A recording of the English composer Edward Elgarโs โNimrodโ from his Enigma Variations (1899) introduced Friday night’s concert. This felt appropriate in Manchesterโs Bridgewater Hall, which has often hosted orchestral concerts that have included Elgarโs masterpiece. Thereโs a quintessentially English melancholy about much of Elgarโs music, and the music of Neil Hannon, leader of the Divine Comedy (although he was born in Northern Ireland).
Thereโs also something of the English wit of playwright, singer and songwriter Noรซl Coward in Hannonโs songs. Coward would undoubtedly have appreciated the sartorial elegance of Hannonโs guitar roadie, โAlistairโ, who was impeccably dressed in a jacket and white turtle neck sweater rather than the traditional long black shorts and black top commonly sported by a guitar tech.
Hannon came on sporting a natty black fedora and a black suit, and his band were similarly attired but without the headwear. The hall was packed, and the adoring audience hung on Hannonโs every wry witticism. Hannonโs rich baritone was warm and inviting, and his manner was easy and relaxed. One suspects he may have done this before.
He was joined by an excellent band – two keyboard players, lead and bass guitar, violin, and drums. The band provided gorgeous, multi-layered backing vocals and was equally at home playing rock music, sophisticated lounge jazz, and French-style chansons (with accordion but Anglophone lyrics).
The nearly two-hour set included 24 songs, demonstrating the range and variety of Hannonโs songwriting. The set was beautifully structured, flowing from one song to the next to create an engaging musical journey.
The concert began with the thoughtful Achilles, which ends with a meditation on mortality about a man of 53, the same age as Hannon when he wrote the song, whose โmind was turning/To thoughts of mortality.โ An early highlight was another song about death, the extraordinarily poignant The Last Time I Saw the Old Man, about the final physical and mental deterioration of Hannonโs late father, Neil Hannon, Bishop of Clogher in County Tyrone. The song ends with the moving words,
As we left, the sun was setting on the land The last time I saw the old man
Hannon sang this beautiful, moving song with his back to us, and raised his hat at the end, as if in silent tribute to his father.
A lighter sequence of songs followed, the best of which was a lovely version of I Want You, with a gorgeous piano introduction, an evocative additional violin part, and jazzy drumming. Hannon brought out the melancholy minor key of the chorus of this song, which is from the new album Rainy Sunny Afternoon. Hannonโs storytelling, present in most of his songs, came to the fore in Norman and Norma, which tells the story of a couple who got married in Cromer in Norfolk in 1983. This also illustrated Hannonโs skilful and witty wordplay. Perhaps only Coward would have dared rhyme โChromaโ with โpneumonia.โ
There was more overt humour in the staging of Our Mutual Friend. Hannon came into the audience and, on the words about sitting on โour friend’s setteeโ, sat in a vacant seat. A woman returning from the bar wondered whether she should give him one of the drinks she had bought. As the characters in the song โsank down to the floorโ, Hannon sank down to the floor at the front of the Stalls, and lay there while the band entertained us with an instrumental break. Hannon acted out waking up the next day and stumbling out to the bathroom as he regained the stage to huge applause.
There were some punk stylings in Generation Sex and At the Indie Disco, Hannon swinging his hips and almost knocking his knees together like an early Elvis Costello. The lounge jazz theme returned in Neapolitan Girl, a dark tale of a post-war woman whose โinnocence can be restored/With a visit to the Professore.โ The story’s darkness was belied by the sophisticated music, including a deliciously off-beat rhythm with which the audience gamely (and accuratelyโฆ this was after a Divine Comedy audienceโฆ) clapped along. We stayed in lounge jazz mood with Hannonโs โfavourite part of the show.โ During an extended version of the new song Mar-a-Lago, with its elegant samba beat, Alistair brought on a drinks trolley. Hannon introduced each member of the band and prepared their favourite tipple for each of them. We stayed with the theme of cocktail parties with A Lady of a Certain Age, who โsipped Camparisโฆ. At Noรซl’s parties.โ Another rhyme of which Coward would have been proud.
Freedom Road (played for the first time on this tour), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and In Pursuit of Happiness provided a triptych of tristesse (with apologies to Neil and Noรซl). But Hannon has also written danceable songs, or to use the technical term, bangers. The audience leapt to its collective feet for five floor fillers, starting with Absent Friends and ending with the exuberant fan favourite National Express. As the song says, everyone sang โBa-ba-ba-da.โ
The encore began with a couple of songs Hannon said were โnot up-tempo but swayable.โ There was a gentle version of Songs of Love, with warm backing vocals and lovely harmonies. Hannon threatened to โleave for other placesโ, but the audience wouldnโt let him go yet. He obliged with Invisible Thread, which could have described the invisible but unbreakable link between Hannon and his adoring audience.
There will always be An invisible thread Between you and me
After this song ended quietly, the final encore was the anthemic Tonight We Fly. And with that, we flew home on the wings of song, this joyful concert still resonating in our ears.
