For today’s Advent Calendar work i’m returning to one of the composers who stood out most prominently among the premières at last year’s Proms festival. Elizabeth Ogonek‘s Cloudline wasn’t just one of my own favourites, you evidently felt exactly the same way, as the work almost came top of the 5:4 Proms Première polls. Ogonek composed her orchestral piece Sleep & Remembrance in 2016, basing it on the poem ‘While Sleeping’ by Polish poet Wisława Szymborska.
The work taps very convincingly into the implications of both words in its title. Sleep is strongly conveyed by the fact that the piece has such a dream-like character. By that i don’t simply mean it sounds ‘dreamy’ (though it does, at times) but more that it has a fragmented, jump-cut attitude redolent of the way our dreams propel us from situation to situation in a way that defies conventional notions of narrative. Ogonek’s narrative is similarly unpredictable, not exactly constituting a ‘chop and change’ approach to material but nonetheless moving rapidly between ideas. This in turn facilitates the possibility of ‘unremembrance’, showing little concern for allowing ideas time to unfold, instead revelling in the caprice and fluidity of its stream of consciousness modus operandi. Yet the fact the music embodies ‘unremembrance’ doesn’t imply that it’s unmemorable – far from it.
Though capricious, the work falls roughly into three sections, the first of which seems to correspond to the dream in Szymborska’s poem, littered with breathless activity and prosaic paraphernalia. Ogonek’s material begins spritely and highly energised, fluid but punchy, growling but playful. The shifts begin almost immediately, first opening out to examine an oscillating idea, then pushing on at pace again, whereupon, after a pause, the music abruptly becomes more placid, again concerned with oscillation. This friction persists, causing the piece to move along like a car with an accelerator subject to continual, random fluctuations of foot pressure. There are fanfares, a whirlwind of fleet, anonymous stuff flies past, sustained soft clusters materialise, reaching a high point before returning to an attitude of punchy fluidity.
A significant change occurs around the work’s midpoint, where the music loses its firm grounding and starts to float, a muted trumpet melody heard in the midst of pretty, hovering harmonies. The fact that this is something different from what we’ve just heard is clear not simply from the total change in behaviour but also its duration, Ogonek for the first time allowing an idea time to speak. Though from a superficial perspective one could argue this beautiful section sounds more ‘dreamy’ than before, i can’t help feeling this has more to do with the poem’s protagonist waking from sleep and woozily beginning to make sense of what they just experienced, primarily the telescoping the time. The music builds somewhat, and the brass inject some muscle, ultimately bringing about a massive swell.
The final section, if anything, appears to ramp up the superficial dreaminess (bearing one or two hallmarks of film music), though it gradually gains in clarity through a number of melodic phrases that are passed around and become focused upon. However, though arguably rooted most of all in post-dream reality, the music here seems wistful and reflective, perhaps suggesting a desire to break through the ‘unremembrance’ and recapture something of what was experienced, now lost, during sleep. The ending is soft and tender, all the time growing simpler, concluding in an atmosphere of half resolution.
The world première of Sleep & Remembrance took place in March 2016, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by François-Xavier Roth.
Full score
Wisława Szymborska – While Sleeping
I dreamed I was looking for something, maybe hidden somewhere or lost under the bed, under the stairs, under an old address.
I dug through wardrobes, boxes and drawers pointlessly packed with stuff and nonsense.
I pulled from my suitcases the years and journeys I’d picked up.
I shook from my pockets withered letters, litter, leaves not addressed to me.
I ran panting through comforting, discomfiting displaces, places.
I floundered through tunnels of snow and unremembrance.
I got stuck in thorny thickets and conjectures.
I swam through air and the grass of childhood.
I hustled to finish up before the outdated dusk fell, the curtain, silence.
In the end I stopped knowing what I’d been looking for so long.
I woke up. Looked at my watch. The dream took not quite two and a half minutes.
Such are the tricks to which time resorts ever since it started stumbling on sleeping heads.
What does a choir once described as “trail-blazing” do when it’s approaching its fiftieth birthday, and the world is full of younger choirs who want to steal its thunder?
The answer, as last night’s concert from the Tallis Scholars showed, is that you Keep Calm And Carry On. The choir’s founding director Peter Phillips realised all those years ago that the great church composers of the Renaissance were a neglected part of classical music, crying out to be revealed to the wider world. And the best way to reveal the music’s glowing beauty and expressive heat was with a smallish choir, no more than two singers to a part, striving always to achieve a perfect blend.
Phillips hasn’t wavered from those pioneering principles, but he’s been careful to constantly renew the brand with young singers, and last night the choir sounded as fresh and vibrant as I’ve ever heard it. The tenors in particular sounded so exuberant they sometimes threatened the choir’s famed blend, though their sound was so thrilling in itself one could hardly complain. Though the concert formed part of Saint John’s Christmas Festival, it was more concerned with the Mother of Christ than Christ Himself. We heard pieces in her praise from the English composer Robert Fayrfax, the Flemish composer Nicolás Gombert and the crazed Italian wife-murderer Carlo Gesualdo, plus Gombert’s setting of Mary’s own prayer the Magnificat. Alongside these we heard William Byrd’s five-part setting of the main Catholic liturgical form, the Mass.
