What was your last concert?

[MrGongGong]

Stimmung isn't often performed anywhere actually, it's not a particularly easy thing to do. Singcircle was only the second group to perform it, and this was after months of rehearsal and much correspondence between Gregory Rose and Stockhausen, since there were many features of the score that weren't as clear (or, in some cases to do with the notation of the vocal overtones, as correct) as the composer thought they were. I have the impression that finally it's building up more of a performance history, so that each new performance doesn't have to start from scratch.

Regarding "world music", this is what Stockhausen had to say (in a letter to Rose, quoted in the liner notes of the latter's recording) about the origin of the techniques used in this piece, mostly composed during a period when he and his family spent some months living in an isolated house on Long Island: "I started composing this work with a lot of melodies, singing aloud all the time. But after a few days my work was only possible during the night. The children needed silence also during the day. So I began humming, did not sing loudly anymore, began to listen to my vibrating skull, stopped writing melodies of fundamentals, settled on the low B flat, started again and wrote Stimmung, trying out everything myself by humming the overtone melodies. Nothing oriental, nothing philosophical: just the two babies, a small house, silence, loneliness, night, snow, ice: pure miracle!"

Thanks for this interesting information.
How does that tie in with his ideas about a music of the universe?

I do think that, given his extensive travels and appetite for seeking out unheard sounds that he would have been aware of traditions where overtone singing is practiced (but I don't know the chronology of that).

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks for this interesting information.
How does that tie in with his ideas about a music of the universe?

I do think that, given his extensive travels and appetite for seeking out unheard sounds that he would have been aware of traditions where overtone singing is practiced (but I don't know the chronology of that).

I was quite surprised to read that bit in the programme notes in Utrecht but there it is also in the CD notes for the Singcircle recording so I must have sort of known about it for years. But there was always some personal/anecdotal touch in his music, which for me is one of its endearing qualities - the breathing at the end of Hymnen, the way Gruppen contains the outlines of the mountains he could see out of the window of the chalet in Switzerland where he was writing it, much of the material of Momente (whose origins are covered in some detail in Mary Bauermeister's memoir), and so on. I'm sure he knew about overtone singing traditions. (Regarding Stimmung's unchanging harmony, he certainly knew about La Monte Young because LMY had been at his Darmstadt course in 1959 and they met again in NYC in the mid-1960s.) The point here is not that he thought "this stuff is cool, how can I grab it for myself", like a lot of other people might, but that the compositional (and domestic) issues he was dealing with led him in the direction of techniques which hadn't previously been used as musical material in Western music but indeed related to other traditions he would have encountered. For example, when he was making Telemusik in 1966 his materials were the ethnomusicological sound archive of the Tokyo radio station where he was working - it would be interesting to know what he listened to apart from the "samples" that actually made it into the piece. (Probably someone has done that research somewhere!)

[cloughie]

Last Saturday night I saw Albert Lee and the Electric Band at Mylor. Absolutely phenominal guitar playing, Albert, now 74, has a 50+ year career, very modest approach and played for so many great acts over the years, just delivers, no fuss.

[Jonathan]

We went to a very good concert in York on Saturday at the Barbican, it was the York Guildhall Orchestra playing Brahms: Tragic Overture, Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.3 (with Martin Roscoe) and in the second half, Brahms: Symphony no.4. Splendid evening.

[Beef Oven!]

Chas & Dave tribute in the Foresters Arms Loughton Essex. Against my pre-judgement, it was a cracking night!

Gertcha!

[pastoralguy]

Caro Emerald at the Usher Hall on Saturday nite. This is the second time we've seen her live and she was terrific. My enthusiasm was only tempered by the fact I did over 30 hours work from Friday night until Sunday afternoon.

Her band were phenomenal! Always amazes me that so many of these players are multi-instrumentalists. One chap played clarinet, big saxophone, medium saxophone and little saxophone as well as guitar and piano. And he sang in the a Capella spots too.

