Visceral, emotionally charged... thoughts on Seven Last Words

Ahead of our performances of James MacMillan's Seven Last Words our Artistic Planning Director describes why she has a particular 'soft spot' for this emotionally charged piece.

Friends often ask me about the concerts we have coming up here at Britten Sinfonia, and I’m in the enviable position of always being able to wax lyrical about the next thing we’re about to do, since my role allows me to have a hand in planning all our events.  I’m never going to give the green light to anything I don’t want to hear in a concert, so the seasons are always chock full of wonderful works and spectacular artists.  I don’t generally have “favourite" concerts, as each one is so very different, with its own back story and compelling drama.  However, I have to admit to an enormous soft spot for our forthcoming event over Easter, since it features one of my Desert Island Disc pieces (er, should Kirsty ever invite me on the programme):  James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross.

I first met James MacMillan whilst I was working at the Philharmonia Orchestra, where one of my roles was planning the orchestra’s new music series, Music of Today.  I loved managing this series (which is still going strong, incidentally), with its bite-sized concerts offering staggeringly good performances of brand new music, all for free. The real creative brain behind the series at that time was James MacMillan, who held my hand and guided me throughout, shaping the content of the series, introducing me to a whole host of composers from across the globe, always so generously and with great care to offer balance and variety.  Since that time I’ve been lucky enough to have worked on several of Jimmy’s new works over the years, here at Britten Sinfonia, but his Seven Last Words has always remained a really special work for me.

MacMillan’s vocal writing is always incredibly effective, and as a choral scholar, I would’ve dearly loved to have got my teeth into singing this; sadly it wasn’t composed until after I’d left college and had well and truly hung up my vocal chords.  Of course, the subject matter is emotive in itself, but the vocal writing is so visceral, contrasting  with the beautiful string lines so painfully at times that it moved me to tears the first time I heard it; and the heavy silences that occur throughout the work are so emotionally charged that I always find it impossible not to be affected.  In our world of what can seem like ceaseless over-emoting on a daily basis, I am more than grateful for that.

Nikola
Artistic Planning Director

Performances of Seven Last Words from the Cross take place on Sun 20 Mar at Birmingham Town Hall, Wed 23 Mar at Cambridge's King's College Chapel and Fri 25 Mar at London's Barbican Centre. For full details and to book tickets click here.

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.

Stephen Bell's Desert Island selection

Britten Sinfonia's prinicipal horn, Stephen Bell is currently touring with the orchestra as soloist in Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with Mark Padmore. Leeds Town Hall asked him to come up with his own Desert Island Disc selection and these are his choices;

HANDEL – CORONATION ANTHEM, ZADOK THE PRIEST
Not that I’m particularly a Royalist, but there has to be good reason for including this anthem at every Coronation since 1727! From that opening orchestral crescendo until the wonderful first entry of the choir, this music is simply joyous and uplifting – one of the main reasons my wife chose it to walk down the isle at our wedding in 2007. Our village church was packed, and with a local choir and visiting musicians, it made for a very special and emotional start to our big day.

STRAUSS – EINE ALPINESINFONIE
As a horn player, there is nothing better than being in a section of horns in full flight, and Richard Strauss excels in writing full-bodied unison horn melodies. At the climax of this wonderful tone poem (at the summit of the mountain) is such a melody written for all 8 horns, and even though I have been lucky enough to perform this piece on many occasions including a couple of times at the BBC Proms, it still never fails to thrill. Also, this was the first piece I bought on CD when I visited Hong Kong in the early 80’s and came back (as did most of the orchestra) with the latest must have gadget - a CD Walkman.

MICHEL CAMILLO – WHY NOT?
I’ve played the piano since I was four years old, and despite the best efforts of my elderly and rather strict piano teacher, my greatest pleasure was playing music by ear rather than off the printed page. I was first introduced to Michel Camillo in 1985 when he was performing at The Blue Note Jazz Club alongside such notable jazz musicians as Dave Weckl (drums) and fantastic trumpeter Lew Soloff. His music has a distinct Caribbean flavour (he was born in the Dominican Republic) and he plays with effortless style, huge rhythmic intensity and sounds like he must have at least three hands! Why Not? is the title track of his first album released at around the time I met him in New York.

MAHLER – SYMPHONY NO 2
Mahler 2 has without doubt one of the most thrilling endings to any piece – and again, one that always has a buzz to be part of in performance. Mahler is one of those composers who always has the bigger picture at the centre of all his vast musical structures, and at the end of almost 90 minutes, this magnificent final section never fails to thrill audiences and performers alike.

MOZART – HORN QUINTET IN Eb
It goes without saying that Mozart’s contribution to the repertoire of the French Horn is so significant (especially the four well-known concertos), but in many ways, the pinnacle for me is the wonderful Quintet in Eb for horn and strings - (slightly unusual line-up of string quartet which has violin, 2 violas and cello) - and which combines the stylistic horn writing of the concertos with the brilliant sense of chamber music that Mozart seemed to produce so naturally. It was also the piece that I made my first commercial recording with, alongside the fabulous members of the Lindsay String Quartet for ASV records.

