Julian Anderson: The Discovery of Heaven (world premiere)

Delius: Sea Drift (1903-4)

Elgar: Symphony No 1 in Ab Major, Op 55 (1907-8)

We had two conductors tonight; the young Ryan Wigglesworth for the Anderson, and Sir Mark Elder for the Delius and the Elgar.

The Discovery of Heaven is Julian Anderson’s latest orchestral work for the London Philharmonic, of which he is composer in residence. It is a piece in three movements influenced by a novel by Harry Mulisch, and Japanese Gagaku music, which is the oldest Japanese classical music. Several composers have shown an interest in it in the past, including Messaien, Britten, Alan Hovhaness, and Henry Cowell. Anderson was particularly attracted to the very high glistening textures this music often has, and consequently the woodwinds have a hell of a lot to play in this piece. Mind you, it’s also a workout for everyone else – Anderson does not generally do “simple” for very long!

The first movement, entitled “An Echo from Heaven,” starts arrestingly; phrases with long notes in the woodwind terminate with dazzling squiggles. At first separated by silences, they gather momentum progressively until there’s an absolute mass of trembling sounds from the orchestra. It is tremendously effective. The second movement, “In the Street,” is something of a collage of the chaotic sounds one might hear in a busy city thoroughfare; it develops into quite an infernal racket with various types of music popping up from here, there, and everywhere. The last movement, “Hymns,” is far more lyrical at first, but elements of the second movement return to interrupt and almost destroy Anderson’s melodies. Finally, we are left with lapping string music which dies away with no resolution.

Advertised at seventeen minutes, but actually lasting a good deal longer, there was a lot to take in on a first hearing. There is no doubting Anderson’s amazing orchestral fluency, as one highly effective section follows another. I did worry that the textures in the second movement became so densely complicated and chaotic as to lose overall effect, and it’s fairly disturbing to see musicians scurrying around their instruments when you can’t hear what they’re playing. I certainly lost the thread during this movement and began to do so again in the third. Does Anderson always employ the most direct means to express his thoughts and ideas? I’m not so sure – but I do need to hear the piece repeatedly to get to grips with it properly. Ryan Wigglesworth and the LPO certainly appeared to cope with it brilliantly.

In the event, it was Delius who was to bring us a little closer to heaven. Sea Drift is frequently praised as Delius’s finest work, and yet, along with most of his output, one seldom hears it performed nowadays. It emerged, beautiful as ever, in this sensitive performance, with Roderick Williams and Sir Mark Elder obviously loving every nuance. No less magical was the singing of the excellent London Philharmonic Choir. It is not surprising that Sea Drift became so popular in Germany and Europe generally; it is full of Wagnerian harmonic and melodic influences and when not being operatic in style has an intimacy not far removed from German Leider. Walt Whitman’s poetry provided the perfect vehicle for Delius’s craft – touching in it’s portrayal of the lonely seagull who has lost his mate, and simultaneously conveying the aching loneliness of bereavement that we all feel. Don’t ever think that Sea Drift doesn’t have a human dimension!

If Delius was often more German than British, the same could hardly be said of Elgar, especially in his First Symphony, despite the composer being a huge admirer of the Austrian/German symphonic tradition, and the works of Brahms in particular. Few would argue that it doesn’t contain some of his finest music, and it achieved enormous success straight away, with a hundred performances within the first year. Imagine a concert composer of today being recognised in this way!

With its massive dimensions, it takes a skilled and dedicated conductor to guide an orchestra through its complex narrative successfully. Elder is as dedicated as any, and gave a thoroughly well considered, idiomatic and polished account, with the “noble” gestures not overdone, the intimate moments, especially in the slow movement, touchingly but never sentimentally interpreted, and the scherzo perfectly poised. To end a fascinating evening, the finale’s closing pages were genuinely thrilling, marred only by some over-enthusiastic members of the audience being far too eager to shout “bravo!” almost before the music had finished.

Christopher Gunning

Mazzoli, Pallett, Muhly: Oliver Coates (cello), Pekka Kuusisto (violin/director), André de Ridder (conductor), Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Gould (leader)

PART TWO

Nico Muhly (keyboards), Doveman (Thomas Bartlett) (keyboards), Owen Pallett (cello and voice), Nadia Strota (viola), Sam Amidon (guitar and voice), Pekka Kuusisto (violin), Oliver Coates (cello), Thomas Gould (violin), Barbican Hall, 16.3.2012. (CG)
Missy Mazzoli: Violent, Violent Sea (European premiere)

Owen Pallett  Violin Concerto (World premiere)
Nico Muhly  Cello Concerto (World premiere)

An 802 Moment – informal songs and pieces.
Dear reader, you probably know it already, but the Britten Sinfonia is one of the very best ensembles to be found anywhere. It is blessed with string players to die for, with simply wonderful wind and brass players too, and anybody brought in for special purposes has to be of an equally astonishing standard.

The composers featured tonight, therefore, were fortunate. They surely could not have wished for more enthusiastic and polished performances, undoubtedly helped by the German conductor, Andre de Ridder, with his sure direction. And the Sinfonia has been highly instrumental in promoting Muhly in various concerts over the past couple of years or so. As a result of this, performances by some other orchestras and choirs, and the opera “Two Boys” recently premiered by ENO, Muhly might be as popular here as in his home town, New York. He and the very different Thomas Ades are most frequently quoted as the young firebrands of today.

