BBCSO/Ian Volkov/Barbican live R3/19:30/22/01/14

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  • jayne lee wilson
    Banned
    • Jul 2011
    • 10711

    BBCSO/Ian Volkov/Barbican live R3/19:30/22/01/14

    Well if this isn't interesting programming nothing is. Shimmering, sensuous and dramatic soundclusters from various French schools of style...
    The Boulez - a choral work of concise dynamic and colouristic drama - is my favourite work of his. Following the commission, he was asked by the promoter - evidently on a bad line - what he would call the forthcoming piece. "I don't know, but Cummings is the Poet...", he said...

    And, still undecided, smiled when he saw the serendipitous result in the advance publicity....


    Gerard Grisey Megalithes, for 15 Brass (UK Premiere)
    Hugues Dufourt Piano Concerto (Nicholas Hodges, UK Premiere)
    Boulez cummings ist der dichter
    Beethoven Symphony No.7

    If anyone can dance-animate the Beethoven 7th after those French adventures it's the inspirational Ilan Volkov...
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/events/1351?date=201201

  • edashtav
    Full Member
    • Jul 2012
    • 3672

    #2
    Powerful, Fort, Fourt, Massive, Megalithic, Monumental ... Shimmering!

    Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
    Well if this isn't interesting programming nothing is. Shimmering, sensuous and dramatic soundclusters from various French schools of style...

    Gerard Grisey Megalithes, for 15 Brass (UK Premiere)
    Hugues Dufourt Piano Concerto (Nicholas Hodges, UK Premiere)
    Boulez cummings ist der dichter
    Beethoven Symphony No.7

    If anyone can dance-animate the Beethoven 7th after those French adventures it's the inspirational Ilan Volkov...
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/events/1351?date=201201

    All will be revealed tonight. Some other "side-lights" on tonight's fare:

    From the Barbican’s on-line blurb

    (What a shame nobody’s told the Barbican how to spell Dufourt!))

    Beethoven’s powerful seventh symphony is prefaced by a beguiling trio of modern French works in the first of two concerts pairing Beethoven with recent French music. The BBC Singers have had great success with Boulez’s now-classic work cummings ist der Dichter, which sets the poetry of ee cummings for vocal ensemble and chamber orchestra. Conductor Ilan Volkov, known for his high-voltage performances and radical programmes, presents the UK premiere of Hugues Dufort’s piano concerto with Nicolas Hodges as soloist. Dufort’s own world of sonorities reflects that of one of France’s greatest 20th century composers, Gérard Grisey. In his monumental early work Mégalithes, 15 brass players scattered around the hall will hurl sonic clusters of shimmering dissonance into the auditorium.

    I suppose Tom Service is behind the revival of Grisey’s early piece, for this is what he wrote in the Guardian (August, 2009) of its first performance in Lucerne:

    {…} Grisey died in 1998, and wrote Mégalithes when was in his early 20s, and it's music of massive, monumental power, as you'd expect from the title: clusters of gigantic dissonance thrown around the auditorium (the players perform all over the hall), which coalesce into huge sonic pile-ups and then break apart with ear-splitting energy. It was a performance of roof-shaking intensity, and revealed an important addition to the Grisey canon. Somebody must put on the piece in Britain, soon.

    My suspicions are that Tom’s adjectives about the sound world of Mégalithes may be closer to the mark than that chosen by Jayne & the Barbican: “shimmering”, but I don’t expect we'll find this apprentice-piece to be more than a “striking” addition to Grisey’s works. When it comes to hype, Tom is our no.1 hypster in hipster jeans

    Comment

    • amcluesent
      Full Member
      • Sep 2011
      • 100

      #3
      My wireless has gone on the blink, all I'm getting is a cacophony of crashes, bangs and shrieks! Oh, wait...

      But t be serious, this has to be one of the most wilfully bizarre concerts for years
      Last edited by amcluesent; 22-01-14, 21:15.

