FABER MUSIC NEWS SPRING 2012
fortissimo! Jonathan Harvey
‘There is no more consistently wonderful composer than Harvey…’ The Guardian (Tom Service), January 2012
SPECIAL FEATURES OLIVER KNUSSEN Composer at 60 p 2–3 JONATHAN HARVEY REPORT ‘Total Immersion’ & ‘Wagner Dream’ p 4–5 NEW SIGNING Martin Suckling p 6–7
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OLIVER KNUSSEN’S 60TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS Oliver Knussen will turn 60 in June 2012, and what a year of celebration it will be! Many renowned performers, festivals and concert halls have lined up to celebrate Knussen’s many achievements.
MAY – ASKO|SCHÖNBERG
‘No figure in British contemporary music is more respected than Oliver Knussen.’ The Guardian, (Andrew Clements)
10 May
Cantata, Two Organa, Coursing, Ophelia Dances Book 1
JUNE – ALDEBURGH FESTIVAL
Donderdagavondserie-PROMS: Hinkende versvoeten, Netherlands Asko/Schönberg, Oliver Knussen (conductor)
MAY – BCMG 25 May
Ophelia Dances, Ophelia’s Last Dance Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre Huw Watkins (piano), Oliver Knussen (conductor)
‘In his 60th birthday year, BCMG Artist-inAssociation Oliver Knussen is widely regarded as a profoundly influential composer and one of Britain’s finest conductors. How better way to end our 2011/12 season than with a celebratory concert featuring his most recent composition and music by young composers championed by Knussen.’
8 &10 June
Where the Wild Things Are & Higglety Pigglety Pop! Britten Sinfonia Text by Maurice Sendak Cast includes Claire Booth, Susan Bickley, Rebecca Bottone, Lucy Schaufer, Graeme Danby, Christopher Gillett, Jonathan Gunthorpe, Graeme Broadbent Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor), Netia Jones (director/ designer)
‘It’s as though he’s taken it and musically pictured… one step beyond what I’ve done… He’s carried it into another generation… He has moved it into his time, but with an authenticity and truthfulness that I feel.’ Maurice Sendak on Oliver Knussen
9 June
Knussen/Mussorgsky: Mussorgsky Miniatures Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Oliver Knussen (conductor)
10 June
Variations, Prayer-Bell Sketch Peter Serkin (piano)
17 June
Requiem – Songs for Sue CBSO & Knussen
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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Dawn Upshaw (soprano), Oliver Knussen (conductor) PHOTOS: (TOP) OLIVER KNUSSEN © MAURICE FOXALL (RIGHT) ‘WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE’
HIGHLIGHTS OCTOBER – LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC
‘THE OPHELIA DANCES PROJECT’ Birthday publication: ‘The Ophelia Dances Project’ Faber Music will also be marking Knussen’s birthday with a special publication entitled ‘The Ophelia Dances Project’. This unique volume will contain the beautiful facsimile of Knussen’s handwritten scores of Ophelia Dances Book 1 and the piano piece A Fragment of Ophelia’s Last Dance, plus related sketches and supplementary material. Not only will this provide an insight into the compositional process behind these important works, but a chance to witness Knussen’s finely crafted manuscripts, works of art in themselves.
RETROSPECTIVE CD 11, 12, 13 & 14 October
Where the Wild Things Are Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Walt Disney Concert Hall Gustavo Dudamel (conductor) Netia Jones (video/director)
NOVEMBER – LONDON ‘TOTAL IMMERSION’ 3 November
Where the Wild Things Are, Higglety Pigglety Pop! Total Immersion, Barbican (2pm & 7pm) Britten Sinfonia, Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)
4 November
Océan de Terre, Ophelia Dances Book 1, Trumpets, Songs without Voices, Two Organa Total Immersion, GSMD Music Hall, London (1pm) Guildhall Music Ensemble/Richard Baker
4 November
Whitman Settings, Sonya’s Lullaby, Variations, Ophelia’s Last Dance Total Immersion, GSMD Music Hall, London (6pm) Claire Booth (soprano)/Ryan Wigglesworth (piano)/ Huw Watkins (piano)
4 November
Choral, Whitman Settings, Violin Concerto, Symphony No 3 Total Immersion, Barbican (8pm) BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen (conductor)/ Leila Josefowicz (violin)/Claire Booth (soprano)
NMC have added their own ‘gift’ to the birthday year with a retrospective CD covering Knussen’s output from the 1970s. The disc of re-releases includes Knussen’s luminous Second Symphony, which takes the form of a 17-minute song cycle to texts by Georg Trakl and Sylvia Plath, and Symphony No. 3, a symphonic poem about Shakespeare’s Ophelia. The Ophelia connection is further explored in Knussen’s ensemble piece Ophelia Dances, an instrumental response to Shakespeare’s description of her chanting ‘snatches of old tunes/As one incapable of her own distress’. The recording is completed by the chamber orchestra pieces Coursing, Trumpets (for soprano and three clarinets) and Cantata (for oboe and string trio). Performers include the Nash Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas & Oliver Knussen (conductors), Elaine Barry, Linda Hirst (sopranos) & Michael Collins, Edward Pillinger, Ian Mitchell (clarinets).
‘Knussen’s musical language is complex and postserial, yet he has the knack of conjuring clarity, wit, emotion and memorability out of an idiom that produced so much forgettable cerebral sludge.’ The Times (Richard Morrison), 3 March 2012
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JONATHAN HARVEY – TOTAL IMMERSION On 28-29 January Jonathan Harvey’s music formed the focus of the Total Immersion festival at the Barbican, London. The events showcased the extraordinary variety of this most unique and visionary composer’s output: from vast symphonic pieces, such as Madonna of Winter and Spring, complete with hall-reverberating electronics, to ensemble pieces such as the antiphonally-sounded Calling Across Time, to choral works like Marhi that uses all facets of the human voice. Of the many superb events, highlights included a memorable and moving showcase of his choral
works by the BBC Singers, an excellent concert by GSMD students under Richard Baker, the film screening of Barry Gavin’s touching portrait of the composer, not to mention the London premiere of Messages with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, whose ending left the entire hall in a rarely-experienced moment of pin-drop silence. Capping of the weekend was the UK premiere of Harvey’s major opera Wagner Dream under the dedicated baton of Martyn Brabbins.
PRESS COMMENTS ‘a singular, distinctive voice in contemporary music’ The Observer, (Fiona Maddocks), 5 February 2012
‘a rich aural tapestry, enhanced with electronic transformations’ Evening Standard (Barry Millington), 30 January 2012
For Harvey, offering glistening aural metaphors of a spiritual realm is what music is for.’ The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 31 January 20
‘The UK premiere of Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream at the Barbican heralds a strong year for contemporary opera.’
‘There is no more consistently wonderful composer than Harvey, no other The Times (Geoff Brown), 31 January 2012 contemporary music – classical or otherwise – that makes your jaw drop with joy and delight at the sheer voluptuous possibilities orchestral or electronic sound has to take you to other dimensions of being and thinking.’
‘such sonic wizardry, such unbounded imagination’
The Guardian (Tom Service), 26 January 2012
‘there is no doubting that this weekend confirmed Harvey’s status at the head of British music’ Opera Today (Colin Clarke), 2 February 2012
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PHOTO: (TOP RIGHT) JONATHAN HARVEY © ANNA HARVEY WAGNER DREAM / BARBICAN © MARK ALLAN. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF THE BARBICAN.
The Independent (Anna Picard), January 2012
‘Harvey is the most good-natured, spiritually attuned, admirably intelligent and prolific of composers… an ensemble composer, a peculiarly dedicated choral composer, a dazzlingly fluent orchestral composer and a bold writer of opera.’ The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 5 February 2012
HIGHLIGHTS ‘Wagner Dream’ The idea behind Wagner Dream is pure Harvey, a distinctive blend of cultures, religions and musics: Richard Wagner is dying, but is tormented by his goal of writing a ‘Buddhist drama’ Die Sieger. As his final moments slip away Wagner is visited by the Buddhist guide Vairochana who inspires him to imagine the opera that might have been. Now we enter an opera within an opera, as the Buddhist legend of Prakriti and Ananda plays out against the background of Wagner’s death. The musical and emotional realms are, as Harvey puts it: ‘Late, highly charged romanticism with its paradigm of finding knowledge through emotional intensity fused with deep psychology and mythic regression, on the one hand. And on the other hand the new and old world of Buddhism and oriental thought with its detachment, its clear analysis of happiness and suffering in terms of mind.’ Wagner Dream was commissioned by De Nederlandse Opera and Holland Festival, Amsterdam, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg and IRCAM Paris. The 105-minute opera was first performed in April 2007 at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg with the soloists of Netherlands Opera joined by the Ictus Ensemble, IRCAM and conductor Martyn Brabbins. A recording of this performance has recently been released on the Cyprus Records label. Welsh National Opera has already announced it will give the first fully staged UK performance as part of its 2013 season marking Wagner’s bicentenary. The cast will include the wonderful Claire Booth as Prakiti, Dale Duesing as Buddha and Richard Angas as the Old Brahmin. The director will be Pierre Audi, who will work alongside rising young conductor Nicholas Collon.
Harvey at Lucerne Festival On 7 September the prestigious Lucerne Festival will feature Jonathan Harvey’s Speakings – the last in his ‘Glasgow Trilogy’, a triptych of orchestral/electronic works written for the BBC Scottish Symphony – in a concert given by Pierre Boulez and his Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra.
‘Weltethos’ update Harvey’s longest work for choir and orchestra played to a sold-out Berlin Philharmonie in October. It will now launch the London 2012 Festival in Birmingham on 21 June (the CBSO under Edward Gardner with Simon Halsey’s CBSO Chorus) and reach London on 7 October (with the same forces) at the Southbank as part of the Ether Festival.
‘The sound world is like visiting a wonderful art gallery… [a] unique and deeply imaginative work.’ Simon Halsey, Chief Conductor, Berlin Radio Choir
‘Jonathan Harvey is regarded as one of the most European of British composers, a ‘Modern Schoenberg’ who has studied electronic music at IRCAM in Paris, who has a firm grounding in the music of Stockhausen and the spirituality of Rudolf Steiner – and who understands the sounds of non-European music. All this has a positive effect on his score. The music is transparent… using fine chamber music effects and precise tone contours…’ Süddeutsche Zeitung (Wolfgang Schreiber), 15 October 2011
‘Bird Concerto’ reviews place Harvey alongside Messiaen The London Sinfonietta’s premiere recording of Harvey’s Bird Concerto with Piano Song with soloist Hidéki Nagano (NMC label) has garnered such critical acclaim that many are now placing Harvey’s work on an equal footing with Messiaen’s most famous birdinspired music:
Radio 3 CD of the week
Album of the week on WQXR, New York
‘Bird Concerto with Pianosong is a work or remarkable, beguiling beauty, in which the sounds of real birds intertwine with transformations of their song by soloist and ensemble. Recent works using birdsong inevitably invite comparison with Messiaen, with whom Harvey shares fundamental characteristics. They both possess a luminescence of vision, and a hard-won simplicity that is never simplistic. In short, this half-hour work is a wonderfully fresh, postMessiaen masterpiece…’
CHOICE OF THE MONTH, BBC Music Magazine (Christopher Dingle), January 2012
‘He meets the implied, self-imposed comparison with Messiaen head-on; not just by imitating birdsong on the piano… but by having the pianist trigger sampled birdsong from a laptop as well… this intriguing work offers Harvey’s trademark deftness and acoustic stimulation in equal measure.’ Gramophone Magazine (Fabrice Fitch), February 2012
‘Harvey has been known for subtle handling of technology and the electroacoustic Bird Concerto with Pianosong takes the fusion of media into new expressive realms. Hideki Nagano’s performance is scintillating’ The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 13 November 2011
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NEW COMPOSER – MARTIN SUCKLING Faber Music is delighted to welcome Martin Suckling to its esteemed list of House Composers. Martin Suckling was born in Glasgow in 1981. After spending his teenage years as a violinist in the National Youth Orchestra and in ceilidh bands around Scotland, Martin studied music at Clare College Cambridge and King’s College London. He was a Paul Mellon Fellow at Yale University from 2003–5, undertook doctoral research at the Royal Academy of Music, and subsequently became a Stipendiary Lecturer in Music at Somerville College, Oxford. His teachers include George Benjamin, Robin Holloway, Paul Patterson, Martin Bresnick, Ezra Laderman and Simon Bainbridge. Martin has benefited from residencies at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldeburgh, Aspen and IRCAM, and has won numerous awards including the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. He lives in Manchester and is currently Lecturer in Composition at the University of York. Martin Suckling has been commissioned by many leading orchestras and ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, London Sinfonietta, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Hebrides Ensemble, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Notable conductors of his works include Ilan Volkov, Francois-Xavier Roth, Robin Ticciati, Nicholas Collon, Pierre Andre Valade and George Benjamin. His music has also featured in festivals such as Cheltenham, Ultraschall, Chacombe, Deal, ISCM World Music Days 2007 (Hong Kong) and Oxford Lieder. 2011 saw several major premieres of new works. This included the critically acclaimed Candlebird, a substantial new piece for baritone and ensemble based on texts by Don Paterson, which was premiered by the London Sinfonietta under Nicholas Collon in May at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. In the same year storm, rose, tiger was premiered by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Robin Ticciati at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall in October. The impact of this piece is leading to further collaborations with the orchestra. Finally, December saw the premiere of a new violin concerto, de sol y grana, for Agata Szymczewska and the London Contemporary Orchestra. Suckling’s fascination with micro-tonality is evident in some of his recent works, as is his skill in handling this aspect of his sound-world; but freshness, poetic directness and melodic exuberance are the characteristics of his music which will most strike the listener.
