Oranges, lemons and La Calinda...

I'm counting the days until the Wexford Opera Festival. Ten at present. Very pleased to be going back this year to an event of which I've loved every minute the times before that I have been there, and this year they're doing Delius's Koanga, a blink-and-you-missed-it rarity (it was done once at Sadler's Wells in 2007 and I blinked and missed it - or may have been away in Bosnia at the time - a pity one can't be in several places all at once). Posted below is a short piece I wrote for yesterday's Independent about why it's so special. 

First, here's Sir Malcolm Sargent, with an introduction to 'La Calinda' that isn't terribly accurate about its setting. The opera is set in Louisiana. It was Delius himself who was on an orange plantation in Florida...of which more in a mo.

Delius’s Koanga is the opera I have waited all my life to see. Stagings are so rare that if you blink, you miss it. Yet the work contains one of the composer’s best-loved pieces, ‘La Calinda’, with its irresistible oboe solo that seems all mingled smiles and tears; my husband and I both love it so much that we walked out to it after our wedding ceremony. Now, at last, Koanga is being presented complete at the Wexford Festival, Ireland – the best friend anywhere of deserving, under-performed operas.

Delius, 1907

Unfortunately it is rare for a good reason: its distinctly tricky story, based partly on the novel The Gradissimes by George Washington Cable. Koanga is an African king and Voodoo priest who has been brought to Louisiana as a slave. He loves Palmyra, the mulatto daughter of a slave girl and a white plantation owner, and agrees to convert to Christianity to marry her. But the overseer wants Palmyra for himself; everything goes horribly wrong and the tale concludes in tragedy.

Just imagine the problems such a scenario presents for a creative team in 2015. Its director, Michael Gieleta, whose staging of Maria by Roman Statkowski took Wexford by storm in 2011, nevertheless points out that the issues Koanga raises are absolutely current: religion, sexual abuse, power and of course race.

Blacking up is not an option. “The characters are defined not by their skin colour, but by their body language and by their relationships,” Gieleta says. “This is about captors and captives.” Koanga and Palmyra are played by two exciting young singers, the American baritone Norman Garrett and the South African soprano Nozuko Teto; and Gieleta’s preparations for the production included holding dance workshops in South Africa.

Back in 1895, Koanga might have seemed an unlikely topic for a British composer – but Delius had his own reasons for choosing a tragic love story set amid the toxic race relations of the Deep South. Born to a German immigrant family in Bradford, he moved to Florida in 1884, aged 22, to run an orange plantation. Here he fell in love with an African-American girl, whose family would previously have been slaves – and she bore his child. Later he returned to the US to look for her and their son. They had vanished. She may have gone into hiding for fear he would take the boy away.

This startling episode was confirmed by Eric Fenby, Delius’s amanuensis, in a recorded phone conversation with the violinist Tasmin Little, who researched the topic in 1997. Fenby was well aware, too, of how close Koanga was to its composer’s heart. “Usually, once a work was written, Delius's interest in it would wane,” he wrote. “For Koanga, however, he showed concern as though it held some secret bond that bound him to his youth in Florida. It was the one work he deplored in old age he was never likely to hear again...”

Clearly Fenby regarded Koanga as the work that was inspired by Delius’s lost love and the child he never knew. Its conductor at Wexford, Stephen Barlow, confirms the special nature of the work: “The libretto may be a bit clunky,” he says, “but some of the music has the great, sensual sweep of Delius at his finest.”

And if ‘La Calinda’ feels like smiles through tears, perhaps that was with good reason all along.  

Koanga, Wexford Festival Opera, Ireland, 21-30 October. Box office: +353 53 912 2144

You know that nightmare that you're turning pages for Brahms and this happens?

Page-turning may be the most terrifying job in classical music, but the other day violinist Anna Reszniak - in normal life concertmaster of the Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra - stepped into that role and saved the day for violin and piano duo Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt as they tacked Brahms's Scherzo from the 'FAE Sonata'. Her cool head and professional demeanour kept the music on the rails - and the stands - at the Sendesaal Bremen, and earned her a guest star spot at the curtain calls. Brava, Anna!

We know FAE stands for Joseph Joachim's motto 'frei aber einsam' (free but lonely), but I bet there were some alternatives interpretations flying around after that...

The Brontës' piano comes to life

Linger - Ailís Ní Ríain @ The Bronte Parsonage Museum from Ailís Ní Ríain on Vimeo.

Tomorrow the Irish composer Aílís Ní Ríain launches a fascinating new project at the home of the Brontë family in Haworth, Yorkshire. She has written six new pieces specifically for the literary siblings' own piano - the sound that might have lived alongside the creation of Emily's Wuthering Heights, Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Aílís and the Brontës' piano

The project, entitled Linger, has been recorded and its component pieces will be played in the various rooms of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where they can be heard until 4 January. There'll also be a concept album based on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Aílís, who was born in Cork and whose composition teachers included Nicola LeFanu, Kevin Malone and Adam Gorb, has lived in northern England for 20 years and is currently based near Haworth. She says:

The pieces are composed to 'lock into each other' when heard at a distance. In essence, Linger is a large work for six intertwining, contrapuntal voices which are separated into six rooms in the Brontë home. Elements of each piece will 'drift' or 'leak' out of each room forming a sonorous space all of its own on and near the stairwell. Visitors are invited to dwell in quiet contemplation and thought; to linger.”

The piano itself has undergone a three-year restoration process and Aílís says it is "beautiful".