Phillips and his singers were super-alert to the telling differences between these composers and made them so vivid it seemed as if they belonged to different worlds. The endless cantilevered melodies of the sopranos in Fayrfax’s O Maria Deo Gratia and Tavener’s O Splendor Gloriae, floating high above the other voices, seemed as lofty and otherworldly as the vaulted ceiling of an English cathedral, and miles away from the anguish of Gesualdo’s Ave Dulcissima Maria. And both were hugely distant from the luxuriant richness and astounding ear-bending dissonance of Gombert. The serenely “classical” balance of Byrd’s Mass was sung with a glowingly beautiful tone, but thanks to Phillips’s way of responding to the words with subtle changes of speed, beauty was always animated with feeling. In Byrd’s Mass when the choir sang “on the third day He rose again”, even this confirmed agnostic couldn’t help but be thrilled. IH
Most Christmas music evokes the joyous daylight of redemption: it’s all blazing drums and trumpets and sturdy carols. Last night at the Barbican, however, the rapt audience was treated to a different sort of Christmas music: luxuriantly sensuous yet dimly lit, like a brocade of gold thread seen by candlelight, suffused with a sorrowful awareness of sin. The redemption of the new-born child is hoped for, but hasn’t yet arrived.
This was the world of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, the late 17th-century French composer who spent most of his life in the service of a melancholic and deeply pious Duchess who preferred to keep the rich drapes of her palace closed. It was brought to life by Les Arts Florissants, a 40-strong group of singers and instrumentalists who are so immersed in the droopingly melancholic and exaggeratedly artificial world of French Baroque music they can actually make it seem natural.
Presiding over all this was William Christie, the American-born conductor who founded Les Arts Florissants more than forty years ago, and who yesterday spent his 78th birthday immersed in the music he has done more to popularise than anyone else. Often he sat to one side, knowing the violins and soft-toned flutes and recorders could summon up the gently swaying pastoral interludes between the vocal numbers without his help. At other times he would take over as director, and we would become aware of the passion in that lean, dapper figure as he coaxed out a sweetly agonising “wrong” note from the singers. Sometimes he even used a nervily rotating-hand gesture – as if trying to turn a recalcitrant doorknob – to emphasise those “sighing” feminine endings that make French Baroque music so utterly different to Italian or English.
After the dark first half of the Antiphons O of Advent, with the hall lights down, things brightened literally and metaphorically in the second, with two cantatas on the Christmas story. The instrumental interludes became more sprightly, and there was even a touch of comedy between the two shepherdesses as they discussed the mystery of the Virgin birth – “Wasn’t Joseph jealous?” asked one – sung with tender yet lively grace by Emmanuelle de Negri and Julie Roset. But in the end, it was the way Christie and the performers caught the sense of quiet rapture at the Christmas miracle that really told. It was a joy to witness something so impossibly aristocratic and remote come so movingly to life. IH
Most artists who appear at the Wigmore Hall betray some nerves, but last night, on strolled the American jazz pianist Jason Moran, supremely confident and relaxed, and chatted to the audience as if we were a bunch of friends he’d invited round for a jam session. “I’m going to play what the piano tells me,” he said, suggesting that the evening would be a freewheeling affair – yet, as soon became clear, it was anything but. Moran’s enthralling 90-minute set was a carefully laid-out sequence of eight numbers, artfully varied in mood and sound.
That’s only what we should expect: like all his peers in contemporary American jazz, Moran is a long way from the streetwise popular artists who created the form. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music, he’s a recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award, and has exhibited his own mixed-media artworks at galleries across America. His art is self-consciously sophisticated, and calls on all manner of things from jazz history. During a performance of an untitled number by his teacher Jaki Byard, a tentative, searching introduction led to a spry moment of stride piano, an antique style Moran recreated with superb stylishness but with harmonic kinks that set it at a distance.
That was one of few moments in the evening to say “jazz” loud and clear. More often, Moran’s art ranged far beyond the form, calling on a range of influences from classical music to the avant-garde, fused into a personal amalgam. One number began with a hectic hammering on just two notes, subtly changing in colour as Moran reached into the piano’s innards to muffle the strings. Soon this morphed into a vast, roaring sound that shifted slowly up the piano’s range – and unexpectedly melted into harmony. It recalled avant-garde improvisers such as Charlemagne Palestine and the repetitive patterns of Philip Glass, until at the end, in one of many subtle and touching endings we heard during the course of the evening, a gentle harmonic flourish gestured towards Ravel.
Described thus, it could all seem contrived, but the real delight of a Moran recital – and he uses that classical term himself – is that it never loses touch with the spontaneity and fun of early jazz. His pungent accents, louchely decorated melodies and ecstatic foot-stamps see to that. At the end, he even persuaded the audience to sing one of his repeating harmonic patterns, and we were happy to oblige, because the act felt natural and true – like everything we’d just heard. IH
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Volkov, City Halls, Glasgow ★★★★☆
It might be the week before Christmas, but don’t expect an easy ride. That seemed to be the message behind conductor Ilan Volkov’s bracing, hardcore, all-20th-century programme with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. And while other Scottish ensembles are devoting their Christmas countdown concerts to snowmen and seasonal tunes, it was undeniably refreshing to encounter not a single Yuletide reference in this vibrant if uncompromising evening of Xenakis, Debussy, Ligeti and Bartok.
Volkov threw us in at the deep end with Xenakis’s Atrees, which made for an ear-cleansing opener, all craggy textures and towering accumulations of sound, seemingly with a logic all its own (it’s actually the product of some of the composer’s early computer experiments). Atrees made for testing listening, but you couldn’t have asked for a more focused, committed account than that from the 10 BBCSSO soloists (with particularly vivid contributions from principal trumpeter Mark O’Keeffe).