And what of the music? It has to be said that one has to crawl through an awful load of hype to reach Nico Muhly and his comrades. Here are some samples: ‘Think Muhly, think youthful no-rules classical, full of cross-genre inventiveness.’ (BBC Music) ‘The hottest composer on the planet’ (Daily Telegraph.) ‘A new wave of musicians have revitalised the contemporary music landscape, eroding the boundaries between rock, classical, electronica and folk – making richly-textured music for adventurous listeners.” (Barbican programme)

Now to be fair to the 29 year-old Muhly, he reportedly hates the hype; when you’re built up into a colossal revolutionary genius, it’s all too easy for the reality of the music to be disappointing and for some to come along and carp. Nevertheless Muhly is excellent at promoting his own work (nothing wrong with that!) and his web site is a model for other composers to follow: http://nicomuhly.com/projects/2007/honest-music/ Muhly is a child of his times, brought up with Apple computers, synthesisers, samplers, sequencing programmes and the internet, and he uses everything to hand perfectly naturally.

The first two works tonight were not by Muhly, but two of his colleagues whose thinking Muhly must be completely in sympathy with. The first of these, Missy Mazzoli, found that studying with Louis Andriessen was life-changing and has also been much influenced by Philip Glass. Violent, violent Sea is anything but violent for much of the time. It makes much of two or more textures going on a once – vibraphone and/or marimba playing repetitive filigree passages, with slow moving harmonies in the strings – sometimes moving “conventionally,” and sometimes not. The strings also contribute active passages, and the title does feel more and more appropriate.  – it’s a perfectly attractive and effective piece, if not earth-shattering.

With Pallet’s Violin Concerto, three separate influences are described in the programme note: Bach, the Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya, and Ligeti. Unfortunately I found some of the material, repeated over and over again in the manner of Philip Glass, somewhat trivial, although Pallet’s textures for the strings and percussion are frequently interesting. The second movement had more verve, and the third movement, with much use of quarter-tones, is presumably where the Ligeti influence comes to the fore; for me this became a bit of a trial. With the last movement we were back to minimalistic repetitions of rhythms and short figures.

Muhly’s own Cello Concerto had more meat. I enjoyed some of the contrasting textures; Muhly uses pizzicato strings and quiet chordal motifs to great effect, and there’s good use of growling trombone snarls. Sometimes I felt the orchestral parts to be more interesting than the solo part, which wasn’t always clearly audible, although played with obvious involvement by Coates. In the second movement, Glass-influenced repetitive passages are back to the fore. Then it suddenly turns into something rather funereal – and ends.

After the interval, the lighting changed to a moody blue, and the stage was completely rearranged; no more Britten Sinfonia – now it was the turn of Muhly and guests to sing some songs and play various pieces in an informal jam session. This was really two concerts and, strange as it may seem, the disparate nature of parts one and two served to emphasise the differences rather than the commonality of two different types of music making.

So – is Muhly “the hottest composer on the planet?” If you say so, yes; the hall was choc-a-bloc, and the audience was mostly 30-minus. (Incidentally, it had also been full the night before for the LSO with Brahms, Strauss, and Mahler, but I suppose we cannot call them “hot.”) But all that hype – is it justified? Muhly and friends are instantly likeable, energetic, enthusiastic, refreshing, and we should applaud the way they move easily between pop music and non-pop. In part 2, with his introductions at the piano, Muhly also revealed himself to be quite an entertainer. But here’s the rub; was there anything at all tonight that bowled me over with its startling originality, or even strength of character? Sadly, no. Steve Reich was doing some of this stuff years ago, and so was John Adams. Come to that, so was Philip Glass in his way, although I’ve never personally considered his work to be quite the match of the other two. And then there are those songs and other pieces forming part two; it was all okay and well done – but no more, and I’d rather have been listening to someone like Jimmy Webb from the 70’s or 80’s (and still going strong), or umpteen folk artists from yesteryear – and has Nico Muhly listened to Keith Jarrett on the piano? A rhythmically clever and tricky piece for the viola allowed Nadia Strota to display her considerable technical skills, and yet when all was said and done I left the hall feeling decidedly “so what.”

But then I haven’t ever believed that minimalism in music – which, whether they admit to it or not provides the essential building blocks of this latest “New York School,” could be any more than a fascinating, and perhaps purifying episode in music history, but other means of moving forward have been found, and a darn sight more interesting I feel them to be. With all that natural talent, don’t Muhly and friends need to push themselves further now? It will be interesting to see what he produces for the National Youth Orchestra.

Christopher Gunning

Richard Strauss Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) Op.24 (1889-90)
Mahler Kindertodtenlieder (1901-4)
Brahms  Symphony no 2 in D Major Op.73 (1877)

 
Three of this reviewer’s favourite works, London’s most frequently feted orchestra (the LSO), one of our star baritones (Christopher Maltman), and Robin Ticciati, at 27 a hot property of the conducting world; this concert certainly augured well.

Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), his second major tone poem, can be a tricky piece to get right. Even though still only twenty-five, the composer’s handling of the orchestra was already virtuosic, but some have had doubts about the depth of the piece. Why was this young man, with a bright future ahead, writing about the struggle against death, giving into it, and finally achieving glory in the afterlife? Of course it’s a richly romantic notion, and Strauss was rapidly becoming a leader of the late Romantic movement.

The piece has a narrative that’s relatively easy to follow, but if you indulge too much it can seem discursive, the various sections insufficiently related. By and large Ticciati avoided any major pitfalls, and this was an intelligent reading. The quietly irregular throbbing string chords felt like approaching death at the beginning, and the explosion as the hero commenced his agonizing struggle was terrifying. The woodwind and violin solos were all sweetly fashioned in the more delicately nostalgic sections, the trombones were horribly menacing as death approaches, and the aspirational theme as the soul rises to immortality was perfectly judged, with beautifully balanced quiet chords at the end.

So – all well done and totally professional. Could one have wanted even more drama, commitment, and a greater sense of propulsion periodically? Perhaps.

Next it was Christopher Maltman’s turn to give a heart-rending account of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. When Mahler wrote these extraordinary and desperately sad songs he was a good deal older than Strauss in the previous work; one can speculate as to whether he was prophesying the death of his own child a few years later, or recalling the death of his brother many years previously; probably both. At any rate, Mahler was obsessed with death – a theme which was to permeate his work right to the end.

Maltman’s reading was quietly bitter, unforced and unsentimental. That is not to suggest there was no beauty of tone – we had that, alright, but it was never present for its own sake. I found it terribly moving, despite the performance being wrecked by the most dreadful racket for the first twenty seconds or so. Why don’t they remind people to turn off their phones and watch-alarms at the Barbican, as they do at the Festival hall?

Ticciati has won plaudits for his operatic conducting, and it’s not hard to see why. He was the most sensitive accompanist, carefully attentive to Maltman, and he drew some lovely contributions from the LSO’s wind players too. Christine Pendrill, Queen of the Cor Anglais, excelled just as she always does, and there were equally touching contributions from Gareth Davies, Guillaume Deshayes, and Chris Richards on the flute, oboe and clarinet. The balance between soloist and orchestra was exemplary and even in the stormy final song, Maltman rose above the orchestra to telling effect.

And so to Brahms and his glorious Second Symphony. I would so love to go into raptures about this, but I’m left feeling slightly “iffy.” Why? This is a fabulous orchestra; the ensemble playing is nearly always bang-on, intonation likewise, and each player is terrific in his or her own right. And let’s not get things out of perspective – this performance was not in any way bad, and my problem with it could probably be simply that things were not to my own taste. It happens!

The horns were rather too loud at the start, meaning that I didn’t get that haunting/mysterious feeling that I have often loved. The same applied to the passages leading to the second main theme in the violins, which also wasn’t quite sunny enough. Then Ticciati didn’t repeat the exposition, as marked by Brahms. The first movement continued in an ever-so-slightly “matter of fact” way, and there was no real sense of homecoming when we came to the recapitulation, or adventure during the extraordinary coda.

The second movement lacked weight, somehow, and the third wasn’t quite charming enough at the start or skittish enough later on. The last movement had momentum, but there were a few slightly scrappy moments, and I didn’t feel it ended with quite the right blaze of glory. And the timpani dominated the proceedings too often.

Nit picking? Maybe. Ticciati was aiming at a predominantly “classical” approach to this work, and in its pastoral beauty I happen to think it warrants a bit more than that.

Christopher Gunning

Bartok: Dance Suite (1923)

György Kurtág: Concertante Op.42 (2002 -3) UK premiere

Sibelius: Symphony No. 6 in D minor Op.104 (1923)

Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 in C major Op.105 (1924)

This was the third in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s series featuring works by Sibelius including the seven symphonies; we had Symphony no. 3 back in October, and a selection of Sibelius’s songs and his incidental music for Belshazzar’s Feast last week. Of course the BBC programme planners would never do anything as obvious as playing Sibelius’s symphonies in the order he composed them, which seems more than a little perverse; how interesting and educational it is to witness the development of this infinitely fascinating symphonist from one to the next. A number of different conductors will be taking part; after the opening concert, it was difficult to imagine performances more sympathetic than Sakari Oramo’s of the 3rd, but tonight we had Jukka-Pekka Saraste, who is one of the triumvirate of dedicated Finnish Sibelians along with Osmo Vänskä and Esa-Pekka Salonen, all of whom studied in the same class in Helsinki and are now in their 50′s. Saraste was making a welcome return to the BBC Symphony, having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2002-2005.

The first half was, for some reason, Hungarian. Bartok’s Dance Suite, interestingly composed at the same time as Sibelius’s 6th Symphony, is one of his most immediately attractive orchestral works, drawing on Hungarian, Romanian and North African folk music to great effect, with the various sections being connected by a returning theme in changing guises. The brilliance of Bartok’s colourful orchestration came over well in the BBC SO’s performance, and the constantly varying tempi, a vital ingredient, were all fluently handled. There was plenty of rhythmic zap as well as some beautifully idiomatic solos, and it was all highly enjoyable – just the thing on this cold December evening!