‘luxuriously imaginative’ The Times (Geoff Brown), 1 June 2011
‘Martin Suckling is a young composer whose star is resolutely in the ascendant’ The Times (Sarah Unwin Jones), 16 October 2011
6 PHOTOS: (ABOVE) MARTIN SUCKLING © MAURICE FOXALL (RIGHT) MARTIN SUCKLING © TESSA OKSANEN
Works now available through Faber Music Ltd. include: de sol y grana (2011)
for solo violin and 14 players (15 mins)
storm, rose, tiger (2011)
for chamber orchestra (14 mins)
Candlebird (2011)
for baritone and eighteen players (26 mins)
To See the Dark Between (2010) for piano and strings (10 mins)
Lieder ohne Worte (2010) for piano (10 mins)
Three Venus Haiku (2009) for piano and violin (5 mins)
The Moon, The Moon! (2007) for orchestra (7 mins)
‘simply staggeringly assured.’ The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 5 June 2011
HIGHLIGHTS 2011 was an significant year for Martin Suckling. As well as becoming a Faber composer, Martin completed three noteworthy new works: Candlebird, storm, rose, tiger and de sol y grana. Each of these world premieres garnered significant critical acclaim, reflecting a growing view that Martin is one of the most promising composers of his generation. ‘Candlebird’ In May 2011 Martin Suckling’s stunning new song-cycle for baritone and ensemble, Candlebird, burst onto the scene. It found excellent interpreters in the form of the London Sinfonietta, singer Leigh Melrose and conductor Nicholas Collon. The critics were unanimous in their praise for this beautifully crafted piece.
‘simply staggeringly assured.’
‘de sol y grana’ Rounding off an extraordinary year, December 2011 saw the premiere of Martin’s new violin concerto, de sol y grana (‘of sunlight and scarlet’). The piece was commissioned by London Music Masters and premiered by Polish violinist Agata Szymczewska, conductor Hugh Brunt and the London Contemporary Orchestra as part of the Spitalfields Music Winter Festival. A second performance is already planned with Agata Szymczewska and Southbank Sinfonia on 24 May 2012 at St John’s, Waterloo.
‘it leaves an impression of vibrant colours and wideranging thematic material brought together with considerable technical skill… The score’s sheeny surface glistened with ideas attractively set in their overall context, yet all making their mark on their own.’ The Guardian (George Hall), 14 December 2011
The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 5 June 2011
‘Martin Suckling’s luxuriously imaginative song cycle… sparked a circus of scorched lyric phrases, dancing globules, odd folksy twirls, dips into speech and abundant panache. ‘ The Times (Geoff Brown), 1 June 2011
‘Each song is immediately characterised with a new musical idea; the writing is tangibly evocative. The third song, Motive, centres around a storm conjured in buffeting knocks on the instruments; in the title song, sliding, indistinct string melodies sound like a Brahms sextet melting in extreme heat.’ The Guardian (Erica Jeal), 1 June 2011
‘The technique and imagination on show throughout Suckling’s score was enormously impressive…’ The Telegraph (Hugo Shirley), 13 December 2011
‘Rather than being the dominant force, the soloist is first among equals, fizzing in and out of weirdly imagined string and wind textures that are sometimes soured by quarter-tones… under trills or quivering oscillations from the soloist, the strands are finally gathered into a superb finish: a bird-song like crescendo of ecstasy.’ The Times (Richard Morrison), 14 December 2011
‘Suckling has created a remarkable and beautiful work in de sol y grana, and it deserves more performances.’ Bachtrack.com (Paul Kilbey), 15 December 2011
‘storm, rose, tiger’ Martin Suckling’s run of success continued in October with the world premiere of storm, rose, tiger by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati. Taking inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges’s short story The Circular Ruins, this bright and shimmering work showed off the orchestra’s lightness and deftness of touch, and combined old forms with new sound colours. Once again the critics were enthralled by Martin’s music.
‘engrossing, haunting and self-assured… It couples fierce intellect with the musical sensibility of a fine violinist, and offers a generous hand to listeners by keeping earthy hooks at the core of its clever tricks.’ The Guardian (Kate Molleson), 16 October 2011
‘There’s a palpable sense of exploration throughout this delicate score, whose intricate web of textures come and go like fleeting thoughts, yet are ingeniously threaded together with rich lyrical seams…’ The Scotsman (Kenneth Walton), 15 October 2011
’…striking, innovative and affecting sound world.’ The Times (Sarah Unwin Jones), 16 October 2011
Martin Suckling
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Selected forthcoming performances Two Tributes
Colin Matthews
(Singapore premiere) 7.4.12, The Esplanade Recital Studio, University of Singapore, Singapore: Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble/Diego Masson
breadth of conception, the characteristic rocking pulse disturbed by downdraughts of violin eddies, florid flashes of tiny woodwind cadenzas, and moments of strange and sudden freeze.’ The Times (Hilary Finch), 4 November 2011
Feux d’artifice (Debussy orch. Colin Matthews)
The next opportunity to hear Grand Barcarolle will be on 24th May with South Bank Sinfonia and conductor Jonathan Berman at St John’s Waterloo.
13, 14.4.12, Perth Concert Hall, Australia: West Australian So/ Paul Daniel
Matthews’ Debussy Préludes performed around globe
14.7.12, Groningen, Netherlands: Noord Nederlands Orkest/ Benjamin Levy
Violin Concerto 26, 27.4.12, Alte Oper, Frankfurt, Germany: HR-Symphonieorchester/ Leila Josefowicz/Hugh Wolff
The Island/ Oboe Quartet No 2/Eleven Studies in Velocity/String Quartet No 2/ Three Enigmas/ Partita for solo violin/Luminoso/ scorrevole
28.4.12, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Musicians from the RNCM/ Clark Rundell
Grand Barcarolle (new chamber orchestra version) 24.5.12, St John’s Waterloo, London, UK: South Bank Sinfonia/Jonathan Berman
Pluto, the renewer
12, 14.7.12, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA, USA: Ludovic Morlot/Seattle SO
Matthews matches Beethoven in ‘Grand Barcarolle’ There are few contemporary composers who are able to engage with music of the past in the skilful, sensitive and imaginative way that Colin Matthews does in his transcriptions, arrangements and new works inspired by those of the past. The latter was in evidence at one of the hottest events of last autumn which saw the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and conductor Riccardo Chailly tour Beethoven’s 8th Symphony across Europe alongside Grand Barcarolle, a new 14-minute companion piece by Matthews. Critical acclaim followed Grand Barcarolle, which uses the forces of a Beethovenian orchestra in a new contemporary light, yet one which matches the gravity of Beethoven:
‘Grand Barcarolle [is] a piece that toys with the fact that Beethoven left the Eighth Symphony without a slow movement, but nods equally towards Mahler in its sombre melodiousness. A barcarolle is a gondolier’s song, and we soon heard the water, first rippling in the overlapping woodwind, then becoming choppier, more glinting. The writing is richly melodic – slow, songlike and serenely beautiful… Here, like Beethoven in his slow movements, Matthews aims for the heart, and hits its target just as surely.’ The Guardian (Erica Jeal), 2 November 2012
‘Here, like Beethoven in his slow movements, Matthews aims for the heart, and hits its target just as surely.’ ‘Flowing with gently dislocated barcarolle rhythms, it has a seriousness well matched to this great orchestra.’ The Telegraph (John Allison), 26 October 2011
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‘…modest in its concentration of textures and its absence of percussion or harp, yet grand in its PHOTO: COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL
Clear evidence for Matthews’ extraordinary gift of transcription is the success of his orchestrations of Debussy’s 24 piano Préludes. These works, which were commissioned and premiered by the Hallé, have now been taken up by orchestras across the globe. In 2011 alone the Préludes were performed by no less than nine major orchestras – including the New World Symphony, the US National Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and, most recently in January, the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas – proving that these works have well and truly entered standard orchestral repertoire.
‘…a delicate descent of woodwind, the fleck of a harp, and reverberating cellos and timpani introduced Voiles… one thing was clear. As Matthews had hoped, everything did seem so absolutely natural and inevitable that it was difficult to imagine the music in any other form.’ The Times (Hilary Finch), 26 January 2012
‘…Colin Matthews’s transcriptions of Debussy’s piano preludes – transcriptions rather than arrangements, because Matthews occasionally recomposes and makes additions. But he does so in imaginative orchestral writing that gleamed and glittered to virtuoso effect…’ The Guardian (George Hall), 25 January 2012
New Music North West Festival In March Colin Matthews’ music formed one of the key components of the Royal Northern College of Music & Manchester University’s ‘New Music North West’ festival. Many of Matthews’ acclaimed chamber works (including Suns Dance, The Island, Oboe Quartet No 2 and Three Enigmas) were performed. There will be another chance to hear these works when the RNCM students and conductor Clark Rundell hold a special study day on Matthews’ music at the Wigmore Hall in April.
Wigmore Hall Study Day 28.4.2012
TUNING IN Selected forthcoming performances
Julian Anderson to a cartoon-like scherzo, Vladimir Jurowski and his players spared nothing to realise the work’s virtuoso kaleidoscope of craft. The Times (Hilary Finch), 6 December 2011
‘By freeing himself with fantasia from the inhibitions of undertaking a symphony, Anderson has produced a strikingly successful one anyway.’ The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 11 December 2011
‘…a concerto for orchestra… music [that] fizzes frantically like sparks from a sorcerer’s wand.’ Double BASCA Success Julian Anderson’s place at the very heart of contemporary music was further confirmed by two British Composer Awards in 2011.
‘FANTASIAS’ – ORCHESTRAL WINNER In the orchestral category, Anderson’s Fantasias (2009) beat off stiff competition. This highly vibrant and virtuosic work represents Anderson’s response to a dream commission from the Cleveland Orchestra. It has since been taken up with enthusiasm by the National Youth Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov who performed it on tour at Birmigham Symphony Hall, the Snape Maltings and the BBC Proms in 2010. The piece has also been performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, who plan to release a recording of their performance on the LPO label next year.
‘BELL MASS’ – LITURGICAL WINNER The stunning Bell Mass (2010) for double SATB choir and organ is also a deserving winner, and those at the awards ceremony were treated to a special excerpt of the work recorded by the BBC Singers. The piece was commissioned by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey, as part of the 450th anniversary of the Abbey’s Collegiate Charter, and was premiered by the choir of Westminster Abbey and James O’Donnell in 2010.
LPO perform ‘Fantasias’ Following hot on the heels of its success at the BASCA awards, Fantasias was given just the virtuosic performance it deserved by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (with whom Anderson is composer in residence) in December 2011.
‘From the opening ricocheting brass, to the subsequent whirling and skirling dance, and on
Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 6 December 2011
World Premiere of ‘The Discovery of Heaven’
The Discovery of Heaven (World premiere)
24.3.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: London Philharmonic Orchestra/Ryan Wigglesworth
Past Hymns
13.4.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: London PO/
Book of Hours
(Swedish premiere) 10.5.12, NorrlandsOperan, Umeå, Sweden: SO of NorrlandsOpera/Rumon Gamba
Symphony
20, 21, 22.5.12, Cologne Philharmonie, Cologne, Germany: Gürzenich Orchestra/Markus Stenz
Khorovod
9.6.12, Nichols Concert Hall, Chicago, USA: Ensemble dal Niente
The Crazed Moon (Australian premiere) 14.9.12, Adelaide Town Hall, Australia: Adelaide SO/Martyn Brabbins
Anderson’s collaboration with the LPO continues this spring with the world premiere of a major new orchestral work, The Discovery of Heaven. The work melds together some intriguingly disparate influences, as the composer describes: ‘It is a three movement work inspired by the novel of the same name by the Dutch writer Harry Mulisch. Other influences on the piece include the music of Japanese Gagaku (or Court Music) which dates from 9th century AD, and the music of Janacek.’ Julian Anderson
The piece is a co-commission by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who will give the premiere under Ryan Wigglesworth in the Royal Festival Hall on 24th March 2012. The LPO also plans to release a recording of the premiere on their own label.
