Showing posts with label Milton Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milton Court. Show all posts

Monday 22 February 2016

The last Prelude and Fugue, and onwards : Reich, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Bach celebrate (with) Louis #Andriessen

A review of Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court for / with Louis #Andriessen (Part I)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


18 February

This is the first part of a review of a concert given by Britten Sinfonia under Andrew Gourlay (and with soprano Allison Bell), as part of a BBC Louis Andriessen festival at The Barbican Centre, presented by Tom Service at Milton Court on Saturday 13 February at 3.00 p.m.


Soprano Allison Bell sang in #Andriessen's Dances (1991), the only work in Part II of the concert (which is reviewed here)



Programme (Part I) :

1. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) (arr. Louis Andriessen (1936-)) ~ Prelude No. 24

2. Bach (arr. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), compl. Andriessen) ~ Prelude and Fugue No. 24

3. Stravinksy ~ Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914)

4. Steve Reich (1936-) ~ Duet (1993)

5. Andriessen (arr. strings, Marijn van Prooijen) ~ Miserere (2007, arr. 2015)



It has to be said that, even with the benefit (and delight) of having heard Peter Donohoe (@PeterHDonohoe) play Book I of Das wohltemperierte Klavier entire (at The Stables at Wavendon, Milton Keynes (@StablesMK)), there are still pairs of Preludes and Fugues that one feels that one is less confident of knowing well¹ :

So it is that, although recordings of Book I abound (and are listened to, e.g. by Glenn Gould, András Schiff, Richard Egarr, Keith Jarrett, etc.), those Preludes and Fugues from around No. 19 onwards never quite get as much attention / exposure as they might, or should – from that personal perspective, therefore, hearing the original work first might have helped one listen out better for what first Andriessen, then Stravinsky, had done to Bach's structures and textures…



Bach (arr. string quartet, Andriessen) ~ Prelude No. 24 in B Minor, BWV 869, Das wohltemperierte Klavier (1722, arr. 2006)

1st violin, Jacqueline Shave ~ 2nd violin, Miranda Dale ~ Viola, Clare Finnimore ~ Cello, Caroline Dearnley

(1) In the part for cello, we apprehended serene, stately movement beneath that of the other strings, and, as we resumed da capo, there were moments of tenderness. When, later, the writing for cello could be perceived to have a step-wise character, the other string-parts had a fluidity to them, and there was an excitement to the music’s build and fall.



Bach (arr. strings, Stravinsky, compl. Andriessen) ~ Prelude and Fugue No. 24 (1722, arr. 1969)

(2) A little as when Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) played Mahler’s arrangement, for chamber string orchestra, of Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor (‘Death and The Maiden’), D. 810, there was not an impression of a much fuller sound, though it appeared capable of being more sweeping in its effect, and gave a ‘larger’ crescendo.

In this version, the sadness came out in the theme that Bach takes for a fugal subject : its intensity was not lessened by a group of instruments playing the long opening trill (the Prelude also contains trills). Its motifs, and the use of falling intervals against contrary motion in the other parts, are suggestive of mourning, and, as the culmination of Bach’s educational enterprise (we know that, in class, he used playing it through as one), it is almost necessarily far removed from the Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 846, with which Book I begins.


As to the impression given, especially of the Fugue, by making the arrangement, one factor has been mentioned above (i.e. the relative unfamiliarity of items towards the end of Book I), but, even compared with Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080 (which is still sometimes thought recondite), does this material seems harder to shape ?



Stravinksy ~ Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914²)

The quartet was made up exactly as for the first piece in the concert :
Jacqueline Shave and Miranda Dale, Clare Finnimore, and Caroline Dearnley

The work had no titles for the movements until 1928, when, alongside his Étude pour pianola, Stravinsky arranged them for orchestra (under the title Quatre études), and they became called, respectively, Danse, Eccentrique, and Cantique : the stridency of the first of these was characterized by vigorous pizzicato notes on cello (Dearnley), and an emphatic part for first violin (Shave), with occasional prominent strokes from second violin (Dale).

Stravinsky opened the second Piece by employing a heavily accented and slurred sound (as of his notion of an eccentric³ ?), but then there was an abrupt change of tone and mood, more extreme, in its rhythmic freedom and energy, than even much of Bartók’s writing for string quartet. When the initial material resumed, there was less jollity about it, and less slurring.

The last Piece was very different again – and one wonders what, in arranging it for large orchestra, Stravinsky might have changed. It began with a few gestures, which conjured to mind, perhaps, a waste space, before developing into what resembled a hymn (or someone praying).

Yet we were to keep reverting to those more stark gestures, as if to a distillation of his Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) from the previous year – and a work of whose influence on him Louis Andriessen was later to tell. Towards the end, the part for lead violin had a fugue-like subject, and, amidst these unlikely fragments, to the credit of the Sinfonia’s string-players (as well as of the composer), there was warmth.