The two major successors to Bartok in Hungary are Ligeti and György Kurtág, whose Concertante was next on the agenda. Kurtág won the 2006 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition with this work, which has solo parts for the violin and viola with a very large orchestra. The soloists tonight have been playing the work around the world since the first performance in 2003 and have also recorded it. The programme note waffled about Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, and references to Wagner and Magyar music, but if I was supposed to recognise any of these, I’m afraid I failed miserably. In fact I found this work altogether perplexing; the soloists are not soloists in the conventional sense, and their contributions often seemed inconsequential or inaudible. The music is also extremely discontinuous; at worst it felt like a random series of sounds and gestures, which although frequently interesting in themselves, were largely disconnected. There are welcome periods of greater energy, and some violent outbursts too, but overall this doesn’t make for coherent, let alone pleasant, listening. You may say there’s absolutely nothing wrong in that in itself, of course, but there’s a point at which incomprehension gets the better of me and I must admit to being pretty relieved when it was all over. Awful to say this, when the soloists, conductor and orchestra have worked their socks off – but maybe I’ve spent too many hours trying hard to appreciate things I instinctively just don’t like at all. I certainly prefer my Kurtág in his more typically shorter, more concise mode, and I found myself asking yet again why the BBC favours so many contemporary composers from abroad rather than the host of home-grown composers desperate for an airing.

It was brave to place the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies of Sibelius next door to one another. These very different works could have benefitted from this, one might have thought, but in reality they did not. Why? Although each is short by major symphonic standards, each is complete in itself and benefits from a period of reflection afterwards. So we could wander off into the night with the magnificent 7th ringing in our ears, but the more delicate and less overtly dramatic 6th suffered. Technically, these were both assured, efficient performances; I wouldn’t argue with the tempi chosen for any part of the 6th, but somehow the music refused to spring into life in the way it can, and too much of it felt – well – efficient. Despite some fine work from the BBC symphony Orchestra, I found myself asking where was the poetry? And although there was plenty of rhythmic verve in the scherzo and the last movement, didn’t things feel somewhat briskly mechanical rather than genuinely spirited? And while I have come to love this symphony, I also recognise that it’s a special case, needing specially sensitive treatment and programming; placing it just before the interval would have worked better.

The 7th was far more successful. Saraste maintained a tight grip on the formal shape, managing all the difficult tempo changes brilliantly. There was a satisfying inevitability to the unfolding of the drama, the emotionally charged string passages near the beginning pulling us forward irrepressibly towards the first great trombone solo, expertly judged by Helen Vollam; the way she rose above the orchestra with no semblance of force was just perfect. And I marvelled all over again at the astonishingly inspired orchestration that Sibelius dreamed up here; just one lone trombone against the whole orchestra – and yet you hear it clearly and gloriously. The remaining sections flowed effortlessly; the stormy sections were genuinely thrilling, with the brass and horns glowing in the winter sunshine, and the woodwind sparkling like freshly fallen snowflakes. I could have wished for a greater sense of heartbreak in the final pages, but nevertheless, Saraste’s interpretation was absolutely justifiable and it was impossible to leave without this, one of the very greatest of all symphonies, having made its mark yet again. Marvellous.

Christopher Gunning

Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem, Op.20 (1940)

Sibelius: Kom nu hit, död, Op.60 no.1 (1909 orch. 1957; Pä veranden vi havet, Op.38 no. 2 (1902 orch. 1903); Koskenlaskijan morsiamet, Op.33 (1897)

Belshazzar’s Feast – Suite, Op.51 (1906-7)

Walton Belshazzar’s Feast (1929-31, revised 1931, 1948, and 1957)

Britten, Sibelius and Walton sharing the same concert? The BBC Symphony Orchestra is subject to some strange programme planning, but the works tonight made interesting bedfellows. The connection between Walton and Sibelius is not difficult to grasp: Walton was a great admirer of Sibelius, and in his First Symphony showed just how strongly the Finnish composer influenced him. But Belshazzar’s Feast shows Walton in an altogether different light, and its juxtaposition with Sibelius’s work of the same name showed just how different the thinking of the two composers could be. And Britten? A near contemporary of Walton, of course, but with his own unique musical language and thought processes.

His Sinfonia da Requiem is about the nearest Britten ever came to writing a purely orchestral symphony, and it certainly demonstrates that symphonic processes were very much part and parcel of his modus operandi. It is a fine work, immediately impressive, and with unfolding drama and an ingrained seriousness that displays Britten at his anguished anti-war best. Composed in 1940, much of this music hints at the War Requiem to come much later; thudding timpani, tortured melodies, snarling brass, whirling woodwind, and all the time a sense of Britten’s outrage. There are echoes of some other composers here – Mahler, and perhaps even Sibelius? Yet the 26 year old composer was remarkably mature for one so young, and already had a sure control of form. The three movements, Lacrymosa, Dies Irae, and Requiem Aeternam, form a continuous whole, and individually have firm structures which carry the listener along a troubled route for twenty minutes or so, with only the last movement hinting at a degree of reluctant resolution. The commissioners of the piece, the Japanese Government, were not yet at war with Britain or the US, but rejected the piece because of its Christian connotations; ironic, then, that it has emerged as one of the most substantial of Britten’s works and the several other pieces simultaneously commissioned by the Japanese. Edward Gardner and his forces were in total command; the tempi felt just right, and with the BBC SO continuing to be at the top of its game this made for a powerful, committed and memorable performance; its sounds are still haunting me now, almost twenty-four hours later.

