London Sinfonietta/Piero, Paterson, et al. - Vivaldi and Grisey, 21 May 2023

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, op.8
Grisey: Vortex temporum

Michael Morpurgo (narrator)

Clio Gould, Oliver Wilson (violins)

Oliver Wilson (viola)

Clare O’Connell (cello)

Jonas Nordberg (archlute)

David Gordon (harpsichord)

Katherine Tinker (chamber organ)
Karen Jones (flutes)

Mark van de Wiel (clarinets)
Paul Silverthorne (viola)
Tim Gill (cello)

Daniel Piero (violin, director)
Andrew Zolinsky (piano)

Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)
 

All music unfolds in time. Here, two musical works, separated by the greater part of three centuries, in turn explored time’s unfolding. It has become such a cliché to moan about the ubiquity of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that perhaps now it is time, as it were, to welcome it back to the fold. (In any case, apart from telephonic descents into hell punctuated by reminders of the value of our call and eagerness of Corporation X to answer us, we can readily avoid it. I have for years.) It is certainly time to do so if treated to so engaging a performance as this from Daniel Pioro and friends. Comparisons between Baroque music – a well-nigh meaningless term, but anyway – and jazz are overdone, yet here there really was something akin to that spirit of listening and responsiveness on show, Pioro often at most first among equals, sometimes even ready to cede that position, as well as stepping up – and around the stage, as if it visit his colleagues – to the solo spot when the moment seized him. Introduced and punctuated by similarly engaging readings on the four seasons by Michael Morpurgo, this was no ordinary Vivaldi, which is surely the best plan for rescue of these concertos. 

‘Spring’ showed us many things, reminded us of a good few more. The greater prominence assumed by the continuo players, both on account of chamber scale but also their conception both of work and role, marked it from the start, as did Pioro’s camaraderie with his fellow string players. Duetting, trios, jamming: it was all there in the first movement, yet also beyond. If he were more a conventional soloist in the slow movement, such is the material. The third took a folk-like route, Pioro as head fiddler in foot-stomping mood, rock-solid continuo providing rhythmic underpinning. 

Bird-calls of ‘Summer’ came not only from the violin, but also from organist Katherine Tinker’s moonlighting, also prefiguring the world of Grisey. Stormy rumblings and other aspects of the natural world eventually erupted, leaving us with something old and new, known and unknown: perhaps a metaphor for Vivaldi’s cycle as a whole, as well as its modern reception. Jonas Nordberg’s animating presence on archlute for the first movement of ‘Autumn’ again dissolved expectations of genre, writing, and performance. What was Vivaldi here, and what was extemporisation? Why should one care? After the vivid contrasts of the two succeeding movements, ‘Winter’ concluded in vivid pictorial and extra-pictorial fashion. It was still full of surprises, not least an unexpected pedal, above which various solo lines prepared for the final fireworks. 

For Gérard Grisey’s Vortex temporum, Pioro joined the ranks of the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Geoffrey Paterson. If any player were first among equals here, it was pianist Andrew Zolinsky. There from the opening éclat, along with flautist Karen Jones and clarinettist Mark van de Wiel, those instruments’ pulsating sound serving, among other things, to introduce the strings, the piano would close the first movement with a fearsome, ferocious solo. In between, one experienced much of that strange hyper-clarity of sound that seems to come with the best of spectralism. (Like others with serialism, I prefer results to aesthetic.) Out of that, sound itself seemed to re-emerge, transformed and even recreated in the second movement, as we passed from ‘normal’, human time to the ‘expanded’ time of whales. A hypnotic quality to the piano’s descending figure, varied in repetition – dare one say ‘development’? – as enveloped by ensemble penumbra, did indeed suggest Grisey’s titular vortex. 

There and in the third movement, strings elevated us to the world of birdsong and its ‘compressed’ time. They seemed indeed to breathe as naturally as us humans, perhaps more so. Balances, roles, techniques were reinvented before our ears; proliferation remained, unlike that of, say, Boulez, centripetal rather than centrifugal. A universe was not being created, but rather turning in on itself, ‘compressed’. Piero and others had solo moments, but this was even more an ensemble piece, a collaborative effort, than Vivaldi. Or was it? Perhaps it was simply a different way to do something similar, to make music, as indeed we should find in Boulez too. Not only to make music, of course, but to make it interestingly, both as work and performance—and, one hopes, in listening too.

Arensky Chamber Orchestra/Gould - Rautavaara, Grieg, Vivaldi, and Schnelzer

Cadogan Hall

Rautavaara – Pelimannit (‘The Fiddlers’), op.1
Grieg – From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style, op.40
Vivaldi – Violin Concerto in D major, ‘Il Grosso Mogul,’ RV 208
Albert Schnelzer – Emperor Akbar (British premiere, orchestral version)

Arensky Chamber Orchestra
Clio Gould (violin, director)


Last September, I reported enthusiastically from the Arensky Chamber Orchestra’s launch at the Institute of Directors. I am delighted to say that this concert’s performances proved of an equally high standard. A crack team of young soloists combined under the leadership of Clio Gould to provide an object lesson in stylish, dynamic string playing.

To stand out amongst a host of chamber ensembles, the ACO has resolved to do things differently, not for the mere sake of it, but to attempt to present works in interesting new ways, both through programming and presentation. Interesting connections abounded: Scandinavian string music from Einojuhani Raatavaara, Edvard Grieg, and Swedish composer, Albert Schnelzer, the string orchestral version of the latter’s Emperor Akbar also fitting nicely with one of Vivaldi’s two Mogul excursions, the D major concerto, RV 208.

