Seán McGouran

Seán Ó Riada (et alia)                                                   £10.00*

AISLING ON THIS CD is extremely short (2′ 12.31″).  It is Nino Rota[ish] in sound and very tuneful.  Aisling means (more or less) ‘vision’.  It was the opening word of many Jacobite (Stuart-loyalist) verses in eighteenth century Ireland.  The piece ‘feels’ like film music.  It would be interesting to know if the composer had a model movie in mind.

The composer is Solfa Carlile who may be the Pre-Raphaelite beauty on the cover.  This is a World Premiere.  Ó Riada’s Mise Éire is described as a British Premiere.  It is made out of music for a (documentary) film on the 1916 Rising.  This Mise Éire (the name derives from a poem of Patrick Pearse – President of the Irish Republic of Easter Week) is a somewhat truncated version of the music for the movie, which may account for the Premiere label.  It may refer to this recording.  Gael Linn issued a recording of the full score in the 1960s.  And put the film on DVD recently.

The above is not an attempt to rain on the LISO’s parade.  It’s a minor puzzlement on my part.  It is beautifully played by the LISO, though one would have liked the strings to be slightly more prominent.  The band is made up of young professional players and students’ in the various London colleges.

Two musicians (Alison Murphy – flute, and Claire Jones – horn) play the solo (vaguely Baroque – in form – decidedly late romantic in sound) parts in Harty’s In Ireland – a Fantasy.  The soprano Niamh Lavery sings in Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate, and in My Lagan Love, which is described as ‘Traditional’.  Composed by Harty, it is based on a traditional (Donegal) theme.  Ag Criost an Siol is described as “by Ó Riada” though he used the same procedure as Harty.  Ms Lavery demonstrates considerable versatility in tackling these three diverse items.

On Tuesday 13 March this year the LISO had a St Patrick’s Day (on The Day itself they were in the City Hall) Concert in St. Paul’s Church.  It is in Wilton Place, a minute’s walk away from Hyde Park Corner tube station.  It is a lovely (Edwardian?) Anglo-Catholic pile with all the Romanist accoutrements, a particularly lovely touch is the tiling in the body of the building.  It does, admittedly, give the place a (very slight) aspect of the public bog.  But it is beautiful, and does not exude a cold feeling.

The pieces played were Choreography for Orchestra, by Jonathan Lee.  The Programme places “(2008)” after Mr. Lee’s name – but he is not a zygote – it means he composed the piece this very year.  (A living composer, where will it all end?).  I am embarrassed to admit that the piece, while not as short as Aisling, has left a very vague memory of a busy score.  Graeme Stewart’s Goblin Market (2008) was odd.  I was under the impression that it was vocalise piece.  Meaning that the soprano (Rosie Coad) was producing pure sound.  But it appeared that she was singing Christina Rosetti’s words.  Talking to other members of the audience, in the interval. I found I was not the only person to be confused.  Putting the singer in the pulpit, above the band, might have resolved this problem.

Graeme Stewart (from Letterkenny – who looks like a young Schubert), wants to “make music… beautiful and grotesque…lyrical… and abstract…”.  He has produced a large number of film (and television) scores.  I hope to hear more of his music — two people were busy with a lap top computer in St. Paul’s — I may get my wish quite shortly.  This vagueness is entirely my fault.  I was rather tired, and the night was bone marrow cold.

The last item of the evening was Stanford’s Symphony No. 7.  He is usually described as being Third Division.  This performance decided me that he’s high in the Second Division.  That may not sound like praise.  But think of his equals — Pfitzner, Arensky, McDowell — even in terms of scope and ambition, he is head and shoulders above them.  The spirit of Schubert hovers over this Symphony.

Dee Flatt

* Money from the sales of this excellent CD goes to the London Irish Women’s Centre.

London Gay Symphony Orchestra

Cadogan Hall                                                               July 6, 2008

As I was leaving Cadogan Hall at the end of this performance I heard a man say — “…yes, well… it was alright…” — in a rather nasal London-blasé tone.  Possibly he was being mischievous.  Possibly he has tin ears.  My hairy lugs and myself have listened to Verdi on record (yes, vinyl – even shellac!), on the wireless, the concert hall and opera house for half a century now.  We (said lugs and I) have rarely come across a finer performance than the one the LGSO gave on the evening of July 6. The stars of the show were the chorus.  The chorus did not even exist six months prior to this performance.

An interesting aspect of their performance, and those of the four soloists, was that they got ‘behind’ the Latin of the Requiem.  That is quite remarkable given that the Catholic Church has for all practical purposes, jettisoned Latin.  And the language is probably to be thrown off the curriculum of schools and universities shortly.  The soloists were Deborah Stoddart, Soprano, Stephanie Seeney, Mezzo-Soprano, John Upperton, Tenor, and Paul Keohane, Baritone.  It would be (genuinely) invidious to pick out any of the soloists (and nobody attempted to ‘upstage’ anyone else).  And there was no ‘emoting’ in the quieter passages (this is in a distinct LGSO ‘tradition’ of serving the composer) despite the old sneer (quoted in Dominic Nudd’s programme notes) that the Requiem is an opera in liturgical drag.

Other aspects of this performance were interesting (nearly always a prelude to damning with faint praise) one was the delicacy of the playing by the brass and woodwind.  And by the rest of the band.  This has to do with the delicacy of Verdi’s scoring.  Italians are not supposed to be good at that sort of thing (“Donizetti’s big guitar”, and all that).  Listeners are often presented with a ‘wall of sound’ in the Motown manner, even in famous interpretations of this Requiem.

