Mahagonny rising and falling

Sobering to wake up the morning after this particular opera to see on the news scenes of devastation from the cyclone in Vanuatu. A hurricane is the central force - in some senses - of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Brecht and Weill show us the impact on the city's collective psyche of nature's approaching Armageddon, turning the place from deathly, over-regulated calm to equally deathly venal over-permissiveness. The hurricane, though, takes a "detour" - despite the "footnotes - of which Brecht & Weill are unaware" that the director at Covent Garden, John Fulljames, brings us.

Yes, Mahagonny, written in the late twenties and premiered in 1930, feels as if it could have been written yesterday, in certain ways. But that is not because of the hurricane, even though there was one. It's because of the corruption, the moral vacuity, the drunkenness, the greed, the selfishness, the falsity. Focusing on climate change, which is specific to our times, but was not to the late 1920s, at the expense of these other qualities, specific to all times, is only the first of many problems I had with the production and the performance. (Reviews so far have been mixed,  but I don't seem to have seen the same show as any of them.)

The trial scene, including Anne Sofie von Otter as Widow Begbick (centre)
and Kurt Streit as Jimmy (right, on the box).
(c) ROH, photo by Clive Barda

Dystopian societies were order of the day for composers, film-makers and authors in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Think of them: Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (published 1932), Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane (- yes, really - 1927), and that's just for starters. One can trace influences to the rise of the Soviet Union, the seismic devastation left by World War One barely ten years earlier, the runaway inflation that followed it in Germany and Austria, the boom and fearful bust of the late 1920s, the rise and rise of the USA and its skyscrapers (construction of the Empire State Building began in 1929). As John Fulljames put it when I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, Brecht's vision is "America with a k"- the work is set there because that was the new place, the boom place, but it's an imaginary version of the country: today you might perhaps choose Dubai or Shanghai.

The production has one desperately powerful and chilling concept. It is built - by Es Devlin's inspired design - around shipping containers, which double as brightly coloured houses rising as far as the eye can see. But when you see a shipping container, what do you think of? Personally, I can't help associating them with people being smuggled and suffocated therein. Early on in this opera, a chorus of men in grey suits and hats - implicitly western city workers - are herded into a container to be taken to Mahagonny. The staging, with its climate change warning, points to our own likely dystopia: we will all have to flee our cities and find somewhere new to go, because, as Brecht puts it, translated by Jeremy Sams, we don't need hurricanes, "we're spoiling the world just fine."

Brecht does like to bash us over the head with his messages, though. He can never simply put a fable in front of us and let us draw our own conclusions. A good red pen wouldn't have gone amiss from time to time. The four lumberjacks from Alaska who are destroyed by the place, one by one - except for Billy - recap their words about the terrible winters and the great pine trees they felled so often that a gentle excision or two wouldn't have hurt - except that I suspect Brecht would have given you a black eye if you'd tried.

Another problem, though, for which we can't entirely blame Brecht & Weill: strophic songs are awkward on an opera stage. This stage especially. The set takes up most of the space, so the action is confined principally to the very front. When it acquires more than two dimensions, it goes upwards into split levels. Perhaps that solves part of the intimacy problem - it's a large house for not a large troupe and a piece in which words are all-important - but there's less room to play with and the fable-like nature of the story perhaps invites a more symbolic, static approach than a naturalistic scenario might. But in short, there's not enough going on in the strophic songs. Yes, we need to focus on the words - but we need a little more action, too, or the pace can really sag, and it does.

In similar fashion, many of the cast are under-characterised. These individuals are archetypes, of course, but they need to come to convincing life. Only our hero, Jimmy McIntyre - sung magnificently by Kurt Streit - assumes a measure of actual personality. Even Christine Rice, in fabulous voice as Jenny the prostitute, could give the role more nuance; when she refuses to help Jimmy, who loves her, it should probably come as a sickening shock, but doesn't. Then there's Anne Sofie von Otter as Widow Begbick - one wants to admire her, given that she is a magnificent artist and one of today's very great singers, but this role needs an overwhelming presence, a true battle-axe personality, and neither she nor her direction - which turns her into a dip-dye-pink-haired Estuary type - provides enough of that essential force. (Have a look at the extracts on Youtube of Patti LuPone in the role in the US). Sir Willard White is a brilliant Trinity Moses; one wants more of him. Peter Hoare as Fatty does not have much to do either, but his very presence, standing still and smoking, carries a fabulous weight of imagery. The singing is often operatically beautiful, especially from Streit and Rice - and according to Jeremy Sams, whom I interviewed for my article last week, so it should be. Full marks to orchestra, chorus and Mark Wigglesworth on the podium.

For me, the message of Mahagonny is not about what Brecht puts on stage, but what he doesn't. If this society is eating itself away through ennui and self-destructiveness, feeling something's missing, why? What is it that is missing? Try these:

No families. The only women on stage are prostitutes and the Widow Begbick. No children. No older people. The men can have sex, but apparently only with women who are doing it for money.
No art. The populace possesses nothing creative, nothing expressive.
No sport or fitness or teamwork. They do have bare-knuckle boxing, which is singular and kills its combatant.
No community. Every man (and it's mostly men - but it's true of Jenny too) for himself.
Nothing for people to do except indulge their basest appetites well beyond their hearts' desires. No orchestras or painting classes, that's for sure.
No education.
No history.
Nothing to encourage any actual sense of humanity or kindness or relationship.

Only money, appetite and self-interest have any value here. There is one grim reference to religion, right at the end. Brecht bashes us on the head with it, and so does Fulljames, turning Jimmy's execution into a scene reminiscent of the Crucifixion.

Some of this is also why the updating doesn't quite work. The nature of the piece is much of its own day; there isn't space within it to turn it into a convincing picture of our own times and the make-up of our society. Filmed images of the front of the ROH and the blown-up bus in Russell Square 2005 do little to help.

