Proms Saturday Matinee 4 - 6.09.14: A Portrait of Sir Harrison Birtwistle

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Saturday, 6 September
3.00 p.m. – c. 4.30 p.m.
Cadogan Hall

In celebration of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's 80th birthday, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Oliver Knussen perform some of his early works, live at the BBC Proms

Sir Harrison Birtwistle: Verses for Ensembles
Sir Harrison Birtwistle: Dinah and Nick's Love Song
Sir Harrison Birtwistle: Meridian

Hilary Summers (mezzo-soprano)
Exaudi
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Oliver Knussen (conductor)

Along with fellow Lancastrian composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Harrison Birtwistle celebrates his 80th birthday this year. The Proms marks the occasion with a concert from one of the UK's leading new music ensembles, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

The group's relationship with Birtwistle's music is a long one, and here it performs three of the composer's classic early works. Each explores the spatial dramatisation of music, playing aural games with the audience and exposing them to intriguing and unfamiliar textures, while never neglecting the ever-unfolding melody that is at the core of all Birtwistle's music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I notice the presenter will be CB-H. A bit outside her usual territory.

Lancashire has produced some fine composers.

[peterthekeys]

I notice the presenter will be CB-H. A bit outside her usual territory.

Does anyone else feel that that for her to refer to Birtwistle and Knussen as "Harry" and "Olly" respectively is tasteless and disrespectful? If she really does use those names in conversation with them, fair enough - but using them in her concert spiels just sounds like the worst kind of Hyacinth Bucket name-dropping.

[Blotto]

I notice the presenter will be CB-H. A bit outside her usual territory.

She contributed to the presentation of Mask of Orpheus at the Proms in 2009, too. There's a video of the intros and performance http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/WHa2-I3OHV8

I haven't got anything useful to say by way of review but I've been listening to Birtwistle this month, went and it was a good concert. At the time, I thought Brian Ferneyhough was in the second row but he must have had a haircut if he was. Is it likely he'd be there?

About 2/3rds full and enthusiastic audience though some seemed to be performers' relations. There was a woman a few rows down who was laughing, I think, at some of the more outrageous outburts in Meridian. A foreign couple in their 30s brought the kids, a girl probably 4 and a boy of 6. My heart sank when I saw them but the kids sat quiet, with very little fidgeting for the whole gig. If they include the applause to welcome HB before the first piece, I'd like to boast that I started it!

Cadogan's a very attractive, 'protestant' hall, plain and high. The hall blended the instrumental sound very well for my ears - but I wondered if it swallowed Hilary Summers' voice a little when she sang low notes.

The music is tremendously physical on the ear sometimes in the prolonged 'tight' discords from the wind instruments. It felt like a raw force in the ear in the same way you feel a dazzling glare with almost fright and hurt in the eye.

I struggled with Verses for Ensembles. The untuned percussion parts didn't really explain themselves to my ear; they were a barrage at times but never seemed to either fit, complement or purposefully contrast with the wind music (there aren't any strings in the piece; don't think the harps played?). But it did become more absorbing as it progressed, the sound more dense and concentrated to a degree that was absorbing.

What struck me whilst I was listening is that it's music of diversity, not of similarity. If the pieces do fit together in Verses - and I'm not sure they do or are meant to - it doesn't happen in anyway I've yet comprehended.

Nick and Dinah's Love Song was a 5 minute piece with a harpist on stage and 3 wind soloists distributed in the upstairs gallery. Birtwistle said he wrote it in an afternoon.

He was brought on stage for an interview before it but didn't have a great deal to say besides his familiar riffs ("It is what it is." "I took a line for a walk"). Has any composer ever been asked to 'explain' their music more than HB? I've just finished an interview book by Fiona Maddocks and the sense of that question is endlessly there; why? why? why? He also, in the book, has days and times when he really doesn't have anything to say by way of explanation. I think he was quite put off by the stage change going on whilst he was talking but also there was no real space between Verses - which is quite intense - and the speech.

The timing felt wrong for this talk. I lost concentration in the second half of Meridian though got it back before the end but felt the BBC's on-stage presentation played a part in losing the thread. The concert lacked free silence between the pieces; first Birtwistle after Verses, then Knussen was interviewed after the Love Song. We had to sit in silence for the talking, wanted to hear them, of course, but didn't get a chance to stop quietly to digest what we'd heard. For me, attention to Meridian therefore suffered. I just couldn't take any more in after the half way mark. One little thing I did notice though is that there's a brief 'cello phrase during a solo in the middle of Meridian that's identical to one in Tragoedia and sounds very much like something from Quartet for the End of Time.

