Jonny Greenwood seems to be everywhere these days. Whether providing high-profile commissions for symphony orchestras or scores to Hollywood film blockbusters, his music is just as likely to be heard on BBC Radio 3 as on 6 Music; in cinema screens, concert halls, on HBO, or Netflix. Last year, Greenwood even managed to fit in a comeback tour with his rock band Radiohead. The Hallé’s Featured Artist for the 2025-26 season, both Greenwood and his music were very much present at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, in a concert that placed his contemporary classical music alongside two icons of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Greenwood has readily acknowledged the influence of the Polish avant-garde on his music, so it was fitting that the concert should start with Witold Lutosławski’s powerful homage to Bela Bartók, Musique funèbre. With more tritone intervals, crunchy cluster chords and cliffhanger moments than a Hammer Horror film, Musique funèbre shifted from sombre introspection in the Prologue and Epilogue to unbridled grief in the Métamorphoses section.
A last-minute replacement for the indisposed André de Ridder, conductor Hugh Tieppo-Brunt managed to shape Lutosławski’s work into an effective whole by maintaining a steady tempo throughout the outer movements while intensifying the atmosphere during the second and third sections. Tieppo-Brunt maintained contrapuntal clarity and transparency throughout and the powerful string unison melody at the beginning of the Epilogue projected an almost Tristan-like bittersweet quality.
The first half concluded with the first of two Greenwood pieces, the one-movement Water for chamber ensemble. Aided by resonant drones (assisted in no small measure by two Indian tanpuras, one played by Greenwood), its gently unfolding, repeating cycles and wafting modal gestures exuded an otherworldly quality: as if portraying a distant planet’s fragile ecosystem. Featuring an important cameo role for solo violin, Hallé leader Roberto Ruisi acquitted himself particularly well throughout, and a microtonal violin duet towards the end of the piece was one of its highlights.
If Greenwood’s music seems omnipresent, Steve Reich's ubiquitous presence in the new music firmament extends over half a century. No wonder Greenwood is an admirer, recording and performing the composer’s Electric Counterpoint on several occasions. Reich has also returned the favour by composing Radio Rewrite, which draws on a brace of Radiohead songs.
Composed in 2015, Pulse is laidback Reich. Its gently undulating shapes, sweeping lines, elongated intervals and open-ended, Copland-esque chords conjure up images of America’s great plains, panoramic vistas and expansive spaces. Nevertheless, as its title suggests, the 14-minute work is constantly nudged forward by a Giorgio Moroder-inspired bass line, which undergirds the work’s slowly-shifting harmonies. Moving from tanpura to electric bass, Greenwood’s pulsing lines supported and cushioned the gently overlapping patterns that hovered above in winds and strings. These lines occasionally turned in on themselves, spilling into darker territories, changing the mood.
The evening ended with the premiere of Greenwood’s Violin Concerto, with Daniel Pioro – who premiered the composer’s Horror vacui at the BBC Proms in 2019 – once more taking on solo duties. Horror vacui also provided the starting point for this new composition. However, according to Greenwood, only an eight-note phrase was kept from the latter work. This phrase appears at around the ten-minute mark, where a slow-moving unison melody characterised by tritone leaps and semitones is distributed across the full range of the orchestra.
Greenwood’s use of modernist elements, such as microtonal clusters, sweeping glissandos and extended string techniques, are more individualised here than in earlier works. More lyrical and tonal components push through the new work, too, including fleeting references to Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and Elgar’s Nimrod. And while the composer’s sectionalised approach occasionally results in a patchwork of disparate ideas, the pieces belonging to this musical jigsaw all fall very effectively into place.