Volkov, too, approached the work with a cool, almost Boulez-like precision, but he traced its unpredictable trajectory expertly, even dwelling – almost imperceptibly – on the piece’s brief, fleeting moments of sonic beauty. It felt like a provocation, certainly a statement of intent, and it was all the better for that.
Debussy’s Jeux might have occupied the other end of the artistic sensuality spectrum, but Volkov drew some interesting parallels with Xenakis in the earlier composer’s restless, ever-changing material, Jeux’s elusive sense of musical reason, its apparently perpetual state of moving towards something less ephemeral while never quite daring to make the jump. The BBC SSO players took a short while to properly occupy Debussy’s soundworld – one of the disadvantages of assembling pieces for drastically different line-ups (rather lengthy stage-shifting was another) – but it was a luminous, supple performance when they did.
After the interval, Volkov delivered an equally light-suffused Ligeti Ramifications, which served as an upbeat to a hard-driven Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by Ligeti’s compatriot Bartok. He wrung maximum intensity out of its opening movement’s endlessly intertwining lines, and played up the musical surrealism of the third movement’s ‘night music’ for all its worth, though there were a few moments in the two fast movements (taken very briskly) when the ensemble lacked a bit of crispness, despite the high spirits.
A difficult programme inevitably meant rather a thin crowd, but it was clear that everyone who was there was up for being prodded and challenged. Which is precisely what Volkov did in his appropriately serious-minded performances. DK
Let’s first dispatch the evening’s disappointment. The one-time wunderkind and now somewhat reclusive pianist Evgeny Kissin was meant to perform Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3, and it would probably have been tremendous. But illness prevented him from bringing this titanic piece up to scratch, so he had to substitute Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 23 – which was far from tremendous. It was strangely pedantic and sluggish, with not a trace of wit, and a slow movement that sounded as though it had lead weights tied around its feet. Only in the Chopin waltz he played as an encore did we catch a glimpse of the old Kissin.
Thankfully, it didn’t matter, because what followed was so enthralling. For a breathtaking hour, Sir Simon Rattle led the LSO and us through a Stravinsky journey of his own devising: fifteen short pieces, some fragments of larger pieces and some collections of miniatures, played without a break. The aim was to show the many sides of the most staggeringly protean composer in the history of music, though one could also detect the outlines of a life-story here, beginning with the brilliant student who composed an arrestingly sombre Funeral Song for his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov (only recently rediscovered) and an astonishingly lush setting of an unabashedly erotic poem.
Then, omitting the well-known ballet scores, came the Russian nonsense songs and miniatures of Stravinsky’s first exile in France and Switzerland, followed by a fragment of a Second World War film score and a ballet score for a troupe of young elephants from his second, American exile. Finally, we were given a glimpse of the diamond-hard modernist abstraction of his final years. Overall, it was a reminder that Stravinsky was a maker of divertimenti that dazzle, with their fractured, cubist reinventions of myriad styles from Bach to Offenbach.
They certainly dazzled in these wonderful performances from the LSO and Russian-born soprano Anna Lapkovskaja. And the prevailing tone of innocent delight meant the deep moments struck home: the ringing bell-sounds of Stravinsky’s final piece, Requiem Canticles, that sombre funeral song, and above all the Pas de deux from his ballet Apollon Musagète, which some would say is hardly deep at all, being a piece of perfumed French-flavoured neoclassicism.
But as this ravishing, fine-grained, tender performance reminded us, Stravinsky didn’t need to strike a solemn mood to touch the depths. It’s the mysterious appeal of his music, so aloof and yet so entrancing, which achieves that miracle. IH
The LSO and Simon Rattle perform their Stravinsky programme again tonight (Dec 15). Info: lso.co.uk
Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists, St Martin-in-the-Fields ★★★★☆
Handel for Christmas, Bach for Easter. That’s a rule-of-thumb many go by, as Bach was so good at striking an anguished penitential note, while Handel’s Messiah is the perfect expression of joy at the Christmas miracle.
On Tuesday night, veteran conductor John Eliot Gardiner, together with the two ensembles he founded, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, showed Bach could take on Handel and… well, not beat him exactly, because nothing beats the Hallelujah Chorus. But in his Christmas Oratorio, of which we heard the opening half, Bach showed he could certainly rival Handel in trumpets-and-drums glory, and in finding a whole range of emotions in the Christmas story, from awe to tenderness. And also that deeper, thoughtful note struck when the Evangelist (the singer who narrates the story) reminds us that the joyful beginning of Christ’s life will soon lead to sorrow.
All this flooded our hearts and minds with unusual force, because Gardiner is so alert to the meanings of the words, and urges the performers to make them shine out in such a way that they become pure music. At one point, the performers take up the Shepherds’ words “Let us See this thing which has come to pass”. The scurrying of the sopranos and violins and the agile hopping of the cellos conjured a mental image of shepherds practically tripping over their own feet in their eagerness to see the Christ child. But the music itself never tripped. It was perfectly lucid, the chorus enunciating the syllables like a string of pearls, every note in the orchestra crystal clear.
Like Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s oratorio contains an orchestral Pastorale in honour of those shepherds, and the English Baroque Soloists’ quartet of soft-toned Baroque oboes and flutes turned this into a moment of gentle, drowsy magic. Tender reflectiveness was a note often struck in the chorales (those sturdy German hymn-tunes that punctuate the action), but some were rumbustiously cheerful. In their meditations on the story, the eight soloists drawn from the chorus showed the same virtues of musicality mingled with attention to the music’s meaning. Only once did I feel Gardiner’s determination to alert us to the words slightly hampered the music’s flow, and that was in the exultant opening chorus.