Julian Anderson In Portrait As well as orchestral music, Anderson is known for his strikingly colourful chamber works; works which the London Sinfonietta celebrated in their portrait concert dedicated to Julian Anderson at London’s King’s Place in September.
‘Julian Anderson’s music seeks the old in the new: through wondrous strange sounds which yet are grounded in nature; through sophisticated compositional and performance techniques which yet express a deep affinity with folk music.’ The concert showed off Anderson’s extraordinary breadth of imagination with works ranging from the vigorous viola solo Prayer, to the bell-like sounds of The Colour of Pomegranates (for alto flute and piano) and the miniature masterpiece Piano Etudes. 9
PHOTO: JULIAN ANDERSON © MAURICE FOXALL
Selected forthcoming performances
George Benjamin
Shadowlines 5.4.12, Kaplan Penthouse, Lincoln Centre, New York, USA: Gilles Vonsattel 27.4.12, Tonhalle Kleiner Saal, Zurich, Switzerland:
Antara 12.4.12, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: PierreLaurent Aimard/AskolSchönberg/ Etienne Siebens
Palimpsests 27.4.12, Hamburg, Germany: NDR Sinfonieorchester/Pablo Heras-Casado 4.5.12, Munich, Germany: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/ George Benjamin
Duet 13.8.12, Tanglewood Festival, USA: Peter Serkin/Oliver Knussen 14, 15, 16.11.12, Zürich Tonhalle, Switzerland: Tonhalle Orchestra/Roger Muraro/George Benjamin
Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm 22.6.12, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk, UK: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Written on Skin
(World premiere) 7, 9, 11, 14.7.12, Aix en Provence, Grand Theatre de Provence, France: George Benjamin (Dutch premiere) 6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 21, 23, 25.10.12, Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam, Netherlands: George Benjamin/Franck Ollu 23, 25, 27, 30.11.12, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, France: Franck Ollu (UK premiere) 8, 11, 14, 18, 22.3.13, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, UK: Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/George Benjamin
Cultural Olympiad celebrations for George Benjamin One of the major events of this summer’s Cultural Olympiad will be ‘Jubilation’, a weekend-long festival of George Benjamin’s music at London’s Southbank Centre, 12–13 May 2012. Taking its name from Benjamin’s work, Jubilation for orchestra & children’s group, the festival will feature many different aspects of Benjamin’s distinguished oeuvre including chamber music, music for ensemble, works using electronics, and some of the composer’s famous orchestral pieces. Highlights include a special screening of the documentary ‘Omnibus: Towards Antara’ and the chance to hear the piece itself with the London Sinfonietta, as well as a must-see performance of Benjamin’s renowned Palimpsests with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by the composer.
Cultural Olympiad Performances
Shadowlines/ Piano Figures/ Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm 10.7.12, Aix-en-Provence Festival, France: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Duet/Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra/Viola, Viola 15.7.12, Festival d’Aix en Provence, France: Pierre-Laurent Aimard/Mahler CO/ George Benjamin
Piano Figures 10.8.12, Tanglewood Festival, : Gloria Cheng
‘Duet’ continues to garner acclaim
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George Benjamin’s Duet for piano and orchestra has been gathering enormous praise ever since its premiere at the Lucerne Festival in 2008. PHOTO: GEORGE BENJAMIN © MAURICE FOXALL
The latest performances, in the USA with pianist Peter Serkin and the National Symphony Orchestra, and in Germany with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and pianist Martin Helmchen were no exception. The Junge Deutche Philharmonie has since released a recording of the performance on their own CD label. This extraordinary work now travels to the Southbank, London (see below), then to Aix en Provence in July with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and finally to the Tanglewood Festival in August.
‘…shimmering filigree, chamber-like airy music…’ Frankfurther Allgemeine Rhein-Main-Zeitung (Harald Budweg), 22 September 2011
‘This masterpiece duet is actually written in the spirit of a Mozart piano concerto…’ Kieler Nachrichten, Segeberger Zeitung (Christian Strehk), 22 September 2011
‘Benjamin removed the violins from the orchestra, using as many percussive effects as possible from the remaining instruments to create a vivid orchestration… Foghorn blasts of trombone and broad spasms of dissonance added elements of disorder.’ The Washington Post (Charles T. Downey), 4 November 2011
‘Written On Skin’ synopsis revealed 2012 is also the year of George Benjamin’s muchawaited new opera, Written on Skin, which will be premiered as part of the Aix-en-Provence Festival (co-comissioner) at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, on 7 July 2012, followed by further performances on 9, 11 and 14 July. The premiere cast will include: Christopher Purves baritone, Barbara Hannigan soprano, Bejun Mehta countertenor, Victoria Simmonds mezzo-soprano, Allan Clayton tenor, with stage direction by Katie Mitchell and sets/costumes by Vicki Mortimer. George Benjamin will conduct the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Following the premiere the opera tours to: Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam (co-comissioner), Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse (co-comissioner), Royal Opera House, London (co-comissioner), Maggio Musicale, Florence Theater an der Wien, Vienna, Bavarian State Opera, Munich and Opéra Comique, Paris during 2012/13. Written on Skin lasts c.95 minutes, and is scored for an orchestra of 60 players with some unusual additions including a bass viola de gamba
TUNING IN Selected forthcoming performances
John Woolrich and a glass harmonica. The libretto is based on an anonymous 13th century tale and is a collaboration with playwright Martin Crimp, who describes the plot: ‘A rich landowner invites an artist into his house to make an illuminated book. He wants the book to immortalise in pictures both the violent operation of his political power and his peaceful enjoyment of domestic order – embodied by the humility and child-like obedience of his wife, Agnès. But the making of the book becomes a catalyst for the woman’s rebellion. After her first successful experiment in seduction, she exploits her new intimacy with the illuminator to influence the contents of the book itself – forcing her husband to see her as she really is – and laying the ground for an extraordinary final act of defiance.’ Martin Crimp
In the Mirrors of Asleep 26.7.12, Thalia Concert Hall, Sibiu, Romania: Icon Arts Ensemble
Capriccio
21.9.12, Sainte Clotilde, Paris, France: Daniel Pioro/Sinfonietta Paris/Michael Boone 22.9.12, Bobigny, France: Daniel Pioro/Sinfonietta Paris/ Michael Boone 10.10.12, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK: Orchestra of St Johns/John Lubbock/Daniel Pioro
Hugo Wolf arr. Woolrich: Italian Songs
9.8.12, Dartington Summer School, UK: Dartington Summer School String Orchestra/Jonathan Morton
A modern retelling: ‘Ulysses Awakes’ continues to impress Many people often lament the fact that contemporary pieces are played once and forgotten, but John Woolrich’s Ulysses Awakes has more than bucked the trend. Since its premiere in 1989 Ulysses Awakes, Woolrich’s 8-minute concerto for viola and 10 solo strings, has been performed over 200 times in countries as far afield as the USA, Australia, Lebanon, Egypt, Norway, Germany, Russia and Italy to name just a handful! Many of the world’s leading viola players including Brett Dean, Maxim Rysanov, Roger Chase and Paul Silverthorne have performed the work. The key to Woolrich’s success lies in his unique blend of old and new: ‘There are two great arias at the beginning of Monteverdi’s opera ‘Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria,’ writes Woolrich, ‘one for Penelope, and this one for Ulysses, waking on the shore of his homeland. In this retelling, the viola sings Ulysses.’ Re-working already great music is no easy task, but evidently it’s one that Woolrich has masterfully succeeded:
‘a powerfully effective piece, which manages to be utterly faithful to the spirit of Monteverdi and yet entirely part of Woolrich’s musical world, too.’ The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 1 July 2011
Dartington preview Last year was Woolrich’s first as artistic director of the Dartington International Summer School. Composition lay at the heart of his planning, as it does this for the coming year: ‘This summer our composition teachers include Detlev Glanert and Thea Musgrave. Hugh Wood and Gordon Crosse will also be there, Joe Cutler will run a beginners’ composition course and Ray Davies will look at songwriting. Philip Cashian will teach a new course to help teachers develop compositional skills. Dominic Murcott and John Richards will teach electronic music.’ John Woolrich
11 PHOTOS: (ABOVE) THREE SET DESIGNS (WORKING MODELS) BY VICKI MORTIMER FOR THE THREE PARTS OF ‘WRITTEN ON SKIN’
PHOTO: JOHN WOOLRICH © MAURICE FOXALL
Selected forthcoming performances No seré yo quien diga nada
(world premiere) 12.4.12, Auditorio de Torrevieja, Spain: Nicolas Hodges/Valencia YO/Manuel Galduf 14.4.12, Festival de Úbeda, Spain: Nicolas Hodges/Valencia Youth Orchestra/Manuel Galduf 16.4.12, Palau de la Música de Valencia, Spain: Nicolas Hodges/ Valencia Youth Orchestra/Manuel Galduf
Hidd’n Blue
2.5.12, Barbican, London, UK: Guildhall School of Music Symphony Orchestra/Ben Gernon
new work
(world premiere) 27.6.12, City of London Festival, London, UK: LSO Brass Ensemble
In Extremis
(world premiere) 26.7.12, Festival de Sagunt a Escena, Spain: Valencia Youth Orchestra/Coro de la Generalitat Valenciana
Tapias
(world premiere) 22.9.12, Festival de Música de Alicante, Spain: National Orchestra of Spain/Rubén Gimeno/Juan Carlos Matamoros
Francisco Coll ‘Hidd’n Blue’ adds to illustrious list of orchestral works Young composer Francisco Coll is beginning to get quite a name for orchestral music. The most recent performance – the world premiere of an extended 6-minute version of Hidd’n Blue performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Adès at the Barbican on 15th January – adds to an already impressive list of orchestral pieces. Hidd’n Blue was written specifically with the LSO in mind and as Coll describes ‘it’s ‘3D music for a virtuoso orchestra of the 21st century.’ This hit home with the critics who praised the composer’s affinity for orchestral writing:
‘Scored for a sizeable ensemble firing on most cylinders most of the time, including a varied posse of percussion, it displays a brilliant colouristic range and a sense of momentum that meant that its four-minute span passed all too quickly.’ The Guardian (George Hall), 17 January 2012
‘Hidd’n Blue… swirled and juddered with an exuberant orchestral imagination, a good portent for the composer’s future.’ The Times (Geoff Brown), 17 January 2012
‘Piedras’ wows critics Coll’s music collected yet more accolades at the UK premiere of Piedras (15-minutes) with the London Sinfonietta and conductor Martyn Brabbins at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in November (see Coll’s associated painting below). Piedras was commissioned by the LA Philharmonic and performed by their new music group in April 2011. At the London performance there was widespread affirmation from players and conductor alike of the quality of the music.
Francisco Coll’s glittering Piedras was positively stuffed with brilliantly focused musical images. Coll seems on first encounter like the real thing – a young composer with a fund of fiercely original ideas and all the technique needed to realise them, the kind of discovery that makes concerts like this worthwhile. The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 8 November 2011
Francisco Coll’s Piedras was a sophisticated and daring soundscape of extreme and polarised sonorities, coalescing and sliding between stability and instability. The Times (Hilary Finch), 7 November 2011
12 PHOTO: (TOP RIGHT) FRANCISCO COLL © MAURICE FOXALL (BOTTOM) COLL’S OWN PAINTING ‘PIEDRAS’
‘Golden Fanfare’ for the City of London Festival 2012 marks the Golden Jubilee of the City of London Festival, founded 50 years ago. To mark this occasion, and to celebrate the Goldsmiths Company’s upcoming Gold exhibition, the festival (and the Goldsmiths Company commissioners) have asked Francisco to compose a special ‘Golden Fanfare’, to be played by the renowned brass section of the London Symphony Orchestra at Goldsmiths’ Hall on 27 June. This exciting commission recognises Coll’s extraordinary gift of synaesthesia – he visualises all his music and often paints a canvas before beginning a new piece – and his Fanfare will express the colour of gold in musical terms.
New work for Nicolas Hodges This busy year for Coll will also include the world premiere of a new 10-minute work for piano and orchestra, No seré yo quien diga nada (I’m not saying nothing), written for celebrated pianist Nicolas Hodges and the Valencia Youth Orchestra. The first performance will take place in Spain on 12 April. Coll’s second premiere for the Valencia Youth Orchestra is for choir and orchestra and is entitled In Extremis. It will be performed in July.
National Orchestra of Spain Coll has been commissioned by the National Orchestra of Spain for a work to be performed in September this year. More information to follow in the next newsletter.
