalyst, playing music by Nils Frahm to enthusiastic listeners worldwide. Their response encouraged her to introduce them to his Erased Tapes label mates, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, a duo comprising Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltzie.

Both acts were part of an extended mix for this late night event, aided by atmospheric lighting and smoke to turn the Royal Albert Hall into an after-hours club. Into this already heady environment came A Winged Victory, playing much of their second album ATOMOS. They were joined by an unnamed string trio and London Brass, their task to provide sonorous colour and slow but far-reaching melodies. O’Halloran and Wiltzie were on keyboard duties, drawing out chord patterns and soundscapes to give the listener an airborne sensation. This was further enhanced by members of the Random Dance Company, whose chief Wayne McGregor provided the stimulus for ATOMOS. Their relaxed interpretations of the music belied the effort required to contort their limbs!

The music was expansive, like a slowly changing cloud formation, and crucially had beauty of timbre to match. From the simplest of melodic cells came music of primitive meaning, evoking memories of pop music’s ambient craze twenty years ago but without any vocal samples. Here music was stripped back to its basics, and was all the more moving for the lack of incident and chatter. The crowd was thoroughly absorbed, most stock still but some perceiving the latent energy running through the music.

In truth London Brass could have been used more, their potential to add brightness only sparingly glimpsed. The string trio were more gainfully employed, the cello particularly beautiful when raised above the textures. As their set came to an end so Nils Frahm joined the stage, the two acts uniting in an improvised piece that brought more rhythmic definition – a sign of what was to come from the German pianist.

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Nils Frahm at the 6Music Prom. Picture (c) Chris Christodoulou

Frahm used a team of keyboard instruments, including two ‘prepared’ pianos – that is, with keyboards, hammers and strings all modified to secure the all-important timbres required. Frahm’s music is more obviously derived from classical music, with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Chopin and Debussy all discernible influences. It has more obvious kinetic energy, moving quickly during Hammers to imply a strong beat, even before the introduction of an incredibly warm bass note to rattle the ribcage.

Frahm was a hyperactive presence, rushing urgently between his pianos and synthesizer, occasionally looping small clumps of chords in the manner of Steve Reich or even Dave Brubeck, but always intent on carrying his music forward. It was largely successful, though the introduction of two toilet brushes for the closing number felt like a gimmick.

What really carried, though, was the intense desire for discovery on the part of the audience. 6 Music had been playing classical music in the lead-up to this Prom, sensitively chosen with the pop music lover in mind, hoping to arouse curiosity – and that is exactly what this sort of Prom should be doing, bringing in people who find classical music and its terminology a daunting proposition.

It was a handsome success, Hobbs having found a way of communicating its appeal while showing how electronic and classical styles are on a fruitful collision course. We should not just be limited to Erased Tapes, though, as Warp, Glacial Movements, Bella Union and One Little Indian are just four more labels excelling in this area.

It is to be hoped that at the very least we will have a sequel. Tom Service presents a program along these lines on 6 Music this Sunday, showing how the two stations do on occasion overlap. Both have open musical policies, and in their current state show the BBC at its best, providing musical stimulation for a clearly hungry crowd.

Under the Surface at the Proms – British composers

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Prom 26, 5 August 2015 – BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Tadaaki Otaka at the Royal Albert Hall

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Ailish Tynan and Tadaaki Otaka performing Grace Williams’ Fairest of Stars at the BBC Proms Picture (c) Chris Christodoulou

Only the BBC Proms could come up with a night like this, a programme of partially or wholly neglected British music flattering not only the composers but the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, who had clearly invested a lot of rehearsal time.

Their greatest triumph came last, the Symphony no.2 of William Walton, written in 1957 but receiving only its fourth ever performance at the festival and its first since 1996. Walton’s First gets all the glory in his symphonic output, and understandably so – it’s bold, has strength of character, some terrific tunes and bright orchestral colours. Yet the Second deserves far more, as conductor Tadaaki Otaka showed us here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02yxs45/player

Although it is a much more anxious and questioning piece it is tightly structured, its melodies unusual but somehow memorable too. The first movement tune has a steep incline to its melody but remains in the head, and certainly did so after this performance, beautifully coloured as it was with orchestral piano and glockenspiel. The second movement had softer colours but was equally worrisome, while Walton, thumbing his nose at ‘serial’ composers who had opted out of tonality, uses all twelve tones in his theme for the finale, in a tuneful sense. Here they were hammered home in orchestral unison, and the climax of the work was hugely impressive.

