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

Frank Zappa (BBC Symphony Orchestra / uBu Ensemble) - Total Immersion at The Barbican, London (19th March 2022)

With the Proms posts over, here's a 'Total Immersion Day' broadcast from earlier in the year.  Taking a fresh look at the Zappa music of the London Symphony Orchestra, Perfect Stranger and Yellow Shark eras, and more besides, the day's events also threaded in Zappa's formative influences as a composer.  This gives us a great take on Varèse's Intégrals as well as some lesser-known Stravinsky, in his late work written in memoriam of Aldous Huxley and the miniature song-cycle Pribaoutki from 1914.

For Zappa's music, the 'Total Immersion' concerts were divided between the full force of the BBC Symphony Orchestra to play the LSO-era works, and the contemporary ensemble uBu for the rest.  From the former, we get the lushly-orchestrated version of Pedro's Dowry, the complementary ballet pieces Bob In Dacron and Sad Jane, and the full-length Mo 'N Herb's Vacation.  The ensemble play The Perfect Stranger, Outrage At Valdez, Dog/Meat and Be-Bop Tango, giving full vivid life to Zappa's musical colourings.  Taken together, this broadcast is a great presentation of unique music, made even more informative by a couple of chats with Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play author Ben Watson.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Wazoo (Live 1972) 

Road Tapes Venue #2 (Live 1973)

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Orchestral Favourites

Sleep Dirt

Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar

Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger  

Jazz From Hell

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

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

Boulez Conducts Boulez (and Varèse and Stravinsky) (BBC Proms 2002)

Dug out this great archive concert as Boulez and Varèse seemed liked a good follow-up to Zappa.  Re-broadcast as one of the "Past Proms" last summer, this performance from August 2002 saw Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) reunited with the BBC SO: he was their conductor at various points in the 60s and 70s.

Edgard Varèse's Intégrales is the concert's curtain-raiser, with its sharp bursts of orchestration and percussion; a full overview of Varèse's music can be found at a previous post here.  The next two works are a "Boulez conducts Boulez" immersion: both date back to the 1940s (with various revisions since, including for this concert), and both are cantatas that use verse by French poet René Char.  The longer of the two is the five-section Le Visage Nuptial, with the soloist backed by a shimmering choir and twinkling percussion.  Le Soleil Des Eaux contrasts the summery, anthropomorhic romance of its flowing introduction with a more strident Char poem later on about protesting fishermen.  To end the concert, Boulez conducts the original score to Stravinsky's Petrushka in fine style.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Le Marteau Sans Maître (also uses Char's poetry)

Sonatine For Flute And Piano

John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Augusta Read Thomas (BBC Symphony Orchestra 2019)

Great concert recording from May of last year, with Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro taking on the BBC SSO in three works by American composers, with two UK premieres in its first half.  The concert has its ideal curtain-raiser in Radiant Circles by Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964, New York), with its luminous harmonies gradually spiralling into a brass fanfare.

Next up is Osvaldo Golijov's (b. 1960, La Plata, Argentina) bewitching cantata Oceana.  Taking its text from Pablo Neruda, the work incorporates Latin American influences (especially in the guitars), inspiration from Bach, and evokes the rolling ocean in its lead voice and massed choral forces.  Falling away to ritual incantations at its end, it's a memorable journey that made me want to explore Golijov further.

Lastly, the main event of the concert is John Adams' symphonic work Naive And Sentimental Music.  The first movement takes a simple melody over strummed chords and gradually works it into something complex and stunning in its scope.  The second, Mother Of The Man, is a slow movement inspired by a Busoni berceuse, before the explosive finale Chain To The Rhythm takes a trademark minimalist pulse and builds on it.  Wonderful stuff, superbly rendered.

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)

BBC Symphony Orchestra - Anders Hillborg: Swedish Maverick (recorded live, 22 Feb 2020)

There's a few particularly interesting broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 In Concert this spring (I'm still enjoying the Bang On show), so here's another one.  Anders Hillborg, born 1954 in Sollentuna Kommun near Stockholm, was the subject of a "Total Immersion" day on Sat 22 February, with three concerts given over to his chamber, choral and orchestral music.  Today's post is the latter; the other two will be broadcast (and feature here) in due course.

Hillborg, who I wasn't aware of until this broadcast, started in pop music and moved through electronic composition to become an eclectic and unique composer.  This concert covers six of his orchestral works, from the 95-second Fanfare that opens the show to the 25-minute Violin Concerto No. 1 that was one of his earliest compositions.  There's also a brand new work that had only received its world premiere a few weeks earlier, Through Lost Landscapes.  With Messiaen-esque bird calls, it closes the concert evoking the birds' disappearing natural habitats.

In between are two of Hillborg's most striking orchestral works: the multi-section Eleven Gates full of aquatic, impressionistic drift, and Beast Sampler, which showcases his skill for conjuring alien-sounding effects from the orchestra to its fullest extent.  Completing a remarkable concert is Hillborg's clarinet concerto Peacock Tales, which is what the image above relates to.  The clarinettist Martin Fröst is tasked not only with the fiendish lead part, but also playing it masked whilst performing the extensive choreography.  This makes it a piece that has to be seen - so here's a different performance for that element - but even just hearing it as part of the concert is spectacular.  Hillborg is definitely a composer I'll be taking a closer look into.

link
pw: sgtg

Olivier Messiaen - Des Canyons Aux Étoiles (live at BBC Proms, 28 July 2019)

Along with the Turangalîla Symphony, Des canyons aux étoiles... (From the canyons to the stars...) is one of Olivier Messiaen's most epic orchestral works.  The creative spark was a visit to the US that Messiaen undertook in 1972, in response to a commission for music celebrating the upcoming Bicentennial.  Finding himself in Bryce Canyon, Utah, the composer was awestruck by the landscape and started work on something that would capture it in music, along with his usual religious fervour and interest in birdsong.

Des canyons aux étoiles... was the result, and the 90-minute work premiered in 1974.  This recording from just over a week ago saw the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo, tackle its complexity in grand style.  Pianist Nicholas Hodges is in charge of the Messiaenic aviary, with birdsong transcribed not just from American species, but from all over the world, and lengthy passages of this punctuate the powerful sweep of the orchestra.  Des Canyons also has in its score a massive percussion section, including a wind machine, thunder sheet and a geophone; the latter being a large drum of Messiaen's invention, filled with lead pellets.  Listen and be blown away. (P.S. be sure to listen on headphones to get the benefit of the binaural mix.)

link
pw: sgtg