Kaija Saariaho - Total Immersion day at The Barbican/Royal Opera House, London, 7 May 2023

In memoriam: Kaija Saariaho, 14 October 1952 - 2 June 2023, RIP

 

A wonderful deep dive into the soundworlds of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which in the days since these three broadcasts has turned into a career-summing memorial.  After a lifetime investigating the confluence of spectralist music and electronics, Saariaho leaves behind a stunning catalogue of innovative music in lots of different forms.  So here's the three broadcasts of music from the Total Immersion day that took place in London last month, plus a little bonus at the end from an earlier concert in Glasgow.

In the first broadcast, Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Du Cristal, Notes On Light, Saarikoski Songs and Circle Map.  Also included here are excerpts from the day's chamber music concert, performed by students of the Guildhall School, with Changing Light, Spins And Spells and Calices zooming in on the engrossing granularity of these smaller-scale works.

Kaija Saariaho's most recent opera Innocence is a multi-lingual narrative tying together a wedding and a school shooting, and this UK premiere took place over in Covent Garden and was tied in with the Total Immersion concert broadcasts.  Lasting nearly two hours, I'm afraid this one is all in one track as I had no recording timings to refer to for even attempting to break it up into sections.  But even without being able to follow the libretto, it's a weighty, moving work that's well worth a listen.

Lastly, we return to The Barbican to hear the BBC Singers perform another UK premiere, the ecological song cycle Reconnaissance (Rusty Mirror Madrigal).  This is paired with two of Saariaho's most famous vocal works, Nuits Adieux and Tag Des Jahrs, and the broadcast is completed with more chamber music.  The bonus I've added on at the end comes from a recent concert in Glasgow that was broadcast around the same time, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Saariaho's Laterna Magica.

Enjoy these recordings of a composer who leaves behind some truly spellbinding music.

Broadcast 1 link

Broadcast 2 link

Broadcast 3 link

pw for all: sgtg

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

Vista

London Sinfonietta/Sound Intermedia - Reich/Richter (Royal Festival Hall, London, 6 April 2023)

Concert from earlier in the month, broadcast last week.  The mouthwatering programme is themed around New York composers, or those with connections to the area, its second half given over to 40 minutes of Steve Reich.

First, we get the transformed Insect sounds of Mira Calix's Nunu; the world premiere of Anna Clyne's Fractured Time, and the joyous cacophony of Julia Wolfe's Tell Me Everything, inspired by a tape of Mexican brass music.  Bookending these in the concert's first half are two arrangements of an uncharacteristically brief Julius Eastman piece, Joy Boy from 1974.  Opening the programme in a wind-centred iteration, then leading into the interval in a strings-based version, it's a great pocket-sized example of the subtle constant transformation in Eastman's music.  

Reich/Richter, composed in 2019 and given album release last year, was composed by Steve Reich to accompany an abstract film by Gerhard Richter.  The patterned, textured film was shown to the audience for this performance, but with this obviously unavailable to broadcast listeners the music has to stand by itself.  And it most certainly does, in instantly recognisable Reich form across its four sections, but still managing to sound fresh in this late period of the New York legend's career.

link

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BBC Singers - Concert For International Women's Day 2023 (orig. rec. on 19 Jan, broadcast 8 March)

: 

Couple of concert broadcasts this week, starting with acapella choral music performed by the BBC Singers and aired to conincide with International Women's Day earlier this month.  The programme highlights seven female contemporary composers from around the world, the vocal texts moving from just onomatopoeic sounds to poetry to liturgical settings.  Everything sounds fantastic in the capable hands of the BBC Singers.  I really hope this isn't the last post of them performing - latest news is that they're due to be axed by the BBC, which would be a great loss.  For now, please enjoy this post of an incredible choral ensemble and the previous posts below.

 

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Singers at SGTG:

Boulez, Varèse & Stravinsky

On Christmas Night

Joby Talbot & Joanna Marsh

A Christmas Carol

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Plays Scriabin, Glière & Korsun (at the Lighthouse, Poole, 17th Jan 2023)

Incredible concert recording from January, given a recent broadcast.  Chief conductor Kirill Karabits, as part of a 'Voices From The East' series, put together this programme of Ukrainian and Russian music and started it off with the stunning sonic power of Anna Korsun's Terricone, receiving its world premiere.  Karabits and Korsun, who both have roots in the Donbas region, introduce the work as having its title inspired by large mining heaps there, and it sounds phenomenal - very much appealed to the Xenakis fan in me.

