Cadogan Hall
Boulez – Mémoriale (‘…explosante-fixe…’ Originel)
Helen Grime – A Cold Spring
Boulez – Domaines
Christian Mason – Open to Infinity: A Grain of Sand
(United Kingdom premiere)
Boulez – Eclats/Multiples
Michael Cox (flute)
Mark van de Wiel (clarinet)
London Sinfonietta
Thierry Fischer (conductor)
And so, the Proms celebration
of Pierre Boulez’s music drew to a close. I have previously lamented the lack
of Répons, but otherwise, we have
much for which to be grateful. Here, three of Boulez’s works were interspersed
with works by two admiring young British composers, Helen Grime and Christian
Mason.
First up was Mémoriale, hot on the heels of the Albert Hall performance of …explosante-fixe....
It was interesting to hear the two works in close succession, not least since
that experience offered a reminder that the ear can sometimes play tricks: is
one hearing electronic sounds or not? Clearly not on this occasion, but I might
have guessed so, had I not known otherwise. The flute’s trills, the general
contours: all were quite familiar by now; yet of course, they sounded different
in a different performance (Michael Cox first among London Sinfonietta equals)
and in a very different acoustic, that of Cadogan Hall. The ensemble here
seemed to offer something of an aural shadow, reminiscent perhaps of Dialogue de l’ombre double. Boulez’s
short piece sounded somewhere in between, or rather somewhere beyond, Debussy
and Stravinsky, mediated by hints of the Bergian labyrinth. The horns’ final dying
away into nothingness was not the least magical moment.
Helen Grime, in conversation
with Tom Service, said how struck she had been, even at music college, by
Boulez’s ear for harmony and colour. Her ear is formidable too, in no sense
replicating, but happy to admit inspiration. The three movements of A Cold Spring (after a poem by Elizabeth
Bishop) offer highly virtuosic writing, each having a featured solo instrument
or pair of soloists. The first opens teeming with melody, as if paying updated
homage to The Rite of Spring, albeit very
much in its own voice. I thought also of Schoenberg – a work such as the First
Chamber Symphony – in its melodic profusion, although I am unsure whether such
associations are merely my affair. The stiller, second movement (‘Calmo’)
brought to me a colouristic hint or two of Birtwistle, perhaps a hint too of a
melancholy not entirely dissimilar to his. Dark bass lines (cello and double
bass) seem to colour the invention above. Calmness is transformed into something
else, prior to a final enchantment, blessed, so it seemed, by all instruments,
but perhaps especially the harp. The transition to the third movement is led by
the double bass, that movement itself sounding very much as a development of
what has gone before, not least in its darkness – melody and harmony, as well
as its instrumentation.
In Domaines, the number six is prevalent: the clarinettist, here the
excellent Mark van de Wiel, plays from six different stands, each with an
original page and a ‘mirror’ thereof, each of those twelve pages having six
musical fragments, thus totalling seventy-two in all, ranging in length from
forty seconds or so to – temporally speaking, at least – little more than the
twinkling of an eye. The collision, navigated by the performer, between ritual
theatre and a single instrument’s kaleidoscopic array of colours is not the
least of the piece’s claims to drama. And that particular instrument, the
clarinet, perhaps inevitably has one listen – and, indeed, watch – mindful of
kinship with Birtwistle. Indeed, I could not help but think there was
something, whether coincidental or otherwise, of Punch and Judy, albeit suaver, to this performance. One would
certainly never have guessed the textual complexity of this assemblage of ‘single’
lines in a performance of such mesmerising
musical theatre. Was Boulez’s aspiration – sorry, not in the Liz Kendall sense –
to unendliche Melodie even at this
stage perhaps born of Wagner (Parsifal
at Bayreuth)? And/or Pelléas? Every
so often, there seemed also to be an instrumental, even melodic, reminder of
Webern. At any rate, score and performance seemed endlessly generative. The
idea of ‘mirrors’ offered other, French resonances, whether with respect to
Ravel or even old, Baroque ‘doubles’. One could hear, or fancy one heard, such
connections, but this was above all Boulez’s own path, the performer’s, and the
listener’s.
Open
to Infinity: A Grain of Sand
(the title, I assume, inspired by Blake) is the second of Christian Mason’s
works dedicated to Boulez, and intended as a tribute. As Mason put it, all
three movements were as yet at the ‘grain of sand’ stage, but were open to
expansion: a highly Boulezian conception. (Boulez acted as mentor to him at
Lucerne.) Another nod to Boulez lies in the use by all fourteen players of
crotales, intended as a reference to Le
Visage nuptial. In each movement, one can hear, even in a first encounter,
the varied working out of the same pitch material (almost Berg-like in its
audible presence). The éclat of the first, ‘In a Grain of Sand’,
though it could not be mistaken for Boulez, could certainly be heard as homage.
The second, ‘In a Wild Flower’, has almost jazzy inflections: perhaps a touch,
dare I suggest it, of Boulez’s would-be antipode, Henze? Whatever the truth of
that, there is certainly revealed a keen ear for colour and its relationship to
rhythm (which, I admit, could equally be inspired by the orchestral Notations: pure speculation on my part).
Dramatically insistent figures characterise the third, ‘In the Palm of Your
Hand’, with the London Sinfonietta offering, in a true array of colours, all
the performative commitment one would expect.
Eclats/Multiples depends upon split-second decisions from
the conductor, not the first and certainly not the last of Boulez’s insistence
on the importance of performance. It certainly received a splendid performance
from the Sinfonietta and Thierry Fischer. The opening piano éclat announced its
Messiaenic inheritance; hearing John Constable, one could almost imagine the
ghost of Yvonne Loriod. Such resonances, even echoes, again began to make their
own way, however: to construct, perhaps even to destroy, and to suggest further
creative-destructive connections (whether thinking of the Second Piano Sonata
or the endlessly misquoted interview with Der Spiegel). The illusion and the construction of line familiar from Domaines took on new life in ensemble.
The ‘pointillism’ of 1950s serialism has generally been exaggerated, give or
take an odd Stockhausen piece; this seemed an object lesson in compositional
and performative constructivism from the following decade. (Just, one might
say, as in Boulez’s conducting of Webern.) It was a joy to meet in new garb old
aural friends from the world of Le
Marteau sans maître: to know, with hindsight, where they might lead – or not.
Why is this wonderful work not more often performed?
