Tuesday night’s concert marked another significant milestone in The Bach Choir’s 150th anniversary season, which opened late last year with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with The Philharmonia conducted by David Hill at St Paul’s Cathedral. The Choir first performed Bach’s Mass in B minor exactly 150 years and one month ago, on 26 April 1876. This was the first British performance of Bach’s masterpiece, and Tuesday night marked the choir’s 70th performance of the work.
Bach never heard the piece in full; remarkably, it took over a century after Bach’s death for his works to enter the English choral repertoire, with the first English performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1854 by William Sterndale Bennett. In autumn 1875, the German musician Otto Goldschmidt, who had married the Swedish operatic soprano Jenny Lind and settled in London with her, worked with the lawyer Arthur Coleridge to form a choir to perform the Mass in B Minor. The first concert, at St James’s Hall, set the standard for future performances, at least according to one critic, ‘Choral singing, such as we heard on the present occasion, is rarely met with in this or any other country.’
The first time I heard David Hill conducting the B MinorMass was two years ago in Manchester, with a much smaller choir: the student choir Yale Schola Cantorum and the student musicians of Juilliard415, so I was very much looking forward to hearing a much larger choir performing the work. In his programme note, conductor David Hill describes the piece as one of the finest works in the western musical canon,
‘A summation of Bach’s genius as a writer for voices and instruments with equal brilliance. There is joy, sadness, melancholy and, above all, inspired melodic material interweaving throughout the work. The Mass in B minor is a consecration of a whole life…’
In my review of Yale Schola Cantorum/Juilliard415, I wrote, ‘The most remarkable aspect of Sunday’s concert was how pure it felt, allowing direct access to the emotions and intellectual power of the music itself, to the mind and soul of Bach himself.’ Tuesday night’s concert felt very different, bringing out the work’s deep humanity rather than its intellectual and spiritual aspects. It’s a credit to Hill that he can create such superb performances from such different forces.
Under Hill’s subtle and undemonstrative direction, Florilegium played elegantly, with lovely poise and lilting rhythms, dancing joyfully, with natural trumpets adding bite to the sound. This was early music filtered through modern performance practice, but historically informed, bringing the best of both worlds. There were excellent instrumental solos from Ashley Solomon (flute and director of Florilegium), Huw Daniel (violin and leader), Gail Hennessy and Andrés Villalobos (oboe) and Anneke Scott (horn), each player standing for their solo as a jazz musician would in a big band. Philip Scriven was a tireless continuo player on chamber organ.
The vocal soloists were: Nardus Williams (Soprano), who sang Laudamus Te with a rich and florid voice and superb legato in a duet with the solo violin; Sam Furness (Tenor), who sang the Benedictus with a gently ardent, plaintive tone in duet with solo flute; and Neal Davies (Bass-baritone), who played Jesus in the choir’s St Matthew Passion. On Tuesday night, he again proved himself to be an excellent communicator, with excellent diction, superb word-painting, and lovely phrasing. But the highlight of the vocal solo performances was Helen Charlston (Mezzo soprano) singing Agnus Dei from the heart with a commanding stage presence, a velvet-hued tone, and at one point a gorgeous sotto voce on the words ‘Agnus Dei.’
But the evening belonged to the choir in their anniversary year. The piece opened with Bach’s magnificent Kyrie, sung initially without scores. The pace was fairly slow and majestic, Hill bringing out fabulous detail from the massed forces, and accentuating the pointed rhythms in both choir and orchestra. There were some lovely, deep bass voices, and lyrical tenors, and the women sang with lovely legato. In the fast running passages of the Gloria, the singing was spritely and virtuosic, incredibly controlled for such large forces; it was easy to forget that this is an amateur choir. The choir’s word-painting was excellent throughout. For instance, in Et Terra Pax, the choir reached longingly for peace as a remarkable orchestral passage rose in search of the light. In Gratias agimus tibi, the choir sang with gratitude and great humanity. Qui tollis peccata mundi was spellbinding; the choir singing was warm yet melancholy, bringing out Bach’s superb harmonies in supplication, as they prayed for mercy. The first half ended with the Cum Sancto Spiritu, featuring an exuberant entry from the choir and very fast singing, beautifully controlled by Hill. To be clear: this music is difficult to sing, but with the choir and Hill, we were always in safe hands.
The Credo sets the words of the Nicene Creed, the central affirmation of Christian belief, written over 1,700 years ago. Again, the choir’s word-painting was superb, starting with a robust statement of faith from the tenors in the word ‘Credo’. The sequence describing Christ’s birth, crucifixion, and resurrection was stunning. EtIncarnatus Est was thoughtful and reverential. It was as if the world had stopped turning; the words of the carol came to mind, ‘The world in solemn stillness lay.’ The Crucifixus was heart-rending. After a short gap, Et resurrexit was joyful, exciting, and visceral. Some of the men sang the very difficult passage ‘et iterum venturus est’ without scores, carrying it off with aplomb. Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum was quietly hymn-like, moving from humble, contemplative hope to certainty, with a magnificent ‘Amen’.
The Sanctus was stately but superbly rhythmic, a supreme statement of faith. The overlapping voices in ‘pleni sunt coeli’ reminded me of the same words used in Britten’s War Requiem performed by the choir a couple of years ago. After a joyful Osanna in Excelsis, the humanity and humility of the choir’s interpretation were again highlighted with a prayer for peace, calm and deeply moving, gradually building to a passionate plea. At the end of the concert, conductor David Hill and the four soloists were given flowers. In a lovely gesture, Hill waved his flowers at the choir, acknowledging their remarkable contribution. There was a huge, and well-deserved cheer for the choir: here’s to the next 150 years!
David Hill dedicated the concert to the choir’s Vice President, Dame Felicity Lott, who died on 15 May, ‘a kind and generous, humorous, very humble and self-effacing artist.’
Performers
David Hill Conductor Nardus Williams Soprano Helen Charlston Mezzo soprano Sam Furness Tenor Neal Davies Bass-baritone The Bach Choir Florilegium: Ashley Solomon Director, Huw Daniel Leader
Repertoire
JS Bach Mass in B minor BWV 232
Now read on…
The Bach Choir, David Hill and Florilegium – St Matthew Passion
Welcome to the fourth in our series on a tour around some of Europe’s greatest concert venues. This post contains more images than usual, as a major part of a visit to the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg is the hall’s architecture and design. The building sits on top of an old brick warehouse in the port of Hamburg.
The view of the building from outside is spectacular, but seeing it at a distance from the larger of Hamburg’s inner-city lakes, the Außenalster (the Outer Alster), takes your breath away. The building is so high that its sweeping roof can be seen next to two of the most historic buildings in the city, Hamburg Town Hall and St. Nicholas Memorial. The roofline has been variously described as a hoisted sail, a wave of water, an iceberg, or a quartz crystal. The first two descriptions seem more apt, bearing in mind the Port of Hamburg’s maritime history, although ice floes on the river Elbe have been known to create mini-icebergs in extremely cold weather.
The ice theme continued as we entered the hall, even though it was a warm evening. A journey into the hall feels like taking an escalator up the inside of a glacier, with white walls and a ceiling carved as if from ice. Apparently, it’s Europe’s longest curved escalator, and it takes two and a half minutes to get to the top.
Views from the Plaza. Copyright Gill Holmes
We arrived at the Plaza, from which the lower parts of the Grosser Saal (the main hall) and the Kleiner Saal (the recital room for chamber concerts and jazz) can be reached. From the Plaza, there are spectacular 360-degree views of the city and the harbour.
The interior of the hall is designed on the ‘vineyard’ principle, the same acoustic design used in the DR Konserthuset, the subject of our last post. The Swiss architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron, based in Basel, Switzerland, wrote,
The client specifies that the main auditorium should provide an alternative to the conventional shoe-box concert hall, which Hamburg already has in the Laeiszhalle
This sets the hall apart from the shoe-box design used in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the first stop on our tour. The Elbphilharmonie breaks up the auditorium into several small ‘vineyards’, so that each part of the audience feels small and intimate, even though the hall holds over 2,000 people. Intriguingly, the smaller recital hall uses the shoe-box shape, so it could be argued that the Elbphilharmonie provides the best of both acoustic worlds, although we didn’t get a chance to visit the Kleiner Saal. Both halls are set apart from the noise of the outside world,
The Elbphilharmonie’s architecture cleverly tricks the surrounding noise of ships’ propellers, sirens and all kinds of other dockland sounds.
The outer wall of the concert hall is attached to the rest of the building, but the inner structure is acoustically isolated from the outer walls and supported on 362 springs. The same design is used at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, which uses 260 springs to isolate it from traffic and the Metrolink tram outside.
Elbphilharmonie interior, seen from the front of the stalls
So what does the Great Hall in the Elbphilharmonie sound like? Our seats were in the very front row of the Stalls, on the far right, so we were very close to the stage but off to one side. As the hall’s own website says (in relation to the seats that are behind the stage),
Depending on which section of the orchestra you are sitting closest to, the horns or double basses, the brass or the percussion come out more strongly than in the seats in front of the stage. Higher up in the hall, the sound produces a more balanced overall impression.
So, from our seats, the lower brass instruments were more prominent than the rest of the massive orchestra during the final piece, Hans Werner Henze’s Symphony Number Seven. But in the opening piece, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, with a smaller orchestra, the violins had a lovely bloom, and the woodwind sailed above them, creating an ideal sound. The playing of the Elbphilharmonie orchestra under the German conductor Matthias Pintscher was sublime. In the second piece, Szymanowski’s Second Violin Concerto, the Greek soloist Leonidas Kavakos’ sound was warm and passionate, ideally balanced with the orchestra. His playing in the cadenza, with its earthy, folky feel, was astonishing.
Henze’s Seventh Symphony is a challenge for both audience and orchestra. The composer states somewhat cryptically in his notes that it’s ‘a German symphony, and it deals with matters German.’ It’s partly inspired by the poems of Friedrich Hölderlin, whose work and time spent in an asylum lie behind the finale and the scherzo. But as the Gramophone critic wrote, ‘what lies behind the intense and complex threnody of the towering second – and longest – movement is not divulged.’
