Making the Link

Back in May we introduced Link Ensemble: a new creative group, led by Duncan Chapman, integrating students with special education needs at Comberton Village College with their GCSE peers through workshops with Britten Sinfonia musicians. As this project draws to a close, with the final performance taking place on Saturday 21 November in a pre-concert event at Saffron Hall, Jen House (Creative Learning Director) and Duncan Chapman (workshop leader) look back on this unique initiative...

Alexia is blind. She makes her slow, careful way to the centre of a haphazard circle of ambient sound; to her left the spidery jangle of an acoustic guitar, a D7 chord with an unexpected jangling G at the piano behind her and a sudden croak of feedback from an electric bass on her right. Taking a deep breath, she brings the microphone close until she feels it’s cool brush on her chin and speaks quietly into the noisy void.

“Can we start with Jack, please? A low E on the bass clarinet.” She hesitates for a moment, “Is that the lowest note you can play?”

The note, rich and deep curls its way through the room and like a heavy fog, obscures the other sounds as the tinkering dies away.

“Sarah” her voice is clearer, more confident as the sound palate clears and like a painter in sound, she pauses, aural brush poised.

“Sarah, a low seventh above … a little less … and articulate in a slow pulse.”

There is an expectant hush, the room is not still, there is a restless energy but wherever the eyes may look or whatever the hands may fidget with, the ears are focused on the unfurling beauty as Alexia, slowly and ever so precisely, reveals her composition.

The name ‘Link Ensemble’ was given to Britten Sinfonia’s integrated music-making initiative in the very early stages of its conception and long before my arrival in Britten Sinfonia’s Creative Learning office. The name may well, in fact, have been the very twinkle in the proverbial eye which, (a very protracted gestation period of three years later) eventually brought this unexpected, unconventional, unapologetic ensemble into being. As the name so aptly suggests, Link Ensemble is about bringing people and creative impulses together; partnership between a visionary school and a ground-breaking orchestra; connections between young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their non-disabled GCSE Music contemporaries and collaboration between professionals and amateurs linked by a common creativity.

With twenty five members including SEND students from Comberton Village College (CVC) Cabin, GCSE Music students from CVC and professional musicians from Britten Sinfonia, Link Ensemble has met for a series of three, intensive, two-day workshop and rehearsal sessions led by composer and sound artist Duncan Chapman. At each stage, the ensemble has explored and created new music to record and perform.

“So, what’s it going to be?” I asked my predecessor in a hand-over session just months before the first phase. “I’ve no idea!” She shrugged, “How can we describe something which hasn’t been done yet?”  

And that, in a nutshell, is it. Forget everything you think you know about music, musical ability, disability. Leave them at the door when you arrive at Saffron Hall tomorrow and prepare yourself for something you didn’t know music could be….

Jen House (Creative Learning Director)

Integration is about leveling the playing field and one way of doing this is to focus not on what we think music is but on what music could be. We explore outside the frame of genre, working with what’s right there in front of us in the moment; using what we hear as a guide rather than an idea of music that is in our heads. What gives Britten Sinfonia it's unique sound is the relationships between the particular musicians, their own particular sounds and the way in which these are nurtured over many hours of playing music together. So what is significant isn't that a piece might have four violins, oboe, horn and double bass but it's the specific violins, oboe, horn and bass with the particular players. In Link Ensemble this focus on the particular characters of the group is where we start from rather than a 'pick and mix' approach to style or genre.

Making music from 'what's in front of us' could be a recipe for chaos and clutter, but with careful thought about how we construct the music we are able to create space for everyone to have a contribution. Starting from the position of treating music-making as a social sonic activity means that the music we make has to belong to us and not be a pastiche of something that other musicians would do better.

Within a conventional musical framework the difference between Adam - GCSE music student, jazz keys player and composer - and Matthew - who has never played an instrument, is registered blind and has difficulties with fine and gross motor skills - is pronounced. Beyond this frame, in the environment of what music could be they are equal, and equally inspired by and inspiring to, each other.

In practical terms, we are separating music-making from technique. Most of us are used to associating skill in music with the ability to rattle off Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto or play complex chord changes. Once you move away from this preoccupation with playing 'difficult' music and focus on understanding something of the context of the music 'in the room', the field is leveled and we are all starting from a point of making something as a social collective and not as a vehicle for individual display. Technique is important - it's important for us to develop skills on our instruments to enable us to play with fluency and conviction - but more important in an ensemble context are the listening and imagination techniques that are often overlooked in a headlong dash for demonstrable and flashy skills. 

My job as a workshop leader is to co-ordinate and guide the creation. Sometimes this is about setting frameworks that are by their nature inclusive and recognise moments of unexpected beauty (“Beauty is underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look” said John Cage). Jak, one of our Link Ensemble players once asked if “cheese can be an instrument?” My challenge is to take this concept and work with it!