Hilary Summers has a charming voice with the character of a counter-tenor and a very unselfconsciously gentle presence on the stage. She really made song from the music of Meridian but I felt the music missed her sometimes when she didn't sing. Some of the later wind discords were window-rattlingly powerful. The bands - BCMG and Exaudi - often looked really happy to be there and happy about the responses which were strong.

At the end, Birtwistle came back on stage again. He kissed Knussen and Summers and applauded everyone; the young choir looked quite sweet on him. I'm not sure if Knussen's lost a bit of weight but he didn't seem to hobble quit as badly as he did at a Prom last year and I hadn't recognised how tall he is; over 6 foot I'd say and Hilary Summers is a similar height. When he got on stage with the two of them, Birtwistle looked like Ronnie Corbett.

[Bryn]

Does anyone else feel that that for her to refer to Birtwistle and Knussen as "Harry" and "Olly" respectively is tasteless and disrespectful? If she really does use those names in conversation with them, fair enough - but using them in her concert spiels just sounds like the worst kind of Hyacinth Bucket name-dropping.

"Harry" is a perfectly tasteful, respectful, and indeed respectable appellation to use for the knight in question. To my recollection, "Olly" is also happy with that soubriquet (more tasteful and respectful than "Giant Haystacks", as he is also known).

[french frank]

"Harry" is a perfectly tasteful, respectful, and indeed respectable appellation to use for the knight in question. To my recollection, "Olly" is also happy with that soubriquet (more tasteful and respectful than "Giant Haystacks", as he is also known).

Tasteless and disrespectful may be wrong. But it does sound like what Radio 3 is trying not to be: a club for the musical elite. Hyacinth Bucket may be nearer the truth.

[Blotto]

Does anyone else feel that that for her to refer to Birtwistle and Knussen as "Harry" and "Olly" respectively is tasteless and disrespectful ... Bucket name-dropping.

They're two very amiable, unpretentious men, from what I've seen, and I'm fairly sure that 'Harri' is what Birtwistle invites interviewers to call him - "Everybody calls me 'Harri'."

C B-H seems like a very nice, perfectly ordinary, Cambridge-educated woman to me. She's not another baby eater, is she?

[jayne lee wilson]

They're two very amiable, unpretentious men, from what I've seen, and I'm fairly sure that 'Harri' is what Birtwistle invites interviewers to call him - "Everybody calls me 'Harri'."

C B-H seems like a very nice, perfectly ordinary, Cambridge-educated woman to me. She's not another baby eater, is she?

1) What is a baby-eater? Are they always female? It's just that I heard something about this guy called Caligula...
2) "Another" - Who are all the other ones?

***
Musical Relevance to thread...
I didn't listen to this webcast because
1)I was frustrated by the technical deficiencies of last Saturday's Max effort.
2) There's been almost no response to my comments on the previous Cadogans..
3)The Sun was out. And how much more are we getting of THAT?

I might catch up on VERSES, but if the fader rises towards me I'm outta there.

[peterthekeys]

"Harry" is a perfectly tasteful, respectful, and indeed respectable appellation to use for the knight in question. To my recollection, "Olly" is also happy with that soubriquet (more tasteful and respectful than "Giant Haystacks", as he is also known).

As I said - I've absolutely no problem with CB-H (or anyone else) using nicknames in private conversation with the owners of those nicknames, provided that the latter are happy for her to use them. My only problem is with her using them when introducing their work on R3. On the other hand, I've no problem with Peter Maxwell Davies (in the "Music Matters" programme recently) referring to Birtwistle as "Harry" - because they really have been friends since they were students.

When it all boils down to it, I suppose it's simply my nostalgia for (what I think of as) the good old days when R3 presenters introduced the items and then just quietly got out of the way. I always feel that the tendency by some of the current presenters to hog the limelight has something vulgar about it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Musical Relevance to thread...
I didn't listen to this webcast because
1)I was frustrated by the technical deficiencies of last Saturday's Max effort.
2) There's been almost no response to my comments on the previous Cadogans..
3)The Sun was out. And how much more are we getting of THAT?

I might catch up on VERSES, but if the fader rises towards me I'm outta there.

1) Detail in the quieter passages in the larger two works was rather muffled listened to on fm, so you might well have been proved right, Jayne;
2) You always write so well it seems almost banal to have nothing to add but acknowledgement!
3) You were lucky!

I now rather wish I'd gone, not having expected to get in at the last minute: it's only a 30 minute bike ride each way for me. Not having ever found anything more "outrageous" than can be found in Britten's "Our Hunting Fathers" I had rather hoped "Meridian" might have proved Blotto's ice-breaker regarding Birtwistle.

[Blotto]

1) What is a baby-eater? Are they always female? It's just that I heard something about this guy called Caligula ...
2) "Another" - Who are all the other ones?

