Fortissimo Spring 2019

FABER MUSIC NEWS — SPRING 2019

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ADÈS CONCERTO PREMIERES IN BOSTON

‘A piano concerto in the grand tradition’ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Plus George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence Francisco Coll and Patricia Kopatchinskaja As Time Returns: a new song cycle from Colin Matthews

Highlights • Tuning In • New Publications & Recordings • Music for Now • Publishing News

Francisco Coll

Dear colleagues, Against the backdrop of Brexit chaos in the UK, mirrored by rising nationalism and isolationism across the world, it gives me great comfort to see the international profile of so many Faber Music composers flourishing: in particular it’s always encouraging to read about British composers in international reviews when it is clear that the appreciation and enthusiasm is unbridled and sincere. That’s what happened in Boston after the 7 March premiere of Adès’s new 22-minute Piano Concerto.

Boston welcomes Thomas Adès like a hero, and to be in the famous Symphony Hall at the birth of this piece, conducted by the composer, was an unforgettable experience. Three performances to a packed hall, with standing ovations and cheers was indeed a blast against those who feel there are problems for audiences with new music. Not here.

Kirill Gerstein’s playing was nothing short of exhilarating and his total mastery of a piece that falls completely in the tradition of 19th-century piano concertos, was awe-inspiring. I don’t know how often Rachmaninoff might have conducted any of his piano concertos in that Hall, but there was a feeling in the air that we were part of that tradition – whilst the actual notes were blindingly and originally new and arresting. Read more on p.14.

A recording is on the way and more performances planned all around Europe and the US in the coming season.

Back in Europe, George Benjamin has been conducting the NDR Hamburg, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Modern in exhaustive tours (touching London of course) throughout February and March, while his opera Lessons in Love and Violence opens in Hamburg (conducted by Kent Nagano), and Lyon (with Alexandre Bloch) during April and May. The world may not yet be welcoming the UK for trade deals – but there is interest in, and a warm welcome for many of our composers!

Sally Cavender Performance Music Director/Vice Chairman, Faber Music

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Rising star Francisco Coll is to write a concerto for Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The concerto – which will be premiered by the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg under Gustavo Gimeno next February – has been cocommissioned by the OPL & Philharmonie Luxembourg, the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, London Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony and Bamberger Symphoniker, an impressive list of partners that is a testament to Coll’s growing international reputation.

One of the most distinctive violinists, Kopatchinskaja has already performed Coll’s Four Iberian Miniatures for violin and chamber orchestra and in addition to the Concerto will also premiere and a short duo and Les Plaisirs Illuminés, a double concerto with Sol Gabetta which will premiere in June as the culmination of Coll’s residency with Camerata Bern. Coll is also currently Composer in Residence to the Orquesta de Valencia, and the SMR de Cuenca, and his forthcoming projects include a Brass Quintet, a 12-minute orchestral piece and a piano trio. A number of recordings are planned, including a disc of orchestral works with the OPL.

ICMA Award The Jury of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) have announced Francisco Coll as the inaugural recipient of their Composer Award. In an interview with El País, Coll said: ‘I spend my life locked in my studio working – and to receive recognition like this is an immense dose of energy for me to move forward.

One almost gets dizzy seeing one’s name next to such important musicians’.

US premiere for Hidd’n Blue Since its premiere by the London Symphony Orchestra and FrançoisXavier Roth back in 2009, Coll’s exhilarating concert-opener Hidd’n Blue, continues to be taken up internationally. This year the Orquesta de Valencia will perform it in May, as part of Coll’s residency at the Palau de la Música, and in October Gustavo Gimeno will conduct the US premiere with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Vivid, rhythmically charged and filled with startling harmonies, this 5-minute work builds to a truly vertiginous climax. Writing about the piece, Coll describes ‘a bass note of deep, mysterious blue that has been overlaid with swirling, lighter colours’.

HIGHLIGHTS Francisco Coll Selected forthcoming performances Hyperlude V 17.4.19, Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara; 19.4.19, San Diego, 20.4.19, Los Angeles; 23.4.19, Indianapolis, USA: Augustin Hadelich 25.9.19, Valencia, Spain: Raul Arias

Turia Spanish premiere 27.4.19, Auditorium, Llíria; 28.4.19, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, Spain: Jacob Kellermann/ Harmonie Ensemble/Christian Karlsen

Hidd’n Blue 10.5.19, Palau de la Música, Valencia, Spain: Orquesta de Valencia/Ramon Tebar US premiere 25-26.10.19, Cincinnati Music Hall, OH, USA: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Gustavo Gimeno

Stella German premiere 24.5.19, Leipzig, Germany: MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig/Martina Batic

Les Plaisirs Illuminés

Kroklokwafzi? Semememi!

As part of his residency with Camerata Bern, Coll has curated a chamber concert that will include his string duo Rizoma and the string quartet movement Cantos alongside a world premiere. LalulaLied, a 2-minute duet for singing violinist and double bass will be premiered by Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Käthi Steuri at Konservatorium Bern on 15 June. The work exploits Kopatchinskaja’s wonderful singing ability (as showcased in her cadenza for the Ligeti concerto, and her recent performances of Pierrot Lunaire) and is a setting of Christian Morgenstern’s nonsense poem Das Große Lalula.

Stella in Hamburg Coll’s imposing 5-minute motet Stella, will receive its German premiere in May with the MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig conducted by Martina Batič. Inspired by, and subtly drawing on a renaissance masterpiece – Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Ave Maris Stella – this arresting work for 8-part choir originally written for ORA and Suzi Digby in 2016.

Turia Turia, a new guitar concerto in five movements commissioned by Christian Karlsen and Norrbotten NEO, will receive its Spanish premiere in April with Jacob Kellermann as soloist. The 18-minute work for guitar and seven players takes its name from the dried-up river in Valencia which now hosts gardens, fountains, cafés, and even an opera house by architect Santiago Calatrava.

‘As a child,’ Coll explains, ‘I used to walk in this unusual river, full of light, flowers and people. I always thought that one day I would write the music of this river. When Karlsen contacted me, I immediately knew that this was my opportunity to write a piece for guitar and ensemble with Spanish luminosity. This soundscape evokes the light

PHOTO: FRANCISCO COLL © JUDITH COLL; SKETCH FOR THE VIOLIN CONCERTO

and the respective shadows of my country.’ Flamenco is very much in the surface of this work, although it is always filtered through Coll’s distinctive sonorous imagination.

Speaking to Valencia’s Levante newspaper, Karlsen said: ‘It has a very Spanish flavour without falling into clichés and its use of flamenco is very personal. It is definitely one of the most important concertos for guitar, and a great addition to the existing pieces by Rodrigo and Villalobos.

I hope I can give the Spanish premiere of this mystical, expressive and exciting work soon.’ A disc pairing Turia with the Rodrigo concerto is being planned with BIS.

Major addition to trombone repertoire Faber Music is pleased to announce that Coll’s Chanson et Bagatelle for trombone and piano will be published later this year. With this masterful 8-minute work Coll – a trombonist himself – has created a major addition to the instrument’s repertoire. The Chanson is almost Bergian with its dark harmonies and slow-burning passion, unfolding as a song without words whose broad lines exploit the whole compass of the instrument, from pale heights to baleful, gritty depths. The angular Bagatelle which follows could not be more contrasted, drawing much of its characteristic mood and colour from the ingenious use of the harmon mute.

Cantos in Asia and Spain Following performances by the Dalia and Callisto Quartets in Germany and Australia respectively, Cantos, Coll’s 5-minute string quartet movement, will be toured in South Korea, Japan and Spain this Autumn by Cuarteto Casals.

A version of Hyperlude V for solo violin, the work was composed for Cuarteto Casals, who also premiered Coll’s Concerto Grosso. ‘Cantos has a spiritual and introspective character,’ says Coll. ‘It is a consecutive series of cadences that in some way emulate the inflections of the human voice.’

world premiere 7.6.19, Kloster St. Peter auf dem Schwarzwald, Sankt Peter; 8.6.19, Solsberg Festival, Olsberg, Germany; 16.6.19, Kursaal Bern, Switzerland: Patricia Kopatchinskaja/Sol Gabetta/ Camerata Bern/Francisco Coll

Cantos/Hyperludes/ Rizoma/LalulaLied* *world premiere 15.6.19, Musikschule Konservatorium Bern, Switzerland: Patricia Kopatchinskaja/Käthi Steuri/Gilles Grimaître/Camerata Bern

Cantos Korean and Japanese premieres 18.10.19, Tongyeong, South Korea; 20.10.19, Daejeon Culture & Arts Center, South Korea; 22.10.19, LG Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea 25.10.19, Tokyo, Japan; 26.10.19, Kawanishi, Japan; 11.11.19, Alicante, Spain; 14.11.19, Salamanca, Spain; 16.11.19, Vic, Spain: Cuarteto Casals

Violin Concerto world premiere 13.2.20, Philharmonie Luxembourg: Patricia Kopatchinskaja/Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg/ Gustavo Gimeno Netherlands premiere 23.5.20, NTR ZaterdagMatinee, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Patricia Kopatchinskaja/ Netherlands Radio Philharmonic/ Gustavo Gimeno

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Lessons in Love and Violence on stage and DVD

Lessons in Love and Violence, George Benjamin’s third opera with Martin Crimp has been released on DVD by Opus Arte.

The DVD is directed for screen by Margaret Williams, and is based on the initial run of performances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, conducted by the composer.

Delving into the dark and turbulent events of Edward II’s life and death, the 90-minute opera to a text by Martin Crimp is directed

by Katie Mitchell, with designs by Vicki Mortimer. The baritones of Stéphane Degout and Gyula Orendt – as the King and his lover Gaveston – entwine in duets of dark sensuality, whilst soprano Barbara Hannigan, as Isabel the Queen, traces an ever-descending spiral of desperation with a vocal angularity quite different from the role of Agnès in Written on Skin. Tenor Peter Hoare is terrifying as the cold utilitarian Mortimer, whilst the gleaming haut-contre of Samuel Boden (as Boy and Young King) is only revealed fully in the opera’s denouement, when he restores order with a terrible act of violence. The vividly characterised supporting roles are sung by soprano Jennifer France, mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó, and bassbaritone Andri Björn Róbertsson. A CD recording, taken from the 2018 Amsterdam performances, will be released in June on Nimbus.

‘I was pretty blown away by what I saw and heard…

I wanted to see it again… The music is gripping, a constantly changing harmonic flow that tells us things that the characters themselves do not know… An absolute masterpiece.’

France Culture (Sophie Bourdais and Charles Arden), 19 February 2019

‘An opera of impressive concentration with not a word or note wasted… Like Crimp’s text, the music is a model of clarity on the surface, while suggesting an undercurrent of evil, which wells up powerfully in the interludes…

Gramophone (Richard Fairman), March 2019

‘It’s Benjamin’s translucent score that both grounds and elevates the piece. No one today writes better music for the voice … The orchestration is extraordinary and protean.’

The Bay Area Reporter (Tim Pfaff), 5 March 2019

Following the initial run of performances in London and Amsterdam, the opera now travels to Hamburg State Opera, Opéra de Lyon, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and Teatro Real, Madrid. Details of a new stage production will be announced in the coming months.

As Time Returns: a song cycle from Colin Matthews

Poetry of exile and paranoia lies behind As Time Returns, a new song cycle for baritone and ensemble of 12 players by Colin Matthews that was premiered in December by George Humphries and the London Sinfonietta under Jessica Cottis.

The 20-minute setting of poems by Ivan Blatný was commissioned with funds from the Koussevitzky Foundation.

One of the leading Czech poets of his generation, Blatný defected to England in 1948, becoming a non-person in his own country – all references to him were expunged, and his poetry was blacklisted. Life in exile was not easy – he suffered a mental breakdown soon after arrival, recovering sufficiently to work for a time as a journalist. From 1954 until shortly before his death he lived in mental institutions and care homes. ‘Blatný was not so much mentally ill as paranoid about being kidnapped and returned to Czechoslovakia’ says Matthews. ‘I have set poems from the 1940s in translation as well as some of his later poetry, much of it composed in English as well as in a polyglot mixture of English, Czech and German.’

Of all Matthews’s magnificent song cycles – and there are many – As Time Returns is by far the most operatic. It functions like a dramatic monodrama, with moments of biting, black irony contrasted with nostalgic, dream-like sections where Blatný remembers his past.

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IMAGES: LESSONS IN LOVE AND VIOLENCE © ROH. PHOTO BY STEPHEN CUMMISKEY; COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL

HIGHLIGHTS

Adès concerto premieres in Boston

On 7 March, Thomas Adès conducted Kirill Gerstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Commissioned by the BSO (with whom Adès is Artistic Partner) for Kirill Gerstein, this major statement received a rapturous response from audience and critics alike, and already seems set to become part of the repertoire.

Adès third concertante work involving piano – after Concerto Conciso and In Seven Days – this audacious 22-minute work is almost bewildering in its wealth of invention. Throughout the concerto’s three movements a highly sophisticated yet vital approach to rhythmic feel is married to a totally personal harmonic sense, and the result is a work by turns playful, sombre, rowdy and serene. Gerstein and Adès have worked together many times, both in concertos and as duo partners, and the solo writing is tailor-made for Gerstein’s combination of jaw-dropping virtuosity and musical intelligence.

‘I don’t think we have had such a piano concerto in the literature since Prokofiev and Ravel’ said Gerstein in an interview with Gramophone magazine. ‘I really think it’s a masterpiece. It’s quite concise. It does what a piano concerto should do – it has octaves, a cadenza, a slow movement of gravitas. He references the traditional models, but you never think he is doing something derivative.’

Speaking to the Boston Globe, Adès remarked: ‘If you look at, say, a lot of well-known piano concertos from the past, they have family characteristics. I find it very rewarding, increasingly, to look back down the mountain, if you like, and see the bone structure.’ Yet he cautioned that this process is ‘absolutely not’ one of taking a preexisting structure and simply pouring something new into it. Rather, it’s a matter of ‘investigating why that structure grew in that way in the first place.’ ‘It’s no more difficult than your average very difficult concerto,’ he added, laughing.

Adès will conduct the European premiere, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, on 25 April and the concerto already has over 22 further performances scheduled, all with Gerstein as soloist (full details can be found on page 14). The BSO will release a recording of the work alongside Adès’s Totentanz later this year.

‘forward-looking music rooted in the past’ ‘A piano concerto in the grand tradition… Adès may be the most sought-after musician of our time… he has written a tonal piece that is simultaneously thoughtful and musical, rooted in the past but forward-looking, and also crowdpleasing… as the concerto concluded, with a rain of notes from the piano, and the orchestra in full throttle, it was an ethereal corona of glockenspiel and marimba that I found most moving.’

The Wall Street Journal (David Mermelstein), 8 March 2019

‘the voice is wholly his own’ ‘Quite wonderful… an affectionate, joyous, remarkably uncomplicated tribute to tradition. The writing is labyrinthine, to be sure, but this is a composer so sure of his abilities and influences that there is no sense in this concerto of history as a burden or as something to be thrown off. It is, rather, something to be approached as an equal. And while plenty of composers talk about how they have thought about the tradition when they write a new concerto, few have placed themselves in it with such breathtaking ease as Adès does here. As ever, the craft is astounding, the orchestration ceaselessly brilliant. The voice is wholly his own — dissonant, offbeat, whiplash, wry — even as it whispers to musics past… The way a phrase will end, a mood shift, brings Rachmaninoff fluttering into mind… it is [Gerstein’s] tender voicing of the cluster chords that halo the melody of the slow movement that lingers in the ears.’

The New York Times (David Allen), 8 March 2019

‘An auspicious meeting of giants… The ebbing and flowing meter, which often alternates between measures, lends the piece an organic thrum… The upward trajectory of the third movement calls for stunning agility and athleticism, and the pianist sprinted up the melodic equivalent of an infinite staircase, then slid down a banister of flat-palm clusters and cascading intervals. His hands flew toward each other, then apart, blurring until it all collapsed with a crack of the whip.’

