Linbury Studio Theatre
Goehr – Lyric Pieces (1974)
Carter – Triple Duo (1982)
Jenny Doyne (flute/piccolo)
Kate Andrews (oboe/English horn)
Sarah Thurlow (clarinet/bass clarinet)
Rosie Burton (bassoon)
Adrian Uren (horn)
Chris Evans (trumpet)
Matthew Knight (trombone)
Stephen Burke (percussion)
Chris White (piano)
Florence Cooke (violin)
Jonathan Rees (cello)
Anthony Williams (double bass)
Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)
The Theseus Ensemble and Geoffrey Paterson continue to further their commitment both to perform challenging new music and to provide new ways for audiences to approach it, first and foremost amongst which are Paterson’s excellent spoken introductions with musical examples. Alexander Goehr’s Lyric Pieces were therefore introduced with brief comparisons between two of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze and two passages from Goehr’s work, which is to a certain extent built upon structures and gestures to be found in its predecessor: nothing laboured, nor indeed forbiddingly technical, but a way in for listeners who may conceivably have fretted about what to expect. Derivation and transformation, in these particular cases from the eighth and ninth Schumann pieces (both Florestan), were presented with admirable clarity, as indeed was the performance as a whole, which benefited equally from purposive command of line. Particularly striking was the echt-Romantic horn melody of the second of the six pieces, ‘Sostenuto, ma non troppo lento’, which, when joined by muted trumpet proved suggestive both in sonority and progress of Webern’s transcription from the Musical Offering (Bach’s masterpiece another Goehr favourite, perhaps far from incidentally). Trombone added an almost chorale-like impression, again furthering the sense not only of refracted Bach but Bach refracted via a refraction of German Romanticism. Stravinskian coolness from the ensemble’s woodwind offered a welcome counterpoint, in more than one sense. A sense of processional was doubtless furthered by timbral similarities with Varèse’s Octandre (the scoring is identical) and, inescapably, Symphonies of Wind Instruments. By contrast but also by connection, the liveliness of the third piece, both as work and performance, put me in mind of a more Germanic Pulcinella. The near-hypnotic repetitions of the fifth piece – already contextualised by that piano excerpt from the sixth Schumann piece – were heightened by intensification, again both in work and performance; this is no mere repetition, as Paterson’s keen rhythmic sense made clear. Indeed, there was a true spirit of the dance, both delightful and threatening. Echoes of the boisterous good spirits of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, surely a contender for the most life-affirming work of the twentieth century, were to be heard in the closing ‘Scherzando’, also possessed of an eloquent, wonderfully grainy bassoon soliloquy from Rosie Burton.
Paterson’s introduction to Elliott Carter’s Triple Duo presented the arresting image of a cocktail party, at which conversations between three pairs of people, more or less independent of each other and yet with some knowledge of and some reaction to the other conversations, finally closing with a conversation involving all six. Spatial separation between the three pairs heightened that way in for the listener; Carter may or may not approve, but there will always be other performances that do not adopt the experiment. It certainly offered clarity as well as visualisation for the first-time listener, so that the different varieties of ‘conversation’ – in rhythmic terms, triplets for flute and clarinet, twos and fours for violin and cello, slightly more elliptical groups of five for piano and percussion – might be more readily identified than would otherwise necessarily be the case. That in turn enabled one’s ear to devote a little more attention to the crucial intervallic characteristics of the different ‘conversations’ and eventually to the nature and implications of their combination. Again rhythmic exactitude proved fundamental to the success of the performance, permitting one to delight in the almost Haydnesque sense of invention Carter typically brings to his material. Perhaps surprising is the frankly lyrical quality of some of his writing, heightened again in performance.
It was excellent to observe so good-sized an audience for this Linbury lunchtime recital. Alas, it was considerably less than excellent to have to endure a number of persistently distracting noises-off – moaning, groaning, sometimes even shouting – from someone above. Whatever the reasons, and it may well have been that someone was ill, action should have been taken earlier by someone responsible. It was a pity, but ultimately music and performance won through.
Showing posts with label Theseus Ensemble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theseus Ensemble. Show all posts
Monday, 30 April 2012
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Theseus Ensemble concert: Goehr and Carter
The Theseus Ensemble will be performing Alexander Goehr's Lyric Pieces and Elliott Carter's Triple Duo at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre on 30 April, at 1 p.m. Geoffrey Paterson will once again conduct, as he did in two extremely fine previous concerts (for previous reviews, click here and here). Anyone in the vicinity or potentially in the vicinity is warmly encouraged to come along: this is a splendid group of young professional musicians, strongly committed to the cause of contemporary music. Admission is free; a certain number of tickets may be reserved online from the Royal Opera House website nine days beforehand; others will be available on the day.
Monday, 14 February 2011
Collett/Theseus Ensemble/Paterson - Benjamin and Boulez, 14 February 2011
Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House
Benjamin – Upon Silence
Boulez – Le marteau sans maître
Louise Collett (mezzo-soprano)
Theseus Ensemble
Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)
Whilst posters around town regaled us with the uninviting promise of ‘Valentine’s Day Romantic Classics’ and the like – who actually goes to these concerts? – the Theseus Ensemble and its founder Geoffrey Paterson presented something far more interesting. If that sounds like faint praise, it was certainly not meant as such, for any ensemble, let alone one that has been in existence for less than a year, which performs Le marteau sans maître deserves praise most fulsome, especially when presented as well as it was here.
