Musikfest Berlin (3) – Widmann/BPO/Roth - Stravinsky, Zimmermann, Debussy, and Ligeti, 14 September 2018

Philharmonie

Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1947 version)

Zimmermann: Violin Concerto
Debussy: Images, interspersed with:
                 Ligeti: Lontano, Atmosphères

Carolin Widmann (violin)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

François-Xavier Roth (conductor)

 

One could hardly go wrong with a programme and musicians such as this; I am delighted to report that expectations were at least confirmed and in many ways exceeded. I could moan, I suppose, about the decision to use the 1947 revision of Symphonies of Wind Instruments, both in itself and given what I took to be the implied tribute to Debussy, but even that had its advantages. Indeed, so puzzled was I by the difference in what I was hearing, without initially having known why, that I perhaps listened with still greater attention, making moreover connections to later works such as The Rake’s Progress and Cantata which I might otherwise not have done. There was certainly no doubting its opening spiky aggression, which in context of the festival as a whole – or at least that part of it I had heard – offered a thought-provoking follow-up to George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill. Chordal responses, in the liturgical sense, hinted as much at the Rake as the Rite; perhaps more than ever, this emerged as a threshold work. With the Berlin Philharmonic and François-Xavier Roth, it lost neither its violence nor its rare beauty; indeed, the two were strongly confirmed as two sides to the same coin.

 

How to follow that? With a violin concerto, of course, in this case Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s. The orchestra’s inheritance from Stravinsky remained clear, even if the soloist’s response was initially – this is far too protean a work for such generalisations to hold for long – closer to Berg. And so, Carolin Widmann, Roth, and the BPO took us on a thrilling, wayward journey, the first movement sardonic yet unquestionably ‘felt’, its final peroration earth-shattering. Piano incited, invited the violin’s central fantasia, that movement’s celesta enigmatic as ever. Orchestral depth in string unison resounded just as it might have done in Bruckner. Here as elsewhere, Roth’s expert, unassuming handling of climaxes proved second to none. It was rather as if late Prokofiev had taken a trip. Much the same might be said of the finale, although here it was an earlier Prokofiev of the Second Violin Concerto rather than Cinderella. The echoes – one might, uncharitably, put it a little more strongly – of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements came through loud and clear, but they were gone before one knew it, xylophone having launched into a solo Danse macabre for a new age that had not yet forgotten its pre-war roots. Bach too was to be heard, certainly in the cadenza. What an exhilarating, polystilistic mix!

 

The second half engagingly interspersed the three panels of Debussy’s Images, in the order ‘Gigues’, ‘Rondes de printemps’, and ‘Ibéria’, and two works by Ligeti: Lontano and Atmosphéres. ‘Gigues’ offered mystery that was clear and clear-eyed, rather in the line of Boulez’s Debussy, yet certainly not to be reduced to that. Roth struck a typically fine balance between what Boulez and his generation would call musical ‘parameters’: rhythm against – or with? – insidious harmonies, and so on. Lontano seemed to pick up with respect to pitch, timbre, and more; this was a Klangfarbenmelodie of sorts, with roots. Even a strange electronic interference – a hearing aid? – with the tuba seemed curiously apt, all the more so when I realised that it was in fact the violins! ‘Music of the spheres’ is a cliché, but here it seemed the right cliché. This was as well shaped, balanced, and played a performance as I have heard – at least.

 

What could not be changed by such listening (and performance)? ‘Rondes de printemps’ certainly seemed to have been. I found myself better able than ever to make connections with ‘Gigues’ too, perhaps especially with respect to relationships between harmony, rhythm, melody, timbre, and so on. Debussy here positively demanded to be heard with hindsight. And yet, his music remained as elusive as ever in a truly mesmerising performance; this is and was no zero-sum game. Atmosphéres again offered the challenge only to connect, its woodwind unquestionably Stravinskian, chords emerging that I could have sworn I recognised from Debussy. Did I? Does it matter? Swarming double basses suggested electronic viols. Transformations and contours were once again expertly shaped by Roth – and, of course, by this great orchestra. It closed with one of the most magical fadings a niente I have ever heard.

