Isle of Noises; R3 In Concert; Mon 21/1/19; 7:30pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Marin Alsop conducts the LPO in five new works:

Arne Gieshoff (b1988): Burr (world premiere)
Anders Hillborg (b1954): Sound Atlas (world premiere)
Erkki-Sven Tüür (b1959): Solastalgia for piccolo and orchestra (UK premiere) with Stewart McIlwham, soloist
Louis Andriessen (b1939): Agamemnon: (European premiere)
Helen Grime (b1981): Percussion Concerto (world premiere) with Colin Currie soloist.

Good to see living composers featuring in the main evening schedules.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00022zz

[Serial_Apologist]

Good to see living composers featuring in the main evening schedules.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00022zz

Thanks for the alert, ferney.

PS The fifth contributer of music to this concert is a composer, in this instance, and not a genre.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I should have said, moreover, "Good to see living composers - and only living composers - featuring in the main evening schedules", and I hope to see many other and different "defini[tions] of what it means to make New Music in the 21st Century" in this time slot.

[teamsaint]

“So, why the Piccolo?”..........

good to see Erkki Sven getting a high profile UK premiere. I usually enjoy his music.

[Richard Barrett]

All pretty bland stuff though.

[teamsaint]

All pretty bland stuff though.

I only heard the ES T piece, so couldn’t comment on the rest. His seemed a bit post La Mer, but then, perhaps it might, as I think he said it was reflecting environmental change in the sea. Perhaps I heard what I was subconsciously expecting to hear.

[Richard Barrett]

More specifically: the first piece I found completely anonymous and uninvolving, and the second like the soundtrack for a documentary about the endless desert or the depths of the ocean or Antarctic wastes or some such bloody thing. I don't know any of Tüür's music but everything that happened in his piece here seemed to me rather pedestrian and lacking in a sense of inner necessity. Bryars' recent music never seems to go anywhere either and this was no exception. The piece I had highest hopes for was the Andriessen. I was somewhat curious as to what he might do with a traditional symphony orchestra because this was something he avoided for many years, and indeed he said to me once that if you use the standard lineup "it always ends up sounding like Bruckner". I think he proved himself wrong here, but to me it sounded more like a much more conservative composer who'd been influenced by Andriessen than the real thing. Would the final piece save the programme? No. It returned to the anonymity of the first one, a bit more consonant but equally empty. Oh dear.