Another aspect was that the chorus actually sounded frightened in passages of the Dies Irie (‘day of wrath’ — when the Creator of Creation descends from Heaven to judge ‘both the living and the dead’).  Some (again, famous) choirs and choral societies sound slightly discommoded here, rather than galvanised by the fear of God’s wrath.  And of eternal torture in Hell.  The Dies Irie is something of an intruder on the Requiem Mass.  Fauré left it out of his Requiem.  It is, like the Stabat Mater, a medieval poem.  In the eleventh century people seriously believed in pain, suffering and fear.  It was all round them.

I’m slightly alarmed to read in Chair’s welcome, an introduction to the glossy Programme by Nichole Aebi-Moyo, LGSO Chair that the choir “was formed specially for this concert”.  I hope it’ll not fade away.  (There will be “Extracts from Carmen” and the Jupiter section of Holst’s Planet’s Suite, in the World AIDS Day concert on November 29.  Maybe the chorus will be involved in them. The LGSO will share the honours with the Rainbow Symphony Orchestra of Paris, in the Mermaid Theatre, Blackfriars (just beside the tube station).  The choir rather damages some long-cherished myths about queer men.  There are nineteen tenors (including some women presumably seconded from the altos) and 35 basses.

The LGSO’s Guest Leader was Iwona Boesche, formerly of the Krakow Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the City of London Sinfonia.  She and Jan Rautio (the LGSO’s rehearsal pianist) will release a CD shortly (Prokofiev and John Adams).  The usual Leader Jenny Koral was among the second fiddles – there were forty one string players, eleven woodwind, thirteen brass and two percussion.  The latter, Brian Furner, timpani and Ben Martin (on, essentially, a Lambeg) percussed with great vigour and an element of delicacy.  The latter probably has to do with Simon Bowler’s conducting.

The venue has a lovely acoustic, which is just as well as this performance was well attended.  (Crowds tend to absorb sound and deaden it somewhat). The Hall is used for chamber music mostly.  It has the appearance of a plain Protestant church (I should probably apologise for these diversions into ecclesiastical architecture.  They are feeble attempts to give an impression of the atmosphere of the events.)  Given the number of fragrant performers, 180 all told, if my sum is correct, the platform had to be extended.  The less fragrant audience was squeezed in somewhat.  I (utterly unfragrant) was broiled.  So were a lot of the rest of the audience, this may be what the chap quoted at the beginning was actually talking about.  Keeping our attention over a sustained eighty minutes without a break is a testimony to the quality and commitment of the performance.

Dee Flatt

PS. To get to Cadogan Hall go to Sloane Square tube.  Turn right at the exit, and up Sedding (this is not a misprint) Street.  There is a large, white building with the words Cadogan Hall in large black letters on it.  (I managed to lose myself on two occasions attempting to get to the Hall).

PPS.  A purely sociological cum anthropological note; having my nose pressed to the edge of the platform I couldn’t help noticing that women look after their footwear better than men.  And there were some seriously expensive booties in there.

l l l l l l

On a somewhat more serious note go to www.lgso.org.uk and find the WE’RE ON A MISSION statement printed on the middle pages of the programme on July 6.  One decision “is to broaden our remit and develop a family of ensembles…”.

One of these, (the London Gay Symphonic Winds), will have four outings over the summer.  Including The Twelfth, (at Lewisham People’s Day — not an Orange ‘Field’).  It will open and close the International G&L Football Association’s World Championships, and will be at London Zoo’s Gay Sunday (the mind boggles (in a refined sort of way)) on September 14.

The LGSW are available for Civil Partnerships, bar mitzvahs etc via the above website.

Two other groups advertise in the Programme, the

New Burlington Quartet

(e: enquiries@nbq.org.uk,

and

www.nbq.org.uk).

And also;

Fivesome, a wind group

(e: contact@fivesome.co.uk,

www.fivesome.co.uk,

phone 07956478512).

The latter details are in red on a black background, which might be readable on a billboard.  On a quarter of an A5 page it is a wee piece difficult.

Other ads are for the English Touring Opera (see Susannah on the 254 route — they will be doing Carmen this Autumn), and the London Gay Men’s Chorus.

I hope one of the ensembles developed will be the mixed voice choir which made such an impression on (one member of the audience, anyway) on July 6.

Especially the lovely person third from the right… but I digress…

Dee Flatt

The LGSO (London Gay Symphony Orchestra)’s Spring Concert, St John’s Church Waterloo Road, Sunday 26.04.09.  St John’s, built on the fortress principle, was stifling.  The first item was the Overture from Wagner’s music drama The Mastersingers.  It was an odd experience, the various parts of the band sounded wonderfully well – the strings, brass and all that, but for some reason they did not seem to gel.  I assume this had something to do with my hearing or oddities of the acoustics.  The Programme properly described this as “Prelude to Act I of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg“.

Then came Poulenc’s Suite from his ballet score Les Biches (the reference is to ‘does’, as in lady deer, the implications of the title, in the 1920s, was not zoological).  It was very jolly and well-pointed.  But I was not very receptive.  I felt better after the interval and enjoyed (if that is the proper word) Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony.  It was not played in barn-storming fashion — except the finale — which really has to be barn-storming.

The Ascension Into The RFH

The following Saturday (May 2) the LGSO ascended into the Royal Festival Hall, (part of the South Bank’s ‘cultural complex’) two minutes walk from St. John’s.  (It did not ascend into the critical columns of the ‘quality’ press.)  It was part of the Various Voices Festival (LGBT choirs from all over the planet, including Dublin’s Glória but not Belfast’s Quire (why?) – the LGSO was involved in Sing for the Cure.  The ‘cure’ being sung for was that for breast cancer.  It was a very odd phenomenon, an oratorio (sort of) about the experience of having that particular cancer, which overwhelmingly affects women.

I thought at the end of the performance that Barack Obama in his rôle as the Stalin de nos jours in the U. S. S. A. ought to have come forward to award everyone involved with Orders of Soviet America (2nd Class at least).  It is a big, open-hearted collection of popular tunes (one a ‘steal’ from The Sound of Music (I think)) with a vigorous colloquial script.  The whole thing was very heart-felt — and very inspiriting.

