Tag Archives: Clare Hammond

On Record – Robert Saxton: Portrait (Métier)

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Saxton
A Hymn to the Thames (2020)
James Turnbull (oboe), St Paul’s Sinfonia / Andrew Morley
Fantasy Pieces (2020)
Fidelio Trio [Darragh Morgan (violin), Tim Gill (cello), Mary Dullea (piano)]
Time and the Seasons (2013)
Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew West (piano)
Suite (2019)
Madeleine Mitchell (violin), Clare Hammond (piano)

Métier msv28624 [69’40’’]
Producers / Engineers Adaq Khan, Stewart Smith (Time and the Seasons)

Recorded 12 March 2014 at King’s Hall, Ilkley (Time and the Seasons); 27 January 2020 at St John the Evangelist, Oxford (Suite); 7 November 2021 at Conway Hall, London (Fantasy Pieces); 28 January 2022 at St John the Evangelist, London (A Hymn to the Thames)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Having issued several of his works on miscellanies, Métier now issues a release devoted to Robert Saxton – this Portrait comprising four pieces which, written during the past decade, make for a revealing overview of the composer’s musical and wider aesthetic convictions.

What’s the music like?

Earliest among these works is Time and the Seasons – a song-cycle to Saxton’s own poems, in which memories of the composer’s long attraction to the south-eastern Norfolk coast are elided with a seasonal traversal from then back to winter; and itself underpinned by a tonal evolution drawing the six songs into a musical continuity. A piano solo Summer Seascape provides a formal and expressive pivot, the baritone solo Autumn an entrée into the The beach in winter as foregrounds human activity against a backdrop of temporal permanence.

Although they likewise have descriptive titles, the five pieces that comprise Suite for violin and piano seem inherently abstract in their content. Following the cumulative activity then limpid evocation of the first two, the others play without pause – the visceral immediacy of Jacob and the Angel, then the ethereal interplay in Bells of Memory, leading into Quest with (as in the song-cycle) a sense of this music having come full-circle yet simultaneously setting out fresh possibilities – tonal and emotional – to be pursued in future compositions.

The composer himself notes that Fantasy Pieces for piano trio, despite its title and scoring, is not related to Schumann’s eponymous work in any formal or thematic sense. Instead of the latter’s four character-pieces, moreover, Saxton opts for six continuous items whose fluidity of content and intuitive follow-through readily point up the various connotations of the title. That the closing piece seeks to provide a definite resolution while imparting a sense of open-endedness to the sequence overall is merely the most arresting facet of this engaging work.

Closure and un-restrictedness are no less crucial in A Hymn to the Thames, a concertante for oboe and ‘Classical’ forces whose four movements outline the river’s journey from its source in the Cotswolds to its estuary at the North Sea. Allusions to places encountered on route are deftly inferred (notably choral works by Taverner and Tallis), with the soloist a ‘first among equals’ as it leads the orchestra on through these contrasted musical landscapes towards a heightened arrival as the river meets the sea and, in turn, a comparable sense of renewal.

Does it all work?

It does. Saxton observed several years ago his music had become both more serial and tonal in its preoccupations, as is evident from the works recorded here. An incidental fascination is how each section or movement, appealing in itself, yet leaves a sense of open-endedness that is only resolved through the context in which they appear. This will doubtless be evident on a larger scale when Saxton’s Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh is premiered by the English Symphony Orchestra in Oxford as part of its 21st Century Symphony Project on March 10th.

Is it recommended?

Very much so. Excellence of performers and performances is matched by sound which gives little indication of any disparity in venues or dates, and the composer provides informative booklet notes. Hopefully further releases of Saxton will be forthcoming from this source.

For purchase information on this album, and to hear sound clips, visit the Divine Art Recordings Group website. For more on the composer, visit Robert Saxton’s dedicated website – and for more on the performers, click on Clare Hammond, Madeleine Mitchell, Andrew Morley, James Turnbull, Andrew West, Roderick Williams, Fidelio Trio and St. Paul’s Sinfonia

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

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clare-hammond-grieg

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

Playlist – Clare Hammond

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It is with great pleasure that we welcome pianist Clare Hammond to the Arcana playlist section.