      Comment

      • edashtav
        Full Member
        • Jul 2012
        • 3672

        #4
        Originally posted by amcluesent View Post
        My wireless has gone on the blink, all I'm getting is a cacophony of crashes, bangs and shrieks! Oh, wait...
        Well, it was a bit much for steam radio, especially as its 3D effects were squashed into one plane. I found it abrasive and bass-heavy and there were passages that showed their debt to Grisey's teacher, Messaien , especially the composer of Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. It wasn't bad but it was full-on, full of the black and white contrasts, replete with the anger of callow youth. I'm sorry, Mr Service, it's NOT an important addition to Grisey's oeuvre. And, to those who anticipated a shimmering feast, I'm sorry but I heard many a blatant sonority but nothing that shimmered or displayed iridescence. Grisey must have used it to cleanse his system of spleen, and he passed on to, and through, the French Spectral School... I do mourn his loss at a young age from a perforated aneurysm.

        Hugues Dufourt's recent piano concerto owes a lot to that Spectral School. It's refulgent and highly coloured. It has shape and form and is easier on ear and aural digestion than Grisey's bombastic, angry outburst. Our three guides: Nicolas Hedges, Ilan Volkov did the composer and his piece what sounded to my ears like full justice. The piece's quiet epilogue was memorable. I look forward to hearing the work , again, on the iPlayer. It was good to hear the news delivered by Martin Handley that Hugues is about to retire from his day-job to concentrate on composing.
        Last edited by edashtav; 23-01-14, 10:07.

        Comment

        • Bryn
          Banned
          • Mar 2007
          • 24688

          #5
          I didn'r get away from work until a little after 8pm, so listened to some of the piano concerto, the Boulez and some of the interval Debussy via DAB in the car on the way home. The Boulez and Beethoven I heard from FM when I go home. Eagerly awaiting tonight's Po3 on the iPlayer's on demand facility in HD Sound.

          Comment

          • jayne lee wilson
            Banned
            • Jul 2011
            • 10711

            #6
            I was a little disappointed in Grisey's Megalithes... it teased and tickled my ears, but from the advance publicity aka hype I was expecting more sheer drama and volume - a greater richness of event... but I felt an almost nostalgic excitement at hearing sounds like this live with the BBCSO again. We need more such pieces and performances, if only to epater the I-amclueless bourgeoisie a little more than is currently the case...

            Hugues Dufourt's Piano Concerto deluged me with a glittering, dizzying rush of notes like a musical analogue of whitewater rafting... I plunged in and was swept along - almost submerging here and there but arriving, finally, in a pool of calm. Nic Hodges seemed unimpeachable, but I could have done with more sheen and shine - more literal brilliance - from the orchestra. This piece needs to be heard and played often until its challenges can be met with an easier, more virtuoso response...

            The sort of nonchalant, polished articulacy, in short, that the BBC performers brought to Boulez' cummings ist der dichter, which sounded almost neoclassically articulate and restrained in this context. (Perhaps, though, it's time for presenters to stop referring to it as a "party piece" for the BBC Singers...)

            With the full orchestra reassembled, Volkov created a Beethoven 7th of lean athleticism and cumulative energy, with the weight of impact coming from the last two movements (a notably fresh, swift and physically exciting account the scherzo and trio). Volkov took care not expend too much emotional energy either in the opening vivace or the beautifully balanced allegretto. No need for over-obvious HIPPS point making in a reading as perfectly weighted and flighted as this. An Apollonian ease of dispatch.
            Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 23-01-14, 00:45.

            Comment

            • Bryn
              Banned
              • Mar 2007
              • 24688

              #7
              Now listening via the iPlayer. Much as I admire the music of Messiaen and Boulez, I do not appreciate snippets of it being used as some sort of 'lift music' while we are carried from performance to performance during a live concert broadcast.