Nearly 60 years since first playing in Manchester, Hammill is still a supreme communicator and a powerful performer
****
‘The hits just keep on coming’, quipped Peter Hammill early in his set at the RNCM in Manchester this evening. In 2013, when Guy Garvey interviewed Hammill for a documentary, The Art of Sequencing, which I produced for BBC Radio 4, he asked whether he would sequence his albums by starting with the hits. โWhat hits?!โ replied Hammill. Although not known for chart success, Hammillโs music, both as a solo artist and as leader of Van der Graaf Generator, has been part of the fabric of many lives and internal imaginative landscapes over several decades. The RNCM Concert Hall was packed with appreciative fans, who listened in spellbound silence, mesmerised by the power and conviction of Hammillโs performance.
Last time Hammill was in Manchester, in February 2022, he performed with Van der Graaf Generator, but this time he took the brave but ultimately justified decision to perform completely solo, alternating between piano and guitar. His instrumental playing was compelling, as was his guitar playing on an acoustic guitar. He had to keep retuning his guitar as he hit it so hard. The RNCMโs Steinway grand piano survived his pounding, even in the early highlight, The Lie (Bernini’s Saint Theresa) from The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (1974), which starts with the line, โGenuflection, erection in churchโ, still startling over 50 years later. Twenty years ago, he was described as โthe Hendrix of the voiceโ, and his instrument has inevitably changed as he reaches the latter half of his seventies, but it remains remarkably powerful, and his artistry and ability to communicate remain gloriously intact.
Hammill was always wise beyond his years, a deep and poetic thinker, but now some of his lyrics have gained added resonance as time passes. In Autumnfrom Over (1977), he wrote,
So here we are, alone – Our children have grown up and moved away. Living their own lives, they say… It all seems very strange to me.
He was a young man when he wrote these prescient words, with which many in the audience would no doubt have deeply empathised. And the grim ending to Still Life from the 1976 Van der Graaf album of the same name, when Hammill embraces death, perhaps means more to Hammill and his fans now. Despite these sentiments, this was a life-affirming experience. Hammill seemed genuinely surprised to reflect that he played his encore, Afterwards, from Van der Graafโs debut album The Aerosol Grey Machine in Manchester 57 years ago in 1968, when the Hendrix of the voice supported the Hendrix on guitar. Two well-deserved standing ovations confirmed that the audience shared Hammillโs evident pleasure in performing for us.
Mahler and the Folksong – songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and traditional folksongs arr. Gemma Bassย The Quire, Southwell Minsterย
This took place in the beautiful and intimate surroundings of the Quire in Southwell Minster. The audience sat in the choir stalls while the musicians performed on the steps to the Chancel. Marcus Farnsworth, Founder and Artistic Director of Southwell Music Festival, and baritone for this recital, introduced us to the eleventh festival, following last yearโs triumphant tenth anniversary celebrations. He said he had enjoyed last yearโs Bank Holiday Monday concert in the Minsterโs Chapter House, with musicians including the mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown and the composer and violinist Gemma Bass, so they decided to do something similar this year.
The Quire of Southwell Minster, with the statue of Bishop George Ridding (far right)
Gustav Mahler returned to texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boyโs Magic Horn), an early nineteenth-century collection of German folk poems and songs, on several occasions, including movements of his second, third and fourth symphonies, various song collections, and the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellenโฏ(Songs of a Wayfarer). In her programme note, Gemma Bass described Mahlerโs songs as follows:
โThereโs a focus on humanness and nature, both in his subjects and his approach, but thereโs also an incredible depth and something bigger being tapped into here โ his own genius, perhaps, or his faith โ and of course a remarkable command of musical language.โ
Libby Burgess and Marcus Farnsworth. ยฉ Tom Platinum Morley
Farnsworth sang the five Mahler songs in the concert with accompanist Libby Burgess. Both musicians skilfully drew out the subtleties of Mahlerโs musical language. They began with Wo die schรถnen Trompeten blasen(Where the splendid trumpets sound). Farnsworth brought out the tenderness and poignancy of this early morning meeting between a soldier and his lover before he went to war. He was more robust in Revelge (Reveille), with a rich tone and boisterous demeanour, Burgess superbly illustrating the drums played by the jolly soldier as he sang โTralalee, tralalay, tralala.โ But the song had an underlying poignancy, described in the chilling final verse, โThere in the morning lie their bones/In rank and file like tombstones.โ The Schubert-like folk song Rheinlegendchen (Little Rhine Legend) about unrequited love had a lovely flowing piano part, and there was a glimpse of hope at the end. Farnsworthโs superb word-painting was again evident in Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht? (Who made up this little song?) as he brought out the songโs gentle humour.But the highlight of his contribution was Urlicht(Primordial Light), the fourth movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony. The poem describes returning to God with the hope of resurrection, and as Farnsworth sang it, I noticed a statue of a praying figure with his back to us as if turning to God, George Ridding, first Bishop of Southwell (1884 โ 1904). Farnsworth sang from the depths of inward, contemplative stillness. Burgessโs touch on the piano was sublime. The song’s ending was ecstatic, as the protagonist passed into eternal life.
