Marvels of Messiaen

It's Messiaen's birthday today. Above,  the last movement of the Quartet for the End of Time, 'Louange à l'immortalité de Jésus' played by Gil Shaham and Myung Whun Chung. One of the most heavenly pieces I know.

Next year my play A Walk through the End of Time, which centres on the quartet, is due for a couple of performances. It's a one-act two-hander and is usually followed - either after an interval or in some cases in a related event soon after - by a complete performance of the music. Will post performance details in due course.

This extract relates to the final movement:

Christine: But can I tell you what I thought I was looking for? I wanted the depth of tenderness I discovered that night in the Messiaen. I think the tenderness in the violin solo represents the greatest possible strength. It takes unbelievable courage to be still and show love and vulnerability. Expose your heart and you’re laughed at, or trampled on... I had a longing for an emotion that I knew must exist – because it’s in the music. ...Love is an ultimate freedom, isn’t it? And if freedom is within you, then perhaps love is, too. If it isn’t already in your heart, if you don’t know how to give it…It was something in myself, some unfulfilled capacity, but I didn’t understand. I got it the wrong way round.  

Fanfare for the uncommon woman conducting competition winner

Elim Chan
Photo: Clive Totman/LSO

The Donatella Flick Conducting Competition was won last night by Elim Chan, a 28-year-old conductor from Hong Kong. It's the first time the contest has ever chosen a woman as its winner. Chan will receive £15,000 towards her studies and concert engagements, a one-year post as assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (under whose auspices the contest takes place) and a chance to take part in the orchestra's learning and participation activities. Runners-up were Jirí Rožen (Czech Republic) and Mihhail Gerts (Estonia).

Here is Elim's biography from the University of Michigan, where she's currently studying for a doctorate.

Born in Hong Kong, Elim Chan is the Music Director of the Michigan Pops Orchestra and the University of Michigan Campus Philharmonia Orchestra. Trained early in piano and voice, she gave her first public concert at age nine singing "Tomorrow" from Annie with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Elim was awarded the prestigious Harriet Dey Barnum Memorial Prize and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music with high honors from Smith College. In 2011, she completed her Masters degree in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance studying with Kenneth Kiesler. Elim has also studied with renowned conducting pedagogues Gustav Meier, Colin Metters and with Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Passionate about advocating new music, Elim has premiered and promoted numerous works composed by her UM colleagues- Michael-Thomas Foumai Roger Zare, David Biedenbender, Donia Jarrar. An active orchestral conductor, she received invitations to conduct the Hong Kong Children's Symphony Orchestra in 2011, and her work led to reengagements in 2012.

Internationally, this June Elim was one of the five fellows invited by Pinchas Zukerman to conduct the renowned National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada. Recently, Elim also completed her July-August residency in Chile conducting the Bicentennial Youth Orchestra of Curanilahue in Chile, whose founding was to inspire and bring together poor but talented youth of the region through music. She also conducted the University of Talca's Symphony Orchestra with the invitation from Maestro Américo Giusti Muñoz. This fall, Elim is returning to the University of Michigan to pursue her doctoral studies in Orchestral Conducting.

That Kyung Wha Chung concert

You'll have heard all the rumpus about a great violinist allegedly telling off the family of a coughing child during that comeback recital at the Royal Festival Hall last week. The whole thing is so ridiculous on so many levels that it's seemed best to ignore it. But I hope the following may shed a little more light on the matter, since there's been "outrage" (fake outrage = clickbait) about her action and speculation that it might have put a child off music for life, etc etc.

A musician friend of mine tells me that he was sitting a couple of rows behind the family. He is somewhat conversant with South Korea. He thinks the family was probably Korean and remarked that it is a culture in which elders are respected and speak their minds very directly - rather than habitually talking in riddles and mincing their words as we tend to in the middle England that frequents high culture ("I say, er, please, would you mind terribly if..."). We do forget that not everyone in the world follows our own social mores - and London is an extremely international place.

He added that a) the child looked to be only about 4 years old, and b) the family didn't leave, contrary to rumour, but stayed where they were and seemed to enjoy the rest of the concert without any further trouble.