LUXURY ITEM – Fawlty Towers DVD collection (and something to play them on.)
Still pricelessly funny after almost 40 years!

BOOK – Margery Williams: The Velveteen Rabbit

Charming, innocent and still enjoyed.

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You can catch Stephen Bell performing Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in Southampton on Thursday 10 February, Birmingham on Friday 11 February and in Leeds on Saturday 19 February 2011.

MacMillan's Oboe Concerto - A Personal View

On Friday 15th October oboist Nicholas Daniel will give the premiere James MacMillan's new oboe concerto at Birmingham Town Hall before performances at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Norwich's Theatre Royal, West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge and Chelmsford's Civic Theatre. Here Nicholas Daniel gives a personnel view of the piece and how it was developed.

Sometimes important new pieces emerge after a long 'courtship' with a composer, sometimes they come out of the blue. With the James MacMillan Oboe Concerto it has been born out of a long, happy and fruitful working relationship and friendship between both James and myself and between the Britten Sinfonia and this great man.

It is quite clear from his writing that in this time he has come to understand my playing profoundly both as conductor and composer, and, very importantly for the new piece, he understands the important relationship between me and my colleagues in of the Britten Sinfonia. This, after all, is the orchestra I am a founder member of, who I adore more than any other, and keep a watchful eye on at all times, and for whom, uniquely, my wind ensemble, Haffner Winds, is the wind section.

Luckily for us the Concerto has come at a time when he seems to have found terrific ease and confidence, and even fun in his music. One instruction in the music is 'laughing', for instance, over a cascade of trilled notes!

I was lucky enough to perform 'The World's Ransoming', part of his massive and impressive Easter work- Triune, for Cor Anglais and large orchestra with Jimmy in my favourite Polish city, Wroclaw, 2 years ago. It was in one of the astounding churches on an island in the city centre where there are several of them- a very special calm and serenity descends on one there.

At one moment in the piece where the Cor Anglais enters on a high D# adorned with what sounds like a glitter of starlight in the percussion and I just remember looking up at Jimmy at that point and being so inspired to see the music so visible in his face that the high D# just floated out exactly as I wanted it to. Its a great gift he has to make it so easy to understand his music just by his manner and physical expression, as well as by what he says.

On that visit to Poland we discussed some general points about the Concerto, and I believe I may have made the slight mistake of asking him not to limit in any way what he wanted to write! I say mistake but I don't mean it, of course, but the piece is really quite hard! Its arguably the most technical concerto in an oboistic sense that has been written since Elliot Carter's. In fact I have found it harder to learn than the Carter.

When I got the music a short while ago it looked to me rather like Nielson's Clarinet Concerto in terms of the Oboe writing, by which I mean flowingly virtuosic and needing an effortlessness to the technique. It also has a very exciting soloistic and supportive role for the wind, brass and timps inside the orchestra. There is no operatic aspect of this in terms of peripatitetic requirements, but the calling across the orchestra of various groups of instruments will be a stand out feature of the work, as is palindromic writing.

The slow movement is a total re-write of a solo Oboe piece Jimmy wrote after the 9/11 atrocity in America, In Angustiis ii. The original piece is desolate, lost, post-nuclear, horrifying, but the concerto to me seems to have more companionship in it and more hope, and maybe more beauty. In a way its hard to write about it because I haven't heard it all yet and haven't put it with the audience, and that changes everything.

I'm finishing this little insight for you on the train on the way to the first rehearsal, and I am so excited and nervous, and honoured to have such a fine, confident piece written for me.

For more information on each of performances click here

James MacMillan's Oboe Concerto is co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Birmingham Town Hall.

Celebrating Chopin

2010 is Chopin year – to be precise the 200th anniversary of his birth.With nearly 9 months of 2010 gone, Britten Sinfonia have so far not performed any of Chopin’s music in celebration of this significant event. And in actual fact we had not planned to do so, not as a snub to Chopin and his wonderful music, but just couldn’t be fitted into our schedules or programming.

Then a couple of days ago Peter Maxwell Davies sent us his new work which we had co-commissioned with Wigmore Hall for our award-winning At Lunch series. His new work is entitled Nocturne No. 1 and is his immediate ‘hats off’ reaction to Chopin’s piano works, songs and cello music.

Many of Chopin’s works involve the piano and all demand considerable technical expertise and expressive depth. I’m sure Max’s piece, which is scored for Piano Quartet will be no different and our players Huw Watkins (piano), Jacqueline Shave (violin), Martin Outram (viola) and Caroline Dearnley (cello) are looking forward to discovering the nuances of this new piece.

So in typical Britten Sinfonia style the orchestra will be celebrating Chopin’s anniversary with music inspired by him. You can come and enjoy these concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall on 6 October, Norwich’s Assembly House on 8 October, Cambridge’s West Road Concert Hall on Tuesday 12 October and Birmingham’s Town Hall on Friday 15 October.
The programme will also include Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet which is acknowledged as a masterpiece and probably his best known chamber work alongside a set of miniatures from James MacMillan, each dedicated to important figures in his life. You can find out more about this concert here