Judy Louie Brown, Gemma Bass, Lena Eckels and Nathaniel Boyd ยฉ Tom Platinum Morley
Gemma Bass said in her programme note that her English folk song arrangements were inspired by the contrast between Mahlerโs โsimplicity and complexity.โ She told the audience that she wanted to bring out Mahlerian contrasts between the personal and the universal, nature and humanity, love and war. Even the building where the concert took place was a mixture of the manmade and the nature carvings of the Minster (such as those celebrated in The Leaves of Southwell project). Bass took songs famously set by Benjamin Britten, Polly Oliver, O Waly Waly and Come you not from Newcastle? plus the traditional Northumbrian song, The Oak and the Ash, and radically transformed them. Mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown sang the songs with a warm, generous tone and a gentle, folky inflexion. The string players โ Bass herself on violin, Lena Eckels on viola and Nathaniel Boyd on cello โ often seemed to provide an ironic commentary on the jolly-sounding folk tunes, in the kind of contrast Mahler would have enjoyed. So Sweet Polly Oliverโs traditional tune was accompanied by violin and viola that sounded like bagpipes and a bell-like drone, perhaps to cast doubt on the female protagonistโs decision to please her lover better, having bravely followed him to war dressed in her dead brotherโs clothes. In the bold arrangement of O Waly Waly, the strings darkly enhanced the narrative of unrequited love. Bass also wrote two Mahler-inspired instrumentals. Rosy Dawn, which took its title from the words โDie Morgenrรถtโ from Wo die schรถnen Trompeten blasen, featured a folky violin tune, soon joined by the viola, over a cello drone. There was a feeling of gently pensive stasis, which shifted like a flowing river, constantly changing but always the same. Three Geese took its title from the โdrei Gรคnsโ of Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht? It began in the same contemplative mode as Rosy Dawn but gradually became more folky, jazzy and joyful. It ended with a humorous little squiggle, which made the audience smile. A lovely end to a delightful concert.
Performers Judy Louie Brown mezzo-soprano Marcus Farnsworth baritone Libby Burgess piano Gemma Bass violin Lena Eckels viola Nathaniel Boyd cello
Festival Cabaretย Southwell Libraryย
Festival Voices ยฉ Tom Platinum Morley
Amongst the displays about the local history of Southwell, this was the first time a Festival main event took place in Southwell Library on the high street, just a short walk from the Minster. The Festival Voices performed a well-chosen mix of songs from musicals, 60s and 70s pop and rock, and music from Gershwin, Flanders and Swann, the Ink Spots, Hoagy Carmichael and Victoria Wood. All were guaranteed to raise smiles of recognition and tapping of toes in the capacity audience.
The concert began with a showcase for the superb a cappella close harmony singing of Festival Voices, including two lovely Beatles covers. Here, There and Everywhere followed the template of the original harmonies, but with added decorations in a Swingle Singers style. Blackbird was part of the concertโs avian theme, which somehow got lost along the way; no matter! The singers mimicked guitars and whistled stylishly. A false ending raised laughter from the audience, and the real ending raised more laughter. In between, there was a stunning rendition of The Ink Spotsโ 1940 hit Java Jive. There were vocal sound effects, including drumming, an upright bass and hearty โAahsโ to show how much the singers loved coffee and tea.
Individual singers from within the choir had a chance to shine, too. Chris Webb sang Hippopotamus by Flanders and Swann with operatic aplomb, and the audience gamely covered themselves in metaphorical mud in the choruses. Oliver Hunt sang Bernsteinโs On the Town in a poignant rendition, and a passionate Lost in the Stars, acting out the words expressively. Alastair Brookshaw created a Bridge Over Troubled Water, echoing the delicacy of Art Garfunkelโs voice with a liquid legato in a rousing performance. He returned in a fantastic coup de thรฉรขtre, dressed as a priest and wishing the house peace as he flew onto the stage in ecclesiastical turmoil. He perfectly illustrated the painful dilemma of the protagonist in Bishopโs Song from Sondheimโs last musical, Here We Are. There was another ecclesiastical protagonist when Carrys Jones, minus the habit of the Mother Abbess, sang an operatic, heartfelt version of Climb Ev’ry Mountain.
There was a piano interlude when the two accompanists, Libby Burgess and Paul Provost, treated us to a selection of four-hand arrangements from Gershwinโs Porgy and Bess. They played a lilting version of Summertime, a rollicking, jazzy version of It Ainโt Necessarily So, and a short but very sweet I Got Plenty Oโ Nuttin. The concert ended with more joyous close harmony frolics from Festival Voices. There was a witty version of Queenโs vaudeville pastiche, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, complete with kazoos, honouring the bandโs famous โNo Synthesisers!โ avowal. There was Tin Pan Alley close harmony in Hoagy Carmichaelโs Skylark, with excellent solos from the choir. But perhaps the highlight of the whole concert wasVictoria Woodโs wickedly naughty Ballad of Barry and Freda (Letโs Do It), which features the immortal line, โBeat me on the bottom with a Womanโs Weekly.โ We felt sorry for poor old Barry being harassed by his wife. The song went down a storm – a fantastic ending to a superb concert. A splendid time was guaranteed for all.
