Music in the age of YouTube

I have a certain wariness of just recycling classical PR. The decision to make this blog contactable by email means I receive a lot of press releases, and I'm often left wondering what exactly the senders of these things imagine I'm going to do with them. But the stuff that some organisations put out as "PR" does transcend the bland norm, and some London orchestras are getting pretty good at using YouTube to spread the message and offer something genuinely interesting.

The Philharmonia is one such group whose marketing department have come up with things that are actually worth watching, including the lovely video from Pekka Kuusisto, talking about the indefatigable Vladimiar Ashkenazy. I must own up to a special fondness for both these men, who came to my local concert hall when I was sixteen and gave one of those concerts that propels you towards a life-long infatuation with this wonderful thing called music. I can also concur with Kuusisto's assessment of him, that he's "a really cool dude". It's been my pleasure to have met Ashkenazy a few times, and I can only say that, in his case, "never meet your heroes" is a piece of advice I was happy to have ignored.

There's a lot more to watch on the Philharmonia YouTube page. They're showing the way on this. 

In addition, if you can, do watch the London Symphony Orchestra's live stream on Sunday April 22nd (7.30 BST) - Simon Rattle conducting Tippett and Mahler. Free. And live. What an age we live in.

Header picture screencapped from the Philharmonia's linked video. Images used are done so in line with "fair use" and will be removed at the request of the copyright holder(s).

13 years on, Rattle and the Berlin Phil back at the Proms

In some ways, Sir Simon Rattle’s Berlin adventure has run in parallel with my own engagement with classical music. We’re not totally alike – he’s a hugely in-demand musician touring the world with some of the planet’s finest musicians; I didn’t get out of bed today until half 10 and haven’t so far left the house – but his first visit to the Proms with his Berlin band came as I was just falling in love with the sound of an orchestra, and I’ve tried to catch his Proms visits ever since. It was with some alarm, while queuing on Prince Consort Road under a grey London sky, that I realised that that first Rattle/BPO visit was in 2003, 13 years ago. Still, the sound of a mobile phone cutting across the opening bassoon solo of The Rite of Spring is still fresh in the memory.

This year, he brought a pair of concerts that seemed to mirror the programming concerns of his two 2003 Proms. Prom 64 (September 2nd) weighed heavily under the mass of Mahler’s difficult Seventh Symphony, preceded by Pierre Boulez’s Éclat. This 1965 piece shimmers and judders with a fluid discourse of piano, a smattering of orchestral instruments, melodic tuned percussion and mandolin and guitar. The way Boulez’s limpid textures flow and stop, seeming to hang in the pauses like a freeze-framing of rapid nature, is entirely his own, and the handling of colour is very impressive, but for a man held by some as the defining voice of post-war classical music, Boulez’s insights seem slight to me. As someone who once covered an very long weekend of Boulez (including anexcellent Q&A with the man himself), I feel I’ve heard enough to satisfy myself that I don’t hear anything other than technique and aesthetics, nothing of the grab-you-by-the-collar immediacy of Xeankis or Ligeti  or (to further compare apples and oranges) Lutoslawksi. The fact that I feel quite so nervous writing this reflects the extent to which some in the contemporary music world would disagree.

But as a piece of programming, Éclat made perfect sense. Mahler’s Seventh also features guitar and mandolin, and Boulez’s own advocacy of Mahler was undoubtedly very important. There’s also a sense that the scale and the particulars of the Seventh must give conductors as many sleepless nights as must the prospect of tackling one of Boulez’s orchestral scores, because the Seventh is an ungainly beast that left even Mahler authority Deryck Cooke scratching his head. Essentially, it doesn’t offer the same kind of titanic emotional journey found in the Sixth or the Ninth and ends up with a rather silly sounding finale that must give conductors nightmares. Rattle played the whole thing pretty fast and pretty straight, not pretending there was any hidden depth beyond the surface drama of the first movement or the atmospheric landscapes of the central three. Mark Valencia summed it all up very well here.

The following evening, rain kept down the queues and got me to near the front of the arena for a much more satisfying aural treat. Rattle brought a new piece by Julian Anderson (who had to climb under a barrier to reach the stage and shake Maestro’s hand), an entire set of Dvorak Symphonic Dances (too much of a good thing by some way) and Brahms’s Second Symphony. The Brahms brought out the best of the Berliners’ playing (though a moment of miscoordination in the finale had Rattle nervously trying to pin down the beat) but I felt the momentum ebb away from the first movement and, while beautiful, found his attempt at Brucknerian monumentalism in the second rather distancing. Still, there’s a sense when Rattle’s in the hall that this is the Proms at its best, and it will be a shame if, given his looming move to the LSO, it’s his last with the Berlin Phil.

