Brighton16 - Towards Expressionism - Saturday 9 July

Brighton16 will be singing music by Rheinberger, Brahms, Smyth, Bruckner, Reger, Schoenberg, and Strauss' 16-part anthem, Der Abend.

7pm, Saturday 9 July, St Michael & All Angels Church, Brighton

Entrance free

 

CD Reviews - March & April 2020

Michael Butten presents a delightful selection of music by John Dowland (1563-1626), the master English composer of lute music and songs. Butten uses well the richer, warmer tones of the classical guitar, whilst still preserving the simplicity of the original instrument’s lighter style, and avoiding too much weighty expression. His Pavan is a good example of this – Butten plays with a simple soulfulness, all the more touching for its restraint. The Fantasies and Fancies, of which there are six here, allow for more display of virtuosity, yet Butten keeps a lid on this, never allowing them to be become overly showy. The delightful galliard,‘Can She Excuse?’ has a joyful bounce, whereas his ‘Forlorn Hope Fancy’ has a desolate, insular intimacy. The lute can bring a greater sense of fragility, but Butten’s guitar compensates with a steady warmth of tone and cleanness of line throughout. The rapid-fire passage at the end of the ‘Tremolo’ Fancy is so unexpected and unlike anything else in Dowland’s music, and Butten relishes the challenge of its brief virtuosic spotlight. Order is restored in the stately and mournful ‘Loth to Depart’, although this too develops into an expressively intricate gem. There are lighter moments, such as the short and sweet jig, ‘Mrs Winter’s Jump' and the humorous 'Lady Hunsdon’s Puffe’, delivered with lightness and subtle with by Butten. The wonderfully chromatic fantasia, ‘Farewell’, that concludes Butten’s selection allows him to demonstrate further his control and skill, at the same time as bringing out the depths of expression in this fabulous music. For Dowland played on guitar, you can’t go far wrong with this.

Dowland, J. 2019. Dowland: Michael Butten. Michael Butten. Compact Disc. First Hand Records FHR84.

The brothers Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759) and Johann Gottlieb Graun (1703-1771), whilst largely forgotten today were well known in their respective fields during their lifetimes. The younger brother, Carl Heinrich, was closely associated with Frederick the Great of Prussia and his court, as well as being an accomplished tenor and opera composer, achieving fame as Berlin’s Opera Kapellmeister. Johann Gottlieb on the other hand was a virtuoso violinist, and studied with Pisendel and Tartini, working as Frederick’s chamber musician, as well as leading Berlin’s Opera orchestra. But the Portuguese Early Music group, Ludovice Ensemble – Joana Amorim on traverso (Baroque flute) and Fernando Miguel Jalôto on harpsichord – draw attention away from their grander compositions. In a 2 disc set, ‘Del Signor Graun’, the offer a selection from the vast number of Trio Sonatas that the pair composed. A trio sonata consists of two melodic lines along with a continuo accompaniment – but confusingly, one of the melodic lines can be taken by the continuo player (described as ‘obbligato’), resulting in effect in a duet. So here we have six such sonatas, with one melodic line on flute, and the harpsichord taking the second melodic line as well as providing the accompaniment. The brothers wrote around 130 trio sonatas between them, although it is hard to be sure which brother wrote many of them, with ambiguous ascriptions such as ‘Graun’ or ‘Signr. Graun’. Nevertheless, these are delightful pieces, showing a great deal of invention, and nicely transitioning the late Baroque into early Classical styles. Nearly all in three movements, the formula is generally a slow, stately opening movement, ending with an improvisatory passage followed by two faster movements, the finale often a 3-time dance-like movement. Amorim and Jalôto match their melodic lines well, taking over from each other in the frequent exchanges of ideas, as well as enjoying the moments when the two parts align more in a duet. There are beautiful moments of more Bachian counterpoint in the additional slow movement of No. 56, whilst delicate trilling features in the sprightly Allegretto of No. 110. The players give the gentle slow movements graceful poise, and inject welcome energy into the faster movements, such as No. 56’s Allegro. There are no fireworks here, but plenty of subtle delicacy and invention, making for a highly enjoyable listen. 

Various. 2019. Del Signor Graun. Ludovice Ensemble. Compact Discs. Veretum Musica VM021.

Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was active in the woman’s suffrage movement, and her composition career was very successful (Clara Schumann was in fact one of her greatest supporters), although she faced much prejudice during her life, her music being either deemed ‘too masculine’ or ‘too feminine’, depending on whether it was dramatic, rhythmic and powerful, or lyrical and melodic. However, she achieved success with a number of larger scale works – but her smaller-scale repertoire, including a significant number of songs, is largely unknown. Lucy Stevens (contralto), along with pianist Elizabeth Marcus, aims to put that right with a collection of Songs and Ballads, including two sets from early in her career and two from much later. The Op. 3 ‘Lieder und Balladen’ are recorded for the first time here in Smyth’s own English translation, written in pencil on the original manuscript. Smyth had settled in Leipzig to study, and it was there she became known to Clara Schumann, as well as Brahms, Dvořák and Grieg. Apparently, when composer George Henschel presented a couple of Smyth’s songs to Brahms, he wouldn't believe they were hers, stating that Henschel himself must have composed them – it just wasn’t conceivable that a ‘young lady’ had composed them! The Op. 3 set combine images of nature with themes of lost love, and range from the tender ‘On the Hill’, through darker sadness and grief in ‘It changes what we’re seeing’, to the folksy story-telling of ‘Fair Rohtraut’. Stevens’ contralto voice is bright and pure, and she excels in the more tender, gentle moments of Smyth’s lyrical writing. The Op. 4 set of Lieder features themes of motherhood (Smyth dedicated the set to her own mother) and sleep, even nightmares. Stevens brings out the sense of struggle in ‘Night Thoughts’, and Marcus enjoys the most harmonically adventurous accompaniment of the set in ‘Midday Rest’. Shifting forward some thirty years brings us to the wonderful Four Songs for voice and chamber orchestra, here recorded with the Berkeley Ensemble, conducted by Odaline de la Martinez. Martinez was the first woman to conduct a BBC Prom (shockingly as late as 1984), and conducted an historic performance of Smyth’s opera The Wreckers at the Proms in 1994. The songs are scored for single strings, flute, harp and percussion, and Smyth’s orchestration here is exquisite. The harp/flute combination figures highly, but she adds sensuously lyrical strings and accents of imaginative percussion, such as tambourine in ‘The Dance’ and a drum in the dramatic ‘Anacreontic Ode’. Debussy described the set as ‘tout à fait remarquables’. Stevens’ bright tone is clear as a bell, although occasionally a little more variety of tone would bring out the contrasts, such as the gentle sadness of Chrysilla. Finally, Three Songs, from 1913, pick up on Smyth’s commitment to and involvement with the suffragette movement. She met (and fell in love with) Emmeline Pankhurst, and the second of these songs, Possession, is dedicated to her. The words are by the suffragette writer Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, as is the text of the final song, On the Road: A Marching Tune, dedicated to Emmeline’s daughter, Christabel. Possession picks up on ideas of captivity – Smyth was herself imprisoned for two months for throwing a stone through a cabinet minister’s window. The relentless march of the third song builds to an emphatically triumphant climax, with a quotation from Smyth’s own The March of the Women, which became the Women’s Social and Political Union’s official anthem. Stevens communicates the passion of these songs, and the final battle cry has a powerful impact.

Smyth, E. 2020. Songs and Ballads. Lucy Stevens, Elizabeth Marcus, Berkeley Ensemble, Opaline de la Martinez. Compact Disc. Somm Recordings SOMMCD 0611.

Clarinettist Dimitri Ashkenazy is joined by friends Robin Sharp and Mechthild Karkow (violins), Jennifer Anschel (viola) and Gundula Leitner (cello) for a recording of Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115. It is one of the works of Brahms’ Indian summer of composition, after he had decided to stop composing, but had fallen in love with the clarinet, inspired by Richard Mühlfield of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. It is a masterpiece of nostalgia, sadness and exquisite beauty. Ashkenazy and friends choose sound tempi, and the finale is definitely con moto – not always the case. This is a warm rendition, and Askenazy’s tone is tender and rounded, matched with strong ensemble from the string players. There is passion in the turbulent second movement here, however, with appropriate shrillness at the high end. The return of the first movement’s theme at the end of the finale is particularly touching and sensitive. Lebanese composer Houtaf Khoury’s (b.1967) quintet, Gardens of Love, was written for Joan Enric Lluna and the Brodsky Quartet in 2009. It is a contemplative piece, opening with a beautifully lyrical melody for the clarinet, backed with simple, gentle strings. The harmonies occasionally darken, and then proceedings halt on quiet string chords, as the clarinet’s ornamented lines become more insistent. Intensity builds, and there are moments where the string players break through briefly, but the clarinet essentially takes centre stage here in this highly effective single movement work. 