Appreciative of a sensitive performance (and it could be that this felt like the first substantive piece ?), the audience at Milton Court called the players back for applause.



Reich ~ Duet (1993)

When they were leaving the concert-hall after the first part of the concert, one heard a couple of men talking in a way that showed that they did not realize that they had already heard Reich’s Duet.

Even for those who did not have the programme, as maybe they also did not, it was clear enough, not just because Tom Service (@tomservice), for the BBC (@BBCRadio3), had announced, and talked about the pieces in, the running-order of the Louis #Andriessen Immersion Day concert (through to the composer’s own Miserere) : for one thing, it was not as if it did not, in aural terms, resemble Steve Reich's style, but, for another, one imagines that (as with Music for 18 Musicians) he would have specified where on the stage, and so in visual terms, the duo should be – the familiar Sinfonia violinists Jacqueline Shave (leader) and Miranda Dale (principal second violin) had been facing each other across the performance-space.


This was a completely other sound-world from that of Stravinsky (as heard from 1914), with its use of echo / delay, i.e. in the person and playing of the performers, and sustained notes. Reich then added in patterning, in the form of rhythms from the double-bass (Roger Linley) and, for this piece, a third cellist (Rowena Calvert), deploying a flat bow to tap the strings.

For those who had been listening to Ligeti recently (because of Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch 2), utterly different from the effect that he sought – open sounds, but with dissonance introduced, and the interaction of the parts of Reich’s duetting pair of violins, conspiring to throw the equilibrium off balance. With a light, open texture, the Sinfonia brought the work to a close.



Andriessen (arr. Marijn van Prooijen) ~ Miserere (2007, arr. 2015)

Interviewed by Tom Service, Louis Andriessen told us (wanting, as he said, to avoid giving us a lecture’s worth on it, as he had formally done elsewhere recently) that he had written Miserere for Amsterdam Sinfonietta as a requiem - as at, and for the fact of, their final concert : he had done so at a time when funding for the arts had been in the hands of people whom he described as ‘gangsters’, and this ensemble (and four others ?) had lost its grant.

However, another and happier aspect to its genesis, at the outset, had been a simple figure, written as a birthday present for his sister, and which #Andriessen said that even he could play on piano. The work had originally been written for string quartet, and Andriessen approved of the present arrangement (for string orchestra), which had been made by the Sinfonietta’s bassist, Marijn van Prooijen.


Alas, it had been intended that the review-notes, on which the comments that follow are based, would be amplified, with the piece (fresh) in one’s memory : nothing wrong with the intention as such, as an effort (as with Andriessen’s Dances, in the second half) to detach oneself from the activity of formulating immediate and specific responses, and, rather, making a comment on the overall impression⁴...

At first, the work fell into sections, with contrasts occurring between the sections. Then, as Andriessen had said to Service by way of an introduction to his composition, it becomes more ‘disquieting’, and less ‘conventional’, which we heard as the texture felt itself to be twisted (or tortured ?). When that feeling did subside, there was a quality of expansiveness to the writing, which was a little reminiscent of such moods in Copland (or Sibelius ?) – till, at the end, it had richness, as of Britten.


Part II of the concert is reviewed here



End-notes

¹ As, say, with a concert that includes complete Rachmaninov’s Preludes, Op. 23, nothing can alter the fact that some are celebrated (e.g. No. 5 in G Minor, marked Alla marcia), and so one less easily relates to their neighbours, heard in between.

² Although it was completed in 1914, it appears that it was not published until 1922 (and Stravinsky had revised it in 1918).

³ Assuming that Stravinsky did not conceive of that description after the fact, although Book II of Claude Debussy’s Préludes had first been performed in London in 1913, of which No. 6 (L. 123 / 6) is marked Dans le style et le mouvement d'un Cakewalk, and sub-titled (at the end of the piece) Général Lavine – eccentric.

If, of course, it had happened - whereas, it had then seemed natural, just after hearing Allison Bell (@bellAsoprano) sing, to write up notes for the second half.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Sunday 14 February 2016

Pierrot sings of an unlucky love

A review of Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court for / with Louis #Andriessen (Part II)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


14 February

This is the second part of a review of a concert given by Britten Sinfonia under Andrew Gourlay and with soprano Allison Bell, as part of a BBC Louis Andriessen Festival at The Barbican Centre, presented by Tom Service at Milton Court on Saturday 13 February at 3.00 p.m.



Second part first, in this review (as the notes more naturally cohered as prose when being typed up, in a quiet spot on level -2 at Milton Court). Dances (1991) is, for a change with lyrics, settings from a novel, Winged Pharaoh. (Joan Grant’s historical novel, which, when published in 1937, apparently first garnered strong interest in her work.)

After a long first part, and with no Louis Andriessen (#Andriessen) to hand for Tom Service (@tomservice) to talk to about Dances, he called for the audience to welcome soprano Allison Bell (@bellAsoprano), Britten Sinfonia, and - conducting again - Andrew Gourlay.


