FABER MUSIC NEWS AUTUMN 2015
fortissimo! TANSY DAVIES
Between Worlds ‘The psychological truth of this inexorable drama comes across with awesome power...’ The Independent
Plus Adès’s The Tempest takes Vienna by storm Aldeburgh Festival premieres for Coult and Suckling Benjamin’s Written on Skin enthrals New York A new partnership with Warner/Chappell
Highlights • Tuning In • New Publications & Recordings • Music for Now • Publishing News
Between Worlds
Dear colleagues, Opera has been the focal point of our activities at Faber Music in recent months, with five major successes spanning the world: April saw ENO and London’s Barbican stage Tansy Davies’s brave and touching Between Worlds, whilst in May the German premiere of Julian Anderson’s Thebans (a 2014 ENO commission) was presented by the ever-enterprising Stadtheater Bonn where its composer was described as ‘an orchestrator without equal in contemporary music.’ Then came the Austrian premiere of Thomas Adès’s The Tempest at the Wiener Staatsoper in June. This run of five sell-out performances was a fantastic achievement in a city where ‘new music’ is usually of a different nature. Austrian critics were fascinated by a style which so ‘masterfully embraced musical history without lapsing into simple eclecticism’ thereby creating ‘an iridescent polystylistic amalgamation’… A thoroughly appropriate appetiser to the unveiling of Adès’s The Exterminating Angel at the 2016 Salzburg Festival. In August, George Benjamin’s Written on Skin made it to New York – after four separate productions and 82 performances worldwide, not including numerous internet and radio broadcasts. Four or five opera houses are already lined up to share the commission for the next opera, which will premiere at London’s Royal Opera House in 2018. With over 300 outings since its birth in 1995, Adès’s Powder Her Face continues to travel the globe. In September a production by the famed Mariusz Treliński arrives in Brussels, fresh from performances in Warsaw last May. This is one of five upcoming productions planned in the coming months. Opera has never been more significant in the world of new music. Without a doubt the public is infinitely more open to an innovative musical language when it is enmeshed in this most immediate and accessible of mediums. As more composers take the plunge into operatic waters, we continue to build our extraordinary catalogue, which ranges from Rasch’s Duchess of Malfi (2010) and Maw’s Sophie’s Choice (2002) to Britten’s Death in Venice (1973) and Harvey’s Wagner Dream (2006) Do join us in supporting this fascinating journey! Yours,
Sally Cavender Performance Music Director/Vice Chairman, Faber Music
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A bold and highly individual response to the events of 9/11, Tansy Davies’s critically acclaimed operatic debut Between Worlds opened at the Barbican Theatre, London on 11 April. Cocommissioned by English National Opera and the Barbican, it saw Davies collaborating with librettist Nick Drake and the renowned director Deborah Warner. Contemporary music specialist Gerry Cornelius conducted a cast including countertenor Andrew Watts as the Shaman and mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley as the Mother. Lasting around 90 minutes, with no interval, the opera is scored for 16 singers, chorus and a modest orchestra of 35. Davies describes the work’s goal as turning ‘something very complex and difficult into something healing and beautiful’. Between Worlds presents a disparate group of individuals trapped high up in one of the Twin Towers, caught between earth and heaven, life and death. Davies’s preoccupation with shamanic thought (previously explored abstractly in her piano concerto Nature) here comes to fruition through the figure of the Shaman who – suspended above the action – sings, whispers and whistles, his silvery countertenor intertwined with the other voices to striking effect. Davies’s vividly imagined score (her most expansive to date) is dominated by foreboding, veil-like textures for strings and harp. Between Worlds is both an opera and a requiem, with the chorus playing a central role throughout. In the closing scenes, the work’s subtly shifting verdigris harmonies open out into a cathartic ballet sequence (brilliantly choreographed by Kim Brandstrup) where glockenspiel, string harmonics and flutes dance in the stratosphere, before falling back to earth for a final scene of lamentation. Cast 16 singers: Shaman (CT)/Janitor (Bar)/Younger Woman (S)/ Realtor (MS)/Younger Man (T)/Older Man (BBar)/Mother of Younger MAN (MS)/Lover Of Younger Woman (MS)/Babysitter (S)/Wife of Older Man (S)/Security Guard (T)/Firefighter 1 (T)/ Firefighter 2 (Bar)/Sister Of Younger Man (S)/Child (boy)/Older Executive (T) Chorus Duration: 90 minutes Instrumentation: 2(II=afl+picc).2.2(II=ebcl).bcl.0 - 2.1.0.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(2) - harp - strings WP: 11.4.2015, Barbican Centre, London, UK: English National Opera/dir. Deborah Warner/cond. Gerry Cornelius Co-commissioned by ENO and the Barbican, London
HIGHLIGHTS
‘A fabulously inventive aural fabric: exploding shards of sound frozen in a kind of cosmic aspic. That spiritual quality results from the composer’s expressed resolve to salvage vestiges of humanity from unspeakable horror…a resonant, multi-layered work… A poignant acrobatic tableau, depicting the final release of a soul, lingers in the memory.’
‘Towards the end, the platform on which the characters stand shifts ever so slightly, and an uncanny groaning sound comes from Davies’s modest-sized orchestra. This hint was all we needed… The music never shrieks at us. The desperation ruffles the surface of Davies’s music, which remains essentially meditative…a remarkable piece of work.’
The London Evening Standard (Barry Millington), 13 April 2015
The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 12 April 2015
‘A resonant multi-layered work’ ‘The vocal settings trace the shifts in diction without awkwardness, while the orchestra submerges everything in shimmering, jittering continuities which build up a musical version of the kind of inverted vertigo experienced when one is near a tall building, looking up. The aeroplane strikes themselves, eerily prepared by a sudden change in the Shaman’s muttering to a piercing, high-pitched whine and refracted by the chorus chanting from the Requiem liturgy, sent the orchestra into wild paroxysms of hyper-activity which grind the present into an excruciating, lurching continuity. Davies also proves herself wonderfully adept in marking out shifts in the perception of time, using exaggerated rhythmic profiles to spur on the drama before dissolving them into oases of reflexivity.
‘Music of gentle movement and unspeakable intimacy’ The opera’s most beautiful moment occurs at the end, in a dance between the sister and the suspended corpse of the Younger Man. The pair twirl, to music of gentle movement and unspeakable intimacy…The fact that the opera made its presence felt at all, creating something so beautiful and troubling against a backdrop of something so awful and upsetting, speaks volumes about the artistic talents of all involved.’
‘Davies at times reaches that place of emotional embodiment that only music can capture, and wraps it in a dark yet cathartic embrace.’ The Arts Desk (Jessica Duchen), 12 April 2015
‘The most original new voice in the game.’ ‘Davies’s delicately-inflected sound-world creates an all-embracing ambience…The psychological truth of this inexorable drama comes across with awesome power... Davies suggests sonic immensity through abrupt musical understatement... This beautiful and extraordinary work leaves you transfixed. It may be an operatic debut, but it announces Davies as the most original new voice in the game.’ The Independent (Michael Church), 12 April 2015
‘A tremendous score, intense but carefully balanced. [Davies] evokes the utterly bewildering sense of unreality, manipulating time and somehow creating a space beyond and apart… [It] may well come to be seen as one of the crucial music-theatre pieces of its age.’ Opera (Stephen Pettitt), June 2015
‘A distinguished score by a young composer whose style, at once stark and beautiful, bespeaks a genuine operatic voice… After the devastation, a virtuosic sequence where fleeting high-note figures flutter like debris above sustained low basses strikes me as music of the highest order.’ What’s On Stage (Mark Valencia), 16 April 2015
The Times Literary Supplement (Guy Dammann), 17 April 2015
PHOTOS: ERIC GREENE AS ‘THE JANITOR’; SOLOISTS AND CHORUS IN ENO’S BETWEEN WORLDS © HUGO GLENDINNING
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Coult Song Cycle Dazzles at Aldeburgh Festival The world premiere of Tom Coult’s Beautiful Caged Thing, a brilliant new song cycle for soprano and chamber orchestra was rightly heralded as a highlight of this year’s Aldeburgh Festival. Displaying ingenious musical invention, the 12-minute work which sets words by Oscar Wilde was performed by Claire Booth and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the baton of George Benjamin. The work sets poems Coult himself created by arranging phrases from Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Each poem has, on a sentence level, the linguistic elegance of Wilde, but in tone they tend to be more surrealist. In the first song, ‘I have known everything’, this newly created – feminine – poetic voice rushes breathlessly, and dangerously, through a catalogue of facts and aphorisms. In the second, ‘Monstrous Marionettes’, Coult finds an extraordinary feeling of clarity and conviction as various mechanisms wind their way to a standstill. In the third and final song the narrator is more world-weary: ‘I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else... looking like a beautiful caged thing.’ Here Coult summons up refined sounds of complete individuality that slowly and deliberately unfurl from still, desolate beginnings to a climax of startling, peculiar power. Whilst the cycle’s soundworld is glistening and luxurious, this surface is underpinned by various concealed musical processes. The second and third songs are both based on intricate mensuration canons, and both the first and third movements draw material from a particular five-note chord. The chord has intrigued Coult since he first used it in 2011, and also appears in his recent Étude No. 3 for solo violin (a London Sinfonietta commission) and the virtuosic showpiece Sparking and Slipping for solo violin, piano, harp and percussion. Coult’s vocal writing is sensitive, assured but also not afraid to take risks. ‘I had very helpful discussions with Claire,’ Coult says, ‘and tried to create a piece that allows her to enjoy the notes she’s given, rather than just being able to ‘reach’ them. For one example, Claire told me she liked singing around high E, so the whole first movement is based around that note.’
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‘Promising and very successful… (remarkably sung by soprano Claire Booth).’ Le Monde (Marie-Aude Roux), 20 June 2015
‘Balletic, full of leaping patterns of harp and gong and plucked strings… clever and ear-tickling.’ The Daily Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 14 June 2015
‘A vibrant triumph… it was music of opulent but disciplined allure that promised much for the future. In fact, it made for one of those classic first encounters that feels as if one is in at the beginning of something truly significant.’ The Catholic Herald (Michael White), 25 June 2015
‘Full of striking effects.’
PHOTO: TOM COULT IN REHEARSALS AT SNAPE MALTINGS © MAURICE FOXALL SCORE EXTRACT: ‘MONSTROUS MARIONETTES’ FROM COULT’S BEAUTIFUL CAGED THING © FABER MUSIC
The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 16 June 2015
HIGHLIGHTS
A Striking Clarinet Trio from Martin Suckling
Martin Suckling’s clarinet trio Visiones (after Goya) was premiered at the 2015 Aldeburgh Festival by the stellar line up of Mark Simpson, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Tamara Stefanovich. The catalyst for the 12-minute work was a chilling image from Goya’s ‘Witches and Old Women’ album – three persons, bound together in an uncanny, seemingly weightless, dance. ‘There is a kind of beauty there, I think, and elegance, and poise, and some sweet melancholy,’ remarks Suckling, ‘but also obsession and violence and no way out’. In earlier works, like To See the Dark Between for piano and string sextet (2010), Suckling’s music emerges out of the resonance of an initial piano impulse. Visiones reverses this idea. ‘The resonance is a result of the music,’ Suckling states, ‘and often a destructive result at that. As the pianist hammers away in the topmost register of the instrument, a wash of white noise is created’. This white noise also allows a secondary effect: ‘if keys are depressed as the pedal is
released, these notes ring on gently. In this way, a bass note can be introduced without it actually being struck. To my mind, such an appearance is nothing short of magical.’ In the first of the work’s three sections, the piano taps out ecstatic pirouettes above the circling cello and clarinet. Second comes an increasingly mechanical lullaby. The last is a distorted memory of what has gone before: the piano dampened, the cello a crazed, fragmentary virtuoso, and the clarinet restricted to a simple pattern of soft multiphonics. The spinning dance intrudes, then overwhelms. ‘It’s a very poetic piece,’ noted cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. ‘One can hear a French influence. There is an element of Grisey in the play of the intervals and the manner in which each instrument develops its own ostinato, creating a kaleidoscopic effect. It’s a very successful work, one that I would be more than happy to revisit.’
Roger Smalley (1943-2015) Faber Music is sad to report the death of the composer and pianist Roger Smalley, AM. Smalley died in Sydney on 18 August 2015 at the age of 72. Born near Manchester, England in 1943, Smalley studied piano and composition at the Royal College of Music, London. He also took private composition lessons with Alexander Goehr and furthered his studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Cologne Courses for New Music. His orchestral work Gloria Tibi Trinitas I (1969) was awarded an RPS Prize.
Century Ensemble which he continued to conduct until 2000. Smalley moved from Perth to Sydney in 2007.
As a pianist, Smalley was widely recognised for his performances of contemporary music. Early in his career, he was a prizewinner in the 1966 Gaudeamus competition for interpreters of contemporary music. In 1969, together with Tim Souster, he formed Intermodulation, an ensemble specialising in works involving improvisation and live electronics, which performed throughout England and Europe until 1976.
In 1991 Smalley was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 1994 he was awarded the Australia Council’s prestigious Don Banks Fellowship in recognition of his distinguished contribution to Australian music. He received the Australian Government Centenary Medal in 2001 and was proclaimed a Western Australian Living Treasure in 2004. In 2011, Smalley was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.
Smalley’s academic career was closely tied to his activities as a composer and performer: his move from the UK to Australia was the result of a short composer residency at the University of Western Australia. He went on to have a significant academic career at the University, first as a research fellow and subsequently Associate Professor of Music, Professorial Research Fellow and, finally, Emeritus Professor. In 1989, he became the first Artistic Director and Conductor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s 20th
Faber Music publishes a number of Smalley’s works from the mid 1960-80s, including his large-scale Symphony (1979-81), the music theatre work William Derrincourt (1977-9) and his seminal Pulses for 5x4 players (1969). Commissioned by the London Sinfonietta and later recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra on NMC, Pulses uses the electronic treatment of sound to thrillingly explore the spatial relationship between raucous ensembles of brass and percussion. Smalley’s music was also published by the Australian Music Centre.
PHOTOS: TAMARA STEFANOVICH © MARCO BORGGREVE; MARTIN SUCKLING © MAURICE FOXALL; JEAN-GUIHEN QUEYRAS © MARCO BORGGREVE; MARK SIMPSON © KAUPO KIKKAS; ROGER SMALLEY
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Tom Coult Selected forthcoming performances
Tom Coult An intelligent duo for violin and piano
Limp
Having given the UK Premiere of Coult’s Piano Trio ‘The Chronophage’, and performed his Sparking and Slipping at the 2015 ‘Soundings Festival’, the Fidelio Trio’s Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea give the London premiere of Limp for violin and piano this December at The Forge, Camden. This inventive 7-minute work explores rhythms with a 3:2 ratio whose lopsided, unequal gait evokes a limping rhythm. There is plentiful experimentation with metre, tempo and co-ordination, with 3:2 rhythms at various speeds, all linked by burnished, fifth-based harmonies.
London premiere 7.12.15, The Forge, Camden, London, UK: Darragh Morgan/Mary Dullea
New work World premiere 23.4.16, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Gourlay
New work World premiere 1.6.16, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: London Sinfonietta/ Martyn Brabbins
Publication of Four Perpetual Motions
Carrying Britten’s string writing into 21st-century landscapes
Faber Music is pleased to announce the publication of Coult’s Four Perpetual Motions, a well-crafted suite of contrasting miniatures for an ensemble of ten players that showcases Coult’s ear for beguiling sonorities and his ability to harness the most complex of technical devices to rich emotional ends.
Commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia, Tom Coult’s 14-minute work for string orchestra, My Curves are not Mad, made a bold impression when it premiered in London, Norwich and Saffron Walden. Driven by clear incisive gestures and rich, luminescent harmonies, the work was inspired by the late cut-outs of Henri Matisse. ‘This young London-based composer has an ear for subtly overlaid string textures and timbres… including some fanfaring violins that seemed to carry Britten’s string-writing into 21st-century landscapes.’ The Times (Richard Morrison), 24 March 2015
‘Gritty… built on a foundation of sustained pitches that are interrupted by sforzando attacks and flurries of activity.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 23 March 2015
‘A pulsing pedal established at the start ceases as the work opens up, reappearing towards the end as the harmonic blueprints are revealed. It is this harmonic energy which provides the impetus for the piece to unfold. My Curves are not Mad contains an array of attractive timbral effects, with an effective structural principle.’ Bachtrack (Katy Wright), 21 March 2015
The scores of numerous works by Tom Coult, including My Curves are not Mad and Beautiful Caged Thing, can be viewed at Faber Music’s Online Score Library
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PHOTO: TOM COULT © MAURICE FOXALL
The full score of Four Perpetual Motions, priced at £14.99, is available from the Faber Music Store
Looking ahead BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra have commissioned Coult and four other young composers to write pieces to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare in 2016. Coult’s 8-minute work will be premiered in April by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Andrew Gourlay at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, and will be used in a new radio play also due to be broadcast in April. Coult’s fruitful relationship with the London Sinfonietta also continues to flourish in a new work for 15-piece ensemble, to be premiered under the baton of Martyn Brabbins at St John’s Smith Square in June.
TUNING IN
Humphrey Searle
John Woolrich
Centenary celebrations
The unlikeliest of concertos
2015 marks the centenary of Humphrey Searle CBE (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982), a student of Anton Webern who, together with Elisabeth Lutyens, was one of the pioneers of twelve-tone music in Britain. A leading authority on the music of Franz Liszt, Searle also taught composition to the likes of Michael Finnissy and Wolfgang Rihm. Although his fastidious ear for instrumental colour shows Webern’s influence, the hyper-romantic rhetoric with which Searle handled his harmonies owes more to Berg and Schoenberg, as well as a streak of more traditional ‘Britishness’ which he never lost.
Falling Down, John Woolrich’s enigmatic capricho for contrabassoon and orchestra, received its London premiere at the BBC Proms in July, where it provided a sardonic foil to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Andris Nelsons conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in his last concert as their Music Director, with the orchestra’s own formidable Margaret Cookhorn as soloist.
Searle’s third and most ambitious opera, Hamlet (1958), was premiered at the Hamburg Staatsoper and also received performances in Toronto and at London’s Royal Opera House. Other works include the elaborate symphonic essay Labyrinth (1971), the restrained and delicate Prelude for Piano on a Theme of Alan Rawsthorne (1965), and a setting of Edith Sitwell’s The Canticle of the Rose for a cappella double chorus (1965) which was described as ‘intensely beautiful’ by The Guardian after its UK premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival. Searle studied, and later taught, at London’s Royal College of Music, where his centenary will be celebrated with performances of two chamber works: Five for solo guitar (1974) – originally written for Julian Bream and characterised by delicate harmonic colourings and a number of expressive improvisatory passages – and the light-hearted Cat Variations (1971), a set of eight reworkings of the ‘Cat Theme’ from Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, commissioned by the BBC to accompany a radio broadcast of T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
There is something of the grotesque carnival about this 15-minute work. Taking its subtitle from Goya, the piece begins and ends by tumbling from the top the orchestra down to the dark depths inhabited by its protagonist. Cookhorn asked Woolrich to write the piece having relished his writing for the instrument in a number of pieces for the BCMG. Here, snappy exchanges between the soloist and the orchestra are intercut with more lyrical moments where the contrabassoon’s husky upper register is allowed to sing. Skittish winds chirp mechanically, blaring trombones obstinately reiterate the soloist’s statements, and two sets of timpani take on a concertante role from either side of the stage. ‘Cookhorn was a superbly expressive soloist, her low notes caught and held by fellow denizens of the orchestra’s bass region… Meanwhile, the piccolos and high wind chirruped away in sardonic counterpoint. In amongst the grotesquerie, little moments of husky pathos from the soloist peeped out, immediately shouted down by the orchestra. In all, it was amusingly enigmatic.’
John Woolrich Selected forthcoming performances Ulysses Awakes 16.9.15, Kammermusikfestival Nürnberg, Nürnberg, Germany: Ruth Gibson/Nürnberg Festival Ensemble/ Peter Selwyn
Pluck from the Air London premiere 6.11.15, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Nash Ensemble
To the Silver Bow World premiere 16.2.16, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, UK: Leon Bosch/Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Humphrey Searle Selected forthcoming performances Five 20.10.15, Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music, London, UK: Student from Royal College of Music
Cat Variations 2.12.15, Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music, London, UK: Students from Royal College of Music
The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 20 July 2015
‘An unlikely concertante piece, predictably darkhued and slightly gruff, but, as Cookhorn showed, totally convincing on its own terms.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 20 July 2015
‘Among Woolrich’s most vivid and effective essays.’ The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 26 July 2015
PHOTO: (LEFT) HUMPHREY SEARLE (RIGHT) JOHN WOOLRICH WITH MARGARET COOKHORN, ANDRIS NELSONS AND THE CBSO © BBC/CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU
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David Matthews Selected forthcoming performances
David Matthews Nature’s composers
Prelude and Fugue (Bach arr. Matthews)
Birdsong proved to be a theme linking many of Matthews’s works featured at Lichfield. In addition to the Sacconi Quartet’s performance of the Tenth String Quartet, which incorporates Australian bird calls, a 5-minute work for unaccompanied choir and soloists, Dawn Chorus, was unveiled by Ex Cathedra and Jeffrey Skidmore. With singers spread around Lichfield Cathedral imitating birds, accompanied by a still homophonic background provided by the choir, it proved to be an enchanting experience.
World premiere 19.9.15, Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, UK: City of London Sinfonia/Michael Collins
Piano Trio No. 3 1.10.15, Kings Place, London, UK: Leonore Piano Trio
Piano Trio No. 1 16.10.15, Artrix, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, UK: Leonore Piano Trio
After Beethoven
Concerto for Piano 16.10.15, Martti Talvela Hall, Mikkeli, Finland: Laura Mikkola/St Michel Strings/Mikk Murdvee/
Sonatina World premiere 17.10.15, Kings Place, London, UK: Krysia Osostowicz/Daniel Tong
One Foot in Eden 9.3.16, deSingel, Antwerp, Belgium: James Gilchrist/Anna Tilbrook/ DoelenKwartet
Transcribing the sun Among the many highlights of David Matthews’s residency at the 2015 Lichfield Festival was the premiere of his 10-minute tone poem Toward Sunrise by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Lahav Shani. An ideal concert opener, the piece begins with a limpid evocation of a pre-dawn landscape before building to a thrilling sunrise (related to Matthews’s later and more extended A Vision of the Sea (2013). Inspired by the extraordinary findings of Sheffield University – that magnetic loops coiling away from the sun vibrate like the strings of an instrument – Matthews transferred these sounds (a rising fourth, C to F, with a very low B underneath) to strings, contrabassoon and piano, gradually building up to a climax of great power and expressivity. ‘Evoking Vaughan Williams and Sibelius in its spaciousness and dark, oil-paint tone-colours but somehow sadder and stranger than both, and ending with a sunrise of stark, piercing intensity.’ The Birmingham Post (Richard Bratby), 13 July 2015
‘Whole choirs of birds trilling in ecstatic praise of first light. Transcription of birdsong has become a feature of Matthews’s later work, and here he displays his Messiaen-like mastery of the form.’ The Observer (Stephen Pritchard), 12 July 2015
Further plaudits for Dutton recording A recording combining Matthews’s Seventh Symphony (2008-9) and Vespers (1993-6) from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Bach Choir and conductors John Carewe and David Hill has been nominated for a Gramophone Award. In the original Gramophone review, Andrew Achenbach described the Symphony as ‘a score of slumbering organic power and enormous cumulative impact’. Matthews is no stranger to this kind of recognition; a previous instalment in the ongoing Dutton series devoted to his work (the Second and Sixth Symphonies) won a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2011.
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PHOTO: DAVID MATTHEWS © CLIVE BARDA
When violinist Krysia Osostowicz asked Matthews to write a 7-minute work for violin and piano for her and Daniel Tong to play as a companion to one of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, he had little difficulty choosing the Violin Sonata in G Op. 96, a work he had long admired. Matthews describes Beethoven as ‘the ideal of the modern composer’ and this is not the first time he has paid homage. His String Quartet No. 11 (2008), for example, is a set of variations on a theme taken from Beethoven’s Bagatelle Op. 119 No. 8. ‘I conceived the idea of a short sonatina which would be modelled on Beethoven’s formal and tonal plan, but severely curtailed in length’ comments Matthews. ‘My first three movements even have the same tempo indications as Beethoven, though my finale is much faster than Beethoven’s Poco Allegretto. The wonderful trill with which Op. 96 begins plays an important part in all of my four movements.’ The Sonatina receives its premiere this October at Kings Place.
‘Highly accomplished invention’ Matthews’s latest symphony, his Eighth, was premiered in Manchester in April by the BBC Philharmonic and its dedicatee, HK Gruber. The 26-minute work is cast in three movements: a concise and tensile Allegro energico, an elegiacal Adagio and an optimistic set of dance variations. ‘Matthews didn’t think he’d be writing any more symphonies. But the BBC Philharmonic liked his A Vision of the Sea, so much that they twisted his arm… There’s a tang of sea here, too: at the end of the heady dances of the finale, there’s a tingling downward glissando on the violins, inspired by vapour trails in the sky over Deal, in Kent. This is where a friend of Matthews lived and died — and that remembered sorrow darkens the slow movement, giving weight and depth to its otherwise euphonious sweet song. The entire symphony, with its confident, upbeat opening, its striding rhythms, its lush lyricism and its effortless yet highly accomplished invention, sounds as though it was a joy to write — and with the intention of giving great delight to its players and listeners.’ The Times (Hilary Finch), 20 April 2015
TUNING IN
Oliver Knussen
BBC Scottish portrait October also sees Knussen’s music being the focus of a BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra concert in Glasgow. Opening with the effervescent 4-minute Flourish with Fireworks (1988), the portrait also features the exquisite Music for a Puppet Court (1983). Furthermore, the orchestra is joined by soprano Claire Booth in Songs and a Sea Interlude (1981), the 17-minute song cycle derived from Knussen’s fantasy opera Where the Wild Things Are. This work brings together the bulk of solo scenes involving the opera’s protagonist Max to form a compact character portrait, beginning with an external view of his antics and gradually working inwards towards the final ‘Night-song’. The concert is conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, whose own Violin Concerto (dedicated to Knussen) also features.
Reassessing the Rosary Songs
Britten Sinfonia focus The Britten Sinfonia have long been advocates of Oliver Knussen’s music – performing everything from his glittering chamber works through to the operas Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! – but a series of two London concerts in October will mark the first time the composer has conducted the orchestra himself. In the first, at Milton Court, works by Mozart and Berg frame Knussen’s deeply personal Requiem – Songs for Sue for soprano and ensemble (2006). His Violin Concerto (2002) is presented alongside masterpieces by Stravinsky and Tippett in the main Barbican Hall. One of Knussen’s most performed works, the Violin Concerto, begins and ends with the same arresting sonority – a clangorous tubular-bell chord and a stratospheric high E on the violin. ‘At times’, observes Knussen, ‘the soloist resembles a tightrope walker progressing along a (decidedly unstable) high wire strung across the span that separates the opening and closing sounds’. ‘A work of extraordinary inner energy that already seems like a classic.’ Financial Times (Andrew Clark) on the Violin Concerto, 11 May 2005
Alluring and unsettling in equal measure, Knussen’s Rosary Songs form a shadowy epilogue to the collection of pieces associated with his Second Symphony (1971). Like the Symphony, these haunted songs for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano set poems by the Austrian Expressionist Georg Trakl – indeed, the first song here, ‘An die Schwester’ (‘To my sister’), is actually a transcription of some of the music we hear in the Symphony’s last movement. Originally composed for the Fires of London, this frost-traced 14-minute work is obsessively 12-note (even durationally serial at some points), though the series employed is remarkably modal and the resultant harmonies are unmistakably Knussen’s – as is the masterful handling of the voice. That said, this work contains some surprising features, including a substantial amount of playing inside the piano (pizzicati played with the fingernails, stopped notes and low, tolling strokes with a tam-tam beater). The notation of the second song ‘Nähe des Todes’ (‘Nearness of Death’) creates a looser relationship between the players, whilst in the closing ‘Amen’ the clarinet and viola writing is characterised by expressive quarter-tone inflections. Reviewing the Rosary Songs in The Times, Hilary Finch marvelled at their ‘fantastical lunar beauty’. Overdue a revival (and a recording), these pieces would work fantastically alongside other Trakl settings by Webern and Krenek, or would make a fascinating pairing with Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen Op. 132.
Oliver Knussen Selected forthcoming performances Flourish with Fireworks 14.9.15, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; 15.9.15, Plaza de Victoria, Puebla, Mexico: London Philharmonic Orchestra/Alondra de la Parra 29.9.15, Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan: Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen 22-23.10.15, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway: Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner
The Way to Castle Yonder 17-18.9.15, Bern, Switzerland: Berner Sinfonieorchester/Mario Venzago 17.12.15, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner 8-10.1.16, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, MO, USA: Kansas City Symphony/ Robert Spano
Violin Concerto 24.9.15, Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan: Leila Josefowicz/Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen 28.10.15, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Frederieke Saeijs/Britten Sinfonia/Oliver Knussen
Flourish with Fireworks/ Music for a Puppet Court/ Songs and A Sea Interlude 3.10.15, City Halls, Glasgow, Scotland, UK: Claire Booth/BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ryan Wigglesworth
Ophelia Dances Book 1 10.10.15, Alfred Newman Recital Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Thornton Edge Ensemble/Donald Crockett
Ophelia Dances Book 1/ Songs without Voices 17.10.15, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Templo de la Valenciana, Guanajuato, Mexico: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/ Christian Karlsen
Requiem - Songs for Sue 25.10.15, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Claire Booth/Britten Sinfonia/ Oliver Knussen
Autumnal 7.3.16, National Sawdust, New York, NY, USA: Members of the New York Philharmonic
PHOTO: OLIVER KNUSSEN © HANA ZUSHI-RHODES, ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC; SCORE EXTRACT: ‘NÄHE DES TODES’ FROM KNUSSEN’S ROSARY SONGS © FABER MUSIC
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Jonathan Harvey Selected forthcoming performances
Jonathan Harvey Tranquil Abiding in New York
Tombeau de Messiaen
In May the New York Philharmonic was introduced to the music of Harvey by one of his leading champions, Susanna Mälkki. Underpinned by a simple ‘breathing’ motif, Tranquil Abiding (1998) is a perfect introduction to this pioneering musical mind for musicians and audience alike. One of Harvey’s most accessible and popular pieces, this 14-minute work receives its Finnish premiere in Helsinki this October.
24.9.15, Festival Musica, Salle de la Bourse, Strasbourg, Alsace, France: Wilhem Latchoumia
Pre-echo for Jean-Guihen 27.9.15, Festival Musica, Salle de la Bourse, Strasbourg, Alsace, France: Jean-Guihen Queyras
Tranquil Abiding Finnish premiere 30.10.15, Concert Hall, Music Centre, Helsinki, Finland: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/ Dima Slobodeniouk
Death of Light, Light of Death
…towards a pure land in France
31.10.15, St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton, UK: The Riot Ensemble
Jonathan Harvey’s …towards a pure land (2005) will receive its French premiere this January at the Paris Philharmonie with Matthias Pintscher conducting the Ensemble intercontemporain and members of the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris. The first fruit of Harvey’s extraordinary partnership with Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, this radiant 15-minute work won the 2007 RPS Large-Scale Composition Award.
