Martin Fröst (clarinet), Roland Pöntinen (piano), Sébastien Dubé (double bass)
Debussy Première rhapsodie (1909-10) Chausson Andante and Allegro (1881) Poulenc Sonata for clarinet and piano (1962) Night Passages – A musical mosaic (with arrangements by the performers) Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in D minor Kk32 Chick Corea Children’s Song no.15 (1978) Rameau Les Indes galantes: Air pour les Sauvages (1735-6) Purcell Incidental music for Oedipus, King of Thebes Z583: Music for a while (1692) J.S. Bach Sinfonia no15 in B minor BWV801 (c1720) Chick Corea Armando’s Rumba (1976) Purcell Hornpipe in E minor Z685 Handel Menuet in G minor (1733) Traditional Polska från Dorotea Göran Fröst Klezmer Dance no.2 (2011)
Wigmore Hall, London Wednesday 21 December 2022
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
In 2019, Arcana was at the Wigmore Hall to see Martin Fröst and Roland Pöntinen give a concert of largely French music for clarinet and piano. Their encore hinted at an intriguing sequence of arrangements exploring connections between classical music and jazz. Three years on, that sequence has grown in stature, realised in recorded form as the Sony Classical album Night Passages, and given meaningful content by personal and world events.
Through lockdown, Fröst experienced intense bouts of Ménière’s disease, whose symptoms include unexpectedly severe bouts of vertigo and tinnitus. The clarinettist experienced one such bout while driving his car, which he thankfully negotiated without injury, but which bred a number of accompanying fever dreams. Expressed in the program notes, they lent a vivid written complement to the music.
Since 2019 the double bass of Sébastien Dubé has been added to the instrumental thinking, an essential musical component taking the arrangement style towards Jacques Loussier without ever resorting to parody. Unexpectedly, the group’s colourful arrangements did not always include the piano, allowing Fröst and Dubé the chance to explore the rewarding combination of clarinet and double bass through imaginative techniques and compelling improvisation.
The course of Night Passages led from a solemn sonata by Domenico Scarlatti to a Klezmer dance from Fröst’s brother Göran, by way of arrangements exploring the versatility of Baroque music. These were matched by jazz-inflected work from Chick Corea, with Armando’s Rumba presenting some vibrant syncopations, along with a celebration of the Swedish polska.
Frost’s artistry was almost beyond criticism, the clarinettist able to make even the most demanding technical passages appear nothing more than a walk in the park, airily improvising or running through sharply edged cadenzas. Dubé was no less impressive, and a remarkably wide range of colours issued from the double bass, whether bowed or plucked. His chemistry with Fröst was compelling, and the occasional use of vocals added to the mix. Roland Pöntinen also made the most of his chances to shine, providing the rhythmic verve to the dances but also a welcome, cleansing clarity which ran through the Baroque arrangements, tastefully and affectionately realised.
Prior to the interval we heard three short pieces by French composers for clarinet and piano. Debussy’s Première rhapsodie tells its story through a set of contrasting thoughts, initially set out in a humid atmosphere but becoming more outward facing as it gains in confidence. Fröst and Pöntinen had its many twists and turns instinctively under their fingers, finishing each other’s sentences as they did in the romantic, lyrical writing of Chausson’s Andante and Allegro, played with evident affection.
Yet it was Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano, completed in the year before his death, that made the most lasting impression. What a profound work this is, paying tribute to his friend and fellow composer Arthur Honegger. The slow movement holds the emotional centre of the work, with melancholy on occasion spilling over into outright sadness. Fröst’s quieter asides encouraged the audience to lean closer to the music, but these intimate thoughts were swept away by the exuberant finale, throwing caution to the winds. Fröst and Pöntinen played with great feeling throughout, typifying the approach of a concert that may not have been generous in length but which amply compensated through musical quality.
Mark Peters has enjoyed a richly creative year. A key member of the band Engineers, he has seen his own solo work flourish for the Sonic Cathedral label. His 2018 album Innerland made a strong impression, and now it has a complementary work in this year’s release Red Sunset Dreams, creating sonic vistas from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Arcana sat down to talk about the new album, its sense of time and place, its guest musicians – and how Peters has sparked creatively from them. It is a record working on several levels – on one hand you could bask in its Mediterranean warmth, while on the other it creates vivid imagery of a British summer. “It’s probably no accident,” says Peters, “as a lot of it was done at the back end of last year in the UK, and some of the tracks – the title track and one called Tamaroa that was done quite quickly, were done just as Autumn started.” Music experiences a resurgence as the seasons change. “It’s funny”, he says. “I think my music definitely suits the autumn, and I feel you get more attuned to your rhythms as an artist. It has a lot to do with visual aspect, and how we naturally hunker down.”
