St John's Choir/Nethsingha - Purcell et al., 9 December 2011

Cadogan Hall

Purcell – O sing unto the Lord
Remember not, Lord our offences
My beloved spake
Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei
Behold now, praise the Lord
John Rutter – What sweeter music?
Trad., arr William Whitehead – The seven joys of Mary
Trad., arr Praetorius and Donald Cashmore – Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen
Franz Grüber, arr. Sir Philip Ledger – Silent Night
Trad., arr Ledger – Sussex Carol
Handel – Violin Sonata in D major, HWV 374: first and second movements
Carl Rütti – I wonder as I wander
Harold Darke – In the bleak midwinter
Allan Bullard – Glory to the Christ Child
William Kirkpatrick, arr. Sir David Willcocks – Away in a manger
Trad., arr. Mack Willberg – Ding, dong! Merrily on high

Leo Comita (countertenor)
Bradley Smith (tenor)
Tristan Hambleton (bass)
Julian Gregory (violin)
John Challenger (organ, piano)
Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge
St John’s Sinfonia
Andrew Nethsingha (conductor)

Over almost a decade-and-a-half in Cambridge, I attended a good few services of Choral Evensong at St John’s: more devotional, less of a tourist trap, than its equivalent at King’s. The Chapel of my undergraduate college, Jesus, the oldest college building in Oxford or Cambridge, dating back to the twelfth century, will always retain a special place in my affections. Yet, personal and collegiate associations aside, I should almost always have chosen a service or concert from the Choir of St John’s over that of any other collegiate choir, King’s included. There has long been a stylistic distinction between King’s and John’s – the only other choir retaining trebles is Jesus, which alternates between boys and women – which may broadly be described as white purity versus a more Continental full-throated sound, or Sir David Willcocks versus George Guest, and later, Stephen Cleobury versus Christopher Robinson. That may all seem unnecessary preamble, but I mention it to try to explain why I was more than a little surprised to hear the present choir of St John’s under its Director of Music, Andrew Nethsingha, sound surprisingly similar to what I might have expected from King’s, albeit without quite the æthereal quality one would hear from that choir at its best. Everything was of a high standard; there was nothing, at least in terms of performance, really to complain about, but the individual sound of the choir was much less apparent, rather as the Berlin Philharmonic so often nowadays no longer sounds like a German orchestra. The concert hall environment may have been a contributory element, but I find it difficult to believe that it was the only factor.

Another difference from the Guest and Robinson years – there was also a brief period under David Hill – was the use of period instruments. Nethsingha has co-founded with Margaret Faultless a period ensemble, named St John’s Sinfonia. On this occasion it was made up of two violins, viola, bass violin, and violone. Modern strings would certainly have sounded sweeter and proved more capable of remaining in tune, but the lightness of tone, intonational issues apart, possessed a certain likeness to the relative lightness of choral tone. Vibrato was not eschewed: indeed, the strings in many respects sounded preferable to those of the well-nigh vibrato-less Britten Sinfonia in Berlioz the previous evening. That said, it was quite a relief when, in the second half, one heard a modern violin in the oddly-programmed two movements from a Handel sonata. Julian Gregory’s performance was warm, stylish, naturally phrased, though one might have wished for stronger presence from the somewhat reticent pianist, John Challenger. (It was odd to have the piano for the rest of the second half, given that an organ had employed earlier on.)

Back to the choir, and to Purcell. There was a judicious mix of full and verse anthems to be heard. Jubilant moments might have come across more resoundingly, but there remained, for instance, a fine sense of presaging Handel to the final lines of O sing unto the Lord. Tristan Hambleton handled the bass melismata with considerable flair too. Nethsingha had a tendency to underplay the truly searing moments: I have heard the dissonances of Remember not, Lord our offences, sound more wrenching. More worryingly, Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei seemed at times quite oblivious to the words of the Third Psalm; indeed, it veered dangerously close to the jaunty. ‘Lord, how are they increased that trouble me: many are they that rise against me…’ The plangency of the opening sinfonia to Behold now, praise the Lord sounded quite right, though. Nethsingha’s direction rose properly to the occasion: ideally paced, rhythms nicely sprung.

