The 2026 edition of the BBC Proms is underway! With a Transatlantic first night, the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Symphony Orchestra under Dalia Stasevska were joined by pianist Yunchan Lim for a special performance of Ravel‘s Piano Concerto.
Flanking this were two pieces celebrating America’s 250th ‘birthday’, Copland‘s Fanfare for the Common Man and Gershwin‘s An American in Paris, while French-British composer Josephine Stephenson was the ideal choice to write a first night premiere, That the sunrise not leave us unmoved.
Wrapping up the night was a rare performance of Finzi‘s For St Cecilia, a choral work of typical mystery and elegance but one that deserved its rare moment in the sun. Choral and orchestral forces then gave an encore of the Oasis song Wonderwall, acknowledging the England team’s prowess in the World Cup. A red card for its choice, I’m afraid – and a shame to have Finzi’s contribution immediately overshadowed in this way. Wonderwall is a great song, but felt miscast here.
Enough of my griping, though – as we should acknowledge many people enjoyed the inclusion, and the night as a whole was a celebratory indication of what we can expect to indulge in over the next eight weeks. Truly something for everyone.
Members of Klangforum Wien ([Annette Bik and Judith Fliedl (violins), Paul Beckett (viola), Andreas Lindenbaum (cello)]
Long synonymous with the Valley of the Temples, among the glories of Classical civilization, Agrigento is a city of the present and not least with Teatro dell’Efebo – a venue appropriate to a programme such as Symposion, presented by Klangforum Wien as part of Agrigento 2025.
According to Klangforum’s website, ‘‘The Symposion project takes up the theme of cultural intoxication which goes back to antiquity. This ancient social practice has inspired an evening with music of our time, perceived in the slowly changing conditions of collective and relaxed inebriation…’’. The actual programme was highly wide-ranging as to content and aesthetic (a full listing can be accessed via the link below), taking in pieces by European composers from the mid- or later twentieth century and concluding with Terry Riley’s (over?) influential In C.
Before that, however, came a second hearing (following its premiere in Salzburg last January by the Oesterreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik) of the String Quartet by Jorge E. López. Written during the winter of 2022-23, this piece follows on from his radiophonic composition Im Innersten: János Bolyai stirbt (previously reviewed on Arcana) while drawing on elements from his Fifth Symphony which, completed in 2023 after a five-year gestation, still awaits its first performance. Each of the Quartet’s two movements duly picks up on elements from either of those in the larger work, though this is not a case of reworking or even paraphrasing earlier material but rather the oblique evoking of it in terms of that creative application of Surrealism which has proved a mainstay of López’s compositional ethos throughout the past half century.
The first movement is prefaced by the title ‘‘Wie man wird, was man is’’ (How one becomes, what one is), which the composer feels appropriate for music that pivots constantly and with increasing desperation between rhetorical aggression and a wrenching eloquence – its motivic elements altering constantly though with a tangible sense of evolution as dynamic as it seems unpredictable. Towards its close this process mutates into a more sustained expression which might have become a ‘slow movement’, had it not opted to close in a becalmed ambivalence.
Barely a third of its predecessor’s length, the second movement is prefaced by the title ‘‘Was denach kommt’’ (What then follows) and picks up on a lengthy fugato such as rounds off the corresponding movement of the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Its musical subject is none other than the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice – source for orchestral works by Joseph Holbrooke and Havergal Brian – which here unfolds erratically while never haphazardly across the four instruments and on to an unequivocal conclusion the more affecting through its very inanity.
This account from the members of Klangforum Wien was as impressive as it was committed, evidently subtler and more sombre than that by OENM in Salzburg but with an undeniable grasp of the oblique yet always vital logic which is a hallmark of López’s music in ensuring its fascination and overall conviction. One hopes more performances will follow (the highly regarded Chaos Quartet of Vienna has expressed interest) and that the composer, who has recently finished his Variations for Orchestra, will embark on a successor before too long.
The latest addition to ESO Digital, the online concert arm of the English Symphony Orchestra, is the world premiere performance of Wreck, the orchestral piece by Steve Elcock.
