Arthur is a composer currently focusing on opera. His desire to promote contemporary music led him to set up and co-edit The Octogenarian, a light-hearted classical music review pamphlet distributed in Bristol and to curate the annual CMV series of concerts.
I’d been assured from friends who knew I was attending this concert that the Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra is the finest amateur orchestra in Bristol and I was in for a treat. Despite the recommendation, I did not expect them to be one of the best amateur orchestras I’ve ever heard. The sound they produced under Ewa Strusinska’s baton belied their status as amateur.
I can’t work out if it was surprising or to be expected that Maxwell Davies, part of the New Music Manchester group that included Birtwistle and Goehr, should have become Master of the Queen’s Music.
Despite knowing what was going to happen, it was a still surprising when, amid the chatter and bustle of the audience before the concert (there was a distinct lack of communal coughing before it started), the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain began Tuning Up.
Not being a French national and having only just heard about their excellent series of Tuesday night concerts, this was my first visit to the Institut Français, Kensington. This was the last in a series of concerts focusing on French music, moving chronologically toward contemporary/modern composers over the course of the series.
Where could be more appropriate to see the story of Caligula, Rome’s most notorious emperor/self-proclaimed God, than in the Coliseum! Its purple SPQR livery made the opening to this performance all the more striking as Caligula, dishevelled, unhinged and not a little scary, crept on stage through the curtain in dead silence.
The Importance of Being Earnest is Gerald Barry’s fourth full-length opera; his previous three have set texts much more at home in the opera world than this ambitious libretto from Wilde’s famous play.
Having missed a chance to hear Conlon Nancarrow’s Player Piano Study no. 21 (Canon X) due to a spontaneous programme switch earlier in the day, I was delighted that Dominic Murcott’s arrangement of the piece for London Sinfonietta and player piano opened this concert.
This weekend saw the Southbank Centre embark on an ambitious festival programme of rarely performed composer Conlon Nancarrow. One of the main reasons Nancarrow’s music is rarely performed is that the vast majority of what he wrote was for the archaic player piano.
In the cosy confines of a packed Hampstead Theatre ENO’s English adaptation of Jacob Lenz produced an exciting, entertaining and emotionally draining 70 minutes of opera. Premiered in 1979 this is Rihm’s account of Sturm und Drang writer Jakob Lenz’s descent into madness.
Violinist Alda Dizdari may just have taken a while to settle in to the performance, but the opening Debussy Sonata did not come across particularly well. Piano and violin didn’t quite lock in together and the Debussy ‘wash’ of sound, akin to an impressionist watercolour, was not apparent – the tone was harsh and rhythms angular.
The Southbank Centre is riddled with cubby-holes, and it was in a particularly tucked-away corner – the “Spirit Level” bar – that a small audience of dedicated sound-lovers heard this exciting concert of morsels and miniatures. Perched in this top-floor bar, our picturesque backdrop to the stage was a dusk view of Westminster.
In what would turn out to be a concert of two very distinct halves, the Elias Quartet impressed in the cosy confines of Wigmore Hall. After a full ‘daily grind’, arriving at this cocoon of a hall – where outside noise is absent, save for the occasional underground rumble – felt like a real treat. Here was a chance to sink into some cosy chamber music to wash over the listener – or maybe not.
Arriving to Southbank’s Purcell Room after a romantic Sunday evening walk along the river, I was in the perfect frame of mind to hear this excellently conceived concert. A concert that turned out to be both excellently performed and thoroughly enjoyable. The venue has a lot to offer – the Brutalist design belies the comfort and the sharp acoustic that is rarer than it should be in concert venues.
Cool venue – cool ensemble – cool concert! The Kronos quartet are successful where so many fail in bringing the often-too-distinct worlds of pop/rock and classical together. This concert highlighted their commitment to forging their own performance aesthetic by only programming music that has been written specifically for them.
Oliver Knussen has a reputation for presenting interesting and unusual programmes, and this evening in the sumptuous Barbican Hall was no exception. This concert featured new and rarely-performed music, including both a world première and a UK première.The opening Symphony no. 10 by Nikolai Miaskovsky was a triumph.
Rarely have I seen a conductor so excited! On completion of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, Michael Seal looked like the cat that got the cream – and rightly so. He had just launched his audience into this concert with a terrific bang.
... The ending of Symphony no. 4 by Poul Ruders, to be precise – or, just as well, the ending of the first half of this concert. Regardless of what and when, it was stunning! My joy at the start of the (insanely long) interval surprised me considering that when the piece began I was unconvinced.
‘Intimate symphonic playing’: an oxymoron perhaps, but in the fantastic acoustic of Symphony Hall and with the polished playing of the CBSO, somehow these symphonies, even with the tooting trumpets, blaring bassoons and sonorous strings (not to mention the tonking timpani), had the feel of chamber music.
I love eating out, yet I hate cooking programmes. It is perhaps for the same reason that I’m suspicious of ‘Music and Conversation’ events. Whilst interested in the process and the thoughts of composers, I’d rather these were presented on their own without feeling that the ‘conversation’ part of the concert explains the ‘performance’ part.
If only Mozart could’ve been there! Had he only one concert to attend from beyond the grave, Wolfgang could have done worse than head to Coventry Cathedral and its sumptuous acoustic on Saturday night. Here he would have been treated to a performance of his final symphony, no.41 ‘Jupiter’ – never heard in his lifetime – alongside his 'Great' Mass in C minor – which he never completed.
