La vera costanza, Royal Academy of Music, 19 November 2012

Helen Bailey (Rosina)
Images: Hana Zushi, Royal Academy of Music

 

 Sir Jack Lyons Theatre

 

La Baronessa Irene – Rosalind Coad

Il Marchese Ernesto – Thomas Elwin
Lisetta – Sónia Grané
Villotto – Nicholas Crawley
Rosina – Helen Bailey
Masino _ Samuel Pantcheff
Il Conte Errico – Stuart Jackson
Rosina’s son – Jude Chandler

Jamie Hayes (director)

Tim Reed (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)

Royal Academy Sinfonia

Trevor Pinnock (conductor)
 

Nicholas Crawley (Villotto), Il Conte Erico (Stuart Jackson)

Il Marchese Ernesto (Thomas Elwin),
La Baronessa Irene (Rosalind Coad), and
Lisetta (Sónia Grané)

I often fear that I am the only enthusiast for Haydn’s operas. Quite apart from the questions that raises concerning one’s sanity, it is heartening to be reminded that I am not quite in a minority of one. According to Jane Glover’s programme welcome note, Trevor Pinnock, having conducted La fedeltà premiata – how I wish I had caught that – in 2009, suggested following that up with La vera costanza, a proposal Royal Academy Opera ‘embraced ... with great enthusiasm’. And so it should have done. This, like many of Haydn’s works, only more so, is an opera whose neglect does shame to all concerned, superior in almost every way to a good number of pieces that inexplicably hold the stage. No, it is not written by we-all-know-who, but apart from that lack of profound characterisation in which some of the Salzburg composer’s greatest genius lies, Haydn is not entirely embarrassed by the comparison here, which is more than can be said of many. La vera costanza is at least to be ranked alongside La finta giardiniera and in some respects – not least the surprisingly sophisticated ensemble writing – even looks towards the likes of Figaro. The likes of the Baroness Irene, Rosina – an unfortunate name in retrospect, I admit – and Count Errico will not linger in our imaginations; there is no one remotely akin to Susanna, let alone the Countess, here, but the advanced level of musical thought is undeniable. Take for instance the canonical writing in the second act finale, or the opening storm music. The latter cannot boast the almost psychoanalytical quality to the opening of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, but it would make an excellent, thrilling, concert overture, and thrilled even more here in the theatre, in so fine a performance.

 

Samuel Pantcheff (Masino) and Lisetta

Part of the problem with Haydn’s operas seems to be an extension of the general problem Haydn’s music faces: beloved of all true musicians, it rarely seems to appeal to non-musicians. Wagner adored Haydn’s music, and increasingly so, often comparing his symphonic writing favourably to Mozart’s. (A parallel or opposing error one often comes up against is gross underestimation of Mozart as a symphonist, on account of his writing being so very different from that of Haydn and Beethoven, but that is a cause for another day.) I can only assume that it is a lack of formal understanding that means many listeners simply do not follow as attentively as they must what Haydn is doing and how he rings his changes. The strange inability truly to characterise in musical terms remains a considerably shortcoming, of course, and a shortcoming that cannot be ascribed simply to formal convention, yet the music is so glorious – that of the opening scene alone – that one can forgive a lot. Indeed, in order fairly to dismiss Haydn as an opera composer it would have to be on that basis alone and one would most likely therefore have to confine oneself exclusively to Monteverdi, Purcell, Mozart, Wagner, Strauss, Berg, and Janáček. I for one have never encountered someone who fell into that category.

 

Trevor Pinnock led a gripping account of the score by the Royal Academy Sinfonia. I wondered during the opening storm whether he might be tempted to drive a little harder, a little too hard, but was delighted to have my fears assuaged. This was a performance full of life, which yielded where necessary, and which never once failed to delineate Haydn’s musico-dramatic structures, whether at a micro- or a macro-level. Only occasionally did I feel the lack of a greater body of strings (6.6.4.4.2). Those few moments of relative thinness aside, I have nothing but praise for a stylish, warm, alert performance from all concerned. Chad Kelley’s harpsichord continuo was also a model of its kind, mercifully free of the ludicrous exhibitionism in favour in certain quarters.

 

Jude Chandler (Rosina's son)

Moreover, every member of this young cast contributed to the overall success, every one of them contributing something positive. (If only one could say that of most performances on starrier stages, the contrast with a recent Götterdämmerung being especially glaring, from the out-of-his-depth conductor down...) Italian pronunciation and diction were excellent throughout; ability to shape a phrase was equally apparent. All performances exuded dramatic and musical honesty and understanding. If I was especially taken with Helen Bailey’s portrayal of the sentimental – in the eighteenth-century sense – heroine Rosina, abandoned by the Count as a consequence of the Baroness’s machinations, that was perhaps a matter of the role as much as anything else, though Crawley has a distinctive voice which, allied with stage presence, ought to mark her out in the future. Rosalind Coad and Sónia Grané both entered into their roles with spirit and style. Thomas Elwin and Nicholas Crawley fashioned finely-honed marriages of words, music, and gesture, very much with eyes – and ears – for what Haydn’s prodigal inventiveness requested. Samuel Pantcheff’s Masino showed keen awareness for the social differentiation of characters in Haydn’s dramma giocoso, whilst Stuart Jackson’s portrayal of the Count, after a slightly bluff start, blossomed into something rather affecting, partly on account of his command of the text. Even Jude Chandler delivered his spoken line as Rosina's son in convincing Italian.

 

The production by Jamie Hayes was richly rewarding too. It had no especial ‘point’ to make, but keen direction of the singers, within a somewhat stylised – no pandering to false naïveté – evocation of eighteenth-century manners proved a perfect setting for Haydn’s music to work its wonders. This was without a shadow of a doubt the best live performance I have yet heard of a Haydn opera – and that includes Armida at the Salzburg Festival.