The role of the professional musicians from Britten Sinfonia has many facets but whether they are the glue holding a compositional structure together, or providing a spotlight on a particular sound, idea or technique, they are there to ensure that no idea a young musician has ever fails – they make every idea, even musical cheese, fly! We are lucky to have these players who are not only capable of tremendous instrumental skill but able to instantly match this with the needs of the music and the group.

There is a reason we talk about “playing” music as opposed to “working” it. In Link Ensemble we all dare to play: to play with what music is and what music could be.

Duncan Chapman (Leader) 

Come and experience Link Ensemble for yourself, as they perform in the pre-concert event on Saturday 21 November, 6.15pm at Saffron Hall, ahead of the evening concert featuring Britten Sinfonia and Eddie Gomez. Find out more.

Partnerships with Music Education Hubs

Arts Council England recently launched a short film about Music Education Hubs and the work they do to create music education programmes for children and young people.




Britten Sinfonia has been working closely with the Music Education Hubs in the east of England over the past few years and Mateja Kaluza (Creative Learning Co-ordinator) outlines some partnership highlights from the coming season; 

Our partnerships with the Music Hubs across the east of England are central to our Creative Learning programme in 2015-16 and strong relationships with Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Peterborough hubs have helped us to identify areas of need and to shape exciting, dynamic, meaningful and impactful engagement opportunities for schools, families and young talent.

2015-16 season highlights include:

Cambridgeshire:
The Cambridgeshire Music Partership has been an unflagging development partner and funder of Link Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia’s pioneering integration project for young musicians with special educational needs  and their non-disabled, GCSE classmates at Comberton Village College. The highly successful pilot year across both the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons will culminate in a public performance at Saffron Hall, 6.15pm on Saturday 21 November in which the ensemble will demonstrate the compositional techniques they have developed over a series of intensive courses and premier their resulting works.


Norfolk:
Norfolk Music Hub’s commitment to whole-class instrumental learning is supported by Britten Sinfonia in an annual wider opportunity Celebration Day. Having undertaken a year of Wider Opportunities whole class learning, Key Stage 2 children are inspired by the orchestra in a massed ensemble workshop and performance engaging over 300 children on a range of instruments for an immersive playing experience.Read all about the 2014-15 celebration day here

Creative Learning at Lunch workshops allow students to explore new music with Britten Sinfonia's musicians and a workshop leader, and to attend Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch concert series. Working closely with Norfolk Music hub to identify schools which will most benefit from this opportunity, workshops are tailored to schools needs and are suitable for Key Stage 3 and 4 or GCSE group.


Peterborough:
Working closely with Peterborough Music Partnership, the 2015-16 season will see Britten Sinfonia run a major Key Stage 3 Ensemble project involving 4 secondary schools, 120 participants and live-streamed performances to 1000 primary school children. This project is closely tied to Britten Sinfonia's mainstage programme with artistic roots in Strauss’ Metamorphosen (performed in Cambridge on 27 April 2016, Norwich on 29 April 2016 and in London’s Milton Court on 1 May 2016) encouraging the young musicians to explore cultural context and the compositional concept of many individual parts (and performers) working together to create a single work. 

As in both Norwich adn Cambridge we are also committed to supporting Peterborough Hub in providing excellent music education opportunities for young instrumentalists who then have the opportunity take part in a  mass ensemble playing alongside our musicians as part of an annual series  Let’s Play workshops.

Our commitment to working with young musicians with special educational needs or disabilities also reaches to Peterborough where in 2015-16 the hub will support our work with Phoenix Special School.


With such an exciting season ahead, in the Creative Learning team we arelooking forward to further developing the invaluable relationships with the music hubs sharing best practice and professional expertise to help young people discover, explore and celebrate music.

To find out more about our Creative Learning programme click here

Saffron Walden, 140 primary school children, 25 teenagers and the world premiere of FUNKY PEANUT

Britten Sinfonia has been working with Saffron Walden County High School (SWCHS - home to the exceptional Saffron Hall) and ROH Bridge to develop music-making in schools in Braintree and Saffron Walden. Developing their musicianship and leadership skills, twenty five sixth-form students from SWCHS have been training for a year to become Music Ambassadors and gain their Gold Standard Arts Awards. This June, the Ambassadors lead their own creative music-making workshops in local primary schools, under the guidance of workshop leader John K Miles and Britten Sinfonia musicians. Over these two weeks the Ambassadors and Britten Sinfonia have been working with 140 children from 11 primary schools culminating in two Summer Schools and final performances for friends and family taking place in Alec Hunter Academy and Saffron Hall. To listen to the compositions that children and Music Ambassadors performed in the final performances (including FUNKY PEANUT) please click here.

In this blog we hear from participants Katherine Semar Junior School, and Music Ambassador Phoebe Tealby-Watson as they share their experiences of working together:

Reflections from Katherine Semar Junior School

Par

Katherine Semar Junior School was given the opportunity to participate in the SWCHS Music Ambassador Project organised by SWCHS and Britten Sinfonia. Throughout the Autumn Term, Year 5 children were involved in a variety of composition workshops led by composer, John K Miles, and sixth form music students culminating in a final performance at Saffron Hall.