28.4.16, Palau de la Música Catalana, Barcelona, Spain; 5-6.5.16, Philharmonie, Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany: Ensemble intercontemporain
Nataraja 5.11.15, Stanley H Kaplan Penthouse, Lincoln Center, New York City, NY, USA: Sooyun Kim
Climbing Frame 20.11.15, Aachen, NordrheinWestfalen, Germany 4.3.16, Kings Place, London, UK: London Sinfonietta/Gregory Rose/ CoMA London/CoMA Sussex
Sringara Chaconne 25.11.15, Auditorium du Conservatoire, Annemasse, HautSavoie, France: Namasce Lemanic Modern/William Blank
...towards a pure land
The work begins with the ‘Ensemble of the Eternal Sound’ – a small group of strings, hidden on the stage, which provides a backdrop of quietude onto which Harvey paints monumental, gradually shifting sheets of divisi strings (moving from toneless to pitched material) whilst, towards the end, the wind players evocatively whisper consonants. The work’s heart, Harvey wrote, ‘is not solid, rather it is an emptiness, an empty presence… In the surrounding music, the tempi are often fluid, the ideas are fleeting: things arise, then cease, in an unending flow. To grasp them and fix them would be to distort them falsely. A Pure Land is a state of mind beyond suffering where there is no grasping.’
30.1.16, Salle des Concerts, Cité de la musique, Paris, France: Ensemble intercontemporain/Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris/ Matthias Pintscher
‘Few composers have the ear for percussion, or the ability to conjure such long-breathed, radiant calm’
Cirrus Light
Plainsongs for Peace and Light
6.2.16, CBSO Centre, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (Timothy Lines)
Erratum In the last issue of fortissimo we incorrectly stated that the New York Philharmonic’s performances of Harvey’s Tranquil Abiding in May 2015 were the first US performances of this work. In fact, the Riverside Symphony under George Rothman gave the work’s world premiere at New York’s Lincoln Centre in 1999. We apologise for this error.
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The Independent (Anna Picard), 13 August 2008
Predominantly hushed and serene, Plainsongs for Peace and Light (2012) proved to be one of Harvey’s final works. It sees Harvey re-examining the very fundamentals of his craft – superimposing lines of plainsong, relishing the bare clash of note against note and creating rich, otherworldly sonorities through an elaborate use of canon. Harvey was a composer who frequently sought out and embraced the very latest in musical technologies but the simplicity of the a cappella choir became something of a constant to which he returned throughout his life. Writing in Tempo, Paul Conway noted the work’s ‘understated but extremely affecting, numinous power’. A new edition of this work will be published in the autumn.
PHOTO: JONATHAN HARVEY © MAURICE FOXALL
‘As the music breathes calmly, motifs and figures intrude: a burst of quiet brass, a darting riff in the woodwinds. Sometimes these fleeting bits turn ominous and grating… But in this case, the music is so interesting, and you almost want the intrusions to linger. Mälkki could have picked a flashy contemporary piece, the better to wow an audience. Instead, she invited listeners into a mystical musical realm. The audience followed her, judging from the warm ovation.’ The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 22 May 2015
Ricercare una melodia In Ricercare una melodia, an ingenious work for solo instrument and tape delay from the mid-1980s, Harvey takes the literal meaning of Ricercare – ‘to seek’ – as the inspiration for its structure. The work unfolds as two five-part canons – the first frenetic, twittering and rowdy, the second (where the canon is progressively augmented) more luminous and contemplative. We are thrilled to be publishing a new edition of the trombone version of this characterful and concise masterpiece later this year.
In the studio The Choir of Harvey’s alma mater, St John’s College, Cambridge, has recorded a selection of his sacred choral music. The disc will include premiere recordings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis with organ (1978), and Praise ye the Lord (1990). Also featured are two works commissioned by St John’s: The Royal Banners Forward Go (2004) and The Annunciation (2011), a 4-minute setting of Edwin Muir which was written to mark the College’s Quincentenary celebrations. The disc, which the Choir hopes to release in the summer of 2016, also includes two works for organ: Laus Deo (1969) and the astonishing (yet rarely heard) Toccata for organ and tape (1980). In the latter work, developed at IRCAM, an agile, brilliant organ part is set against an almost moto perpetuo stream of electronic sound. In other news, a recording of Harvey’s ravishing Sringara Chaconne for ensemble (2009) by Ensemble Musikfabrik will be released on the Wergo label this autumn.
TUNING IN
Colin Matthews and dissolution. Masterfully orchestrated – with muted, threadbare solos hidden in the back desks of the strings and even the evocative rustling of newspaper – this echo chamber of musical pasts and presents receives its Finnish premiere in September, with John Storgårds conducting the Tampere Filharmonia. ‘Traces Remain has a sort of ferocious nostalgia that breaks through any artifice… As the piece gropes for resolution it feels like a real journey.’ The Times (Neil Fisher), 10 January 2014
Contraflow
Colin on canvas An abstract portrait of Colin Matthews (above) by the distinguished British painter Jack Smith (1928-2011) was on display at London’s National Portrait Gallery this summer. Smith’s ‘Portrait of C.M. Composer’ was shown alongside portraits of Ashley Page (the choreographer of Matthews’s Pursuit for the Royal Ballet) and Sir Harrison Birtwistle.
A Fifth String Quartet Shot through with silence, Matthews’s fascinating String Quartet No. 5 delves deeper into the shadowy world of his prize-winning Fourth Quartet from 2012. The character is subdued and introverted – only towards the end of its 11-minute span does the music open out into something more affirmative, before falling back to the hesitant questioning with which it began. Premiered at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in July, the work received its UK premiere by the Apollon Musagète Quartet as part of the BBC Proms. ‘An intense and dramatic piece…’ Classical Source (Ben Hogwood), 4 August 2015
‘Complete lines emerge slowly and collide and cascade frantically before slinking back into semi-darkness. It is a clever, evocative work, as compelling as an animated discussion, half-heard from afar, that glides briefly into full hearing range before disappearing behind a closed door.’ The Financial Times (Hannah Nepil), 4 August 2015
Traces Remain Matthews’s 21-minute symphonic palimpsest Traces Remain (2013) is a melancholy but touching tangle of spectral allusions to a host of lost or unfinished works. An imagined wisp of Schoenberg’s lost orchestration of Beethoven’s Adelaide, a tender lute song by Robert Johnson, fragments from Sibelius’s Eighth Symphony and an unused sketch for Mahler’s Tenth all rub shoulders in this intriguing and moving rumination on memory
IMAGE: ‘PORTRAIT OF C. M. COMPOSER’ © JACK SMITH
12 tightly packed minutes of gritty, rhythmically pugnacious writing, Matthews’s Contraflow for 14 players (1992) is a study in musical impetus and transformation. Composed in the same year as the large orchestral scherzo Broken Symmetry, the work was originally commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, who revive it in a tour to Mexico this October. ‘Contraflow has nothing to do with motorways’ its composer quips ‘but it might be compared to a journey in which the return half is seen in a different perspective’. Indeed, the piece’s ingenious design sees the jagged and hard-edged music of its opening countered with a slow reprise of the same material in reverse, exposing its many deep ramifications in the process. ‘A tour de force that, like all the best music, takes time by the scruff of the neck, stretching and squashing it at will.’ The Times (Stephen Pettitt), 17 June 1994
A four-minute gem Having already orchestrated music by Fauré, Debussy, Schubert and Sibelius, Matthews has now turned his attention to Ravel’s Oiseaux tristes from Miroirs. Premiered by the BBC Philharmonic and Nicholas Collon at this summer’s Proms, this attractive 4-minute miniature is a perfect partner to Ravel’s own orchestrations of Une barque sur l’océan and Alborada del gracioso. ‘Matthews found languid, hazy warmth in Ravel’s Messiaen-anticipating hommage to the blackbird.’ The Telegraph (John Allison), 8 August 2015
‘A four-minute gem… whose delicate suggestiveness made one wish for much more’ The Independent (Michael Church), 11 August 2015
‘Matthews captured the chiaroscuro with a keen sense of colour…’ The Guardian (Martin Kettle), 10 August 2015
‘A phenomenal achievement to take on perhaps the master orchestrator of all time and match him at his own game.’ The Arts Desk (David Nice), 8 August 2015
Colin Matthews Selected forthcoming performances Traces Remain 17.9.15, Tampere Hall, Tampere, Finland: Tampere Filharmonia/ John Storgårds
Contraflow 22.10.15, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; 24.10.15, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Guanajuato, Mexico: London Sinfonietta/ Garry Walker
La puerta del vino/ Les collines d’Anacapri (Debussy arr. Matthews)
22-23.10.15, Tennessee Theatre, Knoxville, TN, USA: Knoxville Symphony/Marcelo Lehninger
Les collines d’Anacapri/ La cathédrale engloutie (Debussy arr. Matthews)
11-12.3.16, Perth Concert Hall, Perth, WA, Australia: West Australian Symphony Orchestra/Kazuki Yamada
Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest / Feux d’artifice / Feuilles mortes (Debussy arr. Matthews)
26, 29, 30.4.16, Limoges, France: Theatre de Limoges/Robert Tuohy
La puerta del vino / Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir
(Debussy arr. Matthews)
Postlude - Monsieur Croche 30.4.16, Muziekgebouw Frits Philips Eindhoven, Eindhoven; 1.5.16, Chassé Theater, Breda, Netherlands: Philharmonie Zuidnederland/ Garry Walker
Colin Matthews celebrates his 70th Birthday in 2016. If you are interested in marking this occasion and would like to know more, please contact the Faber Music Promotion Department.
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George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances
George Benjamin
At First Light 10.9.15, Festival Amadeus, La Touvière, Meinier, Switzerland; 23.9.15, Auditorium du Conservatoire, Annemasse, France; 7.10.15, La Biennale di Venezia, Teatro alla Tese, Venice, Italy: Namasce Lemanic Modern/William Blank 14.4.16, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Asko|Schönberg Ensemble/ Etienne Siebens
Dream of the Song World premiere 25-26.9.15, The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Bejun Mehta/Netherlands Chamber Choir/ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ George Benjamin UK premiere 18.3.16, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: Iestyn Davies/ BBC Singers/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen
Viola, Viola 5.11.15, David Josefowitz Recital Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London, UK: Royal Academy of Music Students/Paul Silverthorne 7.3.16, National Sawdust, New York, NY, USA: Members of the New York Philharmonic 13.5.16, Kammermusiksaal, Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany: Ensemble Spectrum
Shadowlines 19.9.15, Traiettorie Festival, Teatro Farnese, Parma, Italy: Pierre-Laurent Aimard 28.11.15, Badenweiler Festival, Badenweiler, Baden-Württemberg, Germany: Gilles Vonsattel 19.3.16, Barbican Theatre, Barbican Centre, London, UK: George King
Ringed by the Flat Horizon 27.2.16, Música Viva Festival, Prinzregententheater, Munich, Bavaria, Germany; 2.3.16, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany: SWR Orchestra/ George Benjamin 26.6.16, Grosse Saal, Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany: Hamburger Symphoniker/Jeffrey Tate
Fantasia 7/ Flight/ Viola, Viola/ Canon & Fugue (from The Art of Fugue) 10.3.16, Dortmund, NordrheinWestfalen, Germany; 19.3.16, Barbican Theatre, Barbican Centre London, UK: Musicians from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra
A phenomenal reception in New York George Benjamin was the toast of New York after an astonishing success at this year’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Benjamin’s residency centred around the American stage premiere of Written on Skin, presented by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Alan Gilbert in Katie Mitchell’s original Aix production. The Festival also featured Benjamin conducting the International Contemporary Music Ensemble in his 40-minute chamber opera Into the Little Hill (2006), and a recital by Pierre-Laurent Aimard showcasing Benjamin’s austerely seductive Shadowlines (2001). ‘It instantly became the Cultural Event of the New York summer season… It speaks the language of our time, offering a dramatic story in a way that a sophisticated audience can enjoy. Benjamin writes music that broods and seethes with a sort of dramatic modernism… The intelligent economy of Crimp’s libretto also plays a part: each word is there for a reason, and the language is often beautiful but seldom flowery. Benjamin’s music respects and supports the language, finding ways to bring out both its sound and its meaning.’ The Washington Post (Anne Midgette), 12 August 2015
‘Startlingly erotic and beautiful’ ‘When [Hannigan’s] impassioned soprano combined with Mead’s stunningly pure, otherworldly countertenor, their connection was distilled into a startlingly erotic and beautiful moment of recognition. The whole opera is built of such moments, pearls on a 100-minute string of extraordinary theatrical tension. Benjamin’s music is both kaleidoscopic and laser-focused.’ The Wall Street Journal (Heidi Waleson), 12 August 2015
‘Benjamin’s music hooks you from the first sounds in the orchestra: a tangle of brassy lines that coalesce into a kind of grim fanfare and build to gnashing chords… Crimp has suggested, why not use artifice as a dramatic element? With Benjamin’s stunning music to support the narrative lines, this approach works hypnotically… The story is a love triangle… but Benjamin and Crimp invest that time-worn narrative with seething psychological newness and overwhelming sensual allure… Benjamin’s score represents a triumph for modernist musical languages. At a time when so many new operas, pander to audiences with accessible, tepid contemporary styles, Benjamin challenges listeners with dense harmonies, skittish lines and grating eruptions. Yet, in every measure, you sense a composer who has sweated over the details to make each element expressive and true. Long, dreamy stretches, even while conveying tension, come across as rapturously beautiful.’ The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 12 August 2015
‘Each element expressive and true.’ ‘Stupendously original and thrillingly effective… Benjamin has produced an indisputable largescale repertory masterwork that has earned him a place in history… Modernism can be accessible — in the hands of an inspired composer. The stylistic originality made the tonal-or-atonal argument irrelevant. It wasn’t a mere matter of sonic eclecticism, the composer making sure there were enough ugly moments to balance out the pretty ones. Rather, waves of consonance and dissonance, each teeming with energy, flowed effortlessly into one another with a seamless purity, even as the different departments of Benjamin’s orchestra seemed to be performing in two or more tempi at once…’ The New Yorker (Russell Platt), 18 August 2015
‘Into the Little Hill is eerily alluring… Benjamin’s rumbling, spectral and mysterious music, scored for an unusual ensemble including basset horns, worked its magic in Sunday’s taut, intense concert performance. That Benjamin’s work shared a program with two giants of 20th-century music seemed entirely fitting.’ The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 17 August 2015
‘Blending the rigor of the canon form with the impressionistic, improvisatory personality of the prelude, the six short works [that make up Shadowlines for piano] have Benjamin’s customary elegance, his paradoxical precise ambiguity, his gift for swiftly distilling mood. Complex, Shadowlines never feels anything but clear.’ The New York Times (Zachary Woolfe), 18 August 2015
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PHOTO: GEORGE BENJAMIN © MAURICE FOXALL
TUNING IN
Peter Sculthorpe Dream of the Song Expectation continues to grow for the world premiere of Benjamin’s 18-minute work for countertenor, female voices and orchestra which will be unveiled at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in September. Commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw, BBC and Boston Symphony Orchestras as well as the Festival d’Automne, Dream of the Song will be premiered by the countertenor Bejun Mehta (the creator of the role of Angel 1/Boy in Written on Skin), the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the composer’s baton. The work’s UK premiere will be given on 18 March 2016 with Iestyn Davies, the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Knussen as part of ‘Benjamin at the Barbican’, a weekend devoted to the composer at London’s Barbican Centre.