Performers Libby Burgess piano Paul Provost piano Festival Voices โ soloists Chris Webb, Oliver Hunt, Alastair Brookshaw, Carrys Jones
Duke Ellingtonโs โSacred Concertโย The Nave, Southwell Minsterย
When conductor and Artistic Director Marcus Farnsworth was 12 and studying trumpet, he discovered Simon Rattleโs TheJazz Album, which he recorded in 1987 with London Sinfonietta and others. Farnsworth was fascinated by the final piece on the album, Leonard Bernsteinโs Prelude, Fugue and Riffs and always wanted to conduct it. With trumpeter Graham South, he devised a concert which included the Bernstein piece, and his dream was realised – in what he described as โa new departureโ for the Festival – an orchestral jazz concert with choir and clarinet and soprano soloists.
South and Farnsworth chose music from Duke Ellington and his long-time collaborator, Billy Strayhorn, to pair with the Bernstein. In his invaluable programme notes, South quoted a comment Bernstein made to Ellington in a TV interview in 1966,
Well maybe thatโs really the difference between us โ you wrote symphonic jazz, and I wrote jazz symphonies
Leonard Bernstein talking to Duke Ellington on 2 July 1966 ยฉ WTMJ-TV, a Journal Broadcast Group Station
The musicians were the Manchester-based Cottontail Orchestra, comprised of freelance musicians from various ensembles, including Beats & Pieces Big Band and Manchester Jazz Collective. Appropriately, they began the concert with the Duke Ellington composition Cottontail. This was lively big band jazz, idiomatically played with superbly virtuosic soloists. At one point, a sax quintet stood up to play some gorgeous close harmony, similar to what we had heard in the Festival Cabaret earlier. Strayhornโs Isfahan showcased the extraordinary talent of alto sax player Emily Burkhardt, whose beautiful tone featured sensuous slides and a melismatic flow, with quivering vibrato and bluesy note bends. A surprise but welcome addition to the programme was Ellingtonโs Happy-Go-Lucky Local, which has a slightly sleazy and sarcastic sound, describing a local train heaving its way along the track – some material from the much more famous Night Train could also be heard. For Prelude to a Kiss, the band were joined by soprano Clare Wheeler, whose voice was suitably mellow with a touch of the great Ella Fitzgerald. The final Ellington piece in the first half was Kinda Dukish/Rockinโ in Rhythm, with a lovely syncopated piano intro from Adam Fairhall, followed by joyfully intricate big band music. Farnsworth described Prelude, Fugue and Riffs as the โmeeting point of classical and jazzโ, with a prelude for brass and kit, an โactual fugueโ for saxophone, and Matt Glendening on solo clarinet in the riffs section. Touches of 20th-century classical music could be heard, such as Stravinskyโs Les noces, which features four pianos. There was an almost avant-garde section, but also some Rhapsody in Blue-style clarinet playing and plenty of stunning big band music. Farnsworth worked very hard, bringing out a superbly life-affirming performance from the players.
Duke Ellington. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
Part two was devoted to Duke Ellingtonโs Sacred Concert, which has a complicated performance history. The Concert ofSacred Music was premiered sixty years ago, in mid-September 1965,at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The Second Sacred Concert was premiered in 1968, and the Third in 1973. Ellington had reused some of his music from previous compositions, and when touring the Concert he was often joined by local choirs, and he adapted music from all three versions to suit their abilities. Farnsworth conducted a fourth version, which he described as โthe best of all three Sacred Concertsโ, produced in 1993 by John Hรธybye and Peder Pedersen for soprano solo, choir and big band. The version he chose was, in his words, โappropriate for the building.โ This was true in a religious sense, but also in an acoustic sense as the Minsterโs superb acoustics are clear, warm and generous, ideal for big band jazz and chamber choir.
Graham South (standing). ยฉ Tom Platinum Morley
Farnsworth was right to choose a version of the Concert that emphasised the choirโs contribution. The Festival Voices were ecstatic in the opening Praise God, based on Psalm 150, and when they repeated the words, there was a bluesy big band beneath. In Heaven, they sang like the best of Hollywood choruses. There were moments of sublime beauty when they sang a cappella in Freedom, Come Sunday and Almighty God. There was also the chance for soprano Clare Wheeler to demonstrate her skills, including scatting in The Majesty of God, some avant-garde vocalising in T.G.T.T. (Too Good To Title) and a warm legato in David Danced Before the Lord. The Cottontail Orchestra matched the quality of the choir. Highlights included: Graham Southโs trumpet solo in The Shepherd, using his mute to create an earthy, almost feral growling sound; Johnny Hunterโs drum solo at the start of David Dancedโฆ; and the tireless playing of bass player Joshua Cavanagh-Brierly throughout. The piece ended with an invitation to Praise God and Dance, an ecstatic hymn to God. Although there was no actual dancing in the audience, our spirits danced as the concert came to a rapturous end.
Performers Clare Wheeler soprano Matthew Glendening clarinet Festival Voices The Cottontail Orchestra Marcus Farnsworth conductor
Repertoire Duke Ellington Cottontail Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington Isfahan Duke Ellington Happy-Go-Lucky Local Duke Ellington Prelude to a Kiss Harry Carney, Irving Mills and Duke Ellington Kinda Dukish/Rockinโ in Rhythm Leonard Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
Duke Ellington, arr. John Hรธybye and Peder Pedersen Sacred Concert
For a review of Day Two of the Festival, click here
A double-header of new prog rock albums in a Sunday afternoon launch
Despite the London sunshine, rather than lazing on a Sunday afternoon, progressive rock fans packed themselves into the small but perfectly formed venue that is the Camden club. Long songs and high concepts were promised, and this gig didnโt disappoint. The event, organised by the tireless Chris Parkins of London Prog Gigs, saw the launch of two new albums. Hats Off Gentlemen Itโs Adequate were here to showcase their eighth studio album, The Uncertainty Principle. But before that, a relatively new band – albeit made up of veterans – Ghost of the Machine had travelled from Yorkshire to launch their second studio album, Empires Must Fall.