Apart from that, the evening was pure joy. The oratorio’s second half comes on Thursday; if you’re within reach of Trafalgar Square, drop everything and go. IH
Hear the second half of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio on Thurs Dec 15; stmartin-in-the-fields.org
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Birmingham ★★★★☆
The deepest musical experiences don’t always come on cue, when you’re listening with a solemn demeanour to a weighty masterpiece. Sometimes they come when you least expect them, during a piece that’s light and doesn’t claim to plumb any depths, and is even – heaven forbid – a bit showy.
I was reminded of that fact during the CBSO’s lunchtime concert yesterday, when the light and showy Violin Concerto by Carl Nielsen was sandwiched between two works which wore their serious intentions on their sleeves: Brahms’s Tragic Overture and Shostakovich’s bleak and terrifying Fifth Symphony. Nielsen’s concerto is a rarity on concert programmes for reasons that quickly became clear: it’s hugely challenging for everyone, above all the soloist, who has to negotiate not one but three cadenzas (solo spots of impressive finger-twisting difficulty). And the piece is an odd shape, cast in two movements which both take a while to find themselves, and then having finally hit on an ear-catching tune drop it like a hot potato and go scampering off in a new direction.
It can be a puzzling journey, but not on this occasion. The springy and alert accompaniment from the orchestra under conductor Alpesh Chauhan was a factor, but there’s no doubt most of the magic emanated from Eugene Tzikindelean, the dapper Romanian violinist who is also the orchestra’s leader. He has an effortlessly huge, burnished tone, as was demonstrated in the first two seconds of Nielsen’s concerto when the orchestra flung a massive chord at him, which Tzikindelean easily trumped with a different chord. He characterised the ensuing series of feints and false starts with such pert wit, and so convincingly stage-managed the emergence of the ear-catching tune, that puzzlement was very soon transformed into charm and delight.
The rest of the programme wasn’t always on such a high level. Brahms’s Tragic Overture quickly imposed its gravity on us, unfolding with an iron-grey spaciousness like the sea at dawn. In Shostakovich’s symphony the players responded to Chauhan’s very slow tempi with heroically sustained playing, and the bleached-out slow movement left an aftertaste of infinite sadness. But the piece’s overall narrative felt compromised, and the grim, agonised “heroic” ending was not as shattering as it can be. Chauhan’s epic approach was surely prompted by a sincere wish to explore Shostakovich’s tragic depths, but it robbed the piece of the vital energy which even the darkest music needs. IH
Handel’s Messiah: The Live Experience, Theatre Royal Drury Lane ★★★☆☆
At first glance this could have been a “normal” performance of the world’s most popular oratorio, apart from the fact that it was taking place in the gilded splendour of a West End theatre. Packed onto the stage was the English Chamber Orchestra, and behind them rising up in serried ranks was the London Symphony Chorus, all in black.
But as the lights came down and the urgent, darkly serious overture began, normality disappeared. A tall screen placed squarely centre stage glowed with an image of a burning sun, soon obscured by threatening black asteroids, while three dancers flitted down the aisles. Normality seemed to return when tenor Nicky Spence appeared on the narrow strip of bare stage at the front to sing the beautifully consoling aria “Comfort Ye”. But the dancers soon reappeared, followed by two actors (Martina Laird and Arthur Darvill) dressed like refugees from a militaristic dystopia. Between the musical numbers they conversed in a poetic dialogue which suggested they were mother and child, separated by a malign fate.
This dramatised version of the Messiah was the brainchild of Classical Everywhere, dedicated to creating classical “experiences, not concerts” as its founder and the evening’s conductor Gregory Batsleer puts it. Working with him on this show was a whole army of video and lighting technicians, a choreographer, and a spoken-word poet (P Burton-Morgan), all brought together by Immersive Everywhere, the team behind hit immersive theatre shows such as Peaky Blinders: The Rise.
You might think a multimedia enhancing of the Messiah would clarify the work’s religious narrative, but the creators chose to avoid the Christian specifics and instead teased out their underlying themes. The dancers acted out little scenes of struggle, oppression and joyful release, strikingly choreographed by Tom Jackson Greaves, that you could just about link to the Biblical narrative of Christ’s sacrifice and miraculous resurrection. And it became clear that Christ’s relationship to his mother was being evoked by those dystopian figures.
As for the musicians, they were driven hard by Batsleer, which was sometimes thrillingly expressive but just as often felt exaggerated, and the choral singers occasionally struggled with his fast speeds. Soprano Danielle de Niese was in very uncertain voice, but Spence, mezzo-soprano Idunnu Münch and baritone Cody Quattlebaum were stronger. Like everyone else they threw themselves with maximum commitment into this spectacle which, despite its obscurities and ragged edges, was always thought-provoking, and at times even moving. IH
Some orchestras want to edify us, or challenge us, or give us a political lesson. The Sinfonia of London only wants to give us a roaring good time, and if we’re edified along the way, well so much the better. That’s why this one-time humble studio orchestra, which numbers the score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo among its recording credits, is set fair to become Britain’s favourite orchestra.
Another draw was conductor John Wilson, who relaunched the orchestra in 2018 and before that created the John Wilson Orchestra, whose annual Proms performances of musical and film scores are invariably a season highlight. He has an unfussy but telling elegance of gesture – no sweaty “conductor’s ecstasy” for him – which had surprisingly huge effects, like throwing the stage light-switches in a theatre; a single flick of that forefinger, and we were flooded in aural dazzlement and colour and magic.