[HighlandDougie]

Schubert: Quartettsatz, D703/Ligeti: String Quartet No 1 "Métamorphoses nocturnes/Ravel: String Quartet in F major

Vision String Quartet

Lunchtime concert in Perth Concert Hall (and being recorded for future transmission by R3). I thought that this was an exceptionally good concert: the two violinists/violist play standing (as seems to be the modern fashion) and they played from memory. No mean feat in the Ligeti. Young and clearly going places, it was a delight to hear (and see) such committed playing. Their little encore - a party piece which is on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YvycCx8vvE) - was a suitably light-hearted coda to remind one of the life-affirming quality of - and the sheer pleasure to be had from - great music.

[HighlandDougie]

Shostakovich: Symphony No 9 in E flat major, op. 70/Copland: Clarinet Concerto/Prokofiev: Symphony No 6 in E flat minor, op. 111

Martin Fröst (Clarinet)/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo

Another fine concert after Monday at Perth Concert Hall. On Radio 3 live so I hope that at least one forumista was listening to the radio, as opposed to engaging in pointless posting about the B word. Being back at the Barbican was a bit of a shock after the Suntory Hall but the acoustic /music balance was OK. The ears adjust quickly. Martin Fröst, as well as being a pretty stellar clarinetist, is a bit of a showman - and none the worse for that. The encore - a sort of klezmer improvisation with orchestra - was an unexpected bonus (and the groupies in the audience duly swooned and gave him a standing ovation). DSCH 9 and the Prokofiev 6th made for an interesting - and satisfying - contrast. The relationship between SO and the orchestra seems to be continuing to do well. Great rapport - and some excellent brass/woodwind/timps. All in all, a really enjoyable evening.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Elias & Navarra Quartets; Ilkley Concert Club; Weds 14/11/18

A concert of two halves - as they are reputed to say in sporting circles (but probably don't). Before the interval, the two quartets performed separately; the Navarras beginning the programme with Schubert's Rosamunde 4tet, D804. Meticulously prepared, with great attention to detail ... but such a soporific performance, undercooked and so lethargic: not merely too slow (though I can't imagine how the work could succeed at these tempi) it was "outtense" (or whatever the opposite of "intense" is) and dreary. I hadn't realized how boring Schubert could be before this. The Elias 4tet followed with Sally Beamish's Third S4tet, Reed Stanzas - a work using a palindromic pattern, with an atmospheric opening and closing section (based on traditional Scottish fiddle material) and a more vigorous middle, that seemed to be there simply because the composer had been told that "you need a contrasting section here" - echoes of both Shostakovich and Sibelius, but much more predictable than those composers' best works are even when you've heard them a dozen times.

Not inspiring confidence in the second half, I still hung around (I'd paid for me ticket, after all!) - and was rewarded by a near-as-dammitt flawless performance of Mendelssohn's flawless Octet. Between 2008 and 2015, I used this work as a "set work" for "A"-level students, devoting over seven hours a term to it - I must have heard it dozens of times in that period, and it kept on revealing new treasures of invention and imagination; I work which grew in my affection and admiration with each hearing. I had only played it once in the three years since, but from the very first notes in this performance, I was instantly hooked by it all over again - it's a terrific piece, and the two ensembles combined their formidable talents to give one of the very best performances of any work I've ever heard. A blessing.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Flawless"? Well, I've never yet heard (on record or in performance) the opening 'cello solo presentation of the fugato subject that opens the Finale in which the notes don't sound like an aleatoric scramble; and there was (I think) a very slight instant of false synchronisation in the development section of the first movement, and perhaps Sara Bitlloch might have been half a smidgen more prominent in some of her "leading roles". But compared with the miraculous realization of the score - the games of "pass the pas seul" between all the players - the sense that they were there to enjoy themselves getting to the heart and soul of the work, and that there just happened to be an audience overhearing them - yes, dammit! Flawless!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HCMF 2018; MusikFabrik with Juliet Fraser; Huddersfield Town Hall, 16/11/18

Kicking off this year's Festival, the UK Premiere of Rebecca Saunder's Yes, with the phenomenal Juliet Fraser the solo vocalist.

