In concert – Boris Giltburg plays Granados, Albéniz, Ravel, Rachmaninoff & Prokofiev @ Wigmore Hall

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Granados Goyescas: Quejas, o La maja y el ruiseñor (1909-12)
Albéniz Iberia (Book 3): El Albaicín (1907)
Ravel Miroirs (1904-5)
Rachmaninov Moments musicaux Op.16: no.2 in E flat minor, no.3 in B minor, no.4 in E minor (1896)
Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 8 in B flat major Op. 84 (1939-44)

Boris Giltburg (piano, above)

Wigmore Hall, London
Monday 14 March 2022

Written by Ben Hogwood

Boris Giltburg

14 March 2022
22:19

This was the second concert in Boris Giltburg‘s Ravel series at the Wigmore Hall – but as he eloquently explained in the programme and from the stage, it was impossible to proceed without responding to the situation in Ukraine.

Born in Russia but of Israeli nationality, Giltburg’s judgement in this was carefully considered. Reminding us that music has the overwhelming ability to reflect conflict as well as providing an appropriate response to it, in Prokofiev‘s Piano Sonata no.8 he had found the most accurate reflection imaginable. Ukrainian-born Prokofiev wrote the piece during the Second World War, and it was premiered by Sviatoslav Richter in Moscow in 1944. Here its resonance was unmistakable, the work unfolding with a mixture of uncertainty and resolve, with searing outbursts and anguished thoughts that spoke of oppression and tragedy. Prokofiev’s trademark dissonances were descriptive, the percussive rhythms laden with military power. The second movement relented a little in search of lyricism, Giltburg finding parallels with the composer’s ballet scores of the period, with hints of Romeo & Juliet carried on the air. Meanwhile the third movement, a powerful presto, tore up the tarmac in its relentless drive forward while finding time to consider the repercussions. Giltburg’s precision and power were beyond reproach here, his performance incisive but deeply reflective of current events. The Wigmore Hall listened closely, moved to silence throughout but responding with sympathetic applause.

Because of this performance the rest of the concert could have paled into insignificance, but that would reckon without some powerhouse performances of music from earlier in the century. It was refreshing to hear two Spanish works for starters. The music of Granados and Albéniz does not get enough exposure, and it should do – both wrote under the influence of Debussy but had something of the French master’s gift for picture painting. Giltburg caught the baleful tones of Quejas, o La maja y el ruiseñor (Lament, or the maiden and the nightingale), while the sultry El Albaicín was vividly descriptive and alluring.

Ravel may have written Miroirs in 1905 but in these hands it still sounded so modern. Noctuelles (Moths), a remarkable piece of picture painting from the French composer, found its match here, Giltburg delighting in its irregular contours, while the cleaner lines of Oiseaux tristes were no less effective. The much-loved duo of Une barque sur l’océan and Alborada del gracioso were brillianly performed – the former capturing the rocking of the boat with uncanny accuracy, surging forward before checking against the spray – and the latter exploring syncopations and dynamic variations to thrilling effect. Finally La vallée des cloches was both reverent and mysterious, notable for meticulous pedal work from Giltburg to maintain the atmosphere.

Immediately before the Prokofiev we heard three of the young Rachmaninov‘s six Moments Musicaux, a breakthrough collection that helped establish him as a serious composer for the piano in 1896. They are of similar design to the pieces of the same name by Schubert, in a group of six but giving the pianist freedom through varying dimensions and moods. These are pieces Giltburg holds close to his heart, and a whirlwind account of the second piece was checked by the darker hues of the third, a funeral march. This provided much food for thought with its nagging motifs, the music returning to the same itch with ominous regularity, before the fourth piece took off at a rate of knots, fearsome virtuosity tempered by immaculate melodic phrasing.

After the Prokofiev had made its mark we heard the ideal foil as an encore, Giltburg playing the Bagatelle no.1 by Valentin Silvestrov. A Ukrainian composer, Silvestrov was born in 1937 and – according to a conversation between Giltburg and a member of the audience – appears to have safely relocated to Poland. The simplicity of this piece, after the crunch of the Prokofiev, was doubly moving.

For more information on Boris Giltburg you can visit his website

Switched On – Francis Harris: Thresholds (Scissor and Thread)

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What’s the story?

Francis Harris has already delivered a brace of thoughtful electronic albums in Lelend (2012) and Minutes of Sleep (2014), where he has considered some of our slowest moving and abstract ‘virtualities’. The train of thought continued with two albums as half of the Aris Kindt duo, but now Harris turns back to a solo identity for Thresholds.