First up was the overture Scapino by William Walton. The title refers to the Italian stock comedy character Scapino, from whose name we get our word “escapade”. The piece capered and glittered brilliantly, though there were moments of calm when the sweetly lyrical violas suggested Scapino’s escapades were turning amorous.
Then came Ravel’s song cycle Shéhérazade, one of those pieces that will probably be banned soon as the text is a shamelessly “orientalist” picture of the mystic East, complete with smiling assassins, princesses with slender hands, and “pot-bellied mandarins”. But any qualms were instantly quelled by Alice Coote’s fervent performance. The way she made the heart-stricken disappointment of the final song melt into sensuous languor was a lesson in how a great performance can turn copper into gold.
Nothing else made the heart melt quite like that, but there was plenty to make it expand joyously, including a performance of George Gershwin’s American in Paris which seemed bigger and more sassy than ever – and also more musically interesting. This was partly because Wilson had laboured to restore the cuts and fix the errors imposed on the piece by an unscrupulous publisher, partly because trumpeter James Fountain gave such a sexy sway to that immortal trumpet melody.
What with all that, plus the mystery and drama of the ballet score Le Loup by the young Henri Dutilleux – a real rarity which sounded like a long-lost film score from the 1950s – the concert was already a triumph. We didn’t really need Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, that weird aberration of a normally wonderful composer, but it was performed with such irresistible swelling grandeur one could hardly mind.
Hear the Sinfonia of London at Royal Concert Hall Nottingham on 4 December trch.co.uk
It’s often said the symphonies of great 19th-century composer Anton Bruckner are “cathedrals in sound”, huge in effect and lofty in aspiration, and that creates a problem for programmers of symphony concerts. What short programme-filler can you put next to a cathedral that won’t seem small and insignificant?
The LPO solved the problem brilliantly by prefacing Bruckner’s Ninth and final Symphony with the Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan Williams, which as well as being a nod to “VW” in his 150 anniversary year also lifted us into the right contemplative frame of mind. As for Bruckner’s symphony, it was performed not in the unfinished three-movement form we normally hear but as a complete four-movement symphony, with a conjectural finale brilliantly stitched together from the composer’s sketches by a team of musical scholars.
So potentially much to savour and be inspired by, but the reality didn’t quite live up to expectations. The Five Mystical Songs were sung by baritone Simon Keenlyside, who makes a splendidly vengeful Italian count on the operatic stage (he recently played Count Almaviva) and was impressive in the more ecstatic moments, but completely missed the hushed rapt tenderness of “Love bade me Welcome”, the emotional heart of the songs.
By comparison with VW’s songs, so simple and lucid in their transcendentalism, Bruckner’s symphony is all restless searching, with a Scherzo that sounds positively demonic, and a slow third movement that leads from anguish to glowing stillness. In this new version of the symphony that glowing moment was no longer the ending; the finale launched off on a whole new journey, full of sudden emotional switchbacks and disconcerting references to the earlier movements.
British conductor Robin Ticciati reminded us what a hugely intelligent musician he is by giving shape and coherence to this inspired but frequently confounding piece. Urgency mingled with sensitivity were the key moments; this was a cathedral made of malleable feelings, not massive stone. But the huge agonised melody that begins the third movement lacked the intensity one expects, and there were some moments in the first movement when the violins seemed not quite sure of Ticciati’s aspiring but somewhat eccentric beat. It was hard to know whether my lingering feelings of puzzlement were due to the unfamiliarity of this new version of Bruckner’s last work, or whether the performers really needed another rehearsal to pull this vast structure together and make sure all the details were in place. IH
The LPO and Vladimir Jurowski perform Mahler’s Ninth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall on Dec 3. Tickets: 020 7840 4242; lpo.org.uk
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Rafael Nadal is satisfied with his on-court results in 2022, given that he won two Grand Slams — a feat he considers to be a difficult ask in tennis.
The Spaniard won his 21st and 22nd Majors this year by emerging as champion at the Australian Open and the French Open. He now holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won by a male player.
In a recent interview with Esquire, the 36-year-old was asked to name the best and worst parts of his life this year. He expressed satisfaction with his professional life, highlighting how he has won Majors in a year in which he has been plagued with injuries.
“I think the year in general has been very good at a professional level. Two Grand Slam titles are not easily won every year and that has made me satisfied in terms of results. It is true that I have had some injuries at the beginning of the year and in the middle of the year that have prevented me from competing in other tournaments and kept me at home longer than desired,” Nadal said.
Interestingly though, Nadal himself has won multiple Majors in a calendar year on six occasions, last achieving the feat in 2019. Novak Djokovic, too, has pulled off this feat six times, and surprisingly enough, so has Roger Federer.
While this might make it seem like the said feat is easy, it is pertinent to note that no other male player, besides the Big 3, has won two Majors or more in a calendar year in the 21st century.
Nadal then reflected on a major personal milestone in his life this year, namely the birth of his son, which happened under stressful circumstances. His wife Maria endured a complicated pregnancy which kept the former World No. 1 on tenterhooks throughout the American hardcourt tour.
“On a personal level, moments of immense joy have also been combined with the birth of our son with others in which we went through complicated situations that kept us on our toes and prevented a normal development of what we were doing, in my case competing in the open USA. But in the end everything turned out well and I have the sweet taste of the year that is about to end,” he stated.
