Clouds

With all the stormy weather we've been having recently I've been looking up at the sky quite a bit to see whether we're likely to have another downpour or I can leave the house without the umbrella. Not sure whether I've seen any Noctilucent clouds though. These are clouds that form in the highest regions of the earth's atmosphere which appear as sun-illumined silvery waves on the threshold of space. Apparently they are extremely rare and are still a mysery to science.

The reason I write about this is the new work Christian Mason has composed for the first of this seasons Britten Sinfonia At Lunch concerts is titled Noctilucent. Like the clouds Christian has said "the piece inhabits the upper regions of available pitch-space, with shimmering string harmonics, piccolo arabesques and bright piano octaves illuming the line which flows through the piece." Below is a picture that Christian asked to be in the programme but unfortunately we are unable to include it so thought I'd post it here.

I'm certainly looking forward to hearing the piece at its UK premiere in Cambridge on Tuesday 15 December. The piece will receive its world premiere a couple of days before in Krakow (13 Dec) and after Cambridge will be performed at London's Wigmore Hall (16 Dec), the Town Hall in Birmingham (17 Dec) and the Assembly House in Norwich (18 Dec). Click here to find out more about the programme and ways to purchase tickets.

Claire (Marketing Director)

Adam Walaciński

We had planned to premiere a work by Paweł Mykietyn this week, but unfortunately the composer has been ill and has been unable to complete the commission. With our Krakow connections, we are pleased that we have been able to find a replacement piece by a native of that city, Adam Walaciński. Born towards the end of the 1920s, he is particularly renowned as a film composer. You can see his extensive filmography here. He wrote Little Music of Autumn in 1986.

You can hear this in Cambridge today, in London tomorrow, in Birmingham on Thursday, and in Norwich on Friday in our Britten Sinfonia at Lunch series. Other works are by Purcell (ed. Britten), John Woolrich, and Schoenberg.

We are grateful to the Polish Cultural Institute for their financial support for this tour.

Court Studies from The Tempest in Poland

If my memory serves me correctly, Richard Harrold's Ink is the 12th Britten Sinfonia commission to receive its world premiere in Krakow as part of our residency here. The snow today did not keep the audience away. It is always hard to judge a piece on a first hearing (and that is one of the advantages of our project, where each commission gives a piece five outings in a week, allowing the performers to really get to grips with it), but the passage I find most appealing is a long solo piano transition section which binds the opening with the concluding sections. Our UK audiences will have a chance to hear the work in Cambridge, London, Birmingham, and Norwich later this week.
Thomas Ades' Court Studies from The Tempest received – I imagine – its Polish premiere: what a rarefied, mysterious (as one would expect from The Tempest) work, with a spine-chilling final section of incredible beauty, fading to a solo violin niente. I’ve heard myself before saying this blog is not a travelogue, but Britten Sinfonia has such a strong link with the musical life of Krakow, a few photos taken during the transition from rehearsal to dinner last night seem appropriate.

Total Eclipse (reprised)

To the Barbican last night to hear Handel's Samson, given by The Sixteen. The undoubted star was Mark Padmore, who opened Britten Sinfonia's season with the Act 1 highlight aria 'Total Eclipse': any nominations for a better tenor in the UK at present? Catherine Wyn-Rogers was Micah (with whom I spent a splendid evening at the Midem Awards last month); other soloists included Roderick Williams and Jonathan Lemalu, both of whom have worked with BS in recent seasons. There is a brilliant clutch of singers now who are as at ease in period performances as with singing with 'modern' bands like Britten Sinfonia.

Thence to Krakow for the premiere of Richard Harrold's Ink. I hope to give a report on that on Sunday: there are chances to hear it in Cambridge, Birmingham, London and Norwich next week.

800th celebrations in snow-dusted Krakow

Cambridge alumni from Krakow and Warsaw joined Britten Sinfonia for the world premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth's Tenebrae yesterday, commissioned with funds from the University of Cambridge to celebrate its 800th anniversary. The concert was followed by a reception at the Radisson SAS hotel, where Britten Sinfonia's partnership with the Academy of Music in Krakow was also marked. Nicholas Daniel stayed on to give an oboe masterclass in a Creative Learning programme funded by the British Council.

Tenebrae

Happy New Year! Our first commission for 2009 is Tenebrae by Ryan Wigglesworth, which receives its premiere in Krakow on Sunday week, before touring to Cambridge, London, Birmingham and Norwich. It has been commissioned with funds from Cambridge and is one of the first events marking the University's 800th anniversary.

Ryan has written: 'Tenebrae is familiar as the Christian service which takes place on the three consecutive evenings of Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday. The service is characterized by the gradual extinguishing of fifteen candles, interspersed with the reading or chanting of psalms. As the close of the service, after the last remaining lit candle has been put out and Psalm 22 concluded, the congregation makes its way out of the church in darkness.

Whilst certain aspects of this ritual inform my piece, it is perhaps the more literal sense of the word tenebrae – ‘shadows’ – that provides the work’s generative idea. Shadows, only most obviously appearing in the guise of string tremolandi or woodwind fluttering, are cast in various ways around principal melodic figures and lines (at the opening provided by the cor anglais). These shadows lengthen and recede, double and transform, divide and combine, and at times even proceed to develop along their own independent paths.'