Aldeburgh residency As Artist-in-Residence at the 2015 Aldeburgh Festival, Benjamin appeared as conductor, pianist and curator in what was the largest UK retrospective of his work since the Southbank Centre’s ‘Jubilation’ festival in 2012. For the Guardian’s Andrew Clements the explosion of light at the heart of Turner’s Norham Castle, Sunrise which inspired At First Light (1982) ‘has its counterpart in the often dazzling soundworld… in which blistering force is balanced by the most delicate poise.’ The New York Times’s David Allen, reviewing Benjamin’s concert conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, was struck by the ‘jewelled precision’ of Benjamin’s compositions, particularly A Mind of Winter (1981), which carved ‘an immaculate icescape, elaborating a simple triad with glints of harmonics and crisp, delicate rhythms’. Ivan Hewett, writing in The Telegraph, remarked that this ‘haunted, brilliant, icy piece has lost none of its magic’.
‘Contemporary opera as the model for success’ Aside from New York, Written on Skin continues to garner acclaim across Europe. Last May, it received its Swiss premiere (and fourth production) at the Theater St.Gallen and in March the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will tour a concert performance to Germany, Spain and the UK. ‘[A] very successful relationship between text and music… one feels that the two planes interlock with one another rather than just exist side by side… refined and full of timbral sophistication. A very subtle music has come into being…’ Südkurier (Elisabeth Schwind), 5 May 2015
‘Contemporary opera as a model of success: everything you need for a sensual and intelligent piece. The music is kept aloft for ninety minutes; refined instrumentation, tinged with the colours of early music… A beautiful sound web that can shine through several layers of time…’ St. Galler Tagblatt (Bettina Kugler), 4 May 2015
George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances (cont.) Into the Little Hill 15-17.1.16, Schauspiel Essen, Essen, Germany: Marieke Steenhoek/ Helena Rasker/ Essener Philharmoniker/dir. Kay Link/cond. Manuel Nawri 11.3.16, Dortmund, Germany: Anu Komsi/Hilary Summers/Mahler Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin
Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm / Relativity Rag / Shadowlines / Piano Figures
Rites of Passage Rites of Passage, Peter Sculthorpe’s genre-defying 105-minute work for soloists, chorus, orchestra and dancers remains one of the cornerstones of his oeuvre. In many ways a summation of his preoccupations to date, it also initiated a vibrant new phase of creativity. After the work’s long-awaited premiere at the Sydney Opera House in 1974 (its evolution goes back as early as 1965) The Bulletin’s Brian Hoad recognised in it ‘a depth and density of thought and experience that suggest a lasting masterpiece.’ Despite its great originality and importance, Rites of Passage has yet to be heard outside Australia. The opera is divided, by alternation, into contemplative ‘Chorales’ performed by chorus and an orchestra of low tubas, cellos and double basses and the ‘Rites’ which are enacted by dancers, singers and instrumentalists. The Rites incorporate the songs of the Australian Aranda People, whilst a humanist text by Boethius provides a basis for the hymn-like Chorales. Sculthorpe described the ‘Death’ Rite as the most terrifying climax in his whole output. The musical basis for this extraordinary moment was a combination of the ritualistic drum patterns developed in earlier pieces like Sun Music II (1969) and the improvised sounds created inside an amplified piano first explored in Landscape (1971). The homophonic style of the Chorales was something of a stylistic breakthrough for Sculthorpe. The second, where male voices and strings prolong a single pentatonic chord inspired by Javanese Gamelan, is a moment of strikingly exquisite beauty. Rites of Passage is more of a universal statement than works like the intensely personal Irkanda IV (1961) and the Sixth String Quartet (1965). It attempts to present an all-encompassing religious view of man and nature. ‘My theme’ said Sculthorpe ‘as in almost all my music, is man’s aloneness, the solitary figure in the landscape. I’m Australian; it’s as simple as that.’
16.3.16, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain/Tamara Stefanovich
Written on Skin 12.3.16, Konzerthaus, Dortmund; 13.3.16, Cologne Philharmonie, Cologne, Germany; 16.3.16, Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona; 17.3.16, Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain; 19.3.16, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London: Christopher Purves/Barbara Hannigan/Tim Mead/Robert Murray/ Victoria Simmonds/Mahler Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin
Peter Sculthorpe Selected forthcoming performances Sun Music III 4-5.9.15, Music Auditorium, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth, WA, Australia: Faith Court Orchestra/Christopher Dragon
Small Town 9.9.15, Scotch College, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Scotch College/ John Ferguson
The Stars Turn 20.9.15, Crypt on the Green, St James Clerkenwell, London, UK: Janus Ensemble/Davide Levi
Sun Music II 8-10.10.15, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Sydney Symphony Orchestra/David Robertson
Kakadu 18.10.15, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, QLD, Australia: University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra/Warwick Potter
Shining Island 4.12.15, St Stephen’s Church, Newtown, NSW, Australia: Bourbaki Ensemble/David Angell
‘It puts back into one work all the elements of great theatre over the past 25 centuries. Ritual, music, chant, dance, speech and song are all purposefully integrated into the work’s conception and structure… so unlike any other opera we have seen.’ The National Times (Kevon Kemp), October 1974
PHOTO: THE FIRST PRODUCTION OF RITES OF PASSAGE
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Benjamin Britten Selected forthcoming performances
Benjamin Britten Apollonian A Major
Phaedra
It’s very bright and brilliant music – rather inspired by such sunshine as I’ve never seen before. But I’m pleased with it – may call it ‘The Young Apollo’, if that doesn’t sound too lush!
16.9.15, Kammermusikfestival Nuernberg, Nürnberg, Bavaria, Germany: Nürnberg Festival Ensemble/Peter Selwyn 6-12.5.16, Chinese Tour: Allison Cook/Britten Sinfonia
So wrote Britten in 1939 on the subject of his work for piano, string quartet and string orchestra. A valuable addition to an area of Britten’s oeuvre otherwise served only by the Piano Concerto (1938) and Diversions for piano left hand and orchestra (1940), since its belated publication in 1982 Young Apollo has been championed internationally. The work’s latest advocate is Gustavo Dudamel, who will conduct it three times this November with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
15.5.16, Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, Essex, UK: Alice Coote/ Britten Sinfonia
Plymouth Town 10.10.15, St Bartholomew’s Church, Orford, Suffolk, UK; 11.10.15, St Mary’s Church, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Prometheus Orchestra/ Edmond Fivet
Curlew River 3-8.11.15, Sanctuary at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, San Antonio, TX, USA: University of the Incarnate Word
Owen Wingrave (Chamber Reduction by D Matthews) 6.11.15-13.1.16, Stadttheater, Solothurn, Switzerland: Sinfonie Orchester Biel/dir. Reto Nickler/cond. Harald Siegel
Young Apollo 15-17.10.15, Die Glocke, Bremen, Germany: Igor Levit/Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen/ Sir Roger Norrington 27-9.11.15, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/ Gustavo Dudamel
Phantasy in F Minor 6.12.15, Emmerich-Smola-Saal, SWR Studio Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany: Players from the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie
Men of Goodwill 18.12.15, Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal: Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música/ Andrew Gourlay
Owen Wingrave 16.1-14.4.16, Theater Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Niedersachsen, Germany: Stadtische Buhnen Osnabrück/dir. Floris Visser/cond. Daniel Inbal
Death In Venice 20-24.1.16, Opéra de Nice, Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France: Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice/Choeur de l’Opéra de Nice/ dir. Hermann Schneider/cond. Roland Böer 11-22.6.16, Theater Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany: Theater Bielefeld/dir. Nadja Loschky/cond. Pawel Poplawski
Sacred and Profane 25.3.16, Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh, Suffolk, UK: Marian Consort
Ambiguous Venice Based on Thomas Mann’s novella to a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, Benjamin Britten’s bleak if ultimately transformative operatic swansong, Death in Venice (1973) continues to fascinate and perturb. This summer a new critically acclaimed production of the opera by Paul Curran opened at Garsington Opera. Conducted by Steuart Bedford, who presided over the work’s premiere over 40 years ago (when Britten was too ill to do so himself ), the opera – with its elegant 1911 setting of parasols, bustles and sailor suits – was given an edge with a small group of highly acrobatic and muscular dancers choreographed by Andreas Heise. ‘I have watched Death in Venice grow from an esoteric work whose performances were relatively rare, into an opera now recognised as the masterpiece that it is,’ commented Bedford. ‘So much so that any opera company worth its salt can boast a production in its repertory.’ ‘Britten uses a large orchestra but with particularity and a distinctive palette that gives prominence to an exotic range of tuned percussion: glamorous, alluring, dark. In the composer’s sound-world, that spells danger. And in Bedford’s hands it had the makings of a bomb about to detonate, the tension genuinely explosive.’ The New York Times (Michael White), 23 June 2015
‘Britten’s last opera is also his oddest. Its most remarkable achievement is presenting Aschenbach both as hero and silent narrator: we only see the world through his eyes. It’s a risky strategy… It’s remarkable, then, how powerfully direct an opera it can be, as it proves in this new production by Garsington Opera…’ The Guardian (Guy Dammann), 22 June 2015
‘The richness of the score is brought out in all its glory – most notably the gamelan-influenced accompaniments to the beach games’ The Independent (Michael Church), 23 June 2015
Whilst this youthful work has a few reflective moments, the main impression is of exuberance and vitality. As in the contemporaneous song cycle Les Illuminations, much of the work’s thematic material is based around scales and arpeggios. Whilst a compositional lifetime separates Young Apollo and Death in Venice, they both share a preoccupation with A Major, a key found throughout Britten’s output in contexts that deal with innocence or Apollonian purity.
Nicholas Maw ‘Before the Ending of Daylight...’ Firmly rooted in the tradition of large-scale English choral works, Hymnus was Maw’s first large-scale work for choir and orchestra. Written in 1996, the 30-minute work is made up of two settings of early-Christian texts, St Ambrose’s Hymn at Dawn and the anonymous sixthcentury Evening Hymn (‘Te lucis ante terminum’). The general feeling of the work is one of spacious monumentality. The first movement handbells pick out plangent Stravinskian harmonies, and a number of coruscating climaxes of brass and percussion alternate with gentler, more prayerful passages, including a set of expansive and limpid unison responses. The second movement’s crepuscular mood is imbued with a mystical quality reminiscent of Holst. Espoused by Stephen Layton and Nicholas Cleobury, and described as ‘a modern triumph’ by The Times, this impressive work has yet to be heard outside the UK. ‘Full of luminous harmonies, rich choral textures and fine, eminently singable lines. The music is compelling, accessible and distinctive.’ Gramophone (Marc Rochester), January 2000
‘…close canonic imitation and so forth are expertly deployed. There are flashes of bright colour from the orchestra… A well-made piece, and palatable for any audience’ The Financial Times (David Murray), June 1996
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PHOTO: CELESTIN BOUTIN (TADZIO), PAUL NILON (ASCHENBACH) IN GARSINGTON OPERA’S DEATH IN VENICE © CLIVE BARDA
TUNING IN
Julian Anderson ‘Thebans was enthusiastically received in London. Now the co-production in Bonn receives great applause too… The third part leads into almost surreal worlds, offering truly magical sound theatre. The Forest of Colonus allows Anderson to explore internal and external worlds simultaneously. Are we hearing hoarse bird cries, groaning trees or tortured souls? In the Third Act Anderson proves himself to be a sound researcher and orchestrator without equal in contemporary music… Anderson’s opera could be among the few new works that make it into the repertoire. Not just because of its convincing artistic force but also because it is a piece one can afford to do without extravagance… If opera houses are on the lookout for exciting new pieces, they should look no further than Thebans.’
Triumphant German premiere of Thebans After a critically acclaimed world premiere by English National Opera in the summer of 2014, Julian Anderson’s first opera Thebans made a powerful impression on German audiences and critics this May when it opened at the Stadttheater Bonn. Johannes Pell conducted a cast that included Peter Hoare (who created the role of Creon for ENO) in Pierre Audi’s original production. ‘The Second Act is a sensation. Antigone concentrated into 25 minutes, with breathtaking sound fantasy making a stringently designed psychoportrait of an overburdened power politician… An iridescent, highly theatrical score. It would be wonderful if this unusual piece — well and imaginatively made — found its way into the repertoire of opera houses.’ Die deutsche Bühne (Andreas Falentin), 3 May 2015
‘A real sound alchemist’ ‘Enthusiastically acclaimed by the audience… Anderson, one of today’s leading English composers, maintains an enormous musical vocabulary… He is — as is shown increasingly through the course of the evening — a real sound alchemist… The opera’s appeal comes mainly through its psychological precision; the music does not solely represent the characters, but also traces the process by which Oedipus recognizes his guilt. Anderson makes use of all kinds of virtuoso orchestral colours, shoots woodwind sounds and chords as arrows, and allows chamber music dialogues within the orchestra pit, as well as dramatic escalations — particularly effective in the threatening march rhythms of Antigone’s Act.’ General-Anzeiger Bonn (Bernhard Hartmann), 5 May 2015
Deutschlandradio (Ulrike Gondorf), 3 May 2015
Julian Anderson Selected forthcoming performances Eden Dutch premiere 25-26.9.15, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/George Benjamin German premiere 6.3.16, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany: Philharmonischen Staatsorchester Mainz/Hermann Bäumer
Alhambra Fantasy 2.10.15, Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, USA: Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble/ Timothy Weiss
String Quartet No. 2 ‘300 Weihnachtslieder’ Italian premiere
‘Anderson’s opera could be among the few new works to make it into the repertoire’ Eden Inspired by the work of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (specifically his sculpture ‘The Kiss’), Anderson’s Eden (2005) will receive several performances in Europe this autumn. In September the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will perform the 7-minute work twice under George Benjamin, whilst the Philharmonischen Staatsorchester Mainz gives the German premiere in March. The work uses two tunings: standard equal temperament and another that is close to the natural overtone series. Energetic hocketing textures blossom out of a rapt opening, where viola and cello evoke the sounds of viols.
Anderson in Tanglewood and New York
24.10.15, Traiettorie Festival, Casa della Musica, Parma, Italy: Arditti Quartet
Book of Hours / Scherzo (with trains) 12.11.15, Music of Today, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Philharmonia Orchestra/ Antony Hermus
The Comedy of Change 15.11.15, CBSO Centre, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Oliver Knussen
Prayer 22.01.16, Grosser Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks, Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Lawrence Power
Shir Hashirim 27.1.16 BBC Hoddinott Hall, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Wales, UK: Elizabeth Atherton/BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Pascal Rophé
This summer has seen a number of high-profile US performances of Anderson’s chamber works. His Second String Quartet ‘300 Weinachtslieder’ (2014) was performed at Tanglewood, whilst Prayer (2009) proved to be a highlight of a Locrian Ensemble concert in New York. In July, Joel Sachs and players from the Juillard School gave the New York premiere of Poetry Nearing Silence (1997) as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s Summergarden series. ‘Anderson’s transfiguring Prayer for solo viola, made the strongest impression. Barely 10 minutes long, Prayer embraces every aspect of faith on its steady rise through the registers — complaint, tirade, plea and, finally, acceptance.’ The New York Times (David Allen), 8 June 2015
‘Anderson’s String Quartet No. 2, microtonally refracting the German carols of its title into shimmering avant-garde haloes.’ The Boston Globe (Matthew Guerrieri), 29 July 2015
PHOTO: JULIAN ANDERSON © MAURICE FOXALL
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Francisco Coll Selected forthcoming performances
Francisco Coll Liquid Symmetries in London
Wesendonck Lieder (Wagner arr. Coll)
Following on from its US premiere at the Aspen Festival in July, Coll’s agile and brittle Liquid Symmetries for 15 players (2013) receives its UK Premiere in June 2016 at St John’s Smith Square. Martyn Brabbins conducts the London Sinfonietta.
