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
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
English National Opera is rapidly establishing a foothold in Manchester, with appearances at the Manchester Classical festival last summer, a production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring at Lowry, and a forthcoming production of the new opera Angel’s Bone by the Chinese composer Du Yun at Aviva Studios in May. Last weekend, ENO performed Mozart’s Così fan tutte on Friday and Saturday in a semi-staged version at the Bridgewater Hall.
Alexander Joel conducted the orchestra, which was on stage throughout, in a stylish rendition of the overture, with well-controlled tempi, a fleetness of foot and a lovely lilting motion. The orchestra continued with precision and excellent ensemble throughout the evening.
Andrew Foster-Williams, as Don Alfonso, the cynical schemer behind the opera’s partner-swapping shenanigans, was nattily dressed as a ‘spiv’ in a bright yellow suit and white-topped shoes. He sang with a rich, warm voice and excellent diction, relishing his role. Lucy Crowe, as Fiordiligi, was luxury casting, with a gorgeous, creamy soprano. Mezzo Taylor Raven was Dorabella, with a lovely edge to her voice and magnificent control. Her early duet with Crowe, where they proclaimed that without their lovers they would be in despair, was delightful, their voices perfectly matched.
Darwin Prakash sang Guglielmo with a substantial baritone voice, easily filling the Bridgewater Hall’s cavernous acoustic. Joshua Blue, as Ferrando, sang with great animation. Both singers clearly enjoyed the physical comedy their roles provided. They clearly relished their roles as the disguised lovers, overacting deliciously as they declared their ‘love.’ But there was genuine emotion when Blue sang his ardent aria, ‘I know she adores me’ and broke down. An early highlight was when all five of these singers sang together; Don Alfonso’s comment ‘What a performance’ seemed appropriate here.
But the soprano Ailish Tynan, singing with an Irish accent as the maid Dorabella, stole the show. It was impossible to take your eye off her when she was on stage; she was a superb character actor, drawing all the comedy out of any situation with conspiratorial glances and rolled eyes. Even the way she walked was amusing. Yet she was more than just a character actor; her singing in the aria on fidelity was stunning. She had great fun when she dressed as the ‘doctor’, in a suit and a white Einstein fright wig and moustache. Her high notes were astonishingly good here.
The chorus of English National Opera appeared in the final gala concert of Manchester Classical last year, and also entertained the crowd outside the Bridgewater Hall in operatic excerpts. It was good to see them in a full-length opera, although Mozart doesn’t give them a great deal to do. They sang robustly from the Choir Seats in front of the Hall’s magnificent organ. They enthusiastically waved flags as Ferrando and Guglielmo headed off to war, in the splendid chorus ‘It’s a soldier’s life for me.’ Whether they were waving goodbye with their flags or using them for semaphore as in the Monty Python Wuthering Heights sketch was unclear.
At the start of Act Two, Tynan had another chance to shine as she wittily explained that even a chambermaid such as her could attract admirers. She excelled herself near the end of the opera when she came on dressed as a lawyer, a ‘cowboy’ in both senses of the word, with a prodigious Stetson and an American accent to match. She did a line dance as she described her legal practice, making Saul Goodman (the lawyer from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) seem prim and proper in comparison. Yee-hah!
But this production also brought out the underlying pathos and emotion of Mozart’s comic opera. There was a moment of contemplative beauty when Lucy Crowe sang Fiordiligi’s aria, ‘I have sinned’, bathed in pure white light, standing like a lonely, fallen angel in the Choir Seats. She sang the aria very sweetly, with a pure but full voice, genuinely moving. This moment was the highlight of the whole opera. Joshua Blue also revealed genuine emotion of a different kind when he sang his ‘I will be avenged’ aria, revealing the true depth of Ferrando’s character.
As this was a comedy, all ended well as the reunited lovers sang ‘Peace and love will win the day.’ There was huge, well-deserved applause from the packed house at the end. There continue to be good omens for ENO’s ongoing work in Greater Manchester.
It’s unusual for one concert in an orchestra’s season to follow on from the next, unless they are part of a programmed series, such as a festival devoted to the works of one composer. But Saturday night’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under conductor Anja Bihlmaier, picked up where last week’s concert left off. That concert ended with John Adams’ City Noir, a depiction of Los Angeles at night. Saturday’s concert began with another description of night, Lili Boulanger’s D’un Soir Triste (On a Sad Evening).
The two works share not just a nocturnal theme but, at times, a cinematic landscape, music that could have come from a film noir. This is made explicit by Adams, but Boulanger died in 1918, before film music, apart from music for silent films, even existed, so the link can only be made in retrospect. The concert ended with another cinematic work with darkness at its heart: Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle.
Boulanger died at the tender age of 24, and the only surviving manuscript for D’un Soir Triste in the composer’s hand is the original version for violin, cello and piano. The orchestral manuscript is in the hand of Lili’s older sister Nadia, who survived Lili by over 60 years.
The piece began with stark, questioning strings, then a sudden moment of calm with a characterful clarinet solo from John Bradbury, of whom we were to hear much more later. The music was dark and sorrowful, with dense textures, casting us back to John Adams’ shadowy streets and culminating in a dramatic climax that could have come from a film noir. An urgently rhythmic theme on the timpani felt like the hammer-blow of fate from Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. There was a moment of magic with a limpid celesta part and an intense cello solo, with romantic harmonies that melted into an ethereal violin theme, before the fateful theme returned with rasping brass. A hymn-like section led to a lovely harmonic development, and another orchestral climax, the sound bright but somehow underpinned by darkness as the piece reached an uneasy end.
‘If I were to name the composer whose works are the most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit, I would answer, Kodály.’
Béla Bartók on his friend and colleague Zoltán Kodály
The second piece, Dances of Galánta by Zoltán Kodály, introduced the concert’s other main theme: Hungarian music. Born only a year apart in the early 1880s, Kodály and his friend Béla Bartók were two of the most important 20th-century Hungarian composers. They both collected folk songs for use in their own music. Kodály spent part of his childhood in Galánta, which was then part of Hungary (now in Slovakia). He grew up listening to dances played by ‘a famous Gypsy band which has since disappeared…their music was the first “orchestral sonority” which came to the ear of a child.’
The Dances celebrate a particular kind of dance, the verbunkos (Werbung, German, recruiting). Hussars would come on recruiting missions and impress the locals with their dancing, alternating slow and fast dances, to persuade them that being in the army was fun. The music was provided by the Gypsy bands that Kodály referred to in the note that he made in the score. He orchestrated Gypsy dances published in Vienna around 1800, in addition writing a slow introduction, a clarinet cadenza, an andante maestoso and linking material.
The piece began with cellos playing in perfect ensemble under Bihlmaier’s precise baton, with swirling upper strings. A solo horn sounded like a military horn, perhaps welcoming us into the Hungarian army. A gorgeous romantic statement of the opening theme led to a clarinet cadenza, played by John Bradbury with his usual flair and panache, with elegant orchestral accompaniment. Waves of joy passed through the orchestra as they played the intricate dances, Bihlmaier now dancing on the podium. The woodwinds excelled themselves, sometimes playing with a subtle lilt, at other times with sparkling jollity. A slower dance was reminiscent of the scenes at the fair in Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka. There was a sudden pause, a brief moment of stasis, then more superb woodwind solos. The orchestra then scampered to a thrillingly visceral climax, bringing the piece to an end. It was such an exciting performance that we might have been persuaded to join the Hungarian hussars…
The second half featured more music with a Hungarian theme, with a text by Herbert Béla Bauer, who wrote under the pseudonym Béla Balázs. He was born a couple of years after Kodály and Bartók. In 1910, Balázs published a version of Bluebeard’s Castle, pragmatically dedicating it to both composers. Kodály wasn’t interested in adapting the drama, but Bartók happily took the bait and finished his one-act opera in 1911. He entered it in two competitions, but it was rejected each time.
The Bluebeard story dates back centuries. It’s thought that the model for the character may have been the 15th-century French lord, Gilles de Rais. In 1697 the French writer Charles Perrault published a collection of folk tale adaptations, Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales of Times Past), including La Barbe Bleu (Bluebeard). The Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck wrote another version, his 1901 play Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Ariana and Bluebeard). The French composer Paul Dukas turned it into an opera in 1907.
Béla Balázs drew on the work of both Perrault and Maeterlinck in creating his 1910 version. He stressed that his version wasn’t a myth, a fantasy or a horror story, but a psychological drama,
‘My ballad is the is the ‘ballad of inner life.’ Bluebeard’s castle is not a real castle of stone. The castle is his soul. It is lonely, dark and secretive; the castle of closed doors.’
He later added a spoken-word Prologue to Bartók’s opera, which hints that the drama is internal,
‘The curtain of our eyelids is raised Where is the stage: outside or within?’
