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Ask the Audience at the BBC Proms – Annie Turner on the BBC Symphony Orchestra

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Ask The Audience Arcana at the Proms
annie-turnerThis is the latest in the series where Arcana invites a friend to a Prom who does not normally listen to classical music. In an interview after the concert each will share their musical upbringing and their thoughts on the concert – whether good or bad! Here, Annie Turner (above) gives her thoughts on Prom 62.

Baiba Skride (violin), Siobhan Stagg (soprano), Christopher Maltman (baritone) BBC Symphony Orchestra / Siobhan Young

Bayan Northcott Concerto for Orchestra (2014-2016, world premiere); Mozart Violin Concerto no.5 (1775); Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony (1922-23)

You can listen on the BBC iPlayer here

Arcana: Annie, what was your musical upbringing?

I was born in 1980 and so my earliest musical memories would be Vangelis, Dire Straits, Phil Collins and stuff like that, so I’m very fond of that music in a sentimental way. I was really interested in playing music, and I remember when I was about seven or eight I was absolutely desperate to learn the recorder, as the older kids in school were playing them. My mum asked the teachers but they said I was too young, and I had to wait until I was nine!

I learned recorder and got to play in the school concerts, but after that you pick up another instrument, so I did keyboard. I went to a country school in Australia, so there wasn’t a big music program. I learned piano for a while but struggled with the music because I didn’t find it interesting! It was classical, and it was a bit boring for me as a kid, but I really loved listening to music and working out the fidelity for myself. My dad was really into Andrew Lloyd Webber, and I used to work out bits of melody from Phantom of the Opera and Cats.

Then I stopped and didn’t pick it up again until high school when I was interested in bands. I got interested in grunge and wanted to play it, so I got into drums and guitar lessons, and really loved that. By the time I was that age I got really shy and didn’t want to play in front of anybody, so I was a bedroom musician. I still kept studying music at school though, and then when I graduated from high school I really wanted to play in a band.

I moved to Melbourne to go to university, and it was my dream to play in a band, so I just had to get over my stage fright! I joined any band that would have me…and I’ve played in some terrible bands and some awesome bands, but I mostly ended up playing drums in all of them, so I dropped the guitar. I played in a heavy metal band, a punk band and an experimental bands, a few jam bands. I did that for a few years, and we recorded and toured which was great. Then I moved to London and didn’t do it again, because London was a bit too big and intimidating and it was hard to have the resources. So that was my musical upbringing!

Could you name three musical acts you love, and why you love them?

There is a Norwegian black metal band called Satyricon, which I love, and I love them because I find their music is well written, well-constructed, engaging, it’s very melodic, atmospheric, it’s quite dark as well which I find when you’re in that mood. It’s frenetic, there’s a lot of energy to it, and I find it really interesting.

I don’t find I listen to acts any more, I listen to songs rather than acts…but I actually love Calvin Harris! I’ve followed his career, and I don’t love everything that he’s done, but I really love the fact he’s a pop purist. He writes and produces but he does it very well in a purely pop way but I think he respects that genre. He does quality work and it’s such good, good pop I think it’s genius – the construction, the way he has that mix of happiness and sadness in one song. Pop music you have to capture the kind of strategy of teen romance, which is kind of ‘gaggy’ but at the same time it’s got drama, some of it’s got humour, and I just think he’s excellent and very intelligent pop auteur.

For the third I would have to say I love Nirvana really, because that was the band I really got into in depth, because it was rebellious, artistic, subversive, but also even though it was very aesthetically abrasive it was pop music right down the line in the middle. It got me very interested in playing music as well as listening to music, and as well it had more implications for popular music. I was very obsessed with that band for a good five years!

What has been your experience of classical music so far?

I’m generally familiar with the big hits because you hear them on TV, and on adverts, and there are definitely pieces I’ve come to know and like, but other than that it’s really through watching films. I did a degree in film theory, and studied lots of films, but didn’t really study the music on the film.