The symphony felt immensely complex, dense, and virtuosic; both players and the conductor had to work very hard. From our seats, we could see a young percussionist counting furiously to himself and a pianist and a celesta player playing intensely and with great rhythmic precision. We were very close to a young tuba player, who inserted a huge wooden mute, played three notes, and set the mute down on the stage next to him. It was fascinating to have such an intimate view of orchestral players who are usually a long way from us.
Violinist Leonidas Kavakos and conductor Matthias Pintscher (far left) with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
So far on our tour, we have visited two vineyards and one shoebox. So, which type of concert hall offers better acoustics? As the Elbphilharmonie website says,
‘There is not a conclusive answer to this question.’
Exterior of the Elbphilharmonie at night. Copyright Gill Holmes
We approached the DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen on foot from the centre of the city, walking past the university towards a campus that houses DR (Danmarks Radio), which, like the BBC, is just over 100 years old. Like the BBC’s northern base at Media City UK, the campus can be reached by tram and features water as part of its architecture.
The DR radio campus
The French composer Olivier Messiaen famously had synaesthesia, which meant that he saw certain harmonies as specific colours. So the hall could have reminded him of some of the harmonies from his epic work that we heard in Thursday evening, Turangalîla-symphonie, which he saw as blue-orange; the outside of the building glows blue at night, and the auditorium is a vivid orange.
The interior of DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen
The hall’s acoustics are designed on the ‘vineyard’ principle, with the stage in the middle and several small terraces at different levels surrounding the stage. The earliest example of this style is the Berliner Philharmonie, opened in 1963. Other European examples include the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Philharmonie in Paris, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg (next stop on our tour). The most striking aspect of the auditorium at the DR Koncerthuset is that there are virtually no horizontal or vertical surfaces; everything leans one way or another. The aim is to create early reflections of the sound, making it intimate and detailed at every seat.
The interior of DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen
From our seats on the second balcony near the back of the hall, the sound was stunning. Messiaen’s Turangalîla calls for a huge orchestra, in this case the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, with no fewer than ten percussionists, solo piano and that wonderfully strange electronic instrument, the Ondes Martenot. The balance between the instruments was perfect, beautifully shaped by the Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who says that the symphony is one of his favourite pieces. Bertrand Chamayou was a virtuosic pianist, playing Messiaen’s piano parts with a robust touch. Cécile Lartigau played the Ondes Martenot with elegance and subtlety, her bright orange jacket matching the hall’s décor.
“The music consists of otherworldly orchestral sounds in cascades of psychedelic colours. With that imaginary world, you might think that Olivier Messiaen lived on hallucinatory mushrooms and was completely ungrounded. That was not the case… The intoxicant that gave wings to his imagination was love and the Catholic faith.”
Programme notes from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra
When Turangalîla was premiered in New York in 1949, the critical response was generally negative. It was described as ‘futile’, ‘empty’, ‘tawdry’. However, one critic did describe it as ‘one of the most radical extensions of orchestral range, color and expressivity contrived by any modern composer.’ After the French premiere in 1950, the composer Francis Poulenc described it as ‘atrocious’ and criticised its dishonesty, ‘written to please both the crowd and the élite, the bidet and the baptismal font.’ Pierre Boulez, Messiaen’s pupil and a famous provocateur (he once told me that to move on musically, he had metaphorically to ‘kill’ his father-figure Messiaen), said it made him want to ‘vomit.’
The only way to enjoy the symphony fully is to accept it entirely on Messiaen’s terms; despite what Poulenc said about it, the work is completely honest and sincere. He wrote that its ultimate subject is ‘The fateful, irresistible, transcendent and all-encompassing love.’ The performance on Thursday was astonishing. What Salonen brought out superbly, assisted by the hall’s excellent acoustics, was the strange paradox of this work. It’s both incredibly simple, based on only four repetitive themes, and immensely complex in its rhythmic patterns and orchestral textures. At the centre of its ten movements are two extraordinary movements: the fifth, ‘Joie du Sang des étoiles (Joy of the blood of the stars), which the composer described as ‘a long and frenzied dance of joy’, and the sixth, ‘Jardin du Sommeil d’amour’ (Garden of love’s sleep), in which, ‘time flows on, forgotten. The lovers are outside of time.’ But on Thursday evening, the Finale was the highlight, the audience rising to its feet in an ecstatic standing ovation.
As the Danish say, ‘næste stop, Hamburg’ (next stop, Hamburg)!
Thursday’s concert was broadcast live on P2 Koncerten. It will be rebroadcast on Sunday at 12:15. The concert was recorded for later television broadcast on DR2/DRTV and will also be available in cinemas nationwide in Denmark this autumn.
It’s said that in London, you are never more than six feet away from a rat. In Amsterdam, you are never more than six feet away from a bicycle. On Thursday evening, a smartly dressed woman, in full dress suit and colourful shawl, carefully parked her bicycle and crossed the road to enter the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. This would be an unusual sight in other European cities, but in Amsterdam, nobody appeared to notice.
I have always wanted to go to the Concertgebouw, ever since, as a young teenager, I heard Paul McCartney singing,
If there’s a rock show at the Concertgebouw You’ve got long hair at the Madison Square You’ve got rock’n’roll at the Hollywood Bowl…
‘Rock Show’ from Venus and Mars (1975) by Paul McCartney and Wings
On Thursday, rather than a rock show, we went to see more traditional orchestral fare: the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann, performing music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky, whose names are written on the walls and balconies of the hall. The name Wagenaar was also there. I assumed this was a Dutch spelling of Wagner, but it turns out this was the Dutch composer Johannes Wagenaar (1862-1941). In January 1917, the composer conducted the orchestra in a concert of his own works and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, performed recently in Manchester by the BBC Philharmonic.The critic Matthijs Vermeulen, in a damning review, despite acknowledging that the composer was an ‘extraordinarily gifted man wrote
‘Wagenaar made the mistake of most ordinary conductors: he indicates too much. With a virtuoso ensemble like the Concertgebouw Orchestra, one may imagine that it knows most of the entrances of a frequently performed symphony, such as the Fantastique, by heart, or that they can at least be sufficiently imprinted on memory through a rehearsal.’
On Thursday, the lady didn’t protest too much: Stutzmann conducted with great precision and restrained gestures, bringing out the best in this world-class orchestra. She did, however, make a grand entrance. The conductor and any soloists have to enter down a long staircase, rather than from the side of the stage which is more common.
Concertgebouw interior with staircase
We began with a short amuse-bouche, Glinka’s ‘Overture’ to his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila (1837 – 1842). But the main event in the first half of the concert was Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with the soloist Augustin Hadelich, who we heard in Manchester playing Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. It was fascinating to compare his performance with that of the South Korean violinist Bomsori, who played the concerto in Manchester a week ago. Both violinists were superb: Bomsori’s violin sounded like a lyric soprano, whereas Hadelich’s was more like a warm, robust mezzo, with a legato of which any opera singer would have been proud. He deservedly drew rapturous applause and a standing ovation from the capacity audience. His encore was a cheeky bluegrass number from his American Bluegrass album, which provoked indulgent smiles from the audience and some members of the orchestra.
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, seen from the Concertgebouw
Time for the interval, and a free drink, also a chance to gaze across a huge expanse of grass from the hall’s windows to the Rijksmuseum. These two monuments to civic pride were opened within three years of each other in the late 19th century. The Concertgebouw is known for its remarkable acoustics – along with the Musikverein in Vienna, it is considered one of the best in the world, simply by virtue of its shoebox shape. This was probably more by accident than design – the science of acoustics began in the 20th century with experts like the American Leo Beranek, who wrote one of the standard textbooks on concert hall acoustics, Music, Acoustics and Architecture, in 1962. Dr. Peter D’Antonio of RPG Diffusor Systems, Inc and Prof Trevor Cox of the University of Salford said in a paper delivered to the 156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in 2008 that another accident of design in older concert halls is that they have good sound diffusion compared to many modern halls,
An enduring characteristic of classic architecture is the beautiful statuary, relief ornamentation, columns and coffered ceilings. These beautiful features, coincidentally also provided useful sound scattering and excellent acoustics
The second half was an opportunity to hear the orchestra in the hall’s magnificent acoustics. I have spent many happy hours since my teenage years when I first subscribed to HiFi Answers, reading about Hi-Fi equipment, going to shows to listen to Hi-Fi equipment, and most importantly, listening to Hi-Fi equipment. Most recently, I treated myself to a pair of Sennheiser HD800S Open-back headphones and an Astell&Kern SR35 portable HD music player. I bought this system because it sounded musical, warm, detailed and spacious. The hall sounded exactly like this. In the Brahms symphony, I heard details I have never heard before, even in the finest recordings. Each instrument was surrounded by a lovely bloom, but there was great clarity as well. Plucked instruments were perfectly defined, and the double basses, physically towering above the cellos on the steps above, could be heard clearly rather than getting lost as they often are in other, lesser halls. Orchestral soloists all stood out; with lesser orchestras, this could have been a problem, but with an orchestra of this quality, the concert was an absolute joy.
Balcony at the Concertgebouw
Next stop, DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen!
Sources:
Dr. Peter D’Antonio and Prof Trevor Cox Acoustical Optimization of Modern Architectural Spaces (156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, 2008)
Now read on, for a jazz diversion in Freetown Christiania, Copenhagen…
The orchestra continues its superb run of form with Julia Wolfe’s vision of the aftermath of 9/11, Bomsori’s virtuosic violin-playing in Tchaikovsky, and Berlioz’s opium-induced visions
Like Manchester’s two Premier League football teams, its two symphony orchestras, the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, are reaching their peak towards the end of the season. Recently, the Hallé Orchestra and Choirs gave a superb performance of Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony. On Saturday evening, it was the turn of the BBC Philharmonic.
