Category Archives: On record

On record: The Panufnik Legacies II (LSO Live)

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Colin Matthews, Max de Wardner, Evis Sammoutis, Christopher Mayo, Toby Young, Elizabeth Winters, Larry Goves, Raymond Yiu, Anjula Semmens and Edmund Finnis Panufnik Variations
Duncan Ward P-p-paranoia
Alastair Putt Spiral
Aaron Parker Captured
Kim B. Ashton Spindrift
James Moriarty Granular Fragments
Elizabeth Ogonek as though birds
Leo Chadburn Brown Leather Sofa
Bushra El-Turk Tmesis
Matthew Kaner The Calligrapher’s Manuscript

London Symphony Orchestra / François-Xavier Roth

Summary

Three years on and the Panufnik Legacies series continues with a disc no less substantial if perhaps less diverse than its predecessor. Beginning with a set of variations on the opening theme from what is arguably the Polish-born composer’s greatest work, this continues with nine pieces again by participants of the Panufnik Composers Scheme – all testament to the scope and ambition of the LSO Discovery project which has played a crucial, even decisive role in introducing many new composers to audiences at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s.

What’s the music like?

Panufnik Variations comprises the ‘theme’ from that composer’s Universal Prayer (1969), followed by 11 variations that open-out its essence without always probing it in any depth. From this perspective, variations by Evis Sammoutis, Christopher Mayo, Larry Goves and Anjula Semmens (3, 4, 7 and 9) are the most perceptive, with that by Raymond Yiu (8) the most entertaining in its allusion to a more famous Panufnik work often revived by the LSO. Colin Matthews orchestrated theme, first and final variations in highly professional fashion.

Of the stand-alone pieces, Duncan Ward’s P-p-paranoia packs a fair degree of incident into compact proportions, while Alastair Putt’s Spiral takes a segment of the Fibonacci Sequence as basis for its accumulating impetus. Aaron Parker’s Captured evidently utilizes ‘‘looping techniques and ambient forms’’ for its four brief fragments without a context, then Kim B. Ashton’s Spindrift evokes abstract seascapes in its ebb and flow. James Moriarty’s Granular Fragments evolves his notions of timbre and texture over three subtly contrasted miniatures.

Elizabeth Ognek’s as though birds elides its three miniatures into a cohesive if unfocussed whole, whereas Leo Chadburn’s Brown Leather Sofa brings a de Chirico-like ethos to bear on his austere musical sculpture. Bushra El-Turk’s Tmesis draws on Arabic prosody for a piece abundant in gestures that ultimately lack distinction. Finally, Matthew Kerner’s The Calligrapher’s Manuscript looks to the model-books from Johan Hering in a lengthy (12-minute) work whose two parts respectively predicate textural density then melodic clarity.

Does it all work?

Yes, inasmuch that all of these pieces – each written between 2011 and 2013 – give notice of compositional techniques thoroughly absorbed and confidently handled. If there is a proviso, it is that most (but not all) of them seem almost too well suited to the premise of small-scale works designed to slot into an ostensibly mainstream programme without causing any undue provocation. That several composers operate in part outside of the classical domain feels of little consequence when the music in question follows so overtly a post-modernist template.

Is it recommended?

Certainly, though the greater stylistic range of the first Panufnik Legacies release (LSO Live LSO5061) is a better starting-point for those wishing to get a real sense of what this scheme is about. What is never in doubt here is the excellence of the London Symphony Orchestra’s playing as it tackles these pieces, or of François-Xavier Roth’s commitment to a cause made possible in part via the involvement of the Panufnik estate. Two years after that composer’s centenary, one can only hope his own music will retain more than a foothold in the repertoire.

Richard Whitehouse

On record: Oberon Symphony Orchestra – Beethoven, Dvořák, Grieg & Langgaard

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Beethoven: Symphony No.6 ‘Pastoral’; Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor (Rohan de Saram (cello), Oberon Symphony Orchestra / Samuel Draper)
Recorded live at St James’s Church, Sussex Gardens, London on 19th October, 2013

Grieg: Peer Gynt – Suites Nos. 1 & 2; Langgaard: Symphony No. 4 ‘Løvfald’ (UK premiere); Sibelius: Symphony No.5 (Oberon Symphony Orchestra/Samuel Draper)
Recorded live at St James’s Church, Sussex Gardens, London on 27th September, 2014

Now nearing the end of its fourth season, the Oberon Symphony has already established itself as an orchestra equally at home in the standard repertoire and relatively unfamiliar music; its conductor, Samuel Draper, as attentive to the letter of the score in question as to the spirit that informs it. These discs, comprising two out of its 13 concerts to date, typify the questing spirit of its performances: these are presented unedited, with no attempt to disguise passing flaws in ensemble or intonation – not that this lessens appreciation of some committed music-making.