Copyright ROH/N. Strugnell

This project has had an extremely positive influence on the music development at KSJ, not only on individual children, but also on the way music is taught within the curriculum. The children have gained more confidence to create their own rhythmic and melodic ideas when composing in the classroom and want to explore and experiment with fresh, innovative sounds and textures on composition projects. The opportunity to observe the various composition workshops has also inspired the music specialist at KSJ to be much more adventurous in the way composition is taught within the music curriculum. It has encouraged more of a ‘think out of the box’ approach rather than being too rigid and ordered.

"I enjoyed forming our own little bands and creating our own music around a theme." shares one of the children.

The Summer Music School has also been a positive experience for KSJ musicians. Children from Year 4 and 5 had the opportunity to be part of a 70 piece children’s orchestra performing with members of Britten Sinfonia conducted by composer, John K Miles.

Copyright ROH/N. Strugnell

Over 3 days children were part of a series of vocal and instrumental rehearsals where they learnt various performance techniques focusing on achieving the best sound when singing and playing together as part of a large group. These included good posture and presentation, learning how to rehearse in orchestral sections, and listening out for different musical queues from the conductor to achieve perfect timing and good voice projection. Children were also given opportunities to improvise solos with the orchestra group.

Another element of the Summer Music School consisted of sixth-form Music Ambassadors leading small group workshops with the aim of composing a piece of music based on the ‘carnival’ theme. Children were fully involved in the creative process choosing the lyrics as well as the rhythmic/melodic content. Children also made decisions on the style of the piece and on how to structure the final composition ready for performance.

“The Summer School gave children at KSJ a real sense of achievement in all they had learnt and created in the workshops over the 3 days. The final concert made all the children feel proud to be part of this special community music project” 

(Mrs S. Jorgensen from Katherine Semar Junior School)

Copyright ROH/N. Strugnell

Reflections from Phoebe Tealby-Watson (Music Ambassador)

Phoebe Tealby-Watson (Music Ambassador) (c) Elizabeth Hunt

"I have really enjoyed the projects with Britten Sinfonia this year where we have explored and created music with Year 5 children from a range of schools. I already found it easy to interact with children, but these projects have helped me to develop this so that I can be effective in a creative situation with them. I have become more confident in assuming authority and have become better at engaging a group in something that may be unfamiliar to them. For example, I have learnt to adapt how I speak about music to a group, in order to speak in terms that they can understand. I have also learnt some basic conducting skills such as being able to count in or signal dynamic changes.

As well as developing the ability to work with children to create music, I have developed in my own ability as a player. I have explored new ways to create music with my instrument and have particularly developed in my improvisation. I have also been able to learn by ear more easily; this is something that I could already do as a singer but I am now also capable of on my violin.

But besides developing these skills, the work with Britten Sinfonia has just been really enjoyable. I have loved the enthusiasm and creativity put into the projects from all those involved: the members of Britten Sinfonia, the music teachers, the Music Ambassadors and of course the children themselves. It has been a privilege to be given such a great opportunity and to be able to learn from such amazing professional musicians."

To find out more about our Creative Learning department, who organise and run these type of projects, please visit our website.

Stravinsky vs. Mozart

Ahead of our programme entitled Stravinsky & Neo-Classicism featuring Barbara Hannigan this May, Britten Sinfonia programme note writer, Jo Kirkbride explores the classical line of descent from Mozart to Stravinsky;


If Mozart and Stravinsky were both alive today, it’s unlikely that they would be friends. Although both their music and their careers share many common themes, the two had strong – and opposing – opinions when it comes to the meaning of music.

For Stravinsky, music was not about expression:

(C) Boosey & Hawkes

Stravinsky: ‘I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc... Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence.’




But Mozart could hardly disagree more:

Mozart: ‘Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.’







Despite their differences, Stravinsky learned a lot from his predecessor and many of his greatest works owe their inspiration to Mozart’s masterpieces. Stravinsky was also outspoken about his respect for Mozart’s genius:

Stravinsky: ‘I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say? I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was then told it was the work of a celebrated monkey. “That's different. For a monkey, it's terrific.”’

Both found fame with their large theatrical spectacles, and both were no stranger to controversy. When La clemenza di Tito was premiered in September 1791, the audience – who were more familiar with Mozart’s thrilling opera buffa – responded less than enthusiastically and the mood was best summed up by Empress Maria Louisa, who famously dismissed it as ‘German hogwash’. The audience were a lot less polite at the premiere of The Rite of Spring – its subject was considered so scandalous that it caused a riot in the theatre, and the Musical Times later wrote in their review that ‘practically, it has no relation to music at all as most of us understand the word.’