The BSO's artist in residence is featured next, letting the rest of the concert's first half showcase the talent of horn player Felix Klieser (whose adapted-by-necessity technique is quite amazing).  Reinhold Glière's Horn Concerto, composed in 1951 and with strong influence from the Romantic era, contrasts well with the rest of the programme.  As an encore, Klieser offers a Rossini fanfare.  The concert's second half is given over to Alexander Scriabin's 2nd Symphony in all its grandeur and subtlety, with the gorgeous Andante being a highlight for me.  The announcer signing off with a typically bonkers quote from Scriabin is just the cherry on top.

link

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Scriabin at SGTG: Universe

BBC Singers - A Christmas Carol (Milton Court, London, 14th Dec 2022)

Have a wonderful Christmas weekend, everyone.  Here's a concert recording that gives a fresh setting to a classic seasonal tale that I've been enjoying since its broadcast a week ago.  The BBC Singers first give a spirited half-hour of Christmas arrangements and carols old and new, and are then joined by Mel Giedroyc to narrate the rest of the concert.  It's a musical arrangement of Dickens' A Christmas Carol by composer Benedict Sheehan, weaving well-known carols into Sheehan's own music to set the story in a delightful new context, here receiving its UK premiere. 

Merry Christmas!

link

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Philharmonia Orchestra (featuring Víkingur Ólafsson) Plays Mahler, Adams & Clyne (22nd Sept 2022)

Heady stuff from the Philharmonia, as they kick off their new season with a Mahler symphony.  Some lightness first though in a piece composed by London-born, New York based Anna Clyne for the 2013 Proms, twisting and twirling through evocations of masquerade balls gone by for a nicely frothy five minutes.

 

The Philharmonia Orchestra are then joined by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson to play Must The Devil Have All The Tunes?, John Adams' funk-infused piano concerto from 2018.  To sign off before the interval, Ólafsson encores with a gorgeous Rameau piece.  The second half of the concert is then given over to Mahler's hour-plus 5th Symphony in all its sombre-to-life-affirming glory, to complete a slightly odd on paper but very enjoyable programme, brilliantly played.

link

pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Naive And Sentinmental Music (live 2019)

Harmonielehre (live 2022)

John Adams - Harmonielehre (BBC SSO & RSNO, 9th February 2022)

A live concert broadcast from back in February, and a joining of forces to mark the Association of British Concert Orchestras' 2022 conference in Glasgow.  The hundred-plus combined might of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra renders John Adams' mid-80s work in fine detail, but first up is a UK premiere.  Samy Moussa's Elysium is inspired by views of the afterlife in classical Greece, and shimmers into view before building in grandeur.

The solo spotlight for the programme falls on 19-year old Spanish violinist María Dueñas, who lives up to her "rising superstar" billing in a great rendering of Shostakovich's 1st Violin Concerto.  After the interval, the double-orchestra gives its full energy to John Adams' wondrous Harmoniehlehre.  Taking fresh inspiration from imagery in his dreams, Romantic music and harmonic exploration, Adam's three-section work from 1985 barrels along in unforgettable style.

link

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Samy Moussa at SGTG:

A Globe Itself Infolding 

 

Dmitri Shostakovich at SGTG:

Symphony No. 15 (live 2017, scroll past main post)

Symphony No. 15 (live 2022) 

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Naive And Sentinmental Music (live 2019)

BBC Proms 2022: Marius Neset / London Sinfonietta - Geyser (3 Sept 2022)

The last post from this year's Proms is another world premiere, in this work composed by Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset.  Playing with the London Sinfonietta, Neset took his geologically-inspired suite from its calm beginnings to frenetic interlocking patterns with great solos and on to much more besides.  Don't take the track splits I've added in as necessarily accurate - this was mostly guesswork as only the first couple of sections are applauded, all the rest segues, and I had nothing else to refer to.  But do enjoy all the twists and turns of this incredible work, with Neset's core quintet blending wonderfully with the ensemble.

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Proms 2022: Public Service Broadcasting - This New Noise (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, 30 Aug 2022)

A special commission to mark the centenary of the BBC, This New Noise was composed by "retro-futurist" band Public Service Broadcasting.  Since 2009, they've been creating historical narrative albums like this, and have given a Proms performance before - after which they were approached as the ideal artists to create something for the upcoming 100th anniversary of the BBC in 2022.

