Pianist-composer Belle Chen draws on the music of Maurice Ravel for this new album, using the French composer’s melodies and piano textures as a starting point for her own response to the place in our lives that forests hold.
For Chen a single experience led her towards this album, a sunset in Australia where she watched a particular tree at sunset in a tropical rainforest. As the sun dipped in the sky the forest came to life, with birds, frogs and other beings becoming animated by the light – an experience that gave her renewed awareness of her place in the ecosystem.
To Ravel’s music Chen adds electronic effects and various techniques to bring extra colour to the upright piano she uses throughout – while some of the pieces are purely original, using the clarity of Ravel’s style for inspiration.
What’s the music like?
This is a classy chill out album – with all the qualities you get from music that you might expect to hear on a peaceful piano playlist, but with added detail that really rewards repeated listening or immersive playbacks on a surround sound system.
Belle Chen has put together some clever arrangements, and when Ravel’s music is in play she is careful not to crowd the melodies in any way. That heart-shifting melody from the slow movement of the Piano Concerto is well-treated on Adagio, San, while the theme from the skittish scherzo in his String Quartet is brilliantly realised in its new guise on Kingdom Animalia.
Adding animal noises to evoke the forest could have been a dangerous move, but again the effects are subtly done – as is also the case with the strings of the Budapest Art Orchestra when used on Moonrise and Closer.
At times the listener is transported far beyond the listening environment to stand in the forest itself, and on tracks like And It Rains the vivid evocation of droplets is enhanced by adding felt to the piano. Three Birds is brilliantly done, too, as is Chen’s evocation of The Dragonfly, realised with rapid passagework on the dampened keys.
Does it all work?
It does, impressively so. Often it can be said that piano chill-out albums become one-dimensional as they progress, but this is different, as Chen keeps subtly varying the textures, the melodies and the emotions to keep the attention of the listener.
Is it recommended?
It is, enthusiastically. Belle Chen has a really appealing and respectful way of interacting with Ravel, using the bones of his material to create an album buzzing with incident and inspiration. Her own original compositions are both original and captivating. As a result, Ravel’s music is successfully reimagined for a 21st century audience.
For fans of… Ravel, Philip Glass, Nils Frahm, Michael Nyman
Listen & Buy
Ravel in the Forest is released on Friday 16 February. You can listen to clips from each track and purchase at the Presto Music website
Published post no.2,083 – Saturday 10 February 2024
Thomas Trotter (organ, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Pierre Bleuse
Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914-17, orch. 1919) Poulenc Organ Concerto in G minor FP93 (1934-8) Holmès La Nuit et l’Amour (1888) Saint-Saëns Symphony no.3 in C minor Op.78 ‘Organ’ (1885-6)
Symphony Hall, Birmingham Wednesday 20 September 2023 (2.15pm)
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
It hardly seems 40 years since Thomas Trotter took on the post of Birmingham City Organist in succession to the venerable George Thalben-Ball, and it was good to see his local orchestra marking the occasion with a programme which featured two staples from the organ repertoire.
Some 85 years on and it might be hard to imagine just how radical (or, better still, subversive) Poulenc’s Organ Concerto was through its juxtaposing elements both serious and populist in a continuous sequence that comes together precisely because of this stylistic incongruity. Not that Trotter betrayed any such doubts in what proved a tautly cumulative reading; aspects of the Baroque and Classical colliding with a sombre if never wantonly earnest Romanticism in which strings melded seamlessly with the soloist while timpani underpinned climactic points. Pierre Bleuse ensured a steady gathering of tension over the lengthy central span of slow(ish) music, with the final stages making the most of that music-hall element as makes the fateful ensuing recessional then baleful closing cadence more decisive in its stark emotional impact.
Organ transcription of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin is not unknown, but this afternoon’s performance was of the composer’s familiar orchestral version. Bleuse (below) conveyed the reticent elation of the Prélude, and while his expressive emphases made the Forlane overly studied in its knowingness, the wistful elegance of the Minuet sounded as disarming as was Yurie Aramaki’s oboe playing. Nor was any lack of poise in the central sections of the Rigaudon, even if Bleuse’s slightly stolid tempo in those either side sacrificed some of the music’s elan.