O. K., ‘uplifting’ is the word.

The large choir was drawn from the Various Voices forces, as were the large number of soloists.  There were two ‘narrators’ – two ‘celebs’ – one a young Coronation Street actress, with a lovely Bolton accent.  Images and the words of the various sections were shown on a large screen.  The conductor (and composer / compiler?) was Dr. Tim Seelig.  (Seelig / ‘seilig’ means ‘holy’.)  He is “former Artistic Director of Turtle Creek Chorale, Artistic Director in Residence for GALA Choruses, Inc and founder of ‘Hope for Peace & Justice’ working to use the arts to raise awareness and further social issues and causes.”  Quite as holy, then, as the LGSO and its members.  Apart from the AIDS Day concert it has a collection for a different charity at each concert.

Prior to this Simon Bowler conducted a smashing (the only word – though it was dead elegant) performance of Les Biches.  People applauded after each movement, probably because they don’t know about stuffy concert hall etiquette.  But mainly probably because with Poulenc cheerfulness keeps breaking out.  Poulenc is something of a well-kept secret in ‘the Anglosphere’.  His cheerful vulgarity and magpie-like attitude to musical forms and history annoy the snooty.  He avoided twelve-tonery a Mortal Sin from the 1950s to ’80s – coterminous with the Cold War; ‘discuss’ as exam papers put it.  ‘Classical music’ intimidates many people.  This concert may have tempted some in the audience to explore further.

Tim Seelig asked people in the audience who had breast (and other cancers) to stand up.  About a third of the audience did stand up.

The aim of the concert was to raise £15,000 for Breakthrough Breast Cancer (www.breakthrough.org.uk).  You can still help out with this.

Russian Oppression

I did not attend the Sunday July 5 concert (St. John’s, Smith Square) mainly because it consisted of Rakhmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Symphony No. 3.  It’s not that I don’t like Rakh.  I experienced Summer ’09 as enervating (somewhat in the manner of Oblomov).  Several hours of Russian gloom (come on, — Sergei Fedorovitch can be pretty glum) was too much for me.  I missed the cheery opening to the 2009-10 series, conducted by Sue Perkins, who won that telly competition to find a good (amateur) orchestra conductor.

I set out too late.

And must be the only queer male in London who doesn’t know the lay out of Soho like the back of his hand (what does that cliché mean?).  It was in St. Anne’s, at 4.00pm, Sunday, October 10.

Matthew Prevett, Louis Sebastian Mander and Transport for London

The story of my not getting to the World AIDS Day concert is even more embarrassing.  I stood waiting (on Hornsey Road) for the 91 bus at a reasonable time on Sunday (11.09.09) but three buses went past me, in the wrong direction.  After half an hour I decided to go home.  (Yes, I should have waddled to Finsbury Park tube station, or to Seven Sisters or Holloway Road[s] to get other buses – I didn’t).

At this point I’d forgotten why I was waiting for a bus.  I used to pass this sort of absent-mindedness off with a merry, not to say, gay, flick of the wrist.  And the assertion that it was ‘early on-set senile dementia’ (tasteless, I know.  When I make similar remarks these day’s people just give me sidelong looks).

This was a great pity.  The concert included two of my favourite composers, Bartók (Piano Concerto No. 3) and Dvorak (Symphony No. 8).  More to the point it had two premieres, a Celtic Overture, by Mr. Prevett and A Folksong Symphony (Mander – who, Britten-like, was composing when still a zygote.  13 Concerti at twenty-five and a wee bit!  His birth date is 21.12.84.  Try ************, for more information).  They may be interestingly retro.  But in these post-Post-Modern days could be cutting -edge.  It is part of the LGSO’s remit to encourage (largely, young, as it happens) composers.  upstart whole-heartedly concurs.  It’s a pity we could not review these premieres – and give them something of the oxygen of publicity.

That probably reads ludicrously pompous and self-flattering.  With six readers in Croatia and six in southern California there’s not lot of publicity on offer.  Especially where it counts — in London.  But, as implied above, the professional critics don’t appear to know how to find St. John’s, (minutes from major centres for ‘classical’ music, the RFH and the Purcell Room).

It’s not an anti-Gay thing.  They don’t cover the Southbank Sinfonia, (which uses St John’s).  Its remit is to give people just out of the Colleges, Academies and Universities experience of working in a larg[ish] ensemble.

The next LGSO concert is on Sunday, February 20th at St. John’s, Waterloo Road.  It’s ‘Film Music’ — bit of a high-brow cheat really, as it includes Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Verdi’s Force of Destiny Overture, from a famous film the name of which escapes me.

Dee Flatt

The Drill Hall, London (17.10.09)

Sound Affairs

In 1923 Photoplay magazine described this as “[a] hothouse orchid of decadent passion…”.  It’s certainly true to say that it was probably not intended for Mom, Pop, and the kids in Peoria — or Spalding and the various venues in semi-rural north Wales where it toured.  (Five of the fifteen venues are in Wale, and the tour was partly funded by Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru / the Arts Council of Wales.)  I suspect the music supplied by Charlie Barber for the film may have made it more substantial as an art-work. (You can purchase a CD at www.soundaffairs.co.uk).  At the showing there were four percussionists (the instruments from three continents) but the singers were recorded.

So: what was the movie like?  It is difficult to really say.  I can understand why the stayed away (quite apart from the bad publicity) it is highly stylised.  The performances were ‘operatic’ and some were quite over the top.  Rose Dione, as Herod’s missus Herodias adopted statuesque poses, her ambition is for Salomé to be queen of Judea.  (There is a deal of ‘posing’ possibly it had to do with the huge cameras they had to use in the 1920s.  Though there are a number of lovely male bodies to show off.)

