Proms Saturday Matinee 1: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (25.07.15)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

3.00 p.m.
Cadogan Hall
The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group celebrates the music of Boulez in his 90th birthday year, live at the BBC Proms, conducted by Franck Ollu.


Pierre Boulez: Notations 2, 11 & 10; La treizième (arr. J Schöllhorn) UK premiere
Shiori Usui: Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l. (BBC commission - world premiere)
Betsy Jolas: Wanderlied (UK premiere)
Joanna Lee: Hammer of Solitude (BBC commission - world premiere)
Pierre Boulez: Dérive 2

Ulrich Heinen (cello)
Hilary Summers (contralto)
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Franck Ollu (conductor)

French conductor Franck Ollu makes his Proms debut, directing the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in the first of two concerts celebrating composer Pierre Boulez's 90th-birthday year. Boulez's own Notations - written while he was still a student - sits alongside his Dérive 2, both works embedded in the 'family tree' of a composer whose works interconnect in ever-evolving ways.

The concert also features Wanderlied for cello and ensemble by Boulez's French-American contemporary Betsy Jolas, as well as music by two young composers new to the Proms: Shiori Usui and Joanna Lee, who writes for contralto Hilary Summers.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think I prefer the great man as a conductor.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks EA - I've noted this down as a must. The Boulezes - from either end of his composing career - should present little difficulty to anyone already attuned to Varese or Messiaen, not being from his period of serialist high abstraction.

Can anybody help me out of some confusion here? I understood the Notations to be altered out of all recognition from their original guises by way of thorough re-composition while undergoing orchestration; these being performed on the 25th have, it states, been orchestrated by a J.Schollhorn - surely an unprecedented piece of permission-granting by Boulez. And to further complicate things, the other week a succession of piano pieces under the Notations heading were presented on Radio 3 during an afternoon concert. Are the latter the original, untampered versions, or more-or-less straight re-pianisations of the revised versions? - the plot thickens!

[Roehre]

Thanks EA - I've noted this down as a must. The Boulezes - from either end of his composing career - should present little difficulty to anyone already attuned to Varese or Messiaen, not being from his period of serialist high abstraction.

Can anybody help me out of some confusion here? I understood the Notations to be altered out of all recognition from their original guises by way of thorough re-composition while undergoing orchestration; these being performed on the 25th have, it states, been orchestrated by a J.Schollhorn - surely an unprecedented piece of permission-granting by Boulez. And to further complicate things, the other week a succession of piano pieces under the Notations heading were presented on Radio 3 during an afternoon concert. Are the latter the original, untampered versions, or more-or-less straight re-pianisations of the revised versions? - the plot thickens!

As far as I am aware the original ("piano"-)Notations have not been touched by anyone including Boulez to be arranged or recomposed into new "Piano"-notations. I look forward to the Schollhorn instrumentation as -as S_A correctly mentions- the orchestral Notations by Boulez himself are essentially newly composed works, basically by re-using the original material.
Schollhorn simply cannot recompose them, he can arrange them, but that is hardly the same.

[MrGongGong]

One of the most promising Proms this year IMV

Betsy Jolas's music is worth hearing
as is Shiori's

[Serial_Apologist]

As far as I am aware the original ("piano"-)Notations have not been touched by anyone including Boulez to be arranged or recomposed into new "Piano"-notations. I look forward to the Schollhorn instrumentation as -as S_A correctly mentions- the orchestral Notations by Boulez himself are essentially newly composed works, basically by re-using the original material.
Schollhorn simply cannot recompose them, he can arrange them, but that is hardly the same.

Well thanks for the explanation Roehre! This would surely be an unprecedented act of permissiveness on PB's part, nevertheless!

[Serial_Apologist]

One of the most promising Proms this year IMV

Betsy Jolas's music is worth hearing
as is Shiori's

Betsy's wonderful; Shiori and Lee are names new to me, which builds up the sense of anticipation!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I understood the Notations to be altered out of all recognition from their original guises by way of thorough re-composition while undergoing orchestration; these being performed on the 25th have, it states, been orchestrated by a J.Schollhorn - surely an unprecedented piece of permission-granting by Boulez. And to further complicate things, the other week a succession of piano pieces under the Notations heading were presented on Radio 3 during an afternoon concert. Are the latter the original, untampered versions, or more-or-less straight re-pianisations of the revised versions? - the plot thickens!

The Piano originals consists of twelve miniature pieces, each twelve bars long, the total duration of which is less than that of the Four orchestral expansions he made in 1978.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCwiKTSKTg

Gleaning the IRCAM website, it does indeed seem that the composer Johannes Schullhorn has made an arrangement for Chamber ensemble of the original piano miniatures - and it is this that is being performed at this Prom

http://brahms.ircam.fr/works/work/35664/

[Roehre]

One of the most promising Proms this year IMV
...

IMO too

[Serial_Apologist]

ferney.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've been asked to bump this one to the top.

[Beef Oven!]

IMO too

[MrGongGong]

I've been asked to bump this one to the top.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

La treizième (arr. J Schöllhorn)

?

[MrGongGong]

A better bet for today than Hereford IMV