So here it is, premiered live with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley.  The 50-minute suite of eight pieces traces the first decade and a half of BBC radio, with spoken word narratives representing those who brought it into existence.  I'm assuming most of these were recreated by voice actors, as the recordings seldom sound 90-100 years old, but the voices mesh well with the orchestra and core trio of the band.  Musically, I'm hearing surface similarities to Max Richter, maybe A Winged Victory For The Sullen, but with more rhythmic drive than either: PSB's motorik-krautrock influences frequently come to the fore.  Folk singer-songwriter Seth Lakeman provides the only sung vocal in a lovely brief cameo.

The visual elements of this performance were also key to the narrative really hitting the mark historically and emotionally - you can hear the radio announcer mention them at the beginning and end of the broadcast.  This made me track down the BBC4 TV broadcast to watch it all, and as this really did add another dimension to a great concert, I've included it (in what I believe is an SGTG first!) as an additional download option.

 

radio broadcast link

TV broadcast link (mp4, 2.3GB)

pw for both: sgtg

BBC Proms 2022 - NYOGB plays Elfman, Gershwin & Ravel (6 Aug 2022)

A stunning Proms concert full of colour, texture, rhythm and everything else from Britain's premier teenage ensemble, the National Youth Orchestra Of Great Britain.  First up was a new work written specially for them by film & TV heavyweight Danny Elfman.  The 23 minutes of Wunderkammer are by turns boisterous and fun, then eerie and dramatic, picking up the pace again to finish off the piece in dramatic style.

After some stage re-arranging (over 100 players in that opening), the programme stays in the US but winds back a century.  Well, not quite a century, as this is Ferde Grofé's orchestration from the 40s, but any kind of Rhapsody In Blue is good with me, and this one has Simone Dinnerstein as guest pianist.  The first half closes with a little bit more Gershwin, an arrangement of My Man's Gone Now, then the second half is given over to Ravel's complete ballet Daphnis & Chloé.  All of it sounds magnificent, beautifully rendered by the hugely talented young players.

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Proms 2022: BBC Philharmonic plays Aho, Saariaho & Shostakovich (4 Aug 2022)

Another Proms highlight, this time pairing a couple of Finnish composers with Shostakovich's final symphony.  For the opening work, the BBC Philharmonic were joined on theremin by Carolina Eyck, for whom the theremin concerto Eight Seasons was originally written.  Kalevi Aho (b. 1949 in Forssa) was inspired by some of the shamanistic aspects of Sami culture, tying this in to the 'conjuring music from thin air' aspect of the theremin.  The instrument blends in beautifully with the orchestra, making full use of its dynamic and tonal range; as an 'encore' of sorts, Eyck gives the audience a demonstration of the theremin's capabilities.

Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952, Helsinki) has featured on SGTG a few times before (see below), so I always love hearing more from her.  The two-part Vista was inspired by a drive along the Californian coast, and saw Saariaho consciously varying her usual techniques with great sweeping atmospherics in the first section and driving energy in the second.  To close the programme, the orchestra give a cracking rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15, its sombre melancholy balanced by frequent flashes of wit.

link

pw: sgtg

Kalevi Aho at SGTG:

Solo XV

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

BBC Proms 2022: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - From 8-Bit To Infinity (31 July 2022)

The first of its kind for the BBC Proms - a concert given over to video game music, from the 80s (the opening piece) to the present day.  The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra brought this music off the monitor screen and on to the stage in fine style, in a roughly chronological journey showing the maturation of gaming soundtracks through the 90s to the early 21st century.  Having not really been a gamer since the early 90s, pretty much all of this music was new to me, and really brought home the wide scope and ingenuity of these (mostly Japanese) composers.  

 

A couple of composers featured here were familiar to me: soundscaper CHAINES has been previously featured on SGTG, and here pays tribute to Pokémon, Ecco The Dolphin, and Secret Of Mana in a premiere setting.  Hildur Guðnadóttir I also knew from her Chernobyl soundtrack, and her Battlefield 2042 music is one of the definite highlights of this thoroughly engrossing programme.