Scriabin and gone, but marvellous

Stunning encounter with Scriabin's Third Symphony at the RFH the other night made me realise I never posted on JDCMB the article I wrote about him during the Proms, all about the grandiose excesses and giant dreams of this very tiny Russian (honestly, you should see his evening suit, which is on display in his flat in Moscow...). Oliver Knussen, who was conducting the Poem of Ecstasy and arranged some piano pieces for orchestra which were played on Saturday evening, had some fascinating things to say, too. It was in the Independent on 1 August. Here goes.

Scriabin's Bechstein, in the composer's Moscow apartment

A tiny man with a vast imagination, Alexander Scriabin is possibly the most intriguing of the composers whose anniversaries are marked at this year’s Proms. He died aged only 43 exactly a hundred years ago and the Prom on 6 August features his Poem of Ecstasy, a work that represents the very pinnacle of his exotic, even erotic musical language.

The late Ken Russell once wrote a radio play entitled The Death of Alexander Scriabin, in which the composer encounters the occultist Aleister Crowley; the notion is fictional, yet has its appeal, for the spellbinding darkness of Scriabin at his best can resemble musical black magic. From an aristocratic and military family in Moscow, he started out composing piano music much influenced by Chopin, but later became preoccupied with mysticism and theosophy. He dreamed of creating as his magnum opus a multimedia work, Mysterium - “a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world,” he wrote – for performance in the Himalayas, but did not live to complete it.

The British composer Oliver Knussen is conducting the Poem of Ecstasy at the Proms; he says he has been under Scriabin’s spell since boyhood. “The uniquely sensuous and hypnotic harmonic world, fabulous orchestral colours, and textures teeming with Fabergé-like detail have exerted a powerful attraction for me since my teens,” Knussen says. “It's especially seductive music to accompany the time when one's hormones are ragingly active – but the fascination has deepened over the years. 

The museum curator displays Scriabin's lightbox

“Scriabin’s mystical side was of enormous creative importance to him; his writings belong firmly in the world of Madame Blavatsky, et al; and the self-glorifying messianic ambitiousness certainly got out of control towards the end of his life,” he remarks. “But it is the quality and originality of the music itself that is most important. Scriabin made his own surprisingly rational way into a world of extreme chromaticism completely independently of Schoenberg. One wonders how this might have developed had he not died at 43.” 

Scriabin’s Moscow apartment is now a museum: the composer’s piano takes pride of place and is often played by visiting pianists making a pilgrimage; and his diminutive evening suit is on display - he was just over five feet tall. On his desk stands a wood-mounted circle of six different-coloured electric bulbs, which can light up in various combinations. 

This modest device aided and abetted Scriabin as he composed his Prometheus – The Poem of Fire, an attempt to bring his synaesthesia (the correlation of two senses, here sound and colour) directly into his music. Colour in relation to tone is written in to the score at one point; orchestras sometimes attempt to include it with the use of coloured light. Knussen does not quite approve: “It’s most often an embarrassment unless done with great care and taste,” he says. “Scriabin's music is too strange and subtle to be treated as some sort of proto-hippie/rave lightshow.” 

It is also too significant and influential for that. The Poem of Ecstasy was considered startlingly modern on its first hearing in 1908: “Prokofiev in his diary says that he went to a rehearsal together with Miaskovsky and that neither of them understood it at all,” Knussen recounts. “But Stravinsky certainly did; although he was rude about Scriabin in later life, neither The Firebird or Le Rossignol would sound as they do without Scriabin in the background. 

“I myself have been profoundly influenced by Scriabin’s harmony,” he adds,  “which to me is embarrassingly easy to hear in, for example, my Third Symphony, Where the Wild Things Are, and especially my piano music. As I said, once you're hooked, you're hooked.”

Maestro Lucidity

I record all my interviews on my iPhone and sometimes, as you know if you have one, these little contraptions decide they know how to spell people's names better than you do. While I was saving my interview with Fabio Luisi in Zurich a couple of weeks ago, some predictive text happened and what I ended up with was Fabio Lucidity.

In fact, it's not inappropriate. I had a wonderful long interview with him that traversed his background, training, attitude to opera directors, what it's like working with Christian Gerhaher and much more. But the paper wanted the bit about the perfumery he runs on the side, so that piece appears below and I will offer more of the interview at a later point.

Luisi is in London today with the Zürich Opera, performing Wozzeck in concert at the Royal Festival Hall. I saw it whole, with Andreas Homoki's production, in Switzerland, right after the interview, and it is absolutely amazing and if you're here, you should go. I found it amazing, incidentally, that any conductor would do an interview all of two hours before curtain up on a new production, first night of the season, an opera he's never done before. But that, dear readers, is Maestro Lucidity for you.

UPDATE, 8.42am: I've just heard that unfortunately Christian Gerhaher is not well and won't be singing tonight. His place will be taken by Leigh Melrose, who sang Wozzeck at ENO and was terrific. So, still go.

Fabio Luisi. Photo: Barbara Luisi Photography

You might think that being principal conductor of two world-class opera houses would be enough to keep anyone busy. Fabio Luisi (56) divides his musical time principally between the Zürich Opera and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He is at the helm for the Swiss company’s forthcoming visit to London’s Royal Festival Hall, opening the Southbank Centre’s International Orchestras Series 15/16 with a concert performance of Berg’s opera Wozzeck, starring the German baritone Christian Gerhaher.

But this soft-spoken maestro from Genoa has a startling extra strand to his life: he has his own perfume business, FL Parfums.

