Jonathan Powell/Sorabji/Oxford

[Beef Oven!]

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji - Piano Symphony #6. Jonathan Powell, piano. UK Premiere.

Jacqueline Du Pre Music Building, St Hilda's College, Oxford University. 3.00pm Saturday 2nd November 2013.

An astonishing work and an astounding performance.

A solo piano piece in three parts.

The first part is a continuous movement consisting of a prologue and epilogue.

The second part is a massive passacaglia, preceded by four short movements, and followed by three slightly longer ones.

The final part is a series of fugues and interludes framed by a pair of slow movements.

An hour and forty minutes in the first movement, just under 2 hours in the second and an hour twenty in the third.

The time flew by! I looked at my watch in the second movement, thinking that half an hour had passed, and was shocked to realise the movement had been going for one hour and twenty five minutes!! Was it the musician, the work or both?

It was one of the best and most captivating gigs that I have ever attended.

Hopefully Alistair will be providing a more erudite summary in due course.

[edashtav]

The British Premiere of Sorabji's final Symphony for Piano

A swift return to the topic, however, is called for!

We heard a little more than the 1st British Performance of Sorabji's 6th Symphony for Piano, thank to back-tracking caused by poor page-turning and "noises off". Who were we? Sadly, there were only c. 30 paying customers present at the start of the marathon and whilst numbers grew slightly, by the end there were no more than 25. That was very sad because, like it to loathe it, the piece is a work of great mastery that is unlikely to be encountered often. It was an act of tremendous commitment and bravery by Jonathan Powell to learn the piece and then to risk playing it in a concert that with two refresher breaks lasted five and a half hours. He looked both exhausted and elated at its conclusion. Jonathan had given the work's first performance only a few days earlier in Holland.

So what's the piece like? A trite answer is "nothing outside of Sorabji's oeuvre". And that's not a function of the work's length but of its musical vocabulary, construction, and command of pianistic effects. The work is in three massive parts that I shall reduce to : difficult, moderate, & easy in terms of accessibility.

The first part is also the first movement in three sections : Introitus, Intrecciata and Coda-epilogo. I suppose the relatively simple wrappers lasted less than 10 minutes so that the less digestible filling of the sandwich played continuously for over 90 minutes. It was granitic and tough. The early Sorabji world in a perfumed, oriental garden was largely absent. Whilst the pianism required was virtuosic, it was never "showy". The material was recondite and made memorial only through the number of times we heard it in transformation. It was "late" music in the sense we use when talking of "late" Beethoven- all flesh and muscle, pared down and lacking a scrap of fat. That made for exhausting listening. I needed to hear this movement.... again and ...again. I moved from my gallery seat reeling then, suddenly, the immense complexity of what I'd experienced was laid bear: I passed a practice room with a student relaxing, as one does on a Saturday afternoon, playing a dance on a piano. It was so obvious and simple, one bar was enough to guess the next 7 or 15. For nearly two hours, I'd heard not one bar that had preordained what followed.

The greater variety of the second part was a relief. 4 tiny movements each of a few pages were full of character and clearly owed debts to earlier models. Virtuosity came to the fore with some electric part-writing, extremely high velocity sections, and music that was tremendous fun. Sorabji doesn't often do "humour", but this was an old, wise composer taking his cue from the likes of Haydn. Having been "softened up", Sorabji then hit his audience with a massive, rigorous ostinato with no fewer than 64 variations. One thing I learned was the amazing breadth of pianistic effects possessed by Sorabji. I saw the old man coming down to his piano day after day, sitting down, improvising and then writing down a new variant. Were any redundant? Well, they were neither repetitious nor trivial but it occurred to be that some may have been written "because I can". Listening to Bach , one is constantly amazed at the rigour of the tightest structural control married to an endlessly fertile invention. Much the same can be said of Sorabji. Ideas flourish and become complex patterns in time, with some similarity to the manner in which vast friezes in Moorish art are generated from small, repeating cells. Sorabji can stretch time in an amazing manner. An ostinato theme will be opened out so that each note becomes a page, and each line flowers to need multiple staves to separate and make linear sense of added detail. Does the constant "additive" effect create music that is mere noise? No. Transparency is a prime feature of Sorabji. Rarely does he use thick chords across both hands: if one hand has a chord, it's probable that the other with be generating a linear pattern. We're back to Bach seen through the lens of Busoni. After the discipline of this immense ostinato, the second part unwound to its conclusion with two, crystalline character pieces, one dedicated to Alkan. They seemed to me to be mind cleansers - the equivalent of having a sorbet between courses at dinner.