As we entered the Cadogan Hall, members of the orchestra greeted us from a balcony above the stage with their own arrangement of folk material collected by fiddler Samuel Rinda-Nickola (1763-1818), thus preparing us for Rautavaara’s The Fiddlers, which also makes use of Rinda-Nickola’s material. A student work, indeed his op.1, The Fiddlers (or ‘Pelimannit’) is full of exuberance; at least it was in this typically energetic performance. The informative programme notes informed us that Rautavaara originally wrote a piano piece, which he subsequently arranged for string orchestra. From the idiomatic rendition here, one would never have guessed, though the composer perhaps sounds closer to the likes of Honegger than to his later self (no complaints here). Depth and richness of tone combined with sharp characterisation of individual movements, relishing but never unduly exaggerating the composer’s ‘wrong-note’ harmonies, to provide a memorable account. Another programming idea: perhaps a potential companion piece to Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s riotous Rheinische Kirmestänze?




Grieg’s Holberg Suite followed: another work originally composed for piano and subsequently arranged for string orchestra. It is an unfashionable work; indeed, one might say much the same of Grieg as a composer: a pity, since its evocation of the Baroque suite is charming and never resorts to pastiche. Lightly nostalgic, the ACO’s account paid homage to an imagined eighteenth century, whilst making abundantly clear that this was a nineteenth-century work. Grieg’s harmonies delighted, not least on account of well-judged harmonic rhythm under Gould’s wise direction. String tone itself was expressively rich, though never overwhelmingly so: light and rich are not necessarily antonyms. The Air (‘Andante religioso’) was sung especially beautifully, never descending into the realms of the maudlin. Gould’s solos proved beguiling, but so did those from other section principals, amongst whom Steffan Rees’s finely shaded cello line deserves especial mention.

Gould was the soloist for Vivaldi’s Il grosso mogul concerto. I cannot claim to be a paid-up Vivaldian – Dallapiccolla’s line, popularised by Stravinsky, about writing the same concerto a few hundred times dies hard – but this was a fine reading that never outstayed its welcome. Once again striking was the richness, though not a ‘Romantic’ richness, of tone displayed by the orchestra as a whole, a fine backdrop for Vivaldi’s – and Gould’s – flights of violinistic fantasy. The slow movement, for solo and continuo, showed that there is variety within Vivaldi’s box of tricks, even if I could not help – heretically? – thinking that Bach’s arrangement remains superior to the original. But what a joy it was to hear such warmth from the orchestra: utterly distant from current attention-seeking ‘authenticity’. I was put in mind of the English Chamber Orchestra in its heyday.

Finally came the British premiere of the orchestral version of Albert Schnelzer’s Emperor Akbar, its quartet version written for the Brodsky Quartet. Where the inspiration for Vivaldi’s title remains obscure, Schnelzer pays explicit homage to Salman Rushdie’s portrait of the Mogul Emperor in The Enchantress of Florence. Indeed, we heard readings from Rushdie prior to both the Vivaldi and Schnelzer pieces. Schnelzer, according to his biography ‘has openly declared that communication is a key element in his music.’ I am not sure that there is anything particularly unusual about that, though the implication would seem to be that (relatively) straightforward is better. The dance-inspired rhythms and melodies were once again expertly despatched by the orchestra, though I could not help wishing that something a little more intellectually engaging were on offer. Ferneyhough perhaps: I suspect these players would cope…

The next ACO concert will feature Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, both in its original sextet version, alongside an exhibition of new works from the Royal College of Art, and in the version for string orchestra. Perhaps my belief in the original’s superiority will be challenged; we shall see… For further details on the Arensky Chamber Orchestra, please visit the orchestra’s website (click here).

Launch of Arensky Chamber Orchestra, 16 September 2010

This is not a review as such, but I should like to note the launch at the Pall Mall Institute of Directors of a new professional chamber orchestra. With guest director, Andrew Haveron, The Arensky Chamber Orchestra, with performed Vivaldi's Four Seasons, interspersed with Artur Piazzola's responses: Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Haveron brought charismatic leadership to a crack team of young soloists. Indeed, performances were throughout excellent, bringing to life a work that I should never have imagined wishing to hear again. What a relief to find musicians prepared to treat Vivaldi as music rather than a pseudo-archaeological freak-show, as has become all too common today. Piazzola provided something 'new' yet appropriate, nocturnal slinkiness relished by players and audience alike.

Part of the ensemble's mission is to 'strive to be creative in all that we do - not just with our playing - and are committed to finding new and exciting ways to deliver our music, through venue choice, programming, and challenging collaborations with other forms.' Certainly the venue, designed and built by John Nash, provided interest of its own, attested to welcome ambition from the orchestra's founder, Will Kunhardt. One of the Institute's two St James rooms, transformed during performance through lighting, boasted a surprisingly fine acoustic too: take note, other performers...

The four concerts planned for the orchestra's 2011 debut Cadogan Hall season will each benefit from a celebrated guest director: Haveron for the first, Clio Gould, Stephanie Gonley, and Melvyn Tan. A multi-media treatment of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht sounds intriguing, likewise a 'late-night mystery concert', including Mozart's Requiem. For further details from the orchestra's website, click here.