Tag Archives: BBC Singers

BBC Proms 2023 – Jon Hopkins with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jules Buckley

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Prom 58

Hopkins
ATHOS (arr. Jules Buckley) (BBC Commission, world premiere)
Feel First Life (arr. Peter Riley & Leo Abrahams)
The Wider Sun (arr. Sam Gale)
Singularity (arr. Simon Dobson)
Music for Psychedelic Therapy – excerpt (arr. Peter Riley)
Form by Firelight (arr. Peter Riley)
Luna Moth (arr. Sam Gale)
Collider (arr. Simon Dobson)
Abandon Window (arr. Tom Trapp)
Recovery

Jon Hopkins (piano, programming), Leo Abrahams (guitar), BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master David Young), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Jules Buckley

Royal Albert Hall, London
Tuesday 29 August 2023

by Ben Hogwood photos by Mark Allan / BBC

Electronic and orchestral music are more closely related than you might think, with Jon Hopkins a classic case in point. For 15 years, the pianist and producer has been carefully sculpting his music either as a contributor for other artists (King Creosote, Coldplay and Brian Eno to name just three) or making his own, weather-beaten albums. Starting with Opalescent and Insides, these have developed into immersive meditations (Singularity and the most recent long player Music for Psychedelic Therapy) by way of more full-bodied rave music (2013’s Immunity). How, then, does this music hold up in a packed and expectant Royal Albert Hall?

Extremely well as it turns out. In order to achieve what he described beforehand as ‘a meditation for 5,000 people’, Hopkins has to temporarily turn his back on beat-driven, post-rave landmarks such as Collider or Form By Firelight. When such material appears, its percussive impact is modified so that the main job is done by the timeless, meditative chorale echoing around the hall.

Hopkins’ music is repetitive, but as with the best exponents of minimalism – Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams, for instance – the material under repetition rewards the investment made. The mind is eased, enjoying the upfront melodies but also taking up the option of picking out new threads beneath the surface, like examining a tartan pattern under a magnifying glass.

The tartan analogy is purposeful, for Hopkins’ earlier music has a distinctive Celtic edge furthered by his work with King Creosote. The Wider Sun, from 2009 album Insides, has an authentic left of centre tuning, is slow but packs emotional heft, beautifully arranged by Sam Gale and masterfully weighted by Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra strings.

Before that we hear a new piece, the 25-minute ATHOS demonstrating Hopkins’ control of larger structures. This is a natural direction for his music to be taking after Music for Psychedelic Therapy, for it is effectively an album ‘A’ side of several interwoven tracks. The profile and material of ATHOS sits closely to composers such as Arvo Pärt, and in particular his Credo, but Hopkins has up his sleeve a number of heart-shifting modulations. Accentuated by the Royal Albert Hall organ, these are once heard, never forgotten moments.

So, too, are the choral passages, thanks to pinpoint interpretations from the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Chorus, whose lines float effortlessly above the orchestral forces. Their vocal control is masterful and effortless, ensuring the sustained notes keep their emotional impact without wavering. Lesser singers would have tailed off long before these ones even think of blinking!

The sequence of music, running for approximately 75 minutes, is well chosen. Only on occasion does the source material become oversimplified, and as it turns out these moments serve as natural pauses for breath in the musical tapestry.

Guitarist Leo Abrahams, appearing for the last two numbers, makes a critical contribution (above). A good friend and established collaborator with Hopkins and Eno, he brings a sharper timbre to the shredded distortion of Recovery, which is – as throughout – complemented by imaginative and sympathetic lighting.

This was a multisensory Prom, containing a different sort of symphony to which the Royal Albert Hall is normally accustomed. Hopkins has proved his credentials in mastering larger structures, and his development in this field will be worth watching for sure. For now, the afterglow remains.

For more on the 2023 BBC Proms, visit the festival’s website at the BBC. For more on the artists, click here to read about Jon Hopkins, Leo Abrahams, Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC Proms 2023 – we’re underway…

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Yesterday saw the start of the biggest festival in British classical music, the BBC Proms – broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall.

Dalia Stasevska, guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, led passionate Nordic music from Sibelius (the choral version of Finlandia with the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Chorus, and a new arrangement of Snöfrid, narrated by actress Lesley Manville) and Grieg, whose evergreen Piano Concerto was given a new lick of paint by a wonderful interpretation from Paul Lewis.

