Shibe and friends - Dillon, Miller, and Boulez, 29 May 2025

Wigmore Hall

James Dillon: 12 Caprices (world premiere)
Cassandra Miller: Bel Canto
Boulez: Le Marteau sans maître

Sean Shibe (guitar)

Ema Nikolovska (mezzo-soprano)

Adam Walker (flute)

George Barton, Iris van den Bos, Sam Wilson (percussion)

Emma Wernig (viola)

Matthew Hunt (clarinet)

Mira Benjamin (violin)

Colin Alexander (cello)

Alphonse Cemin (conductor)

In this excellent Wigmore Hall concert for Boulez’s centenary year, Sean Shibe and friends, mezzo Ema Nikolovska first among equals, demonstrated once again the stature, challenge, and thrills of what arguably remains the composer’s signature work, Le Marteau sans maître. ‘Without feeling close to Boulez’s music,’ Stravinsky wrote to Nadia Boulanger in 1957, ‘I frankly find it preferable to many things of his generation.’ And we can certainly tend to think of it – almost unavoidably – in terms of music and musicians that had led up to it. Take its Asia-tilted percussion, strongly recalling Messiaen’s Trois petites liturgies (for which Boulez turned vibraphone pages at the 1945 premiere), here magically brought to life by George Barton, Iris van den Bos, and Sam Wilson; the crossing and continuation of lines between instruments, immediately apparent here in the first of the work’s nine movements, inevitably reminiscent of Webern, the serialist ‘threshold’; or the mesmerising, even Mozartian ravishment of the third ‘Commentaire’ on ‘Bourreaux de solitude’. (In the latter case, I am sure Così fan tutte did not actually play a role here, but I like to fancy that the older Boulez, recording that extraordinary, unexpected Ensemble Intercontemporain performance of the Serenade, KV 361/370a, alongside Berg’s Chamber Concerto, might nonetheless have subsumed it into his aesthetic realm.) Here, though, we looked, or rather listened, forward, if retrospectively, the first half presenting the world premiere of James Dillon’s 12 Caprices for solo guitar and Cassandra Miller’s 2010 Maria Callas homage, Bel Canto. 

Not having heard Le Marteau for a while – my most recent live encounter might actually have been eight years ago in Vienna – I experienced the joy of rediscovery, but also of that increasing sense in Boulez’s œuvre more widely of taking a place in the great modernist ‘museum’ to which he felt such ambivalent attraction. This is not ‘pointillist’ music, far from it, but using that as a starting-point for exploration, not least that connection of instrumental and vocal lines mentioned above, seemed fitting or at least not entirely absurd in the progress of this performance and the material on which it is founded. ‘Avant “L’Artisanat furieux”’ felt that way, anyway, its archetypal ‘exquisite labyrinth’ becoming ever more involved, conductor Alphonse Cemin and the ensemble equally ensuring there was no loss to visceral experience, no smoothing of the edges. Rhythm, as in Stravinsky, continued to drive. In similar spirit, flute and voice melismata (Adam Walker and Nikolovska) almost yet not quite combined in ‘L’Artisanat furieux’. As Boulez’s serial universe thereafter unfolded, an angrier presentiment perhaps of Pli selon pli, development seemed to occur as much retrospectively as in ‘order’. Relaxation had something splendidly disorienting to it, as if swimming uphill in waters unknown. Process in all its volatility could be felt, even if one could not – should not – put it into words. Throughout, one felt wholehearted commitment from the musicians: not only sure and knowing, but vividly exploratory guides to our ears. An invisible theatre, especially apparent in the two closing movements, welcomed to its stage ghosts from the past: a Pierrot-like line on Emma Wernig’s viola, or Debussyan arabesque upon arabesque incited and invited by Walker’s flute. This was above all music for now, resisting the museum even as it entered in. 