On Saturday evening, the Philharmonic Orchestra didn’t perform the Prologue, but they brought out the opera’s psychological nature by placing the two protagonists, Christopher Purves as Bluebeard and Jennifer Johnston as his (fourth) wife, Judith, on either side of the conductor, facing the audience, rather than semi-staging the opera. The text, sung in an English translation by Péter Bartók and Peter Hennings (see below), was projected above the stage, so that we could concentrate on the words. And there was evocative use of lighting to represent the different doors – or aspects of Bluebeard’s personality – which Judith was so keen to open and inspect. The use of lights on each orchestral music stand, coupled with BBC Radio 3’s microphones, created the impression of a recording studio, which suggested that the inner life of the music and text was more important than external gestures.
Purves came on wearing a kilt, presumably in honour of Burns Night the following day. Johnston wore a splendid, glittery black top. Purves sang with immaculate diction and a deep, rich, agile voice. Johnston sang with great expression, illustrating the words with her hands and her voice, which was in turn mellow, animated, forceful and Wagnerian, negotiating Bartók’s angular vocal lines with ease. The orchestra played superbly throughout.
Péter Bartók and Peter Hennings I was lucky enough to meet Peter Hennings at the concert, who had worked with Béla Bartók’s son Péter (pictured left) on the English translation of the opera, finessing it to fit the metre. Hennings had flown over from Florida specially for the concert. He told me that the original English translation had been based on the German version of the text, whereas Péter Bartók’s version had used the original Hungarian version. Hennings worked with Péter Bartók for 20 years on editions of his father’s music, which went back to the original manuscripts.
In Balázs’ libretto, translated here into poetic and idiomatic English, Judith has left her family ‘weeping’, to marry Bluebeard, despite rumours about what may have happened to his previous wives. Her relationship with Bluebeard is complex. She constantly asks Bluebeard to allow her to see what is behind each of the seven doors of his castle – or to reveal deeper aspects of his personality – despite his warnings that she won’t like what is revealed. Their relationship is close, perhaps unnaturally so, as if they have become co-dependents.
The first of seven doors revealed Bluebeard’s torture chamber, with superb orchestration, as the stage was bathed in red light. There was deep irony in Judith’s words, ‘Hideous is your chamber, dearest Bluebeard.’ He constantly asked her if she was frightened, and she replied that she wasn’t; perhaps fascination with his psychological state was what she really felt.
The second door revealed Bluebeard’s armoury, the stage bathed in orange to suggest weapons, illustrated by military brass. The third door was illustrated with yellow light, revealing his treasure, but with a disturbing undertone from a violin duet and, later, shrieking woodwind and ominous brass to depict the blood on the treasure. Lilac-coloured lighting illustrated Bluebeard’s garden behind the fourth door, a mellow horn solo and filigree flutes describing the flowers and blossoms, which were tainted with blood. Bluebeard again begged his bride to love him, but not to ask him any questions.
There was an incredible climax, as the orchestra was joined by organ and offstage brass, when door five was opened to reveal Bluebeard’s vast kingdom. A dazzling white light flooded the stage and the hall, so bright that Judith had to cover her eyes. There was a moment of supreme beauty as Johnston twice sang the single quiet phrase, ‘vast and mighty is your kingdom’, contrasting with Purves’ more impassioned singing. The uncertain orchestral themes illustrated the bloody shadows of the clouds.
Judith recovered from her shock and demanded to see behind the sixth door. Johnston’s voice was incredibly powerful, over the full orchestra. A lake was revealed; was Judith as innocent as she appeared when she asked where the water was from? A sweeping, shimmering orchestral theme accompanied the revelation that the lake was made up of tears; were they from Bluebeard’s previous wives?
The Duke’s previous three wives were revealed behind the seventh door, the orchestra in darkness as Judith was bathed in red (blood?) and Bluebeard in white. Johnston was incredibly moving as she bowed her head self-effacingly when comparing herself to Bluebeard’s previous wives, then cried ‘no more’ as she gripped her top in terror.
Bluebeard declared that his fourth wife was the wife of midnight, as he had found her at that time. Henceforth, all would be darkness. In a stunning coup de théâtre, all the orchestral lights went off, one by one, leaving the stage completely dark. It was a relief after the psychological tension we had experienced when the stage was bathed in warm light, as the performers received their huge and well-deserved applause. It was a privilege to be present at such a special event.
The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Thursday 5 March. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.
Performers
Anja Bihlmaier conductor Jennifer Johnston mezzo-soprano, Judith Christopher Purves bass-baritone, Duke Bluebeard
Repertoire
Lili Boulanger D’un Soir Triste Zoltán Kodály Dances of Galánta Béla Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle
Sources
Mike Ashman, ‘The Castle is his Soul’ (Sleeve note to Chandos recording, 2006)
A serene Beethoven piano and two unresolved American orchestral classics from Ives and Adams
Alim Beisembayev (at the piano), John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.
Saturday evening’s concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under their Chief Conductor, John Storgårds, featured two pieces by American composers Charles Ives and John Adams, written a century apart in the early 20th and 21st centuries. They book-ended a piece by Beethoven written in the early part of the 19th century, with the gap between the three works almost exactly 100 years (1805-6; 1908; 2009), providing neat symmetry.
The concert began with TheUnanswered Question (1908) by Charles Ives, which he described as a ‘cosmic landscape.’ The piece consists of three layers, beautifully controlled by Storgårds: the opening strings, spellbindingly quiet, representing ‘the Druids Who Know See and Hear Nothing’; a solo trumpet (played here by Tom Fountain) that poses the ‘Perennial Question of Existence’; and a flute quartet that attempts to provide ‘The Invisible Answer.’ The piece ends with the ‘Undisturbed Solitude’ of the Druids, as the Question remains unanswered.
The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, adapted by Japanese synth pioneer Isao Tomita, from his 1977 album Kosmos
Storgårds barely moved as the bows of the strings seemed suspended in slow motion. The solo trumpeter, Tom Fountain, was almost hidden near the Bridgewater Hall’s organ. The plaintive sound of the trumpet was answered by increasingly discordant flutes, playing a distorted version of the trumpet theme. On a signal from Storgårds, one of the flute quartet conducted her colleagues; one of the remarkable aspects of this piece is that the three groups play in independent tempi. This might have been a spellbinding performance, but unfortunately, our concentration was disrupted by a fourth (unwanted) layer, noisy coughing from the audience.
Alim Beisembayev. Source: alimbeisembayev.co.uk
Like the Ives piece, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major (1805-6) also poses a question. It begins with a gentle question from the piano, which the orchestra answers quietly, repeating the piano’s opening theme. But as in the Ives, the answer isn’t quite what we expect: the piano opens in the home key of G major, and the orchestra’s response is in the unrelated key of B major. Nevertheless, the relationship between soloist and orchestra is harmonious. There’s no pitched battle here, as there often is between orchestra and soloist in a concerto. The work is frequently characterised by Mozartian calm rather than Beethovenian muscularity and ferocity. It has a valedictory quality, as if marking the fact that this was the last piano concerto the composer could perform in concert due to his increasing deafness.
The soloist on Saturday was Alim Beisembayev, born in Kazakhstan, who won First Prize at The Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021. He joined the BBC New Generation Artists in 2023, and this was his first concert with them as a graduate of the scheme.
Early in the first movement, a placid, running theme on the upper strings was paired with precisely plucked lower strings, which were very clear in the Bridgewater Hall’s superb acoustic. Glorious, sunny orchestral flowering was similar to the calmer Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony written a couple of years later. There was a brief moment of doubt in the lower strings, but this soon resolved as the orchestra repeated the opening theme. Beisembayev replied with filigree decoration, beautifully even, playing with a lovely touch. He entered a mellow dialogue with the orchestra as they passed through a chromatic palette of keys. In the cadenza, he was mesmerising to watch, playing with more passion and emotion than earlier, then with gorgeous, limpid simplicity.
The second movement of the concerto is unusual in that it is more robust than many. Beisembayev began with a perfectly measured performance of the nostalgic opening theme, but there followed a fretful passage, still beautifully controlled. A forlorn, almost apologetic orchestral theme suggested Beethoven’s sorrow at being forced to abandon performing live. In the final movement, which began without a break, the orchestra and soloist entered into a more relaxed, joyful dialogue. Beisembayev held up the orchestra in a moment of stasis while he performed piano pyrotechnics. They joyfully chased each other through the keys. Beisembayev hurried towards a cadenza-like section, then suddenly stopped and restarted – there was light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. We had reached the sunlit uplands; the ending was ecstatic.
Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Major, Kk. 13, L. 486, from Beisembayev’s 2021 album The Leeds International Piano Competition 2021 – Gold Medal Winner (Parlophone)
Beisembayev’s encore was Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Major, Kk. 13. He played this complex music with great speed and accuracy, bringing out the individual melodic lines superbly, drawing warm applause from the audience
John Adams’ City Noir was named by the late Andrew Clements of The Guardian in 2019 as one of the best classical music works of the 21st Century. Adams was inspired to write the piece by reading the multi-volume Americans and the California Dream by the American historian Kevin Starr. In particular, he was inspired by the volume Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950, which describes the case of the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short, who became known after her death as Black Dahlia. The story goes that she moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, and she may have been called Black Dahlia after the 1946 film noir The Blue Dahlia. Adams was inspired by the ‘sensational journalism’ of 1940s and 50s California, and the ‘dark, eerie chiaroscuro of the Hollywood films’ of that era to write music for an imaginary film noir. He was also inspired to write ‘jazz-inflected symphonic music’, drawing on models such as Darius Milhaud’s La Création du monde written in 1922 – 23 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue written a year later.