Saunders is one of the greatest living composers - and if I have any hesitation in making that claim, it isn't because many living composers don't like vocabulary like "greatest", but because I could quite easily omit the word "living": her work has a power, beauty, and inventive imagination that makes her work stand in the company of any I could name - and is quite significantly better than many a more famous name. It is a shame (in the fullest sense of that word) that so little of her Music is available on "dedicated" recordings; but that is partly down to the spatial nature of much of her Music which makes reduction to two speakers of a CD player somewhat like those old Thames & Hudson books on Fauvism or Mondrian, with most of the illustrations in black & white. Even with surround sound multiple speakers, you'd need a couple of speakers on the ceiling, one on a chair immediately behind you, a couple in the hallway, one in the kitchen, and a few in the bedrooms upstairs.

This new work (premiered last year) is one of her best. Essentially an 85-minute Music Theatre piece based on Molly Bloom's final monologue from Ulysses, it shows up all those English language operas produced (and broadcast) this century for the redundancy of their material and imagination. This is the real deal - just as Joyce reworked and reinvented syntax in his text, so Saunders creates sounds which possess and beguile the listener with a constantly changing sequence of mood swings - often intensely beautiful sounds will morph into disturbing, unsettling noises - and then back. Fragile brass fanfares, liquid bass pizzications, murmurings and whisperings from the instrumentalists (as well as the vocalist), rumblings and sighings alternately caressing and hissing tha audience from all directions; furious explosions of sound, and near-silent whisps of harrowing beauty.

Some of Saunders' characteristic timbres were here again; the piano clusters, the rumbling bass drum, the accordion "breath" sounds - but unlike so many composers who repeat "tricks" from one work to another ("Well it worked there, let's use it again") as if they think that that's what makes for a "style", Saunders' timing and placing ensures that each new appearance recreates the vitality of the sounds from within the new contexts.

The Ensemble - conducted by composer Enno Poppe - have worked so often with the composer, one of the great Musical collaborations of our time; they played this magnificent work magnificently. But, of course, special mention to the exceptional contribution of Juliet Fraser - a great singer, of course, but also here a remarkably fine actress, her movements and facial expressions as meticulously considered and presented as the vocal performance. (As a lovely touch at the end, composer and ensemble tricked her into thinking that they were going on to take a group bow, but they stopped behind her so that she was left - rather startled - to take a solo bow.) Stunning - and the silent, breathless hush after the last sounds of the Music had halted held for ages before a huge cheer from the audience. Stunning, stunning, stunning! Three hours after it finished, and I'm still buzzing with it all.

(It's to be broadcast on Hear & Now on 15th December - and I noticed a couple of cameras filming the event; probably not for the Beeb, though How they'll manage the superbly judged spacial Music, though ... )

[Bryn]

Hmm, so we can probably expect the Saunders to turn up on "All That Dust" before too long.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hmm, so we can probably expect the Saunders to turn up on "All That Dust" before too long.

Oooh! I hadn't thought of that! Yes - 85mins is an awkward length for those of us still fond of the 20th Century CD; but they could use the work Saunders wrote for Fraser a couple of years ago* as a "filler".

On the way home, there was a repeat of Neil MacGregor's R4 talk on the Lion Man of Ulm, created some 40,000 years ago, and discussing the care and creative imagination that the maker demonstrated in the carving. It struck me that Saunders continues the line of human creativity that has continued since then - and produced work of profound beauty and invention. Quite revitalised my belief in our wonderful species.


* - Skin (forgot the name of the piece, had to look it up! - written for Klangforum Wien, rather than MusikFabrik, though ... )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HCMF 2018, Anthony Braxton; Sat 17th November, St Paul's Hall

After the intensity of the Saunders last night, comedy. The Monochrome Project, an ensemble of seven trumpeters, together with actress Lisa Charlotte Friederich gave the UK premiere of Braxton's 1983 Composition #103. Except that Ms Friederich also, on occasion, played a trumpet as well as providing the narration and dialogue. Which was only fair, as the individual trumpeters also contributed narration and acting. And they were in costumes and make-up, and their movements around the stage carefully choreographed. Oh, and samples from Braxton's Composition # 173 of 1994 were also heard over the loudspeakers.