Earlier we heard some better known works from Walton – a bracing Spitfire Prelude and Fugue – and Elgar, his first orchestral work the Froissart Overture, played with a smile on its face.

Then it was over to do two very different Williams. Ralph Vaughan Williams completed his Concerto accademico, for violin and string orchestra, in 1925. It pays explicit homage to Bach but not in the way Stravinsky and co liked to do at the time. The composer saw this as a much more tuneful exercise, using folk-based material in the process. Listen here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02yxlqh/player

Despite a good performance the piece remains a curiosity. The first movement was dogged and rather foursquare, the music pressing on rather grimly, so it was left to the second movement to bring what felt like more genuine emotion, bringing to mind the slow movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no.1 as it did so. Chloë Hanslip, the excellent soloist, was rich in tone both here and in the finale, which reverted to brisk music but in a much more accessible way this time, with a soft-hearted closing section. This was, for me, not the composer’s best.

Grace Williams, a Welsh composer who was a pupil of Vaughan Williams, is not heard much in the concert hall – but Fairest of Stars, for soprano voice and orchestra, suggested she should be. Her writing for the voice was elevated by Ailish Tynan, who looked ready to burst into song as soon as she appeared on stage. Tynan’s voice was the perfect foil for this music, soaring above the clouds brought by the orchestra, and although the words were not always abundantly clear because of the thicker scoring, very much in the Richard Strauss vein, their sentiment was. The top ‘C’ Tynan hit before the end had to be heard to be believed, the crowning glory of the concert’s first half. Listen to the piece here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02yxqzy/player

The last few years have seen the Proms bring a number of major but neglected British works in from the cold – we have had music by Moeran, Alwyn, Havergal Brian and Howells to name just a few – and it is heartening to see them continuing that tradition. This night was a great success; let’s hope many more will follow.

There will be more Under the Surface features as the Proms progress, exploring lesser known pieces and composers at the festival

Radio 1 Ibiza Prom with Pete Tong

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Prom 16: Late Night With … BBC Radio 1: The Ibiza Prom with Pete Tong

pete-tong

Pete Tong

The choice of Pete Tong to present an Ibiza-themed Prom created a fair bit of controversy in the last few weeks, but the decision paid off handsomely in what was effectively a Proms Essential Mix, with almost all the parts played by live instruments.

[Watch here: http://bbc.in/1JxeD63]

Keen listeners to dance and classical music – and there are a number! – will know the gap between the two is not as great as it might seem. A tune like Derrick May’s Strings of Life, for instance, could comfortably sit alongside a piece of Steve Reich – while Moby’s Porcelain would not be out of place if followed by a piece by Erik Satie.

Both songs were part of this set, a cleverly designed montage of 23 tracks that majored on arrangements made by Jules Buckley for the Heritage Orchestra. These were not ordinary arrangements either, including a sousaphone and a bass flute in the mix! They were not wholly successful in the hall itself, either, but have a lot more detail when heard on the radio – the Royal Albert Hall not being built for club music! Naturally the bass dominated – as it probably should in dance music – and some of the mid-range detail, on which Buckley had clearly laboured – was difficult to pick up.

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Jules Buckley at the Ibiza Prom. Picture (c) Chris Christodoulou

This was not a deal breaker, mind, for a high spirited beginning with Fatboy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now was perfectly judged, and set the tone. The only problem – for me at any rate – was trying to tell my brain that this was a Prom where dancing was not only permitted but actively encouraged, as the below picture shows!

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The Royal Albert Hall in the Ibiza Prom Picture (c) Chris Christodoulou

The set moved between orchestra-dominated action and guest appearances from Ella Eyre and John Newman, who both acquitted themselves admirably. Eyre has a terrific voice, which she lent to Inner City’s Good Life and her own hit with Rudimental, Waiting All Night. Newman also has past with Rudimental, and his Feel The Love was warmly felt, before a closing cover of The Source feat. Candi Staton’s You Got The Love.

My only two personal regrets were that someone had not tried to arrange Josh Wink’s Higher State of Consciousness – a true Ibiza classic – or, from the blissful end of the spectrum, Groove Armada’s At The River. Those are quibbles, though, for the night was a roaring success, climaxing with the brilliant Café del Mar by Energy 52.

Over the next few days I will publish some links to songs played in the course of the Prom, linking them to classical music – so that you can hopefully see how connections can be drawn between the forms. Safe to say, though, that this particular Prom crossed a few bridges and opened several doors!