John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.
The first movement, ‘The City and its Double’, threw us immediately into the cinematic landscape with full orchestra, uncompromisingly dark, with serpentine themes snaking back on themselves. The work’s jazz credentials were immediately obvious, with drummer Ben Gray providing insistent rhythms. The alto sax soloist Carl Raven was superb throughout the whole piece. The movement depicts a boulevard at night, deserted but with an ominous atmosphere, punctuated by moments of terror. The movement had a late-night feel, with a shimmer suggesting the silver screen. There was bright, cinematic music, troubling and virtuosic, creating a glorious cacophony of joy. Adams is a master of orchestral colours and layers, and Storgårds brought out all the detail of this dense score from the vast orchestra.
From out of the chaos arose the alto sax melody of the second movement, ‘The Song is for You’, fluidly played by Carl Raven. In the middle of the intricate orchestral texture, it was a visceral shock to hear a single held note in the violins, before the texture thickened again. There were further solos: Richard Brown played the trombone idiomatically in the style of the ‘talking solo’ performed by Duke Ellington’s band members Lawrence Brown and Britt Woodman, as the orchestra growled beneath; Carl Raven returned with a short riff, entering into frenzied dialogue with the orchestra, contrasting with the tranquil discussions of orchestra and soloist in the Beethoven piano concerto; Steven Burnard brought a lovely warm tone to a brief viola solo.
John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image credit Chris Payne.
The third movement began with sultry woodwind, perfectly depicting a ‘Boulevard Night’, ; in the words of the composer, ‘peopled with strange characters.’ We could feel the heat described in harmonic changes. Trumpeter Tom Fountain, the soloist in the Ives, returned with an increasingly virtuosic solo. Furiously rhythmic chords used the whole orchestra as a percussion instrument, recalling Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, as far away from the elegant control of the Beethoven piece as possible. Raven returned with a sensuous solo, described by Adams as ‘brash and uncouth, perfectly characterised. Febrile jazz drumming from Ben Gray, duetting with percussionist Tim Williams, created joyful syncopations which were amazing to watch, bringing the stunning performance of a difficult piece to an end.
Programme
Charles Ives The Unanswered Question Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 John Adams City Noir
Performers
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Alim Beisembayev piano John Storgårds conductor
Source
Programme Note on City Noir by John Adams at earbox.com
The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 27 January. It will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds.
On an unseasonably warm winter’s night, Manchester Collective returned to their home city for the second leg of their Wintering tour. The ensemble’s co-artistic director, Jasmin Kent Rodgman, introduced the concert. She said that the Collective is a ‘shapeshifting ensemble’, tonight made up of a string quartet and a vocal quartet from the Marian Consort. This is what makes Manchester Collective unique: every concert features different and unusual music, there are varied and unusual ensembles, and the music-making is always of the highest quality. They have built up a level of trust with their audiences that means we will follow them, whatever they do.
‘Rather than resist fallow seasons of the year and our lives, we embrace them… we allow ourselves to rest and reflect.’
Jasmin Kent Rodgman
The title Wintering comes from the book by Katherine May, which inspired a new piece by Samantha Fernando. As Rodman said, ‘Rather than resist fallow seasons of the year and our lives, we embrace them… we allow ourselves to rest and reflect.’
Much of the music in the concert was notable for its reflective quality, and for the space between notes. (I like to scribble my thoughts during live performances for later use in writing these posts; I often had to stop writing last night during the intense silence of the pauses in the music). As Miles Davis said, the space between the notes is often as important as the notes themselves: ‘it’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.’
The concert began with excerpts from Prophetiae Sibyllarum by the sixteenth-century composer Orlande de Lassus. We heard more excerpts in the second half of the concert. The 12 motets set texts known as the Sibylline Oracles or Prophecies. The Sybils were pagan prophets or oracles who predicted the coming of Christ. Rory McCleery, founder and director of the Marian Consort, explained that, on the face of it, these pieces have little to do with winter, but that they are ‘seasonal prophecies’ that explore the coming of Jesus through his mother, Mary, and her state of mind.
McCleery also drew our attention to the ‘bold, pioneering, incredibly chromatic music’ of Lassus, and referenced the similarly chromatic music of other sixteenth-century composers like Cipriano de Rore and Vicente Lusitano, who has been described as the first published Black composer. The Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo also springs to mind.
The opening Prologue, the most chromatic section of all, was peppered with remarkable key changes. In 1574, Adrien le Roy, music publisher to King Charles IX of France, wrote to the composer to say that the King was ‘so ravished by it that I cannot describe it.’ This was our first chance to hear the four voices of the Consort singing a capella. Soprano Caroline Halls sang with a lovely, pure tone. Rory McCleery had a gorgeously fruity, powerful counter tenor voice. Will Wright sang with an ardent, lyrical tenor. Bass Jon Stainsby sang with a rich, warm tone. All four were excellent, both as solo singers and in ensemble. Their tuning was impeccable in the intricate Lassus pieces. The strings of the Collective played with minimal vibrato, suiting the Early Music style.
Rodgman introduced David Lang’s the national anthems as part of the concert’s self-reflective theme, describing not the pomp we might expect but pride in our community and also fear and uncertainty. Lang wrote that his original plan was to take ‘just one hopeful sentence’ from each of the world’s national anthems to create a larger text, but was shocked to find in almost every anthem there was,
‘A bloody, war-like, tragic core, in which we cover up our deep fears of losing our freedoms with waves of aggression and bravado’.
He wrote five pieces, which are a meditation on our insecurity about freedom. Last night we heard two of the pieces, our land our peace, which contains the deeply ironic line ‘we fight for our peace’, and later fame & glory, which contains the brutal line, ‘we will die before we are made slaves.’ In the first piece, the words, sung in unison at first, were split up with complete silence in the gaps. Jagged, impassioned harmonies were then offset against the solo bass. The strings were eerie and intense, at times icy, which suited the winter theme. The second piece featured a superb extended solo from Rory McCleery. The piece ended with anxious harmonics from the upper string and chattering viola.
The central point of the concert was Samantha Fernando’s Wintering, which was commissioned by Wigmore Hall in London and premiered there on 22 November. Fernando introduced her new work from the stage, saying that it felt unusual to be with people when she spent most of her time as a composer on her own. She chose chamber instrumentation as it felt intimate, but also to allow the singers’ words to cut through. At times, voices were treated as instruments or provided sound effects.
This remarkable piece began with eerie wind noises from the singers, and lovely, ambiguous wordless chords, discordant yet optimistic. Soprano Caroline Halls joined with a wordless, lamenting folk tune; other singers provided evocative vocal slides. Icy, spellbinding string chords described a bright but bitter winter landscape as the voices came into focus on the word ‘cold’. Fernando’s striking harmonies were full of deliciously painful false relations, a technique often heard in Renaissance polyphony, such as the Lassus pieces.
The most powerful and innovative of the six movements was the fourth, To Do:Do Less, which deservedly drew its own applause. The composer’s instructions in the score summed it up well,
This movement consists of a guided meditation (sung)and an internal monologue (spoken soprano)
Halls was perfect for the role of internal monologue, fretting about everyday concerns such as work meetings, a dental appointment, buying a birthday present, collecting a prescription, finding a babysitter and World Book Day costumes. There was a stunning moment in Fernando’s piece when the soprano suddenly joined the other singers on the words ‘back to the breath’; the meditation had briefly succeeded. Anyone who has tried to meditate will understand exactly the brutal battle to concentrate that Fernando describes here. Her tonal but often discordant language, evident throughout the work, perfectly expressed this inner conflict.
After the interval, there was a palette cleanser, a selection of movements from Jonathan Dove’s lively Out of Time for string quartet. This was a chance for the Manchester Collective quartet to shine, which they duly did. The Collective’s irrepressible co-founder, Rakhi Singh, was absent last night, but her colleagues performed with the brio, passion and precision that have become the Collective’s trademark. First violinist Sara Wolstenholme explained that this energetic and vibrant piece summed up the personality and the life-changing energy of the husband of the woman [Mrs Elizabeth Allsebrook], who commissioned it to celebrate the life of her late husband. Some moments recalled the music of John Adams, whose music was recently celebrated by The Collective in their Shaker Loops concert. The first movement was lively and spiky, the second was flowing and joyful, quietly ecstatic. The third began with a fizzing explosion and a bubbling theme as the music almost fell over itself with excitement.
