Fortissimo Autumn 2012

‘Written on Skin’ writes itself into history

Tuning In • New Publications & Recordings Music for Now • Media Music • Britten Centenary

SPECIAL FEATURES

fortissimo!FABER MUSIC NEWS AUTUMN 2012

TANSY DAVIESNew Piano Concerto p 4OLIVER KNUSSEN

60th birthday tributes p 5CARL DAVIS

Acclaim for ‘The Last Train to Tomorrow’ & ‘Napoleon’ p 6

MATTHEW HINDSONNew ballet praised p 7

‘Benjamin’s compositional voice – individual and hard-won, saturated yet pellucid, inviting and ensnaring

– has matured into something almost frightful in its transparency to its own

larger purposes. It’s stealth art. You forget you’re in the theater,

hearing music.’The Bay Area Reporter (Tim Pfaff), 26 July 2012

PHOTO: ‘WRITTEN ON SKIN’ AIX-EN-PROVENCE PRODUCTION © PASCAL VICTOR

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WRITTEN ON SKIN – ‘the birth of a masterpiece’

HIGHLIGHTS

George Benjamin’s new opera has bowled over audiences and critics at its premiere at the Aix-en-Provence Festival

Following the enormous success of George Benjamin’s first opera Into the Little Hill (2006), there has been huge anticipation in the musical world at the prospect of his first full-length work in this genre. After a period of intense work and isolation for Benjamin, his much-awaited new opera, Written on Skin, was premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on 7 July. The long and ardent standing ovations which greeted each of the four Aix performances were the first of many marks of recognition and praise for this extraordinary work which has been hailed by critics as ‘[one] of the best operas of the 21st century so far,’ ‘the birth of a masterpiece.’

The sensuous, riveting and ultimately tragic drama is based on a 13th century razo from the Occitan region (see synopsis). The text, created by playwright Martin Crimp who wrote the text for Benjamin’s first opera, creates a sense of contemporary perspective by framing the medieval tale with three modern ‘angels’ who bring the ancient characters to life. However, the time boundaries soon begin to blur, and just as the angels are sucked into their own drama, we the audience loose ourselves in the timeless legend.

‘Erase the Saturday car-park from the market-place, rub out the white lines: make way for the wild primrose and slow torture of criminals. Shatter the printing-press. Make each new book a precious object written on skin.’

(Martin Crimp)

Written on Skin lasts c.95 minutes (the composer’s longest span of music to date) and is scored for an orchestra of 60 players with some unusual additions including a bass viola de gamba and a glass harmonica. With these forces Benjamin evokes the fullest possible spectrum of orchestral colour from leaden darkness to searing intensity. In his masterful hands this shape-shifting orchestra wraps itself around beguiling vocal lines whose sensual interweaving mirrors the characters’ entanglement.

Exquisite performances from the premiere cast (including Christopher Purves as The Protector, Barbara Hannigan as Agnès, and Bejun Mehta as The Boy) and orchestra (the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducted by the composer) contributed to the opera’s success, as did stage direction by Katie Mitchell and sets/costumes by Vicki Mortimer.

SYNOPSIS

DURATION & CAST

95 minutes

The Protector - baritone

Agnès, his wife - soprano

Angel 1 / The Boy - counter-tenor

Angel 2 / Marie - mezzo-soprano

Angel 3 / John - tenor

Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam (co-commissioner) – October 2012

Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse (co-commissioner) – November 2012

Royal Opera House, London (co-commissioner) – March 2013

Maggio Musicale, Florence (co-commissioner)– May 2013

Theater an der Wien, Vienna – June 2013

Bavarian State Opera, Munich – July 2013

Opéra Comique, Festival d’Automne, Paris – November 2013

FURTHER PERFORMANCES

THE SCORE

The vocal score of ‘Written on Skin’ is available to buy online at www.fabermusicstore.com

A rich lord welcomes into his house the artist he has commissioned to complete a book of illuminations. This work, he hopes, will immortalise the ruthless practice of his political power and the calm contentment brought to him by domestic order, embodied in the humility and childish obedience of his wife Agnes.

However the creation of the book becomes a catalyst for his wife’s rebellion. After a first successful attempt at seduction, Agnes uses her new intimacy with the illuminator to change the very content of the book and so forces her husband to see her as she really is. This opens the path for an extraordinary and final act of provocation.

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‘The creation of a contemporary opera where the composer is given a spontaneous standing ovation, this does not happen every day… We leave the opera house so in love that we cannot repress a vague feeling of having witnessed the birth of a masterpiece… Benjamin composes music at once haunting and sensual, perfectly built over time and greatly varied throughout the scenes...The astonishing text by Martin Crimp on a very cinematic canvas is always intelligible… A great moment of contemporary opera. A great moment of opera itself.’

Le Figaro (Christian Merlin), 10 July 2012

‘the birth of a masterpiece’

‘What drives the opera’s three parts is Benjamin’s score, which is more impassioned, more sensuously beautiful and, at times, more fiercely dramatic than anything he has written before. The intertwining of the voices of Agnès and the Boy, soprano and counter tenor, often with just the sparest accompaniment, is spell-binding; the ability to crystallise a whole mood in a single mysterious orchestral chord or a bare, ticking percussion clockwork is magical. The large orchestra is used with maximum restraint, given its head only in the interludes that separate some of the scenes…What Benjamin and Crimp have done is remarkable…’

The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 8 July 2012

‘spell-binding…. magical… remarkable’

‘the work is demanding, dense, and intricate… [with] intriguing and mysterious poetry. Written on Skin is a true opera, with all its ingredients (love-triangle between wife-husband-lover, love and murder, play within a play, songs, sets, etc.). The music is incredibly beautiful: ribbed textures, subtle colours, flowing harmony of the simplest kind, [as well as] the most saturated, inherited harmonic assemblages invented by the musicians of the 1970s. The orchestra, sometimes extremely violent, but also sublimely thrilling, never covers the voices and glows around them in close harmony… Written on Skin is the pinnacle of contemporary output.’

Le Monde (Renaud Machart), 10 July 2012

‘Benjamin’s open musical language … throws open the sensual dramatic possibilities of the full orchestra. His music explores the velvet, loose interplay of solo instruments and vocal lines... This music is vocal splendour… the orchestration is stormy, sweet, beguiling, laconic and even disturbing.’

Die Welt (Joachim Lange), 9 July 2012

‘The great strength of Benjamin is one of daring sensuality very rare in contemporary music… A work that clearly breathes a modern language, [yet is] classical in design. This opera could impose on the

world stage.’ Le Temps (Julian Sykes), 13 July 2012

George Benjamin has written nothing better than this dark, erotic, violent and troubling opera – and that’s saying something. The 52-year-old British composer has been on an upward curve for years. Now, with the playwright Martin Crimp, he has produced a slow-burning but gripping 100-minute psychological chiller in which moods, mysteries and motives are evoked with stunning economy of musical means... Stratospheric violin counterpoints conjure intense creepiness, a bluesy muted trumpet speaks of sexual tension, frenetic clarinet whoops accompany a snatched illicit congress. It’s masterly...’

The Times (Richard Morrison), 12 July 2012

‘George Benjamin has written nothing better... and that’s

saying something.’

‘[the] score is atmospheric, descriptive, sensual and evocative. A viola da gamba and liberal reference to early music help to give a sense of time. Benjamin uses orchestral groups adroitly, sparingly, and tops them with vocal lines that are gloriously singable… the audience jumped to its feet for a standing ovation…Written on Skin will long outlive this run. The piece is superb.’

Financial Times (Shirley Apthorp), 9 July 2012

‘...George Benjamin gives us the first opera masterpiece of the 21st Century: it breaks new ground in the perception of the genre.’

Le Soir (Serge Martin), 10 July 2012

‘the first opera masterpiece of the 21st Century’

‘Written on Skin is full of beautiful and haunting things.. [it’s] Benjamin’s most vivid music to date. His score embraces everything from sensuousness to explosive ferocity… Benjamin, as well as being one of the leading British composers of our day, could aptly be described as the finest French composer since his teacher Messiaen: his colouristic imagination clearly comes from that tradition. Using a large orchestra sparingly and unleashing it only in the interludes, he conjures up glistening mysterious sounds and never drowns his singers.’

The Sunday Telegraph (John Allison), 15 July 2012

‘exciting, great theatre... Exquisite instrumentation… His musical language also contains moments of honed delicacy and subtle lyricism... And it’s very, very well written… one can understand every word of the English libretto.’

Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Alfred Zimmerlin), 11 July 2012

‘Written on Skin is almost certainly headed straight for any list of the best operas of the 21st century so far.’

France Today (Judy Fayard), 8 July 2012

HIGHLIGHTS

4 PHOTOS: TANSY DAVIES © MAURICE FOXALL

MAENAD BUST, BRONZE, 2ND–1ST CENTURIES BC

TANSY DAVIES

HIGHLIGHTS

World premiere of Piano ConcertoBy its very nature, a piano concerto can invoke the sense of characters and narrative; the idea of a soloist cooperating with or working against an orchestra. This nature is explored in Tansy Davies’ very own Nature, a new piano concerto premiered by Huw Watkins and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group on 25th May. What emerges is a dense, colourful, 18-minute work in which the piano takes on a Shamanic role. As Davies explains:

‘I asked myself - what is the true nature of the piano in this concerto, who / what is she / he / it? The ‘being’ that emerged had the energy of a kind of Maenad: a wild woman, driven by the desire to connect the earthly and spiritual realms, led purely by instinct.’

The premiere formed part of Oliver Knussen’s 60th birthday concert, with Knussen himself conducting the 10 players of the BCMG. The BCMG and Huw Watkins will perform the piece again at the Alicante Festival on 23 September, and a further performance is planned with the London Sinfonietta and Huw Watkins on 2 December at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

‘…this was the piece that actually set the heart and mind in motion. It has its ‘spinning’ moments too, but in this case one felt an uncanny emotional climate, as if spirits were being conjured. In her pre-concert talk Davies spoke of ‘shamanistic rituals’ as an influence, and one could hear them loud and clear. ‘

The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 28 May 2012

‘[a] piece that set heart and mind in motion’

‘…glistening, hyperactive solo writing and a confrontation between piano and harp, there was the real sense of a journey completed.’

The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 28 May 2012

‘Of all these three non-Knussen pieces, the most interesting by far was Nature, a completely new piano concerto from Tansy Davies. Reviewing her Falling Angel in a BCMG concert a year or two back, I remarked on her ability to take visual impressions and transmute them into purely musical ideas and structures. And the same is true here. She talks about “the edge of a wilderness where man meets Nature or the Supernatural… living alongside vampires, swimming with sharks,”…’

The Arts Desk (Stephen Walsh), 26 May 2012

Royal Academy of Music AppointmentIn June the Royal Academy of Music announced it was appointing Tansy Davies as a new professor of composition. Described by the Academy as a ‘dynamic young international artist’,

Davies joins a roster of highly experienced principal-study composers including: Christopher Austin, Professor Simon Bainbridge (with whom Davies herself studied), Gary Carpenter and Philip Cashian (Head of Composition).

NMC debut disc – ‘Spine’September sees the release of an NMC Debut Disc devoted to the music of Tansy Davies. Entitled Spine, the disc features pieces from across Davies’ output, including the ensemble pieces Falling Angel and Spine, the saxophone concerto Iris, the songs Static and This Love, as well as solo works for violin, percussion and piano. The performers include many who already have a strong connection with Davies and her music: BCMG, conductor Christopher Austin, pianist Huw Watkins and percussionist Joby Burgess.

Wind nonet premiere at City of London FestivalThe premiere of Tansy Davies’ wind nonet for players from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment took place at this year’s City of London Festival. Commissioned by the City of London Festival and tying in with its celebration of bees in the city, the nonet, Delphic Bee, imagines the connection between the frenzied speech patterns of the Delphic oracle and the buzzing, pattern-making activities of bees.

‘this piece, for seven woodwinds and two horns, juxtaposes Stravinsky-like oracular pronouncements, often in unison, with more energetic dialogues.Both voicing and ensemble from this unconducted nonet were impressive.’The Evening Standard (Barry

Millington), 29 June 2012

‘this nonet for period instruments was a very orderly sort of frenzy: dry, cleanly elegant, Stravinskyan and witty. Chugging bassoons made a droll effect, as did the abrupt last chord. The unstrident period sonorities seemed indefinably right.’

The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 8 July 2012

Selected forthcoming performancesNature (Spanish premiere)23.9.12, Alicante Festival, Spain: Huw Watkins/BCMG/Oliver Knussen

2.12.12, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, UK: London Sinfonietta/Martyn Brabbins

inside out 2 (Spanish premiere)5.10.12, Palladium, Malmö, Sweden: London Sinfonietta

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60th Birthday Tributes There have been plenty of ‘flourishes’ and ‘fireworks’ to mark Oliver Knussen’s 60th birthday year. Major celebrations have taken place around the country whilst praise and tributes have poured in for this most talented and much-loved composer/conductor.

Knussen’s operas hailed as ‘timeless classics’On 8 and 10 June Knussen’s operatic double bill Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! played to packed audiences at the Aldeburgh Festival. Critics praised these ‘timeless classics’ and renewed the call for Knussen’s works to be regarded as one of the pinnacles of contemporary opera: there have been over 250 performances across the world. The new production, with captivating and magical animation by director/designer Netia Jones, also won the critics over, and opens up many new performance opportunities. The production will travel to LA for performances with the LA Philharmonic in October and then on to London in November as part of the BBC’s ‘Total Immersion’ festival dedicated to Knussen.

‘…in his operatic settings of Maurice Sendak’s children’s fantasies Where the Wild Things Are (1983) and its semi-sequel Higglety Pigglety Pop! (1985) he created timeless classics… There are differences between these scores, but what they share is a playfully allusive wit and a bright translucence as the musical ideas morph intricately:

Knussen’s highly-coloured sound-world is an invigorating place to be …at last he

may be getting his due.’The Independent (Michael Church),

11 June 2012

‘what emerges so forcefully in hearing these one-acters again is the formal elegance of both works – Wild Things is a through-composed work; the more varied, psychologically complex Higglety a number opera divided into set-piece arias and ensembles – and the dazzling imagination of Knussen’s sound world. With its vast range of stylistic references, there is not a note out of place.

