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.

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pw: sgtg

Arvo Pärt at SGTG: Spiegel Im Spiegel, etc

Jóhann Jóhannsson at SGTG: Fordlandia / Orphée

and lots of Philip Glass.

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Orphée (2016)

Jóhann Jóhannsson's move to the distinguished ranks of Deutsche Grammophon for his first studio album in a few years was meant to start a new chapter in his career as a modern composer.  Instead, it was a coda - after only a couple more soundtrack releases, he suddenly died aged just 48.  The wintry, elegaic tones of Orphée, inspired by Jean Cocteau's film of the same name and the myth of Orpheus it was based on, took on an even more sombre air in hindsight.

It's a beautiful album, with 15 short tracks (only two breaking the four-minute mark) built on simple materials for maximum melancholy and atmosphere.  Given Jóhannsson's considerable body of soundtrack work beforehand, it's perhaps no surprise that some of this music sounds particularly filmic, especially the opening Flight From The City with its piano motif gradually built upon.  Several tracks are centred around strings, and little production touches like understated electronics and effects, and the ghostly radio samples of a "numbers station" add variety.  Then all instrumentation is absent for the sublime closing track, performed by acapella choir.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Fordlandia

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Fordlandia (2008)

R.I.P. Jóhann Jóhannsson: 19 Sept 1969 - 9 Feb 2018

Wow, this has hit me hard.  One of my favourite modern-classical composers, and a prolific soundtracker (perhaps most notably for Golden Globe-winning Theory Of Everything score), has been found dead in his Berlin apartment at the age of just 48.  Jóhann Jóhannsson, born in Rejkjavik in 1969, is survived by his parents, sisters and daughter.  Orphée, his debut album for Deutsche Grammophon in September 2016, has become a huge favourite of mine, and I hoped at the time it was going to be another step forward in a long career.  Now it's a sad but perfect finale.  Will post it here at some point.

For now, here's IMO the highlight of his time at 4AD (IBM 1401 would be a close second).  Fordlandia was inspired by Henry Ford's failed attempt to build an American town-styled residence for the workers at his Amazonian rubber plant in the 1920s.  The title track comes in very softly and gradually in waves of Gorecki-esque melancholy, eventually joined by a circular figure on distorted guitar, and more production/electronics.

From then in, the pieces include little woodwind miniatures (the Melodia sections), subtle echoing beats (The Rocket Builder) and pipe organ (Chimaerica), as well as all those wonderful sweeping strings.  The Great God Pan Is Dead introduces a haunting choir, setting up for the last two epic tracks.  The beat-driven Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device Based On Heim's Quantum Theory) is just sublime orchestral minimalism, and the 14-minute How We Left Fordlandia is a beautifully sombre finale.  Jóhannsson's music, above anything else, always touches me and moves me, and the music that he's left behind will continue to do so for years to come.

Þakka þér fyrir alla frábæra tónlist, Jóhann.

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