The online and media bullying of great musicians for the slightest extra-musical flip is quite common these days, especially in this country - and it has got to stop, because all it does is put them off coming back here. We're the losers in the end.

Here is a clip (if somewhat cut about) of the wonderful Chung in the Bach Chaconne. This is why we want her here, and playing, and playing like this.

UPDATE, 9/15pm: KYUNG WHA CHUNG RESPONDS AND EXPLAINS - and does so with admirable sense and sensibility. (The Guardian)

Green light for Lucerne opera house

One of the stranger ongoing legal cases of the music world was resolved last Thursday - and seems set to clear the way for a new opera house in the bijou Swiss town of Lucerne, the site of one of Europe's finest concert halls and a renowned festival.

A flexible-space opera house was planned for the city years ago - an idea spearheaded by Pierre Boulez, no less - and one of the festival's major donors, Christof Engelhorn, pledged more than $100m to back its creation, but died before the donation could be made from his family's trust in Bermuda (the fortune was made in the pharmaceutical industry). The festival sued for the money, in Bermuda - and now it has won. Here's a little more background on the case. There's a long way to go still, of course, and the Salle Modulable's next hurdle will be a feasibility study. But it's a valuable green light and the space will be watched with interest.

Not that one needs an excuse to visit Lucerne, of course (pictured); ever since 1938, when the festival launched as an antidote to the hideous developments in Nazi-era Bayreuth and Salzburg, it has been a flourishing hub of first-class musical activity. The first concerts were held on the lawn outside Tribschen, the former home of Richard Wagner.

Birthday wishes for...

Krystian Zimerman, 58 today. Here he is in a beautiful, fresh, witty and pure-toned performance of the Mozart Sonata in C, K330. Gloriously expressive eyebrows, a tone to die for, and much more. Don't miss the ending.

Fans alert: he will be IN LONDON on 2 July to perform Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 with the LSO and Simon Rattle at the Barbican. Don't miss it.

Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin*



(*"All the best on your birthday" - Polish)

Stop the yells

Do you know what you're doing when you yell BRAVI!! a split second into the final chord? 

Especially if there are microphones above the platform?

The orchestra may be recording the piece. If you yell BRAVI - or indeed anything else - before the sound has quite disappeared, you are disrupting the recording.

The entire orchestra will then be kept another half an hour in the hall for a quick patching session.

These days most members of London orchestras, especially the younger ones with families, can't afford to live in London, so they have very long journeys home to places like Tonbridge, St Albans, Lewes or Bedfordshire - when they'd rather be in the other kind of Bedfordshire a little sooner. And with petrol prices high and the congestion charge/parking fees making a car in the capital basically pointless, people take trains. 

Our railways, however, still function on the presumptions of c1958 that nobody is out after 11pm, that nobody has to go on tour early in the morning, let alone on Sundays, and that there are only a handful of people in London anyway, so trains late in the evening are few and far between. 

When you yell before the music is over, and it is not over until that chord has died away, you ensure that more than half those musicians will miss their trains home. They will in many cases have to wait up to another hour for the next one and will get in at some unearthly wee time of morning, completely knackered.

Their spouses will be knackered too, will be fed up with the schedule and may spark a fight. Their children may wake up at the sound of the front door. Everyone has a bad day in the morning, whether at school or at work or on tour. An exam may be shakier than it should have been due to exhaustion. Someone at work may make a mistake in some words or figures or diagnosis. Someone may be late for a vital meeting. And so forth. Everyone does their best, but would have done better still with an extra hour's sleep.

The recording, meanwhile, may be entirely jeopardised. And it doesn't cost nothing to set it up.

This is all because one person in the concert hall couldn't hang on just one second to yell BRAVI.

So please, please, please: THINK before you YELL. 

Thanks.

Free ZooNation! Mad Hatter's Tea Party to be LIVE STREAMED

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party: ZooNation in rehearsal
Photo: David Sandison

I spent an utterly enthralling and invigorating few hours at the ROH the other week watching ZooNation rehearse its new family show for the Linbury, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and then writing about it. Huge respect for these amazing dancers who work so hard but manage to create so much fun while doing so. Full feature is in the Independent today along with a photo gallery from the rehearsals.