The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 10 June 2012

‘…director, Netia Jones, has delivered her masterstroke. Taking the original illustrations, she has turned them into

animated projections – easy perhaps to imagine, but not to bring off as triumphantly as she has …the operas rouse our grown-up intellect as much as they tickle our sense of childish whimsy.The Aldeburgh casts, led by Claire Booth and Lucy Schaufer, were first-rate, and the conductor, Ryan Wigglesworth, led the excellent Britten Sinfonia on aural flights of fancy.’

Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 11 June 2012

…it’s a delight, with gorgeously sensual and richly textured music… Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the Britten Sinfonia in an exuberant account of the multi – coloured score, and the staging is imaginative… He [Knussen] has an exceptional and still underrated talent…’

The Telegraph (Rupert Christiansen), 11 June 2012

‘…few composers since Ravel have had the same ear for the essential rightness of the next note, the exact colour, the precise balance between all the elements of a work…’

Tom Service

‘a man made of music’Magnus Lindberg

HIGHLIGHTS

OLIVER KNUSSEN

OPERA DOUBLE BILL AT ALDEBURGH FESTIVAL 2012 © EAMONN MCCABE

‘a pivotal figure in British contemporary music’


‘The best composer, the best conductor, the best ears in the

business…’Mark-Anthony Turnage

Isn’t it time for a Knussen statue on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar

Square?’The Times (Geoff Brown), 7 May 2012

PHOTO: CARL DAVIS © RICHARD CANNON

NAPOLEON SCREENING © RON HENGGELE (WWW.RONHENGGELER.COM)

HIGHLIGHTS

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Standing ovation at Hallé premiere of ‘The Last Train to Tomorrow’The Last Train to Tomorrow, Carl Davis’s new 40-minute work commissioned by the Hallé for the Hallé’s virtuoso Children’s Choir, was premiered in June. Set to a text by well-known children’s author Haiwyn Oram, the piece explores the poignant story of the Kindertransport which took place between 1938-9, and which saw over 10,000 Jewish children brought to England by train from Berlin, Vienna, and Prague. Davis’ sensitive, moving piece brought the Manchester audience to its feet.

‘To see the world premiere of a new work greeted by a standing ovation from the entire hall is a rare experience… But they hit on something very special when they asked Carl Davis to write a 40-minute work for the Hallé Children’s Choir and Hallé Orchestra. And he is a master at delivering effective, appealing music that fits its specification precisely.’

Manchester Evening News (Robert Beale), 19 June 2012

‘a standing ovation from the entire hall is a rare

experience’

‘In a sequence of 10 songs, punctuated at regular intervals by short scenes from the journey played out by six young actors, Davis presents the story in narrative form, capturing a sense of movement as the train passes through Germany, crosses the Dutch border, where the children begin to feel free and loved again, on its way to the port… Davis’s music reflects the emotions, light strings turning dark and threatening. A Viennese waltz echoes as if in a dream… a powerful and hypnotic evening that moved its audience to tears.’

The Arts Desk (Philip Radcliffe), 18 June 2012

‘...a fantastic new piece and a great performance.. I’d like to think that in years to come, I’ll enjoy being able to say I was present at the premiere.’

culturewitch.wordpress.com, 17 June 2012

Press go wild at screening of legendary film ‘Napoleon’Kevin Brownlow’s lovingly restored and colour toned version of Abel Gance’s silent epic, Napoleon was screened as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in March. It was accompanied throughout by Carl Davis’s brilliant score which uses quotations from Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, including the Eroica and Pastoral Symphonies, Corsican folk tunes and a variety of other musical allusions, all aptly matched to the fast-moving events on the giant screen.

‘the near-capacity crowd at the 3,000-seat Paramount Theatre rose... and cheered a mighty cheer, the kind of full-throated, sustained roar not usually heard in a movie theater…. The audience had just lived through one of the world’s great cinematic experiences: an all-day screening of Abel Gance’s mesmerizing 5½-hour silent film from 1927, accompanied by Carl Davis conducting the 46-piece Oakland East Bay Symphony, performing his own superb score.’

Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan), 26 March 2012

‘No one in the world does this better’

‘the accompaniment by Carl Davis is so brilliant that it seems to account for all three screens. When the film triples in dimension, the arrangement suddenly becomes more complicated, with more sound, more layering of themes….[It is an] exceptional score... he is what silent films sound like, a romantic tradition made modern. His score mixes familiar classical music and folk songs, but his own original themes are unmistakable. No one in the world does this better.’

SF Gate home of the San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle), 26 March 2012

‘Aladdin’ ballet revivedWhen Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Director, David Bintley, was working with Carl Davis on an acclaimed production of Cyrano, he heard the music for another of Davis’s ballets, Aladdin. Within hours he decided he would like to produce a new production of the ballet and the perfect opportunity arose in 2008 when Bintley was appointed Director of the National Ballet of Japan. He chose Aladdin to launch his first season there and it played to packed houses in Tokyo, sparking another Japanese revival in 2011. Now the glittering ballet, with new sets and costumes, will be staged as a co-production with Birmingham Royal Ballet and Houston Ballet and is sure to attract huge interest when it is finally presented in Bintley’s home theatre the Birmingham Hippodrome, in February/March 2013. The ballet then travels to Salford, Plymouth, Sunderland and the London Coliseum on 20-24 March, before moving to Houston Ballet in 2014.

CARL DAVIS – STANDING OVATIONSelected forthcoming performancesShow People (Swiss premiere)

16.9.12, Luzerner Theater, Switzerland: Lucerne Symphony Orchestra/Howard Arman

A Woman of Affairs (Italian premiere)

13, 14.10.12, Cinema Verdi, Pordenone, Italy: Mitteleuropa Orchester/cond. Carl Davis

Ben Hur 27.10.12, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, UK: Royal Liverpool PO/cond. Carl Davis

The Phantom of the Opera 31.12.12, Nikolaisaal, Potsdam, Germany: Filmorchester Babelsberg/cond. Helmut Imig

Aladdin 27.2.13 - 2.3.13 The Lowry, Manchester, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

6 - 9.3.12 Theatre Royal, Plymouth, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

14 - 16.3.12 Sunderland Empire Theatre, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

20 - 24.3.13 London Coliseum, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio 16.2.13, Klaipeda State Music Theatre, Lithuania: Symph Orch and Choir Klaipeda State Music Theatre/Dainius Pavilionis

Show People 13.4.13, Tobias Theater, Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA: Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra

HIGHLIGHTS

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MATTHEW HINDSON – BALLET SUCCESS‘FASTER’ – acclaim for new orchestral ballet by David Bintley and Matthew HindsonIn 2009, the first collaboration between leading UK choreographer David Bintley and Australian composer Matthew Hindson, E=mc2, was widely acclaimed and scooped the highly prestigious South Bank Show Award for Dance for commissioners, Birmingham Royal Ballet. Now BRB have premiered Bintley and Hindson’s second creation, Faster.It’s a 35-minute celebration of athleticism, inspired by the Olympic motto ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ (‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’) and reveals Bintley to be at the height of choreographic powers, marshalling his 21 dancers with consummate ease, fuelled by Matthew Hindson’s newly-commissioned orchestral score.

There were six initial performances at the Birmingham Hippodrome from 27-30 June, and then the work comes to London, Cardiff and Plymouth as part of BRB’s “Autumn Celebration” from 9-31 October 2012.The press have been unanimous in their praise for the new ballet:

‘I suggest the Olympics crawl to Bintley fast and ask him to make his new ballet a big feature of their opening ceremony... This is a very good piece of work, fast, strong, theatrically clever and musically powerful... It’s ballet, but it’s athletics too, and what makes it good art is that it is musical expression too - this is another confident step in the new renaissance of music-driven ballet, spearheaded by Bintley at BRB and by Mark Baldwin at Rambert. Bintley seems finally to be coming into a rich maturity in his talent for sheer balletic movement, more confident in recent years, working not with

narratives… but with really exciting new scores. This one is again by the hugely impressive Matthew Hindson, the Australian composer who composed the music for Bintley’s 2010 ballet, E=mc2.’

The Arts Desk (Ismene Brown), 28 June 2012

‘The pace picks up ten-fold via the aptly named Faster… How could it not given

Matthew Hindson’s excitingly alert, brassy and jangling new score. It was this same Australian composer who fuelled Bintley’s physics-themed hit, E=mc2, in 2009. Their latest collaboration feels like another keeper…’

The Times (Donald Hutera), 29 June 2012

‘I think they should scrap the opening ceremony for the Olympics and just have BRB perform David Bintley’s new ballet, Faster... It’s rapid, untiring, full of grace as well as athleticism. There are epic moments in Matthew Hindson’s thrilling score, and some heart-stopping ones too...’

The Stage (Pat Ashworth), 28 June 2012

‘… a driving, pumping, excitable new score by Matthew Hindson…’

The Telegraph (Laura Thompson),

28 June 2012

‘… dramatically enthralling score by Matthew Hindson.’

Birmingham Mail (Fionnuala Burke), 29 June 2012

‘… it’s a cracking piece – engrossing, thrilling and all-encompassing… This

marvellous, ensemble work will surely thrill us for years to come.’

Reviews Gate (Alexander Ray), 27 June 2012

‘House Music’ a hit in Las Vegas

Hindson’s outrageous flute concerto, House

Music, was an out and out hit at its US

premiere, part of the recent National Flute

Association 40th anniversary

Annual Conference, at Caesars Palace in Las

Vegas. Alexa Still was soloist with the Ruby Gala Orchestra conducted by Ransom Wilson

in the performance on 11 August.

‘What Hindson is doing with Bintley... is generating an

exhilarating new revival of serious music in the dance theatre,

fascinating for the audience and challenging to the dancers.’

The Arts Desk (Ismene Brown), 28 June 2012

Selected forthcoming performancesLullaby 7.9.12, St John’s Cathedral, 373 Ann St, Brisbane, Australia: Camerata of St John’s

LiteSPEED 18, 19.9.12, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Sydney Conservatorium High School/Carolyn Watson

Faster 9, 10.10.12, Theatre Royal, Plymouth, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

Nintendo Music 9.10.12, Australian National Academy of Music, Melbourne, Australia: Australian National Academy of Music

Faster (London premiere) 25, 26, 27.10.12, Sadler’s Wells, London, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

Faster 30, 31.10.12, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, UK: Birmingham Royal Ballet/ch. David Bintley

Headbanger 19.1.13, West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge PO/Tim Redmond

PHOTO: ‘FASTER’ © BILL COOPER

BCMG concert a ‘musical mosaic’The quality of both John Woolrich’s music and his talent for programme-making was on show at a Birmingham Contemporary Music Group concert in March. Woolrich weaved together works by Oliver Knussen, Gerald Barry, Peter Maxwell Davis and others, as well as his own 8-minute chamber work In the Mirrors of Sleep for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. The critics were clearly moved by this poignant work:

‘On the face of it a concert of eleven pieces by different composers might have suggested a musical hotchpotch, but not so here. The disparate elements of this BCMG package, devised by John Woolrich as part of the BBC’s Music Nation weekend, had been cleverly moulded into a meaningful whole, with tribute and homage as the common vein… And there was Woolrich’s own In the Mirrors of Asleep, an intensely personal exploration of the ‘fading of memory,’ full of quiet repose and poignant yearning.’

Birmingham Post (David Hart), 9 March 2012

‘full of quiet repose and poignant yearning’

‘This Birmingham Contemporary Music Group concert… was effectively a musical mosaic: several short chamber works in turn made up of several small sections. Yet the programme never seemed bitty, testament to the integrity of composer John Woolrich’s curation. His principal connecting thread was that of portraits – some living tributes, some memorialising, all in quite philosophical vein and played with much artistry by the BCMG players.

…more affecting was Woolrich’s own In the Mirrors of Asleep, an elegy for a friend who died young. Taking its title from an Anne Stevenson poem, the quartet evokes the fractured world of

dream, alternately wistful and playful, with the aching sadness of the final piano chords akin to the moment of waking and the realisation it brings.’

The Guardian (Rian Evans), 7 March 2012

A line-up old and new for Dartington2012 marked Woolrich’s second year as artistic director of the Dartington International Summer School. This second season saw faces both old and new invited to the beautiful Devon summer school.

‘Some old friends of the Summer School join us for this year’s concerts. Sir Neville Marriner (his Academy of St Martin in the Fields considered Dartington to be its ‘spiritual home’) is back, after too long an absence, to conduct the string orchestra. The composer Thea Musgrave came to Dartington as a student, and it was at the 1953 Summer School that William Glock introduced her to the music of Charles Ives and the Second Viennese School. She returns to teach a new generation of composers and to bring us her music. Two ex-Trogs, Gordon Crosse and Hugh Wood, will also be on hand to present their music. But we don’t just look back. As ever, the Summer School brings new artists to Dartington. This year we welcome the pianists Tamara Stefanovich and Christian Zacharias, the violinist Priya Mitchell, the conductor Pierre-Andre Valade and many more.’

(John Woolrich)

Selected forthcoming performancesCapriccio 21.9.12, Sainte Clotilde, Paris, France:

22.9.12, Bobigny, France:

Daniel Pioro/Sinfonietta Paris/Michael Boone

Capriccio 10.10.12, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK: Orchestra of St Johns/John Lubbock/Daniel Pioro

PHOTOS: (TOP LEFT) JOHN WOOLRICH © MAURICE FOXALL

(BOTTOM RIGHT) JOHN WOOLRICH AT DARTINGTON © KATE MOUNT

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John Woolrich

60th Birthday in 2014John Woolrich celebrates his 60th birthday in 2014; a good opportunity to celebrate the talents of this unique composer, creative teacher and original programmer. Concert promoters might be interested to explore some of the preoccupations that thread through Woolrich’s varied output: the art of creative transcription (Ulysses Awakes, for instance, is a recomposition of a Monteverdi aria, and The Theatre Represents a Garden: Night – a work for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – is based on fragments of Mozart), and a fascination with machinery and mechanical processes (heard in many pieces including The Ghost in the Machine and The Barber’s Timepiece).

If you are interested in marking this occasion and would like to find out more, please contact [email protected].

TUNING IN

Selected forthcoming performances The Crazed Moon (Australian premiere) 14, 15.9.12, Adelaide Town Hall, Australia: Adelaide Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins

Past Hymns(Czech Republic premiere) 24.9.12, Hall of Hlahol House, Prague, Czech Republic: Berg Chamber Orchestra/Peter Vrabel

PHOTO: JULIAN ANDERSON © MAURICE FOXALL

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Julian Anderson

Julian Anderson – ‘a 21st-century Debussy’Julian Anderson’s reputation as a master of orchestral composition was resoundingly confirmed with the premiere of The Discovery of Heaven by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in March. The press praised Anderson’s vivid, gripping music, comparing him to a modern-day Debussy. The 22-minute piece was a co-commission by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom Anderson is composer in residence. At the premiere in the Royal Festival Hall the LPO was conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth.