Dillon’s Caprices put me in mind, perhaps coincidentally, but the coincidence was strong, of Boulez’s own piano Notations, similarly aphoristic and twelve in number. Perhaps it was only this context that led me to think that way, but gesture and substance in the very first seemed to come from a related sound-world and mind. They then pursued their own path, of course, offering plentiful space for finely wrought, idiomatic guitar-writing and committed performance. Each caprice laid claim both to individual character in kaleidoscopic variety, and also to a strong sense of progression within the whole. Work and performance alike drew one in, in spellbinding fashion. Quoted in the programme as speaking of ‘a framing of the fugitive’, Dillon brought that Lorca-founded image to spellbinding if swiftly vanishing life, with outstanding advocacy from Shibe. 

In Bel Canto, Nikolovska and two mini-ensembles, one with her onstage, the other behind and above in the balcony, brought to life not only Callas’s ‘Vissi d’arte’, but the passage of time in her career: ‘not only’, in Miller’s words, ‘about the ageing of an extraordinary woman, but also about the listener. Time slows down to allow for an engagement with detail, for a submersion in the sound, and for meditative stillness.’ That is very much what we experienced, time slowing, even near-repeating, as if a record were stuck; and yet, it moved. There was something dream-like, even epiphanic to Nikolvska and the instrumentalists’ revelation, yet whatever one might have felt, there was nothing vague to it, their means as precise as, say, Berio’s layering in his Folk Songs or, indeed, Sinfonia, be they written or left to the performers’ judgement. The midway surprise of an unseen Romantic violin solo from behind (Mira Benjamin), vying in richness with Nikolovska’s voice, ever changing yet ever the same, registered as an invisible coup de théâtre, a prelude to sounds hitherto unimagined yet making perfect sense when they came. Not entirely unlike Le Marteau, one might say, although unmistakeably of the Mediterranean.

Liverman/Walker/Shibe/Gunnell - Henze, El Cimarrón, 11 March 2023

Wigmore Hall

Will Liverman (baritone)

Adam Walker (flute)

Sean Shibe (guitar)

Owen Gunnell (percussion)

I had waited a long, long time for a performance of Henze’s ‘recital for four musicians’ from 1969-70, El Cimarrón. Like other works from the zenith of Henze’s political commitment, it seems largely to be shunned by today’s performers and venues. Hats off, then, to both the Wigmore Hall and to the four musicians involved in this performance, baritone Will Liverman, percussionist Owen Gunnell, flautist Adam Walker and guitarist Sean Shibe, the last two doubling up on various percussion instruments throughout, both for putting on a performance at all and for giving so fine an account of the work. In a sense, one either does this properly or one does not do it at all, but that does not mean one should merely take for granted performing excellence. 

Any idea that El Cimarrón might seem merely dated was thus triumphantly despatched. Many of our ideas concerning cultural appropriation might have changed in the meantime, but the urgency of its message concerning capitalist-imperialist exploitation in general and enslavement of black people in particular, remains at least as apparent as ever. Moreover, Henze’s method of letting escaped slave Esteban Montejo’s testimony essentially speak for itself – albeit with that testimony noted first by the Cuban ethnologist Miguel Barnet, translated into German by Hans Magnus Enzensbeger no less, here further translated into English by Christopher Keene – holds up pretty well in terms of what we might consider respectful, whilst leaving open the question, as Henze explicitly acknowledged concerning works written at this time, of ‘bourgeois’ aesthetic value. 

The idea arose from a conversation Henze and Enzensberger had had round about 1968, concerning ‘the difficulties of writing political songs which would go beyond, or circumvent the achievements of Eisler, Weill, or Dessau’ (Henze). Henze thought some sort of song-cycle a likely result, but in the end El Cimarrón turned out to be, at least according to his understanding, ‘a trial run for a new type of concert’. This, I think, gave a flavour of that: recitation, some song, elements of music theatre, above all a testimony arising from true ensemble cooperation that ‘cannot be done in a few days of rehearsal’, not least when it comes to the necessity for the players to invent music themselves, ‘where only a “graphic” serves as clue, stimulus or signpost’. 