Boston Globe (Zoë Madonna), 8 March 2019

PHOTOS: THOMAS ADÈS, KIRILL GERSTEIN, AND THE BSO © WINSLOW TOWNSON

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Anders Hillborg Selected forthcoming performances

Anders Hillborg BBC Symphony Orchestra focus

Incantation/Primal Blues/Hyper Exit/ Hymn of Echoes

After giving the UK premieres of both Sirens and the Violin Concerto No.2 in 2017, the BBC Symphony Orchestra will return to Hillborg’s music in February 2020 for one of their Total Immersion days. They will be joined by musicians from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, as well as the BBC Singers under Ragnar Rasmussen. The latter will place Hillborg’s rich body of choral music alongside works by Messiaen, Sanström, Stucky and Salonen before presenting the UK premiere a new work for choir and saxophone, with Hillborg’s son Theo as soloist. The day will culminate in an orchestral concert conducted by Sakari Oramo which will include the UK premieres of a new orchestral work and the Violin Concerto No.1 with Carolin Widmann.

9-10.5.19: Grosser Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks, Frankfurt am Main; 11.5.19, Fulda, Germany: Martin Fröst

Mantra – Elegy Finnish premiere 23.5.19, Kotka Concert Hall; 25.5.19, Kuusankoski House, Kouvola, Finland: Kymi Sinfonietta/Olari Elts

Duo for cello and piano US premiere 1.6.19, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Eric Byers/Kevin Kwan Loucks

Publication of …lontana in sonno…

new orchestral work/ King Tide

Sound Atlas

World premiere

Anyone familiar with the music of Anders Hillborg will no doubt remember one of his trademark textures: gleaming, unearthly string harmonies lit from within by glass harmonica. In the past, Hillborg has created this beguiling effect with just a few individual glasses, but in his latest orchestral piece Sound Atlas, premiered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Marin Alsop in January, he employs all three octaves of this extraordinary instrument to great effect.

3.2.20, Centro Cultural Miguel Delibes, Valladolid, Spain: Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León/Andrew Gourlay

new work/ Mouyayoum/O Dessa Ögon/The Cradle Song/Lilla Sus Grav/Stella Maris UK premiere 22.2.20, St Giles Cripplegate, Barbican Centre, London, UK: Theo Hillborg/BBC Singers/Ragnar Rasmussen

new orchestral work*/Eleven Gates/Beast Sampler/Peacock Tales (Millennium Version)*/Violin Concerto No.1* *UK premieres 22.2.20, Barbican Hall, London, UK: Martin Fröst/Carolin Widmann/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo

Bach Materia 16.5.20, Lincoln Center, New York City, NY, USA: Pekka Kuusisto/The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra 2.10.19, Town Hall, Ayr; 3.10.19, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh; 4.10.19, City Halls, Glasgow, UK: Pekka Kuusisto/Scottish Chamber Orchestra

‘A blisteringly beautiful work!’

Dagens Nyheter (Martin Nyström), 20 December 2003

Co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Göteborgs Symfoniker, the 21-minute work sets up a glistening microtonal sound world in its first two movements ‘Crystalline’ and ‘River of Glass’ before the evocatively titled ‘Vaporised Toy Pianos’. The music’s crystalline character then fades away as the music plunges into ‘Vortex’ – a soundscape of violent, whirling, convulsive masses of sound – before finally resolving in an achingly beautiful string ‘Hymn’ which concludes the piece.

‘Music of the far expanses of the universe, haunted by the otherworldly sound of the glass harmonica. If Kubrick came back to remake 2001 and needed a soundtrack, Hillborg would be his man.’

Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 17 January 2019

‘Hillborg has an ear for alluring soundscapes. The glass harmonica created an otherworldly halo to the orchestral palette; bright, soft-edged and unexpected as the sun’s corona.’

The Times (Rebecca Franks), 18 January 2019

‘The eerie whine of the glass harmonica permeated Sound Atlas, its chill tones suggesting scenes as much visual as musical: a snowy landscape, a leaden sky over an equally leaden sea, an abandoned church still resounding with ancient music.’

Evening Standard (Nick Kimberley), 17 January 2019

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An intense reflection on romantic passion and loss, Anders Hillborg’s …lontana in sonno… for voice (mezzo-soprano/ soprano) and orchestra sets sonnets by Petrarch. Originally written for Anne Sofie von Otter, this 15-minute work unfolds slowly, the voice floating over a gleaming, unearthly soundscape.

PHOTO: ANDERS HILLBORG © MATS LUNDQVIST

Full score | 0-571-54015-5 | £19.99

New chamber recordings The Calder Quartet has recorded the Kongsgaard Variations (2006) for Spring release on the Pentatone label. In this quartet Hillborg takes the Arietta-theme from Beethoven’s last piano-sonata, No.32 in C minor Op.111 as the basis for an evocative 16-minute work. Beethoven’s sublime music drifts strangely through the centuries and is warped, atomised, and refashioned as if, in the words of Hillborg, the Arietta ‘is dreaming yet another variation on itself ’.

Meanwhile, a new account of the Six Pieces for Wind Quintet from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Wind Quintet is now available for download.

TUNING IN

Colin Matthews

Colin Matthews Selected forthcoming performances

Spiralling

A touching elegy for Oliver Knussen Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia premiered a substantial work for oboe octet at London’s Wigmore Hall in February. The 16-minute work is dedicated to the memory of Oliver Knussen and is scored for oboe (doubling cor anglais), string trio and string quartet.

A searing Prelude is followed by an Elegaic Intermezzo for oboe and string trio alone. The music opens out into a Barcarolle, with the cor anglais reserved for a plangent Epilogue. Intensely expressive, and driven by an urgent lyrical impulse, Postludes will be recorded on NMC. ‘Beautiful but muscular, it opens with drone-like attack, full of whirring and liquid string effects, then shifts down a gear late on, when cor anglais replaces oboe in touching elegy.’

The Observer (Fiona Maddocks), 7 February 2019

Commissioned by the Radcliffe Trust and Wigmore Hall, the octet will further expand Matthews’s output for the instrument: the two oboe quartets, Duologue and NightSpell for oboe and piano (both commissioned by Daniel) and the recent solo work, Figures, suspended.

Britten Sinfonia will give the Romanian premiere of Matthews’s Spiralling this summer at the Enescu Festival, Bucharest. Originally written for Spira Mirabilis (who premiered it unconducted!), this 25-minute work for chamber orchestra twists and turns, sometimes in bold statements which turn in on themselves (as at the opening) sometimes in rapid, scherzo-like figuration, sometimes in a slow unfolding.

Violin Concerto

Everything is renewed

Pluto, the renewer

Metamorphoses for chorus and orchestra will be performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski in October. The final part of Renewal, Matthews’s vast quartet of orchestral works from the 90s, this 13-minute work for chorus and orchestra sets a text derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses describing the philosophy of Pythagoras: ‘Nothing in the whole world endures unchanged… everything is renewed’. Much of the music is underpinned by deep pedal C, and its hushed, mysterious mood will make it an excellent curtain-raiser to Mahler’s Second Symphony, with which it shares the programme.

10.5.19, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Taiwan: Kaohsiung Philharmonic

Hidden Variables in LA Susanna Mälkki will return to the music of Matthews in December with a performance of Hidden Variables by the LA Philharmonic New Music Group. Scored for 14 players, this 13-minute scherzo consists of a set of interlocking variations, with an unvarying time signature (6/4) and same very fast tempo throughout. Premiered by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Simon Rattle in 1989 (one of their very first commissions), the work swerves off into a series of wicked little vignettes on a number of the leading minimalist composers.

‘Here is a composer aware of the complexity of his creative make-up, as preoccupied by diversity of influence as singularity of voice.’

Musical Times (Robert Adlington), April 1994

Violin Concerto

Debussy reimagined for orchestra

In April Leila Josefowicz will give the Spanish premiere of Matthews’s Violin Concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia under Daníel Bjarnason. This dazzling and mercurial work was written for Josefowicz, with her distinctive musical personality in mind, and is one of Matthews’s most vivid scores. A sustained, high-flying lyricism is one of score’s hallmarks, and it inhabits the rich yet airy soundworld typical of his post-Debussy Préludes pieces. Cast in two movements of equal length, the 22-minute concerto is scored for an economical orchestra of only 36 string players, winds and seven brass and percussion. Flugelhorns replace trumpets, and the distinctive bass sonorities of the lujon are prominent.

The Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and their Music Director Gustavo Gimeno have released a recording of Matthews’s new orchestration of Book I of the Debussy Images on the Pentatone label. The release follows their previous recording of Matthews’s orchestration of Mahler’s Piano Quartet movement.

PHOTO: COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL

The Debussy orchestrations – commissioned especially for the disc by the OPL – will make a very attractive addition to concert programmes. Scored for the same orchestra as La Mer, the 14-minute set masterfully translates the mercurial textures of ‘Reflets dans l’eau’, adds sombre hues to the central sarabande ‘Hommage à Rameau’, and hightens the exhilarating torrent of notes that makes up ‘Mouvement’.

Spanish premiere 25.4.19, Auditorio Pazo de Congresos Mar de Vigo; 26.4.19, Palacio de la Ópera, La Coruña, Spain: Leila Josefowicz/Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia/Daniel Bjarnason 14.9.19, Barbican Hall, London, UK: Leila Josefowicz/London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle

Taiwanese premiere

Suns Dance 14.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Ulysses Ensemble/Geoffrey Paterson

Oboe Quartet No.2 22.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Britten Oboe Quartet

Alphabicycle Order 30.6.19, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: Hallé Orchestra

Spiralling Romanian premiere 19.9.19, George Enescu Festival, Bucharest, Romania: Britten Sinfonia/Andrew Gourlay

Metamorphosis 19.10.19, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: London Philharmonic Choir/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Jurowski

Hidden Variables 10.12.19, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group/ Susanna Mälkki

Arrangements Debussy del Vino

– La Puerta

3.5.19, Théâtre Quintaou, Anglet; 5.5.19, Salle de handball, Camboles-Bains, France: Orchestre Régional Bayonne Côte Basque/Victorien Vanoosten

Debussy

– Minstrels

23,25.5.19, Atlanta Symphony Hall, GA, USA: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Donnald Runnicles

Berg

– Vier Stücke

19.6.19, Recital Hall, Royal College of Music, London, UK: RCM New Perspectives/Tim Lines

Schumann – Mondnacht 22.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Britten Oboe Quartet

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Tansy Davies Selected forthcoming performances

Tansy Davies New recordings on NMC

new work/salt box

Andrew Watts – the countertenor who created the role of the Shaman in Davies’s opera Between Worlds – has recorded Song of Pure Nothingness with pianist Ian Burnside for NMC. Like Davies’s song cycle Troubairitz and her orchestral work Tilting, Song of Pure Nothingness is a product of her fascination with the Troubadours.

This setting of a 11th-century poem by Guillaume IX d’Aquitaine is a kind of riddle. ‘Perhaps it works on me like a mirror reflecting back unknowable secrets,’ says Davies. ‘Unearthing hidden pain and bringing dark things into the light, all the while supported by a hidden inner strength. It’s also funny, and completely without melodrama, which I find very attractive’.

world premiere 17.5.19: Kleine Zaal, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Asko|Schönberg Ensemble

grind show (electric) 18.5.19, Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall, Manchester, UK: Junior RNCM

inside out 2 14.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Ulysses Ensemble/Geoffrey Patterson

Iris 6.11.19, St George’s Hall Concert Room, Liverpool, UK: Rob Buckland/ Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Clark Rundell

new work/grind show (electric)/ Undertow/Loopholes & Lynchpins/salt box/ neon world premiere 9.11.19, Hall 1, Kings Place, London, UK: Elaine Mitchener/London Sinfonietta/conductor TBC

Christmas Eve 7.12.19, Kings Place, London, UK: The Choir of St Catherine’s College, Oxford/Edward Wickham

Asko|Schönberg premiere Tansy Davies’s time as Composer in Residence at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw will culminate in May with the premiere of a new work for the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble. Scored for 10 players – with important roles for accordion and electric guitar – the substantial piece will be performed alongside Davies’s salt box.

Kingpin and Arabescos in France In recent months two Davies works have received their French premieres, with members of Ensemble intercontemporain performing the oboe-piano duo Arabescos, and the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen giving the French premiere of Kingpin.

Named after the only part of the Model T engine that Henry Ford supposedly found never wore out, Kingpin doesn’t so much conjure a vision of gleaming steel and laser precision, but one of grey steam and black oil. Rhythms and melodies push and pull against one another, now and again finding harmony and peace. But the machines are always moving, always turning in this 6-minute work for chamber orchestra, and nothing can stay still.

These French outings are part of a growing number of international performances, which also include the Danish premiere of neon by the Athelas Ensemble in March, and a performance of Aquatic by members of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

Broken patterns, cycles and grooves This summer’s Aldeburgh Festival will feature a performance of Davies’s inside out 2 by the Ulysses Ensemble conducted

by Geoffrey Patterson.

In this quirky work for seven players composed in 2003, short brittle splinters and long soft moving sounds are woven into a tapestry of broken patterns, cycles and grooves, all moving at slightly different speeds. Recorded on Davies’s Nonclassical disc Troubairitz, the 6-minute work has previously been taken up by Rambert Dance Company.

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PHOTO: TANSY DAVIES © RIKARD ÖSTERLUND

Meanwhile, a short work for violin and piano, entitled Hawk, features as part of NMC’s Many Voices project, an anthology of 10 especially commissioned works for young violinists. The 3-minute piece – in which the violinist hovers between arrowlike, pizzicato moments – like darting eyes – and smooth, arco gestures that suggest gliding on thermals, is aimed at Grade 5 players and was recorded by Hyeyoon Park and Benjamin Grosvenor.

A contemporary carol Christmas hath a darkness Brighter than the blazing noon In her imaginative and thoughtful response to Christina Rossetti’s Christmas Eve, Davies has created a beguiling 6-minute carol. Premiered at the 2011 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, this modern but accessible work for unaccompanied SATB choir would make an interesting pairing with the betterknown Rossetti setting In the Bleak Midwinter. The work will be performed at Kings Place, London this December by the Choir of St Catherine’s College, Oxford under Edward Wickham.

Jolts and Pulses Following the huge success of Davies’s chamber opera Cave, and the extraordinary part Elaine Mitchener played in it, the London Sinfonietta and Kings Place have commissioned a new work for ensemble and improvising singer, to be premiered with Mitchener in November 2019. The work will be the centrepiece of a portrait concert entitled ‘Jolts and Pulses’ that will also include the Davies classics neon and grind show (electric), as well as the recently revised Undertow.

Other upcoming projects include a short orchestral encore for the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Explore the music of Tansy Davies on our Online Score Library: scorelibrary.fabermusic.com

TUNING IN

Carl Davis

Carl Davis Selected forthcoming performances Chaplin, The Tramp World premiere 15.3-25.5.19, Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, Slovakia: SND Ballet/Carl Davis CBE/Dusan Stefanek (5 performances)

Last Train to Tomorrow US premiere 10.4.19, Tishman Auditorium, New School University; 12.4.19, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City, NY, USA: Mannes College of Music/ Carl Davis CBE 3.8.19, Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester Cathedral, UK: Carl Davis CBE

A Woman of Affairs

The Great Gatsby Having already won plaudits in 2000 for his evocative score to a TV adaptation of The Great Gatsby, Davis returned to the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s brilliant fable of hedonistic excess and tragic reality of 1920s America in a new original ballet score for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

Choreographed by Jorden Morris, the new show opened in February, and provided Davis ample scope to conjure both the shimmering Jazz Age, and the destructive obsession which forces Gatsby’s world to unravel.