The concert ended with a superb reworking of Andrzej Panufnik’s Song to the Virgin Mary, described by Rodgman at the start of the concert as expressing the composer’s ‘yearning for the religious folksong’ of his home in Poland. Panufnik wrote that he was inspired by memories of ‘the naive beauty of the religious folk art of Poland’, and by ‘the moving and powerful mediaeval Latin text of an anonymous Polish poet.’ The work takes a melodic theme, based on the pentatonic scale, which Panufnik described as ‘closely related to Polish folk music.’ The theme appears in all 12 keys as it passes through the voices.
Panufnik wrote two versions, the first for a cappella choir in 1964 and the second for string sextet (1987). The Collective drew on elements from both versions to create an extraordinary new hybrid that, in Wolstenholme’s words, was not how the composer envisaged it. In this context, the work felt like a continuation of the chromaticism and false relations we heard in the Lassus pieces earlier. Sometimes it was hard to tell which were voices and which were strings as they entwined each other. Beginning in near darkness with a solo soprano voice, the music gradually gained intensity, until by the end the performers were bathed in glowing light.
The Wintering Tour continues in Liverpool on 29 November, York on 3 December and Bristol on 5 December
Repertoire
Orlando di Lassus selections from Prophetiae Sibyllarum Motets David Lang the national anthems, i. & iii Samantha Fernando Wintering (new commission) Jonathan Dove Out of Time, III–V. Andrzej Panufnik Song to the Virgin Mary
Performers
MANCHESTER COLLECTIVE Sara Wolstenholme Violin Lily Whitehurst Violin Alex Mitchell Viola Peggy Nolan Cello
THE MARIAN CONSORT Caroline Halls Soprano Rory McCleery Alto Will Wright Tenor Jon Stainsby Bass
Saturday’s concert at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester was an exploration of the power of nature, in two great ‘symphonic’ works by Debussy and Mahler, bookending a rare beast, a trombone concerto.
Nature bared its teeth in the opening piece, which was La Mer (The Sea) by Claude Debussy, premiered in Paris in 1905. He began working on it in 1903 in Bichain in Burgundy, central France, well away from the sea. He wrote to the composer André Messager, telling him he was working on the new piece,
‘You’re unaware, maybe, that I was intended for the noble career of a sailor and have only deviated from that path thanks to the quirks of fate. Even so, I’ve retained a sincere devotion to the sea.’
He finished the work in 1905 while staying at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. But he didn’t draw inspiration from the sea views there. The composer wrote to his publisher, Jacques Durand, ‘It’s a charming, peaceful spot. The sea unfurls itself with an utterly British correctness.’ He was inspired instead by the sea as depicted by JMW Turner in his seascapes. Turner was sometimes in dispute with what he saw as ‘British correctness’, as portrayed in his sometimes uneasy relationship with the Royal Academy of Arts in Mike Leigh’s 2014 film Mr Turner.
Debussy was also inspired by The Great Wave offKanagawa by the Japanese Artist Hokusai. He used a reproduction of that print on the cover of the original score. This famous image is stylised but not Impressionistic. In her programme note, Caroline Rae points out that Debussy ‘compared his vibrant orchestration with the paintings of Les Fauves (‘The Wild Beasts’), ‘famed in Paris at the time for their dramatic use of colour.’
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese Artist Hokusai. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons
On Saturday, the wild beast of the sea was unleashed by the BBC Philharmonic under conductor Elena Schwarz. Her conducting revealed the central paradox of this piece, which Robert Philip describes in his excellent book The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music,
‘It’s easy to forget that such a well-known orchestral masterpiece, on first hearing, may seem formless, a succession of washes of sound, or a sort of ‘stream of consciousness.’’
This is the effect that Debussy presumably wanted to achieve – the rawness of nature exhibited in the terrible beauty of the sea. As Philps points out,
‘There is nothing vague or haphazard about [Debussy’s] compositional methods. The whole work is carefully structured using a small number of motifs that recur and are transformed.’
Schwarz’s conducting was very precise and measured, superbly controlling the apparent turbulence of the orchestral writing. The opening movement, De L’aube à Midi Sur la Mer (From Dawn to Midday on the Sea) began in a mood of intense quiet, with glittering, shimmering sounds describing the breaking of dawn. There was a beautiful patchwork of orchestral colour, as the sea ceaselessly ebbed and flowed. There were lovely solos from Victoria Daniel (flute), leader Zoë Beyers (violin) and Henrietta Cooke (cor anglais).
In the second movement, Jeux de Vagues (Games of Waves), Schwarz brought out great detail in Debussy’s orchestral colours, such as the glockenspiel played by Paul Patrick at the beginning and end of the movement. She captured the playful joy of the waves, and there was a lovely moment when the precision of the brass was offset against sweeping strings.
The final movement, Dialogue du Vent et de la Mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea, illustrated the sea in all its moods. It began with the ominous rumble of lower strings and percussion, anxious upper strings and roaring brass. A lovely woodwind melody reached for light and hope. Lurching waves in the upper strings were offset against the lower strings, leading to a climax that brought to mind a similar climax in Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, written only a few years earlier, so memorably brought to life in Disney’s Fantasia in 1940. There was a moment of calm with a lovely violin melody, disrupted by sudden danger from the cellos. A yearning, simple melody led to a joyful climax. The sea felt powerful but no longer dangerous. Playful pizzicato on cellos was offset against shimmering brass, before the piece reached a final, stunning climax.
Dani Howard. Source: danihoward.com
Dani Howard wrote her Trombone Concerto in 2021 for Peter Moore (Saturday’s soloist) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The COVID pandemic hadn’t struck when the orchestra commissioned the work. By the time Howard began writing, the world was in lockdown, and only key workers were allowed out. The concerto is partly Howard’s tribute to those workers. As Timmy Fisher says in his programme note
‘The everyday heroics of bus drivers and refuse workers were suddenly getting the recognition they deserved. Howard’s concerto is a celebration of these people, and their resolve during the pandemic provides its emotional arc.’
The concerto began with bustling violas in the early Minimalist style of the American composer John Adams, evoking the everyday lives of those workers. The trombone entered with an insouciant four-note theme, which appeared again at the start of the second movement. Howard’s initial instruction to the trombonist is to ‘play as if you are totally oblivious to your surroundings.’ The first movement is titled ‘Realisation’, and it was fascinating to hear the moment when the trombone came into synch with the orchestra, as if suddenly realising the role the key workers had in the pandemic and wondering how to contribute. Moore played with a warm tone and evocative slides. Sometimes his playing was virtuosic, but at other times his instrument was part of the orchestral texture rather than showy. At the end of the movement, there was the first concerto-like moment when the trombone played a lyrical tune accompanied by slow orchestral chords suspended beneath.
The highlight of the concerto was the second movement, ‘Rumination’, in which the solo trombone ruminated on ‘the seed of an idea’ introduced in the first movement. Moore, using that rich tone that we associate with the North’s finest brass bands, was echoed by two muted trombones in the orchestra. A brass band chorale gradually joined, and in this moment of contemplation, it felt as if we were suspended outside time. An eternal melody wound its way gradually from one part of the orchestra to another, with slow-moving blocks of colour. Flourishes from the flutes could have come from La Mer, making this a good companion piece to the earlier piece. Finally, there was a minor explosion from the orchestra, as if a moment of resolution had finally been reached.
The final movement, ‘Illumination’, was written to be ‘as explosively positive as possible.’ It began with more Minimalism from the strings and an angular trombone part. Moore played a stunningly virtuosic passage – his playing had been superb throughout the concerto. After an ecstatic orchestral passage, the piece reached a climactic end. The orchestra smiled and clapped in acknowledgement of Moore’s magnificent playing, and Schwarz picked out the trombonists and brass section for separate applause. There were more smiles from composer Dani Howard as she came on stage to receive her applause.
The second half marked a return to the nature theme, in the form of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, the ‘Titan’. It began with string harmonics and woodwind, creating a sense of stasis followed by expectation as nature came to life, marked by Mahler in the score ‘Wie ein Naturlaut’ (Like a sound of nature). Birdsong was created by a solo clarinet (John Bradbury) as a cuckoo and an oboe (Jennifer Galloway) as a chaffinch. Four offstage trumpets created the sound of hunting horns. Mahler cleverly used the cuckoo’s call to form the opening notes of his song Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld from his earlier song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). As Jo Kirkbride astutely pointed out in her programme note, this was ‘ Mahler’s first gesture towards incorporating song within the symphony.’ The song is the happiest in the cycle, describing the protagonist walking across the fields, singing about how lovely the world is. There were two joyful climaxes, then we returned to the shimmering strings of the opening, with more birdcalls: a moment of quiet joy beautifully shaped by the orchestra under Schwarz. A melody in the cellos, joyful at first, turned darker, but the birds continued singing valiantly. The danger passed, and with a sudden key change, we moved to a rustic, pastoral passage, then a serenely lilting melody. The orchestra reached a glowing climax, excellently played. The movement’s witty false ending elicited a few wry smiles from the audience.