Time for tea and a sugary cake to restore my energy levels.Goodness only knows what Jonathan needed. The final part was easy to assimilate. The central structure was 5 varied fugues separated by interludes. The fugues increased in complexity and length, their human-scale made listening far easier. The final, slow fugue had great nobility. Earlier, the movement started with one of the last of Sorabji's great middle-eastern night-pieces full of light arabesques and light reflecting off complex, bejewelled surfaces.

The whole work ends with a rapt remembrance of things past in a second coda-epilogo. The mood was, for Sorabji, remarkably relaxed and content. It was as if the composer was saying,"that's it, my this composition and my symphonies are completed." I'd compare it with the epilogue of Arnold Bax's final, 7th Symphony. Everything that can be said in this medium has been said, the time of toil is over.

Hats off to Jonathan Powell. He played the work with insight and authority. Moods and textures were revealed with clarity and precision. If some page turns were rough, there were good reasons. I'd have liked a lighter touch, more very soft playing, at times but, that complaint may, once again be due to other matters dealt with below. But, I shall never forget Powell's apparent tirelessness, momentum never flagged and the music remained transparent with remarkably few smudged or unshaped lines. The performance deserved to be played to a packed house.

I've filled up the space for this post and will add the rest of my short report to a subsequent one!

[edashtav]

I've filled up the space for this post and will add the rest of my short report to a subsequent one!

A continuation of post #47

Extraneous concerns.
This was my first experience of the du Pre Concert Hall in Oxford, a modern, uncluttered, ascetic auditorium with brick walls and features finished in wood. It has a small gallery running around three sides. The roof space is a high, wooden vault supported by steel members that also carry a collection of lights. I was in the gallery quite close to the front peeping over the pianist's right shoulder at the score. The hall has plenty of resonance - rather useful for sustaining some of Sorabji's ultimate chords for many seconds- but with a clear edge to the sound and fine definition. I found the impact of a Steinway ("D"?) to be very loud and strident at climaxes- Jonathan has a steely attack when the composer demands it - and I must admit that my ears tired towards the end of the five hours. I dreamed of substituting Yonty Solomon - I heard him live in Sorabji's 3rd Sonata because his touch was so gentle and filigree. That's not a criticism of Powell - it's not easy for executants to understand what listeners are hearing in an auditorium. I noticed two rather ugly temporary reflector boards placed at 45 degrees in the two right-angled corners at the back of the stage. Clearly, they were late additions deemed necessary to modify the sound reflections from the bare, brick walls. If they did not succeed for me that may be partly a function of my ears that are old and developing a contempt for the shrill. However, there was another dimension to the hall's acoustics. I'd describe them as "lively": drop a pin ... With few people to act as absorbers, that effect was bound to be multiplied. Early in the second part, someone in the body of the Hall dropped some sweets. It was as if a pile of wooden blocks had been dropped. What a clatter. Jonathan stopped, glared at the culprit, and announced,"There's an awful lot of noise". The electric movement was started afresh, gloriously, in a splenetic tempest. "Gosh," I thought,"This is magnificent, if things become moribund have I the bottle to drop my water?" [ Reader - The answer was a resounding,[B]"NO!"[/B]]

