contemporary classical
Gavin Dixon
Krzysztof Penderecki is the elder statesman of Polish music, and celebrations for his 85th birthday in Warsaw were suitably grand. Penderecki has been setting the agenda for contemporary music, in Poland and beyond, since the 1950s. His early work pioneered explorations of sound and texture that became mainstays of European Modernism. His style later changed, but a strong religious conviction links each era, and that too proved influential, as the new music of the former communist bloc gradually embraced a spiritual dimension.More recently, Penderecki has focussed his attentions on large- Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Joseph Phibbs is not the first composer to make an opera out of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, and it is not difficult to see the operatic appeal of this taut, passionate three-handed drama. But there are also hazards: my recollections of the play, reinforced by this operatic interpretation, were that for all the emotional huffing and puffing, not much actually happens, and the final, shocking denouement comes somewhat out of the blue.Juliana, premiered this summer at the Cheltenham Festival, updates the action from 19th century feudal Sweden to the present day. The off-stage presence of the Count Read more ...
David Kettle
There’s always been something of a buzz in the air at East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival. It’s the feeling that it’s somehow a special privilege to discover its performances – whether they’re from international names or emerging artists, challenging, provocative and illuminating by turns – across the region’s exquisite and little-known churchs, halls, theatres and other venues. Plus, of course, its timing: there’s no avoiding the fact that the Lammermuir Festival feels like a comforting come-down after the unbridled frenzy of its elder, far more gargantuan Edinburgh neighbour that takes over Read more ...
David Kettle
There were two immediate casualties at Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s high-energy account of Messiaen’s monumental Des canyons aux étoiles… with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival.First was one of the strings in the Usher Hall’s Steinway grand, which finally gave way during the piece’s eighth movement. Well, it had been given really quite a pounding by Aimard, and went on to emit a prepared piano-like buzzing rattle until the end of the piece. Second – less crucially – was the handle of the percussion section’s wind machine, cranked so furiously to conjure Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Hegel, Kant, David Hume, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Leibniz are all adduced, referred to, and paraphrased, and that’s just for starters. Add Rameau, Schubert, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten and the contemporary composer David Matthews (who is also a friend) into the mix for Professor Sir Roger Scruton’s odd and uncategorisable series of essays on music and – especially – listening to music. Underneath it all is a kind of call to arms about how to listen. Scruton is a self-declared conservative, scholar, philosopher, polemicist, prolific writer, teacher and musician – both player and composer – as Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
A complex Swedish product to unpack, this one. Someone in the BBC must have worked out that it could do with a detailed instruction manual to help people with the task: the programme booklet duly ran to a full 50 pages.There were two sets of components: firstly, all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, performed by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and soloists. Plus, alongside each concerto, a newly commissioned companion piece by a prominent composer. The 12 works, six by Bach plus the six new pieces, were spread over two Proms on Sunday. Time required for complete assembly of the finished Read more ...
graham.rickson
Louis Couperin: Dances from the Bauyn Manuscript Pavel Kolesnikov (Hyperion)We’ll get the entertaining trivia out of the way first, namely that the musical Couperin dynasty came from Chaumes-en-Brie. I’m struggling to think of another example of cheese/classical music crossover – please leave feedback if you’ve any examples. Plus, 17th century French musicians referred to F sharp minor as the “key of the goat”. No explanation for this is given here. Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov’s sumptuously recorded disc focuses on dances by Louis Couperin (1626-1661), the short-lived uncle of the better- Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
This concert was inspired by the huge scale of the Albert Hall. The three works all evoke spacious vistas, through their expansive textures, echo effects and horn calls. Mozart, Haas and Strauss made for a diverse programme though, the three works all written in different centuries, and each on a grander scale than the last.The Mozart Notturno in D Major is one of his many serenades written for the Salzburg aristocracy. The twist is that the ensemble is divided into four groups, each a string orchestra with a pair of horns added, and the four groups are set at a distance, the musical ideas Read more ...
graham.rickson
Sverre Indris Joner: Con cierto toque de tango Henning Kraggerud (violin), Norwegian Radio Orchestra/Sverre Indris Joner, with Tango for 3 (Lawo Classics)Sverre Indris Joner is described in this disc’s notes as “the doyen of Latin American music in Norway”. Besides composing, playing, teaching and researching, he’s also found the time to act, illustrate and write plays. The Finnish love for Argentinian tango is well-documented; presumably Norwegians are also getting in on the act. Joner himself writes about the challenges of orchestrating and arranging tangos, and his solutions are Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The fourth Prom of this season featured only two contrasting pieces, pitching the unabashed joyfulness and good humour of Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto against the angst and defiance of Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony. It was the former that left the greater impression.Lindberg’s concerto was written in 2002 for his friend and long-time collaborator Kari Kriikku, who has performed the piece widely, including at the Proms in 2007. But here it was taken on by the British clarinettist Mark Simpson, who combines performing with a glittering composing career. It is ferociously difficult – Read more ...
David Nice
Light-filled Cadogan Hall is hosting the most fascinatingly programmed concerts in a Proms season not otherwise conspicuous for its adventurousness. There's also an honourable pledge to premiere at least one new work by a female composer in each event, honouring the centenary of votes for women. Guarantee of quality in this rich starter was the experience of several East Neuk Festivals up in Scotland, where the Californian Calidore Quartet blazed a path with the six Mendelssohn quartets and the younger Castalian Quartet, already their equals, introduced many of us to the metamorphic music of Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The First Night of the Proms is always a tricky one to programme, bringing together themes of the season, perhaps a new work and, most importantly, a grand finale. This year’s Prom No. 1 ticked all the boxes, and without feeling like pick-n-mix. It was an all-British programme, with Vaughan Williams and Holst in the first half, both excellent choices given conductor Sakari Oramo’s track record with this repertoire, and a second half devoted to a new work by Anna Meredith, bringing some grandeur to the occasion, not least with its spectacular light show.But before all that, a hastily added Read more ...