The concert began with Big Beautiful Dark and Scary by the orchestra’s Composer in Residence, Julia Wolfe. Nearly 25 years ago, on September 11 2001, she was two blocks away from the Twin Towers when the two planes hit them. She wrote the piece in response to the attack.
‘The piece captures the feverish post-apocalyptic feeling of living in the aftermath of 9/11 with an ominous, full-throttle wall of sound.’
From CD sleeve notes, Cantaloupe Records
Bang on a Can All-Stars premiered the chamber version of the work in April 2022. Wolfe wrote, ‘This is how life feels right now.’ On Saturday, the Philharmonic played the orchestral version, which premiered in May 2013. The piece began with shivering strings, surrounded by swirling woodwinds, playing a rising, ominous chromatic scale that felt like the Shepard tone used by Hans Zimmer in his score to Dunkirk (2017). A huge bass drum rumble and a disturbing syncopated piano added to the terror. A brief hiatus led to a contemplative section, still fizzing with fear and gently frenzied. A single repeated brass note was suspended above a dark bass melody that sank into the depths. There was a short release as a new woodwind melody challenged the chromatic melody. Clarinets and brass joined the battle against the main melody. The battle continued until the end of the piece, creating a spellbinding cacophony superbly crafted by the orchestra. Brass and violins reached a final truce, and this remarkably visceral piece ended with a gong that faded into nothingness.
MUSIC AND 9/11 Various composers responded to the 9/11 attacks. The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen described 9/11 as ‘the greatest work of art imaginable’, which caused immediate condemnation and disgust around the world, although he later claimed he had been misunderstood: ‘I am as dismayed as everyone else about the attacks in America.’ More respectful responses came from John Adams, who wrote On the Transmigration of Souls (2002) with pre-recorded voices listing the names of some of the victims, and Steve Reich, who wrote WTC 9/11 (2009-10), which included recordings of air traffic controllers. The latter piece wasn’t without controversy; the original cover of the first recording featured an image of a plane flying towards one of the Twin Towers, which drew a lot of criticism before the album was released. Reich asked his record label, Nonesuch, to withdraw the image: ‘I want people to listen to my music without something distracting them.’
Steven Wilson – Collapse The Light Into Earth (The Future Bites Sessions) 6 November 2020
Other artists repurposed their work in response to the attacks. The American avant-garde composer William Basinski completed his ambient work The Disintegration Loops on the morning of the attacks and dedicated it to the victims: ‘When I woke up in the morning, the towers had been struck, and the whole world changed.’ Steven Wilson was working on a song in his studio when he heard about the attacks. He immediately abandoned that song and instead wrote ‘Collapse the Light Into Earth’ (from In Absentia, 2002): ‘It’s like William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. It’s got nothing to do with 9/11, but there’s a quality in that music which somehow connects with that time and that event.’
The first half ended with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto featuring the South Korean violinist Bomsori. Her debut with the BBC Philharmonic was at the Proms three years ago, playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Saturday’s conductor, Anja Bihlmaier. She played with a lovely, bright, youthful tone, with less vibrato than some, creating a purity of tone. Throughout, she played this virtuosic piece with great ease and facility. The cadenza was stunning, with double-stopping, plucking and glissandi, all beautifully shaped. The intonation on her high notes was perfect. The audience sat quietly in rapt admiration of her astonishing virtuosity. Bihlmaier smiled as the orchestra rejoined, and after her pyrotechnics played a serene melody. Bomsori moved expressively as she played a spectacular duet with the orchestra.
The second movement began with a thoughtful chorale by the woodwinds and horns. Bomsori played a lyrical, delicately sorrowful melody with great emotion. The orchestra guided her gently into a new world with a livelier tune. There was a sense of Russian melancholy in her gentle dance with woodwind soloists, with gorgeously quiet playing. The opening chorale returned. Without a break, the orchestra roused itself into the final movement. Another mini-cadenza, a passionate Russian dance with mud on its boots, led to an incredibly fast dance. Stephen Johnson, in his programme note, described the Finale in these evocative phrases,
‘full of the flavour of Russian folk-dance music – a heady aromatic cocktail of vodka fumes, fried onions and creaking, high-kicking leather boots.‘
The orchestra and violin rose to the challenge of creating these flavours, before a melancholy passage brought a moment of contemplation. Bomsori challenged the orchestra to match her virtuosity, which they did. Another heavy peasant dance led to a thoughtful section for violin and chamber ensemble. Violin and orchestra dashed to an exuberant end, drawing huge and well-deserved cheers and applause.
Bomsori’s encore was Schön Rosmarin (Lovely Rosemary) from Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen (Old Viennese Dances) by Fritz Kreisler, arranged by the Italian violinist Gabriele Campagna, a playful and virtuosic showpiece, delivered with great panache, and warmly received by the audience.
The second half was devoted to Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. He wrote the piece when he was 27, completely infatuated with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who he saw performing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Paris,
‘The supreme drama of my life … In the role of Ophelia, I saw Harriet Smithson, who five years later became my wife. The impression made on my heart and mind by her extraordinary talent, nay her dramatic genius, was equalled only by the havoc wrought in me by the poet she so nobly interpreted.’
The symphony, titled ‘Episode in the Life of an Artist: Fantastic Symphony in Five Parts’, describes the young ardent lover. Berlioz wrote a very detailed programme note, beginning with his dreams of his beloved seen from afar, then a countryside interlude when he begins to doubt her, followed by an opium-induced nightmare where he dreams that he has killed her, is led to the scaffold where he is executed, and a ‘ghastly crowd of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind’ gather for his funeral. The French composer Saint-Saëns later wrote that the programme for the work had gone out of fashion, but ‘the musical work is still as youthful and astounding as on its first day.’ Berlioz revised the programme note, describing the entire work as being opium-induced.
The composer’s youthful passion for his beloved is depicted in the ‘idée fixe‘, a rising ardent motif, reminiscent of the youthful puppy Idéfix (gloriously translated as Dogmatix) in the Asterix comics. The motif unifies the symphony, but becomes increasingly hidden and fragmented as the protagonist becomes more anguished.
Idéfix the Dog from the Asterix comic book series (René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo/Hachette Livre) vs Berlioz’s idée fixe motif
Although Berlioz distanced himself from his earlier programme note, he kept the titles to each movement, and they still provide a useful guide.
On Saturday, the opening movement, ‘Rêveries – Passions’ (Dreams – Passions), began with morose violins playing in perfect ensemble before a magical, anguished climax, describing the ‘Rêveries’ of the title. Lush strings and brass played joyfully, before falling back again. A dancing theme expressed supreme joy. The idée fixe motif appeared as a huge Romantic melody above marching lower strings. An ambiguous passage suggested the protagonist had lost hope; the music struggled, like trying to climb a mountain and sliding back again. Eventually, there was a glittering statement of the idée fixe, before a stunning climax which turned out to be a false ending, before sorrowful horns settled into a peaceful ending. Whatever your view is about the programmatic nature of the score, the orchestra superbly illustrated a series of restless moods, like those of a young lover.
The second movement, ‘Un bal’ (A ball), began with shimmering strings and lovely flourishes from the two harps, introducing an elegant waltz, joyfully played with the sense of inevitability that characterises many great performances. The waltz continued with an excitable section as the dancers swirled elegantly in a frenzy of joy, as a solo clarinet provided a fragmented statement of the idée fixe.
The ‘Scène aux champs’ (Scene in the fields) was an interlude in the countryside, opening with a cor anglais solo answered by an offstage oboe, representing two hunting horns conversing across a valley. There were strong echoes of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral‘, as the orchestra played with formidable precision, describing the lover’s loneliness. The idée fixe appeared briefly in a passage for flute and oboe, before the cor anglais reappeared. This time, there was no reassuring answer from the oboe; no fewer than four timps represented an oncoming storm, like the storm in Beethoven’s symphony, but also reflecting the protagonist’s emotional state.
By the fourth movement, ‘Marche au supplice’ (March to the scaffold) – if not sooner – the opium had kicked in. Sinister horns and ominous timps introduced a march on lower strings, with brutally sarcastic bassoons, creating a terrifying sound, elegantly conducted by Bihlmaier. This movement was a supreme example of an orchestra at the top of its game, all working incredibly hard, as the conductor danced on her podium. A brief snatch of the idée fixe on clarinet led to a coup de théâtre when two drummers marched solemnly down the steps of the choir seats, playing military drums, introducing the final movement, ‘Songe d’une nuit du sabbat’ (Dream of a night of the sabbath). The idée fixe was now transformed into a terrifying jig, the combined demonical forces dancing in the face of death. Funeral bells sounded offstage, introducing the horrifying Dies Irae funeral theme, played so memorably in the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 psychological horror film The Shining. A deeply sarcastic mini-fugue led to a spooky, ghostly passage, then the diabolical dance combined with the Dies Irae to bring this tremendous performance to an end.
Julia Wolfe Big Beautiful Dark and Scary Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Fritz Kreisler Schön Rosmarin (encore) Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
Performers
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Anja Bihlmaier conductor Bomsori Kim violin
Sources
Bang on a Can All‑Stars: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary (Cantaloupe Music) Terry Castle, Stockhausen, Karlheinz (New York Magazine 27 August 2011) Steve Reich, Steve Reich Comments on the “WTC 9/11” Album Cover (Nonesuch Records Journal, 11 August 2011) John Doran Time Becomes A Loop: William Basinski Interviewed (The Quietus 15 November 2012) Nick Holmes, Porcupine Tree on track (SonicBond 2021, revised and expanded 2025)
The concert was recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 in Concert on Tuesday 5 May at 7.30 pm. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds
Last Thursday evening’s concert, with The Hallé conducted by the young Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, began with Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. The composer set five songs by the Austrian poet Friedrich Rückert for voice and piano in 1901 and 1902. He published them as separate songs and never intended them to be performed as a set. He didn’t even orchestrate them all – it was left to the critic and publisher Max Puttman to complete ‘Liebst du um Schoenheit’ (If you love for beauty) in 1911, after Mahler’s death that year. And there’s no fixed order when they are performed as a set – it’s left to the singer and orchestra or pianist to decide.