Performances will continue on 22, 23, and 26 November, a second cast alternating with this one.

LPO/Eschenbach - Schumann and Beethoven, 14 November 2012

Royal Festival Hall

 

Schumann – Overture: Der Braut von Messina, op.100
Beethoven – Concerto for piano, violin, and cello in C major, op.56
Schumann – Symphony no.2 in C major, op.61

Baiba Skride (violin)
Daniel Müller-Schott (cello)
Lars Vogt (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach (conductor)

Christoph Eschenbach is a regular visitor to the London Philharmonic, but I think this was the first time I caught them together. I certainly hope that it will not be the last, for it is quite a while since I have heard the LPO on such good form. There was no nonsense about scaling the orchestra down (fifteen firsts down to eight double basses for the Schumann works); that cannot but have helped. But the dark, convincingly German tone Eschenbach drew from the orchestra was just as important, probably more so. Schumann’s Bride of Messina Overture made for an excellent opening, its introduction full of tension, slow but quite the opposite of staid, as if on a coiled spring. The main Allegro was properly tormented, the prominent piccolo part reminiscent of Beethoven’s use of the instrument. A warmly lyrical clarinet second subject offered balm to the soul, though it was soon undercut. This is the sort of piece – and performance – for which the word ‘Romanticism’ might have been intended, and it is a piece we should hear more often.

 

The opening of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto nevertheless registered an increase in voltage. What a joy it was to hear the LPO sounding so darkly German in tone, miles away from the quasi-‘authentic’ experiments of its music director. Romantic warmth from the cello, cultivation from the violin, obstinate ruggedness from the piano: those were the initial impressions gleaned from the solo instruments’ first entries. Character, then, was portrayed, though it was amenable to transformation according to Beethoven’s demands. Sometimes I felt that Lars Vogt’s piano playing was ingratiating, and could also be rather neutral in tone, but at least it was not sentimentalised. Though he did nothing to upstage his colleagues, Daniel Müller-Schott’s performance of the cello part was the star turn for me. Eschenbach’s handling of the orchestra was equally important though, drive coming from within, or better from below (the bass line). The slow movement opened with a sweetly intense solo from Müller-Schott. The trio, including Baiba Skride’s violin thereafter blended uncommonly well in an ideally posed account that gave Beethoven all the time he needed, without ever coming close to dragging. Orchestral depth was present where it mattered. Müller-Schott’s transition to the finale was finely judged. The movement fairly danced, lacking nothing to start with in Beethovenian vigour, but fading of the latter made it overstay its welcome. There should not be a suspicion of note-spinning; here there was, if only slightly.

 

Schumann’s Second Symphony received a memorable account, revealing Eschenbach and the LPO at their finest. I was very much in two minds for the first half of the first movement – but that intrigued me. At first, I wondered whether Eschenbach’s direction was two four-square, playing to the score’s potential weaknesses; however, Eschenbach took the high road of making a virtue out of them. If his reading lacked the easy flow of, say, Wolfgang Sawallisch, then rhythmic and motivic insistence told their own story, even when underlined to an extent I should have thought undesirable in theory. That was all the more the case when themes were tossed between parts, Eschenbach’s division of the violins paying off handsomely, though the woodwind proved equally distinguished in that respect. This movement often sounded like an uphill struggle, even swimming against the tide, yet it held the attention and, more than that, compelled. And there was a truly Beethovenian spirit of triumph to the recapitulation.

 

The scherzo was taken at quite a lick, almost insanely so, but Eschenbach’s tempo held no fears for the LPO. The disturbing hesitance of the trios – a matter of interpretative strategy – painted the outer sections in greater relief. Even when Schumann sang, it was disquieting. A long-breathed account of a true slow movement banished any thoughts of the mere intermezzo one sometimes hears. The LPO’s playing was darkly beautiful, benefiting from the surest of foundations in Eschenbach’s understanding of harmonic rhythm. There was, for once, not the slightest hint of ‘chamber orchestra’ condescension; this was truly symphonic, and all the better for it. A martial opening announced a finale that was anything but carefree; there was symphonic battle yet to be done. And it was won with gloriously rich string tone. Expertly shaped, this was as resounding a rejoinder to the clarions of ‘authenticity’ as one could have hoped for, arguably more so. Amongst present conductors, Eschenbach gave Barenboim a run for his money: quite an achievement.

 

 

 

The Tempest, Met Opera Live, 10 November 2012

Metropolitan Opera, New York, viewed at Cineworld, West India Quay

Ariel – Audrey Luna

Miranda – Isabel Leonard
Trinculo – Iestyn Davies
Ferdinand – Alek Shrader
Caliban – Alan Oke
King of Naples – William Burden
Antonio – Toby Spence
Prospero – Simon Keenlyside
Stefano – Kevin Burdette
Gonzalo – John Del Carlo
Robert Lepage (director)

Jasmine Catudal (set designs)

Kym Barrett (costumes)
Michel Beaulieu (lighting)
David Leclerc (video)

Metropolitan Opera Chorus

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Thomas Adès (conductor)

 

‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’ That was how I began my review of the Met broadcast of Robert Lepage’s production of Götterdammerung. I feared that it would do again for The Tempest, yet, although this was no triumph, save for some of the singers and indeed the splendid Met orchestra, nor, at least on the big screen, did it prove the excruciating embarrassment I had feared, largely due to excellent performances. I wonder how much of the rest of the salvage was due to clever filming, given that the voices of those in the theatre earlier on during the run, voices I respect, seem to have been united.