The show - the first-ever commission in hip-hop style from the ROH - runs from Saturday until 3 January, but the theatre has just announced that the performance on 18 December will be live-streamed on a) the Royal Opera House's Youtube channel and b) the BBC Arts website. If what I saw is anything to go by, it's going to be both terrifically danced and terrifically bonkers - and the tickets have been going like the proverbial hot cakes. Indeed, it's pretty much sold out - just a few tickets left now for Saturday 13 Dec 12.30pm - so you may have to log on to share the fun with ZooNation's dazzling stars Tommy Franzen, Lizzie Gough, Teneisha Bonner and, of course, 'Turbo'.

Orchestras win tax breaks, we hope

In yesterday's autumn statement, the chancellor, George Osborne, announced (among other things) that orchestras in the UK may get tax breaks. A system was brought in for theatre and dance productions back in the summer and the idea is to extend this to their colleagues on the concert platform. This would mean 20 per cent tax relief on home performances and 25 per cent on touring.

But while the principle of it is being welcomed, what nobody seems absolutely sure of is how it is going to work; Classical Music Magazine points out that it is a nod, but not a promise; and also, nobody seems quite certain whether it will make any difference to the fortunes of these organisations once the next round of ACE funding cuts is meted upon them. Here is the ISM response ("the fine detail is still to be worked up").

We suspect that this may be a case of the chancellor giving with one hand and taking away with the other and cynics will suggest that such a pledge could therefore turn out, in the broad scheme of things, not to be worth the paper it's written on. Personally I can't help wondering if it would not be simpler for all concerned just to fund the arts properly in the first place... But let's be grateful for small mercies, no?

Here is the ACE document explaining theatre tax relief.

Women triumph at last at the British Composer Awards

A lot of good news from the British Composer Awards, which held a glittering do last night. Nine first-time winners, and five awards to composers who happen to be female, two of them going to Kerry Andrew. And there's a prize for... Sir Harrison Birtwistle - indeed, few BCAs would be complete without that.

Kerry Andrew scoops the double
Photo: Mark Allen

Kerry Andrew's Woodwose: A Community Chamber Opera scooped Community/Education Project. Her Dart's Love won the Stage Works category.

Rebecca Saunders' Solitude for solo cello won Instrumental Solo/Duo

Kaija Saariaho won the International Award for Circle Map.

Cecilia McDowell's Night Flight triumphed in Choral.

First-time winners included Django Bates, Steve Forman, Ed Hughes, Martin Iddon, Cecilia McDowall, Kaija Saariaho, Rebecca Saunders, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Tom White. 

Birtwistle's sixth BCA prize was in the Vocal category, for Songs from the same Earth. 

The winner of the student competition was Bertram Wee, currently a student at the Royal College of Music, for his Sonicalia for tenor trombone and tuba. A name to remember.

The full list of winners and further information on the awards is available at the BACSA site, here. Meanwhile, we are glad if last year's message has perhaps been heard. Bravi tutti!

Now, remember, the key to the BCAs is NOMINATIONS. Anybody can nominate a piece, but the jury can only consider works that have been nominated. So if you're a performer who's loved playing a new work, a listener who's loved listening to one, or the proud commissioner who's made it all possible, get the nomination in for next time.

When Edward met Gabriel

I spent a very pleasant evening yesterday addressing the London branch of the Elgar Society - a remarkable collection of knowledgeable enthusiasts who meet regularly in Harley Street for lectures and studies of their chosen composer. Membership is highly recommended! People from all walks of life, many with fascinating backgrounds, are drawn together by their love of the great man's music, and I was invited to come along and give the Christmas talk as "something a little different". I went down memory lane a little way, exploring Elgar's impact on my life for, sort of, ever.

One matter we revisited was that of "Windflower" and the Violin Concerto; and it was also a fine opportunity to draw attention to the closer-than-expected links between Elgar and Fauré. Interesting to think that had the publisher's series elected to count Elgar as a 20th-century composer, I might have ended up writing about him instead of, or as well as, his fabulous French colleague, who lived through a decade less of the century. Here is a brief taster from last night.