I guess also there was a time when I would tune the radio to Classic FM because I didn’t want anybody to sing at me, I didn’t want to hear any words! I wanted something I knew would be relatively calm and peaceful. I know it’s not always like that though, and that classical music can be tumultuous! I was seeking something that would be a bit more calming I suppose. I remember I did buy an iTunes album of the greatest hits of the classics, but I didn’t really follow it any further than that.

How did you rate your first Proms experience?

I really enjoyed it. I had no expectation, and I guess I thought I might have got bored because if I didn’t know the music I might not follow it. I was surprised that I really did find myself getting enthralled, so I rated it to the point where I would definitely come back on my own. I would like to investigate it more, ask for tips, you know?

I like the opera Carmen, but any other opera I don’t like, because sometimes it sounds to me like yelling. I know you could say I listen to death metal, and that’s shrieking, but you know, it’s just yelling! The vocal music we just saw I didn’t think about it that way, I heard the music and looked at their faces, saw that emotion, and it felt a bit like I was watching a play. I think I might be coming around to being converted!

What did you think of the Bayan Northcott Concerto for Orchestra, the first piece?

That started off really avant-garde, and more modern, and I guess that surprised me in how it developed. It developed very smoothly into something that was a bit more formulaic in a classical sense. I had to remind myself that I didn’t really know what was going on, and the transitions I enjoyed. I felt that one took you on a bit of a journey that was quite surprising. I particularly liked the dynamics where you could hear something that was really loud, layered and reverberant, and then you could get something that was really quiet and minimal on one instrument. I enjoyed the delicacy of the sound, because when you see a band or a DJ you don’t get that, you just get ‘loud’ or ‘off’!

What did you think of the Mozart?

I thought I recognised it from having heard it before. I really liked it, and having someone palying solo you can focus in on it and follow their emotion, which was new and interesting, and I thought it was interesting too how the orchestra seemed to be all on the same level.

Normally you go to see a band and you think I’m seeing my idols, or seeing this famous person, and the people who created the music. They’re in a higher hierarchy so to speak. With the orchestra I had this sense that they’re just normal people, serving the music and all enjoying it. I liked it when it wasn’t about the composer, the rock star, and not about the conductor – they’re not facing us, they’re just delivering it. I really liked that sense of the music being the star. That was a new experience, you could see a different perspective even in the formalities of ‘now it’s my tern to stand up and play’, the ritual of it. It was really touching, and I think classical music might tend to have this image of being a little bit posh, a little bit fancy, but actually these people are not royalty, they’re working for the music. There wasn’t any grandiosity, it was very humble.

And the Zemlinsky?

That was probably my favourite. I was a bit apprehensive because it was like opera, and I’ve not really liked opera before, plus it sounded like it was in German. I don’t speak German, but I wouldn’t have thought it would be a language that would lend itself to singing! But OK, I was really surprised. I stopped thinking about the music. My mind did keep wandering and I was thinking about my own life, and I don’t know if the music was really influencing that or not, but it wasn’t like I was standing there going oh, that was a great bit of trombone, I was thinking about my own life! I was thinking about what was going on in my life.

I’ve recently started doing meditation, and know that it’s good to be present and mindful, so I did start to drag myself back and focus on the sounds and what was going on. It was good, though I did feel like it was a soundtrack to my thoughts. There was a lot of percussion and I really liked the textures of the drums, how deep that sound is, and I think there was a lot of melancholy and ‘blue’ notes. I like that darker sound, I guess that might be a bit of a cliché, but the sadder stuff probably says more to me than the jolly little dances I suppose!

I deliberately didn’t research the program, so think I will read that on the bus home which will be really interesting, to see what was in the text!

Would you go again?

I would. It would be amazing to see a piece I was already familiar with and really liked, so next year I can find out which composers I like more and make a plan to see more of them. At the same time I would also select something at random – something familiar and something new – and see how that works!