In the mid-1920s Stravinsky began to explore the music of the past in what became known as ‘neoclassicism’. Although the name is misleading, as this period encompassed much more than just the classical era, Mozart became a central figure in Stravinsky’s look back at western classical music history. For Stravinsky, this period was characterised by delicate, stripped-down forms and procedures, and he abandoned the large orchestras demanded by his previous ballets (such as Petrushka and The Rite of Spring). More importantly, he revisited classical and baroque techniques, pitting classical harmonic principles against the new sound worlds of the twentieth century.

It wasn’t just the music that he borrowed from Mozart either. The story of The Rake’s Progress is another incarnation of the Don Juan legend, which was made most famous in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. Stravinsky’s work is unmistakeably a homage to Mozart’s original: it is scored for the same forces as Don Giovanni and imitates many of the hallmarks of Mozart’s operatic style, including the traditional recitative and aria forms. Only the harmonic language gives away its modern birth date, and even this is sometimes distorted to affect a more convincing portrayal of the classical style.

So what of the suggestion that Stravinsky’s neoclassical works are just cheap rip-offs of Mozart’s best party pieces? Stravinsky had his own answer for that:

Stravinsky: ‘Lesser artists borrow, greater artists steal.’

(c) Jo Kirkbride

Britten Sinfonia perform Stravinsky & Neo-classicism with Barbara Hannigan on Tuesday 5 May at Birmingham Town Hall, Wednesday 6 May at the Barbican, Saturday 9 May at Saffron Hall and on Tuesday 12 May as part of the Brighton Festival. For full details and to book tickets click here.

My Curves are not Mad

Next week Britten Sinfonia premiere a new work by young composer, Tom Coult entitled My Curves are not Mad. Upon notification of the title of the new work and then receiving the programme note for this piece we discovered that Tom had been influenced by Matisse's approach during his 'cut-out' period. Will, Development Director explores this phase in Matisse's output in this article.

Mes courbes ne sont pas folles. My curves are not mad. So wrote Matisse, in his 1947 limited-edition book ‘Jazz’, published at a time of his life when his health was failing. In 1941 he had been diagnosed with cancer, and although it somewhat dampened his spirits, a successful operation unexpectedly gave him a renewed energy although left him requiring a wheelchair.

With his limited mobility Matisse acquired a new assistant, the beautiful Russian Lydia Delectorskaya, and with her help set about creating a new style. Gouaches découpés – cut paper collages with gouache – have come to be seen as some of the defining works of his entire output. Indeed, Matisse would probably agree with this thought; he wrote at the time “Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated”.

So, what are these gouaches découpés, Matisse’s cut-out style? Well, Matisse himself referred to it as ‘painting with scissors’. He would cut the shapes out freehand, on prepared paper that had been painted with gouache, and with the help of his assistants would arrange and rearrange their composition until he was satisfied. These cut-outs would then be attached to the wall of his studio, whereupon Matisse would then continue developing their form: adding new cut-outs, moving them around, modifying them. When he was entirely satisfied, they would be transferred to a board or canvas. The walls of his studio would be covered by these cut-outs, and at a time when his mobility was deeply limited, they gave Matisse a way to change and improve his environment. “I have made a little garden all around me where I can walk…” he said. “There are leaves, fruits, a bird...”

The finished works were vividly colourful and striking. In ‘Jazz’ Matisse displayed twenty figurative prints, which took inspiration from the improvisatory nature of jazz music. As he began work Matisse used a brush to write little thoughts to himself – ‘My curves are not mad’, for instance – and he was so taken by their simple visual appearance he suggested to his publisher that they be used in the finished book, juxtaposed against each print.

The resulting publication represents a defining part of Matisse’s ‘cut-out’ style, and some of the individual prints, such as ‘The Fall of Icarus’ are recognised the world over. However, the book is but a small part of the overall output of this period. Many other works were created in this style, including the famous ‘Snail’ which now hangs proudly in the Tate Modern, London, and of course the Blue Nudes of the early 1950s. What the book ‘Jazz’ also doesn’t convey is the sheer scale of some of the cut-out works. The ‘Snail’ is a not-inconsiderable nine square metres of riotous form and colour. ‘La Perruche et la Sirène’ (the parakeet and the mermaid) is a spectacular and triumphant 25 square metres. However, for sheer impact, nothing beats the stained-glass windows of the Chapelle de le Rosaire, which Matisse took on as a tribute to one of his nurses during his 1941 illness, who later became a Dominican nun.

As he thought his life was coming to an end in 1941, Matisse found a new sense of purpose, determination and creativity that over the following fourteen years was to ensure his place as one of the 20^th century’s most revered artists. His works hang on walls the world over: bold and inescapably colourful. “I have the mastery of it”, Matisse wrote in a letter to his friend André Rouveyre. “I am sure of it”.

Will Harriss
Development Director

You can hear the world premiere of Tom Coult’s new work My Curves are not Mad, inspired by the structure of Matisse’s works, in London, Norwich and Saffron Walden, from 20-22 March 2015. For more information click here.