 

Not, of course that ‘Ibéria’ is nothing; this was definitely something. ‘Par les rues et par les chemins’ proved sly, sinuous, and razor sharp. That did not mean that lines could not blur, but there was no doubting the intent, the musical meaning behind such blurring. Much the same might be said of ‘Les Parfums de la nuit’, albeit with different colours, temperature, and of course languor. The precision of playing in this atmosphere was just as impressive as in Atmosphères. ‘Le Matin d’un jour de fête’ seemed to unite so many tendencies over the evening as whole: a true conclusion. It was never, however, anything other than itself. The subtle swagger of opposing forces that might confront each other or might dissolve, transmute proved a typical Debussian, yes painterly joy.

Boulez Ensemble - Octets by Schubert and Widmann, 28 May 2017

Pierre Boulez Saal

Schubert – Octet in F major, D 803
Widmann – Octet 

Jörg Widmann (clarinet)

Mor Biron (bassoon)
Radek Baborák (horn)
Carolin Widmann, Krzysztof Specjal (violins)
Amihai Grosz (viola)
Claudius Popp (cello)
Nabil Shehata (double bass)
 

For a work so frequently lauded, Schubert’s Octet is not performed so very often. Perhaps it is the length, the forces required (although they are surely not that unusual), or the difficulty in finding a companion piece: probably a combination of those factors. At any rate, this was an excellent opportunity not only to hear Schubert’s masterwork, but to hear it fundamentally rethought, and followed by Jörg Widmann’s 2004 five-movement Octet, specifically written as a companion, at about half its length, to its great six-movement predecessor.

The attack and diminuendo on the opening F – no tonality as such, yet – offered, like the wondrous hall in which the performance took place, a near ideal blend of precision and warmth. But warmth, at least not in a traditional sense, was not to be a hallmark of this probing, often brazenly modernistic performance, in which oscillation between major and minor, and the forward looking tendencies of those long Schubert lines proved more suggestive of subsequent figures in his tradition, not least Schoenberg, but perhaps beyond him too (Widmann included). The first movement’s harmonies continually surprised, even if one ‘knew’ what was coming. Nothing was taken for granted. And there was very little in the way of Gemütlichkeit. To start with, I rather missed that aspect of ‘tradition’, but I have no doubt that I was wrong to have done so. If relative consolation came with Widmann’s opening clarinet solo in the second movement, agitation in the string ‘accompaniment’ duly warned against simplification. It was soon to blossom into something more, quite unsettling, which was in large part, I think, the doing of Widmann’s sister, Carolin, on first violin. She emerged very much as the questioning voice of modernism, intense, febrile, sometimes withdrawing vibrato, sometimes applying it in unnervingly neurotic, never comfortable fashion: neither ‘traditional’, nor ‘authentic’, but instead dragging the work into the twenty-first century. This, she and her colleagues told us, was not easy music; it should never, ever be considered as such. Other solos displayed their own instrumental character; there was never mere repetition. I loved the way in which, towards the close, as if echoing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, Nabil Shehata’s double bass suggested distant timpani rolls.

 

Beethoven was again suggested in the ghostly tension of the scherzo’s opening, although its developmental path was of course more ‘Austrian’, more – well, Schubertian, almost as if a Bruckner score had at last proved itself amenable to good editing. There was something mysteriously verging upon the chaste, yet not quite, with apologies to St Augustine, to the trio. Always, we were made to listen. It was Carolin once again who added grit to the oyster in the fourth movement theme and variations. Phrasing and articulation were always well pointed, whilst never different for the sake of it. Schubert’s harmonies, of course, continued to underlie everything we heard, cello (Claudius Popp), double bass, and bassoon (Mor Biron), as fresh and faithful as anyone could hope for. And how gorgeous those horn (Radek Baborák), bassoon, and clarinet solos sounded above: never just gorgeous, though, ever generative, and surprisingly so. Midway between Mozart and Brahms, and yet close also to Schoenberg, Schubert’s ghosts of Viennese past and future invaded our consciousness – whether we liked it or no.

 

If the Minuet relaxed somewhat in tempo, it was no more relaxed in mood than the scherzo had been. Even the wienerisch lilt unsettled – was this not taking us to meet Pierrot? – rather than comforted. Once again, major-minor oscillation was the thing, or at least one of the most important things. Restful it was not, for every note demanded to be heard, to be considered. The introduction to the finale, taken attacca, offered the suspense of the opening to a great symphonic finale, which essentially it is. And then, as if by magic, there came something of the spirit of Haydn: a benediction that did not eclipse what had gone before, but in part made sense of it. A divertimento is no easy option; Beethoven’s is not the only way, however tempting it may be for us all to think so. One could smile, at last. And yet … the return of that opening material rightly had us resume our guard. I should not always want to hear the Octet played like this, but I have little doubt that this performance will have changed my idea of the work forever.