Inside us all there is, perhaps inevitably, a personal opera-director who pipes up: "I want to see it like this instead..." My mini-me would like to see it set...
...in Germany, in 1930. Performed as it might have been then (and in German - I liked the translation and can see why it perhaps needs to be done in translation, but I'd rather hear it in German anyway). I would set it as a play within a play, amid the society it would have been in; people impoverished, desperate, surrounded by the rise of fascism, with the work's message bowling out loud and clear and horrific. "Nothing can be done to help the living," goes the final chorus, sending us out thoroughly depressed. Brecht and Weill don't leave 'em laughing. No redemption here. Imagine that message in Germany three years before Hitler took power.

'Nuff said. Shudder. I'm off to comb my cats.

A viola player's sitting at the back of the section when...

...everyone's telling jokes for Red Nose Day and Comic Relief, so here's a viola joke I rather love.

A viola player's sitting at the back of the section when the conductor suddenly keels over in the rehearsal just before the concert and is rushed off to hospital. A big tour's about to begin, and there's only an hour til this launch performance. No time to find another conductor. "Can anyone conduct?" the orchestra manager pleads, at his wits' end. The viola player volunteers - he had a shot at it once at uni, a few decades back, so he remembers the basics. The concert is a huge success! "Can you do the tour as well?" the orchestra manager asks, booking an extra violist.

The tour begins the next day and everywhere the orchestra goes there are standing ovations and rave reviews. The viola player on the podium is flavour of the month. A Twitter storm demands he be made principal conductor, nay, music director, right now. His Facebook page attracts 750,000 likes from all over Europe and the US.

After two weeks of this, the orchestra comes home and finds that its conductor is alive and well, out of hospital and on the podium. The viola player returns to his seat at the back of the section. His desk partner turns to him and says: "So, where've you been all this time?"

Boom boom.

My Dream Interviewee No.1...

Yesterday I interviewed a wonderful composer. I love interviewing composers. You can't get closer to the source of the art we love than you can by talking to the people who create it. Let's not forget, music is a human creation. Every note, squeak and silence is a choice made by a person with a pen - OK, these days it's someone with a Sibelius computer, but a choice nevertheless. We are fortunate to go and talk to John Adams, Judith Weir, Philip Glass and the rest - but certain others are no longer with us....so I've availed myself of a new-fangled invention to solve the problem. Here is my Dream Interviewee No.1.

He is ROBERT SCHUMANN. I visited him in my new Parsifal 3000 Travellation, in which time becomes space.

Dear Herr Dr Professor Schumann, it's a great pleasure to meet you.

Mrs Duchen, likewise, likewise. Welcome to Düsseldorf. I trust your extraordinary time machine gave you a smooth journey?

It was, let's say, an interesting experience...but I'm very happy to be here, in the Schumann family living room!

Excellent, dear lady - please have a seat, and Marie will bring in the coffee.

You are very lucky to have such a helpful daughter.

Especially for my wife, Clara, Marie, our eldest, is an angel from heaven. For the little ones, so is our friend Hannes!

I hear he comes round and entertains them by doing gymnastics on the banisters?

Haha, and more, and more... He's a young lion, you know, a veritable eagle whose music will soar into the future. Do you know him where you live, in the 21st century?

Do we know Johannes Brahms? Er, we do...

And how is he regarded?

Well, he is one of the all-time greats - we talk about the Three Bs, and they are Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

I knew it! I knew I was right. I enjoyed being a critic, unlike many others... I edited a magazine too, you remember? That was enormous fun, but hard work, always having to turn away people who thought they could write well, but never actually read anything.

You have always been very literary, haven't you?

There is always music in good words. Without it, they will never rise from the page. Remember that, my writer friend! And there must be meaning in good music. It goes beyond the capability of words, but it must be there. Otherwise we will turn away from it and play music that does have meaning. After Beethoven our question is: what next? How can we possibly follow him?

So, tell me what was it like the first time you met Brahms?

Well, he turned up on our doorstep, unannounced. It was a few months ago, October 1853, and we weren't home, but Marie was, so there is a knock on the door, she trots along to see who's there and on the step is this boy of 20, blond hair, blue eyes, cheekbones and the rest of it, and she is quite impressed. He has a letter of introduction to us from Joseph Joachim, which he leaves with Marie. We read it and it sounds quite positive. Joachim, you know, is the leader of Liszt's orchestra in Weimar and a powerhouse, in his own cantankerous way, even though he isn't much older than Brahms himself. He played under Mendelssohn's direction when he was only Marie's age. We have known him for years, through Mendelssohn, and he sends Brahms to us and the young man just arrives.

I think it was a happier experience for him to come to us than his visit to Liszt. You know what happened? Haha! He goes to Weimar and finds Liszt holding court, playing the piano to all his adoring acolytes. Brahms has been travelling all day and he is tired out. He sits at the back of the room, and Liszt plays the whole of his rather long Sonata in B minor - which, you know, is dedicated to me! - and Brahms does his very best, but despite himself he nods off. Not a good move.

So, he arrived on your doorstep and...

And I gave him some coffee and wondered what it was that was so special about this rather shy, squeaky-voiced lad. He takes out of his bag an enormous sheaf of manuscript paper covered in thick black scrawls, places it on the coffee table in front of me, then goes to the piano and begins a sonata and I nearly fall out of my chair.

I waited until a quiet moment - it's a noisy opening, the C major Sonata, because he is trying to write Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' - then I stopped him. He looked most distressed. He must have thought I didn't like his music. No, no! I wanted to call Clara, who was attending to her correspondence upstairs, and I told her: you have to come into the music room, right now, this minute. You have to hear this. She did so, curious, and there, in front of me, she gazed across that room and her eyes and Brahms's met for the first time.