The problem with the second half – apart from a poorly-behaved audience – lay more with the programme. It was very odd that the director of one of the country’s, indeed the world’s, greatest choral foundations was seemingly unable, or at least unwilling, to distinguish between Advent and Christmas. We could have heard some Monteverdi, some Bach, etc., etc., but instead we had a generally trivial sequence of Christmas carols and similar pieces. Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen came as balm to the soul: beautifully, intelligently arranged, even with a nice line in canonical writing from Donald Cashmore. German pronunciation was good too. It came as balm, though, partly because of the two horrors that had preceded it: John Rutter’s What sweeter music? is a piece of similar quality to the wedding gift the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had visited upon them by Westminster Abbey; Robert Herrick’s words deserve much, much better. As for William Whitehead’s arrangement of The seven joys of Mary, it has nothing to recommend it beyond – or including – that all-purpose jauntiness and syncopation (a 7/8 time signature) which passes for ‘modernity’ in quarters that somehow have failed to register Schoenberg’s emancipation of the dissonance. Alan Bullard’s Glory to the Christ Child, were it a painting, would probably find itself ascribed to the ‘workshop of John Rutter’. Frankly, I should rather hear the music of Sir Charles Stanford, and that is saying something. Carl Rütti’s I wonder as I wander was similarly pointless. More ‘traditional’ settings emerged with greater credit, for instance Harold Darke’s In the bleak midwinter and the two arrangements by Sir Philip Ledger. At least Mack Wilberg’s Ding, dong! Merrily on high wears its campness on its sleeve – but that is all one can really say in its favour. John Gardner’s Tomorrow shall be my dancing day was the encore too far. The choir of St John’s has sounded stronger, and it might well have done here, had it been featured in a programme whose second half had matched its first in musical interest.

Daniel Barenboim - Chopin at Tate Modern

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

This is not intended in any real sense as a review but just as a brief note concerning Daniel Barenboim's impromptu concert - at least that is very much how it has been spun, and there is no obvious reason to believe otherwise - at Tate Modern. Announced yesterday, we were encouraged to register online for tickets; I was notified yesterday evening that I should have a seat on the Turbine Hall Bridge. I have no idea how many were in the audience, but it was certainly a goodly number, with many below watching on a screen. Barenboim was gracious - and astute - enough to greet them first, before coming up to the bridge, and acknowledged their presence throughout, for which he was rewarded with ecstatic applause. Whatever else one might say about him, he has star quality, the same quality I first noticed as an undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge, when Jessye Norman came to my college chapel to give a private recital to mark the college's quincentenary. She almost only had to enter the nave to have a very special effect upon one; Barenboim's charm ensured that he held the audience in the palm of his hand, and would have done so even had he only spoken, without playing a single note. And thank goodness he made a plea for music education from the kindergarten onwards, which, as he so rightly pointed out, would solve all further music funding problems as a matter of course. Our so-called Secretary of State for Culture should have been made to listen to him and to copy out his words a hundred times.

In between his words - and Barenboim acknowledged that he would much rather be talked about for what he played than what he said - we heard a number of items by Chopin. I felt a little sorry for the string quintet made up of fine musicians from the Staatskapelle Berlin. Their role was solely to play in the chamber reduction of the slow movement from Chopin's First Piano Concerto. That is not exactly music that shows string players to their greatest advantage, and the acoustic proved an enemy too. Indeed, the acoustic played such tricks that one might have thought the piano amplified. So far as I could tell, it was a good performance; Barenboim certainly shaped the music well and maintained the composer's quasi-vocal lines. To be sure, I suggest that we wait for the forthcoming recording with the full orchestra. The D-flat Nocturne, op.27 no.2 received a spellbinding reading, twists and turns navigated and relished, yet with no loss to the overall line. A brace of waltzes provided contrast: the 'Minute' Waltz, which was enjoyable enough but is far from my favourite Chopin, and a truly searching, ruminative account of the A minor Waltz. I could have heard that again and again... Finally, Barenboim presented an equally compelling reading of the Barcarolle, possessed of great cumulative power but equally fine attention to its detail and, above all, to its bewitching charm.

Below is a relatively recent (2009, Copenhagen) Barenboim performance of the Nocturne:

Mozart Unwrapped (4) - King's College Choir/Cleobury, 11 March 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Missa brevis in B-flat major, KV 275/272b
Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night-Music’
Gradual (Introit): Sancta Maria, mater Dei, KV 273
Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, interspersed with:
Church Sonata in F major, KV 224
Offertorium de B.V. Maria: Alma Dei creatoris, KV 277
Communion: Gregorian chant

Krysia Osostowicz, Giles Francis (violins)
Judith Busbridge (viola)
Bernard Gregor-Smith (violoncello)
Steven Stirling, Sue Dent (French horns)
Peter Buckoke (double bass)
Ben-San Lau, Parker Ramsay (Organ Scholars)
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Stephen Cleobury (conductor)


Mozart continues to be ‘unwrapped’ at Kings Place. I confess that I no more understand the designation than I did before – or than I did for Beethoven and Chopin – but more importantly, this exploration of sacred and other music for Salzburg offered a delightful evening. The Choir of King’s College under Stephen Cleobury made a welcome debut at the festival, joined by the Dante Quartet and other instrumentalists.