 

The Intrada to Jörg’s Octet seemed deliberately to evoke Schubert’s opening, as if it had grown legs and extended itself into a movement of its own, a movement which yet could not conclude, being an ‘intrada’. Darkness and harmonic tension seemed to recall, to refract, but never to repeat Schubert. Interestingly, the playing style from all concerned registered as more ‘Romantic’, or at least post-Romantic. Those lines again, as if carried over from Schubert, yet distorted, deconstructed both attested to and questioned the composer’s claim, quoted in the programme, concerning Schubert: ‘The line is something so valuable, it must always be carried forth when playing. Once you drop it, it is destroyed.’ Baborák’s post-Mozartian hunting horn solo, announcing the second movement ‘Menuetto’ was similarly taken up, developed, and deconstructed.

 

The third movement is marked as a Lied ohne Worte. And yes, it is a song that sings, but it never sings, or is sung, quite as one thinks it ‘should’ be, suggesting a relationship to an ‘original’ predecessor that we have never heard, has never actually existed. Harmonies as much as melodic lines proved suggestive in that respect, tension heightened by a high Romantic, even expressionistic style of performance. Modernist interventions – both in work and performance – question everything we have told ourselves. Who are we now, then? Do we even want to know? A ghostly (again that word) passage for pizzicato double bass and horn could be heard ‘as if’ it were a passacaglia; maybe it had been, in its previous imaginary life. Double bass, now bowed, announced a chaotic free for all at the opening of the Intermezzo, which yet soon found its transformative way to return (or was it?) of material and mood from the Intrada. Transition and revisiting, though never quite, were clearly the thing. It was again the double bass, growling, discomfiting, that led us into the finale, its motifs emerging from the previous movement, so it appeared, in a strange passage of liminal suspense. Classical and Romantic misrememberings offered a non-transfigured night, Schubert both present and absent. And then, nothing.

 

Widmanns/Kozhuhkin - Schoenberg, Weber, and Bartók, 5 May 2017

Pierre Boulez Saal

Schoenberg – Fantasie, for violin with piano accompaniment, op.47

Weber – Grand Duo concertant, in E-flat major, op.48
Weber – Piano Sonata no.3 in D minor, op.49
Bartók – Contrasts, Sz.111

Carolin Widmann (violin)

Jörg Widmann (clarinet)

Denis Kozhukhin (piano)

One ends up saying that almost every Schoenberg work is ‘extraordinary’ – or at least I do. Such enthusiasm is perhaps not entirely a bad thing for one at work writing not just one but two books concerning the composer and his music, but it needs to be kept in check, lest one end up sounding a bit too much like a contemporary Radio 3 presenter. Nevertheless, the Fantasie for ‘violin with piano accompaniment’ – Schoenberg actually wrote the violin part in its entirety before the piano part – continues at the very least to surprise, on those few occasions when musicians bother to perform it. For that alone, thanks would be due to Carolin Widmann and Denis Kozhukhin, but these were scrupulous performances indeed, taking on board both Schoenberg’s somewhat strange description and the work’s nature as a fantasia, not least its inspiration in Mozart’s essays in the genre, tonal and formal implications there to be heard without pedantic exaggeration. At first, I wondered whether Kozhukhin was proving a little reticent, but it was who I was in the wrong; his ‘accompanying’ role, neither over- nor understated, brought Schoenberg’s constructivism to the fore, Widmann’s greater fantasy very much the other side to the coin. One heard, moreover, the passing of motifs between instruments, without that suggesting a misleading equivalence: a very difficult balance, or rather ordering, to maintain, especially in music so febrile, so ever-transformative as this. (Whatever I might say about it will over-simplify.) Echoes of the old and their transformation sounded very much at the heart of the music and its progress. So too as an overflowing lyricism such as one often hears in Schoenberg: the problem for many, it seems, is not so much a lack of ‘tunes’ as far too many, a twentieth-century reinstatement of Mozart’s own ‘problem’ (with apologies to an apocryphal Joseph II). The ending surprised as much as ever, whether one ‘knew’ or not.