‘Davis created a collage of styles… linking dance tunes and Americana-style fanfares with a poignant motif for the title character. The “Gatsby tune” was hauntingly lovely — lonely but surprisingly optimistic. Waltzes and foxtrots sparkled with long, winding melodies. His bluesier, jazz-inflected music, much of which featured a solo trumpet or saxophone, effectively anchored the “period” aspect of the production.’

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Jeremy Reynolds), 13 February 2019

US premiere for the Last Train One of Davis’s most important concert works, Last Train to Tomorrow, will receive its US premiere in April, with two performances in New York conducted by the composer. A 45-minute dramatic narrative for children’s choir, actors (or speakers) and orchestra based on the moving story of the Kindertransport. Previous performances in London, Manchester and Prague were received to great acclaim and this next outing – with musicians from Mannes College of Music – looks set for a similar reception. Davis will also conduct the piece at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester this August.

Old Heidelberg Each year, Carl Davis is invited by the Cinémathèque and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg to conduct one of his silent film scores. In March they performed his score for Ernst Lubitsch’s 1927 drama The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. The tragic love story stars Ramón Novarro as the titular prince who falls in love with the daughter of PHOTO: THE GREAT GATSBY © PITTSBURGH BALLET THEATRE

an inn keeper in the notorious German student town. A bittersweet romantic masterpiece, it is a perfect example of what became known as ‘the Lubitsch touch’ and Davis’s lush score for 43 players, incorporating German folk and student drinking songs to accompany the boisterous scenes of university life, perfectly complements the film’s spirit.

14.4.19, Turner Classic Movie Festival, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Carl Davis CBE

Chaplin on stage

4-5.5.19, L’Escale, Toulouse, France: Cinémathèque de Toulouse

After the great success of Davis and Daniel de Andrade’s Nijinksy in 2015, the Slovak National Theatre commissioned the pair once more, this time for a ballet based upon the life and work of Charlie Chaplin. Davis – whose silent film score work makes him the ideal composer for the project – conducted the premiere of Chaplin, The Tramp on 15 March, just as this newsletter went to press.

A full report will follow in the Autumn.

‘The three giants of 20th-century art are, for me, Picasso, Stravinsky and Chaplin,’ says Davis. ‘Chaplin was a filmmaker in complete control of his art: conceiving, scripting, acting, directing, producing, editing and, strikingly, creating his own musical scores. His stimulus, as it is with all clowns, was the creation of a character – amusing, moving, whose fate constantly intrigues us. Whereas Buster Keaton was a frozen-faced stoic and Harold Lloyd had his empty-framed glasses, Chaplin had his “little tramp”, the ups-and-downs (mostly downs) of whose existence shaped a story of human resilience.’

The General 29.4.19, Cineplex Münster, Germany: Sinfonieorchester Münster/Stefan Veselka

11-13.7.19, Duisburg, Germany: Duisburger Philharmoniker/Carl Davis CBE

Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio 3.5.19, Händel-Festspiele Halle, Germany: Kristin Ebner/Marie Henriette Reinhold/Patrick Grahl/ Clemens Heidrich/Staatskapelle Halle/Jens Lorenz 14-15.9.19, Lübeck, Germany: Kunst am kai Orchester/Gabriele Pott 16.11.19, La Seine Musicale, Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France: YSO Orchestra/les Chœurs et Orchestres des Grandes Écoles/Carl Davis CBE

The Immigrant 1.6.19, First United Methodist Church, Westfield, NJ, USA: New Jersey Festival Orchestra/David Wroe

Liverpool Oratorio Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio – his first venture into the classical idiom – was written in collaboration with Carl Davis in 1990. Cast in the traditional oratorio form, and scored for five soloists, boys’ choir, SATB chorus and orchestra the work has eight movements and lasts some 95 minutes. The text is McCartney’s own, drawing on the events of his early life in Liverpool, his birth in the city during wartime, his schooldays and youthful aspirations. A vibrant and richly melodic work, it has received over 200 performances around the world. 2019 will see performances in Halle, Lübeck and Paris (the latter conducted by Davis himself ).

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George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances

George Benjamin Written on Skin in China

Lessons in Love and Violence

Written on Skin’s status as the 21st century’s most performed opera was cemented in October when it received its Asian premiere at the Beijing Music Festival, with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Renes. The performances were made possible by the generous support of the KT Wong Foundation. Future outings include Kay Metzger’s production in Ulm, concert performances in Venice and Paris, and the Canadian premiere at L’Opéra de Montréal where Alain Gauthier directs a new stage production (the seventh!).

German premiere 7-20.4.19, Staatsoper, Hamburg, Germany: Hughes/Jarman/Orendt/ Hoare/Boden/Sawle/Renard/Björn Róbertsson/Hamburg State Opera/ Kent Nagano/dir. Katie Mitchell (5 performances) French premiere 14-26.5.19, Opéra Nouvel, Lyon, France: Degout/Jarman/Orendt/ Hoare/Boden/Sawle/Szabo/ Björn Róbertsson/Opéra de Lyon orchestra/Alexandre Bloch/dir. Katie Mitchell (7 performances)

Gold Lion from the Venice Biennale

US premiere October 2020, Lyric Opera of Chicago: Sir Andrew Davis/dir.

Katie Mitchell Spanish premiere February 2021, Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona; April 2021, Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain: Josep Pons/dir.

Katie Mitchell

Into the Little Hill 11-20.4.19, Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, Paris, France: Élise Chauvin/Camille Merckx/Ensemble Carabanchel/Alphonse Cemin/dir.

Jacques Osinski (6 performances prefaced by Flight for solo flute)

At First Light 27.4.19, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Taiwan: Hong Kong New Music Ensemble/Lin Liao 25.8.19, Lucerne Festival, KKL, Switxerland: Lucerne Academy Orchestra/Benjamin

Octet/At First Light/ Piano Figures/Flight/ etc.

4.5.19, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: RNCM Students

Written on Skin 9.5-19.7.19, Theater Ulm, Germany: Dae-Hee Shin/Maria Rosendorfsky/ Benno Schachtner/I-Chiao Shih/ Markus Francke/Theater Ulm Orchestra/Michael Weiger/dir. Kay Metzger (12 performances) 27.9.19, Teatro Goldoni, Venice, Italy: Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai/Clemens Schuldt 14.2.20, festival Présences, Philharmonie, France: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/ Benjamin Canadian premiere 25.1-2.2.20, Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts, Montréal, QC, Canada: L’Opéra de Montréal/Nicole Paiement/dir. Alain Gauthier (4 performances)

Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra 17.5.19, Studio Ernest Ansermet, Geneva, Switzerland: Lemanic Modern Ensemble/William Blank (with Fantasia 7 after Purcell)

Imagine documentary To coincide with the first TV broadcast of George Benjamin’s opera Lessons in Love and Violence in October, the BBC commissioned a new documentary focused on his life and work as part of their ‘Imagine…’ series.

Jill Nicholls’s 80-minute film, broadcast on BBC1, tracked the creation of the new opera as well as charting Benjamin’s development as a composer, from his early musical memories and studies with Messiaen in Paris to his recent collaboration with Martin Crimp which has so far produced three critically acclaimed operas.

Focuses in Berlin and Hamburg For their 18/19 season the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation undertook a major focus on Benjamin.

Seven concerts (three presented in collaboration with the Musikfest Berlin) featured works from across his output.

Benjamin conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker in his Palimpsests, and lead the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in both Into the Little Hill and Written on Skin.

Meanwhile, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie is presenting an equally impressive retrospective. Almost a decade in the hatching, it includes all three operas (with the German premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence) plus Palimpsests, Dream of the Song and Into the Little Hill, among others.

‘He really knows how to win people over to music.’

Der Tagesspiegel (Ulrich Amling), 10 September 2018

‘Undoubtedly, the Briton is one of the greatest composers of the present day.’

The Welt, 12 November 2018

‘It’s about time that this cruel-graceful masterpiece [Written on Skin] was performed at Berlin’s Philharmonie… The Mahler Chamber Orchestra once again performed this nerve-racking, suspenseful score… with regards to this gripping piece of modern music theater – with its passion, cruelty and lust – no one asks if the opera is a dead art form.’

Berliner Morgenpost (Matthias Nöther), 18 November 2018

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PHOTO: GEORGE BENJAMIN © MATTHEW LLOYD

La Biennale di Venezia has awarded George Benjamin the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music 2019.

The honour, one of the most prestigious of its kind, will be awarded before a concert performance of Written on Skin by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai which will open the 63rd International Contemporary Music Festival on 27 September. Benjamin will be the first British musician to receive the award, joining a list of composers including Berio, Lachenmann, Kurtág, Rihm, and Boulez.

‘Benjamin is universally acknowledged as one of the most important composers of our time’ – states the citation.

‘His deep yet refined compositions reveal a precious and incisive style that shapes the material of sound with the visionary imagination of a sculptor who feels and sees form even before it is materialized in the score. A great educator, George Benjamin is a unique model for the new generations of composers for his creative imagination, intelligence in composing and understanding of form.’

Ensemble Modern tour In March Benjamin embarked on a European tour with Ensemble Modern and the full-size Ensemble Modern orchestra, beginning in Frankfurt before taking in London (Wigmore Hall and the Roundhouse), Cologne and Hamburg. Works by Boulez, Messiaen, Ustvolskaja, Christian Mason, Cathy Milliken and Dallapiccola were heard alongside Benjamin’s own Palimpsests and his chamber opera Into the Little Hill with soloists Anu Komsi and Helena Rasker.

‘Two of his greatest achievements… Into the Little Hill remains as spellbinding now as it was at its premiere, perhaps sounding edgier and more painfully urgent than ever up close at the Wigmore… the overwhelming orchestral Palimpsests reveals how Benjamin armed himself expressively for that first foray into music theatre.’

The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 8 March 2019

A lyric tale in two parts for soprano, contralto and ensemble of 15 players (coloured by bass flute, two basset horns, mandolin, banjo and cimbalom), Into the Little Hill was Benjamin’s first collaboration with Martin Crimp. A new production of the work, directed by Jacques Osinski and conducted by Alphonse Cémin, opens at the Athénée Théâtre, Paris in April.

TUNING IN

Matthew Hindson Stockholm Festival

Saxophone Concerto for Dickson

Dream of the Song in Amsterdam The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, who commissioned Benjamin’s Dream of the Song back in 2015, revived the work in January with new animations made by the London-based artist Oliver Harrison. Employing a reduced orchestra (two oboes, four horns, two percussionists, two harps and strings), the work sets three major poets who spent formative years in Granada; two Hebrew poets of mid-11th century, Samuel HaNagid and Solomon Ibn Gabirol (sung by countertenor in English versions by Peter Cole), and Federico García Lorca (sung by the female chorus in the original Spanish).

The volatile and frenetic first movement ‘The Pen’ displays the remarkable, transparent density which has become one of Benjamin’s hallmarks; blaring horns cut through an intricate web of string textures, whilst the countertenor’s florid melismas recall Upon Silence. The baleful gongs and lacerating string harmonies of the fourth movement for women’s voices and orchestra only, which sets an incendiary passage of Lorca, owe something to the last of the Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra.

From the instrumental musics superimposed in Palimpsests to Written on Skin where ‘the white lines of the Saturday car park cover the heaped up dead’, the layering of past and present has been a recurring preoccupation for Benjamin.

The inspired pairing of texts in Dream of the Song creates a rich, melancholy and strange poetic conjunction, expressed most beautifully in the final movement which, overlaying soloist and choir, offers two simultaneous visions of dawn, conceived a millennium apart ‘Dream of the Song contains sound combinations that only a master orchestrator like Benjamin could think of… The sensual, curling, melody lines of the solo part (flawlessly interpreted by Mehta) found a visual counterpart in the work of Harrison, whose typographical animations turned out to be a fairytale mix of Arabic tinted calligraphy, plant motifs and art nouveau patterns.’

NRC Handelsblad (Joep Christenhusz), 18 January 2019

PHOTOS: AMY DICKSON © CHRIS DUNLOP

A Mind of Winter 28.5.19, Tokyo Opera City, Japan: Claire Booth/NHK Symphony Orchestra/Josep Pons

The Stockholm International Composer Festival has announced that George Benjamin will the focus of their 2019 edition. Benjamin is only the fifth British composer to have been featured there (the others being Tippett, Knussen, Musgrave and Adès). Highlights include Gyula Orendt (who created the role of Gaveston in Lessons in Love and Violence) singing Sometime Voices, Benjamin’s dramatic scena for baritone, choir and orchestra.

A setting of Caliban’s famous speech in Act III Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the 9-minute work places long, forceful baritone lines above an orchestra that drifts between an eerie tranquillity and mercurial activity. Behind this, the chorus, acting as spirits – sometimes benign, sometimes menacing – invoke his name.

George Benjamin Selected forthcoming performances

Shadowlines 10.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: PierreLaurent Aimard

Palimpsests 1.9.19, Lucerne Festival, KKL, Switzerland: Lucerne Festival Academy/Benjamin

Dream of the Song/ Sometime Voices/ Palimpsests/Duet

Amy Dickson is to premiere a Saxophone Concerto by Matthew Hindson, at Hobart’s Federation Hall on 25 August. The three-movement work has been commissioned by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Benjamin Northey conducts. Full details will follow in the next issue.

‘Dangerous Creatures’ Dangerous Creatures is Hindson’s modern-day take on Saint-Saëns’s much-loved Carnival of Animals. As the title suggests the orchestral suite focuses on slightly less endearing members of the animal kingdom, including ants, spiders, scorpions, snakes and jellyfish. Originally commissioned and premiered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, it has since been taken up by the West Australian, Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmanian symphony orchestras – often in educational contexts as it provides an ideal introduction to the orchestra for young listeners.

Both Sydney and Melbourne will revisit the work in May and June this year, with five concerts all under the baton of Tianyi Lu.

Kalkadungu comes to Mexico Jointly composed by Matthew Hindson and William Barton, Kalkadungu (2008) is an astonishing work for orchestra and soloist, showcasing Barton’s unique talents on didjeridu, electric guitar and voice.

The work is based on an Aboriginal chant that Barton wrote when he was 15 and is inspired by the Kalkadungu tribe’s fierce 15-year guerilla campaign against European settlers. The tribe was eventually decimated in 1889 at Battle Mountain, near Mount Isa. Kalkadungu has been recorded to great acclaim on ABC Classics (scooping an ARIA Award in 2012) and has travelled widely, with performances in Australia, the USA, Russia and Italy. It receives its South American premiere on 31 May, when Barton joins the Orquestra Filarmonica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.

‘A new development. They have succeeded in combining two musical traditions into a unified work of art… Kalkadungu opens new opportunities for Australian music.’

The Australian (Murray Black), 4 April 2008

21.11.19, Stockholm, Sweden: Bejun Mehta/Gyula Orendt/Eric Ericson Chamber Choir/Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Benjamin

A Mind of Winter/ Dance Figures/ Ringed by the Flat Horizon 22.11.19, Stockholm, Sweden: Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/ Christian Karlsen

At First Light/Viola, Viola/Into the Little Hill 24.11.19, Stockholm, Sweden: Members of Stockholm Opera Orchestra/Franck Ollu

Dream of the Song/ Duet 5.3.20, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Bejun Mehta/Pierre-Laurent Aimard/ Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra/ Benjamin

Matthew Hindson Selected forthcoming performances String Quartet No.2 27.4.19, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, NSW, Australia: Goldner Quartet

Dangerous Creatures 29-31.5.2019, Seymour Centre, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Sydney SO/Tianyi Lu 14.6.2019, Hamer Hall, Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Melbourne SO/ Tianyi Lu

Kalkadungu Mexican premiere 31.5.2019, Teatro Degollado, Guadalajara, Mexico: William Barton/ Orquestra Filarmonica de Jalisco

The stars above us all 21.8.2019, Llewellyn Hall, Canberra, ACT, Australia: Canberra Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Milton

Saxophone Concerto world premiere 25.8.2019, Federation Concert Hall, Hobart, TAS, Australia: Amy Dickson/ Tasmanian SO/Benjamin Northey

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Oliver Knussen Selected forthcoming performances

Oliver Knussen UK Premiere of Metamorphosis

Where the Wild Things Are

The UK premiere of Knussen’s Study for “Metamorphosis”, a 5-and-a-half-minute work for solo bassoon originally written in April 1972 and revised in 2018, will be given at the Wigmore Hall in April by the Nash Ensemble’s Ursula Leveaux.