Composer, artist and feminist Augusta Holmès left a substantial output whose ambition may outstrip its attainment but includes such gems as La Nuit et l’Amour. Originally an interlude in her symphonic ode Ludus pro patria, it had established itself as an autonomous item well before becoming a staple of late-night music programmes – its canny amalgam of sensuous harmonies and heady lyricism recalling such contemporaries as Massenet and Godard, albeit with her engagingly personal twist which communicated itself readily in this performance.
Saint-Saëns was guarded with his assessment of Holmès, but his remark on her ‘flamboyant orchestration’ feels no less applicable to the Organ Symphony such as constitutes his greatest orchestral achievement and of which the City of Birmingham Symphony has given numerous memorable outings. While not among these, this account still left little to be desired – Bleuse launching the first part with keen expectancy before steering a purposeful if slightly dogged course through the ensuing Allegro. Seated up high at the organ console (rather than adjacent to the orchestra as with the Poulenc), Trotter made the most of the Adagio’s luminous timbral registrations which complemented the similarly burnished orchestration, while there was no lack of vigour or vivacity in the ‘scherzo’ section that bursts in at the start of the second part.
It is easy to make the ‘finale’ overbearing in its grandiloquence, but Trotter resisted any such temptation – he and Bleuse conveying the impetus and excitement of this music as it headed through passages of chorale and fugue toward a peroration as satisfying as it was irresistible.
You can read all about the 2023/24 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more information on organist Thomas Trotter and conductor Pierre Bleuse
Prom 8 – María Dueñas (violin), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Josep Pons
De Falla La vida breve (1904-05) – Interlude and Dance Lalo Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21 (1874) Debussy Ibéria (1905-08) Ravel Boléro (1928)
Royal Albert Hall, London Thursday 20 July 2023
by Richard Whitehouse photos by Chris Christodoulou / BBC
The Proms went to town on Spanish music just over two decades ago, and if tonight’s concert featured only one piece by a Spanish composer, an aura of ‘Spanish-ness’ fairly pervaded this programme which likewise found the BBC Symphony Orchestra in excellent form throughout.
The piece in question was Interlude and Dance from de Falla’s opera La vida breve, once a regular fixture at these concerts and one which makes for an ideal encore or (as here) curtain-raiser according to context. Josep Pons duly brought out the drama of its initial pages, before heading into a rendition of the main section such as (rightly) predicated suavity over rhetoric, while not lacking for impetus as this music reached its effervescent close. Lasting little more than an hour, the opera ought to enjoy more frequent revival as part of a judicious double-bill.
Édouard Lalo is himself a composer worth revival, his Symphonie espagnole having regained something of its familiarity from half a century ago. Her tonal warmth and incisiveness made María Dueñas an ideal exponent, while her rapport with the orchestra accordingly underlined its concertante-like ingenuity. There was no lack of energy or pathos in the opening Allegro, the capering elegance of the Scherzando duly complementing the forcefulness of the ensuing Intermezzo before the Andante brought a finespun eloquence, itself offset by the final Rondo with its indelible main theme and never wanton virtuosity. Evidently a first-rate accompanist, Pons drew as subtle a response from the BBCSO here as in a rapt arrangement for violin and strings of Fauré’s song Après un Rêve which Dueñas offered as the entirely apposite encore.
Debussy allegedly spent just one day over the Spanish border, but his feel for that country’s musical essence in Ibéria could not be gainsaid. The unwieldly trilogy that is the orchestral Images often makes performance of this in itself a stand-alone triptych preferable, and Pons had its measure from the outset of Along the Streets and Pathways, with its characteristic alternation of decisiveness and hesitancy. Nor was there any lack of ecstatic languor in The Perfumes of the Night whose soulfulness only gradually became apparent – Pons making a rhythmically seamless transition into The Morning of a Festive Day with its vivid evoking of castanets and guitars, along with a folk-inflected élan as carried through to the headlong closing bars. Highlighting of detail never risked cohesiveness in this scintillating account.
Ravel’s Rhapsodie espagnole would have been an ideal work to conclude this concert, though few in the audience would surely have begrudged hearing Boléro in its place and Pons did not disappoint. At just over 15 minutes it was appreciably faster than the inexorable unfolding its composer most likely envisaged, but the combination of textural definition and astute placing of detail ensured this traversal enticed over the short term as keenly as it compelled across the whole. In what is a ‘concerto for orchestra’ without equal, it would seem invidious to single out individual contributions, but Alex Neal was unerring in his articulation of the side-drum ostinato, while Antoine Bedewi’s timpani steered those climactic stages through to a forceful but not overbearing denouement. If not the ultimate Boléro, this was certainly one to savour.