There are several different approaches to the songs, particularly in the way the singer performs them with orchestra: compare the wide operatic vibrato of Sonya Yoncheva, the gorgeous operatic mezzo of Christa Ludwig, the lighter approach of Anne Sofie von Otter, and the superb classic recording by Janet Baker, which Richard Wigmore in Gramophone described as ‘lovingly attuned to these most private of Mahler’s songs.’
On Thursday, the baritone Huw Montague Rendall sang the songs, and it was clear from the opening song Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder! (Do not look into my songs), that his approach would be closer to that of a lieder singer in a solo recital than to that of a singer on the operatic stage. His voice was rich and warm, light on the higher notes and gently lyrical, perfectly matched by the playful orchestral accompaniment. He began Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft! (I breathed a gentle fragrance), with a gorgeous sotto voce, beautifully offset against running strings and solo oboe. Throughout the collection of songs, he addressed the audience with calm poise, thoughtfully immersing himself in the music.
Rendell sang Liebst du um Schönheit (If you love for beauty) with a lovely head voice in the top notes, gently ardent in this song about love. In the most dramatic song, Um Mitternacht (At midnight, he sang with richer vibrato and more powerful lower notes, bringing real passion to the climax in the last verse. The orchestra played superbly in the final song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world), with excellent string ensemble, characterful woodwind and a pivoting harp, creating a dark sound world; Rendell’s voice rose from the depths. There was something of the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the beauty of his tone and the expressiveness of his word-painting; there can be no higher praise than that.
After the interval, Rendell was joined by the Finnish soprano Silja Aalto, who had stepped in at short notice (although she sang with such confidence, you wouldn’t have guessed it). The whole of the second half was devoted to Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 1, ‘A Sea Symphony’. The work is a choral symphony, but not in the sense of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which ends with a setting of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy. Perhaps the nearest comparison is to Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, where the choir sings throughout, although as the symphonies were first performed within a month of each other in the autumn of 1910, it seems unlikely that Vaughan Williams was directly influenced by Mahler. A more obvious influence – acknowledged by Vaughan Williams himself – is Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, whose musical influence can be heard very clearly at times. But Vaughan Williams was keen to stress that his work was a symphony rather than an oratorio,
‘The shape of the work is symphonic rather than maritime or dramatic, and this may be held to justify the frequent repetition of important words and phrases which occur in the poem. The words as well as the music are thus treated symphonically.’
Vaughan Williams set four maritime poems by the American poet Walt Whitman, three from his 1855 collection Leaves of Grass and one from his 1871 collection Passage to India. Whitman’s poems provide a vivid depiction of life at sea, but they also describe the journey of the soul, another link to The Dream of Gerontius, although the text of John Henry Newman in the latter work is much more explicitly religious.
On Thursday, the vast choral forces were made up of the Hallé Choir and the Hallé Youth Choir; there were so many singers in the choir seats that some of those standing in the back row needed their own lights on their scores. The first movement, ‘A Song for All Seas, All Ships’, began with an astonishingly visceral opening statement from choir and brass, ‘Behold, the sea itself.’ It was immediately clear that the choirs were on superb form; the sheer energy and passion of their singing was infectious. Later in the movement, there was a delightful duet between the choirs and baritone Huw Montague Rendall, his noble solo voice contrasting with the massed voices. The choir’s soft singing was equally impressive, contrasting with the sheer volume of the opening. They sang ecstatically, echoing the baritone’s words, ‘A pennant universal’, and there was a much more subdued restatement of ‘Behold the sea itself’ at the end of the movement. The section that began ‘Flaunt out, O sea…’ had strong echoes of Gerontius, which gave the text a spiritual dimension where it describes a flag for ‘the soul of man, one flag above the rest/A spirutual woven signal for all nations…’ Silja Aalto’s voice, slightly more operatic than Rendell’s, carried beautifully over the choirs and orchestra.
The second movement, ‘On the Beach at Night, Alone,’ is overtly spiritual, with its evocation of ‘the clef of the universe’ and the ‘vast similitude [that] interlocks all.’ It called to mind another Victorian poem, Dover Beach, by the English poet Malcolm Arnold, set to music by the 20th-century American composer Samuel Barber.
The movement began with serene lower strings, punctuated by a falling brass theme, setting the scene beautifully. Yearning woodwind, shimmering strings, and evocative brass illustrated Rendell’s word-painting, his tone here reminiscent of the English baritone Thomas Allen. There was a huge sense of spiritual affirmation from the choirs as they sang ‘this vast similitude’. A stunning brass fanfare suggested that the optimistic outlook would continue, but we were suddenly plunged into darkness and doubt as Rendell returned with the opening words, ‘On the beach at night, alone’ before the orchestra finally brought a moment of peace.
The third movement, ‘Scherzo: The Waves’, is a vivid description of life at sea, without any spiritual or philosophical element. It’s set for choir and orchestra only. It’s difficult music for singers, and the words are sometimes set rather awkwardly, but the choirs on Thursday handled it with aplomb. They were superbly rhythmic in their overlapping phrases, creating a joyful evocation of the sea. A triumphant orchestral passage led to a huge, Elgarian melody with a lovely passage that passed through several keys. The movement ended with an exultant cry of ‘Following’ from the choirs.
The final movement, ‘The Explorers’, was much more contemplative at the start, with gentle men’s voices describing the beauty of the Earth (the ‘vast Rondure’) seen from space, as in Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize Winner Orbital, ‘swimming in space’, or Steven Wilson’s top-five album The Overview. A majestic orchestral section led to an early highlight in this long movement, the creation of humankind and the Garden of Eden, with lovely sotto voce singing. Processional music from the orchestra was reminiscent of the Pilgrims’ Chorus from Wagner’s Tannhäuser; the Hallé recently performed the Overture. There was a magical moment when a cappella upper voices sang, of ‘that sad incessant refrain, wherefore unsatisfied soul?’ The orchestral playing, describing ‘captains and engineers’ was magnificent. The emotional, religious and intellectual climax of the movement, the description of ‘the poet worthy of that name/The true son of God’, became a huge affirmation of faith, with the organ ringing out. There was a gorgeously serene duet from the two soloists, and another stunning climax from the choirs in ‘Greater than stars or suns.’ A jolly sea shanty launched the soul on its journey; the choirs sang ecstatically, and the sopranos were particularly fine here. The ending was thoughtful and lush by equal measures, as the yearning soul sailed into the sunset.
Sunday’s concert, repeated from last Thursday, was billed as ‘Mullova Plays Brahms.’ It’s been over 40 years since she first came to prominence when she won first prize in the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki (1980) and the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1982). Her 1986 debut album of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius violin concertos with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa was awarded the Grand Prix International du Disque. Her 1995 album Bach: Partitas For Violin Solo was nominated for a Grammy.
Mullova’s performance of the Brahms concerto was bookended by two orchestral pieces, performed by the Hallé Orchestra under their Principal Conductor, Kahchun Wong, beginning with Wagner’s Tannhäuser: Overture.
“Tannhäuser symbolises the clash between two fundamental principles that have chosen the human heart as their main battlefield – the struggle between flesh and spirit, between hell and heaven, between Satan and God. And this inner conflict is depicted, right from the overture, with unparalleled skill.”
Charles Baudelaire, Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris (1861)
Wagner’s opera combines the sacred and profane, with appearances by Venus, goddess of love, the spirit of the Virgin Mary and the Pope. But we began with a chorus of pilgrims, a stately woodwind and brass opening. Rich violas and lower strings introduced a romantic string melody. A brass climax led to a section with a falling, repeated violin theme, played more staccato than in many performances. There was a lovely pianissimo as the woodwind and brass theme returned. The orchestra stirred, as, in Wagner’s words, ‘a rosy mist swirls upwards [and] sensuously exultant sounds reach our ears.’ There was some lovely, characterful wind playing and a gorgeous clarinet solo from Sergio Castelló López. Wong beautifully shaped the music as it slowed, then accelerated to a rousing climax, with added percussion, pulsing strings and excitable brass. A falling brass theme, with circling strings, dropped away. The Pilgrims’ Chorus reappeared on woodwind, with swirling strings. Wong’s pacing of the music was lovely here. The music gained sudden energy and headed to a glowing climax with robust, majestic brass. The brass section received well-deserved applause at the end.
“Brahms casts his soloist not as the conventional virtuoso hero but as a thinker and a poet, who is busier than the orchestra but also more inspired.”
As Robert Avis writes in his insightful programme note, Brahms’Violin Concerto depicts the soloist as a ‘thinker and a poet.’ Mullova stood with her back to the audience, facing the orchestra, as if taking in what they had to offer in their introduction. She watched the violins closely, and they duly obliged her by playing superbly. She turned round, and her violin was part of the orchestra’s texture, playing looped arpeggios. The orchestra held back in deference with long chords.
Mullova played with beautiful control and intonation, even on the very highest notes. Her tone was sweet at the top and rich at the bottom. She played a mellower passage superbly, with lovely legato, then dug in more with double-stopping but still maintaining the legato line. The orchestra began to take a more active role, and she elegantly picked up their lilting waltz-like theme. The violin slowed almost to a halt, and there was a lovely contemplative moment with subtly discordant double-stopping. She took over again, her violin projecting over the orchestra as she executed an amazing run from top to bottom of the violin and back again. Even in the most complex parts, her violin tone remained mellow. There was a sorrowful section that Mulllova turned into a spellbinding cadenza, as the audience sat rapt.
At the start of the second movement, the orchestra regained control, as Mullova turned to watch them again. A gently nostalgic horn chorus led to a lovely solo by the oboist Stéphane Rancourt, who had a major role to play in the movement. Mullova turned round to pick up the melody and joined a chamber music section, joined by a small ensemble of horns, woodwind, and violin. She took over, with a wider vibrato and a lush, warm sound, creating a moment of serene beauty. The orchestra rose up to meet her as the violin played gorgeous, long, held notes. A melancholy, melodic section featured a duet with two horns. Mullova’s playing at the end of the movement was ardently, sumptuously romantic.