At the heart of the programme stood two missae breves. KV 275/272b, in B-flat major, opened the concert. The unassuming nature of the performance put me in mind of the delightful St John’s recordings of Haydn and Mozart under George Guest. (Cleobury was one of the Guest era’s numerous organ scholars.) That said, the sounds of King’s and John’s remain distinct: the former ‘whiter’, more ‘English’, the latter more ‘Continental’ in timbre. King’s, however, had been joined by a notably fruity tenor, especially prominent when intoning ‘Credo in unum Deum’. After the Credo, a little echo reminded me of its big brother in King’s Chapel itself, but the new location of Hall One, Kings Place, could otherwise hardly stand more distinct from the choir’s home. There were, then, no musical – or rather anti-musical – shock tactics; instead, straightforward musical virtues, such as clarity of line and diction, cleanness of counterpoint, and a decent affection for Mozart’s setting, were to the fore. The Sanctus sounded nicely but never pedantically ‘constructed’; structure is always central, indeed crucial, to Mozart performance. Boys’ voices had a particular opportunity to shine, well taken, in the Benedictus. And the lovingly extended ‘Dona nobis pacem’ music sounded every bit as catchy as it should be.

The rest of the first half was devoted to the First Lodron Night-Music. Three members of the Dante quartet and double bass were now joined by the remaining quartet member (viola) and two horns. This equally delightful divertimento received a performance that was sharp yet warm, and eminently cultivated, its first movement inflections effortlessly ‘natural’: characteristics that ought to go without saying in Mozart performance, yet are frequently notable only by their absence. Inner movements proved elegantly turned indeed, yet each possessed its own particular character, whether the ravishing horn beauties of the third or the joy of the inner parts’ interplay during the fourth. The latter’s minor-mode material provided dignified pathos, without exaggeration, whilst the pizzicato lines of the fifth movement were simply delightful. Mozart’s finale proved as cheekily catchy as the ‘Dona’ music from the mass, all the more so on account of the players’ resisting any temptation heedlessly to rush.



For the second half, the Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, was presented semi-liturgically. That is, to say, there was no celebration of the Mass, but accompanying music was provided, from the introductory Gradual to Gregorian Chant – ‘Beata viscera Mariae Virginis, quae porta verunt aetemi Patris Filium. Alleluia' – which led straight into the Agnus Dei. South German Rococo joy was present, yet never overdone, in the opening Sancta Maria, KV 273: in Mozart, less so often proves more. Once again, musical structure was admirably clear. The Kyrie imparted an apt sense of earlier-century Neapolitan sacred music, its delights heightened once again by admirably cultivated string playing. Viennese style of Caldara and still more Fux came effortlessly to the foreground in the Gloria. It was a joy to hear the chamber organ (Ben-San Lau) for one of those glorious Epistle Sonatas that we seemingly never have opportunity to hear. (If only they could be programmed every time in place, say, of a Vivaldi concerto!) The Credo’s foreshadowing of the triumph of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony’s finale – its quintessentially Fuxian contrapuntal tag, C-D-F-E, here of course in F major, so F,G, B flat, A – was all the more welcome for being simply presented rather than hammered home. Alma Dei creatoris, the offertory hymn, was distinguished by a radiantly imploring treble line: how could the Mother of God decline to intercede? The censer – albeit English rather than full-bloodedly Austrian Baroque – was almost rendered visible in the jubilant ‘Osanna’.



I look forward to the second instalment on 12 October, when the Second Lodron Night-Music will join two further missae breves, in G major, KV 140 and D major, KV 194/186h, the latter interspersed with further Gregorian chant, the D major Church Sonata, KV 245, the Offertorium, Venite populi, KV 260 and that ineffably sublime late motet, Ave verum corpus, KV 618. For further details concerning ‘Mozart Unwrapped’, click here.

Alexander Goehr premiere: Promised End

(Photograph: Loganarts Management)


Tomorrow will witness what promises one of the most important musical events of the year, the first performance of a new opera by Alexander Goehr. Promised End has all the makings of a testament, though there is of course no reason to believe that Goehr will not be composing for many years to come. It is a bold composer who tackles King Lear, but the late Frank Kermode was at hand to assemble the libretto from Shakespeare. English Touring Opera's initiative is equally bold; the company will stage four performances from director James Conway at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre, before moving on to Malvern, Bexhill, Exeter, Crawley, Cambridge, and Snape Maltings. Tour details may be found by clicking here. Ryan Wigglesworth will conduct the excellent Aurora Orchestra. The Cambridge performances should be special indeed, marking a homecoming for composer, librettist, and indeed conductor.

Sandy Goehr's lectures were a formative experience during my time at Cambridge. Though reading history, I was always keen to smuggle in as much music and philosophy (though certainly not 'Cambridge philosophy') as I could. At any rate, there was a definite spring in my step as I made the very short walk across from the History Faculty to the Music Faculty to hear analyses of Wozzeck, The Rite of Spring, and so forth. It is often fascinating to hear composers talk about music they esteem, but to hear such works taken to pieces and put back together again by a master analyst with a composer's insight was a special, enlightening experience indeed. Two of Goehr's - and his father's - especial passions, the music of Monteverdi and Schoenberg, coincided with two of mine as a research student. (Walter Goehr, a pupil of Schoenberg, conducted the first British performance of the Monteverdi Vespers, in York Minster.) When I wrote to him, asking about his father's Monteverdi performances, he generously sent me cassette recordings, including L'incoronazione di Poppea with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Goehr fils's own recomposition of the lost Arianna, with Kathleen Ferrier's crackly lament at his heart, became an object of fascination and indeed love.