Another hugely theatrical work, which put to shame recent examples of "legitimate" Opera. The Music is superb - the wide variety of sounds produced by the seven (or eight) trumpeters, both individually and collectively, ensured that every minute of the 65-minute duration kept a grip on the listeners' attention; frenetic solos, keening chorales, heart-stopping sustained single notes, cascades of highly-ornamented melody, a vast armoury of mutes. The "story" vaguely based on four individuals repeating short fragments of conversation - but both Music and "story" were twice interrupted with readings from the composer's instructions to the performers at the beginning of the score. This included "Do not be afraid to surprise yourselves and the audience with your own ideas" - at which point Ms Friederich performed a perfect three-limbed cartwheel (her right hand was holding a trumpet).

There are few things more tedious either to read or to write than descriptions/explanations of jokes - but somehow the disparate (and often seemingly contradictory) elements of Music, movement, and narrative fused marvellously into an inexplicably coherent and hilarious whole.

Very pleasing to see Rebecca Saunders and Enno Poppe amongst the audience (and I think I saw Aaron Cassidy there, too). Braxton himself wasn't, but the event was choreographed and supervised by Taylor Ho Bynum, a long-time Braxton collaborator, who had himself taken part in the world premiere of Composition #103.

Braxton is far too rarely broadcast here in the UK - and, alas, this concert won't make an exception: no R3 mics to be seen.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

HCMF 2018; Rebecca Saunders' "dust" & "aether"; St Paul's Hall, 18/11/18

The large-scale work Yes is, in part, made up from a collection and overlapping of 28 works for solo instruments and small chamber ensembles. This afternoon, two of these works were performed in their independent versions - and it was a special pleasure to hear sounds familiar from Friday night's concert in their more intimate settings.

dust is a "solo" for percussionist, playing a wide ensemble of glass, metal and membranous instruments (no wood involved, apart from the frames of the drums, and the handles of the various beaters). It turned out to be one of the most successful works for solo percussionist that I have ever heard - so many composers are tempted to "throw everything" into the instrumental collection, and then effectively produce a menu of sounds. Not this piece, which had a coherent structure, and a palpable "narrative" of sounds and thematic "characters" - typified by Saunders' uncanny alchemical wizardry at producing sounds that are simultaneously beautiful and unsettling; like watching a thunderstorm or an erupting volcano. A Bass drum is gently caressed by a rubber-headed beater, and the leviathan snores gently as it dreams of its mate - later a harder beater is dragged more forcefully across the skin, and the leviathan keens anew the loss of the mate as the dream dissolves. Bowed crotales set off sympathetic vibrations in the snares of drums, and the tectonic plates howl their farewells as they part forever. Glass bowls send feedback of overtones scuttling up into the highest recesses of the ceilings to create cobwebs of whistling partials. A half-hour of noises, sounds and sweet airs, such that we cried to hear on ... but gave vociferous applause to magnificent soloist, Dirk Rothbrust and to the composer.

aether was, I felt, less successful (perhaps the original idea of playing this before dust should have been kept to). A duet for bass clarinets, played superbly by Carl Rosman & Richard Haynes, (it is so easy to forget just how difficult this Music is to play, when they master the technical challenges so well that it sounds "easy"). There were the composer's trademark command of hauntingly beautiful and weirdly disconcerting sounds (again, upper harmonics playing an important role, with pulsating microtonal harmonies morphing into unisons) at times serene and consoling, but then turning on a knife edge into furious percussive violence - and breath sounds creating a wash of "background" sounds; at times akin to pre-Dolby tape hiss, at others like wind in pampas, or a distant tide on a shingle beach. It was lovely ... and had it been a work by a composer new to me, it would certainly have made me take note of the name and seek out other works. But, for me, on this one hearing, it didn't seem to work as perfectly as dust as an self-sufficient concert work away from the larger Yes project.