Brahms wrote the concerto for the Hungarian violinist, composer and conductor Joseph Joachim, and the final movement began with a fiercely rhythmic Hungarian dance. Mullova played joyfully, creating a continuous line with a sweet tone even when playing with the full orchestra. The orchestra shared her joy, playing superbly here. Mullova worked incredibly hard in this movement, reaching a mini-cadenza which the orchestra soon joined, her playing fiercer here. There was a lovely syncopated section with sparkling flutes. The music scampered to the end with a final flourish. An audience member near me uttered ‘Wow!’ Well, exactly!
“The general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.”
Béla Bartók, 1944
If the first half of the concert featured a virtuosic soloist, the second half featured a whole orchestra of soloists. Bartók wrote his Concerto for Orchestra in 1943. He had moved to America three years earlier and told his wife, ‘Under no circumstances will I ever write any new work.’ Then the conductor Serge Koussevitzky stepped in and commissioned a new score for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The composer died in September 1945, but not before he had heard the premiere of his concerto in December of the previous year.
The first movement began with mysterious lower strings and tremolo violins, a magical, almost spiritual sound, the strings playing with superb ensemble. A stunning climax led to an oboe theme with tenative harps, unusually placed in the middle of the orchestra to bring out the detail. The woodwind sparkled, and a brass fanfare splintered into fractured melodies. A robust melody kept trying to start in the lower strings, the violins ran with it, and dashed to a stunning brass fanfare.
Launched by a side-drum, the second movement featured a series of superbly characterful, witty duets, which Bartók marked as ‘couples’: bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes and trumpets. A brass chorale, warmly played, and a lovely horn quartet brought brief respite before the duets returned as trios. Wong brought out the detail superbly here, keeping the movement superbly rhythmic.
The highlight of the piece was the ‘lugubrious death-song’ of the third movement, showcasing Bartók at his best. It began with the night music of the first movement, the solo oboe singing like a lonely bird. This passage was reminiscent of the ‘lake of tears’ behind the sixth door in the composer’s Bluebeard’s Castle, written 20 years earlier. The orchestra played with incredible intensity, bringing out the amazing variety of colour. A keening piccolo solo, set against a desolate landscape, brought the movement to a melancholy end.
The fourth movement began with more birdsong and a folky dance as the woodwind shone again. The violas played a huge, Elgarian tune that the violins picked up, echoed by an anxious cor anglais. There was a nod to another great 20th-century composer, Shostakovich, in the sarcastic parody of his Leningrad symphony, superbly played here. But the movement ended with a moment of stasis, with a gently questing flute solo.
The finale began with a stunning horn fanfare and a restless string dance. Wong was more animated here, bringing out the strings that were spinning like a whirligig. A folky dance accelerated, with virtuosic brass, and the strings were almost out of control in ecstasy as they reached a huge climax. After an earlier failed attempt by the woodwind at a fugue, the strings began a fiercely executed fugue of their own. The orchestra played with precise syncopation, before a thrillingly triumphant final statement brought this superb performance to an end. Wong acknowledged all the soloists, which took a while, as there were so many of them. Then, with a cheery wave, he was gone.
Many contemporary artworks and installations describe themselves as ‘immersive’; the word is perhaps overused now. A concert in a former swimming pool (yes, actually in the pool) could have been immersive in another sense, but fortunately, the water had been removed first. For a choral concert to be truly immersive is very unusual, and it’s a tribute to Ellie Slorach, Kantos Chamber Choir’s Creative Director and Conductor, that the concert’s staging was so effective. The music ebbed and flowed, creating a continuous narrative and a musical argument, so that it was sometimes difficult to tell where one piece ended and the next began. The generous acoustics of the former swimming pool immersed us in sound, creating a lovely bloom around the voices, but it was still possible to hear individual voices perfectly. The huge golden sun, or ‘Helios’, created by the artist Luke Jerram, was suspended above us, immersing us in a sun-baked landscape.
Slorach greeted us with a cheery ‘good morning’; it was 5.00 am, and the sun was about to rise. Magically, a Dawn Chorus of singers surrounded us, singing from changing cubicles that were transformed into birdboxes. Above the backdrop of offstage chords, individual singers sang birdcalls. Being neither a twitcher nor an ornithologist, I was only able to identify a cuckoo, but composer David Matthews says ‘they’re not exact replicas, but artistic approximations.’
Meredith Monk’s Early Morning Melody was passed among the singers as they moved around the old baths, processing like monks singing plainsong. Slorach conducted from the middle of the audience as the singers surrounded us, singing Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque(Light and Gold). This piece described ‘Light, warm and heavy as pure gold’, like the sun above us. Whitacre’s falling chromatic harmonies sometimes felt like those of the Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo, born 460 years ago.
The men of the choir dashed to their positions at the front to create the Dawn and Dusk sounds in Ken Stevens’ piece, chanting like the All Blacks performing the Haka. There was clapping, finger-clicking, animal noises, amazing vocal swoops and joyfully syncopated polyrhythms. The Eternal Sun, as depicted by John Tavener, featured lovely key changes and dissonances, uneasily shifting yet ecstatic, while an offstage choir sang fiercely nostalgic chords.
Two composers described the Morning Star. Nathan James Dean took Milton’s words, ‘Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger/Comes dancing from the East’ to create a lively, dancing theme like some of John Rutter’s Christmas carols, with syncopated lower voices. At the end, voices fell over each other like birdsong. Arvo Pärt’s Morning Star was a highlight, with rich, warm vibrato from the basses.
George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun is The Beatles’ most popular song, with 1,788,000,858 plays (and counting) on Spotify at the time of writing. As the sun rose, the song was uplifting in Kirby Shaw’s close-harmony arrangement. Ben Nobuto’s Solwas a more frantic yet playful view of the sun than Harrison’s gentle, welcoming one. It featured repeated words, snatched syllables, excerpts from romantic songs, and a human menagerie, with manic chatter. This was virtuosic music, virtuosically sung.
The hall darkened, and Eric Whitacre’s gorgeous dissonances returned in Nox Aurumque (Night and Gold), which sings of night and death. This was another highlight, with robust, passionate singing; the sopranos shone on their high notes, and the tenors sang with a bright, ardent tone. Hendrik Hofmeyr’s Desert Sun was a dense, complex song of the Kalamari Bushmen, saluting the setting sun with falling, chromatic melodies at the start and cacophonous chanting later, all beautifully executed by the choir.
Night and sleep came quickly now. Emeli Sandé’s Where I Sleep, arranged by Alexander L’Estrange, felt like a spiritual, with superb tenor and alto solos. Nightfall was depicted by Meredith Monk, with a repeating bass line, as in Purcell’s An Evening Hymn, which begins,
‘Now that the sun hath veil’d his light, And bid the world goodnight; To the soft bed my body I dispose…’
Monk’s piece features wordless voices, but the sentiment is the same. After the complexity of some of the previous pieces, Monk’s simple, tonal world felt cathartic. The choir gradually left the stage, like musicians in Haydn’s FarewellSymphony. Slorach herself then left, leaving a single bass and a soprano decorating the bass line. They left, too, as the birds retreated into their bird boxes again. A stunning end to a concert that was not just a concert, but a life-affirming experience.
Kantos Chamber Choir: Soprano Emily Brown Gibson, Eleonore Cockerham, Felicity Hayward, Sarah Keirle-Dos Santos, Emily Varney Alto Louise Ashdown, Toluwani Idowu, Rachel Singer, Lucy Vallis Tenor Alistair Donaghue, Jonny Maxwell-Hyde, Louis de Satgé, James Savage-Hanford Bass James Connolly, Jonny Hill, Joshua McCullough, David Valsamidis Ellie Slorach Creative Director & Conductor Luke Jerram Artwork
Repertoire
David Matthews Dawn Chorus Meredith Monk Early Morning Melody Eric Whitacre Lux Aurumque Ken Steven Dawn and Dusk John Tavener The Eternal Sun Nathan James Dearden The Bright Morning-Star Arvo Pärt Morning Star George Harrison arr. Kirby Shaw Here Comes the Sun Ben Nobuto Sol Eric Whitacre Nox Aurumque Hendrik Hofmeyr Desert sun Emeli Sandé arr. Alexander L’Estrange Where I Sleep Meredith Monk Nightfall
Luke Jerram’s Helios installation is at Victoria Baths until the 6th April 2026
Jan Vogler travels the world as an internationally acclaimed cello soloist. He was in the UK in February to perform with various orchestras, including a superb performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Hallé in Manchester under the baton of Kahchun Wong. He has been Artistic Director of Dresdner Musikfestspiele (Dresden Music Festival) since 2009. The annual Festival was established by government decree in 1978 when Dresden was still part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).Nick Holmes Music spoke to Jan in New York via Zoom earlier this month.
The Dresden Music Festival
Nick Holmes Music: How did you become involved in the Dresden Music Festival?
Jan Vogler: I developed an interest in festivals in the 1990s. I was very lucky to be a guest artist at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, directed by Rudolf Serkin, when I was a young man. And Serkin was very interested in Eastern European players. He really helped me to get out of East Germany, which was very difficult, to come to Marlboro. And when I came to Marlboro, I saw the combination of excellent musicians, good programming, and a summer atmosphere, and I understood what a festival was right away.
After four summers in Marlboro, I founded the Moritzburg Festival in 1993, together with my brother Kai and a friend who’s also a cellist, Peter Bruns. We learned about financing, ticketing, organisational skills, stage crews, and all the details one needs to know. And by about 2001, I had taken over the running of the festival.
“I like organising…”
I had installed an office in Dresden, had a couple of non-profits supporting the festival, and learned how to direct a festival. Even if you’re called ‘artistic director’, it means you are the one everybody will call when they don’t know what to do. I was fine with that. I like organising. I was always interested in the process: how does music get from the musician to the audience? Because it’s a process that in the 19th century involved musicians much more than today – think about Clara Schumann writing out her own tickets for concerts and inviting guests by handwritten letter.