Conversations concerning Monteverdi and Schoenberg have always been of inestimable value to me, the latter especially helpful for my own work on Moses und Aron. Indeed, one might even go so far as to suggest that there is something of that opera's dialectical antagonists in the influence and voices of both those composers, individually and when opposed to each other. Apropos Moses, the cantata The Death of Moses is another fine work, engaging with the extraordinary power and hold of Schoenberg's legacy with means that have something also of Monteverdi to them. I recall a Cambridge performance conducted by Stephen Cleobury, dedicated to the memory of Yehudi Menuhin, who had died that day.

But my first encounter, I think, with Alexander and Walter Goehr was in the sixth form, when my late music teacher, who perhaps has the greatest claim as a formative influence upon me, gave me a copy of their joint essay, 'Arnold Schoenberg's Development towards the Twelve-Tone System'. I read it and re-read it, and suddenly found that what I was grappling towards as a listener, increasingly obsessed with Schoenberg and his music, I could now understand intellectually, and especially historically. I therefore could listen all the more acutely and happily.

Anyone wanting a 'way in' could do no better than start with that essay and Charles Rosen's Schoenberg. Schoenberg's music truly became a joy for me at this time, a joy that has never departed. (An interesting parallel presents itself to my mind when writing this: one of my A-level set works was the Monteverdi Vespers, another joy that has persisted and intensified.) Goehr is above all, of course, a composer, but, like his fellow Messiaen pupil, Pierre Boulez, he is very much more than that - which redounds to the benefit of the music. Speaking of Boulez, further mandatory reading is 'A Letter to Pierre Boulez,' (1987) as sharp an assessment of divergent post-war musical currents as I know. Goehr considers how, in his words, how he was 'led ... away from what was later to be seen as the "classical" avant-garde position,' making 'my music of no interest to, though not free of the influence of, Boulez.' This, the Schoenberg piece, and other essays, may be found in Finding the Key: Selected Writings of Alexander Goehr, published by Faber. I can recommend them as heartily as Arianna.

I have no idea, of course, what we shall hear tomorrow. The few words above, however, may give some indication of why my hopes are high. In the meantime, here is a wealth of material on Goehr's earlier operas, including excerpts, and below is the beginning of a short interview between composer and director concerning the new work.



The remainder of the interview may be found on Youtube.

Il mondo della luna, Opera East Productions, 25 July 2009

(sung in English, as A World upon the Moon)

Ecclitico – Andy Morton
Buonafede – Colin Morris
Ernesto – Håkan Vramsmo
Cecco – Alexander Anderson-Hall
Flaminia – Lara Martins
Clarice – Katie Bird
Lisetta – Kate Flowers
Prospero – Damian Dudkiewicz
Fabrizio – Ivan Luptak

Jeff Clarke (director)
Elroy Ashmore (designs)
Chris Ellis (lighting)

Orchestra of Opera East Productions
Benjamin Bayl (conductor)

Haydn’s operas require no apologies. Rarely, if ever, do they show the composer at his very greatest; they fall short, especially in modern terms, when it comes to characterisation; and, of course, they are not written by Mozart. However, they are full of splendid music; without exception, they satisfy in formal terms; the comedies, this one by Goldoni no less, are excellent fun; and, quite frankly, they are superior to a considerable number of works considered far more central to the operatic repertoire. Armida received a landmark Salzburg Festival production in 2007, to be revived this summer. Il mondo della luna is perhaps a slighter work but a wonderful opera nevertheless. Here, marking the two hundredth anniversary of the composer’s death, the fortieth of the lunar landings, and the tenth of Opera East Productions itself, we were treated to rather a riotous commemoration.

Jeff Clarke, quite astonishingly, was presenting his third production of Il mondo della luna. Great attention had clearly been paid to the characters, lending them greater ‘personality’ than libretto and music might in themselves suggest. Some might object, but I thought this a good thing. Elroy Ashmore’s costumes start off in what seems to be an increasingly fashionable vein: eighteenth-century with a modern, stylised twist, poised on occasion between surrealism and simply sending the whole thing up. Garsington’s recent Mirandolina – another Goldoni comedy – was similar in this respect. Once the old fool Buonafede has been persuaded that he has been taken to the moon, the costumes and designs become straightforwardly outrageous, likewise much of the acting. As an exercise in high camp meets slapstick, this was one of the funniest operatic performances I can recall, though some might think it all a little overdone. My only real objection lay with Clarke’s own translation. This goes beyond mere colloquialisation and becomes pointlessly crude, and indeed considerably remote from Goldoni. In any case, the sound of Italian suits Haydn’s music so much better.