Let there be no misunderstanding: Lepage’s production was mindless in the extreme. No change there. The half-hearted attempt at meta-theatricality – are we not all tired of that now, unless it be the work of someone who really engages with the work as well – was one of the worst I have seen. All it seemed to involve was setting the opera at La Scala, for no other reason than that Prospero was once Duke of Milan, and then leaving a confused nonsense to play itself out, sometimes in front of the Scala theatre and some (eighteenth-century?!) spectators, sometimes not. Prospero, Ariel, and still more Caliban looked as if they were refugees from one of Lepage’s Cirque du Soleil shows. At one point there is an apparently non-ironic – though maybe I am just too stupid to plumb its deaths – of a filmed couple (Miranda Ferdinand) walking off into the sunset. There really is nothing more I can think of to say about the production, so I shall leave it there. 

Let there be no further misunderstanding: Adès’s stature remains inflated far beyond his talent. Still, that is not his fault; nobody forces others to stage his works, even though there may be a host of better claimants – or at least I assume no one does. The greater part of the first two acts was undistinguished in the extreme, rarely if ever rising above the level of a typical soundtrack for a middlebrow television serial. There is certainly nothing to frighten away even the most timid of horses, though I suspect that even equine or indeed bovine audience members might wonder what the point in such an enterprise might be. There is often a certain skill with orchestration, but then any decent postgraduate composition student ought to be able to manage that. Otherwise, harmonies are resolutely unchallenging – Britten sounds adventurous by comparison – and direction is unclear. O for a touch of Birtwistle! The third act picks up considerably. Whilst no masterpiece, there is greater dramatic focus, more of a sense of responding to the story, and the passacaglia towards the end, if obvious beyond the call of duty, does its business. Ariel must be one of the most irritating characters – if one can call her that – in the operatic repertoire, but at least that her insanely vertiginous coloratura adds a dash of interest. The shades of Couperin work better in context than when taken as a suite, but perhaps that is because the dullness of the score as a whole sets them in positive relief.

As for Meredith Oakes’s ghastly libretto, let there be no additional misunderstanding.  I cannot bring myself to recall, let alone to repeat, its doggerel. Not wishing to set Shakespeare ‘straight’ is perfectly understandable, but the only relief in this banal effort is the unintentionally comic. (Again, I cannot recall a particular instance, so the humour remains a relative concept.)

The Met Orchestra played splendidly for Adès, who, like Britten, except at a far lower level, consistently seems a more impressive performer than composer. (The moment we have a Turn of the Screw it will be worth a change of heart, but I am not sure we have yet heard the equivalent of the Britten Piano Concerto yet.) Incisive, full of tone, splendidly colourful: it is difficult to imagine a better performance than this. If only the orchestra’s talents had been lavished on a more worthy contemporary score. The Mask of Orpheus, perhaps? The chorus sang and acted well too. Moreover, there was a good deal of fine singing, most crucial of all Simon Keenlyside’s Prospero, whose performance at times came as close as humanly possible to moving, given the material. Audrey Luna’s Ariel was apparently effortlessly despatched, a splendid achievement. Alan Oke was creepily ‘different’ and yet unfailingly musical as Caliban, though something a little more threatening might have been in order. (Perhaps that was a matter of stage direction though.) Isabel Leonard and Alek Shrader were as beautiful and handsome of voice as of aspect, the latter especially touching in his sadness and his joy. Toby Spence and Iestyn Davies were as impressive as one would expect, Davies almost managing to convince one that his was a genuine Shakespearean – or Monteverdian – character. If only...

Maybe I set the bar too low, but this was better than Götterdämmerung. However, I beseech you not to take that claim out of context.

 

Puccini, Schoenberg, Dallapiccola

I find myself in the middle of writing a chapter on Dallapiccola, focused on Il prigioniero. Now is not the time to give too much away - for one thing, my thoughts tend very much to emerge through the act of writing, so I do not yet really know what I am going to say - but a letter of 9 September 1949, which Dallapiccola wrote to Schoenberg, rather touched me. Dallapiccola is recalling the 1924 Italian premiere of Pierrot lunaire, which Schoenberg conducted at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It was that performance, Dallapiccola, would later recall, which made the young musician, studying at the Florence Conservatory, resolve to concentrate his energies upon composition. Puccini, as is well known, made the journey to hear Schoenberg's work too. Whilst many laughed, he listened intently throughout, and afterwards asked Alfredo Casella, whose Corporazione della Nuove Musiche had organised the concert, to introduce him to Schoenberg, who would relate how moved he was by the presence of that 'great man'. Dallapiccola, a quarter of a century later, recalled:

I had seen you in Florence at the time of the first Italian tour of Pierrot lunaire, but how could I, a Conservatory student, find the courage on that evening to come and shake your hand? In any case, I have never forgotten the attitude of Puccini with regard to you on that 1 April 1924, and since that evening I have considered the popular Italian composer to be of an intelligence and a humanity that I had not suspected.
 

Piemontesi - Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and Debussy, 7 November 2012

Queen Elizabeth Hall

 

Mozart – Piano Sonata in D major, KV 284/205b

Schubert – Piano Sonata in A minor, D 537
Chopin – Barcarolle in F-sharp major, op.60
Debussy – Préludes, Book II

Francesco Piemontesi (piano)

 

I first heard Francesco Piemontesi last year, at the City of London Festival. In a not entirely dissimilar programme, though with no duplication, he had performed music by Chopin, Debussy, and Schumann. Chopin and Debussy remained for this International Piano Series concert, joined by Mozart and Schubert.

