Smyth Piano Sonata no.3 (1877); Piano Sonata no.2 (Andante) (1877) Maconchy A Country Town (nos. 1, 3, 4, 5 & 7) (1945) Williams The Silent Pool (1932) Grime The Silver Moon (2025) Dring Colour Suite (1963) Bingham The Moon Over Westminster Cathedral (2003) Woodforde-Finden Indian Love Lyrics (nos.2 & 1) (1903) McDowall Vespers in Venice (2002) Bingham Christmas Past, Christmas Present (1991) Roe A Mystery of Cats (nos. 1, 4 & 5) (1994) Beamish Lullaby for Owain (2016) Da Costa Gigue; Moods (both 1930) Lehmann Cobweb Castle (nos. 2 & 5) (1908)
Heritage Records HTGCD126 [75’40”] Producer / Engineer Paul Arden-Taylor
Recorded 16 September 2024 & 26 January 2025 at Wyastone Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Peter Jacobs continues his productive association with the Heritage label with this anthology that takes in a well-planned overview of piano music by female British composers, ranging across over more than 130 years of creativity in an impressive variety of idioms and genres.
What’s the music like?
Although female composers had been active in the UK from the outset of the English Musical Renaissance and before, relatively few came to prominence during their lifetime, with many others destined to be rediscovered only years and sometimes decades after their death. While hardly the first of its kind, the present collection is among the most representative in terms of its stylistic coverage which, in turn, underlines they should not be pigeon-holed any more than their male counterparts. Moreover, what was the loss to earlier generations is our gain today.
This recital opens with the redoubtable Ethel Smyth – her Third Piano Sonata contrasting the equable motion of its initial Allegro with the impetuous manner of its closing Allegro vivace. From its larger scale predecessor, the central Song Without Words affords ruminative space between the dynamism and tensions of those movements either side. Of the five (out of nine) pieces in Elizabeth Maconchy’s suite, the eloquent Lament and limpid Bells are especially appealing. Grace Williams is at her most haunting in the piece as gives this collection its title, and Helen Grime pens a miniature stark yet pellucid. Among the most versatile composers of her generation, Madeleine Dring is represented here by a five-movement themed suite which includes such delights as the quizzical Pink Mirror or the appropriately sensuous Blue Air. Judith Bingham may be best known for her choral and brass band music, but there is nothing unpianistic about so translucently textured a nocturne.
Two of Amy Woodforde-Finden’s four-piece suite include the elegant poise of Less than the Dust, while Cecilia McDowall sounds a note of spatial immensity in her Venetian evocation. The four pieces of her Christmas suite find Bingham pursuing an altogether more winsome vein of expression – duly complemented by three out of five whimsical feline homages by Betty Roe, happily still going strong in her 96th year. Sally Beamish contributes a (surprisingly?) capricious lullaby, with two pieces by the short-lived Raie da Costa typifying her witty and sassy manner. The wistful charm of Liza Lehmann, two of six pieces from her only piano suite, affords an elegant then touching envoi.
Does it all work?
As an overall sequence, absolutely. At around 75 minutes, this concert-length recital can be enjoyed as a continuous sequence or in any number of selections. It helps when Jacobs is so persuasive an exponent of this music, much of it remaining little known other than to pianists with his breadth of sympathies but which ought to find an audience given exposure in a live context. As he himself notes, this “random selection [is] united by being rewarding to play, beautifully written for the instrument, varied in style and intellectual depth”. Enough said.
Is it recommended?
It is. Piano sound is as full and spacious as expected given its Wyastone source, while Jacobs contributes laconically insightful notes on the recital overall. Most enjoyable, with hopefully enough material in this pianist’s “library of over 60 years collecting” to warrant a follow-up.
Listen / Buy
You can read more about this release and explore purchase options at the Heritage Records website
In the classical music calendar, summer effectively begins with the start of the Aldeburgh Festival. This year’s model – the 76th running of the Suffolk festival – comes prefaced by a line from Shelley:
And, hark! Their sweet sad voices! ‘t is despair Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.
At the heart of this year’s festival are four featured artists – tenor Allan Clayton, violinist Leila Josefowicz and composers Daniel Kidane and Helen Grime. Scottish composer Grime, currently living in London, joined Arcana for a chat to talk about the range of her compositions in the festival this year, and the close link she enjoys with its audience and organisers.