“Water is what I like the least, but what I drink the most” – Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal opening a bottle of water at the 2019 Australian Open
During the interview, Rafael Nadal was asked to pick his drink of preference amongst wine, water, and soft drinks. Unsurprisingly, he revealed that water is what he drinks the most even though it is his least favorite drink.
“To tell you the truth, maybe water is what I like the least, but what I drink the most. I like wine, but lately they have it more limited, almost forbidden, just like a soft drink that I always had with some olives and which lately I’ve had to give up,” he said.
The 22-time Grand Slam winner was also asked to name his preferred choice between rock, pop, and classical music. He divulged that he has had a soft spot for classical music from a young age given his grandfather was a conductor in an orchestra. However, the 14-time Roland Garros champion also admitted that pop singer Julio Iglesias is his favorite vocalist, and further revealed his love for reggaeton.
“Well, here I tell you that I am one of the three. My grandfather was a conductor in Manacor and he instilled in me a love for classical music as a child. Nor am I deceiving anyone by saying that my favorite singer is Julio Iglesias and that I also listen to reggaeton. I leave it there,” he expressed.
Michael Finnissy’s Polskie tańce ludowe (Polish folk dances) have had multiple lives. Their origins are in a volume of Polish folk music given to Finnissy as a child by his godfather, Peter Klos. Finnissy recently recalled to me that
… he served with the Polish Airforce, he was not a musician, just proud of his country, and there was a collection of ‘Polskie tańce ludowe’ with very conventionally pre-Bartók style piano arrangements [by Tomasz Glinski], but with beautiful coloured illustrations [by Irena Łukaszewicz], and a similar volume of Mazurkas. These were left with other gifts when he returned home to Łódź after the war, and a year or so after my christening. […] Apart from other stimuli to compose between the ages of four-and-a-half and fourteen (when I started playing for folkdance-classes and ballet, at a school run by a Macedonian lady), I kept returning to these volumes for inspiration, and to make transcriptions.
Four of those transcriptions, dating from 1955 and 1962 when Finnissy was aged around 9 and 16, were subsequently grouped together as Polskie Tance (Op. 32) and were included on the Folklore album – performed by the composer himself – released by Metier in 1998. Finnissy self-deprecatingly describes them as “kid’s work, and teenager’s work – even though I am not ‘ashamed’ of them or wanting to hide them away like some composers do”.
More recently, in 2015 Finnissy returned to the transcriptions he had made in 1962-3, creating a new collection arranged for a small ensemble comprising clarinet, violin, cello, harp, piano and percussion. Now reborn as Polskie tańce ludowe, it contains five dances; those who know the piano versions will recognise the first two, appearing here as numbers 2 and 4 respectively.
No. 1 has a languid, somewhat sleepy quality, moving with a lovely elastic gait, the tempo continually stretching, pulling back and releasing. No. 2 (titled Kujawiak-Kozak in the piano version) is a contrasting nest of spikes, in which the cello and violin articulate their accented lines with ferocity. Lasting only half a minute, it segues into No. 3, the only dance to have a title in the score: ‘Kusy Janek – cztery koty do roboty’ (Lame Janek, four tabby cats work for him). The music suggests those cats aren’t actually working terribly hard, as its gentle main idea turns dreamy and blissed out halfway through – but then, cats do spend most of their time sleeping, so this seems fair enough.
No. 4 (Kozak-Drobny from the piano version) takes the form of an intimate, metrically irregular conversation between the clarinet and, first, cello, then violin. With a spare, simple 2+3 accompaniment, the piece suggests an underlying friction: it flares up at its centre, and the conclusion sounds decidedly tense. No. 5 is a playful mix of metres, quickly moving in and out of shadow along the way. Rather than being a conventional closing romp, Finnissy interestingly broadens the music and makes it turn inward at its close.
The piece bears the dedication “For Margaret Cutter and Maggie Cogan”, who are in fact the same woman; Finnissy recalls that she “attended the dance-classes at which I played the piano, when I was at school in 6th form. There are a couple of different arrangements of this ‘Kozak’, and on top of Glinski’s arrangement (the source of mine) I had written “Margs likes this one best”.
The world première of Polskie tańce ludowe took place during the 2015 Proms at a Composer Portrait concert, performed by Jack McNeill (clarinet), Sarah Farmer (violin), Thomas McMahon (cello), Matthew Firkins (percussion), Rita Schindler (harp) and Sofia Sarmento (piano).
Who would have thought that the Disney classic „Aristocats“ was based on true facts? Researchers found that animals actually Music like and partly have an amazing sense of beat. In doing so, they respond to different genres: Cats relax to classical music, heavy metal attracts great white sharks, dogs prefer to listen to reggae. And cockatoos? They seem to have a soft spot for Elvis.
Animals are often more similar to us than we think, because our faithful companions also dance off to various sounds. Don’t think so? Then we have three funny videos for you on the occasion of the „high holiday“. Maybe they’ll make you dance – or make your Pet!
Headbanging with a difference: If the King of Rock’n Roll could see that. You can learn a lot from this dancing cockatoo on the dance floor!
So chilled out: music relaxes not only us…
Explore funny T-Shirt ideas on Amazon.
Dance floor free! True sense of rhythm proves this dog:
Apple acquired Primephonic in August last year and planned to combine and release its own classical music app by the end of 2022. But where is it?