One particularly beautiful example belongs to Louis Dumar (Tigellius, a young Roman), who is friendly with a Page of Herodias (Arthur Jasmine — yes, Jasmine! — queenly or wot?).  Well, actually, very – he and Tigellius – neither of them over-dressed, are very – ‘tactile’ is the word.  Mr Dumar has / had a long, slender, muscular body and broad shoulders.  Master Jasmine was the cause of decidedly ‘impure thoughts’ on the part of one member of the audience (even the realisation that he would now be in his nineties – or tatty-bread couldn’t stop them).  They both had to fight with the fact that Natacha Rambova (Art Director / Costume) inflicted on them bobbled hair-does or hats, which look like tirimisu.  Not an easy look to carry off.

Tigellius’s role in the play is to threaten to kill Jokanaan, the Prophet (St. John the Baptist).  He has refused freedom and carnal knowledge of Salomé.  She (Alla Nazimova) had demanded Jokanaan’s freedom after performing the Dance of the Seven Veils for her stepfather Herod.  (Herodias urged her to demand at least part of the kingdom of Judea).  Salomé is insistent on the Prophet’s body — but he simply hurls righteous abuse at her as a harlot.  Finally – Tigellius’s wrist proving too limp to do the job, Naaman, the Executioner finishes him off.

The Dance of the Seven Veils is interesting – it is quite erotic – but we really don’t ‘see anything’.  Probably just as well for the 1923 audiences.  Alla Nazimova was attempting to look boyish (it is painfully plain that she had strapped down her breasts to achieve the look).  Prior to deciding to dance she looks like a sulky – effeminate – youth.  With Tigellius / Dumar and Jasmine (the extras in the background are not exactly macho either) it would have been unsettling.  Louis Dumar looks like the sort of chap who played strong silent types in Hollywood product.  Here, he adopts effete poses and is clearly ‘intimate’ with the young Page.

(This is a departure from the play script of Oscar Wilde – the friend / lover of the Page is ‘THE YOUNG SYRIAN, captain of the guard’.  The young man is exotically beautiful, even in a court full of persons of every race in the Mediterranean basin.  He kills himself when Salomé lusts after the Prophet.  In the film he is played by Earl Schenk, a handsome twenty-something who looks like corn-fed athlete from the Mid-West.  He mostly stands about looking slightly gormless.)

Mitchell Lewis (Herod, Tetrarch of Judea) is a comparatively restrained player.  He does lust very well.  He urges Salomé to do the Dance of the Seven Veils.  And is not best pleased when she asks for the head of Jokanaan — whose lips she kisses when the head is brought to her.  He than orders the guards kill her (as in the play) by crushing her to death with their shields.

The Director, Charles Bryant (Nazimova’s husband – they were covering for each other) might usefully have taken his directorial line from ballet (or modern dance).  He seems to have based some images on poses plastique (usually naked girls imitating ‘classical’ sculpture to give (male) punters a (moderately expensive) thrill.  Though the sight of muscular and very pretty chaps posing plastically might have been part of the jolt he and Nazimova were trying to give complacent audiences.

If you can go and see this film – particularly if it has Charlie Barber’s accompanying music – it will be a puzzling experience.  It was made over eighty years ago, in a milieu becoming culturally rigid inward-looking, the ‘noble experiment’ of prohibition had just been introduced.  It led to decade of self-satisfaction on the one hand — and terrifying lawlessness on the other.  1923 was at the tail-end of the ‘Red Scare’, which broke the back of Labourism in the USA — socialists thereafter really had to be revolutionaries out of self-respect if nothing else.  (I wonder if the Russian and other ‘foreign’ names worked against Salomé?  After all, Bolshevism was ‘Godless’ and opposed to people exploiting others labour.  No, that’s not quite right — Godless Communism wanted to destroy the moral fibre of America.  So, clearly, did Alla Nazimova).

Joe Dalton

Barber wrote to a friend while composing it claiming the adagio was “a knockout” — this is the Adagio, which has become the American version of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ variation, for England, or Roisín Dubh.  It was not, in all honesty, a very enlightening talk, at least in regard to the quartet.  Anthony Burton said pertinent things about Barber’s operas.  Being shamelessly romantic (though Vanessa has a fair amount of roughage) they were out of their time in the 1960s and ’70s.  Mr. Burton thought their time may have come round again.  He concentrated on Anthony and Cleopatra, which was given a ludicrously lavish production on it’s first outing in New York’s Lincoln Centre.

March 9, was Barber’s date of birth, his actual centenary.  Burton felt that Barber, in effect, used the outer movements, (particularly the third and last), to ‘frame’ the adagio.  He went into some detail about the first movement.  In the performance by the young, but very experienced Sacconi Quartet, the first movement seemed, in places, to inhabit the same sound world as Puccini’s Crisantemi.  This may have to do with the fact that Barber composed his quartet in Italy.  It may have to do with my ears deceiving me — but there was a hint of Puccini’s early, rather lugubrious, piece for string quartet.

The Sacconi gave each part of the quartet equal care.  (Even some big-name groups can be quite perfunctory about the first and third movements).  The adagio, thereby, was more effective than usual, because it was in the context in which Barber placed it.  Anthony Burton emphasised Barber’s ‘Europeanness’ (to off-set Dvorak’s ‘Americanness’ in the quartet performed, presumably).

Barber was a Pennsylvania Yankee (or ‘Scots-Irish’).  He’d no nostalgia for Scotland or Ireland – or Ulster (which is where the ‘Scots-Irish’ arrived from, from the 1730s onwards).  But there is an ‘Irish’ air about his melodies – including the big ‘toon’ in the adagio.  He set Irish verses superbly, better than most Irish composers and the tweedy, ‘hearty’ settings by those whose shtick was ‘Englishry’.  This is being put forward as a ‘wee notion’ and not an attempt to encapsulate Barber’s rather complex artistic persona.