We could not know, of course, at least without detailed knowledge and memory of the score, quite what was notated and how. Nevertheless, a sense not only of ensemble, but of comradeship, emerged. There was no doubt that these were players who were listening closely to one another, listening moreover that was not only instinctive but had also been learned through a political process of rehearsal. The vast array of instruments before our eyes and ears was a mise-en-scène in itself, but also an invitation to a world partly known yet also quite new. Liverman’s move in the first song, ‘The World’, from wordless song to recitation, at times quite Schoenbergian – Henze, however much he distanced himself, could never help himself here – conveyed meaning both through words but also via their means and variety of delivery. Yet it was equally in the interludes, in instrumental transition, as so often in such music, that a good deal of the journey was to be had—and to be reflected upon. 

Elsewhere, music could be frankly pictorial; we all knew what inhuman catastrophe Liverman’s chains depicted, but there was far more: jew’s harp ‘which represents the stars in comic strips that, on such occasions, dance in front of the eyes of the injured party’; pounding African drums offering a truth in sharp contradistinction to that of imported, Roman Catholic priests, Henze and Montejo having no time whatsoever for the hypocrisy, economic, sexual, and otherwise, of the latter. It could also, however, effect mood and drama, for instance, in Montejo’s flight into the mountains—even though, perhaps especially though, this was not a straightforwardly dramatic piece. 

For me, the reflective and revolutionary centre came later than the mid-point; ‘The Rebellion’, ninth of fifteen numbers, went further, deeper, into something approaching true melancholy. The ensuing ecstasy of redress, of revenge, at ‘The Battle of Mal Tiempo’ was highly infectious. Agitprop? If so, it worked. An equally strong impression was made by ‘The Bad Victory’, which followed, the unease of its darkly military parade showing us everything was certainly not what it seemed. And if sounds from the opening returned at the end, this was not to denote something banally cyclical. As Henze explained, and as we seemed to feel, ‘the pre-revolutionary situation is reinstated, looking backwards is ruled out, everything is now directed forward towards a new identity’. 

Not long before El Cimarrón, Henze had resolved that he would no longer write, as he feared he might have fallen into doing, merely for himself and his friends, but rather ‘to help socialism’; that doing so would involving both embodying in his work ‘all the problems of contemporary bourgeois music,’ and transforming them ‘into something that the masses can understand’. That would not involve submitting to commercial considerations, but nor was there any ‘place for worry about losing elite notions of value’. From the beginning, that has led some to question the artistic and/or enduring ‘value’ of such interventions. To experience, however, something that spoke so vividly, if necessarily from its time, to the age of Black Lives Matter proved a necessary surprise and, in its way, a proper call to arms. 

Let us hope, then, that this will mark the beginning of many such opportunities, in London and elsewhere. What next? Perhaps the ‘vaudeville’ La Cubana, or the ‘show for 17 performers’, Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung Natascha Ungeheuers? Simon Rattle performed Henze’s Che Guevara requiem Das Floß der Medusa in Berlin in 2006; might he wish (and be enabled) to bring it to the LSO’s repertoire? (Its celebrated non-premiere, halted by police, might make interesting material for a drama of its own.) Surely it is long past time for the Royal Opera to revive Henze’s collaboration with Edward Bond We Come to the River, or indeed to stage one of Henze’s earlier or later operas. König Hirsch would come top of my list. As Henze’s 2026 centenary nears, a coordinated offering would be just the thing. One can dream...

BTVN WOCHE (2) – Tabea Zimmermann and friends: Beethoven, 7 February 2020

Kammermusiksaal Hermann J. Abs

Serenade in D major for flute, violin, and viola, op.25

Quintet in E-flat major for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, op.16

Horn Sonata in F major, op.17

Septet in E-flat major, op.20

Adam Walker (flute)

Lucas Macías Navarro (oboe)

Vicente Alberola (clarinet)

Guilhaume Santana (bassoon)

José Vicente Castelló (horn)

Daniel Sepec (violin)

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Tomas Djupsjöbacka (cello)

Janne Saksala (double bass)

Olli Mustonen (piano)