“I was always interested in perfumes,” Luisi says, “and one day I thought: why don’t I try it for myself? About four or five years ago I started to read, to get informed, to try by myself to make mixtures. I had a teacher and continue to learn. It’s a continuous learning process; it never ends.”

He likes to use essential oils in his scents – indeed, has recently qualified as an aromatherapist. Some of the perfumes are inspired by music; two are named for elements of Debussy’s La mer – Jeux du Vagues and Jeux du Vent – and for another, Invincible, Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony was his chief “muse”.

Luisi’s personal balance of ingredients – whether in music, life or perfume – include focus, sensitivity and organisation in what one imagines are equal parts. Slight, wiry, not remotely flamboyant, he directs the energy where it needs to go: into the creative task in hand, whatever it may be. Most perfume hobbyists might never consider turning a passion into a business – but for Luisi, perhaps if something is worth doing, it is worth doing thoroughly? “Possibly,” he agrees, laughing. “I can’t stand it when people do not care about quality.

“To be a perfectionist is a challenge,” he admits. “I try to do it well. Why are we doing this?” Music, that is. “It’s not for the money! For the audience? Yes, for the audience – but also for the respect of what we are doing. I think how much energy, thought, passion and time Alban Berg put into Wozzeck; I feel forced to do it well for him, for the work itself, and to show the audience how great this opera is.

“Sometimes I can do it, sometimes not as good as I want,” he adds. “But my father always used to say, ‘You have to try not harder - harder is not enough - but hardest. Then if you don’t achieve that goal, even if you are a little bit behind it, the result will still be good. But if you don’t aim for the best, you will never achieve any goal.’ And this is right.”

His father was a conductor, as it happens – a train conductor. Every small boy’s dream? “Mine too,” Luisi smiles. “Sometimes he would take me on the train in the driver’s cab. I loved him and I loved his job.”

Zürich Opera, Southbank International Orchestras Series, Royal Festival Hall, London, 2 October. Box office: 0844 875 0073

"I played a radiated piano" - Martha Argerich speaks in Hiroshima

An actual interview with the extremely press-shy Martha Argerich has appeared in a Japanese newspaper after the great pianist visited Hiroshima. 

In it she reveals that she played a piano that had been subject to radiation from the atomic bomb that destroyed the city in 1945, saying: "It was very much taken care of and had a lovely sound. I know the story of Akiko (Kawamoto, who played the piano). She was not obviously injured (by the atomic bomb) but the next day she died (of radiation) at 19."

She also declares that both the Holocaust and Hiroshima must be remembered as human tragedies, and speaks about her recent collaborations with Daniel Barenboim: "I have no musical disagreement with him, until now at least."

Read it all here.

Here are Argerich and Barenboim playing a Schubert duet by way of encore...

Sibelius rising

Sibelius with his piano. Photo: sibelius.fi

I'm off to Birmingham tomorrow to give a pre-concert talk about Sibelius for the CBSO (though unfortunately am fighting a lurgy and need to get my voice back pronto - please forgive me if I sound a little croaky). https://cbso.co.uk/event/sibelius-fifth

The concert, at Symphony Hall, concludes with the Symphony No.5 and it's good to see that it's being broadcast live on Radio 3 so we will all be able to enjoy Ed Gardner's conducting of this utterly scrumptious, inspired, original, glorious symphony for a little while thereafter. In the first half there's the Mendelssohn 'Hebrides' Overture and Lars Vogt is the soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto in E flat, K271. The first of the two performances is tonight.

As for Sibelius - there is too much to say and squeezing everything into 25-30 minutes is no easy task, so I'm going to focus on the question of why, when we had a composer of such genius who was once voted the most popular classical composer ever, even ahead of Beethoven, and he lived to be 91, there wasn't more of his music. There's much to explore and chew over. Do come along if you're in town. Booking here: https://cbso.co.uk

Why pop is played everywhere you go

Here's a fascinating piece that explains how and why ubiquitous, inescapable, commercial pop music is not very good for us.

Here are a few of its salient points.

-- Pop music has been dumbed down over the decades. Compared to the good songs of the sixties, today we're getting watered-down tat with scant musical content, using only a few basic chords.

-- These limitations can make us less creative, leading us to expect less of ourselves and others and our art, and this encourages us not to think outside the box.

-- Poor-quality pop is being used 'to brainwash listeners through predatory marketing strategies across all media channels'.

-- And note, this also shapes the way kids grow up.

-- It says, too, that songs are not played everywhere, constantly, because they are popular. They are played to make them popular. 

Regular readers of JDCMB will already be familiar with my theory that when people have the opportunity to hear classical music, they mostly love it. It's just that it is not played very much, very widely, in places where it can be frequently and regularly stumbled across.

Read the whole thing here:

http://mic.com/articles/98310/scientists-prove-that-pop-music-is-literally-ruining-our-brains

Opera company pushes up school results

Here's what Opera North has to say about the results of its schools programmes with In Harmony in Leeds and Hull. It's more proof that learning music helps with learning everything.

We all know this by now. Yet how many more times do we have to hear it before that powers-that-be take some notice of it and make sure that every schoolchild in the country can have access to music education? See info below from ON's press office.

DRAMATIC SATS RESULTS INCREASE AT SCHOOLS WORKING WITH OPERA NORTH

Opera North, the national opera company in the North of England, is celebrating a dramatic increase in academic achievement with two primary schools in Yorkshire, where it delivers intensive music programmes as part of the Company’s extensive Education work.

Windmill Primary School in Belle Isle, Leeds (In Harmony Opera North), and Bude Park Primary School in Bransholme, Hull (Opera North Singing School) have both seen significant rises of up to 20% in their KS2 SATS results this year.