What’s the music like?

The first disc juxtaposes two seminal pieces from either end of the 19th century. Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony has been described as the last of his works where beauty of sound and richness of texture predominate, and Draper acknowledges this in his unforced approach to the opening Allegro then his leisurely though never sluggish handling of its Andante. Some felicitous woodwind playing here (not least with the interplay of bird-calls towards its close) is further evident in the scherzo, even if the earnest characterization arguably pre-empts the ‘Storm’ movement which emerges as sombre rather than elemental. The highlight is a finale that rightly carries the expressive weight of the whole, its progress underpinned by an elusive if tangible onward motion which holds good through to a radiant climax and searching close.

The performance of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto features Rohan de Saram, for many years the cellist of the Arditti Quartet and a soloist whose perspective on arguably the finest work in its genre is distinctive and refreshing. Thus the initial Allegro is rendered with the necessary emotional breadth, its expansive though never unduly protracted formal design confidently unfolded despite passing technical fallibilities, while the central Adagio is even finer in its mingling of wistfulness with those passionate outbursts as open-out the music’s expression accordingly. De Saram’s inward eloquence comes into its own both here and in the extended coda to the finale, an inspired afterthought (prompted by the death of the composer’s sister-in-law) whose intense retrospection makes the concluding bars more affirmative in context.

The second disc has the Oberon SO venturing into more esoteric realms with the UK premiere of the Fourth Symphony by the Danish composer Rued Langgaard. Langgaard (1893-1952) is among the more prominent instances of a creative figure who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, yet between his heady early success and the neglect prevalent from the mid-1920s onwards is a series of works that ought to have established him among the leading European composers of his generation. Not least the Fourth Symphony (1916): its subtitle, ‘Fall of the Leaf’, is often rendered as ‘Autumn’ though the seasonal process of change and decay surely has a metaphysical and even apocalyptic resonance. Its single movement, in eight continuous sections, is best heard as an expanded sonata-form design overlaid by continuous variation.

Certainly the plunging gesture with which it opens sets the tone for what follows and Draper amply brings out this fatalistic defiance, then ensures a seamless transition into the plaintive second main theme whose opulent expansion on strings at the end of the exposition is among the work’s highpoints. Nor does the central span risk diffusiveness, Draper as attentive to the geyser-like eruptions on strings and woodwind at its apex as to the mesmeric transition when oboe unfolds a plangent melodic line over a string cluster of inward intensity. Exposed string writing is for the most part securely managed, and while Draper cannot quite prevent the final stages from hanging fire, he secures the necessary momentum heading into the coda with its startling bell-like ostinatos, then a final build-up in which dread and decisiveness are as one.

This concert commences with three pieces from Grieg’s music for Peer Gynt. ‘Morning’ is rapturously expressive, while ‘The Death of Åse’ avoids undue vehemence, its inward final bars preparing for a ‘Solveig’s Song’ whose indelible main melody never becomes cloying.
Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is given a sympathetic if not always ideally focussed reading. The first movement is finely launched, Draper ensuring the altered exposition repeat has the right cumulative intensity, with the majestic central climax moving convincingly into its ‘scherzo’ continuation where progress can be fitful, yet the coda lacks little in velocity. More debatable is a second movement which emerges as a slow intermezzo, its progress having insufficient lightness of touch as the music takes on a greater ambivalence prior to its winsome close. In the finale, Draper elides ideally between the surging impetus and airborne rapture of its main themes; if Sibelius’ ingenious design feels at times uncertain, neither the glowing affirmation of its coda nor the decisiveness of those six closing chords (taken ‘in tempo’) can be gainsaid.

Does it all work?

On both discs, the warm while occasionally diffuse sound is in keeping with the acoustic of St. James’s Sussex Gardens, with the booklets including full personnel for each concert and some excellent booklet notes (notably from Hannah Nepil on Dvořák and Andrew Mellor on Langgaard) – though Draper’s name might reasonably have featured on both the front covers.

Is it recommended?

Yes. The discs are obtainable either at the Oberon SO’s concerts (the next of these is on September 17th), or directly via the orchestra’s website

On record: BE – One (Rivertone)

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Ben Hogwood writes about the first release from an environmentally conscious label.

The first long playing release on Caught By The River’s Rivertones imprint, Be is the simply-titled moniker used by a group of musicians assembled to highlight the importance of the honeybee, their aim to provide a soundtrack for the UK pavilion at Expo 2015. The musicians, headed by Wolfgang Buttress, include the Sigur Rós string section Amiina, Jason Pierce of Spiritualized, Youth and cellist Deirdre Bencsik.