I think most of the others are also Radio 3 presenters wanted for perpetrating Crimes against Humanity like promoting of the Tweet, playing individual movements from symphonic works and chatting:

" ... (which) are particularly odious offences (constituting) a serious attack on human dignity ... " They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part ... of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority.

C B-H like most of the others seems decent and perfectly harmless to me but I think some of the practices the presenters are given to undertake are counter-productive. In this case, the presenter walked onto the stage which silenced the audience, only then to ask them to talk to one another to give the radio audience the impression of a lively event when the broadcast began. Of course, as soon as that happened, we all shut up again because she started with her introduction from the platform. It was scripted anyway so she could have done it from the wings without disturbing the audience.

Did anyone listen live? In the actual concert, when she said that Harrison Birtwistle was in the hall (who was at that moment trying to be inconspicuous and creep into his seat), we began to applaud, started by Yours Truly. Tuning in smugly to the iPlayer last night, I see they must anyway have re-recorded her intro to remove this as it wasn't in the programme.

None of this mattered enormously but like the elderly Maxwell Davies a couple of weeks ago, the elderly Birtwistle was brought up onto the stage when the interviewer could just as well have gone to speak to him and he was then sent off again after an amiable but uninformative short chat. All the on-stage address meant that the audience who'd paid to attend were deprived of the opportunity to absorb and discuss the experience of the music in the hall but were rather treated like background artists in a crowd scene. Treated nicely-enough in word but nonetheless in thought and deed we were really disregarded.

C B-H was pleasant and competent, I felt, but I wish that she'd been kept off-stage in a box.

[Blotto]

I now rather wish I'd gone, not having expected to get in at the last minute: it's only a 30 minute bike ride each way for me. Not having ever found anything more "outrageous" than can be found in Britten's "Our Hunting Fathers" I had rather hoped "Meridian" might have proved Blotto's ice-breaker regarding Birtwistle.

Oh, the sound in the hall was quite fierce, at times. A few of the discords where several instruments were playing high and close pitches were piercing. Not quite painful to my leathered, middle-age ear drums but fierce.

There were plenty of seats though it was easier to see on the Cadogan website than the Proms one. Oddly, there was a block of perhaps 60 in the front left centre stalls which had been empty on the site and on the day.

Meridian is another engaging Birtwistle piece but the requirements of the broadcast meant I didn't get the time I needed to absorb and settle each piece as it came and went. Knussen was the programmer and The Love Song was a very good choice to change the tone and reduce the demand on the listener. I think, the lack of silence before and after meant its useful effect as a soft and simple intermezzo was reduced. Half way into Meridian, I just couldn't concentrate any more.

[Blotto]

It's a handy service, this.

Links to each of the three pieces without the chat: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04gjz1v/clips

or to the whole show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04gjz1v

[french frank]

Thanks for that very detailed account, Blotto (makes this 'the best seat in the house', I reckon!)

[Blotto]

Thanks, french.

I'm conscious at times that I can run on a bit but, funnily enough, because Cadogan is a small hall, there's alot to see.

I did sympathise with C B-H. She came over nicely and was well-prepared with appropriately stimulating comment but Birtwistle really didn't look comfortable or speak well, if you listen. I know he makes quite alot of stage appearances - this is the third time I've seen him talk, at least - but, on reflection, I wonder what kind of experience being 'called up' like that is for him.

I finished reading this book yesterday evening http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harrison-Bir...+-+Wild+Tracks and I'm struck now by a postponed revelation from the end of it.

The author, Fiona Maddocks, is a friend of the family. The book is a pretty light chronological diary of verbatim conversations with HB over the course of 2013. A couple of early entries focus on his childhood and family life. However, when it comes to school, he simply refuses to speak about it by briefly demurring then falling silent though, a few weeks later, he remarks that he is "hopelessly dyslexic".

Harrison Birtwistle: ... only in retrospect has it become an explanation, an understanding of myself. And, in spite of it, it's a major part of what I do, of who I am.

At the end of the book, in the penultimate entry, she presses him on the subject of school, not unkindly but with a little firmness. She asks him if they can talk about why he doesn't want to talk about it and he says that it's something he's been skirting around "all my life". Partly by letting Fiona Maddocks articulate it for him, he does disclose his experience.

Harrison Birtwistle: It has been painful, avoiding the whole business in the intervening years ...

Fiona Maddocks: ... in that era, notions of dyslexia ... were non existent. There were clever people who could read and spell and the others who couldn't, who were thick.

HB: That's right. The so-called intelligent ones were weeded out and given a different education. The rest ...

FM: You felt that was you?

HB: Yeah.

I did just wonder, thinking about seeing him yesterday, what it might be like for HB to be called up on a stage, to be questioned and explain?