As part of the Opera North programmes, both primary schools allocate up to 3 hours of musical delivery within curriculum time every week for every child, with children taking part in up to 7.5 hours of musical delivery overall. Leaders at the two schools strongly believe that the music programmes enhance both personal and academic development.

At Windmill Primary School, 2015 results in Key Stage 2 SATS exams, taken by 10 and 11 year olds, have increased the percentage of children attaining a Level 4 in Reading from 78% in 2014 to 98.7% in 2015.

In Writing, 86.7% achieved Level 4 or above, up from 75.6%, while the results in Maths increased from 73.2% to 93.3% of children attaining Level 4 or above.

In Harmony Opera North, funded by Arts Council England and the Department for Education, began in Windmill Primary School in the Belle Isle area of South Leeds, in January 2013. Every child in the school participates in up to 3 hours musical activity per week during curriculum time and many children attend Opera North ‘After School’ music sessions three times a week. Most of the 362 pupils play a string instrument and enjoy weekly group instrumental lessons and orchestra sessions; everyone sings in an age banded choir.

All of the children enjoy giving regular performances to family and friends and they have all had the opportunity to perform at several events with the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North; initiatives which helped parental engagement with the school rise from 7%-39% in 2013.

Andy Gamble, Executive Headteacher at Windmill Primary School in Belle Isle, Leeds said:

“I am delighted with these results, which prove that the In Harmony Opera North programme at Windmill Primary School continues to go from strength to strength. We have observed many significant effects on the pupils’ skills such as teamwork, co-operation, social skills and self-confidence. It is my belief that the cultural enrichment provided by In Harmony Opera North over the last three years has had a direct impact on the positive learning culture here at Windmill and subsequently contributed towards these improved results for our children.”

Helen Miller, Headteacher at Bude Park Primary School in Bransholme, Hull, said:

“The benefits of a rich musical curriculum have been well-documented and these results are already speaking volumes about the value of the arts and music in the classroom.  In addition, by offering our children frequent performance opportunities with professional musicians from Opera North both within their local community and across Hull we have been able to increase the children’s levels of confidence and self-worth.

“Parents are also developing real pride in their children’s increased abilities, and they acknowledge that the opportunities that their children are being offered is broadening the horizons and expectations for what they can achieve. We anticipate that as our partnership with Opera North continues, this confidence will enable our children to become more resilient, creative, successful learners who are able to manage their feelings, have empathy for others, and develop their personal identity.”

Is the next Carlos Acosta a 15-year-old South African?

The Royal Academy of Dance has just announced the winners of this year's Genée International Ballet Competition. It's one of the dance world's most prestigious prizes and former winners have included Steven McRae, Lauren Cuthbertson and Leanne Benjamin, amongst others. Gold Medal for 2015 has gone to a 15-year-old South African boy named Leroy Mokgatle. This year was also the first time that the Darcey Bussell Genée Bursaries have been available to help widen access to the competition, which is held in a different location every year.

There was a live streaming from the final. But anyway, I just looked up Leroy Mokgatle on Youtube and found this, from the South African International Ballet Competition a year ago, where he won Gold Medal, aged 14.

Just look at this. He's amazing.

Spot of Mahler with your breakfast?

Medici.tv is live-streaming Mahler Symphony No.2 from Mexico City right now - the LPO is on tour there and the conductor is Alondra de la Parra. Sounds absolutely amazing. (Btw, my OH is not playing - he took the Mexico tour off and is safely at home watching in his pjs.) Catch it here, this minute.

Rumbles from the tour across the Atlantic suggest that the orchestra has taken to de la Parra in a big way. The Mahler, what we've heard so far, would seem to bear this out.

You can find out more about her on her website - and listen to performances from the tour there too!

Why Sleep is a smash hit

I had a fascinating chat with Max Richter recently about his new piece, Sleep, which is eight hours long and designed to be slept through. A one-hour version on CD has gone straight to the top of the classical charts and has made it into the pop ones too. The premiere of the long one takes place at the Wellcome Collection - overnight. I couldn't resist asking him what happens if people snore.

My piece was in the Independent the other day, but in case you missed it and fancy giving Sleep a whirl, here it is...

When composers unveil new works, they do not generally want the audience to nod off. Not so Max Richter. The intention behind his latest piece, Sleep – which is eight hours long – is that his listeners should slumber peacefully throughout. He has termed it “my personal lullaby for a frenetic world” and “a manifesto for a slower pace of existence”. The world premiere at the Wellcome Collection on 26 September will apparently offer beds instead of chairs – and as it is broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 you can even try it at home. 

Richter, 49, knows plenty about frenetic pace. This German-born British composer’s works have become increasingly high-profile, and many are ambitious in scale. His Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons was a smash hit in 2014; his score for the Royal Ballet’s Woolf Works triumphed earlier this year, and his many film soundtracks include Testament of Youth, Sarah’s Key and Waltz with Bashir. Yet the notion of a piece devoted to the vital nature of sleeping, he says, simply wouldn’t leave him alone. 

“My starting point was a personal fascination,” says Richter. “I couldn’t ignore the idea. It kept popping up while I was in the middle of working on other things. It was something I had to get off my chest.”

The premiere is to be given not in a traditional concert hall, but at the Wellcome Collection, central London, where it forms part of a long weekend of talks, discussions and performances entitled ‘Why Music?’, from 25 to 27 September. A collaboration with BBC Radio 3, this intensive series explores the power of music and the way it can affect our brains, minds and bodies; in the middle, Sleep will become the longest piece the BBC has ever broadcast. 