Something about him shone. He sat at our piano and he just - shone. He lit the room as if we had raised a hundred candles above him and his clothes and skin were made of mirrors. Clara sat beside me and he began his sonata again. What a voice emerged from it - a giant personality, springing from its parent creator's head fully formed like Pallas Athene! Some would-be composers never find their voice. Others are imbued with it as if in the womb. After about half a minute Clara gave me one sideways glance. You know, I think, when you meet someone who is going to change your life.

Herr Doktor Professor Schumann, it is generous of you to speak about Brahms like this. I would like to ask you about your music, too, of course. Why the alter egos? Why did you introduce Florestan and Eusebius?

Why? That is an interesting question - they have been with me for so long that I can scarcely remember. I nearly became a writer. I used to write, in my youth - I wrote a few novels, but eventually I found music could take out more of myself, if that makes sense to you?

It does indeed...

I have, you know, a remarkably vivid dream world. As a boy I lived in dreams much of the time, and it became a habit. I don't draw much distinction between reality and what I know to be my dreams - because they become reality. That is how you create the world, through dreaming, through imagining.

Do you know Richard Wagner?

I do - a bumptious gentleman, isn't he? He has stolen a lot from my music, I understand, but what he does with it is supposed to be quite good.

Well, he once said - though I don't know if he's already said it - that imagination creates reality.

There you go. Nothing is new under the sun, no? So, to my friends, the poets. I was very young, of course, my father was a publisher and a writer, and the house was full of books. It was, too, full of pain. My sister died, you know. This boy I was could scarcely bear the loss - the weight of the world, of all adult grief, wrapped me closer and closer, like an instrument of torture. And I discovered the worlds of Goethe, Jean Paul and ETA Hoffmann. I would take their books and dive in, as if into a great blue mountain lake with whole universes beneath the azure surface, and there I would swim, free at last, with those worlds of discovery before me, my inner self becoming first one character, then another. I found Florestan and Eusebius in Jean Paul, and each was like me, though totally different. Therefore in them I saw two sides of one person. Human beings have many facets, every writer knows this - today I don't think it is so extraordinary.

But why create music based around them?

Not based around them so much as informed by them, I'd say. Why? Because it is enjoyable to do so. I said earlier that music must have meaning. But that meaning does not have to be weighty and frown-ridden. It might be, on occasion. Yet think of my Clara. She doesn't like it if I experiment too much. She says always: think of the people who play your music, think of the people who buy it. If you are too peculiar, too obscure, they'll choose something else instead. Where does that leave you? I am their puppet-master in the music, sometimes - Maester Raro, mediating between them. I might be playing at my piano - you play music, but you also play at music! - and I improvise, and I invent. The music might be tender, quiet, reflective, so a Eusbius creation; or my thoughts might be turbulent and impassioned, in the guise of Florestan. I am glad if people find this interesting, and it is a way of bringing literary allusion to one's work without having to set about the laborious process of actually telling somebody else's story in your own sounds.

We make quite a lot of this, you know...

Haha! Please feel free to make of my music what you will. I am merely glad to know that it has lasted so well.

Who did you know? Who were your favourite people?

My dear lady, I have to tell you, I have never had a friend, or missed a friend, like Felix Mendelssohn. What a man. What an artist. Nobody could resist his charm - not even my Clara! She used to flirt with him like never with anybody else, and in front of me! There was just...nothing she could do about it. Despite him being, you know, from another race. He was an Israelite. She was of a very sheltered background, my Clara, and she found this distinctly strange, even though he had apparently converted as a child and was indeed more a devout Christian than we ourselves. But perhaps it added to the fascination. Like the Gypsies. Nobody can resist them either. Brahms is transfixed by their musicians.

So, er, yes...so Mendelssohn was close to you? 

His death was terrible. So young. Not even forty. I think he worked himself to death - though others say it was the demise of his sister that made him fall to pieces, others gossip that there was perhaps another woman, and still more say that there was a weakness in the family inheritance that caused them to have strokes too young. For us, left behind, the shock has been fearful. I dream of him often and I wake sweating, convinced I shall see him again, convinced that his fate presages something of my own. Clara tells me not to be silly, but the idea haunts me like the ghost of Felix himself...come along, my dear, let's have some more coffee, shall we?

A good idea, thank you.

And how long will you stay in Düsseldorf?

I must go back to London today - but now that I know my Parsifal 3000 Travellation is so effective, please may I come and see you again?

Of course you may. You play my music yourself?

On the piano. Badly. I've played Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, Papillons, some of the Fantasiestücke, I've bashed through the first and last movements of the Fantasie, though I can't play the March, and at the moment I'm learning Waldszenen. It makes me cry every time.

Ahh. Then you know me better than you think.

Love James Galway? Don't miss this!

James Galway has a very big birthday this year and BBC4 has just screened a new documentary directed by Brendan Byrne about his life and work, entitled Being James Galway. It went out last night, is repeated on Friday on BBC4 at 8pm, and is also available on the BBC iPlayer, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0555wj1/being-james-galway

Interest declared: yours truly was called upon as a talking head. But really the best things about it are the substantial quantity of musical performances; the historical footage, including film of Galway playing with the Berlin Philharmonic, and under Leonard Bernstein; the Belfast-born flautist's own inimitable personality and humour; and a beautiful familiar voice-over, whom I recognised but couldn't identify. Turns out it's Jeremy Irons...

The real thing...

If you know my novel Hungarian Dances, you'll know I have a bit of a bee in the bonnet about this type of violinist... Roby Lakatos is the real thing: the descendent of Janos Bihari, the great primás who created many of the melodies snaffled by Brahms and Liszt, but more to the point, an utterly sensational violinist. The morning after his Barbican concert with the LSO last week, I interviewed him for The Amati Magazine.

Read it here - and do come and hear him in the bijou setting of the Langham, London, at the Amati exhibition on 29 March. Booking here. It is my very great pleasure to be introducing the ensemble on the night. (Good excuse for a new frock, too.)

