BBC Proms – Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Sir George Benjamin : Knussen, Ravel & Benjamin

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george-benjaminPierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Sir George Benjamin

Knussen The Way to Castle Yonder Op.21a (1988-90)
Purcell (transc. Benjamin) Three Consorts (1680) [World premiere]
Ravel Piano Concerto in G major (1929-31)
Benjamin Concerto for Orchestra (2021) [BBC co-commission: World premiere]

Royal Albert Hall, London
Monday 30 August 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse; pictures BBC / Chris Christodoulou

The cancellation of last year’s Proms meant the loss of several pieces by George Benjamin in recognition of his 60th birthday. Tonight’s concert, featuring the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with whom this composer-conductor has often collaborated, provided something of a redress.

The programme (its hour-long duration not unreasonably given without interval) began with The Way to Castle Yonder, a brief yet potent ‘potpourri’ from Oliver Knussen’s second opera Higglety Pigglety Pop! as amply conveys the aura of winsome yet ominous playfulness that suffuses the larger work. While they enjoyed a 40-year friendship, Benjamin’s own aesthetic is appreciably removed from that of the older composer so that a detachment, even aloofness was evident – without, however, detracting from this music’s always deceptive whimsicality.

Transcriptions of Renaissance and Baroque sources have been a mainstay of post-war British music, Three Consorts following an established pattern with Benjamin’s take on these Purcell miniatures underlining their intricate textures and piquant harmonies. The (to quote Benjamin) ‘‘visionary moment of harmonic stasis near the middle’’ of In nomine 1 went for little, with the ‘‘mesmerising intersection of line and harmony’ in Fantasia 7 effecting a Stravinskian objectivity, but the understated humour of Fantasia upon One Note was tellingly delineated.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard then joined Benjamin and the MCO in a performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major that, though it had precision and refinement in abundance, was almost entirely lacking in the qualities that define this music’s essential persona. The opening Allegramente evinced a desiccated manner with such as the blues-inflected coyness of its transitions or the heart-stopping stasis prior to the reprise of the second theme going for little, while the central Adagio took on an all-enveloping inertia as it unfolded – the inward rapture of its expressive apex then the pathos of its ensuing cor anglais dialogue all too enervated in their repose. The closing Presto drew an incisive response from pianist and orchestra alike, but here again any sense of this music’s more provocative demeanour was absent from the prevailing stolidity.

Aimard returned for an animated reading of Benjamin’s early Relativity Rag which provided an admirable entree into the world premiere of the latter’s Concerto for Orchestra. Unfolding as a continuous span (a pause just past its mid-point may be structurally meaningful) across a little over 15 minutes, this is typical of Benjamin’s recent music in its systematic – but rarely predictable – formal trajectory and alluring emotional reticence. The various instruments are highlighted singly or in groups in what becomes an intensifying progression, albeit without a tangible momentum, to a climax which brings first violins to the fore, before subsiding into a close of serene equivocation. Superbly realized by the MCO, for whom it was written, this is a thoughtful addition to a genre in which ‘display’ has all too readily become the watchword.

One final thought – at his untimely death, Oliver Knussen had several large-scale orchestral works in progress and maybe even nearing completion. Might it not still be feasible to bring at least one of the pieces to performance? The UK music scene would be all the richer for it.

You can find more information on the BBC Proms at the festival’s homepage. Click on the composer’s names for more information on Sir George Benjamin, and on the performers’ names for more information on Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Let’s Dance – Conclave: Conclave (Love Injection Records)

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conclave

Conclave: Conclave (Love Injection Records)

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Conclave is a musical collective under the wing of the multi-talented instrumentalist and vocalist Cesar Toribio. With his roots in the Dominican Republic and Florida, Toribio acquired a love of rhythm-based music through playing drums in church, studying jazz music in Boston, and garnering an appreciation of Afro and Latin-based rhythms.

The name ‘Conclave’ is an accurate identity for his aims, explained in the press release as an amalgamation: con (with) + clave (a unifying rhythm that holds the key to unlock dances both ancestral and contemporary).

What’s the music like?

Joyous. When thinking about dance and rhythm-based music it is so easy to take it for granted, to forget what an impact it can have on a community and how important it is to boosting moods in these difficult times. Cesar Toribio takes music back to those first principles, recognising the elemental feelings his music can provide, and because of that his self-titled album feels like a pure celebration of music. The album turns out to be as colourful as its cover.

To give some of the many highlights, the rich layers of There’s Enough are brightly coloured and enormously uplifting. Habla has a persuasive, swaying rhythm capped by a brilliant trumpet solo. Somehow All That I Need, featuring Sharin, is even better, with a winsome give and take between the two vocalists. Meanwhile Twice, while a little more introspective, features a squelchy bass and sun-drenched keys.