The work is in 31 sections, each bearing a title such as “Cassiopeia”, “moth-like stars”, “Dream 11 (whisper music)” or “nor earth, nor boundless sea”. “I often choose titles from literature that I love,” Richter says. “Music is writing and storytelling, so, for me at least, the titles are a clue, giving people a door into that material.”

Sleeping is, of course, vital to us all. “I have a sense that while I’m asleep some of the most important work is taking place ‘under the hood’,” Richter says. “I started talking with the neuroscientist David Eagleman, and it seems that cognitive mental processes really are going on while we’re sleeping that relate to our waking life. I think most creative people would intuitively agree: for instance, if we sleep on a decision we often feel more comfortable about our thinking in the morning. 

“I see the eight-hour piece as an environment, a place to inhabit,” he adds. “If it has a subject, it’s that the piece is the experience of the listener. The consciousness of the listener is the story.” 

This idea might have rung a bell with the composer John Cage (1912-1992), whose most famous work, 4’33’’ – supposedly of silence – is really about the audience’s personal experience of the ambient sounds that occur during that silence. Cage, almost as much a philosopher as a composer, had embraced Zen and mysticism while the musical world was still dominated by the rigours of modernism; and Richter agrees that Sleep bears the influence of the American alternative scene, notably 1960s New York, where the notion of an all-night concert at which people could relax, sleep, or come and go as they pleased, was pioneered. “It’s a very New York thing,” he notes. “From ‘the city that never sleeps’…”

“Sleep is another step away for me from the modernist position,” he adds, “which was: ‘The composer’s smarter than you and you’d better sit down and listen, and if you’re clever enough you might understand it’. I always had a problem with that and in various overt or covert ways I’ve been critiquing it for a long time. I think of musical performance more as a conversation than a lecture.”

This work, he suggests, reflects trends that counter our information overload, such as the current widespread interest in “mindfulness” (a rehash of ancient principles of meditation). “Sleep is under siege by contemporary culture,” he says. “We live in a dense data universe; many of us spend a lot of time curating our own data landscapes from email, social media and TV. It’s a significant psychological load to manage all that. 

“I feel that creative work can provide a holiday from that experience. Painting, cinema, music, books: these are places where you have a single object for contemplation and engagement, rather than millions of little objects which we’re forced to react to in a one-dimensional way. 

“You never hear people complain that life’s getting slower or less complicated,” he points out. “I think many of us do feel that there’s a huge emphasis on quantity of information and objects at the expense of real reflection and quality. To a certain extent that’s the inevitable consequence of a networked world: everything just gets multiplied. Therefore there’s this statement of mine – a ‘manifesto for a slower pace of existence’ – which sounds very grand and ambitious! But at heart it’s about engaging with fewer objects in a more extended and deliberate way, which personally I find rewarding. I think there’s something about it that connects with the renewed interest in mindfulness, or slow food – those traditions. It’s a kind of ecology of mind.

“In a painting by Mark Rothko, for instance, there can be a single object with which you engage; it leads to lots of thought, but it is very simple in essence. That’s what I’ve sought to do with Sleep: make a single object that can function like a landscape for the listener to inhabit while sleeping.”

Some people will not sleep at all, though: namely, the musicians performing the piece, including Richter himself (it is scored for piano, strings, electronics and wordless vocals). “It’s a bit like preparing for a marathon,” Richter remarks, “but I’ve structured it so that everyone gets a break. Nobody actually has to play for eight hours. Perhaps the ideal thing would be to be in the right time-zone: to arrive from somewhere jet-lagged and jump straight on stage.” 

One possible downside exists. If you’ve ever been to a performance at which people are meant to stay awake, yet a person near you drifts off into the Land of Nod, they may snore. That can be anything from a mild annoyance to a serious disruption, depending on volume. What happens if people go to Sleep and snore? Richter takes the question in good spirit. “Performance traditions are practical things as well as conventions,” he says. “Some of those conventions I find, personally, sometimes rather oppressive, but at their root they’re there for a reason: so that people can enjoy the music. I think we’ll just have to wing it and see.”

There is also a one-hour version of Sleep, a recording of which is available now; its material is notably different, intended more for active listening than dozy absorption. “The one-hour piece is a little like a daydream, or the tip of the iceberg which pokes above the sea,” Richter says. “I think of that as intentional music: music that you can engage with consciously, listen to analytically and make judgments about. There’s music in the one-hour piece that isn’t in the eight-hour version at all, and vice-versa, because it’s structured for wakeful consciousness. In a way, the two pieces are asking a question about the difference between experiencing or inhabiting the material and listening to it consciously.”

And if you are hesitating about giving eight hours of Sleep a whirl, don’t let the unfamiliarity put you off. “I see the concerts as a laboratory – a bit of an experiment,” says Richter. “I expect some people will try to stay up; others will sleep and I imagine most will do a bit of both. It’s a voyage of discovery. But don’t worry about not knowing the rules. There are no rules.”

Sleep: Wellcome Collection, London, 26 September, midnight. Live broadcast, BBC Radio 3. It is part of Why Music?, a weekend of talks and concerts. http://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/why-music One-hour album is out now on DG; eight-hour version will be available as a digital download.

Leading Hungarian conductor sends aid to refugees

Iván Fischer, founder and music director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, has a foundation which this month has been taking action to aid the refugees arriving in vast numbers at Hungary's strengthening borders.