              Comment

              • Serial_Apologist
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 37836

                #8
                Originally posted by Bryn View Post
                Now listening via the iPlayer. Much as I admire the music of Messiaen and Boulez, I do not appreciate snippets of it being used as some sort of 'lift music' while we are carried from performance to performance during a live concert broadcast.
                Agreed - it seems to be happening across the network, and often randomly innapropriate wrong shelf excerpts, eg from Shostakovitch 5 when discussion Soviet Union support for classical music post WW2 in the who is killing classical music programme the other day.

                Comment

                • Richard Barrett

                  #9
                  Originally posted by edashtav View Post
                  Hugues Dufourt's recent piano concerto owes a lot to that Spectral School
                  That would be because he's been a leading member of it for decades! I think his music has always been interesting, and it's getting more so these days. I wish I'd been at that concert.

                  These are nice:

                  Hugues Dufourt: L'Afrique d'après Tiepolo, per pianoforte ed ensemble (2005).Jean-Pierre Collot, pianoforteEnsemble Recherche.Cover image: painting by Giovan...

                  Hugues Dufourt (*1943): L'Asie d'après Tiepolo, per ensemble (2009).Ensemble Recherche.Cover image: painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.***The music publis...


                  ... and to add to these there's a much earlier piece for chamber orchestra and electronics called Saturne, which first alerted me to his music back in the days of LPs. I can't find it online though.

                  Comment

                  • teamsaint
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 25229

                    #10
                    The Grisey went over my head.

                    The Dufourt was really interesting, sounded genuinely original and stylish. I'd give that another listen.
                    Listening to the Boulez shortly, wondering about my bourgeouis-ness levels.
                    Last edited by teamsaint; 23-01-14, 15:14.
                    I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                    I am not a number, I am a free man.

                    Comment

                    • Serial_Apologist
                      Full Member
                      • Dec 2010
                      • 37836

                      #11
                      Originally posted by teamsaint View Post
                      The Grisey went over my head.
                      Best to avoid Brylcreem in the future, ts!

                      Comment

                      • edashtav
                        Full Member
                        • Jul 2012
                        • 3672

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
                        That would be because he's been a leading member of it for decades! I think his music has always been interesting, and it's getting more so these days. I wish I'd been at that concert.
                        Whoops - yes, I see that Hugues was the inventor of the term Spectral Music in an article published in 1981:

                        Dufourt, Hugues. 1981. "Musique spectrale: pour une pratique des formes de l'énergie". Bicéphale, no.3:85–89

                        Thanks for those recommendations, Richard. I had listened to the "Tiepolo" piece before listening to the piano concerto and found that to be helpful.

                        Comment

                        • Richard Barrett

                          #13
                          I've just been listening to the Dufourt concerto, which I like very much. With regard to Jayne's comment about the orchestra not sounding shiny enough, I suspect that it would have sounded better in the hall - the BBC engineers have given the piano a much more forward balance relative to the orchestra than it would have had in the Barbican. Still, I think the orchestra sounds suitably energised by the music.

                          Comment

                          • ahinton
                            Full Member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 16123

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
                            That would be because he's been a leading member of it for decades! I think his music has always been interesting, and it's getting more so these days. I wish I'd been at that concert.

                            These are nice:

                            Hugues Dufourt: L'Afrique d'après Tiepolo, per pianoforte ed ensemble (2005).Jean-Pierre Collot, pianoforteEnsemble Recherche.Cover image: painting by Giovan...

                            Hugues Dufourt (*1943): L'Asie d'après Tiepolo, per ensemble (2009).Ensemble Recherche.Cover image: painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.***The music publis...


                            ... and to add to these there's a much earlier piece for chamber orchestra and electronics called Saturne, which first alerted me to his music back in the days of LPs. I can't find it online though.
                            There's more Dufourt at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUzM...w=grid&view=54 although I note that one item described as his piano concerto isn't, as such - it's the first of the two to which you have posted links above!

                            Comment

                            • Serial_Apologist
                              Full Member
                              • Dec 2010
                              • 37836

                              #15
                              I can't find the iplayer for this programme.

                              Ah thanks, ahinton!

                              Comment

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