A lovely concert of early Beethoven chamber music from a fine ensemble: just the thing for a cold February night. The D major Serenade, op.25, for flute, violin, and viola is a curious work and a rarity in concert, but worth hearing from time to time – and not only in order to wonder at what point one would have guessed the composer, if one did not know already. Its opening Entrata here sounded bright and jolly, Adam Walker’s solo flute and responses from Daniel Sepec and Tabea Zimmermann transporting us to the world of a summer’s eve outdoor entertainment. If that music might often have been from the generation of Bach’s sons, brusque (and other) surprises in the following minuet and trios may have suggested the 1790s after all. Sepec’s fiddling in the first trio, fully matched by Zimmermann, proved quite infectious. Changes were nicely run through the three hearings of the somewhat strange minuet, such variation and more generally comprehending performance ensuring that it never outstayed its welcome. That lack of predictability was followed up in the third movement, ‘Allegro molto’, as characterful, cultivated, and collegiate as the ensuing ‘Andante con Variazioni’. The vigorous whirlwind enveloping us in the scherzando fifth movement and its somewhat ghostly trio suggested Beethoven more strongly than anything heretofore, splendid preparation for a poised ‘Adagio’ that flowed without ever sounding hurried. An irresistibly good-humoured finale rounded things off in infectious and unaffected fashion.

If the op.16 Quintet for piano and wind instruments were written earlier than the Serenade, it does not necessarily sound so. Mozart’s influence is unsurprisingly strong, but the first movement unquestionably signalled fond recollection rather than imitation. Its introduction was spacious, perfectly balanced, and directed. Here, as elsewhere Olli Mustonen offered more than a hint of steel on piano: perhaps not to all tastes, but his refusal to condescend, let alone to smooth out, and the evident thoughtfulness of his decisions proved ever admirable. A sharply etched opening to the exposition foretold a performance that would have me smile and sit up to attention in equal measure. The slow movement, equal in clarity, was aptly more yielding in character. Its successor was every inch the post-Mozartian hunting finale. If at times, one might have thought one were listening to a concerto, that is Beethoven’s doing, no quirk of performance.

I have sometimes heard disparaging remarks about the Horn Sonata, op.17. I genuinely cannot understand why; it is a gem, always meriting performance, especially one so refreshing as this. The vigorous approach presented by Mustonen and José Vicente Castelló offered proved quite different from that in a more Mozartian performance I heard last year from Daniel Barenboim and Radek Baborák. It was certainly an account to take no prisoners, more aggressive in the pianism, but with greater precision too. Boldness of contrasts in all three movements suggested once more a commendable seriousness of purpose, however early or allegedly ‘slight’ – it is not – the work may be.

The Septet is a glorious and gloriously unqualified masterpiece: so it sounded here, although the first movement did not quite catch fire for me in the way the rest did. There was much to admire and indeed to love, the first subject making me smile, as too did Beethoven’s cunningly laid surprised in the recapitulation. It basked in Mozart’s glory, yet there was no shadow cast, only sunlight. A relatively swift ‘Adagio cantabile’ won through, recognising that the key here is ‘cantabile’. Get that right, as these players did, and a range of tempi choices can work. Harmony arose, so it seemed, from the combination of instrumental lines, sung as only instruments (as opposed to voices) can. The Minuet swung swiftly, yet with charm. I especially enjoyed Tomas Djupsjöbacka’s cello interventions and the bubbly Harmoniemusik of the trio. A potentially awkward slip later on was admirably well covered, to the extent even of offering interest of its own. The ‘Andante con Variazioni’ swung in a different yet surely related way. Violin and viola duetting, soon joined by the cello proved just the ticket in the first variation. The captivating urgeny of the minor-key variation seemed to hint at a Romantic, Mendelssohnian future. Taken at a proper pace, yet with all the space in the world, the Scherzo received a model reading, somehow all the more thrilling the second time around. Its trio, led by wondrously suave cello, offered contrast and complement in equal measure. A portentous introduction built up tension very nicely for the finale, released with a genuine necessity that permitted all soloists to shine and to blend. There were some glorious vistas to take in en route, Sepec’s cadenza arguably first among equals. They never distracted, though, instead contributing to an excellent conclusion of true chamber music.