While ugly scenes fill our screens and papers as the country's forces rebuff crowds of desperate people with tear gas and water cannon, others been doing all they can to help. The Iván Fischer Foundation hired a lorry to help civilian aid organisations and sent supplies of water, juice and baby food to the refugees in places like Gyor and Hegyeshalom. On Tuesday they reported that they hoped to reach the refugees on the Serbian side of the closed border.

Sometimes it takes artists to do the real leading when politicians fail (please read this fantastic article by the poet George Szirtes).

Google Translate seems oddly to tackle Hungarian better than certain other languages, something that's proving very useful at the moment. Here is an article from Origo in which Fischer talks about what he's been doing and why.

He suggests that if any good can come out of the current crisis, it would be to convince Hungarians to drop their prejudices. He dreams of a more tolerant society: "Tolerance just means that I do not watch a different religion, skin colour, or origin - only the person." The issue at stake is not merely religion, but poverty: "Do we really want to draw a concrete wall between ourselves and the world of the poor?" he protests. And what would he like the government to do instead? "Show the world the really wonderful Hungarian hospitality!"

Music can play its role too. It is, he says, "a huge tool capable of miracles... It should be, and it is, possible to awaken people to have a lot of goodness within them."

Fischer's news appears on his Facebook page and in this video from the back of the lorry he thanks the volunteers. (In Hungarian and English.)

People show their true colours in crises. Fischer is emerging as one of his country's real heroes. As for the BFO, they are due in the UK in the spring with their tour of The Magic Flute, and I for one can't wait. I'd go and hear them play anything, anywhere, any time.

Why we need the arts: a great singer speaks out

Sarah Connolly, the wonderful British mezzo-soprano, was the principal speaker yesterday afternoon at a special Arts Council England event in Westminster, addressing ministers, MPs and leading arts figures on the vital nature of art for all, its place in Britain and the dangers that face its future. She has sent it to me to publish, so here it is. Read and be inspired.

SARAH CONNOLLY writes:

274 years ago today, on the 14th of September 1741, Georg Friedrich Handel completed the first edition of his legendary oratorio,‘Messiah’. It is a work associated with children’s charity, and thanks to a royal charter granted to philanthropist Thomas Coram’s Foundling hospital in Bloomsbury, Handel raised awareness and money for the orphans with performances every year for decades. William Hogarth was a governor and he persuaded leading artists Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough to donate works, effectively creating at the hospital the first public art gallery. 

Sarah Connolly. Photo: Peter Warren

Once there, a visitor would see not only the best in contemporary British portraiture, landscape and maritime painting, they would also SEE the children at mealtime and hear them singing in the chapel, and perhaps donate money. This public charity helped cure the symptoms of a deeply divided London society and Hogarth was able to showcase his colleagues’ paintings thereby inventing the NOTION of art for all.

Jumping forward to 1940: In Britain’s darkest hour, when 643m was spent on Defence, Winston Churchill procured a royal charter to create the Committee for Encouragement of Music and the Arts, known as CEMA, he ring-fenced 25k for that purpose.

A small but significant sum, Churchill clearly understood its importance, and said, “The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them ... Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due”

Towards the end of the decade, CEMA changed its name to the Arts Council, local government authorised spending on the Arts and in 1951,The Festival of Britain was intended as a tonic to the nation. On London’s South Bank, the Royal Festival Hall was built, the interior designed by Robin Day who will shortly enjoy a centenary celebration in the London Design Festival.

The RFH featured concerts conducted by Sir Adrian Boult and Sir Malcolm Sargent, the two most influential British conductors up until the 1970’s and benefitted from many innovative Arts programmes under the passionate stewardship of Jennie Lee who also renewed the charter for the Arts Council in 1967. The South Bank Centre continues to be at the heart of many different and inclusive projects such as Alchemy, a festival of culture connecting with the Indian sub-continent and “Being a man”, a platform which considers children’s rights to culture and growing up.

The reason why I’m giving this "history lesson" is to put into context the relevance and the importance of the arts in our history as a multi-cultural, sophisticated inclusive nation, rich in humanity. Apart from music’s vital holistic importance, let’s never forget for a moment what we have in our keeping; a towering and deserved global reputation for cultural excellence in our theatres, art galleries, cinemas, ballet and opera houses, stadia and concert halls, in our performers, writers, poets and composers. It is a fragile inheritance: all this could be lost, permanently, if we don’t continue to preserve and provide an artistic educational journey for all, from childhood to university and beyond.

The classical music industry is a small part of the economy, but for the health of the nation it is critical that funding continues. For too long, financial support has been seen as subsidy: in fact it’s investment with clear financial return. The economic benefits however, are significant.

In 2012, 6.5 million music tourists spent £1.3 billion. In January 2015 the Department of Culture, Media and Sport issued for the first time more detailed estimates for the creative industries showing that in 2013, the gross value of the Creative Industries was £76.909 billion- that’s 5% of the UK economy. Music, performing and visual arts was estimated as being £5.453 billion, or 7.1% of the total. The number of jobs sustained by music tourism is just over 24 thousand not to mention the benefits to surrounding communities. Of the live performing organisations, the total income (roughly equal to expenditure) in 2013 was just under £550 million. Include dedicated music schools, broadcasting and recording organisations, and this total figure rose to approximately £785 million.

For the number crunchers among you, these are some interesting figures with significant returns on relatively meagre investments but as your illustrious forbear – himself a painter – stressed, the importance of the arts is immeasurable.

Nietzsche claimed that: Without music life would be a mistake.

Robert Browning said: There is no truer truth obtainable by man, than comes of music.