Meet Alasdair Beatson

Pianist, Alasdair Beatson performs Han Abrahamsen's Double Concerto for violin, piano and strings alongside Thomas Gould and Britten Sinfonia this March. He took some time out from his busy schedule to answer a few questions about himself;

What has been the highlight of your career so far? 
A few years ago I was Artist-in-Residence in the new concert hall in Perth, the Scottish town where I grew up.  It was for me a unique opportunity to tie two separate parts if my life together - to bring some of my favourite colleagues, including Pekka Kuusisto and the Doric String Quartet, to a truly excellent hall in my pretty and modest home town.   

When are you happiest? 
Playing the music of Fauré!  I've become quite obsessed with it - the beauty of his perfect scores, the adventure in his harmonies, and the ecstatic sweep of his passion - what joy! 

What is your greatest fear? 
I hate spiders and regularly hoover the ivy outside my kitchen window. 

What is your earliest musical memory? 
Of LPs the Beatsons listened to at home - Harry Nilsson's musical fable "The Point", or "Switched-On Bach" which has a magnificently camp album cover and rather sacrilegious electronic-baroque content. 

Which living person do you most admire, and why? 
I marvel at musicians who at the height of the profession retain their artistic integrity and maintain a balanced ego despite enormous pressures and seductions to the contrary - I might mention András Schiff or George Benjamin. 

What was your most embarrassing moment? 
Probably falling over on stage during a televised performance.   

What is your most treasured possession? 
My music scores, which are well-leafed, quite heavily marked, and companions to my continuing exploration of the repertoire. 

What would your super power be? 
To make spiders go weak at the knees. 

If you were an animal what would you be?
I'd hope to be an eagle, perhaps one of the Sea Eagles living on the Isle of Rùm. 

What is your most unappealing habit? 
I sleep indulgently and copiously, an average of nine hours, which seems so wasteful during waking hours. 

What is your favourite book? 
I love to read, mainly contemporary fiction - current favourites are Ned Beauman Boxer Beetle, John Williams Stoner, Salmon Rushdie Midnight's Children and Dave Eggers What is the What. 

What is your guiltiest pleasure? 
Extravagance with food - eating a bit too well or too often!  I live just a few streets away from Brixton Village - a wonderful indoor market with a vast number of talented, independent, friendly chefs who test my self control on a daily basis. 

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party? 
Perhaps some composers who never met but might have much to talk about - Schumann and Fauré, Haydn and Stravinsky, Satie and John Cage.  One would wish to spend time on the seating plan. 

If you could go back in time, where would you go? 
1920's Paris, as lived by Hemingway in his memoir A Moveable Feast. 

How do you relax away from the concert platform? 
With friends, with books, with whisky, and with walking - around cities, through the countryside and in the hills. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement? 
I don't believe I've achieved anything truly great, but I do think I aspire to it and perhaps someday... 

What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 
That it is possible to strongly hold a belief or desire and simultaneously be open to alternatives.

In a nutshell, what is your philosophy? 
To try to be true to oneself, and true to the music.

Alasdair Beatson performs Han Abrahamsen's Double Concerto at London's Milton Court on Friday 20 March 2015,  Norwich's Theatre Royal on Saturday 21 March 2015 and Saffron Walden's Saffron Hall on Sunday 22 March 2015. Click here for more info and  to book tickets.

What's in a Miniature?

Francisco Coll

On Sunday 2 November Britten Sinfonia premiere a new work by young Spanish composer, Francisco Coll. Entitled Four Minatures, the piece will be conducted by Thomas Adès and performed at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden. Francisco Coll studied at the Valencia and Madrid Conservatoires before moving to London as a private pupil of Thomas Adès (his only pupil to date), and a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In this blog post we find out a little more about the piece he has written, which has been co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Saffron Hall. Musicologist Ramón Sánchez Ochoa reveals all;


In painting, the miniature is a delicate thing; small and more often than not serving as a book illustration. The Four Miniatures of Francisco Coll, pieces of two to three minutes duration each, both are and are not ‘miniatures’ in a conventional sense. Slight dimensions – yes - and displaying a painstakingly thorough construction, but not illustrating anything per se; not directed towards an outside reality but rather sufficient within their own sonic effervescence. These are paradoxical ‘miniatures’, then, which simultaneously focus and enlarge, dilate and condense, the popular elements that inspire them. In his engagement with the vernacular, Coll does not follow the watchword of earlier Spanish composers such as Pedrell: he is not searching for the quintessence, the subtle perfume, of popular song. Rather, it is the obvious, the ‘obvious’ tradition which he takes and transmutes - sifting it through his unique and unusual aesthetic sensibility.

The first miniature opens with wild, frenzied chords whilst the frenetic movements of fandango evoke the distant echoes of heels and palms. Coll’s is a black and white Andalucismo, without picturesque flowery patios, close to a sound hallucination. While the violin clutches at a few ethereal pizzicati, the melodic line undoes itself through an elusive hocketting, a flickering between the eerie and the dreamlike, which ends in utter silence, met with knowing (and characteristically Hispanic) winks.