Verdict: SUCCESS

 

BBC Proms 2016 – Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, Mozart & Northcott world premiere – Baiba Skride, Simone Young & BBC SO

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Soloists Christopher Maltman and Siobhan Stagg take the applause with conductor Simone Young and the BBC Symphony Orchestra after their performance of Zemlinsky‘s Lyric Symphony (c) Chris Christodoulou

Prom 62; Royal Albert Hall, 31 August 2016

You can listen to the Prom on the BBC iPlayer

Every festival has its ‘down’ periods – and here it was the turn of the Proms. Don’t stop reading there though, as by ‘down’ period I mean a Royal Albert Hall that was perhaps half full and music that was relatively unknown. The combination can on occasion lead to an unsatisfactory evening, but here it was a heartening opposite.

It was good to note a rare UK appearance for the Australian conductor Simone Young, her first at the Proms. Young is predominantly an opera specialist, so it was perhaps inevitable that Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony of 1923 should bring out the very best in her brief relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

This powerful, passionate account got off to the best possible start, assertively bringing Zemlinsky’s themes of doomed love to the front of the layered texture and packing the music with drama. Here Young was helped by the woodwind and brass, horn player Nicholas Korth in particular, though when singers Christopher Maltman and Siobhan Stagg got into action theirs was the defining contribution.

Baritone Maltman’s silky contribution was brilliantly judged, an ideal complement to Stagg’s soaring soprano, though the biggest notes on her part were saved for the particularly anguished lines in the poems of Rabindranath Tagore. When she began Stratt was a little coy, beautifully so, for this got the audience on to her side and meant we all felt her tragedy in Vollende denn das letzte Lied (Then finish the last song). Maltman it was who ended the symphony, striving for peace, which Young ultimately found in the beautifully floated coda.

The performance was the shade to the light of Mozart’s Violin Concerto no.5. This did receive a slightly heavy performance in comparison to others, but the strings of the BBC SO were beautifully graceful in the slow movement and accommodating to soloist Baiba Skride (below, with the orchestra) in the outer fast movements.

bbcso-skride-mozart

Skride’s violin makes a beautiful sound, and it was a feature of her performance that the notes were floated towards the audience, respectful of the orchestral accompaniment but making the most of Mozart’s melodic inspiration. The choice of cadenzas by Brahms’s contemporary Joseph Joachim was a little risky but the virtuosic passages were sensitively handled, while in the finale, the so-called ‘Turkish’ part of the concerto that actually sounds more Hungarian, there was a pleasing rustic feel, as though we had all been ushered outdoors together. As a footnote to this, Skride chose a movement from a sonata by the eighteenth century composer Johann Paul von Westhoff as her encore.

First up on the program was a world premiere, Bayan Northcott’s Concerto for Orchestra. It is great to have so many in the Proms season, with the unfortunate caveat that not many of these pieces get a second hearing. This one was a premiere in two respects, being Northcott’s first work for orchestra alone. At the age of 76 that is an impressive achievement, and his care over the composition could be sensed in a compressed piece that was full of incident. Debts to 20th century composers such as Hindemith were occasionally felt, but the enthusiasm of the two fast movements drove the music forward, speaking in tunes but also impressing the ear with their instrumental textures too.

Ben Hogwood

BBC Proms 2016 – Shostakovich, Rachmaninov & Emily Howard from Alexey Stadler, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

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Alexey Stadler pictured during his performance of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto no.1, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko (c) Chris Christodoulou

Prom 53; Royal Albert Hall, 25 August 2016

You can listen to the Prom on the BBC iPlayer

The BBC Proms should be commended for their commitment to new music, though this does come with a caveat, for it is not often that a commission for the Proms makes it to a second or third performance. Hopefully that fate will not befall Emily Howard’s Torus, a joint commission with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, who gave it a thoroughly committed and virtuosic first performance under Vasily Petrenko.