First on the menu, however, was George Benjamin’s Upon Silence. Written for the viol consort, Fretwork, in 1990, Benjamin arranged it for seven strings (two violas, three cellos, and two double basses) the following year. As Paterson pointed out in his programme note, ‘with astonishing imagination and skill, Benjamin managed to retain the distinctive qualities of the original’. Vibrato is forbidden, save for certain instances, when it really tells; moreover, the players perform throughout with wooden mutes. The febrile, glassy string tone with which the performance opened contrasted with and yet complemented the more muted – in more than one sense – general timbre. Mezzo-soprano Louise Collett delivered Yeats’s words (from Long-legged fly) with great clarity of line and diction. One might characterise the vocal writing as restrainedly melismatic, recognisably that of the composer of Into the Little Hill. The refrain, ‘Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / His/Her mind moves upon silence’, seemed both to impart and to transform the work’s form. The second stanza, dealing with Helen of Troy, ends in ‘silence’ accompanied and succeeded by a plaintive cello line, which one could well have imagined actually was a viol. By contrast, the end of the third and final stanza, that of Michelangelo, presented rich cello vibrato, truly striking and liberating, likewise the ensuing string harmonics, building to an ecstatic climax, subsiding, then preparing the way for the final, questing and questioning vocal crescendo upon the final ‘silence’.
As in November’s Theseus Ensemble concert, Paterson also provided an illustrated introduction, on this occasion only to Le marteau sans maître. It was succinct but telling, providing an excellent ‘way in’ for audience members who might have been daunted by Boulez’s 1953-5 masterpiece and, even for those of us who fancy we know the work a little better, providing an important key not only to the work but also to the performance. The ensemble’s stated mission is, ‘with thoughtful programming and approachable presentation, … to illuminate the sometimes forbiddingly labyrinthine complexities’ of ‘challenging works of the later 20th and 21st centuries’. It certainly scored upon programming and presentation here. Paterson described and the players performed three types of music, corresponding to the three poems, L’artisanat furieux, Bourreaux de solitude, and Bel édifice et les pressentiments. The first was characterised as ‘making’, the craftsmanship of the poem’s title, not ‘furious’ until the performance, since we heard it slowed down; the second had a ticking, clock-like pulse; finally, the third, corresponding to the more human imagery of the verse, was more temperamental, rhetorical, gestural, and passionate. (Far more passionate, one might say, than the greetings card culture awaiting us outside.) The tale of the piece was to be how the three types of material interacted, preparing the way for final disintegration.
That, I think, was very much what we heard, amongst other things of course. What also struck me was the dialectic between similarity and dissimilarity concerning a work that equally defined so much of the first half of the twentieth century, Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. The ensemble is not identical, of course, though a number of works would take as their cue that fabled Pierrot ensemble, but there are points of reference – flute, albeit alto flute, and viola – as well as the percussion instruments very much of Boulez’s own time and presaging what was to come. The singer: well, she sings rather than speaks, but recall Boulez’s notorious, beautifully ‘sung’ recording with Yvonne Minton. There were times when, not unreasonably, Collett seemed a little uncomfortable, but she was clearly suffering from a cough; if her pronunciation was not always perfect, once again, one could hear every word, and her intonation was generally excellent too. Paterson ensured early contrast between the different types of material; the contrast between the first two movements was admirably clear, that of the first commentary on Bourreaux de solitude sounding almost like an exoticised, Webernised, Ravel (Stravinsky’s ‘Swiss watchmaker’), or to put it another way, sounding precisely like what it was, namely Boulez. If tension flagged slightly part way through this movement, it was a minor blemish, for all players evidently gave their best throughout, and it showed. Invidious though it may be to single out any one member of the ensemble, I feel I must mention Matthew Kettle’s valiant and successful struggle with Boulez’s well-nigh impossible viola part. (Click here for an interview in which the conductor and I discussed the work beforehand).
The second commentary showed how even when one might fancy the music to be pointillistic, it is connections that count: this is not Stockhausen. I especially liked the way the closing triangle note was left to resonate: a nice touch of detail and expression. When it came to Bourreaux de solitude itself – two of the three commentaries precede the verse itself – one could still hear the ticking, albeit slower and perhaps more luxuriant, if one can conceive of luxuriant ticking. (The phrase almost sounds as though it might have come from René Char!) Its interaction with the other varieties of material became increasingly marked, so that, during the third commentary, we could readily hear, well primed as we were, its subversion of craftsmanship and rhetoric, and the other way(s) around too. Breakdown under the strain of such intricate interrelationship thus came as an expressive and intellectual necessity during the ninth and final movement, the double of Bel édifice et les pressentiments. Was Pierrot perhaps our uninvited guest to the disintegrating feast? Gongs and alto flute opened up a void at the end, both ominous and inviting.
Benjamin – Upon Silence
Boulez – Le marteau sans maître
Louise Collett (mezzo-soprano)
Theseus Ensemble
Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)
Whilst posters around town regaled us with the uninviting promise of ‘Valentine’s Day Romantic Classics’ and the like – who actually goes to these concerts? – the Theseus Ensemble and its founder Geoffrey Paterson presented something far more interesting. If that sounds like faint praise, it was certainly not meant as such, for any ensemble, let alone one that has been in existence for less than a year, which performs Le marteau sans maître deserves praise most fulsome, especially when presented as well as it was here.
First on the menu, however, was George Benjamin’s Upon Silence. Written for the viol consort, Fretwork, in 1990, Benjamin arranged it for seven strings (two violas, three cellos, and two double basses) the following year. As Paterson pointed out in his programme note, ‘with astonishing imagination and skill, Benjamin managed to retain the distinctive qualities of the original’. Vibrato is forbidden, save for certain instances, when it really tells; moreover, the players perform throughout with wooden mutes. The febrile, glassy string tone with which the performance opened contrasted with and yet complemented the more muted – in more than one sense – general timbre. Mezzo-soprano Louise Collett delivered Yeats’s words (from Long-legged fly) with great clarity of line and diction. One might characterise the vocal writing as restrainedly melismatic, recognisably that of the composer of Into the Little Hill. The refrain, ‘Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / His/Her mind moves upon silence’, seemed both to impart and to transform the work’s form. The second stanza, dealing with Helen of Troy, ends in ‘silence’ accompanied and succeeded by a plaintive cello line, which one could well have imagined actually was a viol. By contrast, the end of the third and final stanza, that of Michelangelo, presented rich cello vibrato, truly striking and liberating, likewise the ensuing string harmonics, building to an ecstatic climax, subsiding, then preparing the way for the final, questing and questioning vocal crescendo upon the final ‘silence’.