 

Mozart is the cruellest of masters. If Piemontesi did not emerge unscathed from the encounter, he nevertheless accrued some credit. The first movement of the D major sonata, KV 284/205b, opened in orchestral – if chamber orchestral – manner; one could imagine bright open strings. Terraced dynamics marked an interpretation on the cusp of Baroque and Classical, but there was more localised shading too, for instance in the generous shaping of the second subject. What I missed was something bolder, at least at times. Perhaps the tempo was a little fast; some passagework veered towards the inconsequential, though there was nothing to which one could violently object. Subtle variation in touch contributed greatly to a graceful reading of the slow movement, Piemontesi’s phrasing vocal and assured. Even by Mozart’s standards, the theme of the finale is treacherous in its deceptive simplicity. It was voiced sensitively with a keen ear for the composer’s harmonic shifts. The variations were, well, varied. Sometimes tone was brittle, as in a second variation that sounded closer to Scarlatti than to Mozart. Piemontesi could also be more efficient, as in the third, than seductive. Balanced against that, one could enjoy playfulness in the sixth, eighth, and ninth, the latter two delightfully Haydnesque, and Romantic tenderness in the seventh. And if the Adagio cantabile lacked warmth, there were winning contrasts at which one could smile in the succeeding twelfth and final variation.

 

Schubert’s first A minor sonata opened impressively indeed, Piemontesi showing himself willing to employ a considerably greater expressive range. The first movement proved bolder and more ‘naturally’ lyrical. And there was darkness at its developmental hear. That and the success of the movement as a whole rested on a sure understanding and communication of harmonic motion. Piemontesi did not sentimentalise the second movement and conveyed a sure sense of where it was heading. It was a little on the chilly side, though, bracingly so in the turn to the minor, less convincingly so otherwise. There was welcome clarity but a little more sense of song would have been welcome. Mood swings were powerfully brought home in the finale, though sometimes – only sometimes – the pianist could sound impetuous rather than darkly furious.

A surprise came after the interval. Expecting ‘Brouillards’ from Debussy’s second book of Préludes, I heard instead Chopin’s Barcarolle, obviously a late addition to the programme, since it was not listed in my booklet. Piemontesi gave it a forthright performance, with strong rhythmic and harmonic underpinning. There was not so much, however, in the way of charm.

 

The Préludes, when they came, enjoyed a noticeably different tone, the pianist seeming better attuned to Debussy’s sound-world and, perhaps surprisingly so, given the prosaic Chopin, to his poetry. Moreover, atmosphere did not obscure what I hesitatingly call the more ‘purely’ musical thought. Likewise, one could hear what was going on without any of the earlier chilliness. ‘La puerta del vino’ was dark and sultry, differently atmospheric from what had gone before; there was no all-purpose allegedly Debussyan haze. Rhythmic insistence and rubato were finely matched. If ‘Bruyères’ opened in rather plain-spoken fashion, it softened; soon chords genuinely sounded as if they emanated from an instrument ‘without hammers’. ‘“General Lavine” – excentric’ and the ‘Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.’ were sharply etched, or perhaps I should say vividly painted, for there was nothing monochrome, nor for that matter pastel, about them. We benefited from a properly aristocratic tour of ‘Canope’ prior to the relative abstraction of ‘Tierces alternées,’ which might yet have stepped a touch further in the direction of the Etudes. The neo-Lisztian pyrotechnics of ‘Feux d’artifice’  were relished, but Piemontesi showed himself equally able to sing, as it were, between the notes. Debussy, as last year, proved the highlight of the recital.

Salzburg Festival 2013 - programme fully announced

The programme for the Salzburg Festival in 2013 has now been announced. Gawain and Stefan Herheim's eagerly-awaited Meistersinger (conducted by Daniele Gatti) are surely the operatic highlights. Cycles of the Mahler symphonies and the Beethoven string quartets (from the Hagen Quartet) jostle amongst an embarrassment of concerted riches. Click here for details.

Late - possibly last - interview with Elliott Carter...

... in which he advises Alisa Weilerstein on performance of his Cello Concerto:

R.I.P. Elliott Carter 1908-2012

Let him not be primarily remembered for his extraordinary longevity, composing four years into his second century. (How long ago it now seems since we celebrated his 100th birthday!) Let him not even primarily be remembered as the greatest of all American composers to date. (About that there should be no doubt whatsoever!) Let him be remembered above all as the possessor and communicator of an almost Haydn-like musical imagination that brought the following into the world:

Total Immersion - Oliver Knussen at 60, 4 November 2012

Music Hall, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Barbican Hall,

Masks, op.3 (1969)

Three Little Fantasias, op.6a (1970, rev.1983)
Trumpets, op.12 (1975)
Songs Without Voices, op.26 (1991-2)
Sonya’s Lullaby, op.16 (1977-8)
Océan de terre, op.10 (1972-3, rev.1976)

Martha Lloyd (flute)

Maud Millar, Olivia Robinson (sopranos)
Richard Uttley (piano)
Guildhall New Music Ensemble
Richard Baker (conductor)

Autumnal, op.14 (1976-7)

Variations, op.24 (1989)
Secret Psalm (1990, rev.2003)
Prayer Bell Sketch, op.29 (1997)
Ophelia’s Last Dance, op.32 (2009-10)

Alexandra Wood (violin)
Ryan Wigglesworth, Huw Watkins (piano)

Flourish with Fireworks, op.22 (1988, rev.1993)

Choral, op.8 (1970-72)
Whitman Settings, op.25a (1991, orch.1992)
Horn Concerto, op.28 (1994, rev.1995)
Two Organa, op.27 (1994)
Requiem – Songs for Sue, op.33 (2005-6)
Symphony no.3, op.18 (1973-9)

Claire Booth (soprano)

Martin Owen (horn)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Oliver Knussen (conductor)

The Barbican and BBC have done Oliver Knussen proud on his sixtieth birthday. Following magical performances of his two operas on the Saturday night, Sunday saw three concerts plus a typically informative, well-crafted, and enjoyable film from Barrie Gavin, made for Knussen’s fiftieth and now re-shown here. The only real disappointment was the round-table discussion following the film, which suffered from an evident lack of preparation, degenerating into, or rather never raising itself above, generalised, aimless chat. Anyway, enough of that.