In it, he ‘aspires to sonic universality and the presentation of a fully formed psychoacoustical world’, though it is not an ‘album of ideas’. In the commentary from his label, ‘inspired by the ecological and political upheavals of the present and the role of speculative thought as an avenue of global transformation, Thresholds is the work of a mature artist fully in control of his powers’.

What’s the music like?

While it is certainly important to consider the elements above, Thresholds stands on its own two feet for the listener who is completely new to its thoughts and sound worlds.

Often these worlds cross over, the album acting as the sonic equivalent of being on a train journey, or standing still while observing an object pass against overhead against a starry backdrop. The most effective tool here is the wide range of percussion, some of it very subtle, that Harris has at his disposal. The instruments and sounds, both acoustic and electronic, decorate the slow awakening of Useless Machines, then pepper Rebstock Fold with what feels like spots of electronic rain as a slower moving sequence of chords takes hold.

Harris keeps a background haze to proceedings, while a variety of musical languages unfold in the foreground. Many of these are slow moving, honing in on certain details, such as the muffled trumpet solo or vocal snippets that feature in Earth Moves. The dappled colours created by the music are often softly mesmerising. The title track, for instance, has digital chattering in the foreground while chords shift slowly in the background. The trumpet reappears on Speculative Nature Of Purposive Form as part of a largely static soundscape, but Cut Up responds to this with a good deal of nervous energy, its percussive buzzing suggesting an outlying jazz influence.

Does it all work?

Yes. These thoughtful compositions are consistently engaging but work as a whole in shifting the focus of the mind to calmer areas, the listener taking in the musical activity around the stereo picture but able to let it run on its way simultaneously.

Is it recommended?

Yes – Francis Harris makes ambient music with a difference, its intricate construction creating all sorts of moving patterns that the listener can either latch on to or allow to run free. Its imaginative colours and textures reveal something different with each encounter.

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Switched On – Fragile X: Human Condition (Cue Dot Records)

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What’s the story?

The Cue Dot Series reaches a dozen releases with this substantial piece of work from Fragile X – the alter ego for Glasgow-based musician J. Gorecki. He has designed an album to question aspects of human nature and instinct, in particular personal growth, but – as he details in the commentary alongside the album – the answers are firmly weighted towards the positive.

There are six stages of the human condition represented here – birth, growth, emotion, aspiration, conflict and mortality.

What’s the music like?

Human Condition – as its title implies – is a mixture of highs and lows, but the music here gives the listener a wholly positive experience. Gorecki writes with great assurance, gently probing at our thoughts and feelings as he does so. Cogito ergo sum (which translates as I think, therefore I am) is the ideal way to set the scene, soft-grained textures cushioning some more probing melodic lines, and introducing us to a warm blend of electronically and acoustically-derived sounds.

The softly oscillating figures of The Good And The Beautiful have attractive, treble-rich colouring which is a hallmark of Gorecki’s writing, with golden hints to the textures from half way through. Object / Subject has murmuring voices as part of its overall ambience, before it pans out into a wonderfully spacious train of thought. Eudaimonia uses what appears to be a small collection of time pieces, each one creating an ambience among themselves, while A Question I Have Become For Myself has some distorted thoughts but also a reassuring, slow chorale in the background.

You Are has watery percussion and rippling chords, presenting a beautiful epilogue that gradually falls under the influence of a slow, brooding melodic line. This slightly darker aspect has already revealed itself in the shady Space Of Appearance, a relatively brief but sombre time for contemplation.

Does it all work?

It does. The album is best experience as a single span of music, its natural flow secured early on and sustained throughout the nine tracks. Gorecki shows himself to be as at home in longer structures approaching ten minutes as he is in creating shorter snapshots.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Human Condition is a thoughtful meditation, which works both as a foreground and background feature. Foreground listening is by far the best, mind, for the inner parts of Gorecki’s patchwork are fully revealed and the colours can be best appreciated. A subtle experience but a lasting and uplifting one.

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Switched On – Franck Vigroux: Atotal (Aesthetical)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The music for Atotal is half of an intricate story. To quote from the press release, Franck Vigroux created it as an audiovisual performance with regular collaborator Antoine Schmitt, their aim ‘to reconstruct in order to better deconstruct the processes of imposition of will by repetition and absolute synchronism, to propose a breach to a potentially life-saving decoincidence. The total work of art, when pushed to its paroxysm of absolute coincidence of the perceptions of a captive spectator, is similar to the techniques of mental manipulation of totalitarian regimes, proceeding by annihilation of the critical mind, repetitive semantic pounding, subliminal messages.’

Got that?! It bears reading a few times, along with the rest of the detail on Vigroux’s Bandcamp page, because the more you read it the more you realise how much thought the pair have put into the work.

What’s the music like?