Clare has just released a new solo album, Variations. It is a typically thoughtful and inventive program of works from the 20th and 21st-centuries, ranging from  Adams to Birtwistle, Copland to Gubaidulina.

We invited Clare to complement her new album with a selection of her own favourite sets of variations, and she has obliged with some new discoveries. We begin with one of the greatest of all, the towering Passacaglia for organ by Bach, via Leopold Stokowski‘s colourful orchestration. Then we downsize for Louise Farrenc‘s Variations concertantes sur mélodie suisse, for violin and piano, before we hear from George Walker, the first African American to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and only recently getting more exposure as a composer. Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, with her Theme with Variations, offers a strong contrast to the Farrenc, again for violin and piano.

A Decca recording from 1993 follows, an early bit of recognition for the craft of Coleridge-Taylor and his substantial Variations on an African Air for orchestra. We go to piano for Lili Boulanger‘s typically concise and expressive contribution, before the wonderfully humourous, wacky and brilliant Variations on America by Charles Ives, in the orchestration by William Schuman.

Make sure you have a listen to this as well as Clare’s album, to be reviewed on Arcana soon. Our grateful thanks to her for an invigorating hour of music:

You can read more about Clare Hammond’s Variations album on the BIS website, and to hear clips and purchase from Presto Classical, click here

On record – Clare Hammond, Swedish Chamber Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan: Mysliveček: Complete Music for Keyboard (BIS)

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Clare Hammond (piano), Swedish Chamber Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan

Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781)
Keyboard Concerto no.1 in B flat major (late 1770s)
Six Easy Divertimenti for Harpsichord or Piano-forte (1777)
Keyboard Concerto no.2 in F major (late 1770s)
Six Easy Lessons for the Harpsichord: Sonatas 1-6 (1780)

BIS BIS-2393 [74’22”]

Producer and Engineer Thore Brinkmann

Recorded March 2018 at the Örebro Concert Hall, Sweden

Written by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Not many composers could claim to have influenced one of the greatest composers to have lived, but Il Boemo (The Bohemian) could do just that. Josef Mysliveček, to whom the nickname was applied, was a Czech composer of rare standing and a mentor to Mozart in the 1770s. He had a life of eyebrow-raising but ultimately tragic events, culminating with his death in great poverty in Rome in 1781, having nearly lost his nose a couple of years earlier to a botched operation.

Clare Hammond’s interview for this site puts more musical detail onto his fascinating tale. More importantly this disc for BIS serves notice of Mysliveček’s standing as an important musical figure and prodigiously talented composer. If you like Mozart, his music is a natural but essential step for further exploration.

What’s the music like?

Really enjoyable. The Piano Concerto no.1, where Hammond is joined by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan, has a sparky personality, with plenty of vigour in its fast outer movements and elegance in the softly voiced central slow movement. There is an economy of thought, too – it finishes quickly with the minimum of fuss.

Clare Hammond clearly loves this music, and she plays with poise but also enjoys the instinctive nature of Mysliveček’s writing. The solo works are notable for their compressed construction, never threatening to outstay their welcome and on occasion producing unexpectedly dark undercurrents.

She is alive to these and handles the technical challenges really well. The Six Easy Divertimenti sound anything but unless they are in her hands! She makes the most of their tendencies to surprise, as in the mysterious pauses on some pretty exotic chords in the fifth piece.

The Piano Concerto no.2 has some notable syncopations in its first movement, as well as some adventurous harmonic diversions, before slipping into the minor key for a profound slow movement. Some of the music is contrary, staying away from big technical displays when you might expect them, but the third movement has a spring in its step nonetheless.