 

The first concert, for which the Guildhall New Music Ensemble formed the backbone, presented various chamber works. Masks from 1969 was the earliest as well as the first. Written for solo flute with ad lib. glass chimes, it is harmless, though the flautist’s wandering around now seems very much of its time. Martha Lloyd (with George Barton on percussion) performed it ably; I fear that, unless the composer is Debussy or Berio, I am not the most responsive of listeners to the solo flute, its arabesques and so forth soon resembling each other all too readily. A step or two steps up nevertheless from the vapid conservatoire pieces one often endures from the instrument. Three Little Fantasies, for wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn) was more interesting. For me, the first movement’s opening bars echoed in their intervals – and sonority – Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony. Soloists all had their chance thereafter to shine. (I am not sure why Bayan Northcott, in his notes, described this movement as ‘very short’; it did not seem much shorter than either of the other two.) The slow movement benefited from Stravinskian poise, though its predecessor might have benefited from greater precision at times, especially from the horn. Canonic procedures came audibly to the fore in the third movement. Trumpets, for soprano and three clarinets, sets a text by Georg Trakl. Language, vocal line and instrumentation – I immediately thought of Schoenberg’s op.29 – combined to give the piece a recognisably post-Schoenbergian air. Clarinet flourishes were expertly handled by all concerned, Millar offering a nicely variegated performance.

 

Songs without Voices is in four movements. The instrumentalist offered a much sharper response than in the wind quintet piece, suggesting that here, as in Trumpets, they benefited from Richard Baker’s presence on the podium. A string presence too was welcome, not only from the point of view of variety, but also because the Guildhall string players, the violinist and cellist in particular, played so well, the latter clearly relishing his second movement solo. Each movement was intricate and focused, both as work and performance. In Sonya’s Lullaby, for solo piano, Knussen echoes Debussy, Ravel, and Schoenberg once again. It is a finely wrought piece, the tritonal tension between B and F audibly pervasive – and I am sure it would be, even did one not have the technical language to describe it. Richard Uttley’s performance was as assured as the piano writing itself. The dark instrumental opening, de profundis, of Océan de terre registered deeply in every sense, Knussen’s material arising out of those depths, creating a ravishing sound-world, especially beautiful in terms of solo writing for violin and flute, as well as an active percussion section. Olivia Robinson’s deeply resonant, admirably detailed vocal performance deserves special praise.

 

The second of the two Guildhall-based concerts involved music for solo piano, solo violin, and violin and piano. Autumnal, the piece for violin and piano, showed, should anyone have doubted this, that audibly generative serial processes need not be opposed to freedom; indeed, they can act as its guarantor. Shades of Britten in the harmonies were brought to the fore lovingly by Alexandra Wood and Huw Watkins. Ryan Wigglesworth’s performance of the piano Variations brought us closer to Webern, as the title – and form – might imply. Again, Knussen’s developmental writing was ably brought out in performance. Secret Psalm, for solo violin, was a memorial piece for Michael Vyner, Artistic Director of the London Sinfonietta. Northcott’s notes referred to the slow movement of a nineteenth-century violin concerto as the music closest to Vyner’s heart and Knussen’s point of reference; Wood’s warmly Romantic performance eventually revealed this to be the Brahms concerto. Schoenberg – op.11 and op.19 – was again evoked in the Prayer Bell Sketch, performed by Wigglesworth, Debussy too, even if mediated by Takemitsu, for whom the piece acts as a memorial. Its powerful climax is mitigated yet brought into retrospective relief by a magical falling away, tolling in the distance. Watkins performed the newest piece, Ophelia’s Last Dance with equal artistry. Knussen’s side-slipping harmonies put me in mind of Prokofiev; I even wondered whether the ‘graceful source melody’, in Northcott’s apt description, had a hint of Poulenc to it, but perhaps that was merely my fancy. Ghosts of Gaspard de la nuit certainly seemed to be fleetingly apparent – and could one ask for a better pianistic model than that? – if without Ravel’s hyper-virtuosity.

 

The final, orchestral concert opened with Flourish with Fireworks, scintillating as work and performance, debt to and difference from Stravinsky equally apparent. Choral, for wind, percussion, and double basses. It did not seem to me an especially characteristic piece, almost akin to Stockhausen’s surprisingly conventional Jubilee, which I heard Knussen conduct at the Proms in 2010. The Whitman Settings, sung by the ever-wonderful Claire Booth, served once again to remind us of Knussen’s gift for vocal composition – and his evident love of the soprano voice. Perhaps there was here a hint of Copland, injected into a world recognisable from the operas. The magical orchestral background of ‘A Noiseless Patient Spider’ reminded us, should anyone have required that reminder, of the mutually beneficial experiences of Knussen’s work as composer and as conductor. The sense of open space – quite aptly for Whitman – seemed as much metaphysical as anything else. Martin Owen joined the band for a remarkable performance of the Horn Concerto, the soloist’s delivery as flawless and as committed as the conductor’s and the orchestra’s. (It is a while since I have heard the BBC SO on such excellent form: a cause for rejoicing in itself.) Perhaps it is a matter of the solo instrument as much as anything else, but late Romantic resonances seemed to abound, turns of phrase echoing Mahler and Strauss, the latter also seemingly an inspiration (Till Eulenspiegel) for the virtuosic orchestral writing. I wonder whether he also inspired, in his Second Horn Concerto, the interplay between solo and orchestral horns. Such fantastical Romanticism also brought the Henze of, say, the Fourth Symphony or König Hirsch, to mind. (Knussen has certainly conducted the symphony. Now if only someone would schedule the opera...)

