ClapTON ensemble/Morphosis Ensemble - Castellarnau, Agnes, Saunders, Malondra, Watanabe, and Bagés, 9 January 2016

St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Carlos de Castellarnau – Natura Morta (2014, UK premiere)

Michelle Agnes – Vento Noroeste (2012/2015, UK premiere)
Mateu Malondra – Systematic Double Bind (2015, world premiere)
Rebecca Saunders – the under-side of green (1994)
Yukiko Watanabe – Mono-Dialogue III (2012, world premiere)
Joan Bagés i Rubi – Sobreimpresión (2009, UK premiere)

It is always an exciting prospect to hear a concert of entirely new music (new to me, at least, and much of it new to the world). For me, moreover, five of the six composers were new too. With no programme notes for a crutch, simply a list of composers and works, one has little idea what to expect. One might well gain a greater appreciation upon repeated listening, yet one might also wish one were able to hear the Ninth Symphony for the first time again: imagine! In many ways, it is difficult, almost impossible, to do so. A lack of faith in new music in many quarters has led some to take refuge in a remote pseudo-historicism, which knows little much history than our political masters. The alleged cure proves worse than the imaginary ailment: better, of course, to point to the fallacy via an encounter between London- and Barcelona-based ensembles.

 

Carlos de Castellarnau’s Natura Morta, for accordion (Josep Vila) and electronics (Joan Bagés) proved something of a performing tour de force: one could hardly but be impressed by Vila’s musicianship. The material seemed to incorporate, indeed truly to integrate, some more ‘popular’ elements, without descending to the level of the ‘folkish’. Repeated notes, long notes (perhaps with a touch of nostalgia?), something not so far removed from white noise, eventually fading away into nothingness: throughout there was a strong visual, physical element, but the sustenance came from an undeniable sense, both in work and performance, of musical line.

Michelle Agnes’s Vento Noroeste for bass clarinet (Alejandro Castillo), violin (Kamila Bydlowska), and cello (Mónica Mari), opens with harmonics, swiftly supplemented, followed by scurrying, whispering slides. (The clue, one assumes, lies in the title.) I thought a little of Debussy’s Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest, not that the music in any sense sounded ‘like’ Debussy’s. There seemed to me a real sense of patient yet dramatic, even pictorial, development.

 

Mateu Malondra’s Systematic Double Bind followed, musicians as follows: voice (Josephine Stevenson), flute (Ilze Ikse), cello (Mónica Marí), and electronics (Bages). The vocal part had me think both of Berio (post-Berberian lightness) and Stockhausen (breathing and manipulation), but they might simply have been personal points of reference. The piece emerged almost as a mini-cantata, or scena. At one point, I felt an almost Romantic (though certainly not neo-Romantic) cast to the cello line. Instrumental combinations always intrigued; the sense, again, of dramatic ‘line’ was quite compelling.

 

Rebecca Saunders is, apparently a ClapTON ensemble favourite: an excellent choice and the composer with whose work I was a little familiar. the under-side of green, for violin (Bydlowska), clarinet (Castillo), and piano (Tomeu Moll) opens with an éclat that perhaps inevitably brought Boulez to mind. A sense of pinpoint precision within sonic (post-Webern?) drama offered ample opportunity, well taken, for brilliance in performance at combining of different instrumental registers. There was a very strong impression of musical procedures working themselves out, perhaps especially in an almost toytown-like section of piano writing.

 

Yukiko Watanabe’s Mono-Dialogue III is for ‘two flautists’ (here, Zinadra Kodrič and Ilze Ikse). As a piece of performance art, it certainly made its point, the two flautists having split the flute between them. I struggled to find a great deal more behind the extended techniques, but the fault may well have been mine.  