15.3-7.4.19, Opernhaus, Düsseldorf, Germany: Deutsche Oper am Rhein/ Duisburger Philharmoniker/Jesse Wong/dir. Philipp Westerbarkei

Reflection

The Metamorphosis of the title is Kafka’s, on which Knussen had once planned to base a large piece. He described this study as ‘a cartoon’ for the larger project.

28.4.19, Frick Collection, New York City, NY, USA: Tamsin Waley-Cohen/ Huw Watkins

Ophelia Dances Book 1

Faber Music will be publishing a new edition of Study for “Metamorphosis” in the coming months, together with O Hototogisu!. The short solo cello work Eccentric Melody will follow later in the year.

19.4.19, Weinbrennersaal, BadenBaden, Germany: Sharoun Ensemble

Two Organa 5.4.19, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Foyle Future Firsts/Jonathan Berman

Study for “Metamorphosis” UK premiere 12.4.19, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Nash Ensemble

Variations 28.5.19, St George the Martyr, Borough, London, UK: George Fu 10.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: PierreLaurent Aimard

O Hototogisu!

11.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: Claire Booth/Karen Jones/ Knussen Chamber Orchestra/Ryan Wigglesworth

Prayer Bell Sketch 12.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, UK: Stephen Hough

Autumnal/Ophelia’s Last Dance 14.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, UK: Danny Koo/ Daniel Lebhardt

Coursing 14.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Ulysses Ensemble/Geoffrey Paterson

Cantata/Masks/Fire 22.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Britten Oboe Quartet/Adam Walker

Prayer Bell Sketch/ Ophelia’s Last Dance/Sonya’s Lullaby/Variations 10.8.19, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Lenox, MA, USA

Whitman Settings 12.8.19, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Lenox, MA, USA: Tanglewood Festival Orchestra/ Thomas Adès

Processionals 31.10.19, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: New European Ensemble/Jonathan Berman

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Knussen Violin Concerto Tributes to a musical titan On 17 December, an extraordinary evening celebrating Knussen’s life and work was held at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he had been the Richard Rodney Bennett Professor. Tributes and performances by many of Knussen’s closest musical friends were given before an audience who had come from across the world to remember this most generous and inventive of musicians.

In October, the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave the US premiere of O Hototogisu! and Brad Lubman led Ensemble Signal in a memorial concert at the University of Buffalo.

In Frankfurt, Giorgos Panagiotidis and Ueli Wiget from Ensemble Modern performed Knussen’s two works for violin and piano, Autumnal and Reflection, whilst in the UK, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group paired O Hototogisu! with the fascinating early ensemble work Processionals.

Further tributes are planned in Paris – where Brad Lubman will conduct Ensemble intercontemporain – and in Amsterdam, where O Hototogisu! will receive its Dutch premiere alongside the Requiem and Two Organa in a concert by Asko|Schönberg and its Ensemble Academie.

The Tanglewood Festival, where Knussen was Head of Contemporary Music from 1986 to 1993, will present the orchestral version of the Whitman Settings.

Aldeburgh Festival Focus The 2019 Aldeburgh Festival will feature a major focus on Knussen’s music, it has been announced. A newly formed chamber orchestra, named after Knussen, will perform his last work, O Hototogisu! whilst Fire, an unpublished capriccio for flute and string trio, will receive a special one-off performance from Adam Walker and members of the Britten Oboe Quartet. Other works are scattered throughout the festival, and Barrie Gavin’s documentary Sounds from the Big White House will also be shown.

Knussen was Artistic Director of the festival from 1983 to 1998 and gave his last public performances at Snape Maltings last summer.

PHOTO: OLIVER KNUSSEN © ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

Leila Josefowicz, a close friend and collaborator of Knussen’s, will perform his Violin Concerto in London, Cleveland and Los Angeles next season. Susanna Mälkki conducts the American performances, while in London Vasily Petrenko conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

One of Knussen’s most celebrated works, the concerto begins and ends with the same arresting sonority – a clangorous tubular-bell chord and a stratospheric high E on the violin. ‘At times’, Knussen observed, ‘the soloist resembles a tightrope walker progressing along a (decidedly unstable) high wire strung across the span that separates the opening and closing sounds’.

In Los Angeles, Mälkki and Josefowicz have also curated a concert with the New Music Group featuring Knussen’s Reflection, Two Organa and Ophelia Dances.

Publication of Reflecton Faber Music is proud to announce the publication of Knussen’s penultimate work, Reflection for violin and piano. This enchanting 8-minute piece – Oliver Knussen’s penultimate work – is made up of various kinds of musical reflection: melody reflected in its inversion; a six-note mode reflected in its complement; and the relationships between the three main parts of the piece, which are in a way varied reflections of each other. There are some reflections in water, too, the work’s opus number (31a) demonstrating a relationship to Knussen’s unfinished Cleveland Pictures: ‘The main melody began as a response to Gauguin’s painting of a Breton woman swimming’, Knussen wrote, ‘and there is also, perhaps, an echo of the lonely underwater world of an ondine, eventually breaking the surface at the end of the piece.’

We are indebted to Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Leila Josefowicz and Huw Watkins for their help and advice in preparing this edition in the months after Knussen’s death.

‘This short piece has it all… compelling concision.’

Die Welt, 1 February 2017

TUNING IN

Tom Coult New piano pieces A 12-minute collection of piano pieces, entitled Inventions (for Heath Robinson) will be premiered by Riot Ensemble’s Adam Swayne at the Petworth Festival in August.

Violet More details about Tom Coult’s chamber opera with playwright Alice Birch have been announced: Violet, a co-production by Music Theatre Wales, Aldeburgh Festival and Theater Magdeburg will be staged across the UK in the summer and autumn of 2020. A full-length piece of around 80 minutes, for four singers and ensemble of 14 players, the opera has already been shortlisted for the prestigious FEDORA – GENERALI Prize for Opera.

Richard Baker will conduct the London Sinfonietta, with the rest of the cast and creative team to be announced shortly.

Loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Devil in the Belfry, the opera concerns the inhabitants of a village which begins losing hours from its day – one night, an hour disappears. On day two, two hours are missing, on day three, three are gone. Our story takes place over 24 increasingly short days, as time drains from the world, until the opera snaps shut as the final hour vanishes.

The title Inventions has always had an attraction for Coult, who writes: ‘firstly, it suggests that the composer is intentionally reducing their means – evoking Bach’s Inventions, it implies rigour, concision, transparency and craft. Secondly, the word suggests a composer’s imagination taking flight – conjuring worlds that don’t exist yet, embracing the elation of creating artistic things.

Lastly, it conjures for me the idea of a mad inventor – working with pulleys, cogs, engines and sellotape. Creating contraptions whose complexity far exceeds their use value, but whose ingenuity has a charm in direct proportion to their uselessness.’

Other forthcoming projects include a Violin Concerto, Pleasure Garden, for Daniel Pioro.

Études and Chronophage published Coult’s Piano Trio “The Chronophage” and his Études for solo violin have both been published in new editions.

Acceleration, deceleration, and the inconsistent nature of time are at the heart of “The Chronophage”. Throughout the 17-minute work, cello and piano lines constantly speed up or slow down relative to one another, whilst the violin has only one role – to accelerate throughout. The listener feels clunky gear changes, as previously reliable demarcations of time seem unsteady – even unsafe.

The trio’s subtitle comes from The Corpus Clock in Cambridge, a clock that plays with exactly this perception.

Completely accurate every five minutes, the clock lurches unevenly from second to second, the grinding mechanism driven by the terrifying metal insect escapement known as the ‘Chronophage’ (from the Greek meaning ‘time-eater’).

Fantastical inventions

10.12.19, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Leila Josefowicz/Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group/ Susanna Mälkki

Violin Concerto/ Flourish with Fireworks 6-8.12.19, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Leila Josefowicz/Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Susanna Mälkki

Violin Concerto 6,8.2.20, Severance Hall, Cleveland, OH, USA: Leila Josefowicz/Cleveland Orchestra/Susanna Mälkki 19.2.20, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Leila Josefowicz/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko

O Hototogisu!*/Two Organa/Requiem *Netherlands premiere 14.5.20, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Katrien Baerts/Asko|Schönberg Ensemble/ Bas Wiegers

Tom Coult Selected forthcoming performances Études 24.4.19, Trinity College, Cambridge, UK; 12.5.19, Kings Arms, Berkhamsted, UK: Daniel Pioro

Codex (Homage to Serafini) 20.6.19, Cadogan Hall, London, UK: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/ Cristian Măcelaru

world premiere 2.8.19, Petworth Festival, UK: Adam Swayne (Riot Ensemble)

Violet world premiere

Coult’s inspiration was Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus, a compendium of imaginary animals, landscapes, buildings, fauna and inventions with each illustration meticulously annotated in a made-up script, as if belonging to an encyclopaedia from a world that doesn’t exist. The fantastical inventions include circular fish that skim across the water like frisbees, men whose eight faces spin round like weather-vanes, and elaborate helicopterlike machines for shooting rainbows through the sky.

PHOTO: TOM COULT © MAURICE FOXALL

Reflection/Ophelia Dances Book 1/Two Organa

Inventions (for Heath Robinson)

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Cristian Măcelaru will perform Coult’s Codex (Homage to Serafini) at London’s Cadogan Hall in June. Premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, this 12-minute work abounds in inventive, transparent textures.

The performance is supported by Resonate, the PRS scheme that encourages ABO members to programme ‘the best pieces of British music from the past 25 years’.

Oliver Knussen Selected forthcoming performances

**.6.20, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Music Theatre Wales/Richard Baker/dir. TBC

Piano Trio score and parts | 0-571-54080-5 | £24.99 Études score | 0-571-54079-1 | £14.99

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Thomas Adès Selected forthcoming performances

Thomas Adès Prize in Brno

...but all shall be well 4,6.4.19, Auditorium Maurice-Ravel, Lyon, France: Orchestre National de Lyon/Ben Glassberg

Following a CBE in June, in December Adès was presented with the Leoš Janáček Award at the 2018 Janáček Festival, Brno. A disc of Adès performing Janáček’s piano works is planned for release on Signum.

Violin Concerto 5.4.19, Philharmonie, Cologne, Germany: Pekka Kuusisto/WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Inferno

26.4.19, Victoria Concert Hall , Singapore; 1.6.19, Canterbury; 4.6.19, Birmingham Town Hall; 5.6.19, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Kuusisto/Aurora Orchestra/Nicholas Collon

The LA Philharmonic has announced an ambitious Adès dance project with The Royal Ballet and Wayne MacGregor as part of its 18/19 season. Conducted by Adès in July, the evenings will include Outlier (MacGregor’s existing choreography to the Violin Concerto), In Seven Days with Kirill Gerstein as soloist and Company Wayne MacGregor, and a new score – Inferno – that the orchestra will have premiered with Gustavo Dudamel in May.

3-4.5.19, Ohio Theatre, Columbus, OH, USA: Leila Josefowicz/Columbus Symphony Orchestra/Rossen Milanov 6-7.6.19, National Art Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada: Josefowicz/National Arts Centre Orchestra/Joana Carneiro 25-26.6.19, The Grange Festival, Grange Park, UK: chor. Wayne McGregor (as ‘Outlier’) 6,8.12.19, Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, PA, USA: Augustin Hadelich/Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä 7.12.19, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Anthony Marwood/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Manze

Three Studies from Couperin 5-7.4.19, Powell Hall, St Louis, MO, USA: St Louis Symphony Orchestra/ Gemma New 6.4.19, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/ Clemens Schuldt Japanese premiere 8-9.12.19, Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan: Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Alan Gilbert 18.5.20, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: English Chamber Orchestra/ Xian Zhang

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra European premiere 25-26.4.19, Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany: Kirill Gerstein/ Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Adès 11-12.10.19, Severance Hall, Cleveland, OH, USA: Kirill Gerstein/ Cleveland Orchestra/Alan Gilbert UK premiere 23.10.19, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Gerstein/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Adès Netherlands premiere 19-21.3.20, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gerstein/ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ Adès 2-4.4.20, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Gerstein/Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/ Adès

Boston extension

Powder Her Face Suites

Shortly before the premiere of Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in March, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced an extension to his contract as the orchestra’s first-ever Artistic Partner for an additional two years, through the 2020-21 season.

Adès wrote his chamber opera Powder Her Face (libretto

by Philip Hensher) when he was 24 and it has had a phenomenal success worldwide. Not only has the opera itself enjoyed over 300 performances but the material has spawned some equally successful orchestral suites, as well as the Concert Paraphrase for piano (solo or duo).

The Exterminating Angel on DVD When Adès conducted the US premiere of The Exterminating Angel at the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Times hailed it as ‘stunningly inventive’. With the release of a DVD of the Met performance on Erato, opera lovers now have the chance to immerse themselves in this rich and multi-layered score.

Adès has recently re-titled the first two orchestral suites and created a third, to create the following trio of works with different durations. Full details can be found on the Faber Music website.

Based on Luis Buñuel’s surrealist classic, The Exterminating Angel is a true ensemble opera, and the skill with which Adès delineates the many intricacies and undercurrents present over its densely-packed span is breathtaking. A masterfully deployed orchestra is coloured by guitar, piano and ondes martenot, the latter soaring above proceedings as an eerie manifestation of the force that ensnares the characters.

Luxury Suite from Powder Her Face (Suite No.2)

‘Adès most recent opera – probably his most personal too, with its grotesque humour, anarchy and electrifying, eclectic, the cockeyed result of putting century of music history on a chopping board and into the Magimix… There is violence and tenderness; there are live sheep… Best of all there is Adès’s score – juddering, whirling, spiky, florid, but in every mood dangerously intoxicating.’

The Times (Geoff Brown), 22 February 2019

‘As good as it gets… [Adès’s] vast score opens out the film’s screenplay on to a cosmic stage of inner fears and earth-shattering, unknown external forces. So dazzling is the range of his music, and often so extreme, that it almost defies being captured on a recording. Perhaps for that reason the more reflective passages tend to have the most telling impact, especially the short solos that peer into each character’s soul.’

Three-piece Suite from Powder Her Face (Suite No.1) 2007 [12 mins] - (formerly known as ‘Dances from Powder Her Face’)

2017 [27 mins] - (formerly known as ‘Powder Her Face Suite’)

Hotel Suite from Powder Her Face (Suite No.3) 2018 [c.18 mins (or 16 mins with optional cut)]

The Tempest full score Adès’s The Tempest is one of the most striking and successful operas of recent years. To complement the recent limited edition full score that was published last year, Faber Music have issued a paperback version which is perfect for use as a study score for conductors and musicians. A few copies of the numbered and signed limited edition full score is also still available.

From the turbulent orchestral prelude with which it begins to Ariel’s stratospheric yet ethereal ‘Five fathoms deep’ and the radiant quintet of reconciliation in its final act, its composer conjures up a wholly compelling musical world. Responding to librettist Meredith Oakes’s clear, unfussy refashioning of Shakespeare into formalised rhyme schemes, Adès has created a new kind of tonal language that is both direct and communicative but also indelibly contemporary.

Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 15 February 2019

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PHOTO: THOMAS ADÈS RECEIVING THE 2018 JANÁCEK PRIZE © MAREK OLBRZYMEK, FESTIVAL JANÁCEK BRNO

TUNING IN

Martin Suckling Songs from a Bright September Bass Matthew Rose will return to Suckling’s Songs from a Bright September this April for a performance at London’s Temple Song Series.

Melding joy and grief As part of the Armistice Centenary commemorations, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra commissioned Martin Suckling to write Meditation (after Donne), a work for chamber orchestra and electronics that takes as its inspiration the massed ringing of bells as Armistice was declared. Suckling describes it as ‘a simple song for orchestra, with performers and audience surrounded by a constantly evolving tapestry of tolling bells created by live electronics’. The 11-minute piece received three performances in November from the SCO under Nicolas Altstaedt, and was performed in December by the Helensburgh Orchestral Society.

Meditation marks the end of Suckling’s time as Associate Composer with the SCO, a remarkably rich partnership which has seen the creation of a clutch of brilliant new works: Six Speechless Songs (premiered by Robin Ticciati then revived by Oliver Knussen), and the dazzling Piano Concerto for Tom Poster.

Setting specially written texts by David Sergeant, this 13-minute song cycle was commissioned by Rose and the Angell Trio and was premiered in 2014. Like Suckling’s Six Speechless Songs from 2013 this work eschews the microtonal language present in many of Suckling’s works, instead exploring resonance through a pure and clear harmonic language sometimes reminiscent of Messiaen.

‘To me’ writes Suckling, ‘the poems suggest a parent’s meditations shortly before the birth of their child: wonder at the new life growing within, anticipation of a joyful childhood, and intimations of bittersweet future partings’.

In the first song the piano mostly inhabits its bottom two octaves, its heavy chords triggering crepuscular thirdpedal resonances out of which sinuous violin and cello lines emerge. The second is bright and sharply etched; a repeating cycle of staccato triads in the piano. The third movement juxtaposes a dance melody with a gently rocking lullaby figure in seemingly endless descent before eventually the piano breaks free into an ecstatic solo which fuses elements of lullaby dance and song.

Suckling’s forthcoming projects include a set of songs for mezzo-soprano and piano, setting poems by Michael Donaghy, for the Oxford Lieder Festival.

Three Venus Haiku published

PHOTO: MARTIN SUCKLING © TESSA OKSANEN

13.4.19, Volksoper, Vienna, Austria: Ursula Pfitzner/Bart Driessen/David Sitka/Julia Koci/Vienna Volksoper/ Lorenz C Aichner/dir. Martin G. Berger (10 performances)

Three-piece Suite from Powder Her Face 2.5.19, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA: Berkeley Symphony/Christian Reif 2-4.4.20, Symphony Center, Chicago, IL, USA: Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Jakub Hrusa

Inferno world premiere 10-12.5.19, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/ Gustavo Dudamel Netherlands premiere 19.6.20, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Adès

Luxury Suite from Powder Her Face Netherlands premiere 10-12.10.19, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Adès

In Seven Days 1.3.20, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: Nicolas Hodges/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Jurowski

In Seven Days/Violin Concerto/Inferno

Piano Quintet 11.5.19, The Sage Gateshead, UK: Alasdair Beatson/Royal Northern Sinfonia 15.6.19, Musikschule Konservatorium Bern, Switzerland: Camerata Bern 17.3.20, Kleine Zaal, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Adès/ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The Scotsman (Susan Nickalls), 10 November 2018

The Daily Telegraph (David Kettle), 9 November 2018

Powder Her Face

12-13.7.19, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Josefowicz/Gerstein/The Royal Ballet/Company Wayne McGregor/ Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/ Adès/chor. McGregor

‘Atmospheric… Taking Donne’s plea for a shared humanity for inspiration, Suckling beautifully evokes the conflicting emotions that peace brings. Keening strings and the mournful wail of an oboe are united by the solemn tolling of the bells which segue into bird song in the final bars of this moving elegy.’

‘A tapestry of clangorous sounds and textures.

Alongside his bell soundscape, he conjured piquant, microtonal orchestral harmonies that emerged imperceptibly from the bells’ jangling overtones, or summoned a naive, folk-like string tune that threaded through them, or later a gnarly, keening oboe duet. The result was impressively immediate, thoroughly captivating, and well received by the Edinburgh audience. And it melded together with uncanny ease the somewhat contradictory senses of celebration, anger and grief… Beyond that, though, it was the fragile sense of community the work suggested that created the piece’s potent emotional resonance… Enthralling.’

Thomas Adès Selected forthcoming performances

31.3.20, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Adès/Los Angeles Philharmonic

Faber Music is pleased to announce the publication of Suckling’s Three Venus Haiku. These three exquisite miniatures – composed in 2009 and lasting a total of 5 minutes – are responses to the poetry of George Bruce. In the first, soloist and piano are fused together as a single instrument, as if singing from a great distance. Suckling describes the following movements as ‘inside a beam of light’ and ‘a never-ending lullaby’. Three Venus Haiku exist in versions for a number of different solo instruments with piano, and this edition is intended for either flute or violin.

Martin Suckling Selected forthcoming performances Songs from a Bright September 30.4.19, Temple Church, London, UK: Matthew Rose/Anna Tilbrook/Jan Schmolck/cellist TBA

Score and part | 0-571-54081-3 | £19.99

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Julian Anderson Selected forthcoming performances

Julian Anderson ‘Uplifting and luminescent’

Fantasias Finnish premiere

‘A substantial work of intriguing paradoxes…

Gloriously uplifting and luminescent, it has dark threads and exudes both a striking simplicity and a numinous complexity. In this searingly beautiful performance, Bickley soars magnificently while the BBC SO and Chorus are on top form, from the fizzing and chattering textures of ‘Gloria (with Bird)’ to the chorus’s sublimely sustained final chord… The Comedy of Change provides a marked contrast. The skittishly spartan, yet detailed, abstract textures are full of life in this evocative performance.’

17.5.19 Helsinki Music Centre, Finland: Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon

Poetry Nearing Silence 19.6.19, Royal College of Music, London, UK: RCM New Perspectives/ Tim Lines

Transferable resistance 6.7.19, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Guildhall School of Music & Drama Student Ensemble/Joy Farrall

Khorovod 14.5.20, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Asko|Schönberg Ensemble/Bas Wiegers

BBC Music Magazine (Christopher Dingle), Christmas 2018

‘Fantasias’ in Helsinki Fantasias, Julian Anderson’s spectacular 23-minute orchestral showpiece from 2009, will receive its Finnish premiere this season, with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon.

This thrilling work abounds in vivid contrasts, from the jagged brass fanfares with which it opens to the headlong rush of its dazzling finale. At its heart is an extended and evocative nocturne, overflowing with all manner of brilliantly imagined sounds which its composer describes as a ‘musical rainforest’.

Premiere recordings A new disc featuring premiere recordings of Anderson’s Heaven is Shy of Earth for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra and The Comedy of Change for 12 players has been released on Ondine records. Susan Bickley joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for the oratorio whilst the London Sinfonietta perform the ballet score.

Both works appear in live recordings conducted by the much-missed Oliver Knussen.

Heaven is Shy of Earth, sets poems by Dickinson alongside the High Mass and Psalm 84. Commissioned for the 2006 BBC Proms (where The Sunday Times described it as ‘a revelation’), this 30-minute ‘secular mass’ is a beautiful and beguiling work. In 2008 it won a British Composer Award, then in 2010 it was extended with a further movement, ‘Gloria (with Bird)’, which highlights the piece’s intention to reflect and celebrate the natural world. The Comedy of Change pays tribute to Charles Darwin and celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Commissioned by Rambert Dance Company and choreographed by Mark Baldwin, the work has also had a vivid life in concert.

The recording is supported by the PRS Composers’ Fund and is the second Anderson portrait disc from the Ondine label, after the Gramophone Award-winning disc of orchestral and ensemble music back in 2007. In other recording news, the Nash Ensemble will record a disc of chamber music for NMC in April.

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PHOTO: JULIAN ANDERSON © MAURICE FOXALL

‘Latin Mass sits beside Dickinson verse and the compound shines out in an Andersonian way, comprehending both Britten and Tippett. The Comedy of Change is a glitteringly inventive score.’

The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 4 November 2018

‘This excellent CD fills significant gaps in the Anderson discography…’

Gramophone (Arnold Whittall), December 2018

‘A startlingly effective piece… The choral writing is distinctly Andersonian and the solos for Bickley seem to pre-echo parts of his opera Thebans. A solo flugelhorn and the special tunings for some instruments are very effective touches.’

BBC Radio 3 Record Review (Andrew McGregor), 1 December 2018

‘A reminder of what a sophisticated and multifaceted voice Anderson possesses…

Heaven Is Shy of Earth opens itself in a variety of expressive directions, yet never sounds like something we’ve heard before. Everything is penetrated by an enchanting sound world and a living rhythm.’

Hufvudstadsbladet (Mats Liljeroos), 13 November 2018

TUNING IN

John Woolrich

Carl Vine

John Woolrich Selected forthcoming performances Ulysses Awakes 18.5.19, St Mary and St Eanswythe Church, Folkestone, UK: Robin Ashwell/RCM String Orchestra

Pianobooks II, VI, VII, IX, XII, XIV, XV 22.5.19, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Norwich Playhouse; 9.6.19, National Centre for Early Music, York; 2.11.19, Homerton College, Cambridge, UK: Clare Hammond

Concerto for Violin Romanian premiere 19.9.19, George Enescu Festival, Bucharest, Romania: winner of the Enescu Violin Competition/Britten Sinfonia/Andrew Gourlay

Trumpet Concerto for Alison Balsom

Symphony No.7 in Estonia

From Ulysses Awakes, his iconic reworking of Monteverdi, to his much-loved Viola Concerto, John Woolrich has consistently made his own work a fascinating echo chamber for musical voices from the past. In May 2020, a new work for trumpet and chamber orchestra – Hark, the echoing air – will be premiered by Alison Balsom and the Britten Sinfonia. The new commission will be heard alongside Woolrich’s characterful, pungent, transcriptions of Scarlatti keyboard sonatas, premiered by the Britten Sinfonia back in 2016. The chamber orchestra will also perform Woolrich’s Violin Concerto this summer at the Enescu Festival, Bucharest.

Rich, colourful and multi-layered, Carl Vine’s Symphony No.7 (2008) is subtitled ‘scenes from daily life’. The first two ‘scenes’ mirror the same idea from opposite sides: the first allowing competing energies to collide into uniformity, the second moving from unison to plurality.

The third and fifth are slow meditations on loss and beauty, separated by a contrasting scene of skittish energy.

The 24-minute work, which ends with an unnerving danse macabre, received its Estonian premiere in February, with Arvo Volmer conducting the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.

world premiere

Goldner Quartet

14.5.20, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Britten Sinfonia

Songs of Dawn In March the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid and Christian Zacharias unveiled Woolrich’s orchestrations of Schumann’s extraordinary late piano pieces Gesänge der Frühe. Sometimes appearing fragmentary and unpolished, and with an unconventional approach to dissonance, these are strange, highly poetic works. Zacharias – who asked Woolrich to make the orchestrations – will conduct them again with the Gävle Symphonieorkester in April.

Having recorded Vine’s previous string quartets, his longtime collaborators, the Goldner Quartet, have added his latest – String Quartet No.6 – to their repertoire.

Unfolding over five movements the 20-minute work is subtitled ‘Child’s Play’, and takes inspiration from the unbridled exuberance, unselfconscious concentration, and pure elation of infancy. The Goldner’s will give three performances of the work in Australia this November.

String Quartet project

Hymns to Earth, Moon, and Sun

Woolrich’s new set of string quartets, A Book of Inventions, is a ‘jigsaw’ gradually being pieced together to reveal a whole. Following the premiere of Badinerie at MoMA, New York in July 2018 by the Ansonia Quartet, other movements will be heard in the UK from autumn 2018 across two seasons by a mix of young and established ensembles including the Benyounes, Tesla, Callino and Bozzini quartets with others to follow. Involving several festivals and venues across the country with speciallydevised programmes – some curated by the composer – each performance will have a flavour of its own.

There will also be talks, and workshop opportunities for student composers. Full details can be found online at abookofinventions.com

In June, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago will present the US premiere of Vine’s Choral Symphony, with Carlos Kalmar conducting the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus.

‘A thoroughly captivating musical journey…’

Scored for SATB choir, organ and orchestra, the Choral Symphony sets four ancient hymns in exotic languages that have not been spoken for thousands of years: ‘Enuma Elish’, an Akkadian creation myth describing the creation of the world from primeval chaos, and three Homeric Hymns to the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun (in Greek ‘Epic Dialect’). The vocal writing in this 26-minute symphony (Vine’s sixth) is homophonic throughout, reflecting the composer’s wish for the work to ‘revel in the power of the human community’.

Hark, the echoing air 14.5.20, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Alison Balsom/Britten Sinfonia

Arrangements Gesänge der Frühe Swedish premiere 4.4.19, Konserthuset, Gävle, Sweden: Gävle Symphonieorkester/Christian Zacharias

Scarlatti Sonatas Set 2

Carl Vine Selected forthcoming performances The Arrival of Implacable Gifts 11.4.19, Tucson Museum of Art, AZ, USA; 7-28.5.19, Australian tour (9 performances): ZOFO Piano Duet

Choral Symphony US premiere 14-15.6.19, Grant Park Music Festival, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Chicago, IL, USA: Grant Park Orchestra/Grant Park Chorus/Carlos Kalmar

V 12.9.19, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Queensland Symphony Orchestra/ Alondra de la Parra

String Quartet No.6 9.11.19, Ukaria Cultural Centre, Mt Barker Summit, South Australia; 17.11.19, Huntington Estate Music Festival, Mudgee, NSW; 21.11.19, Goldner String Quartet

nationalsawdust.org on Badinerie, July 2018, MoMA, New York

PHOTOS: JOHN WOOLRICH © MAURICE FOXALL; CARL VINE © KEITH SAUNDERS

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Jonathan Harvey Selected forthcoming performances

Jonathan Harvey Angel Names

Cello Octet

One of Harvey’s most beautiful late works, Messages, received its Finnish premiere in February, with Susanna Mälkki conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Centre Chorus. Setting a text that consists entirely of the names of Judaic and Persian angels, the 25-minute work for chorus and orchestra sees Harvey employing an ensemble rich with bells, percussion, harps, pianos, celesta and even a cimbalom to create a glowing, iridescent soundworld.

Swiss premiere 4.4.19, Hochschule, Lucerne, Switzerland: Hochschule Luzern Musik/Erik Borgir

Death of Light, Light of Death 11.4.19, Vienna. Austria: Ensemble XX/Peter Burwik

Nunc Dimittis 20.4.19, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: Graham Ross/Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

Cello Octet

Palestrina/Harvey – Stabat Mater 18.5.19, Barbican Centre, London, UK: Sansara/Joe Bates

Vajra 14.6.19, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK: BCMG NEXT musicians/Jean Déroyer

Songs and Haiku*/ Curve with Plateaux *UK premiere 16.6.19, Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, UK: Joanna MacGregor/Adrian Brendel/Marta Fontanals-Simmons

Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco 10.12.19, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group

Bird Concerto with Pianosong 27.2.20, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Ensemble Insomnio/Laura Sandee/Ulrich Pohl Pre-echo for JeanGuihen 4.4.20, Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, UK: Jean-Guihen Queyras String Quartet No.2 11.6.20, Le Studio, Philharmonie, Paris, France: Quatuor Béla

Songs and Haiku

Harvey’s rarely heard Cello Octet will receive its Swiss premiere in April at the Hochschule Luzern. Described by its composer as ‘an explosion of cello-ness’, this 7-minute work from 2008 overflows with exuberance and a love of the instrument’s various singing and percussive virtues.

