American composer Julius Eastman (1940-1990) is described in the BBC Proms programme by Mary Jane Leach as a “larger-than-life figure in the New York arts world, a flamboyantly gay Black man…provocative and daring”. In 1983 he presented his ex-boyfriend, poet R Nemo Hill, with a rolled-up score of his Second Symphony. Hill put it away in a box, where it lay unseen for over 20 years. Eastman’s music was scattered when he became homeless for the last decade of his short life. It was Leach who tracked much of it down, and who persuaded Hill to locate that box. The music thus wasn’t performed until 2018. “It tells of their love and its disintegration,” writes Leach. Hence (I think) the work’s title: “The faithful friend: The lover friend's love for the beloved”. This was its UK premiere.
The music itself was as interesting as its background. Before reading the programme I saw the BBC Symphony Orchestra assembling on the platform; four timpanists, and a phalanx of low brass and wind; three each of tubas, bassoons, contrabassoons, bass clarinets, and contrabass clarinets. This looked less like orchestration than a job creation scheme, perhaps designed as a final love letter more than a score expecting performance. The work began not with all that wind and percussion, but with the full string body playing a slow soaring cantilena. Soon the winds entered with the richest of chords, launching a drone supporting subtle activity above it. There were fleeting motivic cells, and a sense of growth from them towards a central climax. Like Sibelius' Fifth Symphony that closed this programme, Eastman’s Symphony no. 2 ends with a sequence of curt chords, its 12-minute journey accomplished. Dalia Stasevska, Principal Guest Conductor of the BBCSO, calls the work “cosmic, touching and deeply personal” and directed it with great commitment.
Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder do not form a cycle so have no fixed sequence. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton began with the three lighter songs, of which her second Liebst du um Schönheit (If you love for beauty) was particularly fine, especially its beguiling final couplet “Liebe mich immer, Dich lieb’ich immerdar!” (Love me always, I’ll love you evermore). Um Mitternacht (At midnight) was a profound utterance, strings silent while brass and winds led us to a resounding climax, Barton capping the splendour with imposing weight of tone. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world) has a claim to be Mahler’s finest song, and Barton sang it with exquisite poise at a taxingly slow tempo.
Sibelius adorns many BBCSO concerts. Both Principal Conductors are Finns, so there is comfort and familiarity with his music on both podium and platform. The comfortable can militate against the compelling, but not here. Sibelius’ Fifth is a great symphonic journey, on which the conductor must manage several complex transitions. The resplendent transition in the first movement, technically a modulation from E flat to B major – but for most of us the moment when the sun bursts through the clouds – was immaculate, as was the dancing 3/4 part of this 12/8 movement. Stasevska paced this ideally and relished the exhilarating Presto – più presto coda, earning some impromptu applause. In April 1915, Sibelius wrote in his diary: “At ten to eleven saw 16 swans. One of my life’s great experiences. They circled over me for a long time, their cries the same woodwind timbre as cranes... the theme of the Fifth Symphony’s finale.” That swan theme circled around this vast hall with bold and brassy resonance. Sibelius, supreme nature poet, was joyously celebrated in this fine performance.