Peters grew up in Wigan, where he still lives – and where he had his musical epiphany. “I think the key moment for me was in a science class, and someone played me a record which I don’t regard as the greatest record ever, The Delicate Sound of Thunder by Pink Floyd. It was so different to anything I knew. I was into pop music like every other kid, towards more indie music like Echo & The Bunnymen. It really struck me as a wow moment, where things changed. It was the combination of a frivolous band name and the stark, gloomy presentation – and how relatable the lyrics were, with me being at school and questioning everything! It was “Oh, right – I’m not alone.”
This gateway moment led to the purchase of a guitar. “Wigan was a really fertile area for music then, with a lot of crate-digging. I think a lot of that culture gets attributed with funk and soul, but I was listening to Can at the age of 16, and Aphrodite’s Child, the band Vangelis was in. The doors opened and it’s carried on ever since as a massive melting pot!”
Peters’ music has a strong sense of time and place – which can be said for Innerland as well as Red Sunset Dreams. Does he have an image in his head when writing music? “I don’t know, but I am a very visual person, and I get a lot out of imagery and the natural world. Just looking at the sky, it does have a massive influence on me and my mood. It motivates me to write, record and mix, which is a big part of it for me – for some people it’s a more prosaic part of the process. Rather than a particular image in my head I think it’s more of a feeling, and then I start to work on something.”
The feelings can be personal in other ways. “These days I start to think about a feeling that others may have had, an essence of something or things that I’ve read or seen historically. Those things have quite a big influence on me. I did a project with Ulrich Schnauss in response to local landmarks, and I really got into the research, looking at things locally and in more depth rather than the everyday person in the car. That’s honey to the bees for me for creativity, those black and white photographs and seeing how people had to live. I feel tuned into the essence in places, which is something I would like to do that again. I’ve explored and formulated that with Nat from Sonic Cathedral.”
Red Sunset Dreams is essentially an Americana instrumental album, presented naturally and without cliché. “It’s about the stuff in our innate consciousness. I enjoy the kitschy thing that we’ve kind of explored on the artwork. It should be fun, and I don’t want to be pompous but at the same time I started to think about it. When I found out there was a local cinema showing Westerns purely from the late industrial revolution, that was massively popular, and that was a really evocative situation. You’ve got all these people working in mills all the time, who couldn’t see the hills because of the smog. They were going into the cinema to experience this vastness and freedom that had once been there, a generation earlier when it was all farmlands. That clicked with me, and I realised it may have been the reason that all the aspects of Americana came into the country.”
Was there a particular place that appealed in America? “There was one particular day I used for a video for Switch On The Sky that sadly got lost in time, just around San Francisco. There was a particular day where we drove from just north of San Diego, a place called Del Mar, up alongside the Sierra Nevada mountains up to a place called Bishop. The reason I took the title Silver River was because it was filmed near there. We drove all day, with loads of ambient tracks on – Brian Eno, Boards of Canada, and some things like David Crosby, It was a really evocative day, and the light was amazing – the sunset seemed to last from late afternoon. It was a real actualization of all those things you experience on TV – the sizes of the curbs, the fire hydrants. That day really stuck with me and gave it a mythical quality that really appealed to me and was enchanting.” He really enjoyed San Francisco. “I think it’s got a good atmosphere. The real journey for us though started once we got on the road out of the we just stuck to the coast road through Big Sur and right the way down, which was astonishing – especially compared to Los Angeles, which we now know as ‘Hot Warrington’!
Silver River was made with legendary slide guitarist BJ Cole. “I’d like to have a better story about this, but he just has an online service! It’s ridiculously cheap, and you send him the tracks. We had a chat about who I was, and we had some people in common. Being from Wigan, I know the guys from The Verve, and he briefly joined the band in the late 1990s. He wasn’t on any recordings with them but is on Richard’s first solo album. We talked mainly about that, and that was it really – he’s a busy guy and still doing a lot of really cool stuff. He sent me a guide track, and we made him the lead instrument. I felt I should show a due amount of respect. He sent me six takes of improvisation, and as with all those some were successful and beautiful, and others you go a bit wrong. I edited it to keep all the good bits. When I heard it all together as a collage I was blown away – it was so fluid, with a watery feel, and when I found out the title it felt ideal.”
Peters’ other guest, Dot Allison, is also a natural fit. “I’ve been working with Nat from Sonic Cathedral for many years now, and I said it would be great to have a singer on this. I don’t want to make the same album as Innerland. He said, “If you could choose anyone, who would you go for?” I said Dot – and then some months later she heard Innerland and thought it would be a great idea. I think the reason why I wanted her to do it, aside from having the perfect vocal sound, was that I think it’s really important to choose people who are really going to get what you’re doing. I can’t think of anyone who would get it more! On our first conversation we talked about Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch, and I realised it would flow incredibly easily – and it did. She actually worked with BJ Cole herself, on a track called Tomorrow Never Comes, which is such a good song.