TUNING IN
David Matthews
Peter Sculthorpe
David Matthews – Selected forthcoming performance Love Songs
25.4.12, Minster of St George, Doncaster, UK: Anna Stéphany/ Manchester Camerata/ Gabor Takacs Nagy 26.4.12, Coronation Hall, Ulverston, Cumbria, UK: Anna Stéphany/ Manchester Camerata/ Gabor Takacs Nagy 27.4.12, Stafford Gatehouse, UK: Anna Stéphany/ Manchester Camerata/ Gabor Takacs Nagy 28.4.12, RNCM, Manchester, UK: Anna Stéphany/Manchester Camerata/ Gabor Takacs Nagy 29.4.12, The Muni, Colne, UK: Anna Stéphany/ Manchester Camerata/ Gabor Takacs Nagy
String Quartet No 12
David Matthews & Sibelius at King’s Place On 3-5 May King’s Place, London will host a festival dedicated to the ‘Inner Voices’ of David Matthews and Jean Sibelius. Concerts will include their ‘master string quartets’ performed by the Kreutzer Quartet, a performance of violin & piano works, another devoted to their solo piano works by both composers, and finally an orchestral showcase by the English Chamber Orchestra. There will also be a study day on 5 May exploring the careers of Sibelius and Matthews with sessions lead by Andrew Barnett, Julian Anderson, David Matthews and Edward Clark. This will be a unique opportunity to hear Sibelius, the master symphonist, alongside one of the best contemporary British symphonists, David Matthews – who, like Sibelius, has completed seven abstract symphonies.
‘Eight Duos’ reaches China David Matthews’s Eight Duos for Two Violins blends the music of different countries: its movements include an English dance, a Slavonic dance, as well music inspired by the woods of New Hampshire, USA. It is fitting then that this ‘international’ piece, which is 15 minutes long, has been performed aross the globe in the UK, Germany, Turkey and now China. In November 2011 the Rectorica Duo (Philippa Mo and Harriet Mackenzie) performed the piece in Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts, Guangzhou Tianhe Cultural Centre, Dongguan Donghu Theatre and Shanghai Oriental Art Centre.
Presteigne Festival The Retorica Duo will continue their run of Eight Duos performances on 25th August at this year’s Presteigne Festival. The same day, the Carducci Quartet will perform David Matthews’s String Quartet No.3, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Sculthorpe’s string quartets honoured in film Peter Sculthorpe is a composer who has written for a diverse number of genres, but one genre has perhaps captivated his imagination more than any other during his career: the string quartet. Over the years Sculthorpe has composed eighteen numbered string quartets, as well as numerous arrangements for the medium, and in 2012 his valued contribution to the genre will be honoured by a new documentary. The film will feature the renowned Goldner Quartet who have had a long and close relationship with Sculthorpe and his music. Filming begins at Government House in Sydney on Sculthorpe’s birthday, 29 April, when the Goldners will play him a birthday celebration concert. Later in the year, they hope to do some filming in the Australian outback – a landscape that has inspired many of Sculthorpe’s compositions.
New saxophone work for Presteigne Festival The Presteigne Festival in Wales has regularly featured music by Peter Sculthorpe and this year will include the world premiere of his new piece for saxophone and strings. The new work, which was specially commissioned by the festival, will be performed by esteemed Australian saxophonist Amy Dickson and the Presteigne Festival Orchestra under George Vass. The performance will take place on the festival’s closing night, 28 August, in St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne, Powys.
3.5.12, Kings Place, London: Kreutzer Quartet
Aria/Adonis
4.5.12, Kings Place, London: Sara Trickey/Daniel Tong
Two Dionysus Dithyrambs Variations for Piano
5.5.12, Kings Place, London: Laura Mikkola
Adagio for String Orchestra/Total Tango/Three Birds and a Farewell/ Winter Remembered 5.5.12, Kings Place, London : English Chamber Orchestra/ Paul Watkins/ Sarah-Jane Bradley
Peter Sculthorpe – Selected forthcoming performance Earth Cry/ Concerto for Piano
(Lebanese premiere) 4.4.12, St Joseph’s Church, Beirut, Lebanon: Lebanese PO/ Harout Fazlian/Geoffrey Saba
My Country Childhood
3, 4, 5.5.12, Antwerp, Belgium: de Filharmonie/Steven Verhaert
Lullaby
14.7.12, St Michael & All Angels, Turnham Green, London UK: Addison Singers/ David Wordsworth
Sun Song
15, 16.8.12, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: Sydney SO/Thomas Sanderling
13 PHOTOS: (TOP LEFT) DAVID MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL, (TOP RIGHT) PETER SCULTHORPE © MAURICE FOXALL
Selected forthcoming performances The Four Quarters
Thomas Adès
10.4.12, Washington Library of Congress, USA: Arditti String Quartet
and living things to a final day of contemplation. Like alchemists, Adès and Rosner transform basic elements into a glittering wonder.’
12.4.12, San Francisco Chamber Music Society, USA: Arditti String Quartet
The Times (Geoff Brown), 16 December 2011
18.4.12, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Doelen Quartet
LSO showcase Adès In Seven Days was given another chance to shine in January 2012 as part of a breathtaking concert by the London Symphony Orchestra, which also included Adès’s symphonic masterpiece Tevot.
Concerto for Violin
13, 14..4.12, Perth Concert Hall, WA, Australia: Kurt Nikkanen/ West Australian SO/Paul Daniel
‘Tevot is an immensely powerful meditation on the Earth as our hearth and home, a safe haven in a chaotic chaos. It was all very humbling. Adès’s command of a large orchestra’s resources is supreme; in building and executing a symphonic argument there’s not a living composer to top him. Tevot alone gives proof enough with its masterful mix of continuity and disruption.’
10.5.12, NorrlandsOperan, Umeå, Sweden: Anthony Marwood/fNorrlandsOpera SO/ Rumon Gamba 23, 25.5.12, Atlanta Symphony Hall, GA, USA: Atlanta SO/ James Gaffigan 4, 6, 7..7.12, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: Sydney SO/ David Robertson/ Anthony Marwood
Dances from Powder Her Face 16.4.12, Davies Hall, San Francisco, CA, USA: Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Most
19.4.12, Callum Theatre, Palm Desert, USA: Cleveland Orchestra/ Franz Welser-Most 20.4.12, San Diego, CA, USA: Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Most 21.4.12, Las Vegas, USA: Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Most 24.5.12, Auditorium Orchestre National de Lyon: Orchestre National de Lyon/Hugh Wolff
Powder Her Face 27, 29.4.12, & 4, 8, 10.5.12 Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Italy: Olga Zhuravel/Nicholas Isherwood/Zuzana Markova/ Orchestra Teatro la Fenice/ Philip Walsh
Arcadiana
4.5.12, Sounds New Festival, Canterbury, UK: Arditti String Quartet 22.6.12, Espro. Ircam, Paris, France: Arditti String Quartet
Three Studies from Couperin
(Swedish premiere) 10.5.12, NorrlandsOperan, Umeå, Sweden: NorrlandsOpera SO/ Rumon Gamba
Chamber Symphony
1.7.12, IEMA, Paris, France: Thomas Adès
Polaris
(Australian premiere) 10, 11.8.12, Hamer Hall, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Melbourne SO/Markus Stenz
14
The Times (Geoff Brown), 17 January 2012
Two new CDs mark 40th birthday 2011 was Thomas Adès’s 40th year and along with two new works, two retrospective festivals and Musical America’s ‘Composer of the Year’ accolade, the important occasion was marked with two new CDs celebrating the composer’s compositional output. In September EMI released a retrospective double album, ‘Thomas Adès: Anthology’, featuring some of the most high profile works from Adès’s illustrious career so far (Arcadiana, Chamber Symphony, Living Toys, Violin Concerto) as well as two recent piano pieces Mazurkas and Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face. Five star reviews have followed its release:
‘…this is essential Adès, impeccably performed, for those wanting to survey the oeuvre in all its quixotic variety.’ The Observer (Fiona Maddocks), 25 September 2011
In December the London Sinfonietta and Signum Records released their own Adès CD/ DVD centred around In Seven Days, Adès’s unique work for piano and orchestra. Described as ‘one of the most exciting artistic collaborations of recent years’, Adès’s music combines with visuals by Tal Rosner in a work inspired by the Hebrew story of creation. Recorded live in concert at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, the recording features Nicolas Hodges as pianist and Adès himself as conductor.
‘Locked in at home, the force is concentrated. Now you revel as shape, rhythm and dynamics interact and seven sections take us from watery chaos through the creation of land, vegetation PHOTO: THOMAS ADÈS © BRIAN VOCE
‘[In In Seven Days] Adès possesses the gift of producing striking and immediate ideas that are nevertheless subtly ambiguous in their impact… The slightly earlier Tevot once again impressed with its sonic magnificence and spectacular grandeur of motion.’ The Guardian (George Hall), 17 January 2012
‘Polaris’ travels around the world Thomas Adès’s latest orchestral work, Polaris, was commissioned by no less than seven organisations world-wide, and just over a year since its premiere in January 2011 with the New World Symphony and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, the piece has travelled across continents: to Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic, Amsterdam with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco with the SF Symphony Orchestra, New York with the NY Philharmonic and Lisbon with the Gulbenkian Orchestra.
‘ …there’s a rapturous sheen to the score that makes it impossible to resist.’ San Francisco Chronicle (Joshua Kosman), 3 October 2011
‘contemporary music aficionados, once again, could only be dazzled by this remarkable musician’s bracingly distinctive compositional voice…a magnificent introduction to an irresistible new work.’ San Francisco Classical Voice (Georgia Rowe), 29 September 2011
In February 2012 Polaris made its London debut and UK premiere at the Barbican with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Alan Gilbert.
‘It was another demonstration of Adès’s masterly orchestral writing, shimmering in the air as it moved steadily along its vast harmonic trajectory. This was a finely realised performance, the work’s intricate detail as focused as its clean-edged outline.’ The Guardian (George Hall), 19 February 2012
TUNING IN
Nicholas Maw South American debut In November 2011 Adès made his South American debut – as both conductor and composer – with the Orchestra of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Adès’s choice of programme – featuring his works Asyla, Concerto for Violin and Polaris – was guided, he writes, by the desire to present the public with an overview of his work: ‘We start with Asyla, written in the 90s, then the violin concerto, which I wrote about six years ago, and end up with Polaris, written recently. The desire, of course, is to show my development over this period. Maybe it’s correct to say that Asyla is more elaborate than the other works, in the sense that there was much I wanted to say and show when I wrote it. Thus, the most recent works show me more focused on specific elements. Finally, Polaris is a more mystical work than I’m used to writing.’ Thomas Adès
Gulbenkian residency Over two weeks in January 2012, Thomas Adès took up an artist residency at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation which promoted a range of Adèsrelated activities including three symphonic concerts conducted by Adès, a film of his opera The Tempest, and a conference dedicated to the composer. The first two concerts featured the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in programmes that combined Adès’s works – Three Studies after Couperin, Concerto for Violin and In Seven Days – alongside those of Berlioz, Sibelius and Beethoven. The final event saw Adès take to the stage with the Gulbenkian Orchestra for a concert of symphonic titans: Adès’s Polaris (cocomissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation along with other partners), Asyla and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. The pairing is an interesting one as Adès explains: ‘I thought Asyla and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique have much in common in that Berlioz creates the first great musical description of the effect of drugs and shows paranoia relating to a relationship. For Asyla I was inspired by the idea of an asylum, but here it is an outside view and not a first-person experience.’ Thomas Adès
‘Brilliant. A remarkable portrait of a great musician… Asyla is a work of great quality. Adès is a composer who shows a remarkable breadth of language…’ Diabo (Henrique Silveira), 31 January 2012
‘Adès’s prodigious imagination makes him the composer of contemporary violence and of the unpredictable… Nothing is too simple or too complex for him: pianistic miniatures, chamber works, concertos, large-scale orchestral pieces, operas. Expresso (Jorge Caldo), January 2012
Maw memorial concert On 30th October 2011, two and a half years after his death, Nicholas Maw’s rich, melodic music once again filled the London stage. This memorial concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall drew together many different strands of Maw’s celebrated output, and the performance was a reminder of Maw’s exceptional place in recent music history; a composer whose music straddled the divide between the categories of ‘avant-garde’ and ‘accessible,’ and whose mastery is evident across many different genres. The City of London Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton, the Holst Singers and the Royal Academy of Music with conductor Chris Austin, came together to pay collective tribute to Maw.