Her first experiences of the festival date back to 2005, when she was on the Britten Pears Advanced Composition course. “I was studying on that and Colin Matthews was there, and I went back in 2006 to hear the performance of the piece I wrote while I was there. I also played in the chamber orchestra for the War Requiem on a course, and I played in Britten’s Nocturne as well, which was amazing. Those were the first experiences, and I also went to an opera writing course as a composer, which would probably have been 2006. Then in 2009 I wrote a piece called A Cold Spring, for chamber ensemble. It was a joint commission with Aldeburgh Music, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the Sue Knussen Trust. The piece was in the same program as an Elliott Carter premiere (On Conversing With Paradise). He was there, and it was an amazing time.”
Carter is a composer Grime has always admired, and she had met him the previous year. “I was a fellow in the Tanglewood Music Center, and it was his 100th birthday year. They have a festival of contemporary music every year, and that year it was completely devoted to Elliot Carter’s music. As composers we had the opportunity to go to all the rehearsals and concerts, and it was a chance to immerse yourself in a composer’s work – lots of his chamber music but also the orchestral works. This was the time that I really dived into his music and were able to meet him and ask him questions. It was an incredible point in history to think back to really, and he had so many amazing things to say. He was able to go back in time and talk about his time studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and moments in jazz bars, little things that maybe you haven’t read in a book. Hearing that directly from the composer is a fantastic experience!”
Helen lived in Edinburgh initially but moved to London for studying, and has stayed. Her music still carries parallels to her Scottish roots – and these are evident in Folk, premiered by soprano Claire Booth with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Wigglesworth in Glasgow. “Scotland still feels like home”, she says, “and I’m so fond of that orchestra. I’ve worked with them a fair bit over the years, and it was wonderful to be able to work with them on the premier of Folk, with Ryan Wigglesworth, and of course, Claire.”
The piece will receive a second performance at the Aldeburgh Festival, with the Knussen Chamber Orchestra conducted by Wigglesworth. “I’m excited now for Ryan to do it again with a different with a different group. The piece is rooted in lots of folklore traditions. Zoe Gilbert, who wrote the libretto, is particularly influenced by Manx folklore, but the stories are rooted in different storytelling traditions from different places. She based the libretto on the stories in her book, Folk, so when you read them, you feel the resonance with stories we already know and have known since childhood. She’s subverted lots of roles, but there’s definitely that kind of connection with Scotland and folklore, so I wanted to have that connection in the music as well.”
Arcana was fortunate to interview Claire Booth (above) just before the premiere of Folk, and Grime speaks warmly of her dedicatee. “She is a ball of energy! We’re very different in that way, but we get on very well. She is incredibly talented but also interested in many things. She found the book, and we both loved it, and so she approached Zoe. Obviously, I’ve known her work and singing for years. but we haven’t been working together until last year – although this project was brewing before Covid and then took a while to get it together. I don’t think it’s going to be the last time we work together, so I’m really excited about that. She’s an incredible talent but she brings such a personality to the piece, and she can just do anything. It’s very virtuosic, vocally. In Aldeburgh it will be with a small orchestra, so it will be interesting to hear that, in the Snape hall – but also with the surroundings, it’s made for that. When you’re there, and you’re amongst the reeds, it’s a magical place. You can see so far there, and whenever I’m there it always seems to be really clear skies. That time of dusk is particularly amazing.”
As a featured composer, Grime is presenting a varied body of work for the festival. “It is very satisfying. I’ve written a fair bit of music now, and I’m really happy with, for example, my Missa Brevis happening on the first Sunday. I’m really excited to hear that, as couldn’t go to the premiere in Edinburgh. To have these pieces happening in different locations around Aldeburgh is really special, with chamber music as well as bigger pieces. There is also another premiere, a piece I wrote during lockdown called Prayer which I wrote a while ago, which, again, I haven’t seen in a live performance. The Britten Pears Contemporary Ensemble are going to do that, a piece that I wrote during lockdown. It was recorded but not performed live, with the performers doing their bits separately, and Dame Sarah Connolly singing her bit. It’ll be great to be at an actual performance of that as well.”
Both of Grime’s string quartets will be performed in one recital, from the Heath and Fibonacci Quartets. They hold great personal significance for her. “It’s actually quite strange with the string quartets, because I wrote both of them partly while being pregnant. The first one was written in 2013, which was when I had my first son, so it’s weird that I then was writing another string quartet when I was pregnant with my second son! I was writing it at the beginning of lockdown, when we didn’t really know if things were going to be cancelled that summer. I was stressed out because I still had to meet the deadline, which was probably never going to actually happen – and it didn’t in the end, but I still needed to write the piece. For a lot of people that time they had lots of time to compose, but because everything was cancelled and you had a child who was then not at school, you suddenly didn’t have any time to work either, and there was no childcare of course. It was very intense, and I think the music is very intense, apart from the last movement, which is not intense in the same way and is much more of a release.”