 

link

pw:sgtg

BBC Singers: Joby Talbot & Joanna Marsh (2022)

Two 21st century choral works made up this programme from Milton Court Concert Hall, London on 20th May.  The BBC Singers were first enhanced by the live electronic manipulations of Glen Scott, who was the original collaborator with the composer Joanna Marsh.  British-born Marsh (1970-) composed SEEN for the BBC Singers, and this is the work's world premiere with Glen Scott performing the extensive electronic tweaks on stage with them.  After the interval is Path Of Miracles, composed in 2005 by another British composer, Joby Talbot (1971-).  In four parts, marking the main posts on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail, the hour-long work takes texts from several languages and across history to craft an engaging epic immersion in vocal sound.

link

pw: sgtg

programme with libretto

BBC Concert Orchestra with Mari Samuelsen - Glass, Higdon, Taylor-West, Perivolaris (live in London, 5 May 2022)

Broadcast concert from a month ago held in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank, London.  As well as the main attractions of the programme, the Glass and Higdon concertos, two commissioned pieces were given their premiere and introduced by their composers.  First up is Liam Taylor-West's Making Space, inspired by non-repeating mathematical patterns; the bright, bustling music made me think of Steve Reich's cityscapes.  Gaelic call-and-response hymn singing and forest regrowth combine next in Electra Periovolaris' A Forest Reawakens, an intriguing four-minute introduction to another young and promising composer.

Philip Glass' Violin Concerto then takes us back to the 80s, and the beginning of his embrace of more traditional classical forms, but still with the trademark gradually-shifting repetitive strucutures and a great showcase for the featured violinist Mari Samuelsen.  The second half of the concert is taken up by Jennifer Higdon's Concerto For Orchestra (2002), getting off to a whirlwind start before passing the spotlight round the strings, the soloists and percussion.  It's a great finish to a highly complementary programme of first-class musicianship and composing.

link

pw: sgtg

Manchester Collective - Heavy Metal (live at the White Hotel, Salford, 11 Dec 2021)

Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 back in January, the Manchester Collective ensemble (previously featured at last year's Proms - link below) gave this concert on their home turf of music for strings, live electronics and percussion.  The programme gets off to a lively start with Bryce Dessner's Aheym (Yiddish for 'homeward'), written to suggest flight and travel.  Things then settle down momentarily for Dobrinka Tabakova's trio piece Insight (studio recording here).

The first commission of the programme follows, and is introduced by its composer Ben Nobuto.  Serenity 2.0 is intended to evoke pachinko arcades Nobuto encountered in Japan, and its blend of pre-recorded sounds with fractured strings and percussion is a highly enjoyable wild ride towards a calm conclusion.  A couple of years ago, the Proms included a piece for bassoon and distortion pedal - now, here's a cello through a distortion pedal, as the Collective's cellist Stephanie Tress performs Michael Gordon's Industry.  Then to close, we get more pre-recorded sound with live strings in the newly-minted commission Squint, composed by Sebastian Gainsborough aka Vessel.  It's a great end to an ear-bending collection of contemporary music.

link

pw: sgtg

Manchester Collective at SGTG:

BBC Proms 2021: Górecki, Eastman, Tabakova etc

Dustin O'Halloran - Piano Solos (2004)

First solo album by Phoenix-born musician Dustin O'Halloran, who'd go on to form A Winged Victory For The Sullen a few years later with Adam Wiltzie from Stars Of The Lid.  Twelve beautifully composed and rendered solo piano miniatures make for a meditative 40 minutes of music, with perhaps some similarities to Nils Frahm's work in the same field, or even those from the prior generation like George Winston.  That's all there really is to say about this lovely record - just relax and enjoy.

link

pw: sgtg

AWVFTS at SGTG:

s/t debut

Atomos

Live At BBC Proms 2015

Reinhold Friedl / Zeitkratzer - Kore (2016)

German new music ensemble Zeitkratzer were previously featured here tackling early Kraftwerk - see link below.  Here they perform a work composed by their director Reinhold Friedl, which he created as a homage to Iannis Xenakis - always good news to my ears. With Zeitkratzer having already tackled Xenakis in the past, they perform this noisy tribute with aplomb.

Kore is a 53-minute work in four continuous sections, scored for six amplified wind and string instruments plus piano and guitar, and was recorded live in Hamburg in January 2013.  Straight away the Xenakian roar of works like Persepolis comes to mind, as well, as the queasy, slippery strings of his work in that format.  The second (and initially the third) sections are only slightly more restrained, and the remainder picks up the intensity again, like towards the end of La Légende D'Eer, before dropping away to an eerie finale.  The close-miked instrumentation and high-quality sound allow for microscopic detail as well as the thrill of the full-on sonic assault, and the whole composition is a worthy homage whilst displaying the power and intensity of Friedl and his ensemble.

link

pw: sgtg

Zeitkratzer at SGTG:

Zeitkratzer plays Kraftwerk (live 2017)

BBC Concert Orchestra / James McVinnie - Rautavaara, Glass, Pärt, Jóhannsson etc (BBC Proms 2021)

Another great Proms concert, recorded a week ago and this time pairing the BBC Concert Orchestra with organist James McVinnie.  A well-selected programme of atmospheric modern orchestral music is punctuated by a couple of fantastic solo organ pieces, then both come together in the finale.