To mark what would have been Harvey’s 80th birthday in 2019, Faber Music will publish an unreleased collection of songs for mezzo-soprano and piano entitled Songs and Haiku. Two haiku (the first for piano alone – the only piece here to have been published before – the latter by Basho) bookend three love songs dedicated to Harvey’s wife Rosa. The grouping of pieces was the composer’s own, and mixes Eastern and Western poets in a totally characteristic manner. Both Tagore and E. E. Cummings are represented, poets who feature in some of Harvey’s finest works (Song Offerings and Forms of Emptiness, respectively), and a third song sets Tennyson’s ‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal’, and should prove a fascinating comparison with the Britten version. The collection has only been performed once before - at the Aix Festival in 2010. The Aldeburgh Festival will present the UK premiere this summer, with Marta Fontanals-Simmons and Joanna MacGregor.

Harvey himself was a skilled cellist, and works for the instrument are prominent throughout his oeuvre, including the pioneering works involving electronics such as Advaya (1994). Forever seeking to expand the sounds available to him, Harvey often modified the instrument; each of his Three Sketches (1989) requires a different scordatura whilst in The Summer Cloud’s Awakening for choir, flute, cello and live electronics (2001) the player doubles an amplified ‘prepared cello’ with two G strings and two C strings all tuned down an octave.

2019 will also see the long-awaited publication of a new edition of Speakings, Harvey’s 2008 work for orchestra and electronics. Typeset, and with input from Gilbert Nouno who collaborated with Harvey on the electronic element, this major undertaking will make this stunning piece even more accessible to conductors and enthusiasts.

Recording news

Amongst Harvey’s greatest works for the instrument is the Cello Concerto (1990 rev. 2005), a luminous 20-minute movement in which the soloist is wreathed in a halo of sound from a concertante group of tuned percussion, electric keyboard, celesta and harp. There is little trace of the usual ‘heroic’ concerto soloist here: the cellist eschews a series of earthy outbursts from the orchestra, and is elevated to higher, more rarefied plains.

A new recording of Harvey’s The Riot features on Ian Mitchell’s new ‘Bass clarinet and friends: a miscellany’, available from Metier. Written in 1993, this playful 9-minute trio is scored for flute (doubling piccolo), bass clarinet and piano. This is rugged, high energy music, full of startling gestures and driven by an earthy abandon which makes it one of Harvey’s liveliest pieces.

A UK premiere at St John’s Singers from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge gave the UK premiere of Harvey’s Es Blühn Drei Rosen in an evensong in January. The 8-minute work for four male voices (ATTB) sets a traditional Marian song text from Silesia and was first performed at the 2009 Carinthischer Sommer Festival. The form is strophic, with four verses, each containing a brief melismatic ‘O Maria’ in which the upper three voices move independently of the beat.

Harvey was a music scholar at St John’s and this performance follows on from the Choir’s award-winning disc of his choral music released on Signum in 2016.

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PHOTO: JONATHAN HARVEY © J. SHIRCLIFF; IMAGE FROM HARVEY’S REHEARSAL SCORE OF ‘SPEAKINGS’

TUNING IN

Torsten Rasch

The Formula In 2018, a century after the end of the First World War and the October Revolution, Konzerttheater Bern staged Die Formel, an ambitious interdisciplinary work for singers, actors and orchestra with music by Torsten Rasch.

The 120-minute work, to a text by Doris Reckewell, takes Bern’s important role as a neutral waystation and imagines an encounter between seven of the twentieth century’s most important cultural figures: the revolutionary exile Lenin with his wife, the emancipated social pedagogue Nadezhda Krupskaja; the as-yet-unknown physicist Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Marić; the artist Paul Klee and his pianist wife Lily; as well as the young, uprooted poet Robert Walser. Jonathan Stockhammer conducted Camerata Bern and Vokalensemble ardent in a production directed by Gerd Heinz.

Rasch’s economical and atmospheric score – featuring prominent roles for cimbalom and accordion alongside strings and percussion – sets accomplished writing for a quartet of solo singers alongside several imposing choruses that punctuate the work. Reckewell’s dramatic concept is similarly compelling and multi-layered, breaking the narrative flow with fascinating ‘time windows’ and dream sequences. At one-point the drama looks forward to the catastrophe of Hiroshima, with a children’s choir singing a Japanese nursery rhyme.

‘Rasch’s brittle – but at the same time emotional – sound tapestry, gives the emotional dimension of the speech an almost painful equivalent in sound… This mystery play about ideas, knowledge, reality and the mendacity of systemic thinking is a Gesamtkunstwerk in the best sense.’

Deutschlandradio Kultur (Cornelie Ueding), 4 March 2018

‘The idea is compelling, and its implementation over long spans succeeded… Rasch’s tight and stylish score – more Schauspielmusik than Opera – accompanies the transformations and the dream scenes atmospherically… The dream scenes are a highlight.’

‘An entertaining piece of music theatre… Rasch’s music embeds the work in a dissonant and sombre soundworld. Like the figures, the music wanders, searching, often remaining in the distance. Every now and then familiar motifs emerge like flashes of inspiration, remotely reminiscent tango, before immediately disappearing into the intoxicating stream of sound… The choral sequences give the work a clear structure. Heinz (direction) and Lilot Hegi (stage, costumes) give the work the necessary drive and find expressive pictures – especially in the sung dream sequences… An entertaining piece of music theatre with powerful scenes…’

Berner Zeitung (Maria Künzli), 5 March 2018

Peter Sculthorpe Selected forthcoming performances String Quartet No.12 26.5.19, Queensland Symphony Orchestra Studio, Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Alan Smith/Jane Burroughs/Nicholas Tomkin/Andre Duthoit

Earth Cry Mexican premiere 31.5.19, Teatro Degollado, Guadalajara, Mexico: William Barton/ Orquestra Filarmonica de Jalisco

A Song for Neilma

The unique expressive make-up of Rasch’s music – his fluency, his assurance on the largest scale, and his uncanny ability to spin a vivid and personal sound-world around the ghosts of others – makes him a natural composer for the stage. Current projects include works for the RIAS Kammerchor and Semperoper Dresden.

15.10.19, Collins St Baptist Church, Melbourne, VIC; 16.10.19, Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC; 20.10.19, Montsalvat Barn Gallery, Eltham, VIC, Australia: Genevieve Lacey/Flinders Quartet

Peter Sculthorpe

20.10.19, Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan: Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Kentaro Kawase

From Oceania Japanese premiere

Earth Cry One of Peter Sculthorpe’s defining works, Earth Cry, will receive its Mexican premiere in May from the Orquestra Filarmonica de Jalisco. It is a sombre, impressive score which brings together an exhilarating rhythmic impetus with direct melodic writing and a prominent role for didgeridoo. After composing this 14-minute work, Sculthorpe wrote of the ‘need to attune ourselves to the continent, to listen to the cry of the earth’. This urgent ecological message, married to Sculthorpe’s highly effective evocations of landscape, make Earth Cry just as powerful and relevant now as it was at its premiere in 1986, if not more so.

Badensche Zeitung (Peter König), 5 March 2018 PHOTO: TORSTEN RASCH © MAURICE FOXALL; DIE FORMEL © PHILIPP ZINNIKER

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David Matthews Selected forthcoming performances

David Matthews Concerto for Orchestra

Winter Remembered

This summer Matthews’s latest orchestral work – a Concerto for Orchestra – will be premiered at the Chipping Campden Music Festival. The ebullient 20-minute work is infused with birdsong, and is inspired by the particular colours and moods which mark the transition from spring to summer. Two extended dances (somewhat related to the last movement of Matthews’s Eighth Symphony, and its overall cheerful mood) bookend a central nocturnal song. There an extended melody on muted strings is developed, leading to a joyously direct evocation of a dawn chorus where each woodwind instrument represents a particular bird.

2.4.19, Stratford ArtsHouse, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK: Carmen Flores/Orchestra of the Swan/ Kenneth Woods

Romanza 3.4.19, Great Malvern Priory, UK: English Symphony Orchestra/ Kenneth Woods/Zoë Beyers

Variations for Violin and Piano world premiere 25.5.19, English Music Festival, Dorchester Abbey, UK: Rupert Marshall-Luck/Michael Korstick

Concerto for Orchestra world premiere 25.5.19, Chipping Campden Music Festival, St James’s Church, UK: Chipping Campden Festival Academy Orchestra/Thomas Hull

Le Lac world premiere 28.5.19, Stratford ArtsHouse, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK: April Fredrick/Orchestra of the Swan/ Kenneth Woods

Stars 3.8.19, Three Choirs Festival: Gloucester Cathedral, UK: Three Choirs Festival Chorus/Philharmonia Orchestra/Adrian Partington

Four Portraits for Piano 23.8.19, Presteigne Festival, UK: Tom Poster

White Nights 25.8.19, Presteigne Festival, UK: Mathilde Milwidsky/Presteigne Festival Orchestra/George Vass

Darkness Draws In 25.8.19, Presteigne Festival, UK: Sarah Jane Bradley

Stars Composed for Paul Steinitz’s London Bach Society in 1970, David Matthews’s Stars for choir and orchestra will be revived this summer at the Three Choirs Festival Gloucester, with Adrian Partington conducting the Festival Chorus and Philharmonia Orchestra.

The text for the 6-minute work was specifically written

by Peter Holman (who has since become a distinguished authority on Baroque music) and the work’s title is a deliberate allusion to Stravinsky’s cantata Le roi des étoiles.

The choral writing is almost entirely harmonic and simple, though the chords are often very dense: the only piece of contrapuntal writing occurs near the end. While he was making a new score for this performance, Matthews revised the piece, occasionally using less dissonant harmony, but the overall style of the piece, which is quite different from what he writes today, remains the same as it was almost 50 years ago.

Frank Bridge A new edition of Dance Poem Faber Music is proud to announce the publication of Frank Bridge’s evocative Dance Poem for orchestra (1913).

This newly engraved edition brings to a close our series of the composer’s crucial works and was made possible thanks to the generosity of the Frank Bridge Trust.

As well as the arresting themes and vivid orchestral colours that typify Bridge’s early work, in Dance Poem we also find a more concentrated logic of symphonic development.

Each of the six sections of this 15-minute symphonic waltz conveys the emotions expressed in a dancer’s movements.

The mosaic of flexible motivic shapes, supported by an increased richness of harmonic vocabulary and the greater refinement of orchestral gesture, recall Debussy’s Jeux and Ravel’s La Valse.

Midlands focus The English Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Swan will continue their ‘David Matthews in the Heart of England’ series this year, bringing together musicians, festivals, and venues from across the Midlands.

In April, Carmen Flores will join the Orchestra of the Swan in Winter Remembered, whilst Zoë Beyers and the English Symphony Orchestra will perform Romanza. The series will culminate in May with soprano April Fredrick joining the Orchestra of the Swan in the premiere of Matthews’s Le Lac, a setting of Lamartine. All three performances will be conducted by Kenneth Woods.

Roger Scruton Rupert Marshall-Luck and Michael Korstick will give the premiere of Matthews’s Variations for Violin and Piano at Dorchester Abbey, as part of the English Music Festival this May. The 10-minute piece is based on a song by Roger Scruton, who is currently developing an opera with Matthews.

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PHOTO: DAVID MATTHEWS © CLIVE BARDA

Full score | 0-571-53111-3 | £24.99

TUNING IN

Malcolm Arnold

Benjamin Britten

Malcolm Arnold Selected forthcoming performances Anniversary Overture 2.4.19, RSNO New Auditorium, Glasgow, UK: National Youth Orchestras of Scotland-Junior Orchestra/Jon Hargreaves

Peterloo 6.4.19, Folly Farm, Kilgetty, UK: Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra/ Michael Bell 1.5.19, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Thames Vale Youth Orchestra/ Michael Stinton

Four Cornish Dances 1.5.19, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK: Thames Vale Youth Orchestra/ Michael Stinton

Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra

Arnold Centenary

Paul Bunyan at ENO

In 2021 the centenary of Malcolm Arnold’s birth provides the ideal opportunity to reassess this fascinating and indispensable figure in 20th century British Music.

Last September English National Opera travelled to Wilton’s Music Hall for a new production of Britten’s Paul Bunyan by Jamie Manton. The production will be revived in May at the newly-refurbished theatre at Alexandra Palace.

There can’t be any professional musician trained in the UK who is not familiar with the engaging and directly communicative qualities of Arnold’s work, but behind the popular image of Arnold is a much more complex personality, with a remarkably diverse output to match.

Arnold’s symphonies, works into which the composer poured his most serious and compelling musical statements, not to mention some of his most personal and emotional music, have for too long been unjustly overlooked. His Seventh Symphony, completed in 1973 is a startlingly original work (arguably the most deeply personal of all Arnold’s nine symphonies) and now boasts four separate commercial recordings.

Nicholas Maw Premiere orchestral recordings William Boughton and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales were in the studio this January to record two works

by Nicholas Maw for release on Lyrita Records. The disc will feature premiere recordings of Maw’s Voices of Memory and Spring Music alongside a new account of his significant 27-minute Sonata for Solo Violin by Harriet Mackenzie.

A bright and boldly-contoured curtain raiser, Maw’s Spring Music (1983) burgeons with lyrical vitality. Lasting 14 minutes and scored for a modest orchestra (double wind, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, harp and strings), the work takes its cue from the well-known line of Dylan Thomas that for its composer seems to sum up the energy and beauty of spring: ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.’

15.6.19, Curzon Herrick Hall, Eardisley, UK: Catherine Leech/David le Page/Orchestra of the Swan/ Richard Laing

Four Irish Dances 22.6.19, Market Harborough, UK: Market Harborough Orchestra/ Stephen Bell

Britten created Bunyan – his first stage work – with W. H. Auden in 1941 during his self-imposed American exile, and sought to capture the spirit of the booming, forwardlooking country around them with a mixture of affection and irreverence. Auden’s lyrical, subtle satire interweaves with a score that sees the young Britten at his most playful and inventive: folk, blues and Broadway are incorporated into a musical language that remains distinctively his.

Telling the story of Bunyan, the mythic lumberjack who cleared America’s forests and made way for the industrial age, this charming opera is ultimately an ambivalent meditation on the soul of America. An apt time, then, for this unjustly neglected work to be revived.

Benjamin Britten Selected forthcoming performances

‘A score of amazing invention and charm, profligate with catchy tunes… For sheer youthful exuberance, it matches anything Britten ever wrote, and if asked to argue the case for his genius in thirty seconds, I’d present Inkslinger’s wistful miniature aria as irrefutable evidence.’

String Quartet No.3

The Daily Telegraph (Rupert Christiansen), 4 September 2018

‘The best libretto Britten ever had.’ theartsdesk (David Nice), 5 September 2018

‘What on earth is Paul Bunyan? A satire on capitalism? A New World response to Soviet-style social realism? A Broadway musical manqué? Or the fever dream of two young artists let loose on a baffling slice of foreign folklore? In its first ever ENO production, it appears to be all these things and more, but it’s the fever dream that comes out top. On stage there are cats, a dog, three Norn-like geese, argumentative trees, and more singing lumberjacks than Monty Python. It’s a cross between The Cunning Little Vixen and a TUC meeting… the real star is the chorus.’