World premiere 24.10.15, The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Petra Lang/Ensemble intercontemporain/ Matthias Pintscher
Vestiges World premiere 21.11.15, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield, UK: Richard Uttley
Hidd’n Blue 22-23.2.16, Philharmonie, Gasteig, Munich, Germany: Munich Philharmonic Orchestra/ Gustavo Gimeno
Cuando el niño era niño... UK premiere 22.4.16, PLG Young Artists Spring Series, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: Lipatti Piano Quartet
Café Kafka Spanish premiere 22-31.5.16, Teatre Martín i Soler, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, Spain: Cantantes del Centre Plácido Domingo/Jordi Bernàcer
Liquid Symmetries UK premiere 1.6.16, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: London Sinfonietta/ Martyn Brabbins
Wagner for Ensemble intercontemporain Francisco Coll’s orchestration of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra will be premiered at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam in October by Ensemble intercontemporain under Matthias Pintscher together with one of the world’s leading Wagner interpreters, Petra Lang. It will be fascinating to hear how Coll (who, incidentally, lives not far from Wagner’s Tribschen villa in Lucerne) refracts these classics of German romanticism through his own compositional voice. Dark-hued alto flute, bass clarinet and contrabassoon lend depth to the ensemble whilst, particularly in the last song ‘Träume’, a ghostly remnant of the original piano accompaniment resurfaces.
Whilst the instrumental line up of this 13-minute work is modelled after the Chamber Symphony of his close mentor Thomas Adès, the soundworld created is far spikier and more astringent. A number of virtuoso solo lines wind their way through the musical fabric – notably a jittery and gyrating muted trumpet solo and recurring, murmured viola statements. Surrealistic juxtapositions abound, no more so than in the work’s final movement, with its strange, cavernously empty unison passages and the lone, slightly droll, cowbell – hitherto unheard – that sets up a typically enigmatic conclusion.
Café Kafka Faber Music is pleased to announce the publication of the vocal score to Coll’s dazzling chamber opera Café Kafka, in time for the work’s Spanish premiere in May 2016. Scored for five singers and ten instrumentalists, the 45-minute work will run for four performances at the Palau de Les Arts, Valencia. Taking its cue from Meredith Oakes’s punchy, cleverly-assembled libretto (based on fragments from Kafka) this explosive gem brings out every nuance of the bizarre scenario’s comedy, irony and profundity. A new evening-length chamber opera after the Spanish Golden Age playwright Lope de Vega is currently in development.
Music for piano and piano quartet In November pianist Richard Uttley will give the belated world premiere of Coll’s Vestiges for solo piano at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Written in 2012 and inspired by both Bach and Nancarrow, the 9-minute work abounds with intricately wrought canons throughout its three movements. Another early chamber work, the piano quartet Cuando el niño era niño... (‘When a child was a child...’) from 2008 receives its UK premiere in April 2016 as part of the Park Lane Young Artists Series. Inspired by the poem ‘Lied vom Kindsein’ (‘Song of Childhood’) by the German writer Peter Handke, the piece could be placed aesthetically somewhere between neo-expressionism and neo-surrealism. The three-movement work continuously combines the transcendental and the grotesque, as well as mixing avant-garde techniques with more traditional forms and methods such as fugal devices and taleas. Distortion plays an important role throughout, evoking, in Coll’s words, ‘a certain ‘‘feeling of time.’’ ’. Chamber ensembles will also be interested to hear of a new piano quintet version of Coll’s Four Iberian Miniatures, which premieres at Granada’s Fundación Federico García Lorca, in October. 16
PHOTO: FRANCISCO COLL © RETO CONCONI
The vocal score of Café Kafka, priced at £14.99, is available from the Faber Music Store (ISBN 0-571-53931-9)
TUNING IN
Martin Suckling
Tansy Davies
On White — Psalm
Psalm
A response to the pottery and writing of Edmund de Waal, Martin Suckling’s Psalm, for harp and three spatialised ensembles (13 players in all), will be unveiled in November by the Aurora Orchestra. The venue for the premiere is London’s Royal Academy of Arts, where de Waal curates ‘On White’, an exhibition of his favourite white objects and paintings, from death masks and medieval ivories to contemporary photographs and sculpture. The 12-minute work also features as part of an evening of words and music related to the German poet Paul Celan at Kings Place. In Psalm, the harp acts as the lynchpin – generating (almost) all of the material, which is then refracted through the ensembles. It’s a similar situation to that which Suckling is exploring in his piano concerto And This Was How It Started for Tom Poster and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (to be premiered in 2017) though, its composer observes, ‘the energies and dynamics of the two pieces are entirely different’.
SCO association continues Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none’. Taking its title from the final couplet of Shakespeare’s Sonnet VIII, Suckling’s Six Speechless Songs (2013) are a double celebration: written for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to mark their 40th anniversary, their composition also coincided with the birth of Suckling’s daughter. As part of Suckling’s ongoing role as Associate Composer with the SCO, the pieces will be revived in April 2016 with Oliver Knussen conducting. Four of the ‘songs’ are energetic and lively in character: an exultant fanfare unison, a collection of dance fragments, a peal of bells, and an epigrammatic melody. Two are more reflective: the central movement re-imagines a famous piobaireachd urlar, while the last is a hypnotic berceuse. Suckling often uses microtonality in his music, but, he says, ‘one of the things that surprised me in writing this piece was that as the drafts progressed, the microtones disappeared. So, even though there are spectra and resonances written into the music, it’s all done with standard 12-note equal temperament.’ ‘Buoyant and shimmering. Among many striking moments were squalling strings, daringly sparse stretches and a yearning trumpet call that glowed like a beacon through the haar.’ The Guardian (Kate Molleson), 7 February 2014
‘Intriguing, celebratory… a musical millefeuille of gossamer slips and question-mark slivers. …in and out of focus, the layers occasionally crushed together in distinctive disarray. Elsewhere, a skirl and drone remnant of reimagined bagpipes, somewhat bleak, and a fourth song that, in true party fashion, amiably staggered into a gentle reel before dozing off. In between, defiant skeins, a few breaths, and it was gone.’ The Times (Sarah Urwin Jones), 10 February 2014
PHOTO:TANSY DAVIES © RIKARD ÖSTERLUND
Martin Suckling Selected forthcoming performances World premiere 9.11.15, Royal Academy of Arts; 12.11.15, Kings Place, London, UK: Aurora Orchestra
Nocturne 23.2.16, Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh; 26.2.16, Mareel, Lerwick; 27.2.16, Music Hall, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK: Scottish Ensemble
Six Speechless Songs
A celebration of spring Re-greening, Tansy Davies’s joyous new work for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, was premiered at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh in August with further performances in Birmingham, the BBC Proms, and the Berlin Konzerthaus. The energetic 8-minute work can be performed with or without a conductor, however the essence of the commission was the aim of giving all 164 players in the NYO a chance to take ownership of the music. Bursts of sound (here cued by the players) announce new permutations of colour and texture – endless refrains, woven out of intricate, inter-connecting segments, which combine to form what Davies describes as ‘a kind of musical forest’. The work is assembled from found material; two English melodies (Sumer is Icumen In and Tallis’s Canon) are sung by the instrumentalists, and drift through the work as if on a gentle breeze. ‘Woodwinds kept whooshing within tendril textures suggesting time-lapse photography of a burgeoning forest… a gorgeous celebration of youth and rebirth.’ The Times (Geoff Brown), 10 August 2015
‘Gem-like in the beauty of its sound world… Sleek, shimmering micro-polyphony… It’s enchanting.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 7 August 2015
Inspired by Anselm Kiefer The raw intensity of a painting by Anselm Kiefer provided the starting point, and the title, for Davies’s Falling Angel for ensemble (2006). The abrasive surfaces and thick, urgent layers of impasto which typify the German artist’s work are paralleled here with dense textures; rough fanfares, a buzzing film of fluttertonguing horns and alto flute, and scraping, skirling dances from shrill winds. The music’s surface is spiky and perforated, qualities accentuated by the strings being strummed by plectrums and extensive percussion. ‘Kiefer’s painting is simultaneously very bright and very dark’, comments Davies, ‘and it was this that I hoped to capture in sound’. First performed by BCMG and Thomas Adès (who later toured it to Paris’s Festival Présences), this 17-minute work will receive its London premiere by the London Sinfonietta in June at St John’s Smith Square.
22.4.16, City Halls, Glasgow; 23.4.16, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: Scottish Chamber Orchestra/ Oliver Knussen
Tansy Davies Selected forthcoming performances neon 29.10.15, Vilnius Congress Concert Hall, Vilnius, Lithuania; 30.10.15, Dzintaru koncertzale, Riga, Latvia: London Sinfonietta/Andrew Gourlay
kingpin 5.2.16, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, USA: Azusa Pacific University Symphony Orchestra/ Christopher Russell
Falling Angel London premiere 1.6.16, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: London Sinfonietta/ Martyn Brabbins
Nature Mexican premiere 17.10.15, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Templo de la Valenciana, Guanajuato. Mexico: Huw Watkins/ Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Christian Karlsen German premiere 28.1.16, Reaktorhalle, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, Munich, Germany: Erika Mikami/ensemble oktopus/Konstantia Gourzi
Dark Ground 6.2.16, CBSO Centre, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (Julian Warburton)
loure / grind show (unplugged) 20.2.16, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/ Richard Baker
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Thomas Adès Selected forthcoming performances
Thomas Adès
Dances from Powder Her Face 1-3.11.15, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria: Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich/Hugh Wolff 27.11.15, Concertgebouw, Bruges; 28.11.15, deSingel, Antwerp, Belgium: de Filharmonie/ Martyn Brabbins
Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face for two pianos World premiere 8.9.15, Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 30.10.15, San Francisco, CA, USA: Gloria Cheng/Thomas Adès
...but all shall be well / Tevot 8.9.15, MITO SettembreMusica, Auditorium Rai Arturo Toscanini, Italy: Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai/Gergely Madaras
Concerto Conciso / Living Toys / Chamber Symphony 10.9.15, MITO SettembreMusica, Piccolo Regio Puccini, Turin; 12.9.15, Teatro Menotti, Milan, Italy: mdi ensemble/Yoichi Sugiyama
In Seven Days 11.9.15, MITO SettembreMusica, Conservatorio di Musica ‘G. Verdi’ di Milano, Milan, Italy: Nicolas Hodges/ Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana/ Timothy Redmond
Powder Her Face 22.9.-3.10.15, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium: La Monnaie/De Munt/dir. Mariusz Trelinski/cond. Alejo Pérez 14.1-23.4.16, Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen, Germany: Meininger Hofkapelle/dir. Lars Wernecke/cond. Philippe Bach 29.1-8.5.16, Theatre Reduta, Brno, Czech Republic: National Theatre Brno/dir. Tomáš Studený/cond. Marko Ivanovic
Mazurkas 6.10.15, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen, Denmark: Thomas Adès
Asyla / America / Totentanz 8.10.15, Koncerthuset DR Byen, Copenhagen, Denmark: Christianne Stotijn/Mark Stone/Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès
The Tempest 12-18.10.15, Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna, Austria: Vienna State Opera/ dir. Robert Lepage/cond. Graeme Jenkins
Chamber Symphony 6-7.11.15, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA: New York Philharmonic/André de Ridder
Taking Vienna by storm Stage performances in London, Strasbourg, Copenhagen, Santa Fe, Frankfurt, Lübeck, Québec City and New York have cemented The Tempest’s place in the top rank of contemporary opera. In June the celebrated Robert Lepage production opened at the Vienna Staatsoper to a rapturous reception. ‘A harmonious gesamtkunstwerk… Unanimous praise greeted The Tempest… Adès, with great craftsmanly power, writes music that, despite all the complexities for the listener is immediately sensual, emotionally responsive and always attentive to the comprehension of the text. Without lapsing into a simple eclecticism, Adès masterfully makes use of the entirety of music history, from whose diverse elements he creates an iridescent polystylistic amalgamation… he orchestrates brilliantly.’
Die Presse (Wilhelm Sinkovicz), 16 June 2015
Lieux Retrouvés — a new orchestration From the swirling waves of its opening movement ‘Les eaux’, the yodelling mountaineers of ‘La montagne’, the pastoral elegance of ‘Les Champs’ with its hushed, stratospheric solo cello lines, and ‘La ville’ the romping ‘cancan macabre’ which bring it to a close, Adès’s Lieux Retrouvés traverses an astonishing range of emotional worlds. In June Steven Isserlis, the cellist for whom the work was written, gave ten performances of the work across Australia with Connie Shih as part of a Musica Viva tour. ‘What can one say about this extraordinary work? … [Adès is] demanding things of the cello that no one has demanded before.’ Steven Isserlis
Ernst Naredi-Rainer (Kleiner Zeitung), 16 June 2015
‘Adès masterfully makes use of the entirety of music history’’ ‘A great success with the public… In general Adès gladly brings a tonal warmth to keep his version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest accessible. However, there is certainly something of a postmodern creative drive. At the beginning beguile refined orchestral storm; and it mutates the culinary world in harmony dissonant gloom. Since a great craft is present, the lyrical passages, often surrounded by icy orchestral poetry, display an intimate power.’ Der Standard (Ljubiša Tošic), 15 June 2015
‘A ‘‘Jubelsturm’’ for The Tempest… There was a good fifteen minutes of applause… A musical evening of theatre in the best sense.’ Tiroler Tageszeitung, 14 June 2015
13.3.16, LSO St Luke’s, London, UK: London Symphony Orchestra/ François-Xavier Roth
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‘Stormy enthusiasm for an innovative opera… The time when the new was rejected is over… For this refined musical craftsman the entire history of music seems to be open, as a kind of historical palette whose colours can be remixed at will… Adès is capable – with just a few strokes – to characterize a situation and evoke moods, but also has the ability to escalate the drama… The work also contains very delicate, carefully drawn passages… the fragile souls of Miranda and Ferdinand are given a love duet of unthinkable melodiousness… There are sparse allusions to the world of the Baroque… and always in close association with Shakespeare’s story, so the question of meaning never arises… The jubilation is justified.’
PHOTO: THOMAS ADÈS © BRIAN VOCE
Adès is now creating a version of the work for cello and chamber orchestra which he will premiere with Isserlis and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in March. The work will receive its UK premiere the following summer with the Britten Sinfonia.
Paraphrase for two pianos The Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face, Adès’s brilliant and quick-witted tour de force in the manner of Liszt or Busoni, has been given a new lease of life in a version for two pianos, commissioned by Piano Spheres and premiered by Adès and Gloria Cheng in Los Angeles in September. The original 15-minute reworking of music from four scenes of Adès’s scandalous – and hugely successful – first opera requires extreme virtuosity, at the very edges of what is possible. This new version for two pianists, although (slightly) more comfortable to play, has enabled Adès to include many more details from the opera.
TUNING IN
Carl Vine
Thomas Adès Selected forthcoming performances (cont.)