Gerald Finley was the soloist in three virtually unknown songs by Sibelius, which turned out to be delightful gems from the unmistakable hand of the master. Come Away Death, a setting of Shakespeare translated into Swedish, has simple muted strings and is bleakness personified. On a Balcony beside the Sea, to a text by Viktor Rydberg, has dark woodwinds and is imbued with a sense of isolation and desperation. The Rapids-Rider’s Brides (poem by August Ahlqvist-Oksanen) is larger in scale than the preceding two and hints strongly at the Sibelius of the early symphonies with its greater expansiveness and menacing brass, the latter even reminding us of Karalia. Finley was absolutely terrific, his vocal beauty enhanced by clear enunciation of every word, and Gardner was the most sensitive accompanist; this was exquisite music making of almost chamber music intensity.

Gardner continued to impress as a Sibelian in the Finn’s Belshazzar’s Feast. This music, the very antithesis of the Walton to follow, falls into four separate sections. The first, Oriental Procession, is a grotesque march. The second, Solitude, is a tiny but sweet miniature. The third, Nocturne, gave Michael Cox an opportunity to display some ravishingly expressive flute playing, and the fourth, Khadra’s Dance, seductive and delicate, reminded us what a fine clarinetist Chris Richards is. Sibelius opted for a whimsical, quasi Oriental, view of Belshazzar – as befitted pieces composed as incidental music for the play for which they were intended. What a contrast, then, to Walton’s monumental and exuberant cantata composed in his late twenties.

The gentlemen of the BBC Chorus got things off to a fine start with their opening declamation, and the full chorus followed, gently weaving their lines with wonderfully rich sonorities, to be joined by Gerald Finley in his plaintive “If I forget thee.” Once again combining noticeably fine diction with perfect intonation and sense of character, he took command of the proceedings with his long recitative and then we were plunged into sheer brilliance, as orgiastic and celebratory as you could want, for the rest of the piece. And you would have to be a real nitpicker to find any faults; the BBC Symphony Chorus sang with gusto and accuracy, the orchestra shot through the whole work with massive amounts of verve, and the brass, augmented by two groups up in the gods, were constantly thrilling. Gardner kept the tempi brisk, propelling things forward mercilessly. And, if I have to nitpick, the only thing I can find to say is that I wish this had been in the Royal Albert Hall, and it’s not often I’d say that! The Barbican hall, admirable though it is for such a variety of music, is just not quite man enough for music on Walton’s scale. Never mind. It was still a great evening, on this occasion narrowly won by the concert opener. That Britten – it really is a superb piece.

Christopher Gunning

“Jiří Kadeřábek sees the listener of his music as being ‘inside a geometric shape of many sides, a polyhedron, with mirrors reflecting every small line and direction.’” So commences the ludicrously pretentious programme note. And it goes on, and on, likening his music to the Cubist Picasso – “It’s as if the Women of Avignon were singing from each strange facet of their bodies. I think that’s the point: the deconstruction of linear association and the emphasis of purely structural particles.”

In fact what we got was a piece of mind-numbing banality. “C” consists of twiddles and scales in C major, with a couple of sections of the brass players blowing air, but no notes, through their instruments. If the composer, the BBC, or anyone else imagines that there’s a useful point in this nonsense, then it’s certainly lost on me. You might argue that it’s not the fault of the commissioners that Kadeřábek turned in a piece of abject rubbish, but they might have guessed, and that they make errors of judgement like this when there are umpteen British composers dying to have the opportunity of having their music played by a fine symphony orchestra beggars belief. What a dreadful waste, a thought also going through the minds of the orchestra who looked bored out of their minds and failed to applaud the composer as he stepped onto the platform.

Moving swiftly on, the next item in this all-Czech programme was the tone poem The Golden Spinning Wheel, which was one of several works which marked Dvořák’s move from the purely symphonic forms of his great idol, Brahms, into the more ‘progressive’ area of Liszt, who had already established the revolutionary idea of the tone poem. This was a big and controversial departure for a man nearing the end of his life, and the five tone poems composed between 1896 and 1897 contain some of the composer’s most imaginative and colourful music. The Golden Spinning Wheel is one of four based on the ballads of the Czech folklorist Karel Erben and contains elements of Bohemian folk music woven into a richly lyrical symphonic tapestry. There was some really lovely woodwind playing from the orchestra; Michael Cox’s flute was especially poignant, with Bĕlohlávek clearly revelling in every moment of it and bringing poise, charm, warmth and humanity to musicians and audience all too ready to involve themselves in some real music after the opening dud. What a shame, then, that the conductor had savagely cut the music; why? Important elements of the story were lost, and although this rarely heard piece may be quite an effort for an audience unfamiliar with it, a few extra minutes certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