Colin Morris was an impressive, if bizarre Buonafede, better considered in Carry On acting terms than as a purely musical performance, though he did manage to impart the vocal impression of an elderly man without sounding inadequate. For me, the star of the show was Kate Flowers’s Lisetta. As ever in opera buffa, it is the servants who know best – as this Lisetta knew very well. Knowing but also invitingly warm of tone, I wished we had heard more from here. (The work was subjected to a good number of cuts and not only in the recitatives.) Alexander Anderson-Hall’s Cecco was the other, sharply-characterised servant, though I thought it a pity he had been instructed to sing in a Mockney accent throughout. It becomes wearing and cannot really be maintained. Still, that was hardly his fault, and he has a winning stage presence. Andy Morton and Håkan Vramsmo improved as time went along, in the roles of the bogus astronomer Ecclitico and his noble accomplice, Ernesto. Where in the first act they had seemed a little stilted and vocally underpowered, their performances in the second and third acts were more impressive, more integrated into the company as a whole. The objects of their affection – Buonafede’s daughters, Flaminia and Clarice – were given good performances, sure in their phrasing and for the most part their coloratura, by Lara Martins and Katie Bird.

Benjamin Bayl’s direction was flowing and stylish. Some tempo choices I might have quibbled at, but even when arguably erring on the fast side, Bayl withstood any temptation to the merely hard-driven – unfortunately all too common in contemporary performances of eighteenth-century music. He clearly delighted in the score and thereby enabled the audience to do so too. His continuo playing was sprightly and witty too. For the most part, the orchestra played well enough, though earlier on there were a few too many occasions of sour intonation from the leader, Philippa Mo. It is an exceptionally difficult task to play such music one-to-a-part, doubtless dictated by economic circumstances. However, what sounded very much like amplification – unless it were a very strange trick of the acoustic – did not help. The balance remained the same, solo strings remaining underpowered, whilst the sound became unreal. However, this was a performance in which – perhaps wisely, given relatively straitened circumstances – theatrical values took precedence over the purely musical, and those theatrical values often impressed. One does not expect Covent Garden on the Cam, but there was a great deal of enjoyment, musical too, to be had here. Opera East Productions certainly presented a far superior performance to the most recent occasion on which I had heard English Touring Opera, a higher profile but roughly comparable outfit. Oliver Gooch’s company deserves our encouragement and support.

Britten Sinfonia/Ibragimova - Bach, Berg, and Kurtág, 19 March 2009

West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Bach – Keyboard Concerto no.5 in F minor, BWV 1056
Berg – Lyric Suite
Bach – Violin Concerto no.1 in A minor, BWV 1041*
Bach – Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (extracts: Contrapunctus I, VII, Canon XIV, Contrapunctus V)*, interspersed with:
Kurtág – Signs, Games, and Messages *(extracts: Hommage à J.S.B., Népdalféle, Jelek VI, Panaszos nóta, Hommage à Ránki György, The Carenza Jig)
Bach – Violin Concerto no.2 in E major, BWV 1042*

Maggie Cole (harpsichord)
Alina Ibragimova (violin/director)*
Britten Sinfonia
Jacqueline Shave (violin/director)

This fascinating programme was entitled ‘Bach Plus’. Three Bach concertos, two for violin and one for harpsichord, were joined by Berg’s Lyric Suite – the three movements arranged for string orchestra, not, as the programme notes implied, the original six for string quartet – and a mix of Bach and Kurtág: movements from the Art of Fugue and Signs, Games, and Messages. I was not entirely convinced by the ordering; to my ears, the second violin concerto sounded a bit too much like winding-down or even reversion, following the concentration of the Bach-Kurtág sequence. Nor could I discern why most of the players stood for the second half, having been seated for the first. But those are minor reservations, especially in a climate in which performances of Bach on modern instruments, save the works for piano solo, have become rare indeed.

Maggie Cole, who would play harpsichord continuo for the two violin concertos, was herself the soloist in BWV 1056. Her performance was unfailingly musical, eschewing the shock ‘effects’ so much in vogue amongst many Baroque performers. Ornamentation was tasteful and discreet, yet nevertheless welcome. Tempi were all well judged, again a welcome change from the exhibitionistic extremes we must often suffer. There was a strong rhythmic profile to the performance, though the music was never unduly driven, even in the final Presto. Strings were one-to-a-part – a quartet plus double bass – which, I suppose, makes sense when the keyboard instrument is a harpsichord rather than a piano. There were nevertheless still occasions when they seemingly had to tone down their contributions; at least, with the exception of the closing arco phrase of the slow movement, they never sounded ‘period’ in timbre. It was in that Largo that I really missed the sustained cantabile of the piano. Cole did what she could; the fault lies with the superseded instrument. By the end, I had had enough, though not more than enough, of its jangling sonority. (Sir Thomas Beecham put it far better than I or indeed anyone else ever could.)