Totentanz in New York and Germany Adès made his conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic in March giving the US premiere of his 35-minute Totentanz for baritone and mezzo-soprano soloists and large orchestra. Hungarian and German premieres followed. Adès will conduct the work again in Copenhagen at the award ceremony for the prestigious Sonning Prize in October, and with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in April 2016. ‘Wilder, stranger, and bolder than the intricate scores with which Adès first made his name. The opening bars give us winds shrieking in their upper registers, hectoring brass, whistles and whipcracks from the percussion section, and a splattered G-major chord that lands like a dissonance. It is a sound at once grand and gaudy, majestic and mordant… The final section, ‘Death and the Child’, enters the realm of Mahler’s ‘Wunderhorn’ songs, a shivery, shadowy D major. But the orchestra delves into regions darker and grimier than Mahler’s — the sub-crypt of a ruined world.’ The New Yorker (Alex Ross), 16 March 2015
‘Adès’s most astounding orchestral compostion yet’ ‘Adès’s most astounding orchestral composition yet… it’s clear that with Totentanz this composer takes a dizzying leap beyond his finest earlier scores… Like many of his pieces, this one extends the mischievous logic of Berlioz and has a flashy soundworld that bridges neo-Romanticism and modernism.’ The New York Times (David Allen), 14 March 2015
Movements in music After the phenomenal success of the all-Adès evening last year at Sadler’s Wells, the production will be revived in November at New York’s Lincoln Center as part of the White Light Festival. ‘Concentric Paths – Movements in Music’ showcases the work of Wayne McGregor (Violin Concerto), Karole Armitage (Life Story) and Alexander Whitley (Piano Quintet), before culminating in Crystal Pite’s audacious and groundbreaking Polaris. Adès conducts the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with violinist Thomas Gould, and also performs on stage alongside the Calder Quartet and Anna Dennis.
Variations for Blanca Adès has composed a new five-minute work for solo piano. The set of five variations upon a traditional Sephardic song ‘Lavaba la blanca niña’ was commissioned by the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition, and was premiered there in August. Who is Blanca? All will be revealed next summer…
PHOTO: CARL VINE © KEITH SAUNDERS
Three Studies from Couperin 31.10, 2.11.15, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest/ Joshua Weilerstein
Polaris / Violin Concerto / Life Story / Piano Quintet 20-22.11.15, Lincoln Center, New York City, NY, USA: Thomas Gould/ Calder Quartet/Orchestra of St Luke’s/Anna Dennis/Thomas Adès
America 4.12.15, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: Susan Bickley/BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Juanjo Mena
‘A work of devastating intensity’
Tevot / Polaris / Brahms
After the success of The Tree of Man, his masterful setting of Patrick White, Vine has returned to the medium of soprano and strings in his latest commission from the ACO; Our Sons premiered by soprano Taryn Fiebig as part of the orchestra’s ‘Reflections On Gallipoli’ national concert tour in March. The work sets a moving tribute to fallen Anzac soldiers by Atatürk, inscribed on the memorial stone at Anzac Cove.
9.3.16, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: London Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès
‘It ends with the words: ‘‘After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well’’ ’, comments Vine. ‘The voice in my setting of this text embodies the spirit of bereaved Anzac mothers, trying to make sense of their atrocious loss, seeking solace in the thoughtful words of one of those responsible for the killing… When the war is over there is little left but loss.’ ‘Vine transforms this conciliatory inscription, imbuing it with devastated anguish and furious despair… He splits up the text, repeating certain phrases to wring every ounce of desolate meaning from their words… The effect was haunting and deeply, desperately moving.’ Limelight (Maxim Boon), 17 March 2015
‘Fiebig sang with gripping, indeed devastating intensity. After an elegiac start, the piece gives way to impassioned drama underscored by anger, a gentle section to the mothers of the fallen and an austere funereal close.’ The Sydney Morning Herald (Peter McCallum), 17 March 2015
‘While respecting its message of reconciliation, Vine’s setting of Atatürk’s words conveyed the anguish of loss and grief with equal force, thanks to Fiebig and the ACO’s expressive performance.’ The Australian (Murray Black), 17 March 2015
‘Our Sons sets the tone for the concert: one of a shared humanity rather than conquering heroes.’ Spectrum (Kathy Evans), 21 March 2015
Asyla 16.3.16, Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, London, UK: London Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès 20-22.5.16, Jacoby Symphony Hall, Jacksonville, FL, USA: Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra/Courtney Lewis
Lieux Retrouvés Orchestration World premiere 23-24.3.16, KKL Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland: Steven Isserlis/Lucerne Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès
Totentanz / These Premises Are Alarmed 14-15.4.16, The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Simon Keenlyside/Christianne Stotijn/The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ Thomas Adès
Carl Vine Selected forthcoming performances Smith’s Alchemy 11.9.15, Centre of Culture, Cesis, Latvia: Sinfonietta Riga/Normunds Šne
String Quintet World premiere of new version 27.11.15, Huntington Estate Music Festival, Mudgee, NSW, Australia: Goldner String Quartet/ Florian Eggner
Verbum Caro Factum Est World premiere 20-23.12.15, St George’s Cathedral, Perth, WA, Australia: Choir of St George’s Cathedral, Perth/ Joseph Nolan
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Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘It is beyond question one of the greatest English choral works ever written… dark… indicative of the shift away from the pastoral and contemplative tone that marked RVW’s music before the Great War.’ The Daily Telegraph (Simon Heffer), 26 July 2016
‘Extraordinary, and weird… A sequence of dissonant chords heard at the opening is scored for three flutes and bass, while all other voices and instruments lie silent. Their full weight is reserved for one stupendous climax… The turning point comes with a setting of ‘Babylon is fallen’ as a subdued lament for debased humanity, which quietly cedes to an ecstatic violin solo pointing the way, Lark-like, towards ‘‘a new heav’n and a new earth’’ ’. The Arts Desk (Peter Quantrill), 31 July 2015
Torsten Rasch Selected forthcoming performances Zwei Liebeslieder nach Thomas Brasch World premiere 25.9.15, Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany: Miljenko Turk/Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern/ Uwe Sandner
Violin Concerto World premiere 17.4.16, Dresden Philharmonic/ Leo McFall
A lost masterpiece Described by The Daily Telegraph’s Simon Heffer as ‘an utter masterpiece’, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sancta Civitas received its first BBC Proms performance this summer, with Mark Elder conducting the Hallé Orchestra and Choirs. Completed in 1925, the work was the composer’s favourite of his choral pieces, and sets texts from the Book of Revelation, including a graphic depiction of the destruction of Babylon. The late Michael Kennedy, the leading authority on Vaughan Williams, called the 30-minute oratorio for tenor, baritone, semichorus, SATB chorus and orchestra the most personal of the composer’s works. Elaine Gould, Faber’s Senior New Music Editor, sheds light on making the first thoroughly researched edition of this fascinating and unjustly neglected work: Re-examining an outdated edition can open up a can of worms. When we started scrutinising the Curwen material that we inherited, we began to see how contradictory they were – full score and vocal score didn’t match exactly and sometimes showed different versions of the same passage. Going back to the sources seemed the best way to find out what RVW really intended...We inspected the composer’s autograph manuscript full score, a manuscript copy of Havergal Brian’s vocal score and the single-voice vocal parts, also in RVW’s hand... As all too frequently happens, comparison of the various sources showed a large number of discrepancies between them. The full score manuscript is a fascinating document because it was used for early performances, presumably with RVW himself conducting the piece. There are various annotations added at different times, and later additional doublings of voice parts, presumably added according to the comparative strength of the given voices of the choirs at a given time. A number of orchestral doublings are crossed out. We asked David Matthews to recommend which version of RVW’s performing versions to publish.
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‘It might have been written for the Albert Hall… An expertly structured work, illuminated by haunting and successful orchestral writing’ The Guardian (Martin Kettle), 31 July 2015
Torsten Rasch A Welsh Night From Mein Herz brennt (2002), his orchestral song cycle after the German industrial metal band Rammstein, to more recent works like the oratorio A Foreign Field (2014), Torsten Rasch’s output is dominated by works for the voice. The latest is A Welsh Night, a 14-minute song cycle setting poems by the Second World War poet Alun Lewis, which was premiered in Gloucester by mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly and pianist Joseph Middleton in July. The inspiration for this, Rasch’s third commission from the Three Choirs Festival, came partly through an encounter with Lewis’s widow. ‘Having met Gweno’ Rasch comments, ‘I naturally wanted to make this cycle as personal as possible and reflect the couple’s relationship which was cut tragically short due to Alun’s early death. After an introductory movement taken from the poem ‘A Welsh Night’, the cycle continues with short excerpts from poems addressed to Gweno, which here I reimagine as a dialogue between husband and wife, where it is often left uncertain who is speaking. As their exchanges become more distant, the poetry grows ever more intimate. In the final song, Gweno remains alone with a lullaby, the only poem in the cycle that I set in its entirety.’
Looking ahead A 10-minute work for baritone and orchestra, Two Love Songs after Thomas Brasch, will receive its premiere this October in Kaiserslauten. In April 2016, Rasch’s Violin Concerto premieres in Dresden, with further performances to follow in the USA.
IMAGE: MANUSCRIPT OF VAUGHAN WILLIAMS’S SANCTA CIVITAS © VAUGHAN WILLIAMS ESTATE
TUNING IN
Malcolm Arnold
Matthew Hindson
2015 Arnold Festival The 10th Malcolm Arnold Festival, subtitled ‘A Gesture of Friendship’ takes place on 17-18 October at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton. This year features the first BBC broadcast from the Festival and the first performance by a BBC Orchestra – The BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Martin Yates presenting a programme that includes the towering 7th Symphony and the Fantasy on a Theme of John Field with pianist Peter Donohoe. Other highlights include the bittersweet Concerto for Two Violins and Strings (1962), originally written for Yehudi Menuhin and his pupil Alberto Lysy to perform at the Bath Festival.
Peterloo 4.9.15, El Cristo Square of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain: Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife/ Victor Pablo Pérez 17.12.15, Midwest Clinic, Chicago, IL, USA: Community HS District 128/ Jason Heath
Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra
DJ collaborates for wind symphony commission Australia’s foremost DJ, Paul Mac, joins forces with Matthew Hindson for his latest piece, provisionally titled Requiem for a City, commissioned to mark the centenary of the Sydney Conservatorium, where Hindson is a Professor. The 13-minute work for DJ and symphonic wind band is being co-written by the two composers and explores the death of late-night dance culture in some urban environments (such as Sydney’s Oxford Street), due to the regulation and gentrification of the city. The new work is unveiled in Sydney on 7 October, by Paul Mac with the Sydney Conservatorium Wind Orchestra under Michael Mulcahy.
House Music recording released in US
New recording of the Sonata for Strings A critically-acclaimed new release from the Orchestra of St Paul’s under its Artistic Director, Ben Palmer, includes the premiere recording of Malcolm Arnold’s Sonata for Strings – his Second String Quartet recast for string orchestra by David Matthews. A thrillingly intense and deeply personal work, it is nothing if not eclectic. The Allegro first movement is notable for its ever-changing textures, sudden violent outbursts and cascades of scales. After a short violin cadenza the quartet’s second movement leads without pause into an Irish Reel. Within a few bars, however, this apparently cheerful G major tune is subjected to a furious bitonal assault by the other players. An intense, bleak Andante builds twice to a beautifully harmonised chorale whilst the 9/8 finale has a long-breathed Allegretto melody and a frenzied Vivace which accelerates to the point of collapse, finally revealing a radiant D major coda. ‘The forces may have been enlarged but there is never any distortion of intent; indeed, the bipolar mix of searching anguish, quiet radiance and Irish reel hits home as never before.’ BBC Music Magazine (Geoff Brown), June 2015
PHOTO: MATTHEW HINDSON © BEX PHOTOGRAPHY
Malcolm Arnold Selected forthcoming performances
Just out on the Oberlin Music label is the premiere recording of Hindson’s virtuosic and outrageous flute concerto, House Music. The soloist is Alexa Still, who gave the US premiere at the National Flute Association’s 2012 convention in Las Vegas. The recording is currently available digitally, with a CD release to follow. Raphael Jiménez conducts the Oberlin Orchestra.
Kalkadungu in Milan and St Petersburg ‘Perhaps the most compelling few minutes of indigenousinspired fast music to come from any white Australian.’ Kalkadungu, a 20-minute piece for didjeridu, voice, electric guitar and orchestra by William Barton and Matthew Hindson has been staged at two major European summer festivals. Barton gave performances at the prestigious White Nights festival in St Petersburg on 19 July, and also at the Milan World Expo on 23 July. Australian conductor Daniel Smith led both performances, with the Mariinsky Youth Orchestra and Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi respectively. The cause of a media storm at its 2008 premiere, in the wake of national debates about indigenous land rights, Kalkadungu has been performed worldwide, and was commercially released on ABC Classics.
Benaud Trio premiere 1915 The Benaud Trio gave the first performances of a new 6-minute piano trio, 1915, with July dates in Melbourne and Adelaide. This follows their successful premiere of Hindson’s trio arrangement of Rush in March.
17.10.15, St Matthew’s Church, Northampton, UK; 23.10.15, Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, UK: Wai Lam/Yu-Mien Sun/Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra/ Stacey Watton 5.11.15, City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney, Australia: Andrew Haveron/Sydney Symphony Orchestra
John Field Fantasy/ Symphony No 7 17.10.15, The Malcolm Arnold Festival, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, UK: Peter Donohoe/ BBC Concert Orchestra/Martin Yates
Four Cornish Dances 14.11.15, Spinney Hill, Northampton, UK: Northampton Symphony Orchestra 5.3.16, Hylton Performing Arts Center, Manassas, VA, USA: Manassas Symphony Orchestra/ James Villani
Matthew Hindson Selected forthcoming performances String Quartet No 3: Ngeringa World premiere 30.8.15, Ngeringa Arts Centre, Mount Barker, SA;1.9.15, Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane, QLD; 2.9.15, City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney, NSW; 3.9.15, Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC; 7.9.15, Adelaide Town Hall, SA; 8.9.15, Government House, Perth, WA, Australia; Australian String Quartet
Requiem for a City World premiere 7.10.15, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium, NSW, Australia: Paul Mac (DJ)/Sydney Conservatorium Wind Symphony Orchestra/Michael Mulcahy
The Rave and the Nightingale 29.1.16, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, Switzerland: Quartetto Energie Nove/Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana/Nicholas Milton
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NEW WORKS Stage Works
Chamber Orchestra
VALGEIR SIGURÐSSON
DAVID MATTHEWS
Extremalism (2015) ballet for electronics. Duration 80 minutes. Commissioned by Le Ballet National de Marseille. FP: 12.6.2015, Koninklijk Theater Carré, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Ballet National de Marseille & ICKamsterdam, ch. Emio Greco & Pieter C Scholten Electronics for hire.
Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 547 (2015) - Bach arr. Matthews chamber orchestra. Duration 10 minutes. 1111 - 1000 - harp or pno - 11111. Commissioned by the City of London Sinfonia. FP: 19.9.2015, Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon, UK: City of London Sinfonia/Michael Collins. Score and parts in preparation.
Silent Films
String Orchestra
LAURA ROSSI
DEREK BERMEL
The Battle of the Somme (2006) orchestra. Duration 74 minutes. 2(II=picc).2.2.2(II=cbsn) - 4331 - timp(=perc) - perc(2/3) - harp - pno - strings. Commissioned by the Imperial War Museum. FP: 22.10.2006, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, UK: Philharmonia Orchestra/ Nic Raine. Full score and parts on hire. Film print available from the Imperial War Museum.
Murmurations (2015) solo violin and string orchestra. Duration 20 minutes. Commissioned by New Century Chamber Orchestra and River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. FP: 14.2.2015, St John the Divine, Houston, TX, USA: River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. Score and parts for hire (Faber Music Ltd for Europe/Australasia, Peermusic Classical for rest of world).