The second matter was page turning. Three male students (?) shared the task. - not a facile one because the score is laid out across multiple staves, is complex, seemed completely new to the lads and was formed of 300 plus A3 sheets bound with the longer edges across the music stand. I mention the latter point because it require some dexterity to lean across a pianist who was often playing some very low notes and to grab the right hand page without crumpling its last bars prematurely. The middle student was heroically good and received a private bow from Jonathan at the interval. Imagine being Jonathan at the start of the performance facing a five hour slog up an unexplored mountain. You would be tense and worried. Before you finish the first steps, page 1 of your map is pulled away prematurely! Your concentration is broken as you snatch back that first page. Thereafter, surely, you will be nervous before each page turn? It didn't help that the 100, or so, minutes of the first part is through-composed- no obvious resting places where pages could be turned almost at leisure. The first part could be described as an armed truce between page-turner and pianist. The second (longest) section had the greatest page-turner in Oxford - alert, sensitive and able to read Jonathan's face so there were no manic tosses of his wiry mane. A marriage made in heaven. The third turner - the less written the better - he was expert at "bogof" : bend one and get an extra page free. Ever ready early, right hand pages turned into premature 3D corrugated, concave sheets many bars before "the turn", yet still, extra pages turned in sympathy with the bent one. That's how we heard part of the final section twice accompanied by "G...d G.d!".

How should the BBC react to this piece - how may it be programmed? It ought to be heard both for the quality of the work, itself, but also through the excellence of Jonathan Powell's pianism. How about scheduling it through those long night hours? The iPlayer will allow those of us who are not night owls to time shift it.

[Beef Oven!]

That noise was made by a bag of sweets!!!!!!!!??? I thought an easel and blackboard had collapsed!

Someone said that the culprit was Jonathan Powell's father, who was sitting a few rows behind me.

I thought JP might hit the third page-turner!

People (I'm thinking mainly of the page-turner here) should never be put in such a position. That poor young lad died a thousand deaths in the final part. He endured for an hour and twenty minutes, on stage with a raging pianist and an audience in front of him. You may have noticed that as he walked out of the room, his chin was firmly embedded in his chest.

I'm sorry you didn't get as much out of the concert as I did

[teamsaint]

Thanks to both of you into your thoughts on what must have been an amazing experience.

Seems from what I have been told by people who have done it, that page turners are often recruited late. Clearly in this case much more preparation was required for at least one of them.

There is little excuse in these days of multi channel, red button, iplayer media for the BBC not to programme works like this. Its the sort of thing they should be doing.

[french frank]

There is little excuse in these days of multi channel, red button, iplayer media for the BBC not to programme works like this. Its the sort of thing they should be doing.

It is though a reason for that, oft whispered, possibility of a digital channel (for R3 Extra), which the other four network stations have. Even if it was a bit like Sports Extra - there for when the need arises.

[teamsaint]

It is though a reason for that, oft whispered, possibility of a digital channel (for R3 Extra), which the other four network stations have. Even if it was a bit like Sports Extra - there for when the need arises.

would you have an idea of what those stations cost to run, FF?

[french frank]

would you have an idea of what those stations cost to run, FF?

In the year 2012/13, Sports Extra (the only one which isn't a 24-hour service) cost £5.6m in total (including all the distribution and infrastructure costs) - £2.7m for the content. I'm pretty sure some of those total costs include an allocation for premises &c, which the BBC has to pay anyway.

A similar cost for Radio 3 Extra would put the cost of the two stations (based on last year's figures) at £58m, as against £66m that was actually spent on Radio 1/1Xtra.

[edashtav]

That noise was made by a bag of sweets!!!!!!!!??? I thought an easel and blackboard had collapsed!

Someone said that the culprit was Jonathan Powell's father, who was sitting a few rows behind me.

I thought JP might hit the third page-turner!

People (I'm thinking mainly of the page-turner here) should never be put in such a position. That poor young lad died a thousand deaths in the final part. He endured for an hour and twenty minutes, on stage with a raging pianist and an audience in front of him. You may have noticed that as he walked out of the room, his chin was firmly embedded in his chest.

I'm sorry you didn't get as much out of the concert as I did

Well, I thought it was an amplified bag of sweets from my lofty position above the hurly-burly
I'm 100% with you re page-turners. Folk who know scores backwards, don't realise how impenetrable they may appear to a virgin. And... I'm sure the 3 turners were such novices: with no sight ( or sound!) of the score, beforehand (no1 when handed the score did not peruse it but had to be prompted to "put it on the piano"). However impractical for 5+ hour piece, there should be a practice in real-time. You're right, Beef Oven , JP nearly decapitated turner#3, but I forgave the pianist on the occasion, but not, perhaps ,for failing to ensure that the turners were competent THROUGH PRACTICE. I shouldn't imagine JP will take turners for granted in the future. I did make a point, which I feel is worth emphasising, that landscape scores are great for solo practice but the pits for the lonely page-turner. The second page turner was ... born for that role- concentration+ agility + perception = genius. [ I write as a lowly conductor with partial paralysis of the l.h.side cause by infantile polio. Turning the pages whilst conducting is, for me, a fraught affair. I'm buying a tablet computer next week in an attempt to avoid much of the physicality.]