Various. 2019. Brahms & Khoury Clarinet Quintets. Dimitri Ashkenazy, Robin Sharp, Mechthild Karkow, Jennifer Anschel, Gundula Leitner. Compact Disc. Paladino Music pmr 0115. 

A highlight of the 2018 Brighton Festival was Cuckmere: A Portrait, Cesca Eaton’s film depicting a year in the life of the River Cuckmere and Haven with live score by Ed Hughes (b.1968), performed by the Orchestra of Sound and Light. The recording of that performance has now been released as part of Time, Space and Change, bringing together three works by Hughes spread over nearly 30 years of his career. Hughes is Professor of Composition at the University of Sussex, and has a wide-ranging repertoire of compositions to his name, including music for silent films by Sergei Eisenstein and Yasujiro Ozu, opera, orchestral and chamber works. Eaton’s film of the river Cuckmere is incredibly beautiful and even moving, as it pans in and out from the journey down the river’s course to the close up detail of the flora and fauna along the way. Hughes captures this in music that equally contrasts fine detail (stuttering shivers in Winter, and birdlike ripples in Spring, for example), with an overall relentless trajectory, using running scales, and gently chugging rhythms in Autumn, leading through to the final rhythmic energy of Summer, with rapid movement over a slowly rising bass line leading to a satisfying arrival at the conclusion. Having seen the film performance, the images of the beautiful landscape remain in my mind, and Hughes’ music brings them straight back in this incredibly effective piece. You can see the video with the music here. Media Vita comes from much earlier in Hughes’ composition career (1991), but was also performed first at the Brighton Festival. A piano trio, it is performed here by members of the New Music Players, founded by Hughes in 1990. The harmonic language here is dense and Hughes launches straight into motion, with intense, independently moving lines from the three instruments shifting and clashing. There is a sense of urgency, even frenzy, and an uneasy shifting of sands as the piano winds chromatically beneath slowly moving string lines. The inspiration here was the motet of the same name by John Sheppard (1515-1558), and that influence of English fifteenth and sixteenth century composers is picked up once again in the larger scale Sinfonia (2018). Here, the six movements variously draw on English folk song, as well as works by Cooke, Dunstaple, Tallis and Gibbons. Elements of the sources are used in highly imaginative ways, such as the basic chromaticisms of Cooke’s motet Stella Celi Extirpavit spaced out in time, and the diatonic harmonies of Dunstaple’s Veni Sancte Spiritus surrounded by swirling chromatic movement. There’s even a hint of car horns blaring through the urban landscape in the bouncing rhythms of In Nomine. In these six short movements, Hughes creates a fascinating soundworld with hints of earlier musical traditions within a complex tapestry of modern orchestral colours. The New Music Players, under Nicholas Smith, bring this to life with great precision and energy. 

Hughes, E. 2020. Time, Space and Change. Orchestra of Soung and Light, Ed Hughes, New Music Players Piano Trio, New Music Players, Nicholas Smith. Compact Disc. Métier/Divine Art Records msv 28597.

(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, March & April 2020)