‘the score sounds like the work of a 21st-century

Debussy in its precise yet shimmering array of colour,

timbre and gesture’

‘It is hard to think of any work in the modern orchestral canon with a title as appetising as Julian Anderson’s new 25-minute tone poem. And it would be equally hard, after Saturday’s first performance by the London Philharmonic under Ryan Wigglesworth, to imagine music more seductive in atmosphere or finely etched in orchestration. The Discovery of Heaven, named after a novel by the Dutch writer Harry Mulisch, is not so much a spiritual quest as an exploration of heaven on earth, evoking sounds of a balmy summer night as well as the joyful, tuneful humanity of a sun-blessed city street. There could be no more emphatic proof of Anderson’s growing confidence with and mastery of a large instrumental palette... the score sounds like the work of a 21st-century Debussy in its precise yet shimmering array of colour, timbre and gesture.

In The Discovery of Heaven Anderson stretches the modern orchestra’s technical potential on predominantly tonal lines while producing something both beautiful and original. We need a second and third performance – quickly, please...’

Financial Times (Andrew Clark), 26 March 2012

‘A new work by Julian Anderson… is always something to look forward to... This was done with all the artistry and assurance for which Anderson is renowned.’

The Times (Hilary Finch), 26 March 2012

‘...rapt, slowly moving textures vie for dominance with music that is rowdy and discontinuous. It is a gripping journey in three movements, conducted superbly by Ryan Wigglesworth. An opening haze of glassy, spectral chords and fidgety woodwind is followed by tumbling ideas that jostle for prominence; these overflow into the last section, which reaches a kind of accommodation.’

The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 25 March 2012

Another Anderson/Baldwin dance successJulian Anderson and the choreographer Mark Baldwin have collaborated on several acclaimed dance works, including The Comedy of Change which has had over 70 performances. Their most recent joint venture was a short piece based on Anderson’s viola solo Prayer, performed to mark the birthday of dance director/producer Bob Lockyer. Once again the pair’s creative vision melded seamlessly. A fine example of a partnership that critic Iseme Brown has summed up as ‘an exhilarating new revival of serious music in the dance theatre, fascinating for the audience and challenging to the dancers.’

‘Prayer was created by Mark Baldwin, director of Rambert Dance Company. It’s a focused quartet, showing off the contrasting personalities of its dancers. As Stephen Upshaw plays a viola solo by Julian Anderson, four women step forward to dance solos, one by one… It’s one of Baldwin’s best dances in years.’

The Independent (Zoë Anderson), 18 April 2012

A new opera for ENOAs well as accomplishment in symphonic and dance forms, Julian Anderson is now adding another string to his bow: opera. He is currently working on his first opera, Thebans, to be premiered at English National Opera in 2014. Based on Sophocles’s three Theban plays, the first act will draw on Oedipus the King, the second on Antigone, the third on Oedipus at Colonus. Distinguished Irish playwright Frank McGuinness is adapting the trilogy.

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PHOTO: JONATHAN HARVEY © ANNA HARVEY

Selected forthcoming performancesSpeakings 7, 9.9.12, Lucerne Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland: Lucerne Festival Academy/Pierre Boulez/IRCAM

Death of Light, Light of Death 14.9.12, Leicester International Festival, New Walk Museum, UK:

Speakings (Polish premiere)

21.9.12, National Philharmonic Concert Hall, Warsaw, Poland: Warsaw Philharmonic/Pascal Rophé

Concerto for Percussion 23, 24, 26.9.12, Llira, Spain: Spanish National Youth Orchestra

Death of Light, Light of Death 26.9.12, International Contemporary Music Festival, Cyprus, Cyprus: Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam

Weltethos (London premiere)

7.10.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: CBSO Chorus/CBSO/Edward Gardner

Cirrus Light/Mortuous Plango, Vivos Voco/String Quartet No. 4(‘Cirrus Light’ UK premiere)

7.10.12, Purcell Room, London, UK: Max Baillie /Marcus Barcham-Stevens/Oliver Coates/David Sheppard/Mark Simpson/Alexandra Wood

Bhakti/Death of Light, Light of Death 11.10.12, Miller Theatre, Columbia University, NY, USA: Brad Lubman/Ensemble Signal

Death of Light, Light of Death 12, 16, 17, 18, 22.10.12, Aarau, Switzerland: Ensemble Boswil/W Michniews

Be(com)ing/Cirrus Light/Concelebration/The Riot(‘Cirrus Light’ USA premiere)

29.10.12, Merkin Concert Hall, New York, USA: Jean Kopperud

Sringara Chaconne 4.11.12, WMD 2012, Antwerp, Belgium: Hermes Ensemble

Sringara Chaconne 10.11.12, Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria: Ensemble Intercontemporain/Enno Poppe

Jonathan Harvey

RPS Award for ‘Messages’This year’s Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Large Scale Composition has gone to Jonathan Harvey’s Messages, a haunting large-scale work for choir and orchestra. (This adds to an extraordinary run of success for Faber Music composers in this category: 7 out of 10 winners in the last decade.) In a ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel, the RPS judges praised Harvey’s work:

‘With Messages, Jonathan Harvey has created a work of exceptional epic and spiritual quality - a most welcome addition to the repertoire of both professional and amateur choirs. The choir’s incantation of ancient angelic names is set within a sound world that is both profoundly rooted and ethereal, a compelling experience for audiences.’

Messages was first performed in 2008 by the Berlin Philharmonic and Berlin Radio Choir and received its UK premiere in 2011 with the Orchestra of Opera North, Huddersfield Choral Society and conductor Joseph Cullen. Its unusual text consists entirely of the names of Judaic and Persian angels. As Harvey writes: ‘The choir can be thought to invoke angels, as in the great Renaissance and Baroque pictures of angel choirs, many of whom not only sing, but play Baroque instruments.’

The piece expresses the spirituality so prevalent in Harvey’s work and provided an inspiration to the Berlin Philharmonic to commission another choral/orchestral work, Weltethos.

‘Weltethos’ opens London 2012 FestivalFollowing its world premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, Jonathan Harvey’s Weltethos (‘world ethics’) received its UK premiere in June in no less a grand setting: Birmingham’s gleaming Symphony Hall on the opening night of the London 2012 Festival in Birmingham with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, combined CBSO choruses and two conductors, Edward Gardner and Michael Seal. The CBSO take the work to London on 7th October as part of the Southbank Centre’s Ether Festival.

‘There is nothing vague or sentimental about the music in this sinewy, often frenetic and complex score, structured in six parts. The first section, “Humanity,” which explores Confucian thinking, begins with an orchestral prelude. Eerie sustained tones on the organ and pungent, soft cluster chords provide a backdrop to repetitive rhythms and twittering riffs for the large battery of percussion instruments… the subsequent five sections maintain the overall structure of the first enhancing the ritualistic power of the piece… those present seemed moved and let silence linger for half a minute at the end before breaking into a long, ardent ovation.’

The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini), 22 June 2012

‘a long, ardent ovation’

‘Harvey’s most ambitious choral work to date… Harvey allows his mastery as a composer of electronic sounds to carry over into his manipulation of orchestra and choral textures, coloured by a huge range of percussion and the unmistakable tang of a cimbalom. The performances were exemplary, with superb choral singing in writing that ranges from whispered Sprechgesang, to fiercely dissonant clusters and close-packed tonal triads.’


‘sounds of glistening, almost electronic strangeness… echoes of the ram’s horn in the Jewish movement, or the tender string radiance surrounding the Christian choruses, or the dancing, almost angry choruses of the Buddhist movement...At the end, everything was gathered into a radiant affirmation over a deep pedal note.’

The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 22 June 2012

‘[the CBSO] snarled, shivered, tinkled and sighed through the most extraordinary, often radiant, textures … we could certainly salute Harvey’s vivid ear for colour, his musical ecumenism and that rapturous final chorus, shaped to the natural rhythms of the human breath.’

The Times (Geoff Brown), 24 June 2012

Acclaim for new ‘Wagner Dream’ CDHarvey’s third opera, Wagner Dream, delves into Wagner’s imagination and explores his never-realised idea for a Buddhist opera. Following its premiere in Luxembourg in 2007, a further six performances of the opera were given at the Holland Festival, Amsterdam the same year. These later performances (including real-time electronic mixing by Harvey and Gilbert Nouno) were recorded, and have just been released on the Cyprus label to resounding critical praise.

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Selected forthcoming performancesTenebrae(world premiere)

11.10.12, Concert Hall, University of Glasgow, UK: Ruth Morley/Hannah Craib/Sharron Griffiths

storm, rose, tiger 24, 26, 27.4.13, Younger Hall, St Andrews University, UK: Scottish Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin

Martin Suckling5 stars for Aronowitz Ensemble recordingMartin Suckling was one of the winners of the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize and was subsequently commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Wigmore Hall to write To See the Dark Between for the Aronowitz Ensemble. The 10-minute work for the Aronowitz’s unusual line up – piano, 2 violins, 2 violas and 2 celli – has now been recorded and released on the Sonimage label, garnering a 5 star review in The Independent and chosen as one of Gramophone Magazine’s ‘Choice Recordings’:

‘Their second disc centres around a recent commission, Martin Suckling’s To See the Dark Between, which has something of the effervescence of Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No 2. Most notable, though, is how smoothly it opens into a soulful reading of Dvorák’s Piano Quintet in A.’

The Independent (Anna Picard), 10 June 2012

‘It is largely a study in textures, starting and ending with the ominous sound of a low piano stroke enhanced by a cello pizzicato. Like the tolling of a bell, it introduces what the composer thinks of as a sequence of snapshots, each one in closer focus. That analysis is not immediately necessary for the enjoyment of a sharply conceived 10 minutes with some glittering textures...’

Gramophone Magazine (Edward Greenfield), September 2012

New flute/viola/harp trioThis October Martin Suckling’s new work Tenebrae for Flute, Viola and Harp will be premiered at the University of Glasgow. The piece, which takes inspiration from Rilke’s Orpheus Sonnets, was commissioned by the McEwen Bequest, a body that aims to promote the work of composers either born in Scotland, or living and working there. Suckling joins an illustrious list of recent recipients including James MacMillan, David Fennessy and Helen Grime.

London Sinfonietta release ‘Candlebird’ recordingFollowing its acclaimed premiere by the London Sinfonietta in 2011, a recording of Candlebird, Suckling’s 25-minute song-cycle for baritone and ensemble, will be released on the Sinfonietta’s own label on 15 October. Listeners can look forward to a piece that critics hailed as ‘simply staggeringly assured,’ ‘[a] luxuriously imaginative song cycle’ and ‘constantly compelling.’

Jonathan Harvey‘Wagner Dream marks several significant points of convergence and culmination in the English composer’s long and illustrious career… The score has a vast technical and idiomatic range. Its different styles are conjured with consummate mastery, and the complexity and power of writing are never allowed to obscure its sense...The combinations of instrumental and electronic writing are mesmerizing, at once sparsely beautiful and strikingly coherent. Within the vocal writing, moreover, there are passages of gentle, enchanting lyricism, the more wonderful for their characteristic but delicate use of melisma. Entire scenes linger long in the memory… Wagner Dream is a work that richly repays repeated listenings. All the more reason, then, to welcome the release of a recording that captures what was surely a signal moment in contemporary opera.’

Opera Magazine (Christopher Ballantine), July 2012

‘a signal moment in contemporary opera’

‘…this compelling triumph succinctly captures something of Wagner’s complexity of character, while looking beyond. Harvey’s sublime music does not shy away from the disturbing when necessary, yet the overwhelming impression is of beauty and integrity. His seamless integration of instruments and live electronics is masterful, the latter a natural, organic part of often shimmering textures…’

BBC Music Magazine (Christopher Dingle), May 2012

‘...a remarkable achievement.’Gramophone Magazine (Arnold Whittall), June 2012

‘…this is a real music-drama, where words and music are indivisible... the work’s remarkable power flows from the masterly and frequently ravishingly beautiful music of Jonathan Harvey.’

International Record Review (William Hedley), June 2012

Welsh National Opera to stage ‘Wagner Dream’ In June 2013 Welsh National Opera will give the UK stage premiere of Wagner Dream. In this new production by director Pierre Audi, the sung text of the Buddhist characters will be performed in Sanskrit and the spoken text of Wagner, Cosima et al. will be in German. This will have an important effect on the opera (previously it has been performed entirely in English) and will highlight the strikingly different worlds that the characters occupy. The cast includes seasoned Harvey interpreters Claire Booth as Prakiti and Dale Duesing as Buddha. They will be joined by the young conductor Nicholas Collon, making his debut at WNO.

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Selected forthcoming performances The Flaying of Marsyas 15.9.12, Leicester International Music Festival, New Walk Museum, UK: Carducci Quartet/Nicholas Daniel

White Nights 29.9.12, Consonances Festival, St. Nazaire, France: Festival Ensemble/Philippe Graffin

Romanza(world premiere) 6.10.12, Blythburgh Church, Blythburgh, Suffolk, UK: Prometheus Ensemble/Madeleine Mitchell/Edmond Fivet

Actaeon 21.10.12, St Andrews Voices Festival, Byre Theatre, St Andrews, UK: Counterpoise Ensemble/Eleanor Bron

Eight Duos for Two Violins 19.10.12, The Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, UK:

25.10.12, St George’s, Brandon Hill, Bristol, UK:

26.10.12, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff, UK:

27.10.12, Harris Manchester College Chapel, Oxford, UK:

Harriet Mackenzie/Philippa Mo

Romanza1.11.12, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen, UK:

3.11.12, Inverurie Music, UK:Madeleine Mitchell/Nigel Clayton

Fortune’s Wheel (world premiere)

8.12.12, Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, UK: Waynflete Singers/Aurora Orchestra/Andrew Lumsden

Piano Trio No 39.01.13, Purcell Room, London, UK: Busch Trio, PLG Young Artists series

Psalm 2323.01.13, St Martin in the Fields, London, UK: Addison Singers/David Wordsworth/strings tbc.