Charlie Bramald and Malcolm Galloway in the Q&A Session. Photo courtesy of Bรฉla Alabรกstrom
The afternoon began with a short Q&A session hosted by Charlie Bramald of Ghost of the Machine and Malcolm Galloway of Hats Off. An audience member asked if there would be any dancing. Galloway said that, as a former doctor, he would recommend physical exercise and invited the audience to โexpress themselves physically,โ before admitting that sounded wrong. He asked Bramald which came first in creating an album, โthe concept, the musicโฆ or the choreography.โ
As Genesis themselves admitted, prog rockers generally โcanโt danceโ โ presumably because of the complex time signatures (one of the most amusing sights I have seen at a prog rock gig was several seated gentlemen on the front row of a Steven Wilson concert, desperately trying to head bang in time to one of Wilsonโs more esoteric rhythms). Bramald, whose band have been compared to Genesis, admitted that the genesis (see what he did there?) of the songs was usually a keyboard part from Mark [Hagan]. Galloway said that he usually wrote in speech rhythms, and did an uncannily inaccurate [sic] demonstration of Beyoncรฉ singing a melismatic melody.
Bramald asked Galloway how the eighth Hats Off album differed from the previous seven. Galloway quipped that the main difference between the albums was the colour scheme of the booklet. But there was a serious point โ the album traces the development of quantum physics up to the 1950s, so a Cold War colour scheme was felt appropriate. Some of the highly imaginative images from the album were projected on a screen behind the band. However, before we became too impressed by the technology, the band’s bass player, Mark Gatland admitted he couldnโt hear his bass amp as it was hidden behind the screen.
Ghost of the Machine have only one fewer word in their name than Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate, although it could be argued they are syllabically challenged in comparison. They made up for their lack of syllables by having six band members on stage โ Bramald (vocals), Graham Garbett and Scott Owens (guitars), Mark Hagan (keyboards), Stuart McAuley (bass) and Andy Milner (drums). They decided to treat us to the entire album, Empires Must Fall, in the order it appears. This was their first London gig, and early on Bramald said it had been worth coming all the way from Yorkshire; the sold-out audience was very enthusiastic.
The new album is, naturally, a concept album. It continues the narrative from the first album, Scissorgames (2022). At the end of that album, the main character, Hope, who appears on the cover of both albums, freed herself from a tyrant but ended up in prison as a result. She becomes a superior being and creates an empire of light into which she draws those who are due to commit crimes in the future. As Bramald told Stephen Lambe of Prog magazine, the moral ambiguity of this is similar to that of the 2002 film Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise. She starts a revolution which leads to war, but the album ends on a more hopeful note of forgiveness.
Vocalist Charlie Bramald flanked by Scott Owens and Andy Milner on guitar, with Andy Milner on drums. Photo courtesy of Chris Parkins of London Prog Gigs
It’s tempting to play a game of spot the influence with a relatively new band. As mentioned earlier, Genesis is a possibility, as is Marillion. There were touches of Asia, and Yes, and Bramaldโs voice was sometimes reminiscent of Geddy Lee of Rush or Roger Hodgson of Supertramp. However, while acknowledging that these luminaries make excellent musical company, the band itself prefers not to be categorised. The only overt influence was when keyboard player Hagan gave a brief rendition of Tubeway Armyโs 1979 smash hit Are ‘Friends’ Electric, written by Gary Numan, his musical hero. However, there was a definite influence from Rick Wakeman’s 1974 classic, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, particularly in the opening song, Keepers of the Light. The instrumental section was lacking a glittering cape but was suitably proggy, before the band returned to one of its great strengths, strong melodies. Bramald, as in all the songs, was a compelling stage presence, acting out the lyrics while his voice soared above the band.
Days That Never Were began with gentle piano and synth, and a lovely bass riff that introduced a rocky number with a beautiful harmonic change. The song ended with a mighty drum flourish. Bramald explained that the next song, Panopticon, is the centre piece of the album. For those who donโt know (I admit that I didnโt), a panopticon is a circular prison designed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century, to allow all the prisoners to be seen at the same time. Itโs a perfect metaphor for isolation, as in the wall that surrounds the protagonist in Pink Floydโs 1979 album The Wall. As the lyrics of Panopticon state, we are โprisoners of our own designโ, who eventually break out from prison, just as Pink Floydโs character tears down the wall. The panopticon is also a metaphor for surveillance culture, a malevolent form of the benign accumulation of data that Peter Gabriel describes in his song Panopticom(note the change in the final letter) from his 2023 album i/o. But, as Days That Never Were states, โEmpires must fallโโฆ and, according to Bramald, we can help bring them down. Interestingly, Hats Off expressed a similar opinion in the song All Empires Fall from 2022โs The Confidence Trick. As Galloway writes,
Even the most evil dictator will, like everyone else, die. Every empire eventually crumbles. At the most basic level, the second law of thermodynamics suggests that any conquest is ultimately temporary. All empires fall.