 

Einojuhani Rautavaara's chilly soundscape Cantus Arcticus is up first, the music woven around taped birdsong captured by Rautavaara in northern Finland in the early 70s.  A brief piece by Judith Weir is next: she describes Still, Glowing as "an attempt at ambient music".  The first feature for James McVinnie is Philip Glass' Mad Rush, in its original organ version - recording by Glass here, or on piano here.  The orchestra return with Arvo Pärt's Festina Lente.

No interval in this performance, so the orchestra continue on with two pieces from the late Jóhann Jóhannsson's Orphée album, reproducing their lovely melancholy in fine style.  In between them is another solo organ spotlight, this time one of Messiaen's Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité.  American composer Missy Mazzoli's Holy Roller is next, taking fragments of Tallis to create "a monument to a non-existent religion", then McVinnie joins the orchestra for Canadian Samy Moussa's incredible A Globe Itself Infolding to give a memorable conclusion to the programme.

link

pw: sgtg

Arvo Pärt at SGTG: Spiegel Im Spiegel, etc

Jóhann Jóhannsson at SGTG: Fordlandia / Orphée

and lots of Philip Glass.

Manchester Collective / Mahan Esfahani - Górecki, Eastman, Tabakova etc (BBC Proms 2021)

String-based brilliance from a live concert broadcast last Tuesday.  The Manchester Collective ensemble were founded five years ago, and have since been making waves in the contemporary classical world with works by groundbreaking composers like those featured here.  For their Proms debut, the Collective led by Rakhi Singh appeared with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani.

 

Esfahani is the star turn on the programme's opener and closer, starting with Górecki's uncharacteristically rollicking Harpsichord Concerto, a suitably energetic curtain-raiser.  The ensemble then dial down the tempo for Edmund Finnis' atmospheric The Centre Is Everywhere, which lent its title to the Collective's debut album.  The first half of the concert concludes with Julius Eastman's Holy Presence Of Joan D'Arc, its churning ten cello arrangement reconfigured for full string ensemble.  Shame we don't get the full sung prelude (it's condensed into a brief spoken passage), but the ensemble's version of the main piece is fantastic.

 

After the interval comes another work that's featured on these pages before (all links below) in Dobrinka Tabakova's Suite In Old Style, its Rameau-influenced writing as entrancing as ever.  Mahan Esfahani returns for the fun swing and mellow blues of Joseph Horovitz's Jazz Concerto in its version for harpsichord, making for a memorable finale.  That's not all though, as the Collective return for a great encore performance of the frenetic Orawa by Wojciech Kilar.  Highly recommended, top-notch playing all round in a superb programme.

 

link

pw: sgtg

Henryk Górecki at SGTG:
Early works
Symphony No. 3
Beatus Vir
O Domina Nostra
Miserere
Kleines Requiem / Lerchenmusik

Totus Tuus

Julius Eastman:

Unjust Malaise (incl. Holy Presence & full Prelude)

Femenine (live 1974)

Femenine (live 2016)

Edmund Finnis:

In Situ (Proms 2020)  

Dobrinka Tabakova:

String Paths (incl. Suite In Old Style)

Centuries Of Meditations (live 2019)

The Norwegian Soloists' Choir / Oslo Sinfonietta - As Dreams (2016)

On the album cover above, you can just about make out the full quote from The Tempest that this choral collection takes its name from.  The introduction to the liner notes sets out how these seven pieces are meant to be linked: "they are permeated not only with their own era, but with times that we can imagine lie in front of us."  The five composers chosen are all known for their transformative, spellbinding sound, and make for a bewitching hour of choral music, sometimes accompanied, sometimes acapella.

The two works by Per Nørgård that make up a third of the runtime are my definite favourites here.  His Drømmesange (Dream Songs), with the choir accompanied by steady percussion, is an accessible start to the programme, with its gently lilting, folky melodies; Singe die Gärten, mein Herz is taken from his 3rd Symphony.  From there, there's a good mix of shimmering, atmospheric material (Alfred Janson's Nocturne; Kaija Saariaho's Überzeugung) and more avant-garde ventures into fractured phonemes (Helmut Lachenmann's Consolation II, Iannis Xenakis' Nuits and the closing Nuits, Adieux by Saariaho).  A highly recommended immersion in 20th-21st century choral music.

link

pw: sgtg