Romanza14.2.13, Djanogly Hall, Nottingham University, UK: Madeleine Mitchell/Andrew Ball

Symphony No 5 (national premiere)

2.3.13, The Cappella, St Petersburg, Russian Federation: Capella Orchestra/Matthew Taylor

Five to Tango9.03.13 King’s Place, London, UK: Schubert Ensemble

Clarinet Quartet/ A Blackbird Sang(world premiere)/The Sleeping Lord19.3.13, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Nash Ensemble

PHOTO: DAVID MATTHEWS © CLIVE BARDA

David Matthews – ‘a national treasure’David Matthews has been described as one of Britain’s leading symphonists, a distinctive voice in British music and now, by conductor Paul Watkins, as ‘a national treasure.’ Watkins was speaking before the final concert in a weekend celebrating the ‘Inner Voices’ of David Matthews and Jean Sibelius. The festival, at King’s Place London, focused on both composers’ prodigious chamber music output. The comparison of Matthews and Sibelius was very much an equal one, with critics remarking that like Sibelius, Matthews’ time may still be to come: ‘The five movements of Three Birds... all luxuriate in an invigorating blend of wit and wistfulness. Hearing this, together with Total Tango and a stirring performance of the viola concertino Winter Remembered with Sarah-Jane Bradley as soloist, was a wonderful reminder of the depth and reach of Matthews’s consummate artistry. A figure once considered awkwardly out of step with his time, his highly original ear and masterful craftsmanship may lead historians to accord him greater respect than his contemporaries always have… He bears comparison, in this respect, with Sibelius, who felt ill at ease with his epoch but is now considered completely central.’

The Guardian (Guy Dammann), 6 May 2012

‘his highly original ear and masterful craftsmanship may

lead historians to accord him greater respect than his contemporaries always have’

‘This pairing of music by Sibelius and David Matthews resulted in some exhilarating, invigorating playing… This [Matthews’s String Quartet No.12] is an ambitious construction, but it works and, thanks to Matthews’s skill, the quartet never loses its way. The dominant impression is left by the slow movement, a canto mesto, which draws on the post-romantic world of other Matthews works in its rich, sombre colours.

Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 6 May 2012

More praise for string quartetsFor those at the King’s Place weekend, it was clear that Matthews’s talents as a symphonist are matched by his writing for string quartet. His twelfth and most recent quartet is his most ambitious yet: a monumental five-movement work modelled on Beethoven’s Op. 130 and premiered by the Kreutzer Quartet in 2011. They have since recorded No.12 and it has just been released by Toccata Classics on a CD that includes Matthews’ earlier Quartet No.5 (Vol.2 in a planned complete set of the quartets).

‘…the fifth quartet is a striking instance of its composer’s ability to integrate movements of distinct expressive contracts into a continuous and cohesive whole… Drawing productively on a lineage which takes in Bartók, Berg and Tippett, this is a piece a piece that was easily overlooked on its first appearance but which ranks among the most powerful and arresting of Matthew’s earlier chamber works… The Twelfth Quartet is a substantial work in all senses... ‘Masterpiece’ is a term too easily applied in the present era: suffice to say that, along with his Sixth Synphony, Matthews’s Twelfth Quartet stands as the most significant British work of its genre from the past decade.’

International Record Review (Richard Whitehouse), July/August 2012

‘Matthews’s Twelfth Quartet stands as the most significant British work of its genre from

the past decade’

‘…you notice Matthews’s civilised pedigree and bright, sinewy language. The Fifth has two slow movements separated by a galloping scherzo. The Twelfth is full of jolly Haydn-esque touches.’

Financial Times (Andrew Clark), 23 June 2012

‘both works are finely crafted but differ radically in scale and formal plan... Musically they are sharply contrasted too. The level of dissonance in the Fifth is much higher, while the much more straightforward tonal scheme of the 12th includes a tango, a serenade and a minuet, while throwing snatches of birdsong as well as a fugue into the mix of the finale.’


David Matthews

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George Benjamin

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Selected forthcoming performanceDuet 4, 6.10.12, Lyon, France: Orchestre National de Lyon/ Pierre-Laurent Aimard/Martyn Brabbins

Written on Skin (Netherlands premiere) 6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 21, 23.10.12, Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam, Netherlands: George Benjamin/Franck Ollu

Into the Little Hill (Chinese premiere) 24.10.12, Beijing, China: London Sinfonietta/George Benjamin

Duet 14, 15, 16.11.12, Zürich Tonhalle, Switzerland: Tonhalle Orchestra/Roger Muraro/George Benjamin

Written on Skin 23, 25, 27, 30.11.12, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, France: Franck Ollu

Ringed by the Flat Horizon 30.11.12, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Juanjo Mena

Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra 29.1.13, Cité de la Musique, Paris, France: EIC/George Benjamin

Written on Skin (UK premiere) 8, 11, 16, 18, 22.3.13, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, UK: Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/George Benjamin

Piano Figures/Upon Silence/Viola, Viola20.3.13, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: George Benjamin/Fretwork Tabea/Zimmermann/Antoine Tamestit

Into the Little Hill 6.4.13, Wigmore Hall, London, UK

Flight/Into the Little Hill/Shadowlines/Sonata for Violin and Piano/Three Miniatures for Solo Violin6.4.13, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Jacques Zoon/George Benjamin/BCMG/Carolin Widmann/ Mario Formenti

Into the Little Hill 7.4.13, Birmingham, UK: George Benjamin/BCMG

Into the Little Hill (Portuguese premiere) 25, 26.4.13, Calouste Gulbenkian Concert Hall, Lisbon, Portugal: Anu Komsi/Hilary Summers

PHOTO: GEORGE BENJAMIN © MAURICE FOXALL

David Matthews

Chinese and Portuguese premieres of ‘Into the Little Hill’Much attention has been given to George Benjamin’s latest opera, Written On Skin, but his first operatic creation, Into the Little Hill, was a forerunner of the excitement now aroused by his second. It continues to be performed around the world and in the coming months it will receive two national premieres in China and Portugal. The Chinese premiere (Beijing Concert Hall, 24 October) is with singers Hilda Plitmann and Katalin Koralyi, and the London Sinfonietta conducted by the composer. The Portuguese premiere (Calouste Gulbenkian Concert Hall, Lisbon, 25 April) will include the two singers from the original cast, Anu Komsi and Hilary Summers.

Wigmore Hall ‘George Benjamin’ seriesInto the Little Hill will receive another airing in April as part of a series of concerts that the Wigmore Hall is devoting to Benjamin. The series will present a fascinating insight into the composer’s diverse oeuvre, as well as exploring music by his contemporaries and pupils. The first concert, on 20 March, will include chamber music by Benjamin and his esteemed teacher Alexander Goehr, and Benjamin himself will perform on the piano. This is followed on 6 April with a ‘George Benjamin Day’ which begins with a chamber concert of music for flute, violin and piano, and ends with a concert performance of Into the Little Hill featuring Rebecca Bottone (soprano), Hilary Summers (contralto) and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by the composer.

Four concerts at Zürich TonhalleThe Tonhalle Orchestra are widely regarded as one of the world’s finest ensembles and this November (14-16) George Benjamin will join them as conductor for four concerts featuring his own music, that of his teacher Messiaen, and works by Ligeti and Ravel. At the centre of each programme will be Duet, Benjamin’s 2008 work for piano and orchestra, which will be performed by French pianist Roger Muraro.

Two new works this autumnThis autumn sees the world premiere of two new works by David Matthews. The first is a Romanza for violin and strings (or piano), commissioned by the violinist Madeleine Mitchell. Written in ternary form, the work’s middle section ‘revives’ the waltz – a form that Bayan Northcott once suggested has been noticeably absent in much contemporary music. The premiere takes place on 6 October as part of the William Alwyn Festival at Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh, Suffolk. Further performances are scheduled for the Sound Festival, Aberdeen in November and King’s Place, London in March.

Matthews’s second premiere of the season is Fortune’s Wheel, a new 15-minute work for chorus and small orchestra to be premiered by the Waynflete Singers and Aurora Orchestra in Winchester Cathedral on 8 December. The piece uses a Latin text by Boethius on the theme of change and instability,

70th birthday in 2013David Matthews reaches his 70th birthday on 9 March 2013 and many ensembles and festivals will be marking the occasion. The celebrations kick off on 13 March at the Wigmore Hall with a Nash Ensemble concert devoted to Matthews; a composer with whom the Nash has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship. The ensemble will explore Matthews’s lifelong love of British music, literature and landscape, and the concert will include the premiere of his newly commissioned quartet for flute and strings, A Blackbird Sang, together with two earlier works written for the Nash.

2013 will also see the premiere of another new piece, a concerto for violin, viola and strings co-commissioned by the Presteigne and Cheltenham Festivals. The Cheltenham performance in July will feature the Welsh Sinfonia conducted by Mark Eager with soloists Richard Tognetti and Lawrence Power, followed by the Presteigne performance in August when the Presteigne Festival Orchestral will be conducted by George Vass with Matthews’ enthusiasts Sarah Tricky and Sarah Jane Bradley.

70th birthday recordings for 2013David Matthews’s acclaimed series of recordings, which have recently brought him national attention, continues in 2013 with a disc of piano music for Toccata Classics, including Matthews’s Piano Concerto, Piano Sonata and Theme and Variations, with Laura Mikella (piano), Orchestra Nova, George Vass (conductor). And for Dutton there will be Matthews’ Symphony No.7 (Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/John Carewe) and Vespers for Choir and Orchestra (BSO/The Bach Choir/David Hill).

TUNING IN

Thomas AdèsSelected forthcoming performances The Four Quarters 1.9.12, Edinburgh International Festival, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, UK: Emerson Quartet

Polaris (German premiere) 9, 10, 11.9.12, Koln, Germany: Gürzenich-Orchester Köln/Markus Stenz

Life Story 10.9.12, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Helena Juntunen/Eveliina Kytömäki

...but all shall be well 16, 17, 18.9.12, Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe, Germany: Badisches Staatstheater

Still Sorrowing 3.10.12, Festival Musica, Salle de la Bourse, Strasbourg, France: Divertimento/Sandro Gorli

Dances from Powder Her Face 4.10.12, Louis de Geer Hall, Norrkoping, Sweden: Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/Franz Welser-Most

Thrift 21.10.12, Barletta piano festival, Italy: Hugues Leclere

15.11.12, SOSU university, USA: Hugues Leclere

30.11.12, Festival Piano Echos, Varese, Italy: Hugues Leclere

2.12.12, Lugano, Switzerland: Hugues Leclere

The Tempest 23, 27, 31.10.12, 3, 6, 10, 14.11.2012 Metropolitan Opera, New York, USA: Metropolitan Opera/Thomas Adès

Dances from Powder Her Face 9, 10.11.12, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK:

10.11.12, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, UK:

Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Peter Oundjian

In Seven Days 15.11.12, Boston, MA, USA: Thomas Adès

The Tempest 17.11.12, Metropolitan Opera, New York, USA: Metropolitan Opera/Thomas Adès

Polaris 6. 7.12.12, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal: Gulbenkian Orchestra/Krzsystof Urbanski

Dances from Powder Her Face (Japanese premiere) 9, 10.2.13, NHK Hall, Tokyo, Japan: NHK Symphony Orchestra/Hugh Wolff

Powder Her Face 15, 17, 21, 23.2.13, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, New York, USA: New York City Opera

‘The Tempest’ to be relayed to cinemas around the worldFor some years the Met has been broadcasting a selection of its performances as live, HD cinema relays. The production quality and unique feeling of intimacy that these live relays offer is renowned and it is fitting that one of the Met’s hottest new productions, The Tempest, will also benefit from this treatment. The opera will be transmitted to more than 1,800 cinemas in 55 countries around the world, including 125 cinemas across the UK. This is sure to be a richly-rewarding experience for those unable to see the new production in person.

‘Powder Her Face’ in VeniceAdès’s first opera Powder Her Face, the sensational story of the Duchess of Argyll, has now been performed almost 200 times in 17 different countries. The most recent revival was at the historic Teatro La Fenice with dramatic soprano Olga Zhuravel as the Duchess, Zuzana Markova as the maid and Orchestra Teatro la Fenice conducted

by Philip Walsh. The Italian critics praised the work, comparing it to Berg’s Lulu.

Upcoming performances of the opera include stagings by New York City Opera (February), the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona (February) and the Opera Company of Philadelphia (June).

‘The work of a gifted composer, akin to Berg’s Lulu… The chamber orchestra of La Fenice exalts the opera’s virtuosic instrumentation, under the lucid guidance of Philip Walsh.’

Il Gazzettino (Mario Messinis), 1 May 2012

‘When the opera appeared in 1995, there was a certain scandalous quality to its immediate success, but hundreds of performance in all parts of the world – extraordinarily for a contemporary work – demonstrate the musical and theatrical effectiveness of this work.’

La Nuova Venezia (Massimo Contiero), 29 April 2012

New York ‘Met’ commissions new production of ‘The Tempest’Thomas Adès 3-Act opera The Tempest has been praised the world over and performed over 50 times since its premiere in 2004. Now the Metropolitan Opera in New York has commissioned a new production of the work by Canadian director Robert Lepage and his revolutionary production company Ex Machina. Conjuring the interior of 18th-century La Scala, Lepage sets the action in the creaking, old opera house, including the hidden workings underneath the stage, where Prospero, the banished Duke of Milan, practices his otherworldly arts.

The new staging has already been aired at the Festival d’opéra de Québec to great acclaim. It will reach the Met on 23 October where the charismatic baritone Simon Keenlyside stars as Prospero, alongside soprano Audrey Elizabeth Luna as Ariel and tenor Alan Oke as Caliban. The production will then be staged at the Wiener Staatsoper as part of the 2014/15 season.

Adès, who will be conducting all the performances, describes Lepage’s staging as ‘brilliant and imaginative’, and perhaps unusually, he sees a close link between the music and the production:

‘The atmospheric décor may influence how the music is played. When the scene is bathed in a particular colour, we can try to get closer to this colour in the pit.’

Thomas Adès, interview with Christophe Huss in Le Devoir,

21 July 2012

PHOTOS: (TOP LEFT) THOMAS ADÈS © BRIAN VOCE

(BOTTOM LEFT) SIMON KEENLYSIDE AS PROSPERO © ANNE DENIAU/METROPOLITAN OPERA

(BOTTOM RIGH) OLGA ZHURAVEL AS THE DUCHESS © MICHELE CROSERA/TEATRO LA FENICE

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TUNING IN

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Thomas Adès Jonny GreenwoodBritten Sinfonia celebrates AdèsAdès’s three-fold talent as a composer, conductor and pianist was once again on show in March when he lead a Britten Sinfonia tour taking in Dijon, Dublin, London and New York (the group’s first US appearance). The highly original programme explored Adès’s own works alongside those composers, baroque and modern, who have inspired him. Starting small with an exquisite performance of Couperin’s Les baricades misterieuses by Adès on piano, followed by two of Adès’s Couperin arrangements, the programme blossomed out into Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, Stravinsky’s Suites for Small Orchestra and finally Adès’s much-admired Concerto for Violin (Concentric Paths).