Does it bring back vivid memories when she hears it? “Yeah, I can sort of remember how I felt, but it’s really difficult be in that moment. The Heath Quartet, who premiered and recorded that piece, I just love to hear them play, they made a brilliant recording of it and gave the most amazing premiere. So I can’t wait to hear them play it again, and to hear the other quartet with the Fibonacci Quartet, who I haven’t heard play before. It will be really exciting to hear the two pieces together and on the same program. They are sat between Beethoven and Britten, which I’m so happy about – hopefully they’ll somehow hold their own in amongst all of that! That concert is in Orford Church, so again a different venue which is so nice.”
It may seem an obvious question, but does Britten continue to be a constant presence at the festival? “Yes, and I think that’s the way it should be. I was in Aldeburgh last year, and Claire was there too, because she was coaching the young artists course. I paid my respects to Britten and Pears, at their graves. That line of history is so moving for me, and it’s something I hold close. I love Britten’s music, and it’s always going to be important to me, and that kind of continuation and line of British music is a beautiful thing. Having the opportunity to be a featured composer and to be surrounded by that is it’s a huge privilege.”
The featured artists and composers are chosen with typical care, placing Grime alongside violinist Leila Josefowicz (above), soloist in the composer’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. “I’ve waited a long, long time for the UK premiere of concerto”, she says. “I wrote it for Malin Broman, an amazing Swedish violinist who used to be based in London and who premiered it in 2016, and then Leila took the piece on. She was supposed to be doing the UK premiere in 2020, but she’s played it a lot – in Amsterdam and in Finland. This does feel like the perfect moment, though, because Leila has that real connection with with Oliver Knussen. It’s kind of perfect that the premiere is happening in Aldeburgh. She’s an incredible artist, so the fact that we’re both featured artists is brilliant. I’m really, really excited about hearing Allan Clayton singing, and also Daniel Kidane’s pieces. We have quite a few shared concerts.”
Mention of Knussen leads us to talk about another highly influential composer, a clear influence on Grime both personally and professionally. “I have loved his music since the first time I heard it”, she says. “The first piece I heard was Ophelia Dances. My teacher at the time was Julian Anderson, and he introduced me to his music at the Royal College of Music. Every note is the right note, it’s just so beautifully crafted and exciting and powerful and enchanted.”
I was meant to meet him at the Britten Pears composer’s course, but when I was a fellow in Tanglewood he was out conducting, and he gave some masterclasses. He heard my music, and we got on well. Shortly after that, he conducted a short orchestral peace of mine called Virga, which I wrote as part of the London Symphony Orchestra scheme Sound Adventures, which is now known as the Panufnik Legacies. He was a real supporter of my music. I wrote Night Songs, which is also being done at Aldeburgh, for his 60th birthday celebrations in 2012. I really hold that dear, and I still listen to his music most weeks and days. A brilliant musician, composer, and supporter – and I think many musicians and composers feel the same way. My path would not have been the same at all without meeting Ollie.”
Looking ahead a little, Grime has an album of chamber works due for release on the Delphian label in August, a fascinating collection of works performed by The Hebrides Ensemble. “It’s coincidental to Aldeburgh, but great. The Hebrides Ensemble are one of those amazing groups who’ve been so supportive of me over the years, and they’ve given different performances. To have this portrait CD is fantastic, with a string sextet Into the Faded Air from 2007 right through to Braid Hills, a horn duo I wrote for St Mary’s Music School to celebrate their anniversary in 2022. I can’t wait for it to come out.”
Grime also acknowledges the passion and commitment of Delphian to composer albums such as this. “It’s really difficult to get these projects off the ground today, and very expensive, obviously. The commitment to new music in Delphian is absolutely brilliant, there was a wonderful CD the Hebrides Ensemble did a few years ago on Stuart MacRae, and there was a great collection of Judith Weir.”
With these projects coming to fruition, it is great to report Grime’s composition continues apace. “I’m coming to the end of my teaching turn at the moment, which means we get a bit of time for some holidays to compose. I’m writing a horn concerto at the moment, for Alec Frank-Gemmill and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, so I’m completely immersed in all things horn at the moment! It’s a big piece, a big project, but I like that. I like to get my teeth into something. There are lots of various things on the horizon, too, but that’s the main thing. I’m more of a one piece at a time kind of person. Directly before this, I wrote a song cycle, Bright Travellers, which was premiered at the Leeds Lieder Festival earlier this year by Louise Alder and Joseph Middleton. I’ve been working with a lot of texts, and it’s been great in the last couple of years to work with living writers, that’s quite a new direction for me which is exciting!”