Charlotte Bray at Lunch

Our new series of Britten Sinfonia at Lunch begins in Krakow on 30 November. This year, not only does every concert have a commission from a young composer, but each one has a 'senior' composer who has helped shape the programme. Colin Matthews has nominated Charlotte Bray, so we will hear both his Elegiac Chaconne and her new work Alliance.

Charlotte has written: 'My inspiration for Alliance grew from vivid and distinct images of natural light in various forms: sunlight burning through dense clouds, piercing glimpses of blinding light catching your eye as you rush through the air. Although the opening changed direction considerably as other ideas and inspirations came to the fore, the material generated from this motivation was exploited, finally taking on a more simple, prelude-like character.

The title was chosen for various reasons. Part of my inspiration came from a Neruda poem entitled Alliance (Sonata), from the collection Residence on Earth. Perhaps representing Neruda’s feelings of isolation and alienation from the world around him; he searches through his physical environment for something or someone to connect with. My piece centres on contrasts of bleak and uplifting characters, reflecting highs and lows of an emotionally unstable personality. So energised by Neruda’s imagery, I used words from the poem to inspire each movement: I abandoned sun; II trail of light; III the struggle of the days white with space; IV upflight of butterflies.

After discovering the poem, the title seemed appropriate and fitting with my musical ideas: a journey where members of the ensemble are at times in alliance with one another and sometimes apart. Who is with who? The idea of partnership within the ensemble was powerful in structuring the work.'

The Warsaw - Berlin Sleeper

David Butcher and I spent last Wednesday working in Warsaw, exploring possibilities for extending Britten Sinfonia's work in Krakow to the capital. After a splendid meal - traditional pierogi - near the Royal Castle we took the overnight sleeper to Berlin - very John le Carre, very Len Deighton, and certainly more fun than a flight.

The Konzerthaus in Berlin is hosting this year's International Artist Managers' Association conference: many productive meetings which should lead to more touring in the coming seasons, and a chance to catch up on some of the issues affecting the music business at present.
John Bickley

Divertimento in Krakow

Richard Causton's new piece for Britten Sinfonia, Divertimento, received its world premiere performance on Sunday at the Filharmonic Hall in Krakow, in a sold-out lunchtime concert, the first of our series there this season. Final rehearsals had been the night before at the Academy of Music in Krakow, where we have a new Creative Learning partnership. The players had flown in on Saturday afternoon and I joined them having taken the overnight sleeper from Gdansk (it's a long story). Richard was pleased with the first performance, not least because it was the first of a sequence of five concerts, giving the opportunity to make some modest changes - a luxury for composers whose commissions usually get one outing and are maybe not played again for a year or more.
The audience - lots of regulars from last year, many new faces, and also many families - enjoyed the format of an hour of pre-lunch live music (Ravel, Causton and Mozart), not yet a common occurence on the Polish-concert scene.
You can catch further concerts in the Britten Sinfonia at Lunch series in London today and in Norwich tomorrow.

It's snowing in Krakow

Plan A had been to travel from Cambridge to Krakow by train, mainly as an early experiment in thinking about touring orchestras' carbon footprints. It would have taken me some 12 hours longer than the players to get here, but it seemed worth trying. Plan B, however, rapidly took over following two invitations to Helsinki. So Thursday evening was spent at Finlandia Hall hearing Olli Mustonen direct a recent work by Rautavaara, Prokoviev's 6th Symphony, and play and direct Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 24. Mustonen is a very individual artist, crystal clear in the Mozart, and well able to draw out the dark moments of the Prokoviev (supposedly a celebration of the end of the War); he also has a steak dish named after him at the restaurant we went to following the concert. The Britten Sinfonia blog has always had a culinary streak running through it, so I'll give more details when I get back to England.

Then early on Friday morning to Fazer Artist Management for a traditional Finnish pre-Christmas glogg party (basically a mulled-wine with vodka).

Failing hopelessy on the emissions front, it then took three flights to get to Gdansk to catch the midnight sleeper train to Krakow. Richard Causton (whose new work we are premiering in our Britten Sinfonia at Lunch concert tomorrow at noon at the Filharmonic Hall) has arrived, and the players are due in later. In a new collaboration with the Academy of Music here, there will be an open rehearsal this evening, and Ricahrd will run a composers' workshop on Monday morning.
Our UK audiences can hear the concert in Birmingham on Monday, Cambridge on Tuesday, at the Wigmore Hall in London on Wednesday, and in Norwich on Thursday.
John Bickley

Birtwistle's Bach Measures

Sir Harrison Birtwistle's Bach Measures opens our concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall tonight. Described by Andrew Clements in the programme book as 'More Bach than Birtwistle', it's an intriguingly textured treatment. Jacqueline Shave directs. Prokofiev's Classical Symphony follows, before Imogen Cooper joins us for Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 4.
Tickets for tonight can be booked online.
Tonight's concert is the end of a tour which has taken in the Wiltshire Music Centre, Dartington, Norwich and Cambridge.
Britten Sinfonia's next project starts in Krakow next weekend on the 16th at noon, with a new work by Richard Causton, who will be contributing to our blog later in the week.