As in November’s Theseus Ensemble concert, Paterson also provided an illustrated introduction, on this occasion only to Le marteau sans maître. It was succinct but telling, providing an excellent ‘way in’ for audience members who might have been daunted by Boulez’s 1953-5 masterpiece and, even for those of us who fancy we know the work a little better, providing an important key not only to the work but also to the performance. The ensemble’s stated mission is, ‘with thoughtful programming and approachable presentation, … to illuminate the sometimes forbiddingly labyrinthine complexities’ of ‘challenging works of the later 20th and 21st centuries’. It certainly scored upon programming and presentation here. Paterson described and the players performed three types of music, corresponding to the three poems, L’artisanat furieux, Bourreaux de solitude, and Bel édifice et les pressentiments. The first was characterised as ‘making’, the craftsmanship of the poem’s title, not ‘furious’ until the performance, since we heard it slowed down; the second had a ticking, clock-like pulse; finally, the third, corresponding to the more human imagery of the verse, was more temperamental, rhetorical, gestural, and passionate. (Far more passionate, one might say, than the greetings card culture awaiting us outside.) The tale of the piece was to be how the three types of material interacted, preparing the way for final disintegration.
That, I think, was very much what we heard, amongst other things of course. What also struck me was the dialectic between similarity and dissimilarity concerning a work that equally defined so much of the first half of the twentieth century, Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. The ensemble is not identical, of course, though a number of works would take as their cue that fabled Pierrot ensemble, but there are points of reference – flute, albeit alto flute, and viola – as well as the percussion instruments very much of Boulez’s own time and presaging what was to come. The singer: well, she sings rather than speaks, but recall Boulez’s notorious, beautifully ‘sung’ recording with Yvonne Minton. There were times when, not unreasonably, Collett seemed a little uncomfortable, but she was clearly suffering from a cough; if her pronunciation was not always perfect, once again, one could hear every word, and her intonation was generally excellent too. Paterson ensured early contrast between the different types of material; the contrast between the first two movements was admirably clear, that of the first commentary on Bourreaux de solitude sounding almost like an exoticised, Webernised, Ravel (Stravinsky’s ‘Swiss watchmaker’), or to put it another way, sounding precisely like what it was, namely Boulez. If tension flagged slightly part way through this movement, it was a minor blemish, for all players evidently gave their best throughout, and it showed. Invidious though it may be to single out any one member of the ensemble, I feel I must mention Matthew Kettle’s valiant and successful struggle with Boulez’s well-nigh impossible viola part. (Click here for an interview in which the conductor and I discussed the work beforehand).
The second commentary showed how even when one might fancy the music to be pointillistic, it is connections that count: this is not Stockhausen. I especially liked the way the closing triangle note was left to resonate: a nice touch of detail and expression. When it came to Bourreaux de solitude itself – two of the three commentaries precede the verse itself – one could still hear the ticking, albeit slower and perhaps more luxuriant, if one can conceive of luxuriant ticking. (The phrase almost sounds as though it might have come from René Char!) Its interaction with the other varieties of material became increasingly marked, so that, during the third commentary, we could readily hear, well primed as we were, its subversion of craftsmanship and rhetoric, and the other way(s) around too. Breakdown under the strain of such intricate interrelationship thus came as an expressive and intellectual necessity during the ninth and final movement, the double of Bel édifice et les pressentiments. Was Pierrot perhaps our uninvited guest to the disintegrating feast? Gongs and alto flute opened up a void at the end, both ominous and inviting.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Preparing to conduct Le marteau sans maître: Interview with Geoffrey Paterson
This morning, I visited the Royal Opera House to interview Geoffrey Paterson, at present working there as conductor on the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. We spoke before rehearsals for The Barber of Seville, on which he is assisting Rory Macdonald. Geoffrey is also hard at work with preparations for the forthcoming Linbury Studio Theatre concert of Boulez (Le marteau sans maître) and Benjamin (Upon Silence) from the Theseus Ensemble, which he founded and whose second concert I reviewed here.
I started by asking whether there was any significance in the programming of Le marteau sans maître for that most nauseating celebration in the calendar, St Valentine’s Day. ‘None whatsoever; it was simply the date in the Linbury we were given, though I think it can serve as a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day concert.’ Some of the imagery in Le marteau sans maître is highly erotic, though. ‘I’m not an expert on poetry at all, but the funny thing with the poetry here is that Boulez only really uses a few words.’ And of course, René Char’s verse isn’t exactly the most readily understood. ‘So you really have something like just an adjective and a noun, with a few verbs thrown in. But whatever you make of the poetry, it’s striking when you think that the whole idea of serialism for many people was the withdrawal of the composer and yet here is something so violent and unpredictable. I didn’t really know what to make of that when I first heard the piece. I can’t really believe that Boulez wanted to shoot himself in the foot or engage in self-critique like that.’ Though in many ways so-called Darmstadt composers were very keen on just that, especially with regard to each other’s works. It does come as a surprise though, after the total serialism of works like the first book of Structures. What perhaps most struck me when I first heard Le marteau was how beautiful, indeed ravishing, it sounds. ‘Yes, I think the first time I heard any of it was on an old interval feature from the BBC, a little black-and-white film. It was done in a very arty way, with the camera cutting. It was one of those rare things; very rarely does one hear anything that is completely unlike anything one has heard before. I didn’t understand it but I was utterly intrigued. That’s what I was so excited about.’