For more information on Helen Grime’s music at the Aldeburgh Festival, head to the Britten Pears Arts website
The leading British soprano talks to Ben Hogwood about her duo of new albums celebrating the music of Schoenberg, as well as a fascinating career that touches on Mussorgsky and her meaningful friendship with Oliver Knussen. Photos (c) Sven Arnstein (above), Mark Allan (Oliver Knussen)
It is no understatement to state that Claire Booth is a national singing treasure. She would be too gracious to admit this, but the British soprano has played a leading role in classical music on these shores, particularly in league with composer and conductor Oliver Knussen as a leading exponent of new compositions.
Yet Booth’s pioneering spirit extends to music of the classical canon, and after Knussen’s sad death in 2018 her work has continued apace. In 2024 she has included a special emphasis on the music of Arnold Schoenberg, 150 years on from the composer’s birth. His music remains a challenge today – but as Booth revealed in an enjoyably candid chat, it is a challenge well worth accepting for the performer and ultimately the listener.
Before we discuss Booth’s new Pierrot Portraits album on Onyx Classics, where she is joined by Ensemble 360 to put Schoenberg’s melodrama Pierrot Lunaire in the context of composers inspired by the Pierrot, I ask her if she can remember her first encounter with Schoenberg’s music. It turns out to be a milestone she will never forget. “The first time I did Pierrot Lunaire, which was the first piece of Schoenberg that I did, was with Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival. I was a young artist on the inaugural Festival Academy. The first year that they did that was just the Ensemble Intercontemporain and Pierre Boulez. Every instrumentalist had one student, so there was basically a student ensemble, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez and Hilary Summers, who was effectively the singing consultant. I was the student singer, so Pierre Boulez basically taught me Pierrot Lunaire! I sort of went, bowed at his feet and said, “Sprechtgesang – how do you do it?”, thinking this is the master of 20th century composition, I’ll get this incredible insight – and he must have been about 70, I suppose, and he just looked at me and said, “You sing a bit, you speak a bit. That’s it.” And actually, he’s so right – because you just learn it like any other piece of music, and you do sing a bit and speak a bit! How you do that is up to you. Like a lot of very, very good musicians, they’re very keen to leave it up to the performer. He wasn’t a micromanager, and when you’re working with really good people they assume you’re as good as them – I mean, the nice ones do. So he just let me get on with it, and those were the parameters.”
Does the straightforward approach remove a temptation to micromanage Pierrot Lunaire itself? “That’s interesting, because you definitely need to put a lot of time in, and by that, you might think, “Gosh, I’m micromanaging this”. But I can think of any Mozart aria that actually, if you pull it apart, you are micromanaging how you are working. There is a certain sense of micromanagement, but there’s quite a negative connotation with that phrase. With Schoenberg’s music people often get stuck in the realm of thinking very carefully and complexly, but ultimately we do that with all repertoire. After that, we free ourselves up and employ our musicality and our professionalism. Once you get to that stage with Pierrot, then it does feel very innate and characterful, you just have to have done the groundwork.”
Booth has worked with one of Pierrot’s legendary interpreters. “I remember Jane Manning told me, in the way that only Jane could, that she had given the most accurate rendition of the piece ever. She’s absolutely right that there is no excuse not to be accurate pitch-wise, but if you listen to someone like Erwin Schrott do Don Giovanni, when he’s singing the recitatives, he’s not caring about the individual notes – but there’s no way he doesn’t know the notes. He’s inhabiting it completely, and it’s such a wonderful way of listening to the freedom of it. You don’t want to get bogged down in the micromanagement of accuracy. You have to be accurate, but then you get to the next level.”
Schoenberg’s detail of colour in the score reaches descriptive heights with the voice and ensemble, colours that present themselves afresh with each listen. “Absolutely. Obviously there were other vocal pieces before Pierrot Lunaire that employed instruments, but I think Schoenberg really did break up the rule book in how he uses the instrumentalists and voice as one. You’ve got five instrumentalists playing eight instruments, and the singer playing three characters and the narrator in a myriad of different emotional states. The palette is so deft that if the performer understands the text in us, it’s a complete gift. The orchestration is so brilliantly witty, clever, charming and poignant – you know, there are echoes of Bach, Mozart, and elegiac and even aggressive qualities to it. Like all the best music there are no extraneous notes, and his decision to play the note in a certain way is just consummate to me. When people come to this new as an audience member, you might be thinking, “What have I let myself in for?” Within five minutes, though, you are in this sound world, and audiences delight in the sheer virtuosity of the world. As a performer you just have to dive right in, and if you really believe in what is written, it’s just mind blowing!”