Torus is based on a mathematical phenomenon, but to Howard’s credit she did not make this the domineering feature of the piece – if she did, like all good composers, it was part of the essential framework rather than explicitly signposted. Instead we were able to enjoy the colours of the large symphony orchestra, and especially the percussion, the three players using bows on their cymbals to make the textures glint towards the end.

Though subtitled Concerto for Orchestra, there was no display of gravity defying, musical athletics for the sake of it. Rather we enjoyed the orchestra as an instrument, the melodic content taking on a distinctive falling motif as though the music were heading for a trap door.

proms-petrenko

Shostakovich’s popular Cello Concerto no.1 followed, with a last minute substitute, Alexey Stadler, standing in for the unfortunately ill Truls Mørk. Any doubts about inferiority were immediately quelled, the young Russian cellist finding the soul of the music in a searching account of the slow movement and cadenza in particular. Petrenko and the RLPO, so attuned to this composer’s music in their award winning accounts of his symphonies for Naxos, were superb in support, especially horn player Timothy Jackson – but Stadler rightly stole the show, adjusting to the acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall with commendable ease. His beautiful tone brought both pain and hope to the solo part in equal measure, and led to a gorgeous encore in the form of the Sarabande from Bach’s Solo Cello Suite no.2.

Finally Petrenko led his orchestra in the music of another composer with whom they share great familiarity – Rachmaninov. There are several warhorses in his output that are arguably overplayed in concert, but the Symphony no.3 is not one of them – and how wonderful it was in this account, with soulful melodies, sleights of hand from Petrenko and sudden bursts of light from the orchestra.

The tricky syncopations of the finale were expertly handled, the orchestra delivering the suddenly loud snaps like the slamming of a door, a thrilling effect in the live arena. Yet they were also alive to the music’s lyrical and occasionally less certain undercurrents, where leader Thelma Handy was a superb soloist.

As an encore Petrenko brought out Shostakovich’s arrangement of Youmans’ Tea For Two, and gave it a brilliant send-up, as though conducting the last night. It was a beautifully judged encore, and showed again just how much this orchestra and conductor enjoy working together – which is what it’s all about, surely!

Ben Hogwood

Ask the Audience at the BBC Proms – Stuart Fitzsimon on Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Emily Howard

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Ask The Audience Arcana at the Proms
fitzThis is the latest in the series where Arcana invites a friend to a Prom who does not normally listen to classical music. In an interview after the concert each will share their musical upbringing and their thoughts on the concert – whether good or bad! Here, Stuart Fitzsimon (above) gives his thoughts on Prom 53.

Alexey Stadler (cello), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko

Emily Howard Torus (2016, world premiere); Shostakovich Cello Concerto no.1 (1959); Rachmaninov Symphony no.3 (1935-38)

You can listen on the BBC iPlayer here

Arcana: Fitz, what was your musical upbringing?

It wasn’t particularly musical – music was never forced upon me – but I played the guitar as a school kid, and I did Grades 1 and 2 with classical guitar. I was in numerous choirs – the school choir, a chamber choir, the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy Choir. I performed on Radio 4, and on tours in Switzerland and Italy. From a classical perspective I never played on a classical instrument. My brother played saxophone and keyboard, but I wouldn’t consider any of these to be orchestral instruments.

There were records in the house – more tapes than records – and I remember on holiday taking my mum and dad’s Beach Boys 20 Golden Greats tape to France on holiday and playing it on loop. I remember their Beatles records, but I was never encouraged musically really – it just all happened!

I went to University. I originally wanted to be a policeman, but they wouldn’t offer me criminology as I didn’t have a law degree – they offered me part criminology, part sociology. I enjoyed the sociology far more, decided I didn’t want to be a policeman any more. So I did a degree, which didn’t have anything to do with what I wanted to do in my career or life!