Young Apollo 4.4.19, Salle Raoul-Jobin, Palais Moncalm; 5.4.19, Salle Bourgie, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Québec, QC, Canada: Aleksandar Madžar/Les Violons du Roy/Anthony Marwood 29.5.19, Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC, Australia: Stefan Cassomenos/ Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/ Christopher Moore

5.4.19, Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon, UK: Doric String Quartet

Death in Venice 20.4-14.6.19, Stadttheater Hildesheim: Theater für Niedersachsen/Achim Falkenhausen/ dir. Felix Seiler

Paul Bunyan 9-13.5.19, Alexandra Palace, London, UK: English National Opera/Matthew Kofi Waldren/dir. Jamie Manton

Owen Wingrave 9-12.5.19, New York Opera Fest, GK ArtsCenter, Brooklyn, NY, USA: The Little Opera Theatre of NY. (Chamber reduction by David Matthews)

Curlew River 26.3.20, Milton Court, London, UK: Britten Sinfonia/Ian Bostridge/Ashley Riches/Neal Davies/Britten Sinfonia Voices/Eamonn Dougan/dir. Martin Fitzpatrick

The Guardian (Erica Jeal), 4 September 2018 PHOTO: MALCOLM ARNOLD © MAURICE FOXALL; ENO PAUL BUNYAN © GENEVIEVE GIRLING

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NEW WORKS Stage Works CARL DAVIS Chaplin, The Tramp (2019) ballet for orchestra. c.110 mins 3(II+III=picc).2.ca.3(II=ebcl.III=bcl).asax(=ssax).3(III=cbsn) – 4331 – timp - perc(3) – drum kit – 2 harps – pno(=cel). offstage piano (separate player) – gts(=banjo) – strings – solo soprano FP: 15.3.2019, Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, Slovakia: SND Ballet/Carl Davis CBE/chor. Daniel de Andrade Commissioned by Slovak National Theatre Score and parts in preparation The Great Gatsby (2019) ballet for orchestra. c.90 mins 1(=picc+afl).1(=ca).asax(=fl+cl).asax(=bsax+cl).tsax(=ssax+cl) – 2.3(I=fl.hn).2.1 – perc(3) (=drum kit+timp) – gtr(=banjo) – pno(=cel) – harp – strings (60221) FP: 8.2.2019, Benedum Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA: Pittsburgh Ballet Theater/Charles Barker/chor. Jorden Morris Commissioned by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Score and parts in preparation

KEATON HENSON Us (2019) ballet in one act. recorded music (strings and electronics). 30 mins Commissioned by BalletBoyz FP: 23.2.2019, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, UK: BalletBoyz/chor. Christopher Wheeldon

Orchestra THOMAS ADÈS Colette Suite (2018-19) a suite of music for chamber orchestra from the film “Colette” arranged by Daniel Saleeb. c.14 mins 1(=picc).1(=ca).1(=cl in A+sop.sax).1 – 1110 – timp – perc(2): 1: glsp/clash.sym/susp,cym/tam-t/shaker 2 (drumkit setup): crash.cym/susp.cym/tamb/snare drum/3 tom-toms/BD – harp – pno – strings Score and parts for hire Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2018) piano and orchestra. 22 mins 3(III=picc+afl).3(III=ca).3(I in Bb, II in A, III in Bb=bcl).3(III=cbsn) – 4231 – timp+roto tom – perc(3): glsp/xyl/bass.mar/4 tuned gongs/2 susp.cym/choke susp.cym/siz.cym/small crash.cym/cast/wdbl/small tamb/large c/bell(or reco-reco)/guero/2 or more whips/tam-t/SD/BD (with mounted cym - machine) - strings FP: 7.3.2019, Symphony Hall, Boston, MA, USA: Kirill Gerstein/Boston Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Kirill Gerstein Full score, two piano rehearsal score and parts in preparation Hotel Suite from Powder Her Face (1995/2018) Suite No.3 large orchestra. c.18 mins 3(III=picc).3.3 in A(all=bcl).ssax.asax(=tsax†).3(III=contraforte*) – 4331 – timp – perc(3): glsp/xyl/t.bell + bucketful of water/2 susp.cym/antique.cym/hi-hat.cym/tam-t/SD/2 kit BD/orchestral BD/small rototom/3 brake drums/high bongo/ Monkey drum/3 tpl.bl/guero/2 whips/small rattle/tgl/tamb/large washboard/small anvil/vibraslap/paper bag/wood chimes/ cabasa/popgun – harp** – pno – strings * ossia: contrabassoon (requiring low A) ** harp harmonics sound an octave higher than written † tenor saxophone omitted if the optional cut is made Hotel Suite from “Powder Her Face” (Suite No.3) was devised in 2018 to provide a mid-length suite; longer than Three-piece Suite from “Powder Her Face” (Suite No. 1) * (2007, 12 mins), but shorter than Luxury Suite from “Powder Her Face” (Suite No. 2) ** (2017, 27 mins). * Originally titled Dances from Powder Her Face, and was commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival, the Philharmonia Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra. ** Originally titled Powder Her Face Suite, and was commissioned by the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall and the St. Louis Symphony.

Score and parts for hire

FRANCISCO COLL Les Plaisirs Illuminés (2018) violin, cello and chamber orchestra. 20 mins 1(including low B foot joint).1(=very small slide whistle).1(=bcl).contraforte(ossia cbsn – low A required) – perc(1): glsp/xyl/ BD/tamb/ch.cym/very small susp.cym/2 tin cans/metal guiro/4 anvils or 4 metal bars/2 brake drums/cajón flamenco/cast/ whip/small bell tree – pno – strings (44321) FP: 7.6.2019, Kloster St. Peter auf dem Schwarzwald, Sankt Peter, Baden-Württemberg, Germany: Patricia Kopatchinskaja/ Sol Gabetta/Camerata Bern Commissioned by the CAMERATA BERN Foundation with support from the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia Score and parts in preparation

JOHN HARLE RANT! (2018) soprano saxophone and string orchestra. Arranged by Simon Parkin. 6 minutes solo ssax – strings (min. 33221) FP: 21.11.2018, Manchester Cathedral, Manchester, UK: Jess Gillam/Manchester Camerata/Caroline Pether Score and parts for hire

ANDERS HILLBORG Sound Atlas (2018) orchestra. c.20 mins 3(all=picc).3.3(III=bcl)2.cbsn – 4331 – perc(3): glsp/crot/t.bells/timp/metal tin (paint tin or similar)/vibraslap/guiro/2 congs/chinese opera gong/tam-t/BD – glass harmonica – pno – strings (16.14.12.10.8) FP: 16.1.2019, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK: London Philharmonic Orchestra/Marin Alsop Commissioned by London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Elbpilharmonie Orchestra and Göteborgs Symfoniker Score and parts in preparation

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EXTRACT FROM POSTLUDES BY COLIN MATTHEWS © FABER MUSIC

DAVID MATTHEWS Concerto for Orchestra (2018-19) Op.150 orchestra. c.25 mins 2(II=picc).2(II=ca).3(II=bcl).2 – 4221 – timp – perc: crot/cyms/susp.cym/tam-t/2 wdbl (high, low)/guiro/snare drum – strings FP: 25.5.2019, Chipping Campden Music Festival, St James’s Church, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, UK: Chipping Campden Festival Academy Orchestra/Thomas Hull Dedicated to William Tillyer Commissioned by Chipping Campden Music Festival and funded in full by Roger Grenville-Jones Score and parts in preparation

R SCHUMANN orch. JOHN WOOLRICH Gesänge der Frühe (2018) Op.133 chamber orchestra. c.11 mins 2.2.2.2.cbsn – 4200 – strings FP: 25.3.2019, Auditorio Nacional de Música, Madrid, Spain: Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid/Christian Zacharias Written for Christian Zacharias Score and parts for hire

Chamber FRANCISCO COLL LalulaLied (2018) duet for violin & voice and double bass. c.2 mins Text: Christian Morgenstern (Das Große Lalula) (Invented language/Ger) FP: 15.6.2019, Konservatorium Bern, Bern, Switzerland: Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin and voice)/Käthi Steuri (double bass) Commissioned by Patricia Kopatchinskaja Score and parts in preparation

COLIN MATTHEWS Ghost Story (2018) violin and piano. c.1½ mins FP: 30.4.2018, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, UK Commissioned by London Music Masters for Many Voices, a collection of new violin and piano works for young people, in the charity’s 10th Anniversary year Score and part in preparation Postludes (2018) octet for oboe/cor anglais, string trio and string quartet. c.16 mins ob(=ca).3 vln.2 vla.2 vlc FP: 6.2.2019, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Nicholas Daniel/Britten Sinfonia Commissioned by the Radcliffe Trust and Wigmore Hall for the Britten Sinfonia Score and parts for hire

DAVID MATTHEWS Variations for Violin and Piano (2018) violin and piano. 10 mins FP: 25.5.2019, English Music Festival, Dorchester Abbey, Dorcester, UK: Rupert Marshall-Luck/Michael Korstick Commissioned by Roger Scruton Score and part in preparation

SCRIABIN arr. COLIN MATTHEWS Rêverie Op.24 string octet and double bass. c.3½ mins 4 vln.2 vla.2 vlc.db FP: 6.2.2019, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Britten Sinfonia Score and parts for hire

NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS Instrumental

New Publications

THOMAS ADÈS

THOMAS ADÈS

Berceuse from The Exterminating Angel (2018) solo piano. 5 mins FP: 17.2.2019, Großer Saal, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria: Kirill Gerstein Commissioned by Alexandre Devals and Mimi Durand Kurihara for Kirill Gerstein Score in preparation

The Tempest

Souvenir from Colette (2018) solo piano. c.4 mins Score 0-571-54107-0 on sale

GEORGE BENJAMIN

Choral JESSICA CURRY Briefly It Enters (2019) SATB chorus, piano and percussion ensemble. 10 mins Text: Jane Kenyon (Eng) SATB chorus – pno – timp – perc(10): glsp/xyl/t.bells/cyms/susp.cym/2 tgl (medium + large)/sleigh bells/tamb/tam-t/TD/BD Commissioned by the London Oriana Choir as part of its five15 commissioning project FP: 16.3.2019, St Clement Danes Church, London, UK: London Oriana Choir/Royal Academy of Music Percussion Collective/Dominic Ellis-Peckham Full score, vocal score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library

Full score (paperback edition) 0-571-53838-X

TOM COULT Piano Trio “The Chronophage”

£120.00

Souvenir (from Colette) for piano solo

Score 0-571-54107-0

£3.99

Score 0-571-54079-1

£14.99

ANDERS HILLBORG ...lontana in sonno...

£100.00

FRANK BRIDGE

Full score 0-571-54015-5

£19.99

OLIVER KNUSSEN

Dance Poem

Full score 0-571-53111-3

£24.99

Etudes I-IV for solo violin

Lessons in Love and Violence

Full score 0-571-54109-7

Score and parts 0-571-54080-5

Reflection for violin and piano

£24.99

Score and part 0-571-52056-1

£16.99

MARTIN SUCKLING Three Venus Haiku for violin/flute and piano

Score and part 0-571-54081-3

£19.99

New Recordings THOMAS ADÈS

JONATHAN HARVEY

She Who (2019) treble voices & unaccompanied SSAATTBB chorus Text: Judy Grahn (Eng) Commissioned by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain New Music Programme, generously funded by PRS for Music Foundation FP: 5-7.7.2019 (Southbank Centre, London) & 12-14.7.2019 (Hull), PRS Foundation New Music Biennial: National Youth Choirs of Great Britain/Ben Parry Score on sale (from July 2019)

The Exterminating Angel Luna/Echalaz/Matthews/Bevan/Coote/Rice/Davies/Kaiser/Antoun/Portillo/Gilfry/ Tomlinson/Metropolitan Opera/Thomas Adès/dir. Tom Cairns Erato DVD 9029552549

The Riot Gemini Metier MSV28579

The Fayrfax Carol Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/Stephen Cleobury Kings College KGS0033

Just a Minute Gloria Cheng Bridge BRIDGE9509

TRADITIONAL arr. COLIN MATTHEWS

JULIAN ANDERSON

La virgen lava pañales (2018) Traditional Spanish, arranged for SATB choir and piano. c.2 mins Text: Traditional (Spanish) Score on special sale from the Hire Library

My Beloved Spake/Bell Mass/O Sing Unto the Lord/ I Saw Eternity/Four American Choruses Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge/Geoffrey Webber Delphian DCD34202 The Comedy of Change/Heaven is Shy of Earth London Sinfonietta/Oliver Knussen; Susan Bickley/BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Oliver Knussen Ondine ODE13132

GEORGE BENJAMIN Lessons in Love and Violence Degout/Hannigan/Orendt/Hoare/Boden/France/Szabó/Róbertsson/The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/George Benjamin/dir. Katie Mitchell Opus Arte DVD OA1221D

BENJAMIN BRITTEN Cello Suites Alexander Ramm Melodiya MELCD1002568 Three Divertimenti Telegraph Quartet Centaur Records CRC3651

TANSY DAVIES Song of Pure Nothingness Andrew Watts/Iain Burnside NMC NMCD243

ANDERS HILLBORG

Kongsgaard Variations Calder Quartet Pentatone 5186718

GUSTAV HOLST The Cotswolds: Symphony in F/Invocation Guy Johnston/BBC Philharmonic/Sir Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA5192

ANNE LOVETT The Eleventh Hour Anne Lovett/Olly Coates/London Contemporary Orchestra 1631 Recordings

COLIN MATTHEWS Un Colloque Sentimental Andrew Watts/Iain Burnside NMC NMCD243

DAVID MATTHEWS Norfolk March Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Martin Yates Dutton Epoch CDLX7351 Recessional and National Anthem Gabrieli Consort & Players/Paul McCreesh Signum CDLX7351

DEBUSSY arr. COLIN MATTHEWS Images Book I Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg/Gustavo Gimeno Pentatone PTC5186627

DANNY ELFMAN Violin Concerto and Piano Quartet Sandy Cameron (violin)/Royal Scottish National Orchestra/John Mauceri/Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet Sony Classical 19075869752

HOWARD GOODALL Invictus: A Passion Christ Church Cathedral Choir/Soloists from The Sixteen/The Lanyer Ensemble/ Stephen Darlington Coro Connections COR16165

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New signings Faber Alt has signed an exclusive worldwide publishing agreement with Brighton-based indie-pop act Penelope Isles. The band, fronted by siblings Jack and Lily Wolter, have joined Faber Music’s growing alternative division.

Penelope Isles recently announced their signing with indie label Bella Union. Chlorine, the first single from the band’s debut, was released exclusively to Rough Trade shops on vinyl. An album, Until The Tide Creeps In, will follow in summer 2019.

The band will make their US debut later this month at The New Colossus festival in New York City. They will later perform on the BBC Radio 6 Music stage at at SXSW. ‘Jack and Lily Wolter have that special ability to write instantly loveable tunes with great hooks and an originality that make them a perfect fit for our roster’ said Lucy Holliday, Head of Pop Publishing/A&R. Find out more at faberalt.com

Another recent signing is the Cardiff-based indie outfit Boy Azooga.

Led by Davey Newington, the former drummer for Charlotte Church’s Late Night Pop Dungeon the band released their debut single, ‘Face Behind Her Cigarette’ last year.

Boy Azooga’s first album – 1, 2, Kung Fu – was released in June 2018 and received support from both BBC Radio 1 and Radio 6 Music, with the band performing live sessions for both Huw Stephens and Mary Anne Hobbs. They have also performed on Later… With Jools Holland. Having toured the record throughout the UK and Europe, last month the band triumphed at the Welsh Music Prize.

‘With live performances that genuinely excite and an already substantial, dedicated fan-base, Boy Azooga are one of the most original new talents in the UK today,’ said Richard King, CEO at Faber Music. ‘We are thrilled to have entered into an exclusive, worldwide publishing deal with the band’s creative force, Davey Newington and look forward to building on his and the band’s already considerable reputation as we work closely together.’

Film and TV Colette

so much of what audiences perceive as Colette’s sparkling intellect.

The entire movie seems brighter by dint of Adès’s nimble piano and alert string work, propelling us forward through so many elegantly photographed, Merchant-Ivory like scenes in which stuffy snobs stand around in expensive waistcoats’.

Adès’s soundtrack has been released on Lakeshore Records and was awarded Best Original Score - Independent Film at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. A concert suite of music from the film will be premiered this summer.