Brecht and Weill: the bite lives on

Here's a piece I wrote for The Independent about Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which opens at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday. It's never been staged there before and it's about time. It stars Sir Willard White, Anne Sofie von Otter, Christine Rice and many more, and is staged by John Fulljames with a new translation by Jeremy Sams.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/brecht-has-lost-none-of-his-bite-how-the-message-from-a-1920s-opera-resonates-today-10094014.html

This exploration of the opera's themes by Will Self is well worth a watch, too.

International Women's Day: Violin Legend #1

This recording is pretty good quality for 1928. This was the year in which votes in the UK were extended to include all women over 21 (not only those over 30). Here is the incredible Jelly d'Arányi - pupil of Hubay, great-niece of Joseph Joachim, inspirer of Ravel's Tzigane, Vaughan Williams's Concerto Accademico, certain bits of Bartók and much more - playing Brahms's Hungarian No.8. Happy International Women's Day!

International Women's Day: World Piano Legends #2

Just found online the radio broadcast from 1963 in which John Amis interviews the glorious Dame Myra Hess, whose cut-glass accent and irrepressible humour are firmly in place. She remembers what happened when she took a "wrong turning" in Brahms 2 with Sir Henry Wood in 1908, a concert for which she received the "large fee" of 3 Guineas. "Sometimes I was ten and six to the good!" she declares of her mother's book-keeping.

Beecham, she says, was "impossible, because you never knew when you were going to get a rehearsal". And he was "terribly naughty", she adds, performing without the score in music that he didn't always know terribly well.

She reveals, too, that she used to play her own cadenzas, but the manuscripts were now "destroyed and burned". And she talks a good bit about the National Gallery wartime concerts.

Fab quote: "If Mozart isn't spontaneous, it's dead."

International Women's Day: World Piano Legend #1

If anyone thinks women cannot be the greatest instrumentalists in the world, they need to experience this, right now. Martha Argerich, filmed in 1966, plays Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.6.

(Please note, incidentally, that Argerich will be performing at the Wigmore Hall on 2 November in duo with Stephen Kovacevich, in a special concert to celebrate his 70th birthday. You want to be there.)

International Women's Day continues apace

Great to see International Women's Day really flying this year. There's such a lot going on that I feel quite boggled. Of course, one looks forward to the day when women's equal representation, recognition, pay and respect are taken for granted as human rights and none of this special stuff will be necessary any more. Sad to reflect that instead we're thanking our lucky stars that we live in a part of the world where we have the freedom to have this festival.

If you're in London, get yourself to the Southbank for the WOW Festival - Women of the World - culminating in the annual Mirth Control concert on Sunday night. It features Alice Farnham and Sian Edwards conducting an all-female orchestra in rare works by female composers including Florence Price, plus appearances by amazing singer Angel Blue, the brilliant West End star Sharon D Clarke, the marvellous young musician Ayanna Witter-Johnson, ace comedian Sarah Millican and more. Sandi Toksvig is compère.

Explore the full WOW programme here.



Over on BBC Radio 3 the celebratory programming started earlier this week and extends into next as well. UPDATE: fabulous article here by the R3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch covering this ground and more.

Here is their line-up for the weekend and next week. On Sunday it's the entire day.

Saturday 7 March

CD Review (0900-1215)

Andrew McGregor will be Building a Library on the Clara Schumann Piano Trio with pianist and broadcaster David Owen Norris

Music Matters (1215-1300)

Sara Mohr Pietsch presents a package examining how the world has changed for women writing music across the centuries

Sunday 8 March – International Women’s Day

Geoffrey Smith's Jazz (0000-0100)

Geoffrey Smith presents a portrait of American jazz singer, composer, pianist and actress Carmen McRae

Through the Night (0100-0700)

Through the Night broadcasts music exclusively written by female composers

Breakfast (0700-0900)

A special edition presented by Clemency Burton-Hill

Sunday Morning (0900-1100)

A special edition presented by Rob Cowan and Sarah Walker

Live Concert from the BBC Radio Theatre (1100-1300)

Suzy Klein presents a concert of music by Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and English composer and violist Rebecca Clarke live from the BBC Radio Theatre (1100-1300) with performances from Radio 3 New Generation Artists Lise Berthaud (viola) and Kitty Whatley (mezzo soprano)

Private Passions (1300-1400)

Michael Berkeley talks to composer Anna Meredith

The Early Music Show (1400-1500)

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and work of Italian Baroque singer and composer Barbara Strozzi

Choral Evensong (1500-1600)

A service from King’s College Cambridge with music composed by female composers

The Choir (1600-1700)

A live edition of with a performance of a new commission by young composer Rhiannon Randle by St Catherine’s Choir

Sunday Feature: From Convent to Concert Hall (1845-1930)

Dr Kate Kennedy tells the story of four string players who were pioneers in different eras, from the 18th to the 20th century with contributions from violinist Margaret Faultless and cellist Julian Lloyd Webber

Radio 3 Live in Concert (1930-2200)

Augusta Holmes: Andromede

Boulanger: D’un matin de Printemps

Tailleferre: Concerto for Two Pianos, Mixed Chorus, Saxophones and Orchestra

Chaminade: Konzertstucke

Mélanie Bonis: Trois Femmes de Legende

Katie Derham presenter

Noriko Ogawa piano

Pascal & Ami Roge piano duet

BBC National Chorus of Wales

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Jessica Cottis conductor

Drama on 3 (2200)

Broadcast premiere of Sophocles’ Electra starring Dame Kristin Scott Thomas

Monday 9 March – Friday 13 March

Composer of the Week (Monday-Friday, 1200-1300)

Donald Macleod interviews five female composers under the age of 35 - Charlotte Bray, Anna Clyne, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Hannah Kendall and Dobrinka Tabakova.