In the second miniature’s slow introduction, double and triple-stops stretch the violin’s torn voice which seems to both state and retract, reaffirm and refuse. After the rhythmic dissonances their tortured tango rhythm arises - not a tango de salón but an X-ray (the magnetised resonance) of an expressionist tango with all its coarse rhythms and cadences. After the storm comes the calm: following its initial arpeggios of the third miniature a lament for the violin arises before being gradually torn apart by glissandi. Of all the four pieces this is the one steeped most deeply in flamenco, with its augmented-second leaps which positively smack of the Andalusian cadence. Like a fine spring rain, the melodic line is diluted between the figurative and abstract (if these words have any meaning at all in music): it is a subtle pointillism between the known and the unknown, between what is said and what is guessed.

A frantic wind crosses the work’s final pages: brief repeated cells, like movie frames stuck in a deranged projector, move from near-inaudible pianissimos to the most extreme fortissimo, contrary and unrequited impulses that arise from the negation of their selves. Bar by bar, an imperfect circle surrounds, envelops and intoxicates us, carrying us with it. The Four Miniatures run like lightning. After the final notes we are left perplexed and fascinated by the distance between lyricism and harshness, between the fog and the foreground, poised on that thin, flinty edge that separates the serious from the comic.

Ramón Sánchez Ochoa

The concert takes place on Sunday 2 November at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden and alongside the premiere of Coll's new work the programme features Thomas Adès' own violin concerto, Concentric Paths and his Piano Quintet alongside Stravinsky's Suite for Small Orchestra and Sibelius' Six Humoresques. Click here for more info and to book tickets.

Tom Coult on composition

Composer Tom Coult is writing a new work for Britten Sinfonia, which will be premiered in March 2015 in London followed by performances in Norwich and Saffron Walden. Tom is on the rosta of composers individuals can support through the Musically Gifted campaign. In this blog Tom answers questions about himself and his music;

How would you summarise yourself in one sentence?
‘Tom writes music, lives in London, and is amazed at the difficulty of this opening question.’

What’s your earliest musical memory?
Being played Jimi Hendrix in the car by my dad.

What do you like most about composing?
The occasional bursts of feverish excitement and productivity. And hearing my music performed well, although by then all the ‘composing’ is hopefully done…

What inspires you?
At the moment I can’t stop gazing at Oliver Byrne’s 1847 edition of Euclid’s Elements – it’s a beautiful publication using beautiful coloured, proto-Mondrian diagrams instead of words. There’s something in the boldness, geometry and simplicity of the illustrations that I wish I could imitate in music.

When was the last time you experienced writers’ block, and how did you move on from it?
I experience writer’s block every day – still haven’t found a satisfactory remedy…

How do you feel about new music and what we’re trying to do with Musically Gifted?
A commitment to performing and commissioning music by living composers is one of the marks of an intelligent and relevant ensemble (Britten Sinfonia certainly comes under both of those categories). It’s also essential that composers’ considerable work be valued and remunerated. Any scheme that raises money for new work to be written (and repeated) is well worthwhile, and this type of funding hopefully creates an extra level of engagement with the piece for those that are able to contribute.

What would you like to be recognised for?
Excellent sideburns.

What advice would you give to other composers?
Try to compose every day, listen to several orders of magnitude more music than you write, and get some good pencils.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
Sentimental spoken-word verses in songs – cf. Porter Wagoner’s Green Green Grass of Home, Elvis Presley’s Are You Lonesome Tonight?, and the granddaddy of them all, the Everley Brothers’ Ebony Eyes.

If you turned your iPod on now, what would be playing?
The Everley Brothers’ Ebony Eyes.

Favourite five tracks of all time?
Interpreting ‘tracks’ extremely liberally; Bach’s Brandenburgs no.s 1, 2, 5, 6 and the Everley Brothers’ Ebony Eyes.

The last concert you saw?
Rachel Podger directing the English Concert at Wigmore Hall – doing Vivaldi 391 with its scordatura violin… mind-bendingly good piece.

If you hadn’t been a musician, what might have happened?
I’d be making and repairing clocks.

Which musical instrument do you wish you could play, and why?
The tenor viol – viols are far more beautiful instruments than anything in the modern symphony orchestra.

Is there anything else you want to share with the world?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQOjxA8rrks

Hear Tom Coult's new work on Friday 20 March 2015 at London's Milton Court and then on Saturday 22 March 2015 at Norwich Theatre Royal and Sunday 23 March 2015 at Saffron Walden's Saffron Hall. Click here for full information on the concerts and to book tickets.

Jacqueline Shave on Bach's St John Passion

This April, Britten Sinfonia's leader Jacqueline Shave directs unconducted performances of Bach's St John Passion. In this blog post she describes how she has immersed herself in the work and how she is preparing for the performances.