I recalled having had a similar experience with what, I think, was the first Boulez piece I ever heard, the Second Piano Sonata. I listened to Pollini’s recording and really did not understand what was going on, but could tell immediately that something was going on, which I wanted to understand. Odd bits I could discern, the Beethoven connection for example… ‘I actually heard the Boulez sonata before the Hammerklavier sonata. And I had assumed that it was at least hyperbole when people spoke about it being modelled on the Hammerklavier. And then it was really thrilling to discover that that was actually the case, and how it was the case.’ Maurizio Pollini, I remarked, will be playing the Boulez sonata in London in April: the date, it turns out, of the Royal Wedding. ‘It can be another anti-celebration…’
We then discussed the issue of rehearsing the Boulez and the stage that had now reached. ‘I’ve been rehearsing individually with some of the players. You really need to do that first. The players, even those who have performed a lot of contemporary music, are now having to play, in the pieces I am choosing, music that is even more difficult. The best thing, when you are dealing with music of such difficulties, even with the notation, is to go through it individually first, to work out what it all means. Some of it is so horrible to read; the notation is almost fetishistic. That is perhaps the greatest difficulty, though when it come to the viola part – I used to play the viola myself – that is the one verging on the unplayable, particularly when it comes to all of the double-stopping.’ The vocal soloist will be Louise Collett, singing the part for the first time. ‘I’ve known her for quite some time from working in Scotland. She’ll be singing Maddalena in Rigoletto for Scottish Opera this year. She is not a contemporary music specialist by any means, although she sang the Berio Folk Songs very well, but the vocal quality is so important here. We’ve been working through the score together and I’m delighted to be working with her.’
I then asked about the George Benjamin piece, Upon Silence, knowing it only by reputation. Geoffrey reminded me that it had originally been written for Fretwork, and then reworked by the composer for modern instruments, though very much with the intention that the original austerity, indeed a good part of the viol sonority, should be maintained; ‘the way he dulls the sound is very much part of the effect. It’s really an incredibly beautiful piece.’ Clearly this piece by a fellow Messiaen pupil will prove an intriguing companion to the main course of Boulez.
The conversation turned for a while to Boulez as conductor, since Paterson studied with him at the Lucerne Academy. It was interesting to note how eminently practical Boulez’s advice would be on matters of how to get tricky groups of seven or eleven right, always born of experience, sitting down and talking through how they might be heard, understood, and then fitted back into context. The ear helps of course too. ‘Of course, he seems to have pitch as absolute as possible. Mine has got much better and my relative pitch, which is probably more important, has improved a great deal. But Boulez can simply hear every pitch in a great orchestral chord and tell that the second horn is slightly out of tune, hearing the notes as pitches, where others might hear a chord and then try to work out which part of is simply out.’ I was put in mind of a similar situation when I heard Boulez rehearse Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in Berlin, when, at a climactic point in the first movement, he was somehow able to correct, ever so courteously, a slight infelicity of tuning from one of the clarinets.
Another experience was working with Péter Eötvös on Stockhausen’s Gruppen. Not just a matter then of being able to beat time at sixty-seven and a half beats per minute, or whatever it might be? ‘No, he would suggest that you sang it. I looked at him, wondering however you might do that. He suggested then singing the harp part. Because the point is that, in these pieces, you are not just there to beat time. If you can’t conceive of the different lines musically, you aren’t going to be able to communicate that to the players.’
It was a delight to learn that our conductor was also a great devotee of Strauss. Operatically, he has not yet had much opportunity, though he had played for an extract from Der Rosenkavalier, which we agreed was a much darker work than many recognise. The moment of the Marschallin’s return in the Third Act, and the straightforward but wonderfully apt cadential means with which it is announced was a particular favourite moment. With regard to the work as a whole, ‘just because it is placed in inverted commas doesn’t mean that there is a lot of what is there in Salome and Elektra’. And of course, those works have their inverted commas too. It was even better to discover an ardent fan of the Alpine Symphony, ‘Strauss at his most serious,’ and in some ways sparer, the ‘Ausklang’ less awash with notes than the earlier tone poems. The extraordinary historical accident of late Strauss being composed at the same time as Boulez’s First Piano Sonata, Webern and Bartók already having died, was not without its irony for those who admire those composers so greatly.
Alexander Goehr, from whose analyses I learned a great deal at Cambridge, was a formative influence for Paterson when an undergraduate there too. He took private compositions lessons with him for quite some time. One of the things he most admired, a word I have heard time and time again with respect to Goehr, is ‘integrity’, another ‘the refusal to play to the gallery, which is very important to me too’. Goehr said that he did not mind at all the style in which something was written, but taste, by which it seems that he meant that ‘integrity’ was crucial; he was critical of composers who had not thought through what they were doing or why, or who were playing for effect. ‘I’m immensely grateful for him making me think much more closely about my composition, though it slowed me down a lot. I don’t mean that in an ungrateful way at all; it was a very good thing. Now, like many people who start off composing, I have found myself doing less of that and more conducting.’
More generally we discussed the difficulties of a great deal of expression within ‘modernist’ works, the adjective being one of which Paterson is wary, since it can often put people off and should perhaps now be considered more historically. He is, he said, very attracted to complexity that is expressively necessary, to works that often need more than one hearing to reveal their secrets, ‘like my first experience with Le marteau sans maître’; after all, if one has heard everything in a work on a first hearing, there is nowhere left to go. (I thought immediately of a great deal of Shostakovich, but kept my thoughts to myself.) Schoenberg, I suggested, was another case of so much expressivity, more than many audiences still seem able to take, though they often reject his music claiming quite the opposite. Paterson’s criticism of some of Schoenberg’s music was tellingly similar to that of Boulez, namely that the new, serial language sometimes falls back upon old forms.