Many musicians work with hospices and hospitals. Manchester Camerata practitioners have been working alongside qualified Music Therapists since 2012 to deliver pioneering group music therapy sessions for people living with Dementia and their carers. A growing base of academic research shows that the projects improve quality of life, self-expression, communication, confidence and logic, enhance relationships with others, and reduce the use of medication. This is one example of social activism through the Arts, which has been a core consideration across all genres for many years.

As Michael Gove rightly said, “Music education must not become the preserve of those children whose families can afford to pay for music tuition.” The coalition government’s well-thought-out National Plan for Musical Education based on the excellent Darren Henley review created 123 music hubs with funding managed by the Arts Council. Awarding the Arts Council £75 million for 2015/16, the Department of Education says, “Music services should now be funded through music hubs (which can cover one or more local authority areas) and from school budgets, not from the Education Services Grant”. 

Economic circumstances have put local authorities in a position where they will find it difficult and in some places undesirable to fund music education. Since music or ANY artistic subject is not planned for EBACC inclusion, a tragedy in my opinion, the only recourse to a musical education will be these music hubs which are not self-sustaining financially and highly unlikely to generate enough income to exist alone. If the government could find a way of ring fencing some local authority money for the Arts then these hubs can supply the critical oxygen to those who most need it, enticing young society into doing something worthwhile, creative and enjoyable. 

Another more feasible route would be if Ofsted was instructed to reward schools for their Arts achievements. An Outstanding grade cannot be given to a school with a poor Arts programme. Lower achieving schools can also raise their profile this way. It's a win win.

I was privately educated until my mid teens but without a doubt, I received the best schooling and musical training at a State funded sixth form college in Nottingham in 1980. My experienced teachers, all of them excellent performers were infinitely more qualified than those at my former school, and I would not be here but for their inspirational guidance. I speak for my fellow students too; one of whom is a multi Grammy Award winner as a classical music producer and another is a vocal coach to the stars in London’s West End. In the present climate, State funded schools are struggling to focus on the Arts and from KS4, curriculum based arts are set to vanish and we will lose an enormous tranche of influence, talent, comment and life-experience. I feel we have a duty to all children from all social backgrounds to share our rich artistic history and to think creatively. This is surely what Winston Churchill meant when he said “the Arts are essential to any complete national life”. Roosevelt said in his New Deal, “Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples”

What musicians want is a snowball effect, retro-education: when the child learns so does the family. It could be called the Billy Elliot effect.

We really are the envy of the world on many levels, punching so far above our weight in the Arts, Broadcasting and Entertainment that it is a source of puzzlement to us (and to the outside world) why there is not more recognition of this. Last week, Marin Alsop said, “It’s our responsibility as musicians and audiences to build bridges. El Sistema already has nearly a million kids (world-wide) playing music”. At the LNOPs she said, “the power of music is to unite us and to bring out the best humanity has to offer”.

Orchestras, theatres, opera houses, art galleries, festivals, like the Deal Festival in Kent, the Philharmonia, Glyndebourne, The Hallé, El Sistema-UK run by Julian Lloyd Webber, the Royal Northern Sinfonia “In harmony” projects based around The Sage, Gateshead, the BBC's successful and engaging 10 Pieces project and many others receive invaluable financial grants from the Arts Council. Musicians put their utmost into helping those who haven’t the means to pay for tuition or who struggle to rent an instrument. 

We need audiences in the future, we need passion from politicians to lead by example, so come to our concerts, we’d love to see more of you and just ask us to help with any idea, however humble, because, "were it not for music," said Disraeli, "we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead".

Sarah Connolly

Last Night of the Proms: Kaufmaniacs alert

Jonas Kaufmann is going to be the first non-Anglo-Saxon to sing Rule, Britannia at the Last Night of the Proms. This morning he turned on the charm for the BBC Breakfast interviewers, who look rather thrilled throughout. Here's the clip:



Meanwhile, a fan site on Facebook brings us this priceless tract about the Dolce&Gabbana outfits he will sport for the occasion. I'm sure something has been lost in translation, but am still pondering the likely effects on the crowd of black lace slippers, 'English' flag, and 'frog'.

"The Last Night of Proms" is the most important on screen musical event in the world, with over 11 million viewers featured on the BBC Channel from the UK, USA, and Australia as well as across Asia and most of Europe. For this special occasion the German renowned tenor, Jonas Kaufmann will wear Dolce&Gabbana.The concluding event of the concert season composed of eight weeks where a full symphonic orchestra held concerts even twice a day, will take place the 12th of September at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Jonas Kaufmann will be the first non-Anglo-Saxon voice to interpret "Rule, Britannia!".
For this occasion, Jonas will wear two Dolce&Gabbana looks: in the first part of the concert Jonas will wear a 3-piece Martini Suit in jacquard wool, with a pique plastron tuxedo shirt in white, polishing the look with slipper shoes in silk faille.
While interpreting "Rule, Britannia!" Jonas will flaunt a long velvet jacket with black lapels detailed with black and white polka dots, satin ties and black silk frog, a double-breasted wool vest with black tuxedo pants. The look is completed by slipper shoes in black lace, a gold brooch with the English flag expressly created for the event and a black silk bowtie.Jonas Kaufmann will be the first non-Anglo-Saxon voice to interpret "Rule, Britannia!".For this occasion, Jonas will wear two Dolce&Gabbana looks: in the first part of the concert Jonas will wear a 3-piece Martini Suit in jacquard wool, with a pique plastron tuxedo shirt in white, polishing the look with slipper shoes in silk faille.While interpreting "Rule, Britannia!" Jonas will flaunt a long velvet jacket with black lapels detailed with black and white polka dots, satin ties and black silk frog, a double-breasted wool vest with black tuxedo pants. The look is completed by slipper shoes in black lace, a gold brooch with the English flag expressly created for the event and a black silk bowtie.