The highlight of Ghost of the Machineโs set was the final song from their new album, the 14-minute epic After the War. The first section, ‘Runs Away’, began as a piano ballad, featuring gentle guitar and backing vocals from Graham Garbett. The song built up pleasingly to a metal guitar section, with a sense of inevitability and majesty. The next section, โBellsโ, featured a suitably bell-like piano part by Mark Hagan, frenetic percussion, and swirling guitars. Section three, ‘Sunrise and Sirens’ began with a flowing piano part and an almost funky guitar riff, expressing optimism around the lyric โthe war is overโ. In the next section, the instrumental โSorrow in the Silenceโ, Scott Owens played a spiky guitar solo, and Garbett joined him in a lovely duet. The final sections, โThe Sound of Homeโ and โWith Meโ were uplifting, including another fine solo from Garbett, whose playing had been superb throughout the set.
Malcolm Galloway of Hats Off self-deprecatingly offered to โkill the moodโ with โan hour of very educational stuff about quantum physics.โ As a former neuropathologist, the concepts behind the Hats Off albums often have a strong scientific basis. But as Galloway said in the Q&A session, the songs arenโt โjust dry physics.โ For each track, he adopts the perspective of a different character. A good example is the One Word That Means The World (Arkhipov), the first single from the new album, in which Galloway describes an agonising dilemma in an eloquent and moving vignette about โnot starting a nuclear war.โ Galloway and Gatland performed a blistering version; Gallowayโs agonised vocals bring out the song’s anguish and essential humanity in a stunning performance. The opening song, Certainty, the first track on the new album, began with a vocal duet, Galloway and Gatland singing in gentle unison. But as the song reached its climax, Gallowayโs voice exploded with emotion. The deep bond between these two gentlemen (they have known each other since school) was evident when they faced each other, and a warm smile passed between them.
Galloway reassured the audience that there would be โno shoutingโ on the third song in the set, the instrumental The Ultraviolet Catastrophe. This is difficult to play, but as Gatland quipped at the end, โsomeoneโs been putting the hours in.โ There was a spacey, psychedelic intro with sequenced keyboards, and virtuosic guitar-playing from Galloway โ those hours of practice paid off. Gatlandโs bass-playing was delightfully chunky, and at one point he played his bass around his knees like a prog rock Peter Hook. A genuinely inspiring performance. Gallowayโs voice was lower, richly warm in Copenhagen, another single from The Uncertainty Principle, bringing out the humanity and ambiguity of the much-disputed meeting between quantum physicist Niels Bohr and his former student Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen in 1941.
The deep humanity of Gallowayโs performance was evident in another new song, Between Two Worlds, which one suspects is more personal, given that he has suffered from complex medical conditions. To use an analogy from quantum mechanics, the song explores the dilemma in Schrรถdinger’s cat thought experiment, the uncertainty in waiting for test results which could be either positive or negative. Galloway performed a moving version on solo piano, with half-spoken contemplative vocals, drawing us into a strange world between two worlds.
From the personal, Galloway brought us back to the political in another new song, Think Tank. In a lengthy and fascinating introduction, Galloway explained that the song is inspired by a whistleblower from a US nuclear war think tank in the 1950s, which decided it was too complicated to have two different plans… so the best thing to do was to nuke both China and Russia. As Galloway dryly pointed out, โthe apocalypse leads to some administrative challengesโ, some of which were resolved by the five-digit nuclear code being incredibly hard to guess (00000 in case you were wondering). At least, as Galloway said, we were lucky that we werenโt in some hideous post-apocalyptic wasteland. โHow do you know?โ came the witty response from an audience member. Whatever the theoretical background of the song, Galloway and Gatlandโs performance was stunning. Gallowayโs guitar playing throughout the set was fluid, passionate, virtuosic and compassionate. Gatland was also playing at the top of his game. It was a privilege to witness the two of them together.
Kathryn Thomas, (Werner Heisenberg), Malcolm Galloway, and Mark Gatland. Photo courtesy of Chris Parkins
The set ended with an โencoreโ (due to time pressure, the band didnโt leave the stage and wait for adoring applause and shouts for more), the new album’s title track, The Uncertainty Principle. Kathryn Thomas joined them on flute. With a look of fierce concentration on her face, watching Galloway like a hawk, she matched his bluesy guitar solos, bringing a lovely jazz element in contrast to the distorted guitar. At the end of the song, Galloway bade the audience โgoodbyeโ.
But there was a surprise to come, an extra song, dedicated to Bรฉla [Alabรกstrom], who had come all the way from Brussels, Century Rain from 2020โs Nostalgia For Infinity. The song also came as a surprise to the laptop providing the backing tracks; it gave up and left the trio to perform โa cappellaโ as it were, with a very witty false ending in the style of King Crimson. The audience rose to its feet to give the band a well-deserved standing ovation.
Sources
Stephen Lambe Empire of Ghosts (Prog Magazine Issue 158, 07.03.25) Malcolm Galloway The Confidence Trick – Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate (hatsoffgentlemen.com)
A celebration of the human spirit: the cello concerto Shostakovich wrote for his 60th birthday; Richard Strauss’s description of a heroic life; an Anna Clyne UK premiere inspired by Buddhist writings and Mozart.