To finish with an aside, the issue of applause is always a tricky one, and I may one day put down my own thoughts in writing, but one audience member hit a new low but shouting “Bravo” and applauding loudly as the Berliner’s ploughed into the final chord of the Brahms. There are many words one could use, but arrogant and rude are the two that I’ll stick with for now.

Sakari Oramo's inaugural concert with BBC Symphony

Sakari Oramo

Sakari Oramo’s inaugural concert as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave opportunities to explore existing preoccupations – theirs and his. Oramo – no stranger to the British music world after ten years at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – brought Mahler to the table, a composer with whom he’s had an affinity for some time. The Beeb, for their part, brought a substantial premiere by respected French composer Tristan Murail, affirming a commitment to contemporary music unparalleled among London’s symphony orchestras.

The title itself of Murail’s new piece, Reflections/Reflets, presages elements of the first of the piece’s two movements. Murail takes as his starting point Charles Baudelaire’s poem Spleen, not set vocally but rather painted in heavy orchestral sound. The poem’s bells are there, tolling grimly at the first part’s climax and the thick texture truly makes sonic sense of the opening line “When the low and heavy sky presses like a lid”. It’s the skewed tuning, though, that most clearly stems from that title – a cluster of wind instruments, just slightly off the pitching of the rest of the orchestra, distorts everything we hear, offering a cracked double image or a sullied reflection.

The second part, “High Voltage/Haute Tension”, darts of with a nervous energy not possible in the first. Pointed piano writing underlies much of the skittish but virtuosic orchestral writing, setting off waves of upward-reaching scales that couldn’t be further removed from the weighty import of the “Spleen” music. Murail intends these movements to be the first in a cycle of pieces, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra launched them with terrific power and commitment in this world premiere performance.

Something of the febrile energy of “High Voltage” was echoed in Shostakovich’s Concerto for piano, trumpet and strings of 1933 (sometimes dubbed Piano Concerto No.1), particularly so here with the hyper-detailed pianism of Olli Mustonen. I hadn’t seen Mustonen live before this concert, having encountered him only through his recordings, but in the event the visuals matched the eccentric intellectualism projected by his playing. Mustonen lets no phrase rise and fall smoothly, preferring to poke odd notes and send them out into the audience like barbs. His hands fly sometimes a foot from the keyboard, striking from a height and only increasing that sense of jaunty, jolting phrasing. It’s love-it-or-hate-it playing, sounding nothing like anyone else I’ve ever heard, but there’s something curiously disarming about it, as though Mustonen is dreaming his own quirky musical fantasy and allowing us to peek over his shoulder.

The obligato trumpet part was here taken by Russian star Sergei Nakariakov, whose quivering vibrato and silken tone were quite distinct from Mustonen’s angularity, but they shared a stingingly incisive rhythmic sense that made for a tremendously exciting finale. A little more tightness from the accompanying strings would have raised the performance even more, but with so much to intrigue and entertain, it seems churlish to complain. I can’t imagine that I’d want to listen to Mustonen’s wacky phrasing for too long, though.

If Oramo’s contribution has gone uncommented upon until now, it’s because the final item – Mahler’s First Symphony – was always going to be the test of his command and ability. He set down an admired recording with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra a couple of years ago and here proved that he has something fresh and engaging to say in what is very frequently trodden repertoire. I say fresh not so much in that his view is wholly original, but rather that his approach drew out all that is youthful and hopeful from this mighty work. His motions on the podium suggested strongly that flow and lyricism were priorities, bringing out this music’s roots in song (Mahler does, after all, make heavy reference to his earlier song cycle Leider eines fahrenden Gesellen). I’ve rarely heard the scherzo infused with such a vigorous sense of dance, or the first movement’s climactic explosion of light more awake and alert. Along the way, he was given many moments of fine playing from the orchestra – some crisp offstage brass, gutsy string playing and that double bass solo negotiated with poise. What was missing, perhaps, was a real sense of polish and refinement from the BBC SO. It sometimes seemed that Oramo was pushing for more dynamic contrast that he was receiving in return, and while there were never issues of ensemble, I missed the beauty of sound of which this orchestra is capable. As inaugural concerts go, though, this was a promising one – a strong sense here of a conductor with firm priorities and an orchestra capable of delivering what he asks.    