A soaring vocal takes Rise to the next level, while the much loved Perdón dazzles with its shimmering textures, a strong communal presence. The extended Alati Yeye Chege is hypnotic, while the album signs of with some irresistible, Todd Edwards-type funk on Take Heed (No Sunlight).

Does it all work?

Yes. The rhythms are gloriously instinctive, and production levels are just right so that the music has plenty of room to breathe, keeping its elements to the fore.

Is it recommended?

Heartily. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere who are mourning the loss of our summer, the occasional appearance of the sun should be soundtracked by this album. It may have been out for a couple of months but if you haven’t got it yet, you are encouraged to invest in some warmer musical weather. It will go far – and comparisons with Masters At Works’ Nu Yorican Soul offshoot are well-earned.

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BBC Proms – Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Folktone, BBC SSO / Ilan Volkov: Bartók Roots

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Patkop Konzerthaus artist in Residence serie

Folktone [below – Adam Römer (violin), Tamás Ferencz (violas, percussion, dance), János Kállai (dulcimer), András Lovászi (double bass)]
Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Ilan Volkov

Traditional Hungarian folk music
Bartók Violin Concerto no.2 BB117 (1937-8)
Traditional Hungarian folk music
Bartók Suite no.2 BB40 (1905-7, rev. 1920 & ’43)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Saturday 28 August 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse; picture of Ilan Volkov by Astrid Ackermann

This evening’s Prom may have seen the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor Thomas Dausgaard replaced by its principal guest Ilan Volkov, but the ‘Bartók Roots’ concept remained unchanged so as to provide a fascinating and instructive overview of the interface between folk and art music.

Each Bartók piece was preceded by a selection of (mainly) dances courtesy of the band Folktone (led by Adam Römer, familiar as section-leader violist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra). It was hardly a surprise that Patricia Kopatchinskaja, making her belated Proms debut, should have joined this enterprising quartet to make even more explicit the process whereby Bartók translated those folk melodies directly into the thematic content of his mature compositions – the seamless transition of one to the other doubtless giving Proms listeners pause for thought.

No performance by Kopatchinskaja could be described as routine, as it proved with Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto – less an interpretation than recreation of this greatest from a ‘golden age’ of such works, not least for the way it integrates formal rigour with that spontaneity of emotion emblematic of its composer. While there was no mistaking the all-round correlation between the outer Allegros, the means by which Kopatchinskaja emphasized this without loss of subtlety or expressive nuance underlined just how each of these movements reflects then transforms the other. Volkov secured playing of due sensitivity and poise from the BBCSSO – here and in an Andante whose variations on one of Bartók’s most disarming melodies was never more affecting than when this returns, only to evanesce into silence towards its close.

Kopatchinskaja herself returned for an apposite encore of Ligeti’s early Ballad and Dance in partnership with orchestra-leader Laura Samuel, the BBCSSO then joining-in with a repeat of the second piece. A further selection of folk pieces followed the interval, and prior to the performance of the Second Suite – among several early orchestral works by Bartók that are seldom revived but which throw a fascinating light on his evolution. If less amenable to the pointing up of its derivations from folk sources, the putative connections are no less evident.

At just over 30 minutes and scored for relatively reduced forces, this piece catches Bartók on either side of his initiation into collecting then absorbing of folk material. Such glimpses that emerge during the first three movements tend to be brushed aside by recurrences of that late-Romantic ethos stretching back via Strauss and Wagner to Liszt – hence the genial urbanity of the initial Serenata, rhythmic energy of the ensuing Allegro diabolico with its intensive fugal workout (this movement being the only piece its composer ever conducted in public), rhapsodic progress of the Scena della Puszta with its ruminative preamble for bass clarinet or new expressive vistas of the Per finire as it elides between folk melodies and voluptuous harmonies through to a close the more provisional for its having set out on a new beginning.

The BBCSSO recently recorded this work with Dausgaard (Onyx), but the present rendition with Volkov was no less idiomatic and maybe even more responsive to the chameleon-like aspect of its stylistic remit. It certainly ended this Prom in appealingly understated fashion.

You can find more information on the BBC Proms at the festival’s homepage. Click on the performers’ names for more information on Folktone and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, while for more information on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s most recent Bartók release on Onyx Classics click here

BBC Proms – Timothy Ridout, BBC SO / Oramo: Arnold, Walton, Foulds & Bray

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BBCSO_Oramo_Ridout_09_CR.Chris Christodoulou

Timothy Ridout (viola), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo

Foulds Le cabaret Op.72a (1921) [Proms premiere]
Walton Viola Concerto (1928-9, rev. 1961)
Bray Where Icebergs Dance Away (2021) [UK premiere]
Arnold Symphony no.5 Op.74 (1960-61) [Proms premiere]

Royal Albert Hall, London
Friday 27 August 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse; pictures BBC / Chris Christodoulou

Sakari Oramo tonight returned to the Proms for the first of two concerts as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in a typically wide-ranging programme of British music as commenced with the overture La cabaret that John Foulds penned as incidental music before it became an autonomous item. For all its vaudevillian aura and unabashed razzmatazz, this ‘Overture to a French Comedy’ throws in numerous stylistic curveballs to point up its intent such as Oramo, given an advocacy of this composer stretching back over two decades, underlined with relish.