Where's Leeds?

Dame Fanny Waterman with the 2015 finalists

I know, I know, about 200 miles up the M1... It's also - partly - on Radio 3. But in a world where the Tchaikovsky Competition live-streamed absolutely everything, and so will the fast-approaching Chopin Competition (you can follow it here, courtesy of the Chopin Institute, Warsaw), and the Rubinstein Competition in which Trifonov took part is alive and well and living on Youtube, and plenty more, the once mighty Leeds International Piano Competition is being kicked into the long grass for lack of such resources.

Once upon a time we used to see the finals live on BBC TV. Now we get edited highlights on the radio - bits and pieces, essentially - and...this is what the website says:

Through our partnership with BBC Radio 3 and BBC Four, audiences will be given the opportunity to watch the finalists of the Competition performing from Leeds Town Hall on Friday 17th & 24th September, and Friday 1st October. If you cannot wait until then, you are able to hear the full semi finals via Radio 3 online player for the next 30 days. 

But the finals are...tomorrow and the day after.

Last time, the Leeds produced two genuine rising stars in 1st and 2nd place - Federico Colli and Louis Schwizgebel. Louis was snapped up by the BBC New Generation Artists scheme; Federico gave a QEH debut recital that drew 5-star rave reviews from virtually every critic in town (including me). Plenty of great pianists have taken vital steps into the public eye via the Leeds. But now we may have to wait a while to find out whether there's anybody comparable.

It is all about money, of course. Live-streaming costs ££s. But it does seem that the UK's most prestigious music competition has been relegated to a level of assumed interest that lags far behind the TV spectacle of people baking cakes and watching paint dry.

Step up, philanthropists. We know you're out there. We have our spies in the City who tell us that there is more money sloshing around in certain bank accounts in this country than they would ever have believed possible. It's become all too clear in the last 30-odd years that there is really no such thing as a financial "trickle down". But there is such a thing as "winkle out". It takes skilled fundraisers to do the winkling. Perhaps when Leeds's new directors take over from the great Dame Fanny Waterman - they are the double-act of pianist Paul Lewis and BBC producer/New Generations head Adam Gatehouse - their first move should be to appoint a Head of Winkling whose first task will be to raise enough funds to live-stream the next competition complete. This is in no way to denigrate the tough work that no doubt goes on in the contest's fundraising department already - it's tough work and I take my hat off to those who are good at it - but I personally would love to see priority being given to developing Internet capabilities and it really has not happened this time.

Here is the full programme for the Leeds final. Three Rachmaninov concertos, including two performances of No.3. A spot of Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann. Looks like business as usual. 

http://www.leedspiano.com/content/finals-programmes-announced

Meanwhile, the first night of the finals clashes with the Last Night of the Proms. Great...

Time to call time on minimalism?

Yesterday I composed a piece of minimalist music. Maybe I've heard one piece of it too many of late, and it occurred to me that perhaps Philip Glass should have patented his style so that other people couldn't pinch it and do it less well than he does. In any case, he has distanced himself from the term 'minimalism', and I don't blame him, and I rather wish others would do the same.

The recipe for my piece involves purling baseline going up and down in triplets across a minor triad, alternating tonic with subdominant, switching around every two bars though sometimes extending longer or contracting to a more rapid harmonic rhythm, pedal point at the bottom. Add a counter-rhythm - a syncopated pulsation a bit like Morse code (e.g., dit-dit-daa-daa-da-de-dit-dit-daa-daa-da-de etc). Place a few sustained notes oozing in and out high over the top. Then add a counter-tenor with his own line that woogles in and out. Ooh yes. Mustn't forget the counter-tenor. Mix in a sample of recorded read text or a line of a folk song and repeat at irregular intervals. Finally, place over beautifully filmed images that may involve urban blight or war damage. Continue for ten minutes. (Or maybe it just feels like ten minutes.)

I thought this up when walking home from the station (c 4 mins), and when I got in I tried parts of it on the piano, humming a sort of imitation counter-tenor bit and imagining the folksong addendum - for argument's sake, I picked Scarborough Fair, but only the first two lines of it, of course (any more might risk requiring actual thought) - while the news was on on TV, with sound off.

The stupidest thing of all is that it sounded, briefly, like a real piece, and it "fitted" many of the images we saw.

I am not a composer. I do not imagine music from scratch. This bald fact suggests to me that actually what I'd produced wasn't music and I didn't write it.

Isn't it time for a change? This style was flourishing in the 1980s and now it is 2015. It was at first, as some might put it, 'historical necessity'. It was necessary for the world of art music to re-establish a solid, immovable sense of tonal root after decades in which harmonic and indeed rhythmic structures ceased to exist; arid, disorientated decades in which the audience was basically told to naff off if they didn't like what they heard - and did so in droves. Then statement and restatement, mantra-like, soothed and bludgeoned us into knowing that we're here, now, repeating and repeating. Daily routine, ennui, chain stores, peace of a kind. We know where we are.

Some composers who started in minimalism have moved light years away from it; others have used it as a jumping-off point into far more interesting work. Others just keep on keeping on keep on keeping on just keep on keeping on keep on keeping on keep on keeping on just keep on keeping on just just just...

Please send chocolate.