I try with Weber’s instrumental music; I really do. Alas, odd points of contact notwithstanding, I find it difficult to credit that a piece such as the Grand Duo concertant for clarinet and piano is by the composer of Euryanthe. Yes, it is earlier, yes I know we are fashionably supposed to take an interest in virtuosity for its own sake (or have we now gone beyond that in ‘nineteenth-century studies’?); but really… Carolin Widmann was replaced by her brother, Jörg. There was no doubting his virtuosity, nor indeed that of Kozhukhin. This, however, is a piece in which a very different form of inequality between instruments makes for much less satisfying, much less interesting listening. Ironically, or perhaps not, the occasional sighing phrases in the first movement’s piano part registered far more sympathetically than all the passagework in the world, whichever part it were in. (The piano part often sounds oddly as if it were an orchestral reduction.) There are lovely moments, but nothing more than that, and a degree of note-spinning, above all in the finale, which makes the likes of Hummel sound profound. That the slow movement was a little darker offered some relief.

Weber’s Third Piano Sonata followed the interval, offering Koshukhin, at least in the first and second movements, something more to get his musical teeth into. Allegro feroce is the marking for the first movement, and feroce the first group certainly was, the advent of the second as melting as anyone could hope for. There was perhaps even the odd hint of a soprano aria from one of the operas, with in a general ‘early Romantic’, non-Beethovenian framework. If there is a bit too much ‘more of the same’, Kozhukhin did what he could. He charmed, moreover, in the Andante con moto second movement, even in its more turbulent passages – which is probably as it should be. The range of colours drawn from the instrument in the finale was quite something, even if its musical substance were more dubious. I was soon longing for Beethoven. An oddity I noted only at the end: was the ordering of an op.47, an op.48, and an op.49 a coincidence?

With Bartók’s Contrasts, involving all three musicians, we turned to a masterpiece of the highest order. The first movement’s performance caught to perfection its fantastical gawkiness (perhaps a hint of Schoenberg’s opening piece, perhaps not) and equally its slinky eroticism. Not for nothing was this written for Benny Goodman. Contours were well traced, with equally keen projection of metre. Kozshukhin’s (at times) almost Schubertian way with the piano part of the first movement intrigued; it made me wonder what he might do with the piano concertos. Jörg Widmann’s virtuosity was put to still more startling and certainly much better use. The second movement was very much the heart of the performance, rich clarity offering a truly tripartite partnership. Line was just as clear, as goal-directed, as in Beethoven. The opening to the third movement suggested the Devil himself (or herself, in this case) tuning up, proving contagious both to clarinet and piano in turn. Once again, virtuosity was attuned throughout to properly musical ends, in performances as impressive for their flexibility as for their respect once again for metre. There was longing too, perhaps suggestive of the beginning of American exile for the composer – although is that to sentimentalise? At any rate, this was an awe-inspiring performance, as exciting as it was thoughtful: perhaps the best I have ever heard. A movement from The Soldier’s Tale made for an encore as enjoyable and, again, as exciting as it was apt.

Wien Modern (5) - Hodges/Widmann/ORF SO/Cambreling - Mundry, Andre, and Saunders, 19 November 2015

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna

Isabel Mundry – Non-Places, a Piano Concerto (2012, Austrian premiere)

Mark Andre - … hij … 1 (2010, Austrian premiere)
Rebecca Saunders – Still (2011)

Nicolas Hodges (piano)

Carolin Widmann (violin)

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Sylvain Cambreling (conductor)

 

Another Wien Modern concert in which women composers outnumbered men. We are getting there, it seems – I hesitate to say that we are ‘there’, wherever that might be – with respect to New Music, although there is a long way to go in honouring female composers of the past. (Barbara Strozzi is a current cause of mine; I am sure most of you will have others. And there are, of course, real problems in other respects.) Part of the answer, to many problems, is of course to have a far healthier balance between contemporary musical production and outings from the museum. Festivals such as Wien Modern help enormously, and the turn out for this concert was very encouraging; but every orchestra, every hall, every musician, every audience member should think about the bizarrely narrow ‘repertoire’ that suffocates us.