Capture
Betrayal
Denial
Interrogation
Flagellation
Condemnation
Crucifixion
Death
Burial

Having spent a great deal of time over the past year immersed in this great work, I am wondering if it should perhaps be presented with an X certificate rating, so extreme are the range of human emotions and behaviour found within it.

I first experienced the St John Passion as a mature student at the Britten Pears School in Snape, where Nicholas Daniel and I worked intensively on many of the arias with Peter Pears and a group of young singers and instrumentalists from around the world. It made a deep and everlasting impression on me, and it is particularly moving to be here thirty years on, again with Nick, shaping this work together.

It is of course a great privilege and responsibility to be at the helm, making decisions, as performances of Bach can vary enormously. I have spent many hours listening and feeling and I have come to the conclusion that there is no definitive way of performing Bach's music. Bach himself was always experimenting and making changes. He offers us a palette of many colours.

I have decided to use a harpsichord with the voice of the Evangelist throughout, as it seems to bring a human and expressive dimension for the listener, in contrast to the halo of the organ sound surrounding the voice of Christus. Britten does the same in his 1971 recording, but these days it is often performed with organ and no harpsichord. We are also using a lute, which brings an exquisite ancient timbre, and of course the plaintive gamba for "Es ist Vollbracht", one of the most unconventional and original arias that Bach ever wrote.

As soon as the music begins there is the pulsing human heartbeat of the bass line, the painfully beautiful dissonance of oboes and flutes, and the turmoil of the string semi quavers. Bach leaves us in no doubt that this is serious, strong and passionate. There is no gentle ' warm up'. He throws us directly into the emotion. Imagine hearing this at the first performance nearly three hundred years ago! I find it hard to listen to this opening without feeling greatly disturbed, almost angry, at this vision of a vast stirring soup of mankind. It is as if everything is revealed; the tragedy and beauty of the entire Passion.

It is masterful how Bach frames the work with the two great Choruses; the harrowing first, and the moving, loving "Ruht Wohl" at the end. We are also given the communal ‘commenting’ element of the exquisitely beautiful chorales and the vivid depiction of Christ's trial with the chorus almost shouting with hysterical intensity.

Amongst all this Bach gives us the ' freeze frame' emotions of the arias, when all action stops, and we have time to explore and reflect on what is happening. Time seems to stand still in "Betrachte Meine Seel", the intensely moving soul searching Bass aria where one hardly dares breathe for disturbing this precious place that Bach has created for us. In the next aria "Erwage", we have time to ponder on the battered, bruised and blood-stained back of Jesus. It is truly miraculous how, in the midst of the piece, Bach is able to evoke such introspection in the listener by this change of pace.

Ultimately we want to create a powerful shared experience by performing this work unconducted, and to show the directness, the unbridled immediacy, and the raw power contained in Bach's music.

Jacqueline Shave
Britten Sinfonia, Leader

Britten Sinfonia perform Bach's St John Passion on Wednesday 16 April at Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall, Thursday 17 April at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Friday 18 April at London's Barbican, Saturday 19 April at Saffron Walden's Saffron Hall and Sunday 20 April at Norwich's Theatre Royal. For more info click here

You can also hear Jacqueline Shave and Stephen Williams (Principal Double Bass) talk abuot the St John Passion in a previous podcast, SinfoniaCast 21

Meet Nicholas Mulroy

Many of our audiences were enthralled by Nicholas Mulroy's performance as part of Britten Sinfonia Voices in our recent At Lunch series feautring the part-songs of Schubert and Schumann. This Easter he returns to Britten Sinfonia to sing the role of the Evangelist in  Bach's St John Passion. He took sometime out from his busy rehearsal schedule to answer a few questions;

What has been the highlight of your career so far?
I’m pretty excited about singing with Britten Sinfonia! But also, I’ve had the fortune to sing with some incredibly talented, dedicated and inspired musicians, so there are probably too many memorable experiences to mention.

When are you happiest?
Hanging around with my family.

What is your greatest fear?
That something awful might happen to them.

What is your earliest musical memory?
Singing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ in school and crying at the sad ending. I had to pretend I had a headache.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?
My wife, Annie. She’s excellent in just about every way.

What was your most embarrassing moment?
I don’t embarrass very easily, but I took a pretty spectacular fall during a show in Scarborough a few years back. Alan Ayckbourn, who was in the audience, said it was one of the best prat-falls he’d seen. I wasn’t brave enough to admit it wasn’t deliberate.

What would your super power be?
Something that made traveling take less time.

If you were an animal what would you be?
I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer that.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Being glued to my phone.

What is your favourite book?
I’m reading One Hundred Years of Solitude at the moment.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Cadbury’s Biscuit Boost.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Assuming all my friends are busy, how about JS Bach, Picasso, William Byrd and my wife? I don’t think it would be boring.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?
At this time of year, I always find myself incredibly curious to know what those first performances of the John Passion would have sounded like, and how they would have been received.

