contemporary classical
alexandra.coghlan
What comes to mind when you think of Brian Elias? The violence and humming, background threat of The Judas Tree, his score for Kenneth MacMillan’s brutal final ballet? The outpouring of Electra Mourns, cor anglais a schizophrenic double for the mezzo’s monologue? Or perhaps his breakthrough 1984 Proms commission L’Eylah, a Middle Eastern love-song gradually revealed at its core?Elias’s output isn’t enormous, but there’s a real breadth within it. Thanks to a series of fine recordings on NMC, it’s easy to lose an afternoon in the British composer’s taut, carefully crafted music. But Read more ...
Robert Beale
Manchester Camerata’s performance with Jess Gillam at Chetham’s School of Music was filmed in private on 9 January (and the sound was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on the 19th), but to see it in its full visual glory we had to wait until a one-off streaming on Friday. No harm in that: good things are worth the wait, and it was all well filmed (credit to Apple and Biscuit Recordings) and very well presented by Linton Stephens. His interviews with the Camerata’s new leader Caroline Pether and principal cello Hannah Roberts, and later with Jess Gillam and Pekka Kuusisto, were intelligently presented Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The clever programming of the “Unwrapped” series has been transformational for the reputation of Kings Place. Ever since the Bach series in 2013 these year-long sequences of concerts and other events have succeeded in silencing the crustier commentators, and in putting the London arts venue properly on the map. This 13th series, “London Unwrapped”, got under way last night under restrictions, but it was so well done: the best of possible starts, it bodes well for a series that will go right through to New Year’s Eve.It wasn’t just the thinking behind the concert programme which was so smart Read more ...
Robert Beale
There’s an atmosphere of tender restraint through most of the programme created by Ruby Hughes and Manchester Collective for Lakeside Arts at the University of Nottingham. It was streamed live yesterday afternoon, and, as is the way with most performances just now, was in an empty hall, with its slightly strange "empty" acoustic affecting the spoken word as the artists introduced their music.Talking to an audience is very much the style of Manchester Collective, though, and artistic director Rakhi Singh does it with natural ease even when she can’t see who she’s talking to. She and the other Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
Another year, another lockdown. Though I have little doubt this was not the way most us of hoped to start 2021, we can at least be grateful that we’re not suffering quite the same drought of live music we experienced back in March. Despite the stringent restrictions, many venues and ensembles are able to offer an array of live and recorded streams, something which wasn’t possible in the UK at the start of the first lockdown. Last Saturday saw the Wigmore Hall host not one but three such events, in a day of performances dedicated to the music of pioneering American composer Morton Feldman. Read more ...
David Nice
A good idea on paper – commission composers of all ages who happen to be women to write music for one, two or three instruments with the fundamental theme of swiftness and brevity, food element an optional extra – turns out to work brilliantly on screen, even if it was originally destined for a live lunchtime festival event. Take 11 personable women – nine composers, including Spitalfields Festival curator and presenter Errollyn Wallen, viola-player and producer of the film Rita Porfiris and pianist Siwan Rhys – one man, very funny when necessary, violinist Anton Miller, blend skilfully Read more ...
graham.rickson
Osvaldo Golijov: Falling Out of Time Silkroad Ensemble (In a Circle Records)Along with many others, I was beguiled by DG’s recording of Osvaldo Golijov's Pasión Según San Marcos a decade ago, an exuberant Latin American take on Bach. After which Golijov slipped under the radar. There’s an illuminating article on The New York Times website where the composer explains the reasons for his disappearance, revealing that while he never actually stopped composing, “the ideas felt half-baked.” Falling Out of Time marks a brilliant return to form, this substantial song cycle based on David Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
If there was ever a balm for these confusing times, then it’s Max Richter’s Sleep, a lullaby of a documentary that explores the composer’s eight-hour-plus experimental 2015 composition based on sleep cycles. Richter is a remarkable musician and, alongside his experimental albums, has also been responsible for some of the most moving film scores of recent years, such as Dennis Villeneuve’s Arrival and James Gray’s Ad Astra. Yet Richter is far from a jobbing composer: his work is always imbued with a deeper meaning, and his passion is infectious.Five Read more ...
graham.rickson
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Rêverie et caprice, La mort d'Ophélie, Sara la baigneuse Utah Symphony/Thierry Fischer, with Philippe Quint (violin) (Hyperion)Just two big symphonies by French composers can be counted as standard repertoire. Having recorded the current box office favourite as part of their excellent cycle of Saint-Saëns symphonies, Thierry Fischer’s Utah forces now tackle the other one, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. A few of Fischer’s interpretative decisions prompted me to look at the score to see if he’d changed anything. I’m used to the horn and woodwind snarls at Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 1, Symphony No. 1 in C, Gounod: Petite Symphonie Scottish Chamber Orchestra/François Leleux (Linn)Initial impressions are disconcerting, the bass thwacks at the start of the first suite extracted from Bizet’s Carmen by Ernest Giraud almost too polite, but the ears adjust quickly; what we get is what you’d hear in an orchestra pit. I’d forgotten how good this music is in its original form, having spent too much time recently marvelling at Rodion Shchedrin’s offbeat string transcription. François Leleux’s Scottish Chamber Orchestra are superb, flautist Silvia Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
As Covid-19 puts a halt to live events around the world, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has delivered its annual festival of new music, Tectonics, online, with a selection of recordings from past performances. Since everything from the past seven festivals has been recorded, curators Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell had a vast musical smorgasboard to select from, although that was narrowed slightly by what files were readily available during lockdown. The programme works like an actual live event, with a running order of videos made available throughout both days of the festival. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Christopher Gunning: Symphonies 2, 10 & 12 BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Kenneth Woods (Signum)You’ve probably heard Christopher Gunning’s music without realising it: he’s been a prolific film and television composer for decades. A pupil of both Edmund Rubbra and of Richard Rodney Bennett, he's best known for the insidiously catchy theme for ITV’s long-running Poirot series. Three of Gunning’s 12 symphonies are included here, written between 2003 and 2018. Whereas many contemporary film composers specialise in short, colourful bursts of descriptive music, Gunning knows how to Read more ...