Returning to more contemporary music, we agreed upon a parallel problem to that of the term ‘modernist,’ namely the habit of more conservative listeners to refer to some new music as ‘tonal’, when that seems truly to miss the point of tonality. ‘Just to hear a chord that might appear in tonal music does not make the music tonal, since it does not have the same role at all. For instance, some of the chords in George Benjamin’s piece, though not of course in Le marteau sans maître and other pieces where composers avoid them, might sound like that in isolation, but this isn’t tonal music.’ Nor, of course, is complexity somehow something that appeared in the twentieth century, a favourite case of his being the complexity of the Eroica Symphony. For, in Paterson’s view – and mine – what matters here is what is done with and to the material. One might listen superficially and just hear a tune, but it is the processes that remain crucial, processes which, as he pointed out, are also so apparent in Haydn’s playing with form. Classical composers were not placing consonant chords around to be heard in themselves. The case of Debussy, I suggested, showed the difference: he would sometimes do just that, using chords to be heard, because of their sound; Mozart and Beethoven were certainly not in the business of doing that. With Schoenberg, however, and another Paterson favourite, Elliott Carter, listening in that way is simply not an option. ‘Carter’s Concerto for Orchestra is a wonderful, wonderful work, but you need to concentrate, to keep a sense of what is happening all the time. You can’t listen to it half-heartedly.’
The Theseus Ensemble’s next performance, of Boulez and Benjamin, will take place at 1 p.m., 14 February, in the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House (click here). Further details concerning the ensemble may be found here, and concerning Geoffrey Paterson here.
I started by asking whether there was any significance in the programming of Le marteau sans maître for that most nauseating celebration in the calendar, St Valentine’s Day. ‘None whatsoever; it was simply the date in the Linbury we were given, though I think it can serve as a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day concert.’ Some of the imagery in Le marteau sans maître is highly erotic, though. ‘I’m not an expert on poetry at all, but the funny thing with the poetry here is that Boulez only really uses a few words.’ And of course, René Char’s verse isn’t exactly the most readily understood. ‘So you really have something like just an adjective and a noun, with a few verbs thrown in. But whatever you make of the poetry, it’s striking when you think that the whole idea of serialism for many people was the withdrawal of the composer and yet here is something so violent and unpredictable. I didn’t really know what to make of that when I first heard the piece. I can’t really believe that Boulez wanted to shoot himself in the foot or engage in self-critique like that.’ Though in many ways so-called Darmstadt composers were very keen on just that, especially with regard to each other’s works. It does come as a surprise though, after the total serialism of works like the first book of Structures. What perhaps most struck me when I first heard Le marteau was how beautiful, indeed ravishing, it sounds. ‘Yes, I think the first time I heard any of it was on an old interval feature from the BBC, a little black-and-white film. It was done in a very arty way, with the camera cutting. It was one of those rare things; very rarely does one hear anything that is completely unlike anything one has heard before. I didn’t understand it but I was utterly intrigued. That’s what I was so excited about.’
I recalled having had a similar experience with what, I think, was the first Boulez piece I ever heard, the Second Piano Sonata. I listened to Pollini’s recording and really did not understand what was going on, but could tell immediately that something was going on, which I wanted to understand. Odd bits I could discern, the Beethoven connection for example… ‘I actually heard the Boulez sonata before the Hammerklavier sonata. And I had assumed that it was at least hyperbole when people spoke about it being modelled on the Hammerklavier. And then it was really thrilling to discover that that was actually the case, and how it was the case.’ Maurizio Pollini, I remarked, will be playing the Boulez sonata in London in April: the date, it turns out, of the Royal Wedding. ‘It can be another anti-celebration…’
We then discussed the issue of rehearsing the Boulez and the stage that had now reached. ‘I’ve been rehearsing individually with some of the players. You really need to do that first. The players, even those who have performed a lot of contemporary music, are now having to play, in the pieces I am choosing, music that is even more difficult. The best thing, when you are dealing with music of such difficulties, even with the notation, is to go through it individually first, to work out what it all means. Some of it is so horrible to read; the notation is almost fetishistic. That is perhaps the greatest difficulty, though when it come to the viola part – I used to play the viola myself – that is the one verging on the unplayable, particularly when it comes to all of the double-stopping.’ The vocal soloist will be Louise Collett, singing the part for the first time. ‘I’ve known her for quite some time from working in Scotland. She’ll be singing Maddalena in Rigoletto for Scottish Opera this year. She is not a contemporary music specialist by any means, although she sang the Berio Folk Songs very well, but the vocal quality is so important here. We’ve been working through the score together and I’m delighted to be working with her.’
I then asked about the George Benjamin piece, Upon Silence, knowing it only by reputation. Geoffrey reminded me that it had originally been written for Fretwork, and then reworked by the composer for modern instruments, though very much with the intention that the original austerity, indeed a good part of the viol sonority, should be maintained; ‘the way he dulls the sound is very much part of the effect. It’s really an incredibly beautiful piece.’ Clearly this piece by a fellow Messiaen pupil will prove an intriguing companion to the main course of Boulez.