‘…listening to the late English composer’s compositions, you can certainly understand some reasons for predicting a rosy future. Always his own man, Maw forged a path through 20thcentury music that kept springing back to what came just before: communicable music with a romantic sweep and ample melodic line, despatched with structural logic and dazzling instrumental finesse. Passion, in short, plus restraint: a uniquely British mixture.’ The Times (Geoff Brown), 1 November 2011
‘It is often said of Nicholas Maw, who died in 2009, that he was born at the wrong time… But one could equally argue that this deeply inventive composer, who drew on techniques and forms for their expressive relevance, was born several decades too early.’ The Guardian (Guy Dammann), 1 November 2011
‘…one of the very greatest composers of his day.’ Seen and Heard (Christopher Gunning), 1 November 2011
15 PHOTO: NICHOLAS MAW © MAURICE FOXALL
Selected forthcoming performances Homage to Metallica
Matthew Hindson ‘Comin’ Right Atcha’ delights Milwaukee audience
(Canadian premiere) 29 & 30.4.2012, Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts, Kitchener, ON, Canada: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony/ Edwin Outwater
The invigorating, James Brown-inspired ensemble piece Comin’ Right Atcha thrilled the audience in a recent concert by Present Music in Milwaukee. It was programmed as the result of an “ask-theaudience” e-mail campaign. “It’s power-to-thepeople time,” director Kevin Stalheim declared at the start of “Choose” at Turner Hall Ballroom on 7 January:
Rush
(Musica Viva Australia tour performances by Diana Doherty & St Lawrence String Quartet) 14.4.2012, Newcastle, NSW; 16 & 21.4.2012, City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney; 18.4.2012, QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane; 19.4.2012, Adelaide Town Hall; 23.4.2012, Hobart; 24 & 28.4.2012, Melbourne Recital Centre; 26.4.2012, Perth Concert Hall
‘…riffed wonderfully on James Brown funk. It cooked. It would make a great dance score.’ Shepherd’s Express (John Schneider)
William Barton joins Melbourne & Sydney orchestras for ‘Kalkadungu’
House Music (Australian premiere) 4, 5.5.2012, Sydney Conservatorium, Australia: Alexa Still/Sydney Conservatorium SO/ Imre Pallo
House Music
(US premiere) 11.8.2012, National Flute Association Convention, Las Vegas, NV, USA: Alexa Still/ Convention Orchestra
Piano Trio
13.5.2012, ANAM (Australian National Academy of Music), Melbourne, Australia: student ensemble
Kalkadungu
27.5.2012, Melbourne Town Hall, Australia: William Barton/ Monash Academy/Fabian Russell 27 & 28.6.2012, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: William Barton/Sydney SO/David Robertson
The Rave and the Nightingale 2.6.2012, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia: Camerata of St John’s/Goldner String Quartet
Light is both a particle and a wave
15.6.2012, ANAM (Australian National Academy of Music), Melbourne, Australia: student ensemble
Faster
(world premiere performances by Birmingham Royal Ballet, choreographed by David Bintley, conductor Paul Murphy) 27-30.6.2012, Hippodrome, Birmingham, UK October 2012, UK tour to Plymouth, Cardiff & London (Sadler’s Wells)
Siegfried Interlude No 4
28.6.2012, ANAM (Australian National Academy of Music), Melbourne, Australia: student ensemble
Didjeridu virtuoso William Barton gives performances of Kalkadungu with both the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras this season. The 20-minute work was co-written with ‘Faster’ – a new ballet for David Bintley Matthew Hindson in 2007 and features Barton Faster is a new 30-minute orchestral ballet, a on didjeridu, electric guitar and voice. Following commission from Birmingham Royal Ballet for David its premiere in 2007, the Sydney Morning Herald Bintley. Inspired by the Olympic motto “Faster, said it was ‘the most compelling few minutes of Higher, Stronger” it premieres in Birmingham’s indigenous-inspired fast music to come from any Hippodrome on 27 June, with five further white Australian.’ Benjamin Northey conducted performance there, before touring to Plymouth, the MSO performance on 18 February, whilst David Cardiff and Sadler’s Wells, London in the autumn. Robertson conducts in Sydney on 27 and 28 June. It’s an eagerly anticipated score, with Hindson and Bintley’s previous collaboration, E=mc2, having won Lara St John gives West Coast premiere of ‘ Violin Concerto’ the South Bank Show Award for Dance in 2010. Following her much-lauded recording of Hindson’s ANAM residency in Melbourne Violin Concerto, Canadian virtuoso Lara St John Hindson is to be Resident Composer for 2012–13 launched the work on the US West Coast with at the Australian National Academy of Music in the New West Symphony and Sarah Ioannides in Melbourne. Artistic Director, Paul Dean, announced November 2011: the residency in February. Hindson’s music will be ‘Hindson’s musical descriptions are straightforward performed widely throughout the season, and he will and sometimes clever. But his talent here is for a be featured “In Conversation” there on 15 June.
US premiere of ‘House Music’ at National Flute Association Convention in Las Vegas Alexa Still is to give the US premiere of Hindson’s outrageous 25-minute flute concerto, House Music (2008) on 11 August. It forms one of the highlights of The National Flute Association’s Annual Convention, being held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and attended by more than 3000 flautists and flute enthusiasts. House Music was originally premiered in London’s Southbank Centre by Marina Piccinini with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
‘Homage to Metallica’ to premiere in Canada Hindson’s orchestral nod to heavy metal music, Homage to Metallica, receives its North American premieres on 29 and 30 April when Edwin Outwater conducts the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. The high-octane score includes a virtuosic solo for 1/8-sized amplified violin.
16 PHOTOS: (TOP LEFT) MATTHEW HINDSON © BRIDGET ELLIOTT (BOTTOM RIGHT) LARA ST JOHN © PAUL CLANCY
contagious pop sensibility that occasionally takes over the concerto. Were he to turn to scoring for Hollywood, I think things would look up at the movies.’
Los Angeles Times (Mark Swed), 14 November 2011
TUNING IN Selected forthcoming performances
Tansy Davies
Streamlines
20.4.12, Pomona First Baptist Church, Pomona, USA: OCHSA/ Christopher Russell
Carol for King’s College Cambridge Each Christmas the choir of King’s College Cambridge commissions a new work for their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. In 2011 the honour fell to Tansy Davies whose atmospheric setting of Christina Rossetti’s poem Christmas Eve was one of the highlights of this service, which was broadcast around the world. Davies is perhaps best known for her edgy instrumental works, but this beautifully simple carol shows the versatility of her talent.
30.6.12, Westminster Central Hall, London, UK: OCHSA Symphony Orchestra/Christopher Russell
new work: piano concerto
(World premiere) 25.5.12, CBSO Centre, Birmingham, UK: Huw Watkins/ BCMG/Oliver Knussen
new work: Nonet for COLF
‘the highlight was this year’s commissioned carol, composed by Tansy Davies… seriously beguiling… imaginative & thoughtful.’
(World premiere) 28.6.12, City of London Festival, Mansion House, London, UK: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
5-against-4.blogspot.com (Simon Cummings), 26 December 2011
Christmas hath a darkness Brighter than the blazing noon, Christmas hath a chillness Warmer than the heat of June, Christmas hath a beauty Lovelier than the world can show: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low.
Christina Rossetti
New Piano Concerto for BCMG Tansy Davies and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group have had a long and fruitful history; since 2003 the group has performed many of her works including the world premiere of her large ensemble piece Falling Angel, the UK premiere of grind show and the premiere recording of her striking saxophone concerto Iris. This rich collaboration continues in 2012 with the world premiere of her new piano concerto (25 May, CBSO Centre Birmingham); a performance that the ensemble is clearly looking forward to:
‘Energy, dance, darkness, glistening surfaces, collisions and juxtapositions, jolting rhythms and a slow-burning lyricism; all are present in Tansy Davies’ music, which is some of the most fascinating around… When Tansy told us she wanted to write a piano concerto for the superb Huw Watkins, it was clear we should grab this with both hands. I am very excited that Oliver Knussen, long an admirer of Tansy’s music, will conduct it for the first time with this premiere, honouring it with inclusion in his 60th birthday programme.’ Stephen Newbould, BCMG Artistic Director
Don’t miss the pre-concert talk with Tansy Davies, 6.30pm, 25 May 2012, CBSO Centre Birmingham. PHOTOS: (TOP RIGHT) TANSY DAVIES © MAURICE FOXALL, (BOTTOM) MARIANNE HAUGLI (DANCER IN ‘OMEGA AND THE DEER’) © ERIK BERG
Prix de Monaco Shortlist Wild Card, Tansy Davies’s 24-minute orchestral work, has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2012 Foundation Prince Pierre De Monaco Award for composition. The acclaimed Wild Card was a commission for the 2010 BBC Proms, where it was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jirí Belohlávek. The Telegraph described it as ‘the most startling, ear-tickling of the season’s premieres.’
Word Premiere at City of London Festival One of the highlights of this year’s City of London Festival will be a new wind nonet by Tansy Davies – her second world premiere in two months! Written for players from the distinguished Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the new piece will premiered at Mansion House on 28 June.
Ballet: ‘Omega and the Deer’ Omega and the Deer is a major new collaboration between renowned Norwegian choreographer Ingun Bjørnsgaard and composers Tansy Davies and Rolf Wallin. The ballet – in which fumbling and beautiful forest characters are taken prisoner by their own shadows – features music from Davies’s celebrated Troubairitz album including: Grind Show (electric), neon, Salt Box and I Walk Alone (from the Troubairitz song cycle). The piece was premiered in October at the Oslo International Dance Festival, with subsequent performances in Berlin, Potsdam, Hamburg and New York.
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Selected forthcoming performances – Jonny Greenwood 48 Responses to Polymorphia (US premiere) & Doghouse 3.6.2012, Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC, USA: Festival Orchestra/John Kennedy
There Will Be Blood – Suite Popcorn Superhet Receiver & smear (world premiere of ‘There Will Be Blood - Suite) (Dutch premieres of ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’ & ‘Smear’) 16.6.2012, Holland Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam Sinfonietta/André de Ridder 17.6.2012, Musickgebouw Eindhoven, Netherlands: Amsterdam Sinfonietta/André de Ridder
Selected forthcoming performances – Malcolm Arnold Concerto for Clarinet No 2
2.5.12, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Oxford High School Orchestra/Frankie McCormick/ Roger Spikes
Anniversary Overture
20.5.12, Käthe-KollwitzGymnasium Wilhelmshaven, Germany: Neues Wilhelmshavener Sinfonieorchester/Marcus Prieser
Jonny Greenwood
Malcolm Arnold
First commercial release of ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’
Arnold’s complete symphonies
The eagerly-awaited premiere recording of Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver is now available on the Canadian label, Analekta. It’s something of a coup for the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, on their first release under new Music Director, Edwin Outwater:
‘…the most important Radiohead-related release of the year, aside from their most recent album The King of Limbs… Greenwood has likened the sound of this first orchestral foray to his own memories of childhood car rides, in which the engine’s hum contributed a droning counterpoint to the cassette playing in the tape deck – or a radio signal that might be sliding in and out of broadcast range… over the course of the full work, we can hear Greenwood twisting his own aesthetic dial to find and then linger upon those strange spots in between stations: where a lovely, blooming phrase can keen sharply, moments before dissolving into a spectral haze.’ Slate.com (Seth Colter-Walls), 18 November 2011
Penderecki project released on Nonesuch… In March, Nonesuch Records released a disc of works by Greenwood and his long-time hero, Krzysztof Penderecki. It includes Popcorn Superhet Receiver, along with the first recording of Greenwood’s Penderecki homage, 48 Responses to Polymorphia. Reviews to follow in next issue.
…and in London’s Barbican Hall On 22 March Greenwood and Penderecki were joined by the AUKSO Chamber Orchestra of Poland to recreate the joint concert of their works first curated at the European Culture Congress in Wroclaw last September, and which included the world premiere of 48 Responses to Polymorphia.
Holland Festival hosts premiere of ‘There Will Be Blood Suite’ The Amsterdam Sinfonietta under André de Ridder are to give the world premiere performance of a new 16-minute orchestral suite from Greenwood’s score to the film There Will Be Blood. It takes place on 16 June, with a further performance in Eindhoven on 17. Also in the programme are smear and Popcorn Superhet Receiver.
Spoleto Festival premiere The Spoleto Festival stage the US premiere of 48 Responses to Polymorphia on 3 June, along with the orchestral work Doghouse. John Kennedy conducts the Festival Orchestra.
18 PHOTO: MALCOLM ARNOLD © FRITZ CURZON
The 2011 Malcolm Arnold festival celebrated the 90th anniversary of the composer’s birth with a rare opportunity to hear all nine of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s symphonies. Described as ‘an achievement unique in British music-making’, this was a special occassion showcasing the composer’s extraordinarily diverse musical languages:
‘…it is a salutary experience to hear the nine symphonies in the order in which they were written and discover again how vividly original is their scoring and individually memorable are their themes. Alongside the rich, tuneful, lyrical writing, there are clashes of bold dissonance and moments of violence… These symphonies are characteristically unpredictable and hauntingly intense.’ Gramophone Magazine (Ivan March), January 2012
‘His symphonies are querulous, highly melodic, astringent, uplifting, insecure, triumphant, life enhancing, full of personal despair, ultimately enigmatic in aspiration and content… Arnold was a true genius living in changing and troubled times.’ Musical Opinion (Edward Clark), January/February 2012
Worldwide performances of ‘Concerto for Two Violins’ Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for Two Violins and string orchestra had an illustrious birth: it was written for Yehudi Menuhin and his pupil Alberto Lysy for performance at the 1962 Bath Festival. This special premiere was commemorated last year in a concert at the Windsor Festival that brought together students of the Yehudi Menuhin School, conductor Valeriy Sokolov and soloists Charles Siem and Malcolm Singer. However this UK performance was not an isolated event. In the last six months alone the concerto has been performed in places as far afield as Romania, Australia and Sweden; clear testament to the longevity and popularity of this charming 17-minute work.
