BBC NOW: Back to the Brangwyn

      I feel I have to tread carefully here, and maybe it would be better if I just didn't bother, but I'm up for a challenge.  In any case I so loved the final piece in last night's concert at the Brangwyn Hall that I felt compelled to mark it in some way.  
     So, to the programme - it's a good place to start.  There were three pieces: Higgins's 'A Monstrous Little Suite', Weinberg's Concert for Trumpet & Orchestra, and Shostakovich's 6th Symphony.  The conductor was Ryan Bancroft, and the trumpet soloist, Håkan Hardenberger.  Gavin Higgins was also present and, if I may say so, sporting a rather fine beard.  I suppose what connect these three works is a sense that each is haunted (perhaps too strong a word) by the past.

      'A Monstrous Little Suite' Op is a five movement suite based on Higgins's opera 'The Monstrous Child' of 2019.  It was rather like the 'Curate's Egg'.  There was some wonderful orchestration.  I warmed to the slow movements - an interval canon (?) started the 2nd movement but was quickly dropped.  It was all rather like the score to a 50/60s Hollywood thriller, with all that unease that sadly one all too often associates with contemporary Classical Music, but without the images it was all rather inexplicable.

     So, to the Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, Op 94, by Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996).  I like the Violin Concerto (1959), (I'm actually listening to it now) but I think this must be the first time I have attended a concert and actively hated a piece.  The bf wasn't that keen either, but we both opted for the British thing and politely applauded.  Points for 'pushing' the audience, but the first half was pretty much indigestible.

     Things were a good deal more digestible in the second half with Shostakovich 6.  A bit overlooked, I should think, being sandwiched between two mighty works the 5th and 7th symphonies.  The symphony is both, paradoxically, a balanced and unbalanced work.  By which I mean each movement is perfectly balanced of itself, but the entire work is slightly out of kilter, consisting of a mere three movements - adagio, scherzo and presto - of which the first is larger than the other two combined.  In addition, the movements seem disconnected - Sibelius inflected Romanticism in the 1st movement to Neo-Classicism in the 3rd. The symphony's brevity, a mere half an hour or so, is not reflected in the music.  Nothing feels rushed; the opening adagio is expansive, solemn and at times mysterious; the other two movements lively, by turns capricious and, sometimes, bombastic.  The whole, for all its 'oddities' is quite compelling. It put a smile on my face.

Two more Christmas recommendations

      Following on from from my previous post, I'd like to recommend two pieces of Christmas listening, both musical.  Both also very northern.  I'll deal with the simplest first: Vaughan Williams's 'Fantasia on Christmas Carols' of 1912.  I do find this a deeply moving piece.  It is written for baritone soloist, chorus and orchestra.  All the carols are English; the three that are sung are perhaps less well known than the likes of 'O Come all ye faithful' and 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.  They are 'The Truth sent from Above', 'Come all ye Worthy Gentleman' and 'On Christmas night all Christians Sing' aka 'The Sussex Carol'.  All had been collected by likes from Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp.  The result is the most plangent of my two recommendations.  It has a deep undertow of something close to melancholy, conveying the emptiness and biting cold of mid-winter. 

      The second piece is much more complex, being a reconstruction of a Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning as it would have been celebrated in a north German city just before the Thirty Years War, from the period known as Lutheran Orthodoxy.  It too shares a sense of the elusive profound silence and emptiness of Christmas in the north. This album, released (fittingly enough) by 'Deutsche Grammophon' of Hamburg, is the work of Paul McCreesh, the Gabrieli Quartet, the Gabrieli Players, and the Boys Choir & congregation of Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark, and it is an extraordinary endeavour, both in terms of scholarship & musicianship; sung in Latin, German, and a little bit of Greek and taking very nearly 1 hr 20 mins to perform - the Introit alone, sung in both German and Latin, takes 7.29 mins.  As originally celebrated such a service, with sermon and Holy Communion, could possibly have taken 3 hrs - the former apparently lasting an hour.  It really would be wrong to think that at the Reformation the new protestant churches all ditched the Latin.  Latin services in Lutheran Nuremberg, for instance, continued until the 1690s. Martin Luther himself said, "in no wise would I like to discontinue the service in the Latin language." Here in England and Wales Latin continued to be used as a liturgical language after the Reformation particularly at the Universities, and the schools of Eton and Winchester.  Prayer Book services in Latin continued in Oxford cathedral until c.1862; and Holy Communion is still celebrated in Latin once at term at the University Church in the city.*  Back now to the music.  The album concentrates on the church music of Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) with a couple of additional instrumental pieces by Heinrich Schutz and Samuel Sheidt.  It is difficult to select a favourite piece among an album of such riches; I have already mentioned the Introit 'Puer Natus in Bethlehem', and I should also like to mention the Gradual Hymn 'Von himmel hoch da komm ich her' and the knockout Recessional 'In Dulci Jubilo'.  The crown must however go Praetorius's 1619 setting of the 'German Sanctus' from Luther's 'Deutsche Messe' of 1526.  Extraordinary.