Booth has also been recording Schoenberg’s early songs with pianist Christopher Glynn, in a compelling Expressionist Music album released earlier this year on Orchid Classics. It reveals the remarkable breadth to their compositional style. “When you listen to pop music you have the Coldplay sound, the U2 sound, and it’s their thing. But one of the reviews of the Expressionist Music disc said it sounds a bit like Mahler or Brahms. Well, what’s wrong with that? These were people in the musical, historical pedigree that he loved and revered. Why wouldn’t his sound world sound like that? I think one reviewer was almost disappointed that it didn’t all sound like Schoenberg. And you’re like, “What is Schoenberg? Is it a kind of construct that we’ve decided is difficult, atonal?” I think an audience’s appreciation of tonality and atonality now is different than it would have been 40 years ago. We’ve all listened to a lot more music, we don’t hear the jarring qualities that atonality maybe heralded within us. My granny might still think it sounds a little bit risque, but, I think we’re much more open to his world anyway.”
She adds some context. “It’s so important, I think, for everyone to recognize that Schoenberg was a product of his time. He didn’t just parachute in with a pistol aiming to blow a hole in everything. He was absolutely continuing as he felt the tradition, but in the way that the expressionist movement, was going he was continuing a movement by forward motion, taking things on a step. You’ve got folk songs, cabaret songs, love songs – he clearly was a man fascinated by a lot of different aspects of life, you know? He had enormous depth and breadth, and that comes across in his vocal music, in terms of his poetry choices. It also comes through in knowing the man – he was friends with Kandinsky and a tennis partner with Gershwin. The guy was a hoot!”
Booth has been working with the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna – a fascinating resource and museum dedicated to the composer, where it is possible to witness a full scale mock-up of Schonberg’s Hollywood apartment. “I’ve been in touch with them over the last year”, she says, “and we’re going to sing there in December and stay in the apartment. We’re really delighted to have that sort of immersion. Even when you go on the website, with the amount of archival material, you can really geek out on it! I think it’s a shame that he’s been so synonymous with all that is difficult and complex about music when there are composers that have come since Schoenberg that have been far more impenetrable. He’s maintained this aura of unapproachability, which you see in the reticence of festivals and promoters to put on his music, even in this 150th anniversary year, which I just don’t think is justified. So it’s wonderful to get opportunities to be reminded of kind of the breadth of his interests, and how he was a complete part of the kind of wider artistic movement in the 20th century. He’s such a towering figure!”
Booth has explored a vast amount of new music in her performing career to date. Is there the same thrill of discovering new music as there was with Schoenberg? A prime example is Helen Grime’s Folk, a setting of verse by Zoe Gilbert for soprano and orchestra which she is preparing for performance as we talk. “I think that’s what’s so great about music. I am so on the back foot – in my first lesson at college, I heard this piece of music, and I lent to the next person and said, “This is the theme music to Trading Places!” And she said, “No, it’s the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro!” I know so little about music that I am still discovering so much now – the joy of discovering new music that’s in the canon, together with new music that’s being written now.” If what your question is leading to is the same kind of craft in new music as in Schoenberg then Helen (above) is a wonderful affirmation of that.
You can listen to Helen Grime’s Folk, performed by Booth with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Wigglesworth, on BBC Sounds
Booth elaborates on Grime’s qualities. She’s such a craftswoman, and such a great orchestrator. Not for nothing was Oliver Knussen such a big champion of her in her early days, and that’s one of the reasons we got to know each other. It feels special to be kind of continuing Ollie’s work with the composers he loved and rated, because he was such a meaningful figure to me. I wouldn’t want to speak too broadly about compositional trends in general. I think I’m very fortunate that I get to sing an awful lot of music by people that I particularly love. It’s easier to believe in music that you have an immediate connection to, and I’m lucky to have that. As a singer I’ve still got so much to learn, repertoire wise, and I’m still so curious in that.”
She cites her exploration of the songs of Mussorgsky, in league with her regular pianist Christopher Glynn. “I’d heard a couple of songs, but what an absolute deep dive. You wouldn’t think of him as a song composer! We know Songs And Dances of Death, but, that’s a group of five – and he wrote 60-70 songs! There are some absolute beauties in there, and no extraneous notes. His brilliant use of pace and orchestration – with only the piano – and the wonderful opportunities for female protagonists in his songs, which doesn’t come through so clearly in his operas. As a curious artist, that’s just brilliant. Five years ago I didn’t know any of that, and now I’m a bit of a guru. I think my love of music has maintained my curiosity for the repertoire that’s already out there, and hopefully that’s a way of marrying the two.”