TUNING IN Selected forthcoming performances
Carl Vine
Pipe Dreams
17.4.12, Koninklijk Conservatorium De Haag, Netherlands: Students Koninklijk Conservatorium
New piece for Danielle de Niese This summer the Australian Chamber Orchestra will premiere a new work, Tree of Man, for soprano and strings by Carl Vine. The soloist will be the magnificent young Australian-born soprano Danielle de Niese and the work will feature text by the great Australian novelist Patrick White in honour of the centenary of his birth. Performances take place across Australia, 7-25 June 2012.
Concerto for Piano 25.4.12, Kent Concert Hall, Logan, Utah, USA: Utah State University/Sergio Bernal
Percussion Symphony
World premiere of Piano Concerto No 2 Carl Vine began his musical career as a pianist and since then he has composed many works for piano that display his profound understanding of the instrument. This summer Vine’s latest piano piece, his Piano Concerto No 2, will be premiered at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conductor Hugh Wolf and the brilliant Australian pianist Piers Lane. After the premiere on 22 August, Lane will then tour the new piano concerto to Tasmania in September and London in October, where co-commissioners the London Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the piece under Vassily Sinaisky.
Piano Concerto No 2 Performances
18.5.12, , Spain: Eduardo Portal/ Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife
Celebrare Celeberrime
2.6.12, Concert Hall of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia: Queensland Youth Symphony
Piano Concerto No 2
Percussion Symphony ballet Carl Vine first came to prominence in Australia as a composer of music for dance and now has 25 dance scores to his credit. His current catalogue includes seven symphonies, seven concertos, music for film, television and theatre, electronic music and numerous chamber works, but dance still features prominently. This spring West Australian Ballet presented Rhetoric, a new piece by choreographer Terence Kohler based on Vine’s Percussion Symphony No 5. The performances took place at the unusual open-air Quarry Amphitheatre in Perth between 10 February – 3 March. Australian-born Terence Kohler is currently resident choreographer at the State Theatre in Munich, and is gaining a sought after reputation in Europe for his inventive and imaginative choreographies. Rhetoric thus combines the talents of two acclaimed Australian artists.
(World premiere) 22, 24, 25.8.12, Sydney Opera House, NSW, Australia: Sydney SO/Piers Lane/Hugh Wolff 7.9.12, Federation Concert Hall, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: Tasmanian SO/Piers Lane/ Vassily Sinaisky 17.10.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: London PO/ Piers Lane/Vassily Sinaisky
Tree of Man (World premiere)
7.6.12, Wollongong Town Hall, Wollongong, Australia: Danielle De Niese/Australian CO/Richard Tognetti 9, 12, 13.6.12, City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Danielle De Niese/ Australian CO/Richard Tognetti 17, 18.6.12, Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne, Australia: Danielle De Niese/Australian CO/ Richard Tognetti 20.6.12, Adelaide Town Hall, Adelaide, SA, Australia: Danielle De Niese/Australian CO/Richard Tognetti
Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award Carl Vine has been chosen as the recipient of the 2012 Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award for his outstanding contribution to music in Australia. Professor Gary McPherson, Ormond Chair and Director of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music said Vine constantly pushed the boundaries of contemporary classical music. The award is presented annually by the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Friends. Former award winners include conductor Simone Young, composer Peter Sculthorpe, violinist Richard Tognetti, and conductor/composer Brett Dean.
24.6.12, Concert Hall of Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: Danielle De Niese/Australian CO/ Richard Tognetti 25.6.12, QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Danielle De Niese/Australian COa/Richard Tognetti
19 PHOTO: (TOP RIGHT) CARL VINE © KAREN STEAINS (BOTTOM RIGHT) CARL VINE WITH SIR BERNARD HEINZE MEMORIAL AWARD © JUN-YEU MAH
Selected forthcoming performances Napoléon
1.4.12, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, USA: Oakland East Bay Symphony/Carl Davis
One A.M.
20.4.12, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: CBSO/Carl Davis
The Kid Brother
21.4.12, The Grand Opera House, Dubuque, IA, USA: Grand Pops Orchestra, Dubuque/Robert Tomaro 20.5.12, Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles CO/Carl Davis
The General
(Canadian premiere) 28.4.12, Manitoba Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, Canada: Winnipeg SO/Richard Lee 25.5.12, Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany: Hamburger Symphoniker/Stefanos Tsialis
High and Dizzy
(US premiere) 20.5.12, Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles CO/Carl Davis
Behind the Screen/The Rink/ The Immigrant (Luxembourg premiere)
8.6.12, Kinneksbond, Luxembourg: CO of Luxembourg/ Dariusz Wisniewski
Ben Hur
9.6.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: Philharmonia/ Carl Davis
Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio 13, 14.6.12, Paderhalle Paderborn, Germany: Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie Herford/ Matthias Hellmons
Carl Davis Hallé to premiere new Carl Davis work Sunday 17 June 2012 will see the world premiere of The Last Train to Tomorrow, a new 40-minute work composed and conducted by Carl Davis (CBE) and commissioned by the Hallé for the Hallé’s virtuoso Children’s Choir. Davis’ work retells the heart-breaking story of the Kindertransport which took place between 1938 and 1939, saw over 10,000 Jewish children brought to England by train from Berlin, Vienna, and Prague; an act of generosity which saved them from the Holocaust. None were accompanied by their parents; a few were babies carried by children. The first Kindertransport arrived at Harwich on 2 December, 1938, bringing 196 children from a Berlin Jewish orphanage burned by the Nazis during the night of 9 November. Most of the children left by train from Vienna, Berlin, Prague and other major cities (children from small towns travelled to meet the transports), crossed the Dutch and Belgian borders and went on by ship to England. The transports ended with the outbreak of war in September 1939. The Last Train to Tomorrow will present ten new songs by Davis, linked by first person narration telling this extraordinary story which ends with the children’s safe arrival at Liverpool Street Station in London, meeting their sponsors and starting a new life. The text is by the celebrated children’s author Haiwyn Oram.
‘Napoleon’ This spring the San Francisco Silent Film Festival presented the long-awaited US premiere of Abel Gance’s legendary film Napoleon in a new, restored version by Kevin Brownlow, along with the US premiere of Carl Davis’s famous orchestral score.
(Japanese premiere) 15, 18.6.12, Orchard Hall, Hyogo Performing Arts Center, Japan: Kyoto SO/Douglas Bostock
The Last Train To Tomorrow
(World premiere) 17.6.12, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: Hallé Choir/ Hallé Orchestra/Carl Davis
20 PHOTO: (TOP) CARL DAVIS © RICHARD CANNON
Davis himself conducted the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra in four special screenings at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre on March 24th, 25th, 31st and April 1st, 2012. Not since its premiere at the Paris Opéra in 1927 has this epic had such exposure!
‘Ben Hur’ Legendary films and Carl Davis’s music go hand in hand. On 9th June the Royal Festival Hall stage will be set to screen Ben Hur with live music as Carl Davis joins the Philharmonia Orchestra for this special event.
TUNING IN
Torsten Rasch
‘Wouivres’ confirms Rasch’s orchestral mastery Torsten Rasch is known for his mastery of orchestral forces, and in October 2011 the world premiere of his 25-minute work Wouivres once again proved his ability to produce orchestral showpieces. On this occasion it was the Schumann Philharmonie and conductor Frank Beermann who rose to Rasch’s challenge, in two high-octane performances in Chemnitz, Germany.
‘…a piece bristling with movement, brilliance and gorgeous sound…’ ‘Sometimes faint memories gleam of the soundmagic of Berlioz or Richard Strauss. One might understand the whole piece as a considerably alienated traditional tone poem – experienced maybe with clouded consciounsness in a kind of daze… The work, which is just under 30-minutes, is superlatively suited to show an orchestra in the very best light.’ Das Orchester
‘Wouivres is beyond doubt modern music, but not of the ‘un-listenable’, ‘unbearable’ kind… Rasch has orchestrated it very colourfully… Like an inebriation the whole apparatus of the almost 100-piece orchestra rose up, then again a breeze… a sequence dissolves into single voices and is taken up again, almost soloistically by woodwinds, brass or strings, percussion, setting accents until finally everything comes together again. It was beautiful, just beautiful, a concert that will not evaporate quickly… it was a bravoura-piece for a bravoura-orchestra. Freie Presse (Reinhold Lindner), 14 October 2011 PHOTO: TORSTEN RASCH © MAURICE FOXALL EXCERPT FROM ‘WOUIVRES’ © FABER MUSIC LTD
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NEW WORKS STAGE WORKS GEORGE BENJAMIN Written on Skin (2009–2012)
opera in three parts. Duration 95 minutes. Libretto by Martin Crimp. FP: 7.7.12, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, France: Christopher Purves/Barbara Hannigan/Bejun Mehta/Victoria Simmonds/Allan Clayton/Mahler CO/ George Benjamin. 3(II=picc, III=picc & afl).2.bcl(=cl).cbcl.2(II=cbsn) - 4.4(I=ptpt).3.1 - perc(4) harp - glass harmonica - viola da gamba - strings (8.6.6.6.4 players) 2 first violins doubling mandolins; all doublebasses must have extensions to low B natural. Full score and orchestral parts available on hire
HOWARD GOODALL The Hired Man (1984)
musical. tpt - harp - pno - harpsichord - db - (optional string quartet). Text: Book by Melvyn Bragg. Music & lyrics by Howard Goodall. Performance materials available on hire (hire@fabermusic.com); rights licensed by Faber Music Copyright Dept (copyright@fabermusic.com) (USA & Canada only). For all other territories, please contact Really Useful Group
MATTHEW HINDSON Faster (2012)
a ballet by David Bintley, for orchestra. Duration 35 minutes. FP: 27.6.2012, Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/chor. David Bintley/cond. Paul Murphy. Commissioned by Birmingham Royal Ballet. picc(=fl).1.1.ca.1.bcl.1.cbsn - 4231 - timp - perc(2) - pno - strings. In preparation
PHILIP SHEPPARD Many (2012)
ballet for electronics. Duration 25 minutes. FP: 22.1.2012, La Filature, Mulhouse, France: Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin/ch. Thomas Noone. Commissioned by Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin. Performance CD available for hire
ORCHESTRA JULIAN ANDERSON The Discovery of Heaven (2011)
orchestra. Duration 15 minutes. FP: 24 March 2012, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: LPO/Ryan Wigglesworth. Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (with kind support from the Boltini Trust and the Britten-Pears Foundation) and the New York Philharmonic (Alan Gilbert, Music Director). 3(III=picc & afl).3(III=ca).3 in A (II=ebcl, III=bcl).3(III=cbsn) - 4.3 (I&II=fl.hn, III=tpt in D).3.1 - timp (4 drums = large tamb) - perc(4) - hp - pno - strings. Exclusive until: US premiere reserved for the New York Philharmonic. Score and parts for hire
MARTIN SUCKLING The Moon, The Moon! (2007)
orchestra. Duration 7 minutes. FP: 18.12.2007, Barbican Hall, London, UK: LSO/Michael Francis. Commissioned by the LSO in partnership with UBS as part of the Sound Adventures scheme. 3(II=picc 1; III=picc 2).3.2.bcl.3(III=cbsn) - 4.3.2.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(2) - cel - harp - strings. Score and parts for hire
CHAMBER ORCHESTRA MARTIN SUCKLING storm, rose, tiger (2011)
chamber orchestra. Duration 14 minutes. FP:13.10.11, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK: SCO/Robin Ticciati. Commissioned by the SCO. 2(I=picc, II=picc detuned by ¼ tone).2.2(I+II=Bb + in A detuned by ¼ tone).2 - 2200 - timp - strings (8.6.4.4.2). Score and parts on hire
STRING ORCHESTRA DAVID MATTHEWS Three Birds and a Farewell (2011)
suite for string orchestra. Duration 9 minutes. FP: 5.5.12, Kings Place, London, UK: ECO/Paul Watkins. Score and parts in preparation
CHAMBER ENSEMBLE TANSY DAVIES inside out 2 (2003)
chamber ensemble of 7 players. Duration 6 minutes. FP: 26.3.03, Sounds New Festival, Canterbury, UK: Bergamo Ensemble/Michael Downes. Commissioned by the Bergamo Ensemble. bcl.bsn - hn - pno - vln. vla.vlc. Score and parts for hire
Make Black White (2004)
concert of viols (five players). Duration 5 minutes. FP: 17.7.04: Pittville Pump Room, Concordia. Commissioned by Cheltenham Festival, dedicated to Ruth Wood. treble viol.2tenor viol.2bass viol. Score and parts on hire
Spine (2005)
11 players. Duration 9 minutes. FP: 18.6.07, Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, UK: London Sinfonietta/Nicholas Kok. Commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival.2 afl.2bfl.4 bcl (I=Bb cl) - cimbalom - bass mar - harp. Score and parts for hire
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JOHN WOOLRICH The Mustering Drum (2011)
4 percussionists. Duration 4’30 minutes. FP: 20.1.12, CBSO Centre, Birmingham, UK: BCMG. Commissioned by BCMG with financial assistance from the following individuals through BCMG’s Sound Investment scheme. Score and parts on special sale
SOLO AND ENSEMBLE MARTIN SUCKLING Candlebird (2011)
baritone and eighteen players. Duration 26 minutes. FP: 29.5.2011, QEH, London, UK: Leigh Melrose/ London Sinfonietta/Nicholas Collon. Commissioned by the London Sinfonietta. solo baritone - 2(I=picc, II=picc+afl).1.2(I in A= cl in Eb, II in Bb=bcl + cl in A tuned down ¼ tone).1 - 1110 - perc(1) harp - 11221. Text: Don Paterson (English). Score and parts for hire
de sol y grana (2011)
solo violin and 14 players. Duration 15 minutes. FP: 12.12.2011, Spitalfields Winter Festival, Shoreditch Church, London, UK: Agata Szymczewska/London Contemporary Orchestra/Hugh Brunt. Commissioned by London Music Masters. 2(I=picc, II=bfl + picc).1.1 in A (= bcl in Bb).0 - 1.1 in Bb(= in D).1.0 perc(1) - pno (=cabasa) - solo vln – 00221. Exclusive to the London Contemporary Orchestra and the Southbank Sinfonia until June 2012. Exclusive until June 2012. Contact promotion@fabermusic.com for more information.