 

Joan Bagés i Rubi’s Sobreimpression was the final work performed. Flute (Kodrič), bass clarinet (Castillo), cello (Marí), Moll (piano), and electronics (Bagés) participated in a performance that certainly had its ‘performance art’ quality but seemed to go beyond that. A multi-media element was offered by initial numbers whirling around on screen; I do not know whether they had importance beyond that, but assumed that they offered a digital shuffling of the pack, the numbers finally settling upon corresponding to the ordering of sections of the music. (I may, of course, have had that entirely wrong!) It was, at any rate, theatrical. There was, moreover, more perhaps of an ‘ensemble’, less of a ‘chamber’ sound, although the boundaries are anything but absolute, and I found a real sense of sonic art-drama upon a first hearing. Highly assured writing seemed to attract equally assured performances. For what it is worth, if anything, the number sequence was 7563142.

Spitalfields Festival: Polyphony/CLS/Layton - Haydn, J.C. Bach, Mozart, and Handel, 16 June 2015

St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Haydn – Symphony no.101 in D major, ‘The Clock’

J.C. Bach – Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major, WC 41

Mozart – Symphony no.4 in D major, KV 19

Handel – ‘Dettingen’ Te Deum, HWV 263

Ashley Riches (baritone)

Polyphony

City of London Sinfonia

Stephen Layton (conductor) 

 

This final Spitalfields Festival concert promised a taste of ‘Georgian London – Global Metropolis’, each of the works being written for eighteenth-century London (well, perhaps in the case of the Mozart symphony), although at different times. There was much to enjoy, even if, as a whole, the programme worked somewhat awkwardly. I could not help but wonder if Stephen Layton would have been better off programming another choral work, and losing one or two of the orchestral pieces, since his strengths undoubtedly lie in the former realm.

For that reason, the greatest work on the programme, Haydn’s Symphony no.101, fared least well. The first movement’s introduction had an air of mystery, albeit with decidedly low vibrato: that, despite an acoustic that ought to have alleviated the worst of ‘authenticke’ excess. That acoustic rendered the Presto exposition proper too much of a scramble, fine detail too often lost. There was little in the way of sonata form dynamism. Perhaps surprisingly, the slow movement fared better: characterful, with meaningfully darker passages well integrated. The minuet, alas, failed to smile, and its trio failed even slightly to relax. Still, the nature of the material and many of its implications were clear. The finale was certainly fast yet somehow remained ponderous; like so much of what we had heard previously, it lacked the life that great Haydn conductors such as Jochum, Klemperer, or Davis brought to this music. The City of London Sinfonia’s woodwind proved a euphonious joy throughout.

We do not hear much of Johann Christian Bach’s good-natured if somewhat interchangeable music. Layton presented an affectionate reading of this Sinfonia concertante, in which again the CLS wind proved excellent soloists indeed. The first movement was welcoming in spirit, even before the soloists entered. Shortcomings, such as they were, related more to the work itself. A siren following on from the final note offered amusement. It was a relief not to have the Larghetto taken absurdly fast, as is increasingly the norm in such music. Instead, it seemed imbued with the spirit of the outdoor serenade, even looking forward to Mozart. Much the same could be said of the closing Minuet, stylishly and warmly performed.

I am reasonably sure that this was the first time I had heard Mozart’s Fifth Symphony in concert. Layton and the CLS proved alert in the first movement, possessed of a winning, if small-scale, swagger. A sense of the exploratory was certainly apt. The slow movement might have exuded greater warmth – we felt distant indeed from Böhm and the Vienna Philharmonic – but spoke sensibly enough for itself. Youthful ebullience characterised the finale, although balances were less than ideal. It was difficult, moreover, to discern much affection for the composer and his work in Layton’s merely efficient direction.

No such reservations for Handel’s ‘Dettingen’ Te Deum. Ashley Riches and Polyphony made their mark magnificently, in vocal contributions as incisive as they were sonorous. Georgian militarism – John Brewer’s Sinews of Power – was announced loud and clear, trumpets and choir responding to and inciting one another. Handel’s borrowings amused rather than irritated. An excellent command of rhythm was proportionate with harmonic development. Expectations were aroused and fulfilled. This, at least, proved a thrilling, resoundingly musical conclusion not only to the concert but to the festival as a whole.