The Battle of the Ancre (2012) chamber orchestra. Duration 65 minutes. 1.1.1.1 - 0.0.0.0 - timp/perc - pno - strings. FP: 2012, BFI London Film Festival, Imperial War Museum, London, UK: Ealing Symphony Orchestra/John Gibbons. Full score and parts on hire. Film print available from the Imperial War Museum.
Orchestra MARY COHEN The legend of Baldr (2014) narrator and orchestra. Duration 35 minutes. Text: Mary Cohen (Eng). 2.2.2.2 - 0.4(plus solo tpt).2.2 - timp - perc - strings. Commissioned by Catharina Grunér Kronqvist on behalf of Nacka musikskola and Värmdö kulturskola in partnership with Länsmusiken i Stockholm. FP: 1.4.2014, Nacka Aula, Sweden: Nacka Musikskola/Värmdö kulturskola. Full score, sectional scores and parts for hire.
TANSY DAVIES Re-greening (2015) large orchestra. Duration c.8 minutes. Text: Sumer is Icumen In / Anon. - words speculated to be by W. de Wycombe, mid 13th century Tallis Canon / Thomas Ken - c.1674 (Eng). 2 picc.2.2.2 ca.2.2 ebcl.2 bcl.2.2 cbsn - 4.3.3.1 btrbn.1 - 2 timps - perc(4) - 2 harp - strings. Commissioned by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. FP: 6.8.2015, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK: National Youth Orchestra/Mark Elder. Score and parts for hire.
NIGEL HESS A Celebration Overture (2015) orchestra. Duration 6 minutes. picc.2.2.2.bcl.2 - 4.3.2.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(2) - harp - strings. Commissioned, with the support of The Rushworth Foundation, to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. FP: 22.9.2015, Classic FM Live, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko. Score and parts in preparation.
LIN MARSH Once Upon A Time (2013) upper voices and orchestra. Duration 15 minutes. Text: Lin Marsh (Eng). 2222 - 2211 - perc(2) - bass guitar - harp - strings. Commissioned by the Thomas Schools of London. FP: 7.5.2013, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK: Thomas’s London Day Schools/ Southbank Sinfonia/Simon Over Full score and parts for hire, vocal score on sale or for hire.
COLIN MATTHEWS Oiseaux tristes from Miroirs (2015) - Ravel arr. Matthews orchestra. Duration c.4 minutes. picc.1.afl.2.ca.Ebcl.1.bcl.2.cbsn - 4.2.3.1 - timp - perc(2) - 2 harp - cel - strings. Commissioned by the BBC. FP: 7.8.2015, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/ Nicholas Collon. Score and parts for hire.
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Chamber Ensemble MATTHEW HINDSON 1915 (2006/arr. 2015) piano trio. Arrangement of movement I of Song and Dance for string orchestra. Duration 6 minutes. Pno - vln.vlc. FP: 18.7.2015, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Benaud Trio. Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library.
COLIN MATTHEWS String Quartet No. 5 (2015) string quartet. Duration 11 minutes. Commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center in honour of its 75th Anniversary Season with generous support from the Harriett Eckstein New Commission Fund. FP: 19.7.2015, Tanglewood Music Center, Lenox, MA, USA: Tanglewood Music Center. Score and parts for hire.
VALGEIR SIGURÐSSON Veej (2015) chamber ensemble of 18 players. Duration 6 minutes. fl.ca.2 cl.bsn(=toy piano) - hrn(playing crotales)*.tpt(playing inside the piano)*.trbn - perc(3/4) - pno - 2 vln.vla.vlc.db. Commissioned with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for premiere performance by Alarm Will Sound. FP: 28.5.2015, The Sheldon, St Louis, MO, USA: Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson. Score and parts for hire.
MARTIN SUCKLING Visiones (after Goya) (2015) trio for clarinet, cello and piano. Duration c.12 minutes. Commissioned by Aldeburgh Music. FP: 20.6.2015, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Mark Simpson/Jean-Guihen Queyras/Tamara Stefanovich. Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library.
Instrumental THOMAS ADÈS Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face (2015) two pianos. Duration 15 minutes. Commissioned by Sue Bienkowski for Piano Spheres. FP: 8.9.2015, Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Gloria Cheng/Thomas Adès. Score in preparation. Variations for Blanca (2015) solo piano. Duration c.5 minutes. Commissioned by Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil for the 26th Edition 2015, Vevey, Switzerland. FP: 26.8.2015, Concours Clara Haskil, Théâtre de Vevey, Vevey, Switzerland: Competition candidates. Score in preparation.
DAVID MATTHEWS
DAVID MATTHEWS
A little threnody (2004) solo bassoon. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 18.9.2011, Internationales Festival der Kammermusik im Theater in Kempten: Bram van Sambee. Score on special sale from the Hire Library.
Nachtgesang (2015) encore for orchestra. Duration 5 minutes. 2(II=picc).2(II=ca).2.2 - 2.2.0.0 - timp - strings (minimum 5.4.4.4.2). Commissioned by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. FP: February 2016: Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Jérémie Rhorer Score and parts in preparation.
Sonatina (2014) violin and piano. Duration 7 minutes. Commissioned by Krysia Osostowicz and Daniel Tong, as part of their “Beethoven Plus” project. FP: 17.10.15 King’s Place, London: Krysia Osostowicz/Daniel Tong Score on parts in preparation.
MORGAN POCHIN
MARTIN SUCKLING
Invictus — A Cantata for Liberty (2015) cantata for youth choir, SATB chorus and orchestra. Duration 50 minutes. Text: Thomas Paine; Alice Duerr Miller; Emily Dickinson; John Dryden; Rudyard Kipling; Lord Alfred Tennyson; Hugh Chesterman; Kahlil Gibran; William Ernest Henley; George Moses Horton; Traditional (all Eng). 2(II=picc).2.2.2 - 4230 - timp - perc(2) - harp - strings. Commissioned by Brighton Festival Chorus and Brighton Festival Youth Choir, with the generous support of the Stewart Newton Charitable Trust and Payden and Rygel, to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta and the themes of liberty, justice and freedom associated with it. FP: 11.6.2015, Brighton Dome, Brighton, UK: local schoolchildren/Brighton Festival Youth Choir/ Brighton Festival Chorus/City of London Sinfonia/James Morgan. Full score, vocal score and parts for hire.
Cumha na Cloinne (2013) solo piano. Duration 4 minutes. FP: Private performance 9.12.2013, York, UK: Joseph Houston. Score in preparation.
JOHN WOOLRICH
MATTHEW HINDSON
To the Silver Bow (2014) double concerto for viola, double bass and strings. Duration 15 minutes. vla.db.strings. Commissioned by Leon Bosch with kind support from Arts Council England. FP: 16.2.2016, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, UK: Leon Bosch/Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Score and parts for hire.
Visible Weapon (2013) two pianos and electronics. Duration 10 minutes. Commissioned by the University of Queensland. FP: 27.3.2015, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia: Liam Viney/Anna Grinberg. Score and electronics (both performance and rehearsal tracks) on special sale from the Hire Library.
CARL VINE Soliloquy (2015) solo violin. Duration c.3 minutes. FP: 14.3.2015, Llewellyn Hall, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia: Richard Tognetti. Score on special sale from the Hire Library.
NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS Vocal
New Publications
New Recordings
GEORGE BENJAMIN
THOMAS ADÈS
THOMAS ADÈS
Dream of the Song (2014) countertenor, female chorus and orchestra. Duration c.18 minutes. Text and orchestration TBA. Commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Festival d’Automne. FP: 25.9.2015, The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Bejun Mehta/Netherlands Chamber Choir/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ George Benjamin. Score and parts in preparation.
Powder Her Face
FRANCISCO COLL Wesendonck Lieder (2015) - Wagner arr. Coll mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra. Duration c.20 minutes. Text: Mathilde Wesendonck (Ger). 1(=afl).1.1.bcl.0.cbsn - 1.1.1.0 - harp - pno - 2 vln.2 vla.2 vlc.db. Commissioned by the Ensemble intercontemporain. FP: 24.10.2015, The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Petra Lang/Ensemble intercontemporain/Matthias Pintscher. Score and parts in preparation.
TOM COULT Beautiful Caged Thing (2015) soprano and chamber orchestra. Duration c.12 minutes. Text: Tom Coult after Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (Eng). 2(II=bfl+picc).2.2(bcl).1.cbsn - 2210 - Perc(1): 5 pitched gongs/mar/vib/pair of bongos/BD/tam-t/vibraslap harp - strings (min. 6.6.4.4.3). Commissioned by Aldeburgh Music FP: 13.6.2015, Snape Maltings, Snape, Suffolk, UK: Claire Booth/Mahler Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin. Score and parts for hire.
Full Score 0-571-51995-4 FRANCISCO COLL
Vocal Score 0-571-539319-9
£16.99
TOM COULT Four Perpetual Motions
Score 0-571-53909-2
£14.99
Higglety Pigglety Pop!
Full Score 0-571-52957-7
£95.00
ALEXANDER L’ESTRANGE
£6.50
MATTHEW MARTIN Chester Missa Brevis
SATB 0-571-57174-3
£4.50
Dormi, Iesu!
SATB 0-571-57175-1 Laudate Dominum
TORSTEN RASCH
O Lux beata Trinitas
A Welsh Night (2015) mezzo-soprano and piano. Duration 14 minutes. Text: Alun Lewis (Eng). Commissioned by Anwen Elizabeth Walker for the 2015 Three Choirs Festival. FP: 1.8.2015, Holy Trinity Church, Hereford, UK: Sarah Connolly/ Joseph Middleton. Score in preparation.
SATB 0-571-57178-6
SATB 0-571-57176-X
£2.99 £3.50
Nowell, sing we
SATB 0-571-57177-8
£3.50 £2.99
TORSTEN RASCH Was bedeutet die Bewegung
Full Score 0-571-53917-3
GEORGE BENJAMIN Three Miniatures for Solo Violin Tamsin Waley-Cohen Signum SIGCD416
Ritornello Derek Johnson/Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra/Kirk Trevor Albany Records TROY1564
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
Zadok Rules - Hallelujah!
Score 0-571-53880-0
Sonata for Strings (arr. D Matthews) (premiere recording) Orchestra of St Paul’s/Ben Palmer Somm CD0145
DEREK BERMEL
OLIVER KNUSSEN
Three Housman Songs (2015) soprano and string orchestra. Duration 11 minutes. Text: A.E. Housman ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (Eng). FP: 30.8.2015, Presteigne Festival, St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne, Wales, UK: Gillian Keith/Presteigne Festival Orchestra/George Vass. Score and parts for hire.
CARL VINE
£14.99
Piano Concertino
Score 0-571-53898-3
Mazurkas Dina Duisen Available from dinaduisen.com
MALCOLM ARNOLD
Café Kafka
DAVID MATTHEWS
Zwei Liebeslieder nach Thomas Brasch (2015) Two love Songs after Thomas Brasch baritone and orchestra. Duration c.9 minutes. Text: Thomas Brasch (Ger). picc.2.2(II=ca).2.bcl.2 - 4.2.3.0 - timp - perc(2): mar/t.bells/glsp/large susp. cym/tam-t/BD - cel - harp - strings. Commissioned by the City of Kaiserslautern FP: 25.9.2015, Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany: Miljenko Turk/Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern/Uwe Sandner. Score and parts in preparation.
£100.00
£14.99
Suite on English Folk Tunes Britten Sinfonia/James MacMillan Harmonia Mundi HMU 807573
ALEXANDER L’ESTRANGE Song Cycle: vive la vélorution! (premiere recording) The Song Cycle Singers/ The Call Me Al Quintet/Joanna Forbes L’Estrange Andagio CD004
MATTHEW HINDSON House Music (Flute Concerto) (premiere recording) Alexa Still/Oberlin Orchestra/Raphael Jiménez Oberlin Music OC15-03
COLIN MATTHEWS / DAVID MATTHEWS Three of a Kind / Horn Quintet (premiere recordings) Paul Watkins/Huw Watkins/Nash Ensemble NMC D203
PETER SCULTHORPE Harbour Dreaming Geoffrey Saba Carnegie Concerts Island Songs Amy Dickson/Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Benjamin Northey ABC Classics 481 1703 The Quartets Goldner String Quartet (performances and documentary) ABC Classics 076 2914 (DVD)
Our Sons (2015) cantata for soprano and strings. Duration c.12 minutes. Text: Inscription on the Turkish Memorial at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli (1934) by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Eng). strings (5.5.3.3.1). Commissioned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. FP: 14.3.15, Llewellyn Hall, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia: Taryn Fiebig/Australian Chamber Orchestra. . Score and parts for hire.
Choral DAVID MATTHEWS Dawn Chorus (2015) unaccompanied choir and soloists. Duration c.5 minutes. Commissioned by the Lichfield Festival with support from the Arts Council. FP: 9.7.2015, Lichfield Festival, Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, UK: Ex Cathedra/Jeffrey Skidmore. Score on special sale from the Hire Library.
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Carl Davis I use a consistent instrumental line-up, which I designate ‘not quite an orchestra’: a handful of wind, brass, piano and percussion and a string quartet plus double bass give sufficient sound to bridge the sparseness of the solo piano or organ to the lushness of Chaplin’s post-1930 scores. These 12 jewels have now had an extensive ‘live’ career, both as curtain-raisers to longer features – sometimes by Chaplin, sometimes not – and as a full ‘Mutual’ evening in their own right. In recent years I have also been using them as the basis of a lecture with clips illustrating Chaplin’s extraordinary life story. Using only these films I am able to show scenes from the slums of Lambeth, the British Variety stage, the Atlantic crossing and his first experiences in Hollywood... The full feature can be found at silentlondon.co.uk Carl Davis Selected forthcoming performances The Phantom of the Opera 10-11.10.15, Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Italy: Orchestra San Marco/ Mark Fitz-Gerald
The General 1.11.15, Luzerner Theater, Lucerne, Switzerland: Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Boris Schäfer Croatian premiere 5-7.11.15; 22,26.12.15; 23.2.16; 22.3.16, Zagreb Film Festival Cinema Europa, Zagreb, Croatia: Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra/ Krešimir Batinic
A Woman of Affairs 12.11.15, Auditorio de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Real Filarmonia de Galicia/Diego Masson
Behind the Screen 14-15.11.15, Opernhaus, Nürnberg; 1.12.15, Heinrich-Lades-Halle, Erlangen, Germany: Staatstheater Nurnberg/Frank Strobel
Nijinsky World premiere 27-28.11.15, 2.12.15, 30.1.16 24.3.16, 3.6.16 Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, Slovakia: Slovak National Theatre/Carl Davis
Speedy 4.3.16, Tobias Theater, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, USA: Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra/Matthew Kraemer
Kid Auto Races in Venice 8.4.16, Corn Exchange, Bedford; 10.4.16, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre London UK: Philharmonia Orchestra/Carl Davis
Two important milestones 2016 is a significant year for Silent Film enthusiasts. As well as Carl Davis’s 80th birthday to celebrate in October, the year also marks the centenary of Charlie Chaplin’s work with the Mutual Production Company. Chaplin later described the period, which produced 12 shorts, as the most inventive and liberating of his career, and it was then that he perfected what would become his trademark themes and techniques. Davis’s first-rate scores for the 12 Chaplin ‘Mutuals’ (each lasting between 20-26 minutes) have travelled the world. Earlier this year, he spoke to silentlondon.co.uk, about his creative relationship with these comic masterpieces: During the course of composing these scores, I began to discern an overall form, a defining shape to the material. Just as Charlie employed a small group of actors of contrasting size, shape and disposition across the whole cycle, I too use a handful of themes which can jump from film to film. Seeking further insights into the material, I sifted his output into early, middle and late periods. The early period comprises the first three films, which are very heavily plotted, Victorian melodrama even: absconding with a mountain of cash from a department store’s safe, a fire insurance scam and the kidnapping of a young girl by gypsies... all to suitably sinister music. The fun comes with the stuff in-between. At this point, Chaplin makes the plotting of secondary interest and focuses instead on the gags. The middle period films are held together more by theme than plot: a portrait of early Hollywood, a drunken swell struggling with his rebelling house, a tailor’s assistant invading a posh costume ball. It is in the final group that Charlie really hits his stride, where the plot and the jokes are in perfect balance. These films are his acknowledged masterpieces; The Cure, The Immigrant, Easy Street and The Adventurer.