To See The Dark Between (2010)
piano and strings. Duration 10 minutes. FP: 9.5.10. Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Aronowitz Ensemble. Martin Suckling was one of the winners of the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize and was consequently commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Wigmore Hall to write this work for the Aronowitz Ensemble. pno - 2 vln.2 vla.2 vcl. Score and parts for hire
CHORAL TANSY DAVIES Christmas Eve (2011)
Unaccompanied SATB choir. Duration 6 minutes. FP: 24.12.2011, King’s College, Cambridge, UK: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/Stephen Cleobury. Commissioned by King’s College, Cambridge, for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols 2011. Text: Christina Rossetti (English). Score on special sale and available from Choralstore.com
CARL DAVIS The Last Train to Tomorrow (2011)
a dramatic narrative for children’s choir, actors and orchestra. Duration 40 minutes. FP: 17.6.2012, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester: Halle Children’s Choir/Hallé Orchestra/Carl Davis. Commissioned by the Halle Concerts Society Manchester, England, with the generous support of the PRS for Music Foundation and the Kobler Trust. 0000 - 0000 - timp - perc(4) - pno (4 hands) - strings. Score, vocal score and parts on hire
HOWARD GOODALL Every Purpose Under the Heaven (2011)
The King James Bible Oratorio oratorio for soprano and tenor soloists, mixed voices and chamber orchestra. Duration 45 minutes. FP: 13.11.2011, Westminster Abbey, London: Kirsty Hopkins/Noah Stewart/Combined Choir & Orchestra of United Church Schools Trust & United Learning Trust/Howard Goodall. Commissioned by Sir Ewan and Lady Harper. 0000 - 0.0.crt.0.0 - harp - acoustic gtr (1 or 2 if gently amplified, otherwise 3-5) - pno - (organ) - timp - perc(2) - strings (min 64442). Text: The King James Bible (English). Full Score, vocal Score and parts for hire
Jubilate Deo (St George’s Ascot) (2011)
SSA voices and organ. Duration 6 minutes. FP: 24.3.2012, 25th Anniversary Concert, Eton College Chapel, Windsor, UK: Chapel Choir of St George’s School, Ascot/Ian Hillier. Commissioned by parents of St George’s School, Ascot to mark the 25th anniversary of its Chapel Choir in 2011. Text: The Book of Common Prayer. Score on special sale from the Hire Library (hire@fabermusic.com), and for download from Choralstore.com.
Stella, quam viderant Magi (2009)
The Wise Men and the Star treble voices, SSATB chorus and chamber orchestra. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 7.12.2011, Westminster Central Hall, London, UK: Choirboys of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster/Parliament Choir/Southbank Sinfonia/Howard Goodall. 2222 - 2000 - perc(2): tgl/glsp - organ - solo cello - strings. Text: Anon (Latin). Score, vocal score and parts for hire
JONATHAN HARVEY The Annunciation (2011)
unaccompanied SATB choir. Duration 3 ½ minutes. FP: 26.11.2011, St John’s College, Cambridge, UK: Choir of St John’s College/Andrew Nethsingha. Commissioned by The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge. Text: Edwin Muir, from Selected Poems of Edwin Muir (1887-1959) (English). Score on special sale from the hire library
NIGEL HESS Benedictus (2011)
SSA chorus and orchestra. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 22.12.2011, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: CBSO Youth Chorus/CBSO/Simon Halsey. Commissioned by the CBSO. 2222 - 4.3.2.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(2): SD/ tgl/cyms/susp.cym/glsp/vib - pno - harp – strings. Text: Liturgical (Latin / English). Full Score, vocal score and parts for hire
NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS INSTRUMENTAL TANSY DAVIES Aquatic (2011)
duet for cor anglais and percussion. Duration 10 minutes. FP: 11.4.11, Kings Place, London, UK: Janey Miller and Joby Burgess. Commissioned by NEW NOISE New Noise (Janey Miller and Joby Burgess) with funds from the PRS for Music Foundation and the RVW Trust. Cor anglais and percussion - see score for percussion listing. Score and parts on special sale
Dark Ground (2005)
solo percussion. Duration 8 minutes. FP: 18.7.05, Purcell Room, London, UK: Joby Burgess. Commissioned by Joby Burgess. See score for instrumentation. Available for digital download from www.fabermusicstore.com
Loopholes and Lynchpins (2002-03)
solo piano. Duration 10 minutes. Dedicated to Stephen Gutman. Score on sale digitally from www. fabermusicstore.com
MARTIN SUCKLING Lieder ohne Worte (2010)
piano. Duration 10 minutes. FP: 19.9.10, Chelsea Schubert Festival, Holy Trinity Church, Chelsea, UK: John Reid. Commissioned by John Reid with funding from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Score on special sale from the hire library. Other info: These pieces can be performed as part of the song cycle Die Schöne Mullerin or independently.
Three Venus Haiku (2009)
piano and vln (fl, vla and vlc versions available). Duration 5 minutes. FP: 9.1.2011, LSO St. Luke’s, London, UK: Martin Suckling/Hilary Suckling. Commissioned by Oliver Coates. Score on special sale
VOCAL TORSTEN RASCH I See Phantoms (2011)
dramatic scene for baritone and cello. Duration 13 ½ minutes. FP: 14.7.12, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Wolfgang Holzmair/Sonia Wieder-Atherton. Commissioned by the Wigmore Hall and Wolfgang Holzmair. Text: From Meditations in Time of Civil War by W. B. Yeats (1923)(English). Playing score on special sale
NEW PUBLICATIONS THOMAS ADÈS
Lieux retrouves cello and piano 0-571-51982-2 £19.99 Five Eliot Landscapes soprano and piano 0-571-51981-4 £14.99
GEORGE BENJAMIN Written on Skin vocal score 0-571-52672-1 £24.99
DEBUSSY, C ORCH. COLIN MATTHEWS Bruyeres (Prelude 14) orchestra 0-571-53013-3 La cathedrale engloutie (Prelude 24) orchestra 0-571-53023-0 La terrasse des audiences (Prelude 18) orchestra 0-571-53017-6 Les collines d’Anacapri (Prelude 17) orchestra 0-571-53016-8 Voiles (Prelude 11) orchestra 0-571-53010-9
JONATHAN HARVEY Body Mandala orchestra 0-571-51849-4 £29.99 Wagner Dream vocal score 0-571-52209-2
NEW RECORDINGS THOMAS ADÈS
In Seven Days (world premiere recording) Nicolas Hodges/London Sinfonietta/Thomas Adès Signum Classics SIGCD277
ANNE BOYD As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams Ars Nova Copenhagen/Paul Hillier Dacapo 6.220597
BENJAMIN BRITTEN Cello Suite No 3 Steven Isserlis Virgin Classics 5099968053420 Cello Suite No 3 Miklos Perenyi ECM 001648302 Britten Songs – Vol. 2: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake/The Red Cockatoo and Other Songs/ Who are these children? Various singers/Malcolm Martineau Onyx ONYX4079
JONATHAN DOVE Who Killed Cock Robin/ Wellcome, all Wonders in on sight! Convivium Singers/Neil Ferris Naxos 8.572733
JONNY GREENWOOD Popcorn Superhet Receiver (world premiere recording) Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony/Edwin Outwater Analekta AN 2 9992 48 Responses to Polymorphia/Popcorn Superhet Receiver (world premiere recording of ‘48 Responses to Polymorphia’) AUKSO Chamber Orchestra/Marek Mos Nonesuch Records 530223
JONATHAN HARVEY Bird Concerto With Pianosong/Other Presences/ Ricercare una Melodia(cello)/ Ricercare una Melodia (oboe) Hidéki Nagano/London Sinfonietta/David Atherton/Gareth Hulse/ Paul Archibald/Tim Gill/Sound Intermedia NMC D177 Wagner Dream (world premiere recording) Claire Booth/Gordon Gietz/Matthew Best/Dale Duesing/Rebecca de Pont Davies/ Richard Angas/Ictus Ensemble/IRCAM (Gilbert Nouno)/Martyn Brabbins Cypres CYP5624
OLIVER KNUSSEN Cantata/ Coursing/Ophelia Dances/Symphony No 2/ Symphony No 3/Trumpets Linda Hirst/Michael Collins/Edward Pillinger/Ian Mitchell/Elaine Barry/Philharmonia Orchestra/London Sinfonietta/Nash Ensemble/Oliver Knussen/Michael Tilson Thomas NMC D175
OLIVER KNUSSEN Ophelia’s Last Dance piano 0-571-51930-X £9.99
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Howard Goodall: new oratorio now available Howard Goodall’s new 45-minute oratorio Every Purpose Under the Heaven is now available for general performance, following the enormously successful premiere in Westminster Abbey last November. Plans are now afoot for a commercial recording of the work. More details to follow.
‘Eternal Light’ – special offer from Faber Music Hire Library We are pleased to announce that for a limited period the Faber Music Hire Library is offering a reduced hire rate for Eternal Light: A Requiem for UK amateur choirs and choral societies. Please contact hire@fabermusic.com for more details.
Goodall cabaret evening debuts in London A full evening show devoted to the musical theatre songs of Howard Goodall launched in February at Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre in London. “Love and War” by All Star Productions features songs from many of Goodall’s most successful stage works including The Hired Man, A Winter’s Tale, Days of Hope and Love Story.
‘…[Goodall’s] thrilling musical theatre repertoire is a relatively untapped source of wonder. Shows like The Hired Man, Girlfriends and Love Story never had the West End runs they deserved; many more haven’t been seen there at all, but are full of haunting, evocative melodies that demand to be heard. … an evening that resonates with ravishing songs and aches with feeling. While Andrew Lloyd Webber may have hit the commercial bulls-eye with shows that appeal to a general international public, Goodall has a more particular Englishness, drawn from a choral tradition, that is entirely its own sound, establishing mood with a naked purity that is frequently heart-rending. Never mind Lloyd Webber’s music of the night; here is music of the soul… an unmissable celebration of a great talent, executed with taste and tenderness.’ Mark Shenton, The Stage 27 February 2012
‘… this enterprising venue has devised a musical revue showcasing c.30 songs from 8 of Goodall’s 10 musicals. Hearing them all together is conclusive proof that… he’s still the best British musical theatre composer we’ve had in the last 30 years. Goodall’s 28-year career has been bookended by his two best shows – The Hired Man in 1984 and Love Story in 2010 – but there are other lovely chamber pieces
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PHOTO: (RIGHT) WINTERNACHTSTRAUM © PHILIPP ZINNIKER
like Days of Hope, whose title song opens and closes this compilation and is one of the best of the evening. His musical style is uniquely British, with beautiful melodies and excellent lyrics…’ Gareth James Culture and Travel Blog 27 February 2012
Howard Goodall: ‘The Hired Man’ now available in US and Canada We are delighted that we are now looking after Howard Goodall’s highly acclaimed musical The Hired Man for licensing and hire in the USA and Canada. All other territories continue to be handled by The Really Useful Group. The musical is a setting of Melvyn Bragg’s story of turn-of-the-century everyday rural Cumbrian life to a richly lyrical score inspired by Kurt Weill, but primarily influenced by English choral and folk music. The Landor Theatre’s production of The Hired Man has just won an Off West End Award for best musical production.