At the end of the 20th century, we became a kind of protected species, soloists who travel around the world, everybody arranges everything for you, and you’re supposed to just think about your concert. I never really liked that. I wanted to get my hands dirty, wanted to understand how it works, and see if I could help bring the music to the audience in a more innovative way. And that was all expressed in the Moritzburg Festival.
Then in 2007, the mayor of Dresden invited me for lunch, and he said, “Would you be interested in taking over the Dresden Festival?” The festival was not doing too well, and my first thought was, should I really do this? Should I really cut out more time from my playing career to dedicate to the festival? But a lot of people around me, including family and friends, were excited that this would be a great thing for me to apply some of my ideas.
I took the job and started in 2009, and we rebuilt the festival in a more modern way with more entrepreneurial involvement. I wanted to make sure that I applied everything I’d learned in America with the Marlboro Festival, that you can do a festival even if there’s no defined space from the government funding for it before. So I applied some of those experiences to my work with the Dresden Music Festival, and now we have a festival that is up to 80% financed by ticket income and sponsorship, which is very high for Germany and very unusual. So this way we could enlarge our budget, have more wonderful musicians come, and have a more glorious festival.
Artistic Changes
Nick Holmes Music: What’s changed artistically under your control?
Jan Vogler: A lot. My vision was always to both observe changes in classical music that are coming anyway, and at the same time bringing my own ideas to the table. I think every director who ignores the trends in classical music will sooner or later have a problem because the audience is our main supporter. But at the same time, adjusting to what the audience is asking you to do is not always right, because they also want to be led a little bit, and they want the music to be curated as well. So I think finding a good combination of those took about five years.
I started with very high-quality music; I invited all my friends. At this point, my career was going pretty well, so I could invite lots of partners, like Hélène Grimaud, with whom I played duos. Or the New York Philharmonic. I had just played my debut in 2005 and toured with them. So I could ask Zarin Mehta [president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic]. It was a bit scary. He was a very, very strong leader. I wrote an e-mail: “Would you consider coming with the New York Philharmonic to Dresden?” He was like, “Sure, we could come. It will cost a lot of money, but we can raise it together.” And that brought the festival back on the map and also helped with sponsorships and ticket sales.
Other Genres Apart from Classical Music
But then I thought, what about other genres, such as crossover created for example by the Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin album [Hush, 1992]. Crossover was already well-established, but it was blooming, and people were listening to playlists across different genres. So I really focused on having all these genres present and started with world music from people like Anushka Shankar. I went to jazz, and even did some rock because I liked British rock music from my childhood on. I’m a big fan of Queen and Eric Clapton.
Eric Clapton came to a concert in London. He didn’t come backstage, but I heard he was there. And then he came backstage at another concert in Edinburgh, and I recognised him, and I was like… starstruck. But then we talked about how strings feel under the fingers, and he asked me how cello strings differ from guitar strings, and he was very interested. I texted him: “Would you consider coming to Dresden to play a concert?” He said, “Yes, if you play along with me.” So we made a deal.
“Classical listeners still whistle pop songs in the shower”
Then I was in London for a Wigmore Hall concert. I had studied all his songs and had studied a little bit of rock and blues. I was super nervous, but everything went well in the rehearsal, and then we played together in the concert. And I really internalised that the same audience that would buy tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra or the LSO would buy tickets to the Eric Clapton show. It was not a different audience. It was, of course, some new people, but I realised that classical listeners still whistle pop songs in the shower. It was a great honour that Sting came, another hero of mine.
Nick Holmes Music:Was it important to you that Sting is a fellow bass player, playing at the low end of the music?
Jan Vogler: Exactly. I always thought of Sting as his own musical life insurance, the bass line. There was this fantastic bass guitarist in Eric Clapton’s band, and he was my life insurance. I looked at him all the time. If he played a certain note, I knew I was in the right key. But wonderful musicians.
I’m still curious how we can be inventive and progressive with our festival, and I think it helps me that I live in New York, because the two cities are very different. Dresden is a cultural icon and incredibly dense culturally. New York is more artificial because it’s not grown as naturally here, but it’s incredibly lively and incredibly high quality, just like the big British cities like London or Manchester. So it helps me to have this perspective because lots of things will fall through if I look through my New York glasses at the programmes.
“Some human values come into play, which, for me, is important to convey through music; values that are in danger of being lost in every generation“
I want to bring the idea of a globalised cultural world that is still extremely specific in specific places, like, for example, the sound of the Hallé Orchestra compared to the LPO [London Philharmonic Orchestra]. This is wonderful, these differences, but we still have to see it in context, especially when you do a festival. What is so different about the orchestra and the sound, and which repertoire suits them? How can I host a special cultural event in Dresden that represents a certain culture with all its refinements, while still giving you an idea of how big and beautiful our whole world is? So it’s an idea of tolerance, too, and some human values come into play, which, for me, is important to convey through music; values that are in danger of being lost in every generation.
Elgar and the LPO at the Festival
Edward Elgar. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Nick Holmes Music: And talking of the LPO, they’ve got a residency at the festival, haven’t they?
Jan Vogler: That’s very exciting. At first, I think my team was a bit shocked when the idea of an all-Elgar residency came about. The LPO said Edward Gardner [Principal Conductor] would like to do two complete days of Elgar. And I was like, “That is a great idea.” And everybody was shocked. They were very silent. My two artistic administrators looked at me like, “What did he smoke?” I said, “Look, who has ever done this in Germany? When did you last hear an Elgar symphony?” And the LPO are masters of this music. They really know this music better than most performers in the whole world. So why don’t we do it?” And it’s selling very well. So I’m very happy.
Edward Gardner. Photo by Mark Allan
Nick Holmes Music: I come from the land that was famously “without music” for a long time. And then Elgar came along, and we thought, thank goodness we’ve got a good composer, finally. How is Elgar viewed in continental Europe and in New York as well? Because obviously, I view him very much through English eyes.
Jan Vogler: That’s an interesting question. I do feel that Elgar is a little bit like a bathroom where the bathtub overflows. I think the BBC Music Magazine named Elgar’s Cello Concerto the most popular cello concerto. I read that while I was in Great Britain playing Elgar last week, because I did play two Elgars, one with the Hallé in Middlesbrough, and one with the LPO in Eastbourne. It was enlightening to play Elgar with British orchestras because it seems so natural. Mostly, they are more modest than an American or German orchestra playing the Elgar, but sometimes it’s very pompous, but naturally pompous. It’s a little bit like British humour, extremely unique somehow, the way Elgar is played.
I feel in some parts of the world, there’s so much excitement about Elgar. I would say the whole of Great Britain, and then big cities outside of the UK. So if the Elgar Cello Concerto is played in Berlin, Paris or New York, it’s very enthusiastically received. I’m going to play it in Taiwan in a couple of weeks. where I think Elgar is played less. So they asked specifically, “Would you be willing to play the Elgar? We haven’t had that for a while.” And I hear that quite often in some regions. But it’s so popular in so many places that I think it’s spreading very fast. That’s why I said it’s like a bathtub overflowing, because if there is enthusiasm in the world for something, somewhere, it always spreads, because we have such fast communications. We have such wonderful ways to communicate these days that this enthusiasm will be communicated, and therefore, I expect Elgar to still grow.
“That was a mistake I made for 25 years. I always played the [Cello Concerto] so seriously and with so much darkness..”
Now in Germany, The Dream of Gerontius is being played here and there, and there are more pieces being picked up by these orchestras. It used to be entirely the Cello Concerto or Enigma Variations, but now it’s really the full Elgar repertoire that is played by the great orchestras around the world. When I play the piece, I feel that the main thing Jacqueline du Pré invented about Elgar, in a way, that made his Cello Concerto so popular, was that she understood it was a dark piece that was about empire falling and about things crumbling at the time when it was written. But she understood that the enthusiasm in it is probably just as strong.
That was a mistake I made for 25 years. I always played it so seriously and with so much darkness and everything. And the audience went, “Thank you” [he claps politely]. And then I thought, hmm, what is missing? Lately I discovered, it’s this enthusiasm that runs throughout the piece – Elgar always gets up again and he tries again, with this kind of counter-stream of positive energy. I feel that British orchestras know that there has to be positivity, even in darkness.
Nick Holmes Music: But in some ways it’s quite playful, isn’t it?
Jan Vogler: It is quite playful. And we cannot just see this very serious side. Outside of the UK, many, many countries see this as very serious music, and very, very late Romantic. But there is a lot of positive energy that counters that, and then you see the sun, and then you see the clouds closing, and then you see some melancholy, and then it all makes sense. But without this enthusiasm, of which Jacqueline du Pré was the perfect example, the music is not as effective.
Wagner on Period Instruments
Nick Holmes Music: Talking of late 19th-century music takes us to your Wagner project – Götterdämmerung – which is coming up for rehearsal very soon?Tell me about using period instruments in Wagner?
Jan Vogler: Yes, that’s another project that’s a little bit crazy. The outcome was definitely completely unclear when we took it on. But I personally believe very much in period instruments, because my father in East Germany had the early [Nikolaus] Harnoncourt recordings of the Monteverdi operas. So I grew up with these very early Harnoncourt recordings, which were extremely fascinating.
My father was a cellist. Later, he also became a fan of the [Dutch] cellist Anner Bylsma. I found Anner Bylsma’s Bach interpretations, so when I was in school in East Berlin, I was the only one playing these fast tempos in the Bach Cello Suites. And all the teachers were like, “What the hell is he doing?” Because they were still taught by the Russians with these very slow and very heavy tempos.
I studied with Heinrich Schiff, who was close to Harnoncourt and very interested in performance practice. I had a strong interest in bringing the best period instrument groups from all over the world to Dresden, and we did. We founded our own Festival Orchestra playing on gut strings about 12 – 13 years ago, and we thought, what if we get the best players on period instruments to Dresden, and play pieces created in Dresden in the Romantic era, with a different sound from the other orchestras.