A slightly larger string ensemble (3.3.3.2.1) was assembled for the Berg. I had never heard it performed by chamber forces before. If ultimately, I prefer either a full orchestral string section or the quartet original, the members of the Britten Sinfonia proved able advocates for such a compromise, producing a commendably full tone at climaxes and successfully conveying more than an impression of Berg’s labyrinthine eroticism. I especially liked the way the stomping Ländler-rhythms forced their Mahlerian way into the opening movement. Jacqueline Shave abandoned her violin to conduct the second movement, which, given its complexities, seemed a wise choice, even though she did little other than beat time. The scurrying, insect-like sounds looked forward at times to Ligeti and even Xenakis, but the harmonies and triple-time lilt in the more ‘Romantic’ passages left us in no doubt that the composer was Berg. The last of the three movements Berg arranged attained just the right note of problematic redemption, the various reconciliations Berg attempted remaining fraught, if beguiling. It was here, above all, that I thought a fuller string section would have been of great benefit, but it is testimony to the quality of the performance that my doubts were never more than mere doubts. The quotation from Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony registered with heart-rending clarity.

Strings were once again one-to-a-part for the first of Bach’s two violin concertos. A larger ensemble would probably have helped distinguish more clearly between soloist and ensemble but I suspect that the textures of a chamber-performance were desired rather than heard by default. Lightness and flexibility were the order of the day, at least earlier on. When it came to the finale, dance rhythms were aptly to the fore, but the music would have thrived more with greater flexibility; it sounded a little too ‘controlled’ by soloist Alina Ibragimova. There was a slight paradox here, for Ibragimova actually did very little as director. I had the feeling, especially during the slow movement – which could have done with being a little slower – that, conductorless as it was, the ‘orchestra’ would have benefited from a soloist more willing to lead it. Moreover, it was here that I felt the lack of great passion – and vibrato.

Many of those reservations I would also feel in the performance of the second violin concerto, although here I discerned other difficulties too. For instance, whereas the first movement of the A minor concerto had commendably recognised the moderato part of the Allegro moderato tempo indication, that of the E major concerto was simply too fast. Just because one can play something at a faster tempo does not mean that one should. This movement was breathless rather than exciting, a problem compounded by Ibragimova’s Vivaldian approach to the more virtuosic passages. If Bach is a place for fireworks at all, then they should be of a different nature from this. Moreover, her tone, whilst sometimes leavened by freer use of vibrato, remained somewhat pallid. There were a few moments of less than perfect intonation too. The slow movement was lyrical, again in a rather Italianate way, but hints of the operatic aria are not inappropriate here. That said, there are depths that did not begin to be explored on this occasion. (One can listen to Busch, Oistrakh, Zukerman, etc., etc., to appreciate what might have been.) Rather to my surprise, the finale sounded less forced than the first movement. There were, however, once again some dubious solo Vivaldian histrionics to be endured.

Much better were the Bach and Kurtág selections. I was far from enamoured with the vibrato-less tone adopted by the violins in the opening and closing Bach numbers (Contrapuctus I and V) but there was an intriguing echo of the viol consort, which somewhat alleviated my unease. It was only in these two movements that the full ensemble, itself in any case small, was employed. Kurtág’s Hommage à J.S.B. had a nice sense of ‘following on’ from Contrapunctus I. Written for violin, viola, and ’cello, its Webern-like concision made me wonder whether that composer might have been a still more appropriate candidate than Berg for inclusion in this programme. Caroline Dearnley’s ’cello solo movement, Népdalféle followed. In this excellent performance, Bach met Bartók and was yet transmuted into something quite new: slow and gravely beautiful. Bach returned for Contrapunctus VII, from string quartet. The counterpoint was presented rather than interpreted, but there is a case – even if I am not persuaded of it myself – for saying that it needs no more. Certainly the performance’s – and arguably the music’s – abstraction exerted their own fascination. Jelek VI returned us to the formation employed for the first of the Kurtág pieces. Here, however, there was a very real sense of violent outburst. Every note counted, once again recalling Webern. The viola solo of the following Panaszos nóta, performed ably by Clare Finnimore, sounded like a weird refraction of gypsy and traditional song through the instrument’s harmonics. It moved on towards a more conventionally Romantic sound, before turning to a combination of the two. It was haunting, unpredictable, yet with an inevitability all of its own. There was a certain weirdness of Bach’s own to Canon XIV, performed by violin and ’cello, both in terms of its chromaticism and the distance between the two musical lines. A sense of life ensured that it did not sound unduly didactic; indeed, I should have been quite happy to have heard Bach’s astounding canonical writing extended for hours. Mesmerising pizzicato and a real sense of fun characterised the Hommage à Ránki Györgi, followed by a virtuoso violin solo for Ibragimova in The Carenza Jig. It was here, I thought, that she sounded most at home, far more so than in Bach. Contrapuctus V then offered a welcome sense of culmination to a provocative and satisfying sequence.