Sonic Cathedral is the ideal match for Peters’ music. “I’ve known Nat since Engineers played a couple of shows for him in 2005. We’ve been friends and in regular contact since then. I don’t know why it took so long to do stuff like this, I think it was because I was used to being on big labels like Echo and K-Scope. I was maybe a bit spoilt, maybe not having the right priorities, but as you get older you realise it’s all about the A&R really. I couldn’t think of a better home in terms of having someone who understands me and has ideas that mean I never have to worry about how things are presented. We have so many current interests, and share music naturally, and that sort of thing can be contrived at major labels. I’m really proud of him for sticking to his guns like he does. Trust is the key word with a label, and that’s exactly what we have.”
Peters’ work is much more solo-based these days, though he does have a little contact with his fellow-Engineers. “I am in touch with Dan MacBean on a pretty regular basis. We made an album in lockdown called Pictobug, which we released under the Engineers name. It was a great experience because although we did manage to do a lot of experimental stuff on those early Engineers albums, we always felt like a lot of our time was spent trying to try and please the label. I can’t complain – it wasn’t a horror story – but when you are signed to a larger label, they’ve got certain criteria you are bound to try and fulfil. We always felt that the untethered, exploratory aspects were left aside. For Dan and I to make that record was really good. It was four pieces ranging from 8 to 13 minutes, just jams that we did as an online release – and people were enjoying it. I haven’t generally seen others from the band apart from when we got our publishing back last year.”
With an open musical mind, Peters is still open to collaboration. “Some things just naturally occur, and sometimes the universe is just pointing at you – you don’t need to think too much. When we did the tracks that are on my album, Dot and I agreed it had happened so quickly and so well that we should do some more. We’ve done two more tracks, and I’ve got a few more ideas to send to her too. With the live band, that’s been really enjoyable – and we’ve started to do some improvisation-based stuff that I’d like to pick up a bit more and record. We’ve got the live sound honed so now we can see what they have to offer as composers, and let them have some creative input. That’s a start of a nice little project.”
You can browse Mark Peters’ music at his Bandcamp site – which includes this Christmassy EP from 2019:
Rott Symphony [no.1] in E major (1878-80) Mahler Andante allegretto in C major ‘Blumine’ (1884) Bruckner Symphonic Prelude in C minor WAB297 (1876)
Bamberger Symphoniker / Jakub Hrúša
DG 486 2932 [70’11”]
ProducersSebastian Braun (Rott, Bruckner), Johannes Gleim (Mahler) EngineersMarkus Spatz (Rott), Christian Jaeger (Mahler), Thorsten Kuhn (Bruckner)
Recorded September and October 2021 (Rott), December 2021 (Mahler), March 2022 (Bruckner) at Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, Konzerthalle, Bamberg
reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Jakub Hrúša makes its debut on Deutsche Grammophon with a new account of the Symphony by Hans Rott (1858-84), whose belated premiere some 33 years ago prompted a reassessment (still ongoing) as to the evolution of this genre during those final decades of the 19th century.
What’s the music like?
Much time and space has been expended on the indebtedness (or otherwise) of Mahler to this work – elements from which can be found in at least five the younger composer’s symphonies – yet equally fascinating is the audible influence it had upon those who came before and after; hence the first movement from Bruckner’s Seventh and the second movement from Schmidt’s First – both of which are similarly grounded in E major). Without seeking to present it as an unalloyed masterpiece, Hrúša makes a persuasive case for a piece that Rott would doubtless have overhauled had his mental state not deteriorated soon after its completion. He finds the right balance between grandeur and introspection in the preludial Alle breve, as between that raptness which briefly though pointedly erupts into anguish in the Sehr langsam that follows.
The Scherzo is the most convincingly realized movement and Hrúša has the measure of its animated main theme with undertones of polka, broadening into the ländler-derived suavity of its trio before regaining its earlier vigour vis an ostinato-like impetus barely held in check – the accelerando not necessary in this instance. Nor does he disappoint in the finale. Much the longest movement, this is easily criticized for diffuseness but, as Hrúša makes plain, the formal ground-plan – prelude-chorale-fantasia-fugue-stretto-postlude – (such as the organist Rott likely extemporized before committing to paper) is readily perceivable and is invested with cumulative momentum sustained to the beatific concluding bars. That the composer so nearly brought off this ambitious conception is surely more significant than any shortcoming.