Kanye West makes a case for silence

From an online post relating the contents of Kanye West's talk to Oxford University:

“OK, everyone please be completely quiet, because I can literally hear a whisper, and it’ll throw off my stream of consciousness, and when I get my stream of consciousness going that’s when I give the best, illest quotes. Literally, a whisper can throw it off."

Um, right, so if Kanye West needs quiet in order to deliver this talk (you can read "more or less exactly" what he said at Oxford in that post), why should a pianist trying to perform the last three Beethoven sonatas need anything different? Hopefully this should put the kibosh well and truly on trendy ideas that we should allow talking, eating and texting in the concert hall.

RATTLE: HE'S IN

Today a dream has come true for the LSO.  They just confirmed that Sir Simon Rattle is to take over as music director in 2017. Congratulations, guys. Brava, managing director Kathryn McDowell, with her well-placed butterfly net. And good luck with everything this may bring to London at long last.

Wondering what this means for the rest of the orchestral scene in London, meanwhile.

Rattle said of his appointment:

“During my work with the LSO over the last years, I noticed that despite the Orchestra’s long and illustrious history, they almost never refer to it. Instead, refreshingly, they talk about the future, what can they make anew, what can they improve, how can they reach further into the community. In terms of musical excellence, it is clear that the sky's the limit, but equally important, in terms of philosophy, they constantly strive to be a twenty-first century orchestra. We share a dream in which performing, teaching and learning are indivisible, with wider dissemination of our art at its centre. I cannot imagine a better or more inspiring way to spend my next years, and feel immensely fortunate to have the LSO as my musical family and co-conspirators.”

Why the male domination of classical music may be coming to an end...

What I've been writing this week. 

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/28/why-male-domination-of-classical-music-might-end

Just in: BBC Young Musician piano winner leads the charge in Warsaw

We've just received the list of 160 pianists who have qualified for this year's "elimination rounds" at the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. Among the initial 160 contestants are five from the UK. Most familiar to our audiences is Yuanfan Yang, winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year piano final in 2012. The others are Otis William Beasley, Ashley Fripp, Kausikan Rajeshkumar and Alexander Ullman.

Those interested in statistics might like to know that Warsaw will host a total of 26 candidates from China, 25 from Japan, 24 from South Korea and 21 from Poland. Russia and the US are each the home of 11 contestants, there are six from France, five from Italy, four each from Canada and Ukraine and two each from the Czech Republic and Taiwan. Further competitors are from Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Latvia, Mongolia, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and Uzbekistan.

Note, though, that this is just the "elimination round". From these, 80 will be chosen to go forward to the actual competition. Five candidates are being allowed to "bypass" the elimination round, having won other big competitions before.

Last time the Chopin Competition revealed an extraordinary number of fine young artists, with Yulianna Avdeeva, Ingolf Wunder and Daniil Trifonov placed respectively first, second and third.

Good luck, guys. Full list here.

Here is Yuanfan in a spot of Chopin.

"This is a period of mass intimidation"

I went to visit rehearsals for The Indian Queen at ENO's West Hampstead studios and found the one and only Peter Sellars, who's directing it, tackling the ongoing situation with hugs.

Substantial interview with him proved fascinating and provocative.

"This is a period of mass intimidation, one where it's no accident that governments are not only cutting the arts but destroying education...They want a frightened, docile population that's easily manipulated – and the arts are about thinking for yourself..." 

Read more of it today in the Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/as-the-indian-queen-opens-can-peter-sellars-save-the-eno-10068028.html

Here's more about the music - "A sadness so deep it's life-giving," says Sellars.

When is a hall not a hall?

When it's a political football. In The Amati Magazine today, my thoughts on the mooted new venue for London and what it is perhaps really about... http://magazine.amati.com/149-comment/comment-hall-mirrors.html

Chopin around

It's the sort of documentary I didn't think they'd allow any more: a fabulously filmed celebration of a genuinely special artist, focusing on its subject, not some "celebrity" presenter, and with plenty of music. There's a certain poetic justice to the fact that Christopher Nupen, who captured the likes of Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim on film in the 1960s, is still around to document the talent of Daniil Trifonov. This mesmerising documentary captures the poetic fire of the young Russian pianist, who talks about "boiling" himself in the music. The film went out the other day on BBC4 and can be watched on the iPlayer for 28 days thereafter. Today is Chopin's birthday and one could do worse than celebrate by watching it. The whole thing is here.

Just one thing: the clips in the film of Trifonov's own Piano Concerto seem absolutely wonderful. I think we ought to have the whole thing as an adjunct - it is a substantial work that sounds well worth hearing.

Trifonov, though, has now gone off sick, having to drop out of a tour with the Kremerata Baltica. The search for a replacement artist for the remaining performances proved so dispiriting, according to Norman Lebrecht, that Kremer appears to have decided to cancel the rest of the tour and take a well-earned rest. In an open letter, Kremer blamed recalcitrant promoters who he says refused to accept any of his suggestions for a pianist who could take over the task of playing both the Chopin concerti on a substantial tour at short notice.

One artist they allegedly refused was Yulianna Avdeeva, the Russian pianist who took first prize at the Chopin Competition at which Trifonov himself pulled in third. Highly recommended by many musicians including Krystian Zimerman and Martha Argerich. A superb artist who by rights should be far too busy to be free to step in to such a thing. Here is what they're missing.

City sites mooted for That Hall

According to Building.co.uk, the search for a site for the new London concert hall, or "cultural hub" as some are inevitably calling it, is homing in on "the triangle between Moorgate, St Paul's and Farringdon tube stations". The report says that "a road tunnel under the Barbican complex may make way for the venue". The City of London Corporation is said to be keen on "much more intensive use of the area", especially once the Farringdon Crossrail station is ready in 2018.

More info here.