The conversation turned for a while to Boulez as conductor, since Paterson studied with him at the Lucerne Academy. It was interesting to note how eminently practical Boulez’s advice would be on matters of how to get tricky groups of seven or eleven right, always born of experience, sitting down and talking through how they might be heard, understood, and then fitted back into context. The ear helps of course too. ‘Of course, he seems to have pitch as absolute as possible. Mine has got much better and my relative pitch, which is probably more important, has improved a great deal. But Boulez can simply hear every pitch in a great orchestral chord and tell that the second horn is slightly out of tune, hearing the notes as pitches, where others might hear a chord and then try to work out which part of is simply out.’ I was put in mind of a similar situation when I heard Boulez rehearse Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in Berlin, when, at a climactic point in the first movement, he was somehow able to correct, ever so courteously, a slight infelicity of tuning from one of the clarinets.
Another experience was working with Péter Eötvös on Stockhausen’s Gruppen. Not just a matter then of being able to beat time at sixty-seven and a half beats per minute, or whatever it might be? ‘No, he would suggest that you sang it. I looked at him, wondering however you might do that. He suggested then singing the harp part. Because the point is that, in these pieces, you are not just there to beat time. If you can’t conceive of the different lines musically, you aren’t going to be able to communicate that to the players.’
It was a delight to learn that our conductor was also a great devotee of Strauss. Operatically, he has not yet had much opportunity, though he had played for an extract from Der Rosenkavalier, which we agreed was a much darker work than many recognise. The moment of the Marschallin’s return in the Third Act, and the straightforward but wonderfully apt cadential means with which it is announced was a particular favourite moment. With regard to the work as a whole, ‘just because it is placed in inverted commas doesn’t mean that there is a lot of what is there in Salome and Elektra’. And of course, those works have their inverted commas too. It was even better to discover an ardent fan of the Alpine Symphony, ‘Strauss at his most serious,’ and in some ways sparer, the ‘Ausklang’ less awash with notes than the earlier tone poems. The extraordinary historical accident of late Strauss being composed at the same time as Boulez’s First Piano Sonata, Webern and Bartók already having died, was not without its irony for those who admire those composers so greatly.
Alexander Goehr, from whose analyses I learned a great deal at Cambridge, was a formative influence for Paterson when an undergraduate there too. He took private compositions lessons with him for quite some time. One of the things he most admired, a word I have heard time and time again with respect to Goehr, is ‘integrity’, another ‘the refusal to play to the gallery, which is very important to me too’. Goehr said that he did not mind at all the style in which something was written, but taste, by which it seems that he meant that ‘integrity’ was crucial; he was critical of composers who had not thought through what they were doing or why, or who were playing for effect. ‘I’m immensely grateful for him making me think much more closely about my composition, though it slowed me down a lot. I don’t mean that in an ungrateful way at all; it was a very good thing. Now, like many people who start off composing, I have found myself doing less of that and more conducting.’
More generally we discussed the difficulties of a great deal of expression within ‘modernist’ works, the adjective being one of which Paterson is wary, since it can often put people off and should perhaps now be considered more historically. He is, he said, very attracted to complexity that is expressively necessary, to works that often need more than one hearing to reveal their secrets, ‘like my first experience with Le marteau sans maître’; after all, if one has heard everything in a work on a first hearing, there is nowhere left to go. (I thought immediately of a great deal of Shostakovich, but kept my thoughts to myself.) Schoenberg, I suggested, was another case of so much expressivity, more than many audiences still seem able to take, though they often reject his music claiming quite the opposite. Paterson’s criticism of some of Schoenberg’s music was tellingly similar to that of Boulez, namely that the new, serial language sometimes falls back upon old forms.
Returning to more contemporary music, we agreed upon a parallel problem to that of the term ‘modernist,’ namely the habit of more conservative listeners to refer to some new music as ‘tonal’, when that seems truly to miss the point of tonality. ‘Just to hear a chord that might appear in tonal music does not make the music tonal, since it does not have the same role at all. For instance, some of the chords in George Benjamin’s piece, though not of course in Le marteau sans maître and other pieces where composers avoid them, might sound like that in isolation, but this isn’t tonal music.’ Nor, of course, is complexity somehow something that appeared in the twentieth century, a favourite case of his being the complexity of the Eroica Symphony. For, in Paterson’s view – and mine – what matters here is what is done with and to the material. One might listen superficially and just hear a tune, but it is the processes that remain crucial, processes which, as he pointed out, are also so apparent in Haydn’s playing with form. Classical composers were not placing consonant chords around to be heard in themselves. The case of Debussy, I suggested, showed the difference: he would sometimes do just that, using chords to be heard, because of their sound; Mozart and Beethoven were certainly not in the business of doing that. With Schoenberg, however, and another Paterson favourite, Elliott Carter, listening in that way is simply not an option. ‘Carter’s Concerto for Orchestra is a wonderful, wonderful work, but you need to concentrate, to keep a sense of what is happening all the time. You can’t listen to it half-heartedly.’
The Theseus Ensemble’s next performance, of Boulez and Benjamin, will take place at 1 p.m., 14 February, in the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House (click here). Further details concerning the ensemble may be found here, and concerning Geoffrey Paterson here.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Theseus Ensemble/Paterson - 'Out of the Labyrinth', 5 November 2010
Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music
Brian Elias – Geranos
Sir Harrison Birtwistle – Verses for Ensembles
Theseus Ensemble
Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)
Launched in April, with a concert programming Ligeti’s Piano Concerto and Boulez’s Dérive 2, the Theseus Ensemble, ‘dedicated to the exploration of the labyrinths of modern music, and to sharing our discoveries with our audiences,’ now turned its attention to two English composers: Brian Elias and Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Skilful programming on founder and conductor Geoffrey Paterson’s part revealed a certain post-Stravinskian kinship in these two ensemble pieces, without prejudice to the composer’s individual voices. Paterson’s spoken introductions to both works, along with brief musical excerpts from the players, were clear, engaging guides to what one might profitably listen out for, but such was the high standard of performance that one could hardly have failed to sit up and listen.