TV news

Colette, the first film to be scored by Thomas Adès, has been released to critical acclaim. Directed by Wash Westmoreland, the film focuses on the relationship between the eponymous French writer (played by Keira Knightly) and her husband Willy (played by Dominic West).

Unusually inthe context of a film review, Variety singled out Adès’s score: ‘One of the film’s strongest assets is its score, the first written expressly for the screen by the British composer and the source of

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The fifth series of the BBC’s ever-successful Luther, with original music by Paul Englishby, completed transmission in January. Paul is now working on a new drama series for Acorn TV, Queens of Mystery, which follows the adventures of three crime-writing sisters. Other Faber Music Film & TV composers are also busy, with Laurence Love Greed working on a second series of the hugely-popular BBC Wales drama Keeping Faith. Another returning BBC Wales series is Hidden, which will again have a score by John Hardy and his team. At the time of writing, Dan Jones is working on a new feature version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s much-loved novel The Secret Garden, starring Colin Firth and Julie Walters. Sarah Warne, meanwhile, is working on a drama series for the BBC entitled Dark Money.

Lang Lang Piano Book coming soon Lang Lang will release his latest publication, ‘Lang Lang Piano Book’, on 12 April 2019. This collaboration between Lang Lang and Faber Music will be published to accompany the superstar pianist’s eagerly awaited new solo album ‘Piano Book’ with Deutsche Grammophon.

Featuring all 29 pieces from the album, Lang Lang Piano Book is a collection of the repertoire that first inspired Lang Lang to play the piano and is beautifully presented as a high-end hardback book. It includes exclusive photographs, comments from Lang Lang on every piece and an edition of Für Elise annotated with the pianist’s own performance notes.

Lang Lang’s enthusiasm and commitment to inspiring others to learn and play the piano has remained ever-present throughout his career.

Through Lang Lang Piano Book, he hopes to motivate pianists to enjoy and remain focussed during their daily practice. The collection gathers together many of the pieces that generations of amateur pianists have grown up with, from studies that were part of Lang Lang’s own daily routine, to miniature masterpieces such as Für Elise and Bach’s Prelude No.1 in C. Alongside these are modern classics as well as folk pieces from around the world. Lang Lang holds all these short pieces in the highest regard, believing them to be classics in their own right and deserving of the same attention as major works.

‘This is the music that has shaped me as a pianist and musician from the very beginning: it all has a huge personal importance to me and reflects my deep love of every aspect of the piano.’

Lang Lang

‘Lang Lang Piano Book’ is released on 12 April 2019 ISBN: 0-571-53916-5 | Price: £25.00

Bärenreiter focus: the music of Matthias Pintscher ‘I thought about this scoring from a completely new angle when Daniel Barenboim invited me to write for this special ensemble and for him. The solo instrument and the ensemble are partners, there is no performing in the usual sense, but an encounter on an equal footing, true music-making in dialogue.’

Contrasts between the metallic sound of the piano and the ensemble define Matthias Pintscher’s NUR for piano ensemble. Composed for Daniel Barenboim and the Barenboim-Said Akademie, the 18-minute work was premiered in Berlin’s Boulez Saal in January, with Barenboim as soloist and the composer conducting.

NUR means fire in both Arabic and Hebrew, and Pintscher’s new work – his very first for this instrumental combination – owes its existence to the initiative of its special soloist.

PHOTOS: MATTHIAS PINTSCHER © FRANCK FERVILLE

In the first of the three movements events gradually build out of the lightness of an impromptu. From an initial soft calmness, things gradually become more charged, eventually culminating in the hard, steely rhythms of the third movement. At NUR’s still centre stands a contemplation, like a caesura, ‘where the ash speaks, what remains after the fire, in fine, tender, isolated little spots. The music returns to the point where silence is the actual event’, the composer explains. The fire is about the alteration of physical states, about transformation. Here the special flowing quality opens up the view to the horizon, a distant perspective.

In October 2019, Ensemble intercontemporain will give the French premiere of NUR at the Philharmonie de Paris as part of the Festival d’Automne.

Faber Music is the exclusive hire agent for Bärenreiter in the UK

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Elfman recorded on Sony Classical

There Will Be Blood live in New York Jonny Greenwood’s acclaimed score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-winning film, There Will Be Blood, was centre-stage at Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall in September, with Hugh Brunt conducting the New York Philharmonic in two screenings with live orchestra.

Sony Classical have released the premiere recordings of Danny Elfman’s Violin Concerto and Piano Quartet. The Violin Concerto ‘Eleven Eleven’ (2017) was performed by Sandy Cameron with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (who co-commissioned the piece), conducted by John Mauceri. The 21-minute Piano Quartet was recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet who premiered the work during their US tour in 2018.

The concerto and the quartet will be centre-stage in Paris on 14 and 15 September, as part of an Elfman Weekend at the Philharmonie.

Cameron and Mauceri will be joined by the Brussels Philharmonic, whilst the Berlin quartet give the European premiere of their commission. The RSNO included the 40-minute concerto in their 2019 US tour in March, with Thomas Søndergård, joining Cameron for performances in Tucson and Northridge.

‘Like Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev have run into the groove of Beetlejuice… a remarkably complex sound… Elfman’s music takes listeners by the hand and draws them deeper and deeper into a fairytale world… this music has an exceptionally invigorating effect… brimming over with joy and playful energy.’

Broadway World, 6 March 2019

Cameron performs the work with the Colorado Symphony and Christopher Dragon in May. She also gave performances with JoAnn Falletta and the Virginia Symphony in September and joins Falletta for two performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic in October.

‘Dramatic, lyrical, highly rhythmic, percussive, thoughtful and playful. The score is high adrenaline business, taking us on a musical roller coaster ride from the heights to the sudden-drop depth of emotions… Cameron delivered an amazing performance… The physical and emotional energy she put into the work was downright compelling, exciting and extraordinary. The reception given her was wild and crazy and prolonged, of the sort found at sports events. No question about electricity in the air.’

The Virginia Gazette (John Shulson), 26 September 2018

BBC SO premiere Sigurðsson In January the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Rumon Gamba gave the UK premiere of Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-Five in an invitation concert at Maida Vale Studios.

The performance was later broadcast on Radio 3’s ‘Hear and Now’. Commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the 13-minute work for orchestra and electronics narrates the treacherous journey undertaken by Icelandic settlers in the 1800s, and features on Sigurðsson’s latest album ‘Dissonance’ on Bedroom Community.

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PHOTO: JESS GILLAM © ROBIN CLEWLEY

‘Every orchestra’s fantasy for opening night: an overflow audience full of young people, the sense of a singular event, a huge ovation… Under the excellent Brunt, Greenwood’s hauntingly strange and inventive score made the movie seem both stunningly new and an instant classic… Every passage reveals the broad tastes and impressive skills of Greenwood… In a scene when oil seeps up from the ground, the strings ooze and slide through a stretch of overlapping glissandos, until restless inner figures break into everywhich-way counterpoint. In other episodes, the music teems with gnarly chords and thumping percussion…’

The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 13 September 2018

Henson score for Wheeldon and Balletboyz Balletboyz have commissioned a 30-minute score from Keaton Henson, to choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. The new ballet, Us, forms part of a double-bill, Them/Us, that is touring the UK from February to April this year, giving almost 30 performances.

‘To my eyes, Wheeldon is the finest choreographer on the planet and his newly extended piece, Us only confirms it.

Exquisitely matched to Henson’s profoundly emotional score, each interaction feels fresh and unexpected, whether it’s during ensemble moments, the thought-provoking solo or deeply moving duet. There’s a sense of drama in every step, a subtle narrative that never overplays its hand, allowing every fibre of your being to respond to what Wheeldon, Henson and the dancers give you. Sublime.’

The Scotsman (Kelly Apter), 26 February 2019

Jess Gillam to premiere John Harle concerto Acclaimed young saxophonist, Jess Gillam, is to premiere a newlycommissioned concerto by her mentor, John Harle. The 22-minute, three-movement work, Briggflatts, premieres on 16 May in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at London’s Southbank Centre. Bramwell Tovey conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra. Inspired by Cumbria, it takes its title from Basil Bunting’s epic 1966 poem of the same name.

Meanwhile, Gillam’s debut album for Decca, Rise (released on 26 April) includes the premiere recording of RANT! - the finale of the new concerto – which incorporates several Cumbrian folktunes into a breathtaking showpiece for the soloist’s virtuosic talents.

Six Lethargies in Dublin and Sydney Keaton Henson’s 70-minute work for string orchestra, Six Lethargies, which premiered to a sell-out Barbican Hall last summer, is to receive its Irish and Australian premieres in the coming months. The Crash Ensemble and Mark Knoop will perform it in Dublin’s National Concert Hall on 17 April, whilst VIVID Sydney present the Australian premiere in May. Reviews to follow in the next issue.

Anne Lovett’s The Eleventh Hour New from Anne Lovett is her second album, The Eleventh Hour, released on 1631 Recordings. A departure from her beautiful previous solo piano album Beyond (and below), this release retains the startling beauty of her earlier work whilst revealing a new sonic world. Joined by the London Contemporary Orchestra, and later in duo with acclaimed cellist and composer Oliver Coates, Lovett also introduces subtle electronics carefully interwoven with layered melodic piano lines.

‘While firmly rooted in the here and now, Lovett’s quietly plaintive tonal music echoes the European tradition, from Bach to Satie and beyond, and feels like a soulful elegy for a Britain that has lost its bearings.’

The Observer (Stephen Pritchard), 11 November 2018

Within days of its release tracks from the album had already been used in advertising campaigns, including a major one for Burberry.

Praise for Goodall’s Invictus: A Passion There’s been widespread praise for the premiere recording of Howard Goodall’s new chorus and orchestra piece Invictus: A Passion, now out on The Sixteen’s Coro Connections label. The 55-minute work launched in Houston and London last year, a commission from longtime Goodall advocates, St Luke’s United Methodist Church.

Invictus draws its title from the poem by William Ernest Henley, one of the poets whose words are scattered throughout the nine movements of this fresh take on the Passion of Christ. Women predominate in his choice of texts. The earliest of them is Æmelia Lanyer, a contemporary of Shakespeare’s, and it is her version of Christ’s last days, rather than the gospel account, that threads through the narrative, offering new perspectives at familiar scenes.

The fourth movement, ‘Compassion’, is inspired by the extraordinary life of Irena Sendler, a Polish nurse who, during the Second World War, rescued thousands of children from the Warsaw Ghetto; and the second, ‘Lamentation’, is an account by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper of a slave auction of children written in 1854.

‘between English choral tradition and West End musical’

Jessica Curry and the National Youth Choir As part of the PRS New Music Biennial, Jessica Curry has been commissioned to write She Who, a 15-minute a cappella work setting the US poet, Judy Grahn, for the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. There’s an advance premiere in the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham on 15 April before the official world premiere performances in Hull and London’s Southbank Centre in July.

Meanwhile, Curry’s year-long residency with the London Oriana Choir launched with the premiere of her carol Home in performances at St James Piccadilly in December. The BAFTA-winning composer was in the audience as Dominic Ellis-Peckham led the choir in the first performances of the 5-minute carol, a setting of the powerfully emotive poem by Warsan Shire. The residency is part of the choir’s five15 project, which sees 15 new works by five female composers commissioned and premiered over a five-year period.

London Oriana Choir premiered the second of their three Curry commissions on 16 March. The 10-minute Briefly It Enters (a setting of US poet, Jane Kenyon) is scored for SATB choir, piano and percussion ensemble.

‘Goodall approaches the challenge of this diverse writing in the manner in which he is universally celebrated: as a composer who is unashamedly in love with music’s abiding values of melody and harmony. The opening movement wears its heart on its sleeve, with the tenor’s joyous cries of “Gethsemane” ringing out above the ensemble. The tenor, Mark Dobell, catches the idiom admirably, couched between English choral tradition and West End musical… Soprano Kirsty Hopkins, most true in timbre, is very touching in the setting of Christina Rossetti’s “Song of Mary Magdalene”, her gorgeous voice endearingly caressing Goodall’s lovely new setting of “When I survey the wondrous Cross” with which this movement concludes… Goodall’s scoring is luminous and expertly fashioned… one cannot but fail to be moved by a work that wears its heart so openly on its sleeve.”

Gramophone (Adrian Edwards), October 2018

The composer was in Dublin in March this year for the Irish premiere performances of Invictus, given by the joint forces of Bray and Wicklow Choral Societies. Meanwhile, in March, Goodall led a Come and Sing Day at the Barnes Music Festival that culminated in a performance of the work.

Zimbe! at Carnegie Hall The runaway success of Alexander L’Estrange’s African-inspired Zimbe! (over 200 performances and counting) reaches new heights with the composer set to conduct the work in New York’s iconic Carnegie Hall on 24 May 2019. Part of Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY), this exciting event will be the work’s New York premiere.

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George Benjamin operas from Faber Music Lessons in Love and Violence HEAD OFFICE Faber Music Ltd Bloomsbury House 74–77 Great Russell St London WC1B 3DA www.fabermusic.com Promotion Department: +44(0)207 908 5311/2 promotion@fabermusic.com

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Premiered in 2018, the 90-minute opera Lessons in Love and Violence delves into the dark and turbulent events of Edward II’s life and death. George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s third collaboration, it unfolds as a taut slow-burning arc of seven tableaux.

The opera boasts particularly rich string textures, and is coloured by cimbalom together with a pair of harps, celesta, and percussion (including talking drum and tombaks). Several of the opera’s powerful interludes are dominated by braying, sardonic brass – with tuba substituted by the more menacing contrabass trombone.

There is also much spectacular ensemble writing: in Scene Three’s play within a play, several strands of independent music collide, and the result is perhaps one of the most complex musical structures Benjamin has ever tackled. The music’s relationship to the drama is often unstable and seemingly very spontaneous, but beneath it all one senses a rigorous architecture, unflinchingly guiding the listener deeper and deeper into the opera’s disquieting emotional world.

‘A haunting symbiosis of words and music.’

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Gina Thomas), 14 May 2018

Full score | 0-571-54109-7 | £100

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Written on Skin

Schott Music Corporation/ European American Music Dist. Co. 254 West 31st Street, 15th Floor New York, NY 10001, USA Promotion: (212) 4616940 Rental: (212) 4616940 rental@eamdc.com

Described as ‘an honest-to-God twenty-first-century operatic masterpiece’ by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross, Written on Skin has taken the world by storm since its premiere in 2012. This a strikingly beautiful and rich score which whose masterful vocal writing and orchestral writing responds to every nuance of Martin Crimp’s resonant, finely chiselled, text.

‘A 21st-century masterpiece.’

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The Times (Richard Morrison), 16 January 2017

Alfred Music Publishing Co. Customer Service P.O. Box 10003 Van Nuys CA 91410-0003, USA Tel: +1 (818) 891-5999 sales@alfred.com Written & devised

by Sam Wigglesworth with contributions from Tim Brooke and Rachel Topham Designed by Sam Wigglesworth COVER IMAGE: THOMAS ADÈS, KIRILL GERSTEIN, AND THE BSO © WINSLOW TOWNSON

Full Score | 0-571-53758-8 | £79.99

Into the Little Hill Since its premiere in 2006, George Benjamin’s chamber opera Into the Little Hill has received critically acclaimed performances across the world. A lyric tale in two parts for soprano, contralto and ensemble of 15 players (coloured by bass flute, two bassset horns, mandolin, banjo and cimbalom), this disturbing retelling of the Pied Piper story was Benjamin’s first collaboration with Martin Crimp.

‘It was the eerie beauty and uncanny originality of the music that made the dominant impression on me. The scoring is remarkable.’

The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 3 December 2006

Full Score | 0-571-53212-8 | £34.99

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