NEW HALL FOR LONDON: IT'S REAL

Or so they say. According to the Evening Standard and some other papers, Chancellor George Osborne is giving his blessing to...a feasibility study to see if there really is a watertight case for a new world-class concert hall in the UK capital. That isn't quite the same thing as saying that London is definitely going to have said hall, but it's got to start somewhere, and apparently the City of London Corporation is now looking for a good site. Here's the latest: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/george-osborne-backs-move-for-new-concert-hall-for-london-10056183.html

Just in: a statement from the Barbican:

Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Managing Director, Barbican and Kathryn McDowell, Managing Director, London Symphony Orchestra said:

“This commitment from the Chancellor to put new money into a feasibility study for a world-class music centre that serves London, Londoners, and the nation as a whole is a hugely exciting prospect.

“Culture is ever more important in defining our great cities, and this is a once-in-a-generation chance to explore how we could work with the City of London to create a state-of-the-art performance and education facility for the digital age that offers outstanding learning opportunities for all.”

We've been wanting this for years and years and years and decades and decades. It's a real breakthrough. First of all: thanks, guys.

So...to the reality. What happens now?

One wonders about the timing. If they find a site soon, then by the time all the processes are in place it will probably be time for Rattle to start at the LSO, assuming he is going to start at all, which remains in question. How long does it take to build a world-class concert hall these days, especially in London? Rattle is turning 60 this year. Perhaps this hall, if it materialises, will be ready to open for his 70th birthday.

OK, call me cynical. But there is a pernicious history in this country - and other places, not least France and Spain - of spending a lot of dosh on putting strange buildings in strange places for non-artistic purposes at the expense of the content. You need to invest not only in arts venues, but in art itself.

That means you need to treat performers better. Which means, in turn, that you need not only to provide better pay and conditions for your artistic companies, which you do, but also you need to ensure that all schoolchildren have the chance to learn about the arts and try their hands at them, you need to stop charging the earth for advanced high-level training - for example, you cannot with one hand introduce astronomical tuition fees at specialist colleges and with the other grumble that only rich kids go into acting - and you need to create a culture in which the value of music and arts for all is not constantly sniped at, but instead is accepted as a natural part of a civilised society. Arts, politics and education need to indulge in some joined-up thinking. (Over at The Amati Magazine, our Young Artist of the Week, BBC's Young Musician of the Year 2012 cellist Laura van der Heijden, has some strong words on music education.)

Some commentators have suggested that we don't need a hall and we should simply prioritise our performers instead. I think we need both. In an ideal world, it shouldn't be either or.

Look, it'll be great if it happens. It really will. But please, get it right this time?

OMG. Dancing Moomins?

What could be cuter than turning a Moomin book into a ballet? At Finnish National Opera they are rehearsing a new ballet of Moomin and the Comet, based on the classic children's book by Tove Jansson. Ananadah Kononen is choreographing, music is by Panu Aaltio. The Moomin blog says: "Although the body of the Moomins is not the most flexible for the ballet, the other characters of the Valley will take care of the classical ballet part."

Here are some photos by Sophia Jansson.

The ballet opens on 6 March at the Almi Hall. Those in Helsinki with strong winter constitutions can also see the Moomins dance at the free outdoors Winter Ball, on the National Opera piazza, on 28 February. More info and booking here.

KEVIN O'HARE, please can you bring them over to the Linbury? We love Moomins!

An Anglophile violinist celebrates

Philippe Graffin. Photo: Marco Borrgreve

Hooray for Philippe Graffin, the Anglophile French violinist of London. He has been living here for 20 years and is marking this 0anniversary with three concerts on two days. Tonight at Cadogan Hall he gives the world premiere of Peter Fribbins's new Violin Concerto, written especially for him, with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jean-Jacques Kantorow, and throws in Ravel's Tzigane for good measure.

On Friday he joins forces with musical friends at St John's Smith Square for an evening of two performances: first, at 6.30pm (NB time) - chamber music by Debussy, Elgar and David Matthews with a line-up including Raphael Wallfisch, Roger Chase, David Waterman, Alastair Beatson, Marisa Gupta, Emeline Dessi, Chen Halevi and David Matthews himself (more info here). Then at 9.15pm there's the fabulous Enescu Violin Sonata No.3, two premieres of works written for Philippe, and a collaboration with Tango Factory from Buenos Aires to conclude with some headily gorgeous Piazzolla.

We hope he will stay longer. Here's to the next 20 years.

Here is Philippe with pianist Claire Désert in the Valse Triste by Franz von Vecsey - a 'Hungarian Dances' Concert favourite, from the album he made to go with the novel in 2008...

[UPDATE: post amended 18/2/15 to reflect fact that he's been here 20 years, not 25. Moral: never blog after a good lunch.]

Rattle's Sibelius...

I went along to the Barbican on Tuesday for the opening night of the Rattle/Berlin Sibelius cycle. My review is for The Independent and should be online there soon. I wanted to post it here before The London Residency comes to its close tomorrow...

*****

Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle

Barbican, London, 10 January 2015

Jessica Duchen

The Barbican was heaving at the concrete seams as the Berliner Philharmoniker began its London residency, the promise of which has been engendering unprecedented heat. Divided between this hall and the Southbank Centre, it features Sir Simon Rattle at the helm of his German orchestra, widely termed the best in the world. The expectations of this orchestra are such that tickets for its Mahler Second Symphony at the weekend are rumoured to be changing hands for £200 a piece. Meanwhile Rattle’s mooted appointment as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra is still up in the air.

Opening their complete cycle of symphonies by Sibelius with the first two, Rattle and the Berliners proved at the peak of their powers: an orchestra of individual virtuosi playing as one, as if in supersized chamber music, with Rattle, conducting from memory, leading the way with an assurance that proved at every turn that the music is part of him and he of it.