Alban Gerhardt (cello), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Roderick Cox
Ravel Ma mère l’Oye – suite (1910, orch. 1911) Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor Op.33 (1872) Bartók Concerto for Orchestra BB123 (1943, rev. 1945)
Symphony Hall, Birmingham Thursday 16 February 2023 (2.15pm)
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
This afternoon’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra brought a judicious programme that not only looked effective on paper but worked well in practice, juxtaposing characteristic works by Ravel and Bartók alongside a favourite concerto from Saint-Saëns.
Although the extended ballet was championed by Simon Rattle during his CBSO tenure, the original five items constituting Ravel’s Mother Goose suite (the Prelude was included on the programme but (rightly) not in this performance) constitutes an attractive sequence and one that played to the orchestra’s strengths. Roderick Cox brought out the serene poignancy of Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane as fully as the winsome poise of Hop-o’-My-Thumb, with its delectable playing from woodwind. Neither was the piquant humour in Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas undersold, nor the stealthy interplay of gentility and earthiness in Dialogue of Beauty and the Beast. Initially a little muted in its rapture, The Fairy Garden built towards a finely sustained apotheosis whose unforced ecstasy was much in evidence.
Saint-Saëns has long enjoyed a following in Birmingham – not least his First Cello Concerto, which this reviewer first heard played by CBSO with the redoubtable Paul Tortelier almost a half-century ago. Evidently no stranger to this piece, Alban Gerhardt launched into the first of its three continuous movements with due purposefulness; pointing up the formal ingenuity as the composer interposes between what are nominally the exposition and development of a sonata design a ‘minuetto’ where soloist and muted strings render the principal themes at an oblique remove. The relatively extended final section can risk feeling diffuse, but Gerhardt’s focus brought a natural sense of intensification then resolution prior to the decisive close. The soulful opening Dialogo from Ligeti’s early Solo Cello Sonata provided an apposite encore.
A staple of the modern repertoire in almost as short a time as it took to be composed, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is a sure test for any such ensemble and one that the CBSO met with alacrity on this occasion. Setting a steady if never inflexible tempo for the Introduzione, Cox drew its contrasts of musing uncertainty and impulsive dynamism into a tensile and cohesive whole. Hardly less effective was the genial succession of duets in Giuoco delle coppie, set in relief by a brass chorale which makes for one of its composer’s most affecting inspirations.
Its sombreness marginally underplayed in its opening stages, the Elegia lacked nothing in eloquence at its climaxes or in its regretful closing bars, then a juxtaposing of folksong with Léhar and/or Shostakovich in the Intermezzo interrotto made for a heady while meaningful amalgam. It might not have followed-on attacca, but the Finale was otherwise the highlight of the reading – Cox as attentive to the music’s energetic and lyrical elements as to a central fugato whose initial fanfares return to cap the work, and this performance, in joyous abandon.
Born in Macon (Georgia) and currently based in Berlin, Cox is a fluent and assured presence such as helped make this an auspicious debut. The CBSO returns next week for an appealing programme with Ilan Volkov, featuring Isata Kanneh-Mason in Prokofiev’s Third Concerto.
Anita Watson (soprano), Maya Colwell (mezzo-soprano), John Cuthbert (tenor), Ashley Riches (bass-baritone), City of London Choir, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Hilary Davan Wetton
Ravel Menuet antique (1895, orch. 1929) Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music (1938) Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914-17, orch. 1919) Vaughan Williams Dona nobis pacem (1936)
Cadogan Hall, London Thursday 10 November 2022
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
This concert deftly assembled a number of threads to bring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s celebration of RWV150 – the handy abbreviation for Vaughan Williams‘ birth anniversary year – to a close.
Vaughan Williams studied with Ravel in Paris in 1908. Just over a decade later, the lives of both men had been altered forever by the First World War. It affected both of them deeply – Ravel in a brief stint as a lorry driver and Vaughan Williams as an ambulance driver and artillery officer in France.