Booth is struck by Mussorgsky’s originality. “When you listen to this writing, you think it’s Mahler or Wolf, and this guy was writing these songs in the 1840s-1850s. He really was ahead of his time. Ollie always did the Stokowski orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition, with lots of bells! I think purists would say it’s less sophisticated than the Ravel, but there’s an earthiness and a gravitas to it, a sort of ridiculous element which he doesn’t shy away from. The piece is such a smorgasbord, and that’s the word I’ve tried to use with a lot of these retrospectives, and with Schoenberg too. It’s wonderful to be able to advocate for a composer’s breadth, because I think people have one or two pieces by somebody that they like, and that’s great, but that can lead to other things.”
With that in mind, the Pierrot Lunaire album places Schoenberg’s work in the context of a number of different and fascinating responses to the central character. “When you look at versions of Pierrot Lunaire, it’s always intriguing as to what people put it with. Usually it’s with another Second Viennese School composer, and I definitely didn’t want that. It did seem the figure of Pierrot himself is such a magnet for creatives. Schoenberg wasn’t even the only one to set the Hartleben translation.”
“Joseph Marx went in a completely different musical direction to Schoenberg. Kowalski, another Jewish composer of the early 20th century, was actually a lawyer who advocated for Schoenberg when he was having a problem with one of his publishers. He’s done 12 settings of those heart labor poems, but they’re not the same as the ones Schoenberg did. So even with Pierrot Lunaire, we think of it as this seminal work, and it’s wonderful to see how other people have set it. It’s nice to give people a taste of what other composers thought – and even with the Korngold aria, it is this beautifully elegiac piece and so haunting. It’s the ability of the Pierrot character to be so permeable. It’s called Portraits for a reason I suppose, we wanted to present as many different angles as possible.”
We move on to the demands Schoenberg makes on the voice itself. With such a wide range of dynamics and pitches, does the voice need special preparation? “I’ve always done quite a lot of different repertoire concurrently, and I do remember a performance of Pierrot Lunaire where I performed some Handel arias two days later, and I definitely suffered. I remember thinking I would have to schedule these things a bit better. As I’ve gone on in my career, without blowing my own trumpet, I find increasingly that it doesn’t seem to cost any more than singing anything else. I mean, I did some Mozart concert arias in Prague recently, 20 minutes of singing, and I was bloody knackered! If you can get past the complexity of the score and be quite a seasoned interpreter, there is a freedom that comes with knowing something incredibly well, which then allows you to give just the right amount. I’m doing various ‘Pierrots’ this season, and some of them will be next door to singing Debussy, Marx, these other vocal styles – and obviously you need to be ready for both, otherwise you’re short changing the audience.”
Talk turns again to the much-loved Oliver Knussen. What sort of legacy has he left with Claire, and more widely, with British music? “Happily, I’m part of a large family of people who spent time with Ollie and who he was a massive influence on. When I think about Ollie, and his music making, I think of incredible standards and incredible kindness – which extended to nurturing, sponsorship and facilitating of others’ work. He always put his own compositions second, and he really wanted to facilitate others music. He got to know Harrison Birtwistle, reasonably late in his life, but part of that was because I think he felt really second best to Harry, and he was a bit embarrassed. I heard him say he felt his music wasn’t well crafted enough.”
Humility was one of Knussen’s standout qualities. “He was incredibly modest. I was the recipient of so much of his listening, and I suppose the legacy is that I would like to achieve those same exacting standards in my work, the absolute knowledge about and love of the music, and musicality of a properly high standard. As a professional creative, it matters to me, and it mattered to him hugely. The commission with Helen Grime and also Zoe Martlew, this year, who was also an incredibly close friend of Ollie’s, means a lot. When I am involved I do try to remember kind of that Ollie was so generous in his time to advocate for others work. I like to think that he’d be pretty chuffed that I was working with Helen and Zoe in this way. I think he’ll be having a chuckle when Helen’s piece comes to life!”
She goes into more detail. “Ollie worked with quite a small number of musicians over and over, and the rehearsal process was very positive and open and facilitory. I’ve worked with plenty of eminent musicians where the room is not necessarily positive and quite dictatorial and exacting, and now my job is to deliver when somebody wants to be exacting. I really appreciated Ollie’s understanding that if you have booked the right people, they’re going to be good. Treating people with respect and confidence begets that, and having a positive vibe in the room might sound like an obvious thing, but it’s amazing how often that doesn’t happen. In today’s world there’s a lot of talk about this stuff, but I wouldn’t say that people have nailed how to do it. With Ollie, with his potentially intimidating presence, both physically and musically, he was always incredibly respectful and facilitating off of the artists that he worked with. So I hope that if I could generate half of the vibe that he did, I think I’m going the right direction.”