* (6.5.25) As of 28.4.25 latin Communion, according to the Liber Precum Publicarum of 1560 was celebrated at Keble College, Oxford.  Apparently it's going to to be a regular 'thing'. St James Garlickhythe, in the City of London, will be celebrating Latin Communion on Wednesday 21st May 2025.

Sibelius in Birmingham

  For an instant God opens His door and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony

    A return visit to Birmingham mid-week, a chance to see family and, of a birthday treat a return to the Symphony Hall and the CBSO.  The matinée concert consisted of three works: 'Threnody (in memory of Jean Sibelius)' by Grant William Still, Piano Concerto no2 by Prokofiev and, after the interval, Sibelius's mighty 5th Symphony. A cracking afternoon it was, with the CBSO in fine form under conductor Jonathon Heyward.  The soloist in Prokofiev's fiery 2nd piano concerto was the Korean Yeol Eum Son.  It was a dazzling performance of what, to me, sounded a virtuoso piece.  A work that swings, violently at times, between Romanticism and Modernity.  It was all very Russian; the influence of Mussorgsky evident, the Rachmaninov less so.  (Though apparently it is there.)

     And then the Sibelius.  This I have to say is one of my favourite pieces of music.  One that holds a special place in my imaginative and emotional life, as I suspect it does for many people.  For Sibelius himself the composition took on a mystical aspect, as the quote at the beginning of this post demonstrates.  As he wrote in his diary (21.05.1915) 'Today at ten to eleven I saw 16 swans.  One of my greatest experiences!  God, how beautiful....nature mysticism and the pain of life!  The finale of the fifth symphony.....ligature in the trumpets!!  This had to happen to me, who has been an outsider for too long.  So I've been in a holy place today.'  He is writing here of the great 'swan theme' or 'swan hymn' of the final movement, the moment the whole symphony has been building to, the moment of integration. 

     This was the first time I have the symphony heard it live, and I was not in any way disappointed.  A bright, sparky performance, I can't pick out any moments in particular as the whole thing was so immersive, rather like floating down a rapidly moving river, however I do remember how the finale was noticeably brighter and tighter than some recordings which tend to emphasize the 'pain of life' aspect.  This finale, in this performance, was radiant, triumphant with 'nature mysticism'.  

     I think I will end this review with another quotation from Sibelius: 'Music is, for me, like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces.'

An Evening with the CBSO

     Back to Birmingham this week to see family and attend a concert by the CBSO.  It was my first experience of the orchestra playing live and in person, and it was quite the event.  The conductor was maestro Kazuki Yamada, and he certainly is a showman.  It was obvious that the concert going public of the city have taken him to their hearts.  There is a real rapport between them.  
    The concert consisted of four pieces: Ravel's 'Mother Goose Suite', Mozart's Piano Concert no.27 - soloist Paul Lewis; and, after the interval, the luscious late Romanticism of 'La Nuit et L'Amour' by Augusta Holmes, and 'Pictures at an Exhibition' by Mussorgsky, arranged by Sir Henry Wood.  The latter was remarkable in its vigour, its élan.  A much more emotional, even irrational, interpretation of Mussorgsky's original piano score than Ravel's more famous arrangement.

Babi Yar: Shostakovich at the Brangwyn Hall

 
     I have been attempting to compose this post for just over three weeks now.  It has been a tide-like process of repeated writing and deletion, but then, as it is written at the start of Frank Herbert's 'Dune', 'A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care....'

     So....on the 10th of last month we went to a concert in the Brangwyn Hall given by the BBCNOW under Ryan Bancroft.  There were two items, perhaps two disparate items, on the programme that night: Beethoven's Piano Concert no1 and Shostakovich Symphony no13 'Babi Yar'.  A work of 'terrible beauty'.  And now in fairness I must place my cards on the table - I am great fan of Shostakovich.  He is a composer to whom I return time and time again, and it was the 'Babi Yar' that brought me to the concert, and really I could talk about it to the exclusion of all else, but that would be highly impolite, and unfair of me.  So first to the Beethoven....