Britten Sinfonia, 10 March 2009

West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Purcell (ed. Britten) – Chacony in G minor
Adam Walaciński – Little Music of Autumn (British premiere)
John Woolrich – Quiddities
Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht, op.4

Members of the Britten Sinfonia:
Jacqueline Shave, Thomas Gould (violins)
Martin Outram, Claire Finnimore (violas)
Caroline Dearnley, Ben Chappell (violoncelli)
Nicholas Daniel (oboe/English horn)

This fourth and final Britten Sinfonia lunchtime concert of the 2008-9 season perforce followed a slightly different format from its predecessors. The pattern of having an established British composer curate a programme of chamber and ensemble music, including a work of his own and a commissioned work by a young composer, was disturbed by illness on the part of Pawel Mykietyn. Instead of his envisaged new work, we heard the British premiere of Krakow-based Adam Walaciński’s 1986 work, Little Music of Autumn. This seemed especially apt, given that the first concert of each tour has been given in Krakow, the second following, as again in this case, in Cambridge. Walaciński was unknown to me prior to this concert and the programme did not give much away beyond his year of birth, 1928. According to Grove, he started out as a violinist and was serving as chairman of the Krakow section of the Polish Composers’ Union at the time of composition. He has been a lecturer and professor in theory at Krakow University. A little further research suggests an equitable division between concert and film or theatre music in his œuvre. Scored for oboe, violin, viola, and ’cello, the work is described by Walaciński as ‘a small romantic piece written in the aleatoric technique. The oboe is the leading instrument – like a solitary wanderer against the background of a coloured landscape painted by whispering strings.’ This seemed to me an apt description, although without a score it was impossible to discern which elements were aleatory, or in what sense. Nicholas Daniel’s opening oboe solo, haunting in tone, was after a little while joined by shimmering, tremulous strings. Sounds of Bartók-like night music and other ‘effects’ joined the atmospheric mix; one might well have guessed that this was a composer of stage and film music. The oboe remained soulful and lyrical throughout, for which considerable credit should be given to Daniel’s performance.

Woolrich’s Quiddities was also evocative of a nocturnal landscape. Indeed, the composer had written that this work might alternatively have been titled ‘Lake Greifen’, after a short story by Robert Walser, in which the narrator swims in a small hidden lake and wonders what a darkened lake, under a sky full of stars, will be like. Commissioned for Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia in 2005, the work received a well-deserved revival here, although it was my first hearing. It is scored for string quintet plus English horn. The arresting opening, with two ominous ’cellos playing arco, set against aggressive pizzicato violins and viola, prepares the way for the English horn’s entry and also presents thematic material for subsequent development. The work is sometimes elegiac yet never remotely sentimental, possessed of a rhythmic drive realised here with admirable precision. Considerable use is made of pizzicato strings, often with real menace. It is difficult to conceive of a superior performance, given the richness of string tone, the keenly modulated lyricism from Daniel, and the sense of a narrative that led us towards the piece’s uncertain ending. Perhaps there is another story yet to be told.

The concert had opened with one of the very finest works by England’s greatest composer, Henry Purcell. The authenticke coven has pretty much ensured that, nowadays, Purcell’s music is off bounds for modern instruments. It was therefore especially welcome not only to hear the G minor Chacony at all, given here in Britten’s excellent edition, but to hear a performance that treated the work as music rather than as an archaeological exhibit. I find it difficult to imagine that any performance will match Britten’s own recording, with the English Chamber Orchestra, but this one, for string quartet rather than the ECO’s string orchestra, was a splendid modern-day contender. Britten’s dynamic shading was relished, though never exaggerated. The work’s structural contours were apparent for all to hear, as, every bit as importantly, was its tragic emotional import. Jacqueline Shave could fairly be said to have led the other players, for this is not in any sense a Classical quartet, yet, as in a small orchestra, all players and their instruments contributed to the cumulative progress of a piece at least as dramatic as its counterparts in King Arthur and Dioclesian.

Verklärte Nacht, in its original sextet version, is of course another work evocative of night and landscape. The last time I had heard it in concert was a few years ago from members of the Staatskapelle Berlin. Whilst there is naturally no gainsaying the richness of tone of players from Daniel Barenboim’s band, this fine performance from the Britten Sinfonia perhaps had the dramatic edge. The opening was taken very slowly, impressing an insistent D minor – that most beloved tonality for the Second Viennese School – upon our consciousnesses and therefore preparing us for the tonal excursions on which the composer would lead us. The music eventually opened out into a full, post-Brahmsian sound, but what was perhaps most impressive about this performance was its almost Wagnerian musico-dramatic thrust and flexibility. Brahms’s influence will always be keenly felt in this work; it was good, however, to be reminded that Wagner’s example contributes more than Tristan-esque harmony. At times, the lines sounded almost vocal; the man and woman of Richard Dehmel’s poem might have been singing to one another. Such was the responsiveness of the players to each other, however, that this clearly remained chamber music. Not that this precluded tone-painting; if anything, it was enhanced. If one shut one’s eyes, one could almost see a moonlit forest. There were moments of truly transfigured stillness, which yet remained clearly integrated into the work’s structure. This was a late-Romantic rather than an expressionistic view of Schoenberg’s sextet: a valid choice, not least in the context of the rest of Woolrich’s programme, and a choice realised with great success.

