Hardenberger/Kopatchinskaja/LSO/Roth - Järventausta, Strauss, Grime, and Coll, 3 April 2022

Barbican Hall

Joel Järventausta: Sunfall (world premiere)
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, op.28
Helen Grime: Trumpet Concerto (world premiere)
Francisco Coll: Violin Concerto (UK premiere)
Strauss: Tod und Verklärung, op.24

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin)

Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet)

London Symphony Orchestra

François-Xavier Roth (conductor)

Three premieres, two of them world premieres, and a couple of Strauss tone poems. Add concerto soloists of the calibre of Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Håkan Hardenberger to the formidable team of the London Symphony Orchestra and François-Xavier Roth, and what is not to like? Nothing here, I think. Joel Järventausta’s Sunfall, apparently rooted in the composer’s synaesthetic response to the colour orange, made for an impressive opening piece, subdued first chords swiftly, rudely interrupted by a cataclysmic orchestral clap. That and other such contrasts in material were worked out in an atmosphere of unease and natural-world majesty. A keen ear for matching timbre and harmony, and for lone, fragile melodic against that atmospheric backdrop imparted a sense of the ultimate amorality of the sun and its light: it can give life, but it can also take it away. Increasing animation, even frenzy, returned us to a transformed wilderness. Chatter at its close—musical, yet speech—enhanced the enigma, but also the unapproachability of that giant fireball now departed.

I do not think it would do Sunfall any disservice to call it a contemporary tone-poem. At any rate, it was followed by the first of two supreme masterpieces of the genre. Till Eulenspiegel emerged in Roth and the LSO’s capable hands flexible, colourful, and wry as ever. It shared with its predecessor a clear sense of narrative, full of incident and clear of structure, though it was certainly not to be reduced to its programme. There was an idiomatic swing where called for, not so very far from Strauss’s waltz-king namesake. Throughout, Roth showed that, like the best Strauss conductors, he could ‘play’ the orchestra with ease. 

Helen Grime’s new Trumpet Concerto opened darkly, yet with a host of orchestral colours, harmonic and timbral, not entirely un-Bergian. From that, the trumpet emerged magically, before sinking once more into an orchestral cauldron that was itself home both to echoes and pre-echoes of Hardenberger’s wondrously spun solo thread. Motivic threads were knit tightly together in a way I am tempted to call Classical, though I do not wish to imply something backward-looking. And in truth, the method probably had little to do with such distant forebears, though the movement of particular lines more than once recalled to me the late music of Boulez. Fantastic descending orchestral spirals, scurrying, and more would surely have interested, even delighted, him. Hardenberger’s lightly worn virtuosity became all the more apparent, incited by magnificently idiomatic writing for the instrument. There was, moreover an ebbing and flowing melancholy to the trumpet, not remotely sentimental, but which rather seemed to bear witness, perhaps even to the troubled time in which it was written (and first performed). 

The opening éclat of Francisco Coll’s Violin Concerto, more angular rhythmically, heralded a kinship that may only have been of chance, but which in context spoke of twin conceptions of instrumental and orchestral fantasy, replete in this case with punctuating percussion. At any rate, we heard the music of two composers by now fully mature, even contemporary masters. (For me, it has been quite a thing to acquaint myself with their musical journeys over the past decade or so.) Kopatchinskaja’s explosive, full-blown virtuosity led the way towards a lyrical blooming that was not so much ‘traditional’, whatever that may mean, as intriguingly and, yes, movingly haunted by some of tradition’s ghosts. The first movement (‘Atomised’) close, with high-lying, silvery orchestral violins heightened a kinship I had already felt with Prokofiev: not ‘influence’, nor a model, but perhaps simply a sense that the two composers, mediated by Kopatchinskaja, might have something to say to one another. 

There was certainly a sense of magic, drawing one in, to the second movement ‘Hyperhymnia’ and its lyricism, both uneasy and (almost) easy, harmonic development propelling its motion. Indeed, the expressive nature of Coll’s harmonic language, never to be reduced to that of anything or anyone else, proved at times quite breathtaking. A section of almost neo-Mahlerian climaxes, not in language, but in preparation and spacing, led to a true cadenza of true, musical virtuosity, which in turn led us into a finale (‘Phase’) of great invention (for instance, a passage setting violin against double basses) and intensity. Passages of (relative) stasis and movement, of shifting colours, transformational rhythms, and ghosts in the machine, seemed as inspired by Kopatchinskaja’s playing as she by Coll’s writing.

Both concertos, indeed all the works so far heard, had been journeys of transformation. So too, of course, was Tod und Verklärung. Its ominous opening heart-beats, vividly pictorial and crucial to subsequent, motivic development, heightened rather than dignified the magic of life (and beyond). There was high-operatic drama, presented with polish, precision, and grand sweep. There were light and shade, including colours I had never fancied were there. There was harmonic richness too, all revealed in a full-bodied orchestral performance, with none of the thinness one sometimes hears in this work. The glow of final transfiguration was echt-Straussian and intensely moving.