So I started going to gigs, and meeting people who were into similar music as me – dirty London Indie of the time! I started managing bands, putting on bands, and realised then that I wanted to work in the music industry. I knew lots of people in bands and ended up going to a lot of those gigs for free, and thought why don’t I start putting on some bands? So that’s how my Flook night started that I did in London.

Could you name three musical acts you love, and why you love them?

Three acts I love are The Libertines, The Cribs and the Super Furry Animals.

The Super Furries are a band I fell in love with, having missed their first two albums. I got bored of the guitar because I couldn’t be bothered to practice around 14 or 15, and I stopped listening to pop music…but then I got into it again and went through the mandatory Oasis and Blur thing at the time in the mid-1990s. Then I started looking at the lesser bands I didn’t pick up at the time and Super Furries were one of them.

I remember listening to the Guerrilla album in the garden of my mate’s house, and it was the weirdest album I’d been introduced to by friends. Up until then it was dad rock, man rock, and then suddenly you’ve got this band writing stuff like intros before track 1 on the CD player! Playing a CD and immediately rewinding it to minus two minutes or whatever, like a secret hidden track, is pretty bizarre!

The rest of the album contains songs about chewing gum and mocking the concept of having a mobile phone. This was before they became ubiquitous! Super Furries saw all that kind of stuff coming, and knew how it was going to change people’s lives. It was a bizarre album for the instruments they used, the sound they made – the first weird band I got into!

I went to university and discovered a whole load of music I didn’t know about, the widest range of music from meeting different people. After that you settle into what you know and love and social groups that come off the back of that. After university I started gigging more and going on internet forums – before Facebook, MySpace – Face Party and Friendster were the networks of the time!

When I wasn’t doing data entry I was wasting time on internet forums, and the one I was on most was The Libertines.org. I met a hell of a lot of people through that – some of my very best friends today! It was a new thing in 2003-4, knowing people from log-in names and stuff. I remember when I first went to meet them in Camden and I told my mum, I think she was concerned I was going to get stabbed that night – what if they’re murderers?!

They didn’t kill me though, and the people I met from that social circle are very dear to me these days too. It all stems from the fact it was the Libertines board. My job is probably a result of people I met on that board, and knowing I wanted to get a job in music. I didn’t talk about the music to be fair! They were the band for a year-18 months who had their moment where they burned very brightly, and they pissed it all up the wall. They’re not the same band they were then, but I still love them for what they were.

The Cribs were one of the bands who got tagged on to what was known as the ‘Nigel’ scene, bands like Selfish C**t, The Unstrung, Special Needs. Some of the bands made the best out of being in that category, and The Cribs somehow got associated with it despite having nothing to do with London! They played a lot in Lodnon, stayed and crashed down here a lot, and I ended up going to a lot of their gigs.

They’re definitely my favourite live band, probably recorded band too, and I was fortunate to go in the studio when they recorded their second album, hearing Hey Scenesters! for the first time and recording with Edwyn Collins, an absolute legend. I was fortunate to record with them (on the song Martell) – they’re lovely blokes and a brilliant band. They’ve done very well to hold on to what they had in their early 20s.

What has been your experience of classical music so far?

I don’t really have any, although I was in choirs – I sang famous pieces like Verdi’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Zadok the Priest. On the basis they are classical pieces it’s probably through those, singing them in concerts. In terms of going to watch music I can’t think of many situations other than the 6Music Prom with Laura Marling in 2013. I saw Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall but would say that was an opera rather than classical.

How would you rate your first Proms experience?

It was very interesting. I’d never considered going to a classical concert and standing up, like you do in the arena, ‘in the pit’. That was quite surreal, with people standing, sitting, lying down – all in their own world. It was a different type of person at the sides, a bit older, wiser, maybe richer. I really enjoyed it, I wasn’t expecting to stand but it was unexpected and enjoyable!