Couplings have been judiciously chosen to open-out the context of the main work. Included in early hearings of his First Symphony, Blumine is a remnant from Mahler’s early orchestral projects lost to history and Hrúša brings out those expressive ambiguities as offset the lilting trumpet melody. Once attributed to Mahler, Symphonic Prelude is now believed an exercise from Bruckner’s composition class and Hrúša, adhering to the original orchestration rather than that by Albrecht Gürsching, duly makes the most of its ominous and plaintive musings.
Does it all work?
It does. In his accompanying booklet observation, Hrúša reflects on the musical and historical relevance of Rott’s Symphony and there can be little doubt that, among the dozen or so other recordings of this piece, this is the most convincing in terms of all-round cohesion as also the excellence of the playing by the Bamberg Symphony (whose chief conductor Hrúša has been since 2018). A little too forwardly balanced in tuttis, sound otherwise reflects the excellence of the orchestra’s home-venue – Rott’s extensive use of triangle kept within sensible bounds.
Is it recommended?
It is. Those coming to the main work for the first time should certainly makes its latest release their first port-of-call, and it would be worthwhile DG continuing this association with Hrúša and the Bamberg in other mid-European music from the late Romantic and early Modern era.
Bedrock are an enterprising label, constantly rethinking how best to present their albums and compilations – and they always take a classy approach that puts the artist and the music first.
Quattro III is no exception. Put simply, it is four mixes from label head John Digweed that differ in tempo, beats and style – and as a substantial bonus, Ancestral Communication, a full artist album from DJ Miles Atmospheric.
The four mixes are given simple titles – Soundscape, Tempo, Breaks and Redux – and they can be listened to consecutively or as single units.
The brightly coloured package presents more than 50 exclusives, the result of Digweed’s inexhaustible search for new music and talent.
What’s the music like?
The mix titles are a good guide to how Quatro III proceeds, and over the four hours of John Digweed’s mixed material there is plenty to enjoy, however you slice and dice it.
Soundscape operates in an almost timeless void, performing an intensely calming meditation as it sets out a spacious sound picture. Wide-open canvases from the likes of DNA presents Charlie May, Circulation, Luke Chable and the excellent Davide Squillace present dreamy backdrops but also regenerate as part of a cleansing listening experience.
Tempo moves up to walking pace and starts to gain a strong sense of forward movement, realised throuh tracks like Dino Lenny’s Rocking To The Rhythm and Robert Babicz’s Afterlife, where the music is let off the leash. There are some lovely weightless textures here, though the increased percussion brings the music firmly towards the dancefloor, ending with the superb Thermal Drive from Speakwave.
Breaks presents what initially feels like a straightforward but strong mix, but as it progresses so there is more emotion introduced. The smoky vocal behind the Lexer Breaks mix of Quivver’s Nothin New To Feel is keenly felt, while Circulation’s Fruju has a breakdown to dive into. The music veers towards the minimal after this before the rolling beats gather towards a powerful finish.
Redux brings together a fine set of remixes, and really gets a shift on with the superb David Morales reworking of Pig & Dan’s Make You Go Higher. The inclusion of two tracks each from Captain Mustache and Aubrey Fry works a treat, Scan 7’s piano doodles matching the vocal of the latter’s Catch Me rather nicely.
As if the mixes weren’t enough, Miles Atmospheric’s album is a considerable bonus. There is an immediate temperature increase in these notes, fulfilling its brief from Digweed as a long player with ‘some quality warm deep ethereal techno that is a breath of fresh air’. Presented in a continuous mix of just over an hour, it includes the lush Tranquility, the fat bass lead of Mysterious Return To Forever then two extended treats in A Quiet Place For Distant Souls and the quicker Destination Lyra, showing how to make minimal source material go a very long way indeed.
Does it all work?
It does, because of the hours of thought and preparation that have gone into making the album. John Digweed’s famously meticulous working ethic comes up trumps again, but not at the expense of raw feeling.
Is it recommended?
With enthusiasm. Bedrock fans will lap it up – but each of the five musical canvases here works extremely well in the home listening environment too. Add the top quality presentation to the mix, whether on vinyl, CD or download, and Quattro III becomes a hugely desirable package.
Listen
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You can explore streaming and purchase options by clicking here, while you can visit the Bedrock shop for hard copies of the music on vinyl or CD
The world of music has been shocked by the news late last night that Terry Hall had died at the age of 63. Hall was singer and songwriter with three particularly influential bands – The Specials, Fun Boy Three and The Colourfield – but he also spread his wings to collaborate with a wide variety of musical figureheads.
Arcana has put together a playlist looking to cover a number of those sources, featuring some of his biggest hits with the bands above and several songwriting credits. Listening to the music brings a new sense of just how much of a mark Hall’s bands left on our cultural outlook.