Also featured was a Sibelian new work, Let There Be Light, from Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak – a composer definitely worth seeking out in this evidence – and the concert closed with Britten‘s Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra, with its triumphant fugal finale.

You can watch the Prom here on the BBC iPlayer:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001nr5b/bbc-proms-2023-first-night-of-the-proms

Arcana will be covering a good number of concerts as the season progresses, so check back through July and August to read more!

In Concert – BBC Singers @ St Giles’ Cripplegate & St Paul’s Knightsbridge

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by John Earls

It has been quite a time for the BBC Singers recently. As this world-renowned choir approaches its 100th anniversary, the past few weeks have seen the BBC announce their closure, and magnificent campaign against it in response (including more than 700 composers writing to the BBC director general in condemnation) Here on Arcana you can get a glimpse of their recorded worth, with an appreciation and a BBC Singers playlist.

Thankfully a temporary reprieve has since been issued, with the BBC issuing a statement on an “alternative funding solution”.

All of this was book-ended by two concerts of sacred music broadcast on BBC Radio 3 for Holy Week, both demonstrating what a unique and valuable choir they are.

On 17th March they gave their first concert following the BBC’s shameful axing announcement at St Giles’ Cripplegate in London. It was inevitably a special and emotional occasion. The programme of choral and cello music went under the bitterly ironic title of All Will Be Well (after Roxanna Panufnik’s piece of the same name which concluded the programme). “I’m still the producer of the BBC Singers” said Jonathan Manners in his introduction to much applause.

The concert was a fitting example of the range and depth of the choir’s repertoire in terms of time (it opened with Hildegard von Bingen’s O cruor sanguinis from the 12th Century) and style. It displayed impressively their ability to convey a sense of comfort and balm such as in Lesia Dychko’s short piece Blessed be the name (Emma Tring a beautiful solo soprano) as well something more unsettling like Fac me tecum pie flere by Sven-David Sandström.

But this was a programme of choral and cello music and cellist Benjamin Hughes was individually expressive as well as combining powerfully with the choir, both in evidence in Knut Nystedt’s Stabat Mater.

A magnificent encore of Maurice Duruflé’s motet Ubi Caritas was followed by a rapturous and moving ovation (below)

The concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Palm Sunday and is available online for a limited period.

Less than three weeks later, and following the BBC statement announcing a suspension of the closure, the group performed a Music for Maundy Thursday concert of sacred pieces on the theme of ‘contemplation, sorrow and reflection’ for live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge, London (above).

Yet again the programme highlighted the sweep of their repertoire opening with a meditative motet from the 1590s, Vittoria Aleotti’s Miserere mei, Deus (from the first published book of sacred music by a woman) and also featuring sacred pieces from the 21st Century (Karin Rehnqvist’s I raise my hands and Judith Bingham’s Watch with Me), as well as William Byrd’s 14th Century The Lamentations of Jeremiah.

But there were two pieces where the group really shone to spectacular effect. Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater à 10, with Richard Pearce on chamber organ, was stunning and utterly compelling in its detailed delivery. Francis Poulenc’s Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence made a glorious finale.

One must also acknowledge the key role of Chief Conductor, Sofi Jeannin, always assured yet empathetic. To watch her conduct is a mesmerising experience in itself.

The extent to which the BBC Singers and Jeannin develop and promote a diverse repertoire (they have a 50:50 gender policy for composers whose music they perform), engage in learning and community work, regularly perform commissions and broadcast on Radio 3 (making their phenomenal output available to such a wide audience) is all part of what makes them so unique.

I have seen them many times over many years and they never fail to move me. These two concerts only served to prove just why they are irreplaceable.

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union and tweets at @john_earls

Click on this text to find out more about the Musicians’ Union campaign to protect the BBC Singers after September and action to stop job cuts at BBC Orchestras

In appreciation – BBC Singers

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by Ben Hogwood

Yesterday we learned of the almost incomprehensible decision by the BBC that they were planning to close the BBC Singers. The choir is one of the leading ensembles of its type in the UK – if not the leading example – and have been responsible for many important premieres and landmark concerts over their 99-year existence.