What’s the music like?

Extremely restful. The musicians of Be make their points with great subtlety, using field recordings to aid the imagination of natural sounds as they might be heard by the honey bees themselves.

The Journey, the first extended piece of nearly twenty minutes, begins with the clicking sound of the wren, the chirp of a singing robin and the buzz of the bees. Gradually shimmering strings come into view and a pure chord of C major is established, and then sits suspended in mid-air. The music is deceptive, for although it moves very slowly closer inspection reveals a lot of activity – rather like a beehive.

Bencsik’s cello comes into its own on the following piece Into, given expansive freedom over a soft, consoling piano phrase. Each piece of music is lovingly prepared, but given all the room it needs.

Does it all work?

Yes – this is music for the hazy atmosphere of a sunny early morning, requiring absolutely no effort to enjoy. For background listener it provides an ideal and lasting ambience, while closer inspection reveals the detail of the honeycomb in lovely technicolour. As you might expect from anything headed by Caught By The River, there are some beautiful images in the accompanying booklet, given the love and attention the music deserves.

Is it recommended?

Yes. A set of music that will calm even the most anxious of minds!

Listen on Spotify

You can judge for yourself by hearing the album on Spotify here:

On record: Boulez – Complete Music for Solo Piano (Marc Ponthus) (Bridge)

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boulez-ponthuswritten by Richard Whitehouse

Boulez: Complete Music for Solo Piano [Piano Sonatas – No. 1; No. 2; No. 3 (movements 3a and 2). 12 Notations; Incises (revised version), Un page d’éphéméride]
Marc Ponthus (piano)

Summary

Marc Ponthus, an American pianist in the lineage of Charles Rosen and Paul Jacobs, tackles the (nominally) complete piano music of Pierre Boulez – a select though vital body of work particularly in terms of understanding his evolution over the first decade of creative maturity.

What’s the music like?

Boulez’s meteoric rise to the forefront of the European avant-garde is much in evidence here. Withdrawn for over four decades, the set of 12 Notations (1945) is both an investigation and critique of the serial thinking absorbed from Schoenberg and Webern – brief though eventful miniatures at once intriguing and sardonic.

Ponthus renders them with due precision, then is no less perceptive in the First Piano Sonata (1946) whose two compact movements unfold in respectively speculative and incisive terms. The Second Piano Sonata (1948) is the climax of this phase, its outwardly orthodox four-movement design acknowledging while dismantling Classical antecedents via an often assaultive virtuosity of which Ponthus is fully in command. Those who might know Maurizio Pollini’s magisterial 1976 account will find this version a worthy successor.

Boulez’s subsequent piano music parallels the ambivalence of his work as a whole. Envisaged as an ambitious five-movement format, only the second and third movements (the latter in its retrograde version) of his Third Piano Sonata (1957) have been published – Ponthus relishing glacial expressive contrasts in Constellation-Miroir then underlining the ingenious variation process of Trope.

Incises (1994) began as a competition test-piece, expanded with this 2001 version into a fantasy of headlong dynamism and suspenseful inaction. It might have served as springboard for a concertante piece that remained unrealized, while Un page d’éphéméride (2005) was intended as starting-point for a piano cycle that never was; what remains is a four-minute étude whose enticing sonority and glistening filigree denote the sure hand of a master.

Does it all work?

Yes, but just how and why depends on listeners’ insight into and understanding of a tradition such as Boulez approached via an engaged antagonism that did not atrophy so much as open-out experientially over time. Those who value their musical preconceptions should steer clear.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, with the proviso that the original version of Incises might have been included, as also the opening Antiphonie movement (given at Aldeburgh only last year) of the Third Sonata. The sound has unsparing clarity, with the booklet note and interview a mine of information.

On record: Game Theory – Lolita Nation reissue (Omnivore Recordings)

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Richard Whitehouse writes about the long-awaited re-release of a landmark album.

2016 is unlikely to see any more significant reissue than this. For two decades, Lolita Nation has been more talked about than heard – an album which bridged the perceived divide between power pop and college rock, transcending genres for one of the seminal albums of the decade.

How did it come about?

By 1987, Game Theory was a seasoned outfit whose two previous releases – the edgy pop of Real Nighttime and the versatile rock of The Big Shot Chronicles – paved the way for what its leader Scott Miller intended to be both an ambitious summation and reckless leap in the dark. At nearly 75 minutes and spread over two LPs, Lolita Nation was that most unfashionable of 1980s prospects: a concept album as varied as Physical Graffiti and as single-minded as The Wall – with the ‘devil may care’ attitude of The White Album thrown in for good measure. A panoply of songs interspersed with concrete and electronic music, it is best heard as being in four parts – reflecting, despite having appearing at an early peak of the CD era, an allegiance to the LP format: one whose giddying diversity never detracts from its underlying cohesion.