That worked well, but it didn’t really make a big wave, because we would have only one or two concerts a year. It would be expensive to get all the musicians, all freelancers, to Dresden: lots of people from the UK, from [John Eliot] Gardiner’s band, and lots of great players from London. That was the first step.
Then Kent Nagano came to me – we are friends, we have played a lot together – and said, “I have this idea about doing The Ring on period instruments.” I started a little bit with Concerto Köln, but there was no chance because we didn’t have the organisational structure, the funding, or enough players. And I said, “Well, I have the [Dresdner] Festspielorchester, and it’s a fabulous group, and you can bring some of your musicians from Concerto Köln, and then maybe we can combine them, and we can attempt to do the whole Ring. I can try, on the fundraising side, to work with the Federal Government in Berlin and integrate the project into the Festival.”
Finding Period Instruments
Nick Holmes Music: In this context, though, I’m really interested to know what you mean by period instruments? You mentioned gut strings, but the symphony orchestra was pretty much established by the end of the 19th century, wasn’t it? So what are you doing that’s different from a modern symphony orchestra?
Jan Vogler: We found some original Wagner Tubas, which were very different from the ones used today. And wind instruments changed a lot during Wagner’s time; they sound a lot thinner and clearer than the wind instruments used later. The wind players who travel around Europe and play period instruments have four different flutes. They have one for 18th-century repertoire, one for early 19th-century repertoire, one for mid-19th-century repertoire, and one for Wagner. They were very excited.
Some of them collect instruments like crazy. We have a trumpet player who collects anything from percussion instruments to trumpets from this time. And he buys them at auctions for very little money. Some of them are original instruments, but they are no longer playable. There are experts in Germany who rebuild these brass instruments for these period players.
“All these little details make a huge difference when added together.”
The discussion about instruments was very detailed, and we had musicologists. That was Kent’s idea. Kent is a very interesting guy. He’s very academically interested, and his idea was to let the musicologists lead. So we have a little army of musicologists who go into the score and sit in on rehearsals. We have one musicologist, Ursula Hirschfeld, just for language, just for the way the German words were pronounced in Wagner’s time. So she would correct the singers all the time.
And all these little details make a huge difference when added together. I would say not every detail is conceivable when you hear just that one detail. But in the end, it’s stunning that, for example, in Die Walküre, when the fire starts around the mountain where Brünnhilde is captured, I suddenly saw the fire: the sound was fascinating. I saw the fire in front of me.
One of Josef Hoffman’s 14 set designs for Wagner’s Rheingold in 1876. Source: Viktor Angerer, via Wikimedia Commons
At the beginning of Rheingold, there’s a lot about running water, and everybody always says, ” Why does [Wagner] stay in the same key for so long at the beginning, and can you please speed up the tempo?” And many conductors tried to do it just faster. Suddenly, it was incredible, with the three Rheintöchter [Rhine Maidens], you could understand every word.
“[Wagner] said, the theatrical effect is most important. If you can sing it, speak it.”
So certain effects are almost like Debussy was later, very descriptive of nature and other subjects. The transparency of the sound allows the singers to have much more differentiation in dynamics. I’m quoting the musicologist because I haven’t read enough; apparently, Wagner liked pronouncing the words very much, sometimes even as spoken words. He said, the theatrical effect is most important. If you can sing it, speak it
And so musicologists pulled up some recordings from singers who worked with Wagner, for example, songs like Erlkönig. And it’s incredible. They change intonation. When it gets depressed, they go lower. They change the tempo all the time. That’s something Wagner encouraged, he said, “change the tempo as often as you want. If it’s dramatic, go faster. If it’s Romantic, take your time.” We learned almost the opposite: to be strict with the tempo and metronome, stay in this tempo, and be very static.
So all these little revelations would add up. For example, Matthias Naske, the director of the Konzerthaus [in Vienna], came to one of our performances in Amsterdam of Die Walküre, and he said it was maybe the most single, most impactful opera performance of his life. I don’t see it this way because I hear it too often. Kent Nagano is a very modest person. He always says, “Well, Jan, it’s different, right?” So it’s definitely different, I would say!
A Different Type of Singer
Nick Holmes Music: You were talking about singers. Does that mean that you can go for a different type of singer? I mean, we’re all familiar with Wagnerian sopranos and tenors, and the huge voices they have to have to rise above a massive orchestra?
Jan Vogler: Exactly, with our Siegfried, it was very much like that. But then, of course, our singers get picked up by the Wagner people because they hear that they’re singing with us. So sometimes it’s hard. We discover a lot of talent this way. We have a wonderful young Norwegian Brünnhilde, Åsa Jäger, who is a huge talent. Now we can hardly book her for our complete Ring because she’s making a big career. People observe her, and they hear her, and say, “Oh, we want to have her – we are fine having some influences from [period] performance practices!” So we lose some of them: Derek Welton has become quite famous. He’s a wonderful Wotan, and of course, now the Deutsche Oper [Berlin] or Bayreuth even ask, “Can we have them as Wotan?” I understand.
Playing the Cello
Jan Vogler with members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé
Nick Holmes Music: How did you find the cello? Were you following in your father’s footsteps, or was there something personal to you about the cello that attracted you?
Jan Vogler: It was put in my hands because my brother had the violin. And so, as the middle child, I got the cello, my sister got the piano. I felt a connection right away, a physical connection to the cello. And I really became very competitive to make it sound better. It was pretty clear when I was something like 10 years old that I wanted to be a cellist. And my luck was that I had two musician parents who were very strict and said, “We know you like to play soccer and meet your friends, but if you want to be a serious cellist and not end up in a very, very depressed situation, you have to practice hard.”
So they took my ambition and kind of weaponised it against me in a very good way. And they knew that teenagers can take a lot of work and a lot of pressure . I was very, very lucky when I was studying to feel that, somehow, with the cello, I’d found something special.
Nick Holmes Music: My wife came with me to watch you doing the Shostakovich at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. She said it felt as if the cello was an extension of your own body. Does it feel like that to you?
Jan Vogler: My ideal is to try to forget that it’s a piece of wood with four strings. I’d like to feel that I can make it come alive. And it helps if you have a good instrument. I am very, very fortunate to have a very, very fine instrument. Of course, it helps. And then the cello shows you the way. I don’t think I will ever reach 100%, but I’m trying to make it sound alive so you forget it’s coming from four strings. And that’s the ideal.
Nick Holmes Music: And again, looking back on that concert, I was struck by your playing style. Many players who perform the famous concertos seem to be battling with their instrument. Are you as calm as you look on stage?
Jan Vogler: No, no, no, I’m not! I’m constantly trying to improve things. But what I do feel is that the orchestra is a mass of energy, lots of individuals who unite to give energy. And the soloist has to be a dialogue partner with the orchestra. So I have to be extremely strong, because the orchestra is the energy of 60 people or something like that, with very, very strong players, and I’m alone.
“If something goes wrong, I let it go and do not worry about it”
So I team up with my cello, try to be at one with it, and then talk to the orchestra. So that’s my idea. I’m not at ease, of course. I always have my own struggles like everyone else, but I do feel that if I can somehow create a connection with the cello at home, that is not a discussion at the concert.
Even if something goes wrong, I let it go and do not worry about it, and still keep talking to the orchestra, because the orchestra is my main partner, and the audience is kind of an observer, but once in a while, you can also turn to the audience and preach a little bit. The German way of making music is a little bit like a pastor in church. Sometimes it can be too much, but when we play Bach’s Cello Suites, we tell stories to the audience.
So I feel that in the concerto, you have these few moments when you turn to the audience, but you also have a lot of moments when you try to converse with the orchestra and the conductor. And I felt with The Hallé, it was wonderful, because they were very lively, excellent musicians. And I also had a good connection with Kahchun [Wong]. And he told me afterwards he liked somehow the way I played the Shostakovich, and he said, “Does it have to do with your childhood in East Berlin?” I said, “Who knows, but possibly, you know.” I try not to copy my colleagues, even if I like a colleague very much. I try to find my own way to play.
The Reopening of the Frauenkirche in Dresden
Dresdner Musikfestspiele and Jordi Savall in the Frauenkirche, Dresden. Photo: Oliver Killig
Nick Holmes Music: Yes, and talking about East Berlin, I think one of the highlights of your career to date has been performing at the reopening of the Frauenkirche in Dresden in 2005, after it had been destroyed in WWII. And as an East Berliner, as an East German, how did that feel?
Jan Vogler: I was in the green room preparing a few minutes before, and I couldn’t feel anything. I was like, “Just remember the piece. Is everything okay?” I was very prepared, I must say, and I had created a good connection with Lorin Maazel during the rehearsals, thank God, because he was supposed to be a difficult man. He was very kind to me, almost fatherly. I had worked with the New York Philharmonic before. I recorded Dvořák’s Cello Concerto a year before with the New York Philharmonic and David Robertson. So I knew the orchestra a little bit, and Maazel had accepted me. That was a big compliment already.
So there I was in my green room, I thought, okay, this is one of those concerts. You just focus on this. My father was there. My father didn’t want to come initially. He didn’t come to many of my concerts. He was too scared. I had exceeded his expectations, I think. For him to sit in the audience, and I’d be on the stage, and anything could happen, I think it scared him very much.
But he did come to Dresden, and my mum was there. And then I came on stage and I focused and when the whole thing was done, I felt like, okay, I had I played my Schumann and the Colin Matthews, the way I could play it. And my father came, and he said, “Well done.” That was the biggest compliment he would ever give by far. But that he accepted my playing that night was already a lot.
“It was one of those moments when you can’t fold, you have to hold on”
And then I thought, the orchestra accepted [my playing], the conductor, my partners, the audience had lots of tears because the event itself, you know? But it was one of those moments when you can’t fold, you have to hold on, because your career will always have these moments, and often you play a piece that’s dear to you. If you’re lucky, you can play the Schumann or Shostakovich. Those are some of my favourite pieces. You can play something you can tell a story about, then people will trust you, maybe with more work.