Although Walton’s music of the 1920s evinces a not dissimilar extroversion, a very different aspect of the composer is evident in his Viola Concerto – heard this evening in its revision for reduced forces but a notable role for harp. It also brought a Proms debut for Timothy Ridout, his burnished tone and unfaltering intonation much in evidence in the first movement with its smouldering pathos and brief if volatile flights of fancy (qualities which suggest Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto as the most likely model) that were carefully integrated into the whole.

The central Vivo was the undoubted highlight of this performance – Ridout’s passagework unflagging even at the tempo indicated by the revision, not least in those syncopated asides that amply delineate the spirit of the times. By contrast, the finale began reticently then only gradually intensified towards a climactic tutti that brought out the best in the BBCSO; after which, Ridout’s take on the coda made it seem almost parenthetical in its overt rumination, while rounding off the whole work with appropriate inevitability and unforced eloquence.

After the interval, a first hearing in the UK for Where Icebergs Dance Away – the most recent orchestral piece by Charlotte Bray, whose Cello Concerto was a highlight of the 2016 season. Inspired by the icy landscapes encountered on a visit to Greenland, this brief yet atmospheric piece – a faster central episode placing the relative stasis on either side into meaningful relief – suggested qualities of greater organic growth and emotional intensification which deserved to be expounded on a larger scale, while never feeling underdeveloped in the present context.

It may have taken six decades to appear at the Proms, but Sir Malcolm Arnold‘s Fifth Symphony – if not the finest of his cycle, is surely its most representative by dint of those confrontational extremes which, in the opening Tempestuoso alone, pit acerbic irony against expressive angst as threaten to overwhelm the movement’s formal logic. That it failed to do so was testament to Oramo’s acuity in keeping this music’s seeming excesses within relative proportion – not least in the violent irresolution of the closing pages, with their stark withdrawal into silence.

Featuring one of Arnold’s most potent melodies, the Andante brought a rapt response by the BBCSO strings and if Oramo drew less than the ultimate terror from the central climax, the transition to the pensive second theme then return to the initial melody were breathtakingly achieved. Neither was there any lack of malevolence or sardonic humour in the scherzo – its energy carrying over into a finale that was paced superbly to a climactic restatement of the Andante‘s melody and its collapse into nothingness. A fitting close to an impressive reading.

You can find more information on the BBC Proms at the festival’s homepage. Click on the composer’s names for more information on Charlotte Bray and Sir Malcolm Arnold, while for more on Timothy Ridout click here

Switched On – Various Artists: Spaciousness 2 (Lo Recordings)

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spaciousness-2

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

In which Lo Recordings founder Jon Tye presents a sequel to their successful Spaciousness compilation of 2019. There they expressed the wish for ‘a series of releases that seeks to explore the connections, the overlaps, the roots and the future of a music variously referred to as ambient, deep listening, new age and even post classical.’

What’s the music like?

The second volume of Spaciousness follows on seamlessly from the first. As he did then, Jon Tye has linked together an especially calming selection exploring the corners of the catalogue. The music is effective as a meditation aid, and works equally well in foreground or background listening.

Highlights include the horizontal vibes of Integer by Lauren Doss, with a soothing vocal amid the flickering textures, and the lightly scattered percussion on David Casper‘s Dawn Poems Part 2: Awakening, which has its origins in the east.

Outdoor sounds and soft bells are the order of the day as first track Cruising in the Dimension of a Shenandoah Backyard, from JD Emmanuel, drifts into view, and this segues into Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith‘s remix of Cool Maritime‘s Climbing Up, which starts out like written out wind chimes but then gains positive energy from busy but soothing loops. The Gigi Masin remix of Brain Machine‘s Crystal Clouds bleeps and chugs in a strangely restful way, while the activity of Ariel Kalma‘s Space Forest is underpinned by an appealing drone.

Later on we get to enjoy the gentle open spaces of Vague Imaginaires‘ Le Sillage du Vaguarti, and a serene closing track from Mary Lattimore, the Ocean Moon Redux of A Unicorn Catches A Falling Star. 

Does it all work?

Yes – with more bleeps than the first, so not as explicitly relaxing, but still finding a very calm headspace. There is more than a touch of new age about the musical language and titles, but to be honest Spaciousness 2 covers a number of stylistic bases with effortless ease.

Is it recommended?

It is – a worthy sequel to the first volume, and good to see Lo Recordings pushing the boat out and incorporating a number of ambient styles. Proof that you can have many different forms of musical relaxation!

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