CD Reviews - September 2019

Violinist Tasmin Little is joined by pianist John Lenehan for a glorious programme of works by Amy Beach (1867-1944), Clara Schumann (1819-1896) and Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944). They open with Beach’s wonderful Sonata, Op. 34. Beach was an accomplished pianist, debuting at the age of seven, but curtailed her highly successful performing career at the request of her husband, who preferred that she concentrate only on composition.  Her Sonata is full of lyricism and great virtuosity in the violin part, but, understandably given her pianism, the piano part is no slouch. Little and Lenehan clearly relish the beauty of Beach’s lush writing, as well as enjoying the virtuosity and playfulness, particularly in the quixotic Scherzo. There is as ever a warmth in Little’s tone that is ideally suited to this expansive music, and the flourish they both bring to the fiery finale is glorious. Clara Schumann was another piano virtuoso, but interestingly she had the opposite experience to Beach, her composing more or less coming to an end following her marriage.  Her Three Romances, Op. 22 were her final chamber composition, and these three short movements are full of rich melodic invention, with rippling piano accompaniments, particularly in the lightly playful third Romance. Dame Ethel Smyth was active in the woman’s suffrage movement, and her composition career was relatively successful (Clara Schumann was in fact one of her greatest supporters), although she faced much prejudice, her music being either deemed ‘too masculine’ or ‘too feminine’, depending on whether it was dramatic, rhythmic and powerful, or lyrical and melodic. In fact her Sonata Op. 7 contains both, with a dancing Scherzo and a beautiful, lilting slow movement, flanked by a richly inventive Allegro moderato, and a fabulously unapologetic Finale. Little and Lenehan perform with pace throughout, never allowing the more lyrical moments to become over indulgent, yet the pianissimo conclusion to the slow movement has beautiful delicacy. The finale is full of spirit, yet there is subtlety in Smyth’s writing here, so this is not just a throwaway finish. Little and Lenehan respect this with great attention to detail, but do allow proceedings to build to thrilling finish. To close the disc, we’re treated to two more short works by Beach, firstly a beautifully expressive Romance, Op. 23, with its heart definitely on its sleeve, followed by Invocation, Op. 55, equally romantic, but a little more introspective. Both receive heartfelt performances from Little and Lenehan here. With Little announcing her retirement from live performance earlier this year, her vast recording output becomes all the more precious, and this is definitely one to treasure.

Various. 2019. Tasmin Little plays Clara Schumann, Dame Ethel Smyth, Amy Beach. Tasmin Little, John Lenehan. Compact Disc. Chandos Records CHAN 20030.

During his tenure as composer in residence for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Stephen McNeff (b.1951) wrote a number of works for the orchestra, and for Kokoro, the orchestra’s new music ensemble. He has also written music for Ensemble 10/10, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s contemporary music ensemble. A selection of these works has been recorded by Kokoro, and their disc opens with Counting (Two), scored for an ensemble of solo wind, strings, piano and percussion. The rhythms are spiky and insistent, and there is a constant sense of energy in the fragments of virtuosic material passed between instruments. The central movement has a different feel, inspired by ‘an altogether different sort of ordered counting’, following a visit by McNeff to a war cemetery in Italy, and it opens and closes with a mournful, repetitive lament. Growing intensity builds to an outburst from the horn, before the lament returns. The rushing third movement brushes the sadness aside, concluding the work with a procession of winding material and persistent percussion. The Four Van Gogh Chalks are for a smaller ensemble, and open with a thoughtful, atmospheric impression, Mademoiselle Gachet at the Piano, with high violin, tinkling percussion and rippling piano and wind. Venus in a Top Hat is a quirky, slightly frenzied scherzo, and L’Écorché is darkly atmospheric. The collection ends with Couple Dancing, although their dancing is unsettlingly off-kilter, and ultimately collapses into nothing, the couple presumably exhausted from their efforts. The four pieces form a great miniature suite, performed here with great energy and precision by the Kokoro players. Next on the disc comes Strip Jack Naked, a vehicle for mezzo-soprano Lore Lixenberg. McNeff has written a considerable amount for opera and music theatre, and this is described as a ‘burlesque tragedy’ and a ‘contemporary comic opera’. The story, told in a libretto by comedy actor and writer Vicki Pepperdine, basically tells of a woman waking on her birthday and realising that people don’t like the way she now looks – so she embarks on a drastic course of cosmetic surgery, which goes horribly wrong with dark consequences. Lixenberg delivers the highly challenging mix of virtuosic singing, cutting speech and ‘Sprechstimme’ with startling command. The full work was performed on stage in 2007, and McNeff has produced a Song Suite, containing most of the songs, for this recording. The small instrumental ensemble adds moments of jazzy counterpoint and percussive emphasis, with some occasional chilling sound effects too, and despite obviously being a stage piece, this works remarkably well on disc, a testament to McNeff and Lixenberg’s impressive ability to communicate the chilling story. The final work here is Lux, for octet. McNeff explores light, how it changes and shifts, through eight sections that follow without break. The music has a spooky, ephemeral feel, fleeting and hard to pin down, like shifting shafts of light, and the faster sections have a strong sense of energy, assisted once again by driving percussion rhythms. The Kokoro players perform all this music with impressive virtuosity and clarity, and the rather dry recorded sound actually helps articulate McNeff’s complex writing, making this a fascinating exploration of his striking music.

