Birtwistle's Minotaur going cheap at ROH

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I wouldn't go even if you did pay me.

[Barbirollians]

I wouldn't go even if you did pay me.

.

I would hand out tickets with compulsory attendance instead of fines at the magistrates court !

[MrGongGong]

I wouldn't go even if you did pay me.

Don't you like music ?



I was talking with one of the OROH players last week who was saying that this time round he has really found the depth in the music and realised how brilliant it is.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Very much. But I'm choosy.

[Quarky]

They would have to pay me to go I am afraid - HB is one of my biggest musical deaf spots .

Together with Peter Maxwell Davies and the late Elliot carter .

HB's operatic stuff is very heavy going, and Minotaur is certainly off my menu. But I did enjoy the semi-staged version of Mask of Orpheus at the Proms a little while back.

However HB in his quieter moods is quite different -Silbury Air and some very recent compositions are quite accessible.

Eliot Carter is agreed very intellectual and requires a lot of effort, but I woulde have thought PMD's compositions are quite straight forward.

[Barbirollians]

Don't you like music ?



I was talking with one of the OROH players last week who was saying that this time round he has really found the depth in the music and realised how brilliant it is.

At which point the words " the king was in the altogether , the altogether " come to mind .

[MrGongGong]

At which point the words " the king was in the altogether , the altogether " come to mind .

Bingo ! (Epic fail , as my children would say )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

At which point the words " the king was in the altogether , the altogether " come to mind .

Quite right: all those fools taken in by it - Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Mitsuko Uchida, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Elgar Howarth, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Antonio Pappano, Christian Tetzlaff, Oliver Knussen, Joanna MacGregor, Pierre Boulez, Andrew Davis, Paul Daniel, Mark Wigglesworth. Good job there's always this forum to put them all back in their right senses and preferring Music that's derivative of Brahms and Dvorak.

[amateur51]

The ROH premiered three large works in the last decade. With each fresh view and hearing, The Tempest diminishes.The Minotaur has gained in stature. It was heartening to see a near capacity and appreciative audience at Saturday's performance of a musically challenging work, but one which is intensely dramatic.

Birtwistle's prevailing interest has been in the expression and importance of myth, how it impacts upon and shapes a society, and The Minotaur continues this programme. It is not an overtly expressive or emotional work and yet it packs a massive punch. The characters that inhabit it are deliberately emblematic and one-dimensional. This imbues clarity and concision to the dramatic development. The character that reveals a more complex persona and forms the emotional core of the work is, ironically, the bestial and murderous Minotaur, whose tortured inner humanity emerges through soliloquising his dreams (elegantly realised on the stage). When awake, he bellows and destroys.The relationship between Adriadne and Theseus is not the romantic tragedy of Strauss and Monteverdi, but founded on a hard nosed deal - Ariadne will help Theseus escape from the labyrinth provided he then helps her escape from the island. They do not trust each other let alone love each other. The Minotaur is merely the vehicle through which they can achieve their individual and disparate ambitions.

David Harsent's dramatic libretto uses a craggy language that has an austere and effective poetic power. Although this cannot always be heard over Birtwistle's complex music, the magnificent libretto can be appreciated through the surtitles. It is a libretto of the quality of Auden's and Piper's work, words and music are fused - the ideal rarely realised in the operatic form. And what music! Powerful seascapes with an undertow of menace and inexorable tonal pull to the horrors at Knossos, the brutal cacophony that accompanies the ritual slaughter by the Minotaur, the extraordinary scoring of Ariadne's visitation to the epileptic Oracle - a remarkable scene.

The orchestra is large and heavily augmented with an array of exotic percussion, including a bowel loosening tam-tam, temple gongs, bongos, glockenspiel... The cimbalom provides a twangy presence that cuts through ever shifting orchestral textures and louring brass. The alto-saxophone's sultry line exclusively accompanies Ariadne and recalls the vampish Lulu, though Ariadne is no temptress, more an animated caryatid.

The entire cast is exemplary. Christine Rice's Ariadne is on stage for almost the entire 150 minutes and sang the role with astonishing power, cutting through the dense orchestral textures. John Tomlinson's Minotaur is a very impressive performance, suited to the changes that have occurred in his voice. It's a quite an achievement to provoke sympathy for such a horrifying character. But more terrifying are the Kers, a brood of scavenging harpies who feed on the blood of the near and newly dead. These fearsome creatures make The Valkyries seem like genteel guests at a vicar's tea party.

I've no concept of how one conducts a work such as this. Ryan Wigglesworth replaced the indisposed Pappano. It is not music I would call beautiful, comprising of blocks of sound, but it is totally suited to its subject matter and it is spectacular to watch the music being made as well as hearing it. In Birtwistle's bleak and uncompromising realisation of a mythic universe, this is how the world ends - with a bang and a whimper, and a scream.

Outstanding post Belgrove Many thanks

I've seen/heard it twice now and feel I'm getting closer to what HB's on about but a further ten listens/views will be required I'm sure. The ROH programme is a wonder

[Barbirollians]

Quite right: all those fools taken in by it - Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Mitsuko Uchida, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Elgar Howarth, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Antonio Pappano, Christian Tetzlaff, Oliver Knussen, Joanna MacGregor, Pierre Boulez, Andrew Davis, Paul Daniel, Mark Wigglesworth. Good job there's always this forum to put them all back in their right senses and preferring Music that's derivative of Brahms and Dvorak.

I was convinced FHGL until you mentioned Andrew Davis and Joanna McGregor ! My idea of a nightmare combination .

[Bryn]

... Good job there's always this forum to put them all back in their right senses and preferring Music that's derivative of Brahms ...

What, like Schoenberg, you mean? [sic]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What, like Schoenberg, you mean? [sic]

Which reminds me (completely off-topic) - did you hear the Richter & co Bach Cantata on Sunday morning? A lot of it sounded to me like "right-note" Hindemith!

[amateur51]

I was convinced FHGL until you mentioned Andrew Davis and Joanna McGregor ! My idea of a nightmare combination .

by way of an alternative view ...

Andrew Davis gave me two of my most memorable 'live' perfomances: Schoenberg's Gurrelieder at the '94 Proms with the astonishing and aged Hans Hotter; and Berg's Lulu in concert at the RFH. Terrific stuff

Joanna Macgregor is doing sterling work as Professor of Piano at Royal Academy of Music and gave a stunning 'live' performance on Radio 3 of JSB's Goldberg Variations the memory of which thrills me to this day Her recording of it ain't bad either

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was convinced FHGL until you mentioned Andrew Davis and Joanna McGregor ! My idea of a nightmare combination .

- but they've never performed Birtwistle together (there's a thought to give you nightmares!) And don't we owe Andy at least a smidgen of gratitude for his work on the Elgar/Payne "Third Symphony"?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

by way of an alternative view ...

Andrew Davis gave me two of my most memorable 'live' perfomances; Schoenberg's Gurrelieder at the '94 Proms with the astonishing and aged Hans Hotter; and Berg's Lulu in concert at the RFH. Terrific stuff

Joanna Macgregor is doing sterling work as Professor of Piano at Royal Academy of Music and gave a stunning 'live' performance on Radio 3 of JSB's Goldberg Variations the memory of which thrills me to this day Her recording of it ain't bad either