.......

Fauré and Elgar had the same British patron, the banker Leo Frank Schuster, who was responsible for Fauré having a strong reputation in certain educated circles of Britain, rather to the composer’s own astonishment - though nevertheless not to the full extent that he deserved, as Elgar recognised. On one occasion in 1908 Fauré came to England to hear the rehearsal for the London premiere of Elgar’s First Symphony and Schuster held a dinner party for both composers together, which must have been a fine moustache-fest. 

They had much in common besides those moustaches, silver hair and dark eyes: an elegant sensibility, an unfailing instinct for songful melody, an intimacy of expression and a very rich, flexible harmonic language, which Fauré took considerably further; and each enjoyed an unexpected "Indian summer" of composition in which they produced some of their finest works. They also both had a great fondness for younger women, but thereby hangs many other tales: notably a Vera for Elgar and a Marguerite for Fauré...

Elgar held Fauré in very considerable esteem. After the French composer died, Elgar wrote to Schuster: “He was such a real gentleman – the highest type of Frenchman and I admire him greatly. His chamber music never had a chance here…I feel that it was held up, to our loss. As far as I resent anything – which is not far – I resent such neglect.” There’s no record, unfortunately, of what Fauré had thought of Elgar. But there are passages of Faure in which one can detect a real convergence of style.

I think that what the two shared in musical terms was actually the influence of Schumann. If you take this slow movement from Fauré’s Piano Quintet No.1, written in 1905, you can detect very Schumannesque qualities in the off-beat rhythms and the kind of textures and polyphonies he employs; it’s as if he’s passed Schumann through a prism and turned him inside out.

Or the beginning of the Piano Quintet No.2, written in 1921 during his "Indian summer", features the kind of long-breathed melodies with plunging sighs that we find so often in Elgar but that can be traced straight back to Schumann. First, think of the slow movement of Schumann's Symphony No.2.



Then try the Fauré quintet...

Now, here’s the beginning of Elgar’s string quartet, written just three years earlier in 1918 – a very different piece, but it is nevertheless fascinating to hear the two composers back to back, which doesn’t happen very often. You can detect some of the same kinds of gestures and the underlying harmonic instability that both are evoking, as if the ground under their feet is no longer so solid.

........

If you want to explore the other artistic relationship here in more depth - that between the music of Schumann and Fauré - do try to come to the Aspect Foundation's concert at the 20th Century Theatre, 291 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2QA,  on Thursday. This intriguing organisation - which puts on lecture-recitals with knobs on, featuring top-quality artists - has an evening devoted to the idea of 'Schumann and Fauré: Kindred Spirits', starring our violinist colleague Philippe Graffin, pianist Alasdair Beatson, violist David Adams and cellist David Waterman. More info & booking here.

Muse for the day

An extremely moving day yesterday at the Andrzej Panufnik centenary event at Kings Place. Billed as "A family celebration", it centred on performances of music by both Panufnik père and fille - these days, indeed, we hear much more of Roxanna's music than we do of her father's. This occasion, with two chamber music concerts, a film followed by a discussion and finally a Warsaw Cabaret, is the latest - and London's last, as far as I'm aware - contribution to the centenary. (Unfortunately I was only able to attend part of the event due to Elgar talk preparations for tonight, but am happy to declare myself blown away by the playing of the Brodsky Quartet and moved to tears by the film and the words of Camilla Panufnik, Andrzej's widow.)

Two very different personalities emerge, hearing Andrzej and Roxanna's works side by side, yet there are qualities in common: both love to use crunchy harmonies in which major and minor meet and greet, and there's a delicacy, a finesse, to the sound - the musical equivalent, if you like, of a shiny surface, gloss rather than matt. Roxanna's music, though, sounds free-spirited; she always leaves room for humour, or lament, or an exploration of far-off lands. Andrzej's does not.

His works are impeccable: never a note too many or too few, the architecture perfectly circumscribed, the rigour vigilant and the core strong. Yet Panufnik senior is much of his era in that his own life and music, through coincidence of time and place of birth, was circumscribed first by soviet politics and subsequently by what does emerge as an atmosphere of cultural fascism in the west. Perhaps I'm imagining it, or projecting, but his sense of vigilance over each phrase makes one feel that, when finally free from the control of others, he exerted supreme control over his own self. The structures are perfect, the substance within them almost fiercely austere.