The ‘American’ quartet was extremely well done – one reason for attending such things is to see the instruments, and instrumentalists, in interaction.  In the course of the talk there were about twenty people in the audience.  All of us of ‘mature’ age, by the time the actual performance started there were about two hundred.  The age range had not really got much lower.  Possibly ‘classical’ music in Britain will – like the Russian Orthodox Church under Bolshevism – be held together by generations of ‘babushkas’.  Or supra-gender babushka-types.

Otherwise this branch of music will eventually whither away in Britain (or England – it seems relatively healthy in Scotland and Wales).  At least this is the nightmare of Norman Lebrecht, the Eeyore of ‘classical’ music in London.  He is usually, in this context, griping about the decline in sales of CDs.  The Sacconi’s are in the process of circumventing this by selling CDs under their own label.  So far there are two – another to come in May – they are of Haydn quartets and one featuring Ravel, Lalo, and Turina.  You may well have a review of the latter inflicted on you shortly.

We were given a chunky encore of the Turina – the Bullfighter’s Prayer / Oración del Toréro – I heard this (once) decades ago.  I got the impression that the Saccino were being a bit too cool (Ravelian) about the matter.  But a listen to the CD will resolve that wee problem.

For more on the Saccino and its many enterprises go to:

www.sacconi.com

For the City Music Society -

www.citymusicsociety.org

P. S. The Sacconi Quartet is named after a chap who produced the book on the great fiddle-making families – Stradiviri, Guadieri and so on.  They (the Saccinos) have a Festival in Folkestone every May, for more information try – festival@sacconi.com -.

The CMS’s free (lunchtime) concerts are split into YAS (Young Artists Series) and FWS (Free Winter Series).  The above recital was a (monthly) FWS one, as will the next we’ll write about, the Fidelio Trio (30.03.10).  This is not being mentioned because the group is “Dublin-based” – honest.  The CMS will mark St Patrick’s Day with a performance by The Bardos Band, in St. Bride’s, Fleet Street.

The CMS’s musical remit is very wide from Irish and English ‘folk’ to jazz to ‘classical’ music.  This ranges from Byrd, the English recusant Catholic, who had to keep his head down in Elizabethan England, to the still-living Hans Werner Henze.  He left Germany in the late 1960s partly for personal reasons (and the climate), and partly because being a Marxist in the Federal Republic proved problematical.  His Adagio, adagio will be done by the Fidelio Trio.

P. P. S. A glossy CMS handout adverts to a “Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) theme for this summer’s City of London Festival”.  This was in reference to a guitar recital by Morgan Szymanski (Wednesday 17.02.10).  It’s quite useful to have this sort of early warning.  Some years ago there was a year long festival of Hungarian music.  I made discovered this in the second week of December.

Finis (at last)

Dee Flatt

new music::new ireland

Solos and Duos for Violin and Piano

Out Hear (which has a vaguely ‘Gay’ ring to it) is a series in Kings Place (in the new squeaky-lean King’s Cross, London) of new music from around the world.  The recitals (Mondays Oct. 12th, Nov.16th 2009) were ‘curated’ by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland.  (It is difficult to know why the word ‘curated’ is used in such circumstances— curators look after the old and fragile — and this material was being put forward as new and vigorous).

Part 1, was put forward as the more problematical material, and was in the hands of Darragh Morgan, violin and Mary Dullea, piano, specialists in contemporary music.  The only really problem piece was Jennifer Walshe’s theme from, which involved unusual bits of a piano and a computer.  I was transported back to the 1960s.  I really have very little to say about it.  John McLachlan’s Ghost Machine, and Andrew Hamilton’s violin/piano were ‘interesting’ (and teetering towards the lyrical).

There was a distinctly lyrical air about Benjamin Dwyer’s Movimientos 1 (or possibly I), Raymond Deane’s Petite phrases, and especially Frank Corcoran’s Quasi un Preludio.  It morphs into a rendering of Sail Óg Rua – this procedure seems to be his signature.   Last (and probably longest) was Gerald Barry’s 1998.  I went to sleep during this – nothing I hasten to say – to do with the music, composer, or performers.  I got up ridiculously early that morning.  A great pity.  I am beginning to like Barry’s stuff, though I suspect one is not supposed to ‘like’ it.

The mid-November gig was in the hands of Ioana Petcu-Colan (Cork-born, resident in Barcelona) and Michael McHale (Belfast – resident in a plane probably).  The implication of the Programme was that the material was less “cutting-edge”.  Philip Hammond and Philip Martin try to write material that will appeal to broader audiences than would, possibly, Gerald Barry.  But we are now surely post-Post-Modern, the Sixties are gone and the dodecaphonic dictatorship is overthrown.

Martin and Hammond contributed Homer Blues, and Two Elegies, Midnight Shadows and Elegiac Variation, respectively.  They were not as downbeat as the titles imply.  Ronán Guilfoyle contributed Movement II Mouth Music and Movement IV from Sonata for Solo Violin.  Despite the jazz-inspired rhythmic use of the strings, the first movement, in particular came across as essentially songlike.  Ian Wilson’s Drive and Spilliaert’s Beach, were both in the lyrical, somewhat dark, mode of Martin and Hammond.

The audience for the less acerbic music was smaller than that for the first.  There were a number of people who (appeared to) fall into the ‘friends and family’ category.  Gerald Barry’s name might have attracted a larger crowd in October.  Having written more about the November outing my plea is that I slept better before that performance.

For more information on, the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland, go to:

www.cmc.ie

and

www.darraghmorgan.com

www.marydullea.com

www.ioanapetcucolan.com

www.michaelmchale.com

The composers can be contacted by way of the CMC.

This was a very interesting outing by the CMC – it is a pity that the audiences were rather sparse.  And that London’s professional critics appear not to have bothered to put in an appearance.  They have written nothing about these events in the important newspapers or magazines.