The second movement was a robust country dance of the type that Mahler often brought into his later symphonies. Schwarz became more animated as she conducted the symphony, dancing lightly on her podium, enjoying the repeated melody. There was a slight note of sarcasm from the brass, and the writing became more sophisticated as we passed through the keys. A highlight was the perfectly controlled lower strings. A tentative horn theme led to an elegant trio, beautifully poised.
The Huntsman’s Funeral by Moritz von Schwind, 1850 (Public domain)
The third movement began with a minor-key version of Frère Jacques (Brother John), known to Mahler as Bruder Martin (Brother Martin). This reminded me of the great comedian Bill Bailey’s witty, sarcastic turning of the theme for Match of the Day and the American National Anthem into minor-key laments. Mahler said the inspiration for the movement came from an illustration in the children’s book ‘The Huntsman’s Funeral.’ We were back in nature again, this time with a sardonic twist. Various forest animals carried the coffin in Moritz von Schwind’s 1850 woodcut. This time, the cuckoo turned his song into Die zwei blauen Augen (my love’s two blue eyes) from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. The song has a bitter-sweet quality, with its constant switching between major and minor in the melody, recalling the minor-key transposition of Frère Jacques. Schwarz controlled this section beautifully. The funeral procession returned, darker and more sardonic than before, burying the Frère Jacques tune.
The fourth movement burst in with an anguished climax. The brass was stunning here, providing a visceral thrill. This movement was a showpiece for the orchestra, who played with passion, precision and conviction throughout. It was also a tribute to Mahler’s skills as a composer: despite various revisions and the fact that this was his first symphony, this movement utterly convinces. A confident march with swirling strings was punctured by a little, sarcastic descending theme that kept recurring. A never-ending string melody was decorated by the lovely solo horn played by Mihajlo Bulajic. The anguish of the start returned, with sarcastic trumpets; there was a touch of Wagner in the brass here. An ecstatic climax faded away, giving way to another long-limbed melody on the strings, beautifully played with a sense of inevitability. The cellos took over the melody. In a later symphony, Mahler could have used this to provide a glimpse of heaven, but here it represented a return to the calm of nature. The orchestra reached a sunny climax, all anguish finally gone, then fell away again. A niggling, slightly angry theme on the violas prompted a return to the opening march, now more optimistic. The hunting horns returned, and the orchestra’s struggle felt vindicated. Schwarz leapt on her podium, sharing the pure joy of the end. As directed by Mahler, several brass players stood to deliver a golden theme. We suddenly reached the sunlit uplands, with a huge final flourish. There was massive, and well-deserved applause. Schwarz highlighted individual soloists, all of whom were excellent. Ronan Dunne, the double-bass soloist, gave a lovely little twirl on his bass. Schwarz brought the whole orchestra to its feet, ending a fine performance.
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Peter Moore trombone Elena Schwarz conductor
Repertoire
Debussy La Mer Dani Howard Trombone Concerto Mahler Symphony No. 1
Sources
Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music (Yale University Press, 2018) Dani Howard and Timmy Fisher: Sleeve Notes to Dani Howard Orchestral Works (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) Programme notes by Caroline Rae, Timmy Fisher and Jo Kirkbride
Broadcast
The concert concert will be broadcast on In Concert on BBC Radio 3 on 18 November and will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds
Saturday evening’s concert at the Bridgewater Hall was the closing event of a three-day festival celebrating the work of the contemporary American composer and conductor John Adams, born in 1947. In a pre-concert talk, he was interviewed by another distinguished composer, Colin Matthews, who was Composer-in-Association with the Hallé from 2001 to 2010 and is now Composer Emeritus.
Matthews reminded us of Adams’ long association with the Hallé. Adams started working with the orchestra before the Bridgewater Hall opened. His orchestral piece Slonimsky’s Earbox was premiered by the Hallé under Kent Nagano when the Hall opened in September 1996. That piece was a co-commission with Oregon Symphony. On Saturday, we heard the UK premiere of another Hallé co-commission, this time with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Adams’ The Rock You Stand On, which ended the concert.
Adams amusingly explained that he doesn’t like to conduct his own premieres. He suffers from the ‘extreme angst’ of hearing a new piece at the first orchestral rehearsal, however good the orchestra may be.’ He described himself as a ‘nervous composer… wishing the conductor had noticed the metronome marking.’ The premiere of The Rock You Stand On was a month ago under the baton of Marin Alsop, ‘a close friend, a deeply intuitive musician and a longtime enthusiast for my music.’ No doubt Alsop paid close attention to the metronome markings in the new score.
Matthews traced Adams’ striking progression as a composer, starting with something akin to Minimalism, then re-inventing tonality, and more recently expanding his musical language. Adams said that when he was in his twenties, there was an obsession with style. Composers had to follow the style of Luciano Berio, or Serialism (Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez) or Radicalism (John Cage). More recently, the young composers that Adams has worked with care more about content than style, highlighting ‘hot button issues’ such as climate change, ‘how you compose is no longer at the forefront.’
Therefore, it was fascinating to trace Adam’s development as a composer in a series of three pieces spread across the decades. The earliest was The Chairman Dances, written 40 years ago, the most overtly ‘Minimalist’ in style. Scheherazade.2 was written 10 years ago, and The Rock You Stand On was only written last year. The two later pieces show a dramatic move away from Minimalism, particularly Scheherazade.2. The latter is a good example of Adams addressing a ‘hot button issue.’ inspired by his visit to an exhibition at the Institute du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) in Paris, describing the history of the ‘Arabian Nights.’
When he got home, Adams read the story of Scheherazade and was horrified. The Persian Shahryar sought vengeance against all women after his wife was unfaithful, murdering a thousand women in as many days. Scheherazade told the king stories for 1001 nights, the cliffhangers preventing her from being murdered, until the king fell in love with her and spared her life. Adams described Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestral retelling of the story as ‘congenial, romantic, and not serious.’
In Scheherazade.2, Adams updated the story so that the central character represents oppressed women around the world. He joked, ‘We don’t know what happened to Scheherazade.1.’ He could have called his piece Scheherazade Version 2.0, but that would have been too long a title. He said the piece was a hybrid, a symphony that behaves like a violin concerto, and a violin concerto that behaves like a symphony, inspired by dramatic symphonies like Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust and Roméo et Juliette.
‘I find Leila a perfect embodiment of that kind of empowered strength and energy that a modern Scheherazade would possess.’
John Adams on Leila Josefowicz
The theme of the concert was powerful women. Scheherazade.2 described the orthodoxy, sexism, and paternalism of the ‘men with beards’ who pursued the protagonist, trying to eliminate women’s power: ‘Men are afraid of powerful women.’ His other inspiration for the piece was the American-Canadian violinist Leila Josefowicz, who specialises in contemporary music and was the violin soloist on Saturday. Adams wrote, ‘I find Leila a perfect embodiment of that kind of empowered strength and energy that a modern Scheherazade would possess.’
At the concert’s start, Adams announced that he hadn’t included the titles of the four movements in the original programme note for the piece. Although the work is loosely programmatic, rather than a detailed narrative like Stravinsky’s Petrushka or Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, the titles are helpful.
I. Tale of the Wise Young Woman-Pursuit by the True Believers
Adams said the ‘true believers’, represented by the orchestra, were mostly men, and the violin part represents ‘a beautiful young woman with grit and personal power.’ Josefowicz’s playing was sweet-toned at the start, but soon became passionate and feisty, almost frenzied. She easily held her own against a large orchestra, a testament to the power of her playing and Adams’ superbly balanced writing. At times, she played with the attitude of a rock star guitarist and astonishing virtuosity. There were quieter moments, too. At one point, the violin was silent while evocative orchestral strings played a ghostly, ethereal section. The violin joined in with spellbinding, long held notes with gorgeous vibrato. The rich orchestral colour was frequently embellished with exotic-sounding flourishes from Chris Bradley on cimbalom. He was buried in the centre of the orchestra, but the dialogue between solo violin and cimbalom sometimes made the piece feel like a concerto for violin, cimbalom and orchestra. The movement ended with a fiendishly difficult passage for the violin, Josefowicz playing incredibly fast. The orchestra of ‘true believers’ tried to match her virtuosity, but it was clear that the violin had won.
II. A Long Desire (love scene)
This beautiful movement was the highlight of the whole piece. Adams said it ‘starts violently then transforms into a love scene.’ It began with dense orchestral chords, fiercely rhythmic and syncopated, while Josefowicz stood silent and statuesque in contrast to her intense physicality in the first movement. We suddenly passed into a romantic section, entering a garden of love. With its eternal melody, there were echoes of the Jardin du sommeil d’amour (Garden of Love’s Sleep) in Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946-1948). Adams created a magical world with shimmering strings and harps. The solo violin became more strident, with passionate themes falling out of it, matched by an urgent brass theme. The violin replied with equal passion before the sound dropped away again to reach a lovely moment of stasis. The movement ended with Josefowicz playing romantic themes on the upper reaches of the violin.