London Chamber Ensemble [Madeleine Mitchell (violin, director), Joseph Spooner (cello), Sophia Rahman (piano), David Aspin (viola), Gordon Mackay (violin), Lynda Houghton (double bass), Peter Cigleris (clarinet, bass clarinet), Nancy Ruffer (flute), Alec Harmon (oboe), Bruce Nockles (trumpet), Ian Pace (piano)
Rebecca Clarke Piano Trio (1921) Judith Weir Atlantic Drift: Sleep Sound ida Mornin’ (1995), Atlantic Drift (2006), Rain and Mist are on the Mountain, I’d Better Buy Some Shoes (Movements I-IV, 2005) Helen Grime Miniatures (2005) Judith Weir The Bagpiper’s String Trio (1985) Cheryl Frances-Hoad Invocation for cello & piano (1999) Thea Musgrave Colloquy (1960) Ruth Gipps Prelude for bass clarinet (1958) Errollyn Wallen Sojourner Truth (2021, world premiere) Grace Williams Suite for Nine Instruments (1934)
St John’s Smith Square, London Monday 9 March (review of the online broadcast)
Written by Ben Hogwood
Classical music still has an awfully long way to go before female composers are an integral part of its make-up, but the celebration of International Women’s Day is helping the cause considerably, gaining more traction with each passing year.
One of the highlights of the 2021 celebrations was this concert from St John’s Smith Square, masterminded by Madeleine Mitchell, who led the London Chamber Ensemble in a very satisfying hour-and-a-half of music.
In a concert celebrating eight women composers, the common threads of America and the Royal College of Music were also explored. The latter organisation is where Rebecca Clarke, Grace Williams and Helen Grime all studied, and where Errollyn Wallen and Mitchell herself are now professors. Wallen wrote a new piece, Sojourner Truth, for the occasion.
The concert began however with a terrific performance of Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio. Completed in 1921, this substantial piece begins with a passionate outpouring, but it also has its elusive, mysterious moments. The trio of Mitchell, cellist Joseph Spooner and pianist Sophia Rahman caught these elements, getting off to a terrific start but pulling back to allow the enchanting slow movement room to breathe. At times Clarke’s music hints at influences from France – particularly Ravel but also Franck – which Spooner caught in his high intonation in the second movement. The spirit of the dance inhabited the finale, a more obviously English statement, but there was still room for more fervent thoughts when the trio united.
There was a sudden transition on the broadcast to the refreshing open air of Judith Weir’s Atlantic Drift, a compilation of three pieces for two violins proving an invigorating contrast to the denser textures of the Clarke. Weir’s incorporation of folk material into her music is enchanting, especially in the four-part last piece, Rain and mist are on the Moutain, I’d Better Buy Some Shoes. Using a Gaelic song as its inspiration, Weir’s adaptation worked really well in these open air accounts from Mitchell and Gordon Mackay, the empty St John’s providing the ideal acoustic. Weir appeared later with The Bagpiper’s String Trio, a similarly folk-powered work from 1985. Based on a Scottish pipe tune this too lifted the listener away to the great outdoors, with excellent teamwork from Mitchell, Spooner and viola player David Aspin.
Helen Grime’s trio of Miniatures for oboe and piano were next, studies in compressed expression from the pale harmonics of the first to the jagged edges of the second. The third was an effective summation of Grime’s thoughts, panning out for a wider perspective from the piano. Alec Harmon and Sophia Rahman were fully responsive to the virtuoso demands.
Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Invocation for cello and piano followed, a late teenage piece offering an immediate chance to appreciate the probing line given to Joseph Spooner’s fulsome cello. As the composer’s response to Edvard Munch’s painting Melanchola reached its apex there were clangorous chords from Rahman, capping a compact but powerful utterance.
Thea Musgrave’s Colloquy was next, another model of economy – four short pieces for violin and piano packed with sharp, expressive statements. There were some challenges to performance here – such as the quick interchange between pizzicato and bowing in the second movement – which Mitchell took in her stride. The third piece was a touch more playful but still assertive, but the fourth was the most effective, a private train of thought gracefully prompted by Ian Pace’s piano.