Seán McGouran

LGSO

The LGSO (London Gay Symphony Orchestra) 20th Feb., 2010 was held in Cadogan Hall, (not it’s usual venue, St John’s, Waterloo Road, and was on Saturday), not Sunday.  It was a Film Music night, though the first part of the concert cheated a (wee) bit.  We got the Overture to Verdi’s Force of Destiny, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.  They have all been used in films, but did not start their careers in the movies.

The latter was put together by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostoll and conducted on its first performance by Lukas Foss in 1961— at a fundraiser for the NYPO (New York Phil)’s pension fund (remember them?).  This information comes from Dominic Nudd’s programme notes.  As does the information that West Side Story was composed alongside Candide.  Candide premiered first and was not a commercial success.  Dominic Nudd’s implication that it was not an artistic success, like West Side Story is probably accurate – there were a lot of very talented people involved in the making of Story.

Rhapsody in Blue was the name given to a Gershwin bio-pic, and his music has been used in many movies.  Verdi’s Overture was used in Jean de Florette (billed in the programme notes as dating from 1986 — is that accurate?  I must be even older than I feel!).  All of these pieces seem to have been written relatively quickly – Gershwin forgot about the band leader Paul Whiteman’s request for a piece for piano and jazz-band – and produced the Rhapsody in a matter of weeks.

The second half was (mostly) of film music ‘proper’, largely John Williams’s scores for Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, and Shindler’s List.  I was impressed by this music – and wondered if Williams had tried his hand at a symphony – this selection played like a mini-symphony.  There was an affecting fiddle solo by the Leader Iwona Boesche in the last item.  (She will play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (Sunday 25.04.0 – St John’s, Waterloo Road — it’s an all-Tchaik night)).  Zimmer and Badelt, two German musicians working in Hollywood, contributed the score from Pirates of the Caribbean.  I had the small problem that it came from exactly the same ‘sound-world’ as the Williams scores.  Are they a bit too easy on the ear?

The last – but not the least – item was a [James] Bond Concerto, composed by Simon Proctor.  The solo part (as in Gershwin’s Rhapsody) was played by Thomas Pandolfi.  I got my soloist and composer in a bit of a knot, because in the Programme Simon Proctor referred to himself in the third person.  Anyroad, what’s it like?  Well, if you think Frankie Liszt’s piano concertos are worth listening to – this is the DBs.  An early 19th century composer might have referred to it as a Grand pôt-pourri on themes from the James Bond movies (teensy weensy exaggerationette as clearly there were no movies until the 1890s).  I spotted a number of themes from other Bond films – but the major one was Diamonds Are Forever.  I rather hoped that Dame Shirley would come on and give it the tonsils.  But it was not to be…

As an alternative I wondered if Mr. Pandolfi would rip his rather baggy ‘evening clothes’ off and play in a sequinned body-stocking.  No chance.  Did we, the audience, enjoy it?  You bet your life, and, I must say, we played our part in the proceedings to the manner born.  We applauded wildly, screamed, shouted, stamped the floor — we, admittedly, were a bit short on the floral tributes — but tried for a standing ovation.  There were floral tributes, Mr. Pandolfi and Simon Proctor got quite complicated ones (designed by Marco Wamelink a Sponsor of the band — for more info go to http://www.mwdesign.org.uk).

He was, presumably, responsible for the more modest affair presented to the sainted Simon Bowler.  I rather hoped that one of them would offer Iwona Boesche at least one bloom from their bouquets.  It would have been gallant (or even galant) and recognised the band’s huge contribution to the Concerto and the Gershwin, as well as the rest of the concert.  (Though I have to say that the Ulster Orchestra did the Bernstein finger-clicking and shout of “Mambo!” rather better – but then they’re oiks who come from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England north of the Trent.  The above is not a criticism (I just wanted to mention the Ulster Orchestra)).  The LGSO has thremenjis (sorry ‘tremendous’) — élan — is the only word, it has vigour even in relatively contemplative passages.

There is usually a collection for a charity at the concerts but this time we got an insert in the Programme.  It was for ‘© variety club’ with the sub-title The Children’s Charity — see: www.varietyclub.org.uk for further information.

The band’s Summer concert (Sunday 04.07.10 – no specific venue yet) will have TWO ‘new works’, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and William Walton’s oratorio, Belshazzar’s Feast.

There is, in the Programme, a request Come sing with us! which means as the blurb so rightly notes “we put together an amazing choir” in 2008 for the Verdi Requiem.  If you are interested try: choir@lgso.org.uk.

That’s about everything, I think; for information — on everything, go to: www.lgso.org.uk

Dee Flatt

&

The Rite of Spring – Stravinsky

The ENO (English National Opera) in November 2009, presented (in the Coliseum theatre, London) a most unusual double bill.  It consisted of an opera and a ballet.  That’s quite remarkable in itself, but the two works are acknowledged as being of crucial importance in the ‘Modernist’ revolution in music.  They were Bartók (and Béla Balázs)’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.  Balázs derived the script / libretto from his free standing verse based on Székeley folk ballads.  The Transylvanian Székeley protected the Hungarian kingdom from incursions from the south and east.  They became Calvinist in the course of Protestant Reformation.  Balázs compared their traditional ballads with those of the Scots — who became Calvinists, too, — and lived in a mountainy land.

Bluebeard is by no means a specifically Hungarian folk-figure.  There is a short history of the legend in ENO’s chunky Programme.  The ‘original’ Bluebeard was “Gilles de Rais” (it’s also rendered ‘de Retz’ – upstart) a Breton ‘nobleman’.  He was a Marshall of France (fighting with Joan of Arc).  He was accused of having killed hundreds of women and children.  He suffered ritual State murder as a consequence of the accusations.