What’s the music like?

Part One is launched with the splintered reportage of Kenneth – What’s The Frequency?, a preamble into the heady surge of Not Because You Can; the pause for breath of Shard and limpidity of Go Ahead You’re Dying To cancelled out by the combative squall of Dripping With Looks then assuaged by the jauntiness of Exactly What We Don’t Want to Hear. With its tensile mashing of keyboards and guitars over off-kilter percussion, We Love You Carol and Alison is a highlight, as also the near-descent into anarchy of The Waist and the Knees.

Part Two eases in with the stately opulence of Nothing New, a likely candidate for Miller’s greatest song – to which the barbed nonchalance of The World’s Easiest Job is an admirable foil. Guitarist Donnette Thayer’s Look Away engagingly verges on Survivor territory, then Slip injects a welcome measure of skedaddling humour before two of the album’s defining songs – the pertness and poignancy of The Real Sheila, another of this band’s ‘hit singles’ in a parallel universe, and the pathos of Andy in Ten Years with its poised world-weariness.

Part Three kicks in with the layered collage of Watch Who You’re Calling Space Garbage Meteor Mouth – Pretty Green Card Shark, proceeding via the incisive workout of drummer Gil Ray’s Where They Have To Let You In and breathlessness of Turn Me On Dead Man to the inviting singalong of Thayer’s Mammoth Gardens. This slams into the glinting irony of Little Ivory, before the mock-drama of Museum of Hopelessness and the shimmering, ethereal Toby Ornette, from the pen of keyboardist Shelley LaFreniere, makes way for the free-form montage of track 22, whose incredibly lengthy title does not bear repeating here! This does not pre-empt the impact of One More For Saint Michael, with its drily sardonic manner and Star Trek allusion, or keyboard-driven fizz of Choose Between Two Sons that rounds off this most unpredictable sequence.

Part Four reverts to first principles with three of Miller’s choicest cuts – thus the irresistible sassiness of Chardonnay, then the ambivalence of Last Day That We’re Young distils the essence of an album which plays out to the wistful elegance of Together Now, Very Minor.

What’s with the second disc?

Its double-album length has necessitated this second disc of sundry tracks which Omnivore has used productively – kicking off with the legendary full-length version of Chardonnay, transformed from the lacklustre bootleg on You-tube. That said, the album version is much superior in context – the narrative as it unfolds over the original’s six verses not quite sharp enough, nor the instrumental backing sufficiently varied, to sustain this song’s duration as Miller conceived it: excision of its almost unaccompanied final verse is the only real loss.

Dripping with Looks is heard in a tentative rough mix, while One More For Saint Michael appears both as an engagingly ragged live version and as in an almost fully realized (i.e. not so rough) mix. The Waist and the Knees similarly evolved between its solo rehearsal demo (with an aborted Pink Floyd intro) and rough mix complete in almost all essentials, and if the rough mix of Andy in Ten Years sounds a little too sluggish for its pathos fully to register, the band rehearsal demo of ‘Little Ivory’ has a glinting irony in advance of the finished cut.

Of the radio sessions, We Love You Carol and Alison works fine as a solo number, as does Together Now, Very Minor. Miller’s versatility comes over in a vividly barbed take on Elvis Costello’s Tiny Steps and almost too musical rendition of Iggy Pop’s Gimme Danger. His eloquence in The Smiths‘ These Things Take Time will delight those partial to Morrissey’s lyrics if not his voice, and a memory lapse in the Sex Pistols‘ God Save the Queen points up this cover’s verve as surely as do any passing over-emphases in David Bowie’s Drive-In Saturday.

Live covers feature a pertly ambivalent take on The Hollies’ Carrie Ann, together with one on Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart whose uncannily authentic instrumental backing highlights the mismatch with Miller’s vocal. If desultory versions of Bowie’s Candidate and Jonathan Richman’s Roadrunner are of little import, the stark sarcasm of Public Image Ltd’s Public Image triumphs over the sub-fuse sound. The test demo of Miller’s Choose between Two Sons, of which only the title made it onto the album, duly makes for a touching epitaph.

Is it recommended?

This is an impressive resurrection of an album which will hopefully secure a wider and more responsive audience today. The remastered sound retains all the clarity but not the brittleness of its original release, with CD presentation in keeping with Omnivore’s high standards – not least a lavishly illustrated booklet which includes detailed reminiscences from band members and friends.

Whether or not Lolita Nation is Miller’s greatest achievement, it is assuredly his most all-encompassing and its return to active service could not be more timely or welcome.

Listen on Spotify