Elias’s 1985 Geranos was written for the Fires of London. Like so much of Birtwistle’s music, there is an audible inspiration of archaic Greece. Here, Elias’s interest in ancient metrical feet – dactylic, anapæstic, bacchic, and so on – provides a basis for the work’s generative rhythmical cells; such was made clear both by Paterson’s introduction and by the performance itself. The word ‘geranos,’ Paterson’s programme note explained, has two meanings: when the stress falls upon the final syllable, it connotes a dance imitating the flight of cranes in line; when falling upon the first, it refers to Theseus’s dance to celebrate the rescue of seven youths and seven maidens from the Minotaur’s labyrinth. Elias scores this piece of three interconnected movements for six players: piano, piccolo/flute/alto flute, violin/viola, E-flat clarinet/bass clarinet, and percussion. Each of these players had a chance, well taken, to shine in solo and ensemble.
Following a slow introduction, in which Christopher White span a pregnant single line – a labyrinthine thread, perhaps? – which led us into an almost impressionistic haze of instrumental response, the rhythmically driven character of the first movement fully revealed itself. Jonathan Rees’s early ecstatic cello solo incited others, Elias’s post-Stravinskian soundworld soon fully established. Flights of fantasy from piccolo and percussion proved orientally suggestive. The slow, second movement put one in mind of a processional, its growth in intensity owed as much to percussion as to the leading figure of the E-flat clarinet (Sarah Thurlow), evocative of the mournful antique aulos gingras. The transition to the final movement seemed especially well handled, resulting in the alternation of various ‘feet’ in a generative, almost Dionysian frenzy. There were, however, more phantasmagorical sections too, in which the players created a sense of slowed, but not quite suspended animation. Throughout the ritual, twists and turns clearly unfolded, until the concluding near-stasis – written before such things became wearisomely popular – of tuned percussion.
As a prelude to performance of Birtwistle’s classic Verses for Ensembles (1986-9), Paterson and his players took us through the seven types of music present in the work: audible signposts, though as Paterson admitted, the delineation is so clear in Birtwistle’s writing, that it would be well-nigh impossible not to register their character. The visual-dramatic aid of players moving around the stage assists in that respect too, of course. Material was throughout clearly but meaningfully delineated, whether in introduction or performance.
Immediately, we were thrust into a violent soundworld, pulsating with drama both visceral and perspectival: unmistakeably Birtwistle. Hard-edged – have glockenspiels ever sounded more so? – and yet with moments of true tenderness, for instance from Alec Frank-Gemmill’s fine French horn, the character of this world was finely judged. Trumpet fanfares from Huw Morgan and Dimitrios Gkogkas harked back to Monteverdi and beyond, the spatial dimension contributing to the impression of Gabrielian ghosts at the modernistic feast – and how greatly so much music of this period is influenced by the Venetian example: think, for instance, of Stockhausen. The controlled riot of percussion (three players here: Stephen Burke, Oliver Lowe, and Scott Wilson) suggested an archaic threefold – or more – intensification of Messiaen’s rhythmic explorations, whilst all the time the hieratic example of Symphonies of Wind Instruments and, of course, The Rite of Spring incited. Rhythmic precision and definition are crucial in such respects; the Theseus Ensemble succeeded triumphantly in imparting them. At least as impressive, however, was the true sense the performance instilled of geography to the work’s ‘location’. As so often with Birtwistle, we are engaged in audition of differing perspectives upon different ‘places’, their characters sometimes variant – as in the three-line woodwind stanzas – and sometimes invariant. Secret Theatre seemed to beckon, inescapably: a privilege afforded by this fine performance.
The Theseus Ensemble’s next performance will be at the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House on 14 February 2011, at 1 p.m. George Benjamin’s Upon Silence will preface Boulez’s iconic Le marteau sans maître. Further information concerning the ensemble may be found at http://www.theseusensemble.com/.
Brian Elias – Geranos
Sir Harrison Birtwistle – Verses for Ensembles
Theseus Ensemble
Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)
Launched in April, with a concert programming Ligeti’s Piano Concerto and Boulez’s Dérive 2, the Theseus Ensemble, ‘dedicated to the exploration of the labyrinths of modern music, and to sharing our discoveries with our audiences,’ now turned its attention to two English composers: Brian Elias and Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Skilful programming on founder and conductor Geoffrey Paterson’s part revealed a certain post-Stravinskian kinship in these two ensemble pieces, without prejudice to the composer’s individual voices. Paterson’s spoken introductions to both works, along with brief musical excerpts from the players, were clear, engaging guides to what one might profitably listen out for, but such was the high standard of performance that one could hardly have failed to sit up and listen.
Elias’s 1985 Geranos was written for the Fires of London. Like so much of Birtwistle’s music, there is an audible inspiration of archaic Greece. Here, Elias’s interest in ancient metrical feet – dactylic, anapæstic, bacchic, and so on – provides a basis for the work’s generative rhythmical cells; such was made clear both by Paterson’s introduction and by the performance itself. The word ‘geranos,’ Paterson’s programme note explained, has two meanings: when the stress falls upon the final syllable, it connotes a dance imitating the flight of cranes in line; when falling upon the first, it refers to Theseus’s dance to celebrate the rescue of seven youths and seven maidens from the Minotaur’s labyrinth. Elias scores this piece of three interconnected movements for six players: piano, piccolo/flute/alto flute, violin/viola, E-flat clarinet/bass clarinet, and percussion. Each of these players had a chance, well taken, to shine in solo and ensemble.