 

The white-note musical box ‘Notre Dame des Jouets’ is, orchestrated, the first of the Two Organa. Its mechanised play provides a link, despite the very different chromatic language, with the finely yet densely layered second. Both exhibited, once again, Knussen’s characteristic brand of orchestral fantasy. Knussen dedicated the performance of Requiem – Songs for Sue, written as a memorial for his wife, to the memory of Henze, not just as composer, but as Knussen reminded us, a vital part of the ecosystem of London musical life, having assisted three generations of composers in this country as well as his own. The different languages – English, Spanish, English, and German – of the four songs elicited differences in vocal style, ably projected by Booth, but the character of each song was not so much a ‘reflection’ of the language as evidence of the synergy of setting and formal progression in combination.

 

Finally, we heard the Third Symphony. A fantastical sound world once again announced itself, with all manner of possible correspondences: Henze, Stravinsky, Ravel, Dukas, et al. But that is not to say they were necessarily ‘influences’, for this is very much a coherent whole; orchestral mastery sings its own praises. Structure, on both a micro- (motivic, cellular) as well as a macro-level was always admirably clear, without any sense of abstraction or imposition; it always seemed inherent in the material, which of course it is. The use of a chorale perhaps inevitably brought Messiaen to mind, though the differences are more telling. There is none of the hieratic quality of the French master in this work; it is far too busy, a star burning bright. And, unlike Messiaen, Knussen is never tempted, at least not on the evidence of these three concerts, to overstay his welcome. He only takes as much time as is absolutely necessary: a welcome attribute indeed.

Where the Wild Things Are, Higglety Pigglety Pop! Barbican, 3 November 2012

Images: Mark Allan/Barbican

Where the Wild Things Are


Max – Claire Booth

Mama/Voice of Tzippy – Susan Bickley
Moishe – Christopher Lemmings
Emil – Graeme Broadbent
Aaron – Jonathan Gunthorpe
Bernard – Graeme Danby
Tzippy – Charlotte McDougall


Higglety Pigglety Pop!

Jane – Lucy Schaufer

The Potted Plant/Baby – Susanna Andersson
Rhoda/Voice of Baby’s Mother – Claire Booth
Cat-Milkman/High Voice of Ash Tree – Christopher Lemmings
Pig-in-Sandwich-Boards – Graeme Danby
Lion/Low Voice of Ash Tree – Graeme Broadbent

Netia Jones (director, designs)

Britten Sinfonia

Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)



Max (Claire Booth)

Marking Oliver Knussen’s sixtieth birthday came a BBC Total Immersion weekend at the Barbican: a double-bill of Knussen’s two operas written in collaboration with Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are and Higgledy Piggledy Pop! on Saturday, followed by a day of two chamber concerts, a film, and an orchestral concert conducted by the composer himself on Sunday. This co-production of the two operas with the Aldeburgh Festival and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association was a delight. Netia Jones employs a cunning, loving mix of animation and live action to retain as much as humanly possible of Sendak’s celebrated drawings. Sometimes we see more of one than the other, though the principal characters – the boy Max in Where the Wild Things Are and Jennie the Sealyham Terrier in Higglety Pigglety Pop! – are ‘real’ throughout. How much lies their – or our? – imagination? What is real anyway? The use of animation for the monsters save at the beginning and end of the first opera – we see the singers go behind a screen and emerge at the end, and of course we hear the, throughout – heightens our questioning. The screen in neatly reversed in Higglety Pigglety Pop! so that we see the secondary characters both on stage and on film. Again, what is real? Are not both varieties of apparition and/or depiction? In the land of the Mother Goose World Theatre, all the world’s a stage – a tribute, surely, as much to Stravinsky and his Rake’s Progress tribute to Mozart, the latter parodied in Knussen’s final scene, as to Ravel. (Both Higglety and Don Giovanni end 'outside' their dramas, in bright if tarnished D major.) The repetitions of that gala performance, the time-honoured tradition of a play within a play, unsettle as they should. What do they mean? When will they stop? Again, what, and who, is ‘real’? That is very much the stuff of imaginary worlds, strongest for some in childhood, but for many of us just as powerful in subsequent stages of our lives.

 

 

 

Crucially, the sense of fantasy in libretto and production is at the very least equally present in Knussen’s scores, kinship with Ravel especially apparent in Where the Wild Things Are. And we all know who composed the most perfect operatic depiction of childhood... Stravinsky sometimes seems close too, for instance in the fiercer rhythmically driven music of the second scene (Mama and her hoover), the Symphony in Three Movements coming to my mind. And the musical material itself of course delightfully pays tribute both to Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux and most memorably to Boris Godunov, direct quotation reminiscing of the Tsar’s ill-fated coronation when Max is crowned King of all Wild Things.

 

Performance of the play in Higglety Pigglety Pop!

 

Ryan Wigglesworth’s direction was palpably alive to this sense of orchestral wonder and fantasy, his programme notes an exemplary tribute from one composer-conductor to another from whom he has learned a great deal. The tone of performance darkened in tandem with that of the score for Higglety Pigglety Pop! Detail was meaningful without exaggeration, for instance in the subtle pointing up of certain intervals associated with different characters. Those with ears to hear would do so, consciously or otherwise. Moreover, the orchestra’s response was as assured, as disciplined, as generous as the conductor’s direction. The Britten Sinfonia was throughout on outstanding form, thoroughly inside Knussen’s idiom, unfailingly precise without sacrifice to warmth of tone. Despite relatively chamber-like forces, at least in the string section (6.6.4.4.4), one often felt that was hearing a larger orchestra, for this was anything but a small-scale performance. Indeed, accustomed as I am to hearing the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, there were many times when I should not have been surprised to discover that I had in fact been hearing the LSO.