III. Scheherazade and the Men with Beards
Adams said that in this movement, the young woman, ‘defends herself against male rage.’ It was a dialogue between solo violin and orchestra, starting with cimbalom crashes and agitated percussion – the ‘men with beards’ tormenting Scheherazade. Josefowicz danced lightly to the orchestral themes, then came in resolutely in a different key, answering her tormentors, accompanied by a hopeful-sounding celeste. The battle continued throughout the movement. The orchestra roused itself to an angry climax, superbly played. Josefowicz stood like a caged creature, waiting to respond, fully inhabiting the role of Scheherazade even when she wasn’t playing. She gently stated her case in reply, accompanied by contemplative cimbalom, but soon became angry again, playing with stunning virtuosity. After another angry skirmish, the violin played a deliberately discordant tune. Scheherazade had won again.
IV. Escape, Flight, Sanctuary
This began with a looping orchestral theme, leading to a massive climax. Adams’ conducting was relatively low-key rather than demonstrative, as it was throughout the concert, but he drew excellent playing from the orchestra. The solo violin joined, the bow scurrying across the strings. As Scheherazade battled to escape from her oppressors, Josefowicz’s playing became more virtuosic, and it felt as if she was physically challenging the orchestra with her stance on stage. The orchestra could barely keep up with the violin, but they began to gain the upper hand. The violin’s rejoinder was equally passionate. Finally, an uneasy resolution appeared to have been reached, as Scheherazade achieved sanctuary. There was a gorgeous moment of subtle orchestral colour as the violin soared above, ending this stunning performance. Adams bowed low in acknowledgement of Josefowicz, and she turned to the orchestra to acknowledge them. As she accepted the huge applause, she looked exhilarated.
The second half of the concert also featured strong women. We began with The Chairman Dances, which Adams described in his programme note as an ‘out-take’ from Act III of his opera Nixon in China, which premiered in 1987. Subtitled ‘A foxtrot for orchestra’, the scenario describes
‘the fabled “Madame Mao”, firebrand, revolutionary executioner, architect of China’s calamitous Cultural Revolution, and… a former Shanghai movie actress.’
Madame Mao gatecrashes the Presidential Banquet and hangs paper lanterns around the hall. She motions for the orchestra to play and begins dancing on her own. Chairman Mao steps down from his portrait on the wall, and they dance the foxtrot, as they remember dancing to the gramophone years before.
This was a chance for the orchestra to shine, which they duly did in this attractive piece. The opening was pulsing and vibrant, with joyfully shifting blocks of sound. The orchestra settled on a pivoting theme, with a lovely syncopated glockenspiel. We went on a journey through orchestral colour and rhythms until we reached an actual waltz, then another and another, becoming faster and more ecstatic. Gemma Beeson played the piano part. She was invisible during the performance from where we sat as the large orchestra filled the stage. She was deservedly given a separate bow. The piece ended with the sound of a gramophone winding down, played by the orchestra rather than from a recording, a clever effect that never fails to delight.
The final strong woman featured in the concert was the American conductor Marin Alsop. Her website describes her as
‘the first woman to serve as the head of major orchestras in the United States, South America, Austria, and Great Britain.’
She was also the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, in 2013. Adams composed The Rock You Stand On as a gift to Alsop. This piece made an excellent companion to The Chairman Dances with what Adams describes as
‘a certain ‘big band’ quality to the ensemble writing… driven by an underlying jazz-infected pulse.’
The piece began with a simple plucked theme on strings, which soon evolved with a touch of Bernard Herrmann’s orchestral writing in his score for Psycho (1960). The theme cascaded through the orchestra, syncopated in the style of the early John Adams. An overarching woodwind and brass theme was offset against the strings. A constantly rising theme could easily have accompanied a film noir. The orchestral writing was always lucid, despite the size of the orchestra, with limpid textures. The piece featured the fierce rhythms and surprising harmonic changes that have become such attractive features of his music, but here transposed into even more sophisticated textures. The piece constantly evolved, endlessly searching, until it came to a sudden end. It was a worthy addition to Adams’ extensive catalogue. Several audience members gave Adams and the orchestra a well-deserved standing ovation. It was a pleasure to be in the presence of one of our greatest living composers.
Repertoire
John Adams Scheherazade.2 John Adams The Chairman Dances John Adams The Rock You Stand On (Hallé Co-Commission / UK Premiere)
Performers
The Hallé John Adams conductor Leila Josefowicz violin
The Cover of The Overview by Steven Wilson, designed by Hajo Müller
This is an analysis of the first half of Steven Wilson’s eighth solo album, The Overview. For an introduction to the album, click here. Analysis of the second half of the album to follow.
OBJECTS OUTLIVE US
No Monkey’s Paw
The opening describes an eerie meeting on a misty moor. Wilson refers to two ghost stories that may have occurred on the moor (recalling the ghost stories on which his 2013 album The Raven that Refused to Sing is based) but says that neither happened here.
First, there is ‘no ghost on the moor’/no open window’. This appears to reference Kate Bush’s 1978 song Wuthering Heights, set ‘Out on the wily, windy moors’, when the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw haunts Heathcliff at his window. Bush, of whose music Wilson is a huge fan, memorably sings,
‘Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy I’ve come home, I’m so cold Let me in your window.’
Second, there is ‘no monkey’s paw’. The Monkey’s Paw is a ghost story by the English author W.W. Jacobs, first published in 1902. It describes a magical monkey’s paw, which provides three wishes that lead to unforeseen and terrible consequences. According to the story, the holy man who put the spell on the paw, ‘wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.’
The Alien on the Moor. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight
Instead, Wilson’s protagonist looks beyond Earthbound ghost stories and into space, encountering an alien on the moor. The alien pointedly says, ‘Did you forget I exist?’ The protagonist blames the alien for playing ‘too hard to get.’ In the BFI roundtable discussion to launch the album, Wilson said the reference to the alien is ‘a bit tongue in cheek’, but that there was a ‘serious point’, which is that we spend too much time looking down at our digital devices, and not enough time looking up ‘with a sense of awe’ at the sky and the stars, as he did when he was a child. We have lost our sense of curiosity and wonder and are obsessed with chasing likes and followers on social media, a central theme of Wilson’s 2020 album The Future Bites. The theme that technology has changed the course of human evolution, and not necessarily for the better, goes back to Fear of a Blank Planet, the 2007 album Wilson wrote for Porcupine Tree.
The track opens with Wilson singing in a gorgeous falsetto, showing how strong his upper register has become since he started developing this part of his vocal range on The Future Bites. His voice is bathed in echo, evoking the ethereal rather than the Earthbound. His voice is gentle and intimate, beautifully contemplative, enriched by the sound design and spacey effects created by Randy McStine, who also plays guitar and sings backing vocals on the album. Wilson plays the soft-edged bass line on an acoustic bass. The alien’s voice is Wilson’s own, transposed to a lower register using the same effect as on ‘King Ghost’ from The Future Bites.
The Buddha Of The Modern Age
The Buddha of the title refers to Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. According to Buddhist teaching, the Buddha will be succeeded by Maitreya, sometimes referred to as ‘The Buddha of the modern age.’ Wilson’s lyrics refer to a contemporary Buddha, who is ‘barely paid minimum wage’ for doling out ‘truth and healthy karma.’ Wilson says his teaching is ignored. In a poetic line, he refers to humanity ignoring the truths revealed by the wise men of the past, who are now mere shadows to us, ‘the blurred photos of the ghosts of men’.
The lyrics in this section are the most personal on the album. Wilson’s lyrics about his views are rarely so open and direct. He told Anil Prasad of Innerviews, ‘I’ve always been slightly wary of being too preachy or holier than thou,’ but he feels so strongly about the effect of meat eating not just on animals but on the planet that he’s ‘becoming a little more forthright about my veganism.’ Here’s an example of the anger he feels,
‘Slaughter our sacred cow To stuff our stupid mouths Already fit to burst Still the insatiable thirst To kill over and over’
Wilson is highly critical of what he sees as the failure of our stewardship of the planet, which we regard as ours to treat however we want. The phrase ‘insatiable thirst’ refers to our appetite for food, our obsessive consumerism, and our destruction of the planet, ‘We interlopers, the inferior species/Wallow in our own faeces.’
The Destruction of our Planet. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight
The track begins with a resolute piano motif which matches the stridency of Wilson’s opinions, soon joined by drummer Russell Holzman on icy cymbals – the first time we hear him on the album. Randy McStine and Willow Beggs soon join him on rich, layered backing vocals. Willow is a singer-songwriter and the daughter of bass player Nick Beggs. The backing vocals are reminiscent of those on Porcupine Tree songs like ‘Heartattack in a Layby’ from In Absentia (2002), which ends with 38 tracks of multi-tracked voices. The song builds to a climax, with thundering drums, then drops away on the word ‘try’, creating a moment of compassion for humanity as a gentler piano melody ends the track.