The success of this album depends on how Vigroux’s music sits on its own, without visuals, as a single work of art. The answer is emphatic, for Atotal is never less than a powerful encounter for the listener, to the extent where it can be overwhelming on headphones. Certainly the images conjured up in the listener’s mind are very close to Schmitt’s pictures in the excerpt here:

The blasts of white noise circling around a two-note riff on Swinging Total are an illustration of how Vigroux creates a great deal from minimal beginnings. By contrast Atotal010 is well within itself, with remote breathing noises giving a primal, intimate air. Lame is another thrilling rush, a widescreen vortex of sound underpinned by a big beat, while Accelerando has similarly big textures but is disorientated, like the processing of a large machine.

Vigroux works his sparse material into the thrilling forward drive of Communication, and his writing has lots of spatial, semi-industrial elements to it. He can be caustic in style, but the likes of Perdu find him in descriptive mood, with flickers of sound near and far. Communication is again sparse material but has a thrilling forward drive. Side Total contrasts wave effects with blocks of sound, while Total Primus is great, a substantial track with rumbling bass and purer tones in the treble, not to mention a lumbering rhythm.

Does it all work?

It does, but a certain amount of caution should be advised – in a good way. This is music that can often hit its target square between the eyes, and while the effect can be thrilling it is not for every mood, being a treble espresso of music at times!

Is it recommended?

Very much so. Vigroux’s music is always worth exploring, his approach always interesting – and the music for Atotal is no exception to that rule.

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In concert – Clare Hammond, CBSO / Michael Seal: Nielsen, Grieg & Sibelius

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Nielsen Helios Overture FS32 (1903)
Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor Op. 16 (1868)
Sibelius Symphony No. 1 in E minor Op. 39 (1898-9)

Clare Hammond (piano, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Michael Seal

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 9 March 2022 (2.15pm)

Written by Richard Whitehouse

A Scandinavian programme this afternoon from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, featuring music by the three most famous of this region’s composers (so no representation for Sweden), and presided over with his customary authority by CBSO’s associate conductor Michael Seal.

Unusual nowadays to have a programme consisting of overture, concerto and symphony – but Nielsen’s Helios is as fine a curtain-raiser as any, its ‘sunrise to sunset’ scenario captured with one of the most graphic crescendos and diminuendos in the literature. Seal ensured this gradual emergence, and its faster evanescence, were unerringly paced – the horns’ echoing sonorities enfolded into the orchestral texture; and if the intervening intermezzo and fugato rather tread water by comparison, their role within the formal scheme made for a cohesive overall entity.

Whether or not Grieg tired of hearing or at least playing his Piano Concerto, he would surely have appreciated Clare Hammond’s take on its solo part. The inedible opening gesture might have been less than usually arresting, but the opening movement proceeded methodically and often poetically so its structural seams were barely in evidence – culminating in a resourceful account of the cadenza with the composer’s motivic ingenuity much in evidence. Easy to pass off as a bland interlude, the Adagio had an appealing poise that opened into keen pathos at its height. Trenchant rather than impetuous, the outer sections of the finale were rarely less than engaging but it was the warm soulfulness at the centre that really struck home; its return for a triumphal apotheosis did not quite avoid portentousness, but it ensured a decisive conclusion.

A distinctive and, for the most part, convincing performance which Hammond followed with the caressing harmony of the eleventh from Szymanowski’s Op. 33 Etudes – music in marked contrast to the existential drama of Sibelius’s First Symphony which came after the interval.

The latter work’s emergence against a background of fraught self-determination has inevitably taken on far greater resonance during recent weeks, and it was to Seal’s credit that he played down any tendency to overt sentiment – rendering the first movement, its sombre introduction limpidly realized by Oliver Janes, as the striking and frequently innovative study in expressive contrasts it should be. Nor was there any lack of Tchaikovskian pathos in the Andante, whose whimsical passages were as vividly delineated as those eruptive outbursts towards its climax.

The ensuing Scherzo had the right rhythmic tensility and, in its central trio, enticing whimsy – but it was the Finale as set the seal on this performance. The ‘Quasi una fantasia’ marking can result in emotional overkill but Seal kept its prolix follow-through in focus at all times – whether with the anguished recall of the work’s initial theme, surging impetus of its swifter sections, or the heart-on-sleeve immediacy of its ‘big tune’; pervaded by an ambivalence to the fore in a peroration which (almost) avoided histrionics on the way to its fatalistic close.

A fine response from the CBSO, playing here with burnished eloquence and Matthew Hardy making the most of a timpani part that has structural as well as expressive significance. Few having heard it are likely to underestimate this work’s status in Sibelius’s symphonic output.

For more information on the CBSO’s current season, visit their website. Meanwhile for more information on the artists, click on the names to access the websites of Clare Hammond and Michael Seal