This is the concert Arcana’s Richard Whitehouse saw at the 2022 Elgar Festival, at the Malvern Theatres in Great Malvern. You can read his review here.
Described by its composer as ‘‘a message of salvation beyond despair, of consolation beyond grief’’, Wreck is performed by mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge, with the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods. Click here to go to the ESO website and watch the performance.
As today is World Violin Day, here is a suitable piece to take us into the weekend! Hilary Hahn and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under Semyon Bychkov oblige…
Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Connie Shih, Jeremy Denk (pianos)
Fauré Dolly Suite Op.56 (1894-6) Enescu Pièce sur le nom de Fauré (1922) Ravel arr. Garban Berceuse sur le nom de Garbriel Fauré M74 (1922) Koechlin Hommage à Gabriel Fauré Op.73bis (1922) Fauré Cello Sonata no.2 in G minor Op.117 (1921) Fauré String Quartet in E minor Op.121 (1923-4)
Wigmore Hall, London Tuesday 5 November 2024
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Wigmore Hall Trust
So to the final concert of this series, curated by cellist Steven Isserlis and centred on Fauré’s larger chamber works in the centenary of his death. The last of five concerts was rounded out in its coverage by including his most popular work for piano duet, along with miniatures from several pupils of one who was held in equal esteem as a teacher.
It is doubtless as easy to describe the Dolly Suite with patronizing charm as it is to play it so but, with Jeremy Denk and Connie Shih an alert if always sensitive partnership, there was no likelihood of this latter. A limpid take on the evergreen Berceuse was followed by no less a deft rendition of Mi-a-ou; the ineffable charm of Le jardin de Dolly made a telling foil to the skittish evocation (of a dog) that is Kitty-valse, then the searching poise of Tendresse created a delightful contrast with that affectionate send-up of Chabrier in Le pas espagnol.
Quite why the journal Le Revue chose Fauré’s 77th year to publish an edition devoted to his music is unclear, but it did enable seven former students to express their admiration through miniatures that encapsulate his own idiom as surely as theirs. Hence the intricate texture and enfolding harmony of Enescu’s Pièce, the pert elegance of Ravel’s Berceuse arranged (from its violin-and-piano original by Lucien Garbon), then the gently inflected wit of Koechlin’s Hommage to remind one of the latter composer’s service to Fauré as sometime orchestrator.
These three items were engagingly played (and introduced) by Denk, and it seemed a pity the other four (by Aubert, Ladmirault, Roger-Ducasse and Schmitt) could not have been included – perhaps at the start of the second half – given the appositeness of the programme. This first half ended with the Second Cello Sonata which, while it resembles its predecessor in form, is appreciably more forthcoming as to expression. It is evidently a work that Steven Isserlis first played as a teenager, and there could be no mistaking his identity with the close-knit dialogue of its opening Allegro, pathos bordering on the elegiac of its central Andante that started out as music commemorating the centenary of Napoleon’s death, and effervescence of a finale as endows what is otherwise typical late Fauré with a genial humour never less than captivating.
After the interval, this series ended in the only way possible with the String Quartet that was Fauré’s last work. In his initial remarks, Isserlis mentioned how long it had taken for him to ‘get’ this piece and, indeed, its three movements each unfolds in a seamless polyphonic flow which can feel disconcerting even in the context of the composer’s other late chamber works. Whether or not they play it frequently, Joshua Bell, Irène Duval, Blythe Teh Engstroem and Isserlis audibly had its measure – their steady though always flowing tempo for its Allegro moderato ideally complemented by the luminous radiance of its Andante; before its Allegro elides elements of scherzo and finale in music whose dextrous pizzicato writing and gently cumulative intensity conveys an affirmation that speaks of a challenge, and a life, fulfilled.
As a work and as a performance, it set the seal in the only way possible on a series of concerts through which the quality and substance of Fauré’s chamber music could not have been more eloquently confirmed, which is just as should be expected from a retrospective of this nature.
You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:
Arcana.fm 