I'm yet to work out whether your enjoyment equalled mine, Beef Oven, since your mind is capable, I fear of double & triple bluffs!

To mimic 90% of folk under 20, & to confirm ts's view : IT WAS AMAZING!

[edashtav]

In the year 2012/13, Sports Extra (the only one which isn't a 24-hour service) cost £5.6m in total (including all the distribution and infrastructure costs) - £2.7m for the content. I'm pretty sure some of those total costs include an allocation for premises &c, which the BBC has to pay anyway.

A similar cost for Radio 3 Extra would put the cost of the two stations (based on last year's figures) at £58m, as against £66m that was actually spent on Radio 1/1Xtra.

What a PERCEPTIVE AND HELPFUL PIECE OF ANALYSIS. Keep up your good work, please,ff!

[teamsaint]

In the year 2012/13, Sports Extra (the only one which isn't a 24-hour service) cost £5.6m in total (including all the distribution and infrastructure costs) - £2.7m for the content. I'm pretty sure some of those total costs include an allocation for premises &c, which the BBC has to pay anyway.

A similar cost for Radio 3 Extra would put the cost of the two stations (based on last year's figures) at £58m, as against £66m that was actually spent on Radio 1/1Xtra.

thanks FF. Just imagine what a R3 extra could offer to music broadcasting, for the cost of a couple of medium sized payoffs each year.......

[ahinton]

I will write little here because I don't think that I could add much to the perceptive, welcome and thoughtful comments already made here about last night's performance other than to say that it was one of the moving and powerful of all that I've heard from Jonathan Powell (and, believe me, I've heard a few stunners already!) and that the greatest shame of all is that the composer could not have heard it.

Truly beyond belief. How anyone could, for example, manage some of those explosive eruptions coruscating rapid-fire chordal accretions without turning them into a mere bash-fest is a most remarkable achievement in itself, but to ensure that, whatever the music was doing, a constant sense of linear flow was forever present was really most remarkable.

I can't say more right now!...

[Beef Oven!]

Well, I thought it was an amplified bag of sweets from my lofty position above the hurly-burly
I'm 100% with you re page-turners. Folk who know scores backwards, don't realise how impenetrable they may appear to a virgin. And... I'm sure the 3 turners were such novices: with no sight ( or sound!) of the score, beforehand (no1 when handed the score did not peruse it but had to be prompted to "put it on the piano"). However impractical for 5+ hour piece, there should be a practice in real-time. You're right, Beef Oven , JP nearly decapitated turner#3, but I forgave the pianist on the occasion, but not, perhaps ,for failing to ensure that the turners were competent THROUGH PRACTICE. I shouldn't imagine JP will take turners for granted in the future. I did make a point, which I feel is worth emphasising, that landscape scores are great for solo practice but the pits for the lonely page-turner. The second page turner was ... born for that role- concentration+ agility + perception = genius. [ I write as a lowly conductor with partial paralysis of the l.h.side cause by infantile polio. Turning the pages whilst conducting is, for me, a fraught affair. I'm buying a tablet computer next week in an attempt to avoid much of the physicality.]

I'm yet to work out whether your enjoyment equalled mine, Beef Oven, since your mind is capable, I fear of double & triple bluffs!

To mimic 90% of folk under 20, & to confirm ts's view : IT WAS AMAZING!

Totally agree, it was AMAZING!.

I always know when I've been to a very special concert. I get a second, delayed reaction where the whole thing hits me again and I get a real sense of euphoria - and much reaching for CDs of the music heard until 3.30am!!

Believe me when I say that my enjoyment at least equalled yours!

P.S. Enjoy your new tablet computer!!!

[Padraig]

For a concert I wasn't at, I really enjoyed it.
Thank you gentlemen.

[Beef Oven!]

For a concert I wasn't at, I really enjoyed it.
Thank you gentlemen.