17 Aug 2018
Claude Debussy and Lili Boulanger commemorated at the Proms
Two French commemorations - ‘anniversaries’ always seems the wrong word - and surely is - here: the centenary of the deaths of Claude Debussy and Lili Boulanger.
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ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
Henry Purcell, Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II Vol. III: The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
Anima Rara: Ermonela Jaho
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
Requiem pour les temps futurs: An AI requiem for a post-modern society
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Ádám Fischer’s 1991 MahlerFest Kassel ‘Resurrection’ issued for the first time
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
Max Lorenz: Tristan und Isolde, Hamburg 1949
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields 're-connect'
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Royal Opera House Gala Concert
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
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Reviews
Absurd comparisons help no one: it is not in any sense meaningful to compare one of the most important, endlessly rewarding composers of the twentieth or any other century, the creator of music as significant for its course as that of Schoenberg or Stravinsky, with that of a fine, exceptionally promising talent cruelly cut short at the age of twenty-three. This is not a competition. Suffice it to say that Boulanger’s setting of Psalm no.130 needs no apologies from anyone. It stands, never falls, on its own merits.
It certainly received no apologies in this commanding performance from the CBSO, CBSO Chorus, Justina Gringytė, and Ludovic Morlot. They clearly believed in it; so therefore did we. The piece opens - and certainly did in performance - de profundis (or rather ‘du fond de l’abîme’): dark, deep, with an intense sense of drama that pervades, impels its twenty-five minutes or so as a whole. This was a true invocation: ‘je t’invoque, lahvé, Adonaï’. In melody and harmony it seemed very much haunted by the First World War, during which it was composed (1914-17). Chorus and orchestra alike offered clarity, warmth, and heft too. As will always be the case with such a work, I could not help but think of other music of which it reminded me: occasionally, perhaps ironically, Vaughan Williams (via Ravel?), even some of Szymanowski’s choral writing, although it has none of that composer’s complexity. Debussy too, in St Sebastian mode? And yet it could certainly never be pinned down to influence, nor to ‘voice’. If Ravel at all, it was the Ravel of the Left Hand Piano Concerto - yet that was, of course, still to come: more than a decade later. Spitting, sinful song of the chorus - ‘Si tu prende garde aus péchés…’ - found itself transformed by the rich, dark, almost instrumental mezzo-soprano of Gringytė, duetting with various orchestral soloists (and a tenor from the chorus), and vice versa. This was undoubtedly a personal response to the hallowed text - yet sincerity, as Stravinsky reminded us, is never enough; it may not be necessary. The true mastery of this setting meant that, just as with many ‘bigger names’, the question never arose. Here was an ultimate illumination that was anything but naïve.
Debussy had preceded the psalm, with that foundational work of musical modernity, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Exquisitely soft and - yes, that inevitable word - languorous, its opening sounded slower than usual - not, however, to its detriment. Morlot caressed Debussy’s lines, had them luxuriate, in a way that is now a little unfashionable. Yet if phrase endings were often held back, this was no mannerism; the method made sense, just as it did when some phrases were lightly pushed, momentum building, the goal justly vague. (This is not Beethoven!) Indeterminacy may not have been born here; at the very least it seemed to have been instantiated. At times, we seemed not so very far from the world of Klangfarbenmelodie. Perhaps.
Nocturnes followed the interval. There was no doubting here that this was the fully mature Debussy. ‘Nuages’ moved - until it held back. Harmonic roots in Pelléas were perhaps unusually apparent. One felt the amorality of Allemonde beneath this sky. ‘Fêtes’ was vivid, vigorous, proceeding with fine precision and drama. There was a wonderful, hushed tension as the trumpets, followed by woodwind, came centre stage. Rhythmic exactitude seemed already to hint at the Ravel work with which the concert would conclude. (We rightly distinguish between these two giants of French music, yet sometimes it is worth asking again what they had in common too - or might do, in performance.) The close sounded unusually dark, as if invaded by forces that impelled it to the abyss (Boulanger’s abîme?) The CBSO Youth Chorus joined for ‘Sirènes’. This was a sirenic seduction that sounded very much in the line of Debussy’s Épigraphes antiques - yet with a far keener sense of harmonic adventure. I was put in mind of Nietzsche, in The Gay Science: ‘at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an “open sea”.’ Yes, and what dangers have ensued…
Finally came Ravel’s Boléro. The antipathy to this work bewilders me; or rather, I can understand it at some level without sharing it. Whether intended as such or no, it comes across - at least in so fine a performance as this - as experimental, even polemical: indeed as polemical as anything in Stravinsky. I was especially taken by the way the trombone soloist and then his section as a whole danced. (Now there is a misunderstood concept - as if \ must always entail licence!) Indeed all of the CBSO’s soloists and sections beguiled, in themselves and in combination: held one captive, as sirens might, at aural arm’s length, rendering us unable and unwilling to turn away. It was, moreover, quite the ‘French’ sound one heard from the orchestra as a whole, as it reached that terrible climax. Quite the odyssey!
Mark Berry
Prom 44: Debussy, Lili Boulanger, and Ravel
Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune; Lili Boulanger: Psalm 130: ‘Du fond de l’abîme’; Debussy: Nocturnes; Ravel: Boléro. Justina Gringytė (mezzo-soprano)/CBSO Youth Chorus/CBSO Chorus (chorus master: Julian Wilkins)/City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Ludovic Morlot (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, Wednesday 15 August 2018.