The writer, Henrietta Bredin, states categorically “he certainly did not… possess… a blue beard”.  There are plenty of ‘black Irish’ whose hair has a definite blue sheen.  Her essay, Bluebeard Stories, considers Josef Fritzl the Austrian oddity who kept his daughter imprisoned for decades.  Charles Manson, Peter Sutcliffe (the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’) and Fred West are adverted to in the Programme.  Their mug shots are shown alongside a passage from Angela Carter’s novel The Bloody Chamber.  The Director, Daniel Kramer’s taking up this idea confused many critics.  But none of them appeared to put their finger on why it felt problematical to them.  I have definite reasons for finding the approach wrong-headed.

Bartók and Balázs knew about the period of absolute rulers – Russia only ceased (reluctantly) to be ruled by one person in the aftermath of the 1905 (quasi) Revolution.  The score was completed in 1911 – (the Rite‘s score in 1912) – Balázs’s book in 1910.  Despite carefully fostered nonsense, of 1914 vintage, the Habsburg Dual Monarchy, of which Hungary was part, was not remotely an absolute monarchy.  Bluebeard would have been an absolute ruler – Messrs B & B would not have had a memory of the times when quite tiny patches of land in Mitteleuropa were ruled absolutely.  It would have been a living memory of their grandparents, even parents.  Bluebeard would not have begged “Love me Judith!” — he would have expected obedience from his wife.  And everybody else.

The Duke of Mudtown

A further not-so-small point is in the translation by John Lloyd Davies, in which Bluebeard refers to his “kingdom”.  Dukes don’t have “kingdoms” they rule duchies, — or ‘dukedoms’.  This is may seem pedantic, but mainland Europeans (like Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs (né [Herbert] Bauer) born in the 1880s) would know about such things, without necessarily taking them seriously, or even being really aware of it.  ‘Titles’ in the UK lost touch with the territorial long ago.  The Dukes of Norfolk live in Sussex.  One can become Duke of a small village, Wellington for example – or Marlborough -which can be rendered ‘mud town’.

Michaela Martens (Judith – the Duke’s latest missus) seemed happier in the lovely bursts of Italianate lyricism she is given than in the glum bits of the score.  Clive Bayley has a beautiful, coal-black bass voice, which he does not really get to use as Bluebeard. . His rôle is mainly expressed in parlando almost sprechtstimme.  He has to behave as the Director assumes a Fritzl or a Fred West might.  He only just prevents himself from lunging at the virginal Judith, on a number of occasions.  Fred and Fritzl would, surely, have had a heightened sense of entitlement to inflict sex on whomever they pleased.

The introduction of Bluebeard’s other wives (and families) was dramatically justified.  Though it is not possible to work out if they are meant to be alive or dead.  The production is something of a curate’s egg – (very) good in parts – and odd, as opposed to ‘bad’, in others.  Michaela Martens, Clive Bayley, and ENO’s orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner serve the music superbly.

Keegan’s greyhounds

Gardner and the band did the score of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring proud too.  Michael Keegan-Dolan’s approach to the choreography was a piece debatable.  He certainly did not take a reverential attitude to the score.  There were quite long passages of vigorous orchestral activity when rather little was happening on stage.  And, often, what was happening on stage could hardly be described as ‘dance’.  The Programme has pictures of hare coursing, (a photograph of a greyhound pursuing a hare) an old-fashioned ‘repository’ shop statue of the Virgin Mary, and “[a] Christian gathering on a pagan cairn, somewhere in Ireland”.  The implication is that such things are peculiar to Ireland.

Hare coursing is endemic in the USA, England, Ireland, Scotland (and Spain and Portugal) – but apparently not Wales.  Repository tat is based on Mannerist art.  Ireland is hardly the only place where pagan godheads were recruited into the Christian ‘communion of saints’.  Brigid of Kildare is clearly the goddess of Spring and sowing.  In the 1960s the Vatican stood-down hundreds of saints – most had been ‘proclaimed’ locally.

There were some oddities in the choreography.  The men donned ‘greyhound’ full-head masks at one point.  Then took them off, and put them back on a table — as if they were masks and not meant to represent actual greyhounds.  The men spent a deal of time simply jiggling up and down.  They were all dressed in old-fashioned ‘farmer’ clothes.  There wasn’t a ‘boy-racer’ among them.  Since the 1970s entry into ‘Europe’ (the EU and the ‘set-aside’ money) Irish country roads have been polluted with wee farmers in their seventies driving flash sports cars — awful fast.

At one point they got most of their kit off.  And were seen to ‘seed’ the earth.  This seemed to disturb some metropolitan critics.  It is true to say that this activity does not usually include ‘penetrating’ the actual soil.  It is usually a matter of the farmer masturbating himself on a (somewhat penile) rock or tree stump.  The sight of about twenty pairs of buffed glutei being given vigorous exercise was — not unwelcome.  It did strike me that Irish farmers, (undoubtedly we are supposed to think of them as ‘peasants’) must all shop at Primark.  The gunks were all pristine white.  (There is a definite ‘white y-front’ tendency in what used to be called ‘Modern’ (or ‘contemporary’) dance).  Nobody goes commando and nobody wears khaki.  (I’ll tell you the punch line of that joke when you’re older.)

Later the men in the cast got all of their kit off, which also worried the London critics.  One (male) critic seemed to be complaining about the fact that all the men wore beards.  They did, in the mug shots in the Programme, but on stage half were clean shaven.  Maybe he was too modest to actually look at what they were doing on stage.  I only saw one naked chap because of the steep rake of the ‘gods’ in the Coliseum and a chap’s (not particularly large) head being in the way – and very nice the experience was.  The women were outnumbered but were not ciphers.