How do you relax away from the concert platform?
I’m a fan of Liverpool FC, which isn’t always relaxing as such, and England cricket (ditto). I like watching TV and of course spending time with family and friends. Standard stuff.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I’m hoping it hasn’t happened yet…

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Listen.

In a nutshell, what is your philosophy?
Be kind, constructive, or quiet.

Nicholas Mulroy performs the role of the Evangelist in Bach's St John Passion with Britten Sinfonia at Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall on Wednesday 16 April, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw on Thursday 17 April, London's Barbican on Good Friday 18 April, Saffron Walden's Saffron Hall on Saturday 19 April and Norwich's Theatre Royal on Sunday 20 April. Click here for further information.

Schubert and Schumann

Our At Lunch 2 concerts featuring Roderick Williams and Britten Sinfonia Voices focus on the part songs of Schubert and Schumann. SinfoniaStudent, Anna Kaye explores both composers in this fascinating article;

Schubert and Schumann are composers that I first encountered quite late in my musical education. I was sixteen before I played the cello line of the Unfinished Symphony, and I still have only listened to much of Schumann’s lieder where I have sung many of the other major composers of the mid-Romantic period. As I reflected on this, I was initially frustrated by the fact that such wonderful music was absent from my repertoire for so long. But it is in reflection that I understand that this was perhaps a good thing.

Schubert was the epitome of the tortured artist. It is estimated that in his lifetime that only 10% of his works were actually performed. Despite this, Schubert lent respectability to song as a form that would not have been seen before. He changed the public’s perception of song as a genre, and this change was no less momentous for being posthumous. Lieder was the field of the amateur composer, of the homespun musician, and of the inexpert singer. Part songs were equally trivial, being composed to suit the requests of whichever choir performed them. Schubert took these genres and transformed them into something that required skill, and more importantly, taste, on the part of the performers. One need only listen to a substandard performance of Du Bist die Ruh to see that it highlights, rather than masks, the weaknesses of the singer - and, to a lesser extent, the accompanist. The part songs are no less forgiving for the singers. The favour of high tenor lines seems to have been founded in Schubert’s early life working with the boys’ choir of the Imperial Chapel, and the combinations of soloist and chorus, accompanied and unaccompanied, are certainly reminiscent of the demands and abilities of a group which fluctuated between boys’ and men’s voices.

Schubert tended to follow an instinct that allowed music to flow from his pen, and wrote very little literature for such a prolific composer of music. Robert Schumann was, first and foremost, a writer. His On Music and Musicians continues to provide some of the definitive reviews of music that we musicians value today. There is a particularly well-thumbed edition from my college library that has made the near-permanent move to my room as I continue to review it, much to the chagrin of the four other music students at my college. But it is not necessarily musical interest that drives me to return to Schumann again and again. It is the simple joy of reading such eloquent and expressive writing. Certainly, one cannot deny that Schumann is a skilled composer. Mondnacht, which Roderick will be singing in At Lunch 2, is a fantastic piece of music and one of the best examples of Schumann’s strophic song. But, in my opinion, it is the poetry that flowed from Schumann that is what elevates him above Schubert in the composition of song. In the words of the composer himself:

“People who are unfamiliar with the most significant manifestations of recent literature are considered uncultured. The same should apply to music.”

Schumann believed that the piano had a voice independent and equal to the singer. He was not entirely trusting of the singer and their ability, but his faith in the abilities of the piano is all too clear, not only in his song but in his solo piano compositions such as Traumerei, one of the greatest and most popular piano pieces ever written, so much so that it features heavily in one of my favourite novels - Jilly Cooper’s Appasionata. Make of that what you will.

Schumann and Schubert were complex people and both their lives ended in tragedy - Schumann’s in an asylum, and Schubert’s taken by syphilis. However, their vocal music transcends these unhappy circumstances to lift up the listener to a calmer, higher place. Schubert, particularly, was adamant that the purpose of music was to raise the listener “closer to God”. It is indeed complex music but it is also music that is returned to again and again - much like my borrowed copy of On Music and Musicians.

The reason I am glad that I didn’t attempt to perform the work of these composers until later in my life, and the reason I am glad I have yet to perform the majority of them, is because the performance of their works requires great tenacity in one’s technique and a superior judgment that leads the performer away from self-indulgence. I possessed neither of these when I was younger, and it will be a while yet before I will feel secure in performing a song cycle like Winterreise. It is a excellent thing then, that those attending At Lunch 2, will have the pleasure of hearing performers like Roderick Williams and Britten Sinfonia Voices, whose judgment and taste I trust implicitly.

Anna Kaye
Britten Sinfonia, SinfoniaStudent

At Lunch 2 performances take place on Wednesday 5 February 2014 at London's Wigmore Hall, Sunday 9 February 2014 at Saffron Walden's Saffron Hall and on Tuesday 11 February at Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall. Click here for more details.

Click here to find out more about SinfoniaStudents