‘…the evening reached a natural climax in Ades’s Violin Concerto. Finnish Soloist Pekka Kuusisto is a natural fit for the work’s daring gestures that risk the small, the fragile, as much as the ferocious... in the second movement thwarted yearnings for melody start with such brutality, but ultimately unclench into a desperately hopeful cantilena, spun over woodwind and lower strings.’

New Statesman (Alexandra Coghlan), 5 March 2012

‘it communicated a deep-rooted, unshakeable joy’

‘An ingenious programme… it communicated a deep-rooted, unshakeable joy… Nearly three centuries separate these pieces [Couperin and Adès], but they share a grace and unhurried flow that comes from a perfect symbiosis of harmony and melody, craftsmanship and expressivity. This is also true of the violin concerto, Concentric Paths, though its colours are darker and its momentum more vulnerable... finely spun figurations filter through into the dappled orchestral textures, ricocheting into an inner dance that, if only dimly perceptible, still utters an irresistible call to the listener to find yourself at the heart of it. ‘

The Guardian (Guy Dammann), 29 February 2012

‘an irresistible call to the listener’

‘Three Studies from Couperin, looks at the music as if through a kaleidoscope, the shattered pieces of the original tumbling around like glinting fragments of coloured glass… Every hearing of this engrossing concerto [Concentric Paths] makes it seem more substantial than its 20-minute timing would suggest.’

Financial Times (Richard Fairman), 29 February, 2012

‘It [Violin Concerto] is a fabulous piece; seemingly free-wheeling yet utterly cogent, with elegiac reminiscences of many things interlaced with baleful gestures and stratospheric lyricism for the soloist.’

The Times (Richard Morrison), 22 February 2012

Selected forthcoming performance48 Responses to Polymorphia(German premiere) 28-30.4.2013, Karlruhe, Germany: Badisches Staatskapelle/Justin Brown

Popcorn Superhet Receiver (Danish premiere) 14.12.2012, Danske Musikkonservatorium, Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen PO/André de Ridder

Praise for Nonesuch release of Penderecki//Greenwood projectReleased on Nonesuch earlier this year was the much-discussed Penderecki//Greenwood project, that featured two works by each composer: Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Polymorphia, and Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver and 48 Responses to Polymorphia. The Polish AUKSO Chamber Orchestra was conducted by Penderecki and Marek Mós:

‘Greenwood doesn’t need any false modesty when it comes to his classical pieces. His 48 Responses isn’t just a good piece for a composer who is more used to the studio, it is a dazzlingly imaginative, gripping and novel work, full stop.’

The Guardian (Tom Service), 23 February 2012

Penderecki//Greenwood Project plays to 80,000 festival crowdThe Penderecki//Greenwood project, launched at the European Culture Congress in Wroclaw in 2011, was later recreated in London’s Barbican Hall, and on disc, and has most recently been performed to an audience of 80,000 at the Open’er Festival in Gdynia, Poland. Prior to a late-night Bon Iver concert, the crowd were treated to the massed string sounds of the AUKSO Chamber Orchestra under Penderecki and Marek Mós.

‘The Master’ - Greenwood pens soundtrack to new Paul Thomas Anderson filmGreenwood has written the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s eagerly-awaited new film, The Master. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams the film is released this autumn, with a soundtrack album out on Nonesuch Records from 24 September. Greenwood and Anderson famously collaborated on the multi-Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood, which included extracts from Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver and smear. In addition to specially-composed cues, the new soundtrack also draws on Greenwood’s latest composition 48 Responses to Polymorphia.

‘There Will Blood Suite’ now available, following Holland Festival debutOn 16 June, the Holland Festival staged the premiere of Greenwood’s new 16-minute Suite from There Will Be Blood. André de Ridder conducted the Amsterdam Sinfonietta in a programme that also include smear and Popcorn Superhet Receiver.

TUNING IN

Oliver Knussen

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PHOTO: OLIVER KNUSSEN © MAURICE FOXALL

Outstanding Musician AwardAs well as operatic success in Aldeburgh (see p.5), the same weekend the Critics Circle bestowed an ‘Outstanding Musician Award’ on Oliver Knussen, announcing it was ‘not merely in acknowledgement of his work as a composer,’ but also ‘his championship of contemporary music as a conductor and lucid communicator,’ as well as ‘the potent influence he has had in encouraging and guiding composers of the younger generation.’

BCMG Birthday ConcertIn May Birmingham Contemporary Music Group held their own birthday celebrations, where Knussen (their Artist-in-Association) took to the podium to conduct a selection of his own works alongside those of his colleagues, Magnus Lindberg, Tansy Davies and Sean Shepherd. Critics paid tribute to his extraordinary talent:

‘The number of composers in the audience for BCMG’s concert to mark Oliver Knussen’s 60th birthday was its own tribute to a pivotal figure in British contemporary music… This [sequence of his own pieces] consisted of the wonderfully supple ensemble Ophelia Dances, the violin-and-piano Autumnal, and Ophelia’s Last Dance – Knussen’s recent reworking of 1970s material into a gorgeous, nostalgia-drenched, Scriabin-like waltz…’


‘There was a reminiscing post-concert chat, with much laughter, and a birthday cake. Before that we’d heard three of Knussen’s own chamber pieces... They were a reminder of how vast his musical culture already was in his twenties, and how subtly he could allude to his favourite things: Ravel, Debussy, Schumann.’

The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 28 May 2012

Knussen Symphonies at the PromsThe BBC Proms this summer also marked Knussen’s special year by programming two of his symphonies – Nos. 2 and 3 with the BBC Philharmonic/Gianandrea Noseda and BBC Symphony Orchestra/Kunssen respectively – as well as a chamber Prom featuring Knussen’s ‘Ophelia’ compositions.

‘the real interest of the evening lay in their immaculate performance of Oliver Knussen’s “Symphony No 2”... the marmoreal beauty of the verse is gracefully reflected in the antiphonal relationship between singer and orchestra. Every note in this intricate work is fastidiously placed’

The Independent (Michael Church), 31 July 2012

‘The vocal lines [of Symphony No.2] are often stratospherically high floating above orchestral textures that are by turns intricately hyperactive and beguilingly becalmed; the scoring is light and the effect is of transience, of fleeting, fragile beauty that always remains just out of reach.’

The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 31 July 2012

‘never formally announced as such but an annual staple nevertheless, is the season’s Oliver Knussen Prom… always a big musical learning experience in a way few concerts are...It’s impossible not to be drawn in… Knussen’s own pivotal third symphony [was] compact and powerful… awash with beauties…’

The Guardian (Martin Kettle), 26 August 2012

‘a milestone of symphonic thinking from the post-war

era…’

‘the sheer variety and inventiveness of this 15-minute score [Symphony No.3] – among the most influential by a British composer after Michael Tippett – are undimmed 33 years after its world premiere… Whether in the hectic accumulation of activity of its first half, or the more gradual emergence of incident over its longer second half towards an exhilarating climax then chorale-based apotheosis and return to the spectral opening, the piece remains a milestone of symphonic thinking from the post-war era…’

Classical Source (Richard Whitehouse), 26 August 2012

Total Immersion FestivalOn 3-4 November the BBC and Barbican will offer a wider retrospective of Knussen’s distinguished oeuvre as part of their Total Immersion Festival dedicated to the composer. Performances will include a double bill of Knussen’s operas Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! as well as concerts of his chamber and orchestral works.

Selected forthcoming performancesWhere the Wild Things Are 9.9.12, Bremer Theatre, Bremen, Germany: Bremer Philharmoniker/Daniel Mayr

Secret Psalm 14.9.12, Kings Place, London, UK: London Sinfonietta

Autumnal/Ophelia Dances Book 1/ Ophelia’s Last Dance/. . . upon one note 23.9.12, Alicante, Spain:

Songs without Voices 3.10.12, Festival Musica, Salle de la Bourse, Strasbourg, France: Divertimento/Sandro Gorli

Music for a Puppet Court 5.10.12, Ganz Hall, Chicago, IL, USA: Roosevelt University/Stefan Harsh

Where the Wild Things Are 11, 12, 13,14.10.12, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

Songs without Voices 24.10.12, Beijing, China: London Sinfonietta/George Benjamin

Where the Wild Things Are & Higglety Pigglety Pop! 3.11.12, Barbican, UK: Britten Sinfonia/Ryan Wigglesworth

Océan de Terre/Ophelia Dances Book 1/Songs without Voices/Trumpets/Two Organa 4.11.12, GSMD Music Hall, London, UK: Guildhall Music Ensemble/Richard Baker

Ophelia’s Last Dance/Sonya’s Lullaby/Variations/Whitman Settings 4.11.12, St Giles, Cripplegate, London, UK: Claire Booth/Ryan Wigglesworth/Huw Watkins

Choral/ Symphony No 3/Violin Concerto/ Whitman Settings 4.11.12, Barbican Hall, London, UK: Claire Booth/ Leila Josefowicz/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen

TUNING IN

Selected forthcoming performancesPiano Concerto No. 27.9.12, Federation Concert Hall, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra/Piers Lane/Vassily Sinaisky

V 18, 19.9.12, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Sydney Conservatorium High School/Carolyn Watson

Piano Concerto No. 2 (UK premiere) 17.10.12, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK: London Philharmonic Orchestra/Piers Lane/Vassily Sinaisky

PHOTOS: CARL VINE © KAREN STEAINS

LPO premiere Piano Concerto No.2 in UKFollowing the premiere of Carl Vine’s Piano Concerto No.2 at the Sydney Opera House with pianist Piers Lane and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the work tours (with Piers Lane) to Tasmania in September and on to London in October, where co-comissioners the London Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the piece with conductor Vassily Sinaisky.

‘Carl Vine’s concerto has a great deal to appeal to the listener, ranging from music for the full orchestra which is often very jagged, almost violent, to rather tender, sweet melodies. These quieter moments with their translucent colour and harmonic language were not dissimilar to those employed by Debussy… The work was enthusiastically received by the audience some of whom gave a standing ovation...’

Bach Track (Oliver Brett), 26 August 2012

‘The first movement is announced by crashing chords from the piano and, from there, the score hardly lets up on the pianist… The slow movement brings out some gorgeous, lingering harmonies, especially during unusual combinations of instruments such as the pairing of piano and tuba at the opening. The third and final movement again has the pianist, the conductor and the orchestra caught up in hopping frenzy... Piers Lane ripped down the keyboard and played his final chord standing up, he was so excited…’

J-Wire (Fraser Beath McEwing), 23 August 2012

Vine visits LondonIn October Vine will pay a rare visit to the UK. As well as attending the LPO’s performance of his second piano concerto (see above), he will be giving a series of workshops and masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Danielle de Niese & ACO premiere ‘Tree of Man’ cantataRenowned soprano Danielle de Niese and the Australian Chamber Orchestra premiered a new cantata by Carl Vine in June. Entitled The Tree of Man, the 11-minute work takes its title and text from a book by Australian novelist Patrick White. Vine came to know White while composing music for several of his stage plays in the 1980’s and describes White’s Tree of Man as ‘one of the pinnacles of English literature’. The new piece celebrates the centenary of White’s birth. Attracting praise wherever it went, Vine’s cantata was performed right across Australia from Wollongong to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, and now awaits premieres on other continents.

‘The prose has its own rhythm and Vine finds the music in White’s simple but glowing sentences. The accompaniment is delicate, like a watercolour wash, and the vocal part is a deft line drawing.’

The Sydney Morning Herald (Harriet Cunningham ), 11 June 2012

‘At last! An original work from an Australian composer based on text by an Australian writer that expresses an Australian aesthetic... Danielle de Niese brought vivid colours and depth of emotion to her lyrical performance.’

SoundsLikeSydney (Shamistha de Soysa), 11 June 2012

‘a gift for this singer’s voice’

‘Vine’s setting is a congenial and calm scena that is a gift for this singer’s voice, one that she embraced with clear conviction, a rare clarity of textual articulation and a generous amplitude that graced a score that requires little virtuosity.’

The Stage (Clive O’Connell), 19 June 2012

‘…a more than captivating experience to hear the depth of the prose given a new dimension by Vine’s music. Danielle de Niese gave a stirring rendition, handling all the piece’s challenges with a quiet confidence. The piece itself, starting with a general brooding, changes things up as it progresses, injecting energy …at just the right moment, switching back and forth between the modes as the story progressed…. Marvellous stuff’.

Artshub (Tomas Boot), 15 June 2012

‘Toccatissimo’ – not for the faint-heartedCarl Vine has written many acclaimed works for piano. His latest piano solo, Toccatissimo, was commissioned by the Sydney International Piano Competition and played in July by contestants at Stage III of the competition. During the competition Vine also presented a lecture on his piano music, introducing the new 6-minute piece as ‘an extreme toccata, not for the faint-hearted.’

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Carl Vine

TUNING IN

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PHOTOS: FRANCISCO COLL © MAURICE FOXHALL

FRANCISCO COLL AT COMPOSITION DESK

Selected forthcoming performances Tapias 22.9.12, Festival de Musica de Alicante, Spain: National Orchestra of Spain/Ruben Gimeno/Juan Carlos Matamoros

Sguardo verso l’interno 29.4.13, Wigmore Hall, London, UK: Park Lane Group

TUNING IN

Francisco Coll‘Aurum’ creates musical alchemy Following a commission from the Goldsmiths Company and the City of London Festival (2012 marks its Golden Jubilee), Francisco Coll was asked to write a celebratory ‘Golden Fanfare’. The result is Aurum (gold, Latin), a 5-minute brass quintet written for the legendary brass of the London Symphony Orchestra.

‘The short but dense, brilliantly hocketing Aurum: A Golden Fanfare proved plausible musical alchemy, brass becoming the gold of inspiration. The wildly veering piccolo trumpet part, taken by Philip Cobb, stays with me.’

The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 8 July 2012

World premiere of Piano Concertino In April Francisco Coll’s new 10-minute work for piano and orchestra, No seré yo quien diga nada (‘I’m not saying nothing’), was premiered by the renowned pianist Nicolas Hodges and the Valencia Youth Orchestra, with whom Coll is currently composer in residence. The first performance took place at in the Auditoro de Torrevieja, Spain with further concerts at the Festival de Úbeda and the Palau de la Música de Valencia. Coll is now writing an extended cadenza for the work and additional performances are sought.