Isabel Mundry’s Non-Places, a Piano Concerto, drew me in, although I really felt that I needed at least another hearing to grasp where it had taken me. (That is a criticism of me, rather than of the work, I hasten to add; I should certainly like to have another opportunity.) Untuned percussion leads us to orchestral chatter – passages, I learned later, from Oswald Egger – and laughter. Such unexpected sounds, alternating, combining, mutually transforming, certainly had me sit up and listen (and watch!) Various orchestral instruments sound amongst the chatter. It is actually quite a while until the piano enters, almost as if we were hearing a conventional opening ritornello. When the piano does enter, it is not in obviously soloistic fashion; indeed, the work progresses more as a chamber or ensemble piece than what we might have learned to expect from a piano concerto. It is clearly a challenging work for all concerned, but Nicolas Hodges, the ORF SO, and Sylvain Cambreling all did an excellent job. The pianist’s despatch of, for instance, repeated notes, a repeated device in different yet clearly related guises, was everything one might hope for. Moods vary, as do textures. I was especially captivated by duetting between plucked piano strings and cimbalom: a visual as well as an aural spectacle. Other instruments, whether percussion or strings, act as the changing orchestra alongside the two apparent soloists. There was in work and performance very much a sense of a varied yet single span.

 

I am afraid I could not make much of Mark Andre’s  … hij … 1. I admit that I am becoming a little impatient with works in which instrumentalists ‘play’ but make no sound; it certainly has an element of theatre to it, and here, at least, sounds occasionally emerge from the silence, but it is a device that has quickly become clichéd. Alas, most of what I heard fell under the heading of cliché. Although doubtless very well performed – there is no doubting the prowess of this orchestra, nor its commitment – ultimately, it sounded a bit like a minimalist attempting to ape Lachenmann (and not getting very far). There are some nice touches, for instance percussion emerging out of what I suppose we must call the ‘extended techniques’ of not playing or barely playing. Likewise, I felt that rhythm emerged from that opening too. I could not discern, though, why the orchestra – or rather piano and wind – suddenly start playing ‘normally’, nor why they stop. Sudden shifts, whether of tempo or instrumentation, do not seem to signify anything in particular. It felt, I am sad to say, interminable.

That could certainly not be said of Rebecca Saunders’s Still, for which the ever-outstanding Carolin Widmann joined the orchestra. (I learned afterwards that the piece is dedicated to her, and that it was premiered by Widmann and Cambreling, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.) Still came as a relief, from the very opening violin solo, which somehow imparted a sense of a work and performance that knew exactly where they were going, even if we did not (yet). In many ways, it sounded more like a traditional concertante piece than Mundry’s work. The orchestra engages with the soloist, and vice versa, such interaction continuing, echoing, contrasting; that held for the performance as well as the work. One aspect of the writing that especially caught my ear was the timbral transformation of particular pitches, inevitably bringing, even so many years hence, Webern to mind. Widmann’s rendition of the solo part had me wondering what it would be to hear her in Bach or Schoenberg; indeed, there is something pre- or (slightly) post-Romantic to a role one might call obbligato. (I thought at times of Schoenberg’s op.47 Phantasy for violin and piano.) There was true emotional as well as intellectual depth here. Despite the increasing value – if indeed in such post-modern times we are permitted to speak of æsthetic worth – awarded performance art, installations, and the like, this seemed triumphantly to underline the ongoing importance of the musical work, whether as concept or, perhaps more importantly, as experience.

Salzburg Mozartwoche (1): Jörg and Carolin Widmann, Hidéki Nagano - works by Boulez, 31 January 2009

Solitär, Universität Mozarteum, Salzburg,

Boulez – Piano sonata no.1 (1946)
Boulez – Dialogue de l’ombre double, for clarinet and tape (1982-5)
Boulez – Une page d’éphéméride, for piano solo (2005, Austrian premiere)
Boulez – Anthèmes 2, for violin and electronics (1998)

Experimental Studio of the Südwestrundfunk Freiburg
Michael Acker and Joachim Hass (sound projection)
Hidéki Nagano (piano)
Carolin Widmann (violin)
Jörg Widmann (clarinet)

This year’s Salzburg Mozartwoche has no fewer than four featured composers. One hardly needs mentioning; another, commemorating the bicentenary of his death, is Haydn. The other two are both very much alive: Pierre Boulez and Matthias Pintscher. This concert was devoted to works by Boulez for three different solo instruments, with or without tape or electronics. It began with a typically fascinating conversation between the composer and the festival’s artistic director, Stephan Pauly. Boulez reiterated his long-standing opposition towards the idea of some sort of ‘golden age’: important to heed, as has this festival, by encouraging artists to programme works by Mozart with those of ‘modern’ composers, from Debussy onwards. Moreover, as Boulez pointed out, the greatest works of their time – he cited Don Giovanni and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – are remarkable at least as much for the seeds of what is to come as for their standing in their own time. Today’s musical vocabulary is different, of course, but linguistic ‘understanding’ – he and Pauly discussed the meaning and implications of the German verb ‘verstehen’ – is different from musical ‘understanding’. Boulez went back as far as Gesualdo and his dramatic, some might say violent, opposition between diatonic and chromatic music to illustrate his points. Another important theme, which would recur during the works performed, was the relationship between form and expression.