Elspeth Brooke, The Commission, and Francisco Coll, Café Kafka (London premieres), Royal Opera, 17 March 2014

Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House

Craftsman/Man 3/Gracchus/Policeman – Andri Björn Robertsson

Silversmith/Man 1 – Daniel Norman
Daughter/Woman – Anna Dennis
Pope/Surgeon/Man 2 – William Purefoy
Girl – Suzanne Shakespeare

Annabel Arden (director)

Joanna Parker (designs)
Matt Haskins (lighting)
Dick Straker (video)
Pete Malkin (sound engineer)

CHROMA

Richard Baker (conductor)

 

Man 2 (William Purefoy), Woman (Anna Dennis), Man 1 (Daniel Norman), Girl (Suzanne Shakespeare)
Images: © ROH - Stephen Cummiskey

These two new one-act operas had been given their first performances on 14 March at Snape Maltings; three days later, they came to London, where they will be performed three times, before moving to Leeds’s Howard Assembly Room for a performance there. That reflects the excellent idea of having Aldeburgh, the Royal Opera, and Opera North jointly commissioning and sharing productions on an annual basis. Much as one might regret the language in which the statement, ‘Nurturing Opera Makers of the Future’ is couched, for instance, ‘The motivation is that in recent years this middle-scale opera sector has changed,’ the commissioners’ hearts are doubtless in the right place. They rightly point to the sad demise, for which our political masters bear heavy though not sole responsibility, of companies such as English Opera Group, Kent Opera, and Almeida Opera; let us hope that this initiative continues to bear fruit as it did here.

 

Craftsman (Andri Björn Róbertsson)

 

 

It was interesting to note that the programme suggested composers and librettists as creators of equal stature, billing ‘Elspeth Brooke and Jack Underwood’, and ‘Francisco Coll and Meredith Oakes’. Such seems to be part of an ongoing tendency. Though we are not likely any day soon to return to the eighteenth century, when Metastasio would be billed above the legions of composers who set his libretti, it is interesting to note the increasing literary claims advanced, far from unreasonably. Certainly in the case of The Commission, my attention was more or less equally divided between Underwood’s libretto and Brooke’s music, the former based upon a poem from Michael Donaghy’s 1993 collection, Errata. It is well suited to musico-dramatic treatment, the tale of a Craftsman’s revenge upon the wealthy Merchant he holds – we never learn whether this were actually the case – to have abused and killed his brother. Brooke’s setting is resourceful, written, as indeed are both operas, for small instrumental and vocal forces, but in this case supplemented by certain electronic sounds. Jazz is one clear reference; indeed, in a brief composer’s note, Brooke credits Miles Davis’s soundtrack for the Louis Malle film, Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. But the sonorities of cimbalom, mandolin, and accordion also make their mark, as does repetition of what I suppose one might call motifs, that repetition acquiring genuine dramatic impetus that takes it beyond minimalism. Perhaps the vocal writing is less distinguished; for me, at least on a first hearing, it did its job, but did not seem especially inspired by voices as such. However, I am loath to say more than that, given that this was a first hearing, and it is more than possible that my ears were at fault. Moreover, the sense of transformation, when the Silversmith’s Daughter finally finds her voice suggests very real genuine musico-dramatic ability; the contrast was clearly (part of) the point.

 

Café Kafka offered a bracing, sardonic contrast – one to which I admit I responded more readily, but again, that may be more about me. Meredith Oakes may now, I think, be forgiven that doggerel reduction of The Tempest for Thomas Adès, since this offers a genuinely provocative treatment of, in her words, ‘the vertigo and intoxication people feel not just from trying and failing to understand the world, but also from trying to deal with the actual details of their own and other people’s behaviour’. The point is made more than once that the search for coherence may be in vain: a point we should at least consider, even if it prove well-nigh impossible for us as humans entirely to acquiesce. Two men and two women’s flirtations and conversations in a café attempt and fail to make sense of their lives, when suddenly the mood and tone change (as well, in this case, as the excellent lighting: Matt Haskins), and, in the words of director Annabel Arden’s synopsis, ‘Into this hermetic world comes the inexplicable figure [from a Kafka short story] of the Hunter Gracchus who died a long time ago, but whose death ship cannot truly cross into the realm of death.’ Francisco Coll’s score is bright and angular, rhythm and instrumentation working in often scintillating tandem. Here undoubtedly is a major talent, as was also suggested a couple of years ago at a London Sinfonietta performance of his Piedras. Vocal writing and differentiation were for me more readily apparent here, and a similar degree of resourcefulness, albeit of quite different nature, was undoubtedly apparent.

 

Arden’s stagings did, so far as I could tell, very well by the works. The smartness of sets and actions for Café Kafka was especially welcome, lending a skilfully ‘empty’ credibility to the loneliness and incomprehension of modern social life. Richard Baker and the players of CHROMA were excellent throughout, their incisiveness in the latter opera suggestive almost of lengthy acquaintance with a repertory work rather than a second performance. The singers did an excellent job too. Andri Björn Róbertsson’s dark-toned – and dark of character – Craftsman was well-matched by his scene-stealing transformation from barman into mysterious Gracchus. Anna Dennis proved equally adept in the transition from unintelligible to communicative daughter, and thence to the new world of Coll’s opera. Suzanne Shakespeare’s vocalism in the latter very much matched the éclat of the instrumental writing. Daniel Norman and William Purefoy did fascinating, dramatically credible masculine battle there too, contrast and blend between Norman’s tenor and Purefoy’s countertenor not the least virtue of these performances, nor indeed of Coll’s score, the composer’s willingness and ability to write for voices in duet proving especially refreshing.