He underwent a dramatic escape from Poland in 1954, climbing out of a toilet window to give his minders the slip while on a concert tour to Switzerland, fleeing to the airport and boarding a plane to London. In the film My Father, the Iron Curtain and Me, Jem Panufnik, Andrzej's son, retraces his father's steps and ponders on their different lives and musics (Jem makes club music and art). Imagine reaching a point when you can no longer function in your home country because everything you say is twisted to support a regime you loathe, in which music true to your own spirit is forbidden because everything must support the state, and having lost your entire family to wartime tragedy - and then losing a baby daughter as well. Driven to the point where if you don't leave, you will assuredly crack. And arriving in the longed-for west, only to find that your music is not performed because it is the wrong kind of music - it is not serialist, therefore not approved. And some luminaries you had met when they visited your old country refuse to acknowledge you because they wish to be friendly to those regimes, but not to those who abandon them (apparently Stalin termed these champagne communists of the west "useful idiots").

Panufnik was far from alone among composers in suffering this history of the double-whammy: political exile from one country followed by cultural exile within another.

It's not easy to keep alive the work of a composer after his death, but perhaps the centenary events this year will mark a return to the concert hall for Panufnik's streamlined, distinctive and unfailingly imaginative works. Poland has been doing much to rehabilitate his works and reputation; a performance by the LSO in the beautiful new concert hall of Katowice apparently brought the house down. Now we need his adopted home to do likewise. Hearing his works again has certainly been a highlight of my year. One hopes they are now here to stay.

Read and listen to more about Andrzej here: http://panufnik.com
Read and listen to more about Roxanna here: http://www.roxannapanufnik.com

Meanwhile: I'm off to the Elgar Society tonight to talk about how another composer's spirit has touched my own life so many ways.

TOMORROW on Radio 3 'CD Review'

Off to BBC Broadcasting House bright and early tomorrow morning (Saturday 29th) to take part in Radio 3's 'CD Review'. I'll be in discussion with presenter Andrew McGregor and the distinguished pianist Roger Vignoles, featuring a round-up of five new piano discs. We'll be on about 10.15am - live in the studio!

The discs we are discussing are:

Bach: English Suites Nos 1, 3 and 5
Piotr Anderszewski

Bach: French Overture, Italian Concerto, Aria Variata, Concerto in D minor after Marcello (it's the Oboe Concerto)
Vladimir Ashkenazy

Beethoven: Sonatas Op.106 (Hammerklavier) and Op. 27 No.2 (Moonlight), plus two pieces from The Ruins of Athens trsc A.Bax
Alessio Bax

Haydn: Piano Sonatas No 59 in E flat major, No.38 in F major, No.47 in B minor, No.39 in D major
Denis Kozhukhin

Beethoven: Piano Sonata in G major, Op.31 No.3; 'Eroica' Variations
Schubert: 16 German Dances from Op.33; 'Wanderer' Fantasy
Aaron Pilsan

Do tune in. There's some good 'uns.

Speaking of women in music...

...here is the video of the conference about inequalities in classical music, held at King's College, London, a few weeks ago. The panel includes academics Christina Scharf and Anna Bull, conductor Alice Farnham, Beverley Mason and myself, and the music is provided by an extraordinary young musician whom you should hear if you haven't already, Ayanna Witter-Johnson - cellist, singer, composer and more. Her song about her mother was so touching that it had us all in pieces. Under the title "What lies beneath?" we each spoke on the topic of inequality as we have perceived, researched or experienced it and offer some thoughts about what to do about it.

Meanwhile, there is some sign that the groundswell of consciousness-raising on this topic is having an effect on programming, and sometimes in the most positive and interesting ways. Next year's Brighton Early Music Festival is presenting the first opera ever written by a woman - La liberazione di Ruggiero, by Francesca Caccini. They're getting it crowd-funded and you can support their efforts here. Meanwhile the London Festival of Baroque Music (formerly the Lufthansa Festival) is also doing Caccini and Barbara Strozzi, alongside lads like Monteverdi and Rameau.