Having worked with the Ensemble Intercontemporain since 1996, Hidéki Nagano was an ideal choice to perform two of Boulez’s works for solo piano. The first sonata received a fine performance, full of dramatic contrasts, whether of dynamics, sonorities, or harmony. (In general, of course, we are considering a combination of these and indeed of many other varieties.) What Boulez had said about understanding of a work’s historical position was brought home here, Nagano imparting a sense of breaking away not only from classical sonata forms, essentially a staging point towards their ‘destruction’ in the awe-inspiring second sonata, but also from the vocabulary of the earlier Notations. The hints of Bartók, Messiaen, and Webern have not been entirely banished, but there is a sense of restlessness with their language and its implications, a restlessness that adds urgency to the dramatic sweep of the two-movement work.

Une page d’éphéméride is the first in a cycle for piano on which Boulez is currently at work. On the evidence of this first instalment, Pages d’éphéméride bids fair to be Boulez’s most substantial addition to the solo piano literature since the third, or perhaps even the second, sonata. It is difficult to tell from not only a single hearing but also a piece heard in isolation, but I sensed some kind of summation, consonant with the greater equanimity of the composer in (relatively) old age, a piece audibly from the composer of sur Incises. At a safer distance, the composer seems more willing – and able – to offer a rapprochement to the sonorities and perhaps even to the harmonies of twentieth-century composers: not only Debussy but, rather to my surprise, Schoenberg too. The piano-writing is no less idiomatic than it ever was; yet, without classicising, there seems less of an imperative than during the heady years of a post-Second World War ‘year zero’ to break so violently with what has gone before. Suffice it to say, this is neither a mere page, nor remotely ephemeral. Nagano’s performance made that abundantly clear.

In between the two piano works, we heard the Dialogue de l’ombre double. Boulez has generally been fortunate in his interpreters, but it is difficult to imagine a clarinettist better equipped for this work than Jörg Widmann, given his experience both as performer and composer. The clarinettist’s dialogue with a ‘double shadow’, such as one might sometimes see in the canals of Venice, was hauntingly conveyed. (The ghost of Debussy re-appears, perhaps?) Echoes rebound; reflections become almost audible. The spatial aspect is important – Boulez in the preliminary discussion made reference to spectators at a game of tennis – but more important is the intertwining, the wandering that grants the listener a strange feeling that he too is moving around the acoustic space. I was led to recall Boulez’s earlier comment, already exemplified in the performance of the first piano sonata, that composers had long disregarded the importance of music’s acoustical qualities, that is of particular notes played upon particular instruments, as a parameter in composition.

And yet, as the composer had pointed out with regard to Mozart and Beethoven, an important work very much of its time also points the way to subsequent developments. In Anthèmes 2, itself an offshoot of ...explosante-fixe..., the use of electronics is more advanced, in that they are ‘live’ participants in the process. There is nothing arbitrary about this; what little interest in Cage Boulez once evinced is long behind him. However, there are elements of probability and surprise, as Monika Woitas commented in her programme note. At least as telling, however, are the connections to tradition. Elements of the violin figuration seemed – at least to me – to pay homage to the Baroque writing of Bach. I do not mean in the sense of quotation and it may not even be a matter of intention, but it was interesting to note and to wonder what this might ‘mean’. One can easily forget that Boulez, in the days when he conducted more, was concerned to delve far back into the holdings of ‘the museum’, and to exhibit them in the light of newer work. Bach often featured in his programmes. The excellent violinist, Carolin Widmann, has done similarly in her programming and proved an ideal choice. Her virtuosity and musical ‘understanding’ were never in question. I was most impressed by the way in which the score appeared to have been assimilated into her repertoire, just as if it had been Bach. Mention should also be made of Michael Acker and Joachim Hass, whose sound projection is of such crucial importance. Although in one sense a ‘solo’ piece, this is very much a collaborative effort, as in more ‘traditional’ chamber music. And once again, that collaboration includes the listener, which is just as it should be.