 

Baby (Voice of Susanna Andersson) and Jennie (Lucy Schaufer)

Claire Booth headed a fine cast for Where the Wild Things Are, her Max as quicksilver on stage as vocally. Lucy Schaufer proved every inch her equal as Jennie in Higglety Pigglety Pop! Very much the singing actress, her deeper mezzo tones were perfectly suited to the darkened tones of the score. There is something a little dangerous about Jennie and the acting world of ‘experience’ for which she forsakes her comfortable home – yet in a sense all children must at some point act similarly.  All members of the two casts, however, were richly deserving of praise, a particular favourite of mine Graeme Danby’s surreal, apparently innocent Pig-in-Sandwich-Boards. These performances came across as true company efforts, a state of affairs doubtless deepened by ‘experience’ in Aldeburgh and Los Angeles.

Two CD reviews: Schreker, Der Schmied von Gent, and Lohengrin

These reviews originally appeared (in slightly edited form) in the October and November 2012 issues of OPERA:

Franz Schreker, Der Schmied von Gent

Judith Kuhn: Arstate, Angel; Anna Erxleben: Mary; Christiane Knappe: Squire; Undine Dreißig: Smee’s Wife; André Riemer: Flipke; Edward Randall: Slimbroek; Viktor Sawaley: Second Noble, Henker Jakob Hessels; David Sitka: Angel; Matthias Winter: St Joseph; Oliver Zwarg: Smee; Martin Gäbler: First Noble, Duke of Alba; Thomas Mäthger: Third Noble; Kouta Räsänen: St Peter. Chorus and Children’s Chorus of the Chemnitz Opera/Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie/Frank Beermann (conductor). CPO 777 647-2, 2 CDs, 127:55. Recorded at the Chemnitz Opera House, 28-30 January and 1-2 February 2010.  

  

CPO heralds the first complete recording of Schreker’s 1929-32 three-act opera, Der Schmied von Gent. Smee, a Ghentish smith, falls upon hard times on account of his resistance to Spanish occupation, makes a pact with the Devil and is restored to prosperity. When his seven years are up, he manages the fruits of good works to evade his fate and is thereby, despite St Peter’s initial adamant refusal, admitted to Heaven.

The imposing opening bars, an audible curtain raiser poised somewhere between Neue Sachlichkeit and Hollywood, mark a call to attention. Closed, sometimes neo-Baroque, forms tend to be the rule: more Hindemith than Strauss. Many of the thirty-four scenes have their own generating formal principle, for example a haunting downward scale at the opening of the third act. Alto saxophone weaves its obbligato way on a number of occasions, suggestive of its time, if less strikingly so than, say, in Berg. One may, if one will, play guess the influence. There are, unsurprisingly, Meistersinger-ish echoes in counterpoint and folksiness. Hindemith’s Cardillac seems an obvious precursor. Busoni comes to mind – the sale of Smee’s soul inevitably suggesting Doktor Faust – but he often does in music of this period; much may be correspondence rather than influence.

The subtitle ‘grosse Zauberoper’ courts comparison with The Magic Flute and Die Frau ohne Schatten, kinship most obvious in scenes such as that when Smee meets the Holy Family. There is no gainsaying the compositional craft, whether in terms of orchestration, counterpart, or convincing harmonic progression.  That said, Schreker’s score expresses general situation better than character, for whatever the gentle melancholy of his second-act soliloquy, ‘Schöne Bäum’ draußen am Kai,’ Smee is no Hans Sachs. Yet if not necessarily operatic gold, nor is this corn.

Vocal performances tend to competence rather than inspiration, Oliver Zwarg’s Smee an intelligent, finely-sung cut above the generality. Frank Beermann conducts with formal clarity, though one could imagine a more propulsive account.

Janine Ortiz contributes a thorough, informative booklet note, though the translation is often Google-like. ‘If one considers the note reserves, then it is striking that they involve an eleven-note theme,’ means nothing unless one is in a position to read the original. The libretto would have benefited from better proof-reading: some words appear to be missing completely, for example during the second and twelfth scenes, whereas what I assume to be performance cuts go unacknowledged in the written text.

My appetite was certainly whetted to see the opera in the theatre. Herewith a glimmer of an artist-opera Konzept: portray Smee’s intial destitution in the light of the Great Depression, the Spanish occupying forces in SA uniforms, the diabolical pact as collaboration, and Heaven as a form of inner emigration.

 

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Wagner, Lohengrin

Elsa: Annette Dasch; Four Pages: Christine Bischoff, Isabelle Voßkühler, Judith Löser, Bettina Pieck; Ortrud: Susanne Resmark; Lohengrin: Klaus Florian Vogt; Four Brabantian Nobles: Robert Franke, Holger Marks, Sascha Glintenkamp, Thomas Pfützner; Friedrich von Telramund: Gerd Grochowski; Herald: Markus Brück; King Henry the Fowler: Günther Groissböck. Berlin Radio Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marek Janowski (conductor). Pentatone, 3 SACD, PTC 5186 403, 200:34. Live recording of a concert performance from the Berlin Philharmonie, 12 November 2011.

 

Lohengrin, the fourth instalment in Marek Janowski’s Wagner series, arrives in a finely detailed recording. A principal glory of this performance is the precision of its chorus: one really hears Wagner’s contrapuntal ingenuity here and in the orchestra, which sounds less monolithic than is often the case. Janowski highlights shifting instrumental timbres as well as harmony to signal presentiments, for instance during the second act’s first scene, of Alberich’s world and plight. Rhythmic exactitude, such as during the build up to first-act combat, also proves a victor. Details of high-lying violin figuration emerge more clearly than I can recall, fascinating from an analytical standpoint, though such hyper-clarity arguably militates against Wagner’s intention, as in those performances of Strauss’s Don Juan in which technical virtuosity tarnishes the wash of sound. The general sonority of the Berlin RSO veers oddly, without obvious reason, between old-German depth, if not quite to the extent one hears from Barenboim’s Staatskapelle, and a lighter, Mendelssohnian approach.