Walker/Esfahani - Couperin, Quantz, Benda, Duphly, Rameau, and Philidor, 24 June 2016

Wigmore Hall

Couperin – Concert royal no.4 in E minor

Quantz – Two Capriccii
Franz Benda – Flute Sonata in E minor
Rameau – Pièces de clavecin en concerts: ‘Le Forqueray’
Jacques Duphly – Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin: ‘Le Forqueray’
Pierre Danican Philidor – Suite in E minor, op.1 no.5

Adam Walker (flute)

Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)

 

This was my first visit to the Wigmore Hall’s series of late (10 p.m.) Friday evening concerts; I am sure that it will not be my last. It is a wonderfully civilised time to hear music, and these were wonderfully civilised performances of wonderfully civilised music. Adam Walker and Mahan Esfahani left one wanting more – which is just as it should be.

 

The fourth of Couperin’s Concert royaux made for an arresting and varied opening work. Its Prélude offered impetus and leisure; what could be more Versailles-like? Harmonies and melodies alike proved generative, but above all juste. The Allemande proved a playful response (even, I am attempted to suggest, quasi-liturgically and with an ear to the Boulezian future, a playful répons). Yet, as one listened, many of the same qualities as those heard in the preceding dance were revealed. The first Courante likewise presented continued affinity and difference: very much the trick in a Baroque Suite (so very different from the world of sonata form). In that ‘French’ dance, and in its ‘Italian’ counterpart, variegation was very much the thing. Character without exaggeration was to be heard and experienced; we were made, or perhaps better, gently yet firmly led, to listen. Dynamic contrasts, terraced and otherwise, were always meaningful, always tending towards musical explication. The Sarabande, graceful, but certainly not in a merely generic way, had me visualise knowing glances between dancing partners. A keen Rigaudon and a Forlane (opening with Esfahani tapping the rhythm on the case of the harpsichord) of impeccable rhythmic, and thus melodic, impetus proved both charming and exploratory.

 

Two Quantz Capriccii for solo flute followed. Walker truly transformed what can easily sound like mere studies – in a way, that is precisely what they are – into music, beautifully phrased and shaped. Esfahani joined him once again for Franz Benda’s E minor Sonata (published in 1756). Again, juste was the word that came to mind in the first movement, ‘Largo, mà un poco andante’: not just in mood, not just concerning tempo, but also with respect to its status as chamber music in the truest rather than just the default sense. The second movement, ‘Arioso, un poco allegro’ proved both quickened and quickening. It was absorbing to follow its twists and turns, our musicians the surest of guides. More than that, it was fun. Rhythm and harmony likewise worked together in the final ‘Presto’, goading each other to the conclusion.

 

Esfahani had the stage to himself for two ‘Le Forqueray’ pieces, the first by Rameau, the second by Jacques Duphly. In the former, rhetoric ‘spoke’, without the exaggeration sometimes marring performances of such music as music. Rather to my surprise, although I greatly enjoyed the busy quality of that piece, I found that Duphly’s perhaps went deeper. Or at least its mood was more thoughtful (the piece, that is, for both performances were excellent). Rubato was well judged: enhancing, enticing.

 

Pierre Danican Philidor’s E minor Suite concluded proceedings. The variety of flute colours summoned up by Walker from his instrument was not the least of the joys of the Prélude. Likewise the colours from Esfahani’s harpsichord. The players took their time, and the performance was all the better for it. Much the same might be said of the ensuing Allemande, although its mood and its mode of eloquence were, of course, quite different. The Sarabande took my mind back to that of Couperin, as much on account of subtle difference as kinship. The give and take between musicians ensured considerable variety, without sacrifice to a strong sense of the whole. The final Gigue did just what a Gigue should. Far less hard-driven than one too all often hears, this was a musical delight to conclude an evening of similar yet different delights.