It was almost like my audition in Dresden when I became principal cellist [at the Staatskapelle, at the age of 20]. Dresden. It was similar. I worked very hard. To my surprise, I got the job, and then I knew, okay, this is just the first step. Now you have to focus and learn all this music.
The Rebuilding of Dresden
The ruins of the Frauenkirche in Dresden in the early 1990s. Credit: Alison Howe
Nick Holmes Music: How do you feel about the rebuilding of Dresden? Is that something that moves you?
Jan Vogler: Yes, it does. I guess every generation feels that, but do we keep all the memories of history, have we learned the right lessons from history? I still remember my grandmother telling me how she took my father and his brother to the basement when there were fire alarms in Leipzig, and how she wrapped them in wet towels so they wouldn’t catch fire, if there was a fire. I grew up with the Cold War, and there was a constant fear that the whole situation would explode. And then 1989 came, and we were all like, “Oh my God, we have new hippies or something!”
The rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden, showing how existing stonework was incorporated in the new church
And then the Frauenkirche was rebuilt, and it became a symbol of the healing of the wounds of war and the whole of Dresden is a testimony to this incredible story of how humans can overcome great tragedies. So it does move me very much, and I get shivers when I talk about it, because I feel, aren’t those the great stories of humanity that we can overcome something? Those things, I think, are wonderful.
“We are all humans, and don’t we all want peace, harmony, and fun?“
If humans could sometimes forget the past and move on, and say, “let’s just do something positive,” remember the past as a learning experience, and go into the future with a fresh, open heart.And that’s what we all felt in the Frauenkirche, because we felt like we were enemies in the war, but aren’t we all humans, and don’t we all want peace, harmony, and fun? It was really, really very basic in a way.
And I just played last week, excuse me for the digression, but it was really wonderful. I just played the Schumann Concerto in Seattle with Xian Zhang, who was Assistant Conductor to Maazel during the concert. She said, “Oh, you don’t have to play the Schumann for me because I remember it. I was sitting in every single rehearsal.” She also remembered that trip as one of the highlights of her life.
Nick Holmes Music: Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure speaking to you today.
Jan Vogler: Same here, same here!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
The Dresden Music Festival, ‘Lightness of Being’, runs from 14 May to 14 June 2026. For more information, click here
A viscerally powerful production of Britten’s masterpiece
John Findon as Peter Grimes and Philippa Boyle as Ellen Orford. Credit James Glossop
In his programme note for Opera North’s performance of Peter Grimesat Lowry in Salford on Friday, Andrew Mellor compares the central character in the opera with the Peter Grimes of George Crabbe’s poem The Borough (1810) that provided Benjamin Britten’s inspiration,
[Grimes] appears in just one poem out of Crabbe’s 24. He does so as a scoundrel: a villain unequivocally guilty of murder. As they sketched out their scenario, [Peter] Pears (destined for the title role) and Britten reimagined the character.
Britten, his partner Peter Pears and the librettist Montagu Slater turned Grimes into a morally ambiguous anti-hero, a dreamer and a visionary with a darker, more violent side – like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In doing so, they raised profound questions about the nature of society and its relationship with outsiders. Phyllida Lloyd’s stunning production takes Britten’s subtle characterisation and adds a further layer of complexity, providing empathy without denying the violent volatility of Grimes’ character: a tragic hero for our troubled times.
John Findon (Grimes) and Toby Dray (John, Grimes’ Apprentice) in Grimes’ hut. Credit James Glossop
In Lloyd’s production, the opera opens in silence with the half-naked figure of Grimes dead on the stage; in the libretto, we learn that Grimes’ boat is ‘sinking at sea’, but we don’t see his body. In the scene in the pub, where Grimes sings his aria ‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades’, the townspeople gradually rise from the floor and seem briefly to share his vision of the stars beyond our world, before dismissing him as ‘mad. or drunk.’
Later, we see the second Apprentice walking above the stage, before his death, in a ghostly vision, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father on the battlements at Elsinore. Grimes reacts in horror at this premonition of the boy’s death. In a dumb show, we see Grimes and Ellen Orford married (‘I’ll marry Ellen’) and celebrating with the townspeople, illustrating his vision of marital bliss, ‘in dreams I’ve built myself some kindlier home.’ His vision is brutally shattered.
Like many contemporary directors, Lloyd uses the orchestral interludes (four of which Britten later arranged as the orchestral suite Four Sea Interludes) to add further layers to the story. (Britten wrote them to cover scene changes while the curtain was down.) Lloyd uses the fifth interlude at the start of Act III as a threnody for Grimes’ second Apprentice, as Grimes carries the dead boy and holds him aloft in agony. The contrast with the dance music’s frivolity as the townspeople come onstage is heartbreaking.
Friday evening’s performance was a revival by director Karolina Sofulak of Lloyd’s production. The tenor John Findon played the central character in an intensely moving and powerful portrayal. We shared his dreams and recoiled at his violence. He projected his voice superbly, and coped with the high tessitura of the part wth ease. His lower register had a lovely, rich baritonal quality. He was a brooding physical presence, in Britten’s words, a ‘visionary and highly skilled fisherman, [who] is very unpopular with the community, just because he is different.’
Philippa Boyle was a hugely sympathetic Ellen Orford, with a gorgeous, lightly florid soprano voice. The domestic calm of her scene with the Apprentice while the villagers were at church was heartwarming. Her true concern when she discovered that Grimes had bruised the boy was a demonstration of her practical morality, in contrast to the townspeople’s false piety as they sang hymns and intoned prayers in church. Like Grimes, she was an outsider. She was incredibly moving in the scene in which the townspeople confronted her, and she described the shared dream she briefly shared with Grimes of their life together, ‘We planned this time to share…’ Much later, when she found the pullover she had embroidered for the Apprentice, which signified that he was dead, she sang of her ‘dreams of a silk and satin life’ of luxury, contrasting brutally with the reality of the life that Grimes had forced on her.
The Chorus of Opera North. Credit James Glossop
In 1945, Britten wrote of ‘the perpetual struggle of men and women whose livelihoods are dependent on the sea.’ In the early part of the opera, the townspeople’s struggle to make a living and their genuine fear of the oncoming storm were drawn sympathetically. But they soon displayed the terrifying hypocrisy and brutality of humans united in a group against an outsider. When they formed a lynch mob to flush out Grimes from his hut, one of them carried a cross, giving false religious legitimacy to their mission. There was a terrifying scene when they ripped the head off a life-size effigy of Grimes and waved it triumphantly aloft. They left the stage, revealing the real Grimes as a tragic figure, a sweet violin duet adding to the poignancy. The chorus singing was superb throughout; their spine-chilling cries of ‘Grimes’ will live long in the memory.
Claire Pascoe (Mrs Sedley), Nazan Fikret (First Niece), Ava Dodd (Second Niece), holding the effigy’s head, Blaise Malaba (Hobson), and the Chorus of Opera North. Credit James Glossop
The staging was highly imaginative; there were no fixed sets, which allowed the orchestral interludes to be used for dramatic purposes as mentioned above. A huge net represented, at different times, an actual fishing net, the walls of the pub and a physical barrier between the townspeople and Ellen Orford. At the end, the nets swayed gently in silence as normal life returned to the town, a moment of catharsis after the drama and tragedy we had experienced. Simple wooden platforms were used as furniture in Swallow’s court, as a wooden barrier, and as the walls of a dance hall. Grimes’ hut sprang up before our eyes, with a vertiginous drop.
The supporting cast was very strong. Simon Bailey made a robust and sympathetic Captain Balstrode, with superb diction. Claire Pascoe was excellent as the scheming busybody Mrs Sedley. Blaise Malaba, as Hobson, had a lovely, rich voice, similar to Willard White’s. James Creswell was suitably pompous as the lawyer, Swallow. The two Nieces, Nazan Fikret and Ava Dodd, were flirty but steely when rejecting unwanted advances. Hilary Summers was a characterful, down-to-earth Auntie. There was a gorgeous moment when the Nieces, Auntie and Ellen Orford joined in a Mozartian quartet. As conductor Garry Walker wrote in his programme note, the characters are ‘suddenly furnished with great depth by the quality of the music.’ The Orchestra of Opera North was absolutely superb. They played with passion and precision, inexorably ratcheting up the tension in the most dramatic sections, bringing out all the power and relentless rhythmic energy of Britten’s remarkable score.
Performers
John Findon Peter Grimes, a fisherman Philippa Boyle Ellen Orford, schoolmistress, a widow Simon Bailey Captain Balstrode, retired merchant skipper Hilary Summers Auntie, landlady of The Boar Nazan Fikret First niece, Ava Dodd Second niece: main attractions of The Boar Stuart Jackson Bob Boles,a fisherman and Methodist James Creswell Swallow, a lawyer Claire Pascoe Mrs Sedley, a widow Daniel Norman Reverend Horace Adams, the rector Johannes Moore Ned Keene, apothecary and quack Blaise Malaba Hobson, a carrier Dean Robinson Dr Crabbe Toby Dray John, Peter Grimes’s Apprentice Chorus of Opera North Townspeople and Fishermen Children of the Borough Maneli Bahmanesh, Ethel Brand, Olivia Dunning, Isaac Falkingham Charlotte Gould, Charlotte Handforth, Finlay Lothian Holm, Joni McElhatton, Leon Sumi-Cathcar
Garry Walker conductor Phyllida Lloyd director Karolina Sofulak revival director Tim Claydon revival director/movement director Anthony Ward set and costume designer Paule Constable original lighting designer Ben Jacobs lighting designer
Sources
Garry Walker, To Hear and Sea: A Personal Reflection on Peter Grimes (Opera North Programme Notes) Gavin Plumley The Outsider (Opera North Programme Notes) Andrew Mellor Peter Grimes An Opera for the English (Opera North Programme Notes)
Peter Grimes will be performed at Newcastle Theatre Royal on Friday 20 March at 19.00