Mindblown.

John Adams's The Gospel According to the Other Mary opened in its first-ever full staging at ENO last night. I was mesmerised and mind-blown. Here's  my review... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/the-gospel-according-to-the-other-mary-opera-review-john-adams-triumphant-update-of-the-passion-of-the-christ-9877245.html

There is something extraordinary about seeing a composer taking a bow for a really fantastic new(ish) piece in front of a standing ovation. It doesn't happen very often, and when it does, it's a privilege to be there.

Dear ENO, why, oh WHY were the dancers not honoured with biographies in the programmes? A lot of us are really cross about this. They were marvellous. They deserve equal billing.

Anyhow, go and see it. There are only 5 more performances. Book here.

And here's an introduction on film.

Robeson rides again

The glad news that Steve McQueen is making a film about Paul Robeson is inspiring a good look at who this legendary singer, actor and activist really was, and what he did, and what America did to him. I've written this, for the Independent - out today.

This is a recording of him performing and talking to the Welsh miners - many thanks to Peter Tregear for sending it my way.



And here he is singing Sarastro's aria - transposed down!

Exploring John Ogdon, tonight

This evening at the Richmond-upon-Thames Literature Festival I'm interviewing John Ogdon's biographer, Charles Beauclerk, about his tour-de-force book Piano Man. You may remember we did a similar event a couple of months ago at the Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival - it went so well that we're reuniting. The event is TONIGHT at York House, Twickenham. Starts 7pm, lasts about an hour, and Charles will be doing a book signing afterwards.

Here is a taster of Ogdon's utter genius. This is rare film of him playing part of Liszt's Dante Sonata. (The opening announcements, by the way, are the kind of thing that one senses many critics of BBC Radio 3 would like to hear restored to today's airwaves.)

Jonas Kaufmann, Lang Lang, Bambi and a beard

O
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This was the performance by Jonas Kaufmann & Lang Lang at the BAMBI awards in Berlin yesterday. JK sings 'Dein ist mein ganzes Herz' with LL at the piano; first time they've worked together. The latter gives a very fast, but rather invigorating, Mozart Turkish Rondo first. Jonas is sporting a beard, over which the jury is currently out, but he's in astonishing voice. Happy Friday, everyone.

Some very special visitors...

The BBC has given a prime TV slot - 8pm on Sunday evening, BBC4 - to a new documentary about an actual orchestra. This isn't any old orchestra, though: it is the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra from Congo, or rather the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste. The film follows its formation, development and journey to London to perform at the Royal Festival Hall in spring 2014 and is narrated by its own players. Do tune in. And if you can't, you'll be able to find it on the iPlayer for 30 days afterwards, here.

Here is a taster to brighten up your day on this very rainy Friday...
(Apologies - this video is only available in the UK. Hopefully that also applies to today's weather.)

Ricki & Cosi meet Gilbert & Sullivan

Can't resist it. If you're not into cute kitten videos, look away now.

Remembrance: Jelly d'Arányi plays FS Kelly

The young violinist Jelly d'Arányi - sometime muse to Ravel, Bartók and even the ageing Elgar - was much in love with the gifted Australian musician FS Kelly, some 12 years her senior. Born in Sydney, educated at Eton and Oxford, he was also an Olympic gold medallist in 1908 for his supreme skill at rowing. Jelly met him through one of his teachers, who was also her oldest and dearest friend in Britain, Donald Francis Tovey; thereafter she often played duos with him. During WWI Kelly survived Gallipoli, where he composed a violin sonata for her. A short period of leave brought him back to Britain for r&r; then in 1916 he was sent to the Somme and never returned. Jelly kept John Singer Sargent's drawing of him on her piano for the rest of her life.

For today, Remembrance Day in the WW1 centenary year, here is a rare recording of Jelly playing his Serenade Op.7, with Ethel Hobday at the piano. Listening to it today in memory of all those caught up in the horrors of those years - and the generation of their loved ones who were left behind, as Jelly was, to live with their memories alone.