Apple acquired Primephonic, a classical music streaming service, in Aug. 2021 and planned to launch a dedicated classical music app of its own by the end of this year. More than a year later — and with less than two weeks remaining before Apple misses its target — where is the company’s upcoming streaming service? Apple routinely purchases smaller companies to incorporate their technology into its products and services. The company has acquired services like DarkSky and high-profile names like Beats over the years. Regardless of the type of purchase, every company Apple acquires usually fits into its portfolio of products and services in some way.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
Apple Music is a streaming service tailored to the average listener, with over 100 million songs across various genres. But not all streaming services take that approach. Tidal is a service that offers high-quality music streaming, and Primephonic — the company purchased by Apple — solely aimed to provide quality classical music to users. Though there is classical music on the main Apple Music subscription service, the company must have seen a potential market for a standalone classical music app. However, classical music metadata doesn’t work as modern music does via streaming, which poses a problem to potential service providers.
Related: Miss Apple’s iPod Classic? Listen To Spotify Or Apple Music On Web Version
Apple’s Plan For A Standalone Classical Music App
When Apple announced its purchase of Primephonic in August 2021, the company said it would immediately incorporate some classical music features into Apple Music and planned to release a classical music app by the end of 2022. Apple provided existing Primephonic subscribers with six free months of Apple Music and immediately ceased new subscriptions to the classical music app. Apple shuttered the service soon after on Sept. 7, 2021. However, more than a year later, the promised Primephonic is nowhere to be seen.
There has been no mention of Apple’s planned classical music app since that date, and there are just days left in 2022 for the company to reach its own proposed deadline. Apple might have decided to delay the launch of the app to 2023 or is looking for a way to integrate the service fully into Apple Music. Meanwhile, the company has introduced brand-new features to its main music streaming service, like Apple Music Replay and Apple Music Sing. It’s unclear where Apple’s dedicated classical music app stands in 2022, but it doesn’t look like the company is meeting its goal more than a year after taking Primephonic offline.
More: Apple Music’s Take On Spotify Wrapped Is Here: How To See Your 2022 Replay
Behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a beautiful, contemplative orchestral work by Canada-based composer Linda Catlin Smith. Wilderness was composed in 2005, and while it would be inaccurate to call it a work for violin and orchestra (still less a concerto), a solo violin has a role distinct from the rest of the instruments. However, the extent to which the violin is fully separate, i.e. representing the explorer of the wilderness created by the orchestra, isn’t merely debatable but changes throughout the course of the piece.
As wildernesses go, Smith’s is a relatively mild one, strange rather than directly inhospitable. The environment is one typified by clusters, forming a smeary texture in the strings, while the winds and brass tend towards shorter sustained chords. The combined effect is somewhat vaporous, more like a complex cloud formation than a solid wilderness of rock or land. As such, the solo violin’s halting journey through this is made through a process of floating and gliding. It’s this tone of elegance, even grace, permeating Wilderness that minimises how unsettling it feels, generally occupying a restful place, perhaps sparse but nonetheless colourful.
Yet there are elements of disquiet; barely three minutes in the harmony takes an unexpected turn into darker hues, and on a couple of occasions Smith imbues the music with solemnity via deep tolling tones in the bass, like a heavy processional. All the same, the violin’s negotiation of these sequences requires no more apparent effort than clearing a small cloud of smoke with the wave of a hand. One can read its non-virtuosic language as being tinged with caution and concern, though equally it has a rapturous quality suggesting this wilderness is a place of glory. Occasionally the winds reinforce the violin line with imitative counterpoint, reinforcing further a sense of sympathetic connection between the violin and the rest of the orchestra.
Towards the work’s conclusion the music grows in warmth, briefly hinting at something triadic, perhaps a resolution of sorts, but its continuation is less obviously conclusive, harmonically speaking. Having fallen silent for a while the violin now aligns with the rest of the violins for a time, suggesting unity (the score is marked “tranquillo”). It’s followed by perhaps the most rich passage in Wilderness, a sublime, mesmerising, soft tutti flexing while the violin sings high above, bringing the piece to a simple, uplifted end.
The first European performance of Wilderness was given by the BBC Scottish Symphony conducted by Ilan Volkov, at the 2017 Tectonics festival in Glasgow.
Episode 10 of India By The Bay features The Anirudh Varma Collective- a contemporary Indian classical ensemble from New Delhi, India, comprising over 150 musicians & artists from across India, America, and Canada. The collective aims to discover, re-discover, and present the traditions & diversity of Indian music in a contemporary yet rooted manner in order to reach and connect with the masses. To make the finale episode of the virtual edition of India By The Bay a remarkable success, the ensemble will release two spectacular songs from their production ‘Classical Re-Imagined: Indian Classical Music For Everyone’ on 30th December 2022, stay tuned!
The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and participants and, unless expressly stated to the contrary, do not reflect the opinion, position or official policy of Asia Society Hong Kong, its members, or its committees. Asia Society Hong Kong does not endorse or approve, and assumes no responsibility for the content of the information presented.
Growing up in Atlanta, Maalik Glover was accustomed to seeing classical musicians who looked like him—until he started progressing in the field.
“The higher you go in classical music, the less people will look like you if you’re a person of color,” said Glover, a 25-year-old violinist who is Black. “It feels a little bit alienating to be a part of something that seems like you don’t really belong in visually. And this is one of the reasons why a lot of people quit.”
More:Columbus teen receives full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston
Glover, however, continued to play and obtained degrees from Columbus State University’s Schwob School of Music and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). He and 26-year-old violinist Mwakudua waNgure were accepted into the Columbus Symphony in September.