Aladdin 11-19.6.16, New National Theatre, Tokyo, Japan: New National Theatre Ballet/Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra/ Paul Murphy
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PHOTOS: CARL DAVIS © RICHARD CANNON
Steamboat Bill, Jr. Faber Music is thrilled that Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr. will be reissued across the UK accompanied by a specially-commissioned score from Davis. The score was premiered with great success during the TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles last March, with the composer himself conducting. One of the final films that allowed Keaton to exert creative control, Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a disaster-struck romance that features the silent maestro’s most notorious stunt work. Placing our ever-stoic hero in a whirlwind of perfectly orchestrated chaos, Keaton undertakes feats of physical comedy that range from the sublime to the suicidal. The new 4K restoration of the Cohen Film Collection’s print will open at the BFI Southbank and selected cinemas nationwide from 18 September. ‘There are other, older versions on the market, but wait for the Davis recording. He can effortlessly glide from sweet waltzes and snappy Charlestons to serious, string quartet moments, from pell-mell chase scenes to comedic pratfalls… Davis has his art down to a science: the moment something changes on the screen, even as small as an eyebrow twitch or quick smile, the music is right there with it, blending perfectly with our eyes’ perceptions of the action.’ Times Quotidean (Sean Hughes), 21 April 2015
Nijinsky The rich and complex life and work of one of the greatest male dancers of the early twentieth century, Vaslav Nijinsky, provides the subject for a new ballet by Carl Davis, his first since The Lady of the Camellias in 2008. Choreographed and directed by Daniel de Andrade, Nijinsky – God of Dance opens in November at the Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava. With Davis’s existing ballets continuing to thrill audiences across the world – his Aladdin (1999) with choreography by David Bintley travels to Japan in June – the birth of Nijinsky promises to be an unforgettable event.
INTERVIEWS
mastering the piano with Lang Lang – The App The mastering the piano with Lang Lang App, pioneered by Faber Music and powered by Tido, is an inspired approach to learning piano technique that has been developed with Lang Lang himself. Devised for budding players of all ages, the unprecedented technology makes learning to play easier and more fun than ever before. Throughout his prestigious career, Lang Lang has remained passionate about the importance of engaging with young pianists, and his extraordinary talent and charisma has inspired millions to take up the piano. In China alone, ‘the Lang Lang effect’ is credited with encouraging over 40 million children to learn the instrument. The mastering the piano with Lang Lang App provides a fantastic educational resource that captures his passion, drive and outstanding mastery of the piano – and communicates it in a new and accessible digital format.
Following the release of Lang Lang’s mastering the piano technique books with Faber Music, this unique App builds on the key aspects of piano technique explored in units over five levels (elementary to intermediate), through a carefully curated range of digital sheet music. The beautifully rendered scores offer a diverse selection of piano repertoire, including some of Lang Lang’s personal favourites, brought to life with reflowable music and audio playback. This intelligent technology knows what, and for how long, the user is playing and responds automatically whether you are in portrait or landscape view on your iPad. The learning experience is further enhanced through the App’s additional features, which include exclusive videos and select performances by Lang Lang himself, performance tips, scales and arpeggios, a glossary, plus composer information and historical context. Practice tools include a notebook, metronome and annotation options.
mastering the piano with Lang Lang is available on iPad from the App Store (iOS) from September 2015. Explore Unit 1 of every Level for FREE.
Warner/Chappell Hire & Musicals Faber Music is delighted to announce a partnership with Warner/Chappell Music (WCM) to represent their hire catalogue for most territories excluding North America, from 1 April 2015. In addition, the deal allows Faber to grant performance licences for amateur productions of WCM’s musicals and other stage works. The Warner/Chappell hire catalogue is a rich and diverse treasure, encompassing some of the world’s most popular stage musicals, operas and operettas, as well as serious and light symphonic repertoire, and classic highlights from the world of film and TV. The extensive range of musicals and other stage works includes the perennial classics Bugsy Malone, Camelot, Brigadoon, High Society and Paint Your Wagon, and operas including Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Highlights from the concert catalogue include the orchestral works of Sir Arnold Bax, Igor Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto, a number of works by Astor Piazzolla (including The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), David Fanshawe’s iconic African Sanctus, Dmitri Shostakovich’s celebrated arrangement of Vincent Youmans’s Tea for Two, Ron Grainer’s Dr Who Theme, plus film and light music classics by composers such as Eric Coates, Henry Wood, Jerome Moross, Max Steiner, Miklós Rózsa and Roger Quilter to name but a few. A Warner Chappell section of our website is currently in development. In the meantime, do contact us at musicfornow@fabermusic.com for more information.
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A new signing
Dance Extremalism: Sigurðsson premiere at Holland Festival A full-evening dance work with commissioned electronic music by Valgeir Sigurðsson was a highpoint of this year’s Holland Festival. The combined forces of Ballet National de Marseille and ICKAmsterdam presented Extremalism in the Carré Theatre on 12 and 13 June, with choreography by joint artistic directors of both companies, Pieter C. Scholten and Emio Greco. ‘A tantalizing combination of quality and originality…’ (De Volkskrant, 15 June 2015)
They later toured it to Naples, Montpellier and Marseille, whilst future performances take in France, Belgium and Holland from January to March 2016.
Bellowhead’s Jon Boden signs to Faber Music Faber Music is proud to have signed a publishing agreement with Jon Boden, best-known as lead singer of iconic folk band, Bellowhead. Boden has written a number of concert and theatrical works, including a recent choral setting for Aldeburgh Music’s ‘Friday Afternoons’ project marking the Britten Centenary, a 40-part choral piece for the 2015 Bristol Proms and the theme tune to the BBC TV comedy series, Count Arthur Strong.
Film
Orchestral
Laura Rossi’s live scores presented as part of Somme Centenary
US premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s Water
We are delighted to announce a new publishing agreement with UK composer, Laura Rossi, covering her orchestral scores to two iconic World War I films, The Battle of the Somme, and The Battle of the Ancre, both now available for live performance (with restored film prints available from the Imperial War Museum). The films are stunning documentaries, comprising archive footage from these WWI campaigns. They were originally screened in cinemas as part of the war effort only weeks after filming. It is estimated that over half the population of the UK (20 million at the time) watched The Battle of the Somme (a figure not matched until the release of Star Wars in 1977). Both films will be toured throughout 2016, across the UK and overseas, as part of the Somme100 FILM project, with professional and amateur orchestras performing the score live, marking the 100th anniversary of the battles. If your orchestra is interested in staging the project, or would like to see perusal materials, please get in touch. Pre-concert talks about the film and music can be built into your presentation, forming part of an integrated music education project with music hubs and schoolchildren across the UK. Visit somme100film.com for more details. A 15-minute orchestral suite taken from the film score is also available for concert performance. Scores of all three works can viewed complete at our Online Score Library 26
PHOTOS: (LEFT) JOHN BODEN © TOM BARNES; (RIGHT) EXTREMALISM
The Australian Chamber Orchestra completed a hugely successful US tour earlier this year, including the US premiere performances of Water, the latest orchestral work by Jonny Greenwood. The ACO and Richard Tognetti gave eight performances of the 15-minute piece, culminating in a concert at Carnegie Hall on 26 April, that was acclaimed from coast to coast. ‘The scoring includes piano, synthesizer and tanpura, the long-necked string instrument common in Indian music that plays buttressing drones. Apropos its title, Greenwood’s piece unfolds in a shimmering haze of misty, lapping ostinato figures that congregate endlessly. But individual motifs come through the overlaid mass of haunting sounds. Eventually the music turns restless, almost frenzied, before calming down and returning to its original spiritual state; yet it is seemingly transfigured, more deliberate, less fluid.’ The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 28 April 2015
Hess at Royal Albert Hall’s Classic FM Live The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has commissioned Nigel Hess to write a short orchestral opener to celebrate its 175th anniversary. The 6-minute A Celebration Overture will premiere as part of Classic FM Live at the Royal Albert Hall on 22 September and in Liverpool on 24 and 25 September. The RLPO will be conducted by their Chief Conductor, Vasily Petrenko.
‘Brilliant contrapuntal writing’ — Bermel’s Murmurations Critical acclaim greeted the West Coast premiere of US composer Derek Bermel’s latest orchestral work, Murmurations, given by New Century Chamber Orchestra from 28-31 May. This stunning work for strings is the result of a co-commission from NCCO, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (Houston) and A Far Cry (Boston). ‘In this three-movement co-commission, the flights of starlings have become the inspiration for 22 minutes of virtuoso string writing. In ‘Gathering Near Gretna Green’, the avian whoosh is punctuated by a concertmaster solo. In ‘Soaring over Algiers’, an individual line yields to brilliant contrapuntal writing; and in the final ‘Swarming Rome’, spatial elements yield a broader sonority… it provides challenges for any string ensemble and, as far as one could tell on initial encounter, NCCO covered itself in glory.’ Financial Times (Allan Ulrich), 1 June 2015
Educational Mary Cohen’s The legend of Baldr — a new introduction to the orchestra Sure to be of interest to orchestra educational programmers is The legend of Baldr, a new work by Mary Cohen, a name known to many through her hugely successful series of educational publications. The legend of Baldr is an atmospheric 35-minute setting of the famous Norse tale, split into short sections and linked by narration. It’s written as an introduction to the instruments of the orchestra and can be performed either by intermediate-level players, or professional players to a young audience (9-13 years), or can be used in education outreach settings. In clear, uncluttered textures, Cohen skilfully presents the characteristics of orchestral instruments, and creates vivid, dramatic and mysterious soundworlds. As well as a full score and parts, there are also sectional rehearsal scores for wind, brass, percussion and strings, each containing valuable rehearsal notes and background information. The full score can be viewed on our Online Score Library.
Choral Invictus — a Cantata for Liberty debuts at Brighton Festival Gathering together texts on the theme of peace and liberty, Invictus is a new 50-minute cantata by Morgan Pochin, scored for youth choir, SATB chorus and orchestra. It’s the result of a commission from Brighton Festival Chorus and Brighton Festival Youth Choir, to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, and launched in the Brighton Dome on 11 June. Both choirs were joined by a massed choir of local schoolchildren, and were accompanied by the City of London Sinfonia under James Morgan. The texts of Invictus are drawn from a host of authors, including Thomas Paine, Emily Dickinson, John Dryden, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and includes William Ernest Henley’s renowned poem ‘Invictus’, before culminating in ‘Oh Freedom’, a rousing setting of the post-Civil War African-American freedom song (made famous by Joan Baez and many others).
Hallé & CBSO take up Lin Marsh UK composer Lin Marsh, known to many through her work in music education, has recently had large-scale works for children’s choir and orchestra performed by both the Hallé Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The Wild Swans, a 40-minute setting of Hans Christian Andersen with narration, was commissioned and premiered by the Hallé Orchestra and Children’s Choir under Stephen Bell in June 2014. In April this year, the CBSO and CBSO Children’s Chorus and conductor Jamie Phillips included Marsh’s choral cycle on the theme of childhood, Once Upon a Time, in a family concert in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on 26 April.
Alexander L’Estrange: Song Cycle on CD & ‘Zadok’ in print Just out is the printed score of Alexander L’Estrange’s Zadok Rules Hallelujah! It’s an uplifting, rousing celebration of our rich cultural heritage that fuses the music of Handel, Arne and even Henry VIII and sets a rhyming text that cleverly traces all of the English monarchs from William the Conqueror to the present day. Zadok Rules! can be performed by children’s choir and/or SATB chorus, with either chamber orchestra or piano accompaniment. To help with rehearsals and performances, a number of free digital files including lyrics, children’s learning audio, and live backing track have been made available. There are also individual SATB learning tracks, plus several sheet music options including printed vocal score, unison children’s choir part in landscape format for easy projection, and unison children’s choir part with piano. Another new release is the eagerly-awaited CD of Song Cycle, Alexander’s latest largescale community work, tracing the story of the bicycle, from its inauspicious beginnings to the glorious Tour de France. It receives an uplifting and energetic performance by The Song Cycle Singers (conducted by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange), and The ‘Call Me Al Quintet’ (led by the composer). There’s already a great deal of interest from choirs in performing Song Cycle, many of whom have performed Zimbe! (now approaching 200 performances worldwide since its genesis in 2008), and Ahoy! . Great fun for any choir to perform, Song Cycle ranges from funky, rhythmically-driven numbers to beautiful, folk-style ballads, to entertaining descriptions of the early bicycle, to new takes on much-loved classics such as ‘Daisy Daisy’ – the singers are even required to add to the percussion by playing bicycle bells and pumps!
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Opera Scores from Faber Music HEAD OFFICE Faber Music Ltd Bloomsbury House 74–77 Great Russell St London WC1B 3DA www.fabermusic.com Promotion Department: +44(0)207 908 5311/2 promotion@fabermusic.com
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Thomas Adès: Powder Her Face Faber Music is pleased to announce the publication of the full score of Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face. This dazzlingly precocious chamber opera, to a libretto by Philip Hensher, propelled its composer to international attention after its premiere in 1995 and remains one of the most frequently performed British operas of the last two decades. Charting the glamorous rise and seedy fall of the notorious socialite beauty Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, the score is as witty, poignant and memorable as the ‘Dirty Duchess’ herself, paying homage to the popular idioms of cabaret and tango, as well as to Weill, Berg and Stravinsky. ‘It already counts as a modern classic…’ The Observer (Fiona Maddocks), 6 April 2014
Full Score (ISBN 0-571-51995-4) available from the Faber Music Store priced at £100
USA & CANADA Hire Schott Music Corp & European American Music Dist LLC 254 West 31st Street, 15th Floor New York, NY 10001, USA Promotion: (212) 4616940 Rental: (212) 4616940
Sales Alfred Music Publishing Co. Customer Service P.O. Box 10003 Van Nuys CA 91410-0003, USA Tel: +1 (818) 891-5999 sales@alfred.com Written & devised by Sam Wigglesworth with contributions from Helen McLean and Tim Brooke Designed by Sam Wigglesworth and Dave Warden COVER IMAGE: TANSY DAVIES © RIKARD ÖSTERLUND
Oliver Knussen: Higglety Pigglety Pop! The second, and darker, of Knussen’s two extraordinary fantasy operas created in collaboration with the acclaimed author Maurice Sendak, Higglety Pigglety Pop! is brimming with invention. This hour-long work culminates in a witty opera-within-an-opera, complete with a lopsided – and slightly screwy – overture after Mozart, absurdly abrupt changes of tone and gear, and numerous madcap false endings. Full Score (ISBN 0-571-52957-7) available from the Faber Music Store priced at £95.00
George Benjamin: Written on Skin Recently described as ‘an honest-to-God twenty-first-century operatic masterpiece’ by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross, Written on Skin has taken the world by storm since its premiere in 2012. Its composer harnesses an array of diverse instruments – including glass harmonica, bass viol and steel drums – in a strikingly beautiful and rich score which responds to every nuance of Martin Crimp’s resonant, finely chiselled, text. Full Score (ISBN 0-571-53758-8) available from the Faber Music Store priced at £79.99
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