Only in 2020 they were on stage as the Proms concerts returned, with a memorable performance of Eric Whitacre‘s Sleep, while if you want proof of their versatility from this year, watch this video of an arrangement of ABBA‘s Little Things:

The Spotify playlist below celebrates just some of the recordings made by the BBC Singers, in the hope that they will somehow be able to continue their invaluable service to British music. Included are shorter works by John McCabe, Sir Michael Tippett, Elizabeth Maconchy and Diana Burrell, alongside excerpts from Mozart’s Requiem, under Jane Glover, Janáček’s The Excursions Of Mr. Brouček, in a Proms performance under Jiří Bělohlávek, and the same forces at work in Smetana’s large scale opera Dalibor.

Finally the Singers can be heard in the striking Moth Requiem by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, which they premiered at the Proms in 2013.

If you do listen, please also make sure you sign the petition calling for the BBC to reconsider their decision,

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5UHuCOPufS5N4jl5JUrxq4?si=79c2f09410fb4113

On record: BBC Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins – Vaughan Williams: Symphony no.5 & Scenes adapted from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

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*Emily Portman (singer); *Kitty Whatley (mezzo-soprano); *Marcus Farnsworth (baritone), *BBC Singers; *BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins

Vaughan Williams
Symphony no.5 in D major (1938-43)
Scenes adapted from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1906)*

Hyperion CDA68325 [66’59”]
English text included
Producer Andrew Keener
Engineer Simon Eadon

Recorded 2 December 2018* & 4-5 November 2019 (Symphony 5), Watford Colosseum, UK

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Martyn Brabbins’s traversal of Vaughan Williams symphonies continues with the Fifth, long the most widely regarded of this cycle, alongside music written for a dramatized production which effectively launched the composer’s lifelong obsession with John Bunyan’s ‘allegory’.

What’s the music like?

Premiered in June 1943, the Fifth Symphony poses a challenge or even provocation through that inwardness all too easily regarded as escapism. A ‘less is more’ concept which Brabbins clearly appreciates – not least in a Preludio as builds incrementally, with little overt rapture going into the radiant second theme or a development understatedly accruing energy, toward a reprise whose climactic restatement of the second theme is (purposely?) less arresting than a coda in which any tonal ambiguity feels the more real for happening almost out of earshot. Easy to skate over, the Scherzo emerges with not a little malevolence in the deftness of its cross-rhythms – the chorale-like aspect of its trio questioning rather than affirming, then the return of the opening music exuding a sardonic quality left unresolved by the spectral close.

That the Romanza is the emotional heart of this work only increases a need for its contrast of moods to be (subtly) underlined. Brabbins achieves exactly so through an adroit interplay of the melodic and harmonic components whose cumulative yet unforced evolution accords the central phase of the movement an encroaching anxiety barely pacified at its culmination, before being more wholly transcended by a coda that is luminous in its simplicity and poise. Often thought unsatisfactory as a formal design, the final Passacaglia seems of a piece with what went before; its theme stated simply while purposefully before the variations build to a resolute central climax – after which, those conflicting elements of negation and affirmation are sublimated into a postlude which reaches out as though at once entreaty and benediction.

As a coupling, Scenes adapted from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress could not be more apposite. Written for a staging at Reigate Priory, the 13 short items unfold well as a continual sequence at the outset of an involvement with Bunyan’s novel that resulted in an evening-length drama 45 years on. Highlights are Emily Portman’s disarming take on the ‘Flower-girl’s song’, ‘The angel’s song’ eloquently rendered by Kitty Whately (her contribution an undoubted highpoint of ENO’s uneven 2012 production), Marcus Farnsworth’s fervour in a setting of Psalm 23 as constitutes the Shepherd’s Song, and lusty response from the BBC Symphony Chorus in The arming of Christian (best known as the hymn To be a Pilgrim) then a rapturous Final scene music which also serves as reminder that VW’s Tallis Fantasia was merely four years hence.

Does it all work?

It does. Brabbins’s Fifth may not be the most fervent or powerful but has the work’s measure as a cohesive and integrated entity. The Pilgrim’s Progress ‘Scenes’ makes for a fascinating comparison with subsequent versions in VW’s decades-long quest for a satisfying realization.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The sound is on a par with previous instalments in its clarity and realism, and Robert Matthew-Walker’s booklet note expertly clears up any uncertainty over the genesis of VW’s Bunyan-related projects. Those remaining symphonies will hopefully not be long in coming.

For further information on this release, visit the Hyperion website, or the BBC Symphony Orchestra. You can also read Arcana’s interview with the conductor here