The cover of the first edition of Winged Pharaoh (1937)

The introductory part of the work (Section I (without voice)) had some chiming notes (from percussionist Jeremy Cornes), which were at least piercingly on a par with Stravinsky’s chords, from four concert grands, in Les Noces (though, without having heard that piece live, it is hard to be sure), and with elements added by harp and grand piano – that temporal reminder alternated, for a while, with some sparse solo material on viola (Clare Finnimore). With a texture becoming established, comprising sustained notes on strings, and the harp to introduce / effect / signal sudden modulations (in a slightly Steve-Reich way ?), the key element was an ostinato on vibraphone.

In Section II (what we would normally want to call the second movement), where Allison Bell first had a role, another ostinato was set up, but this time on harp (Lucy Wakeford), alongside a variety of percussion (from Cornes and Karen Hutt) and energized strings. It took a little while to acclimatize to the text, the mistake being to assume (not having it to follow) that it was going to be in Dutch, when it is English, but then, although elements of these words seemed sententious, it is inconceivable afterwards that Joan Grant was unfamiliar¹, amongst other things, with Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps² (The Rite of Spring).

Quite aside from the words, their delivery was felt, but also hypnotic, in the spirit of a work that seemed all in a dream. With some very rhythmic writing for both cellos (Caroline Dearnley and Julia Vohralik) and piano (Catherine Edwards), played with liveliness, we built to what ‘the music’ and ‘drums’ in the prose told us was ‘a mighty storm’, so the lyrics were co-creating this loud passage with the score itself, only for us to relax into this type of living torpor (before, towards the end, arpeggios on the harp), which appears to speak of Symbolism and / or Surrealism – one easily thinks of the somnolent expectancy of the canvases of Paul Delvaux, or Giorgio de Chirico :

[T]hey were as still, as trees upon a silent evening¹


For Section III, the review-notes become more sparse (partly because trying to make, and then jot down, observations can easily come to distract from listening - from taking in the scope and scale of the whole). It was characterized by the use of see-saw intervals, hints of Sprechstimme (?), and more florid language, though – at odds with itself – to express a form of aristocratically promoted self-control [associated with the days, not then past, of The British Empire], which is neatly summed up by stressing the need ‘to keep a stiff upper lip’ [please see also below] :

[N]or if the outline of my eye was smudged, could I throw the wax upon the floor, as I sometimes longed to do. Always I had to preserve an unflawed calm, as though the light around me shone like pearl instead of being flecked with the red of anger.


None of this emotion could stay suppressed, and Allison Bell was called upon for her specialty of the very high soprano range, with the Sinfonia strings most furiously played. Yet, as with Section II (and its words ‘quietness’ and ‘peace’), all returns to where it was, and Section III ended with a note on vibraphone, held until Gourlay’s signal.


The Disquieting Muses (1918) ~ Giorgio de Chirico

Some important words that came out in, and through, Bell’s rendition of the text in Section IV were ‘companionship’ and ‘longing’, seeming to speak with yearning, as well as sadness : [T]he loneliness of all women who do not have a man to share their lives seemed to be the voice’s position in life, but here seemingly not from lack of a partner (in fact, however, the voice's fellow ruler is her brother³), but because of not being able to share, for He would be sorrowful, if he knew. In the orchestra, an alternating pair of notes on vibraphone developed into the pattern of the initial ostinato, and with modulations, again, on the sound of a chord from the harp, and then a passage on the strings, with definite down-strokes. Dances concluded as the previous movement had done, quietly.

Andrew Gourlay was necessarily intent on Allison Bell taking due recognition : as we knew, in herself she was probably feeling under par, but this was a performance richly deserving acknowledgement alongside that of Britten Sinfonia, and she was brought back to the stage with enthusiastic applause.


Allison Bell (on another occasion) ~ @bellAsoprano ~ http://allisonbellsoprano.com


We were left to think about the timbre of this piece, whose effect was as of a song-cycle, with the narrative of those who appear to have their appointed role in ceremonial rites (Section II) juxtaposed with the permanent position of majesty (Section III) and the lack of a consort to whom one dare to reach out to share (Section IV) : it is almost as if, in Andriessen’s selection of material, we hear of an Egyptian ruler modelled on Elizabeth I (but not informed by such works as Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex (published in 1928)), but with the sentiments of Schumann in Frauenliebe und –Leben


End-notes

¹ Whatever the context in the book, the chosen passage is discrete and compact (fewer than 170 words) - wonderfully complete in itself, it evokes the phases of a cycle, as if of vegetative growth : at a time when Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough, now apparently much discredited, was still in its heyday ?

² As Jo Kirkbride's programme-notes now confirm, after this review has largely been written, the composition was a huge early influence on Andriessen, so he has found his source-material for a reason.

³ The programme-notes also tell us that the soloist represents the Princess Sekhet-a-Ra, joint Pharaoh in The First Dynasty with Neyah, her brother.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)