Following a slow introduction, in which Christopher White span a pregnant single line – a labyrinthine thread, perhaps? – which led us into an almost impressionistic haze of instrumental response, the rhythmically driven character of the first movement fully revealed itself. Jonathan Rees’s early ecstatic cello solo incited others, Elias’s post-Stravinskian soundworld soon fully established. Flights of fantasy from piccolo and percussion proved orientally suggestive. The slow, second movement put one in mind of a processional, its growth in intensity owed as much to percussion as to the leading figure of the E-flat clarinet (Sarah Thurlow), evocative of the mournful antique aulos gingras. The transition to the final movement seemed especially well handled, resulting in the alternation of various ‘feet’ in a generative, almost Dionysian frenzy. There were, however, more phantasmagorical sections too, in which the players created a sense of slowed, but not quite suspended animation. Throughout the ritual, twists and turns clearly unfolded, until the concluding near-stasis – written before such things became wearisomely popular – of tuned percussion.
As a prelude to performance of Birtwistle’s classic Verses for Ensembles (1986-9), Paterson and his players took us through the seven types of music present in the work: audible signposts, though as Paterson admitted, the delineation is so clear in Birtwistle’s writing, that it would be well-nigh impossible not to register their character. The visual-dramatic aid of players moving around the stage assists in that respect too, of course. Material was throughout clearly but meaningfully delineated, whether in introduction or performance.
Immediately, we were thrust into a violent soundworld, pulsating with drama both visceral and perspectival: unmistakeably Birtwistle. Hard-edged – have glockenspiels ever sounded more so? – and yet with moments of true tenderness, for instance from Alec Frank-Gemmill’s fine French horn, the character of this world was finely judged. Trumpet fanfares from Huw Morgan and Dimitrios Gkogkas harked back to Monteverdi and beyond, the spatial dimension contributing to the impression of Gabrielian ghosts at the modernistic feast – and how greatly so much music of this period is influenced by the Venetian example: think, for instance, of Stockhausen. The controlled riot of percussion (three players here: Stephen Burke, Oliver Lowe, and Scott Wilson) suggested an archaic threefold – or more – intensification of Messiaen’s rhythmic explorations, whilst all the time the hieratic example of Symphonies of Wind Instruments and, of course, The Rite of Spring incited. Rhythmic precision and definition are crucial in such respects; the Theseus Ensemble succeeded triumphantly in imparting them. At least as impressive, however, was the true sense the performance instilled of geography to the work’s ‘location’. As so often with Birtwistle, we are engaged in audition of differing perspectives upon different ‘places’, their characters sometimes variant – as in the three-line woodwind stanzas – and sometimes invariant. Secret Theatre seemed to beckon, inescapably: a privilege afforded by this fine performance.
The Theseus Ensemble’s next performance will be at the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House on 14 February 2011, at 1 p.m. George Benjamin’s Upon Silence will preface Boulez’s iconic Le marteau sans maître. Further information concerning the ensemble may be found at http://www.theseusensemble.com/.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Theseus Ensemble: two upcoming concerts
News from the Theseus Ensemble - patron Pierre Boulez, conductor Geoffrey Paterson - concerning two must-hear upcoming concerts:
____________________________________________
Friday 5 November 2010, 7.30pm
Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music, London SW7 2BS
‘Out of the Labyrinth’
Brian Elias Geranos
Sir Harrison Birtwistle Verses for Ensembles
Tickets £10/£8 advance/£5 students, from theseusensemble@gmail.com or at the door.
____________________________________________
Monday 14 February 2011, 1pm
Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, London WC2E 9DD
‘Sounds, Words, Music’
George Benjamin Upon Silence
Pierre Boulez Le marteau sans maître
Louise Collett, mezzo-soprano
Tickets free. A small number will be available in advance online from www.roh.org.uk, with the majority available from 10am on the day at the Royal Opera House box office.
_____________________________________________
The Theseus Ensemble comprises some of the UK’s leading young professional instrumentalists. We are enthusiastically dedicated to the exploration of the labyrinths of modern music, and to sharing our discoveries with our audiences. Our work focuses on repertoire of the late 20th and 21st centuries, and through concerts and education projects we are committed to drawing connections between music and other areas of the arts, science and nature.
The Theseus Ensemble’s patron is distinguished conductor and composer Pierre Boulez, and its founder and conductor is Geoffrey Paterson, winner of the 2009 Leeds Conductors Competition and member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House. Please visit www.geoffreypaterson.co.uk for more information.
For more information please contact the Theseus Ensemble’s mananger, Rosie Burton, on 07736 071847 or at theseusensemble@gmail.com
____________________________________________
Friday 5 November 2010, 7.30pm
Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music, London SW7 2BS
‘Out of the Labyrinth’
Brian Elias Geranos
Sir Harrison Birtwistle Verses for Ensembles
Tickets £10/£8 advance/£5 students, from theseusensemble@gmail.com or at the door.
____________________________________________
Monday 14 February 2011, 1pm
Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, London WC2E 9DD
‘Sounds, Words, Music’
George Benjamin Upon Silence
Pierre Boulez Le marteau sans maître
Louise Collett, mezzo-soprano
Tickets free. A small number will be available in advance online from www.roh.org.uk, with the majority available from 10am on the day at the Royal Opera House box office.
_____________________________________________
The Theseus Ensemble comprises some of the UK’s leading young professional instrumentalists. We are enthusiastically dedicated to the exploration of the labyrinths of modern music, and to sharing our discoveries with our audiences. Our work focuses on repertoire of the late 20th and 21st centuries, and through concerts and education projects we are committed to drawing connections between music and other areas of the arts, science and nature.
The Theseus Ensemble’s patron is distinguished conductor and composer Pierre Boulez, and its founder and conductor is Geoffrey Paterson, winner of the 2009 Leeds Conductors Competition and member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House. Please visit www.geoffreypaterson.co.uk for more information.
For more information please contact the Theseus Ensemble’s mananger, Rosie Burton, on 07736 071847 or at theseusensemble@gmail.com
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