 

Proms guide and review: Prokofiev Piano Concertos

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Prom 14, 28 July 2015 – BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis at the Royal Albert Hall

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Pianists Sergei Babayan, Alexei Volodin and Daniil Trifonov take a bow alongside conductor Valery Gergiev after their performance of all five Prokofiev Piano Concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday 28 July. Photo: Chris Christodoulou

With Leif Ove Andsnes finishing his cycle of Beethoven’s five piano concertos the previous night, it seemed an odd decision by the Proms to embark on another cycle of five from one composer, all in a single night. Yet Valery Gergiev, the London Symphony Orchestra and a trio of fiendishly talented Russian pianists proved us doubters couldn’t have been more wrong.

Prokofiev’s piano concertos vary greatly in popularity, so much so that nos. 4 & 5 were receiving their first Proms performances – incredible for works now 83 years old! They embody the composer’s relative economy, his refusal to take himself too seriously and his use of the piano not just as a purveyor of bittersweet melody but as a percussive instrument too.

We began with the impudent Piano Concerto no.1, an often outrageous piece prone to bouts of cheeky sarcasm and unexpected charm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02y9wqh/player
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no.1 in D flat major, Op.10 (1912) 16 minutes

Daniil Trifonov played this piece superbly, exaggerating Prokofiev’s mischievous nature in a way the composer would surely have enjoyed. Gergiev too reminded us why he remains a peerless conductor in this repertoire, coaxing previously unheard detail and colour from the orchestra. If you listen to the clip above, you will agree it is a relative riot from start to finish!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02y9x3n/player
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no.2 in G minor, Op.16 (1913) 31 minutes

This detail could be heard again in the cool, luminous slow sections of the Piano Concerto no.2, where Sergei Babayan lulled us into a false sense of security with a sombre opening section. Gradually – like Rachmaninov in his Piano Concerto no.2 before him – Prokofiev moved through the gears, the climax a titanic cadenza (a showy solo episode, cue to follow) that Babayan – Trifonov’s teacher, incidentally – played majestically, bringing goose bumps when the bright lights of the orchestra returned.

The Second is a contrary piece, following these bold romantic gestures with a grotesque second movement march owing much to Musorsgky (cue to follow), before a more elegiac third movement and a finale that gathers itself for showy virtuosity again, shown in the terrific closing pages. The house was brought down once again!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02y9xf1/player
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no.3 in C major, Op.26 (1921) 30 minutes

Trifonov returned to make it three cracking performances out of three with a sparkling account of the Third, revelling in the different characters Prokofiev uses for the central Theme & Variations (cue to follow). The sleights of hand in the outer movements were dizzying, the pianist a study of concentration as his quick fingers deceived the eye. Gergiev again found insight to the colours of the second movement that normally evade the ear.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02y9xyz/player
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no.4 in B flat major, Op.53 (1931) 22 minutes

And so into the relative unknown for the Fourth, a work commissioned by the fearsome left handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein – and ultimately rejected. His dissatisfaction relegated the piece to an also ran in Prokofiev’s output, but as Alexei Volodin proved here, that tag is undeserved.

This holds especially for the slow movement, which points towards the composer’s ballets, particularly Romeo and Juliet, which was close at hand in 1931. Indeed a forebear of the music for Juliet the Young Girl can be heard in the fourth movement, which scampered off the leash in this performance before disappearing in a puff of air.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02y9yd5/player
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no.5 in G major, Op.55 (1932) 22 minutes

Sergei Babayan returned for an imposing performance of the Fifth and final concerto, a convincing account that made a mockery of the work’s non-appearance at the Royal Albert Hall. With melodic lines that dipped low before leaping up high he was never still, rising to the technical challenges while applying a lightness of touch needed to dilute the heavier, percussive moments.

Once again Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, whose stamina was especially praiseworthy, propelled the third movement like a machine testing its upper speed limit, while again the slow movement – this time placed four of five – drew a lump to the throat before Prokofiev characteristically girded himself for an emphatic finish.

On the face of it this could have been an ill-judged experiment, especially with the two least-known works placed last. But the audience and social media reaction proved it to be anything but, for the listeners thoroughly enjoyed this colourful and often theatrical riot of ever-changing moods. While the piano will no doubt have needed some tender loving care at the end of it, Prokofiev’s invigorating music emerged defiant.