The piece evokes Coll’s social preoccupations in a sonic environment; “the pianist takes on the role of a leader in what could be the modern mass culture,” says Coll, “rather than the soloistic character traditionally associated with the concerto form.” It uses a Spanish folk dance (Zortziko) as well as unusual orchestration to invoke “ruthless energy” and dreamlike motives.

‘The score of the Valencian composer is bold. Drawing parallels with contemporary society, it pushes things to their limit; it empties the orchestra of violins, violas and oboes and gives prominence to flutes, clarinets and bassoons in their most extreme registers, i.e. piccolos, clarinet in E and contrabassoons… The combinations

and references are also bold. The main subject is based on a zortziko, a traditional Basque dance, and added to this are other genres of popular music in the form of quotations from pop and jazz pieces… With all these ingredients he has made a complex and highly rhythmic work that “attempts to tell the transcendent and deep, through the absurd.”’

El Pais (Juan Manuel Játiva), 15 April 2012

‘Based on the Basque Zortziko rhythm, it developed an imaginative but coherent speech that deserved the audience’s praise.’

Levante (Alfredo Brotons), 18 April 2012

New work for choir and orchestraColl’s relationship with the Valencia Youth Orchestra continued in July with the premiere of a new cantata In Extremis for choir and orchestra. The premiere took place at the Roman Theater of Sagunto, with two further performances at the Auditorio de Segorbe and Auditorio de Teulada. The piece uses a Latin text by the Roman poet Catullus, specifically the poem XXXII of the series ‘Love Poems’. This serves as the basis for the work’s three-fold structure as Coll describes:

‘The piece is divided into 3 movements each corresponding to different scenes in the poem - request, orgy and regret... the orchestration is designed as a ‘massive voice’ made up of individual voices.’(Coll)

‘With the excellence of the cantata In Extremis Francisco Coll justifies his status as composer in residence [with the Valenica Youth Orchestra]. Its three movements are handled by a large and constantly spectacular orchestral apparatus in which the choir are treated as another member of the instrumental family…’

Levante (Alfredo Brotons), 31 July 2012

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Selected forthcoming performanceswas bedeutet die Bewegung... (world premiere) 13.9.12, Mendelssohn Hall, Leipzig, Germany: Matthias Goerne

Ferdinand dreams... (Austrian premiere) 24.10.12, Casino Baumgarten, Vienna, Austria: Andrew Watts/Volker Krafft

The Duchess of Malfi (German premiere) 23.3.13, Opernhaus, Chemnitz, Germany

PHOTO: TORSTEN RASCH © MAURICE FOXALL

Wigmore Hall premiere of ‘I see Phantoms’Torsten Rasch has long been known for the quality of his vocal writing and this was further evidenced in July at the Wigmore Hall premiere of Rasch’s new work I see Phantoms, a dramatic scene for baritone and cello. Written specially for the baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, whose voice Rasch describes as ‘a constant source of inspiration and wonder’, the piece uses the text of W.B. Yeat’s poem I see phantoms of hatred and the heart’s fullness and the coming emptiness to invoke a barren landscape and a series of visions:

‘The poem’s expressive imagery immediately provoked musical ideas. And I felt that its visionary tone made it naturally eligible to be sung. Musically it follows closely the poetic form, starting with an introduction where the visionary climbs the stairs to his tower top from where his mind begins to agitate beyond itself (‘monstrous familiar images swim to the mind’s eye’) and encounters the 3 visions from the title, all very different in content and appearance and therefore giving the music a dramatic shape culminating in the poets understanding that there’s nothing left but ‘brazen hawks’, their ‘grip of claw and the eye’s complacency’. The tentative resolution for the poet from all this is to withdraw from reality and ‘shut the door’ but still ‘wonder how to prove one’s worth’, a premonition already present at the beginning of the poem, and so the music takes up motifs from the very beginning and fades away.’

Torsten Rasch

Mendelssohn song-cycle arrangementFollowing the success of writing for Holzmair, Torsten Rasch has written music for another celebrated baritone, Matthias Goerne, who will premiere Rasch’s new Mendelssohn-Lieder arrangements in Leipzig in September. Rasch

has been described as ‘a man who writes most beautifully for both voice and orchestra’, so it was fitting that the the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester commissioners turned to him for this particular vocal project.

The song-cycle, entitled was bedeutet die Bewegung... and scored for voice, 15 strings, oboe and continue, uses seven of Mendelssohn’s Willemer Lieder with new transitions by Rasch linking each song. The songs will be performed at the Mendelssohn Hall, Leipzig, by Matthias Goerne and the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum.

‘Choosing the songs I tried to tell a story of 2 lovers who are about to part from each other. As their distance grows wider and wider, their feelings for each other grow stronger and range from desperate melancholy to rather fatalistic expressions. In the transition parts composed anew, I emphazise these expressions using motifs from the song just finished or the next one, creating a natural link between them.’

Torsten Rasch

Four scenes from ‘The Duchess of Malfi’The vocal theme continues in October when counter-tenor Andrew Watts will perform Ferdinand dreams..., four scenes (16-minutes) from Racsh’s opera The Duchess of Malfi, newly arranged for counter-tenor and piano. Watts, who performed the role of Ferdinand in the original opera production, will be joined by pianist Volker Krafft at the premiere in Vienna’s Casino Baumgarten.

…and a performance of the full opera A full production of The Duchess of Malfi will be staged in Chemnitz, Germany on 23 March 2013. This will be the German premiere of the work which, when it was performed in UK by ENO and Punchdrunk, was sold out within hours and heralded as ‘electrifying’, ‘glorious’, and ‘a candidate for a six-star review’.

New English translation of ‘Die Träumenden Knaben’Poetic delivery is at the very heart of Rasch’s 35-minute melodrama Die Träumenden Knaben (for 5 players), which uses a text by Kokoschka, in a sprechgesang style reminiscent of Schoeneberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. The original German text has now been translated into English by Dr Lee Tsang, lecturer in music at the University of Hull, who performed the new version with the Portumnus Ensemble in Hull last March. ‘This translation,’ says Dr Tsang, ‘has been carefully produced to preserve as many of the original elements as possible and be sensitive to details in rhythm, stress and pitch contour... [it] remains faithful to the spirit of the work at every turn’. It is hoped that the new translation will open up more performance opportunities.

Torsten Rasch

TUNING IN

Colin MatthewsSelected forthcoming performancePluto, the renewer 30.9.12, Reykjavik, Iceland: The Iceland Symphony Youth Orchestra/Baldur Brönnimann

Movements for a Clarinet Concerto 20.10.12, St George’s Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom: Max Welford/University of London Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Capps

String Quartet No 4 (world premiere) 14.11.12, Wigmore Hall, London, United Kingdom: Elias String Quartet

Feux d’artifice 30, 31.12.12, Tonhalle, Zürich, Switzerland: Tonhalle Orchestra/David Zinman

Movements for a Clarinet Concerto 25.4.13, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, United Kingdom: Lynette Marsh/Hallé Orchestra/Andrew Manze

No Man’s Land25.01.12, Julliard School of Music, New York, USA: New Juilliard Ensemble/Joel Sachs

Violin Concerto performed in FrankfurtSince its premiere by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 2009, Colin Matthews’s Violin Concerto has travelled across countries and continents with its protagonist, the violinist Leila Josefowicz. At the German premiere an indisposed Josefowicz was replaced by Dutch violinst Isabelle van Keulen who admirably stepped up to the concerto’s challenges.

‘…[the] violin concerto stood out - a work of apparent contradictions... The solo voice is very challenging, but not virtuosic in the conventional sense, the two-movement work is a concerto, but not a traditional one. It is lyrical, yet vital, rugged and yet intimate… ‘

Frankfurter Allgemeine (Harald Budweg), 30 April 2012

‘lyrical, yet vital, rugged and yet intimate’

‘…a delicate web of free-hovering violin…. whose bird-mimicking chirping is reminiscent of Messiaen.’

Offenbach Post (Klaus Ackermann), 1 May 2012

‘…the composer has created a solo part that chirps and whirrs over comforting orchestral sound, and ensures the soloist brings sweetness to harmony.’

Darmstädter Echo (Christian Knatz), 28 April 2012

‘Captivated by his precise and very flexible piece, the HR-Symphony Orchestra dominated the eruptive moments, the sharpened contrasts made for a remarkable aural transparency… The applause of the audience was correspondingly large and persistent.’

Maintal Tagesanzeiger (Lars-Erik Gerth), 3 May 2012

World premiere of new string quartetColin Matthews already has three acclaimed string quartets under his belt and this autumn sees the premiere of his fourth, commissioned by the Wigmore Hall, and due to be performed there on 14 November by the distinguished Elias Quartet.

‘It’s well over fifteen years since I wrote my Third Quartet, but the Fourth looks back further to the world of the Second Quartet, at least in terms of its character and the relative brevity of its seven movements, which play without a break for around 16 minutes. It’s composed in the form of an arch, with the fourth movement being the longest, and as if a still centre to the piece.’

Colin Matthews

USA premiere of ‘No Man’s Land’Matthews’s First World War ‘cantata’ No Man’s Land for tenor, baritone and chamber orchestra was much praised when it was premiered at the BBC Proms in 2011. On 25 January it will be premiered in the USA at the Julliard School of Music, New York, with conductor Joel Sachs as part of the conservatoire’s ‘British Renaissance’ Festival.

Wigmore Hall study dayStudents at the Royal Northern College of Music have been getting Matthews’s chamber works firmly under their skin. After celebrating his music at their ‘New Music North West’ festival, the RNCM students brought their performances to London as part of a Wigmore Hall study day devoted to the composer.

‘Rilke’s three-part poem “Die Insel, Nordsee” has a salty, Wagnerian mood, though Matthews’s writing could hardly be more spare or different. Islanders are oppressed by their melancholy, exhausting, windswept and “water-washed” isolation. Anguish moves towards acceptance but the sense of sea and dyke is ever present. Scored for small ensemble in which harp, alto flute and viola dominate, The island was sung expressively by Sarah Ogden and played with vivid delicacy by the six students conducted by Clark Rundell.’

The Observer (Fiona Maddocks), 6 May 2012

‘Movements for a Clarinet Concerto’ at the Bloomsbury FestivalIn 1941 Benjamin Britten began composing a clarinet concerto for the legendary jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman, but he never finished the piece. It lay untouched until 2007 when Colin Matthews (who worked as an assistant to Britten) composed two new movements, using other Britten material contemporary with the clarinet concerto sketches, to complete the work. In October the University of London Symphony Orchestra and soloist Max Welford will present an open rehearsal of the work at the Bloomsbury Festival. The audience will have the chance to find out more about the fascinating completion process and Matthews himself will be on hand to answer questions.

PHOTO: COLIN MATTHEWS © MAURICE FOXALL

TUNING IN

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PHOTOS: (TOP LEFT) PETER SCULTHORPE WITH APRA AWARD

(BOTTOM RIGHT) MALCOM ARNOLD

TUNING IN

Peter Sculthorpe - Selected forthcoming performancesPort Essington 6.9.12, Festival Maribor, Slovenia: Australian Chamber Orchestra/Richard Tognetti

Small Town 18, 19.9.12, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, NSW, Australia: Carolyn Watson/Sydney Conservatorium High School

From Ubirr (Netherlands premiere) 22.12.12, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Radio Chamber Filharmony/Celso Antunes

Malcolm Arnold - Selected forthcoming performancesConcerto for Two Pianos (3 hands) 2.9.12, Sadler’s Wells, London, UK: National Youth Ballet of Great Britain/chor. Jo Meredith

Anniversary Overture 16.9.12, Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal, Koln, Germany: WDR Rundfunkorchester Koln/Rumon Gamba

Peterloo 29.9.12, Manchester Cathedral, Manchester, UK: Cheshire Sinfonia/Peter Stallworthy

Peterloo 7.10.12, St John’s Smith Square, London, UK: Birmingham PO/Michael Lloyd

Peterloo 14.10.12, Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, UK: Birmingham PO/Michael Lloyd

Concerto for Clarinet No 2 18, 21.10.12, Basilica Havanna, Cuba: Mozarteum-Orchester/Ulrich Nyffler

The Fair Field Overture 2.11.12, Fairfield Halls, Croydon, UK: London Mozart Players/Hilary Davan Wetton

Sweeney Todd Concert Suite 19.11.12, Göttingen, Germany: Göttinger SO

Four Cornish Dances 24.11.12, Clarendon Muse, Watford, : Watford SO/Edward Kay

Malcolm ArnoldPeter SculthorpeString Quartet No.2, a hidden gemOne of the gems in Malcolm Arnold’s catalogue must surely be his String Quartet No 2. It has often been remarked that string quartets offer a composer’s most personal music, and Arnold’s String Quartet No. 2 is a case in point: a first movement where a gentle rise and fall is soon interrupted by furious, dissonant semi-quavers; a long, lonely cadenza for the first violin; an Irish reel assaulted by bi-tonal outbursts; and a finale where eerie glissando harmonics sit alongside jagged motifs.

In April the Salieri Quartet performed the work alongside music by fellow English composers Matthew Taylor and Ernest John Moeran in a concert at St Olav’s Church, in the City of London.

‘They stormed through Malcolm Arnold’s fabulously gritty second quartet‘

The Observer (Stephen Pritchard ), 22 April 2012

Ballet music continues to inspireSir Malcolm Arnold’s music continues to be popular with ballet and dance groups and this summer was no exception. In June students from The London Studio Centre performed excerpts from Arnold’s ballet music for Sweeny Todd with choreography by Morgann Runacre-Temple in a tour that took in Poole, Peterborough, Wellingborough, Cambridge and London’s Peacock Theatre. In August choreographer Jo Meredith used excerpts from Arnold’s Concerto for Two Pianos in a new dance work for the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain.

New Recorder Concerto recordingArnold’s Recorder Concerto was one of his last works. It was written specially for the recorder player Michala Petri who has released a new recording of the 14-minute work with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.

‘a remarkably inventive late work that harks back to the airy tone and style of earlier pieces.’