Objects: Meanwhile
The lyrics for this section were written by Andy Partridge of the English rock band XTC, who also wrote the lyrics for the title track of Wilson’s 2017 album To The Bone (2017) and for his 2018 single How Big the Space. Wilson’s admiration for Partridge dates back to XTC’s formation of the fictitious band The Dukes of Stratosphear, which inspired Wilson to form his own fictional band, Porcupine Tree, which eventually became a real band.
Wilson has said that Partridge and Ray Davies of the Kinks are the best at describing everyday lives in their lyrics. While writing The Overview, he was remixing XTC’s 1984 album The Big Express in surround sound. The Big Express is a concept album about life in Swindon, a town in Wiltshire in the southwest of England. The song that interested Wilson particularly was ‘The Everyday Story of Smalltown’. Partridge told Todd Bernhardt of XTC’s Blogs that ‘there’s a little vein of [Welsh poet] Dylan Thomas in there.’ Wilson told Stephen Humphries of Under the Radar that the song has ‘some of the most divine Little England observational lyric writing.’
He told Dave Everley of Prog that he rang Partridge with a challenge, ‘I want smalltown soap operas juxtaposed with cosmic phenomena.’ He wanted to put our ordinary lives in perspective – a central theme of the album – by providing links or contrasts with what was happening ‘meanwhile, on the other side of the universe.’ The two men entered a productive dialogue. Wilson was fascinated by Partridge’s comment that the lyrics make a significant difference in how you produce a track, particularly the vocals.
A Teenager with his First Telescope. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight
Partridge fulfilled the brief perfectly. Events on Earth are sometimes linked with cosmic events,
‘As you queue at the bank for an hour ’Cause a solar flare blew out the power.’
Sometimes people on Earth are oblivious to the effect of cosmic events,
‘The driver in tears ‘bout his payment arrears Still nobody hears when a sun disappears In a galaxy afar.’
Sometimes the link is metaphorical,
‘Her shopping bag broke, sending eggs and flour crashing Down to the ground like star clusters smashing.’
One of the verses refers to a ‘teenager with his first telescope’, which reflects Wilson’s nostalgia for his own teenage years, looking up at the sky, fascinated with space, before smartphones were invented. Robert Smith of The Cure shares that nostalgia. The track ‘Endsong’ from Songs of a Lost World (2024) was inspired by his memories of looking up at the sky with his father around the time of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969. In another verse, a young man cleaning cars wonders, ‘Is there life on Mars?’, the title of David Bowie’s 1973 single.
Some of the politics from To the Bone creeps in. That album addressed what some have described as a ‘post-truth’ world. Patridge’s lyric describes humans bickering about ‘fences’ – petty disputes between neighbours, and about ‘borders’ – between countries, often leading to war. The lyric wryly states that it’s best not to think about those disputes, an understandable reaction to the conflicts that have blighted the early years of the 2020s. There is deep sarcasm in the line, ‘It’s better to live without facts.’
The track begins with a clear statement of an important musical theme. It’s a 19-note piano motif that restlessly snakes back on itself, returning every three beats to the same note (F#). It sounds straightforward when broken down into three-note segments, but the complete theme helps restore Wilson’s prog credentials due its length. Wilson told Prasad that the basic melody is like a Shepard Tone, ‘in that it constantly ascends in whole tones.’ A Shepard Tone is an auditory illusion in which a repeated musical pattern appears to be constantly rising even though it remains in the same octave. Examples of its use are at the end of Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’ from Meddle (1971) and Hans Zimmer’s score for Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk.
‘A bit of a masterpiece.’ Variations by Andrew LLoyd Webber
Wilson said the 19-note motif returns in different musical forms throughout Objects Outlive Us, like the use of the leitmotif (leading motif) in Richard Wagner’s operas or the musical formula in the works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, such as his massive opera cycle Licht (Light) (1977 – 2003). Wilson also referred to repeated themes in Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells(1973) and Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’. He told Humphries that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1978 album Variations, which repeatedly used a theme by the composer Niccolò Paganini, was ‘overlooked… [but] I think it’s a bit of a masterpiece, actually.’ The second track on the album was used as the theme tune for the television arts series The South Bank Show, which ran on ITV from 1978 to 2010, before moving to Sky Arts.
After three statements of the 19-note theme, the central song of Objects Outlive Us begins, with an earworm of a melody. It’s decorated with Floydian sliding guitars and a plucked string theme played by Wilson. McStine provides gorgeous backing vocals that evoke the sound of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).
At around 3:30, there’s a blistering bass solo in the unusual time signature of 12/8. Each beat in the bar is divided into three semi-quaver (sixteenth note) triplets instead of the more usual two quavers (eighth notes). Perhaps surprisingly, Wilson plays it on an acoustic bass guitar. It’s heavily distorted and put through an amp with lots of overdrive. As Wilson repeats the bass riff, the track takes flight in the proggiest section of the album so far, as McStine adds an extra guitar line above the bass in the style of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) bands of the late 70s and early 80s, such as Iron Maiden and Saxon. At around 4:45, the track stalls as a metaphorical handbrake is applied, then the track rouses itself with a drum flourish into a spacey instrumental before the vocals return. At 6:00, the 19-note theme returns, now in a driving, much heavier version for full band, followed by a gentle piano version that takes us back to the beginning of this section.
In the sleeve notes, Wilson describes Theo Travis’ saxophones in the track as ‘Jaxonsaxes’, named after David Jackson, who played saxophone with Van der Graaf Generator, often playing two at once. His nickname is ‘Jaxon’. He worked on many of their albums, including a long run of classic albums in the 1970s.
The Cicerones/Ark
The archaic word ‘cicerones’ is from the word ‘cicerone’, meaning a tour guide, derived from the name of the great Roman orator, Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC). The track’s title comes from a short story, The Cicerones, by the English writer Robert Aickman (1914 – 1981). The protagonist, John Trant, visits the Cathedral of Saint Bavon (presumably Saint Bavo) in Belgium. He begins a self-guided tour using a guidebook but soon meets various strange figures who act as his guides to the increasingly macabre sights of the cathedral. There’s a creeping sense of unease and the surreal. The atmosphere builds in the same way as in Thomas M. Disch’s short story Descending, which inspired Wilson’s previous album and short story The Harmony Codex. The Cicerones was filmed for Film Four in 2002, in a short starring Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Sherlock, Bookish). In the context of the track, the title refers to the guides who lead the remnants of humanity into space, following the planet’s destruction so graphically described earlier in ‘The Buddha Of The Modern Age.’
Leaving the Planet. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight
The Ark represents a new start, like Noah’s escape from the Flood in his ark with two of each animal. Compared with the relaxed rhyming couplets of Partridge’s lyrics in the previous section, the lyrics of this section are breathless, broken up into short sections. It’s a technique that goes back to ‘Open Car’ from Porcupine Tree’s Deadwing (2005). After the withering invective of ‘The Buddha Of The Modern Age’, only a few who warned about Earth’s destruction survived. It’s easy to miss the story – and the message – here amongst the turbulence of the lyrics. Humanity is leaving the Earth, which is now destroyed and reduced to dust. Ironically, when Prasad asked Wilson if he would rather live on Mars, he replied, ‘Mars is a planet of red dust. Earth is incredibly diverse, geographically, ecologically, and climate-wise.’
Wilson plays all the guitar parts at the beginning of this section. It starts with a gently contemplative acoustic guitar part, gorgeously recorded, that wouldn’t have been out of place on one of his early solo albums. After a rich keyboard wash, at about a minute in, the 19-note theme returns in a version for band and piano, and the section builds to a climax with repeated melody, with a similar feel to ‘Eclipse’, the epic finale to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). It’s also the emotional climax of the album’s first half, sung with gathering, hymn-like intensity, marking the historic significance of our decision to leave Earth after destroying it. The epic guitar solo marks the beginning of our journey to the stars, to begin a new life on the other side of the universe.
Cosmic Sons of Toil
The title of this instrumental section is intriguing. Wilson told Stéphane Rousselot of Amarok Magazine that it’s just a play on words. Perhaps he was thinking of the phrase ‘Horny-handed sons of toil.’ That phrase was first used by Lord Salisbury, three times British Prime Minister in the nineteenth century. The manual labourers described by Salisbury, with their horny (calloused) hands, have now been replaced by cosmic labourers. Perhaps that interpretation is incorrect, but as Wilson told Rousselot, ‘That’s the fun of analysis.’
This section is more up-tempo after the stately, anthemic pace of previous sections. The spacey electronic noises, sounding like a cosmic ray gun, are provided by the ARP 2600 analogue synthesiser. In a YouTube Reel, Wilson described it as ‘perfect for a space-themed album… It sounds like Hawkwind in 1973.’ The track begins with a tumbling, repeated piano theme, soon joined by jerky, melodic bass and frenetic guitar. The guitar solo at around 0:45 is the first of two on the album by Randy McStine. The solo is agitated and fragmented and unusual. McStine also plays guitar on the rest of the track. At around 2:00, there’s a funky, jerky, distorted guitar riff, a variation on the fuzzy bass theme we heard earlier, with agitated drumming from Russell Holzman. At around 2:45, the track becomes so frenzied that it falls over itself. The whole section describes an out-of-control spacecraft hurtling through space. It’s reminiscent of the scenes in Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film Interstellar when the spaceship flies with difficulty as it creaks, groans and shudders, reminding us that interstellar travel is difficult.