I’ve always thought of the Proms as a classical music event but as I was listening to the first piece I didn’t think it sounded classical! I would say it was more orchestral than anything else. The orchestra pinned it all together. The first piece she was talking about science and mathematics had influenced her, and it didn’t sound classical in the same way that the Shostakovich did, the more sorrowful, mournful Russian piece. The symphony screamed ‘classical’ at me though!

What might you improve about the experience?

It had the formula you spoke about before the concert, where you might get a piece you didn’t know to start with, and then the cellist – who was exceptional! – and then the symphony, the larger piece with all the instruments. I think that approach works well. If you started with the symphony people would probably leave when they’ve heard the bit they know, so I understand why it works that way.

I don’t know if I would necessarily change anything but I might do something more aligned to my personal tastes – musicians I love, a piece I have an affinity with – thinking about films I love with classical or orchestral music in. There are definitely things I would want to do but I don’t think I would change the theme of tonight’s event, I enjoyed it. The symphony was what I would expect from a night out at the Proms – quiet and then loud – but I loved it.

Would you go again?

Yeah, definitely. It’s not something I’ve ever gone and bought tickets for but I didn’t know you could do the standing option, and I’d do that again. You didn’t tell me what this night was about and I didn’t research it, but I was pleasantly surprised. If I was looking through a Proms calendar there is no reason why I would have chosen tonight, but it was probably a perfect example about what they are about. I would definitely go again, and probably go to a random Proms event – it would be as rewarding as someone you know. So after that I would wholeheartedly recommend going to watch the Proms!

Verdict: SUCCESS

 

BBC Proms 2016 – Louis Lortie: Venezia e Napoli

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Louis Lortie (piano) © Elias

Rossini, transcribed Liszt La regata veneziana; La danza (1830-35, transcr. 1837)

Poulenc Napoli (1925)

Fauré Barcarolle no.5 in F sharp minor Op.66 (1894); Barcarolle no.7 in D minor Op.90 (1905)

Liszt Venezia e Napoli (1859)

Cadogan Hall, Monday 22 August 2016

Listen to this concert on the BBC iPlayer

For an hour Louis Lortie managed to transport the Cadogan Hall audience to even sunnier climes – to Venice and Napoli, to be exact. He did this through a well constructed program painting pictures of the Italian cities and regions from afar, for none of the chosen composers were Italian.

All except Rossini, that is – though the two Soirées Musicales chosen for this concert were given in arrangements made by Liszt. Typically these were hyped up for concert audiences, but as in most of Liszt’s transcriptions there is a sensitive side staying true to the original, and Lortie found that unerringly in the humour of La danza.

We transferred from Venice to Naples for Francis Poulenc’s brief but vivid three-movement portrait. The central Nocturne was the great find here, a really lovely bit of descriptive music bookended by two fast movements typical of Poulenc in their wit and, in the Caprice italien, a deceptively soft heart that Lortie delighted in showing us.

It was especially good to hear two of Fauré’s Barcarolles included, especially as Louis Lortie has realised his love of the composer’s music in a new disc from Chandos. The Barcarolles are real diamonds, perfect for listening at either end of the day, and are highly original in their elevation of an older art form all but ignored by other composers. Lortie showed concert audiences need not be dissuaded by them either, with a darkly shaded Barcarolle no.7, which found some of the Fauré’s shadowy writing encroaching from the edges like the approach of night. Meanwhile the distinctive motif of the Barcarolle no.5 was ever-present, though towards the end of this the pianist was too full with his volume at the bell-like top end of the register.

That said, his playing throughout was remarkably accurate and expressive, and both qualities were evident in a superb performance of Venezia e Napoli, the epilogue to part two of Liszt’s piano travelogue Années de Pèlerinage. The virtuosity on show was breathtaking in the final Tarantella, but it was the poetic depiction of the gondola and the slower Canzone, with its majestic interpretation of Rossini’s Otello, that really hit home.

Ben Hogwood