     The American Jonathan Biss was the soloist and we were very lucky to have such a talent to play for us.  Apart from the final, life-affirming, movement this concerto was unknown to me though I do know Beethoven's two final concertos well through the Brendel/Levine/Chicago Symphony recording. At times I felt a bit lost in the first movement. But before Ryan Bancroft sends the hired goons round for a little 'chat' that is neither comment or criticism of the playing; classical music can often be be baffling at the first encounter.  I have at times felt lost in Elgar, Mahler and Shostakovich.  It is one of things that sets Classical Music apart from Popular.  It often requires effort. 

     And so to the Shostakovich. For those don't know this symphony was premiered in 1962, during the time of the so-called 'Khrushchev Thaw', a decade or so of easing in the artistic life of the Soviet Union.   It is written for orchestra (large), soloist, and male chorus of some 30+ singers, and consists of five movements, each one a setting of a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.  The soloist, James Platt, certainly looked the part with his bushy black beard like a Russian peasant or priest.  Indeed, at times I was reminded of Russian orthodox chant; and, perhaps, it is the most Russian of all Shostakovich's 15 symphonies. It is also not for the faint-hearted, for both the musical language of the symphony and the lyrics are challenging. The first movement, for example, 'Babi Yar', starkly confronts Antisemitism in all its historical manifestations.  The later movements, particularly 3 & 4, convey the grinding life of the Russian people under the Soviet regime.  Shostakovich was the only composer, I think, capable of looking the enormities of the 20th century in the face.

     This was a visceral performance, snarling with anger and bitterness. Perhaps the most overwhelming performance I have yet experienced in the concert hall, provoking a physical reaction in me.  (Shostakovich is the only composer I know with that effect.)  Quite literally breath-taking.  But it was made all the more moving considering the current increase in antisemitism in the UK.  Only that morning it had been reported in the press that the Jewish chaplain at Leeds University, and his family, had been forced into hiding after threats of rape and death.

     I remember watching Leonard Bernstein's documentary on twentieth century music (it was on BBC2) where he placed Shostakovich (along with Britten) in the second league; on the strength of this performance alone I would say Bernstein was mistaken.

The Passionate Pilgrim: Elgar at the Brangwyn Hall

Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight

     To the Brangwyn Hall last night and a concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under their Conductor Laureate Tadaaki Otaka. Three items on an all British programme: Elizabeth Maconchy's 'Nocturne for Orchestra', Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto and, in the second half, Edward Elgar's 2nd Symphony. The orchestra played wonderfully as did the soloist Simone Lamsma.  All together a night to remember.

     Maconchy's Nocturne was a revelation, beautifully orchestrated. Strange and brooding, occult. Britten's violin concerto was interesting; the solo writing for violin was a revelation it was so virtuosic, however the outer movements seemed to lack structure, but the middle movement was intense and concentrated. The influence of Shostakovich was self-evident. That influence was there too in Maconchy's Nocturne, but was less obvious; it seemed in retrospect more integrated within her musical language. The Violin Concerto was written when Britten was 25 and not quite reached his mature style. Moments of brilliance none the less.

     And so to Elgar's 2nd symphony. And finally I got to hear it in the flesh. It is a work that apparently puzzled critics when premiered. And it is still for those who expect the public Elgar. Although a stronger work then the 1st symphony, it isn't so readily comprehensible. That first listen can be quite baffling, the listener being jerked in all directions it seems, but it is a work that rewards repeated listening.
     It is a deeply interior work, as Elgar wrote to a friend 'I have written out my soul in the concerto, Symphony no 2 and the Ode and you know it....in these three works have I sewn Myself'.  Rather introspective, then, complex and, perhaps paradoxically, full of dazzle - the most wonderful orchestration and orchestral effect. The Elgarian sound world is lush and rich. He called the symphony 'the passionate pilgrimage of the soul' and the first three movements are correspondingly  intense and changeful, quixotic even. Uneasy and restless.  Passionate indeed. One would, judging by this work, believe (correctly) Elgar to be a man of great sensitivity. And it is only the last few minutes of the work is there peace. There were tears in my eyes last night.