McNeff, S. 2019. Strip Jack Naked - Ensemble works by Stephen McNeff. Kokoro. Compact Disc. Prima Facie PFCD106.

Finally, in brief, another great recording from Edward Gardner, recently announced as new Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Here he is with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, performing three Symphonies by Schubert (1797-1828), Nos. 3, 5 and 8, the ‘Unfinished’. Gardner’s Schubert is quick-paced but never rushed, and there is a lightness of touch throughout. No. 3 has charm and Haydn-esque spirit, with a blistering finale. No. 5 is more Mozartian, and here Gardner infuses the ‘little’ symphony, scored for smaller orchestra, with grace and elegance, particularly in the slow movement, yet he gives the rather straightforward Menuetto a much needed edge, and the finale rattles by in a whirl of energy. No. 8 starts whisperingly quietly, and the woodwind melody emerges out of nothing. This is a fine performance, expertly paced, never feeling rushed, but equally never wallowing in Schubert’s tempting lyrical melodies, thereby preserving the crucial arc of momentum many performances lose, and the impact of the development section’s dramatic outburst is consequently all the more effective. The seemingly calm second movement has always a sense of underlying tension, which bubbles to the surface in the second theme, over a gently pulsing off-beat rhythm, which then bursts out in a full-on tutti explosion. The contrasts here are the key, and Gardner’s dynamic range is impressive. A great opening volume, I look forward to more.  

Schubert, F. 2019. Symphonies Vol. 1: Nos. 3, 5 and 8. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner. Hybrid Super Audio Compact Disc. Chandos Records CHSA 5234. 

(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, September 2019)

Vote 100: Celebrating Women Composers

Saturday 17 November, 7.30pm, St George's Church, Brighton

Vote 100: Celebrating Women Composers marks the centenary of some women gaining the vote. A specially commissioned new work - ‘Lead On’ - by Lucy Pankhurst, a relative of leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, will be performed and music by a diverse range of women composers, with Caroline Lucas MP as a key speaker.

Artists include soprano Polina Shepherd, vocal/instrumental group HEARD Collective, choir Women of Note, guitarist Brian Ashworth, flautist Rebecca Griffiths and pianists Evgenia Startseva and Yuri Paterson-Olenich plus multi-pianist ensemble the Zongora Piano Group and the Appel Trio. 

Featured composers include Norah Blaney, Rebecca Clarke, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, Lilian Elkington, Shena Fraser, Augusta Holmès, Ethel Smyth plus present-day composers Litha Efthymiou, Cecilia McDowall and Master of the Queen's Music, Judith Weir.

'Norah Blaney (right) and her partner Gwen Farrar first met in 1917, entertaining troops in a concert party. Gwen played the cello and Norah was a classically trained pianist who had also studied composition at the Royal College of Music. Several of the songs she wrote were published while she was still in her teens and 'Are You There Mr Bear?' is still in print over 100 years later.

Norah and Gwen appeared in the 1921 Royal Command Performance at the London Hippodrome. They went on to star in revues at the Vaudeville, Prince of Wales and Savoy Theatres, becoming household names in 1924 for their recording of 'It Ain't Gonna Rain No More'. They lived together as lovers in a house in the King's Road Chelsea, where they entertained Noel Coward, Tallulah Bankhead, Radclyffe Hall, Dolly Wilde (Oscar's niece) and the lesbian action hero Joe Carstairs, to name just a few'.  
(with thanks to Alison Child).

Alison Child is currently writing a biography of Norah Blaney and Gwen Farrar, Tell Me I'm Forgiven (with cover design by Andrew Kay) which will be available in the Autumn of 2019.

Book tickets here.