The Six Easy Lessons (again sounding pretty difficult!) bring parallels with the keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti, and receive crisp and characterful performances. The second movement of the First Lesson reminds of the Czech composer’s tendency to spice up his melodies with chromatic movement, and this is one of many good tunes to be found throughout these spirited pieces.

Does it all work?

Yes. The structure of Mysliveček’s output from Hammond gives an ideally balanced disc, with the concertos complemented by the solo works. The clarity of her performance ensures it can be heard in the best possible light, and recording from the BIS engineering team is ideal.

Is it recommended?

Yes, and it fills a gap in the 18th century discography. Here is an important figure on whom the spotlight so rarely shines – and we are grateful to Hammond and McGegan for directing it to the right place.

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You can buy this release directly from the BIS website

Talking Heads: Clare Hammond

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Clare Hammond talks to Arcana about her upcoming world premiere performance in Cardiff’s Hoddinott Hall of Kenneth Hesketh’s new Piano Concerto, and new disc of music by Mysliveček.

Interviewed by Ben Hogwood

The premiere of a piano concerto remains a special event, even in a form that has been in existence for at least three hundred years. Pianist Clare Hammond currently has interest in both ends of that evolutionary spectrum, for in the first quarter of 2019 she gives the premiere of a brand new Piano Concerto, by Kenneth Hesketh – but also releases a new disc of little-known works for keyboard by 18th century Czech composer Josef Myslivecek, including two piano concertos.

Arcana took the opportunity to talk with Clare about these exciting developments, beginning with Kenneth Hesketh’s new work, due to premiere this Friday! His concerto has the intriguing title Uncoiling The River, which perhaps unwittingly is depicted in visual form by the river of paper required for the piece and posted on Twitter by Hammond recently:

Clare has no doubt on which way her latest encounter with Hesketh’s music is likely to head. “It’s going to be absolutely brilliant”, she enthuses. “It’s a mammoth piece from list of… Lots more to do than just play the notes on the piano. New influences, incredibly complex. Rich work on all fronts.” It is the latest in an extremely productive meeting of creative minds. “We met in 2010, and since then we have worked together a lot,” she explains. “Ken has talked about writing a concerto for some time, and pitched it to the BBC and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. We managed to get things together, and he wrote it once we had the commission.”

It was not the first time Hesketh has written for Hammond, with a complete solo piano disc entitled horae (pro Clara) released on BIS last year. “The horae is a 40-minute solo piece written for me, and it uses extended techniques,” she explains. “Ken’s style of writing is often very complex and dense, and it has a lot of mechanical energy. I feel quite natural with it although it takes ages to learn the notes.”

How long did it take to learn the concerto? “To get up to speed, to the state of working with an orchestra, takes about three weeks”, she says. “I like to blitz things! I’m much quicker than I used to be, and I have methods. I have new ways of marking up scores, in my own different colours, I found it really helps and I have funny ways of managing music, with the page turning especially.”

Uncoiling The River, while dedicated to Clare, has a meaningful dedication to her second daughter, one-year old Emme. “It’s particularly personal as we’ve developed a close collaborative relationship. In the Piano Concerto we use a Kolam for Emme, which is a Hindu tradition passed on from mother to daughter. It is a geometric pattern made with coloured rice, and that is the point in the concerto where I use the bells – I have ten of them on a table next to me, and the Kolam dictates the way they are laid out. It’s a nice thing for Emme, and Ken’s also drawn a picture for her that she has in her room.”

Understandably Emme will not be at the premiere, which will take place in the BBC’s Hoddinott Hall at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff. It will form the centrepiece of a concert marking the hall’s tenth anniversary, and judging from the opening page will feature a sizeable orchestra. “They are quite large forces,” confirms Hammond, “but Ken uses every element in a very imaginative way. It’s a completely unified piece of writing. We don’t rehearse with the orchestra until two days before the concert, but I’ve heard a MIDI version in Sibelius that replicates the sonorities, which is really helpful.”