Martinu followed the interval in the shape of the seldom-performed Rhapsody Concerto, with Maxim Rysanov the full-toned soloist. Composed in America in 1952, the work harks back to Martinu’s homeland, with some of the melodic material reminding us strongly of Bohemian folk music and Dvořák. It is a predominantly sweetly lyrical work, relatively uncomplicated harmonically, and a far cry from Martinu’s famous Double Concerto for Two String orchestras Piano and Timpani, and other more dissonant works from the 30s; back then Martinu was flirting with expressionism, neo-classicism, and jazz, but by now the composer was in his sixties, weary and seriously homesick. If melody is to the fore, it does not mean that the music is dull rhythmically, especially in the last movement. Here Rysanov’s technique came to the fore with some extremely impressive finger and bow-work, and the BBC SO responded with equally impressive vigour.

But the highlight was still to come. With Taras Bulba, we were on a different planet. The bloodthirsty tale on which it is based tells of the Ukrainian warrior, Taras Bulba, and the attacks of the Poles. Remarkable, isn’t it, that at the time Janáček was a committed fan of everything Russian, believing that his own country would be protected and freed by the indominatable Russians. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Janáček ‘s political views, he certainly composed one of his most vivid masterpieces with Taras Bulba, and this extraordinary music was given a stupendous performance tonight. Janáček ‘s orchestration is so intensely personal, and so raw and ruggedly expressive – there’s absolutely nothing ordinary about it. There was especially gorgeous playing from Alison Teale (Cor Anglais), Richard Simpson (oboe) and Stephen Bryant (solo violin.) and the brass and percussion playing was as bright and incisive as you could possibly want. A fabulous performance of fabulous music.

If it hadn’t been for that awful first item, this would have been a completely enjoyable and even inspiring evening. What a shame, then, that the BBCSO’s Barbican concerts seem to be comparatively badly attended. The stalls were more or less full, but the balcony not even open. Why? The LSO consistently fills the same hall. Is it the often somewhat strange programme planning? Inadequate publicity? I search for answers. The BBCSO is a terrific orchestra and deserves to have the very strongest following, especially in the face of current budget reviews.

Christopher Gunning

Berlioz: Le Corsair (1844)

Samuel Barber: Violin Concerto op. 14 (1939)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony no 5 in E minor, op. 64 (1888)

Appearances by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London with its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Charles Dutoit, are comparatively infrequent, so this concert which included the Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber with the Canadian violinist, James Ehnes, and warhorses by Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, was something to look forward to. The RPO is sometimes considered the Cinderella of the London orchestras; it receives a fraction of the Arts Council funding of the others, and is thus forced to play a repertory which is often more overtly popular, and to embark on tours far and wide, resulting in a schedule which most musicians would find exhausting. Nevertheless, it boasts some of the very finest players in the land, and gets through a fantastically varied range of music – everything from well-worn classics to film scores and rock concerts. It is a tribute to the management that in the face of considerable difficulties, it continues to flourish and put in some fine performances.

Berlioz’s overture Le Corsair (the Pirate) could be considered something of an orchestral test piece. Composed in 1844 when Berlioz was on holiday in Nice, it is a swashbuckling extravaganza in which precision in the fast passages is the keynote. In this performance, Dutoit set off at a fast but not ridiculous pace, the strings impressing with their dashing scalic passages. The curious rhythmic wind and horn passages were perhaps less clear, but the long slower melody was was well done and overall the performance was bright and secure; if I felt that the conductor wished to get even more action from the orchestra in the fast passages than he actually received, it is a very minor carp.

The Barber Violin Concerto has an unusual history. The work was commissioned by a wealthy businessman for his young protogé, Iso Briselli, but when Barber presented the first two movements, the violinist declared the solo part too easy. As if to say “I’ll show em!” Barber then wrote a dazzling finale only to find that the same violinist pronounced it unplayable. The businessman wanted his money back, but Barber had already spent it, and, now desperate, presented the concerto to the virtuoso Oscar Shumsky, who decided it was indeed playable. The work finally received its first performance in 1941 by Albert Spalding with Eugene Ormandy conducting.

Samuel Barber was a somewhat reclusive man, who would have no truck with the American avant-garde, led by figures such as John Cage and Morton Feldman. Instead, he composed a series of essentially lyrical works in an easily comprehensible idiom which caught the public imagination and secured an important place for him alongside other mainstream Americans, such as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris and Virgil Tomson. James Ehnes won plaudits for his recording of Barber’s concerto together with those by Walton and Korngold in 2008 (ONYX 4016), and it was not surprising to find that his approach to the first two movements seemed to be just perfect. His purity of tone was beautifully suited to Barber’s melodic lines, with ample projection but nothing feeling forced or indulgent. Dutoit and the RPO accompanied carefully with exactly the right gently wistful tone colours, and John Anderson’s expressive oboe solo in the second movement – pale, but touching – was particularly noteworthy. In the last movement, all hell suddenly broke loose, with the violinist scurrying around and the orchestra giving their two-pennyworth; it’s phenomenally difficult, brilliantly effective, and utterly delightful. Ehnes was simply marvellous – and so was the RPO.