No Ghost on the Moor/Heat Death of the Universe
The first part of this section, ‘No Ghost On The Moor’, is a reprise of the opening section, with the same lyrics and melody. The difference is that we are now on the other side of the universe. The alien has taken us as far away from Earth as possible, and in this new context, Wilson is joined by a conventional rock band. The lyrics take on a new meaning, becoming achingly tender and emotional. Wilson’s recurring nostalgia for childhood has been replaced by an existential nostalgia for the Earth we have left far behind. His previous anger about the reckless destruction of the Earth has been replaced by deep empathy for the human condition and the fragility of life
The Heat Death of the Universe. Image created by AI.
The second part of this section is an instrumental, The ‘Heat Death of the Universe’ – also known more prosaically as the Big Chill or the Big Freeze – refers to the scientific hypothesis about the ultimate slow demise of the universe. Eric Betz of Astronomy.com described it as a,
‘Long and frigid affair… the day when all heat and energy is evenly spread over incomprehensibly vast distances. At this point, the universe’s final temperature will hover just above absolute zero… the existence of our entire species registers as but a brief ray of sunlight before an infinite winter of darkness.’
The guitar solo at around 2:00 is McStine’s second on the album. Wilson told McStine that he didn’t want a classic rock solo of the kind played by David Gilmour on ‘Comfortably Numb’ from Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall. This is no reflection on the quality of Gilmour’s playing – he told Roie Avin and Geoff Bailie of The Prog Report that the ‘Comfortably Numb’ solo is the ‘greatest guitar solo of all time.’ McStine’s solo sounds like a synthesiser rather than a blues guitar, and the tone breaks up intermittently rather than constantly as it would with conventional distortion. Russell Holzman’s languid drumming creates a feeling of gravitas beneath.
A Scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Touring Club Italiano
At around 2:45, there’s a lovely harmonic turn and some filigree decoration reminiscent of the great Guthrie Govan. As the guitar solo fades to nothing, the track descends into noise. Wilson told Rousselot this was a nod to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the use of ‘very atonal music’ to describe both ‘wonder’ and the feeling that the universe is ‘terrifying… an immense void of death and nothingness.’ He told John Robb at the launch of the album in Manchester that there was a ‘nod to Ligeti’. Wilson is referring to the orchestral piece Atmosphères (1961) by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti, used by Kubrick in the film. The piece uses the technique he called micropolyphony, with large numbers of tiny musical themes woven together to create a constantly shifting composition with no discernible rhythm or melody. This music reminds us of, in Wilson’s words to Humphries, ‘the blackness and death of space… So you get an orchestra.’ The track ends with a wall of noise, a technique he uses compellingly on his first solo album, Insurgentes (2008), when noise rock brutally obliterates the end of various tracks. The track ‘Get All You Deserve ends with Ligeti-like noises. Wilson told Prasad that sounds from the most recent record by Bass Communion (his ‘ambient/noise /experimental project’), The Itself of Itself (2024), fed into this section of the track.
Images from The Overview film by Miles Skarin of Crystal Spotlight Prasad, Anil, Steven Wilson Cosmic Perspectives (Innerviews, 25/02/25) Bernhardt, Todd, Andy discusses ‘The Everyday Story of Smalltown’ (XTC’s Blog, 17 February 2008) Everley, Dave, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Prog, April 2025) Rousselot, Stéphane, Interview – Steven Wilson (Amarok Magazine, 4/3/2025) Betz, Eric The Big Freeze: How the universe will die (Astronomy.com) Avin, Roie and Bailie, Geoff Steven Wilson on The Overview, the upcoming tour, the future of AI, and more. (Interview) (The Prog Report Podcast, 7/3/2025) Robb, John, Steven Wilson: ‘The Overview’ Audio-Visual Experience + Q&A (Cultplex Manchester, 26/02/25)
A tribute to the variety of sounds that strings make, and the human connections that music brings
Manchester Collective
Some concerts are about the music only, the sheer joy of music-making. Others have an external framework, which may be emotional, intellectual, musicolgical, or even spiritual; or a mixture of all of these. Sunday afternoon’s excellent concert by Manchester Collective at the RNCM in Manchester combined all these elements.
Linda Begbie, the Collective’s new Chief Executive, introduced the concert. Last week, she had been auditioning young students for the new Manchester Collective studio at the RNCM. They expressed their fears about a world that was ‘very dark and dangerous, a very scary place.’ With evident emotion in her voice, she said that music is all about connection, ‘if we move away from this, that’s where things go wrong. ‘The Collective’s ethos, she said, was about bringing full humanity to their performances so audiences could meet them there. The concert would address life, death, and divine ecstasy.
Rakhi Singh, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Collective, and lead violinist and conductor for this concert, took up the theme, describing her arrangement of the ninth-century Christian hymn Veni Creator Spiritus as an invocation of the Holy Spirit. She said that the Collective tries to evoke its spirit in the rehearsal room, but it usually only appears in front of an audience. She echoed the feelings of Begbie’s students, that the world seems to be falling apart; we need to find our kindness and courage, and use our despair and outrage to take positive action.
I would try to imagine what a Shaker ceremony must have felt like – those normally stern souls suddenly sprung loose in a rapture of religious ecstasy as they shook in sympathetic vibration with their creator
John Adams on ‘Shaker Loops’
The John Adams piece, Shaker Loops, also has a spiritual aspect. Adams was inspired by the minimalism of pieces for tape loops, repeated looping patterns found in pieces like Steve Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain (1965).
Adams was also inspired by the ecstatic, spiritual dancing of the Shakers religious community, which was set up in the North West of England in the eighteenth century before moving to America. Reading his works over sections of the music, Lancashire-born poet Christ Bryan celebrated the Shakers and its founder Ann Lee in the first of three poems, Genesis. He honoured Lee as ‘The Seer.. God the Mother’, who founded the Shakers as an offshoot of the Quakers, during the Industrial Revolution, when,
‘The town’s waters are no longer used for baptism Crucified new to the crux of commerce.’
The second poem, Exodos, laments, in Bryan’s words, ‘the spiritual malaise of modernity and materialism of all forms – theological, philosophical and economical.’ It begins with evocative words describing a post-industrial landscape,
‘The provocation of concrete is now in bloom The endless bankrupt brick blossom.’
The third and final poem, Revelation, like the other poems, takes its name from one of the books of the Bible. It’s a joyful reworking of the Shaker Hymn A Beautiful Day,
From brook and from fountain come voices of welcome To look beyond to that region where the supernatural lay Where beameth forever a beautiful day.’
Singh described the divine connection of music and dance in Adams’ piece; she said the Collective sought a divine connection in their playing and brought it to the audience.
The musicological aspect of Sunday’s concert was touched on by Adams in his programme note to Shaker Loops, referring to the musical meaning of to shake, ‘meaning either to make a tremolo with the bow across the string or else to trill rapidly from one note to another.’ The viola player Ruth Gibson introduced Terra Memoria for string quartet by the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho by asking players to demonstrate the varied string techniques used by the composer. This was not just a technical exercise. The piece illustrated the whole range of emotions that form part of the grieving process, from lamenting, pain, anger and resignation to moments of reconciliation and yearning, and hope.
“The title Terra Memoria refers to two words which are full of rich associations: to earth and memory. Here earth refers to my material, and memory to the way I’m working on it.”
Kaija Saariaho
The concert’s opening piece, Such Different Paths by the Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova, also featured varied string techniques. The composer asks for playing at one point to sound ‘like a folk fiddle, and elsewhere asks the players to ‘think Baroque.’ The Collective, here consisting of a septet, brought out the full range of colour in this dense and complex piece.
Throughout the concert, The Collective embraced all the music’s musicological, intellectual and spiritual aspects, absorbed them, and created an emotional whole. Their playing throughout was virtuosic, passionate, precise yet emotional. They continue on their mission of communicating deeply through music.
Manchester Collective and Christ Byran
Performers
Rakhi Singh Violin Haim Choi Violin Will Chadwick Violin Donald Grant Violin Rose Hinton Violin Anna Tulchinskaya Violin Bethan Allmand Violin Mira Marton Violin Eloise MacDonald Violin Ruth Gibson Viola Abby Bowen Viola Gemma Dunne Viola Ben Michaels Cello Alex Holladay Cello Jess Schafer Cello Alice Durrant Double bass Christ Bryan Live poetry
Repertoire
Dobrinka Tabakova Such Different Paths Kaija Saariaho Terra Memoria Hymn arr. Rakhi Singh Veni Creator Spiritus John Adams Shaker Loops feat. Christ Bryan