International Record Review (Piers Burton-Page), July/August 2012

APRA Award for ‘Distinguished Services to Australian Music’Peter Sculthorpe has once again been recognised as one of the foremost figures in Australian music. At a recent ceremony in the Sydney Opera House the Australasian Performing Right Association and the Australian Music Centre awarded him a special honour for ‘Distinguished Services to Australian Music.’ Sculthorpe said he was very proud to receive the award, especially as it came from organisations that he has a long and close association with:

‘APRA was founded in 1926 and I became a member in 1956, so I must be one of the very oldest living members. That makes it very special to me and I treasure the recognition.’

Premiere of new saxophone work at Presteigne FestivalIn August Peter Sculthrope’s Island Songs, a new work for saxophone (soprano and alto), strings and percussion, was premiered at the Presteigne Festival in Wales. The 18-minute work, which was performed by Australian saxophonist Amy Dickson, the Presteigne Festival Orchestra and conductor George Vass, displays Sculthorpe’s characteristic passion for the landscape of his native Australia. Sculthorpe’s beautifully evocative music explores ancient tribal songs, as well as highlighting climate change, transporting the audience far away from the Welsh countryside to the humming forests of northern Australia.

‘…Island Songs [was a] haunting, ecologically slanted wonder from the Australian veteran Peter Sculthorpe, rooted in melodies from the continent’s outer fringes. Each instrumental component was subtly deployed: an elegiac cry from soloist Amy Dickson, shivering symbols there, with a cello sometimes weeping in undergrowth.’

The Times (Geoff Brown), 28 August 2012

CHAMBER ENSEMBLEFRANCISCO COLL

Aurum (2012)Golden Fanfare. brass quintet. Duration 5 minutes. FP: 27.6.2012, City of London Festival, Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, UK: LSO Brass Players. Commissioned by The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths for the City of London Festival’s Golden Jubilee. ptpt.tpt.hn.trbn.tuba. Score and parts on special sale.

TANSY DAVIESDelphic Bee (2012)wind nonet. Duration 10 minutes. FP: 28.6.2012, Mansion House, London, UK: Players of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Commissioned by the City of London Festival for its 50th anniversary, with the support of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. 1222-2000. Score and parts on hire.

DEREK BERMELDragon Blue (2012)chamber ensemble of 7 players (Western and Chinese instruments). Duration 12 minutes. FP: 28.3.2012, Ecstatic Music Festival, Merkin Hall, New York, NY, USA: Music from Copland House/Music from China. Commissioned with funds from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and Friends of Copland House. cl - pno - vln.vlc - pipa - erhu - zheng. Score and parts for hire.

HOWARD GOODALLLive at Lloyd’s: Fanfare (2012)fanfare trumpets, brass ensemble of 11 players, percussion and organ. Duration 3 minutes. FP: 17.5.2012, The Underwriting Room, Lloyd’s of London, Lime Street, London, UK: Trumpeters of the Life Guards/musicians from the Royal College of Music/Hilary Davan Wetton. Commissioned for Live@Lloyd’s, a charity concert in Lloyd’s of London. 8 fanfare tpts in Eb - 4331 - timp - perc(2): SD/BD/susp.cym/cyms - org. Score and parts for hire.

Rigaudon (2012)chamber ensemble of 18 players. Duration 5 minutes. FP: 3.6.2012. New Water Music Barge, Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, London, UK: Ensemble H20/Howard Goodall. Commissioned by The Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation Ltd. ssax.asax - 2 tpt.2 trbn.btrbn - timp - perc(2): bodhran/tamb/egg shaker/finger cym/cym/3 tom-t/mar - gtr.bass gtr - 2 keyboards - 2 vln.vla.vlc. In preparation.

JOHN WOOLRICHThe Devil in the clock (2012)ensemble of 13 players. Duration 4 minutes. FP: 12.8.2012, BBC Proms, London, UK: London Sinfonietta. Commission by BBC Radio 3 for the BBC Proms. afl.ca.cl.cbsn - hn.trbn - perc(1): mar - harp - 2 vln.vla.vcl.db. Score and parts for hire

SOLO AND ENSEMBLEFRANCISCO COLL

No seré yo quien diga nada (2012)piano and orchestra. Duration 10 minutes. FP: 12.4.12, Auditoro de Torrevieja, Spain: Nicolas Hodges/Valencia Youth Orchestra/Manuel Galduf. Commissioned by the Valencia Youth Orchestra. 2 picc.0.1.ca.cl.bcl.cbcl.bsax.2 cbsn - 2110 - perc(3): glsp/xyl/mar/BD/cabasa/cast/Chinese.cym/crot/glass bottles/guiro/hi-hat cym/large tin/metal bar/piece of wood/siz.cym/snare drum/susp.cym/tamb/tom-t/tgl/tuned gong - hpschd (synth) - pno - 6 vlc.2 db. Score and parts on hire.

TANSY DAVIESNature (2012)concerto for piano and 10 players. Duration 17 1/2 minutes. FP: 25.5.2012, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK: Huw Watkins/BCMG. Commissioned by BCMG and the Oslo Sinfonietta. BCMG commission funds provided by Arts Council England, the Britten-Pears Foundation and individuals from the BCMG’s Sound Investment Scheme. afl(=fl).ca(=ob).bcl - hn - perc(1): mar/SD/pedal BD/5 temple blocks/4 tom-t/tam-t - vln.vla.vcl.db. Score and parts for hire (Norwegian premiere reserved).

HOWARD GOODALLShackleton’s Cross (2012)after the painting by Edward Seago (1957). trumpet and chamber orchestra. Duration 3 minutes. FP: 1.5.2012, recording session, Angel Recording Studios, London, UK: Kate Moore (tpt)/The Howard Goodall Orchestra/Howard Goodall. ob - tpt - harp - strings. In preparation.

JONNY GREENWOODSuite from ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2012)string orchestra, with ondes martenot (or oboe). Duration 16 minutes. FP: 16.06.2012, Holland Festival, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam Sinfonietta/André de Ridder. ondes martenot (or oboe) - Strings (10.8.6.6.4). Score and parts for hire.

DAVID MATTHEWSRomanza (2012)Romanza for violin and piano/strings. Duration 12 minutes. FP: String Version: 6.10.12, Alwyn Festival, Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh, Suffolk: Madeleine Mitchell/Prometheus Orchestra/Edmond Fivet. Piano Version: 1.11.12 Sound Festival, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen: Madelein Mitchell/Nigel Clayton. Commissioned by Madeleine Mitchell with financial support from the Cohen Foundation. Exclusive until October 2013.

Winter Remembered (2012)viola and strings. Duration 13 minutes. FP: 5.5.2012, Kings Place, London, UK: Paul Watkins/English Chamber Orchestra. Vla - Strings (32221). Score and parts on hire.

TORSTEN RASCH/FELIX MENDELSSOHNwas bedeutet die Bewegung... (2012)a Mendelssohn Song Cycle for baritone and strings. Duration 25 minutes. FP: 13.09.2012, Mendelssohn Hall, Leipzig, Germany: Matthias Goerne/Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum. Commissioned by the Gewandhausorchester. strings (44322). Text: Marianne von Willemer (1784-1860), attributed to Goethe. Score and parts for hire.

CARL VINEThe Tree of Man (2012)a secular cantata for soprano and string orchestra. Duration 11 minutes. FP: 7.6.12, Wollongong Town Hall, Wollongong, Australia: Danielle De Niese/Australian Chamber Orchestra. Commissioned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Text: The Tree of Man by Patrick White (English). Score and parts in preparation.

CHORALHOWARD GOODALL

The Rosslyn Psalm (2012)SATB chorus, harp and organ. Duration 5 minutes. FP: 8.5.2012, Rosslyn Chapel, Roslin, Midlothian, UK: National Youth Choir of Scotland/Christopher Bell. Commissioned by Helen, Countess of Rosslyn and dedicated to her husband Peter, 7th Earl of Rosslyn, to celebrate the completion of the Rosslyn Chapel conservation programme, March 2012. harp - organ. Psalm 150 (The Scottish Psalter of 1650) (English). On sale from www.choralstore.com

MATTHEW MARTINThe St John’s College Service (2012)SATB choir and organ. Duration 7 ½ minutes. FP: 27.5.2012, St John’s College, Cambridge, UK: Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge/Andrew Nethsingha. Commissioned by St John’s College, Cambridge. Score 0-571-53711-1 on sale.

DAVID MATTHEWSFortune’s Wheel (2012)chorus and orchestra. Duration 15 minutes. FP: 8.12.2012, Winchester Cathedral, UK: Waynflete Singers/Aurora Orchestra/Andrew Lumsden. Commissioned by The Waynflete Singers. perc(1): timp/3 susp.cym/3 sml gongs/tam-t/crot - strings (65332). From Boethius: De consolatione philosophiae, Book II (translation by W.V.Cooper, adapted). Score and parts on hire.

BALLETPHILIP SHEPPARD

Many (2012)ballet for electronics. Duration 25 minutes. FP: 22.1.2012, La Filature, Mulhouse, France: Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin/ch. Thomas Noone. Commissioned by Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin. Performance CD available for hire.

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NEW WORKS

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INSTRUMENTALJULIAN ANDERSON

Another Prayer (2012)solo violin. Duration 9 minutes. FP: tbc. for Carolin Widman. Score on special sale from the Hire Library.

MATTHEW HINDSONBig Bang (2012)two pianos. Duration 7 minutes. FP: 18.5.2012, Sydney, Australia. In preparation

JONATHAN HARVEYCirrus Light (2012)solo clarinet. Duration 9 minutes. FP: 9, 10.9.12, Internationaler Musikwettbewerb der ARD München, Germany. Auftragswerk des Internationalen Musikwettbewerbs de ARD. Score on special sale.

MATTHEW HINDSONEpic Diva (2012)arrangement of the last movement of Piano Trio. piano quartet. Duration 6 minutes. FP: **.**.2012, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia: Liam Viney/Patrick Murphy/Patricia Pollett/tbc. Commissioned by the University of Queensland. pno - vln.vla.vlc. Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library ([email protected]).

Remembering Dixie (2012)violin and piano (or solo violin). Duration 3 minutes. FP: 22.5.2012, All Saints Cathedral, Bathurst, NSW, Australia: Sarah Hindson/David McKay. Score and part on special sale from the Hire Library ([email protected]).

NEW PUBLICATIONSTHOMAS ADÈS

Lieux retrouvéscello and piano 0-571-51982-2 £19.99

GEORGE BENJAMINWritten on Skinvocal score 0-571-52672-1 £24.99

CARL DAVISBalladecello and piano 0-571-53689-1 £14.99

MATTHEW MARTINO Rex GentiumSATB (divisi) 0-571-53725-1 £2.99

St John’s College ServiceSATB choir and organ 0-571-53711-1 £2.99

NEW RECORDINGSTHOMAS ADÈS

Darknesse VisibleInon BarnatanAvie AV2256

Lieux retrouvésThomas Adès/Steven Isserlis

Hyperion CDA67948

MALCOLM ARNOLDConcerto for Recorder and Orchestra

Michala Petri/City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong/Jean ThorelOUR recordings LC27901

BENJAMIN BRITTENTemporal Variations

Birgit Schmieder/Akiko YamashitaAudite 92.539

Songs and Proverbs of William Blake/Tit for TatRoderick Williams/Iain Burnside

Naxos 8.572600

TANSY DAVIESDark Ground/Falling Angel/Iris/

Loopholes and Lynchpins/Loure/make black white/Spine/Static/This Love

BCMG/Azalea/Christopher Austin/Concordia/Samuel Boden/Joby Burgess/ Simon Haram/Darragh Morgan

NMC D176

CARL DAVISBallade

Jonathan Aasgaard/RLPO/Carl DavisCarl Davis Collection CDC017

JONNY GREENWOOD48 Responses to Polymorphia/Popcorn Superhet Receiver

AUKSO Chamber Orchestra/Marek MósNonesuch 530223

OLIVER KNUSSENChoral/Autumnal/Whitman Settings/Secret Psalm/

Prayer Bell Sketch/Violin Concerto/ Requiem - Songs for Sue/Ophelia’s Last Dance

BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oliver Knussen/Alexandra Wood/Huw Watkins/ Claire Booth/Ryan Wigglesworth/Leila Josefowic

NMC D178

DAVID MATTHEWSString Quartet No 5/String Quartet No 12

Kreutzer QuartetToccata Classics TOCC 0059

Eight duosHarriet Mackenzie/Philippa Mo (Retorica Duo)

NMC D182

MARTIN SUCKLINGCandlebird

London SinfoniettaLondon Sinfonietta label

To See the Dark BetweenAronowitz Ensemble

Sonimage SON 11202

HUW WATKINSSonata for Cello and Eight Instruments

Paul Watkins/Nash EnsembleNMC NMC D164

NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS

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Gabriel Prokofiev signs new agreementWe are delighted to announce that Faber Music Ltd has signed a new publishing administration agreement with UK composer and DJ, Gabriel Prokofiev.

In addition to publishing the enormously successful Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra (presented at the 2011 BBC Proms), Faber Music now administers various rights (including hire of performance materials) in the majority of Prokofiev’s diverse catalogue, including his Concerto for Bass Drum & Orchestra (premiered in the USA and UK in 2012), the String Quartet No 3, Import/Export (for solo percussion and electronics), Cello Multitracks (for nine cellos, or solo cello and electronics – recently released on the NonClassical label by Peter Gregson), the ballet for Cathy Marston and Bern:Ballett entitled Ein Winternachtstraum (2011), and Prokofiev’s polystylistic orchestral remix of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, commissioned and premiered by John Axelrod and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire.Plans for 2013 include a Cello Concerto for Alexander Ivashkin and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra for premiere in May, a new ballet score for Maurice Causey and Tanz Luzerner Theater, and a ballet set to the Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra by Karole Armitage (New York).

Recent performances of the Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra include the Australian and South American premieres, with West Australian SO and Teresa Carreno Youth Orchestra of Venezuela respectively.

Godár’s ravishing ‘MATER’ cycle presented in BratislavaVladimír Godár’s MATER cycle brought the composer’s music to an international audience for the first time, when it was released on ECM New Series in 2006. With the extraordinary Czech singer Iva Bittova centre-stage, the disc was praised widely and the cycle was performed throughout Europe. The most recent staging was a full-evening project on 28 June, mounted in Bratislava’s picturesque Old Market Square, as part of Viva Musica!. Bittova reprised her role in the haunting cycle for voice, chorus and chamber orchestra that comprises Godár’s compositions: Stabat Mater; Magnificat; Regina coeli; Ecce puer; Maykomashmalon and Lullabies.