Rattle has a long history with the Sibelius symphonies – he recorded them back in his years last century with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – and his interpretations have grown into something at once individual and universal. Here the progress of the composer's imaginative sophistication from the first to the second symphonies shone out: No.1, dating from 1900, aching in the shadow of Tchaikovsky; No.2 moving into new dramatic territories in which no step is safe, no illusion unquestioned, yet no lament unanswered by hope.

For some, Rattle’s interpretations might at first seem too rich, too warm; we imagine Sibelius as rugged and lonely, shivering through the Finnish winter. But his ability to pace the drama paid ample dividends: working in long lines and giant paragraphs, generating energy from small details that gradually rise to take over, striking just the right balance to cast new light over the precipices, the power of thought is made palpable with overwhelming intensity.

Above all, though, listening to this orchestra is an experience of astonishing sensuality, the aural equivalent of, for example, bathing in asses’ milk laced with rose petals while sipping the finest vintage Bordeaux and watching the Northern Lights at their most spectacular, topped by a meteor shower. If you thought an orchestra could not do that, be advised: it can.

This opulence of tone is the Berliner Philharmoniker’s own, honed long ago under the baton of Herbert von Karajan; Rattle is in some ways åits custodian. But it is clear how much he will be leaving behind in Berlin when he departs, and equally clear what we would be missing if he does not ultimately accept that post with the LSO. Frankly we need Rattle here more than he needs us. If a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like this is missed, if the UK’s only home-grown great maestro is allowed to slip through our fingers thanks to finance and mealy-mouthed politicians, it would be an act of criminal irresponsibility against the cultural life of the UK.

ENO: souls, soles and shoestrings

Yesterday's bombshell about ENO arrived wrapped in rose-scented words just in time for Valentine's Day. Some people even fell for the good news story: £30m over two years from ACE, woo-hoo!

Oh dear. It turns out that this money is "special measures" (it's the original core funding that was in place anyway. plus £7m in transition funds, as we understand it). If the company doesn't shape up in a way that the Arts Council England approves, it could then lose all its government funding. And that, you could say, would probably mean tickets. The wrong sort of tickets.

The prospect of ENO vanishing from the planet is devastating for music lovers in London. Thinking of the finest operatic performances I've seen in the last few years, I'd have to point to many things that simply would not have taken place at Covent Garden. John Adams, Vaughan Williams, Terry Gilliam's Berliozes, Rosenkavalier staged by McVicar with Amanda Roocroft, Sarah Connolly, Sophie Bevan and Sir John Tomlinson, and that extraordinary, desperately underrated and undersold Martinu opera Julietta. Calixto Bieito. Peter Sellars. The list could go on. Not so much English National Opera, perhaps, as British International Opera. There have also been a few very big, very expensive mistakes - yet without a willingness to take risks, opera as an art form really would die. And London without all that adventure would be like...well, New York, without New York City Opera.

Which, of course, has gone. Operatic Manhattan now has only the Met. Comparisons are being drawn, even ones predicated as if this is not a bad thing. But it is a very bad thing. NYCO's closure appears to have been the result, as far as one can tell from here, of a gigantic f***-up and could conceivably have been avoided had things been handled differently earlier in the process.

Earlier in the process, as it happens, the ACE's chairman, Peter Bazalgette, was formerly the chairman of ENO. Since his move to the ACE, ENO has been targeted for bigger funding cuts than any other organisation still in the organisation's national 'portfolio'. According to the Guardian Bazalgette has reportedly not been participating in the ACE's discussions this week.

One hopes profoundly that in the two years' grace it's been so, er, kindly granted, the company can pull together and find means to survive. That what might look like cynical attempts to kill it off are not in fact that. That whatever's going on at the micro-level behind the scenes can be put to one side in favour of the macro-level bigger picture. That artistic vision can be respected on the one hand and financial prudence accepted on the other.

Since the resignation of the executive director, Henriette Götz, two weeks ago Anthony Whitworth-Jones, formerly of Glyndebourne and then Garsington, has been brought in to help. It is interesting to reflect that Glyndebourne and Garsington are both privately funded. JDCMB is a passionate believer in the principle of public funding for the arts, but if ENO has to be privatised, it would still be better than losing it altogether. Reduce it to middle-of-the-road potboiler productions - as some would like to - and there's really not much point having it at all; the good news is that neither Glyndebourne nor Garsington has ever resorted to that.

This looks to me like something one step from Shock Doctrine-style brinksmanship - it is certainly quacking like that particular duck - but let's keep fundamental ideas strong. This is a company with a big vision, a big theatre, an expensive art form and not a big budget under those circumstances. The ACE has got them over a barrel and something may have to give. Sacrifice real estate if necessary; find other pricing models and fundraising opportunities, by all means; but whatever happens, whoever leaves, don't jettison the principle of artistic vision that has kept ENO a truly international force. Let's keep ENO BIO.

Rattle: "European orchestral conditions are like the wildest edges of science fiction in our country"

Sir Simon Rattle: only on his terms
Photo: c Sheila Rock/EMI Classics

Following a spectacular opening for his London Residency with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon has been speaking to BBC TV News. Yesterday, in an interview with the BBC's Will Gompertz, he declared: 

"I think it's clear that London and Munich are the two great cities in the world that don't have proper concert halls. The music lovers of London and of the country would deserve to have something where also the orchestras can flourish. 

"You have no idea how wonderful an orchestra like the London Symphony Orchestra can sound in a great concert hall. The Barbican is serviceable. But it's like when I've seen so many young violinists finally be handed a great violin - it's a whole other world."

He also drew a pertinent comparison between the general conditions and the generous rehearsal time he has with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the LSO's relentless schedule of performing and touring. 

"The kind of conditions a European orchestra has, which any orchestra would take for granted in Europe, are on the wildest edges of science fiction in our country, particularly in London. It's hard to explain to people just how hard and brutally these London orchestras work."