 

Walker/LSO/Harding - Huw Watkins and Mahler, 23 February 2014

Barbican Hall

Huw Watkins – Flute Concerto (world premiere)

Mahler – Symphony no.1 in D major

Adam Walker (flute)

London Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Harding (conductor) 

 

Adam Walker had already premiered one of Huw Watkins’s works, the Capriccio for flute and piano, in 2010. Upon Walker’s award of a Fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, and consequent funding for a commission, both from the Trust and from individual patrons, Walker approached Watkins to write a concerto, whose premiere we were now to hear. According to Schott’s website, the concerto is ‘built around Walker’s playing,’ the composer having noted ‘especially Walker’s “amazing sound and control of his instrument”, which he constantly had in mind during the composition process”.’ Insofar as I could tell from a first hearing and without a score, there seemed to be no doubt not only of Walker’s technical facility but also of his musical commitment, ably supported by the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. Phrasing and variegated tone suggested a repertoire work Walker had been playing for years rather than a first performance. Watkins could hardly have hoped for superior advocacy.

 

Cast in the traditional three movements, Allegro molto, Andante, and Allegro molto, his concerto is also thoroughly traditional in terms of their character: they seem not only to function as recognisable quasi-symphonic first movement, slow movement and rondo finale, but also to possess ‘character’ tallying with their placing. The germination of the first movement’s material from a flickering cell – if a cell may be admitted to flicker! – is clear throughout, Walker’s finely-spun flute line permitting the listener to trace his or her way without difficulty. It is perhaps easy to overlook the technical problems in ensuring an instrument such as the flute makes itself heard against a sizeable orchestra, but this never seemed to be a problem for composer or musicians. There is certainly real craft at work here. The slow movement continues, as indeed does the dance-like finale, to make its way in a recognisably tonal idiom. Sonority and command of the orchestra seemed to have much in common with the music of a composer such as Julian Anderson, though in the context of this particular concert, it was interesting to note, especially during the slow movement, moments at which new vistas appeared to open up, perhaps not so breathtakingly as in Mahler’s case, but offering an interesting correspondence, whether merely fortuitous or no. Doubtless this concerto will prove a valuable addition to the flute repertoire.

 

Mahler’s First Symphony followed the interval, and received for the most part an estimable performance from Harding and the LSO: unquestionably a relief following Valery Gergiev’s dubious dabblings with Mahler’s music. The first movement was perhaps marginally less successful. Whilst Harding’s disinclination to drive the music was greatly appreciated, there were occasions when tension sagged a little, though certainly not in its thrilling conclusion. There was beauty, though, in the sounds of the Nature with which the music comes to initial life, the LSO’s technical ability second to none, string harmonics holding none of the fears they still do for some orchestras. Harding’s orchestral layout, violins split left and right, was much appreciated in this movement and elsewhere for enabling Mahler’s counterpoint fully to register. The second movement was taken relatively ‘straight’, as indeed was the symphony as a whole, but emerged no worse for that: there is nothing worse than underlining every ‘point’, as if Mahler cannot be trusted to speak for himself. Much the same could be said of the funeral march, its eeriness emerging from the material rather than being imposed upon it. Contrasts were undeniable, but never excessive, in a movement whose performance was possessed of considerable cumulative power. The halting journey to redemption, or whatever the apparent triumph of the finale may be, was convincingly traced. If the awkward corners of this and the first movement were not entirely concealed, that is more testament to Mahler’s relative immaturity than to any shortcoming in performance; it takes a Kubelík or a Boulez truly to have one forget the problems, and there is something indeed to be said for a reading that places such trust in what remains a staggeringly original first symphony. Not that Harding was in any sense staid: the final peroration blazed with theatricality, horns and trombones standing to attention. Claudio Abbado, to whose memory this concert was dedicated, would surely have admired the continuing work of his ‘little genius’. Harding’s heartfelt, eloquent tribute in the programme matched that on the podium. A black mark is awarded, though, for the programme’s description of the work as the ‘Titan’, the Jean Paul-inspired epithet inappropriate to the work in its final version as heard here.