‘Entering the world of “Mater”, Godár’s hour-long rumination on the subject of motherhood,

is rather like stepping into the living continuum of music history… There’s a powerfully distinctive authorial voice at

work here, and a rich arterial force courses its way through the

collection…’

International Record Review (Peter Quinn), March 2007

Nigel Hess: ‘Ladies in Lavender’ Suite launched at Cadogan HallNigel Hess’s original score to Ladies in Lavender has garnered admirers the world over since the film, starring Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, premiered in 2004. Joshua Bell performed the violin solos on the haunting soundtrack, the latter earning Hess a Classical Brit nomination.

The Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra and ‘Ladies in Lavender’ Theme appear regularly in concert programmes, but we are now pleased to announce that a new 15-minute ‘Ladies in Lavender’ Suite for violin and orchestra is available, following the premiere by Clio Gould and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on 14 June. It formed part of a British film music programme, devised and conducted by Hess and Christopher Gunning.

Howard Goodall: new Decca release set for 2013Decca are to release an all-Howard Goodall choral/orchestral disc early in 2013. It will include the new

oratorio Every Purpose Under the Heaven (The King James Bible Oratorio) as well as some Goodall

evergreens. More in the next issue. Meanwhile, the composer conducts two performances of the oratorio in October, in Sheffield and Southwark Cathedrals. He is joined by combined forces from the commissioners, United Church Schools Trust/United Learning Trust.

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Carl Davis silent film DVD sampler now availableWe’re delighted that a new DVD sampler and catalogue of Carl Davis’s incredible output of over 50 silent film scores is now available. The rich and varied catalogue surveys the breadth of Davis’s astonishing achievements in this field, including films such as Buster Keaton’s The General, Lon Chaney’s The Phantom of the Opera, Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last, Greta Garbo’s Flesh and the Devil, Charlie Chaplin’s acclaimed series of 12 Mutual shorts, plus recent additions such as Cecil B De Mille’s The Godless Girl, Lloyd’s High and Dizzy and Lupino Lane’s Sword Points. The complete catalogue is available to view online at www.issuu.com/fm_fortissimo. Please contact [email protected] for the DVD sampler.

Hitchcock’s ‘The Pleasure Garden’ - new silent film score by Daniel Patrick CohenWe’re delighted to be administering rights and hire materials for a new score to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1925 silent film, The Pleasure Garden. It’s by young UK composer Daniel Patrick Cohen and was launched, together with a newly-restored British Film Institute print, as part of the Cultural Olympiad earlier this summer. The Pleasure Garden was Hitchcock’s first film, released when he was only 26. Cohen’s score is written for a line-up of 12 instrumentalists. Contact [email protected] for more info.

New dance sampler now availableOur latest dance sampler disc, RhythMovement 4, is now available. It includes several extracts of music by new signing Gabriel Prokofiev, as well as music by established house composers such as Thomas Adès, Matthew Hindson, Tansy Davies, Peter Sculthorpe, and many others. Contact [email protected].

Howard Goodall: Diamond Jubilee commission…The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant provided a lifetime of memories for those that experienced it. Central to the structure of the 1,000-strong flotilla were ten interspersed music barges, each providing an aural soundtrack - a counterpoint to the visual feasts on offer. One of the most fascinating projects was “The New Water Music”, which took place on board ‘The Georgian’ barge. Eleven composers were commissioned to write a 5-minute ensemble piece inspired by, or drawing on, Handel’s Water Music. Howard Goodall produced an invigorating

Rigaudon which he himself conducted on board. Each of the pieces was performed twice in all, and in the week before the Pageant, Silva Classics released “New Water Music”, a recording of the whole collection.

… and Mr Bean at the London 2012 GamesGoodall was also creatively involved with the music for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics Games. With Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis he devised the ‘Mr Bean/Chariots of Fire’ sketch that was performed by Atkinson with Sir Simon Rattle and the London SO. Goodall also arranged the music for the sketch, recreated the Vangelis synthesizer sounds and played them too. Additionally, he arranged and added his Enchanted Voices choir to the soundtrack and to Rick Smith’s ‘Industrial Revolution’ and ‘Caliban’s Song’ sections of the evening.

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BOOKS ON MUSIC FROM FABER & FABER

Philip Sheppard – Soundtrack to a JourneyIn a highly creative marketing exercise, Philip Sheppard was commissioned early this year by the advertising agency VCCP to compose a 32-minute orchestral work for the Gatwick Express rail service, inspired by (and the exact length of) the journey to the airport from London’s Victoria Station. The resulting work was then re-mixed by dub-step producer Benga and indie band The Milk. Since 20th June customers buying their Gatwick Express tickets on-line have been able to download all three versions for free.

Sections of Philip’s score can be heard at http://www.gatwickexpresstracks.co.uk/. For Philip this delightful and creative commission was redolent of Britten’s Night Mail, of which he is a huge fan.

On another front, Philip composed the original music for David Starkey’s 3-part Channel 4 series The Churchills, broadcast over July and August.

Drama commissionsFaber composers are achieving a high level of success in winning commissions to compose for television drama. At the time of writing, Dan Jones is working on a 3-part drama series for the BBC, The Secret of Crickley Hall; Simon Rogers is working on the fourth series of the BBC children’s drama, Young Dracula; Mark Bradshaw is working on a 10-part mini-series for Australian TV entitled ‘Top of the Lake;’ and Nick Lloyd is working on a 10-part series for Sky, ‘Stella.’

Thomas Adès: Full of NoisesConversations with Tom ServiceHardback £16.99 (ISBN 9780571278978)Publication: 4 October 2012

Thomas Adès is fêted from Los Angeles to London, from New York to Berlin, as the musician who has done more than any other living composer to connect contemporary music with wider audiences. His operas, orchestral pieces and chamber works have already stood the test of repeated performances, productions and continued critical acclaim.

But this celebrated composer, conductor and pianist is notoriously secretive about his creative process, about what lies behind his compositional impulse. The poetry, technique and biography that fuel his most successful and shattering works, such as his operas Powder Her Face and The Tempest, or his orchestral works Asyla and Tevot, have remained hidden and unexplained. Until now.

In conversation with Tom Service - the writer with whom he has had the closest relationship in his career - Adès opens up for the first time about how he creates his music, where it comes from, and what it means. In these provocative and challenging interviews, Adès connects his music with influences from a huge historical and cultural spectrum - from Sephardic Jewish folk music to 80s electronica, from the films of Luis Buñuel and pre-Columbian art to the soundtracks of Al-Qaeda training videos - and offers a unique insight into the crucible of his composition.

Tom Service writes about music for the Guardian, where he was Chief Classical Music Critic, and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3. He has presented Radio 3’s flagship magazine programme, Music Matters, since 2003. He was the inaugural recipient of the ICMP/CIEM Classical Music Critic of the Year Award, and was Guest Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. After years practising in the mirror, he once conducted Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.

The Essential BrittenA Pocket Guide for the Britten Centenary by John Bridcut Paperback £9.99 (ISBN 9780571 290734)Publication 1st November 2012

Benjamin Britten was one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. He wrote a feast of music from an early age, first achieving international fame in 1945 with his opera Peter Grimes; now more operas by Britten are performed worldwide than by any other composer born in the twentieth century. In this incisive guide, John Bridcut discusses Britten’s music and explores his musical influences, his complex personality, his emotional and professional relationships, and the fascinating nooks and crannies of his daily life, normally overlooked. An indispensable source of fresh insights into this towering figure in British music, this is an updated edition of the Faber Pocket Guide to Britten, including the full text of Britten’s speech On Receiving the First Aspen Award.

‘Impeccably executed and informative.’

Classical Music

‘An unconventional biography that, rather brilliantly, takes a Schott’s Original Miscellany approach to its subject... Frequently illuminating, this pocket primer is winningly down to earth,’

Classic FM Magazine

John Bridcut is a documentary director for British television. He has had a lifelong enthusiasm for English music and his feature-length films, Britten’s Children (2004) and The Passions of Vaughan Williams (2008), have won awards. He is currently working on a portrait of Elgar. In 2008, he produced a BBC documentary Charles at 60: The Passionate Prince for the BBC. Other film subjects have included Rudolf Nureyev, Roald Dahl, Hillary Clinton, and the Queen. His two books, Britten’s Children and The Faber Pocket Guide to Britten, were published in 2006 and 2010 respectively.

MEDIA MUSIC NEWS

27

Fanny Waterman DBE and ‘The Leeds’Kathryn Knight, Publishing Director at Faber Music, talks to Dame Fanny about an eventful year in LeedsBy the time Fortissimo hits your doormat, the 17th Leeds International Piano Competition will have happened. A new dazzling talent will have joined the list of some of the world’s most eminent pianists to have won the competition (past winners including Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu, Andras Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Lars Vogt, Louis Lortie, Artur Pizarro and Piotr Anderszewski).

“The Leeds gives an outstanding opportunity for young professional pianists to advance their careers and become the artists of the future”, says Dame Fanny as we settle down in her beautiful drawing room: a room graced with two Steinway grand pianos and adorned with extraordinary mementoes and photos from her life. “I was determined to improve the standards of piano playing throughout the world. Our jurors are looking for playing that will reveal the finest qualities of pianism– beauty of tone, musical integrity, rhythmic vitality and MAGIC.”

‘The Leeds’ will be celebrating its Golden Anniversary next year – all thanks to the vision of Dame Fanny, her late husband Dr Geoffrey de Keyser and Marion Thorpe CBE, who founded the competition in 1963. Regarded by the international music community as the greatest piano competition in the world, this status was confirmed by the

appointment this summer of two Honorary Ambassadors to the competition. The first of these was Aung San Suu Kyi, after a visit to No. 10 Downing Street. David Cameron said: “The Leeds International Piano Competition is one of the great classical music competitions in the world. It’s a tremendous advert for Leeds and for Britain as a whole. Aung San Suu Kyi’s appreciation of piano playing is well known. So it is fantastic that the competition has made this tribute.” In August, it was announced that Lang Lang was to become their Global Ambassador. “This is absolute confirmation of ‘The Leeds’ international status”, Dame Fanny adds, “I am thrilled that these two eminent world figures wish to become part of the Competition.”

Dame Fanny celebrated her 92nd birthday in March this year and yet she is as energetic and passionate about the piano as ever. “Looking back over my musical career and to the many young talents entrusted to me, I am deeply grateful to them for this privilege. I enjoy my teaching as much as ever, for my pupils are my true friends and lifeblood. They have taught me as much as I have taught them, as there is no age at which I believe one can stop learning.” Growing up as a child in the 1920s-30s, life was tough for her and her parents (her father was a craftsman and jeweller in Leeds). However, at great financial sacrifice, they paid for her to have lessons with Tobias Matthay. She ended up winning a scholarship to The Royal College of Music and gave her prom debut with Sir Henry Wood and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at 23. “Things did not turn out quite as I had expected, however”, Fanny continues, “I found my vocation was teaching – my true vocation, that is, and not just second best to performing.” The rest, as they say, is history.

FANNY WATERMAN DBE

In 1965 Dame Fanny met Benjamin Britten who suggested that she might write a tutor for his publisher Faber Music. It has been a great collaboration: Faber Music publishes the entire Waterman catalogue, comprising her internationally best-selling piano methods (including Me and My Piano and Piano Lessons), repertoire books and On Piano Teaching And Performing. A new repertoire book, Dame Fanny Waterman: Piano Treasury Vol.1 is to be published in September 2012 (see details below).

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Cover photo

George Benjamin © Maurice Foxall

‘Written on Skin’ Aix-en-Provence prodiuction © Pascal Victor

Back cover photos:

Britten on Aldeburgh Beach © Hans Wild

Britten at Crag House © Roland Haupt

Britten at the Red House

Written & devised by Sonia Stevenson

Designed by Lis Lomas

22 November 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, and the plans to mark the occasion are unparalleled; almost every major opera company, music festival, orchestra, ensemble and choir in the UK and abroad will be celebrating the centenary in some way (details to follow in next newsletter). Quite rightly this is being described as ‘the biggest celebration of a British composer to date.’

Faber Music celebrates the centenary of its founder, Benjamin Britten, with a collection of new publications‘I occasionally dream of Faber & Faber – music publishers!’ That remark, the last sentence of a letter written from Venice by Benjamin Britten to Donald Mitchell, proved the catalyst for Faber Music, which was to become the exclusive publisher of Britten’s works from 1964. Britten was determined that this publishing relationship should achieve two objectives. Firstly, his new publisher should offer the highest quality in its printing and design of Britten’s own scores and performance material, together with a tailored service that would facilitate the best promotion and dissemination of his music. Secondly, the company should build up its publication of music by younger contemporary composers, dealing with their work on the individual basis necessary to provide the quality of support that Britten knew they ideally needed. These are qualities which Faber Music continues to nurture to this day and, as Britten’s centenary approaches, we are pleased to honour these ideals with a series of new publications. These include a selection of previously unpublished early works, completed sketches and a new transcription.

Trio for violin, viola and piano (1929)This unpublished trio, originally entitled Two Pieces, was written in late 1929, after Britten composed the Rhapsody for string quartet (March 1929). The new publication will be edited by David Matthews, who spent three years as an assistant to Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh in the late 1960’s.

6 Early Songs (1929-31)(Witches’ Song, The Owl, Diaphenia, The Moth, Sport and Chamber Music)Composed over roughly the same period as Tit for Tat (1928-31) the songs vary widely in style, from evocations of witches and owls to the bitonal accompaniment of The Moth.

Variations for piano (1965) completed by Colin MatthewsThe Variations for piano were written in 1965, but were left unfinished. They have now been completed by Colin Matthews, who also worked as an assistant to Benjamin Britten from 1972-6.

Three Suites for cello (op.72, 80 & 87) transcribed for viola by Nobuko ImaiBritten’s Three Suites were originally composed for the cellist Rostropovich. This new transcription by violist Nobuko Imai, preserves the character of the originals, but shows the music in a different light.

Choral promotionThis autumn, Faber Music will conduct a special promotion featuring all of Britten’s choral works available from our catalogue in an effort to highlight these wonderful pieces and guarantee future performances across the world. For further information and to receive the promotional

materials, please contact marketing@ fabermusic.com.

BRITTEN CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Britten 100 is an inclusive branding developed by the Britten–Pears Foundation to link together the many activities that will mark Britten’s centenary. The official centenary website is now live at www.britten100.org and includes an events database that can help concert promoters publicise any relevant activities planned during the centenary period.

Fortissimo Autumn 2012

Documents

Transcript of Fortissimo Autumn 2012