Will Gompertz asked him whether he was saying that if he can alter the conditions towards something a little closer to that of Berlin, then he would accept the LSO music director post, and if not, he wouldn't? 

"I think the conditions for the players are incredibly important," said Sir Simon, "because it's a matter of what actually people can achieve." 

Gompertz concluded that Rattle would come back to Britain - but only on his own terms. Which is pretty much what we thought. 

The sound of the Berlin orchestra in Sibelius's first two symphonies was so overwhelming, by the way, that I scarcely slept a wink that night. My review should be up at the Independent website soon.

LAKATOS TO PLAY AT AMATI EXHIBITION

Quite a thrill from Amati today: the phenomenal Roby Lakatos, no less, is to give an exclusive performance in an intimate cabaret setting during the next Amati Exhibition, to be held at the Langham Hotel, on 29 March. Tickets are £24 and include a glass of bubbly. Please book SOON because numbers are strictly limited.

Please come over to The Amati Magazine for full details of how to book. See you there!

Taking Polunin to church

Sergei Polunin, "Take Me to Church" by Hozier, Directed by David LaChapelle from David LaChapelle Studio on Vimeo.

It seems not so long since I went into a Royal Opera House interview room to meet a 21-year-old Russian soloist who'd been described to me, memorably, as a "sweet boy". Er, right...next thing I knew he was talking about hankering to be part of a gang, and showing me his tiger-scratch tattoos. His name was Sergei Polunin.

He had itchy feet, and not only to dance. Sure enough, a few months later he walked out on the company and went back to Russia. Since then he's rarely in the news without controversy attached. He's ambitious, hungry, eats up experience, eats up life and its dark side - and here, in this astonishing solo, he feeds on our souls as he shows us, perhaps, his own. His classical technique is impeccable, but it's the raw emotional power with which he invests this piece that makes this perhaps the essence of 21st-century ballet and marks him out as a dance artist whose journey has perhaps only just begun.

'Take me to Church' is a song by Hozier and the fabulous filming is by David La Chapelle. Many thanks to Graham Spicer, 'Gramilano', for posting a link to it on Twitter.

Making a splash with Der fliegende Holländer

Royal Opera House, 5 February 2015. ****
(This is my review for The Independent, now online here.)

Adrianne Pieczonka as Senta, with the chorus of ghost sailors
Photo: Clive Barda

Before the opening night of Der fliegende Holländer some of the Royal Opera House Orchestra had already taken a soaking; apparently the patch of on-stage sea for act III found its way into the pit at the dress rehearsal. But Tim Albery’s Olivier Award-nominated staging, first seen in 2009, is an immersive and immersing experience, pulling you into its depths even if you don’t get splashed en route.

Like many of the most interesting Wagner productions, it is not overloaded with activity, but homes in on human interaction, within elemental shapes; the basic concave shell could be a sail, a wave, a ship’s belly, or the slope of the shore’s hillside. Dark, stark and strong, it is impressively lit by David Finn, with intriguing angles, sometimes harsh, sometimes beautiful, usually symbolic. There seems no need to interpret to excess. Senta’s obsession with the Dutchman comes across not as psychosis, but a genuine love; at the end, instead of throwing herself into the sea, the poor girl seems to die of grief. The mini model ship, though, sometimes feels like a prop too far.

There are two ways, very broadly speaking, to treat this opera. It can emphasise the influence of its musical roots, including Italian bel canto, Weber and Marschner (his Der Vampyr); or it can look forward to the composer’s mature masterpieces. It can be gothic horror with high emotion and great tunes; or a dusky foreshadowing of the philosophical drives that Wagner brought to bear on the Ring cycle and its companions. This account is the latter in no uncertain terms: Albery’s atmospheric staging and Andris Nelsons’s spacious conducting combine into a seriously grown-up angle.

Bryn Terfel’s Dutchman is so strongly characterised that the doomed seaman’s entire history seems visible at his first entrance, weary and burdened, dragging the ship’s rope around his shoulders; vocally he paces himself finely, saving the strongest for last as the dramatic tension peaks. As Senta, Adrianne Pieczonka is simply magnificent, with a warm and radiant voice that melts in its lower register and cuts higher up, and the ability to inhabit the role to heartbreaking effect. The central pair are more than superbly supported by Peter Rose as Senta’s father, Daland; tenor Michael König is a lyrical Erik; and in smaller roles the contributions of Ed Lyon as the Steersman and Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Mary were outstanding. One of the night’s biggest plaudits, though, goes to the chorus: the terrifying clash of the locals and the ghost ship’s crew in act III packs a massive punch.

Some elements perhaps still need to settle a little; on this opening night it was hard not to wonder whether Nelsons’ drawn-out tempi challenged sustaining power too much. The overture dragged surprisingly – not aided by the hypnotic waves of grey curtain rolling from left to right – but Nelsons’ skill as an accompanist with forensic control of line and texture allows the singers to shine without shouting, to be supported without ever being drowned.

On beauty...

'Stars' by VOCES8 from VOCES8 on Vimeo.

There's such a thing as beauty in music. Actually there are many different things such as beauty in music. You can find it in the darkest, most terrifying concepts from Wagner and Mahler, in the electronic eleventh dimensions of Boulez, in the ambivalent, sexy purity of Fauré - and in the music of the young Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds, an increasingly sought-after voice in the spheres of contemporary choral music. He is writing a big choral piece to feature in his fellow countryman Andris Nelsons's farewell concerts with the CBSO in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, in June, and we want to be there.

In the meantime, a gorgeous piece of his called 'Stars' features in a new album from the ace vocal ensemble Voces8, entitled Lux. They have made a rather exquisite snowy dancer video to go with it. The closing word of the piece is 'Majesty' and the film apparently aims to evoke the sense of this word through the celebration of the human form. It's above. Enjoy.