The BBC Philharmonic with Conductor Alpesh Chauhan. Image ยฉ BBC/Chris Payne
Anna ClyneThis Moment (UK premiere)
Anna Clyne is the BBC Philharmonic’s Composer in Association. In 2023, she was commissioned to write a new work for the Philadelphia Orchestra. The piece was premiered with, and partly inspired by, Mozart’s Requiem, and quotes directly from that piece. It was also a reaction to the shared loss and grief of the pandemic.
“The meditation on death is a very important meditation. When you meditate on death, you love life more, you cherish life more. We can learn many lessons from it.”
Thรญch Nhแบฅt Hแบกnh
This Moment was also inspired by the work of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Zen Master and peace activist, Thรญch Nhแบฅt Hแบกnh, known as the ‘father of mindfulness’, who died in 2022 at the age of 95. Before his death, he told his followers not to contain his ashes in an urn,
‘If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps.’
The title of Clyne’s piece is inspired by another quotation from Nhแบฅt Hแบกnh, ‘this moment is full of wonders.’ She told Alex Ariff in a YouTube interview that Mozart’s Requiem is ‘bursting at the seams with wonder’, and that she wanted to match the drama of that piece.
Clyne told Ariff that the first quotation from the Requiem came from the ‘Kyrie’, an ‘ascending chromatic line in the sopranos, and the first fugal subject in the basses.’ The second was from the ‘Lacrimosa’, the first line of which, ‘Lacrimosa dies illa’ [that day of tears and mourning] reminded her of another quote from Nhแบฅt Hแบกnh, ‘the tears I shed yesterday have become rain.’
The piece, for large orchestra, began mysteriously, with enigmatic strings chords and a bowed gong, and a rising romantic figure with gorgeous harmonies. It slowly eased itself into another, stately theme, and then into a lower key with brass and woodwind flourishes. The piece built to a climax, with meditative woodwind swirling above a Requiem quote in the strings. A further climax led to quieter, limpid textures and a brief hiatus. A Mozart theme in the brass led to an unexpected key change, and a new theme with shimmering glockenspiel. A baroque-style melody led to a serene ending to this evocative and highly effective work.
Anna Clyne. Image credit Victoria Stevens
Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2
The rest of the concert featured the composer as hero of their own work. DmitriShostakovich wrote his Cello Concerto No. 2 to celebrate his 60th birthday on 25 September 1966, dedicating the work to the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Strauss wrote Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s life) as an unashamedly joyful celebration of his heroic life as a composer, and his disdain for his critics. But the view of the hero in each work could not have been more different. As Robert Matthew-Walker wrote about the Shostakovich concerto, it ‘unveils no great Romantic hero battling against orchestral might.’
The concerto opened with an intense, low theme on the cello joined by low strings. The concentration on soloist Alban Gerhardt’s face was evident throughout, and he barely took his fingers or bow off his cello during the whole piece, stopping once to throw a glancing smile at conductor Alpesh Chauhan, and on another occasion when the orchestra allowed him brief respite. The concerto was played as one continuous movement, making this a remarkable feat of concentration, memory, virtuosity and the expression of profound dark emotion by Gerhardt.
Cellist Alban Gerhardt with the BBC Phil conducted by Alpesh Chauhan ยฉ BBC/Chris Payne
Although the orchestra was huge, it often felt like a chamber orchestra, with individual sections – often the massed lower strings – accompanying the cello as Gerhardt played with passionate vibrato. The first movement featured a series of thrillingly bizarre duets: cello and xylophone with leaping, dystopian woodwind; cello and a robust bass drum; cello and a plaintive, mellow solo horn.
Shostakovich was at his most sardonic when he wrote the second movement, based on a street song from Odessa, Bubliki, Kupite Bubliki!’ [Bagels, buy my bagels]. Gerard McBurney described the song as, ‘saucy, cheap, vulgar and indecent’. Apparently the bagel-seller had, ‘more to offer than bread rolls.’ The story goes that Shostakovich, when asked to play his favourite melody at a New Year’s Eve party, teased the other guests by choosing this one. It’s also evidence of Shostakovich learning from Mahler’s symphonies in his use of folk song. On Saturday, Gerhardt dug deep into his strings, bringing out the sarcasm of the writing, with bitter slides up and down the fingerboard, accompanied by grumbling low winds. The xylophone joined the macabre dance, sounding like a dancing skeleton.
There was another strange but effective pairing with the cello in the third movement, this time with a solo tambourine. There was a brief moment of consonance with a serene, lyrical classical theme ending with an elegant trill from Gerhardt. This theme appeared again several times amongst the organised mayhem of the rest of the movement. Gerhardt’s playing was profound as he again dug deep, sometimes angular and lyrical, sometimes light and subtle, sometimes beautifully smooth as the mood demanded. He was again joined by an array of percussion – solo xylophone, and what felt at times like a jazz band. The full orchestra had a brief chance to assert itself with a return of the folk song from the second movement, complete with the sound of whips. But it was left to the cello and percussion to end the piece, as in Shostakovich’s 15th symphony which also ends with percussion. The cello had the final statement, but only just, a long held note subsiding briefly after the other instruments had given up.