This set’s other principal attraction is the unearthly Lohengrin of Klaus Florian Vogt; the role might have been written for him, possessed of a Heldentenor’s tonal weight but the lyrical beauty of a Tamino. Vogt’s admirers – there are a few nay-sayers – will require this recording for that reason alone. Alas, much other singing pales by comparison, both with Vogt and with artists of the past. Annette Dasch’s Elsa and Gerd Grochowski’s Telramund are at best distinguished by Lieder-like attention to detail, but both can tend to dryness and fail to soar. Susanne Resmark’s Ortrud is often squally and imprecise of intonation and diction.

Oddly, however, the ‘live recording’ evinces little sense of the concert hall, let alone the theatre, drawing attention to the ideological intent of the series, born of Janowski’s dissatisfaction with contemporary Regietheater. A reactionary imperative to rescue Wagner from his and our troublesome politics is betrayed by remarks from the orchestra’s dramaturge, Steffen Georgi: ‘from today’s perspective, Wagner the theatre-reformist pales into near-insignificance ... a very minor revolutionary.’ I can only suggest that he, Janowski, and the speaker of the Bundestag, who offers a printed endorsement, take another look not only at Wagner’s writings, but at the dramas themselves. Whereas the printed libretto has Lohengrin herald Gottfried as ‘Führer’, Janowski opts for the evasive ‘Schützer’. There remains a dialectical irony, however, in that the case of a Wagner recording as CD rather than DVD helps one focus not only upon Wagner’s music but upon his words. Whatever the intention, my experience was thereby to hear as strong a warning as I had seen in Hans Neuenfels’s Bayreuth staging against the perils of popular attraction to charismatic leadership. Vogt, not coincidentally, starred in Bayreuth too. Politics will out.

 

Arditti Quartet - Clarke, Abrahmsen, Saunders, and Rihm, 31 October 2012

Wigmore Hall

 

James Clarke – String Quartet no.1 (2002-3)

Hans Abrahmsen – Quartet no.4 (2012, United Kingdom premiere)
Rebecca Saunders – Fletch (2012, United Kingdom premiere)
Wolfgang Rihm – String Quartet no.13 (2011)

Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan (violins)
Ralf Ehlers (viola)
Lucas Fels (cello)

 

Hurricane Sandy necessitated alterations to the programme of this concert. The New York-based JACK Quartet’s absence entailed postponement of the British premieres of James Clarke’s 2012-S for two string quartets and Mauro Lanza’s Der Kampf zwischen Karneval und Fasten for octet. In their place came Clarke’s first string quartet and Wolfgang Rihm’s thirteenth. Two British premieres, then, rather than four, but all the works were new to me, and Clarke’s work was the outlier in being almost a decade old.

Its arresting opening proved typically uncompromising in its violence. Considerable use is made of glissandi, post-Xenakis buzzing, glassy harmonics: but this is no mere catalogue of effects. Themes, if I may call them that, or motifs are flung between the four parts with visceral abandon – as they were in the Arditti Quartet’s commanding performance. Dogged insistence and something akin to variation were revealed as two sides of the same coin, a ‘duet’ between two violins almost beguiling, likewise its successor for viola and cello. And yes, this ultimately proved conversational in a quartet tradition one might trace back to its founder, Haydn.

 

Hans Abrahamsen’s fourth string quartet was commissioned in 2010 but took twenty years to write. I wish I could say I thought it worth the wait. Again, there is an arresting opening: high solo first violin harmonics intoning a chorale-like tune. Joined by the second violin, then the viola, and then very briefly the cello, all using harmonics, the process is repeated. A second hearing, then, though of course in knowledge of what has passed before. I was intrigued by dim echoes of Bartók and perhaps even the viol consort in the opening of the second movement, before it settled down into a quasi-minimalist mode of expression whose mild motor rhythms and tonal harmony sounded more suited to a television film score than a stand-alone concert piece. The third movement consciously echoes the first, or rather mirrors it, opening with a cello pizzicato solo passage, joined by viola (again pizzicato), and so on upwards, rounded off, again very briefly, with an utterance sul ponticello by the first violin. The process, again, is repeated. Likewise the fourth movement echoed the second, apparently ‘planned,’ according to the composer, ‘as a dark and heavy counterpart but it turned out to be like “babbling” music of a child’. Though I clearly was not on Abrahamsen’s wavelength, there could be no faulting the response of the Arditti players, as committed here as elsewhere.

 

Rebecca Saunders’s Fletch concluded the first half in what sounded to me far more typical Arditti territory. In the composer’s words:

Fletch, n. (archery); the feather placed on the arrow, providing it with the capacity of flight; the feathered vane towards the back of the arrow, used to stabilise during flight. Fletch is a furious ongoing exploration of a specific physical gesture and fragment of sound.

The physical quality of tone was vividly, viscerally communicated in work and performance. Glissandi, rapid crescendo, trills, and more combined to far more than the sum of their parts, betokening a fascinating exploration of the instruments and their capabilities as much as performing techniques. There was on a first hearing a satisfying formal arc, or perhaps better progression, which put me in mind – how or why, I cannot quite explain – of a neo-Lisztian symphonic poem. It was an instinctive reaction, doubtless, but perhaps that was in keeping with the physical immediacy of the piece.

 

Rihm’s thirteenth quartet had the second half to itself. It sounded as if from another world, or planet, its post-Bergian harmonic language and motivic development more ‘traditional’, though none the worse for that. Formal propulsion clearly grew out of the material with a rhythmic insistency that perhaps owed something to Stravinsky, even to Henze. The one-movement formal compression inevitably evoked echoes of Schoenberg, though the concentration rarely seemed as extreme as his. A chorale-like passage – again! – was played with neo-Romantic abandon, revelling in the richness of its harmonisation. Developing variation, its roots in Schoenberg and Brahms, still has a great deal to impart.