I ask Clare about the stylistic innovations she mentions in the piece. “It is a very tense and complex piece. I’m assured the orchestral parts aren’t too complicated but sometimes he has a very different sonority in mind. One of the main influences on his sound was the time he spent as a choirboy in Liverpool Cathedral, and how he heard the music from where he was singing. The sonorities he heard in the cathedral mean it wouldn’t necessarily be crystal clear, but he uses that to the advantage of the overall sound and it’s in force here. It has informed a lot of his work over the years, too, to play with the sound in an architectural sense.”

Hesketh is not the only composer with whom Hammond enjoys a strong creative bond. Her recent disc of piano works by Robert Saxton garnered critical acclaim (not least on Arcana). “That was a lovely disc to make, because he is another composer with whom I have a good relationship over a long period of time. Over half the disc is music written for me so it is a really personal piece of work. It finishes with a lullaby for Rose my older daughter. He ‘met’ her when she was 2 months old, and since it was released it’s got an enormous number of hits on Spotify thanks to being included in a number of playlists.”

She is keenly aware of the importance to combine working with living composers and playing much ‘older’ music, and highlights the mutual benefit of working this way. “For me it’s a really fulfilling way of doing things and exploring the repertoire. You’re continually pushing boundaries, both stylistically and personally. I think getting the composer’s feedback in real life is great too. Sometimes we deify the music that has lasted all this time from Mozart and Beethoven, say, and you have to touch it with kid gloves. The composers I’ve worked with are practical and pragmatic and know how to create the sounds that they want, and there’s not that stultifying approach at all.”

From Mozart’s time rather than Beethoven’s, Josef Mysliveček is a very intriguing figure to say the least. “He was friends with Mozart, and was the only composer that Mozart really respected”, says Hammond, “though sadly they became estranged because of his business with Mozart’s father Leopold”. It is tempting to thing Mysliveček would be considered for reappraisal because of his colourful past (he was known as Il Boemo (The Bohemian) but as Hammond explains it is his music that does the talking.

“Mysliveček’s music has a certain freshness and a vitality to it, and although now we are used to complex textures and outlandish harmonies, this was all very exciting in his time. It’s a new thing for me – and if he is completely new to you as a composer I would recommend you start off with his Wind Octets:”

For her new disc of Mysliveček Keyboard Concertos and solo works, due for release on BIS Records in March, Hammond worked with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. It is another example of a rich and varied career of collaborations, typified by a recent audiovisual project Ghosts And Whispers. It is described on her website as ‘an unbroken sequence of fragments, last thoughts, elegies and absences by Schubert, Mozart, Wagner, Janáček, Stravinsky, Jacquet de la Guerre and Schumann, inter-leaved with movements from John Woolrich’s Pianobook.’

Her enthusiasm for the project matches that for her work Hesketh and Mysliveček. “I want to continue with it, as it’s been really interesting. Initially John Woolrich got in touch with the Quay Brothers, who are stop-motion animators, and had the idea for this project. I don’t have much experience in this area, and working with living artists is really interesting. I only actually saw myself in it recently, and it was the first time I’ve heard it and seen it for the first time. The synchronisation informs the narrative of the film and that’s really exciting.”

This is not the only time Hammond has appeared on film, for she has a piano-playing role as a younger Miss Shepherd in the big screen adaptation of Alan Bennett’s play The Lady in the Van. “If the opportunity comes up again I would do it for sure,” she says. “That film was particularly lovely, and not just because I was working with people who are brilliant at their job but because they are really nice people. It came out the blue, from a friend of the composer assisting George Fenton, who wrote the soundtrack. They needed a young pianist with blue eyes, and they thought of me!”

Clare Hammond and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Martyn Brabbins, will give the world premiere of Kenneth Hesketh’s Piano Concerto, Uncoiling the River, as part of a concert celebrating the 10th birthday of the Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff on Friday 25 January. The concert will be subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Details of her new, forthcoming disc of Mysliveček – due for release on BIS in March – can be found on Hammond’s website.