This concert was recorded for subsequent broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Tiberghien/Britten Sinfonia - Debussy, Richard Harrold, Thomas Adès, and Fauré, 17 February 2009

West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

Debussy – Sonata for violoncello and piano
Richard Harrold – Ink (British premiere)
Thomas Adès – ‘Court studies’ from The Tempest
Fauré – Piano trio in D minor, op.120

Cédric Tiberghien (piano)
Jacqueline Shave (violin)
Caroline Dearnley (violoncello)
Joy Farrall (clarinet)

Each of the Britten Sinfonia’s lunchtime concerts presents a newly commissioned work alongside other chamber or ensemble works; each, moreover, is curated by an established British composer, who selects a younger composer as recipient for the commission. Last month, we had Oliver Knussen and Ryan Wigglesworth; this time, it was the turn of Thomas Adès and Richard Harrold.

Harrold’s Ink had been premiered in Krakow at the weekend, so this was its second performance. Scored for violin, ’cello, clarinet, and piano, it is described by the composer as a ‘neo-baroque study of rhythm and asynchrony’. In the busy opening section, it was unsurprising therefore that it was Stravinsky who sprang to mind, especially the Stravinsky of Dumbarton Oaks. The performance was appropriately metronomical: Stravinsky’s peculiar vision of Bach has a great deal to answer for. A slower section follows, characterised by slow, somewhat mysterious piano chords, whose harmonies were sometimes suggestive of Debussy and perhaps even Schoenberg. Cédric Tiberghien’s beautiful touch and discreet legato pedalling served this music extremely well. The other three instruments develop this material, soon rejoined by the piano, enabling the music to gather pace and the opening, angular voice to be restored. Harrold’s quoted ‘asynchrony’ most strongly characterises the concluding bars: slower again, but with disruptive outbursts. This was well-crafted music, well performed, even if it was difficult to detect an individual voice. That said, this was my first encounter with Harrold’s music, let alone with this piece, so perhaps my ears need time to adjust. So young a composer has, in any case, plenty of time in which to develop.

Adès certainly can lay claim to a distinctive voice. Yet I have often wondered, as again I did here, what he is actually saying with it: shades of Schoenberg’s ‘A Chinese poet speaks Chinese, but what is he saying?’ There is an accomplished, self-conscious brilliance to this music, ‘transcribed ... freely’ for the same forces as Harrold’s piece, from The Tempest, but what lies behind the facade? I had asked myself much the same about Adès’s opera, although the instrumental suite naturally avoided the mother work’s vocal infelicities. Even when the harmonies begin to sound more reflective, they soon become predictable. There is, of course, a playfulness typical of the composer’s work – and very well captured by the performers – but, whilst playing on the ruins of tonality is all very well, it is hardly sufficient in itself.

At least, however, Ades’s music evinces more bite than that of Fauré. A self-conscious distancing from Teutonic tradition is very much part of Adès’s persona – but there might be more worthy candidates for inclusion in such a programme than Fauré’s late piano trio. It goes nowhere in particular, for quite some time. Again, it was well performed, once Caroline Dearnley had – quickly – surmounted some early intonational difficulties. Yet the blandness of the harmonies, even in the final Allegro vivo, which at least boasts greater rhythmic interest, is for me the abiding memory of the piece. It ought to appeal to those members of the English musical establishment who devoted vast swathes of programming time last year to a forlorn attempt to convince the rest of us – and perhaps even themselves – that Vaughan Williams was anything but a minor composer. (It will not, since Fauré was not English.) Tiberghien’s pianism proved on its own terms most impressive, whether in the rippling opening of the first movement or the relatively more virtuosic passages of the finale.

Such musicianship was far better served, however, by Debussy’s ’cello sonata, with which the concert had opened. Tiberghien’s alternation between the virile and the feline perfectly captured the ambiguities of the first movement. Both he and Dearnley showed keen ears not only for the composer’s harmonies but for their rhythmic and structural implications. Shades of old France – Debussy was by now signing himself ‘musicien français’ – were apparent without emblazoning them. The ensuing Sérénade was, if anything, still more impressive, its haunting uncertainty sometimes blossoming into lyricism, yet with appropriate hesitation. Dearnley’s pizzicato and Tiberghien’s bass-register staccato proved a good match, so as not only to imitate but also to blend. Rhythmic control in the finale was impressive, as the sonata reached a duly exciting, yet unexaggerated conclusion. If Tiberghien unsurprisingly remained the musically dominant partner, Dearnley’s performance also impressed, especially when her instrument was singing upon the upper reaches of the A string. The sonata was for me the definite highlight of the concert.

This concert was recorded for subsequent broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Snow amidst the roofs of Peterhouse, 6 February 2009

God in the nineteenth century: Wagner (Parsifal)

A sermon delivered at Evensong, at Trinity College, Cambridge on Sunday 26 October: https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/show.php?dowid=627. The series, God in the nineteenth century, will culminate with Terry Eagleton on Nietzsche on Sunday 23 November. Other sermons may be found at: https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=459.