Olwen Fouéré’s rôle is ‘Cailleach’ (as the Cailleach Beara – the ‘wise old woman’ of Pearse’s poem).  She is attended by the ‘Boy’ (Nathan Attard – whose performance is to be recommended.  He may have been tempted to look into the audience, but I didn’t notice him doing so.  He concentrated on looking into the action on stage.  Which, admittedly, must have been very interesting for an apprentice dancer.  His ‘cover’ was one Finbar FitzGerald.)  Admittedly, part of the function performed by Ms Fouéré and Master Attard, was tidying up the stage after various items — clothes, for example, and masks, had been abandoned.

‘The Women’ (so called in the Programme) were ‘hares’ at one point in the proceedings – as was ‘The Chosen One’ (Daphne Strothmann).  She was seen at the end of the performance in a curious body stocking being pursued by the naked men.  Due to ‘the head’ I did not actually see most of this – as The Chosen One was static (in the sense of not moving round the stage) for a long period.

At the end of this performance there was a huge ovation from the audience.  Up in the ‘gods’ there were a number of (not to be over-subtle about it) buff young men leading the applause.  Presumably they were dancers too, and were there to counteract the critics, but the audience was on side anyway.  The audience were quite happy to be led by handsome youths — let’s be serious about it — they were genuine eye-candy.

There have been worse incidents in London theatres.

Dee Flatt & Áine Ní Phól

Envoi

The Rite has had a problematical history, mainly because of Nijinsky’s revolutionary choreography to go with Stravinsky’s revolutionary score.  The artist Roerich produced ‘Russian-folksy’ costumes and sets.  The violent (literally) reaction on the first night produced wonderful publicity for the Ballets Russes (a private venture) but the Rite was hugely expensive, and was dropped.  Soon after the premiere Nijinsky and Diaghilev’s relationship collapsed.  Stravinsky was reluctant to give Nijinsky’s choreography any credit.  He belittled Nijinsky’s contribution to the artistic effort, but was keen to blame him for the first night scandal.

Michael Keegan-Dolan will – hopefully – have another crack at the Rite — this effort was interesting — but not interesting enough to become part of the repertoire.

Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, was performed at the Hackney Empire (one of ‘matchless Matchem’s’ rather florid theatres), it is on the 254 bus route. The production is that of the ETO (English Touring Opera, www.englishtouringopera.org.uk) which takes professional opera about England mostly. This tour includes Perth, and Truro, (Cornwall is not English). Perth is not getting Susannah, but the other two operas will be performed, Don Giovanni and Anna Bolena (Donizetti). I did not hear the latter two, and so, will not review them. (This would not necessarily stop a professional. Fortnight‘s music critic once ‘reviewed’ a concert that had been called off.)

To the matter in hand: Floyd has produced (1953) a very worthy music drama. Susannah was put, in the press, in the same company as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and Bernstein’s West Side Story. Floyd does not create any truly memorable tunes. A few hours after this hearing I could not remember any of the music. Not even the ‘big number’ Ain’t it a pretty night? sung by Susannah (Donna Bateman). It is not simply the fact that we have heard them repeatedly that we remember – well – nearly everything from the above mentioned music dramas. The music stays in the mind’s ear long after they have been heard, because they are powerful themes.

I wonder if this ‘opera’ would work better if the cast were singing actors, as in most ‘musicals’? West Side Story is a ‘musical’ after all. Bernstein loathed the recording with opera singers Kiri Te Kanawa and JoseCarrera. Acting singers will concentrate on the music. The sounds coming out of their mouths, and out of the pit, in Susannah, are beguiling. They are not beguiling enough to haunt the mind. (Unlike the sounds from the pit band in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia, which compensates for absurdly po-faced script (libretto / wee book) of Ronald Duncan).

The production was quite good looking. Stage furniture was made to represent any number of things. One was a domestic interior, Susannah Polk and Sam (her brother)’s house. And the Meeting House. Even some hills over-looking the pool in which Susannah bathes – naked – much to the disgust of the Church Elders. They could, of course, have chosen not to look, but they didn’t. Susannah is under the impression (as in the Bible story) that she is not overlooked. But that is of no consequence and she is ostracised. She turns on the congregation and accuses them of being hypocrites. The new preacher Olin Blitch (Andrew Slater) is in an awkward position as he had forced himself on Susannah. A further upshot of this is that Sam Polk shoots him. And is punished for it.

Action-packed you might say. Which may be one of the reasons why the music is slightly deficient. There was a slight problem in that when characters were singing ‘upstage’ (away from the footlights – I hope I’ve got the technical term right – their voiceSeand diction was clearer. Standing or in the case of Donna Bateman, kneeling, at the front of the stage, in the ‘big number’, singers sounded muffled. Apart from Ms Bateman the only other person it really applied to waSeandrew Slater (Olin Blitch). The other small solo parts also constituted themselves a chorus, ‘People of the Valley’.

Se n Clayton (Little Bat McLean) who fancies Susannah played a somewhat underwritten r le very well (he also sang Elder Gleaton in a production for the Wexford Festival, broadcast on RT Radio (Lyric FM presumably)). Elder Gleaton (one of the more obnoxiously self-righteous People of the Valley) in this production is Mark Cunningham, who does not seem to have made any broadcasts or recordings yet. Gleaton’s missus was Renee Salewski. Elder and Mrs McLean were Anthony Cleverton and Sandra Porter the latter has some connections with the composer James MacMillan having taken part in some premieres, the former comes from Tunbridge Wells but escaped to Manchester (the RNCM – Royal Northern College of Music) for his training. Interesting bits of information include the fact that Stephen Anthony Brown (Elder Hayes) has recorded The Maid of Artois a Balfe (the 200th ‘birthday boy this year – 2008) opera (on Campion Cameo).

Susannah iSean honest piece of work. If you are interested in modern American music is well worth witnessing. Especially in the honest well-produced and beautifully-sung staging of the ETO.

Dee Flatt

Link to Amazon (UK) for purchase of a different production of Susannah