‘It is still, hands-down, the best-scored British musical to have opened in the intervening 27 years [since its first production], and the most distinctively English of any.’ The Stage (Mark Shenton)
Gabriel Prokofiev: Cathy Marston ballet acclaimed in Bern The name Prokofiev is no stranger to the dance world, of course, but in recent months Gabriel Prokofiev has made his first major foray into writing for ballet. Cathy Marston, one of the UK’s leading choreographers, has created a full-evening ballet, Ein Winternachtstraum, set to Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra, some newly-commissioned music from the young composer, plus excerpts from Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The result: an engaging and enthralling full-evening work, in which Marston translates Shakespeare’s comedy to a disused fairground. It was launched in Bern on 3 November by Marston’s company Bern:Ballett, with the Berner Symphonieorchester and a Swiss DJ (Martin Baumgartner). The ballet received 12 performances in total. Prokofiev’s vibrant and edgy music is firmly to the fore in a visual and aural feast that engaged the audience and was widely reported to great acclaim in the Swiss press and national TV news.
Eighth Blackbird to take Derek Bermel to Melbourne Festival Crack US chamber ensemble eighth blackbird are to give the Australian premiere of Derek Bermel’s virtuosic Tied Shifts at this year’s Melbourne Festival. Inspired by Bermel’s studies of Bulgarian folk music, Tied Shifts is a true showpiece for the six players and will be unveiled to Australian audiences in the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Hall on 2 May.
‘Cats’: new performing version now available Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic musical, Cats, is now available for performance in schools and colleges throughout the UK and Ireland. This is the first time that the professional performing version, as seen by millions of theatre-goers worldwide, has been made available to educational establishments outside the USA. Licensing for the newly available version of Cats is being done through Lloyd Webber’s own Really Useful Group, whilst performing materials are available on hire from the Faber Music Hire Library. The new version is scored for a 16-piece band: 3 woodwind, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, 3 keyboards, drums, percussion, guitar, cello and bass. Perusal scores and libretti available from musicfornow@fabermusic.com. A version for 10-piece band will be following in due course.
Nigel Hess: CBSO premiere ‘Benedictus’ Nigel Hess’s reputation as a choral composer was further enhanced when the City of Birmingham SO and Youth Chorus premiered a newlycommissioned choral/orchestral version of his invigorating 4-minute Benedictus in December 2011. It took place in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 22 and 23 December, part of “The CBSO’s Great Big Choral Christmas”, under the baton of CBSO Chorus Director, Simon Halsey. The original upper voices/piano version of the 4-minute Benedictus is now available on sale, as part of the Faber Choral Signature Series.
Philip Sheppard: new dance commission for Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin UK composer and cellist, Philip Sheppard, has been very much in the media of late: having being commissioned to arrange and orchestrate all the national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics. He’s also found time to complete a 30-minute commissioned dance score for Barcelonabased choreographer, Thomas Noone. It was premiered in Mulhouse by Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin on 22 January, later transferring to Colmar and Strasbourg (9 performances in total). Sheppard has an impressive track record in writing for dance and theatre, having worked with Akram Khan, Sylvie Guillem and Juliette Binoche in recent years.
Choreographer resource now on Soundcloud We’re now on Soundcloud, where a new setlist is aimed primarily at choreographers. The set contains a massive variety of inspirational sounds to suit all types of dance and movement work, ranging from the percussive excitement of Evelyn Glennie to Carl Davis’s full evening narrative scores; from Matthew Hindson’s edgy Headbanger and Gabriel Prokofiev’s unsettlingly compelling ‘Meditnow’ from the Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra to Colin Matthews’s sumptuous orchestrations of Debussy’s Preludes. Take a look at: http://soundcloud.com/faber-music-musicfornow
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MEDIA MUSIC NEWS
Carl Davis scores the new series of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ Carl Davis composed the music for the second series of the BBC’s hit drama Upstairs Downstairs, which ran for 6 weeks on BBC1 from 19 February. The remake of the iconic British drama was originally brought back to life by the BBC over Christmas 2010. As well as his own music, Carl’s original score occasionally interweaves elements from Alexander Faris’ popular theme for the original series (of which Carl has also created a new arrangement). The music wonderfully compliments the sweeping romantic shots and glamour of 1930’s England. Carl Davis is well-known for his memorable and emotive scores for period dramas, including award-winning productions such as Cranford, Pride & Prejudice and Goodnight, Mister Tom.
Simon Lacey’s hat-trick of Christmas & New Year commissions Faber Music Media composer Simon Lacey has scored the music for three dramas which all aired over Christmas 2011 and the New Year. The trio started with Little Crackers, a criticallyacclaimed comedy on Sky 1. The series saw a raft of celebrities taking viewers back in time to recreate moments from their childhoods, and was broadcast in the run up to Christmas in primetime slots. Simon’s music was used on episodes written by Jack Whitehall and Sally Lindsay titled Daddy’s Little Princess and My First Christmas Number One respectively. Second in Simon’s three features was Lapland, a oneoff, heart-warming comedy for Christmas. Sue Johnston
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PHOTOS: (ABOVE) SIMON LACEY RECORDING ‘LAPLAND’ (TOP) ‘UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS’ COURTESY OF THE BBC
(The Royle Family, Waking The Dead) played Eileen Lewis, the mother of the chaotic Lewis clan, who goes to Lapland on a package tour to see Father Christmas, complete with huskies, reindeers and the northern lights. Simon has become particularly associated with comedy dramas, a genre for which his naturally attractive and lyrical style is well suited. For this programme, Simon’s inspiring score comprised of bright string arrangements and festive percussion. Broadcast on Christmas Eve, Lapland achieved an audience of 6 million viewers. Lynda La Plante’s thriller Above Suspicion, which rounded off Simon’s successful run, presented him with a quite different opportunity. The fourth instalment of this strand from the award winning La Plante aired in the first few weeks of January 2012. Simon rose magnificently to the challenge of writing for a thriller.
Faber Music Academy – composing for commercials Following the inaugural and highly-successful Media Music Academy course in the summer of 2011, the Faber Music Academy has continued to offer specialist courses in media composition. In February and March, 16 composers attended a course entitled ‘Composing for Commercials’, led by the highly experienced Chris Smith, who has worked on many hundreds of campaigns. With contributions from a variety of guest speakers, including a TV producer, copywriter, editor, music supervisor and art director, the course offered a superb opportunity to learn about the arcane craft of writing for 30-second films, and included a superb opportunity for the students to pitch for a ‘live brief ’. The tuition included an intensive weekend writing day, where the Faber offices were turned into 10 mobile recordings studios! We are currently planning a series of further Media Music Academy’s, with exciting news to follow later in the year.
BOOKS ON MUSIC
STRING QUARTETS
Books on Music from Faber & Faber
MUSIC AS ALCHEMY Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras by Tom Service
This book is a journey into the deepest mystery of classical music: how do great conductors do it? How are their silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries, from Toscanini to Karajan, from Carlos Kleiber to Gustavo Dudamel. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn’t even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.
‘Mahler’s 9th Symphony comes to mind - where I think, if I die now, it will be OK, I’ve tried my best. If you can’t feel that in performance, there’s just no point doing it. If you’re not feeling that, what have you got to fall back on? As a conductor, all there is apart from that is showmanship and vanity.’ Jonathan Nott
Tom Service writes about music for The Guardian, where he was Chief Classical Music Critic, and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3. He has presented Radio 3’s flagship magazine programme, Music Matters, since 2003. He was the inaugural recipient of the ICMP/CIEM Classical Music Critic of the Year Award, and was Guest Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. After years practising in the mirror, he once conducted Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.
Try a string quartet part out for size… With a catalogue that spans some of the major string quartets of the 20th and 21st Century, as well as charming unknown gems, Faber’s string quartet collection is among the very best. This spring we are offering the chance to get to know these works better with a unique set of free sample parts featuring music by some of the world’s most acclaimed composers including Thomas Adès, Benjamin Britten, Jonathan Harvey, David Matthews, Peter Sculthorpe and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Each set of parts will comprise a selection of ‘taster’ movements, enabling performers to play through a movement or two at the end of a rehearsal. We hope that this fantastic free resource might spark new programming ideas, new connections, or simply allow quartets to explore music outside of their traditional repertoire.
SPECIAL DISCOUNT Faber Music is offering a one-off special 40% discount on music purchase of any of the quartets featured in our sampler. The offer is limited to a 6-month period between 1 March and 31 August 2012, and is only available to recipients of the sampler. If you are interested in obtaining these free sample parts and taking up this exclusive offer please contact: Sonia Stevenson (Promoter/Publicist) 020 7908 5319 or sonia.stevenson@fabermusic.com
Just some of the illustrious string quartets who have premiered Faber works…
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CHORALSTORE.COM Choralstore.com: a choral revolution!
HEAD OFFICE Faber Music Ltd
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If you were to ask most choral directors what their main aspiration is when devising a concert programme, their answer would be the same: that it should stand apart. An inspiring programme should have a narrative arc; it should surprise, delight and challenge both choir and audience with the scope of its repertoire; it should perfectly match the abilities and vocal forces available; it should complement the venue and acoustic available; and should therefore compel both singers and audience to ‘come back for more’. Programme planning is the thrilling starting point of a concert project, when everything is possible, and the director may well make a note of key considerations to help with the creative thinking. All too often, however, limited budget and availability/affordability of scores will dash the director’s hopes and the original vision has to be compromised. For too long, price has been a barrier to choirs exploring new music (a complete set of choral scores of a single 3-minute work may cost £60), with the result that only the richest choirs can afford to do so. For all other choirs, they feel they either have to resort to the music already in their libraries – or to make illegal photocopies. It is perhaps for this reason that wonderful composers such as Howells and Vaughan Williams are still viewed as ‘contemporary’. Choirs, audiences and composers are all cheated in this scenario: what reason do any of them have for ‘coming back for more’?
USA & Canada Agents HIRE
Schott Music Corp & European American Music Dist LLC 254 West 31st Street, 15th Floor New York, NY 10001, USA Promotion tel: (212) 4616940 Promotion fax: (212) 8104565 Rental tel: (212) 4616940 Rental fax: (212) 8104565
SALES
Alfred Music Publishing Co.
will pay just £15 to gain access to a link to print out the work and acquire a licence to legitimately photocopy up to 30 copies for your choir. Within minutes of starting your search, your new music will be in your hands. And for those choirs who decide that they would like to buy traditional printed copies instead, you can also do this via choralstore.com.
Richard King, Faber Music’s CEO, said “As a singer myself, I am passionate about choral publishing, but am very aware that choirs’ limited budgets and resources means that they are often unable to explore new and wonderful music. We hope that the launch of choralstore.com will be the answer to the prayers of many choirs, librarians – and their audiences! – as we move into the future.” Simon Halsey, internationally acclaimed choral director and choral consultant to Faber Music, said: “This website will transform choirs’ ability to explore a wealth of choral music, easily, quickly and affordably. It’s an invaluable resource.” Other publishers were keen to sign up to Choralstore.com too. Linda Hawken, MD of Peters Edition London, said: “Choirs deserve to have access to the best choral music available at the format and price that works best for them: and composers simply want choirs to perform their music. This is the time for music publishers to work together to ensure we achieve this. Choralstore.com is a first, and we’re delighted to be involved!”
Customer Service P.O. Box 10003 Van Nuys CA 91410-0003, USA Tel: +1 (818) 891-5999 Fax: + 1 (800) 632-1928 Fax: +1 (818) 893-5560 Email: sales@alfred.com Cover photo credit: Jonathan Harvey © Anna Harvey Written & devised by Sonia Stevenson Designed by Lis Lomas
It was for these reasons – and many more – that Faber Music launched Choralstore.com, an innovative new website in November 2011. Choralstore.com, designed for choral singers by choral singers, gives the choral director access 24/7 to more than 1500 high quality editions, contemporary works and copyright arrangements (both sacred and secular); you can search by vocal forces (eg mixed choir, upper voices, etc.), by genre, accompanied/unaccompanied and other options; you can peruse the scores and listen to recordings online before you buy; and once you decide, you
Why not go to choralstore.com and see for yourself? Fortissimo readers will receive a free choral download if they register to choralstore.com by 31 May 2012. Email choralstore@fabermusic.com saying “Fortissimo free download” to receive your discount code.
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