Both Le Tombeau de Couperin and Donna nobis pacem are affected by their experiences, but first we heard another act of musical remembrance in Ravel’s charming Menuet antique. Written in memory of Chabrier, this bittersweet work presents a winsome smile while it dances, but darker thoughts lurk in the middle ground, expressed through the gruff voices of lower woodwind. Hilary Davan Wetton conducted a sprightly reading, though it took a little while for the RPO to settle. After a soft-centred middle section, the second reading of the Menuet itself was on much firmer ground.
Le Tombeau de Couperin is both a commemoration and celebration of French baroque music, but its deeply personal connections mark the passing of Ravel’s mother in 1917 as well as close friends lost to the First World War. Originally written for piano, the suite comprises six movements, four of which the composer arranged for orchestra, his painterly touch evident at every turn.
This was a touching performance, led by a fine contribution from RPO oboist Timothy Watts, who led off the Prélude with beautifully flowing phrases. The orchestra responded with silvery strings and harp, the music shimmering but shivering too. The personal reverberations were close to hand in the underlying sadness of the Forlane, which nonetheless danced with poise and grace. The Menuet, taken relatively quickly, found time to express its innermost feelings in the thoughtful trio section, while the Rigaudon gained a spring in its step, bouncing along but soon checked by the sparse textures of its central section. This was a fine performance, earning the RPO woodwind a deserved curtain call of their own.
Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music is a softly voiced tribute to Sir Henry Wood’s Golden Jubilee as a conductor. In recognition, the composer sets the scene between Lorenzo and Jessica from Act Five of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. It is a versatile piece, written initially for 16 selected soloists but performed here by four singers and the sensitively controlled voices of the City of London Choir, who revelled in the cushioned carpet of sound Vaughan Williams creates. This was established by an affectionate solo from orchestra leader Duncan Riddell, establishing the serenity of D major under Davan Wetton’s watchful eye.
The balance between choir and orchestra, tricky to achieve in the Cadogan Hall, felt just right – as did the poise of soprano Anita Watson (above), floating up to the high ‘A’s with impressive control. She was aided by fine contributions from Maya Colwell, John Cuthbert and Ashley Riches, whose bass-baritone had a particularly attractive, rounded quality.
Two years prior to the Serenade, Vaughan Williams completed Dona nobis pacem, whose very different outlook reflects the worrisome mood in Britain and Europe in the mid-1930s. The composer’s dread of war, heightened by his experiences 20 years hence, was palpable in the central setting of Dirge For Two Veterans, using part of Walt Whitman’s poem Drum Taps in music that ironically dates from 1911.
Dona nobis pacem brings together texts from both sacred and secular sources, anticipating Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem some 26 years later, which used a similar tactic to startling effect. Here Vaughan Williams’ ‘catharsis’ – as Hilary Davan Wetton eloquently referred to it – received a heartfelt performance, anchored by Anita Watson’s recurring pleas for peace as the soprano soloist. The choir echoed these sentiments, but in a more fretful manner as they reflected on previous losses through Whitman’s poetry.
The music was remarkably prescient for our times, and the cautionary snare drum strokes bringing in the Dirge held a Mahlerian tension that stayed long in the memory. So, too, did the setting of Beat! Beat! Drums! (from the same Whitman poem), which was reached through a dramatic turn of the page from the full Agnus Dei plea. There was exultation from the choir, but also a constant ache beneath the surface.
Watson and Ashley Riches (above) were surefooted and expressive soloists, while Davan Wetton ensured the combination of choir and orchestra captured that wonderful sheen that Vaughan Williams can achieve when writing for the combined forces. The percussion, awkwardly hidden beneath the Cadogan Hall balcony with the organ, made a telling contribution as the dreaded ammunition, which was finally silenced as the peace for which we all surely strive came to pass at the end. The rapt closing bars were pure in their sincerity, soprano and acapella choir achieving an ideal balance and fade.
Before the Dona nobis pacem, Hilary Davan Wetton spoke briefly to the audience on the importance of the arts in the wake of a slew of funding cuts and falling attendances. As he so subtly reminded us, how lucky we are that in times of war in Europe and further afield we can still attend and enjoy concerts in person. It is a privilege never to be taken for granted, particularly on nights of Remembrance such as this.
Arcana.fm 