The most striking piece of the evening – for its sound, its soul and its warmth – was Ruth Gipps’ Prelude for bass clarinet. Gipps’ centenary falls this year, and her slightly baleful writing for the instrument was beautifully captured by Peter Cigleris, a model of control. After watching this I was struck by two questions – why do we not hear the music of Gipps more, and why are there not more pieces for solo bass clarinet?
Errollyn Wallen’s Sojourner Truth followed, written not just for Madeline Mitchell but for International Women’s Day – and taking us back to violin and piano. Based on a spiritual, O’er the crossing, it features intense dialogue between the two instruments, but when the melody is heard unaccompanied on the violin the ear is pulled firmly towards the centre of the music, a striking feature of another piece with more traditional inspirations.
To finish, we heard the 75-year-old Suite for Nine Instruments by Grace Williams. Scored for piano quintet, double bass, flute, clarinet and trumpet, it is a vivacious piece, quite modal and with hints of Stravinsky’s Septet for a similar instrumental combination – and equally driven in the outer movements, bringing the interval of a tritone right to the front. The London Chamber Ensemble played with flair, commitment and virtuosity, bringing a very impressive program to a close.
The concert is available to watch until 8 April on the link below – with some spoken introductions by Mitchell herself. On occasion the gaps between pieces are very short, but there are helpful markers to make viewing easier. Do make sure you watch, as some of the best chamber music from British women composers in the last 100 years is right here.
You can watch this Prom from its BBC broadcast – the Grime and Tchaikovsky here and the Stravinsky here
For sheer musical enjoyment this Prom took some beating.
Right from the start it was clear the players of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra were at the Royal Albert Hall to enjoy their Friday night, and in Pekka Kuusisto they had a more than willing accomplice.
It was Kuusisto’s first appearance at the festival, and as he arrived onstage he gazed in wonder at the full hall, taking in its scope and bidding a cheery ‘hello’ to the front ranks of the Prommers. At that moment you sensed his performance, even before he played a note, had gone up a gear.
Sure enough, his performance of Tchaikovksy’sViolin Concerto was dazzling, but he was careful not to let technical feats overshadow the core of the music’s emotion. As the longer first movement unfolded so did the ardent, lyrical phrases, until we reached the solo cadenza, where just a flick of the eyes and arms were enough to get the audience laughing. Kuusisto plays a lot of his music as though for the first time, the childlike innocence (not to mention his boyish face!) a combination of pure enjoyment. The audience, wrapped up in the occasion, applauded as though he had finished, fully aware there were two more movements to come.
These were the doleful Canzonetta, reminding us of the serious circumstances in which the piece was composed (Tchaikovsky’s disastrous and shortlived marriage, made in spite of his convictions around his homosexual orientation) and a finale that brushed all that aside, its main tune from the violin scampering all over the orchestra as they tried to keep up.
Both violinist and orchestra rightly received a rapturous ovation, but Kuusisto was not done, returning for a traditional Finnish song. Following Sol Gabetta’s lead from the First Night he did the singing, while BBC SSO leader Laura Samuel gamely added a rustic accompaniment. Even the audience were involved, singing one of the phrases as Kuusisto brought the house down.
Even after that the enjoyment was yet to peak, for Thomas Dausgaard – who had shaped Tchaikovksy’s phrases rather beautifully – led them in a vibrant account of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. The composer’s second ballet is perhaps his most tuneful, full of Russian folk song references as it tells the tale of the ultimately doomed puppet. The colours of this performance were given by the BBC SSO at their very best, with superb contributions from Mark O’Keeffe and Eric Dunlea (trumpets), a beautiful, child-like solo from flautist Charlotte Ashton, and wonderful contributions from solo woodwind, brass and percussion alike – not to mention the brilliant efforts of pianist Lynda Cochrane and Julia Lynch on celesta.
Dausgaard was enjoying himself, and although on occasion the music was a little fast it was never less than energetic, the players relishing the shades of colour in The Shrovetide Fair, and the irresistible hooks and dance rhythms Stravinsky threads through the music.
Dausgaard is due to take over full time as chief conductor of the orchestra in the autumn, and on this evidence the two look set for a fruitful musical relationship.
Catterline in Winter (c) The estate of Joan Eardley.
Beginning the concert was the first part of Helen Grime’s Two Eardley Pictures, a new piece commissioned by the BBC and with its second part today. This one, Catterline in Winter, portrayed the fishing village of the North of Scotland, capturing it in steely, metallic colours – reflecting the dark grey sky and the icy blasts of a seemingly ever present wind. It is always difficult to appraise a new piece on first hearing, but this was an impressive and brightly lit score that is well worth hearing for a second time – preferably in the company of the second, Snow.
Catterline in Winter (c) The estate of Joan Eardley.
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