The London Sinfonietta staged a valiant, packed programme at the Queen Elizabeth Hall marking Luciano Berio’s centenary, along with the UK premiere of Hannah Kendall’s Shouting forever into the receiver and the world premiere of Laurence Osborn’s Mute. As befits this talented ensemble, there was no lack of musical virtuosity here – Paul Silverthorne’s viola-playing was some of the most ecstatic string work I have seen, and Lotte Betts-Dean’s mezzo-soprano was exciting, rich and reverberant. However, the structure seemed designed to showcase as much as humanly possible with no obvious narrative or purpose.
Berio’s O King is a strange little piece from 1968, memorialising Martin Luther King through experimental musical analysis of the sung syllables of his name. Betts-Dean explored the toolkit of her voice to great effect, with velvety tones and precision. However, the piece seems designed to be meditative, yet the pitch leaps and rhythmic swaps can be startling, as Betts-Dean moves from ululation to keening and back again.
O King was followed by Berio’s Chemins II. Silverthorne took centre stage with a colourful shock of sound and vigour. The rapidity of the strings give the piece a Hitchcockian claustrophobia, contrasted with the longer frequency of the electric organ in a surging, chaotic piece that seemed to leave the audience with a sense of catharsis.
Kendall’s Shouting forever into the receiver takes its name from Vietnamese poet Ocean Vuong’s forceful novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and is designed around the idea of a feedback loop system of the Plantation Machine. Passages from the Book of Revelations are spoken into walkie-talkies, the narration of which is unfortunately lost in the mêlée of sound. But it’s a mesmerising piece, with wind-up music boxes eerily playing loops of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and Strauss’ The Blue Danube as well as a section in which the ensemble breathe in and out of harmonicas, an instrument we are told is associated with Afro-diasporic sorrow.
Osborn’s Mute is a lengthy series of twelve “anti-concertos” designed to overwhelm soloists with movements playing with the idea of muffled voices, from the sound of a siren song through earplugs to Marni Nixon. Sadly it also overwhelms the listener: I struggled to pick out many of the references or imagery in the vastness of the 25 minutes. Timothy Lines provided a haunting clarinet solo in the final movement; Michael Fox’s gasping flute stood out in the second.
Finally, the Sinfonietta returned to Berio, with a display of versatility from Betts-Dean in Folk Songs, varied and punchy, from the American Black is the Colour to Armenia’s Lousin Yelav and songs from Auvergne. Betts-Dean moved – often physically – from gravelly high drama in a Sicilian fishwives’ song to the plaintive reflection of I wonder as I wander, with great expression. Some of the pronunciation was a little lost, but in Berio’s own composition, Ballo she was a force of nature, with wild speeds and a little subversion.
In between, we had London-and-Marseille-based literary and sound artist Belinda Zhawi performing poetry by herself and others, evocative but with no obvious link between the readings and the music, giving an unsettling air to the programme. While she is obviously a talented writer, her delivery was somewhat stilted and flat, lacking the energy to match or introduce the musical sections.
It is difficult to assess a programme with so many strands. The Sinfonietta is a superb ensemble, responsive to conductor Geoffrey Paterson and introducing some exciting and lesser-known works. But this evening perhaps needed a thread of narrative, better framing, or simply less going on.
This review was amended to correct an error relating to Hannah Kendall’s work.