Cellist Alban Gerhardt with the BBC Phil conducted by Alpesh Chauhan ยฉ BBC/Chris Payne
To end the first half, Gerhardt delighted the audience with an encore, Moderatoby Mstislav Rostropovich, one of two studies for solo cello written in the 1940s but not published in Moscow until 1972. As Gerhardt said, the work had nothing to do with Shostakovich or the atmosphere of the cello concerto, althoughRostropovich was an obvious connection. In Gerhardt’s performance it was great fun, jolly and virtuosic with so much double stopping that a times it almost felt as if Gerhardt was accompanying himself to create a string quartet.
Richard StraussEin Heldenleben
In 1898, Richard Strauss wrote to a friend from the Bavarian Alps, with what Robert Philip described as ‘characteristic irony’
“As Beethovenโs Eroica is so very unpopular with our conductors and is therefore seldom performed nowadays, I am meeting a pressing need by composing a great tone poem entitled โA Heroโs Lifeโ (true, it has no funeral march, but it is in E flat major and does have lots of horns, horns being quite the thing to express heroism).”
Richard Strauss, letter to a friend July 1898
The stage on Saturday was specially extended to accommodate all the 100 or so players needed for Richard Strauss’s description of his heroic life as a composer, which he completed in 1898. In the opening movement, ‘The Hero’, conductor Alpesh Chauhan brought out the individual heroic themes very clearly – this movement can sound muddled with such a large orchestra. The ensemble in the low and upper strings was impeccable.
The second movement, ‘The Hero’s Adversaries’ , began with a characterful description of a swarm of irritating critics [did Strauss mean us?!] and weary strings expressing Strauss’s response to them. Wagnerian chromaticism brought some Parsifal-like regret. The sniping critics returned, but were overtaken and obliterated by the joyful playing of the rest of the orchestra.
Richard Strauss’s wife, the German operatic soprano Pauline de Ahna
The highlight of the BBC Phil’s performance was the third movement, ‘The Hero’s Female Companion’, referring to Strauss’s wife, the opera singer Pauline de Ahna. This movement was in effect a short violin concerto, with the Leader of the orchestra Zoรซ Beyers taking the solo part in a stunning performance. Beyers described the female companion’s various moods, her playing alternately sweet, emotive, tender, flirtatious, deeply passionate, sensual and skittish, contrasting with the lugubrious bass theme representing her husband. There was a spellbinding bloom of orchestral sound as a huge, sweeping Romantic tune showed the couple united in love, overcoming the snarky critics who briefly tried to break in at the end.
Offstage trumpets announced ‘The Hero’s Battlefield’, in which we experienced the visceral thrill of a massive orchestra, with fiercely war-like percussion, stentorian trumpets, and golden-sounding horns, conductor Chauhan dancing with delight on the podium as the hero won his battle.
The fifth movement, ‘The Hero’s Works of Peace’ was an ecstatic summary of the composer’s work to date, includingquotations from Don Juan (1888), Death and Transfiguration (1889) Don Quixote (1897), and Till Eulenspiegel (1894โ95) recently performed by the BBC Philharmonic at the Bridgewater Hall. The brass were magnificent in this movement, and the timpani must have been hit harder than they have ever been hit before in the Bridgewater Hall.
The final movement, ‘The Hero’s Retreat from the World and Fulfilment’ began with an ominous tuba theme from the critics and the hero’s anger in return. A lovely cor anglais solo from Lydia Griffiths led to a pastoral section and a return of the solo violin and the horn theme from earlier, Chauhan conducting delicately now, with one foot slightly raised. Although the critics briefly re-appeared, the piece ended in a blaze of Romantic glory, with a nod to Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896) as the lovers retreated into their love nest. Chauhan gave numerous, well-deserved ‘curtain calls’ to individual soloists and whole sections of the orchestra, bringing a lovely evening to a close.
Performers
Alban Gerhardt cello BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Alpesh Chauhan (Principal Guest Conductor of the Dรผsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company) conductor
Repertoire
Anna Clyne This Moment (UK premiere commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2023) Dmitri Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 Mstislav RostropovichModerato (encore) Richard Strauss Ein Heldenleben
Sources
A Conversation with Composer Anna Clyne. Credit WRTImusic/YouTube/Alex Ariff.
Ariff, Alex, A Conversation with Composer Anna Clyne (WRTImusic YouTube 30/01/2024) Philip, Robert, The Classical Music Loverโs Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press, 2020) Schuh, Willi, Richard Strauss: A Chronicle of the Early Years, 1864โ1898,trans. Mary Whittall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) Bryant, Miranda, From MLK to Silicon Valley, how the world fell for โfather of mindfulnessโ (The Observer 22 January 2022) Clyne, Anna Programme Note on This Moment Matthew-Walker, Robert, Sleeve Notes to Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 2 in G major, Op 126/Britten Cello Symphony (Hyperion Records/Signum Classics) Burney, Gerald Repertoire Note on Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 2 in G major op. 126 (1966) by Shostakovich (Boosey & Hawkes)
Saturdayโs concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 in Concert on Wednesday 20 November at 7.30pm. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.