Pavilions: New Music Show 2 - London Sinfonietta/Brabbins, 5 November 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Charlie Piper – Insomniac (world premiere: London Sinfonietta commission)
Dai Fujikura – Double Bass Concerto (world premiere: London Sinfonietta commission)
Steven Daverson – Elusive Tangibility III: ‘Clandestine Haze’ (United Kingdom premiere)
Iris ter Schiphorst – Zerstören (United Kingdom premiere)
Francisco Coll – Piedras (United Kingdom premiere)


Across the River Thames from the Queen Elizabeth Hall lies the Palace of Westminster, whose rescue from Guy Fawkes’s incendiary project some care to celebrate on 5th November. (Many of the rest of us wish there were a similarly elegant solution to rid ourselves of our venal, careerist political class.) The London Sinfonietta offered fireworks of its own, in the second of its Pavilions concerts: five United Kingdom premieres, of which two were also world premieres. Alas, I missed the earlier concert, which had presented no fewer than five world premieres of short works by James Olsen, Shiva Feshareki, Edmund Finnis, Tim Hodgkinson, and Isambard Khroustaliov.

It seemed to me that perhaps the strongest and certainly the most winningly suggestive piece was the third in Steven Daverson’s six-part Elusive Tangibility series, ‘Clandestine Haze’. The cycle is intended to treat with things that can be seen yet not necessarily touched: in this case, an ephemeral clandestine haze, such as might be evoked by the flickering of a candle. Written for alto flute/bass flute, bass clarinet/contra-bass clarinet, trombone, percussion, viola, and cello, it emerged as a fascinating study in shifting timbres and subtleties of motion, with the occasional surprise, which therefore truly registered. There is some use of extended techniques, for instance the breathy bass flute. This is a highly accomplished, even beguiling work of contemporary Klangfarbenmelodie: I especially liked the resonance – if only within my own imagination – of the trombone’s later line, as if a modern refugee from the spiritual land of Webern.

Francisco Coll’s Piedras (‘Stones’) was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. Written for flute, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon/contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, harp, piano, and two percussionists, it concerns itself, according to the composer, with a dualism that has long interested him between the stable and the unstable, partly derived, as is often his practice, from inspiration in the visual arts. The opening material, both in writing and performance (the London Sinfonietta under Martyn Brabbins), is lively and incisive, full of glittering sonorities, eventually transformed into more dream-like material: a Romantic horn call especially evocative here. Distinction between the two types of material is not, however, absolute: for me, some of the most striking music was to be found in the liminal zones of transition.

The first performance of Charlie Piper’s Insomniac opened the concert. A work in three movements, it concerns itself with three different states in another liminal zone, that between sleep and wakefulness, and is written for flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, bassoon/contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, harp, string quartet, and double bass. Throughout one senses a heartbeat, but varying context enables, even compels, one to hear and to respond to it differently. Jagged rhythms remain a constant in the first movement, whatever the Stravinskian changes of metre and gradual shifts in instrumentation. Slowly shifting harmonies lull in the second movement, inspired by Piper’s period of almost continual sunlight in Gotland. Externally induced insomnia – a neighbour’s party, for instance – provides the idea for the final movement, almost a concertante piece for aggressive trumpet, with a prominent role for double bass too.

Iris ter Schiphorst’s 2005-6 Zerstören was the only piece to employ electronics, alongside an ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, contrabass clarinet, contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, piano, percussion, sampler, string quartet, and double bass. One sensed a sound-world for the modern city, the world of the motor car, yet it was not always clear, at least to me, what lies beneath that sonic surface. Perhaps further hearings would reveal more.

Dai Fujikura’s double bass concerto received its world premiere, Enno Senft the soloist, the Sinfonietta’s forces comprising flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, two horns, two trumpets, two percussionists, three violins, and two violas. It certainly proffered ample scope for Senft’s virtuosity: most impressive indeed. I was less convinced by the musical substance, heightening the doubts I felt earlier this year at the premiere of his Flare, for string quartet. For most of the time, the soloist employs pizzicato, turning to his bow towards the end. The initial material, according to the programme note, draws upon kinship with the ‘Shamisen’, a Japanese guitar-like instrument. The technique is certainly guitar-like and there is very much an ‘Oriental’ tinge to the music, a little too obviously so for these ears. Some material echoes Messiaen, again a little too obviously. For all the claims concerning new solo techniques, however, the writing is not that unconventional, whether in the many – too many? – slides in the writing for ensemble strings or the inevitable soloist resort to harmonics at the end, the latter sounding born of a perceived need to tick a box. There is some rather soft-edged neo-Romanticism to be heard too. Still, if this piece emerged a little too eagerly fashionable, it was a pleasure to experience six new works in predictably committed performances.