And as if to show that he could also fly through the more traditional virtuoso violin repertory on his Stradivarius, Ehnes played the famous Paganini Caprice no. 24 with complete accuracy and fantastic panache. The audience was enthralled.

And so to the major warhorse of the evening – Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. Composed in 1888, when Tchaikovsky and others were convinced that his powers were waning, it was not immediately successful and this didn’t help the composer’s mental state one little bit; he was to die, tormented, five years later. Critical reaction was hostile, even in the US and Europe, but how times have changed; nowadays it is one of the most popular of all symphonies, and understandably so. The tunes for which the composer is famed are marvellous, and the construction, with its recurrent motto theme heard in different guises in all four movements, no less so.

Dutoit’s reading had plenty of high points. We were treated to some lovely phrasing from the woodwind, and a pleasingly rich string tone throughout. The famous horn solo in the lovely slow movement was beautifully played if perhaps a tiny bit loud, and in the third movement there was much grace and great elan from the strings in the fast passages. I would have preferred a gap between the third and last movements, and a slightly more stately tempo for the opening motto theme in the last, but in the fast sections the playing was simply hair-raising, with fantastically incisive work from the brass. So exciting, and just what was needed to get the blood coursing on this damp, dreary November evening.

Christopher Gunning

Pre concert chamber music: Academy Manson Ensemble, Sara Lian Owen (soprano), Bruce Nockles (conductor), Andrew Burn (presenter) Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 30.10.2011 4pm.

Maw: La Vita Nuova (1979), Ghost dances (1988)

Robert Peate: Images Part One (2011)

Ivor Bonnici: Four Movements for Quintet (2011)

Pre concert talk: Andrew Burn, Anthony Payne 6pm

Concert: City of London Sinfonia, Holst Singers, Tasmin Little (violin), Christopher Austin (conductor), Stephen Layton (conductor), Andrew Burn (presenter) Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 30.10.2011 7pm (CG)

Maw: Violin Concerto (1993), Concert Suite from Sophie's Choice (2003), One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand (1990), Hymnus (1995-6)

 Those of us who were privileged to know Nicholas Maw were fairly astonished when a significant event was announced featuring a veritable feast of his music. He isn't performed with anything remotely like the frequency he deserved – a fact that remains as perplexing as ever after this wonderful day. Of course there are others of his generation, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies, and Goehr, who have attracted more attention with their more overtly modernistic way of doing things, and still more who have suffered infrequent performances (Anthony Payne, or Hugh Wood, for example) but Maw's work has always been a particularly special case because he shunned a great many of the techniques that have been "all the rage," and pursued his own highly individual path through thick and thin. There are early works in which he dabbled with Shönberg's dodecaphony, but with Scenes and Arias, first heard at the Proms in 1962, Maw discovered and established a new way of working for him in which, at last, he could write the music he instinctively wished to. This was the first piece I’d heard of Maw’s, and it bowled me over.

 Maw was always anxious to digest any music on offer, and had no hesitation in using elements from all manner of sources to assist his own creativity. This isn't to imply that he wasn't original – in fact his music has a habit of sounding like nobody else's. At the same time, it is not difficult to discern some of his influences; in particular he wanted desperately to be part of the Western musical tradition which he loved, and especially that which can loosely be termed "romantic." Consequently one can hear echoes of Austrians and Germans, as well as British, from the late nineteenth centuries and early twentieth – Strauss, early Schonberg, Berg, and even Vaughan Williams come to mind. These influences place his oeuvre well outside the mainstream of late twentieth century music, and many of us feel that it is all the better for that, but there's nothing "old hat" about his music either. In fact his genius was to absorb everything from here, there, and everywhere, and make a language which became very much his own.

Above all, Maw craved melody. Of that his music is full to the brim, but his melodies are not eight bar trite affairs – they tend to span vast paragraphs. Next, was harmony. No, it's not conventional or ordinary, but a mixture of tonal and dissonant harmony which always has direction. "Tonal plus" was how he described it to me. And then there's counterpoint too – lines are all-important in Maw. And last, but certainly not least, there's orchestration – and Maw absolutely loved the orchestra with its endless colours and textures; Maw called it "my instrument." 

 In the afternoon, Sara Lian Owen sang La Vita Nuova with the Academy Manson Ensemble conducted by Bruce Nockles. This setting of five Medieval and Renaissance Italian love poems is one of Maw's finest works and was his second PROMS commission, the first having been Scenes and Arias. Maw's settings of the chosen texts are both varied and subtle, with rapturously beautiful vocal lines and some extraordinarily telling instrumental moments. Movements one, three and five are predominantly slow, and two and four are fast. It was easy to warm to Sara Lian Owen's appealing and accurate singing and to the sensitivity and brilliance of the young Academy Manson Ensemble; all the performers are current or recent students at the Royal Academy of Music, and the ensemble specialises in contemporary music. 