This review originally appeared as a guest posting for Classical Iconoclast.

Not just Jonas Kaufmann

An evening in Birmingham in the company of the CBSO was a great midweek treat this week; the concert, featuring the tenor-of-the-moment Jonas Kaufmann, has received a fair amount of attention elsewhere, from Intermezzo, The Guardian and The Art’s Desk.  All agreed with me – wonderful singing in Mahler’s Kindertotenleider, if not the most devastating account imaginable, and considerably more fun in a selection of songs by Richard Strauss (including a breathtaking Morgen!).  Follow those links of you want to read more about Kaufmann (unfortunately, Richard Morrison’s rather sourer appraisal in The Times is hidden behind Murdoch’s paywall).

But what of the rest of the programme?  Perhaps understandably, Kaufmann’s justified celebrity means most write about him at the expense of the Britten and Debussy seascapes that framed his handsome chops.  Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes (plus the Passacaglia, cleverly inserted before the final interlude) were perhaps a little tentative at times, but Debussy’s La Mer at the other end of the concert was the real standout.  Conductor Andris Nelsons imparts a flexibility on the music only attainable by a conductor with the total attention of their orchestra: Nelsons certainly has that.  These sea pictures were for once more Eastbourne than Med, being veiled in the English Channel’s mist and rain.  Nelsons’s conducting made its many transitions and contrasts flow seamlessly: I understand that the orchestra only had limited rehearsal time on it, but for once unfamiliarity bred excitement rather than hesitation.  The CBSO is taking this programme (plus another) on a two week European tour; watch this space for a report from me on their visit to Vienna next weekend.

Proms week 4: Early Mahler and Scandinavian symphonies

Great art challenges our certainties like little else.  It's part of the deal: we enter the concert hall, or the gallery or cinema for that matter, in the hope of emerging changed by what we've witnessed.  For once, though, in our safe and comfortable city, events outside of the hall seemed determined to challenge what we took for granted.

With a horrible irony that would become apparent only once the news of widespread rioting had sunk in, we stood gripped by the effervescent display of Nielsen's Inextinguishable Symphony, last on the bill for Prom 33 (Oramo/RSPO/Ott - Sibelius/Grieg/Nielsen - 9th August).  As Andris Nelsons's whirlwind romance with the CBSO continues unabated, more people seem happy to cast doubt on Sakari Oramo's decade long tenure at the head of the Birmingham orchestra but there was nothing so equivocal about Oramao's Nielsen with his new band, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.  Their Inextinguishable was propulsive and virtuosic, while their Sibelius 6th, which opened the concert, had been a warm vision of abundant nature and its eventual decline.  Only the orchestra and conductor's accompaniment of Alice Sara Ott's performance of Grieg's Piano Concerto seemed to miss the mark, smothering her precise and ardent reading in an anaesthetising blanket.

As we retreated home with news flooding in via smartphones on Monday evening, Sunday seemed a distant and more innocent time.  Heavy rain and a leaking room meant I missed hearing Prom 32 (Gardner/BBCSO/Tetzlaff - Brahms/Mahler - 8th August) in the hall, making do with the radio instead.  Mahler's fairy tale cantata Das klagende Lied, heard in its original three part form, must have surprised any casual Mahler fans energised into hearing more after the Simon Bolivar Orchestra's Friday Resurrection.  Shades and intimations of mature Mahler haunt its pages, but never his familiar grip on the bigger picture and Mahler newbies might reasonably have wondered what they'd let themselves in for during its 65 minute span.  Others more familiar with the work have suggested that it wasn't helped by the Edward Gardner's direction, but I for one found my mind wandering elsewhere.

There could be no risk of inattenetiveness in Christian Tetzlaff's vigorous and slightly scary performance of Brahms's Violin Concerto, though.  Tetzlaff exploded out of the starting blocks and barely let up from then on, producing one of the swiftest renditions of the concerto that I've heard.  It was frantic and strangely riveting stuff, grabbing us by the scruff of the neck with Tetzlaff's penetrating and brittle tone driving home the point.  All the wildness got a bit much in the last movement, though, with Tezlaff sounding increasingly ragged as he flew to the finish.

BBC Proms 2011 begin today!

For those of us in London, the first night of the BBC Proms is always the real start of summer.  Below is a clip from last year's first night (actually, the first first night I'd ever been to), featuring Mahler's 8th Symphony.  I won't be in the hall this evening, but will be enjoying it from the comfort of my own living room.  Tune in from 7.30pm on BBC2.