They are the only Black members of the orchestra at this time.
Glover and waNgure advocate for more outreach to young musicians and more diversity programs for adults, but stress that even more effort is needed to fix the root of the problem.
“We still live in a time where it’s unique for a person of color to have a seat in a notable orchestra,” Glover said. “And there is, of course, a socioeconomic (disparity) between people of color and people who are in classical music. And it’s hard to really bridge that gap sometimes.”
CSO Violinist Maalik Glover
Violinist Maalik Glover is one of two Black musicians who has recently joined the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
The Columbus Dispatch
Both Glover and waNgure are graduates of the CCM and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Diversity Fellowship program. And last summer, they participated in a music program at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education center in New York.
They met Rossen Milanov, who is the director of both the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony.
“When he heard them play, he wanted to bring them to Columbus on one-year appointments with the orchestra as full-time musicians,” said Daniel Walshaw, chief operating officer of the Columbus Symphony. “We see these two fantastic young players as some very promising musicians.”
Unfortunately, Glover and waNgure are still minorities in the industry; only 1.4% of orchestra musicians in the United States are Black, according to a study by the League of American Orchestras.
“I think of fellowships as being a good starting place, but maybe kind of like a Band-Aid on a larger, socioeconomic disparity think that is largely unaddressed,” waNgure said.
Buying instruments, paying for lessons, preparing for auditions and traveling to music festivals may be too expensive for some families of color, said waNgure and Glover.
Fortunately for waNgure, who grew up in Fort Myers, Florida, his parents prioritized lessons for him and his three siblings. They all played violin at the insistence of their father, who wanted to be a musician, but didn’t have the opportunity.
“He’s from Kenya. He wanted to be like a Kenyan pop star,” waNgure said. “My parents made it a priority. We didn’t do sports or martial arts or anything.”
waNgure went on to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy and obtain degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and University of Michigan.
CSO Violinist Mwakudua waNgure
Violinist Mwakudua waNgure is one of two Black musicians who have recently joined the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
Barbara J. Perenic, The Columbus Dispatch
Glover credits his success to a fellowship with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. As a teenager, he was granted access to private lessons as well as summer festivals.
“My mom was a single mother, and as much as I would’ve wanted lessons before my acceptance into the talent development program, we just knew it wouldn’t be financially possible,” he said. “Without that program, I’m not confident that I would have a career.”
Targeting people of color early is the only way to change the future, said Glover, who recently partnered with Urban Strings Columbus, a classical music program aimed at young string musicians from underrepresented communities.
“They’ll be able to absorb the information a little bit more organically, similar to their friends who are not people of color,” he said. “They’ll be able to be on the same track and have the same chance.”
More:A family atmosphere: Urban Strings orchestras foster rich environment for participants
While the Columbus Symphony has already been working with Columbus City Schools, Walshaw said the organization is in the early stages of developing a special program for diverse elementary and middle school students.
“We can always do more,” Walshaw said.
“Rossen has made it a priority to have diverse voices on the stage with the guest artists that work with the orchestra, and the music that we pick. When it comes to actual members of the orchestra, that’s a worldwide problem we all have in making sure that there are employment opportunities and a pathway to employment for minority groups that haven’t traditionally been a part of this art form.”
Francisco López‘s second live performance at Cafe Oto, in March 2015, makes a strong contrast to the first (featured earlier this month); where that had harnessed electronic elements largely devoid of referential qualities, this piece focuses on a juxtaposition of sounds that are clearly derived from (or intended to imitate) field recordings.
The opening minutes are entirely granular, a texture made up of an increasing density of clicking, chittering insect sounds, complicated by one layer that projects something akin to purring. After around five minutes this has grown to the point that it seems obviously artificial – the layered result of a great many sounds – though always retaining the sense that every individual element is something authentically real. That artifice is subsequently reinforced by the first of what will become a characteristic series of abrupt cuts, replacing everything with the soft, humming buzz of bees, a light, tickling texture occasionally featuring the close-up buzz of an individual bee.
Another jump cut transports us to an interesting place where hovering bands of noise form the gentle backdrop to small, possibly electronic insect sounds. This is soon followed by another cut, into a world populated entirely by dry objects, bouncing around off a myriad surfaces (with more than a few echoes of Aphex Twin’s Bucephalus Bouncing Ball). This punchy environment very slowly becomes more generalised (though no less powerful) as the force of the impacts is pulled back, until all that remains are a few creaking squeaks. More cuts propel us first into the middle of a pig sty, then to a firework display.
This marks a turning point in the performance, as López adds to the fireworks a mixture of both evocative and abstract elements, conjuring up a crackling fire and what could be a number of pipes kicking out assorted pitch bands. This leads to another example of what was the primary characteristic of his first performance, a texture comprising various diverse elements but where nothing predominates. We’ve moved far away from obvious field recordings, immersed within vague patter, clunk, noise and a gentle but driving pulse. There’s a crescendo, then nothing at all, and finally the possibility of people slowly fades into view, eventually filling our ears.
The final jump cut takes us to a call and response between a man and a group of children. On the one hand, it’s a strange moment, partly because it comes after such an abstract sequence, partly because the sound of people have been hitherto absent, partly because it persists for so long in an evidently completely untouched or unfiltered way. On the other hand, it works to diffuse the preceding narrative tension, throwing us back to the world of openly evocative sounds, and continuing the basic approach that permeates this entire piece: a whistle-stop tour through diverse, disjunct sonic habitats.