The other Maw piece performed in the afternoon was Ghost Dances, in which the instrumentation is identical to Schönberg's "Pierrot Lunaire;" flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, but no voice. Maw boosts this ensemble with some off-the-wall instruments which members of the group have to play in addition to their regular ones – the African thumb piano, the American strumstick, a one-stringed banjo, a flexatone, a kazoo, and Pakistani manjeeras (or small finger cymbals.) The "ghost" in the title refers to Maw's idea that the nine movements are all "memory related or dream distorted images of various forms of the dance." (Maw's own description.) It's a fascinating, colourful, and at times macabre work, the individual dances being full of character and the whole making something quite dark, quirky, mysterious, and even scary. The players acquitted themselves admirably.

Two non-Maw pieces occupied the rest of the afternoon concert, both by young composers from the Royal Academy. Being placed next door to the meaty works of Maw did them no favours, although each demonstrated real promise. Robert Peate impressed with his technical command and some weird but effective textures, as well as some genuinely lyrical music, particularly in the second of the piece's four short movements. Ivor Bonnici's contribution displayed more classical influences, with a particularly entertaining fast second movement somewhat reminiscent of Stravinsky. It will be fascinating to see how these composers develop. 

In between the two concerts was a conversation between Andrew Burn, who is a Nicholas Maw fan, and who provided helpful introductions to each piece during the concerts, and the composer Anthony Payne, a friend of Maw's for many years. Payne understands Maw's work thoroughly, and as a composer who himself has suffered "blocks" in the past, obviously felt close to Maw, who also experienced appalling struggles from time to time. Had there been more time, it would have been interesting to hear of some of the depressions that Maw suffered periodically. He could be a bon viveur alright, and loved his food, a fine bottle of wine, and conversation about anything and everything. Conversely he could also feel isolated and dreadfully gloomy; I remember having more than one conversation in which he revealed that he often thought he was completely wasting his time as a composer. Some of this was undoubtedly a result of feeling neglected musically, and some because his financial position caused intense worries. I believe that his last 24 years in Washington DC were far happier, where he lived with his devoted companion Maija Hay, a ceramic artist. Nevertheless, the fact that Maw was an intensely emotional person is central to his musical creativity; to put it simply, the highs and lows are all there, with all shades between. It is, above all, music with tremendous humanity.

The first work in the evening concert was the Violin Concerto, first performed in this country and the US in 1993 by Joshua Bell, who has recorded the work and whose playing had inspired Maw to write it. This is a grand work in four movements on the scale of Brahms and others: it shares with them much dramatic interplay between orchestra and soloist, soaring melodies, a virtuosic solo part, and it is imbued for much of the time with an expressive late romantic melancholy. If that is the overriding feeling of the first and third movements, there is nevertheless optimism in this concerto too, and the second (scherzo) movement is positively playful, with a rhythmic vitality reminiscent of Walton, while the last movement offers more relaxed and peaceful moods, recalling music from the previous three and including several powerful outbursts from the orchestra and pyrotechnics from the soloist. What fabulous music! Without doubt this is one of his most inspired creations, and in tonight's performance Tasmin Little's reading was spellbinding; it is difficult to imagine a more sympathetic performance and the balance between soloist and the classically-sized City of London Sinfonia worked particularly well. 

Maw's opera Sophie's Choice provided the material for the next work, an orchestral suite receiving its UK premiere. His experiences in the world of opera were certainly not without pain. His two previous operas, One Man Show and The Rising of the Moon, had been well received but had also involved him in hostilities in one form and another, and he had distanced himself from the world of opera for some thirty years. As he said "it seemed to me that the whole opera world was a collection of ferocious egos to whom you were expected to surrender control of your work and then disappear." Sophie's Choice was ten years in the making from start to finish, and critics were divided – some openly hostile. It probably would not have reached the stage at all had it not been for the efforts of Simon Rattle, who had, a few years previously, also insisted on recording Odyssey, Maw's gargantuan symphonic work. Once again this is Maw at his mature best – with long melodies and directly tonal music rubbing shoulders with tortured, dissonant stuff. Maw's use of plain major and minor chords, scored in much the same way as the Vaughan Williams of the Tallis Fantasia, is particularly telling. Much of the music in the Suite is taken from the orchestral interludes which link the dramatic scenes and provide an increasingly agonized commentary on them. Under Stephen Layton's clear and energetic direction the City of London Sinfonia gave a committed performance of this disturbing yet often beautiful music. 

The concert finished with two of Maw's choral pieces. The first, One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand, for unaccompanied choir, displayed Maw's ability to write in the contrapuntal tradition of Stanford and other Anglican composers and the Holst Singers performed admirably despite some rather odd solo voices. Then came Hymnus, a more substantial work for chorus and orchestra, which exhibits a more mellifluous style than one usually finds elsewhere. Maw's intense desire to communicate with audiences – to be of some practical use – is well to the fore here in this beautifully crafted music which passes through shades of Britten, Vaughan Williams, and – unexpectedly – chromatic jazz harmony. 

It wasn't always easy being Nicholas Maw. It is so sad that he was taken from us at the – nowadays – too early age of 73 after suffering with dementia, diabetes and heart failure. He left us a huge treasure-trove of music to perform and enjoy, and I strongly suspect that in years to come he will quite possibly be revealed to have been one of the very greatest composers of his day.

Christopher Gunning